Unguarded Moment. Sara Craven

course, mainly by telling herself that this should be regarded as just another job, and that Bianca should be regarded as just another employer. In other circumstances she would expect only to do what she was paid for and accept her salary. Yet at the same time she was realistic enough to know that Bianca made demands on her which no stranger would ever accede to.

      She had tried once to explain this to her mother, but Margaret Coulter’s face had hardened.

      ‘Did you really expect anything different?’ she asked roughly. ‘Bianca always did want to eat her cake and have it at the same time. She was selfish and unfeeling from the day she was born. She expected everything and everyone to revolve round her like—like satellites around a moon. And now you’re caught too.’

      Alix had been too shaken by the depth of feeling in her mother’s voice to do more than offer a token protest, but afterwards she had wondered whether what Margaret had said was true. Was she beguiled into acquiescence by the undoubted glamour of Bianca’s personality? She was guiltily aware that she had been tactless in the way she had talked about her job at home. She tried unobtrusively from then on to demonstrate to Margaret that she still came first in her affections, but she wasn’t altogether sure that she succeeded. In fact, the more she became absorbed in her job and its hectic demands, the farther she seemed to grow away from her family as a whole. Presumably they felt that someone who travelled the world in Bianca’s wake might find the ups and downs of their everyday life less than fascinating, she thought wryly.

      The most hurtful thing of all had been a few months ago when she had returned from California to find that nineteen-year-old Debbie was engaged, and that the party to celebrate it had been held in her absence.

      She’d tried to pretend it didn’t matter, to argue with herself that they couldn’t have waited for her erratic timetable to bring her back to London again, but the pain lingered.

      She often felt as if she occupied a kind of limbo. Her family had learned to live without her, had apparently closed the circle against her, and her only value to Bianca lay in her general efficiency and usefulness.

      ‘I’ll talk to Leon over lunch,’ Bianca announced, scrutinising her flawless complexion through narrowed eyes. ‘He should be able to think of something to get me off the hook.’

      ‘I hope so,’ Alix said with a sigh. ‘Perhaps he’ll be able to convince Mr Brant that you haven’t anything to hide.’

      ‘What on earth do you mean?’ Bianca demanded sharply.

      Alix met her eyes in the mirror. ‘Oh, it was just something that he implied—that you didn’t want him to write the book because there could be something you didn’t want him to find out about.’ She tried to smile rather uncertainly. ‘I tried to tell him he was wrong, but I’m not sure I was successful.’ She broke off, uneasily, staring at Bianca’s reflection, aware of a certain rigidity in her expression, and that the colour had faded in her face, emphasising the carefully applied blusher on her cheekbones.

      Alix said sharply, ‘Is something wrong? Surely there’s nothing that he could find out …’

      ‘Of course there’s nothing,’ Bianca snapped. ‘I can’t understand what’s got into you, Alix. You’re usually so level-headed and sensible, but this man seems to have sent your wits begging. Either that or going on holiday makes you lose all sense of proportion. You’d better take the rest of the day off and get a grip on yourself. I’ll see you tomorrow.’

      ‘Thanks,’ Alix returned with a touch of irony. A small voice inside her head was saying that if Bianca retained her own sense of proportion about Liam Brant and the biography project, this whole situation would never have arisen, but of course she would never say so. ‘I think I’ll go home.’

      ‘That will be nice.’ Bianca turned away from the mirror, with a final look at her appearance. ‘Give them all my best, won’t you,’ she added indifferently.

      From the window, Alix watched Bianca climb into the waiting taxi and speed off to her lunch engagement with her agent. She could imagine the scene as Bianca entered the restaurant, see the admiring glances, hear the murmurs of recognition as she made her way to her table. Even a simple action like that became a performance, executed with the utmost confidence and panache.

      And yet, a few minutes earlier, she had seen the mask slip. For a moment Bianca had been caught off balance, and Alix found herself wondering why, that indefinable sense of unease deepening. It was impossible, of course, that anyone who had lived her life as fully, and often as scandalously, revelling in the publicity, as Bianca could really have any kind of secret to conceal. She could have sworn that all Bianca’s cupboards were open for inspection and lacking in skeletons of any kind.

      At least I hope so, she thought as she turned away from the window.

      Her first thought when she pushed open the back door and entered the kitchen was that her mother looked tired. But that could just be because she had been baking all morning for the local church’s charity cake stall, she told herself.

      ‘You’ve lost weight,’ she teased as she hugged her mother.

      ‘And not before time either,’ Margaret said with a grimace. ‘Just let me get this last batch out of the oven and I’ll make us some tea.’

      ‘That will be lovely.’ Alix settled herself beside the kitchen table and stole a jam tart from the baking tray. ‘No need to hurry. I have all day.’

      ‘Oh dear!’ Margaret looked at her quickly. ‘I wish you’d telephoned, dear. You see, we’re going out this evening to have a meal with Paul’s parents—to talk over wedding details. Mrs Frensham’s only expecting the three of us. I don’t really see …’

      ‘It doesn’t matter,’ Alix said quickly. ‘I wouldn’t dream of pushing in. I have loads of things to do, as it is—unpacking properly, for starters. And I wouldn’t mind an early night. When is the wedding, or haven’t they decided yet?’

      ‘I think that’s one of the things we’re going to thrash out tonight. Both sides feel that they’re rather young, but,’ Margaret smiled fondly, ‘I don’t suppose they’ll allow our opinions to carry too much weight. They’re very much in love.’

      ‘I’m glad for Debbie.’ Alix meant it. Debbie had always been her cherished younger sister. ‘I remember when we were children, she was always playing house. I was the one who was falling out of trees.’

      ‘No, she never had your love of adventure. I suppose I always hoped that she would find a nice boy and settle down, so I can’t really complain that she has done, even if it’s rather sooner than I expected.’

      ‘And what about me?’ Alix suddenly wanted to cry. ‘What did you hope for me? Have I fulfilled your expectations, or am I a disappointment?’

      She should have been able to ask, but somehow it was impossible, so she helped herself to another jam tart, and began to talk about Rhodes, producing the presents she had brought back for them all, laughing and chattering as if there was no subdued ache in her heart at all. As if everything was fine, and she was the beloved elder daughter who had never been away.

      Except of course it wasn’t like that, and never would be again. Alix supposed the invisible barrier which had grown up was of her own making. She had underestimated the depth of her mother’s hurt when she decided to go and work for Bianca. Underestimated it, because she didn’t understand it.

      Things might have been better when Debbie came home at teatime, but oddly they weren’t. Debbie’s greeting was perfunctory, and although she thanked Alix for her gift, her heart wasn’t in it.

      ‘Three weeks on Rhodes.’ Her tone was frankly envious. ‘The most Paul and I can hope for is a few days in Bournemouth, or somewhere.’

      Alix glanced at the pretty, discontented face and made up her mind.

      ‘Would you like a glamorous honeymoon as a wedding present?’ she asked.

      ‘No, thanks.’ The