Glittering Fortunes. Victoria Fox

to look.

      She crossed to the house, aromas of black coffee and smoky bacon seeping into the morning. In the hall Sigmund was gulping noisily at a bowl of water, sandy paw prints dotted across the stones from where he’d been down on the beach. She glanced around for Charlie but couldn’t see him.

      ‘I hope you’re hungry,’ said Barbara as she entered the kitchen. Caggie was at the window buttering doorstop slabs of toast, and smiled when she saw her.

      ‘Starving.’

      ‘You’d better be. We had a delivery from Ben Nancarrow this morning—sausages, eggs, milk, you name it.’ Barbara poured the coffee. ‘He dropped by earlier, called it “a token of my admiration”. Cato always did know how to attract attention.’

      Olivia’s tummy grumbled. After last night’s fall-out the evening had wound quickly to a close, with Cato angrily bolting his seafood and Olivia finding she couldn’t eat a thing. Susanna had chattered merrily about her plans for the party, prompting Cato to leap up and order a bottle of the establishment’s finest champagne, which he’d proceeded to quaff almost entirely himself.

      ‘This looks delicious,’ she exclaimed as Caggie deposited a plate in front of her. It was piled high with creamy scrambled eggs, herby mushrooms and crispy potato cakes, thick, salty rashers and sausages that popped with greasy flavour.

      Susanna drifted in. She was bereft of make-up, a turban wound elaborately round her head. Immediately she put a hand to her mouth, her shoulders heaving.

      ‘Goodness, are you all right?’ asked Barbara.

      Tightly she nodded. She was wearing a floating peach robe, and on her feet were dainty slippers with furry baubles on the front. Olivia had caught the end of one of her movies last year, a fluffy chick-flick about an eternal bridesmaid, and knew her friends would die to know she was sitting down to breakfast with its leading lady.

      ‘I’m seriously unwell,’ Susanna croaked, sinking into a chair.

      Barbara was alarmed. ‘Do you need a doctor?’

      ‘I need caffeine.’

      ‘Here.’ Barbara was quick to oblige. ‘Have you a temperature?’

      ‘Something I ate,’ Susanna managed, casting a sickened squint at Olivia’s breakfast and turning a deeper shade of green. ‘I had to cut off a call to my agent, I felt so appalling. Just some dry toast, please, Mrs Bewlis-Teet.’

      ‘Right away.’

      ‘I hope it wasn’t something I cooked,’ offered Caggie.