Sharon Kendrick Collection. Sharon Kendrick

ask—I just happen to be very touchy about the subject, that’s all.’

      ‘Would you like some coffee?’ asked Lola.

      ‘Oh, I’d love some! But if I’m intruding. . .’ Triss peered questioningly over Lola’s shoulders.

      ‘No, you’re not intruding. Come in. What shall we do with Simon?’

      ‘How about if we take some cushions into the kitchen?’ suggested Triss. ‘Then we can make him a makeshift bed up and he won’t disturb us while we’re drinking our coffee.’

      Lola grabbed an armful of cushions from the sitting room and then the three of them trooped into the kitchen, where Triss handed Simon over to Lola while she crouched down to create a little nest for him.

      Lola stroked Simon’s dark, downy head with a gentle finger and thought of Geraint, and had to will herself not to cry as she handed him back to his mother, who snuggled him down and covered him with a blanket.

      ‘He’s so good,’ Lola cooed. ‘He hasn’t stirred once.’

      Triss laughed. ‘That’s because he kept me awake most of the right—he’s teething. Believe me, he’s not quite the angel he sometimes appears!’

      Lola poured her some coffee and the two women sat down at the breakfast bar.

      ‘Geraint not here?’ enquired Triss as she took a sip.

      Lola’s cup never reached her mouth; it was banged down on the saucer and then her mouth started to wobble and to her absolute horror she began to cry.

      Triss was on her feet immediately. She put a comforting arm around Lola’s shaking shoulders and squeezed her. ‘Please don’t cry, Lola,’ she begged. ‘Tell me what’s wrong. Maybe I can help. It’s Geraint, isn’t it?’

      ‘Y-yes!’ sobbed Lola as she scrubbed at her eyes with a crumpled-up piece of kitchen roll.

      ‘Do you want to tell me about it?’

      Lola shook her head distractedly, forcing herself to take deep breaths in an attempt to regain her composure. How could she tell anyone what had really happened? How could she reveal that she had been bedded by Geraint solely because he had been angry about the treatment meted out to his sister? Whilst she had been harbouring the sad little delusion that he actually cared for her!

      ‘I c-can’t tell you,’ she stumblingly explained. ‘It’s just too. . . too. . .’ ‘Humiliating’ was the word she was groping for, but she couldn’t quite bring herself to say it.

      ‘Shh,’ soothed Triss, as gently as if she had been talking to Simon, and she began to stroke Lola’s arm in a rhythmical way which was oddly comforting. ‘It doesn’t matter,’ she said, in her low, husky voice. ‘You don’t need to explain anything to me. But if you need an objective ear, or a shoulder to cry on, then I’m always here to listen.’

      Her beautiful mouth turned down at the corners and her huge eyes glittered furiously. ‘Believe me when I tell you that I am very experienced in dealing with men—especially wayward ones! I’ve had tons of practice with Simon’s father, for example,’ she finished on a grim note.

      ‘Wh-who is Simon’s father?’ queried Lola tentatively. ‘Or shouldn’t I ask?’

      Triss’s mouth tensed as she shrugged her slim shoulders in a nonchalant gesture which didn’t quite come off. ‘Can you keep it to yourself?’

      Lola nodded. ‘Cross my heart.’

      ‘It’s Cormack Casey,’ said Triss. ‘He’s the father.’

      ‘Cormack Casey?’ queried Lola incredulously. ‘The Irish scriptwriter?’

      ‘Yes. Mr Hollywood himself,’ said Triss bitterly. She gripped Lola’s forearm so hard that Lola had to force herself not to wince. ‘You won’t tell anyone, will you, Lola? Please? Apart from Geraint, of course—it’s obvious you would tell him—but I don’t want anyone else to know.’

      ‘Of course I won’t tell anyone,’ Lola said. And she certainly wasn’t going to tell that smug Welsh swine anything she thought! ‘It was very good of you to come by,’ she said politely, and then a thought occurred to her. ‘Was it just to see me?’

      Triss shot her an understanding look, as though she was quite used to having her motives questioned—one of the banes of being beautiful was that other women always assumed that you were after their men. ‘Well, I certainly didn’t come to see Geraint, if that’s what you’re wondering!’ She sighed. ‘I was under the impression that he was rather keen on you—’

      ‘Oh, no!’ Lola told her quickly. ‘He’s just a consummate actor, that’s all.’

      ‘Are you sure?’ asked Triss, quietly.

      ‘I’m positive. Whatever there was between us is over now.’

      ‘Oh.’ Triss sipped at her coffee thoughtfully. ‘So what do you do next—apart from cry yourself stupid, I mean?’

      Lola heard the admonishment in the model’s voice and managed a watery smile. ‘You mean I’m behaving like a wimp?’

      Triss shrugged. ‘Well, yes—if you want my honest opinion. Why go to pieces? If he comes back—’

      ‘He won’t come back!’

      Triss ignored that. ‘If he comes back and sees you looking all blotchy and down-hearted it will feed his arrogant masculine ego no end, and not do your reputation any good in the meantime! Let him look at you and wonder how on earth he could have been mad enough to let you got’

      ‘How?’

      ‘Well, you could start by changing out of that grotty old skirt and jumper. Make yourself look good—’

      ‘But he won’t come back—I know he won’t!’

      ‘And then you’ll feel good,’ continued Triss, as if Lola hadn’t spoken. ‘And that’s the most important thing: how you feel—not him! And then you won’t want him to come back!’

      Lola smiled as insurrection stirred in her heart. ‘Maybe you’re right,’ she agreed softly.

      ‘That’s better!’ Triss finished off the last of her coffee and then gave Lola a pleading look. ‘Now—has that helped at all?’

      Lola nodded, slightly amazed at how her mood had suddenly lifted so dramatically. ‘Yes! It has!’

      ‘Good.’ Triss glanced down quickly at Simon, who had begun to stir one chubby arm and now appeared to be trying to scratch his nose with it. ‘Because I think you can help me, Lola!’

      The following day, things looked decidedly rosier for Lola after she had given Simon his lunch and he was happily sitting on her living-room floor banging a wooden spoon hard against a saucepan.

      Outside the sun was shining and the mad March wind had gone away, to be replaced by a gentle breeze. Perfect weather for a walk, Lola thought as she screwed up her nose in the way which had had Simon giggling hysterically all morning.

      She bundled him into his woolly hat, his coat and his mittens, put him in his pram and then wheeled him outside, her eyes narrowing slightly against the watery paleness of the early spring sunshine.

      She walked him round and round the grounds of Marchwood House, listening to the sound of birdsong and doing her utmost not to let her thoughts dwell on Geraint, but without very much success.

      She also found herself thinking about Catrin, and Peter, and remembering the day when the news of her inheritance had arrived, like a bolt from the blue.

      Lola had thought at first that there must have been some kind of clerical error. Virtual strangers did not leave you mansions worth a million pounds, did they? And she had said as much to the solicitor’s clerk.

      But apparently they did.