The Cutting Edge. Linda Howard

Sophie had been four at that time, round and plump and inclined to be shy of strangers, her short fair hair framing chubby features.

      From the very beginning, Sophie had taken to her stepmother. Laura was nothing like the wicked stepmothers redolent of fairy tales. She was small, too, dark and vivacious, and she won Sophie’s heart completely when she confided that she had always wanted a little girl of her own to care for.

      The problems, were there to have been any, might have occurred with the two boys. But both Robert and Simon had realised that their mother was finding it very hard keeping the inn going alone, and they were glad she was going to be able to give up working and have a real home again. Besides, they liked Doctor Kemble and were old enough to appreciate their parents’ mutual needs. Sophie had been in her element having two older brothers suddenly provided for her. They had spoilt her, she realised that now, but at the time she had seen nothing selfish in demanding their undivided attention.

      Sophie had met Simon first. Robert was away in Switzerland on a school holiday when the engagement was first announced, and by the time he came home Sophie and Simon were quite good friends. It was a novelty for the boys to have a sister, too, but from the minute Sophie encountered her elder stepbrother’s steady gaze she had become his devoted admirer. He was a popular boy, usually in the company of a crowd of young people, but he was never too busy to talk to Sophie. And girl-friends, in particular, grew impatient at having to compete with a child!

      In two years, Robert went away to university, and the rambling old house which Doctor Kemble had bought at the time of his second marriage had suddenly seemed terribly quiet. For four years Sophie had had to accept that she only saw Robert in the holidays, but when he graduated he came back to Conwynneth to work for an engineering firm in Hereford.

      By this time Simon was starting at university, but Sophie didn’t miss Simon half so much. Besides, she had Robert back again, and at twelve years old Sophie found her mature stepbrother absolutely fascinating. She was just becoming aware of herself as a female creature and she didn’t altogether understand why she felt curious pains in her stomach whenever Robert looked at her in a certain way or why, when he went out with girls, she felt sick and restless.

      She was utterly shattered therefore when her father suddenly announced that she was to be sent away to boarding school. She didn’t want to go to boarding school. That would mean only seeing Robert in the holidays again, and she was mature enough to realise that he could conceivably get married while she was at school.

      But for once her father and stepmother were immune from her desperate appeals, and even Robert seemed cool and aloof, unwilling to offer her his support. She had to go, and for the first term she spent every night in tears, impervious to the sympathy offered her by would-be confidantes.

      Gradually, though, she began to realise that crying was not going to get her anywhere. Her most sensible plan would be to work especially hard, pass every examination in sight and get back to Conwynneth as soon as she possibly could.

      But while she worked her way through school, word reached her that Robert’s career was expanding. He was an intelligent man and he had been offered a better position with a London-based firm of constructional engineers with world wide connections. He leased an apartment in London and then went on his first overseas assignment to Central Africa. It meant that when Sophie went home for two lots of holidays she didn’t see him at all, and she spent the time mooching about the house, refusing even to join Simon and his friends on a camping expedition to the Lake District. She knew that her parents were concerned about her, but hoped they didn’t know what was depressing her.

      She took her Ordinary Level examinations at fifteen and succeeded in getting eleven passes, much to the delight and admiration of her family and her teachers. The Christmas holidays that followed, Robert was home again and joining his family for the festivities, and his congratulations meant more to her than anyone else’s had done. And it was during those holidays that Robert had kissed her …

      Her fingers curled into her palms. The Kembles had had guests for Christmas, friends of her father’s from London, two couples and their five children. She suspected her father had invited them deliberately in an effort to arouse her from the apathy she had shown in the summer vacation. But with Robert staying in the house, Sophie was far from apathetic.

      The other teenagers, a girl of sixteen and four boys whose ages ranged from thirteen to eighteen, were all right, but so far as Sophie was concerned they were pretty callow compared to her handsome stepbrothers. Even Simon, who at twenty-three was now teaching at the junior school in Conwynneth, was a more interesting proposition. Sophie had been brought up with adults and consequently her tastes were more mature. She enjoyed pop music, of course, and talking about current teenage idols, but thanks to Robert she was equally at home with Mahler and Isaac Stern.

      Over the festive occasion, she joined in all the fun and games instituted in the main for the younger people’s benefit, but all the while she was intensely conscious of Robert in the background—and the girl he had brought with him from London. She was a secretary, so her stepmother had told her, working in the London office of the company which employed Robert; but Sophie didn’t like her.

      Not that she had any concrete reasons for not doing so. None she could put her finger on, that was. On the contrary, Emma, as the girl was called, was pretty and friendly, no different from a dozen other girls Robert had brought to Penn Warren during the years of Sophie’s adolescence.

      But there was something about the way she looked at Robert that troubled Sophie. At times she caught Emma watching him with a purely speculative gleam in her eyes, and she had the distinct suspicion that Emma would not be so easy to shake off. And then something happened which drove all other considerations out of her mind …

      On Christmas Eve and Christmas Day the Kembles and their guests had enjoyed the family festivities, but on Boxing Night they always had a party. Several people from the village were invited including the local vet and his wife, some farmers and their wives, and even the vicar put in an appearance. There was lots to eat and drink and the long buffet tables which Laura and Mrs. Forrest, her daily, had arranged groaned beneath the weight of cold chickens and turkey, ham and tongue, pies and pastries of all kinds. An enormous dish of trifle was flanked by an equally enormous plum pudding, and there was wine and punch as well as all kinds of spirits.

      Sophie wore the dress her parents had given her for Christmas. It was her first long dress, apart from a couple of hostess gowns she had used for parties at school, and as it was made of honey-brown velvet it gave her a golden look. A holiday in Spain with her parents three months ago had left a golden tan on her skin and as she wore little make-up apart from eyeshadow and an apricot lip salve her whole appearance toned with the dress. Her hair was long now, but as straight as ever, which fortunately was fashionable. When she surveyed herself in her mirror before going downstairs she knew she looked adult, and the look in Robert’s eyes when he had first seen her had sent the blood rushing madly through her veins. Then he had assumed his usual affectionate tolerance towards her and told her she would have all the boys chasing her. It was not what she had wanted to hear, but Emma’s quickly disguised envy had made up in some strange way for her stepbrother’s apparent indifference.

      From time to time during the course of the evening, she had thought she felt-Robert’s eyes upon her, but every time she turned to look at him he was talking to someone else. He didn’t even ask her for a dance, and she hid her disappointment as she had always done by teasing Simon. Not that Simon seemed to mind. On the contrary, when he held her close on the dance floor Sophie sensed that he was not just pretending to enjoy it. His behaviour obviously piqued the other girls there, older girls like Vicky Page, the vet’s daughter, who was attracted by both the doctor’s stepsons.

      It was quite late when Sophie realised that Robert had disappeared, and her heart pounded as she looked round for Emma. But Emma was still there, dancing with Harold Venables, a farmer from Apsdale, and she breathed a sigh of relief.

      As though her stepmother had just become aware that Robert was missing, too, Laura approached her and Simon at that moment and said: ‘Simon, be a darling and dance with Vicky, won’t you? She’s been looking at you with cow’s eyes for the last hour and