Unknown Read Online Free PDF Page A

dress is a dream!”
    “My aunt’s dressmaker made it,” Katie told her, realising that Aunt Cora had been right about Emmy Paget knowing a good chance to advertise when she saw one.
    Fran looked at Jamie and frowned. “I thought I told you that John would be bringing Katie,” she said. “I wondered where you’d got to.” Ignoring her cousin further, she took Katie’s arm and steered her away towards the lounge, which somehow contrived to look twice its usual size, even though it was seemingly full of people. “Come and say hello to Janus,” she said.
    Katie would have preferred to have delayed her meeting with Sir Janus, for she could see him, in the doorway of the lounge, talking to his elder grandson and she had no desire to be drawn into conversation with her erstwhile escort. Her host was in company too, with a tall, slender, blonde girl who looked so elegantly expensive that Katie felt sure she must be someone very important. There was something familiar about the girl, too, but Katie could not think where she had seen her before.
    Sir Janus turned his handsome head as Fran and Katie approached and held out both hands in greeting. “Katie, my dear, how delightful to see you!” His steady eyes, almost as vividly blue as his grandson’s, complimented her. “You look lovely, quite lovely, doesn’t she, John?”
    The appeal was answered by a brief nod of approval and Katie felt her face colour under the cold appraisal. The elegant blonde smiled at her rather condescendingly. “Oh, I do beg your pardon,” Sir Janus apologised hastily. “You haven’t met, of course, have you?” He put a friendly hand on Katie’s shoulder, as if he suspected her nervousness. “Eleanor, this is Katie Roberts, a friend of Fran’s and a new arrival in Mare Green; a very welcome one, too.” He smiled at Katie. “Katie, my dear, this is Miss Barlow, Eleanor Barlow.”
    Hearing the name Katie remembered immediately where she had seen that thin elegant figure before, and why the self-confident, rather superior face was so familiar. Eleanor Barlow was just about the most famous fashion model in the country. The slightly tilted amber eyes that surveyed her slowly and with more than a trace of malice, she thought, had looked at her often from the pages of glossy fashion magazines and advertisements.
    “Miss Roberts,” she acknowledged the introduction with a brief nod, and in a cool, brittle voice that so exactly matched her appearance. “I hope you won’t find it too horribly dull, Miss Roberts. There’s so little for young people to do in Mare Green, don’t you think?” She might almost have added, Katie thought furiously, that it would be nice for the child to have someone to play with.
    As if she required no answer to her question, she turned and passed an empty glass to die man beside her. “Do get me another drink, John darling, will you? Or I shall never stay the course.”
    “You poor old thing!” Jamie’s bantering voice behind her gave Katie a strong inclination to smile, especially when she saw Eleanor Barlow’s cheeks flush at the jibe. His arm slid across Katie’s shoulders and he smiled artlessly at the object of his sympathy, -his blue eyes glittering mischief.
    John Miller, she noticed, had turned away towards the bar in the comer of the room, carrying Eleanor Barlow’s empty glass, and Katie felt bound to admire the model’s quick recovery. “If you’ll excuse me, Sir Janus,” she smiled sweetly at the older man, ignoring the bland smile of her tormentor, “I’ll go and keep an eye on John and on my drink.”
    “Of course, Eleanor.” Sir Janus inclined his white head in his customary half bow. “I shall look forward to talking to you again shortly.” As the thin, elegant back disappeared into the crowd he turned his gaze to his young grandson. “James,” he said, quietly enough for Katie not to hear, “please control your rather bizarre sense of humour; it’s not always conducive to