She lets out a sigh and then holds up her little finger. “Yes.”
“What are you doing?”
“What do you think?” She wiggles her finger. “I’m doing a pinky promise.”
“I’d have thought you’d think pinky promises are lame. Are you doing this because you think I—”
She groans, reaching out and hooking her little finger with mine. “I pinky promise I won’t try to make you quit from now on. OK?”
“Wow.” I beam at her as we drop our hands. “I feel like that was such a big moment.”
“Oh, my God, you’re annoying.”
She swings open the door and lets me pass through, then follows me in. I apologize to the caterers again for getting in the way and head back into the sitting room to find Jonathan with Lord and Lady Meade, while Cordelia joins the queue for the bathroom.
“How was your chat?” Jonathan asks, after I’ve joined him and said hello again to Lord and Lady Meade.
“It was good, thanks,” I say, catching Lady Meade’s eye and smiling. “Really good. What were you talking about before I rudely interrupted?”
“We were saying how lovely the party is,” Lord Meade explains. “Ned has really gone all out for it. It should be a wonderful evening.”
“Cheers to that,” Lady Meade says, raising her glass. “Let’s just hope there’s no drama.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
“You look lost.”
I spin round to see Tom grinning at me by the bottom of the stairs, holding two glasses of champagne. I’ve just emerged from the loo, and had been looking round the party trying to find any of the Swanns, so I had someone to talk to.
Of course, the one member of the family I’ve been trying my best to avoid all night is the one I stumble across.
“I was looking for Cordelia,” I explain, trying not to be flustered at just the sight of him. “Have you seen her?”
“Afraid not,” he says, before offering me one of the drinks he’s holding.
“Don’t worry. I can get my own. I don’t want to steal a drink from your date. She’s lovely, by the way.” I mean that, too. I ended up having a chat with Mona about ten minutes ago when I found her standing on her own, looking out of place, while she waited for Tom to get back from topping up her drink—unfortunately, he’d been cornered by the Earl of Derrington on the other side of the crowded room. She isn’t a model, as I had assumed, but actually works for an auction house and told me in great detail about the recent sale of some ceramics that were, in her opinion, priceless. I was hoping she would be horrible or boring, but she was neither and, annoyingly, I enjoyed her company.
Luckily, so did some guy named Frazer, who wandered over to introduce himself as one of Annabel’s old friends. They fellnaturally into a flirtatious conversation and I sneaked off to the loo without either of them taking any notice.
“Mona already has a drink.” Tom holds out the glass insistently. “This one has your name on it.”
“Thanks,” I say, taking it. “Please don’t feel you have to stand here and chat with me. You should be with Mona.”
“Honestly, I think she’d rather chat to Frazer,” he says, giving me a knowing smile. “A definite spark there.”
“Ah.”
“I wouldn’t feel too bad for me. We only met last night at the Chanel event.”
“Wow. You’ve only just met her and already invited her to a big Christmas party where your family would be among the guests? She must be a really good kisser.”
Tom raises his eyebrows, smiling in surprise. To be honest, I’m slightly taken back by my own sassiness, but I’ll go with it.
“Actually, she was already coming to this party,” he corrects. “We got chatting last night, the party came up, and we thought we might as well go together. And we didn’t kiss.”
“Oh. OK. I mean, it’s none of my business.” I take a large gulp of champagne.
“So, where’s George?”
