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Sasha leaned across the table and made some whispered comment to Vanessa that made her both flush and laugh. Eleanor could feel her own skin start to burn. Marcus had left early before the girls had come down.
‘You’re not my mother,’ Vanessa added challengingly. ‘I don’t have to do what you say.’ For a moment Eleanor was tempted to retaliate by pointing out that neither was she obliged to put up with her rudeness… or even her presence, but somehow she managed to stop herself.
Instead Eleanor forced herself to ignore Vanessa’s unpleasantness and aggressiveness and say calmly instead, ‘I’d really like you to come with me, Vanessa. I thought you’d like to see the house and we could stop somewhere nice for lunch if you like.’
‘I don’t know. What do you think, Sasha?’
Eleanor tried not to let her real feelings show as the other girl shifted her chewing gum from one side of her mouth to the other and then shrugged.
‘Might as well, I suppose. Where is it, then, this house?’
‘It’s in Wiltshire,’ Eleanor told her as pleasantly as she could. ‘Just outside a very pretty country town.’
‘Country…’ The thin shoulders moved again. ‘You wouldn’t catch me moving from a place like this to the country. Wicked, this is,’ she added admiringly, ‘right in the middle of London. The country’s gross.’
* * *
‘Oh, is this it?’
Eleanor could hear the contempt in Vanessa’s voice as she stared round the town square.
‘This is Avondale, yes,’ Eleanor responded as evenly
as she could. ‘I thought we’d have lunch in the pub here. It dates back to the fifteenth century and—’
‘Just like the people who live here,’ Sasha interrupted before she could finish, sniggering as she pointed out a couple of young girls standing on the opposite side of the square to Vanessa.
‘Are they gross, or what?’ she demanded. ‘Just look at their clothes.’
‘But why can’t we eat in the bar?’ Vanessa protested as Eleanor ushered them towards the dining-room. ‘It’s so stuffy in here.’
The bar had been crowded with several groups of men and youths, but even if it hadn’t been she would not have chosen to eat there, Eleanor admitted as she compared the noise and discomfort of the busy bar area to the comfort and peace of the dining-room.
She had eaten at the pub before on a previous visit. The waiter remembered her and smiled shyly at her. He was only young and obviously a little nervous, but he was pleasant despite that. Pleasant and well-mannered.
Unlike Vanessa and Sasha, who were having a whispered conversation punctuated with giggles.
She suspected that the boy knew as well as she did that he was the subject of their amusement.
If Vanessa had been her own daughter there was no way she would have tolerated such rude behaviour, but then, if Vanessa had been her daughter, she would not have felt so hampered by her need to constantly remind herself that good and wise stepmothers did not attempt to take over the real mother’s role.
Throughout the meal Vanessa and Sasha continued to giggle and whisper to each other. Something in the main bar seemed to be amusing them but since Eleanor had her back to the open doorway she could not see who or what it was.
It was a relief to Eleanor when the meal was finally over. While the girls went to the cloakroom, Eleanor stayed behind to pay the bill.
Because of some confusion over exactly what they had ordered—hardly surprising really in view of the number of times the girls had changed their minds—it was a good fifteen minutes before the bill was actually settled. More than time enough, surely, for the girls to have rejoined her?
Frowning, Eleanor left the dining-room and headed for the cloakroom, stopping abruptly when she saw Vanessa standing with her back to her, apparently deep in conversation with a leather-clad boy. Sasha was standing next to her talking with two others.
Suppressing her real feelings, Eleanor made her way towards them, forcing herself to smile as she firmly stepped between Vaness
a and the boy and, facing Vanessa, said calmly, ‘Ready? It’s time we were going otherwise we’ll be late for the architect.’
She hadn’t missed the glass in Vanessa’s hand but since she didn’t want to provoke an argument she didn’t ask her what had been in it. Vanessa was under age and so too, for all her aggressive sophistication, was Sasha.
When both girls followed her without comment she was so relieved that she decided to say nothing about their behaviour, although she suspected that Marcus would not have been so reticent.
As she drove towards the house she tried to quieten the conscience that told her that for Vanessa’s own sake she ought to say something to her about the dangers of being picked up by unknown men, to warn her of the risks she could be taking in engaging in what on the surface might appear to be a harmless flirtation.
