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‘So does she?’
‘What?’
‘Like me?’
Sam sighed. ‘I expect so. Maddy’s an actress. She observes human behaviour, and sometimes the best way of doing that is to provoke a reaction—that’s all she’s up to.’
‘Well, I wish she wouldn’t.’
He gave her a considering look. ‘Want me to have a word with her?’
Fran shook her head. ‘Good grief, no! I don’t want to be typecast as some kind of wimp who needs a man to speak up for me!’ She glanced down at her watch and grimaced. ‘And just look at the time! Is the shower free yet, do you know?’
He didn’t miss a beat. ‘Merry’s in there at the moment I think,’ he said steadily. ‘But you’re very welcome to use mine.’
‘How very kind of you.’ Fran kept her face neutral. ‘But I think I’ll wait.’
He didn’t press it. He might just be tempted to offer to scrub her back for her. Not, he decided, with an almost masochistic kind of pleasure, that he thought for a moment she would do anything other than look at him with that cool, school-mistressy air of hers.
And decline.
‘She shouldn’t be long.’
‘Thanks.’
Fran showered and dressed in record time, and was just piling her hair on top of her head, when there was a tap on the door. ‘Come in,’ she said rather inaudibly, since she had two hairpins in the side of her mouth.
It was Maddy, dressed entirely in green suede. And somehow Fran wasn’t surprised to see her.
‘Sit down,’ she gestured indistinctly.
‘Thanks,’ said Maddy, and raking her long fingers through the whorls of her glossy red hair, she plonked herself down on the bed.
Fran speared the last two pins into her hair and turned round. ‘Yes, Maddy?’ she said pleasantly.
‘Do you always wear your hair up?’ asked Maddy.
Fran smiled.
‘What’s so funny?’
‘Just that your brother asked me exactly the same question. Yes, I do.’
‘Why?’
‘Because it’s neat, and tidy. And often I’m working with food, and clients don’t like to see someone with their hair all falling into the crème caramel!’
‘And because it’s controlled?’ hazarded Maddy. ‘And that’s the image you like to project of yourself?’
Fran felt slightly irritated at this instant character assessment from someone who barely knew her, but she didn’t show it. And mainly because she suspected that, like her brother before her, Maddy had hit on a fundamental truth about her character. ‘Perhaps it is,’ she agreed, and looked at her expectantly. ‘I’m due in the kitchen about ten minutes ago, so you’d better say what it is you want to say.’
‘It’s about Sam, actually.’
‘I rather thought it might be.’
‘Are you…’
Maddy paused delicately, but Fran was damned if she was going to help her out. If you wanted to be audacious with someone you had barely met, then you shouldn’t expect favours!
