Indiscretions - Elizabeth Adler [52]
After switching on the oven to low she made a pot of coffee. Twelve o’clock. With a bit of luck the women who did the tables and cleared the dishes would be here soon: meanwhile there was just time to tidy herself up.
Venetia hurried down the corridor in search of the ladies’ room, finding it without the help of the indifferent receptionist, who was involved in some apparently intriguing phone call. The mirror showed that she wasn’t too bedraggled—her hair and her boots had dried and hopefully she looked both neat and efficient. Tying back her shining blond hair tightly with a scrap of blue ribbon she searched her bag for a lipstick. Morgan’s card was tucked in the flap where she’d placed it that morning. A hapless-looking camel leered at her from a rectangle of desert in Abu Dhabi, and with a smile she reread Morgan’s message on the back: Reliable, efficient, cost effective, rustproof … who needs a car anyway? Miss you.
He’d taken to dropping her a card from each new place he went, usually with a hastily scribbled Wish you were here, or even Love and kisses. In the half-dozen times they’d met since she had returned from California a couple of months ago, she’d found herself liking Morgan McBain more and more. He was so easy to talk to, he listened to her problems, and he asked the right questions—the sort of questions that made her see the answers for herself. And, too, she had to admit that it felt good being on the arm of such an attractive man; she’d noticed the way other girls looked at him. Kate Lancaster thought he was dazzling! Morgan exuded that special American confidence of power—she had the feeling that he could take care of any situation, just the way he had that awful night three months ago. Of course, she was infinitely grateful to Morgan and his father for that.
And she liked it when he kissed her. In fact, she liked it a lot, and she thought he did too. Why, then, did he do no more than kiss her? Didn’t he find her attractive enough? Maybe there was something about her that turned him off. Venetia gazed anxiously again at her reflection in the wall-high mirrors in the ladies’ room that contrived to make even her five-foot-nine-inch slender-ness appear squat. She was quite pretty—she knew she was really, but sometimes, inside, she didn’t feel very confident of her looks. And Morgan hadn’t suggested anything other than kisses….
Oh, my God, look at the time! Stuffing his card back into her bag she hurried back to her kitchen.
“I’ve done the table, miss,” the waitress’s cheerful voice greeted her.
“Oh! Oh, right, thanks so-o much. I’ve made coffee, if you’d like a cup.” Venetia pushed the roast into the oven and slammed the door.
“Thanks, miss.” The comfortable, middle-aged Cockney woman helped herself to a cup and stared at Venetia intently. “I know your face,” she said. “You look a lot like someone on the telly.”
“Really.” Venetia smiled and busied herself with the vegetables.
“I’ve got it! You look like the film star, the one that got herself killed in Hollywood a few months back—Jenny. Beautiful, she was, too. I used to wish I looked like her when I was a girl. Wait a minute … no, you couldn’t be, not being here and doing the cooking and all that—I mean, you couldn’t be Jenny Haven’s daughter … but I saw you on the telly!”
Venetia smiled shyly. She had thought that once the funeral was over, the attention of the press would be diverted to the next scandal or romance, but reporters had hovered outside the Lancaster mews house for weeks and she’d found herself surprised by photographers when she was shopping in the supermarket or taking the dogs for a walk. She’d even had requests for interviews and had been