Indiscretions - Elizabeth Adler [73]
Tony Fox-Lawten had taken her refusal in his stride, but he’d adopted the habit of popping into the kitchen, “just to see how she was getting along.” Venetia could have managed very well without any Fox-Lawtens hanging around.
Friday had gone fairly smoothly, although the pace was staggering. There had been no time for a meal for herself; she’d had to snatch bits and pieces as she went along. Guests began arriving at three in the afternoon and Venetia had been serving tea from then until six. After that it was drinks at eight o’clock, and dinner at eight-thirty. Which had left her exactly two hours to prepare a meal for fourteen. It was a good thing she’d made the salmon mousse and the summer pudding and brought them with her, or she would have been sunk; and it was a good thing, too, that she’d prepared the turkey pie for Saturday’s lunch, because by the time breakfasts were over it was already lunchtime.
The real fight with Sondra Fox-Lawten had come right after Saturday lunch. It had been after midnight when Venetia had gone to bed and she hadn’t slept because the room was so cold—she could see her breath floating in the moonlight in front of her. Miserably she’d contemplated getting up and making herself a hot drink but had decided she’d probably wake someone if she did, and she didn’t fancy an encounter with Tony Fox-Lawten in her night attire. She’d got up at six-thirty to prepare the pheasants and crisp game chips and to fix breakfast trays to be relayed to the various bedrooms by Mrs. Jones, the daily from the village. After that she tackled lunch. By three-fifteen she had just placed the last dish in the dishwasher and turned on the machine when Mrs. Fox-Lawten came in to see her.
“We shall have tea at five, Venetia,” she’d commanded, “and I’d like you to make some nice little canapés to serve with drinks.”
“You should have asked me earlier, Mrs. Fox-Lawten,” Venetia had said quietly. “I’m afraid there’s no time now.”
“Of course there’s time.” Sondra Fox-Lawten raised a well-penciled eyebrow. “You’re not doing anything now, are you?”
“Yes,” Venetia replied evenly. “Yes, I am doing something. I have been in your kitchen since six-thirty this morning and now I am going to that freezing attic you feel fit to call a bedroom to he down for exactly one hour and a half until it’s time to get tea. After that I will be busy with dinner. I’m sorry, Mrs. Fox-Lawten, but there will be no canapés.”
“Well, really!” Sondra’s greenish eyes had popped and she had patted her newly set auburn hair agitatedly; no one ever talked to her like that! “I must remind you that you are here to do a job! I’m paying you to cook—not to lie down!”
“I shall cook, Mrs. Fox-Lawten,” said Venetia, walking out of the door, leaving Sondra standing there. “Dinner will be on time.”
She’d regretted it later. She would probably have been better off making canapés in the kitchen than trying to stay warm in that grim little room.
Tony Fox-Lawten showed up in the kitchen at teatime, just when she was munching on a ham sandwich.
“I see you don’t starve yourself, then,” he said pointedly. “What’s this I hear about a dustup with Sondra?”
“Mr. Fox-Lawten, if I were like my sister India, I would have told Mrs. Fox-Lawten what to do with her canapés and her dinner party. I was at least polite.”
“I’ll bet you were.” He grinned. “You’ve got better manners than Sondra. All her family’s money comes from butcher shops, and sometimes I think it shows up in the genes!”
Venetia had just decided that maybe Tony Fox-Lawten wasn’t all bad when he made his move.
“How about a little drink later, just you and me?” he said, grabbing her hand.
“No, thank you,” she said, polite as ever.
“Oh, come on, now.”
There was a sound of a footstep on the hall.
“I’ll see you later,” he called, whisking off in a hurry—no doubt afraid of Sondra’s genes, thought Venetia nastily.
And then at seven-thirty, when she was in the throes of preparing dinner, Sondra Fox-Lawten floated into the kitchen in pale blue chiffon and goose-pimples and knocked over the bowl of