The Troika Dolls - Miranda Darling [21]
‘If I may.’
Oh dear.
Stevie looked up. ‘Yes?’
‘I think you’re waiting for the wrong man.’ He had an unusual accent, almost English but unplaceable. His eyes glinted, daring her to take up her end of the conversation.
‘I’m not waiting for anyone.’
‘I can tell by your little feet that you are. They’re very expressive.’
Damn.
She hadn’t even realised she had kicked her shoes off. Her stocking toes were crunched into fists.
‘Well, he’s an artist. He’s not good with time.’ Stevie could hardly convince herself.
‘Will you join us in the meanwhile?’ He smiled and gestured towards a table behind him. He seemed so at ease in his skin and Stevie envied him. ‘Just a dentist and his wife from Zurich, clients of mine.’
Stevie glanced over at his table. An elegant couple sat talking. He was immaculately dressed in a tweed blazer and a salmon-coloured polo neck jumper that would have been disastrous without the perfect winter tan; she wore white cashmere over her slim shoulders and had the glowing skin and well-placed gold jewellery of a Swiss heiress. They did not look like a dentist and his wife. Stevie wondered if the tall man was telling the truth.
‘I think I would prefer to let the solitude sink in. But thank you.’
‘A life unexamined and all that . . . I understand.’ He smiled again and left her.
He’s kind, thought Stevie. And he had left her with elegance.
The thirteenth course was presented with an exaggerated flourish under a silver dome. The subject was quite unworthy of the attention: a pale beige mousse, like a dead mouse.
Three grand old battleaxes rose from the corner table, their meal vanquished, and steamed across the room. They had lacquered helmets of hair, pastel twinsets, pearls, and very large crocodile bags. They could only have been described as formidable.
Stevie looked down at her own bag. It was identical. The man had noticed the similarity, too. It seemed to amuse him.
Stevie prayed the fourteenth course would hurry up and come. If he cornered her on the way out, she would have no choice but to feign nausea. No one ever argued with that.
But the man didn’t move from his table.
Stevie finished her interminable dinner, having left most of it untouched, and rose. Without glancing at the man, with a nod to the maitre d’, she slipped out.
There were no messages under her door. Joss hadn’t called. What sort of engagement could Joss possibly have to keep him in London?
And so vague . . . Joss didn’t use words like ‘engagement’—especially not words like ‘engagement’. Why hadn’t he wanted to talk to her?
Again Stevie debated calling and decided against it. Joss knew where she was. He would call if he wanted to.
Had her luminosity faded in his eyes . . . was that what was driving Joss incrementally away from her?
Thirty thousand feet above the scene, Stevie accepted a refill of her champagne glass. Somewhere in her crocodile bag, she still had the message that had arrived at her door the next morning, accompanied by a pretty bunch of primroses: Herr Carey called to say he is devastated he can’t make it.
Primroses. Like that first one which, held in his palm, had ensnared her heart.
Stevie had opened the curtains and looked out at the mountain. It was so beautiful in the early light. Teardrops crawled like flies from her eyes, pausing a moment on the ridge of her jaw before leaping down and disappearing into the towelling of her robe.
This would not do. The mountain was there and the snow was excellent. If there was ever a time to carry on and enjoy herself tremendously, this was probably it. Crying was ridiculous; she would go to breakfast instead.
The Swiss ski breakfast is a triumph of human achievement: the Bircher müsli, that glorious mess of oats, grated apple and yoghurt; the mountain breads—the Walliserbrot, the potato bread, the rye loaves; the displays of mountain cheeses and air-dried meats; the strangely coloured vegetable juices that tasted worse the better they were for you, culminating in