Electra made a sorry face. ‘No. I didn’t think the buttons worked in the end. I cut them all off. They’re in the button box now.’ She smiled as if Lizzie’s interest in the buttons was rather quaint. ‘It took me ages! You’d sewn them on so well!’
‘Weren’t they antique?’ Lizzie was appalled. She turned to Hugo.
‘Yup.’ He didn’t reproach his girlfriend for wanting something so badly and then, the moment she had it, losing interest.
‘Maybe I should sell them back to your antique-dealer friend,’ Electra suggested. ‘Is he here?’
A whole chasm of potential disasters opened up in front of Lizzie’s feet. She didn’t want people to know there was a man in the house and she didn’t want anyone to suspect he was in any way different. And she certainly didn’t want to have to explain his presence. It had been bad enough when herparents dropped her off at the house and found him there. She decided to step aside.
‘Excuse me,’ she said, with a sociable smile her mother would have been proud of. ‘I must go and make sure everyone’s got enough coffee.’
‘If you could just top me up first,’ said Electra, ‘and then, Hugo,’ she put her hand on his shirtfront and looked up at him, ‘I’d really like to go soon? I’m quite tired.’
Lizzie stepped back. Who’d have thought that worrying about ramekin dishes and fondue sets could be so exhausting? Or maybe Electra had been meandering down a catwalk, pouting and trailing her coat on the floor behind her.
‘I don’t want to leave just yet,’ Lizzie heard Hugo say. ‘Nessa is enjoying herself and she’s had a rotten time lately.’
‘Darling! We’ve all had unsuitable boyfriends. She needs to forget him.’
At least Hugo could never be described as unsuitable, Lizzie thought as she moved away.
‘Has everyone got coffee here?’ Lizzie asked the first group of people she came to, who included Vanessa.
‘Yes, thank you,’ said Vanessa. ‘Tell me, does Electra want to go already? I’m having such a nice time, I really don’t want to leave yet.’
‘I think maybe she does,’ said Lizzie.
‘Oh dear!’ said Vanessa.
‘Could you take a taxi home, perhaps?’ suggested Lizzie.
‘I’d be happy to escort you,’ said Ben, who had been invited to be Lizzie’s partner, but who, it seemed, really fancied Vanessa.
‘There we are then,’ said Lizzie. ‘You don’t have to go home just because Electra wants to. Now, is there anyone without coffee?’
As she wandered among the guests checking on coffee cups, she wished she could have chatted to Hugo properly. They’d got on so easily when he’d taken her out for dinner after her disastrous evening in the Earl of Sandwich. Now, surrounded by others, and Electra there to pounce, like a silk-wearing snake, she found she didn’t know how to talk to him.
‘I think you forgot to bring my top-up,’ said Electra from behind her, making Lizzie jump.
‘It looks as if we’ve run out of coffee,’ said Lizzie firmly. ‘I’m so sorry. If you’re desperate, I’ll go down and make some more.’
‘That would be nice,’ said Electra and walked off.
Her parting smile was charming, full of good manners but underlying it was something steely that made Lizzie want to rush to the kitchen and do her wishes. She resisted for a few moments but Electra didn’t seem to notice she didn’t rush off immediately to do her bidding.
Electra came back a few minutes later while Hugo and Vanessa were talking. She put her arm onHugo’s and looked up at him. ‘I promised to call in on Daddy for a nightcap. Is that OK with you?’
Lizzie turned away. What did Hugo see in Electra? She was lovely to look at, would probably be a perfect hostess and was exactly the sort of wife that could help a man in his career. But was that enough? She sighed. Apparently it was.
Lizzie had stopped worrying about coffee and had been persuaded to sit down for a bit with a group on or around a sofa. Lizzie squashed herself in next to Meg and Luigi.
‘That was a fab meal you produced, Meggie,’ said Lizzie.
‘The chocolate mousse was so scrummy,’ said Vanessa, who was sitting on the arm of the sofa, swinging her leg and drinking a glass of wine.
‘I’ll give you the recipe if you like,’ said Meg. ‘It’s very simple.’
‘It is simple,’ said Lizzie, ‘but what’s easy for Meg is often awfully difficult for the rest of us.’
