That was to say, preparing for the partyhadbeen fun, right up until the moment Olivia waltzed into the kitchen with a hanger full of clothes swathed in dry-cleaner’s plastic and hooked it to the pelmet of the huge dresser.
‘I’ve got you these,’ she said, ripping open the plastic with a triumphant flourish. A black dress with what looked horrifyingly like a frilly white apron around its waistline was inside. ‘Just for the weekend, just to set the tone,’ she said. ‘You don’t have to wear the hat thing if you don’t want to.’
Hat thing? The apron was bad enough. Jess’s charitable smile must have slipped, rather catastrophically if Olivia’s frown was anything to go by.
‘You don’t like it?’ she said, an undercurrent of uncertainty sliding into her tone.
Jess pressed her lips together, not entirely sure how to express just how vehemently she loathed the idea of wearing anything remotely approaching that kind of an outfit. Instead, she stared at Olivia, fingers gripped hard around the back of a chair.
‘Well, listen, I’ll just leave it here in case you want to try it on, or …’ Olivia shifted her stance, then smiled again. ‘As long as you look smart, I don’t suppose it really matters. It was just an idea.’
Jess managed to stop herself from saying she hadn’t intended to dress in sack cloth for the duration of the party, or suggesting she might offer herself as one of those naked sushi platters – thereby forgoing the need for clothes of any kind. She could have covered herself in bits of Iberian ham, instead of clothes, and laid herself out on the dining table.
She gave herself an internal high five for not immediately taking the Victorian housemaid uniform and shoving it into a very dark cupboard. Instead, the uniform stayed put. Mostly because Jess wanted to make Olivia feel uncomfortable every time she came into the kitchen, but also because touching it might look as though she had accepted the idea.
Unfortunately, leaving the dress hanging for anyone to see had a different outcome when, shortly afterwards, Sebastian came into the kitchen in search of coffee.
He did a double take when he saw the uniform hanging on the dresser.
‘What’s this?’ he said, wandering over to it and wrinkling his nose as he scrunched his fingers around the fabric.
‘Oh, um. Nothing.’ It wasn’t Jess’s finest hour, not her best deflection. In fact, she could hear the guilt leaching through the ill-chosen words. She suddenly wished she had shoved the uniform where the sun didn’t shine.
Sebastian turned to her, a quizzical expression engulfing his face. ‘Why’s it here, then, if it’s nothing?’
Good question. She bit at her bottom lip, wondering if she should lie to him and keep the party a secret, or confide in him and risk spoiling the surprise.
‘Are you going to a fancy-dress party or something?’
He’d given her the perfect ‘out’, a completely feasible reason for the dress being there, and yet Jess couldn’t bring herself to lie to him. Even if it did ruin the surprise, she decided, in that split second, that she didn’t want to deceive Sebastian any longer.
She pulled in a breath. ‘Not exactly. Olivia brought it for me to wear – it was just an idea, she said I don’t have to … which is just as well because you’d have to drug me to get me to wear something like that …’
‘Slow down, Jess. Why did Olivia bring it for you to wear? I don’t understand.’
He did look confused, his eyebrows flexing as he looked between her and the dress, which hung like a dead crow on the dresser.
‘It’s supposed to be a secret,’ she said, cutting to the chase. ‘Olivia is organising a party, a welcome-home party for you, and it was meant to be a surprise. She thought it would be a nice touch to have me in uniform, I guess.’
‘Fucking hell.’
The strength of Sebastian’s language surprised Jess, and she stared at him as he wheeled away. It wasn’t that she didn’t swear; she did. Often and with a colourful array of verbal concoctions, some of which she was extremely pleased with. Like cockwomble, for example. So versatile. But somehow, those words delivered in his cultured tones, the angry twist in his unquestionably handsome features, was a shock.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘None of this is your doing; please excuse my language. Could you tell me a bit more about what Olivia has planned?’
He sounded controlled again, but Jess could see that his shoulders had risen by several inches and didn’t slacken off as she filled him in on the party plans.
Once she’d finished, he nodded. ‘Thank you. Do you have any idea where my sister is right now?’
‘I’m not sure. She was with Candida, watching TV in the butler’s pantry.’
Sebastian pulled in a difficult breath. ‘Excellent. Being productive as always. And my mother?’
‘I think she’s back from her walk, so maybe in her room?’
Sebastian unhooked the dress, plastic trailing as he stalked to the door. The hat, an honest-to-God Victorian mob cap, fell from the hanger and as he dipped to snatch it up, Jess was sure she heard him swear again.
Unsure what to do, Jess dithered for a few moments, then told Digby tostaywith a level of gravitas which, for once, the little dog seemed to take on board – or maybe he was already cowed by Sebastian’s outburst. Whatever the reason, Digby didn’t shift from his mat and Jess trailed behind Sebastian, part of her wanting to be on hand to explain to Olivia why she’d had to spill the beans. As she followed him from the room, she also decided a larger part of her wanted to find out what Sebastian was about to do.
