The Riverboat Mystery (Jenny Starling #3)(21)

Just then her sharp ears heard the faint but unmistakable sound of quacking ducks. She quickly craned her neck and looked both ways, but there were no birds in sight. Being fairly close — well, as the bird flies — to Aylesbury, was it too much to hope that some of those famous white birds had migrated this far?

The progression of her thoughts was as natural as it was habitual. Roast duck pieces with orange sauce, she mused, would make a very good starter. Or, if she was lucky enough to catch two or possibly even three of this year’s prime fledglings, she could even have them for a main course.

She quickly made her way to the games room, found a cupboard full of fishing equipment, selected a sturdy landing net, and made her way back to the rear deck. Her guests, she knew, would be eating for a good hour, and it had been made clear that serving and overseeing the actual table dining was strictly the province of Francis, whom she had no intention of crossing. And after lunch, Lucas’s itinerary called for another hour’s mooring, to allow for anyone who wanted to take a pleasant country stroll to help their lunch go down.

So she had plenty of time.

Jenny stepped onto the soft grassy bank and set off determinedly in the direction of the quacking.

At the table, Lucas Finch tucked happily into a lobster patty and smacked his lips loudly. The parrot on his shoulder eyed a grape from the artfully arranged and appealing centre bowl of fruit with an avaricious gleam to his eye. He too smacked his lips — which was quite a feat, considering that he didn’t have any.

‘That lovely Amazon of a woman knows how to cook, you’ve got to give her that,’ Lucas said happily, his cockney twang twanging, and his lips smacking once again as the sauce spurted pleasingly to the back of his throat. He detected prawns and tomatoes and something else particularly delicious that he couldn’t quite place.

‘Hmm, I’ll willingly second that,’ Jasmine Olney said, eyeing her own heaped plate of salad leaves. ‘The dressing on this is just divine.’

Her husband gave her an arch look. ‘I didn’t know you were up on things heavenly, m’dear.’

David Leigh shot Gabriel a killing look. Lucas, intercepting it, offered a basket of delicious bread his way. ‘Try some of this, David, me old china. It’ll put lead in your pencil.’

‘Me old china,’ prompted the parrot, just in case David had failed to get the point.

David accepted a piece of bread. ‘Dorothy, my lovey?’ Lucas asked.

Dorothy shook her head. ‘No thanks, Lucas. I want to take a short swim after lunch and don’t want to get too loaded down with heavy food.’

‘You shouldn’t do that,’ Lucas said, aghast, ‘it’s dangerous. Or so my old mum used to say,’ he added a shade shamefacedly, feeling just a little chided by the amused look Dorothy gave him.

‘That’s why I don’t want a big meal now,’ Dorothy reiterated patiently. Really, there was nothing wrong with Lucas. He was a good sort, more or less. Not at all the big bad wolf that most people made him out to be. ‘Don’t worry, I’ll wait a good while before going in the water, I promise.’ She raised her hand in a cheeky Boy Scouts pledge. ‘But I simply couldn’t resist bringing my swimsuit. Who knows for how much longer it will fit me?’ she giggled, and Lucas almost melted.

After all, what woman didn’t feel that way when they were going to have a young ’un, he mused fondly.

‘And it’s so hot,’ Dorothy added, in the rather odd, tense silence that followed.

She glanced at her husband, wondering why he was so quiet. She could usually count on David to be both witty and fluent at social gatherings. He was always much more at ease at parties than she was. It was probably due to his job, she supposed. David was always so good with people. She just didn’t have the knack. She never quite knew when someone was teasing her, or making a joke. Sometimes she worried that her husband needed a much more intelligent woman by his side, and she felt a sudden wave of inadequacy sweep over her.

‘I’d join you, m’dear,’ Gabriel said, ‘but alas, I didn’t think to bring my swimming trunks. I suppose I could always try it au naturel?’ He smiled and fingered his moustache as Dorothy flushed beetroot.

Jasmine shot him a half-furious, half-amused look.

Lucas Finch thought about the skinny and ageing Gabriel Olney in his birthday suit, trying to impress the beauteous Dorothy, and burst out laughing. On his shoulder the parrot promptly did the same. It really was a superb mimic, and it sounded as if Lucas’s laughter was echoing mockingly around the room.

Gabriel looked first at the bird, then at the man, a darkening flush coming up under his own skin.

Under the table, David Leigh held his knife so hard it almost snapped.

Lucas, belatedly aware that, as a host, he really shouldn’t be laughing at a guest, coughed into his napkin. ‘More wine, Gabriel?’ he asked, and poured him another glass. Then he noticed David’s tight, white face, and hastily refilled his glass too.

On his shoulder, the parrot considered how best to purloin one of the grapes.

*

An hour later, Jenny returned to the Stillwater Swan, luckless and duckless.

She put the landing net away, humming happily as she did so, and noticed in passing that the dining room was now empty, and the table had been cleared. No doubt thanks to that paragon, Francis, she mused sourly, and returned to her galley.