The Riverboat Mystery (Jenny Starling #3)(30)

And then David looked down at the smooth, hard wooden ball, as if seeing it properly for the first time, and began to smile.

A few yards away, Gabriel lowered his voice to a husky whisper. ‘You really shouldn’t antagonize clients of your husband’s firm, m’dear,’ he chided her gently, studying Dorothy’s mutinous face with a half-angry, half-amused smile. Really, the woman was such a child. ‘After all, if I were suddenly to withdraw my business from the venerable offices of Pringle, Ford and Soames, they’d be somewhat concerned. And if I should tell them that it was because I wasn’t happy with the performance of one of their juniors . . .’ He shrugged eloquently.

He knew that baiting Dorothy was rather unsporting, a bit like shooting fish in a barrel, in fact, but he was in a fey kind of mood. Jasmine was wearing on his nerves like a bad-fitting uniform, and he was in just the right frame of mind to curse all women.

Dorothy gasped and went pale. ‘You wouldn’t,’ she said. The very way she said it, with such an appalled air, made Gabriel feel even more vicious.

‘I just might,’ he said, keeping his voice deliberately light. ‘Why don’t you try being nice to me for a change, hmm?’ he goaded, his eyes on his wife, who was watching them with narrow-lidded alertness. ‘After all, it’s not much to ask, is it?’ he murmured, recapturing her hand and pressing the back of it to his lips.

Dorothy could feel his moustache on the back of her hand, and shuddered. The touch reminded her of the bristles on a pig’s back.

Jasmine’s eyes became glued to those of her husband. So, he was angling for a divorce, was he? Leaving her out in the cold, with precious little money and no security. She felt a lance of fear hit her. Although wild horses wouldn’t have made her admit it out loud, she knew that she was well past the first flush of her youth. Finding another rich husband as a poor, middle-aged divorcee would be no picnic.

She had to put a stop to it. And she had to put a stop to this ridiculous boat business as well. Her nails curled into her palms so hard it made her wince.

Gabriel fiddled with Dorothy’s cold fingers. He kept a wary eye on Leigh, but the solicitor seemed to be staring off into the distance in some sort of trance.

‘When a person’s in a much stronger position than you are, my dear little Dotty,’ Gabriel mused, thoroughly enjoying himself now, ‘you really do have to be careful. I mean, what would your husband say if I were to imply that the child you carry might not be his, for example? Now wouldn’t that create a stir? And all because you couldn’t take a compliment or two.’

He twisted his neck to look up at Dorothy, who stood as if turned to stone. ‘Now, it wouldn’t be so hard, would it, to play along a little? To help me play a little game with Jasmine? She’s been rather naughty, you know, and deserves to be taught a lesson.’

But Dorothy was hardly listening. She was thinking how odd and tense David had been lately. But surely he didn’t think . . . He couldn’t have got it into his silly head that she might have been unfaithful.

Gabriel turned, satisfied that he and the lovely Dorothy now had an understanding, and turned to glance once more at his wife.

His smile was wide as he kissed one of Dorothy’s cold fingertips.

It was at that precise moment that David Leigh turned to look at him. He had his plan now, his precious plan, firmly completed in his mind. And there was nothing to stop him going ahead with it.

Nothing at all.





CHAPTER SEVEN

Jenny glanced into the main salon, checking for the arrival of hungry lunch guests. So far, only the Leighs were hovering around, David looking casual in a light, fawn-coloured pair of slacks and a dazzlingly white shirt. His face, however, had a curiously shuttered look, as if he were trying to hide some kind of strong emotion.

He made Jenny feel instantly uneasy, because instead of emanating waves of angst and anger, he seemed to be on some sort of a high. When he glanced at her, and then quickly away again, she thought she caught glimpses of both relief and resolve, in equal measures, cross his face.

It should have made a nice change from his usual glowering, gloomy countenance, but somehow it didn’t. Instantly, the statuesque cook wondered what he was up to. Or, perhaps to be more precise, she wondered what had occurred to him to put that different look on his face.

In spite of the heat, Jenny felt herself shiver.

Dorothy Leigh looked extremely fetching in a light summer dress, a lovely shade of powder blue. It contrasted wonderfully with her silvery gold hair. Jenny thought how pretty the colour was — the same colour as meadow blue butterflies. It was a rather more soothing exercise, after witnessing the husband’s volte-face, to contemplate the pretty wife. She was so obviously in love with her husband, and had a baby on the way. In many ways, she looked the picture of contentment. But in that moment, Jenny didn’t envy Dorothy Leigh at all.

With a mental shrug, the cook returned to the galley and checked that the bread was just the right temperature, and glanced around, expecting Francis to appear at any minute.

But Francis, most unusually, was a few minutes late, and lunch didn’t begin until nearly a quarter past one. Not that it mattered, but Jenny was already counting off the hours. She’d asked Tobias Lester that morning what time he expected them to dock at Swinford, and was told it would probably be at any time between six and seven o’clock that evening.