A Lady Under Siege(44)

“You do know too much,” Derek said to Betsy. “Don’t be in a hurry to put away childish things.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Stick to lollipops and dollies as long as you can.”

“I’m already past those things,” she said curtly. “I like online chat.”

“Give her a beer, then,” Ken said, ripping open the flimsy cardboard case and handing Derek a cold can.

Derek’s eyebrows lifted mischievously above a rogue’s grin. He held the can out toward Betsy. “Would you like one?”

Just at that moment Meghan came out onto the deck. “She most certainly would not,” she said sharply.

“We’re just joking around,” Derek smiled. In a teasing voice he added, “The young lady has already informed us she has no interest in alcoholic beverages.”

“Hilarious,” Meghan scoffed. “Betsy, time for dinner.”

IT WAS A WARM summer evening. As she ate her meal in the kitchen, Betsy strained her ears to eavesdrop through the open door on the conversation of the men outside, catching only fragments of phrases from the increasingly drunken rhythms of their speech. She ate quickly and got up to head back out, but Meghan stopped her. “I don’t want you going out there.”

“But you always tell me I need more fresh air.”

“It’s not so fresh. They’re smoking like chimneys, the two of them.”

“Outside smoking doesn’t count.”

“You can go use the computer if you want. Chat with your friends for a while, then it’s bath time, then bed.”

“What are you going to do?”

“I need to talk to Derek for a minute.” She felt a need to talk to Thomas, to tell him of Sylvanne’s plot to get a kitchen knife, and reinforce her insistence that Daphne’s bloodletting stop. She’d been researching the antiseptic and antibiotic uses of medieval herbs, and wanted to tell him to apply vinegar and lavender oil to the wound on her arm, and add garlic and onion to the vegetable soups prepared for her. She also wanted to raise the possibility of tuberculosis as the cause of Daphne’s sickly cough.

Betsy trundled upstairs to the studio, and Meghan cleaned up the dishes. Occasionally she heard laughter from the men, and a loudly hooted expletive here and there. Better get out there before they’re incoherent, she thought. She wiped the counters and dried her hands, then went out the back door. There was only Ken in the back lawn, lazily swinging a golf club. He lifted his head and saw her, and stared at her quite brazenly, her long legs in particular, making her wish she was wearing something more concealing than short shorts and a tank top.

“Where’s Derek?” she asked.

“Gone out to get cigarettes and papers,” he replied.

“Papers?”

“Rolling papers. Come on over—I sold a bike today, one of my motorbikes. I got some serious cash for it, and now it’s like, Let’s Party!”

“I’ll pass,” Meghan said. “Got things to do.”

“Should I tell Derek you’re looking for him?”

“Sure. Tell him it can wait until tomorrow.”

“Will do.”

She went inside, irritated that she had something important to say to Thomas, but couldn’t. There was an hour to fill before Betsy’s bath and bedtime, and what she really wanted to do was get back online and continue her research into tuberculosis, autoimmune illnesses, and medieval medicine, but with Betsy at the computer she decided instead to pick up her galley copy of Enemies with Benefits again, hoping a scene she’d somehow missed in her cursory skim-through would now jump out at her and beg to be illustrated. She spread herself out on the living room couch, but after a few minutes she realised she was sweating. The room was stuffy in the heat. She decided the best place would be out on the deck, but that meant putting herself on display to the drunks next door. It would have to be the lawn—the fence would grant privacy.

There was no one in Derek’s back yard when she went out. She brought a picnic blanket to spread on the lawn, and flopped down on it with a couple of cushions from the patio chairs. In a few minutes she could hear, but not see, Derek and Ken emerge from the house and settle back into an evening of drinking beer around a picnic table ashtray. She perked up when she heard Ken say, “Your neighbour wanted to talk to you.”

“What about?”

“Didn’t say.”