The Gown(68)

The restaurant was glorious. She tried to take it all in, the flowers and the crisp white linen and sparkling crystal and silver and the even more dazzling jewelry of the guests, and she thought she might have seen Laurence Olivier sitting at one of the tables, but she didn’t dare to turn her head for a second look.

Jeremy stood as she approached, took her hand and kissed it, then waited until she was settled in her chair before sitting down himself. He was dressed in a beautifully tailored suit, and to Ann’s mind was easily the handsomest man in the room.

“I’m sorry I was late,” she said, and resisted the urge to offer a more robust excuse.

“I only just arrived. Shall I pour you some champagne?”

“Yes, please.” She almost reached for her glass, but remembered in time that she was meant to remove her gloves. Her hands were so damp with nerves that it was an effort to tug them off. So much for glamour.

She took a sip of the champagne and was a little taken aback by the taste, which reminded her of too-dark toast, and by the bubbles, which made her want to sneeze. The waiter handed her a menu and, as Carmen had warned, there was nothing she recognized apart from “sole.” Did it mean the same thing in French as in English? She might easily end up with a plate of frog’s legs or snails.

“Do you see anything you fancy?” Jeremy asked.

“Oh, it all looks so delicious. I’m not sure I can decide. What do you recommend?”

“The oysters are splendid here. Don’t know of anyone who’s ever been served a bad one. As for mains, I was thinking of the steak.”

Her frock was so tight that she’d never be able to manage more than a few bites of beefsteak. “I, ah . . . I was thinking of the sole?”

“Excellent choice.” He looked up and their waiter materialized at his elbow, rather as if he’d read Jeremy’s mind. He took their orders and whisked away the menus, and only then did Ann realize there hadn’t been any prices on hers. Better not to know, she decided.

“I believe you said you’d been away?” That seemed like a safe place to start.

“Yes, but only for a week or so. Was quite happy to come back to town, especially since I knew we’d be dining tonight. And now here we are, and you are a vision in that frock. Is it new?”

New to her, at least. “Yes. Do you like it?”

“Very much. The pink is quite pretty against your skin. Even more so when you flush because my compliments make you nervous. They shouldn’t, you know.”

The oysters arrived just then, saving her from thinking up a response. “Been ages since I had the oysters here,” Jeremy said. “They really are terribly good.” He squeezed an odd pair of tongs over his oysters, and she saw that they held a wedge of lemon, and then she noticed the way the edges of the oysters fluttered when they were spritzed with the juice.

She must have made some small sound, for he looked up and smiled. “Don’t you love it? So fresh they’re practically wriggling.”

“I, ah . . . I never realized they were alive,” she said faintly.

“’Course they’re alive. Expect they’d taste awful if they were dead.” He picked up one of the shells and tipped its contents into his mouth. She watched the muscles of his throat contract as he swallowed the oyster, and a faint sheen of perspiration broke out on her brow, and she looked down at the six oysters on her plate and thought she might topple off her chair.

Instead she did exactly as Jeremy had done. She squeezed the little lemon-filled tongs over her oysters, picked up a shell, poured the oyster and its surrounding brine into her mouth, and swallowed before she could think twice.

“Delicious,” she said, and reached for her champagne.

The oyster shells had just been tidied away when Jeremy looked over her shoulder, smiled, and waved a hand in greeting. A couple approached, and he stood and said hello and chatted with them for a few minutes. The man ignored her; the woman, looking down, smiled thinly at Ann but said nothing. She was wearing a gorgeous dress of eau de nil silk with delicate bands of sequins and larger matte paillettes on the bodice. A dress that Ann had embroidered herself only a few months earlier.

“Your gown is lovely,” she said unthinkingly.

Rather than thank her for the compliment, as anyone with manners would have done, the woman simply stared, her smile twisting into an odd little frown, her brow gathering into disdainful pleats. Plucking at her husband’s sleeve, she whispered something in his ear and he, in turn, swiveled his head around to stare at Ann.

“We won’t keep you,” the man said, and he and his wife continued on their way.

“I do apologize,” Jeremy said as he sat down. “George and his wife are the most frightful snobs, which is ridiculous when you consider how his family made their money.”

“How?” she asked, praying that her face wasn’t as red as it felt.

Jeremy leaned forward, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. “Lavatory brushes. Can you believe it? I’d have taken them to task, but my line of work requires the utmost discretion. You won’t let them ruin our evening, will you?”

“Of course not.”

Any further awkwardness was curtailed by the arrival of their main course. Her sole really was sole, thank goodness, and was tender and delicate, served with little roast potatoes the size of marbles and a buttery sauce that tasted almost but not quite of mint. It was the nicest thing she’d eaten in years, apart from Miriam’s Friday-night chicken, of course.