Reform of the Rake. CATHERINE GEORGE

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       CHAPTER ONE

      LOWRI gave her distinguished, grey-haired male customer a friendly, courteous smile, her amusement well hidden as she gift-wrapped expensive scraps of sexy underwear so very obviously intended for someone other than his wife. When he’d gone she exchanged a grin with her nearest colleague.

      ‘End of the lunchtime rush?’ She cast a hopeful eye round the suddenly deserted underwear department.

      ‘Give it five minutes, then it’ll be the afternoon surge of mothers and daughters.’

      ‘Plain cotton for school,’ agreed Lowri, tidying a rack of lacy silk teddies. ‘I wish I hadn’t taken early lunch— I’m starving already.’

      ‘Then you’d better have tea with me later,’ said a voice with a familiar, attractive lilt, and Lowri looked up in astonishment to meet a pair of blue eyes bright with accusation.

      ‘Sarah!’

      ‘In person. And I hope that blush is guilt, Lowri Morgan,’ said her cousin, plainly incensed. ‘What on earth are you doing here?’

      ‘Working,’ said Lowri lamely.

      ‘I managed to puzzle that out for myself,’ retorted Sarah. ‘When did all this happen, may I ask? And why didn’t you let me know?’

      Lowri cast a hunted eye at some approaching customers. ‘I meant to soon, cross my heart. Look, I can’t talk now. I get a tea-break at three. Could you meet me upstairs at the coffee-shop?’

      ‘You bet I could—ask for extra time.’ Sarah fixed her young cousin with a steely eye. ‘You’ve got some explaining to do, young lady. In the meantime I’ll take one of these in thirty-four. And I’ll come back to collect you at three. Be ready.’

      Lowri found the required size quickly, wrapped the purchase and took her cousin’s money, promising to see her later, then dealt with a pack of skinny, black-clad girls in leather jackets, all demanding the same make of maximum-bounce, minimum-price bra. For the next hour or so Lowri sold underwear of every category from sensible cotton sports to shameless see-through numbers of the type she’d never possessed herself nor ever dared to. It was some time before she got the chance to beg an extra ten minutes to add on to her tea-break. She hurried back to her post afterwards to attend to a tall man who was contemplating a display of astronomically pricey trifles with no hint of the dogged embarrassment most male customers displayed in the same circumstances.