Best of Fiona Harper. Fiona Harper

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      CHAPTER SIX

      Wishin’ and Hopin’

      Coreen’s Confessions

      No. 6—You know some people say they can’t see the wood for the trees? Sometimes I can’t even find the flipping forest.

      I ENDED up being seated between Julian and Marcus at dinner. Nicholas was far, far away at the end of the ridiculously long table, deep in conversation with an enraptured Louisa. After the first two courses I still knew absolutely nothing about Julian, and was more familiar than I could ever wish to be with Marcus’s rugby injuries. I didn’t even have Adam to joke with, because he was being monopolised by Jos further down the table.

      I toyed with the last of my lamb. I wasn’t actually hungry, but pushing it around my plate helped distract me from a lengthy and rather too-graphic account of Marcus’s latest shoulder surgery. When I did look up briefly I caught the eye of the party organiser who was playing Lord Southerby. He glanced at Marcus, then gave me a sympathetic smile.

      Dinner was so dull I was about to jump up on the polished walnut table and do the Lambeth Walk, just to entertain myself. Thankfully, that rash plan was scuppered before I could make a fool of myself, because the lights suddenly went out and, with no big-city light pollution to provide a warm glow at the windows, the whole room was plunged into utter darkness.

      One of the girls screamed. Someone—I could tell it was Izzi—chuckled with barely restrained glee, and the great rubgy-playing oaf next to me started making childish ‘spooky’ noises.

      I ignored all of that, too busy working on rash plan number two. I was trying to calculate if, under the cover of darkness, I had enough time to sprint ’round to where Nicholas was sitting, plant a smacker on him, and then make it back to my place before the lights came back on again. Unfortunately, just as I scraped my chair back and hitched up my skirts, the inevitable happened, and we all sat there, blinking at each other and looking around.

      And then we saw it. Him.

      Lord Southerby, face down in his lamb cutlets, with a dagger sticking out of his back.

      We all gasped together, as if we’d shared the same intake of breath. Well, everyone except Louisa, that is. Now I knew who the screamer of the bunch was. I turned to give her a scornful look and found her clutching on to Nicholas, so close she was almost sitting on his lap. Before I looked away in disgust, unable to watch my dream man being all gentlemanly and protective, stoking her back with the flat of his long-fingered hand, I saw a flicker of smug satisfaction pass across her features, just before she burrowed her face in his shoulder and he put his arm round her.

      Thinking murderous thoughts, I focused once again on the supposedly deceased Lord Southerby. The drama of the occasion was ruined slightly by the fact that, from my ringside seat, I could tell he was still breathing. The intermittent puffs of air from his half-submerged right nostril were making ripples in the port gravy.

      Izzi tried to get an appropriate wobble in her voice as she asked Robert to call the police, but it was obvious she was far from distraught at her fake husband’s death. In fact, she seemed to be enjoying herself immensely.

      The actress-slash-party organiser who was playing the housekeeper entered and suggested we contaminate the crime scene as little as possible, then asked if we would like to retire to the drawing room for after-dinner drinks. Once we were all assembled there we were each handed a second white envelope, containing further information and objectives.

      I discovered I was supposed to learn if Rupert’s fiancée was just a gold-digger, why Rupert had been out-of-sorts recently, whether Lord Southerby had left me anything in his СКАЧАТЬ