yours!’ said Ursula hastily, sensing her sister’s embarrassment. ‘I wouldn’t like to try and squeeze myself into one of your size eight Lycra miniskirts!’
‘I’m a size ten now,’ said Amber, the gloom in her voice suggesting a disaster of national proportions.
‘Oh, that’s terrible, sweetie!’ teased Ursula, though she had to bite back her first comment, which was that she would be in seventh heaven if she were anywhere near that size! She had gained extra weight as a teenager, and never really lost it. ‘But it doesn’t help me to decide what to wear!’
She could have asked Amber how she imagined it must feel when your main criterion for buying any outfit was whether or not it made your bottom look fat and wobbly. But of course she couldn’t do that. If Ursula’s bottom was bigger than she would have liked, then it was nobody’s fault but her own. If you ate too much, you got fat. Cause and effect. Simple. And, while she might occasionally justify her plumpness by calling to mind the grim reality of her growing-up years, nothing altered that simple fact.
‘Wear jeans,’ advised Amber succinctly. “They’re always useful around children.’
‘Jeans! If I wore jeans, they’d be digging out their safari clothes—I look like a hippo in jeans!’
‘Well, I’m not going through a whole list of suggestions just so that you can shoot them down in flames! What do you want to wear?’
Ursula’s voice was unusually hesitant, and shy. ‘Do you think the cream trousers and top you helped me choose would be okay? I haven’t worn them yet.’
‘Perfect!’ said Amber immediately. ‘The colour emphasises how dark your hair is, and brings out the roses in your cheeks. Oh, and clip your hair back at the sides with those mother-of-pearl slides I bought you for your twenty-first.’
‘Okay.’
‘Oh. and Ursula?’
‘Uh-huh?’
‘Be good!’
Amber’s words echoed around Ursula’s ears on Saturday evening, as she stood opposite Ross’s house, trying to summon up enough courage to go up to the front door and knock. Be good, indeed! She didn’t think she’d have a problem sticking to that advice! She doubted whether there would be any men there whom Amber would consider ‘eligible’, and even if there were they wouldn’t spend a moment looking at her.
She swallowed nervously as she gazed up at the house. How she wished she’d had a drink before she had set out!
She hadn’t even bothered asking Ross how many others were going, or who they were. She just prayed frantically that all the women weren’t in the same kind of league as Jane, his wife.
She stared down at her toes poking through the strappy sandals which were the most summery shoes she had—an absolute necessity on a night like this. It was baking hot, even though the sun was getting low in the sky.
Ross lived in Hampstead, which was miles on the underground from Ursula’s little flat in Clapham Common. It had been far too hot on the train, but not much better once she’d got off and begun to walk up the hill.
The air had a strange, almost suspended sense of stillness about it, with no breeze existing to lift it away. It had made her feel hot and bothered. Still did.
Ursula surreptitiously wiped her brow with the back of her hand, and the little hairs on the back of her neck prickled up, her senses on full alert, as if suddenly aware of someone watching her. She narrowed her eyes as she allowed herself a closer look at the imposing, late-Victorian house.
Someone was!
She glanced up and saw a figure blackly silhouetted against an arched window on the first floor and she could tell, even from this distance, that it was Ross. She studied him dispassionately, cushioned by the safety net of distance, thinking that the pose he struck highlighted the complexity which lay at the heart of the man. He looked both relaxed and yet alert.
Watching.
Waiting...
Well, there was no way she could possibly dawdle any longer, not without looking a complete idiot. Ursula clutched her handbag even tighter and, tucking Katy’s birthday present under her arm, she crossed the road, went up the steps to the front door and banged loudly on the knocker.
It was opened by Katy herself, looking more grown up than her ten years in short blue denim skirt and a sparkly blue tee shirt, which looked expensive. She was a tall girl for her age, and the platform shoes she wore made her even taller.
Katy had her father’s deep brown eyes and even deeper brown hair—but hers curled into wild corkscrews whereas Ross’s just waved gently against the nape of his neck. Her wiry height she owed entirely to her mother, along with a nose which was a cute, freckled snub and rosebud-pretty lips.
‘Happy birthday, Katy!’ beamed Ursula, and held the present out towards her. ‘I love your tee shirt!’
But Katy seemed more interested in a hug, hurling herself into Ursula’s arms with a fervour which was as surprising as it was touching.
‘Ursula!’ she squeaked. ‘You’re the first here! I’m so glad you came! I made Daddy invite you!’
Ursula willed her face not to react, but there was nothing she could do to stop her heart from plummeting like a dropped stone. So it had been Katy’s idea to invite her, had it? Not her father’s at all... She just hoped that she wasn’t going to stand out from the other guests like a sore thumb.
‘I’m so glad I came, too—and I’m flattered to be invited,’ she told Katy truthfully. ‘I don’t get to go to many birthday parties these days.’
‘Why not?’
Ursula shrugged. ‘Because grown-ups only tend to have parties when they’re twenty-one, or forty—’
‘How boring!’
‘Very boring,’ agreed Ursula gravely. ‘Now open your present and tell me whether you like it,’ she added gently. ‘You can always change it if you don’t.’
Katy needed no second bidding, immediately dropping to her knees and ripping the shiny paper off the carefully wrapped parcel with all the energy of a highly excited child.
Inside was a box of water-colour paints, a small packet of oil-pastel crayons, and a thick block of sketching paper. Katy sat back on her heels and stared at it.
‘Do you like it?’ asked Ursula nervously. ‘I thought you were very good at drawing, just like your daddy—’
‘Oh, I love it!’ said Katy earnestly, looking up at Ursula with shining eyes. ‘I really, really love it!’
Ursula smiled widely. ‘That Christmas card you sent me last year was so good that I’ve kept it—that’s what gave me the idea for the present. I keep meaning to have it framed.’
‘Seriously?’
‘Seriously.’ Ursula nodded solemnly. ‘You have a real gift for drawing, you know, Katy.’
‘And does Daddy have a gift, too?’
‘Oh, definitely. Your daddy’s the best!’
‘Why, thank you, Ursula,’ came an amused voice, and they both looked up to see Ross at the top of the staircase watching them, making Ursula wonder just how long he had been standing there. ‘How heartening to hear such praise—and this from the woman who usually nags me about my untidiness!’
‘Only because if I didn’t I wouldn’t be able to reach my desk for the mountains of paper in the way!’ she responded crisply, but her heart was beating faster than usual.
It was odd seeing him in the unfamiliar surroundings of his home. Their relationship had evolved in the everyday environment of the office, and even when they had a client lunch