Roses and Champagne

Lucius laughed softly. “Why do you think of yourself as a staid old woman who’ll never see forty again? You’re twenty-seven and you look ten years younger. And I’m not paying compliments—I know you too well for that.”

“What are you going to do?” asked Katrina, not liking the sound of that laugh.

“Do? Why, call your sister’s bluff. I shall turn my attentions to you, Katie. In due course we shall become engaged, and when you’ve had time to gather together whatever it is that girls gather before they marry, we’ll be wed. Here in Upper Tew.”

For a big man he was very fast on his feet. Before she could gather her wits to answer, he had left her, closing the door very quietly behind him.

Romance readers around the world were sad to note the passing of Betty Neels in June 2001. Her career spanned thirty years, and she continued to write into her ninetieth year. To her millions of fans, Betty epitomized the romance writer, and yet she began writing almost by accident. She had retired from nursing, but her inquiring mind still sought stimulation. Her new career was born when she heard a lady in her local library bemoaning the lack of good romance novels. Betty’s first book, Sister Peters in Amsterdam, was published in 1969, and she eventually completed 134 books. Her novels offer a reassuring warmth that was very much a part of her own personality. She was a wonderful writer, and she will be greatly missed. Her spirit and genuine talent will live on in all her stories.

Roses and Champagne

The Best of Betty Neels

CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER ONE

THE WINTRY SUN, shining in through the wide windows, gave the room a false warmth, for there was no fire in the handsome steel grate and there was a decided chill in the air; a chilliness strongly echoed by the two people in the room, facing each other across the handsome Soumak carpet, a young woman with pale brown hair and beautiful brown eyes in an unremarkable face, sitting very upright in a Victorian balloon chair, and a man in his thirties, dark-haired, grey-eyed and with a high-bridged nose which didn’t detract from his good looks. He was a tall, well built man and the armchair he was leaning against creaked as he folded his arms along its back.

‘What a silly girl you’re being, Katrina,’ he observed in a voice tinged with impatience. ‘Anyone would think that it was you whose heart had been broken!’ He grinned at her and she made a small indignant sound.

‘I can find no possible excuse for you…’ she began. She had a nice quiet voice, waspish at the moment though.

‘My dear girl, I’m flattered that you should try to find excuses for me.’

She shot him a furious look, her black brows drawn together in a frown.

‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ she begged crossly. ‘It’s the last thing I’d do. You’ve broken Virginia’s heart…’

He came round the chair and sat down stretching out his long legs in comfort. ‘Now who’s being ridiculous?’ he wanted to know. ‘Virginia hasn’t got a heart, from the moment she could toddle you know as well as I do that she made a point of twisting everyone round her thumb. She did it charmingly too.’ He eyed her thoughtfully. ‘You never did that, Katrina.’

‘Much good it would have done me.’ She was matter-of-fact about it. And then, her voice cold with anger again: ‘She’s in her room, crying…’

She was interrupted: ‘Of course she’s crying—spoilt girls who can’t have their own way always cry. She’ll stop presently.’

‘You’re heartless, Lucius.’ Her eyes searched his face and saw nothing but mockery there. She got to her feet. ‘Will you go away? I don’t want to talk to you—there’s nothing to say anyway.’

He sauntered to the door. ‘Not while you’re in this silly sentimental mood.’ As he went through the door he said: ‘I passed young Lovell on my way here, so Virginia had better repair that broken heart pretty quickly.’

‘You’re unspeakable!’ declared Katrina, and heard him laugh as he shut the door.

She went to a window presently and watched him make his leisurely way across the lawn, taking the short cut to the side gate which would lead him to the stables where Gem, his mare, would be. It was a pity, she thought sadly, that they could no longer be friends. She had a sudden vivid memory of him, a ten-year-old schoolboy sitting his pony patiently holding the leading reins of her own fat Shetland. She had been three years old and Virginia wasn’t even thought of…

And they had stayed friends, and even when Virginia, the spoilt darling of the family had made a threesome, they had neither of them minded; indeed, as the years passed, Lucius and Virginia spent more and more time together, naturally enough, for by then Katrina’s talent for drawing and painting had got her a job illustrating children’s books. Her father had had one of the attics turned into a studio for her and she had worked there contentedly, making a tolerable income for herself, although that was quite unnecessary. But she had been glad of it when her parents were killed in a car accident, for a good deal of money died with them and the pleasant quite large house and its several acres of ground absorbed a lot of the income which was left. All the same, she had contrived very well; Virginia had finished her expensive education, had all the clothes she wanted and ran her own small car. Now at twenty she was the darling of the neighbourhood, as pretty as a picture and taking it for granted that every man she met would fall in love with her. Which, more or less, they did. Katrina, a year earlier, used to Virginia’s constant brief love affairs, but anxious that at nineteen she should turn her hand to something useful, had roped in Lucius. ‘Look,’ she had said, ‘Virginia’s got so many boyfriends she can’t remember their names—I don’t mind, it must be fun,’ just for a moment she had sounded wistful and he had given her a long thoughtful look, ‘but I wondered if she would train for something, meet older men perhaps. What do you think?’

That had been a year ago. He had laughed and agreed and said: ‘I’m an older man, aren’t I? She can start on me. What do you want me to interest her in? Bookkeeping? Or how to run an estate?’

He hadn’t done either thought Katrina sadly, although he was a chartered accountant and Stockley House and its surrounding acres belonged to him. Instead he had given Virginia her head, whirled her up to London to dine and dance and visit theatres, ridden with her almost every day, and although he had never given her a ring, it was a foregone conclusion that it was only a question of Virginia making up her mind between emeralds and rubies.

And now it was all over and Lucius was behaving abominably. Katrina paused to think here; according to Virginia he had behaved abominably and he certainly showed no signs of remorse about that, although she hadn’t actually asked him…Well, what could she have said anyway? Ever since she could remember, he had retired behind an expressionless face if he didn’t want you to know something; he’d worn that face this morning, and she hadn’t dared probe too deep. She sighed; they had known each other for so long, the thought of not having his friendship any more was depressing but what else could she do? Virginia had screamed at her that she would never speak to him again, and it was going to be rather difficult if she was to continue the easy companionship she had known for so long. And she would be disloyal to Virginia too. She herself was to blame anyway—encouraging Virginia to spend so much of her time with Lucius; it was inevitable that she should fall in love with him, even more inevitable that he should fall in love with her, or so one would have supposed. He had certainly indulged Virginia in everything she wanted to do or have, and then last night they had come back from a dance at one of the local houses. Katrina shuddered at the memory. Virginia had been beside herself, her voice shrill and almost hysterical, declaring that she would kill him, kill herself, kill everyone…her heart was broken, she would go into a convent, run away from home, throw herself in the river. She had sobbed and screamed into Katrina’s dressing-gowned shoulder, and Lucius had stood just inside the door and laughed.

‘I’ll never forgive him!’ declared Katrina to the empty room.

The door opened and she turned round to face Mrs Beecham’s rosy round face. ‘Will Mr Lucius be staying to lunch?’ asked that lady, and at Katrina’s forceful no, nodded her head. ‘I thought perhaps he wouldn’t be, and that’s a great pity, because there’s to be a cheese soufflé and mushrooms—he brought ’em over himself, picked ’em this morning.’

‘No mushrooms,’ declared Katrina fiercely; she loved them, but it smacked of giving in to the enemy, ‘and he’s not staying, Mrs Beecham.’

‘Just as well, maybe, Miss Katrina, because there’s Miss Virginia carrying on something shocking up in her room—won’t let Maudie in to clean neither.’

‘I’ll go up,’ said Katrina, and went out of the room, crossed the polished floor of the wide hall and went up the uncarpeted stairs, the treads worn from the countless feet which had used them over a couple of centuries. The landing above was wide as the hall and several doors opened from it. She could hear her sister’s voice as she turned the handle and went into a room in the front of the house.

Virginia was sitting up in bed, an untouched breakfast tray on the table beside her, and to Katrina’s loving eye she looked the picture of woe. A delightful picture, although she was crying—something she was able to do without spoiling her pretty face in the least. When she caught sight of Katrina she cried: ‘I haven’t slept a wink all night, I shall be ill…’ She peered at her sister’s composed face. ‘He’s been here, hasn’t he? I heard him come in. I don’t know how he dares after what he’s done!’

Katrina sat down on the edge of the bed. ‘Well, he didn’t actually do anything, did he?’

Virginia looked at her in outraged astonishment. ‘Not do anything? He doesn’t want to marry me!’

‘Yes, love, I know, and although it’s a dreadful thing to happen, it’s better to say so now than wait until you’re married and regretting it.’

Virginia cast her a baleful look. ‘What will everyone say? And they’ll all laugh—those hateful Frobisher girls and Emily and Patricia and Sue…’

‘Why should they laugh? They’re your friends; it could happen to them any time.’

‘Oh, you’re on his side—I might have known!’ Virginia sounded spiteful. ‘Just because you’re getting on and not married yourself!’

Katrina went faintly pink. ‘You don’t mean a word of that, love. But I do think it will be a great pity if after all these years we shouldn’t be on speaking terms with Lucius—after all, he knew you in your pram.’

Virginia tossed golden hair over one shoulder. ‘What a silly girl you are, Katrina,’ she observed, and Katrina thought: twice in one morning, Father used to say ‘Never mind the looks, the girl’s got a good head on her,’ but I haven’t even got that. She said placidly: ‘Yes, I daresay I am. Would you like to go away for a while, darling?’

Her sister’s beautiful blue eyes opened wide. ‘Go away? With the Hunt Ball only a few weeks off and James Lovell taking me up to town to see that new play everyone is talking about?’ She smiled beguilingly. ‘I do need a new dress, Katie.’

‘You had that blue taffeta last month. What are you going to do about Lucius?’

‘I won’t speak to him again, and I hope you won’t either.’ She added viciously. ‘I hope some perfectly frightful widow with a horde of children gets her hands on him—it’s all he deserves!’

‘I don’t imagine he’ll marry unless he wants to,’ said Katrina, and instantly wished she hadn’t as Virginia’s tears began again. To stop them she promised a new dress, and the tears disappeared as if by magic.

She got up from the bed, observing mildly that James Lovell was on his way and shouldn’t Virginia get dressed. At the door she paused to ask: ‘Did Lucius actually ask you to marry him, love?’

Virginia was out of bed looking at herself in the dressing table mirror. ‘Don’t be such a nosey-parker,’ she said crossly, ‘I don’t want to talk about it.’ She smiled suddenly. ‘Darling Katie, what would I do without you? You’re the nicest person I know.’

Katrina spent the next hour going about her household duties. None of them were heavy, but all the same they had to be done; her parents had left them in comfortable circumstances—a charming Regency house with a splendid garden as well as the paddocks, Mrs Beecham, who had been with them since Katrina was born, Lovelace, who had been chauffeur, houseman and part-time gardener for almost the same length of time, and two girls from the village who came each day to help in the house. There was Old John too, who was what the villagers called a little light in the head; he came when it suited him and saw to the garden; he had a magic way with anything growing and no one had ever thought of interfering with his work there.

She discussed food with Mrs Beecham, agreed that someone should come and re-hang the shutters outside the living room windows, suggested that Lovelace might like to take some harness to be repaired, whistled to Bouncer, the Black Labrador snoozing before the stove, and went into the garden to cut chrysanthemums. It was a clear day with frost underfoot and just for the moment warm enough for her to go outside in her tweed skirt and thick sweater, but with November half done, the days were getting short and she doubted if the weather would stay fine for much longer. She gathered her flowers and then walked on, round the house and up the sloping path which led to the kitchen gardens at the top of the slight hill. Old John was there, picking Brussels sprouts and talking to himself, and she joined him for a bit before crossing to the far wall where there was a stout wooden door.

She opened it but didn’t go through, leaning against it and looking across the valley to where the chimneys of Stockley House sent pale wreaths of smoke into the clear air. The house was large; a great deal larger than her own home, with a park around it and a comfortable jumble of outbuildings, stables and barns at its back. Katrina knew every inch of it, for she had gone there very often as a child, first with her mother, when she went to call on Lucius’s mother, and then on her own, to seek him out and plague him to let her go with him fishing or riding, but later on he went to school, and although she still went there frequently, she only saw him during the holidays, and when it was her turn to go to school she saw even less of him. All the same, they were firm friends and had remained so—until now. She hadn’t always approved of his goings-on, by all accounts he was very much the man about town while he was in London—but that, she had told herself loyally, was his business, he was still Lucius; a friend to consult and someone to ask advice of, and when her parents were killed, a stout shoulder to cry into.

But as Virginia grew from a pretty little girl into a stunning young woman, he started to take her out; he took Katrina out too, riding or visiting friends, or walking the dogs, but when it came to dinner and the theatre in London, it was more often than not Virginia who was asked. And Katrina couldn’t remember when her sister had persuaded him to take her to the Hunt Ball; she had done it so prettily that it would have been cruel to have refused her, and she herself, cheerfully protesting that she didn’t care who she went with, had gone with the eldest Frobisher boy, a worthy young man, already going bald and for ever nattering on about the obscure work he had to do at the Foreign Office. And after that, Lucius had taken Virginia each succeeding year—since she was seventeen. Not that he’d singled her out deliberately; he had a great many friends and went out with them all, never showing preference for any of the girls he knew, but gradually everyone came to take it for granted that he and Virginia intended to marry sooner or later, and indeed, Virginia made no effort to deny this, and Katrina, since the awful occasion when she had observed that it was nothing but gossip and been asked if she were jealous of her own sister, had kept silent.

As she watched a car came round the corner of the house and raced down the drive towards the big gates. That would be Lucius in his Jaguar, going up to London to do big business, she supposed. He’d be back by the evening, though, because Emily’s mother was giving a dinner party and they had all been invited. Katrina made a mental resolve to warn Virginia to be polite at all costs.

As it happened there was no need; her sister told her over lunch that she was going out to dinner with James, and she didn’t care who knew it.

‘Then I’ll phone Mrs Drake and say you’ve got a heavy cold,’ said Katrina. ‘That’ll give her a chance to get someone else.’

Virginia gave her a pitying look. ‘You always do the right thing, don’t you? Say what you like—and I’m going up to town tomorrow to find a dress. What about you? I know you’ve no looks to speak of, but you’ve got a good figure—why don’t you tart yourself up a bit?’

On the way up to the studio after lunch, Katrina stopped in front of the enormous wall mirror on the landing and took a good look at herself. Medium height, a little too plump, nice legs and hands and feet, a face unremarkable save for her eyes, pale brown hair expertly cut to frame it, and well cut, expensive clothes suitable to the life she led.

‘Very dull,’ she told her reflection, and went on up the small staircase to the next floor and into her studio, where she lost herself in the happy world of fairy tales. She was illustrating a new edition of Hans Andersen, and got carried away on a stream of elves and gnomes and princesses in distress. She painted until the light failed and went downstairs to the sitting room where they always had tea. There was no sign of Virginia, and Mrs Beecham, coming in with the tray, offered the information that Miss Virginia had gone out in the car not half an hour past.

‘Well, we’ll both be out this evening, Mrs Beecham, so don’t wait up, will you? Whoever comes in last will lock up.’

Katrina poured herself a cup of tea, took a scone, picked up the daily paper and settled herself in a chair by the fire. The room was cosy, softly lighted and prettily furnished; her mother had always used it unless there had been people for tea—besides, there was no sense in having fires in the other, larger rooms unless there were guests. Bouncer was there too, and the two cats, lying in a friendly heap at her feet. She was a lucky young woman, she told herself soberly, to have so much when so many had so little. All the same, she felt a twinge of panic, glimpsing the years ahead. Supposing she didn’t marry? And after all, she was turned twenty-seven and no one had actually asked her. Would she be content to stay here, painting and drawing and running the house and watching her friends grow old? And not being friends with Lucius any more?

She shook herself briskly. He had behaved very badly; come to think of it, he had changed over the recent years. His eyes could be as hard as stones on occasions, and he smiled a nasty little mocking smile far too often. The thought struck her that perhaps he was really in love with Virginia after all, but something had caused him to draw back from marrying her. He was a good deal older, of course, but that shouldn’t matter; he was a handsome man and didn’t look his age. There could be a girl somewhere, of course, but she discarded the thought at once. He wasn’t devious, he would have made no bones about telling her that there was someone else. He had only laughed and said that poor Virginia had no heart. Katrina frowned; her sister was a darling—spoilt, perhaps, but who could help that, she was so enchantingly pretty and had such a way with her. To say that she was heartless was quite untrue.

Katrina bestirred herself, took Bouncer out for a run and went up to her room to change for the evening. She chose a dress with care. Lucius would be there and for some reason she wanted to look her very best—’Like a soldier cleaning his rifle before a battle,’ she explained to Bouncer, who had made himself comfortable on the end of her bed.

The dress was soft green crêpe-de-chine, very simple, very expensive and just a shade too old for her. As most of her clothes were. Now that Virginia was grown up and went everywhere with her and to a great many parties on her own, Katrina had begun to think of herself as very much the older sister, and she dressed accordingly, which was a pity, for she had a pretty figure and a clear, unlined skin and looked a lot younger than her age. But even if she bought the wrong clothes, her taste in shoes was not to be faulted. They were her weakness; sensible enough during the day but replaced as soon as maybe by elegant high-heeled models by Rayne and Gucci. She looked with satisfaction at the strappy kid slippers which went with the dress, slung on the quilted jacket she wore in the evenings if she was driving herself and went downstairs. There was no sign of Virginia and she wasn’t in her room, so Katrina left a note for her and went outside to where Lovelace had parked the car for her, a Triumph Sports, quite elderly now but still going well. Lovelace had never quite approved of it, too fast for a young lady, he had averred, although he had to admit with the same breath that Miss Katrina was a first-class driver.

The Drakes lived five miles away in another village. As Katrina went down the drive and turned into the lane bordered by Stockley House’s high wall, she thought with regret that normally Lucius would have called for her and driven her there and brought her home again. It was a sobering thought, rendered even more so when his Jaguar overtook her half way there, sliding sleekly past without him even turning his head, and even though it was dark, he would have known her car in the light of the headlamps. She watched his tail light disappear round the next bend and felt lonely.

There were only a dozen people at the Drakes’ house, and she knew them all, and since she was the last to arrive the drawing room was full enough for her to be able to avoid Lucius. Or so she thought.

She was sipping a dry sherry, which she detested, and listening to the Reverend Bartram Moffat’s equally dry conversation, when he wandered over to them. He greeted them both affably, advised the Vicar that their host wanted advice about some parochial business and took up a position in front of her so that to escape would be difficult.

‘Got over your nasty temper?’ he wanted to know with what she considered to be sickening indulgence. She said: ‘No,’ and took another sip of sherry.

He took her glass from her, poured the contents into his own and gave her back the empty glass. ‘You always hated the dry stuff,’ he observed, ‘and what you need at the moment is something sweet—I could pickle walnuts with your expression, Katie.’

She felt a bubble of laughter longing to escape, but all she said frostily was ‘Indeed?’

‘Where’s our brokenhearted Virginia? I’m willing to bet Gem against Bouncer that she’s gone out for the evening with young Lovell.’

Katrina twiddled her glass and went red. ‘She needs comfort,’ she observed.

‘Rubbish, and you know it. Tell me, what are your plans? Am I to be ignored in future? Is the whole silly affair to be decently forgotten and a return made to the status quo, or do we speak to each other in private?’

She raised serious eyes to his. ‘You know quite well that I could never hate you, Lucius, we’ve grown up together, we’ve been like brother and sister, but I don’t want to be friends any more; maybe you weren’t serious about Virginia, but you’ve hurt her deeply, and I can’t forgive that.’