Лорен Уиллиг - The Betrayal of the Blood Lily

When Colin hit the Times bestseller list, I’d be the first in line applauding.

Even leaving aside all the cloak-and-dagger stuff, there were practical problems on the horizon. Colin’s life was based three quarters in Sussex and one quarter in London, while I was due to return to Cambridge — the American one — in May.

But it was only February now. May felt a very long time away. I could deal with May when I got there. And in the meantime, I had extended visits with Colin both in London and Sussex, a grilled cheese and tomato sandwich on my plate, and a full cup of coffee in front of me, with free refills to come. Life was good. Life was very, very good.

It only seemed fair to pass some of the happiness along.

I beamed across the table at Colin’s sister, Serena, who was doing a very good job of toying with her salad without actually eating any of it. Next to her, Colin’s friend Martin was devouring his pasta Bolognese as though personally determined to eat enough for both of them.

That wasn’t exactly how I had planned for lunch to go when I decided to take Serena up as my personal project.

It wasn’t that Serena was frumpy or dowdy or any of the usual devices of those teen movies where the more popular girl takes on the plainer one and makes her into prom queen. When it came to sartorial sense, Serena was several steps ahead of me. She had that fragile thinness so beloved of fashion magazines and whoever those cruel people are who create designer jeans: long, elegant bones with only the bare rudiments of skin over them. Her hair was long and soft and shiny and naturally straight and her face had the sorts of interesting hollows one gets from weighing about twenty percent below one’s recommended body weight. She was the sort of girl whose hair never frizzes and whose skirt never gets rumpled.

She was also painfully shy, borderline anorexic, potentially bulimic, and a disaster when it came to dealing with men.

Not to put too fine a point on it, Serena was an emotional train wreck. She might be an aesthetically pleasing and sweet-natured train wreck, but those are the most dangerous kind. Their looks attract all sorts of bottom-feeding predators, while their innate gentleness of spirit makes it impossible for them to stand up for themselves (see bottom-feeding predators , above). Her last boyfriend, whom I had had the misfortune to meet, had been a classic example of the type. He had used her and dumped her, but not before taking the opportunity to deliver a few more completely gratuitous blows to Serena’s already tottering self-esteem.

Serena needed a massive ego boost. And I, in my infinite matchmaking wisdom, had decided that boost was Martin.

If you’re wondering why I was taking such a touching concern in my very recent boyfriend’s sister, I’d like to claim it’s because I’m such a nice person. And I usually do like to think of myself as at least a reasonably nice person — I don’t kick puppies or cut the tails off kittens, and when I remember to, I generally slip some spare change into the Salvation Army collection box. But in this case, my interest was less altruism than self-defense. There’s nothing like competing for your boyfriend’s attention with an emotionally needy sibling to make you feel like the worst sort of evil psycho-bitch.

I know, I know. We’re supposed to be glad when the men we’re dating show a proper sense of concern for their fellow family members. It shows a heartwarming sense of responsibility and says good things about their potential husbanding skills. In the short term, however, it’s a pain in the ass. It was not that I wished Serena ill. Quite the contrary. I wanted her to be as happy as I was, so that when Colin and I went to parties, I wouldn’t have to worry whether she was going to have a meltdown in the middle of it.

Easier said than done.

I looked across the table, where Serena and Martin were doing a pretty good impression of two strangers at a Tube station, shoulders a safe twelve inches apart, profiles carefully averted. God forbid any spontaneous eye contact might occur. From there it was just a slippery slope to conversation. And heaven only knew what that might lead to. Nothing less than the fall of the British Empire, I was sure. Oh, wait, that had already happened.

It had seemed like such a good idea at the time. Colin’s friend Martin was another of your common garden-variety emotional disaster areas. Just this past November, he had been dumped by the girlfriend he had met during his first week at University lo these many years ago. Martin was a broken man. From what Colin had said, I gathered that he was brilliant at accountancy, but after seven years of cohabitation, things like picking his own socks sent him into a full-blown panic attack.

Serena would choose lovely socks for him. After all, she worked in a gallery. After dealing with Degas and Renoir, the question of argyle or solid would be like a walk in the park. And it might, I had thought, be rather pleasant for each to have someone else to look after for a change. Serena could fuss over Martin and Colin wouldn’t have to keep fussing over her. It would be perfect.

Ha. It could have been perfect. I had forgotten that I was setting up two finalists in Britain’s Most Reserved Person contest. I bet they didn’t even talk to themselves in the mirror at home, much less to other people. At the moment, each was doing a fairly good job of pretending the other didn’t exist. My brilliant idea was tanking faster than the Hindenburg.

I didn’t even need to look over at Colin to read the I-told-you-so there. When I had broached the plan, his reply had been, manlike, “If anything were to happen between them, wouldn’t it just happen?”

Sometimes, guys just have no clue at all.

It was rather sweet, really. Adorably naïve, even. Our relationship had “just happened” in much the same way as the Treaty of Versailles had just happened, after months of plotting, scheming, maneuvering, and significant reversals.

Like I said, rather sweet really.

“So, Martin,” I asked, in the overly loud voice you use when asking friends’ children about school, “how is work going?”

“Not bad,” he said. It might have been the most positive statement I had ever heard him make.

“What is it exactly that you do?” I urged, leaning slightly forward in my chair and trying to feign an expression of interest in the hopes that it would inspire Serena to do the same. It inspired Serena to undertake a careful inspection of her arugula. “I’m not sure Colin’s ever told me.”

He told me. As my eyes glazed over, I wondered if that had really been quite the right technique. Asking an accountant to explain — in depth — what he does for a living isn’t the sort of move calculated to cause the impressionable to swoon. Not the right kind of swoon, at any rate. The arugula was far more interesting.

But perhaps Serena didn’t think so. As I snuck a peek at her averted face, her eyes suddenly lit up like the Fourth of July. A becoming hint of color bloomed in her cheeks and the hollows under her eyes didn’t seem quite so pronounced as usual.

I’d never seen anyone react that way to accounting principles before, but, hey, if it worked for Serena . . .

It wasn’t the accounting. Half-rising from her chair, Serena angled her wrist in a tentative wave. Martin petered to a belated stop. Scraping my chair around, I saw Colin’s friend Nick loping his way towards us.

“Hello, all,” said Nick, dragging up a chair from another table and plunking himself unceremoniously down into it. “How goes it?”

Our table was quite definitely meant for four — a cozy four — but that didn’t bother Nick. He cheerfully tilted backwards in his purloined chair, blocking the aisle.