Page 22 of Wife After Wife

“Lord, your Harry’s talking to Merry Lyebon,” said Heather, her eyes following Katie’s. “Red alert, Katie!”

“Who?”

“She’s just back from France. Married to Will McCarey, the whisky heir. Word has it theirs is an open marriage. Let’s hope she’s not telling your Harry that right now. Look at her, Katie. Brazen or what?”

Merry was indeed not holding back in her appreciation of whatever Harry was telling her. Her head was slightly to one side, her enormous eyes were wide, and her red lips slightly parted. She nibbled the bottom one in a way that screamed,Look, lips!She kept touching Harry’s arm, and her tinkling laughter reached Katie across the tables.

“Katie—off you go!” said Heather.

Neither Harry nor Merry noticed her as she stood in front of them. Time passed. Kingdoms probably rose and fell as she waited. Harry was a spaceship caught in the tractor beam of Merry’s big blue eyes.

The time she spent waiting gave Katie the unwelcome opportunityto view Merry at closer quarters. To her dismay, she was even more beautiful than she’d appeared from a distance. The rosy blush on her apple cheeks was almost certainly courtesy of nature rather than Estée Lauder. It was the sort of color that said,I am a little hot, a little excited, and it has nothing to do with the temperature in here. But while she was certainly hot, there was no trace of shine on her creamy complexion. Her eyelashes were the length of spider legs, and the final twist of the knife—the honey-blond hair looked natural.

“Harry?” Katie said finally.

He turned to her as if waking from a coma. “Oh, Katie. Hi. Um, this is Merry. Merry, Katie.”

Merry’s eyes were amused, cool.

“Hello. Harry, I thought we might dance, if Merry would excuse you?” She was aware of swaying slightly as she spoke.

“Katie, it’s Chris de bloody Burgh. Have a little compassion.”

“Good point,” said Katie, pulling up Cassandra’s vacant chair and sitting down rather suddenly. “The next dance, then? As long as it’s not Rick Ashley?”

“Astley,” corrected Merry, in a tone that told Katie how much younger than her she was. “By the way, I love your outfit. Everyone in Paris was wearing that shade... last year. But we’re always rather behind here, aren’t we?”

“Merry’s just come back from France,” said Harry.

“Oh, what were you doing there?” asked Katie, giving exactly zero damn about the answer.

“My husband’s in whisky, but we’re expanding into wine. Tough research, but someone’s gotta do it!”

Harry’s guffaw was entirely out of proportion to the cliché joke.

“I was at school with Will,” he said. “We called him Wilsky because of his family distillery.”

Merry’s peal of laughter set Katie’s teeth on edge. “I didn’t know that,” she said.

“Oh, it wasn’t for long. He had a new nickname by the sixth form,” said Harry, then shut his mouth abruptly, his smile evaporating.

“Which was...?” said Katie, smiling sweetly.

“I forget,” said Harry.

“Gordon?” prompted Merry, looking briefly sideways at Katie before returning her headlamp eyes to Harry’s.

“Yes, that was it!” said Harry, pointing upward as if God had sent him the answer.

“Why Gordon?” asked Katie.

“Um, because he’s Scottish, I think,” said Harry.

Chris de Burgh segued into Sinéad O’Connor’s “Nothing Compares 2 U.”

“Come on, Harry, come and darnsh,” said Katie, grabbing his hand.

“Sorry, better do as the missus says,” he said to Merry. “Catch you later.”