Knight To The Rescue

Audrey winced. Now she was well and truly in the soup.

Lavinia whirled to stare disbelievingly at her. ‘Really? Anyone we know?’

‘I’ve already asked that. She says not. A wealthy young playboy from the sound of things.’

‘But how would Audrey meet someone like that?’ Lavinia scoffed. ‘She never mixes in the social set around Sydney. Not that she shouldn’t. She just never bothers with that scene. Are you sure she’s telling the truth about all this? It all seems very odd.’

Audrey detested it when her father and Lavinia started talking around her. Normally, she either stayed unhappily silent or drifted away. But not this morning. ‘Why on earth would I lie, Lavinia?’ she challenged.

‘Why, indeed?’ the woman murmured.

‘I’m only too happy to tell you about Elliot. You only have to ask.’

Lavinia lifted her finely arched dark brows and walked indolently back to sit down with her coffee. ‘Well?’ she prompted. ‘Tell us, then. Where did you meet?’

Audrey swallowed, her newly discovered courage faltering. ‘I—er—I...’

The sardonic light in Lavinia’s black eyes forced Audrey to gather every available resource she owned. ‘We met at a party last Saturday night,’ she said, using Elliot’s own white lie to Russell. ‘Not the one just past. The weekend before.’

‘But you didn’t go out that night,’ Lavinia pointed out.

Audrey’s memory did a frantic data-search. Her father and Lavinia had gone out to a club that night. They hadn’t come home till after midnight and certainly wouldn’t have checked her room to see if she were in. Elsie was the only live-in servant and she always went to bed early.

Despite a pounding heart she managed a passably nonchalant shrug. ‘I wasn’t going to, but after you both went out an old schoolfriend of mine rang out of the blue and asked me to a flat-warming party. I’m certainly glad I went. Elliot’s a fascinating man.’

Lavinia was not about to let up. ‘If this Elliot’s so interested in you, why did he let you spend the whole of this last weekend moping in your room? Why didn’t he take you out?’

Audrey’s stomach was beginning to churn. ‘He went skiing. I...I didn’t want to go. I hate skiing.’

‘Looks like Audrey’s come up trumps at last,’ her father said, undeniably impressed. ‘Are we to hope for an announcement in the near future?’

Audrey blushed. ‘Really, Father. We’ve only just met.’

‘Fair enough. So when will he be back from skiing, this Elliot of yours?’

‘Today,’ she answered with astonishing glibness. There was no doubt lying came easier with practice. ‘Late this afternoon.’

‘Then you’ll be able to ring him tonight,’ Lavinia inserted smoothly, ‘and ask him to your party.’

‘Oh, but I...but surely...’

‘Come now, Audrey!’ Her father’s tone showed exasperation. ‘It’s quite permissable for a girl to ring a boy these days. And after all, it is your coming of age. I’m sure this young man won’t think you’re chasing him, asking him to a twenty-first.’

Audrey groaned silently. Next thing they’d both stand over her while she actually made the call.

‘Of course, if you don’t think this Elliot will come,’ Lavinia drawled.

Audrey stared at her stepmother. Strange, she’d always thought Lavinia liked her. But it was impossible to ignore the malicious gleam in those black eyes, or the smug sarcasm in her voice. It sparked a fierce determination Audrey hadn’t known was in her.

‘He’ll come,’ she bit out. ‘Don’t you worry about that.’

Lavinia’s smugness wavered and Audrey felt an uncustomary thrill of satisfaction. She’d get Elliot to come if it was the last thing she did. She’d beg. She’d bribe. And if all that failed she’d lie her teeth out.

It was amazing how ten hours’ delay could undermine one’s resolve. By the time Audrey reached for her bedside phone early that evening her hand was literally shaking. Snatching it back, she sank down on her quilt and stared once again at the open telephone directory on her pillow, at the circled name.

KNIGHT E H. The only E Knight in the book living in the suburb of Avalon. It had to be him.

Taking another fortifying breath and trying to steady her hand, she reached for and picked up the phone, punching in the numbers with sharp, staccato movements. The nerve-racking brr-brr started on the other end of the line.

Would he be home at six on a Monday night? Audrey thought anxiously as the ringing continued. She had reasoned he should be. It was too early to go out to dinner and late enough to have come home if he’d gone out for the day. It was dark at six in July in Sydney, winter well and truly set in. With each successive ring, her agitation increased. One part of her wanted him to answer. The other hoped he’d gone to Switzerland for the rest of the winter.

On the seventh ring, someone answered.

Audrey held her breath.

A male voice repeated the number she had just rung.

She expelled the held breath in a rush. ‘El...Elliot?’

There was a short sharp silence that sent Audrey’s tension up and off the scale.

‘Audrey? Is that you?’ he questioned with a manner that suggested he was not pleased she had rung.

This was no less than she had expected. ‘Yes, it’s me,’ she said, and fell painfully silent.

‘Well?’ he prodded at last. ‘What can I do for you?’ His tone was cool and she suddenly realised she was about to make a big fool of herself. Yet to fail was unthinkable. She just couldn’t face Lavinia with the news that Elliot wasn’t coming.

‘I...I have this problem.’

‘Yes?’

God, he wasn’t making it easy for her, was he?

More feelings of pre-emptive failure flooded in, totally swamping her. He was going to say no. Why should she humiliate herself by asking in the first place?

Her heart turned over in wild desolation. If only she were beautiful and sexy. If only Elliot wasn’t rich, and needed her money—like Russell. If only there were some way she could make him genuinely want to come.

‘You...you said I could call if I needed help.’

‘Yes?’

‘I...I do.’

‘In what way?’

Audrey took a deep breath. And the plunge. ‘Remember I mentioned I was turning twenty-one soon? Well, it’s this Friday and Lavinia has organised a special dinner party for me that evening here, at home. I was going to bring Russell, you see, and now I don’t have anyone to be my date and I thought that...that... Well, I hoped you might fill in in Russell’s absence.’

She held her breath and waited for his answer.