Read Online Lace II by Shirley Conran - Free Book Online

sin!”
    “Maxine may be a bit of a prig, but she certainly knows about sin—and humiliation. Her husband, Charles, finds other women … difficult to resist. Maxine felt humiliated for years until one day she couldn’t take it any longer. Crunch point. Separation. Judy flew over to France and had a colossal stand-up fight with Charles, pointing out that he was going to lose if he was idiot enough to let Maxine walk out on him. Since then, he seems too have toed the line. Judy can be a fierce little thing, when she believes she’s fighting for the right.”
    “What was my mother like when she was young?”
    “Brave, like a little drummer boy marching into war. Her father had gone bust in the depression and that made her determined to be successful. She always worked very hard. Unlike the rest of us, she had an iron discipline. The poor girl never even had time to learn to ski.”
    “And my father? What was he like?” Lili’s innocent question was the reason that she had invited Pagan to lunch. “What did he look like?”
    Damn, Pagan thought, I’m hopeless at fibbing, but I must make this sound good for Judy’s sake. She said, “He was—um—was very good-looking. He had black hair and aquamarine eyes, and beautiful manners. He was terribly shy, like most English boys.
    “Judy met him first, because he was a waiter learning hotel management at the Imperial, where Judy worked. He was like a brother to us and we all adored him—but he had eyesfor nobody but Judy.” Pagan didn’t add that, although Judy liked him, she simply didn’t feel sexually attracted to Nick. And if a girl doesn’t, she doesn’t. No matter how handsome, rich and eligible a boy was, if the chemistry wasn’t present, there was no use trying to force it. Poor darling Nick had been potty about Judy—when he left, he’d given her those two carved rosebud rings from Cartier, but, although Judy liked him, she had drawn away from a physical relationship.
    “Judy said he was an orphan.”
    I’ll bet she did, thought Pagan. That meant that Judy would have no further questions from Lili to answer. “He charmed us all,” Pagan said. “Then he went to do his National Service as a soldier in Malaya, and the next thing we heard was that he’d been killed. We were heartbroken.”
    Lili did not miss the hesitancy in Pagan’s description, or the overcarefulness of her speech, so unlike Pagan’s normal careless frankness. So there is something more to find out, Lili thought, mechanically brushing toast crumbs off her white leather trousers. “Was Judy … er … popular with boys when she was a student?”
    “Judy? She worked so hard that she hardly had time for dates. Why do you ask, Lili?” Attack is the best method of defense, Pagan thought, returning Lili’s velvet-brown gaze.
    She’s challenged me, Lili thought, sensing the bond between the four women, so strong it was almost tangible, an invisible wall between her and the last shreds of the mystery of her identity.
    “I suppose there was no doubt that Nick was my father?”
    There, I’ve said it, Lili congratulated herself.
    “I should think not.” Pagan’s tone was firm with a scandalized edge. Lili realized that she would get no further, as Pagan continued, “What happened to Judy could have happened to any one of us. We were all experimenting with life, we all had our first love affairs in Switzerland and we shared everything, so it seemed natural to us to share the responsibility for you, until Judy could afford to give you a home. But she was only earning a secretary’s salary when you disappeared.”
    “How did she start her business?”
    “She worked in public relations, and then Maxine pushed her into starting her own business. In fact, Chazalle wasJudy’s first client. It was rough for Judy with no experience, no reputation, and no money. She keeps quiet about it now, but she was twice evicted because she couldn’t pay the rent. She was almost as broke as the