Read Online Necessary as Blood by Deborah Crombie - Free Book Online Page B

those dreadful off-the-peg trouser suits you wear.‘
    Melody had a runner‘s calves, a legacy of her public-school days and the jogs she still managed round Hyde Park when work allowed, but she thought the muscles just made her look chunkier and did her best to cover them up.
    ‘And for heaven‘s sake, do something with your hair,‘ her mother had added, kissing her on the cheek. ‘I‘m sure Bobby can squeeze you in.‘
    And so Melody had slunk into one of the smartest salons in Kensington on a Saturday afternoon, emerging an hour later freshly shorn, but feeling she‘d won a small victory by having refused even the most discreet of highlights. Her thick, glossy brown hair, kept in a chin-length bob, was one of her few vanities.
    Now, she gave another defiant tug at the neckline of her dress and scowled at her mother. But her mum merely twinkled back at her, and Melody felt her mouth relax into an unwilling smile. It was almost impossible to stay irritated with the Lady Athena Talbot, née Hobbs. Since childhood she had been known simply as Attie, and Melody doubted she‘d ever encountered anyone, male or female, who had not been instantly smitten.
    Willow-slender, Attie ‘Rilbot moved like a girl, and could still turn the heads of men half her age. The unfortunate Quentin was, in fact, ogling her, and Melody was tempted to kick him under the table.
    Her father, however, was as adept at reading signals as Melody. He reached over and patted her mother‘s hand, in the process flashing Quentin a smile with just a hint of shark beneath its avuncular surface.
    Quentin flushed and looked away. Point for the old man, Melody thought — territory duly marked, peon put in his place. Her father did subtlety very well.
    As a teenager, she‘d enjoyed the fantasy that her father had married her mother for her money, but even then she‘d known it for a lie, concocted to salve her own jealousy. You had only to see the way they looked at each other, still — stomach-turning, really. Her mother‘s money and title had simply been a bonus. Her father, a grammar-school boy from a Newcastle council estate, had possessed the intelligence, the drive and, above all, the ambition to succeed on his own merits.
    And succeed he had, the single thorn in his life being his uncooperative only daughter.
    ‘Melody‘s in police work,‘ he said now, having chosen the wine.
    ‘File clerk,‘ Melody countered hurriedly, manufacturing what she was sure was a ghastly smirk. ‘Toiling in the basement and all that.‘
    ‘Notting Hill,‘ her mother put in helpfully. ‘And of course you don‘t toil in the basement, darling. Don‘t be silly. She has quite a nice flat there,‘ she added for Quentin‘s benefit.
    ‘Really?‘ Quentin eyed her with a bit more interest. ‘Some nice clubs round there. I — um...‘ He seemed to realize that admitting to clubbing might not be the most appropriate way to impress the boss. ‘Pubs,‘ he amended. ‘I had drinks at the Prince Albert the other day. With some mates.‘
    Melody wasn‘t about to tell him that she lived just down the road, but she had to say something to forestall her mother. ‘Bit nauseatingly yuppie, don‘t you think, the Prince Albert?‘
    ‘I — um. Yes, a bit, I suppose. But didn‘t like to refuse an invitation, you know.‘ The more Quentin floundered, the more he sounded like something out of a Wodehouse novel, and his eyes were taking on a deer-in-the-headlamps glaze.
    Melody actually found herself feeling a bit sorry for him. He might not be all that bad, but then, knowing her father‘s methods, she put aside any kind thoughts and probed a bit. ‘Frobisher. Would that be the Derbyshire Frobishers?‘ she asked, having no idea if there were any Derbyshire Frobishers.
    ‘No. Hampshire,‘ said Quentin.
    ‘Quentin‘s father publishes several county magazines,‘ explained her father. ‘Quentin is getting a bit of work experience in London.‘
    Ah, Melody thought. That