Country Wives Read Free Page B

directly in the face, she said, “Our income is my business. It cost an arm and a leg to set up this place. If the practice fails, so too do we.” In profile Dan saw that Letty’s nose was longer and sharper than any he’d seen in a long time. Unfulfilled, that was her trouble. Then he smiled inwardly at his assumption, or thought he had.
    “It’s amusing, is it?”
    Insulted by Letty’s thinking he was not taking the matter seriously enough, Dan answered her sharply, “No, it is not.”
    “Wait till Mungo’s taken in what’s happened. You’ll be out on your ear in no time at all.”
    Dan, growing angrier by the minute, asked her, “Shall I indeed?”
    She nodded her head vigorously. “If I have my way you will.”
    Exasperated by her rudeness, Colin said, “Please! Leave it, leave it.” By his tone it was obvious he knew she would ignore his protest.
    “I hadn’t realized you owned the practice.”
    Slightly taken aback by his directness, she paused a moment and then answered him, “I do have a large say in the matter but then money talks, doesn’t it?”
    “Are you always so unpleasant to people you don’t know?”
    “I beg your pardon?”
    “I said are you always so unpleasant to people you’ve never met before?”
    “Unpleasant? I believe in calling a spade a spade and so do you, judging by what you said to Lord Askew yesterday morning.”
    “I hadn’t realized you were there?”
    “I wasn’t. Colin told me.”
    “Ah!”
    Miriam called out for help in the kitchen from Mungo and asked Joy to seat everybody.
    In the general mêlée of Joy’s organizing everyone, Dan deftly separated himself from Letty and managed to find a seat next to Zoe. “Hello, Zoe, how are you?”
    “More to the point, how are you?” Lowering her voice, she added, “She really is the absolute limit. I don’t know how Colin puts up with her.”
    “He seems well laid back.”
    “One day the worm will turn, believe me. One can put up with so much and then …”
    “Water?”
    Zoe nodded. Dan poured her a glass of water, and wishing not to become involved too deeply in practice politics, he asked, “Are you hoping to come back to work after the baby?”
    “Of course.”
    “How will you manage?”
    “My mother lives with me. Between us we shall cope.”
    Dan hesitated. “I hadn’t … I didn’t know…”
    “There’s no need to tiptoe delicately around the matter, I’m unmarried and intend staying so, this”—she waved vaguely in the direction of her bump—“is a momentary blip.”
    “I see. That’s a new word for a baby. Blip.”
    “I hear a hint of disapproval. You can disapprove as much as you like. I don’t really care.”
    “I’m old-fashioned enough to believe that two are better than one where babies are concerned.”
    “There will be two. My mother and I.”
    They were interrupted by the soup arriving.
    Miriam came to sit down and put herself out to make him feel comfortable. She was an astute and caring hostess and a thoughtful conversationalist, and after a few minutes of hercompany, Dan dismissed his clashes with Zoe and Letty as more a misfortune on their part than his.
    “Where were you working before you came here, Dan?”
    “Here and there. In the the Gulf, the Caribbean, in the States. But now I’m home for good.”
    “You mean in England for good.”
    Dan nodded. “That’s right.”
    “Good, I’m glad. There comes a time when gadding about all over the place is just not enough anymore, and one longs to put down one’s roots. Is that how you feel?”
    There was a slight hesitation, then Dan answered firmly, “It is.”
    “That’s lovely. I am pleased. Is the flat all right? I paid a company to clean it and everything; they’re usually very good. If there is anything you’re short of let me know. The flat is my particular charge, you see, so any problems, see Miriam.”
    Dan, who had been about to reply, got beaten to it by Letty. “He won’t be here long enough to