Free The Damascened Blade by Barbara Cleverly Page B

face. Wielding quite a lot of influence, they say. Could be the makings of a commercial alliance there. “Coblenz-Rathmore Inc?” Must put that idea – among others, of course – into her head!’
    ‘Ha! Ha!’ thought Betty, reading his mind. ‘He can’t be bothered to make conversation with his hostess – other fish to fry. I’ve got a jolly good mind to take him boringly one by one through the twenty-five runs James made in Peshawar last month. That’d show him!’
    She considered that Lily, seated between two seriously attractive men, had drawn the jackpot. Joe, on Lily’s left, slightly battered, alluringly bemedalled, had, Betty decided, the sweetest smile she had ever seen. And, on Lily’s right, the seductive Zeman. ‘Two strong men stand face to face though they come from the ends of the earth,’ Betty quoted vaguely from a Kipling poem. At least they were not face to face with Lily between them but near enough.
    Betty had relaxed somewhat on welcoming the two women to the table. Both had taken up her suggestion that they should wear a long frock. She herself was setting the tone in a modestly cut Liberty lawn summer dress, not exactly evening wear but voluminous enough to sit in comfort at least. Lily was looking as demure as she could manage (which was not very), beautiful and animated, but entirely proper and unprovocative in a green chiffon dress and simple pearl necklace. She sat on her cushion, her heels tucked up tidily beneath her, her back straight, as though she dined like this every day of her life.
    Grace was wearing the dress Grace always wore, a nononsense maroon silk with a necklace of jet beads. Thank God for Grace Holbrook! Completely at ease, socially competent, eating everything offered to her, changing effortlessly from Pushtu to Hindi and from Hindi to English and back again, completely aware of the approval of the whole dinner table and, thought Betty loyally, lucky to have James next to her on one side and perfectly able to make conversation with the chattering Fred Moore-Simpson on the other. ‘I’ll be like that when I’m a bit older,’ she decided enviously.
    The only incongruous note at the table was Iskander Khan. Betty eyed him critically. Yes, perhaps she had made a mistake with Iskander. It had been wrong to seat him next to the unattractive Rathmore whom she thought unlikely to make the slightest attempt to conceal his intentions which were simply to find a way into Afghanistan and, more or less, buy up everything of any possible value and replace it with shabby trade goods mixed in with a few obsolete rifles. The passionately nationalist Iskander would have little to say to him. Little indeed to say to his neighbour on the other side. As far as Betty understood it, Fred’s general idea was that the proper way to keep peace on the frontier was to advance British interests deep into tribal territory and keep them there through the influence of rapid deployment of a squadron of light bombers. Perhaps she had made a bad mistake in seating him next to a potential target! But then, thought Betty, noticing the two deep in animated and not unfriendly conversation, effectively, strip aside the voice and the clothes and they were really very similar. With their positions reversed, Iskander would passionately welcome the opportunity of dropping bombs on Fred Moore-Simpson. And there they sat, each wrapped in his tribal habits and each perfectly understanding the other. And not dissimilar in appearance, Betty decided, comparing Fred’s elegant figure, neat moustache and sleek fair hair not unfavourably with the exotic Iskander.
    Her eye roamed to the head – or was it the foot? – of the table and rested on the lamp-lit red curls and humorous blue eyes of James Lindsay. ‘My husband,’ she thought. ‘The best! Not the handsomest but certainly the best! There he sits. Well, I know who’s the lucky girl at this table! He looks jolly tired though. I’ll be glad when he’s