Free The Daughter of Night by Jeneth Murrey

have to give a name and Mia would immediately connect Thalassis—money—Thalassis; her foster-sister was no fool, nor would she accept the money under those conditions—it would pull the curtains on Flo's going to the Swiss clinic.
    'And you think you've not known him long enough?' Mia asked judiciously. 'What are you going to do, have a trial run to see if you get on?'
    Hester was shocked by the realisation that at least one of her ideas about Mia was way off beam—her foster-sister might be said to be bordering on the permissive, but perhaps that was better than going into a Victorian spasm!
    'No-o,' she gazed at the tablecloth moodily, 'I thought I'd go away for a bit, sort things out—see if it's like the book says—"bigger than both of us". I know—ring Crispin's, but don't worry if they can't get hold of me straight away, in fact, unless it's an emergency don't bother to ring me, I'll keep in touch with you. How's that?'
    'Great!' Mia smiled. 'I'm glad to hear you're human after all. I suppose it was you winning that scholarship and going off to that posh school, you never seemed the same afterwards, no games in the park, no boyfriends… I know you always said it was because you had too much homework, but you never seemed as happy as you were before you went there. Be happy now, Hes.'

    Hester's wedding went off without a hitch—but then, as she told herself grimly, the simpler the wedding, the less likelihood of hitches, and this,
her
wedding, was simplicity brought to a fine point. Demetrios had sent the Rolls, plus a uniformed chauffeur to bring her to the register office, he'd met her on the steps of the building, pinned a spray of tawny yellow and green orchids to the shoulder of her cream linen two-piece, exchanged her necklet of leaves for a string of pearls— putting the near gold little ornament carelessly into his pocket—and then they had gone into the marriage waiting area.
    There were no guests, not even a friendly face—the witnesses were a couple brought out of the office staff, and their rather bored expressions made Hester think they'd seen it all before—too many times! She, who had been brought up in a tight community of friends and neighbours—all energetically enthusiastic and determined to make the most of any occasion, she couldn't help feeling let down. She'd been to a great many weddings—participated in the weeks of preparation beforehand, been a bridesmaid and whooped it up at receptions and the 'knees-ups' afterwards. Compared with even the poorest she'd known, this, her own, was incredibly drab—it didn't mean anything to her and she didn't feel married. When she and Demetrios emerged into the street once more, there was only the wide, heavy gold band on her finger to assure her it had all been real.
    'Smile!' Demetrios made it a warning whisper out of the corner of his mouth as they came down the steps after the pitiful ceremony, and she raised her eyebrows at the sight of a couple of photographers.
    'You arranged this?' she said without moving her lips which were stretched into a painful smile.
    'No.' The flashes went off and she blinked involuntarily. His hand was under her elbow and he steered her competently to the waiting car. 'Somebody must have been in during the week and read the notices—the gossip column writers keep an eye on things like that—looking for something worth printing. Those two have a scoop, although they won't be sure until the pictures have been processed and gone through the hands of the writers.'
    With a brusque nod, he dismissed the waiting chauffeur, who wandered off into oblivion, like a bit part player leaving the stage, and held the car door open for her.
    'Ugh!' Hester gave a little shiver of distaste and then comforted herself with the thought that neither Flo nor Mia would see tomorrow's papers. 'But newspaper photographs are always bad—I shan't be recognised, thank heavens!'
    'You seem ashamed of what you're doing.' Demetrios sounded