Tied Up in Tinsel Read Online Free

did.”
    “Reserved for Cressida Tottenham by Agatha Troy.”
    “I see.”
    “She really is a lovely creature,” Hilary said with an obvious attempt at impartial assessment. “You just wait. She’s in the theatre, by the way. Well, I say
in
. She’s only just in. She went to an academy of sorts and thence into something she calls Organic-Expressivism. I have tried to point out that this is a bastard and meaningless term but she doesn’t seem to mind.”
    “What do they do?”
    “As far as I can make out they take off their clothes, which in Cressida’s case can do nothing but please, and cover their faces with pale green tendrils, which (again in her case) is a ludicrous waste of basic material. Harmful to the complexion.”
    “Puzzling.”
    “Unhappily Aunt Bed doesn’t quite approve of Cressida, who is Uncle Flea’s ward. Her father was a junior officer of Uncle Flea’s and was killed in occupied Germany when saving Uncle Flea’s life. So Uncle Flea felt he had an obligation and brought her up.”
    “I see,” Troy said again.
    “You know,” he said, “what I like about you, apart from your genius and your looks, is your lack of superfluous ornament. You are an important piece from a very good period. If it wasn’t for Cressida I should probably make advances to you myself.”
    “That really
would
throw me completely off my stroke,” said Troy with some emphasis.
    “You prefer to maintain a detached relationship with your subjects.”
    “Absolutely.”
    “I see your point, of course,” said Hilary.
    “Good.”
    He finished his muffin, damped his napkin with hot water, cleaned his fingers, and walked over to the window. The rose-embroidered curtains were closed, but he parted them and peered into the dark. “It’s snowing,” he said. “Uncle Flea and Aunt Bed will have a romantic passage over the moors.”
    “Do you mean — are they coming tonight —?”
    “Ah, yes. I forgot to tell you. My long-distance call was from their housekeeper. They left before dawn and expect to arrive in time for dinner.”
    “A change in plans?”
    “They suddenly thought they would. They prepare themselves for a visit at least three days before the appointed time and yet they dislike the feeling of impending departure. So they resolved to cut it short. I shall take a rest. What about you?”
    “My walk has made me sleepy, I think. I will, too.”
    “That’s the north wind. It has a soporific effect upon newcomers. I’ll tell Nigel to call you at half-past seven, shall I? Dinner at eight-thirty and the warning bell at a quarter past. Rest well,” said Hilary, opening the door for her.
    As she passed him she became acutely aware of his height and also of his smell, which was partly Harris tweed and partly something much more exotic. “Rest well,” he repeated and she knew he watched her as she went upstairs.
    She found Nigel in her bedroom. He had laid out her ruby-red silk dress and everything that went with it. Troy hoped that this ensemble had not struck him as being sinful.
    He was now on his knees blowing needlessly at a brightly burning fire. Nigel was so blond that Troy was glad to see that his eyes were not pink behind their prolific white lashes. He got to his feet and in a muted voice asked her if there would be anything else. He gazed at the floor and not at Troy, who said there was nothing else.
    “It’s going to be a wild night,” Troy remarked, trying to be natural but sounding, she feared, like a bit part in
The Corsican Brothers
.
    “That is as Heaven decrees, Mrs. Alleyn,” Nigel said severely and left her. She reminded herself of Hilary’s assurances that Nigel had recovered his sanity.
    She took a bath, seething deliciously in resinous vapours, and wondered how demoralizing this mode of living might become if prolonged. She decided (sinfully, as no doubt Nigel would have considered) that for the time being, at least, it tended to intensify her nicer ingredients. She drowsed