any other, with troubles piled high upon his shoulders.
'Mrs Urquhart not here . . . ?'
'No,' he responded, brooding, until he seemed to realize he might have given the wrong impression. He looked up at her from his
glass of whisky. 'No, Sally. It's not that. It's never quite like that.' 'Then what?'
He shrugged slowly, as if his muscles ached from the unseen burden. 'Normally I'm not prone to self-doubt. But there are times when all you've planned seems to slip like sand between your fingers, the more you scrabble for it the more elusive and intangible it becomes.' He lit another cigarette, sucking the harsh smoke down hungrily. 'It has, as they say, been one of those fortnights.'
He looked at her silently for a long moment through the fresh blue haze which hung like incense in a cathedral. They were seated in the two leather armchairs of his study, it was past ten and the room was dark except for the light of two standard lamps which seemed to reach out and embrace them, forming a little world of their own and cutting them off from what lay in darkness beyond the door. She could tell he'd already had a couple of whiskies.
'I'm grateful for the distraction.'
'Distraction from what?'
'Ever the businesswoman!'
'Or gypsy. What's bothering you, Francis?'
His eyes, rims red, held her, wondering how far he should trust her, trying to burrow inside to discover what thoughts hid behind the coyness. He found not pools of feminine sentimentality but resilience, toughness. She was good, very good, at hiding the inner core. They were two of a kind. He took another deep lungful of nicotine; after all, what did he have to lose? ‘I was thinking of holding an election in March. Now I'm not. I can't. It will all probably end in disaster. And God save the King.'
There was no hiding the bitterness, or the genuine anguish of his appraisal. He had expected her to be taken aback, surprised by the revelation of his plans, but she seemed to show no more emotion than if she were studying a new recipe.
'The King's not standing for election, Francis.'
'No, but the Opposition are walking in his shadow, which is proving to be exceptionally long. What are we . . . eight points behind? And all because of one, naive ribbon cutter.'
'And you can't deal with the Opposition without dealing with the King?'
He nodded.
'Then what's the problem? You were willing to have a crack at him before Christmas.'
His gaze was rueful. 'I was trying to silence him, not slaughter him. And I lost. Remember? Over a simple, silly speech. Now his words have become weapons on the field of parliamentary battle and I can't discredit them without discrediting the King.'
'You don't have to kill him, just kill off his popularity. A public figure is only as popular as his opinion-poll ratings, and they can be fixed. At least temporarily. Wouldn't that do?'
He swilled another mouthful of whisky, staring hard at her body. 'O Gypsy, there is fire in your breast. But I have already taken him on once, and lost. I couldn't afford to lose a second time.'
'If what you say about the election is true, it seems to me you can't afford not to take him on. He's only a man,' she persisted.
'You don't understand. In an hereditary system the man is everything. You are all George Washingtons, you Americans.' He was dismissive, deep into his glass.
She ignored the sarcasm. 'You mean the same George Washington who grew to be old, powerful, rich - and died in his bed?'
'A Monarch is like a great oak beneath which we all shelter . . .'
'Washington was cutting down trees when he was a boy.'
'An attack on the Monarchy would turn the electorate into a lynch mob. Bodies - my body - swinging from the highest branches.'
'Unless you lopped off the branches.'
They were engaged in a verbal duel, thrust and parry, parry and thrust, automatic responses, using the honed edges of their intellects. Only now did Urquhart pause to reflect, and as his eyes ran over her she could feel the tension begin to drain from him, the malt beginning to dissolve the shards of glass grating inside. She felt his gaze wandering up from her ankles, over her knees, admiring the waist. Then he was lingering at her breasts, oh, and how he lingered, peeling off layer after layer, and she knew the mellowness had already been replaced by a renewed tightening inside. He was