“Wow!” he gasped as he came into the glistening sitting room. “You shouldn’t have gone to so much effort.” He put his arm around Mrs. Tilling in his chaotically warm way. “Thank you for coming, everyone!” He stepped forward to us. “Lovely to see you, Mrs. B., I thought you’d be far too busy giving someone what for. Have you persuaded Mr. Churchill to come and give the Chilbury WVS a speech yet? Bet he doesn’t know he has his top fan club here!”

Everyone laughed, and someone called, “He will do soon enough!”

David then turned to Venetia, taking her hand and kissing it. “And the beautiful Venetia, a last sight of you to cherish on my journey.” His eyes remained on her as his smile lurched wetly.

Venetia was all modesty, looking up at him with fluttering eyelashes and glossy red lips. “David, you’ll come back my hero,” she said in a voice breaking with tears. I wanted to laugh, until I met Mrs. Tilling’s sour look from across the room. We all know Venetia doesn’t care a farthing for David. I have no idea why she insists on playing stupid games with him.

Mrs. Tilling asked me to offer around a plate of rather chewy cheese straws (with so many rations no one ever knows what people put into recipes these days). So I mingled around, watching Henry, who was talking to a very pregnant Hattie. He was looking terrifically handsome with his sandy hair cropped and his pristine RAF uniform. His new mustache is devilishly dashing, like all the best fighter pilots. It makes his nose look a little less beaky, I think. And he looks older, too, even though he’s already nineteen—a real man, someone who’ll know how to take care of me. He didn’t seem to notice me watching, until Hattie drew me over to join them.

“What a gorgeous dress, Kitty,” she said, fingering the fabric. “Don’t you think so, Henry?”

“Yes indeed. You look lovely, Kitty,” he said, grinning, and I found myself dissolving into his eyes. But then he added, “You’ll follow in your sister’s footsteps soon and become quite the beauty.” His eyes swept over to Venetia, who was holding forth in a crowd of men beside the piano. Why does she feel she has to get the attention of every man in the room, including Henry, when she’s not even interested in any of them?

“I don’t want to look like her,” I said, annoyed, making him look back to me. “I want to be a beauty in my own right.” I felt Hattie let out a sigh, I have no idea why.

“Of course you’re a beauty in your own right, Kitty!” Henry declared jovially, putting his hand warmly on my upper arm and giving me a special smile. I felt a surge of heat where he touched me, like a flame lighting up my body. I waited for him to take me in his arms—

But suddenly I felt his attention melt away—Venetia was approaching. Her dress fluttered as she twirled from one man to the next, like a dazzling dragonfly soaring around in search of prey. Her blond hair hung low over her pearly white shoulders, while a stream of pungent perfume oozed from her soft, white neck. Henry’s hand lost contact with my arm, which suddenly felt cold and lost, and when I looked up at him, he had turned to face her.

“Come and sit down with me, Henry darling, and tell me all about your bombing raids,” she chanted loudly, scrolling her fingertips under his chin and softly directing his mouth toward her carefully painted lips. “I hear you’ve been fighting over Norway.”

“I thought you were busy with the other men,” he said under his breath.

“They don’t mean a thing to me,” she said, pouting. Then she leaned her head to one side, her thick blond hair forming a shimmering curtain to conceal her from the rest of the room, and she whispered something into his ear, her long red fingernails barely touching the other side of his neck.

He responded by whispering something back, his hand moving her hair back as his lips hovered closely to her ear.

A man’s voice called her from the other side of the room, and she pulled away.

“I’ll have to think it over,” she said, a menacing gleam in her eyes, and spun off into the throng. Henry followed briskly, calling her name. “Venetia!”

And me? I was abandoned, alone, in the middle of the room, mutely holding the plate of cheese straws in my hand. How could she do this to me? And why did he follow her? Doesn’t he know that she’s using him, that she says he’s boring and his nose is like a giant wart? Doesn’t he know she doesn’t care a toss about anyone except herself, lining up the men to prove she’s top? But worst of all, knowing how I love him, she revels in keeping him away from me, another of her little tricks at keeping everyone else beneath her, preening over us like she’s some kind of vicious queen. It’s not fair.

She snaked her way through the throng to Mr. Slater, who was looking as impeccable as ever, his dark hair smoothed, a detached manliness about him making David and his friends look like half-wit schoolboys. Venetia’s been fanatically trying to get his attention, but he seems immune to her charms—possibly the first man ever. She’s stepping up her game, or else she’ll lose her bet with Angela. And Venetia always has to win. She calls herself the empress of this little place, and she is determined to keep it that way.

I wandered over to Daddy, who had dragged himself away from his office and was looking ferociously at Venetia, with Mrs. B. prattling away beside him. He wants Venetia to marry Henry and inherit Brampton Hall, which is just plain ridiculous. I simply can’t imagine them together, and even more horrible is the thought of Henry being my brother-in-law. Whenever we’d see each other, the tension would be insurmountable. But we would never give way to our secret passions, holding them inside like tragic lovers. Perhaps there’d be the occasional moment when we’d meet on the veranda. “Oh, Kitty,” he’d say, surprised to see me. “Henry, I didn’t think you’d be here—” I’d reply, looking at the ground, then back toward the open French door, a white drape spilling out in the soft summer breeze. “Nor I. I just have to say—” “No, don’t, Henry. Don’t make things harder.” “But Kitty, darling,…” and so forth, until one of us dies.