Page 42 of A Summer Scandal

He looked for a second as if he genuinely couldn’t remember.

‘Oh. Yes, Beau needs to know where Keris wants him to put the display cage she asked him to make for the shop. We’ve just carted it out of his unit and he’s waiting for you to tell him where to put it.’

Keris frowned. ‘Er, I’m not sure. I’ll come and look.’

‘Like that?’ Cal said, dubious.

Keris looked down at the corset laughing, her boobs frothing over the top of it. ‘Why not? It’s not as if I’m not covered up. Besides, I love it. I might make it my new uniform, really give people something to talk about.’

They trailed through the birdcage to the shop at the front and found Beau sitting on the new cage chatting to Melvin and Linda about the fetish scene.

‘Ah, there you all ar—’ Beau stood up and looked at them, and then he opened his eyes wider than should have been strictly anatomically possible. Violet preened, secretly thrilled that her corset was clearly having an effect on everyone who saw it. It helped that Keris wore it well; confident and sassy with hourglass curves and generous boobs.

‘What?’ Keris said, pretending she had no clue what was wrong with the big American. ‘Did you want me for something?’

‘Shut your mouth Beau, you’re going to catch flies,’ Violet said.

‘Beau here was just filling us in on the different styles of cages he makes,’ Melvin said, as if he hadn’t even noticed the fact that Keris was wearing anything out of the ordinary.

‘Where do you want me to put it?’ Beau said, looking somewhere over Keris’s shoulder rather than in the eye.

Keris put her hands on her hips and surveyed the entrance space of the birdcage. ‘Over there, I think?’

‘I’m thinking of having the coffee machine put there,’ Violet interjected.

Keris fell silent, thinking. ‘Here then?’ she said, gesturing to a spot on the other side of the entrance doors. ‘I want it to have impact when people come in, really showcase Beau’s workmanship.’

Vi didn’t miss the twin spots of colour that had appeared above Beau’s beard.

‘Okey dokey,’ he muttered. ‘Let’s move this baby. Cal, give me a hand to lift it?’

The two men lifted it between them, snagging Beau’s T-shirt with a loud rip. He put it down again sharpish and looked down; his T-shirt looked as if he moonlighted as the Hulk.

‘Jeez,’ he muttered. ‘I liked this one.’

Resigned, he picked up his end of the cage again and then shuffled it across into place.

‘Careful, the door’s swinging open,’ Violet said, too late because the ornate key Beau had fashioned for the lock fell out.

‘Grab that, will you?’ Beau puffed, as he and Cal positioned the heavy cage down by the doors.

Violet lunged for it but it skittered away across the boards of the pier. Terrified it was going to go down between the wooden slats into the sea below, she crawled quickly across towards the cage. The key had gone through the bars, so she opened the door and crawled in, reaching for it carefully in case it fell.

‘Don’t let it fall,’ Beau said, squatting down, rubbing his beard.

Vi got her fingertips to it, and as feared, the ornate black jailer’s key slid out of reach between the boards.

‘Shit,’ she muttered, peering down the gap. ‘I’m terrified it’s going to fall through. Have you got a hook or something? It needs something delicate to go through the pattern, my fingers will knock it out.’

Cal disappeared in search of something suitable, leaving Violet on all fours in the cage, Keris bending over her in the feather corset.

Andthatwas the precise moment Lady Mayoress Gladys Dearheart chose to walk through the door, a cameraman with her from the local paper snapping away with furious delight.

CHAPTER TWELVE

‘This should do it,’ Cal said, walking back through from his workshop with a thin metal rod, then coming to an almost comical halt as he took in the sight of his mother framed in the doorway staring at Violet through the bars of the cage and Keris trying to hide behind Beau’s bulk in her feather dancing girl kit.

‘What in God’s name is going on here?’ Gladys practically roared, thundering into the middle of the room. Swinging around to the photographer, she waved her arms, her briefcase perilously close to taking his camera out. ‘Get it all on film! Especially that girl in the cage like an animal! Good God, I thought I’d seen it all but this takes the biscuit!’

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