Page 22 of Amber's Fall

“Now tell me what you really think,” he replied, leaning close and whispering. “Personally, I think thisbigging up an egois a load of bollocks.”

He leaned back in his chair before I could reply. I opened my mouth to speak, but quickly shut it again. However, I couldn’t stop the giggle that escaped.

He gave me a wink.

I daren’t look at Andrew. Starters were brought around and placed in front of us. “Would you like some wine?” Mr. Morgan asked. I nodded.

I knew Andrew was looking at me, but I kept my gaze on my plate. Eventually I heard her speak to him and she diverted his attention. I breathed out.

“Amber?”

I looked at Mr. Morgan who held aloft a bottle of wine.

“Oh, yes, please, that would be nice.”

He poured into my glass, and then his own. He then placed the bottle back on the table without offering to fill Andrew’s. Not that it was needed, the female was busy filling up his wine and water glasses.

“So, tell me a little about yourself? I heard you work with an old friend of mine,” Mr. Morgan said.

He had my attention, then. “Bill?”

He nodded and smiled. He had a kind face, sparkling blue eyes. “Bill and I were at school together. Our granddads were all in the workhouse at the same time, so legend has it.”

“The workhouse?”

“Yes, those shitty places kids went to if they had no parents or were poor. Back in the thirties, I believe.”

“The thirties?”

“Nineteen-Thirty-Nine. You’ve heard of the workhouses, I take it?”

“Of course. I have a geography degree, social economics through British history was one of my specialities.”

“An educated woman, I bet Andy doesn’t like that,” he said, chuckling into his glass as he raised it to his lips.

I didn’t know how to respond and was only glad that Andrew seemed engaged in a whispered conversation with the female.

“Dare I ask, you don’t like Andrew?”

He laughed. “Does anyone? Do you, even?”

I blinked rapidly. I really didn’t like the way the conversation was heading.

“I’m sorry. That was rather crass of me, and it was meant to be a joke. He’s an ambitious young man, who knows what he wants and how to get it.”

That was a rather polite way of saying he’d gotten the measure of the real Andrew, not the one lording it up at the dinner table with, I suspected, his mistress by his side. Call it female intuition, but the minute I caught the glances between Andrew and the female, I knew there was something more to their ‘relationship.’

“Yes, he is, and does.”

“He want’s my job, I believe.”

“That can’t have been fun to hear, Mr. Morgan,” I replied.

He laughed. “He doesn’t have a chance and call me Daniel.”

He raised his glass to me, and I picked up mine. I shifted my eyes to Andrew to make sure he wasn’t looking before I clinked.

We then ate our starters, I chatted to some others on the table, ate our mains, and refused more wine.

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