Fancy Pants by Susan Elizabeth Phillips Read Free Book Online

wonderful
hostess." Francesca cast about for an example that would impress him.
"Do you know that Mummy did curry before absolutely anyone else thought
of it?"

"A legendary coup, princess, but before you exert yourself any further
in extolling your mother's virtues, don't forget that the two of us
despise each other."

"Pooh, she'll like you if I tell her to. Mummy does everything I want."

"I've noticed," he observed dryly. "However, even if you managed to
change your mummy's opinion, which I think highly unlikely, you won't
change mine, so I'm afraid you're going to have to cast your net
elsewhere for a father. I must tell you that even the thought of being
permanently shackled with Chloe's neuroses makes me shudder."

Nothing was going right for Francesca that evening, and she spoke
pettishly. "But I'm afraid she's going
to marry Giancarlo, and if she does, it'll all be your fault! He's a
terrible
shit, and I hate him."

"God, Francesca, you use the most awful language for a child. Chloe
should spank you."

The storm clouds gathered in her eyes. "What a beastly thing to say! I
think you're a shit, too!"

Varian tugged on the legs of his trousers so he wouldn't crease them as
he knelt down beside her. "Francesca, my cherub, you should consider
yourself lucky that I'm not your daddy, because if I were, I'd lock you
up in the back of a dark closet and leave you there until you
mummified."

Genuine tears stung Francesca's eyes. "I hate you," she cried as she
kicked him hard in the shin. Varian jumped up with a yelp.

The door of Corfu swung open. "Is it too much to request that an old
man be allowed to sleep in peace!" Sir Winston Churchill's growl filled
the passageway. "Could you conduct your business elsewhere, Mr. Varian?
And you, missy, get to bed at once or our card game is off for
tomorrow!"

Francesca scampered into Lesbos without a word of protest. If she
couldn't have a daddy, at least she could have a granddaddy.
    *  *  *
As the years passed, Chloe's romantic entanglements grew so complex
that even Francesca accepted the fact that her mother would never
settle on one man long enough to marry him. She forced herself to look
upon her lack of a father as an advantage. She had enough adults to
cope with in her life, she reasoned, and she certainly didn't need any
more of them telling her what she should or shouldn't do, especially as
she began to catch the attention of a bevy of adolescent boys. They
stumbled over their feet whenever she was near, and their voices
cracked when they tried to talk to her. She gave them soft, wicked
smiles just so she could watch them blush, and she practiced all the
flirtatious tricks she had seen Chloe use—
the generous laughter, the
graceful tilt of the head, the sidelong glances. Every one of them
worked.

The Age of Aquarius had found its princess. Francesca's little-girl
clothes gave way to peasant dresses with fringed paisley shawls and
multicolored love beads strung on silken thread. She frizzed her hair,
pierced her ears, and expertly applied
makeup to enlarge her eyes until they seemed to fill her face. The top
of her head had barely passed her mother's eyebrows when, much to her
disappointment, she stopped growing. But unlike Chloe, who still held
the remnants of a pudgy child deep inside her, Francesca never had any
reason to doubt her own beauty. It simply existed, that was all—just
like air and light and water. Just like Mary Quant, for goodness' sake!
By the time she was seventeen, Black Jack Day's daughter had become a
legend.

Evan Varian reentered her life in the disco at Annabel's. She and her
date were leaving to go to the
White Tower for baklava, and they had
just walked past the glass partition that separated the disco from
Annabel's dining room. Even in the determinedly fashionable atmosphere
of London's most popular club, Francesca's scarlet velvet trouser suit
with its padded shoulders gathered more than its share of attention,
especially since she had