Honeycote by Veronica Henry Read Free Book Online

semi-clad at the breakfast table. Could she?
    He looked at Sophie instead.
    ‘God, I’d throw all my old clothes away tomorrow, if I could,’ she was saying fervently. ‘By the way, dad, you haven’t forgotten you’re taking us to Cheltenham? We need some serious retail therapy.’
    Why had he ever opened his mouth? He was supposed to be meeting Kay at two, to make up for that debacle the night before last. She’d arranged it specifically; she was twitchy about whether they’d been seen. He’d told her that she needed to toughen up a bit – she always found the danger of being caught a thrill, until it became a possibility. Never run away from the scene of the crime, he’d said, and if you get caught never admit to anything. A plausible excuse can always be found. She replied, rather tartly, that she wasn’t a seasoned adulterer like him. He’d have to go and placate her. He wouldn’t mention that Kelly had seen her. He didn’t know what Patrick had made of it – he didn’t have the mental energy to go down that path.
    ‘Are you all right, darling? You look ghastly.’ Lucy had managed to wheedle a cup of coffee from the machine and was handing it to him.
    ‘No, no – I’m fine. I’ve just got a heavy day ahead of me.’
    That was an understatement. A nightmare of a day. A meeting with Cowley at the bank: Mickey knew exactly what he was going to say, but he would have to sit there and listen to him say it because you had to play by the rules of people you were horribly in debt to. And now he was going to have to cancel Kay and go shopping with the girls in Cheltenham. He dimly remembered promising to buy them party outfits. Christ, how was he supposed to pay for those? He’d have to tell them no. Better three disappointed schoolgirls than one wrathful Kay. He tried to judge their reaction. Georgie was happily mashing a banana, her faith in her father implicit. Would she mind? She wasn’t as obsessed with her looks and her clothes as Sophie seemed to be, though he suspected it was only a matter of time. She was fifteen, bordering on that dangerous age when girls seemed to turn into sirens almost overnight, exposing flesh and slathering themselves in make-up in a determined effort to torture every male for miles around. Thankfully, trophies and cups seemed to be more important to Georgie than Wonderbras and lipstick, and Mickey hoped it would stay that way. Lacrosse matches he could cope with; hormones he couldn’t.
    Sophie, however, was a different matter. She was already looking at him anxiously, a hint of panic in her eyes.
    ‘You haven’t forgotten, have you, daddy?’
    He couldn’t do it; he couldn’t let her down. She’d lost half a stone this term and she was so proud. The layers of podge that Lucy had spent years reassuring her were just puppy fat really were finally melting away. Exquisite bone structure was emerging from her previously plump cheeks. His little duckling was becoming a swan, and she deserved the fine feathers to go with it.
    Kay would bloody well have to lump it.
    ‘Of course not. I’ll meet you here at half eleven.’
    Sophie whooped and hit the table in an American gesture of triumph that made the coffee cups rattle and Mickey wince. He couldn’t go back on his word now. He was always putty in the hands of his daughters. He looked at Sophie again, her eyes shining with excitement, and realized with sadness that at best he probably only had a couple more years of her to enjoy. She was only a few years younger than Lucy had been when he’d met her. He allowed himself to wonder who she’d meet and marry; how he’d feel about any of her suitors. He hoped darkly that none of them would turn out like him. A feckless, duplicitous wastrel. His daughter deserved better than that. Mind you, so did his wife.
    Mickey wished he could crawl back into bed and sleep off his indulgence, but it wasn’t an option. He’d better go and put a suit on. That way the bank would think he