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of the wines she had tried before but, although it had a pleasantly fruity flavour, she realised it was dangerously potent.
    ‘Why did it upset you so much?’ Rhona asked, sliding into the chair next to Megan’s and inching the seat closer. ‘Are you that much of a snob that cleaning is beneath you?’
    ‘I guess I must be,’ Megan agreed. ‘Why do you want someone cleaning house for you?’
    ‘Touché.’ Rhona grinned and gave Megan’s arm a lingering, if platonic, squeeze. ‘I’m a snob and cleaning is beneath me. I’ve been telling Charles that I’m not the only woman on this street who feels that way.’ She slipped her fingers away from Megan’s arm and sipped her wine. ‘I’m glad we’re of a like mind.’
    The conversation developed easily. Although Megan knew the couple by sight and the occasional nod of curt greeting, she had never spoken to either Grafton for such an extended period. Sipping her wine, and not complaining when Charlie ‘filled her up’, she found the pair were engaging, witty and nowhere near as pompous as she had expected.
    It was quickly obvious that Rhona Grafton was an out-and-out snob. She spoke with disdain about most of their neighbours, particularly Tanya Maxwell at number two and Tom at number one. But her bigotry was so constant and convicted that it came across as amusing rather than offensive.
    ‘I’m surprised no one’s reported him to the police,’ she said with a sniff as they talked about Tom. ‘I’ve seen him out there today, peering through his binoculars and rubbing at his lap. It’s absolutely obscene. His crotch must smell like a fisherman’s farts.’
    Megan almost choked as she tried not to splutter a mouthful of wine across the table. She appreciated Rhona’s genuine apology and the comfort of the woman’s hand on her back as she caught her breath and resumed her composure.
    Charlie didn’t voice the same superiority that dripped from his wife’s venomous tongue, but Megan soon understood he had a firm belief in his own authority. While he let his wife do the majority of the talking and appear to make decisions, Charlie was clearly the driving force behind the marriage.
    ‘You still haven’t explained why the letter caused you so much upset,’ Charlie said as he poured a third glass of wine.
    Although she could feel her good judgement clouding over, Megan didn’t believe she was out of her depth. The couple were unexpectedly warm and interesting. Not what she’d expected. After the amusing anecdotes and confidences they had already shared with her, she felt it was right to explain the nature of the misunderstanding that had led her to their door.
    ‘I thought you were propositioning me,’ she admitted.
    The couple were silent for an instant, then they began to laugh. ‘I told you I should have written that letter,’ Charlie declared.
    ‘You can’t write letters for shit,’ Rhona returned. ‘Your handwriting is appalling.’
    ‘I don’t write letters that sound like sexual propositions.’
    ‘Well, I didn’t think I did.’ Rhona clapped a hand over her mouth and stared at her husband. ‘My God! What if you’d had brains and delivered it to the right address? You don’t think we’d have Tanya Maxwell opposite us now, do you? Can you picture her, sitting there in one of her ghastly tracksuits and thinking we were up for a threeway?’
    Megan heard herself laugh but she wasn’t sure whether it was with amusement or horror. The conversation was more explicit than she would have expected of her prim and proper neighbours, and skated way beyond decency and her own sympathetic appraisal of poor Tanya. Megan had always considered herself fairly unshockable, but she realised she simply wasn’t used to discussing acquaintances in such brutal and uncompromising terms.
    Charlie considered his wife’s remark for an instant and then shuddered as he drained his glass. ‘A threeway with Tanya Maxwell? That’s the scariest suggestion