Read The Gatecrasher for Free Online

accounts.” Lambert stared at the phone in anger. Who did this tart think she was? “Another thing . . .”
    “What?” He was beginning to feel rattled.
    “I was interested to see that there’s no mention of the trust fund in your wife’s file here. Only in your own file. Is there a reason for that?”
    “Yes there is,” snapped Lambert, his guard down. “It’s not mentioned in my wife’s file because she doesn’t know about it.”

    The files were empty. All empty. Fleur stared at them in disbelief, flicking a few of them open, checking for stray documents, bank statements, anything. Then, hearing a noise, she quickly pushed the drawers of the metal cabinet shut and hurried over to the window. When Richard came into the room, she was leaning out, breathing in the London fumes rapturously.
    “Such a wonderful view,” she exclaimed. “I adore Regent’s Park. Do you often visit the Zoo?”
    “Never,” said Richard, laughing. “Not since Antony was little.”
    “We must go,” said Fleur. “While you’re still in London.”
    “This afternoon, perhaps?”
    “This afternoon we’re going to Hyde Park,” said Fleur firmly. “It’s all arranged.”
    “If you say so.” Richard grinned. “But now we’d better get going if we’re not going to be late for Philippa and Lambert.”
    “OK.” Fleur smiled charmingly at Richard and allowed herself to be led from the room. At the door she glanced fleetingly around, wondering if she’d missed something. But the only businesslike piece of furniture she could see was the filing cabinet. No desk; no bureau. His paperwork must all be somewhere else. At the office. Or at the house in Surrey.
    On the way to the restaurant, she allowed her hand to fall easily into Richard’s, and as their fingers linked she saw a tiny flush spread across his neck. He was such a buttoned-up English gentleman, she thought, trying not to laugh. After four weeks, he had progressed no further than kissing her, with dry, diffident, out-of-practice lips. Notlike brutish Sakis, who had dragged her off to a hotel room after their very first lunch date. Fleur winced at the memory of Sakis’s thick, hairy thighs; his barked commands. Much better this way. And to her surprise, she rather liked being treated like a high-school virgin. She walked along beside Richard with a smile on her face, feeling wrapped up and protected and smug, as though she really did have a virtue to protect; as though she were saving herself for that special moment.
    Whether she could wait that long was another matter. Four weeks of lunches, dinners, films and art galleries—and she still had no hard evidence that Richard Favour had serious money. So he had a few nice suits; a London flat; a Surrey mansion; a reputation of wealth. That didn’t mean anything. The houses might be mortgaged up to the hilt. He might be about to go bust. He might be about to ask
her
for money. It had happened to her once before—and ever since, Fleur had been wary. If she couldn’t find hard proof of money, she was wasting her time. Really, she should have been off by now. On to the next funeral; the next sucker. But . . .
    Fleur paused in her thoughts, and tucked Richard’s arm more firmly under her own. If she was honest with herself, she had to admit that her self-confidence had slightly fallen since she’d left Sakis. In the last few weeks she had attended three funerals and five memorial services—but so far Richard Favour was her only promising catch. Meanwhile Johnny and Felix, sweet as they were, had begun to get fidgety at the sight of her luggage littering their spare room. She didn’t usually spend so long between men (“resting,” as Felix put it); usually it was straight out of one bed and into another.
    If only, thought Fleur, she could speed Richard up a bit: secure a place in his bed; work her way into his household. Then she’d be able to assess his finances properly and at the same time solve the problem of a