Chapter 7

"What was he like, Julia? This knife thrower - can he be trusted. Is he any good?"

"Not a shadow of a doubt. Not the faintest possible shadow of a doubt. Not a shadow of a doubt whatever my dear Beatrice! I watched him perform for two solid bloody hours and he didn't miss once! He can place a knife a millimetre away from the body and never touch it once. He can throw them, one under the last and leave a perfect vertical line of knives. I did a session with him - stark bloody naked as I will be on the great day - and he pronounced me the best, coolest and most unflinching partner he'd ever had! That part of the mid morning and afternoon is no problem. Giles is a honey for coming up with that suggestion - I love him more and more all the time! And he'll make me a Lady one day - lovely dear boy!"

"I'm glad about that sweetheart! But, my love, I'm so terribly worried that the villagers are going to do something horrible to you. I keep hearing whispered conversations between various women that break off when I am in earshot. Some of those girls are insanely jealous of us both and especially you because their boy friends prefer us to them. And that cow Jenkinson (do you know? I heard the most amazing rumours about her and a dog - horrible!) I'm sure she has something nasty in mind - and that loathsome Colonel - what Uncle sees in him, I can't imagine!"

"Of course they all have it in for me, my darling. This Fete is their big once in a lifetime chance for them all to take out their petty resentments on me. The hell with them all! I despise the whole lot damned lot of them and with very good reason and they know it! I can't wait to find out what they propose to do! They don't scare me! In fact, if they try anything, they are the ones who need to be frightened - very, very frightened indeed - I promise you that! And I know about the dog - I know a whole lot about that! I'll show you just what later."

"Darling Julia! Please be careful!"

"Course I will, my love! Now let's go into the wood and be really nice to each other in ways that dear old Giles and Piers can't even begin to think about - poor buggers!"

An earnest and increasingly desperate Mrs Jenkinson was deep in conversation with the increasingly irritable Brigadier. They stood in the drawing room of Fosse Hall and watched the two nude girls walking hand in hand, and talking animatedly, towards their beloved wood.

"I really think this Pagan Sacrifice idea will be terribly popular, my dear Charles. I'm so disappointed Julia will not consider being the victim - she would come to no harm, I promise you - just be tied down on a stone slab for a few hours. She has just the face and figure for it - such a perfect body with those amazing breasts - I can't ever get over their firmness! It would be delightful to see her squirming and struggling as the hour of sacrifice approached - such a splendid actress, dear Julia! I really am very saddened at her lack of public spirit!"

The Brigadier bridled both at the wretched woman's persistence in the matter of a humiliation for his niece that neither he nor Julia would ever countenance and even more at her unwelcome familiarity in using his Christian name - he was a stickler for protocol.

"I'm sorry, Mrs Jenkinson, but Julia is quite adamant on that score. She has agreed to be naked for the entire day - somewhat reluctantly - she will perform as a gymnast and take part in a knife-throwing act and consider any other proposals ether before or on the day. She will NOT submit to the indignity you keep proposing and that is final. And if you will excuse me, dear lady, I am rather busy - several meetings to attend in Town - I bid you good day."