After a quarter of an hour of rather dull chat, others began to arrive, and Millie relaxed slightly. In spite of the weather, the vast majority of her guests were within walking distance of her home, and those who weren’t had found various means of getting to her, regaling her with jokes about skis, snowshoes and a farmer’s tractor.

She laughed gaily, circulating, flirting, showing off her new dress and keeping glasses topped up, her eyes always on the lookout for one guest in particular.

*

He came just after nine-thirty.

Jasper Vander was the first to spot him, and swore softly under his breath. At only five-feet-six, Jasper often cursed his mother’s small frame, wishing that he’d inherited his father’s more manly five-feet-ten-inch stature instead. All through school he’d suffered jibes of ‘shorty’ and ‘pipsqueak’ and the chip on his shoulder was fast growing to boulder size.

Some of the more prescient adults who had been a part of his life might have wondered if his lack of inches was responsible for his rather nasty personality, but most people preferred not to contemplate him at all, and simply avoided him whenever possible.

Only his mother and his twin loved him. A fact that worried Jasper not one whit. He was clever, handsome and funny, and (best of all) came from money. Any one of those advantages would have been more than enough to enable him to carve a comfortable place for himself in the world that he was happy with.

He’d been head boy at school, (indulging in a few nasty tricks and using his old noggin had secured him that position of power), and captain of the cricket team, having a slender, graceful form that was almost balletic. And what he might have lacked in actual sporting talent, he’d more than made up for in aggression.

He was also quite a success with the opposite sex, having inherited his father’s black hair (not his mother’s awful red mop) along with the late George Vander’s large grey eyes and handsome, square-jawed face. He wore clothes very well, and spent almost as much on them as his mother did.

A sharp and funny wit earned him both approbation and condemnation in almost equal measure (depending on his audience) and he regarded either reaction as a victory.

Now, though, he was feeling not at all sanguine as he noted Terrence Parker’s arrival with a narrowing of his eyes and a snort that he hid by taking a sip from his cocktail glass. It contained something blue and was the latest fad, which he thought appropriate, since it tasted just like paraffin.

He watched as his twin also followed the latest arrival with her eyes. Juliet’s red-painted lips twisted into a predatory smile that made her brother almost laugh out loud. He could always count on good ol’ Jules to help him take down his prey.

*