Your dreaming, fancy-stricken sister,

Jo.

“Wotcher, Josephine, you’re looking pleased with yourself.”

It was a crisp Saturday morning in autumn, and Nigel-Manolete, coming out of a newsagent a couple of hundred yards above his shoe shop on Upper Street, fell into step with Emma, who was, in fact, feeling altogether pleased both with herself and with life in general. She had just been to the stationer’s on the particularly agreeable errand of placing the order for her wedding invitations, a set of plain but elegant cream-colored cards, stating simply that Emma and Matthew requested the pleasure of their friends’ company to join them in celebrating their union. In a couple of hours, she and Matthew would be meeting their friend Dominic, a journalist with a seemingly endless supply of gossip from the House of Commons, for lunch at an Ethiopian restaurant on Edgware Road that they had all been promising themselves to try; that evening, they two had tickets to the Old Vic to see Kevin Spacey in The Merchant of Venice. As Saturdays went, Emma thought, this particular one would be hard to improve on.

“I like autumn,” she said. “It reminds me of going back to school in my new winter uniform with fresh exercise books and different teachers.”

“Being kicked around the football pitch and called Fatso is more like it,” he said. “But I do have my autumn line just in, there are some lovely shoes, if I do say so.” He stopped and clutched her arm. “Oh, Josephine, you’re not walking past my shop, are you?” he asked.

“Well, yes,” she told him. “It’s sort of on my way home.”

“Then you’ll have to take a detour,” he said. “I’m taking no chances here because you and my autumn line’d be a disaster waiting to happen, and I’d never forgive myself. Tell you what, I’ll buy you a cup of coffee, you can tell me about your wedding plans, and then we’ll split up. It’s for the best, believe me.”

They were standing outside Ottolenghi, and he led her in, past the crowds of people clustered around the trays of prepared food that Fee found so difficult to resist, and into the coffee shop behind.

“Manolete! Darling!” A rich voice hailed them. It was Alice Weathers, the actress, sitting in a corner, having coffee with a dark-haired young man. “How marvelous to see you, do come and join us.”

“Depends on what you’re wearing,” said Nigel-Manolete. “Stand up and let’s see ’em.”

“I’m wearing you, darling,” said Alice. She stood up and cocked a leg, on which a skirt of chocolate-colored wool fell over a knee-length boot of softest russet leather. “I’ve hardly taken them off since Tuesday.”

“And quite right, too,” said Nigel. “Doesn’t she suit a boot, Josephine?”

Unseen by the others, he poked Emma, firmly, in the back.

“Absolutely,” said Emma. “I always think you have to have a sort of dashing flair to be able to carry off boots.”

“Well, thank you, Josephine,” said Alice. “We’ve met before, haven’t we? Was it at Fashion Week? This is Colin.”