ThirteenNo one would ever call Mrs Caroline Studebaker beautiful. Her eyes were two hard, round peas set too close together in a flat doughy face, her laugh reminiscent of a donkey hee-hawing through big teeth. But there were other compensations. Edmund Quincey Jnr tightened the arm he had looped around Mrs Studebaker’s waist to draw her closer and smiled down at her with the high-charged charm that made women melt. She was already pink-faced and breathless from the circling exertion of the mazurka. Caught in the high beam of his charms, unused to such close attention from the catch of the dance floor, Caroline flushed to cerise and gulped out a nervous bray.
The music came to an end and Quincey led his partner from the dance floor. He had been in a Front Street bar on his first day in to
