Alice Brown's Lessons in the Curious Art of Dating by Eleanor Prescott

legal sense, some sort of dereliction of duty. And of course, wherever Bianca led, Cassandra followed. Audrey had tried to admonish Bianca about her timekeeping and the kind of example it set to the staff, but she’d looked at her so sweetly and with such confusion that Audrey had felt like a heavy-handed prison warden. Audrey really didn’t want to upset her (she liked to run a happy ship at Table For Two), so over the years she’d resigned herself to bidding a premature goodbye through gritted teeth.
    And so, as Bianca calmly ignored the ringing phone at 5.27 p.m. Audrey bore down and tried to breathe steadilyuntil Alice tore herself away from her files, groped for the receiver and put Audrey out of her misery.
    ‘Bye, everyone,’ Bianca called, and she breezed out in a waft of perfume.
    This was followed immediately by the harsh scraping sound of a chair being pushed back.
    ‘Yes, night, chaps,’ Cassandra barked.
    Audrey dismantled her rigor mortis smile as she heard Cassandra’s noisy footsteps along the hall. A few moments later the sounds dissipated and the gentle hum of the office resumed. Audrey took a calming glance at John’s photograph on her desk, and returned her focus to her computer screen.
    Now where was she? Ah, yes! Max Higgert. Max was a handsome, unassuming architect who no doubt earned a six-figure income. Such a prize for the agency! Men like Max didn’t fall into your lap and onto your books very often. Thank goodness for long working hours and a shy disposition, or he’d have been snapped up years ago. He was a man with education and taste, who spent his working days considering clean lines and beautiful aesthetics. Audrey had caught him halfway through his enrolment interview with Hilary and had immediately whisked him away to the more rarefied confines of her office (where he’d no doubt been impressed by her glass wall). Max Higgert was someone who should have first-class Table For Two treatment, and not be bothered by the unclean lines of the pregnant eyesore that was Hilary Goggin.
    Audrey clicked open a file and browsed the profiles of Table For Two’s choicest lady clients.
    Serena Benchley? No, too old.
    Lorraine Hendy? Too obvious. If she knew gentlemen – and Audrey was quite sure she did – then Max would want a more discreet woman; a lady in the true sense of the word.
    She clicked through a few more files. Kate Biggs’s profile filled her screen.
    What about her, the new girl Alice had taken on? Audrey’s mouse hovered over Kate’s picture. She was the right age, and pretty enough. None of that awful orange fake tan that so many young women slathered themselves in these days. University-educated too. Audrey scanned Kate’s details. No. She clicked out of her file. She was one of those PR girls. PR girls were, in Audrey’s book, a rather brazen bunch. Not for Max at all. Audrey clicked on.
    Helen Oxford? No: bad teeth. So long! They must be forever getting caught in her lipstick.
    Abigail Brookes? Not with those roots.
    Lisa Jenkins? Too thick.
    Jennifer Baxendale? Too thickset.
    Catherine Huntley?
    Della Bosworth?
    Audrey sighed. There were so many average women to wade through. Nobody in the matchmaking business ever dared say it, of course, but it was true. Lady clients always moaned about the lack of good, available men, but they only had themselves to blame. Why was it that so many women thought it acceptable to wear jeans and trainers these days? Audrey was convinced that the rise in single women was in directcorrelation to the plummeting of dress standards. In the 1950s a woman was always impeccably turned out, and you didn’t get too many of them harping on about their biological clocks. Women these days simply didn’t put in the effort. If a lady wanted to attract a man she had to give out the right signals: look smart, keep her hair styled, wear heels, limit her drinking, refrain from smoking in public. Women these days were too interested in ‘being