Felicity hummed to herself as she pulled on her marigold gloves, and bent over the kitchen sink. She put the plug in the sink hole, brushing back a strand of her dark brown hair as she did so. Happy, and newly married, she was waiting for her husband to arrive home from work, and was whiling away the time doing some menial household chores.
Her husband's dinner was cooking in the oven, and the kitchen itself was a testament to her fastidious tidiness. Everything was in its place, and she knew that if she looked into the work surfaces, she would see a perfect reflection of her pretty brown eyes and her full lips.
Married for only two months, the time spent since she and Kevin had arrived back from their honeymoon had been spent renovating what had been a ramshackle ruin of a house. Her parents had helped them, of course, and Felicity had to admit that without their financial aid, they would have been stuck living with Kevin's parents for much longer. As it was, the glorious rush of having her own house still filled her with a thrill every time she thought of it.
Kevin worked away in the city as a stockbroker, and the long hours that he kept was the only cloud on an otherwise sunny horizon for Felicity. Plans to have a baby together were already in the making, and she smiled as she imagined what a child would look like on her slim form. She stretched her flat stomach as far forwards as she could in her loose-fitting shirt, and laughed to herself that she could soon be a mother.
The doorbell rang, and Felicity sighed as she took off her marigolds (inside out of course) and laid them on the draining board. It was probably another neighbour calling around to wish them well, she thought. The nosiest had already been around, of course, but there was always the chance that some had been too shy, or simply too antisocial to introduce themselves yet. She walked through to the hallway of the big house, her bare feet feeling the cold lacquered wood as she padded over in her baggy jeans. Had she been given the choice, she would have welcomed neighbours in something classier, but she had been caught short, and thought that all the meet-and-greeting had been done.
She opened the whitewashed door into the porch, ready with a friendly neighbourhood smile, and prepared to accept yet another bottle of wine or batch of cakes as a price for having a stranger snoop around her home for fifteen minutes.
What she saw was a middle aged man. He was wearing what looked like an expensive suit, and his silver hair and glasses which were obviously designer gave him a cultured look. He looked about fifty, and not the type of man who would be cold-calling to sell double-glazing on a cold night like this one. He stood tall under a large, black umbrella that protected him from the few spots of rain that were falling.
"Hello" said Felicity, giving the man her most welcoming smile, and showing off a set of dazzling white teeth. "Can I help..."
Felicity stopped talking. The man had taken off his glasses, and revealed a pair of the most astonishing blue eyes that she thought she had ever seen. She was aware of the man smiling a charming, disarming smile, and then saying something too quietly for her to hear. Not that she was trying to listen. It was all she could do to try and stop staring at those eyes. They seemed to bore through her, and she stared dumbly for a minute, transfixed by them. Felicity had the sensation that the man's pupils were growing, but that, of course, was impossible.
She was aware that she had missed whatever the man had said, and, in order not to appear rude, she stood back and let him in to the house. It seemed like the polite thing to do. The man tucked the umbrella that he had been holding under his arm, and wiped his feet on the mat as he entered the house.
Felicity was worried that she might appear rude if she continued to say nothing, but found that her breathing had increased to such a rate that she was unable to speak for the time being. Just as well, because the sight of those blue eyes seemed to have driven all sense from her mind. The man closed the door behind him, before hanging up his umbrella and coat on the hooks by the door. Felicity was not quite sure why she did it, but she locked the door and kept the key in the keyhole. He turned to Felicity and said something, again almost too quietly for her to hear. She did, however, catch the word "tea" and sighed with relief. That, she could manage.
She padded her way back towards the kitchen, her brain still reeling. A thought flitted across her mind that it was remarkably foolhardy of her to invite a man into her house for tea without knowing his name, or why he was there, but the thought blew away like mist on the wind, and she concentrated on boiling the kettle.
Filling the kettle up, she was aware for a brief moment of the man's eyes travelling down her body, and she felt a murmur of discomfort run through her. Only a murmur though, because almost as soon as it was there, it was replaced with a regret that she had not worn something more revealing for her guest. Such a distinguished man surely deserved to see her at her best, and she thought regretfully of the figure hugging dresses she had upstairs.