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Izzi started telling me about the different characters the organisers she’d hired had outlined to her—lords, ladies, parlour maids and debutantes. And then she started reeling off the guest list. When she said Nicholas’s name my heart started to skip.
‘I can’t wait,’ I said softly. I wasn’t just being excited for Izzi’s benefit now. I really meant it. This was my opportunity! I’d be able to relax and mingle with Nicholas outside of a hot, crowded cocktail party. I’d be able to dial things down a bit—just as Adam had suggested—and Nicholas would be able to see my relaxed, fun side. I could see it all so clearly: languid cocktails in the drawing room before dinner, fresh, misty country mornings…
Izzi developed a stern edge to her voice. ‘And I need you to bring a man!’
I’d been deep in a fantasy where Nicholas and I had been strolling though a secluded bluebell wood. I had stepped in a rabbit hole and twisted my ankle, and he’d swept me into his arms and carried me back to the house as if I weighed nothing. (This was a fantasy, after all.) I could almost smell his woody aftershave as I laid my head against his chest…
‘What?’ I said, a little too sharply.
‘It’s a dealbreaker if you can’t,’ Izzi said. ‘I’m desperate! Jonti broke his leg bungee jumping, and is stuck in New Zealand, and Jonathan refuses to miss some horrible cricket match. You’ve got to bring someone!’
The bluebells, the rabbit hole, the lovely feeling of being safe in Nicholas’s arms? They all disappeared into that mist I’d been daydreaming about. I was glad Izzi couldn’t see me, because I felt my eyebrows clench together and my jaw tense.
The last thing I wanted to do was bring a date on Izzi’s weekend! It would spoil everything. While Adam had pointed out that I hadn’t been above being seen with another man to spark a potential conquest’s interest in the past, I’d learned my lesson on that front, and I’d never get any time alone with Nicholas if I had a lovelorn swain lolloping around after me all weekend. Also, I didn’t want to encourage any of them needlessly. The only man I was interested in at the moment was Nicholas, and it wasn’t fair to give any other impression.
What was it that Adam had said about toying with people the other night? Hmm. I decided I must be maturing.
‘It’s a bit short notice,’ I muttered to Izzi, but she just laughed.
‘I can’t believe you haven’t got a hundred men ready to fall over themselves for a weekend with you. You’ll manage it somehow.’
I pouted. Sometimes having a reputation like mine was not a good thing. Not that I’m a floozy. I might get a lot of male attention—I might even enjoy it—but I do try not to encourage it unless I’m interested. And I’m actually quite picky about who I go out with. There have been far fewer men in my life than most people think.
Flip. What was I going to do? I really needed this weekend to be a success for me—in more ways than one. I supposed I could fob Izzi off, hoping she was just blowing hot air about it being a deal breaker, but what if she stood her ground if I called her bluff? And she just might. One of the reasons I liked Izzi was that she was unpredictable and prone to sudden whims, just like me. If I caught her in the wrong mood when I let it slip I would be coming alone, she might just pull the plug on me. It’s the sort of thing I might have done in her place.
And then an idea struck me. Beautiful in its simplicity—except for the fact the man in question would never go for it. But Izzi was right: I’d manage it somehow.
‘Don’t worry,’ I said cheerily. ‘I have the perfect guy in mind.’
‘Why do I have the horrible feeling there’s a catch involved?’ Adam asked me from the other end of the rowing boat. I couldn’t see him properly. We were under tall sycamores on one corner of the boating pond and I couldn’t make out his features because the aggressive June sun was behind him, causing me to squint. However, even though he was just one big, soft blur, I knew there was a twinkle in his eyes.
Adam’s twinkle is a really good sign. It usually means he wants to say yes to whatever I’m trying to get him to agree to, but is just having fun with me in the meantime.
I adjusted my parasol. ‘Why would there have to be a catch?’ I said sweetly.
‘Oh, I dunno…’ The oars swept out of the water and propelled us forward in an exhilarating little jerk. ‘Maybe because you invited me out for an afternoon stroll in Greenwich Park—rest and relaxation, you said—and I end up doing all the work while you sit there licking an ice cream cone.’
‘I said I’d get you one when our time is up,’ I replied. I couldn’t see what he was fussing about. A little bit of delayed gratification is good for the soul.
The oars hit the water again, and I couldn’t help noticing the fine hairs on Adam’s forearms as we emerged into the sunshine again. Hairs that shifted and shimmered as the muscles underneath them bunched and relaxed. There’s something very captivating about watching a man row. I’d have to make sure that I ended up in a boat with Nicholas at some point during the country weekend. There must be a lake somewhere on the Chatterton-Joneses’ estate. It’s that kind of place.
I decided to get in some practice and attempted to drape myself fetchingly at my end of the boat, doing my best to look elegant and ethereal.
‘Now you’re just rubbing it in,’ Adam muttered.
I closed my eyes and smiled, my face turned up to the sun. The twinkle was still there. I could hear it.
‘All I’m asking for is one lick,’ he said softly, and I belatedly realised we were drifting rather than see-sawing through the water. I opened my eyes to find Adam much closer than I’d thought he’d be. The twinkle was there, all right, but there was something behind it, something hot and bright. That aggressive sun reflected in them, perhaps. I shifted my parasol. I must have let it slip back when I’d had my eyes closed, because I could feel my cheeks heating now.
For some reason I couldn’t find the words to refuse. He leaned closer and closer, a lazy smile spreading across his face. The chocolate in those eyes began to melt. I couldn’t help but watch it swirl and warm, filling my vision until it was almost the only thing I saw. It was odd, because we were hardly moving it all, yet it was at that moment I felt a quiver of seasickness in my tummy.
Just as he was close enough to lick my ice cream, as we were cocooned under my parasol and it seemed we were the only two beings in the whole of Greenwich Park, I felt a tug on my fingers and the cone was eased from my hand. There was a sudden lurch and a splash, and I found myself sitting alone in the rowing boat while Adam waded through the knee-deep water to the edge of the stone-lined pond, eating my ice cream in big gulps and laughing as he went.
I was so surprised I nearly dropped my parasol. And then Adam really would have been in big trouble. It was made of exquisite cream lace, and I hadn’t seen another one to rival it in years. I caught it just in time, and snapped it closed. Then, still listening to the sound of Adam chuckling from the safety of dry land, I swapped seats and picked up the oars.
I’ll bet you thought I couldn’t row. Well, I can. I’m rather good at it, actually. Boating ponds were cheap entertainment when I was a kid, and Nan and I used to come here all the time when it was sunny.
It was just as well I was facing away from Adam, because I was seething under my breath. The sight of me rowing expertly towards him just made him laugh harder, for some reason. I wanted to kill him.
Only I couldn’t. I needed him to do me a favour, didn’t I? A pretty big one. And if that meant sucking up my pride so I could further my business and snaffle the man of my dreams, so be it. I could be the bigger person while Adam continued to act like a kid. I could.
I reached the stone lip of the boating pond and marshalled my features to show none of my irritation. By the time I’d neatly nipped out of the boat—blowing a kiss at the scruffy teenager in charge of the pond so he’d come and fetch it instead of making me row it to the proper place—I was the pinnacle of elegant calm. I had a picture of Grace Kelly in my head, and I was determined not to lose it.
I caught up with Adam at the ice cream van, where he handed me a replacement cone, complete with chocolate flake and strawberry sauce. I snatched it from him and walked away.
‘Now you owe me,’ I said. To his credit, he didn’t disagree. Well, not straight away. We both walked, giving our attention to our ice creams until we were halfway up the hill.
‘I don’t think half an ice cream really equates to a whole weekend in the country dressed up like a wally.’
He might have a point there, but I was hardly going to acknowledge that, was I? ‘These are very good ice creams,’ I said, as I pushed the last of mine into my cone with my tongue. Adam went quiet. I looked up to find him swallowing. Hard. He had a strange look on his face, and I had a horrible feeling he was about to say something I wouldn’t like, so I started off up the hill again.
He caught up to me fairly quickly. ‘Come and see my latest project and we’ll call it quits,’ he said.
I sighed. ‘I’ve visited everything you’ve constructed for years.’
He shook his head. ‘Not for quite some time, actually. You’d be surprised at what I’m doing now.’
I wasn’t convinced. A summerhouse was a summerhouse, and a shed was a shed, after all. Not that I’m not proud of him for turning his hobby into a business that keeps him afloat, but it’s hardly glamorous. Wherever you find wood like that, there are inevitably spiders. And I’m not big on spiders.
‘And this thing you’ve being doing down in Kent is wildly different, is it?’
‘I finished that months ago. I was talking about the hotel project in Malaysia.’
I almost choked on the last of my cornet. ‘I can’t afford the airfare for somewhere like that! I need all my spare cash for Coreen’s Closet.’
There was a hard edge in Adam’s voice when he replied. ‘I wasn’t asking you to pay,’ he said. ‘I was asking you to come.’ He picked up speed, and I had to scurry after him in my crimson slingbacks. I tugged at his shirtsleeve.
‘Okay, I’ll come,’ I said, at once trying to work out how I could talk myself out of flying thousands of miles to look at a few treehouses in the jungle without actually breaking my word. I don’t like jungles. At least I don’t imagine I would. The nearest I’ve been to jungle is the palm house in Kew Gardens, but I got all hot and sticky and my hair started to frizz. Don’t care to repeat the experience unless I really have to.
Adam stopped walking and gave me a long, searching look. I tried not to squirm. He knew I would try and wriggle out of it, and I knew that he knew. And he knew that I knew that he knew. It was all very tiring. And embarrassing.
I don’t like letting Adam down, but seriously…a trip to a frizz-inducing jungle in exchange for a weekend at an idyllic country estate? Now who was being unfair?
Adam started walking again. This time his steps were slow and measured.
‘Even if I come, I’m not going to help you snag this Nicholas Chatterton-Jones. I’m not sure I like the sound of him.’
I huffed. There he was, going all big-brotherish on me again. But I supposed I could put up with a bit of sibling protectiveness if it meant I got what I wanted.
I lifted my chin. ‘I don’t need you to help me,’ I said airily. That part I could do all by myself. ‘I need you to help keep Izzi sweet. It’s a good business opportunity, and I need this to be a success. If Izzi decides I’m out of favour, I might as well kiss my expansion plans goodbye. She has a very wide circle of influence, and I want that influence working on my behalf, not against me.’
Adam nodded. ‘Why me? Why not one of the puppies?’
I rolled my eyes. ‘Because you have the uncanny knack of getting on with everyone and fitting in anywhere, and I need someone who knows, not just thinks, that I’m fabulous.’
And there it was again. The laugh. Why couldn’t this man ever take me seriously?
I cleared my throat and gave him a superior look. ‘Will you do it?’
He turned to look down the hill over the Thames to the odd mix of elegant Georgian buildings and silvery skyscrapers. ‘I’ll think about it,’ he said.
CHAPTER FOUR
These Foolish Things
Coreen’s Confessions
No. 4—I only ever wear red shoes. It started off as a coincidence, but then became a choice. Now it’s a divine ordinance.
A WEEK later I found myself standing in a leafy square in Belgravia, outside a tall white house. I took in a breath and held it. I’d e-mailed Adam six times, with gentle little messages asking if he’d meet me here, and whether he’d decided to come to the murder-mystery weekend in a fortnight’s time, but I hadn’t got a reply as yet.
He had sent me a link to an online video showing a yappy little dog worrying the life out of a bone, though. I didn’t get why. Sometimes Adam’s sense of humour can be a little…strange.
Anyway, if Adam wasn’t going to come, I was going to have to do this all by myself. No problem. Nan always says that a sense of style and good manners will help a girl fit in anywhere. Okay, Nan only really mentions the good manners, but the rest feels true. I turned my attention back to the house.
The Chatterton-Joneses had made their money in the early nineteenth century, bringing silks back from India, although none of them worked in the importing business these days. Nicholas could have decided to rest on the well-padded family laurels, but he was the successful and intuitive head of an investment group, wealthy in his own right.
I looked at the large sash windows, the freshly painted black wrought-iron railings, and swallowed. I’d spent most of my life living in Nan’s tiny terraced house in Catford, the whole floor space of which could probably fit into the entrance hall of this quietly elegant home. No time for nerves, though. I was here to perform a function, and it was time to show Nicholas just how slick and sophisticated I could be. ‘Darling, what are you doing standing in the street? I almost took you for a stalker.’
I turned to see Izzi coming to a halt beside me, looking effortlessly classy in a cream trouser suit and matching coat. Large sunglasses covered half her face, protecting it from the bright summer morning. Now that Izzi had arrived, the riot of petunias that I’d been admiring only moments before in the square seemed a little brash.
I’d aimed for ‘classy’ myself, but I was suddenly aware that my dark grey suit, made more than fifty years ago by a competent home seamstress copying a Lilli Ann design, wasn’t quite in the same league. And it wasn’t just clothing that separated us. She exuded the kind of casual elegance that only generations of confidence could breed, whereas I was more a combination of Nan’s Blitz Spirit, my mother’s need for drama, and something that a clipped-voiced character in a black-and-white film would call ‘pluck’.
But it was all I had to fall back on, so I was just going to have to make it work for me.
Izzi linked her arm through mine and swept me up the short flight of steps towards Nicholas’s glossy black door. ‘I’m sorry my brother is being pig-headed about getting himself measured for his outfits, and for dragging you all the way over here on your day off to give us all a fitting, but I want this weekend to be a success, and with only a fortnight left I don’t have time to deal with his tantrums.’
I smiled gently. No one in their right mind could ever imagine Nicholas Chatterton-Jones having a tantrum! He was far too inscrutable for that. Snarling like a panther, maybe…
‘I’ve texted him three times!’ Izzi was saying. ‘He just keeps saying he’s too busy to mess around with tape measures, so here you are! If the mountain won’t come to Mohammed… The rest of the gang should be here within the next half-hour, but I thought you’d like to get Nicky done first.’
I suddenly got a sinking feeling—as if I’d swallowed Nicholas’s big lion-head brass knocker and it was now settling in my stomach. Nicholas did know I was coming, didn’t he? But before I’d had a chance to check Izzi hadn’t sprung a trap on him she’d rapped the ring the lion held in its mouth against the door and turned to me.
‘You do have your tape measure, don’t you?’
I was far too nervous about what was happening behind that big black door to do anything but reach into my alligator handbag and produce it with a flourish.
Now, I knew some people didn’t like the idea of me carrying real reptile skin around with me, but be fair! I’d had nothing to do with the unfortunate beast’s demise, and the very least a kind soul could do after all it had been through was show it a little love and tenderness, and I certainly gave it plenty of that.
Besides, it matched my burgundy heels perfectly.
Just as the door creaked open I heard footsteps behind me, pounding down the pavement, and I turned to see a rather out-of-breath Adam darting up the steps to Nicholas’s front door. He gave me a quick grin and fell into step behind us as we entered the cool and silent hallway. Once inside, Izzi peeled off her glasses and turned to look at Adam.
‘So you’re the man Coreen found,’ she said loftily.
I started to glare at her. Just because Adam builds sheds and treehouses for a living, it doesn’t mean that he’s not in their league. Adam just plays by his own rules. I opened my mouth to say as much, but then Izzi’s lips twitched and her eyes roved all the way down to his toes and back up to his open, smiling face.
‘You’ll do,’ she added, with a hint of a purr in her tone.
I wasn’t sure I liked that reaction any better, to be frank, but it wasn’t the time to get into that.
Of course Adam just grinned all the more, so I aimed a well-timed jab with one of what he likes to call my ‘pointy little elbows’. He dodged it, and I gave him the please behave yourself stare he usually aims at me.
I didn’t have time to play games. In just a few moments I’d be seeing Nicholas. In his house. In the house I might one day want to become my house. My heart began to do the mambo. And not in the slow, sexy way they did it in Dirty Dancing. There were odd rhythms and missed beats all over the place. I captured some air, swallowed it down, and smoothed my skirt with my hands.
We were greeted by a well-groomed, discreet-looking man who conversed with Izzi in hushed tones. He nodded upstairs and I looked up the wide marble staircase to where Nicholas must be. When I looked back again the man was gone, and Izzi was answering a call on her phone.
‘You came,’ I said out of the side of my mouth to Adam.
He nodded and gazed nonchalantly around the room. ‘Looks like it.’
I resumed the behave frown. I hate it when Adam gets like this. He knows I’m buzzing with curiosity about something, yet he refuses to be anything more than vague. However, I wasn’t about to give up.
‘What made your mind up?’
He shrugged and looked up the marble staircase, which was lined with art I probably couldn’t afford and definitely didn’t understand. ‘I decided I’d better check out this Nicholas chap in person.’ He squinted at an abstract painting made up of squares in varying shades of beige. Without looking ’round he added, ‘To see if he’s good enough for you.’
My irritation melted like a chocolate bar left on a hot car dashboard. I was suddenly very glad Adam was here, and not just because it saved me from Izzi’s displeasure if I hadn’t come up with a willing victim. It was moments like these when I realised what a treasure Adam was. I hadn’t steered the conversation or fished for that compliment; he’d produced it all on his own. No string-pulling on my part whatsoever. And the warmth it gave me was twice as sweet as if I’d wrung it from one of my lovelorn swains. My heartbeat steadied into four-four time, and I was about to hug his arm when a horrible thought occurred to me. ‘You are coming on the weekend too? You’re not just here today to spy, are you?’
Adam reclaimed the please behave look and I instantly mumbled an apology. I should have known better. Adam is an in-it-for-the-long-haul kind of guy—probably why he puts up with me—and he wouldn’t have turned up today if he wasn’t going to go through with the whole thing. I was just nervous. What was taking all this time? Was Nicholas even at home?
The discreet man, who must have been a butler of some sort, reappeared and waited patiently while Izzi finished her call and slid her phone into her handbag. I’d half-heard the end of it and gathered she’d been chivvying her girlfriends along, telling them to prise their tiny backsides out of bed and get down here pronto.
‘Your brother is ready for you in the drawing room,’ Mr Discreet said in a silky voice, then disappeared again.
I was tempted to shudder. If I ever got to be a significant part of Nicholas’s life, I wasn’t sure how I’d cope with him. He seemed to vanish in and out of thin air, and, frankly, manners that good are just plain creepy.
Izzi started off up the marble staircase and nodded for us to follow. With each step my head grew lighter and lighter. By the time I reached the top I was verging on dizzy. It was all so elegant, so refined and understated. And in comparison I felt I had all the subtlety and grace of a kids’ cartoon. I suddenly wished I’d tried harder to eradicate the Cockney edge in my accent. I’d given up too quickly, frustrated that when I tried to emulate Izzi’s effortless drawl I always ended up sounding like a parody of Celia Johnson in Brief Encounter.
I decided then that being cool, aloof and businesslike—namely, keeping my mouth shut unless absolutely necessary—would probably be in my best interests. Men like a woman who’s mysterious, don’t they? And this approach would give me another fortnight to work on those vowels of mine before the murder-mystery weekend. I’d dazzle Nicholas with my witty banter then.
Izzi led us into a large drawing room with tall, almost floor-to-ceiling sash windows, and elegant yet somehow minimalist furnishings in neutral tones. I held my breath and hovered by the doorway, overcome by uncharacteristic shyness. Nicholas was there, gazing out of the window on the right and looking all lean, sexy and slightly irritated, in dark grey trousers and a shirt unbuttoned at the neck. Even in casual attire he oozed class.
I knew at that moment that if I had a future with Nicholas I would never again have to fear the spectre of the velour jogging bottoms. Not only would I not have to worry about being old and lonely and sad, but I’d become all I’d been training myself to be for all these years. I wouldn’t be dressing up any more. I’d rightfully inhabit a world of glamour and elegance, sliding into it with the ease of Cinderella trying on that glass slipper. I’d finally be able to look myself in the mirror without having to blink a few times to erase my mother’s eyes.
Nicholas turned to face his sister, the frown he was wearing only making him seem more broody and Mr Darcy-ish.
He spoke in a low voice, but unfortunately for him his gorgeous high ceilings carried his words over to where Adam and I were standing by the door. ‘I thought you were joking when you said you were bringing “the gang” over for a fitting for this weekend of yours.’ He hardly glanced in my direction long enough to register my presence, let alone see how cute I was looking in my pretend Lilli Ann suit with the flared jacket.
