скачать книгу бесплатно
Ever since they’d left Charles de Gaulle airport, Siena had been convinced her next seat neighbour was Mary Steenburgen but it wouldn’t have been cool to initiate conversation with a celebrity if you let on you knew who they were.
‘Nervous,’ Siena laughed, the pitch a little too high. She was absolutely bloody terrified, but it had nothing to do with the flight. ‘No. This is hardly a flight is it?’ She put on her best twinkly, smiley face. ‘Straight up. Straight down.’ She had enough air miles to get to the moon and back. Her third set of Louis Vuitton luggage was looking positively shabby these days.
‘Been to London before?’
That gentle voice. This woman had to be her.
‘Once or twice.’
‘Sorry you’re British. Stupid question. I can tell from your accent. You going home for Christmas?’
Stoopid, as ‘perhaps Mary’ pronounced it, wasn’t so stupid. Officially, Siena was as British as Marmite and Twinings tea which Maman insisted on having for breakfast every day, but she’d lived most of her life in France. She thought she felt French but then how would she know if what she felt was French or English? Sometimes, quite often really, she had no idea what she should feel about a lot of things.
‘No I’m going to stay with my sister. I have to be back in France for Christmas,’ she blurted out. Back at the Chateau for Harry’s sixtieth birthday party on the twenty-third. She looked at her watch and worried at her lip. They’d have missed her by now. The dinner reservation was for eight thirty. Yves, her almost fiancé, would be cross, her mother furious and Harry, her stepfather, disappointed perhaps.
‘How lovely, dear.’ Mary’s face dimpled with a gentle smile. ‘I love spending time with my sister.’
Siena flushed. Mary would think she was a terrible sister. She hadn’t seen Laurie for two years despite the open invitation. Resolutely ignoring that chain of thought, she focused on her possibly celebrity neighbour. Had she read somewhere that Mary Steenburgen had a sister? Siena did know she was married to that guy from Cheers and CSI. There’d been pictures of them out walking their dogs in Hello or Grazia.
‘She older or younger than you?’
‘Sorry? What?’
‘Your sister, older or younger?’
‘Older. Eight years older.’
‘You close?’
Siena swallowed. ‘We text. Facebook a bit.’ That sounded rubbish. With a sigh she added, ‘It’s a bit complicated. A lot complicated actually. My parents split up when we were young. I lived with my mother in France. Laurie stayed with my father in England. I only met her properly for the first time two years ago.’ So no, not close at all.
‘Oh, my!’ America’s perfect mom actress, if it was her, looked horrified. ‘That’s an unusual arrangement.’ Then with a sympathy laden smile she added, ‘How lovely that you’re going to see her. Will you be staying long?’
That was the million dollar question. Siena crossed and uncrossed her legs, staring down at her recent manicure, admiring her Santa Scarlet glossy nails. The text she’d sent Laurie asked if she could stay for the weekend. The note she’d left her mother said she’d be back in a month. Neither was quite true.
‘I don’t know yet. Until I’m ready to go home, I guess. Spur of the moment thing, you know.’
That sounded better. Spontaneous. Fun. Not a desperate and pathetic escape. Sisters hanging out. Spending quality time together. Not arriving completely out of the blue with only five hours’ notice.
‘You gotta stay for Christmas. I love London at this time of year. The stores. Hyde Park. The lights.’ Mary gave a self-deprecating laugh. ‘What am I talking about? You come from Paris. Now there’s a city at Christmas.’
Siena closed her eyes at the quick punch to her heart. Galeries Lafayette’s exterior, encrusted with the brilliance of thousands of sparkling lights and of course, the tree. The fir lined Champs-Élysées lit up and glittering, refracting diamond shards of white into the night. That swoosh of skates on ice at the Eiffel Tower and the breathless bump when you hit the sides. Tartiflette, hot and warming, from the Christmas Markets at Notre-Dame and the Trocadéro.
She loved the build-up, but somehow every year when Christmas finally arrived, the sparkle had burnt itself out. The actual holiday itself never seemed that enjoyable.
So why had she stupidly promised in her note to go back in time for Christmas when she could be lonely anywhere?
In the meantime she had a few weeks’ grace to give herself time to breathe and work things out. Everything seemed to have crowded in on her recently, until she couldn’t think straight anymore. Surely her mother would understand.
With the change of air pressure in the cabin, her ears popped. The captain announced they were due to land in ten minutes and the flight was on time. She glanced back down the aisle still fearful a hand might clamp down on her shoulder and someone utter the words, ‘You need to come with me, mademoiselle.’
She looked at her watch. It might take a while to get through passport control, it always did at Heathrow but at least she didn’t have to wait for baggage. The potential disaster of only having two pairs of boots and a capsule wardrobe was more than outweighed by being able to make a speedy getaway from the airport. Once out of there she’d be home free.
With that consoling thought she gave the American, who probably wasn’t Mary at all, a smile and turned back to the copy of Hello spread out on her lap. A picture caught her eye and she couldn’t help a tut escaping.
‘Big mistake,’ she shook her head. What had the young movie star been thinking?
‘Sorry dear?’
Siena showed her neighbour the double page spread in the magazine.
‘I mean seriously, would you? Off the shoulder, one side only. Seriously passé. Although the Dolce & Gabbana shoes are nice, almost save the outfit, even if they are last season’s.’
The woman studied the picture with a thoughtful serious gaze.
‘Sometimes, dear, you don’t get any choice in the matter. There’s so much that goes on behind the scenes. Agents. Publicists. Poor girl, her life is probably not her own. Imagine dancing to someone else’s tune, all the time.’
Siena didn’t need to do any imagining.
‘Especially when you’re so young. She should be out having a good time. It gets easier when you get older and you can tell them to go hoot.’
Bonté divine, Siena hoped so.
Just as she’d finally decided to ask the woman if she was Mary, the sudden roar of the plane’s engines signalled their descent and despite her stockpile of air miles, Siena couldn’t help clutching the seat rest, again. In no time at all, the wheels touched down with a bump and a hiss. They’d arrived.
England.
Siena closed her eyes. Here she was. The captain’s voice welcomed them to London, announcing that it was eleven o’clock in the evening local time.
Eleven o’clock. Was that all? It seemed a lifetime ago since she’d tiptoed out of the Chateau like a thief in the night clutching her hastily thrown together cabin bag.
Despite the lateness of the hour, Heathrow was rammed. All around, voices jabbered in a multitude of languages.
Her phone beeped. Another text from Orange mobile welcoming her to England, the third since she’d got off the plane. Nothing from Laurie. Then again, it always took a while for your mobile to sync with a new network. Siena might not know her sister that well, but one thing she did know – Laurie was one hundred percent reliable. She’d be here.
In the last two years she’d kept in touch, like she’d promised. During two fleeting days, when they’d met as adults for the first time, Laurie had made the incredibly generous promise that there would always be a room for Siena in her house. Now, Siena was counting on it.
Flicking through the touch screen on her phone, she brought up her favourite picture. The first one Laurie had sent to her. It had been a talisman in recent weeks.
She enlarged the picture with two fingers on the touch screen, bringing the small double bed framed by a brass bedstead into focus. Its pure white duvet looked as soft as a mound of freshly fallen snow, dotted with a pastel palate of scatter cushions in lilac, pale blue and silver grey. Behind the bedhead, the wall had been papered with a pretty toile wallpaper. White painted tables flanked the bed each with a bedside light.
If this picture had been a photograph, it would have been worn thin where she’d touched it, marvelling at the thoughtfulness of the sister she barely knew. She smiled as she looked at the digital image, reducing it in size as if tucking it carefully away. Tonight she’d be sleeping in that bed. Safe. In her own room. If it hadn’t been so sad, Siena could have laughed at the fanciful direction of her thoughts. She was hardly little orphan Annie. She had her own room in several houses in France, one in Mustique and one in New York.
This one was different. Her sister hadn’t had to do that for her. Laurie owed her nothing, not really, despite what Maman always said.
‘Passport, miss,’ snapped the uniformed man in the little booth. ‘Please put your phone away.’
‘Sorry.’ She gave him a brilliant smile which surprisingly had no effect at all. Miserable little man. Still smiling, determined to win him over, she pushed her passport under the glass toward him and shoved her phone in her bag.
No point phoning Laurie now, when she’d see her in a few minutes.
With a bored glance, the terse passport officer stared at her, back at her photo and then pushed the passport through a barcode reader. He studied something on the screen for a longer moment. For a brief second, Siena’s heart beat faster. Surely nothing would have been flagged up; not this quickly?
He looked at her face, then back at the passport. When he looked at her face again, she tried to keep her face utterly impassive, just like her photo. Her heart thumped uncomfortably hard. Yves’ family had contacts throughout the French legal system. Did they extend here?
After the longest thirty seconds in history, the passport was finally pushed back under the glass. Siena almost sagged with relief as she tucked it into her bag and strode without looking back through the Nothing to Declare channel.
Done. Through this point and she was home and dry. Officially in England.
As she neared the double doors, she slowed. Would Laurie look the same? Was her hair any different? Inside her chest, Siena’s heart did a little squiggly jump and she pushed through the doors, another smile already lighting up her face as she scanned the waiting faces. A blur of faces peered back at her, eyes anxious and hopeful.
She quickly smoothed her hands down her denim-clad thighs, the palms ever so slightly damp. In her hurried departure, there’d been no time to visit the hairdressers or have a facial. Although her jeans were 7 For All Mankind and her top was Stella McCartney, it was a going shopping outfit rather than a stepping off a first class flight into the international arrival hall at Terminal 4. Thankfully she hadn’t seen anyone she knew on the flight and it didn’t look as if there were any paparazzi here.
Siena’s gaze flitted backwards and forwards with the eagerness of a spectator at the Roland-Garros tennis final. Where was Laurie? It was difficult to see everyone. There were quite a few smartly dressed men, holding up signs with names handwritten in misshapen capitals. How much nicer was it, being met by family? Someone to hug and kiss like they always did in the films. Usually when she arrived anywhere with her parents, they’d have a driver waiting.
Again she scanned the faces. Had she missed Laurie? She looked back.
Maybe her sister was late. Just parking the car. Nearly quarter to twelve. Traffic should be good now, although perhaps not. The Arc de Triomphe at this time on a Saturday night was bedlam. She checked her texts again. Had she given her the right time of the flight landing? Maybe in her rush she’d told Laurie the plane left at eleven instead of landing at eleven. Nope, there it was, the last text she’d sent earlier this afternoon.
Hey Laurie. You know you’ve been inviting me to come stay, forever, and how I was welcome any time and that you’d come pick me up? Don’t faint. I’m coming. My plane lands at 11.00pm tonight. Heathrow. Air France. Flight 1080. Can you pick me up? Can’t wait to see you and to finally get to stay in my room.
Where was Laurie?
Even if the number of people hadn’t thinned in the last half hour, she would have noticed him straight away. Anger and irritation rolled off him in waves. Like an angry Moses, his strides ate up the floor, people melting out of his path. From the inside pocket of his black leather jacket he pulled out a white piece of paper and held it up, then slumped against a pillar.
Siena almost laughed out loud. This guy needed to learn a thing or two about customer service. His eyebrows had merged into one angry slash across his forehead. With a scowl like that he’d scare his passengers back onto their plane.
His face now held a look of bored resignation, the sheet dangling from his hand as if it was too much trouble to even lift it to chest height like the other drivers did.
She checked her phone again. Still no word from Laurie. It was now ten past twelve.
Siena shifted her bag and her weight from foot to foot.
The movement caught the attention of the dark-haired guy at the barrier as he briefly turned around. How could a grown man pout like that and still look attractive? He should have looked ridiculous but that fuller lower lip was really rather cute. She sneaked another look at his face and he swung around properly to give her a baleful glare. As he did, she caught sight of the name on the sheet he held.
Ah merde!
He’d spelt her name wrongly but then most people did, so she could hardly hold that against him. Flashing her best million kilowatt smile, she took a step forward, her head inclining towards her name. He looked down at the name and then back at her, not saying a word. His face didn’t warm one iota, if anything he looked even more forbidding.
Like a Mexican standoff, both of them stood waiting for the other to break and say the first word. They stood there as the seconds ticked away, neither saying anything. Clenching her hands to her sides, the tiredness she’d been fighting won. ‘I’m Siena. Just one ‘n’.’
‘How do you know I’m not here to pick up Sienna, two ‘n’s?’ he grumbled.
Damn, that hadn’t occurred to her. She shrugged, ‘Sorry, my mistake.’
She’d only taken two strides when a hand grabbed her arm.
‘I’m guessing you are Laurie’s sister?’
‘Yes.’ Siena observed him with curious eyes. Piercing blue eyes bored into her, the wide mouth with its full lower lip had flattened into a mutinous line. Gorgeous and grumpy, without an ounce of charm.
‘I had to pick you up. Laurie isn’t around at the moment.’
‘Oh.’ Siena felt a bit put out. ‘Where is she?’
He raised an eyebrow. She hated it when people could do that. ‘Where is she? You’re asking that?’
‘It wasn’t a trick question.’
‘Seriously? You text at six in the evening. Expect her to drop everything. Pick you up and then you ask, ‘Where is she?’’
‘I don’t see what it’s got to do with you.’ Whoever this man was, he had a cheek.
He stood and considered her for a moment, she felt like a model being sized up to see if the designer’s clothes would fit.
‘No, I guess you don’t. You’re right, it has nothing to do with me.’ Despite agreeing with her, he still managed to make it sound like an insult. ‘She’s up in Yorkshire.’
‘Yorkshire!’ Siena felt a bit stupid echoing his words but she didn’t actually know what or where Yorkshire was or why it was up. That sounded decidedly odd, as if it were in space or something, which she was pretty sure she would have heard of, if any part of the world had colonised space.
‘Norah had a fall, Laurie’s been at the hospital for most of the day. She asked me to pick you up. She can’t get a great phone signal there, so couldn’t contact you to let you know she wasn’t around. I’m to take you back to the house for tonight. Laurie will speak to you in the morning.’ He bit out each sentence as if he had a mouthful of tacks he was scared of losing.
Siena vaguely remembered the mention of a Norah from some of Laurie’s recent emails.
‘I thought Norah worked for Uncle Miles. Wasn’t she the housekeeper?’ mused Siena out loud which was stupid because the driver was hardly going to know.
Could a scowl get any deeper? ‘She still is. He’s dead obviously but she’s still the housekeeper at the house.’
‘OK,’ said Siena still doing her best to keep her smile up despite his quelling expression and the confusing information.
Siena felt she’d strayed into very dangerous territory but had no idea what had tipped it over into a fully operational minefield. Any minute now, this rather scary but gorgeous man, might blow. It unnerved her. People were usually nice to her. Most people. It seemed safest to keep smiling and not irritate him further by saying anything. Although her smiles didn’t seem to be having much effect on his mood. The silence stretched out between them until eventually with an exasperated huff, he spoke.
‘Norah is eighty-six,’ he said it slowly followed by a laboured pause, ‘Laurie said she couldn’t just abandon her.’
‘Yes, of course not.’ Siena’s cheeks were starting to hurt but she persevered.
‘So she asked me to pick you up.’
‘Ok, well … Hi, I’m – you know who I am. Laurie’s sister.’
‘I know exactly who you are,’ he replied dryly.
Did he have to make it sound as if she were so unsavoury? She was house trained.
‘Is that your luggage?’ He pointed to her cabin bag and the bulging duty free bag.
She nodded. The cabin bag did look a bit sad on its own but there’d been no time to pack properly. Luckily she’d been able to stock up on all the essentials in duty free.
‘Yes, it’s not much but I need to buy my spring wardrobe soon anyway, so I figured I might as well do it while I’m here. So, yes that’s it, I’m afraid.’
