The last fortnight had been particularly hideous. Holly had seemed to spend the whole time alternately apologising and squirming, knowing that everyone was gossiping about the situation behind her back. Some people were kind, though she’d hated being pigeonholed as the dumped fiancée. The pitying looks were hard to take. Thankfully the veneer of politeness stopped people actually asking what was wrong with her and why Simon had been so quick to fall for someone else, but she knew they were thinking it.
And she’d had to go through all their things and divvy them up; though, once she’d started, she’d realised how few of their joint belongings had been chosen by her, or even together. How had she let herself be such a doormat? Why hadn’t she said no to Simon more often, or insisted on having more of her choices? What a fool she’d been.
Holly had honestly believed that Simon had loved her. She’d loved him, too. OK, so it hadn’t been the big grand passion she’d read about in novels or seen at the movies, with rainbows and starbursts and fanfares every time he’d kissed her, but she knew she was plain and ordinary, so she’d never really expected to have that sort of relationship. She and Simon had liked each other at their first meeting and they’d got on well together. They’d dated, moved in together, bought a house. They’d been happy.
But not quite happy enough, it seemed.
Because in New York Simon had met the woman who really was his big grand passion, the one who made fireworks go off in his head when he kissed her—something that Holly had clearly never managed to do—and everything had fallen apart.
Maybe if Holly had been the real love of his life, they would’ve got married years ago, and they wouldn’t have kept finding excuses to wait a bit longer before the wedding. Buying a house together rather than spending all that money on a party had seemed the sensible thing to do, given that house prices were going up so quickly. And then they’d both been busy with their careers. It was really only last year, when Simon’s mum had asked some very pointed questions about just when her son was planning to settle down properly and produce some grandchildren, that Simon and Holly had set the date for their wedding. Even then, they’d set it for a year in the future rather than rushing into it.
As Fenella was apparently too green with morning sickness right now to get on a plane, Simon’s mum was going to get her much-wanted grandchildren very soon, whereas Holly’s mum would just have to make do with the grandchildren she had. And Holly wasn’t going to let herself think about the children she and Simon might have had. The child she’d secretly started to want six months ago, when Simon had first gone to America. The child Simon had made without her.
‘You need a holiday,’ Natalie said.
‘I’m fine.’ Holly had cancelled her leave, not wanting to take the week’s holiday that should’ve been her honeymoon. A honeymoon for one surely had to be the most unappealing thing ever. Or maybe it was better than going on honeymoon with someone who didn’t really love you. Wasn’t it better to be alone than to be with someone who didn’t want you or value you?
And why hadn’t she realised sooner that Simon had fallen out of love with her and that being together had become a habit instead of what they’d both really wanted?
‘Anyway, it gives me time to concentrate on my career,’ she said, trying to find a positive and damp down her feelings of misery and loneliness.
‘Dry bones.’ Natalie rolled her eyes.
‘Sometimes they’re wet,’ Holly pointed out, ‘if they’re at the bottom of a rain-filled trench.’
Natalie shuddered. ‘Cold, wet and muddy. Give me my nice warm kitchen at the magazine any day. Even if I do have an over-fussy art director wanting me to make a little tweak here and there that actually means making the whole dish all over again for the photographer.’ She looked at Holly. ‘Holls, if you’re spending all your time with the bones of people who died centuries ago, you’re never going to meet anyone else. Archaeologists aren’t sexy.’
Holly laughed. ‘Of course they are. What about Indiana Jones?’
‘He’s a fantasy.’
‘All right, then. Brendan Fraser in The Mummy. You have to admit he’s utterly gorgeous.’
‘Fantasy again,’ Natalie said. ‘In real life, your male colleagues are either like Gandalf, muttering into their very grey, very straggly beards, or they’re total nerds who are terrified at the thought of talking to a real live woman.’
‘Apart from the fact that’s a horrible sweeping generalisation, it’s also not true. My male colleagues all talk to me,’ Holly said.
‘They work with you, so they see you as safe, not as a woman,’ Natalie pointed out.
Which Holly knew was true. And she tried not to mind or let it make her feel even more inadequate than Simon had already made her feel. Why wasn’t she the sort of woman that a man fell hopelessly in love with?
‘You do need a break, though. I know you’re not busy this weekend—’ because it would’ve been her hen weekend, which Holly had also cancelled—‘so let’s go to Bath. It’s the next best thing to Rome. You can drool over the curse tablets at the Roman Baths, and I can drag you off for afternoon tea in the Pump Room. And in between we can go and sigh over the lovely Georgian houses in the Circus.’
‘And you can see how many Mr Darcy-alikes you can spot?’ Holly teased, knowing her best friend well. Natalie was a complete Austen addict.
‘Something like that,’ Natalie said with a smile.
‘All right. Actually, it’ll be nice to go away with you,’ Holly admitted. She hadn’t been looking forward to moping at home this weekend. The last weekend in the house she’d shared with Simon, because next week she was moving her few possessions into a rented flat in Camden and he was moving back from his mother’s to their house.
‘Good, because I’ve already booked the hotel.’
Holly winced. ‘That’s a risky strategy, Nat. What if I’d said no?’
‘Then I would’ve guilt-tripped you into coming with me,’ Natalie said with a grin. ‘Life’s too short not to take the odd risk. We’re staying in the middle of Bath, and according to all the review sites our hotel does the best breakfast ever. And this one is on me,’ she added, ‘because I know how much you were looking forward to Rome. It was the nearest thing I could think of, because I was guessing that Rome itself might have been too much to bear, even if I’d booked a different hotel.’
Holly hugged her. ‘Thank you. That’s really kind of you.’
‘It’s exactly what you would’ve done for me, if I’d been in your shoes,’ Natalie reminded her. ‘I still think Simon’s the biggest idiot ever. The way he treated you—you deserved a lot better than that.’
Yeah. It would’ve been nice if he’d broken up with her before making Fenella pregnant. That was the bit that really hurt. Why had he kept stringing her along when he clearly didn’t love her any more? Why had he let her believe that everything was just fine? Though it wasn’t all him: why hadn’t she seen the problems for herself?
And she hated the way people treated her as The Woman Who’d Been Cheated On. The whispered conversations that stopped when she walked into a room. The judgements. The friends taking sides. People they’d both known since university, who’d been her friends before she’d met Simon, had thrown in their lot with him; it had made her feel even more worthless, despite the fact she knew she was better off without them. She hadn’t been enough as a partner, and she hadn’t been enough as a friend.
How could she not have noticed their relationship unravelling? The signs must’ve been there before he’d gone to New York. She’d managed to snatch just one weekend with Simon during his secondment, quite early on, and he’d been distracted throughout it. He’d said it was work when she asked him; but now she knew it had been Fenella distracting him.
‘At least he didn’t dump me at the altar,’ Holly said, keeping her tone light. ‘It could’ve been a lot wor
se.’
‘It could’ve been a lot better.’ Natalie rolled her eyes. ‘You’re too nice for your own good.’
‘Believe you me, I’m not being nice. I’m hurt and I’m angry, and bits of me want to punch him and yell and scream. But having a tantrum isn’t going to change things,’ Holly said. ‘Simon doesn’t love me any more, and having a hissy fit isn’t going to make him decide he does love me after all. I don’t want to be in a relationship where I’m the one who loves the other the most. I hate feeling so pathetic.’
‘But you still love him.’
Bits of her did, and bits of her didn’t. ‘Eight years is a long time to be with someone,’ Holly said. ‘And most of them were good years.’ But the other thing that nagged at her was how much of it had been her fault. If she’d made Simon feel loved and appreciated enough, instead of taking him for granted, maybe he would’ve acknowledged that he fancied Fenella but he wouldn’t actually have done anything about it. Those six months of physical distance had turned all too quickly into emotional distance. ‘I guess somewhere along the way we started drifting apart, and I should’ve been paying more attention to him.’ It was the first time she’d acknowledged it to someone else, though the thoughts had kept her awake at night.
‘He should’ve been paying just as much attention to you,’ Natalie countered.
Maybe—but he hadn’t. Holly shrugged. ‘It feels pretty crap right now, but I’ll live. Don’t worry, I’m not going to turn into Miss Havisham or anything like that.’
‘Good, because Simon isn’t worth it.’ Natalie squeezed her hand. ‘OK. We’ll get the train on Friday after work, do the Roman Baths first thing on Saturday morning, go for a walk to look at all the gorgeous houses, have afternoon tea at the Pump Room—and then, dear Cinders, you shall go to the ball.’
‘Ball? What ball?’ Holly asked.
‘I got us tickets for a ball on Saturday night. It’s just outside Bath—in an Elizabethan manor house, which you’ll love. And it’s Regency dress.’
‘Regency dress?’ Holly groaned. ‘So this is all about your Darcy obsession.’
Natalie gave her an unrepentant grin. ‘Asking you wouldn’t have worked, so I’m dragging you out to have some fun.’
Holly grimaced. ‘I love you, Nat, and I do appreciate what you’ve done for me, but a ball isn’t really my idea of fun. I’ve got two left feet. And as for dressing up, the cost—’
‘Problem solved, before you say you don’t have a dress. I’ve already hired one for you,’ Natalie informed her.
‘What? How? It might not fit.’
Natalie coughed. ‘If it fits me, it fits you. Someone on the magazine knows a really good hire place, and I went to see them yesterday. I tried on a few dresses and the ones I got for us are fabulous.’
‘Uh-huh.’
‘Holls, if nothing else, you’ll enjoy the music. Apparently there’s a brilliant string quartet who are going to play on a floating bandstand in the middle of the lake. So if you just want to sit and listen to them and sip Pimm’s and watch the sunset and not even put a single foot into the ballroom, that’s fine by me.’
Holly knew her best friend was trying to distract her from the train wreck of her personal life, coming up with ideas to keep her busy. And she appreciated it, because otherwise she rather thought she’d start to get really insecure and ask just what was so wrong with her that Simon hadn’t wanted her any more. She’d always known she’d been punching well above her weight—Simon looked more like a film star than an accountant—and when Holly had stalked Fenella on social media she’d discovered that the other woman was super-glamorous.
Fenella was everything Holly herself wasn’t. No wonder Simon had fallen head over heels with her. If you put a scruffy archaeologist who wore ancient jeans and T-shirts and usually had a smear of mud on her face from the trench she was working in next to someone with perfect hair and make-up and a designer suit, it was obvious who’d win in the gorgeousness stakes. Who’d be enough.
‘I’ll set foot in the ballroom,’ Holly promised, ‘so you get a chance to do some dancing. And I appreciate you having my back.’
‘Always,’ Natalie said fiercely. ‘You’ve been my best friend since we were eleven. That’s not going to change. I’m quite prepared to fly over to New York and beat Simon over the head with an umbrella—and threaten to baste Fenella in the stickiest marinade and barbecue her.’
Holly couldn’t help smiling. ‘Thank you, but there are better things to do in New York.’
Natalie gave her an ‘are you insane?’ stare. ‘Can I at least make a mini-Simon out of modelling clay and stick pins into him?’
‘That’s money,’ Holly said, ‘you could spend more satisfyingly on posh gin.’
‘Oh, the modelling clay and pins would be satisfying enough,’ Natalie said. ‘But you’re right. Posh gin’s a good idea. And we are so having posh gin at the ball. So I’ll meet you at Paddington Station at four o’clock on Friday—next to the Paddington Bear bench—and we’ll get the next train to Bath.’ She smiled. ‘I’ve got our tickets. I’ll send you the email so you’ve got the PDF of our tickets, too, just in case something goes wrong with my phone.’
‘It’s more likely to be me forgetting to charge my phone. You know how hopeless I am,’ Holly said wryly. ‘You’re the best friend ever. Thanks, Nat.’
‘Roman archaeology, afternoon tea and a Regency ball. That’s all our favourite things covered,’ Natalie said with a smile.
‘And no matchmaking,’ Holly said, mindful of her best friend’s views about how to get over a broken relationship. ‘Just a nice girly weekend. You and me.’
‘A nice girly weekend. You and me,’ Natalie echoed.
* * *
Wine plus his parents really wasn’t a good combination, Harry thought. He was really glad that that his brother Dominic, his sister Ellen and their partners were here, too. It was the only thing that made a visit to Beauchamp Abbey bearable. He wished the meal had been Sunday lunch rather than Saturday dinner, because having small children around might have dampened the sniping a bit.
Then again, the sniping had been there when he’d been a small child, too. It had grown worse over the years, and it had been truly unbearable when Dom and Nell had both been at university. Harry hadn’t been able to keep the peace between his parents and he’d hated all the conflict, so he’d escaped to his grandmother’s as much as possible. His parents’ behaviour had gone a long way to putting him off the idea of ever getting married.
At least Ellen had asked him to stay with her, so he didn’t have to put up with a whole weekend of their parents. Now, with the cheese course over, his father was making inroads into the brandy and getting really snippy. ‘You’re thirty now, Harry. Isn’t it about time you got married again and settled down properly?’ George asked.
Trust his father not to pull his punches. And considering that Viscount Moran had made it very clear that Harry’s ex-wife was much too lower class for his son... Harry damped down the anger. Having difficult in-laws wasn’t the only reason, or even one of the main reasons, why he and Rochelle had broken up. But it hadn’t helped.
‘I’m a bit busy with my career, Pa,’ he said as blandly as he could. ‘It’s not fair to ask someone to wait about for me when I’m touring so much.’ And if marriage hadn’t worked with someone who was in the same business and understood that you had to travel a lot to make a living out of music, it definitely wasn’t going to work with someone who’d be left at home all the time.
‘I think we’ve given you your head for quite long enough, letting you mess around with your cello for all these years,’ George said. ‘It’s way past time you came back here, settled down and pulled your weight in the family business.’
‘Messing around’ wasn’t quite how Harry would describe graduating from the Royal Academy of Music with first-class honours, or working w
ith a renowned string quartet for the last six years. Not to mention the fact that he’d paid for the repairs of the conservatory roof at the abbey last year. He did his share of supporting the family estate, except he did it from as much distance as he thought he could get away with.
And it was getting harder and harder to bite his tongue. He knew his father resented the fact that Harry had gone his own way, but did George always have to bring it up and try to make his youngest son feel as if his career was worthless and he was a useless son? But, much as he wanted to stand up to his father’s bullying and tell him where to get off, Harry didn’t want to make life hard for his brother and sister. They were the ones who lived locally and would bear the brunt of George’s temper, whereas Harry had the perfect excuse to escape to wherever the quartet was playing next.
‘I still think my father would turn in his grave at the idea of people poking around the house,’ George grumbled.
‘Nobody will be poking around the house, Pa,’ Dominic reassured him. ‘They’ll be following a defined visitor route. Nobody will go into areas we’ve roped off as private. And we’ve done Open Garden weekends for years without a problem; opening the house to visitors is just an extension of that.’
‘The gift shop, the plant sales and the café we’re going to set up in the Orangery will help to make the estate pay for itself,’ Ellen added. ‘We’re developing an exclusive range of biscuits at the factory, based on some of the old recipes we found in the library, and we can sell all the gifts through our website as well.’
‘Biscuits.’ George’s voice dripped with contempt.
Harry could see his sister-in-law Sally and his brother-in-law Tristan squirming, embarrassed by the escalating family row and not quite sure how to deal with Viscount Moran’s uncertain temper, worried that anything they did or said would make things worse. With age, George had become more and more crusty, to the point where he was almost a caricature. One of these days he’d be in a satirical cartoon, with his mop of grey hair he couldn’t be bothered to style, his jowls and his red cheeks, pointing a finger and shouting.
The Prince and the Wedding Planner Page 18