by Karen Swan
She gave a relieved laugh, putting her hand over his on the table. It was the perfect response. ‘Nothing. Exactly, nothing.’ She wanted to cry with relief. ‘It’s got nothing to do with us at all. I try to . . . pretend it’s not even there, as much as I can. I just want to live my life and be me and be liked and loved for who I am and not because my family’s got money.’ The words came out in a jumbled rush.
‘Okay.’ Alex still looked baffled. He took another sip – gulp, actually – of his wine. ‘But you were nervous about telling me because . . .?’
‘I was worried you’d feel I’d lied to you – by omission, I mean. We’ve been together four months now and things have moved pretty fast between us. Clearly. I know I should have brought it up before now but I just didn’t . . .’
His eyes narrowed as he watched her. ‘Trust me?’
‘No! Of course I trust you.’
‘So then . . .?’
She sighed. It was always so hard to explain. For all those with not enough – which was almost everyone – they didn’t want to hear that wealth could be a burden. ‘Look, I’ve been raised in a certain way which means not trusting anyone, at first. As kids, my brother and I had to have security because of the kidnap risk.’
‘Kidnap?’ He looked shocked. ‘Jesus, just how rich are you?’
‘I’m not anything. It’s all in trust till I’m thirty. Like I said, I try to live as normally as possible, and just be like everyone else. Which is why I never said anything before. But now that we’re engaged and you’re going to meet my family . . . well, it’s a big thing not to mention. I didn’t want you to meet them unprepared and feel ambushed.’
‘Ambushed,’ he echoed, looking exactly that.
‘Alex, I hate even having to talk about it, making it a thing. I just don’t want it to change things between us.’
He looked at her sharply, offended. ‘Why would it change things between us? You think I’m impressed by money?’
‘Of course not. What I meant was, everything’s been so perfect between us, I just didn’t want to change a single thing.’
‘In case with one turn of the dial we fall apart?’
She shook her head quickly. ‘I don’t want to take any chances of losing you. My family’s rich. So what? Everything goes on just as it has been for us.’
He looked into her eyes, and then away again. ‘But that’s naive, isn’t it? What about your engagement ring? I’m a student, I can’t afford some massive rock.’
‘I don’t want a massive rock! I want you.’
‘But your parents—’
‘Aren’t impressed by material things. Believe me. If there’s one thing they know, it’s the value of people and experiences over things. They only want to see that we love each other. That’s it.’ She picked up his hand from the table and kissed the back of it, staring deep into his eyes. ‘They’re going to love you. As I do.’
He was quiet for several moments, digesting the revelation. ‘Well, not exactly as you do, I hope.’ A glimmer of amusement made his eyes sparkle. ‘That really could be awkward over breakfast.’
She burst out laughing. ‘You’re incorrigible!’
He grinned too and she felt the low-grade tension that had pulled between them for a few moments slacken again. It was done at last. He knew! He knew and he didn’t care.
‘Incorrigible, yes,’ he agreed, lifting his arm up so that, holding his hand, she rose to standing. He pushed his chair back and pulled her towards him. ‘Also indefatigable. And inescapable.’ He pushed his knees between her legs. ‘And, when it comes to you, Twig Tremain,’ he murmured, pulling her down onto his lap so that she was straddling him. ‘I am most definitely . . . insatiable.’
Chapter Four
Tara peered through the crack in the door. A riot of stuff met her eyes – ski medals were hanging on ribbons from hooks and mirrors, a jug-eared silver trophy for eventing was on the bookcase. None of the books had ever been read, or even opened, the spines completely uncreased and as smooth as marble. A small suitcase was open on the floor, half-packed with clothes that had been precision-folded. A wet towel and yesterday’s Calvin Klein boxers were strewn on the floor.
Her little brother Miles was lying on the bed on his stomach, wearing a pair of jeans and a striped shirt wrongly buttoned up. He was watching something on his laptop, the sounds coming from it dubious enough that she felt impelled to give a little cough before entering.
The screen was slammed down and he twisted onto his side as she came in.
‘Ah, so you’re in here,’ she said breezily, seeing it was safe to enter. ‘Why am I not surprised?’
He rested his head in his hand as she came in and jumped on the slouchy sofa opposite, putting her feet up on the arm, legs crossed at the ankles. ‘What’s brought you back so soon?’ he frowned. ‘Weren’t you only here two months ago?’
‘Haha. Nice. Good to see you too.’
‘You really need to send over an up-to-date photo before these visits, so that we can recognize you. Wouldn’t want Tamba thinking you’re an intruder. Those are some sharp incisors she’s got.’
She tossed a scatter cushion at him. ‘All right! Point made. But I have been busy, you know. Medical degrees don’t just earn themselves. And anyway, it’s not like you’ve been around much.’
‘I’ve been back two and a half weeks.’
She was surprised. ‘Really?’ Term dates, once the pin around which her entire life pivoted, had ceased to register the moment she left school.
He shrugged, reaching his arm for a rugby ball that was, randomly, on the pillows. He fell onto his back and began lackadaisically tossing it in the air. What was it about boys and balls, she wondered? They simply couldn’t leave them alone.
‘So, is it all going okay at school?’ she asked.
‘S’pose, if you don’t include my mocks.’
‘Tough, huh?’
He looked across at her. ‘Put it this way – there’s only gonna be one doctor in this family.’
‘Oh good – well, Mum will be pleased.’
He had to chuckle at that. ‘Yeah. I’ll do what you won’t and find me a good man and settle down. Only I don’t think that would please her either!’
They both laughed. Miles had come out a year earlier, although Tara (and her father, she suspected) had always known. ‘Poor Mum,’ she grinned. ‘Having such problem kids.’
‘Have you seen them?’
‘Not yet. Mum’s having her hair done and Dad was on a call when I arrived.’
‘Surprise of the century.’ Miles threw the ball so high into the air it almost touched the ceiling rose – an intricate froth of Regency plasterwork that she’d barely ever noticed.
She squinted at it for a moment, then looked around the room, trying to see it with fresh eyes, trying to understand what Alex would see when he arrived here in an hour’s time.
This had been home for most of her life. They had lived in the Mayfair townhouse for thirteen years, upgrading from the Virginia Water mansion when her father had sold his pharmaceuticals business and made his second fortune. The building was reasonably understated from the kerb – handsome but muted, built in red brick with a super-glossy black door and a cloud of box balls neatly arranged in a parterre out front. Inside, though, was a different matter. Marble floors, grand chandeliers that weighed as much as a small car, and Ionic columns testified to the historic grandeur of the house, and the roll-call of former residents read like a Who’s Who of London power players, including former prime ministers, Napoleonic-era ambassadors, a Nobel Prize-winning scientist and the scandalous mistress of King Edward VII.
Miles’s room was much like any other eighteen-year-old boy’s, with empty beer bottles proudly stacked in a pyramid in the empty fire grate and a Chelsea poster stuck to the walls, slightly off plumb. Mrs Titchenor, their housekeeper, was under strict instructions to leave Miles’s room ‘as is’ and not to tidy or clean in there more than once a day. ‘Teenage
boys need some chaos,’ her father had proclaimed, although it was impossible to imagine him ever having been a chaotic teen. Nonetheless, it was still a room bigger than her entire Bayswater flat, with deep coving, highly polished oak parquet and an eighteenth-century statuary marble fireplace, and it occurred to Tara now that for a man who’d grown up hobo-style on farms throughout Southern California, this might be something of a shock.
Perhaps they ought to have gone out for the first meeting after all. Neutral ground would put Alex more at ease, surely? It wasn’t like it was going to be a relaxing experience for him, asking her father for her hand, moments after they met. Here.
But it was Alex who had insisted. ‘I want to know your life – warts and all,’ he had joked, and she knew she couldn’t hide this from him. At some point he would have to come face to face with the reality of her background; better to get it over and done with early. She wasn’t good with secrets.
‘So why are you here?’ Miles asked curiously, watching her scan the room. ‘Marge is insisting I wear a collared shirt.’
She looked back at him, knowing her brother already suspected more than just a meet and greet. He had good instincts – about people as well as situations.
‘So that you can all meet my new boyfriend, Alex.’
‘How new?’
‘Four months, thereabouts.’
‘Box-fresh, then. Is there much point?’ he groaned. ‘Surely he’s not going to last another four with you. Any minute now he’s going to know what I’ve been saying for years: that you’re an uptight goody two-shoes who wouldn’t know a good time if it hit you in the—’
‘Oi!’ She threw a cushion that hit him in the face.
Miles laughed. ‘Where is he, anyway?’
‘Arriving shortly. He had some things to finish at work first. And I wanted to get here beforehand and warn you to be nice.’
‘Why? Is he fragile?’
‘Yes, actually, he’s precious – to me. And I don’t want you scaring him off.’
‘Me? Scare him off? I think you’re overestimating my powers.’
‘He’s an impoverished student. Doing a biology PhD at Imperial. This’ – her hands vaguely gesticulated around the grand room – ‘isn’t his bag.’
Miles looked bemused, still tossing the ball rhythmically above his head. ‘So we’ve got to pretend we don’t live here?’
‘Just tone everything down. Don’t mention the boat, the cars, definitely not the plane. Not the houses.’
‘What? Not even Gstaad?’ he pouted, taking the mickey.
‘Nothing,’ she said in her best warning voice. ‘Nada. Zip.’
He gave a dramatic sigh. ‘This will be so dull.’
‘Actually I can guarantee you’re going to love him. He’s incredibly handsome and he’s got a very dry sense of humour.’
‘Hmph, well, that’s the oldies’ needs covered. But I still don’t see what’s in there for me.’
Tara smiled. ‘He’s a die-hard Chelsea fan.’
‘I thought Mum said he’s a Yank?’
‘Californian, actually. But he got taken to Stamford Bridge his first week in London and he’s been a True Blue ever since.’
‘Yeah? What’s his view on Drogba?’
‘I don’t know. Probably that he’s a god or something?’ she shrugged.
‘Like, duh! No one can touch him for pace, power and skill on the ball.’
‘Yeah. That’s what he said,’ she fibbed. She had never had a conversation about Chelsea with Alex, other than to mention in passing that her brother was a fan – there were far more fun things they could be doing – but if it brought Miles onside . . . Holly thought she was reserved with new people, but Miles could be positively hostile. Her hard time at school had been nothing compared to his – the only boy who’d received more tackles on the rugby pitch had been the son of the exiled prince of Greece.
He sat up. ‘What time’s he getting here?’
She grinned and checked her phone. ‘Twenty minutes or so.’ She took her feet off the sofa and stood up. ‘So I’d better check in with Mum, at least. Do you know who Dad’s on the phone to? Can I look in?’
‘Gerard.’
‘Oh,’ she groaned. ‘Better leave it then.’ Gerard was their father’s investment manager and as such almost the third wheel in their parents’ marriage. ‘I’ll go see Mum. But come down when you hear Alex get here . . . and remember what I said.’ She brought a finger to her lips.
‘I know, I know. We’re humble peasant farmers and all this is a figment of our hallucinatory imaginations.’
She went down the hall, chuckling to herself.
Her parents’ suite was on the next level up and took over the entire floor, her progress along the corridors silent as she walked over the plush mohair ivory carpet.
‘Hey, Marie,’ she smiled as she passed the young assistant housekeeper on the stairs. ‘How’s Jack getting on?’
Marie straightened up from sweeping the treads to allow her to pass. ‘So well, Miss Tara. He is top in his class for fractions.’
‘Oh that’s amazing, I’m so pleased! Tell him congratulations from me,’ she beamed as she carried on up the stairs.
Her parents’ rooms were roughly divided into his and hers sides with a drawing room connecting them in the middle. Her father had the east side, on account of being an early riser; her mother the west, for the flattering evening light when her make-up was being applied. Tara knocked on the door at her mother’s side, already able to hear her voice over the sound of the hairdryer, and peeked her head around. ‘Hey, Mumma.’
‘Tara, darling!’ Her mother, arms outstretched, remained seated in her hairdresser’s chair as Jakob, her stylist, did some backcombing with a fine comb. ‘Come here, let me see you.’
Tara walked in, aware that her midnight needlecord flares and pretty new H&M blouse looked woefully undercooked beside her mother’s Valentino. ‘You need a haircut, darling. Doesn’t she need a haircut, Jakob?’
Jakob – who was to her mother what Gerard was to her father – nodded. ‘I could take three inches off and it would freshen you up, like that.’ He snapped his fingers together.
Idly Tara threaded her long dark hair through her fingers. She supposed it had grown too long. She’d not bothered with her ‘maintenance’ as her mother called it, for months. She had even taken to shaving her legs in the shower each morning, something that would no doubt put her mother in a full swoon.
‘Let me see you. I feel I haven’t seen you in so long. Have you lost weight?’
Tara felt her nerves flutter under her mother’s close scrutiny. ‘I’m not sure. I don’t think so.’
‘Hear that, Jakob? She doesn’t think so.’ Her mother tutted. ‘Youth’s fast metabolism is wasted on the young.’
Tara went and perched on her mother’s dressing table. It was pale pink onyx, underlit, and decorated with a few black-and-white photos in silver frames; a bespoke bottle of perfume, made by a Nose in Florence and enclosed in a commissioned crystal bottle, sat to one side.
Tara picked up the bottle and began fiddling with it. Now that she was here, she felt an overwhelming urge to reveal her happy secrets, as though they were birds inside her that she needed to set free. Her mother had always struggled to understand her, it was true; Tara’s nature was far more akin to her father’s, but that didn’t mean she didn’t value or seek her mother’s opinion, and she knew news of her engagement would surely delight her mother. It would be everything she’d been waiting for, a return to the path her mother had mapped out for her . . . Was that why she felt so nervous about it, too? Was it confirmation that Holly had been right – that she was turning her back on her dreams?
She felt another stab of nerves, her stomach pitching and swooping in anticipation of the ride tonight was going to bring. ‘How was Milan?’ she asked instead, knowing she had to allow Alex to take the lead on this. He had specifically asked for it.
‘Milan was Milan,’ her mo
ther sighed happily. ‘I can’t believe we’d left it so long. Songs at La Scala, dinner with the Sevezzas. It was so good to see them. Did I mention their daughter’s getting married?’
‘A few times, yes.’
‘Lovely girl. Lives in New York now. She’s on the Met Ball Committee this year, does a lot for the homeless. Her fiancé’s a prince, although that doesn’t count for much of course, they’re ten a penny over there; but he’s high up at Cazenove.’
‘Always helpful.’
Her mother must have caught her wry tone because she gave her a look. ‘Of course, we’re tremendously pleased to be meeting your new beau too, dear.’
‘Mumma, no one in the world has a beau anymore. And Alex is looking forward to meeting you too. But as I’ve just said to Miles, can we please keep the . . .’ She circled her hands in the air vaguely. ‘To a minimum.’
‘What’s . . .?’ her mother asked, also circling her hands in the air and almost taking Jakob’s eye out with her cushion-cut pink diamond ring.
‘You know perfectly well. He’s a student like me. He doesn’t have any money. It’s going to be daunting enough for him coming here to meet you, without . . .’ She circled her hands again. ‘Too.’
Her mother sighed. ‘Fine,’ she said disappointedly, and Tara suspected she was thinking that Senora Sevezza hadn’t had to tone things down for her daughter’s prince. ‘So tell me about him. What are his interests?’
Tara felt her smile grow. Just to get to talk about him made her feel happy. ‘Well, his big love is butterflies.’
There was a long silence. Even Jakob’s eyebrows shot up, his hands momentarily stilled above her mother’s head.
‘Butterflies?’
‘Yes.’ She rolled her eyes, knowing exactly what her mother was thinking. ‘Don’t worry, he’s not interested in them because they’re pretty. They are excellent indicators of the health of any given ecosystem and a predictor of the biodiversity that is likely to be found there. The future of this planet rests on flourishing biodiversity, Mumma. It’s actually cutting-edge stuff.’
‘Butterflies?’ her mother repeated.