The Englishwoman Trilogy: Box set of: Englishwoman in Paris, Englishwoman in Scotland, Englishwoman in Manhattan

by Jenny O'Brien

  She felt his nearness in the cab as it raced across London, swerving between buses and bicycles as if it was on a racing circuit and not a heaving metropolis. If she sniffed, she could just about separate the smell of his light aftershave from the lingering body odours that seemed to have impregnated the black imitation leather seats. If she reached out her hand, she knew he’d take it in his, cupping his fingers, warming, protecting, loving. Her thoughts stuttered, the corner of her eyes now on his long legs encased in denim, his feet still in the same loafers, now crusty with dried on sludge. If it had been Aaron, he’d have moaned but with Matti it didn’t seem to matter.

  Squeezing her eyes, she tucked Aaron back where he belonged and focussed on her feelings. What did she want to do now? Where did she want to be? She sighed because, of course, those questions didn’t need an answer. She was exactly where she wanted to be just at this moment with the person she wanted to be with. He wasn’t perfect, this Matti Bianchi, but he was kind, loving and she fancied him rotten. It had taken a lot of willpower to walk away this morning and why had she? She was single now, single and as free as she’d ever be from the past. She should just do what she wanted, which was to shuffle that last few centimetres and feel his hand around her shoulders, his lips reaching for hers. But she didn’t. She waited for the taxi to pull up outside The South Kensington branch of McDonalds and determinedly made him accept the burger she’d bought for him in return for brunch.

  Chapter Seventeen

  If he had his time again, Matti would have been a doctor. He’d have gone to university and studied medicine instead of law. It wouldn’t have been difficult. In fact, he’d have enjoyed it, apart from the gory bits. Law was all very well but he spent most of his time with his head in a dry-as-dust book written in dry-as-dust legal jargon that only a lawyer could ever have a hope in hell of getting their head around.

  And banking was no better. Instead of legal tomes, he stared at spreadsheets in an effort to pass figures from one column to the next. It was all about profit. Profit for Murray and the shareholders, and he was sick of it. If he’d qualified as a doctor, he’d have been able to do something of value with his life. Perhaps he’d have focussed on cancer care. If he had, he might have been able to spot the problems his Nonno was having. He’d have been able to intervene before it was far too late to do anything other than watch and wait as the tall bear of a man diminished and shrivelled to dust before their eyes. He’d never felt as hopeless as when he’d stood beside his bed at the hospice with his mother and grandmother flanking his sides.

  That wasn't quite true, staring across the table as she struggled to cope with the Big Mac she’d chosen, no doubt in a fit of pique. He’d have helped her if it wasn't for the feel of a couple of sets of eyes on the back of his neck. Evelyn and Stella, whilst still subdued, were still up to something. He could sense it in the way their eyes shifted between him and Cara before dissolving into schoolgirl laughter.

  ‘Girls, please. You’ll give yourself indigestion.’

  He eyed her clamping her teeth around an extra-large bite as if she couldn’t wait to finish, even as she struggled to keep both sides of the bun in place, her left hand hidden within the folds of her blue fleece. She was hiding something, something other than her hand. She was hiding something important, vital even, and he felt hopeless. All he wanted to do was to help. But to be able to help, first she needed to acknowledge he had some kind of a place in her life and, at the moment, that was looking increasingly unlikely.

  She’d remained silent in the taxi after the appointment with her doctor. He’d had to work out for himself what the visit was all about by picking up a leaflet and scanning the work carried out by the world famous institution. So she’d been to see a burns specialist but what now? Was she even travelling back to New York or had she decided to remain in London? So many questions and no one to ask except perhaps Pauline; Pauline who was about to lose her home and everything she held dear, all because of men like him. No, he should have been a doctor – it would have been better for everyone.

  Scrunching up his wrapper into a tight ball, his hand stilled at the sound of his phone ringing in his pocket. It could only be Murray.

  ‘So, how are you getting on, Matisse? When is the old biddy shipping out because I’ve got an architect all lined up to visit?’

  ‘She’s packing up as we speak, Murray,’ he said, painfully aware that Cara had carefully placed her half eaten burger down and was now listening to every word.

  ‘Jolly good, jolly good. I need you back here ASAP. When does your plane get in?’

  Lifting up his wrapper, he scrunched it into the mouthpiece before continuing. ‘I’m sorry, I can’t really hear you, it’s a very bad line. I’ll phone you later,’ he ended, pressing the off button before placing his phone down on the table. ‘So, what are we up to this afternoon, girls,’ his attention now on the eleven pairs of eyes eagerly turned in his direction.

  She trusted him, didn’t she, her eyes on his face as he teased the girls about trying to catch a glimpse of one of the princes on their trip to Buckingham Palace. But if she trusted him, why did she have this gnawing feeling low in her gut that he was up to something and that something involved Pauline?

  There was nothing she could do about it now but later, when the girls were back in their hotel rooms for that hour’s rest before supper, she was determined to find out. Her gaze swept over the jeans he’d finally agreed to change into following the plea of his daughter because there was no way on earth she was accompanying him to McDonald’s in a three piece suit whatever he said. He’d teamed it with a simple navy turtleneck with a scarf wrapped carelessly around his neck in that Parisian loop she loved so much. He looked exactly what he was; handsome, successful and sexy as hell, and at the minute she’d trust the devil more than she’d trust even one word that came out of his mouth.

  ‘Mum, how are things with you? Has the snow melted?’

  ‘As if it had never been, my love,’ her voice gentle over the line.

  ‘Mum, I really wanted to ask you about Matti?’

  ‘Matti, ask away, although I’m not sure I can help. He’s a nice bloke Cara. Not many of them left.’

  ‘But is he nice? What’s he helping you with? He won’t speak about it and you haven’t told me?’

  ‘It’s nothing to worry yourself about. Just something we have to sort out following the death of your father.’

  ‘You’re not going to tell me, are you?’

  ‘Well, no, but that doesn’t mean I don’t love you. It’s just not your business. Cara. I don’t want us to fall out over…’

  ‘We’re not going to fall out. In fact, I think it’s about time we got to know each other as friends. That warped stepmother relationship thing we had going for whatever reason is past tense. I’d really like to get to know the woman my father fell in love with…’

  ‘Oh darling,’ her voice cracking. ‘I’d love that.’

  ‘That’s why I’d like you to come and stay with me in New York for a couple of weeks. I can show you all the sights and we can have a right old girlie time.’

  ‘But I can’t leave this place.’

  ‘Yes you can. I’ve been in touch with Mr Pidgeon and we’ll get someone in to keep things ticking over. Mum, I’m not taking no for an answer and I’ve already booked you a ticket.’

  ‘Still the same head strong girl,’ she said on a laugh. ‘All right, my love; I’m in your hands.’

  The journey back was a completely different animal. For a start, she had her stepmother with her. Her stepmother who hadn’t been out of the UK in years and certainly never somewhere, if not exactly foreign, then as far flung as New York. She had someone to cosset her; someone to help her through customs and store her jacket in the overhead locker. Someone to laugh and joke about the old times. She liked being cosseted. This mother-daughter relationship that Matti had pointed out to her. This she’d missed out on and now she held on like a drowning man gasping for air. />
  Funnily enough, she also missed him. Was it her imagination or was he keeping a close eye on her? He was right behind her, always just in the corner of her eye as he teased Maggie, Mavis and the girls. She was pleased he’d managed to stay the last couple of days, not that she’d seen much of him as he’d decided to trace his own way back to see Pauline now the snow was just a brief memory.

  Sitting cosied up to her mother, her coat wrapped around her lap in an effort to keep her increasingly painful hand warm, she was mindful of her own trip, but not to see her mum.

  The day before, it was again her morning off but she stopped a few miles short of going home. Instead, she went to pay a visit to Mr Pidgeon of Messrs. Pike, Pidgeon & Prue; her father’s solicitors just as it had been her grandfather’s before. She’d been going there for years, but now instead of being able to stick her tongue out at that snotty secretary of his, she had to act all grown-up and be the lady her father despaired of ever discovering under all of her layers of arrogance and attitude.

  She was welcomed with open arms by Mr Pidgeon, but then again she was probably one of his more important clients. Berkshire was bursting at the seams with old money and her little pot had so many zeros on the end, she often lost count.

  ‘Hello, Lady Cara,’ he said, ushering her across the original wooden flooring that would cost a bomb in some London gallery. ‘How’s your little job going? Keeping you out of mischief, I hope?’

  ‘As if I was ever in mischief,’ she said, meeting his twinkling eyes with a mock solemn look as she remembered the innumerable times he’d had to rescue her from some prank or other. Keeping her name out of the papers was a full time job as she careened from one near disaster to the next. It was only her music, and then Aaron, that had prevented her from ending up a complete failure.

  Looking over at his brushed back grey hair and the half-moon glasses perched on the end of his nose, she felt safe, safer than she’d felt in a long time. Shifting in her chair, she crossed one leg over the other as she tried to work out just how she was going to get him to tell her everything she wanted to know. She remembered he was a prize winning clam at the best of times, and this certainly wasn't the best of times, her fingers tucking themselves over her left arm as she caught his gaze flickering to where her hand rested across her lap.

  ‘I’ve just been to stay with my stepmother.’

  ‘Really? Lovely woman that.’ His eyes now serious as they returned to her face. ‘I knew your mother, of course, did I ever…?’

  ‘No, no you’ve never mentioned it.’ She leant forward in her chair, eager to have any snippets of information.

  ‘Now there was a lady, in every manner of the word. Her father, your late grandfather, was friendly with the Churchill’s you know. All Eton educated to a man.’ He rested his elbows on the desk, staring into the middle distance. ‘She was a great beauty, a very great beauty. All that glorious auburn hair, and skin the colour of whipped cream. She had the world at her feet. Lord Carnew was chasing her, as was the Earl of Brayely, but she fell in love with an impoverished landowner and ran away to Gretna Green…’

  ‘My father never told me,’ her smile watery. ’He never spoke of her. There were no photographs except the one beside his bed, and then when he met Pauline, I sneaked it into my room. I remember one of the girls teasing me about her, you know.’ Pulling a tissue from her pocket and wiping her nose. ‘She said she was just some posh slapper who had to get married and that when she finally looked into my ugly face, she decided to kill herself.’

  ‘Oh my dear, how dreadful.’ He shook his head, his eyes never leaving her face. ‘She loved you dearly. Her precious bundle, she used to call you. Post-natal depression isn’t choosy in who it targets. It came along out of the blue, probably why it’s called the baby blues, come to think of it. And you must remember, it wasn't so well known twenty-five years ago. One minute she was there and the next she’d faded into an exquisite memory.’ He coughed briefly. ‘I was half in love with her, we all were. You remind me so much of her, you know. It’s almost as if she’s in the room again.’

  There was a brief knock and within moments she found herself with a china cup and saucer in her hand with a shortbread biscuit on the side.

  ‘So my title and my inheritance then…’

  ‘Came down your mother’s side of the family.’ He bit into his biscuit, waving the remainder aloft like a sword. ‘If they’d had their way, of course, they’d have stripped her of both her title and her inheritance. They got Messrs. Wig, Wig and Whamster in Chancery Lane to try and overturn the will but it stood. She kept her title and all the money and property, not that it did her any good.’

  ‘Any good?’ She repeated with a frown.

  ‘Your father was a proud man, well you know that. You used to live with him.’

  ‘I always wondered why I had the title whilst he was just a plain Mister,’ she mused, half to herself. ‘He used to say to me, he prized both my mother and me above the stars and he would never put a price on his love.’ She paused. ‘So, he battled on, never touching even a penny of her fortune and died with a crumbling house and nothing left for his second wife?’ her eyes suddenly hard. ‘How could he do that to her?’

  ‘Now, now, pet, it’s not exactly the way it happened. He did use some of the money.’

  ‘What on,’ she interrupted, remembering their frugal lifestyle. She hadn’t lacked for anything as a child but she’d never had everything she’d wanted by any means.

  ‘Who do you think paid for your schooling? Public schooling doesn’t come cheap, and then there were the riding lessons, followed by Cambridge University and what about that year in France before, before...’ His words faltered, his eyes drawn back to her hand.

  ‘So, he spent some of my money on me, big deal. But what about Pauline, what did he leave her, because from where I’m sitting, she’s in pretty dire straits.’ Her eyes widened as a thought struck her. ‘Was it death duties, is that it? Because if it is, I’ll pay up, I’ll happily pay up.’

  ‘No, no.’ He managed a brief laugh. ‘Death duties aren’t between spouses or there’d be no money left for the lawyers to squabble over. He inherited quite a bit of debt from his father, debt he couldn’t hope to repay without dipping into your money, something he could have easily done but, for him the money was stained by the memory of what your grandfather, your other grandfather, had done to your mother.’

  She stood up and, walking over to the window, stared out at Wraysbury High Street trying to remember. Her father had told her about her grandfather, his dad, and what it was like growing up in Northtonly Manor as a boy. How he’d used to cycle around the lanes with a fishing rod on his back searching for the best spots to cast his line. How his father had taught him how to shoot a gun, but lost his temper yet again when he refused to use it on anything other than a row of tin cans. As far as she could remember he’d never so much as whispered a single syllable about her other grandfather, and grandmother? There must have been a second grandmother?

  ‘Tell me,’ her voice scarcely a whisper.

  ‘If you’re sure you want to...’

  ‘Just tell me, I have to know.’

  She heard his chair creak and then silence for a moment before he started speaking.

  ‘They disowned her, their beautiful talented daughter, when she married him. They even went so far as to put a death notice in all the papers.’

  ‘How could they, surely the newspapers would have checked?’ She’d turned to face him, the window and the morning traffic forgotten.

  ‘Oh, it wouldn’t happen now, I’ll grant you but in those days, money talked.’ She watched him cradle his cup between long bony fingers. ‘And then when you were born, they wouldn’t acknowledge they had a grandchild. They even went so far as to write you both out of their wills. They left Shotways to some cousin or other.’

  ‘Shotways?’ she questioned softly, a sudden vision appearing out of nowhere of one of the largest stately homes in t
he British Isles, so large it made Buckingham Palace look like a gatehouse.

  ‘Yes, Shotways, but that’s all water under the bridge now.’ He rustled through some papers and, finally finding what he was looking for, scrolled a finger down the list to land on the figure at the bottom. ‘Now, young lady, it’s not right for you to carry on as you’re doing.’

  ‘What, spending too much money am I?’

  ‘It would upset your parents, you know. They’d have wanted you to use your title and the money. You don’t need to work. You should be living the life of luxury in some penthouse with servants flapping about at your feet.’

  ‘Really, Mr Pidgeon, you don’t know me very well. I can’t touch it for myself but,’ reaching out a hand she checked the last figure with a sigh. ‘That much? And there I was worrying about how to pay for that helicopter.’

  ‘Helicopter,’ he repeated. ‘What helicopter?’

  ‘Never mind. Now, I don’t want you to break any confidences, you wouldn’t anyway,’ watching as he shook his head. ‘I’m taking my, er, mother to New York for a couple of weeks and while she’s away, I want you to firstly get in some staff and pay off whatever debt there is owing on Northtonly Manor. In addition, I’m going to settle, let’s see,’ her eyes back on the figure. ‘I’m going to settle three million on Pauline and you’re going to arrange it so she has no idea where the money has come from.’

  ‘Me,’ his expression startled. ‘How can I…?