And then Tarquin’s expression had gone dreamy as he fell silent, with that special, faraway look that meant his lyric-writing impulse had been triggered. One never knew what would set him off, and Eva had watched him in awe, imagining the creative process swirling behind those big blue eyes, so proud and elated to be sharing the moment with him . . .
But now she was called back to the present by the rocking of the swing: Milly was kicking her heels against the base of it in sheer happiness.
‘This is great!’ she exclaimed, having transcribed Eva’s words onto the iPad. ‘Thanks so much, Eves. Top stuff! I’ll work all that in and then just google something sort of poetic about love and marriage to add to it. You’re a star!’
She leant over, planted a smacking kiss on Eva’s cheek and dashed off again. Eva bit her lip, unable to believe what had just happened. Yet again, she’d given Milly what she wanted despite resolving not to do it.
Am I ever going to be able to stand up to her? she wondered miserably. It was a pattern that had been set since they were kids – Milly got what she wanted from Eva whenever she wanted it.
‘May I join you?’
Father Liam’s voice startled Eva: he had approached over the grass, and was standing next to the swing, politely waiting for her to approve his sitting down next to her. She nodded automatically, and he hitched up his perfectly pressed black trousers and took a seat. Father Liam was as immaculate as ever, his reddish-brown hair brushed straight back from his high forehead, his black clerical shirt ironed as crisply as his trousers, the white tab at his neck bright and spotless.
‘Eva, let me ask you a question you’ll think is very random: are you familiar with the play Cyrano de Bergerac?’ the priest asked. ‘There was a film version with Gérard Depardieu, and another one, some time ago, a comedy version with Steve Martin. You’re probably too young to have heard of him.’
Eva frowned, trying to think. She hadn’t heard of Steve Martin, but the name Cyrano definitely rang bells.
‘I’m not sure,’ she admitted.
Father Liam nodded.
‘Well, this is the plot,’ he said. ‘A young man called Christian, very handsome but not very clever, falls in love with a young woman called Roxane. She, being a tremendous bluestocking, will only give her heart to a man who can court her with clever words and poetry: merely being good-looking isn’t enough for her. But Christian, being a bear of little brain, is quite incapable of satisfying her demanding requirements, so he turns to his friend, the poet and wit Cyrano de Bergerac, to help him out. Cyrano gives Christian exactly the right poetic script to say to cause Roxane to fall into his arms. Cyrano can’t resist the opportunity to see how his words affect her because, you see, he’s madly in love with her himself.’
There was a long pause.
‘Why can’t Cyrano court Roxane himself?’ Eva asked after a while in a very small voice.
Father Liam grimaced. ‘He doesn’t think he’s attractive enough for her. He has an enormous nose. Almost a deformity.’
Gently, he reached out and pushed Eva’s hair back from where it had been partly obscuring her face.
‘Not an issue with you,’ he observed. ‘No deformities here.’
Eva went bright pink.
‘Milly’s just bubbled up to Ludo and me and informed us that you’ve been a world of help to her in writing her vows, so I’m not to worry she won’t be ready for the ceremony tomorrow after all,’ Father Liam continued. ‘I was very sorry to hear this, as you can imagine. To be frank, I wouldn’t at all mind if Milly were not ready for her wedding; they’re clearly a very mismatched couple. I’m being very frank with you, Eva, and you must be wondering why. But I’m wondering why you’d help her with something so intimate as writing her vows?’
‘I’m so used to it!’ Eva said, fixing her eyes on the priest’s, wanting to make him understand. ‘I was just thinking, I won’t help her with her vows, I won’t, and then I got distracted and she asked me and it just all popped out! I don’t want to help her any more, I didn’t mean to, I have to work out how to stop . . .’
Father Liam reached out and took her hand, holding it between his own.
‘That sounds like an excellent idea,’ he said. ‘I’m so very glad that I haven’t just raised this subject out of nowhere, as it were.’
The workmen had finished assembling the stage; wondrously, the pieces of wood they had carried up to the lawn were now one smooth shining parquet square, raised on an invisible frame to keep it level, two shallow steps leading up to it. They jumped down from the edge, too manly to use the steps, and filed past the swing, each of them bowing their heads in respect for Father Liam’s calling as they went.
‘Ludo already talked to me about this when we first came to Italy,’ Eva admitted. ‘Not the Cyrano, putting-words-in-her-mouth part, though. I didn’t think of that until you pointed it out. He could see what my feelings were about . . . about Tarquin. He was really nice and sympathetic.’
‘You clearly struck some kind of nerve with him,’ Father Liam commented wryly. ‘No one ever says that about Ludo!’
Eva managed a little laugh.
‘No, he really was nice,’ she confirmed. ‘He said that the marriage was going to go ahead because Milly was so set on it, and I shouldn’t get my hopes up that it wouldn’t, but that it wasn’t going to last long and so I should sort of wait it out and hope to . . . hope that when it broke up, I could . . .’
‘Hope to catch Tarquin on the rebound?’ Father Liam clicked his tongue crossly. ‘What very typically cynical advice of Ludo’s! I’ll have to haul him over the coals for that. Please, for your own good, and for the good of the ill-assorted pair whose union I will be blessing tomorrow, leave them to sink or swim on their own. Marriage brings with it many challenges, and if they can’t communicate with each other properly, it won’t last. Eva, don’t give Milly any more poetic words she can parrot back to Tarquin like Christian to Roxane. Stop playing Cyrano.’
Eva hung her head.
‘Take care of yourself,’ he said kindly. ‘Direct all your energies into putting yourself first and foremost.’ He stood up, smoothing down his shirt. ‘This is an emotional subject, and it’ll take a while to absorb, I’m sure. Do please feel free to come and talk with me further if you want or need to, won’t you?’
Eva looked up at him, the sun in her eyes, and nodded.
‘Thank you,’ she said quietly. ‘I’m going to sit here and let it all sink in.’
‘Good, good,’ Father Liam said, smiling. ‘Very good.’
But his smile faded as he walked across the lawn and up the steps to the portico, where Ludo was conferring busily with Gabriella and Leonardo on last-minute catering decisions. Further down the long table, the handmade chandeliers, decorated with pearls and turquoises, were being very carefully unpacked, foam packing peanuts tumbling out as the magnificent, sculptural creations were lifted out of their boxes by their creator, Antonio di Meglio, a tall Italian silver fox so handsome that, busy as Ludo was, he couldn’t help occasionally glancing over appreciatively.
This was not the cause of Father Liam’s frown, however; it was quite taken for granted between him and Ludo that male beauty was there to be admired. As he snapped out: ‘Ludo? May I have a word?’ his abstracted boyfriend didn’t think for a moment that there was any jealousy behind the priest’s curt tone.
‘Can it wait?’ Ludo replied. ‘I’m just going over the antipasto buffet arrangements—’
‘Now, please,’ Father Liam said, pleasantly, but with enough of an edge that Ludo instantly obeyed. The priest had already turned and was heading down the path to the road, and Ludo scampered to follow.
‘Why are we going for a walk all of a sudden?’ he asked, catching up with Father Liam. ‘Not that I don’t love a country stroll, but I really have quite a few things to do today.’
‘I want to make sure that we can’t be overheard when I tell you exactly why I’m cross with you,’ Father Liam said
under his breath, striding fast along the uneven surface of the road, which passed a large house set back behind a high wrought-iron fence, and then promptly dwindled into a narrow, tree-lined path that led into what almost immediately became a forest. Strict conservation laws meant that any new building in the Tuscan countryside was utterly prohibited, and the oak trees which surrounded Father Liam and Ludo after a mere couple of minutes would not only have been there when Leonardo da Vinci was sketching the landscape, but many centuries before.
‘Ooh!’ Ludo perked up at once. ‘You’re cross with me? Am I going to have to do penance?’ He looked around him. ‘This path’s a bit too public, especially with you in your dog collar, but we could nip up that slope behind one of those lovely big trees . . .’
‘Ludo!’
Father Liam rounded on him, stopping dead in his tracks.
‘For God’s sake, get a grip!’ he said angrily. ‘What do you think – that I suddenly became overcome with desire after having a talk with that nice little Eva and brought you out to the woods in broad daylight, while we’re planning a wedding, to get my cock sucked?’
‘Well, I did rather hope—’ Ludo started optimistically.
The priest put his hands imperiously on his hips.
‘Ludo, be quiet and listen to me!’ he commanded. ‘Eva’s just told me that you instructed her to sit around and wait for Tarquin and Milly’s marriage to fail and then try to sneak in and catch him on the rebound.’
Ludo shrugged.
‘What’s wrong with that?’ he said. ‘It’s very good advice. Tarquin’s the kind of man who needs to be in love with someone – he’s a love junkie, frankly – and Eva’s a much better match for him than Milly is. I know she’s rather wet, but so’s he, you know?’
‘Ludo, do you not understand how cynical you’re being?’ Father Liam said angrily. ‘And it’s not just your own cynical attitude to marriage, but that you’re visiting it on that sweet little girl and corrupting her too – encouraging her to think of marriage as something comparatively meaningless, like a casual relationship that one picks up and puts down on a whim. Tarquin and Milly are going to make vows to each other, serious vows! I find it very distressing that you—’
‘I find it distressing!’ Ludo exploded quite unexpectedly. ‘Liam, I’m distressed at being lectured about the morality of marriage when it’s something you and I will never, ever, be able to do! You just called me cynical – well, why wouldn’t I be cynical, when a Pope’s allowed to retire and live cosily in the Vatican with his devoted,’ he raised his fingers and made apostrophes in the air, ‘“private secretary”, but I can’t, even officially, live with you? All these gay scandals positively swirling around Vatican City – cardinals living in apartment blocks above gay clubs, Pope Francis even talking openly about a gay lobby in the Vatican – but no hope for us! Of course I’m bloody cynical about marriage, when that Church of yours is covering up for gays in power but making us live in an awful limbo for our entire lives. Talk about corruption, it’s not me being corrupt here!’
Father Liam opened his mouth to try to refute some of what Ludo was saying, but his boyfriend, triggered into a very uncharacteristic display of emotion, was unstoppable.
‘I know you’ll never leave the Church,’ Ludo was saying passionately, ‘I know that and I’ve made my peace with it, as much as I can! We talked and talked about this when we first got together and I made the bargain that you were worth it, that we were worth it as a couple, for the sacrifices I’d have to make – because they’re mostly on my side, Liam, you must admit! I’d love to be out as a couple, to have us written up in the magazines, to show off my handsome husband – yes, I’m shallow that way, but that’s no surprise to you, I’m sure. I see my friends getting married now, properly, not just the civil partnerships but proper marriage, and I may joke and say it’s all fabulous, darling, we’ve got our full rights now and I’m making a mint off all the new ceremonies I’m organizing, lucky me, but I don’t feel lucky when I see all these gay couples happily getting on with it and I know I never will – because there’s nothing I’d love more than to plan our wedding and walk down the aisle together, hand in hand!’
Ludo was in tears by now, and the last sentence was blurred; Father Liam stepped towards him, his own eyes welling up, and drew his boyfriend into his arms. Ludo was shorter than the priest, and his head snuggled into the priest’s neck, held fully in Father Liam’s embrace as, over Ludo’s head, Father Liam said against his hair: ‘I’m sorry, my love. I’m so sorry. I was insensitive and thoughtless. I’d give the world to be able to marry you too.’
‘I don’t know what came over me,’ Ludo managed through his tears. ‘I don’t know . . .’
Father Liam heaved out a long sigh, one hand coming up to stroke Ludo’s hair, tangling his fingers in Ludo’s curls, as Ludo’s tears kept falling, dripping down his face and wetting Liam’s shirt till the starched white clerical collar was limp and sodden with his lover’s tears.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Stanclere Hall, later that day
‘Honey!’
Without waiting for a summons, Tamra swept into Brianna Jade’s bedroom, her eyes bright with the excitement of her daughter’s impending nuptials. Today had been a whirl of activity. All the house guests had arrived, including a team of photographers and videographers preparing to record the wedding for Style Bride; after Tamra’s visit to Jodie Raeburn, it had been agreed that Brianna Jade would still be in the running for the coveted Bride of the Year cover, and Tamra’s fingers were very tightly crossed that her daughter would pull it off. After all, Brianna Jade had been very calm and self-controlled for the last few months, ever since Tamra had rung her in excitement after her incursion into Jodie’s office and said that she thought Brianna Jade was in with a chance of making the cover.
What Tamra didn’t know was that, the day after Tamra had first thrown out Barb Norkus and then pitched the idea of the Stanclere estates becoming a self-sufficient farming brand, with particular emphasis on pork products, Brianna Jade had made an appointment with a GP two villages over and secured herself a regular prescription of Valium. It had been a lot easier than she’d thought; she had literally just started with ‘I’m feeling really stressed at the moment because . . .’ and the busy, harassed-looking doctor had needed to hear no more before typing a prescription into his computer and printing it out for her. Brianna Jade had discovered that a Valium first thing in the morning, another with a glass of wine at lunch and a couple more glasses during dinner, kept her on an even keel, allowing her to keep smiling and happy and floating above the path that she was on, the one that led inexorably to marriage to Edmund and residence for the rest of her life at Stanclere Hall, with the knowledge of Abel’s presence in his cottage just down the lane . . .
In order to avoid having to get involved in the plans to market Stanclere Sausages, as Tamra and Edmund had decided to call them, Brianna Jade had thrown herself into wedding organization with an attention to detail that had not only thoroughly impressed her mother, but reassured Tamra that her daughter was truly committed to her upcoming wedding. Brianna Jade couldn’t demonstrate excitement – the Valium was preventing that – but she could certainly spend a great deal of time painstakingly working through every little issue that came up with the wedding planner, pretty much taking the entire responsibility off Tamra’s shoulders for the last few months.
Because, desperate to avoid being forced into contact with Abel, Brianna Jade had maintained that she had no business skills, but could take over the wedding and honeymoon planning and free up her mother to help Edmund start up Stanclere Sausages. Tamra seemed oddly reluctant to visit the Hall, let alone stay overnight, but she was very happy to immerse herself in research about what would be needed for all the various aspects of establishing and promoting an online food retailer. She had land maps of the estate, and had identified a barn that could be converted to a catering-sized kitchen, another two that could be knocked
together to make the farm shop, and four disused cottages to be renovated and converted into holiday lets. Edmund was even more in awe of her drive and energy now he saw it directed, not just to rescuing Stanclere Hall, but to making its estates economically productive.
‘Hey, Mom,’ Brianna Jade called back.
She was in the bathroom, massaging Amorepacific Moisture Bound Vitalizing Masque into her face and neck, her body already slathered in Sisleÿa Anti-Aging Concentrate Firming Body Care. It was a long way from the cheap Jergens body lotion which Tamra had trained her daughter to work into her skin every night when she started doing pageants and the Dove cold cream she’d used on their faces, but Brianna Jade honestly wondered if there was much of a difference, apart from the fact that the pricey stuff smelt much nicer.
‘I won’t stay,’ Tamra said, walking into the bathroom and nodding with approval as she saw her daughter dutifully taking good care of her skin. ‘I just wanted to kiss you goodnight for the last time as a single woman.’
She hugged her daughter tightly as Brianna Jade turned from the mirror to embrace her mother.
‘Tomorrow you’ll be Edmund’s, and not mine any more,’ Tamra said into her daughter’s hair, stroking the shiny blonde waves as Brianna Jade ducked her head into her mother’s neck. ‘I know that sounds crazy, but it’s how I feel. I’m so happy for you, but I’m losing you in a way . . .’
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