‘Your great-aunt is still alive?’ Andrew said to Portia, totally unfazed by the sight of her ladyship in her nightie, looking like the mad wife from the attic in a very poor amateur dramatic production of Jane Eyre.
‘No, she died in nineteen sixty-nine,’ replied Lucasta, ‘but, you know, she was a bitch in her past life and is now a bitch in death.’
‘Cigarette?’ said Andrew, nonchalantly producing a pack from his pocket.
‘Oh, you are an angel,’ said Lucasta, greedily grabbing one and taking a light from the elegant cigarette lighter Andrew proffered her.
‘And her ghost walks the corridors at night?’ he asked as calmly as if they were discussing the local weather report.
‘Dreadful bore, isn’t it?’ replied Lucasta. ‘And, you know, no one minds her wandering around a bit during the day, dozens of spirits live here and I do my best to make them feel welcome. I don’t do any exorcisms or anything to piss them off, but Great-aunt Cassandra is really the giddy limit. She’s so bloody violent.’
‘Mummy, don’t you think you should go back to bed?’ Portia interjected.
‘Has she done this sort of thing before?’ asked Andrew, sounding genuinely interested.
‘All the bloody time, darling. Constantly smashing things all around the Hall and wreaking havoc. I mean, look at that.’ She indicated the smashed harp on the ground. ‘Someone’s going to have to clean that up, you know.’ (This was said without the smallest attempt to help Portia, now crawling about on her hands and knees trying to pick up some of the massive pile of stone debris.)
‘It’s the cats, you see,’ Lucasta went on. ‘She always hated my cats and vowed on her deathbed that she’d come back to get them, dead or alive.’
‘And what did she die of?’ Andrew asked, politely bending down to help Portia.
‘Toxoplasmosis. Served her right, really,’ Lucasta replied, swishing her long grey mane behind her as she went back to bed.
No sooner was she out of sight than Andrew and Portia collapsed into a helpless fit of giggles, sitting side by side together at the bottom of the stairs.
‘I love your family,’ was all Andrew could blurt out, shaking with laughter. ‘That film crew should be making a documentary about this house and the Davenports, not some rehash of A Southern Belle’s Saga. Miles more interesting anyday. Your mother is a walking sitcom, I’m mad about her.’
Portia beamed at him. ‘I can’t believe she hasn’t scared you away. Mummy can be a lot to take, you know. And that’s before you even get started on Daisy.’
‘It would take more than that to scare me away,’ he answered softly, slipping his arm around her waist. All Portia could remember after that was him bending down to kiss her, slowly and tenderly at first but gradually becoming more and more intense. She responded, surprising even herself with the depth of feeling she had for this man she barely knew.
‘I’ve been wanting to do that for hours,’ he said, taking her face in his hands and kissing her again. Portia couldn’t bring herself to speak, she just locked her arms around his neck and kissed him back, running her fingers through his hair and pressing herself as close to him as she could.
If she’d thought for one second that her every move was being photographed right then, she’d probably have fainted.
Chapter Twelve
THERE WAS NO rest for the wicked; at least, not at Davenport Hall. It was barely after seven a.m. when Daisy came bounding into Portia’s bedroom, exuberantly jumping up and down on her four-poster bed just as she used to do as a small child.
‘Darling, do wake up, I’ve got such heaps to tell you!’ she pleaded, inadvertently kicking Portia as she spoke.
‘Oh God, what time is it?’ replied Portia, sleepily opening her eyes and sitting up.
‘Just after seven, lazy lump,’ said Daisy, roughly pulling the bedclothes off and plonking herself down beside her.
‘Are you completely insane? It’s the middle of the night,’ said Portia, still half-asleep.
‘Is not, Guy’s make-up call was for six a.m. Ask me how I know that!’
‘All right, darling, how do you know that?’ asked Portia, realizing she wouldn’t get a minute’s peace unless she played along.
‘Because I spent the night with him! So are you stunned?’
Portia sat bolt upright, now wide awake.
‘You did not!’ was all she could stammer at Daisy. ‘But you said the first time he saw you you were covered in horse dung and that you’d never look him in the face again.’
‘Well, that just shows what a wonderful guy he is, that he could see beyond his first impression of me.’ Daisy sighed dreamily. ‘We had the most amazing night together and now I’m completely in love with him. I just want to go back to LA with him and have his babies.’
‘Daisy, do take it one step at a time,’ begged Portia, knowing full well how apt her sister was to jump headlong into a situation. She’d be sending out wedding invitations next. ‘You’ve just spent the night together, let’s not talk about your moving to Hollywood and having babies just yet. You know next to nothing about him; he’s from another world entirely.’
‘Oh, listen to you, Nancy Drew, why must you always be so fucking negative about everything?’ cried Daisy, her mood changing dramatically. ‘Why can’t you just be happy for me?’
‘Darling, of course I’m happy for you. I’m just saying let’s take it slowly, that’s all,’ Portia replied calmly, well used to Daisy snapping her head off.
‘Oh, I know, I know,’ replied Daisy, relenting a little. Try as she might, it was impossible to stay angry with Portia for any length of time. Much better simply to change the subject and get the hell out of there. ‘Anyway, breakfast’s ready in the catering truck, so you’d better get up, lazy arse,’ she added chirpily, hopping off the bed and slamming the door behind her.
Portia lay back on the huge goose-down pillows and smiled wryly to herself. Ironic that here she was lecturing Daisy on the perils of falling head over heels for a guy she barely knew, when that was pretty much what she’d done herself.
Her mind wandered back to Andrew and how hard it had been to let go of him when she kissed him goodnight at his car door last night. He’d behaved like a perfect gentleman at the end of the night, had thanked her for a wonderful evening and told her that he’d call her and, deep down inside her, she knew he would. There was no awkwardness on her part or pushiness on his about him not being invited to stay over. For all that he’d awoken something romantic inside Portia that had been slumbering for years, her practical, resolute side kept telling her not to get swept away in the excitement of the moment, as Daisy had done. If he were a nice guy, he’d call: simple as that. Yet a huge rush of adrenalin came over her even when she just thought about him. It had been hard enough to try and get any sleep, she’d been so busy dreaming about him, but she snuggled back under the covers in the hope of dozing off for a few minutes at least. She stretched her long thin white arms in front of her and yawned. The last thought that went through her head before nodding off was about Daisy . . . she really must be knickers about Guy van der Post. She was so caught up with him that she’d never even asked Portia how she’d got on last night.
‘What right have you, Brent Charleston, to come chasing after me all the way to the Emerald Isle and making such demands on me? What makes you think that I’d ever want to leave the O’Maras and return to Atlanta ever again, as long as I live?’
God, I’m on form today, Montana thought to herself as she skilfully allowed a tiny tear to trickle down her cheek whilst turning to gaze out of the carriage window, making sure the key light hit her beautiful face as she did.
‘I swear you are the most stubborn woman that ever lived, Magnolia. Now you’ll do as I say and come home with me or, by heaven, I won’t be responsible!’
God, Montana was particularly brutal today, Guy thought, almost spitting his dialogue back at her. Had she done any work at all on her Southern accent? he wondered t
o himself. She sounded like a Californian Valley Girl auditioning for a part in a daytime soap opera. When he thought of the meticulous attention to detail he was bringing to his character, how he was living and breathing the part of Brent Charleston during this shoot – why, he was even prepared to cultivate saddle sores on his ass for the sake of his art. Whereas Montana’s approach to her role appeared to be just turn up on time and try to remember the lines. I wonder how many studio bosses she had to sleep with to land this part, he thought bitterly to himself.
‘And cut!’ yelled Jimmy D. from his director’s chair where he’d been intently watching the scene on a tiny, flickering monitor in front of him.
‘Take five, everybody,’ he growled at the crew as he strode purposefully towards the carriage they were shooting in, ignoring the huge golf umbrella his assistant held out for him (as the rain was pelting down by now).
‘And we’re taking five,’ Johnny repeated into his walkie-talkie for the benefit of the make-up and wardrobe people who were out of earshot. They were shooting the carriage scene down by Loch Moluag on the edge of the Davenport estate, but because the dirt track the carriage was on was so narrow and entirely enclosed with great oak trees, there was only room for the cameraman and his focus puller, while the rest of the crew were dotted around the lake, clad in huge green raincoats, patiently watching the action on live monitors.
Montana and Guy sat uncomfortably close together in the carriage, each studiously ignoring the other as Jimmy D. strode through the mud and down the dirt track, addressing them both through the open window. His voice was low and threatening.
‘Just in case it hasn’t occurred to either of you to actually read the goddamned script, Brent and Magnolia are supposed to be in love with each other.’ A huge purple vein was now starting to throb at his left temple. ‘I wanna see chemistry, I wanna see sparks fly, I wanna see two people who can’t keep their hands off each other, not a squabbling pair of assholes who look like they should be doing dinner theatre in Santa Barbara.’
‘You know, Jimmy D., this is really difficult for me,’ Guy replied, totally unfazed by the dinner theatre reference. ‘It’s like working opposite a plank of wood. I’m giving, giving, giving all the time here and getting zero in return. How in hell am I supposed to play the scene when she won’t even make eye contact with me?’
‘Giving, giving, giving?’ Montana snapped. ‘The only thing you ever give away for free is syphilis.’ Then, whipping off the radio mike Paddy had neatly pinned to the collar of her riding habit, she added, ‘You try swapping places with me and see how you like it, Jimmy D. It’s bad enough that Guy’s been eating enough garlic to wipe out an entire village of vampires, but the smell of whiskey from him is making me wanna hurl. Oh, but then I guess he was too busy with Daisy last night to even have time to brush his teeth this morning.’
‘Jaysus, is that true?’ an incredulous Paddy turned to ask Daisy, having overheard everything on his headphones. Daisy, who was perched uncomfortably on a canvas stool beside him, immediately pretended to be too absorbed in a fistful of script pages in her hand to have heard him. News travelled quickly around film sets, or so it seemed.
‘Did you shag that fucking eejit?’
Although she was wearing a huge anorak, which covered most of her face, she still felt herself burning bright red from the back of her neck up.
‘Say no more,’ Paddy continued, miffed. ‘But I’d love to know what that wanker has that I don’t. I mean apart from his house in the Hollywood Hills and his money and his vintage car collection and his vineyard in the Napa Valley and his bleedin’ loft conversion in New York, and, if the National Intruder is right, his penis extension. But apart from all that, what in the name of Jaysus do ya see in him?’
‘Oh Paddy,’ Daisy began, seeing that he was genuinely hurt. ‘I can’t explain how I feel about him, it’s just . . .’
‘You can spare me all that womany shit,’ he replied, sadly putting his headphones back on. ‘All I’m saying to ya is . . . you could have done an awful lot better for yerself.’
‘You can put him through,’ Steve said to his secretary, wondering why on earth Paul O’Driscoll would be calling him.
‘Steve, how are you?’ came the nervous voice from the other end of the phone.
‘Just heading out for a meeting actually,’ Steve replied, ‘and I’m running late.’ He was on his way over to Davenport Hall as it happened, to give Lucasta a full report on her bottled-water idea. (A ten-page report his junior had worked on for hours, which Steve knew full well Lucasta would end up using to line a cat-litter tray.)
‘I won’t keep you, just to ask you if you’d come along to an extraordinary meeting of the Kildare County Council on Monday next if you’re free. The local development planning committee have received a submission that we need to discuss.’
Steve, who had been gathering up bundles of files and folders as he was talking, suddenly stopped dead in his tracks. The County Council never held extraordinary meetings, for any reason.
‘The development planning committee? Paul, what’s going on?’
‘Eight o’clock next Monday then, in the Dunville Arms Hotel in Kildare town. I’ll explain when I see you.’
Tony took one final glance at the photos he was just about to email to the National Intruder. Fantastic stuff. Guy van der Post undressing a gorgeous blonde on the staircase of this dilapidated stately home while Montana Jones sat alone at dinner with a face like a bulldog sucking piss from a nettle. The mileage they’d get out of this one! A story suddenly flashed through his quick-thinking journalist’s brain. Guy having an affair with a beautiful Irish girl right under his lover’s nose . . . true, Montana and Guy had never been an item, but whoever let the truth get in the way of a good story?
Then there was that other couple, the tall fair-haired guy and that sexy-looking woman he was kissing on the stairs in the early hours of this morning. Pity neither of them was famous in any way, but Tony had such fantastic shots of them kissing each other so passionately, it seemed criminal to waste them.
Another story was starting to ferment in his head . . . the Lord of the Manor and his housekeeper, locked in a torrid embrace. He could be a character a little like Princess Diana’s brother, proud and arrogant, while she could be a poor, working-class girl slaving away at this stately home to earn enough money for her mother’s hernia operation. What a back-up story to Guy and Montana’s that could be!
HE WAS THE ALL-POWERFUL EARL OF IRELAND AND SHE WAS A HUMBLE SCULLERY MAID. SOCIETY KEPT THEM POLES APART UNTIL ONE FATEFUL DAY THEIR EYES MET ACROSS THE COAL SCUTTLE. CAN THEIR LOVE CONQUER THE SOCIAL DIVIDE?
The Intruder’s readers would lap it up, and, let’s face it, it had been a slow season for celebrity gossip. Not a divorce, a bust-up or a brawl in months, which never made for healthy circulation figures. He even had a headline: ‘SEX AND INTRIGUE AT DAVENPORT HALL! THERE MUST BE SOMETHING IN THE IRISH AIR . . . EVERYONE’S AT IT!’
And who the hell was to know it wasn’t true? Hadn’t he the pictures to prove it?
‘How marvellous you’re looking, Susan, it’s wonderful to see you,’ chirped Edwina as she rose to peck her mother-in-law-elect delicately on each cheek, being ultra-careful not to leave a lipstick stain. ‘And congratulations on your new home . . . I hear it’s utterly divine!’
‘How sweet of you, my dear, you must come down to see us as soon as you can,’ replied Mrs de Courcey, as she gracefully accepted the proffered housewarming gift, though making no attempt to open it. Very poor etiquette to open a present in front of the donor, an appallingly middle-class trait, she always thought.
‘Now, Edwina darling, just because Michael and I have become country bumpkins doesn’t mean we don’t expect to see you as often as possible. We do hope the new house won’t be too unsophisticated for a girl-about-town like you.’
Edwina protested at this, as she knew she must, and purred that, at her next window of opportunity, she’d be straight do
wn to visit.
‘And you know, Susan, I’m devastated not to have been at your housewarming the other night, but I had given my word that I’d model at the Peter O’Brien couture show, and I’d have hated to let him down.’
Mrs de Courcey smiled benignly at her as she sank into a luxurious tapestry chair in the chic Dublin restaurant, the Hibernian. It was just after one and the ‘ladies who lunch’ set had started to arrive in Lainey-clad force. She recognized some of them and blew a few air-kisses across the room, fully aware of the envious glances she was attracting. After all, she was having lunch with Edwina Moynihan, one of a new breed of Irish supermodels. What a wonderful daughter-in-law she would make! And what stunning grandchildren she and Andrew would give her!
‘Of course, Andrew was distraught that you weren’t there.’
Edwina hesitated slightly before answering, as though making a decision about whether or not to confide any further.
‘Do you know, I bumped into him last night, Susan, can you believe it?’ she said, hoping she sounded suitably casual. ‘In the Hôtel de Paris of all places! He was with the most oddly dressed girl . . .’ She trailed off, very deliberately. That was all she needed to let slip.
What was left of her smile stayed frozen on Mrs de Courcey’s impeccably made-up, Botoxed face.
‘Yes, I know who you mean, Portia Davenport. A neighbour. From a family who seem to be so inbred that they must have been marrying their cousins for the last two hundred years at least. I really prefer not to talk about the way they behaved at the housewarming. It was utterly shocking. And, I have to admit, she did pretty much hurl herself at poor Andrew the other night, you know how needy and persistent these unmarried thirty-something women can be. I’m quite sure she pestered him into taking her out and, of course, you know how soft-hearted Andrew is.’
Edwina relaxed into a smile. ‘Well, Susan, you know I’d be the last person ever to pass comments about another woman, but she should have had a huge D for Desperation tattooed right across her forehead last night. And if you’d seen her outfit! She may as well have been wearing wellies. Those Town and Country types really are a law unto themselves. I presumed Andrew was taking out a traveller for a bet.’
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