by Unknown
Ellen had long suspected her mother of having a secret crush on Ely Gates, although Jennifer had called him a ‘common oaf’, an ‘upstart industrialist’ and a ‘village wrecker’. The entrepreneur might stand on paper for everything she loathed, yet his name had cropped up in more conversations during Ellen’s short stays at Goose Cottage than any other. Until tonight, she’d never clapped eyes on him and, now that she had, she was certain she’d been right. Ely Gates was an ageing hunk. Jennifer Jamieson’s scorn concealed a fast-beating heart. She found herself grinning, chuffed as always to find her mother out.
‘Does he have any children?’ she asked Pheely idly, hoping to hear the magic words ‘unmarried thirty-year-old son’.
But Pheely didn’t answer as Hell’s Bells’ gavel hammered down on the plant stand. The Aston Martin treat had been bought by Ely for four thousand pounds, and Pheely’s own lot was next up. She clutched Ellen’s arm tightly. ‘Please don’t let this be another Pru moment.’
‘Lot twenty-nine,’ Hell’s Bells announced breathlessly, her cheeks now high with colour after such an exhilarating battle. ‘A portrait bust to be sculpted by local artist Ophelia Gently, daughter of the renowned sculptor Norman Gently OBE. Ophelia will capture the buyer – or a family member of their choice – in clay, requiring several sittings in her village studio. Who will start me at five hundred?’
The great and the good sat on their hands. Most were eager to get on to the Royal Ascot lot and the wine break. Gladys had already crept off to rev up her corkscrew, leaving her clipboard with Sir St John who was reading the notes jotted on it with an amazed expression.
‘Four hundred, then?’ Hell’s Bells didn’t want to hang around either. ‘Three hundred? Let’s see – two hundred and fifty as an opening bid?’
Pheely was turning paler by the second.
‘Twenty-five,’ offered Giles Hornton, in his come-to-bed drawl.
‘Thank you, Mr Hornton. Twenty-five. Do I see thirty?’
‘You’ll see fucking stars if you sell my promise to that bastard for a pony,’ Pheely breathed.
It was humiliation on a grand scale. Ellen hardly dared look at her. ‘One hundred!’ she bid, wondering what the hell she would do with a huge pottery depiction of herself when she went travelling.
‘One hundred from the back of the room, thank you,’ Hell’s Bells pointed her gavel at Ellen, then swung it towards Giles, who shook his head and smirked.
‘Bastard,’ Pheely muttered. ‘You don’t have to buy it, Ellen. Honestly. I don’t mind.’
‘I want to.’ She gulped, hoping Pheely wouldn’t make her look like a goblin.
Hell’s Bells was asking for more bids. Nobody caught her eye. There was a long pause.
‘Are we all finished at one hundred?’ she suggested hopefully, and glanced at the big wall clock, which already read a quarter to nine with less than half the lots sold.
‘One hundred and twenty-five,’ bid the head of the Beefeater household.
‘You’re off the hook,’ Pheely patted Ellen’s hand, still mortified that her work was meeting with such little enthusiasm.
‘One fifty!’ Ellen went straight back in.
‘One fif— Two hundred!’ Hell’s Bells announced a new bid before she’d finished declaring Ellen’s.
‘Two fifty!’
‘Ellen, stop it.’ Pheely giggled, but the colour was coming back into her cheeks as she looked around to see whom Ellen was bidding against. It wasn’t the Beefeaters or Giles, all of whom were watching silently. Whoever it was had a discreet way of attracting their auctioneer’s attention.
‘Three hundred!’ she announced, and Ellen wondered if the Lady of the Manor was bidding herself.
‘Three fifty.’
‘Four hundred.’
‘Five hundred!’ Ellen wasn’t sure how much longer her nerve would hold. She really couldn’t afford that much. It was a huge cut of her world-adventure savings.
‘Seven hundred and fifty!’
‘Don’t,’ Pheely warned her, but it was too late.
‘One thousand.’
‘At one thousand pounds!’ Hell’s Bells boomed. ‘Any advance on one thousand pounds?’ She tapped her gavel menacingly against the palm of her hand.
There was silence.
Shit, Ellen thought in a panic. What have I done?
‘Fifteen hundred pounds,’ came a deep, deep bass cry in a thick Oxfordshire accent from the front of the room.
Pheely’s pale face had flushed almost purple. ‘Raise your bid,’ she hissed at Ellen.
‘I can’t. I haven’t got the money.’
‘At fifteen hundred pounds . . .’ Hell’s Bells stared at her. ‘Young lady?’
‘Pleeeeeeeaaaaaase,’ Pheely whispered, in her little-girl voice.
But Ellen simply couldn’t chance it another time. She wasn’t sure what had possessed her to take it so far in the first place, but she certainly wasn’t going to spend all her travelling money on a clay effigy, however much she liked Pheely.
‘At fifteen hundred pounds then . . . going once . . . going twice . . .’ The gavel lifted. ‘Sold – to Mr Gates.’
‘Bum.’ Pheely sagged back in her chair. ‘I hate doing beards.’
Ellen gaped at her, hardly able to believe that Pheely had wanted her to gamble her entire savings just because she hated sculpting facial hair. ‘Maybe he wants you to do his wife?’ she suggested.
‘My platform would collapse under the weight of the clay,’ Pheely said uncharitably, now in what appeared to be a foul sulk.
Ellen sat silently through the next lot, torn between intense irritation and amusement, hardly noticing the battle that went on between henpecked husbands to buy their wives a Ladies’ Day at the races with Sir St John.
‘At five thousand three hundred pounds . . . going once, going twice . . . Sold to Mr Heaton-Jones! Congratulations. But whatever you do, don’t lend my husband any money to bet with.’ Hell’s Bells looked surprised when this was greeted with guffaws of laughter: she had been quite serious. She tapped the gavel against the plant stand for attention. ‘Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen. We will now break for fifteen minutes’ refreshment in the orangery before reconvening here promptly at nine.’
‘Let’s go to the pub.’ Pheely grabbed her bag.
‘Don’t you want to stay?’
‘Not particularly.’ She was watching Ely leave the room with the others, all obediently filing out onto the terrace towards the orangery. ‘The wine will be ghastly and Jasper’s not here to have a squizz at.’
Ellen was finding Pheely’s bossiness grating, and dug in her heels. ‘I want to see my lot come up.’
‘We can come back in an hour.’ Pheely was already skipping away, beckoning Ellen towards another door that led to a back corridor. ‘You’ll only get mobbed here. Come on, Ellen, I haven’t been to the Lodes Inn for years. Oh, hurry up – Giles is coming over!’
‘I want to stay for a quick drink,’ Ellen insisted. Pheely was doing another of her butterfly dances, the fanciful flight of someone who wanted to keep her new friend all to herself.
Anyway, they were already under attack.
‘Ophelia! Radiant as always!’ The moustachioed Lothario swept in and took her hand to kiss it, naughty blue eyes looking up at Ellen as he did so, X-raying through to her bra, then crossing as they focused on her belly-piercing. ‘I don’t believe I’ve had the pleasure . . . ?’
‘Giles Hornton – Ellen Jamieson,’ Pheely muttered, scuffing her toe on the thinning Axminster, not looking at either of them.
‘Enchanté.’ He kissed Ellen’s hand too, proving that his moustache was as soft as a teddy bear’s head and not bristly at all. He smelt overpoweringly of expensive aftershave and Clorets. ‘Now, ladies, may I accompany you through for a drink?’ He put a practised arm around their waists.
Within five minutes of finding herself trapped in the stuffy orangery, Ellen was wishing that they had sloped off to the pub after
all. The wine – warm sweet Liebfraumilch – was foul, and the company overbearing. As well as suave Giles, she was soon being courted by Hunter ‘How is your dear mother?’ Gardner, the ‘Do you hunt?’ joint MFH of the Lode and Foxrush Vale, a camp antiques dealer and even Sir St John himself: ‘Are you the young lady coming to Ascot with me?’
When Pheely – who was refusing to talk to any of them – headed out on to the terrace for a cigarette, Ellen excused herself and dashed after her.
‘Told you – mob tactics,’ Pheely muttered, lighting a Marlboro and offering Ellen the packet.
Ellen shook her head, trying to muster the will-power to keep resisting.
It was a beautiful evening, the last pink streaks of light being stolen from the sky by the ink-spill night. The manor’s gardens looked seductive and opulent in the half-light, the roses that crowded around the terrace wafting out their old-fashioned lady’s-chamber odour, the huge black yew hedge hiding a multitude of birds wishing one another good night. In the distance, they could just hear the thud, thud of Roadkill playing their second set in the village hall.
Now that she was outside, Ellen no longer wanted to return to the auction. She wanted to sit outside the pub, letting the cool of the evening carry away the stale tiredness of her long day as she sank a long, ice-cold beer and wound down ready to collapse into bed. If Pheely wasn’t being so sulky, she’d have grabbed her hand and suggested they make their escape over the lawns. But she really needed to find a loo first. She stifled a yawn, noticing that the roses’ subtle scent was being overpowered by Pheely’s cigarette and another, more acrid smoke.
‘Ophelia.’ There was a step behind them.
‘Do I smell sulphur?’ Pheely hissed, spinning around.
Ely Gates was standing behind a wall of cigar smoke, clutching a very fat Havana in one hand. Close to he was even more overpowering and enigmatic – tall, craggy and sombre with that ageing-hero face and intense navy blue eyes. He nodded at Ellen without interest. ‘May I have a word in private, Ophelia?’
‘If you must.’ Pheely shrugged, eyes downcast.
Ellen waited for a moment, hoping for an introduction to enigmatic Ely, but none was forthcoming. ‘I’ll leave you to it, then,’ she offered, and slipped back into the house by an open door at the far end of the terrace to avoid the mob in the orangery.
She found herself in a huge, shadowy dining room, panelled from floor to ceiling with gleaming oak covered in sporting prints and paintings – most of them macabre depictions of various blood sports. The chairs were all missing from around the vast mahogany table, which was littered with Saturday supplements and paperwork. Ellen glanced around for the most obvious way back into the main house.
An open door directly opposite her led to what appeared to be an old-fashioned billiard room. She could just make out the corner of the table and could hear the tap-click-rattle of cue tip sending white ball on its way to strike a coloured ball into a netted pocket alongside its companions. She was about to pop her head in to ask for directions when a door opened out of sight and Lady Belling’s distinctive baritone bark let out a short, exasperated cry of relief. ‘There you are! I need you in the Blue Drawing Room in five minutes.’
‘Why?’ The voice that replied was male, but too smooth and classless to be Sir St John’s colonial croak.
‘You know why.’
‘Is she here?’
‘No.’
‘But he is, isn’t he?’
‘Of course he is. And you must be civil. Five minutes.’
With the cryptic exchange clearly at an end, the door slammed shut again.
The next tap-click of cue against ball was an angry one, followed by a thud in place of a rattle, as the ball flew right off the table and rolled across the floorboards. A moment later it rumbled through the open door into the dining room.
Ellen watched it roll up to her feet, kissing the pink of her nail varnish as it came to a halt. Looking up, she saw a shadow move across the billiard room, but nobody appeared in the door. There was another angry tap-click followed by the sound of balls ricocheting all over the table. Perhaps now wasn’t the time to make casual enquiries about the manor’s lavatories.
There were two more doors in the panelling to her right. Giving the snooker ball a jaunty kick back into the billiard room, she headed towards them. But when she pulled open the first, she found herself staring at a huge cupboard of silverware.
‘She’s sold the best stuff,’ a smooth voice told her, ‘but you might find a couple of decent Asprey pieces left, if you look hard enough.’
Ellen glanced over her shoulder to see a figure silhouetted in the doorway, a red ball held up in one hand. With the only source of light behind him, it was impossible to make out his age or features, but Ellen was pretty certain it had to be Spurs Belling.
‘Sorry.’ She closed the door and turned to face him. ‘I was looking for something more in the – er – porcelain line.’
He tossed the ball up and caught it. ‘Minton or Copeland?’
‘Armitage Shanks?’
He laughed, white teeth flashing in the shadow, and nodded towards the other panelling door. ‘Through there, then immediately left – go to the end of the corridor, through the double doors to the main hall and it’s under the arch to your right.’
Grateful that she didn’t have to live in a house this huge or complicated, Ellen thanked him and slipped out through the second door. It led to an inner lobby from which there were a multitude of doors and corridors. Taking the first door on the left as she thought she had been instructed, Ellen found herself walking straight into the billiard room. At the same moment Spurs Belling walked back through the dining-room door at the opposite end, so that they appeared like two ballet dancers entering stage right and left.
He looked across in surprise and – now that it was lit by the huge chandelier that hung from the centre of the high ceiling – Ellen saw his face. The moment she did so, she felt a great hammer swing through her chest, splitting her heart wide open.
Ellen had experienced many adrenaline rushes – almost all of them associated with dangerous sports. She had jumped from aeroplanes with nothing but a few metres of silk to save her; she’d thrown herself from bridges and cranes with glorified elastic bands tied to her ankles; she’d skied mountains on a plank of waxed carbon, and she’d emerged from twenty-foot wave tubes balanced on a wooden board moving at twenty miles an hour. She knew the taste of adrenaline as well as the taste of cola, and loved the high it brought.
But the first time she saw Spurs Belling’s face, she couldn’t handle the adrenaline at all. This was all fear with no silk or elastic bands to save her. It turned her into a terrified, frozen plank of wood.
His eyes were dazzling – sterling-silver attraction traps set in a spellbinding face. Without warning, Roberta Flack started crooning in her ears, her deep voice mellifluous with sweet meaning: ‘The First Time Ever I Saw . . .’
‘Shit!’ She wrenched her eyes away and started to back out of the room.
‘It’s okay,’ he called. ‘I’m heading in your direction – I’ll drop you off en route. This way’s quicker anyway.’
Not waiting for her – and apparently unaware of the effect he’d just had – he crossed the huge room, beckoning her to follow as he loped past lonely cracked-leather sofas whose companions had clearly been gathered for the auction, then on past a grand piano with no stool. The single room was as big as Goose Cottage, its battered snooker table so dwarfed by the grand dimensions that it seemed no bigger than a butler’s tray. Following behind, Ellen was torn between staring around at a tatty upper-class adult playroom and gazing at Jasper’s retreating back, grateful that his face was out of sight once more, although his bottom came a close second in the magnetism stakes.
With his scruffy jeans, ancient T-shirt, trainers and unkempt black curls, he looked more like a builder’s labourer than a toff’s son. He was certainly built like one, with broad shoulders, sinewy s
unburnt arms and narrow hips. And he smelt noticeably of horse.
‘Here.’ He opened a door that led to a high, grand hallway through which the great and the good were milling back towards the Victorian wing, wine in hand. A few turned to look as the door opened, and almost dropped their glasses when they saw Spurs. ‘Straight opposite.’
‘Thanks.’ Ellen couldn’t look at him. She dashed through the door and sought sanctuary in the loo, pressing her hot face to the cool wall beside her as soon as she sat down. Nice one, Ellen, she told herself wretchedly. Kick an aristocrat the snooker balls, get caught ogling the family silver, then ask the way to the loo. You are so cool.
His eyes still burned into hers, even though she closed them tight and felt the grit of the tile grout scrape her brows.
She might have guessed that the Bellings’ prodigal son would possess the best genes this side of a Levi Strauss factory, and that no amount of tearaway, drug-dealing misspent youth would have muted his natural, almost feral beauty. That was just typical of the upper classes, who always got the best deals from nature and nurture. Naturally, Spurs Belling had his mother’s amazing silver eyes, freckled skin and wild hair, his father’s rugby-player build and beautiful curved mouth. It went without saying that he would be a sublimely good-looking man – probably as beautiful as any man Ellen had ever encountered in a lifetime travelling with some of the best specimens in the world. And he had that easy, arrogant confidence to match. But that was not what had made her feel so giddy that she’d almost passed out.
Spurs Belling had the X-factor. In all her years of travelling with dangerous sports fanatics, especially surfers, Ellen had only met half a dozen who truly had it. And Richard, who had so wanted it, had never really possessed one cell of X.
Spurs Belling was pure, unadulterated X. It made him very, very dangerous. And, as far as Ellen was concerned, it made him someone to be avoided at all costs. She was going straight home.