by Maeve Haran
Lucky Liz! Sighing with envy, Mel stepped out on to the terrace with the plate of canapés. But Liz was nowhere to be seen. She must have gone for a walk with Jamie in the orchard.
CHAPTER 31
Liz woke up and looked lazily around her as the sun streamed in through the curtains of Nick’s bedroom and turned the oak panelling the colour of old gold. She reached out and touched it. It felt warm to the touch even though the morning was still cold outside.
She loved waking here in this beautiful house with its creaky floors and its sun-filled rooms and its ornate plaster ceilings. Usually she went home every night so that Jamie and Daisy wouldn’t miss her, but today was Saturday and they were staying at Ginny’s.
She rolled languidly over to wake Nick with a kiss and found the other side of the bed empty. Irrationally she felt a moment of panic. Had Nick gone, disappeared, left her without a word? Suddenly she realized how much she’d miss him if he had. He might drive her mad at times – like taking Dawn to lunch and embarrassing her in front of all her staff, and then the next day sending a bunch of flowers so huge that it embarrassed her all over again when she saw everyone wonder exactly what it was he was apologizing for. But that, she was beginning to learn, was typical of Nick. He thought the grand gesture and the romantic treat made up for anything.
And then she heard him coming up the wide staircase. A couple of seconds later the door opened and he stood there, carrying a breakfast tray with a shining white cloth and a rose on it.
She smelt the coffee and the croissants and couldn’t help smiling as she propped herself up on her pillows. Another perfect morning. It was amazing the lengths he would sometimes go to to make sure that everything was perfect. Every hotel beautiful, every view dazzling, every meal delicious.
And as she bit into a warm croissant she wondered for a second how he’d cope if the car broke down with Jamie and Daisy in it, or if the food was awful or the hotel double-booked. But maybe those sort of things didn’t happen to Nick.
She looked at her watch and kissed him affectionately. ‘I must get home.’
Nick smiled. It was a charming smile that flirted with smugness but drew back just in time. ‘Ah, but you’re not going home.’
‘Why not? I’ve got to pick Jamie and Daisy up.’
‘No you haven’t. They’re staying on at Ginny’s.’
His teasing expression was driving her crazy.
‘What on earth for?’
He sat down on the edge of the bed, unable to hold out any longer. ‘Because you and I are going away for a long weekend.’
Liz choked on her coffee. ‘But I haven’t got any clothes.’
‘Oh yes you have.’ He delved under the bed and pulled out a suitcase. ‘Ginny packed it.’
Liz hid her face in her hands, hardly able to believe him. She had to admit one thing about Nick. With him life was never dull or predictable.
‘So where are we going?’
This time the smugness in his tone was unmistakable, but endearing, so endearing. ‘It’s a secret.’
As the countryside flashed by Liz looked out of the window and hugged herself with pleasure. They were leaving London from the north-east. That must mean East Anglia. How glorious! She loved the Suffolk coast. So wild and lonely with its endless empty beaches and its extraordinary luminous light that had inspired so many painters. A million miles from her own soft Sussex.
Almost two hours later, just before the market town of Woodbridge, Nick turned left down a small country road, and almost immediately swung into a hidden driveway which led to a breathtaking Tudor manor house. It was a perfectly preserved brick building with six gables, all covered in ivy, and high towering Tudor chimneys. A discreet sign peered out announcing it as ‘Sackville Hall Country House Hotel’.
But though the building was extraordinary in itself, it was the resemblance that took her breath away. It was, to the life, a larger, grander version of her family home, Five Gates Farm.
‘Remind you of anywhere?’
‘Oh Nick, it’s extraordinary!’
‘I thought you’d like it.’ He reached over and stroked her hair. ‘Wait till you see the bedroom. I just hope it lives up to the brochure.’
‘Room seven, sir?’ smiled the manager. ‘The Tudor Bedroom, our finest room.’ And he led them past the carved Great Hall where the other guests were having afternoon tea, past a tank full of live lobsters caught that day in nearby Aldeburgh, and up the wood-panelled staircase to their room.
As he threw open the door and stood proudly back, Liz gasped in amazement. Dominating the beautiful room was the biggest four-poster bed she had ever seen in her life.
‘It’s the oldest piece of furniture in the house,’ beamed the manager. ‘Built in 1587. It’s so big no one’s ever been able to get it out of the building.’ He dropped his voice a couple of notes from pride to awe. ‘Queen Elizabeth I held court at Sackville Hall, you know. And she slept in this bed.’
Liz couldn’t believe it.
‘Oh Nick, you’re amazing!’ She threw her arms round him as the manager discreetly withdrew. ‘Only you could find a bed Queen Elizabeth really has slept in!’
Liz leaned out of the diamond-leaded window and looked down at the vast lawns sloping down to an ornamental lake. One or two early drinkers were already sitting down for an aperitif in white iron chairs under a huge chestnut tree by the water’s edge.
‘What an amazing house. How old do you think it is? Fifteenth century? Look at those brick finials . . .’
But Nick didn’t let her finish her sentence. Gently he turned her round and pushed her against the window and began to kiss her until she lost all interest in Tudor architecture. As he felt her arm snake around his neck in response he carried her across the room to the enormous bed.
‘And now, milady . . .’
He smiled seductively and began to undo her buttons. It was so perfect. The bed. The hotel. And now this.
She felt desire licking at her, driving her, so that she pulled him to her and unzipped him and swiftly guided him into her without even waiting till either of them had taken off their clothes. Then, slowly and shamelessly she removed his shirt, and his jeans, and kissed his toes as she removed each shoe and looked up at him with a smile so brazen that he slipped to the floor beside her and pushed her back onto the soft carpet of the finest bedroom in the Sackville Hall Hotel.
‘Come on, slugabed, get into your finery. ’Tis the cocktail hour betimes!’ Nick slapped her ungraciously on the rump. ‘I’ve just ordered the lobster for your dinner.’
Liz woke up and found herself still on the floor, but with a blanket over her Nick must have found in the enormous wardrobe, and looked at her watch. Seven-thirty! Where had the last two hours got to? And she hadn’t even unpacked!
‘Give me five minutes. I’ll have a quick shower. You go on down and have a drink.’
He kissed her shoulder and slipped quietly down to the Great Hall.
Jumping up, Liz rushed into the shower and felt the hot blast of water revive her in seconds. She hoped Ginny had put in the right clothes.
Thank God there was her smartest black dress – and her sheer black tights and high heels. And Ginny, bless her, had even put in a lacy bra and pants set. In less than five minutes she sprayed on her perfume and was ready to go.
Feeling happier than she had for weeks, WomanPower and all its cares forgotten, she skipped down the staircase towards the Great Hall to meet Nick. Halfway down she stopped on the landing to look at one of the gargoyles carved in the hotel’s exquisite panelling trying to decide if it was a monk or a knight. She looked up in surprise. She could hear raised voices downstairs. Somebody must be complaining.
As she came down the final few stairs she saw to her horror it was Nick. He was arguing with a youth in a waiter’s outfit who looked so young and inexperienced that Liz guessed he must be helping out in the hotel as holiday relief.
‘I’m sorry, sir, I really am. But it was a mistake
. The last lobster was booked before your arrival.’
‘That’s disgraceful. You told me we could have lobster and I intend to!’ Nick was speaking so loudly that every couple in the lounge was turning to look at him. God, she hated scenes, how on earth could she stop him?
‘I’m extremely sorry, sir.’ Liz saw the waiter look round nervously, obviously terrified that the manager would appear at any moment. ‘Perhaps we could offer you some Chateaubriand Bearnaise. It’s the chef’s special.’
‘I don’t want a bloody steak. I want lobster.’
Liz watched appalled. Nick was behaving like Jamie. ‘Nick. Nick darling, I love Chateaubriand.’
‘Well I don’t. I’ve even ordered the wrong wine for steak!’
To her horror Nick was shouting now. She took him firmly by the arm. ‘Could we see the menu in the Great Hall, do you think?’ She guessed that a glass of sherry with the menu by the roaring fire might calm him down.
But she was wrong. ‘I don’t want to see the menu, I want to see the manager.’ The youth looked as though he might get down on bended knees and beg Nick to have the steak.
Liz was losing patience. ‘Nick, it’s only a meal for heaven’s sake! I’m sure there are lots of delicious things on the menu.’
But Nick wasn’t giving in. ‘That’s not the point! Two hundred bloody quid the room costs and the service is worse than a transport café!’
‘Excuse me . . .?’ Liz turned to find an elderly American couple at her elbow. ‘Would you like our lobster? We come from Maine and it’s kind of like baked beans to us. We eat it every day.’
The grandmotherly woman smiled. ‘We’ll try the roast beef. It’s more English anyway.’
Liz blushed to the roots of her freshly brushed hair. ‘Thank you so much, that’s incredibly kind of you. But we wouldn’t dream of . . .’
Before she’d finished her sentence Nick turned and beamed. ‘That’s exceptionally good of you.’ He smiled his most disarming smile. ‘You see,’ he added as though it explained everything, ‘I’ve already ordered some Entre Deux Mers, and there’s no way you can drink it with steak.’
Without another word of thanks, Nick, clearly worried that his debt might involve an extended conversation with two elderly Americans, led Liz to the dining room for the meal she knew she had absolutely no chance of enjoying.
‘Silly old farts,’ he murmured under his breath, ‘they probably drink Coca Cola with theirs anyway.’
Liz didn’t even dare to look back to see whether the nice old couple had heard.
Later that evening, after an excellent but horribly tense dinner of coquilles St Jacques, followed by Aldeburgh lobster in melted butter, which she didn’t enjoy at all, to Liz’s endless relief Nick partially redeemed himself by sending the American couple a bottle of champagne and inviting them to join Liz and him in the Great Hall for coffee. There, in front of the fire, over coffee and liqueurs, he proceeded to charm the socks off them with hilarious stories of life among the British upper crust and even, to Liz’s amazement, handed them his telephone number at the end of the evening.
In Selden Bridge David and the essential staff of the Star were staying late to get a bumper issue ready to go to press. He looked round at the bright room, with its neat rows of computers, its white melamine stands for doing paste-ups and its thickly carpeted floors. It was a pleasant place to work, a far cry from the newspapers he had started out on, which had more in common with Blake’s dark satanic mills than with this quiet and clean environment.
For a moment he remembered the clang of hot metal, the clatter of old-fashioned typewriters and the murmur of the copytakers repeating their stories to reporters crammed into distant phoneboxes hoping they didn’t run out of coins before the final para. Now, so he was told, reporters all had state-of-the-art devices in their cars and the copytakers were being pensioned off.
But it was his terror of the printers he remembered most. As a young reporter he could recall to this day his fear of touching anything in the printers’ domain.
‘What d’yer think yore bleedin’ doin, mate?’ the printers would bellow if you so much as picked up a bit of copy. Now, with the new technology, reporters did it all themselves on their terminals. And no one had shed too many tears at saying goodbye to the printers. They had dominated papers for years. But still, there were some things he missed about newspapers before the hi-tech revolution. They’d had a kind of excitement about them that the new papers, comfortable and quiet as a travel agent’s, could never replace.
David checked through the first issue as it came off the presses, noticing with pleasure how much the Woman’s Page had improved in the few short weeks since Suzan had joined. It was becoming one of the most popular sections in the paper, with a huge post-bag, and it looked as though it was bringing in new readers. He was even thinking of giving it extra pages.
Suzan was a real talent. Enthusiastic and energetic, always ready to roll up her sleeves, and with a writing style that could have taken her right to the top. He wondered for a moment why exactly she’d accepted his offer. Stuck here on a Saturday night at ten p.m. on some little provincial paper. Was it really because of him?
He smiled across at her as she packed her things into her bottomless satchel. Reporter’s notebook, files, pens and the tatty contact book she took everywhere with her, falling apart and with hundreds of extra pages sellotaped into it, because she was too impatient to buy a new one and painstakingly copy out all her numbers. She slipped into her huge army greatcoat, incongruous over the shortness of her skirt and her trademark Doc Marten lace-ups, and smiled back.
‘Come on, David,’ she announced as the last of the reporters banged the door. ‘There’s still an hour till the pubs close. Let’s go and buy ourselves a pint. We deserve it.’
At nine-thirty the next morning, just as Liz was half emerging from a night of glorious lovemaking and wondering if they had missed breakfast, there was a knock on the door and a waiter, thankfully not the waiter of the night before, came in carrying a tray which he discreetly put on the table by the window overlooking the lake and departed.
Gazing at the pristine white tablecloth, her favourite Pink Sonja roses, the half-bottle of champagne with two glasses, Liz reached for her silk dressing gown, finally noticing as she did so the small black leather box nestling in the middle of the basket of pastries.
‘Go on, open it,’ Nick smiled.
Inside the box was a glorious ring. A huge diamond surrounded by smaller ones in the shape of a flower.
‘Oh, Nick, it’s perfect!’
‘Not quite.’ He took the ring from her and slipped it on to her finger.
‘Mrs Ward, will you marry me?’
Liz marvelled at the sheer artistry of the moment. Nick had missed his calling. He should have been a stage director. Only this time the leading lady had been given the wrong script.
‘I’d love to. But I’ll have to ask Mr Ward first.’
She’d meant it as a joke but the flash of irritation in his eyes told her her mistake. Why on earth had she said anything so dumb?
For a moment she thought about his proposal. It was a big step. And Nick could be infuriating as well as wonderful. But he’d made her feel alive again. She’d tried someone passionate and serious and it hadn’t worked out. Nick, on the other hand, was frivolous and fun and he made life into a romantic and unpredictable adventure. There were worse things to settle for. ‘Let me amend that. Yes, Mr Winters, I will.’
As they joined the queues of weekenders driving back from their country hideaways, Liz thought about how to break the news to Jamie and Daisy. Daisy adored Nick but Jamie still missed his father. They’d just have to keep it a secret till David had at least agreed to a divorce. She’d wear the ring just for the afternoon, then put it away.
David. How was he going to take the news himself?
As she looked out at the dreary hinterland of DIY superstores and giant furniture warehouses that marked the outskirts of
London, Liz imagined him ranting and raving and slamming down the phone when she told him she wanted a divorce.
And, quite irrationally, for some reason the thought gave her unexpected pleasure.
‘Just come in for a last cup of tea. I can’t bear this wonderful time to end.’
Liz wanted to get back to Jamie and Daisy, but Nick seemed particularly keen she come in for some reason. So she laughed at Nick’s appealing smile, and ruffled his hair like she did Jamie’s. Another half an hour wouldn’t hurt.
There were, she noticed, flowers in the vases and a log fire in the sitting room as they waited for tea. The housekeeper was clearly worth her weight in gold. I hope she’ll stay on when we’re married, Liz found herself thinking. It was such a strange thought. That one day they’d be living here.
When the housekeeper arrived, Henry was with her. ‘Henry!’ Nick got up, smiling. ‘Come and join us for tea.’
A shade reluctantly, Liz thought, Henry sat down on the sofa beside her. ‘Good weekend?’
‘Glorious,’ answered Nick lightly, concentrating on pouring the tea. ‘We got engaged. Liz, show Henry your ring.’
Liz smiled and looked down at her ring, entranced by the diamonds that sparkled like rainbows in the firelight as she held out her hand for Henry to admire. So she didn’t see the look of terrible pain that crossed Henry’s face as he willed himself to lean forward and look at the ring.
‘So, Henry’ – Nick finished pouring the tea and handed him a cup –‘aren’t you going to congratulate us?’
CHAPTER 32
‘Engaged? You got engaged yesterday?’ Mel tried not to sound as stunned as she felt.
Liz smiled shyly at her three friends and put the black leather box down on the round table in her office. The huge diamond winked at them knowingly from its blue velvet lining.
‘Wow! I bet he didn’t get that from the Argos catalogue!’ Ginny lifted it up and turned it in the light and watched it flash expensively. ‘Oh, Lizzie, it’s beautiful!’ She flung her arms round her friend. ‘I’m so happy for you! You deserve a good man!’