An Eligible Bachelor

by Veronica Henry

  ‘It sounds heaven.’

  ‘You’ll need to wrap up warm.’

  Richenda frowned, trying to puzzle out what he’d got planned.

  ‘A day trip to Lapland?’ she asked.

  Guy shook his head, grinning.

  ‘There’s no point in guessing. I’m not telling you what it is. You’ll just have to wait.’

  Richenda reached out and started tickling him.

  ‘Please. I’m dying to know.’

  ‘No way.’

  ‘You’ve got to!’

  She bore down on him, pulling up his shirt so she could get at the bare skin underneath. He rolled on to his back, laughing, trying to wriggle away from her. In two moments she was on top of him, sitting astride his stomach. Her hair had come loose from its chignon, her eyes were shining with laughter. He could feel the warmth of her against his flesh. Guy found his heart was beating faster than was healthy as she bent over him and spoke in a low, suggestive voice.

  ‘Well, if I can’t tickle it out of you, maybe I can bribe you…’

  Like most men, Guy could resist anything except the promise of sex.

  Charles sat in the kitchen staring at the handset, willing himself to have the nerve to dial the number.

  Thankfully, Henty hadn’t remembered his drunken attempt at a confession the night before. When she announced she was going out for a drink with Honor, Charles had surprised himself by suggesting she take along Travis. Henty’s eyes had sparkled at the suggestion.

  ‘What a great idea. You’ll love Honor. She’s gorgeous. And she’s totally single.’

  She turned to Charles.

  ‘What do you think, Charles? Honor and Travis?’

  Charles couldn’t resist a dig.

  ‘She’s far too old for him.’

  ‘There’s no such thing as too old,’ Travis assured him.

  The two of them had driven off in the Land Rover, leaving him with absolutely no excuse.

  If he was going to save his marriage, he needed closure with Fleur. He couldn’t risk leaving her ricocheting about the county, thinking she had some sort of hold over him because of their business together. It had been a mistake right from the start. But he was fairly sure he had the means to knock it on the head. And he was pretty confident that once he’d put Fleur in the picture, she’d lose interest. Charles had just enough humility to realize that she was dazzled by the prospect of fame, not him. He took a swig of red wine, then prodded out the six numbers that would determine his future.

  Thank goodness Fleur answered the phone. His nerve might have failed him if Robert had answered.

  ‘Fleur. Charles Beresford here.’ He sounded as businesslike as possible.

  ‘Charles.’

  Her voice dripped honey and innuendo. He plunged straight in before he could fall under her spell.

  ‘Bad news, I’m afraid. I talked to my contact, gave him a brief appraisal of our project. But someone’s beaten us to it, sadly. They’ve already shot a pilot. Called Petal Power. We’re too late.’

  ‘But surely there’s room for two? I mean, there’s room for Delia and Nigella.’

  ‘Not at the moment, I’m afraid. I don’t think they feel that floristry has quite got the legs that cookery has.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘I’m terribly sorry. Perhaps I should have had the chat with him before getting your hopes up. But then you always run the risk of someone pinching your idea.’

  ‘Oh well. C’est la vie.’ Fleur sounded matter of fact rather than totally crushed. ‘Never mind. Nothing ventured, as they say. See you around sometime.’

  ‘Yeah. Maybe. Um… cheers.’

  Charles put the phone down with a trembling hand. Hopefully, that would be it, and there wouldn’t be any hideous repercussions. He could work on his marriage with a clear conscience, with no need for a messy confession. He shuddered when he thought how close he had come to spilling the beans the night before.

  ‘Dad?’

  Charles looked up to see Thea standing in front of him with the expression of total outrage that only a teenage girl can perfect.

  ‘I’ve just been into the ironing room to get my denim skirt. You’ve got to come and see. It’s really weird.’

  ‘If it’s a spider, just pick it up in a duster.’

  ‘It’s not a spider.’

  ‘What could there possibly be in the ironing room that’s of interest to me?’

  Charles could be as difficult as his daughter when he liked. What he’d forgotten was she didn’t take no for an answer.

  ‘Do you want another pink drink?’

  Honor knew she shouldn’t. The concoction that Travis had introduced her to – some sickly raspberry alcopop – was slipping down too easily and she was already slurring her words slightly. But what the hell? It stopped her thinking about things, which was ideal.

  ‘Why not?’

  Travis went off to the bar. Henty and Honor watched his perfect bum beadily, then looked at each other and burst out laughing.

  ‘Isn’t he just edible?’ asked Henty.

  ‘You haven’t!’ said Honor, shocked.

  ‘No way. I don’t need any complications in my life. But you’re a free agent.’

  Honor wondered if now was the time to come clean about Johnny. But somehow, now she was out, she didn’t feel like it. She was having too much fun. Bringing it all out into the open now would alter the frivolous atmosphere. And the whole point of going out tonight was to forget.

  ‘How’s the book?’ she asked.

  Henty winced.

  ‘I’ve sent the first few chapters off to my old publisher,’ she admitted. ‘He’ll get it on Monday morning. I’ll soon know if I’ve been wasting my time.’

  ‘I’m sure you haven’t,’ said Honor. ‘I’m sure it’s brilliant.’

  Travis reappeared with the drinks, and distributed them round the table. Honor found herself admiring his brown wrist, the bracelet made from blue and pink silk thread that had no doubt been a love token from some previous conquest. She looked up and Travis raised his bottle in a toast to her with a wink that was cheeky rather than lascivious, but still brought a blush to her cheeks.

  For a moment she was sorely tempted. That would definitely take her mind off things. He’d be the perfect antidote to Johnny. He was young and uncomplicated. He’d want no-strings sex. She felt her mouth watering as she watched him put his bottle to his mouth, imagining those lips on hers. What would it take? She felt sure Henty would turn a blind eye; would drop Travis off at her house without being judgemental. She had practically told her to help herself, after all.

  Then Honor came to her senses. She’d already made a fool of herself twice this week, and she needed her life to be less complicated, not throw a randy twenty-one-year-old South African into the equation. Dragging her eyes away from his sculpted jawline, with the dusting of golden stubble, she decided perhaps after all these years she should invest in something discreet and battery-operated if she was going to keep herself out of trouble.

  *

  Charles stood open-mouthed in the middle of the erstwhile ironing room. So this was her secret. His darling, clever Henty had done all this behind their backs. Correction – she’d done it under their very noses, and the fact that none of them had noticed the ironing room had undergone a transformation said it all. He ran his hands over the lid of the silver laptop on the desk under the window. He had no idea that she knew how to use one – she’d obviously sorted it out somehow.

  On the desk next to the laptop was a folder. Tentatively he lifted the flap, and saw inside a printed manuscript. He drew out the tide sheet. Diary of a Cotswold Housewife by Henty Beresford. He felt the thickness of the manuscript – about sixty pages, he reckoned with a literary agent’s precision.

  He knew he shouldn’t. For ten long seconds he battled with his conscience. But how could he resist? How could he walk away without getting some idea of what she had been doing in here? After all, if she really didn’
t want anyone to see it she should have kept it under lock and key. Perhaps it was sitting so temptingly on the desk precisely because she did want him to read it.

  He told himself he would just skim the front page. After all, he was skilled at judging most manuscripts on the first few hundred words. Hungrily, he began to read.

  Some time later – it felt like no time at all, which in itself was a good sign – he put down the last page reverently. The hairs on the back of his neck were still tingling. He could barely contain his excitement. She’d done it again. He might be biased, but the fact that he was absolutely desperate to know what happened next meant there was no doubt she had hit the jackpot. Better than that, it was totally original: nobody could dismiss this as a pale imitation of any other writer on the shelf today. She had her own voice, and it was loud and clear.

  He felt pride. And shame. And relief. Relief that somehow this explained her behaviour of the past couple of weeks. He recognized the signs now: this was how she always used to be when she was in full creative flow, when she was writing something really good. Her eyes sparkled, she was ebullient, mischievous, crackling with a mysterious energy. It was only when she’d struggled to write her third book that her aura had dimmed, and Charles realized that over all the ensuing years it had never been relit.

  He felt a surge of fury and self-loathing. As her husband, her agent, her fucking Svengali, for God’s sake, he should have done everything in his power to help her. But he never had, because he had been too self-absorbed, and perhaps it had suited him to have her at home looking after the children. Perhaps he’d been afraid of being in her shadow, for her career had had stellar promise in the early days. Promise that he had failed to nurture.

  Yet all these years later, she’d had the courage to do it for herself. Shamefaced, and in total awe, Charles crept from the room. He shuddered when he thought how close he had come to spoiling it all for them with his sulky, self-centred behaviour, his shameless flirtation, his lack of responsibility. His petulance when he thought she was paying too much attention to Travis. Now he realized what it was the boy had been driving at last night: Charles cringed when he remembered how he’d accosted him in the stable yard. Travis had dropped pretty heavy hints to him, and it had gone right over Charles’s head. Take an interest in someone other than yourself, he’d said. And all the time Henty had been pouring her heart and soul into a work of what Charles fondly considered to be pure genius.

  Respect. It was about time he treated her with a little respect. Even if he didn’t deserve any in return.

  25

  On Monday morning, Richenda hurried down to the kitchen to make tea. She smiled as she pulled her dressing gown tightly round herself and ran down the stairs. Everything was going to be all right. You didn’t have sex like that if it wasn’t: her insides were still fizzing, her knees were weak. She had shagged senseless written all over her, but she didn’t care, not even if Madeleine fixed her with one of her disapproving looks.

  She pushed open the kitchen door. Marilyn was sitting at the table reading the paper, with Malachi reading over her shoulder. They looked up as she bounded in, smiling brightly.

  ‘Tea, anyone?’

  Malachi leaned over Marilyn and snapped the paper shut. Marilyn looked horribly guilty, as if she’d been caught with her fingers in the till. Richenda looked from one to the other, puzzled.

  ‘Is something the matter?’

  The two of them exchanged glances. Malachi gave a small shrug followed by a nod, and Marilyn held out the paper as if it had been used to line a cat-litter tray.

  ‘We might as well show it to you,’ she said in her soft burr. ‘Because if we don’t, someone else will.’

  Richenda took the paper gingerly, pulled out a chair and sat down at the table, smoothing it carefully out in front of her.

  UPSTAIRS, DOWNSTAIRS AND IN MY LADY’S CHAMBER! blazed the Voice’s headline.

  Darling of the small screen Richenda Fox has been busy over the past week, collecting awards and reuniting herself with her estranged mother Sally Collins. But has she been neglecting her fiancé in the process? Guy Portias, owner of the impressive Cotswold pile Eversleigh Manor, seems to have been spending rather a lot of time with his housekeeper, single mother Honor McLean. The gamine brunette has been cooking up a storm in his kitchen lately. The question is, has she been busy in the bedroom as well?

  Time for Lady Jane to investigate, we say…!

  Accompanying the article were three photographs. One of Honor and Guy emerging from the Fleece. One of Guy with his arm around Honor at the fifties night, both of them smiling widely. And the last, and most incriminating, was the pair of them sharing a kiss in Guy’s car.

  ‘I’m really sorry,’ said Marilyn.

  ‘It’s OK,’ said Richenda calmly. ‘You didn’t have anything to do with it, did you?’

  ‘Of course not!’ said Marilyn indignantly. ‘It’s rubbish, anyway.’

  ‘Is it?’ Richenda met Marilyn’s gaze coolly with her green eyes.

  Marilyn looked away for a moment, flustered.

  ‘Honor just works here. They have to spend a lot of time together. But there’s nothing going on.’

  Richenda smiled her thanks.

  ‘You’re very loyal,’ she said gently. ‘I wouldn’t expect you to tell me if there was.’

  Marilyn opened her mouth to protest further, then shut it as the door swung open again and Guy came in, his hair damp from the shower.

  ‘Come on. We need to get going. No time for breakfast – I’ve got that sorted out. Just a quick cup of tea –’

  He realized that there was an icy atmosphere in the kitchen, and that Marilyn, Malachi and Richenda were all looking at him with equally doom-laden expressions.

  ‘What?’

  Malachi and Marilyn decided simultaneously that it was time to make a hasty exit.

  ‘I’ll go and sweep up the leaves,’ said Malachi.

  ‘I’ll start on the vacuuming,’ said Marilyn.

  A moment later they were gone, and Richenda held out the Voice with a resigned sigh. Guy took it wordlessly, somehow knowing instinctively that he was in hot water.

  How hot he couldn’t have imagined. Bile rose in his throat as he examined the article. Combined panic and outrage paralysed him momentarily. The three photos together looked more than incriminating.

  ‘I can explain all of these,’ he croaked.

  ‘Then please do,’ replied Richenda coolly.

  He cleared his throat, desperately wanting to sound unperturbed.

  ‘That’s just us leaving the Fleece. I took her there for lunch, because she was upset about something and wanted to talk…’

  ‘Uh huh,’ Richenda nodded.

  ‘That was taken at the fifties night thing I told you about. The photo’s been taken totally out of context. I had my other arm around Marilyn – it was a picture of all of us. Just having a bit of a laugh.’

  ‘Right.’ Richenda nodded again. ‘And that one?’

  She pointed at the picture of them kissing.

  ‘That’s… not really what it looks like. We’d just got back from the hospital. We’d heard Ted was going to be all right. It was just the sort of kiss that friends give each other when… well, you know… ‘He trailed off, knowing he sounded thoroughly unconvincing. He picked up Richenda’s hands. ‘Richenda, you know what the press are like. They can twist any situation when they put their mind to it. This… bastard obviously came down to Eversleigh looking for a story.’

  ‘Looks like he found one.’

  ‘No. There’s nothing going on between me and Honor. We spent a lot of time together this week because of work and then Ted fell out of the tree…’

  Guy suddenly felt annoyed.

  ‘I don’t see why I should have to stand here and defend myself for something I haven’t done. If you choose not to believe me then there’s nothing I can do, is there?’

  ‘Guy – look at these pictures. I’d be a fool if I didn
’t think something was going on.’

  Guy picked up the paper in a rage.

  ‘Who is this Bill Weeks? I’ll bloody sue him for invasion of privacy. I’ll sue him first and then I’ll kill him. Fucking bastard – anything for a headline in his scummy paper. Who reads this shit anyway?’

  ‘Millions of people,’ said Richenda calmly. ‘Which is why you should really have been more careful.’

  Guy stared at her.

  ‘You believe this?’

  ‘I don’t know what to think. But I do know things aren’t right between us.’

  Her chin trembled. Her icy demeanour was dissolving. Guy suddenly felt very sorry for her. Didn’t she realize this was setting the pace for the rest of her life? If she remained a success then her private life was going to be picked over constantly; allegations and implications would be made.

  ‘Come on,’ he said gently. ‘We mustn’t let them win. We’ve got a day out planned, remember? Go and wrap up warm. I’m not going to let this spoil our day, and neither should you. We’re going to sort it all out, I promise.’

  Honor was in a deep alcohol-induced coma when she heard the phone ringing. She looked at the clock, which promptly moved before she could discern the time. She groaned. Raspberry Reefs had seemed such a splendid idea at the time, but she was unused to spirits and they had slipped down all too easily. Before she knew it she had drunk far too many, and now she could hardly lift her head off the pillow. She reached out an arm to answer the phone. She couldn’t ignore it; it was probably Johnny calling to make arrangements to drop Ted back later.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘Well, good morning to you, Miss McLean.’

  It was Johnny. Honor ran her tongue over her teeth. They felt sticky and furry.

  ‘Hi,’ she managed.

  ‘Did you have a good night?’

  ‘Fine.’

  ‘You managed to get some sleep, then?’