by Jill Mansell
Adam’s phone, when she eventually dialed the number, was engaged. While waiting for the line to become free, Holly rifled through her wardrobe, discarding a dozen or so outfits before finally settling on the daffodil-yellow silk dress that clashed so wonderfully with her hair, and that she knew Adam would like. He had been so kind to her this morning; he deserved that much at least.
Her nails took ages; this new nail varnish needed three separate coats before the required depth of color and luster could properly be achieved. In between the second and third coats she rang Adam again, but the line was still busy.
By eight fifteen she was ready, and not ashamed to admit to herself that despite the traumas of the past day and a half, she was looking pretty damn good. If only Max could see her now, maybe…
But she pushed that thought firmly from her mind and dialed Adam’s number once more. Hooray, the phone was ringing at last.
She listened with mounting dismay and anger as the ringing continued, purring monotonously on and on in time with her own breathing. It was only twenty past eight, and the bastard had gone out. She’d been stood up, abandoned, forgotten.
Holly kicked the coffee table, hard. So much for kindness and sympathy. Then she reached for her diary and turned to the list of numbers in the back. She was damned if she was going to stay in now; there had to be someone who would go out for a drink with her tonight…
“We’re all meeting down at that new cocktail bar on Pulteney Bridge,” said Jennifer cheerfully. “And Sophie Kendall’s bringing along a team of drop-dead-gorgeous polo players she met up with at Lansdowne last week. Holly, you simply must come. Apparently, they have the most divine legs…and they’re all absolutely loaded! Just think of the possibilities,” she concluded dreamily.
Holly, brightening at once, said, “I’ll be there.”
• • •
The Calypso, chic and streamlined and one of Bath’s smartest places-to-go, was bulging at the seams. For a moment Holly hovered on the wet pavement outside, mentally gathering herself for the plunge into hectic sociability. Tonight, she would do her best to forget Max and Adam, Ross and Tessa. She would smile and dazzle and enjoy herself; she would enjoy herself…
A fresh spattering of rain pushed her toward the door, but even as she stepped across the threshold and the wall of heat and noise hit her, she felt a stab of uncharacteristic—almost telepathic—unease.
A moment later she realized why. For there, standing at the bar, was Adam. With his arm around the waist of Clarissa “The Boob” Fox.
It hadn’t been telepathy, of course, merely the familiar tone of his voice and the volume of his laughter. Ducking behind the nearest pink-marbled pillar, Holly pretended to search in her purse for her wallet and waited for her heart to stop pounding.
But it was no good; she felt sick. And utterly betrayed. A glance around the pillar told her that her first impressions had been correct. Adam and Clarissa were alone together, and his arm was now draped affectionately around her shoulder. While she, Holly, had been at home tarting herself up for Adam—even choosing an outfit she knew he’d like, for God’s sake—he had forgotten about her and blithely gone out to meet another woman…a woman, furthermore, whose breasts weren’t even her own. How she had the nerve to flaunt those silicone monstrosities, Holly couldn’t imagine.
Although Adam appeared to be enjoying them, she observed sourly, resentment mingling with outrage as the extent of this fresh humiliation began to sink in. Who the hell did Adam Perry think he was, anyway? How could he treat her like this, letting her down and waltzing off instead with Clarissa Fox? And how dare he ruin her night just when she’d begun to think that maybe he wasn’t so bad after all?
Turning, taking care to remain unnoticed, Holly slid back toward the door.
Chapter 40
As dusk fell, sheets of gray rain swept across the valley, and even the trees seemed to droop beneath the onslaught. Ross, watching from the isolation of the unlit sitting room, surveyed the dismal view and couldn’t help thinking that if Tessa had been there—if the wedding had gone ahead after all—the weather would have remained fine.
Shit, this was no good. Running his hands through his hair, he turned away from the window and reached for his drink. Yesterday it had been acutely necessary—for unformed reasons of his own—to remain sober, but tonight was a different matter. He needed something to numb the pain, to take his mind off the fact that the unthinkable had happened. He had to get out of this room, this empty house where he and Tessa had planned to start their married lives together—or at least where he had planned that they should start their married lives together…
The darkness was becoming oppressive. Tipping his tumbler of scotch into the nearest plant pot, he snatched up his car keys and headed for the door. He was damned if he was going to fall into the pathetic trap of drinking alone; jilted bridegroom or not, he still had some vestiges of pride.
• • •
He bumped into Sylvie Nash on the steps of the hotel, just as she was leaving at the end of her shift and just as Ross realized that The Grange was not where he wanted to be. Coming back here had been a mistake; bravado was one thing, but sheer unadulterated torture was quite another.
And at that moment, for once in her life, Sylvie said exactly the right thing.
“Oh, Ross, you shouldn’t be here.” Her eyes glistened with sympathy as she touched his forearm. Droplets of rain, caught in her hair, reflected the light from the foyer behind her. Ross, a great deal wetter, said, “Where should I be, then?” and watched her hesitate, stuck for a reply.
“I don’t know,” she whispered finally, with a helpless glance at her watch. “But you look awful, and I’m sure the woman who checked into room fourteen this afternoon is a journalist—she’s been asking an awful lot of questions. If you wanted to,” she added with a rush of bravery, “you could always come back to my house for the evening. My mum and dad are in Benidorm this week, and my boyfriend’s working up in Liverpool, so there wouldn’t be anyone there to bother you…”
The expression on Ross’s face was unreadable, but she’d started and now she had to finish. Her long nails dug into her palms as she concluded lamely, “You wouldn’t even have to talk if you didn’t feel like it…”
“Good,” said Ross evenly, placing his hand on the small of her back and guiding her toward his car. “Because I’m not in the mood for talking.”
The house in which Sylvie lived with her parents was small, semidetached, and modern. The extremely clean living room was very Laura Ashley, very flouncy, and every available surface was crowded with china animals, ornamental ashtrays, and elaborately framed photographs of Sylvie.
Ross sat down on the pink-and-white upholstered sofa and watched through the open doorway as Sylvie, in the kitchen, made a pot of tea and opened a packet of chocolate cookies. When she returned to sit in the chair facing him, they drank their tea in silence, listening to the mournful howling of the wind as it gathered strength outside. After a while, Sylvie got up and put an old Carly Simon LP onto the turntable, then disappeared into the pine-paneled kitchen once more, coming back with a dusty bottle of Polish vodka and a single glass.
“Go on,” she said quietly, holding the glass toward him. “You look as if you could do with it. I’m afraid there isn’t anything else I can offer you apart from Sprite.”
Nothing else she could offer him? Accepting the drink with a smile, Ross reflected that of all the women in the world, only Sylvie Nash could come up with such an entirely innocent double entendre…
Two hours later, he realized that he had been mistaken; Sylvie wasn’t innocent at all. Fairly drunk by this stage, he was nevertheless still capable of making the required moves. When she had said calmly, apparently out of the blue, “We could go upstairs if you’d like to,” he hadn’t replied. Maybe this was another typical Sylvie remark, and what she really meant was tha
t it was time to go to sleep because she had to get up early for work tomorrow morning.
But then it had been her turn to smile. Rising gracefully to her feet, she had moved toward him and held out one slender, pink-tipped hand.
“I’d like to, Ross. Really. And no one else would need to know, would they?”
For a fraction of a second, he had almost been tempted. It was his wedding night, after all, and what was a man supposed to do on his wedding night, if not screw himself stupid?
But Sylvie wasn’t Tessa, and sleeping with her wasn’t going to make him feel any better. Nothing on earth was going to make him feel better tonight.
“Thanks,” he said, dredging up a faint smile so that her feelings wouldn’t be hurt, “but no thanks. I think maybe I’ll just go on up to bed. I could probably do with some sleep.”
Surprised to realize that she felt relieved rather than disappointed, Sylvie simply nodded, unperturbed.
“OK. I’ll show you to your room.”
• • •
Grace, silent and watchful and utterly devastated by Tessa’s disappearance, guessed at once where—and with whom—Ross had spent the previous night. She hadn’t spent the last few weeks observing the dramatic change in her own mother without learning to recognize that “I’ve got a secret” look in the faces of others. And while Sylvie was behaving with perfect propriety this morning, her eyes decorously downcast whenever Ross emerged from his office, Grace wasn’t fooled for a minute. And as far as she was concerned, it proved beyond any doubt at all that Ross’s amoral behavior was the reason behind Tessa’s decision to leave.
• • •
Having spent a delightful lunch hour in bed with Mattie, Richard relaxed against the stacked-up mound of pillows and watched with pleasure as she reached for her clothes. Over her head slipped the glossy, dark-green camisole top he had bought for her just last week. On went the matching French knickers. Mattie, no longer shy, did a brief twirl and ran her hands appreciatively over the satiny material. “They’re beautiful. I’ve never had such gorgeous underwear before.” She smiled as she picked up her dress, yet another gift from Richard. “But you really shouldn’t be spending your money on me like this; you’re spoiling me.”
“It’s a replacement,” he reminded her, “for the dress I ruined that night at The Grange. Besides,” he went on, reaching out for her and kissing first one breast and then the other before they disappeared from view, “I love buying you things. And you are the least spoiled woman I’ve ever known.”
Fully dressed once more, Mattie made them both a pot of tea. She had to be back at work in fifteen minutes, but until that time came she would savor every moment with Richard.
“How did Antonia react when she heard about that business up at the hotel?” she asked, stirring her tea and quite forgetting that she no longer took sugar.
Richard adjusted his spectacles and sat back in his chair. “She hasn’t said much, but I can’t help feeling that she knows more than she’s letting on. She’s like a child when it comes to possessions—she doesn’t give them up easily—and it wouldn’t surprise me if I found out that she’d done something drastic to try to hold on to Ross.” Then he took Mattie’s hand in his and smiled. “But to tell you the truth, I’m not interested enough to want to find out. Antonia can do whatever she likes; as long as I have you I don’t care.”
Mattie sighed. It had been on the tip of her tongue to tell him about Ross and herself, but she still didn’t know whether she should. It was, after all, Grace’s secret as much as her own, and while Richard was in turn a secret from Grace, she didn’t feel that she could. “I do feel sorry for that girl though,” she said slowly. “You know, Tessa. She’s got that baby now, and all that responsibility… She must be going through a terrible time.”
Glancing at his watch, Richard pulled a face. “Right now we have our own terrible time to consider. It’s five till and you have to be back at work by two. We’d better get going before you start feeling sorry for Ross.”
“I don’t feel sorry for him,” she declared stoutly, getting to her feet and picking up her bag. “Whatever has happened, he had it coming to him. He deserves to be unhappy.” Then she relaxed and hugged her lover. “I’m sorry, I’m being a bitch. Give me one more kiss, darling, and then we really must go.”
“You could never be a bitch,” said Richard, only too happy to comply. “You’re wonderful.”
Chapter 41
Stepping carefully, taking care not to slip on loose rocks, Tessa made her way down the steep, barely discernible path that led to the beach. Perryn Cove, cocooned on three sides by precariously angled cliffs, might be small, but it was worth the effort. A crescent of dark-gold sand lay exposed by the receding tide, lace-fringed waves slid hypnotically back and forth, and beyond them the even more mesmerizing blueness of the sea blended at the horizon into a cloudless sky.
And by some miracle, Tessa found herself entirely alone.
St. Ives had been Dominic’s home for the past four years, and he loved every overcrowded inch of the town, reveling in the elitism of being a resident rather than a tourist and enjoying to the full the hectic, dissolute life he had made for himself here. There were always fellow artists to drink with, to commiserate with when the work wasn’t selling and to celebrate with when business was good. And the supply of beautiful girls was, needless to say, limitless.
But whereas Dominic thrived on the company of others, Tessa cherished solitude. The endless informal parties did nothing for her, despite the fact that she knew only too well that at least half of them were for her own benefit. Dominic was attempting to build her a new social life, introducing her to all his friends in an effort to help her forget the traumatic events of her too-recent past.
Sadly, but not surprisingly, she had so far been unable to oblige. This morning, however, Dominic was looking after Olivia, and Tessa had three uninterrupted hours in which to think. Reaching the foot of the cliffs at last, she took off her white espadrilles and wriggled her toes in the warm, dry sand. The intention had been to walk and think and explore the intricate collection of rock pools, but the heat had sapped her energy. Now that she was finally here it seemed more sensible to have a quick swim and then rest, simply soaking up the sun and enjoying the peacefulness of her surroundings.
But the blessed silence was shattered less than twenty minutes later with the arrival of what sounded like a school outing. Tessa, lying flat on her back, opened her eyes a fraction and saw a dozen children and several gaudily dressed adults burst upon the empty beach like fireworks, having taken advantage of the ebbing tide and made their way around the base of the cliffs.
Praying that they wouldn’t stay, she closed her eyes once more and forced her mind back to more important matters. Despite Dominic’s repeated assurances that she and Olivia were welcome to stay as long as she liked, she knew they couldn’t. It wasn’t solving anything. She needed somewhere of her own, a secure home for Olivia, somewhere like her own cottage on the outskirts of Bath…
She was awoken from a light sleep less than an hour later by the trickle of sand on her bare stomach. Shielding her eyes from the sun, she gazed up at Dominic—looking ludicrously paternal with Olivia strapped in her baby sling to his chest—and said, “What am I, a hundred-pound weakling?”
“If that,” he remarked dryly. She had lost far too much weight in the last few weeks.
“What are you doing here, anyway?” she said, her brain still fuddled with sleep.
Dominic levered himself with care down onto the sand beside her. “Olivia and I have been having a serious talk.”
“Really?”
“Scout’s honor,” he protested.
Tessa raised her eyebrows. “I’m amazed. I didn’t think you were capable of having a serious talk.”
“Well, I threw in a few one-liners,” he said with a grin, “but Olivia soon hauled me
back onto the straight and narrow. Didn’t you, sweetheart?”
Olivia blew lavish bubbles of agreement.
“I see.” Tessa looked thoughtful; Dominic hadn’t made the arduous trek to Perryn Cove for nothing; he was here for a reason. “And what exactly have you been talking about? If you think I’m going to let you paint my daughter in the nude, forget it.”
But he was being serious now. “It’s you, Tess. Hiding away down here isn’t doing you any favors. It isn’t your style, for heaven’s sake. What are you planning to do? Spend the rest of the summer hiding away on a beach and saying, ‘I want to be alone’?”
“I don’t know,” she said, only semitruthfully. “I’ve just been asking myself the same question. I suppose I do want to go back to Bath—it’s where my friends are, after all—but it might make things awkward. Ross isn’t the kind of person who’s used to being publicly humiliated, which is what I appear to have done, so he might not be too thrilled by the idea of my returning.”
“And he didn’t do anything to deserve it?” Dominic demanded, exasperated to realize that she was, even now, considering Ross Monahan’s feelings before her own. “Sweetheart, he knows why you left him. You do whatever you want to do, and if he starts making things difficult for you, just tell him to get stuffed. Bath is where you and Olivia live, and you have as much right to be there as he does.”
• • •
The fact that his conscience was troubling him, troubled Max. Unaccustomed to feeling guilty, he was nevertheless only too acutely aware of the fact that he had treated Holly not only badly, but very unfairly indeed.
Which was why, when he discovered—too late—that Caroline Mortimer would not, after all, be able to make it down from London for the following Friday’s Mad Hatter’s Ball, he decided to assuage his guilt and invite Holly to partner him instead.
“Read my tea leaves. Oh please, read my tea leaves,” Holly begged Rosa Polonowski as, in a frenzy of excitement, she cornered the little Polish woman in the hotel’s kitchen. “Oh God, my hands are shaking. Which way am I supposed to swirl the cup? Shit, it’s tea bags! Rosa, we’ll have to make some more… Marco, where’s the normal tea? You can spare Rosa for just five minutes, can’t you? She’s going to reveal my destiny, and that’s got to be more important than cleaning a few saucepans!”