A Proper Cuppa Tea

by K. G. MacGregor

  “Likely not, but I suppose that process is rather a series of hoops, is it not?” Channing nodded to Lark’s lap, where the papers related to her work visa protruded from her US passport. “Looks as if you’re planning to stay a while.”

  “Three or four weeks at least, maybe longer. One of the projects I’ve been overseeing went sideways and I need to figure out whether it’s just a run-of-the-mill fiasco or a colossal…”

  “Clusterfuck?”

  “Good word. Perfect word, in fact.”

  “Yes, the etymologists really outdid themselves on that one. I noticed your luggage tag. You’re a medical doctor?”

  “I am…sort of. No, I am.” It was nuts that she couldn’t seem to answer such a straightforward question. “I went to medical school but decided not to do a residency. Practically speaking, that means I have four years of medical training that I’m not allowed to use on anyone. So don’t go choking on a grape. I’d have to watch you die.”

  “That would be bloody awkward.”

  Lark laughed, relieved by Channing’s smile and willingness to chat again.

  Muriel announced a welcome to London, where the local time was nine thirty-five a.m. It would take several minutes to taxi to their gate. Meanwhile, chimes erupted all over the first class cabin as phones connected to wireless networks, including Lark’s. She quickly texted confirmation of her arrival to Wendi Doolan, the woman who was to meet her at the train station.

  “Oh look, it’s a notification from British Airways that my baggage is now available at Carousel Five—three hours ago. It must have made the flight I missed.”

  Absorbed in her own messages, Channing showed no sign of having heard her remark. “I see… Let the games begin.” She jabbed at her phone to delete the offending note.

  “Problem?”

  “Not for me. Someone has her knickers in a twist because I resigned without explanation. Far more sensible than the actual truth, don’t you agree?”

  “I don’t know how you stayed there at all, even just for a couple of months. Working with an ex…” She cringed at the idea of having to face Bess every day at the office, even though their breakup had been mostly civilized.

  “It wasn’t pleasant but at least I was professional about it, which is more than I can say for her. We used to travel a lot together—client meetings and the like. Made quite a good team, actually. All of a sudden she can’t do that anymore, because evidently we can’t be alone together, not even in the bloody copy room. So she hired an absolute pillock to our team—Boyd Womack—who must be someone’s nephew. There’s no other explanation for how he made it through the door.”

  Lark didn’t dare say it, but she could see why Payton wouldn’t want to travel alone with someone as tempting as Channing. Perhaps she was worried about her resolve.

  “But now apparently even that’s too much.” She stowed her phone and began collecting the personal items she’d brought aboard in a Louis Vuitton shoulder bag. “I’d been looking forward to this trip home for months, a break from all the melodrama. Then Payton sends me a bloody email from her office ten feet away to say she’ll not be traveling anymore, that when I return, I’m to take over client meetings and Boyd will accompany me. Her top analyst reduced to being a bloody nanny. So I dumped all of my office knickknacks into a rubbish bin and left my resignation on the desk.”

  “Gutsy.” Her top analyst. Funny how only hours ago Lark had assumed she couldn’t possibly be a businesswoman. “I don’t blame you a bit. I’d have done the same thing.”

  “But now Payton is having to field queries about my sudden departure. She’s rather desperate to have me confirm with Human Resources her version of events—that I became homesick for England, what with my grief over Poppa’s unexpected death. Mustn’t have anyone think it had anything to do with sexual harassment, no matter that she deliberately drove me to quit.”

  “You don’t have to play her game.” Which sounded ridiculous coming from Lark. Women like Channing already knew that.

  “I don’t intend to. I have my own game this time.”

  “Does it involve dumping a drink in her lap?”

  “You saw that?”

  “It was epic.”

  “It was, wasn’t it?” Channing pursed her lips in a half smile, but it didn’t last. She was clearly still annoyed by Payton’s message.

  Upon arrival at the gate, Muriel directed those in the first class cabin toward the exit. Jeremy, who was holding back business and coach passengers to let them pass, gave her a small wave.

  “Thanks again,” Lark told him. “You’re the best.”

  In the unending corridors of Heathrow, Lark once again found herself mesmerized by Channing’s sensual gait, now synchronized with the thump of Lark’s rolling suitcase along the seams of the tile floor. It was devastatingly sexy, especially now that Lark knew she was gay.

  Furthermore, she’d accidentally confirmed that her lovely breasts were quite real. In the night, she’d lingered on a fleshy mound through the gap in Channing’s jumpsuit while she was dozing upright in her seat. No unnatural curves, no sculpted spacing. Gravity in action.

  Channing, the enigma—at times almost friendly, then instantly irascible and aloof. The top analyst who dressed like a model for Elle. Who’d had an adulterous affair with her lady boss. And who now waffled between cynicism and spite, with an occasional hint of hopefulness.

  Lark was taken aback by her emotional investment. It was irrational to feel such empathy for someone who’d admittedly earned her misery through her own questionable choices. Yet from the moment Channing had walked through the British Airways lounge, Lark had been captivated. Then Fate had dropped her in the adjacent seat. Now she wanted to trade phone numbers and meet up in the city for—

  “God, this walk takes forever,” Channing suddenly groused, her first words since leaving the plane. “Terminal Five might as well be in bloody Wales.”

  “And here I was thinking how nice it was they gave us all this time to stretch our legs.”

  “Are you always so cheery in the morning? I should think that would be bothersome for the cohabitant.”

  The word surprised her, leading her back through their conversations of the last seven hours. Though she’d taken Channing’s hand to dissuade the attentions of Terrence Goff, she hadn’t explicitly revealed herself as gay. Not even when Channing said she was. As squandered opportunities went, that one was mammoth. “My ex-girlfriend found it annoying too.”

  Channing cast a sidelong look as they neared a sign directing European Union citizens one way and everyone else the other. “So you’re gay as well?”

  “I am.”

  “Hmm…odd that I missed that. Though I suppose I should have known when you clutched my hand so aggressively and called me sweetheart.”

  “My secret signal. It’s a little too subtle for some people.”

  Channing ignored her remark as she came to an abrupt stop. “Looks like my queue is this way, Dr. Lark Latimer. I wish you a pleasant stay in jolly old England, though I can’t promise my fellow countrymen will return your morning cheerfulness. Most are like me, I’m afraid, a bit on the stiff side.”

  “Don’t be so hard on yourself. You weren’t a total bitch. There was that one moment when you were asleep…”

  Channing rolled her eyes and actually laughed. “Very well, I deserved that.”

  “Seriously, I have a feeling this will turn out to be a good move for you. Payton’s loss is some lucky lady’s gain.”

  “Thank you.” She walked backward a few steps, giving Lark one last chance to appreciate her gracefulness. “Don’t forget—the milk always comes first.”

  “Got it.” Gripped with disappointment at goodbye, Lark blurted, “I don’t suppose there’s any chance you’d like to…”

  Too late. Channing had turned away.

  A familiar hollowness enveloped her as she continued alone down the hallway. Some days her life felt like a string of random scenes that never a
dded up to a book. Thwarted plans, fleeting relationships.

  Her mood lifted as she turned the corner and instantly noted her favorite perk of flying first class—she was at the front of the line for passport control. The agent scrupulously processed her work permit, but she still made it through in record time and picked up her lonely bag from the deserted Carousel 5. With nothing to declare to customs, she turned in her card and breezed through the arrivals area looking for signage to the Piccadilly Line.

  A small crowd waited to greet arriving passengers, a scene she rarely noticed except for today. An elderly gentleman, smartly dressed in a three-piece suit and driving cap, held a hand-printed sign: Lady Channing Hughes.

  Lady Channing Hughes.

  Chapter Three

  It was ten a.m. on the nose when Channing exited customs and spotted Cecil’s warm smile. The placard in his hand triggered a rush of poignant tears, which she blinked back so as not to embarrass herself. This first trip home since the funeral three months ago marked her grudging acceptance that nothing would ever be the same.

  She took a moment to bask in familial bonds, shrugging off a nagging sense of humiliation at returning to England alone—again. This was not the homecoming she’d daringly planned with Payton last February over room service at the Park Hyatt in New York. Payton had promised that day to set her divorce in motion soon, before Channing’s thirtieth birthday on the first of May. By summer they could vacation together without the elaborate charade.

  Though Channing had tried that night to ignore her doubts, her gut had warned her not to get her hopes up. A month later their relationship was in tatters.

  “How are you, dear one?” Cecil asked, enveloping her in a fatherly embrace.

  “Much better now, Cecil. I’ve been so homesick for Horningsea.”

  It surely must have looked strange to those who saw her step into the arms of an elderly gent who so obviously was her limo driver. Cecil Browning was much more than that. He and his wife Maisie had run the Hughes household at Penderworth Manor since before she was born. It was Maisie who’d found her beloved Poppa in his study after he’d died, an open book of Keats poetry against his chest.

  Cecil looked about as if expecting to spot her companion, since at the funeral Channing had floated the possibility she might bring someone home.

  “It’s only me.” She’d always been deliberately vague where Payton was concerned, never quite knowing how to describe their relationship. It strained credulity to think they didn’t know she was gay. A thirty-year-old woman who’d never had an actual boyfriend? Of all the women she’d dated, only Payton had been worth the anguish of possibly coming out to Poppa. What sense did it make to tell the Brownings now?

  He eyed her single suitcase and shoulder bag. “This can’t be all your luggage, Miss Channing. You haven’t changed your mind about an extended holiday? Lord Alanford seems to think it could take a month or more to settle the estate. I’m sure there is much to talk about…many plans to make.”

  “Not to worry. I plan to stay a few weeks at least. I shipped my summer clothes a couple of days ago. They should arrive soon.”

  Sadly, her plans probably included a decision on whether the time had come for Cecil and Maisie to claim their pension. She couldn’t bear to think about replacing them, but both were in their late sixties. The day-to-day work of maintaining a manor house was taxing.

  A curly-haired woman with a backpack scurried past, reminding Channing briefly of Lark. She couldn’t believe she’d been so oblivious. How on earth had she not known the doctor was gay? Even more idiotic was the realization, as she’d waited for her bag, that Lark had been chatting her up on their walk from the plane. And she hadn’t responded at all.

  She could have had an actual date with someone who fancied her. Lark’s flattery felt so much better than Payton’s dispassion of the last few months. Why hadn’t she fallen for someone like Lark Latimer in the first place? Someone pretty, witty, and smart. Someone closer to her age. Someone single, for bloody’s sake.

  “What about your work?” Cecil asked, breaking her train of thought. “Can you continue from Penderworth?”

  “I’ve taken an indefinite leave of absence.” She’d have to venture back to Boston eventually to pack up the rest of her belongings and sell her car. Her apartment lease was good through November.

  And there still was the matter of what she’d do next. Her expertise in corporate valuations was of little use in the tiny village of Horningsea, though it was but a stone’s throw from the bustling university town of Cambridge. It remained to be seen if Albright Trust would enforce its noncompete agreement, which tied her hands from going back into a similar line of work. She needn’t let that concern her—inheriting the Hughes family fortune ought to give her several options.

  With her arm looped in Cecil’s they crossed the skybridge to the parking garage, where her grandfather’s ancient but functional black Mercedes sedan was parked mere steps from the ramp. She could almost see him inside, peering down his nose through his bifocals to read The Telegraph, London’s conservative daily.

  Cecil guided her toward the backseat.

  “You don’t have to chauffeur me, you know. I’m more than happy to ride in the front seat beside you.” She didn’t stand on ceremony like Poppa, but oh, how she’d looked forward to impressing Payton with her own private limo.

  “Another time, perhaps. Maisie gave me strict instructions for today.” He gestured inside to a small basket. “She’s packed a little something for you. And I’ve a pillow and blanket in the boot should you wish to nap on the way home. Let me get them for you.”

  One sniff and she knew what the basket contained—fluffy homemade scones. There’d be jam too, and no doubt a thermos of hot water for tea. “I don’t know what I’d do without you and Maisie. Now that Poppa’s gone, you’re practically all the family I’ve got.”

  As they pulled onto the M25, Cecil inquired, “Is there news from your mum?”

  Her Mum…to use the term loosely. Elizabeth Trilby Hughes. Guillory. Blumenfeld. Liz to everyone who knew her.

  “She’s still annoyed that I didn’t fly down to Florida and collect her for the funeral. She won’t fly alone, but she refused to ask Irwin to come with her. Apparently it was awkward to have him see where she lived with her first husband.” Irwin Blumenfeld was husband number three, a retired bankruptcy attorney. They lived at a marina in West Palm Beach aboard a 36-foot cabin cruiser Liz generously referred to as a yacht. “I don’t expect to see her anytime soon, if you want to know the truth.”

  She closed her eyes to savor the taste of Maisie’s black currant jam.

  Cecil caught her eye in the rearview mirror. “What’s happened to Calvin and the twins? Are they still in Boston?”

  With her mouth full, she replied, “I’ve honestly no idea what’s become of the Guillorys. Ever since the divorce, I’ve been forbidden to mention Calvin by name. Not that I ever would. I loathe the man.”

  They shared a chuckle over their mutual distaste for her stepfamily. It was practically a scandal that Liz had married Calvin Guillory so soon after Channing’s father died, but then he’d made matters worse by uprooting the family from England to his hometown of Boston. Her half-brothers had come along when she was four. Annoying to no end, the pair of them. With endless squabbles in the household, Calvin thought it best that Channing return to England to live with her father’s family. Eight years old and miserable in a houseful of Guillorys—including her Mum—she’d gone willingly, though the prospect of living with people she hardly knew frightened her. It bothered her to this day that her mum had so easily let her go.

  “It’s good to have you home, Miss Channing.”

  Was England really home? She had dual citizenship courtesy of Calvin. She’d bounced back and forth to Boston several times, finally landing the incredible job at Albright after earning an MBA at Harvard. It was only Poppa who’d tied her to England and now he was gone. But she still had Penderw
orth. If she stayed this time, it would mean carving out a brand-new life on her own.

  * * *

  Lark shook herself from an unintentional nap as the train slowed into the station at Cambridge. Begging the pardon of several passengers, she pushed the smaller of her rolling suitcases and pulled the larger down the narrow aisle. Inside the station, a security officer waved her through a gate, sparing her the indignity of trying to get herself and the cumbersome bags through the turnstile.

  “Dr. Latimer!” The voice belonged to Wendi, easily recognizable from their video chats. A native of Ireland, she had flowing ginger hair that set her apart from the crowd.

  “Thanks a million for meeting me. Sorry about getting in so late.”

  “Brilliant timing, actually. Gave me a chance to meet my boyfriend for lunch. Are you hungry?”

  “No, I grabbed a bite at King’s Cross.”

  Wendi took the larger bag and wove through the passenger pickup zone to a two-door hatchback parked haphazardly on the sidewalk.

  As a clinical research manager for Gipson Pharmaceuticals, Lark was accustomed to getting the red carpet treatment whenever she arrived onsite to conduct a review of a drug trial. Millions of dollars in clinical contracts were at stake. Lark had designed the study, a Phase II trial for Flexxene, a daily transdermal patch aimed at reducing pain and stiffness from arthritis. It was up to her to determine if the contractor—in this case PharmaStat—had followed protocols to the letter. Did all the participants meet the eligibility criteria? Was the patch applied properly? Were the results recorded accurately?

  Most trials she could monitor from the comfort of her office, where she’d review patient records and interview clinical staff by phone. Site visits were scheduled at random as an extra layer of validation. This particular review was for-cause—the Cambridge trial had gone horribly off the rails, landing three subjects in the emergency room with heart palpitations, and generating a ton of bad press for Gipson. A real clusterfuck, as Channing called it.