Finally, an explanation of Channing’s work that Lark actually understood.
“Kenny says you resigned. Where do you go from here?” Oliver asked.
They were sitting in what Channing called the breakfast room, an informal dining area off the kitchen where the family took most of its meals. Channing had insisted on swapping seats with Lark so she’d have a clear line of sight to the back door, which led out to what had once been the carriage house. The Brownings kept a modest apartment there, she explained. Best they not slip in unnoticed and overhear the news that the estate was virtually worthless. Or catch Kenny and Oliver in a kiss. Or learn that Channing had left her job after a dismal affair with a married woman.
“I’ve not decided what to do next. Believe it or not, I received a call on Friday afternoon from my old boss, the CEO at Albright. He practically begged me to return. Naturally my first instinct was to decline, but before I could get that out of my mouth he offered me a significant promotion that would pay a great deal more money. Under the circumstances, I’m considering it quite seriously.”
Up to now, Lark had let the others do most of the talking, intimidated somewhat by their sharp-witted exchanges and shared history. This particular bit of news however hit her right where she lived. “So there’s a chance you’d come back to Boston? I’d vote for that.”
“It’s definitely on my list of possibilities. Though one of the best things about being here in England is having a support system…such as it is.” She tipped her head toward Kenny and shrugged. “The worst thing about Boston was living in seclusion. My mum moved to Florida, but she didn’t count anyway. I used to have loads of mates, women from Wellesley, from Harvard. Including one or two I’d dated for a while. But then Payton came along and I lost touch with all of them. Apparently if you turn down enough invites, people stop asking.”
Lark waved her arms. “Hello…there’s also me. You never know when you’re going to need someone to swoop in and help chase off the bar creeps.”
Kenny cleared his throat and addressed Channing pointedly. “I don’t like this at all, Channing. Please promise me you won’t end up back with that dreadful woman again. Certainly not because you need money. I’ll write you a bloody check myself.”
“And all I have to do is what, sire?”
The question hung in the air for several seconds until Oliver snorted. Clearly the three of them were in on the same joke.
“In the twenty years I’ve known you, Kenny, I’ve lost count of the outrageous ideas that come from that head of yours. But that one far and away was your crowning achievement.”
With a hand to his mouth to stifle a laugh, Oliver said, “Come on, you have to admit the idea is rather resourceful.”
Lark whipped her head from side to side trying to follow the cryptic conversation. “What’s resourceful? Did I miss something?”
Channing ignored her question, fixing a scowl on Oliver. “Where I’m the resource. Or rather, my womb is.”
“Will someone kindly let me in on this joke?”
“Kenny has this brilliant idea that he and I should get married. If he dies without an heir, you see, one of his Irish mafia relatives becomes Earl of Alanford. If I say yes, he’s promised to move into Penderworth and throw a fat wad of his father’s cash around to make it worthy of a viscount until the earl kicks over and hands him Breckham Hall.” In an aside, she added, “He’s only sixty-one, which means I could be stuck with Kenny for forty years. In return, all I have to do is bear him a child—a male child, since our archaic laws say only those with goolies can inherit earldoms. With my luck I’d pop out an entire field hockey team before I ever got one with a handle.”
“No way!” Lark’s laugh died as she took in the three serious faces. “You can’t possibly be considering that. Isn’t there some kind of law against sham marriages? You’d have to actually live as a married couple, right? Wait, does Channing get beheaded if she can’t get pregnant?”
“An excellent question!”
Kenny shifted uncomfortably. “Probably not.”
“It’s hard scrubbing blood out of the flagstones,” Oliver added.
Channing shook her finger at Oliver. “You put him up to this, didn’t you? He told me you were the one who wanted kids. A dozen of them. Who in their right mind seriously thinks Kenny Hargreaves should be allowed to reproduce?”
The back door opened to Cecil, who entered the breakfast room without a word and began clearing the table.
Channing made a slicing motion across her throat to quiet the conversation. “Is Maisie ill again?”
“A wee bit tired is all, Miss Channing. I thought I’d give her a rest.”
“Don’t worry yourself, Cecil. Out of gratitude for the delicious shepherd’s pie, Lord Teasely said he’d be more than happy to tidy up. His personal tribute to Maisie.”
“Of course I did. It’s only polite…but Channing refused my generous offer, as usual. She was worried I might break something, given my incredible clumsiness.”
“Wanker,” she mouthed as Cecil left through the door he’d entered.
Lark stood to collect Oliver’s bowl and her own, amused to think the Brownings could possibly be oblivious to the fact that Kenny and Oliver were lovers. Channing was a different matter, but surely they’d seen clues when she was growing up. “I don’t mind doing this while you guys finish your family planning session. I’m afraid it will give me bad dreams.”
Channing shooed her away. “Sit, I’ll do it.”
“Change of subject then,” Kenny announced. “Come with us next weekend to Amsterdam Pride. We’re taking the overnight ferry from Harwich on Friday. The Canal Parade is Saturday on the Prinsengracht. We’ll be back on the ferry by ten and home by Sunday noon. We booked an extra cabin for Ryan and Ali but they can’t make it.”
The Pride festival in the Dutch capital was one of the grandest in the world, the sort of event on Lark’s evolving bucket list. But Kenny was shouting toward the kitchen where Channing had gone with the dishes, his invitation clearly meant for her.
“That all depends. I refuse to be crammed into that pill box you call a backseat all the way to Amsterdam and back.”
“We’ll take my Peugeot,” Oliver said.
“And I’m not coming unless Lark comes too. Last time I went with you to London, I had to find my own way home.”
All eyes were suddenly on Lark, who could barely think beyond the fact that saying yes meant sharing a cabin overnight with Channing. “I’m in.”
* * *
Having walked her guests out to the parking circle, Channing leaned into the Skoda to brush Lark’s cheek with a kiss. “So glad you could come. Let’s have dinner this week. I’ll call.”
She’d have liked the chance to linger with Lark over another cup of tea but Kenny and Oliver had shown no inclination to leave. Plainly, they were hanging around to see Lark on her way.
Straddling a puddle in the driveway, Kenny folded his arms as the tiny hatchback disappeared through the gate. “I found her rather interesting. Not many Americans get our sense of humor.”
“She not only gets it, she gives it back as well.”
Oliver lit a cigarette and blew the smoke away from where they were clustered. “I’ve never seen eyes that were actually gold. Wonder what her ancestry is.”
“Swiss and Irish,” Channing said. “I asked. She did one of those saliva tests because her mum wasn’t sure who her father was.” Lark had confided that her mother was only seventeen when she was born—and that she had a half-sister who was two years older. It was nothing short of remarkable that she’d gotten through something as challenging as medical school with so little family support.
“You fancy her, yes?” Oliver asked.
“I barely know her.”
“She fancies you, I think.”
Only days ago, she’d deflected Kenny’s musings with glib remarks about Lark so as not to subject herself to his withering judgment over something that was hard
ly of consequence. A possible return to Boston cast her trivial flirtation with Lark in a different light. It wasn’t a conscious shift in her thinking, just a sudden realization that she’d reimagined Lark as more than a temporary fling.
Kenny waved away Oliver’s cigarette smoke, crinkling his nose in disgust. “I wanted to like her, truly I did.”
Channing recognized his parry—he’d thrown that out there to bait her into asking him why he hadn’t…the annoying prick. “Do tell, Lord Twit. Why can’t you like her?”
“Because I can’t have her luring you back to Boston.”
“Albright is the one luring me back to Boston. A promotion and a raise, remember? And unlike some people, they aren’t asking for my firstborn in return.”
“A totally unfair characterization. My offer is to help you, not to hire you. I only mean to make my child’s life a pleasant one. How fortunate that yours would be more pleasant as well. Are you seriously going to give up Penderworth without a whimper?” He failed to watch his step and sloshed through a puddle. “Blimey, have you not heard of drainage? I’m sending Gerald around tomorrow to level your drive.”
Channing stifled a laugh at his wet feet. “I don’t advise that. If Cecil catches someone nosing around the yard, he’s apt to level his arse.”
“Penderworth is in serious need of attention, Channing. At least hire a maintenance crew before it falls to ruin.”
“There’s a lot wants doing.” It was especially dreary compared to the meticulous Breckham Hall. She couldn’t even begin repairs until she’d had a talk to nudge the Brownings out. “I’ll hire out for the basics once I’ve spoken to an agent about what’s absolutely necessary to get it ready for sale.”
“You can’t sell this place. It’s your birthright. It’s your home, your father’s home. Think of all our memories here. How can you think of abandoning it like it means nothing?”
“What do I need of this house, Kenny? It’s not as if I can waltz into the economics department at Cambridge and take Poppa’s place. And don’t say it—I didn’t go to university for six years to whelp a litter of children for the future Earl of Alanford. I enjoy my work and I’m quite good at it.”
Oliver stopped him from kicking off his wet shoes by the door. “We should get along back to London, my lord. Traffic on the A10 will be wretched tonight.”
“Very well…thank you for your hospitality, Lady Hughes. We must do this again.” With a despondent sigh he added, “Many, many more times, I hope.”
His sincerity touched her, reminding her that she loved him deeply despite his many foibles. His concern over her emotional attachment to Penderworth struck her as genuine, regardless of his self-serving motivations. It was entirely possible he was the one still attached to the manor, as it had been a haven when battles with his father over his developing sexuality had made him dread going home. They’d shared many memories here, most of them grand.
“We’ll have her to the flat in London,” Oliver said, stroking Kenny’s arm lovingly as he steered him toward the car.
“Kenny, wait.” Overcome with emotion, Channing rushed to give him a hug, burying her face against his starched collar. “Now that Poppa’s gone, you and the Brownings are the only reason I care about England at all. I can’t imagine what I’d do if you weren’t my friend.”
“All the more reason not to fall for someone who lives in Boston. If you want company, there’s a woman I know in London, someone in our office.”
Oliver shook his head. “Here he goes again.”
“Admit it, Channing. You deserve to hook up with someone decent for a change.”
“Funny, I was just saying the same thing to Oliver.”
Kenny paid no mind to the insult. “Darcey Jensen, she works with me. Mid-twenties, a paralegal. Very pretty, if you go for that perpetual Nordic frown. If you hadn’t been so quick to insist on Lark coming to Amsterdam, I’m sure Darcey would have been happy to join us.”
“Oh, and that wouldn’t have been rude at all. ‘Come along to Amsterdam. Not you, Lark. He meant Darcey.’”
“So that’s all then. You invited her along because you didn’t want to be rude.”
“I never said that.”
“But she’s not your type. You did say that.”
Kenny was a crafty bugger, usually up to something. That made his smug expression suspect. Either he was celebrating having trapped her into going out with his paralegal friend or admitting Lark was on her radar. It was no use trying to deflect.
“If it’s all the same to you, I’d prefer to choose my own women.”
“Fine, but she is not luring you back to Boston.”
Chapter Eight
Lark perched on the arm of the sofa in Niya’s office looking past her to the drab building next door. “How is it that you’re the freaking director of Cambridge PharmaStat and you have the crappiest view in the whole building? Whereas I’m basically a migrant worker and my office looks out on the lake.”
“I actually prefer being out of the bustle,” Niya replied matter-of-factly. “But don’t tell Dr. Martin I said that. He got an offer from Pfizer last year and used it as leverage to make petty demands. A corner office, a parking space next to the elevator. And the new woman at reception? Florence Martin, his daughter-in-law.”
In Lark’s view, Dr. Martin had always been polite and respectful. While she couldn’t blame him for playing hardball to pick up a few extra perks, the fact that he’d demanded Niya’s corner office rubbed her the wrong way. It was an unnecessary display of dominance, sexist at its core.
“Never mind my office. I want to know what popped up on your calendar that you found more important than meeting my granddaughter.” As Lark described the historic manor house, Niya cut her off. “I’m more interested in the who, not the what. This is the woman you met on the plane?”
“Yeah, I’m not sure what there is to tell. I’m feeling it but I don’t know if she is. She’s friendly, she’s funny. But she’s also coming down off a two-year relationship where the other woman basically treated her like crap. Everything looks new and shiny when you’re on the rebound. Then it wears off and you realize it was just a pleasant distraction.”
She decided not to mention running into one of their study subjects at Penderworth. There was no legitimate reason to share details of Maisie Browning’s home life.
“A couple of her friends were there too. One of them’s a viscount, plus his boyfriend. I felt like that Nick guy from the The Great Gatsby, the one who tagged along to all the glamorous parties and told us how interesting everyone was.”
She also didn’t mention Channing’s crumbled inheritance, nor Kenny’s stunning proposition that she marry him and give him an heir. Like most medical professionals, Niya was accepting of the LGBT community, but the notion of a sham family might have offended her old-fashioned sensibilities.
“I’m going with them next weekend to the Pride parade in Amsterdam. They do it on one of the canals with a bunch of floats.”
“Ha! All my efforts to recruit you to PharmaStat… I was using the wrong bait.”
“Except Channing now says she might go back to Boston. Wouldn’t that be just my luck? I fall in love with someone from Cambridge and take a job here so I can be close to her. Then she goes back to work in Boston. I think I’ll stay put till the storm passes.”
“I’ve been thinking about my future too, especially with this Flexxene business,” Niya said, her voice taking a serious turn. “Dev and I talked about it over the weekend. My husband…he’s just the sweetest, kindest man in the world. It breaks his heart to see me so stressed over this job. ‘Stop worrying about the higher-ups in Geneva,’ he says. If I’m forced to resign, he’s agreed to sell the bottle shops and newsstands, all of them. We’ll quit the rat race and buy a cottage in Portugal ten years earlier than we planned. Pretty sure we can afford it.”
“Niya, you’re at the pinnacle of your career. There’s no way I’m letting you take the fall for somethi
ng that wasn’t your fault. You did nothing wrong. Relax and let me do my job.”
“Yes, do your job. But no matter how this turns out, I’m at peace with it. Dr. Martin may be an arse, but he’s more than capable of taking over as director. And Dev and I would be happy in Portugal. What else matters in life?”
Frustrated and sad, Lark returned to her office to prepare for her next interview. There was little doubt PharmaStat would want a scapegoat and Niya was there for the taking, especially if she refused to fight back. They wouldn’t blink twice at throwing her under the bus, no matter her impeccable record.
* * *
“Bugger all!” Channing bounced her pen off her grandfather’s desk and groaned. Four months—that was how far she could stretch Poppa’s remaining cash. After that she’d have to tap her savings to keep Penderworth running until it sold.
That wasn’t even the worst of it. Much of the profit she might have anticipated from the eventual sale would be eaten up in advance by all the repairs necessary to make a drafty, rundown manor house attractive to a potential buyer. Just to break even, she had less than a year to close the sale and pay off the tax debt. Longer than that and the inheritance might actually cost her money.
Her first step had to be a sit-down with Cecil and Maisie, something she dreaded. Suppose they’d planned to live out their retirement in the carriage house they’d called home for more than three decades? It was a reasonable assumption given their devoted service and the familial bond, especially if Poppa had kept his withering financial status from them as well.
She could always marry Kenny…
“Christ!” It was bloody bonkers, as was talking aloud when she was the only one around.
Her cell phone lit up with another call from Robin Saunders, Mitch’s admin. He’d promised to call back once the HR department put together a salary and benefits package for her potential return. If he had her in mind to head up the Eastern region, he probably intended to promote Payton to VP for mergers. She’d been angling for that job for as long as Channing could remember.
A Proper Cuppa Tea Page 9