Last of the Great Romantics

by Claudia Carroll

  Indeed, there were probably only about two people in the Northern hemisphere who hadn't heard of Mark Lloyd. At just twenty-five years of age, he'd been Oldcastle United's star striker since the tender age of nineteen, and one of the main driving forces which consistently kept them at the top of the premiership league. He'd even been tipped for captaincy of the English team in the World Cup and successfully brought them to the semi-finals before they were knocked out in a nail-biting last-minute penalty shootout by the marginally classier Brazilian side. As far as public opinion went though, it hardly mattered. Mark Lloyd was a hero who continued to walk on water and who could do no wrong, one of those rare people on whom the gods smile and for whom they save their most lavish gifts. He was regularly hailed as an athletic genius on the pitch and his private life was no less colourful off it. Blessed with the body of an Adonis and the dark, brooding good looks of a movie star, he had already made millions from the endorsement deals for which advertisers were queuing up to sign him. His few critics regularly griped about his over-exposure and indeed it was virtually impossible to go anywhere without seeing his black eyes and deeply suntanned face beaming out at you from billboards, magazine covers, shampoo bottles, even milk cartons. You name it: Mark Lloyd endorsed it; from designer sunglasses to men's underwear to an entire clothing line which one manufacturer had named especially after him. Outside Oldcastle's stadium in North London, one wily businessman even made a packet from selling tin cans labelled 'Mark Lloyd breath'.

  In short, he was the man who had it all: looks, money (his personal wealth was estimated at seventy million pounds and he regularly appeared in 'The Hundred Richest' lists) and talent to boot. Ask any young kid kicking a soccer ball around his estate what he wanted to be when he grew up and chances are the snotty-nosed answer would be: 'Play for Oldcastle and score for England and make a fortune and sleep with loads of models like Mark Lloyd.' He was constantly topping 'Sexiest Man Alive' polls and numbered two Academy-Award-winning actresses among his recent list of ex-girlfriends. Even gossip magazines like the National Intruder had lost count of the number of high-profile celebrity page-three models, pop starlets and 'It' girls his name had been romantically linked with. And now he was marrying Eleanor Armstrong.

  'That's right, I remember seeing a picture of you with him in Dish the Dirt magazine,' said Daisy, bright-eyed with excitement. 'And they said you were an item, but that was only, like, a few weeks ago . . .'

  'We met a month ago and he proposed last week.' Eleanor was blushing scarlet by now, as though she was scarcely able to believe the news herself. 'I know, it's been a whirlwind and if any friend of mine was getting married to someone she'd barely known for four weeks, I'd be the first to try and talk sense into them. But Mark's the one. I just know. I knew from the moment I met him. I always used to think all that stuff in women's magazines about love at first sight was complete rubbish, but, oh no, it's not.'

  'OH MY GAWD! That is the single most romantic thing I have ever heard!' squealed Daisy at a decibel level that made Julia wince again. 'So how did you meet?'

  'Through my best friend, Simon Allonby. He's the team physician for Oldcastle and he invited me to a sporting achievement awards ceremony in January and, well . . . there was Mark. The funny thing is, poor old Simon doesn't even know about the engagement yet. He's on safari in South Africa and I can't get in contact with him. He'll be over the moon though, I know he will:

  'OH SWEET GOD, I JUST WISH IT COULD HAPPEN TO MEEEE!' Daisy's voice had risen another octave so the chances were that only dogs could hear her now.

  'Must you? That hurts like a hangover. I had a very late night last night,' Julia snapped at her like a narky headmistress dealing with an irritating teenager. 'Anyway, I don't have time for pleasantries, so if we could just get to the point please?'

  The contrast in the way Julia spoke to Daisy as opposed to the unctuous way she oiled around Eleanor was so marked it was almost rude. Daisy let it go, however, reminding herself that acting managers didn't snap the heads off visitors. Particularly really scary ones like Julia.

  'Now, as I was leaving a certain A-list function which I'd organized in a well-known Dublin hostelry last night . . .' she continued.

  'She was in a lap-dancing club,' Eleanor silently mouthed over at Daisy who had to pretend to cough to disguise her giggles.

  'I received a call from a contact in the press,' Julia went on, oblivious, 'to alert me to the fact that not only had the news broken about Eleanor's engagement but that the media had also got hold of the fact that the wedding was to be held at Ashford Castle. So you see where that leaves us.'

  'Emm . . .' was all Daisy could say, not seeing at all.

  'You see, the wedding has to be a secret,' explained Eleanor, 'because both Mark and I—'

  'Have already signed an exclusivity deal with Gotcha magazine,' said Julia, finishing her sentence for her. 'But now that the tabloid rat pack are on to us, Ashford Castle is out. So we need somewhere fabulous, naturally, and within easy commuting distance of Dublin because of the number of celebrity guests who'll be flying in, somewhere where the magazine can have tight control over security—'

  'And I absolutely fell in love with Davenport Hall the minute I came here,' Eleanor chipped in. 'I can't think of anywhere more magical to be married. Mark's going to love it here too, I know it.'

  'Oh bloody Nora, you mean you want to marry Mark Lloyd here? Sweet mother of all that is good and pure, I can't believe this!' Daisy was well and truly hysterical by now and kept pacing up and down the room like a woman possessed, unable to stand still for two seconds together.

  'And you wait and see if I don't get you fixed up with one of Mark's friends!' Eleanor beamed at her, causing Daisy to go even more apoplectic.

  'YES! YOU'RE RIGHT! The Hall will be crawling with big sexy hunky footballers!' she shrieked. 'Just wait till I tell everyone, no one is going to believe it!'

  'That's exactly what you can't do,' said Julia scribbling furiously into her Filofax, 'tell anyone. Assuming the Hall is available and that you're quite capable of taking this on, then Gotcha magazine are insisting on absolute secrecy, or the deal's off, plain and simple.' She stopped scribbling for a moment to glare across at Daisy, coolly assessing this scrap of a thing who didn't seem responsible enough to take charge of a dormant hamster never mind the society wedding of the year. 'Look, Daisy, this is going to be the single biggest thing that's happened in the countryside since your last shit-shovelling contest or whatever it is people who don't live in the city get up to when they're not worrying sheep. I'm talking a guest list of at least two hundred, I'm talking about taking over the entire Hall for the wedding, I'm talking about a marquee in the garden stacked with enough champagne to send shares in Veuve Clicquot skyrocketing and as if that weren't enough' – she threw her head back and shook her bobbed hair imperiously – 'I'm talking about Saturday March the twentieth, barely four weeks away. Are you absolutely sure you're up to this?'

  Daisy eyeballed her, drawing herself up to her full height. 'On behalf of the Davenport Hotel group,' she pronounced, with Ivana Trump as a role model not far from her thoughts, 'we're honoured that you've chosen us for your wedding. You've made the right choice. And, of course, it goes without saying that we can fully cope.'

  Exactly ten minutes after they'd driven off, Daisy was on the office phone sobbing hysterically. 'Oh Portia, you have to help me, I have the most unbelievably big news and I can't cope with it, I really can't, it's too much for me. You HAVE to help me! I know you're supposed to be heading off to New York today but I really need for you to swing by here and explain to me how I'm supposed to deal with this. Oh God, oh God, I know I've only been in charge for half an hour, but I really think I'm having a nervous breakdown or even a heart attack; I'm having pains in my chest and it hurts me to breathe and I'm all dizzy and this is just all too overwhelming—'

  'Now, I need you to calm down, darling,' Portia interrupted soothingly, all her years of experience in
dealing with Daisy when she panicked like this coming to the fore. 'Just tell me what's happened and, whatever it is, we'll deal with it.'

  'OK, OK, OK,' said Daisy, forcing herself to take long, slow, deep breaths. 'I think you should be sitting down for this though.'

  Between gulping for air and hyperventilating, eventually Portia managed gently to extract the news from her. The society wedding of the year was to be held at Davenport Hall. Signed, sealed, delivered, in the bag, one hundred per cent confirmed. Portia slumped down on the bottom stair beside the phone. And this was before she was even told the news about Shelley-Marie?

  'Daisy, will you do something for me?'

  'I'll try. I might pass out, but I'll try.'

  'OK, great. Just get in the car and come over to the gate lodge. I've something to tell you too and I don't want to say it over the phone.'

  'I'm on my way.' And she'd hung up.

  When Andrew arrived back at the gate lodge the previous night, it transpired that during the course of his 'little chat' with Shelley-Marie, she'd impressed on him how guilty she was feeling about staying on at the Hall and how much she'd love to contribute.

  'You know there sure is so much I could do for you folks,' she'd whispered in her breathy little girl's voice to him. 'Why, by trainin', I'm a technician.'

  'Oh really?' he'd answered politely. 'Do you mean you're some kind of engineer?'

  'Why no!' she giggled, playfully punching his arm. 'A nail technician.'

  In the gospel according to Shelley-Marie, the only facility lacking at Davenport Hall was a good old-fashioned beauty salon, US style.

  'There's no treatment I'm not qualified to do,' she'd argued. 'Yoga classes, holistic facials, skin consultations, blow-dries, tattoos, Hawaiian massage – why, I began my career as a masseuse. I can wax, tint, pluck and scrub like a drag queen. My speciality is a deep-cleansing organic mud wrap. Andrew, these folks are paying you'all good money, don't you think they deserve to be wrapped in cling film and submerged in mud?'

  And so after several strong whiskies and very much against his better judgement, Andrew somehow found himself not only agreeing to the salon being set up, but also to forking out for the old nursery suite on the fourth floor to be converted for the purpose. 'No problem, absolutely no problem in the world, marvellous, delighted with the whole beauty thingy,' he'd drunkenly slurred at Shelley-Marie on his fourth attempt to put his car key into the ignition before snaking down the driveway, well and truly over the limit. 'Just have a word with the missus, she'll sort everything out.'

  'The missus', predictably enough, hit the ceiling when he told her the news. Andrew had been apologetic bordering on grovelling, while Portia drummed into him the enormity of what he'd just agreed to.

  'You do realize that Daisy will go ballistic when she hears this? How will we ever get rid of Shelley-Marie now?'

  'I know, I know, oh Jesus, I am so sorry,' he had said as his ever-patient wife plonked two Solpadeine into a glassful of water by the bedside table for him. 'It's just . . . I don't know what it is, but it's like she has this way of getting around people. I think I'd have agreed to anything just to get away from her. Shame she went into the beauty business, she'd have cleaned up as a corporate lawyer.'

  That bit Portia could understand. After all, she had witnessed first hand how Shelley-Marie had wormed her way around just about everyone else up at the Hall . . .

  'Anyway, it won't be as bad as you think,' Andrew went on, seeing her tense, worried look. 'Think about it. She'll be so up to her eyes getting the salon organized, it'll keep her well out of Daisy's way. And we'll be back in twelve weeks and we can sort it all out then. Miss Plastic Fantastic had absolutely no intention of going anywhere for the time being, you know. At least this way she's making herself useful.'

  'I know, I know,' Portia had sighed, clambering into bed beside him. 'It's just, well, I'm the one who's going to have to break it to Daisy, aren't I?'

  The sound of Andrew in the shower, happily caterwauling New York, New York at the top of his voice, brought Portia back to the present. He was no Luciano Pavarotti, but what he lacked in singing ability, he more than compensated for in sheer volume and could now be heard loud and clear throughout the tiny gate lodge. Without even stopping to think, she leapt up the stairs and tapped at the bathroom door. 'Can I come in?'

  He was too busy wailing to hear her gentle knocking, so she went in anyway. He was just stepping out of the shower and was wrapping a towel around his waist when he saw her. 'Hey, sexy lady,' he said, playfully pulling her towards him. 'You know I'd like nothing more than a quickie, but I'm expecting my wife any second.'

  'You're drenched,' she said, ruffling his wet hair as she wrenched out of his strong grip and perched on the edge of the bath.

  'Oh baby, baby, can you believe this? In less than twelve hours, you and me will be sipping cocktails in the Plaza and the only thing you'll have to worry about is whether to begin your shopping in Macy's or Saks the next day.'

  He sounded so buzzy and excited, so full of enthusiasm for what lay ahead, that she dreaded having to burst his bubble. Get it over with quickly, her instinct told her. 'OK, I have news. Big news.'

  'Give me the last sentence first.' He was looking at himself in the tiny bathroom mirror now, liberally splashing on Burberry aftershave.

  'Remember us wondering why Eleanor Armstrong was so anxious to have a full guided tour of the Hall, the night of the opening?'

  'I surely do. Far more important question. Do you think we should eat at Sardi's or at the Rockefeller Center tonight? Or maybe we should stay local? I know this great seafood place just around the block from the apartment, you'd love it . . .'

  'You're not listening.'

  'I am. Eleanor Armstrong and the grand tour. And there was me thinking she was just trying to get me alone.'

  'She's getting married to Mark Lloyd and she wants to have her wedding at the Hall. Exclusivity deals with a magazine who are paying for the whole shebang, the works.'

  'Wow!' Andrew turned to face her, gobsmacked. 'She's marrying Mark Lloyd? The Mark Lloyd?'

  'In about four weeks' time, yeah. But, darling, don't you see what this means?'

  'I certainly do. It means, my sexy one, we are RICH! We're home and dry, baby!' He had pulled her up to her feet and was now waltzing her round in circles. 'What did I tell you, oh ye of little faith? The Davenport Hotel is going to be the biggest success story of the decade! YIPPEEEEEE! So how does it feel to be married to a multi-millionaire, you lucky girl?'

  'Be serious. You know what this means.'

  'No I don't.' He was looking at her, genuinely puzzled, and then the penny dropped. 'Portia, if you think for a minute that I'm going to let you stay behind to work on this wedding, you're very wrong.' His eyes were twinkling at her, but he sounded deadly serious.

  'Andrew, listen. One of us, and by one of us I mean me, will have to stay. How can we leave Daisy in charge of this? I haven't even broken it to her yet about Shelley-Marie, and you can guess the reaction that'll get. I've just put down the phone to her and she was practically hyperventilating. Julia Belshaw has just landed this on her—'

  'Julia's organizing the wedding?'

  'Yeah, but—'

  'No buts. Problem solved. Julia could run the country with one hand tied behind her back. Best wedding planner in the business. You know, you're going to have to learn to delegate here, what will your staying on achieve? The two of us apart, you slaving away behind a reception desk here, me missing you in New York . . . No, no way. We're going away together as planned and that's all there is to it. I want you there with me, simple as that.'

  God, he could be so stubborn when he really wanted something, Portia thought. And he really, really wanted them both to go to New York . . .

  'Sweetheart,' he said, perching on the edge of the bath beside her and really giving her his full attention, 'quite apart from anything else, you need the break. We both do. You worked so hard for the opening, over
my dead body am I letting you stay on here to worry about bridesmaids and ushers and bloody flower arrangements and all that jazz.'

  He was playing with her hair now, and Portia let him. The thought of being a continent away from Julia and her bossiness was sorely tempting . . . although she did feel a sharp stab of guilt at dumping this on Daisy's inexperienced shoulders. Talk about feeling torn between the two people she loved most . . .

  She blushed prettily as he coiled a long strand of her hair round his finger. After all, he had given up so much for her, and now it was payback time.

  'I'm sorry to force you into an A or B situation, babe,' said Andrew in his most persuasive I-could-sell-sand-to-the-Arabs tones, 'but don't I come before the Hall?'

  'Of course you do. I'm just worried about landing all this on poor Daisy, that's all.'

  'That's what email is for. That's what phones are for. Worst-case scenario: something awful goes wrong. You can fly back in a matter of hours, so where's the problem? This is where Julia excels herself and at the end of the day, what do either of us know about planning big fancy weddings?'

  Chapter Eight

  Saying that Lucasta was a teeny bit eccentric was a bit like saying that the Leaning Tower of Pisa was ever so slightly off-centre. Before the Davenport Country House Hotel had ever opened for business, it was a great source of worry to all concerned exactly how she'd behave in the company of guests who were paying a fortune for the privilege of staying there. In the hectic days leading up to the opening, both Portia and Andrew had drilled it into her long and hard as to what was and, more importantly, what wasn't acceptable behaviour whenever there were visitors around. Poor Portia had even suggested at one point that they go shopping to buy Lucasta a new wardrobe, in the hope that it might lure her out of her customary nightie and wellies worn under a smelly oilskin jacket.

  'You don't need to dress like that any more, Mummy,' she'd gently pleaded. 'The central heating inside the Hall is state of the art now, not like in the old days when we all had to wear six layers of clothes each so as not to get frostbite. It's boiling now, all the time, so what about getting rid of the wax jacket and letting me buy you something, well, you know, a bit more suitable?'