‘So that’s where you get it from,’ Lizzie observed, softening her remark with a wry grin. ‘Family characteristic!’
‘I’m not always stubborn,’ he replied, his voice husky. ‘Honestly. And actually, I was wondering whether —’
‘Come on, you two, we’re going to the paddock to size up the runners for the first race!’ Charlie appeared at their side, flapping a race card in their faces. ‘Denny and the guys are manning the stand till the second race – they’ll join us then. One of the ex-students from Longbourn is riding a horse called Stuck Fast. Not a very auspicious name, I guess!’
‘So,’ Jane whispered to Lizzie as they followed the guys out of the bar and past the grandstand to the paddock, ‘what’s with the change of heart? I saw you flirting with James.’
‘What are you on? I was not flirting!’ Lizzie exclaimed.
‘Well, you weren’t objecting to being chatted up, were you now?’
‘Jane, are you insane? For one thing, he was not chatting me up. And I’ll tell you something else: if James Darcy was the last guy left alive on the planet, I wouldn’t give him a second look. I was just being polite. For your sake. Because he’s a friend of Charlie’s.’
‘Lizzie Bennet,’ Jane replied, ‘you are a hopeless liar.’
CHAPTER 9
‘A man of . . . fine countenance, a good figure and a very
pleasing address.’
(Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice)
‘HOW DO YOU TELL WHICH HORSE IS LIKELY TO WIN?’ Lizzie mused, leaning against the white fence around the paddock as the horses paraded before the start of the first race.
‘Of course, I keep forgetting you’re a bit out of your depth here, aren’t you?’ Caroline remarked coolly. ‘It’s far too complicated to explain right now, but I reckon number four – Twist ’n’ Shout – will romp home. Strong withers, prancing gait, isn’t that right, James?’
‘Nonsense,’ James objected. ‘Hook, Line and Sinker will make mincemeat of the rest of the field. Loves hard going, performs over the distance and the pedigree is top notch. I know the trainer and he reckons . . .’
Lizzie drifted off, preferring to people-watch and enjoy the combined effects of sunshine and fresh air than to listen to pretentious conversation.
To her alarm, she saw Drew heading determinedly towards her – and there was no sign of Emily.
‘Lizzie, there you are,’ he said. ‘Now come along, and tell me which horse to back.’
‘I don’t know anything about racing,’ she said. ‘You’d do better sticking a pin in the list of runners.’
‘That’s it!’ Drew exclaimed. ‘Look – there’s a horse called Pinprick. It’s an omen! Come along, let’s get the money on fast.’
‘I really don’t want to waste money betting – um, where’s Emily?’
‘Oh don’t you worry about Emily – she’s fine. She was talking to some of the kids from the college. Now do hurry – we must bet before the odds shorten. I know about these things, you see – my stepfather’s a director of Leisure USA and when you’ve been to as many corporate events as I have . . .’
‘Get on there, Pinprick!’ Drew yelled. ‘Move yourself, you crazy animal!’
Lizzie cringed as Drew’s shouts became louder and louder. In view of his abandoned behaviour, she was relieved that he had taken so long to place his bet that they hadn’t been able to get back to the Members’ stand in time and were watching the race from the rails, well away from the others.
‘Yes, yes, yes!’
A roar went up from the crowd as Pinprick passed the post a neck ahead of Hook, Line and Sinker.
Drew turned to Lizzie, lifted her off her feet and swung her round in excitement. For an instant, she laughed, more from delight that James had been proved wrong than from anything else.
And then he kissed her. On the lips. And despite her frantic wriggling, for far, far too long.
‘You are so out of order!’ she shouted, when she had finally managed a swift dig in his stomach with her elbow and a carefully aimed kick to his ankle.
‘But Lizzie . . .’ he began.
‘Don’t you “but Lizzie” me,’ she snapped, wiping her lips with the back of her hand in disgust. ‘Who do you think you are? I would have thought you’d got the message by now – I don’t fancy you!’
She turned and began walking swiftly back towards the Members’ grandstand, embarrassingly aware of titters from the surrounding crowd.
‘You don’t?’ Drew called after her. ‘So how come you were so eager to tell me all about going to France? Like it was a coincidence that you chose to be somewhere you knew I’d be?’
‘I did what? You’re mad!’ she shouted. ‘I hadn’t even met you when I applied for the placement and believe me, if I had, I’d have chosen any country on earth but where you’d be!’
‘Well, thank you so much,’ Drew snapped back. ‘You know, my mom warned me about your family before I came. She said that if the kids were anything like the parents, social climbers from a rundown backwater, totally out for themselves and —’
‘Just stop right there,’ Lizzie said, wheeling round to face him. ‘No one, ever, talks about my family like that. Now I know you’re our guest and I won’t mention this to anyone. Unless . . .’ She took a deep breath. ‘. . . you ever put a foot out of line with me again. In which case, I won’t be responsible.’
She paused as Emily came flying towards them.
‘Oh my God, Lizzie, I won! Fifteen pounds. Isn’t that cool?’ She paused, eyeing Lizzie’s scarlet cheeks. ‘Hey, are you OK?’
Lizzie said nothing. Her heart was racing and she had a desperate urge to hit something hard.
‘Emily,’ Drew said at once, slipping his arm through hers. ‘Why don’t we go and get a drink to celebrate your win?’
‘Well, OK, yeah – that’d be cool. Coming, Lizzie?’
Lizzie shook her head, still too angry to speak.
‘Lizzie’s having a bit of a bad day right now,’ Drew drawled. ‘I reckon we should just leave her alone. When you’ve had as much customer interface training as I have . . .’
It wasn’t until Lizzie had finished counting from a hundred in French backwards, that she felt calm enough to rejoin the others.
‘You need one of these. They don’t let just anyone in.’ James handed Lizzie a badge allowing her to go into the paddock for the second race, along with the owners and trainers. ‘I’m just going over to have a chat with the trainer and the jockey. Catch you in a minute.’
‘Don’t walk behind any horses and remember they’ll be fizzed up, so don’t get too close, OK?’ Caroline warned.
As if I didn’t know that, thought Lizzie. That girl is so totally up herself.
‘Hey, Jamie, wait for me!’ Caroline called as she tottered off on four-inch slingbacks and slipped her arm through James’s.
Lizzie was about to follow Charlie and Jane into the paddock, relieved that there was no sign of Drew or Emily, when there was an excited shriek from the rails.
‘Lizzie! Wait for us!’
Lydia’s shouts caused several heads to turn, and judging by the expressions on the faces of several of the owners and trainers, it wasn’t in admiration.
Lizzie turned, ready to give her sister a steely stare. And caught her breath. Striding towards her, towering over Denny and the twins, was the sexiest, most gorgeous-looking guy she had ever seen. He had dark curly hair and a Mediterranean complexion, and as he caught Lizzie’s furious expression, his face broke into a wide smile. And in that moment, Lizzie understood that all that stuff in the romantic novels her mother loved so much, about electricity coursing through your veins and knees trembling, wasn’t, as she had always supposed, a load of badly written rubbish.
‘Lizzie, meet George Wickham,’ Denny said. ‘He’s my cousin back from a year in Australia, and he’s staying with us for a while. George, this is Lizzie Bennet, Lydia and Katie’s sister and over there, that’s Jane and, of course, you
know Charlie and Caro.’
He paused as Lydia shouted and beckoned furiously from the far side of the paddock.
‘OK, OK, Lyddy, I’m coming!’ he called. ‘You two get to know one another for a minute, yeah?’
‘Hello.’ George’s voice was deep and velvety and in that one word, he seemed able to pack a heap of meaning.
Lizzie smiled.
‘Oh, that’s better.’
‘Pardon?’
‘You looked really fierce a moment ago,’ he said with a grin, as they began to move into the paddock. ‘But now you’re not so scary!’
Lizzie laughed. ‘Sorry, it’s my sister,’ she said. ‘She can be so over the top sometimes, it’s embarrassing.’
‘She’s fun, though, isn’t she?’ George remarked. ‘I mean, an hour in a minibus with her and a whole new universe opens up!’
‘Tell me about it,’ Lizzie replied. ‘Oh, look, they’re bringing the horses out – shall we go over and join the others?’
‘I guess this is where we study form, as they say,’ George said, pulling his race card from the pocket of his jacket.
‘Mmm,’ Lizzie murmured, conscious that her mind was very far from the horses and very much taken up with something far closer to hand.
‘That one over there, that’s the one I like the look of,’ George remarked, pointing to a chestnut colt that was prancing about on his toes and tossing his head. ‘What’s it called? Oh yes, Trojan Prince.’
‘Not the politically correct thing to say in this company,’ giggled Lizzie. ‘We’re all supposed to be rooting for number ten. The Bog Hurdler. Over there – the jockey’s just mounting, see?’
‘Let’s take a look.’
George strode over to where the others were all hovering around James and the trainer.
‘So have you put money on this one, Denny?’ George asked, tapping his cousin on the shoulder.
At the sound of his voice, James turned. And blanched. George’s face turned scarlet. Their eyes met.
‘You.’ James’s lips formed the word, but no sound came out of his mouth. George stared back, and then, without speaking, inclined his head ever so slightly and turned away.
The whole encounter took less than thirty seconds and Lizzie was pretty sure she was the only person who had noticed.
‘Give it your all,’ James said to the jockey, and without another word, slapped the horse once on the neck, turned and walked rapidly from the parade ring, the rest of the group tagging along behind.
‘I think,’ George said to Lizzie, ‘it might be best if I watched the race from a distance.’
And before she could ask for an explanation, he raised his hand in a brief wave and disappeared swiftly into the crowd.
‘What I don’t understand,’ Drew remarked to Charlie as the horses cantered up to the starting gates, ‘is why James’s horse is called The Bog Hurdler. I mean, it’s a flat race horse, right?’
‘Oh, it’s an anagram of the name of his aunt’s company,’ Charlie explained. ‘De Burgh Hotels – only she got one letter wrong – there’s no “S” and —’
‘De Burgh Hotels?’ Drew exclaimed. ‘You mean, James is the nephew of – oh, I don’t believe it!’
He pushed past Lizzie and Emily and began edging along the row to where James, still grim-faced, was standing, binoculars raised to his eyes, watching as the horses were urged into the starting gates.
‘James, you won’t believe what I’ve just discovered. Your aunt is Katrina De Burgh!’
‘Believe it or not, I was aware of that fact,’ James replied.
‘Yes, but you don’t understand, it’s the most amazing coincidence, because only last month . . .’
‘Look, could you just be quiet, please,’ James snapped. ‘They’re off!’
‘Well, I guess third is better than nothing,’ James remarked to Charlie at the end of the race. ‘Even though he was five lengths behind the second. I’ll text Auntie Kat.’
‘And you can tell her,’ Drew interjected eagerly, peering over his shoulder, ‘that you’ve met me!’
‘And this fact would be of interest to her?’ James asked dryly.
‘Oh yes, you see I’m her protégé, as you might say. I work for De Burgh Hotels and I’m on her fast-track management scheme. She’s acquired a new hotel in France, well, a chateau actually.’
‘Acquired is one way of putting it,’ James muttered, punching a number into his phone.
‘And I’ll be going over there in just ten days’ time,’ Drew finished triumphantly.
‘Dear God, no,’ muttered James.
‘I know, it’s great, isn’t it?’ Drew blustered, obviously totally oblivious to the sarcasm of James’s remark. ‘She has great plans for it. And me!’
‘Really?’
‘Oh yes – now look, you and I must have a chat. You must tell me all about her – because, good as I am with people, it always helps to have the inside track. So come on, give me the low-down.’
‘I make it a point never, ever to talk about my family to strangers. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got people to avoid.’
Lizzie spent the next half hour ignoring the racing and trying to find George. She was well aware that it was a crazy thing to do, to hunt down a guy she’d only spoken to for five minutes, but she’d never felt this way before. It was as if she’d downed two vodka tonics on an empty stomach – she was literally giddy with – well, not desire exactly, but . . . well, yes, she confessed to herself. Desire. He was absolutely gorgeous.
She hunted in all the bars, even leaving the Members’ enclosure with its well-dressed punters and venturing into the Silver Ring, where the effects of cheap lager and holidaymakers driven from the beach by the recent oil slick were all too visible; she scoured the parade ring and the paddock, the Oyster bar and the Tote windows and then inspiration struck. The College stand!
She followed the signs to the Fun day activities and shopping village, past the face painters, the hobby horse races and the stalls selling riding gear and shooting sticks, and had just caught sight of the banner announcing Longbourn College of Equine Studies – Galloping into the Future when she saw something that stopped her dead in her tracks.
Jane was sitting on a bench, looking up into the face of a sandy-haired guy, whose arm was gently caressing her neck. As Lizzie watched, their lips met.
‘Bless,’ she thought. ‘She and Charlie really are getting it together.’
And then the guy looked up.
It wasn’t Charlie.
It was Simon.
‘Are you OK? Jane, don’t cry.’
‘I should never have done that,’ Jane sobbed.
‘Oh yes, you should.’
‘It was just – well, he was trying to say that I was overreacting, and couldn’t we get together again, and that business with the chat room had just been a joke, and you know what, Lizzie . . .’
‘For a moment you believed him?’
Her sister nodded.
‘I should never have come,’ she said. ‘That job he got – on the local paper, yeah? Well, he was here doing a piece about the races – he’s applied for a job on Sporting Life and wants loads of good stuff in his portfolio.’
‘Never mind all that,’ Lizzie interrupted. ‘The main thing is you got rid of the creep. Honestly, when I spotted you kissing, I nearly had kittens, but then when you slapped him – well, I wanted to cheer!’
‘But I shouldn’t have done it,’ Jane protested. ‘I can’t believe I was that vicious.’
‘I can’t believe he came on to you like that – kissing you, after all he’s put you through. Slime bag.’
A sudden thought struck her.
‘And where’s Charlie? Why are you on your own?’
Jane bit her lip and looked mildly embarrassed.
‘I – er – spotted Simon, and I told Charlie I needed the loo. Don’t look at me like that – I just wanted closure with Simon.’
‘Well, you’ve got it,’ Lizzie said f
irmly. ‘And I suggest that you get back to Charlie right now. He’s worth a dozen Simons.’
She paused, the memory that had been on her mind for the past ten minutes refusing to go away.
‘You do know, don’t you, that you mistook James for Simon when you were in the hospital? James was in the doorway and you called him Si and said you loved him.’
‘I guess I have to take your word for it – everything was a bit of a blur.’
‘You really are over Simon? You don’t actually love that loser? I mean, if you’re not . . .’
‘Believe me, after today – he can go fry in oil. There’s only one guy I want.’
‘At last! She admits it!’ Lizzie laughed. ‘So what are you doing hanging about with me? Go get him!’
‘Oh. Hi.’ Lizzie tried hard to make it sound as if George Wickham was the last person she’d expected to see sprawled out on the grass fiddling with his BlackBerry beside the College stand. ‘I was just – er . . .’
She was saved from inventing a lie by George jumping to his feet, dusting grass off his trousers and looking at her intently.
‘You must have thought I was a real jerk, dashing off like that,’ he began. ‘It was so rude of me. So – what do you say I buy you a drink to make up for it?’
‘That would be great,’ Lizzie replied and then cringed inwardly for sounding so eager.
‘Not the Champagne bar, though,’ George went on. ‘Don’t think I’d be welcome there right now. How about we slum it a bit and amble down to the start with a Pimm’s? Plastic glasses, I’m afraid, but it’s the drink that matters!’
‘Sure,’ Lizzie nodded. ‘That would be cool.’
As they queued at the marquee for their drinks, George turned to her.
‘Have you – um – known James Darcy for long?’
Lizzie shook her head. ‘Only a couple of weeks,’ she said.
‘I’ve known him all my life,’ George told her.
‘You have? But I thought – I mean . . .’
‘I guess you spotted the fact that he wasn’t exactly over the moon to see me,’ George said.
‘I did notice, yes,’ Lizzie admitted.
Love, Lies and Lizzie Page 10