Lord Seeks Wife: A hilariously funny romantic comedy

by Heather Barnett

  Chapter 9

  In the lamp-lit drawing room, a companionable silence was broken by the sound of a powerful engine roaring up the drive. Noblet felt his heart sink a little as he put aside his book.

  ‘Are they back already? Barely been gone five minutes.’

  Henry looked at his watch.

  ‘It’s been over an hour and a half.’

  ‘Has it? Goodness. Time flies when you’re having fun.’

  The door opened and Joel and Annabel appeared, looking sheepish.

  ‘Hi, guys.’

  ‘Hi. Where’s Saskia?’

  ‘She’s in the car.’

  ‘What’s she doing there?’

  ‘She’s waiting for your housekeeper to bring her a pair of trousers.’

  A pause. Henry looked at them.

  ‘She had to take hers off – there was a bit of an… incident.’

  Henry’s look at Joel had turned menacing and he now hastened to explain about the undignified ejection from the party, the investigative journalism and the red bottom.

  Noblet spluttered, chuckled and then laughed out loud. Henry forced the corners of his mouth down with an effort and Joel allowed himself to smirk, but Annabel was too scared and still dazed from having Saskia fall on her head to do anything but stand, silently, in the doorway.

  Henry got up. ‘I expect you could do with a drink.’ He waved them towards the decanters on the sideboard as he headed out of the room. ‘I’ll go and check on those trousers.’

  Sitting alone in the Aston Martin outside the quiet house, naked from the waist down other than a flesh-coloured thong, a tear rolled down Saskia’s face. The sensation of that tear on her skin intensified the shame and the hurt, and all at once she was sobbing, cheeks drenched. She wasn’t an evil person. She didn’t deserve this. However much she tried to block it out, the image kept elbowing itself back in front of her eyes: the vicious old woman with her dripping paintbrush; the sweaty bouncer with his grubby hands all over her legs; the smirking faces of bystanders; and her Chloe leggings, stiff with red paint and nestling at the bottom of a public rubbish bin.

  When the door opened and she saw Henry looking in at her, holding a pair of trousers, she grabbed his hand and pulled him into the car, throwing herself into his arms.

  He looked at her with concern. ‘Darling! Are you alright?’

  She shook her head and cried even harder.

  ‘Ssh.’ He squeezed her to him and kissed her wet cheeks. ‘Are you hurt?’

  She managed to calm down enough to say, between juddering sobs, ‘Not hurt, but it was so horrible, babe.’

  He tried to comfort her but she pulled away, sobs dying down now and indignation starting to take over.

  ‘That’s the worst thing, babe, someone was taking pictures. I don’t know if it was someone at the party or if I’m…’ the sobs started up again, ‘if I’m going to end up in the papers!’

  It crossed Henry’s mind that she wasn’t important enough to end up in the papers but he kept the thought to himself.

  ‘Don’t worry, darling, I’ll speak to Gareth and see if he knows anything.’ At her look of incomprehension, he explained, ‘The paparazzo we found on the estate that time. He might know if any professional photographers were in the village tonight.’

  ***

  Thursday morning dawned brightly, with a hint of haze on the fields; but in Alice’s bedroom, the outlook was less sunny. The beeping of her alarm ripped open the cosy cocoon of sleep and she reached over towards the bedside table, hammering at anything her hand came across in an attempt to end the noise-induced pain. It yelped into silence and she lay back on the pillows, spent. After a minute or so of mental preparation, some deep breathing exercises and a short internal pep talk, she got up. Moving with care around the room to avoid banging her fragile-feeling brain against the inside of her skull, she managed to scrape together an outfit and headed towards the bathroom. Sitting on the floor of the shower, head resting against the tiled wall, it crossed her mind to call in sick. But everyone knew about the party, she would have to drag herself in somehow.

  Compared with Alice’s journey to school that morning, Scott’s polar expedition was a Sunday afternoon ramble. Stopping regularly to allow the waves of nausea to subside she would lean against the nearest wall or hedge before struggling onward. Once or twice she passed an acquaintance, looming out of the mists of stale alcohol fumes that surrounded her. Colonel Markham was coming out of his garden gate as she passed. He seemed to hesitate, and then instead of returning her husky ‘good morning’ he reached out and patted her on the arm with a look of ineffable pity, before turning away. Strange, but maybe he’d had a similar hangover himself in his heyday. As she passed the newsagents, two teenage girls were lounging on the bench outside – former pupils of hers who’d since moved on to secondary school in Market Mornington. It was probably coincidence, but they both started giggling when they saw her. They were teenage girls after all: giggling was their equivalent of breathing. Still, a little strange.

  Turning into the lane that led to the school, she saw a familiar form in the distance. Sinead Dumper. Oh God. She cranked up a gear, from snail pace to hyper-tortoise drive. The school entrance was at the nearer end of the lane, she should reach it before Sinead got to her. Sinead had other ideas, however. She seemed to want particularly to speak to Alice and held up a hand, motioning her to stop. At the risk of instant vomiting and/or death Alice revved from hyper-tortoise drive to arthritic pony trot, calling out to Sinead – ‘Sorry, late!’ – before whisking in the school gates and through the front door in the nick of time. Inside she paused, panting, sweating and praying for a quick release from this vale of tears. The extremity of feeling passed, however, and she set off for assembly. She didn’t get there. Mrs Fratterbury was lying in wait and as Alice passed her open door she called out.

  ‘Cooee! Alice lovie, in here. Step into the pantry, said the spider to the fly and close the door behind you, there’s a love.’

  Alice sighed and complied.

  Mrs Fratterbury had the look of a spider which had swaddled a fly and now couldn’t decide whether to pop it straight in her mouth or rock it to sleep with a lullaby first. Admittedly, thought Alice, it was rare to find overweight spiders with frizzy hair and mustard stains down their jumpers – but that was what made the resemblance all the more surprising. Mrs Fratterbury wasn’t in a hurry to speak. She reached out a hand and took Alice’s resisting one across the desk. Then she looked at her and sighed. Alice wondered if this would be a good time to throw up.

  Finally, the headmistress spoke.

  ‘Alice, lovie, we’re all behind you.’

  Instinctively, Alice looked around. There was no one behind her, just a hat stand with several of Mrs Fratterbury’s sagging, bobbly cardigans on it and some yellowing paintings by long-departed children, depicting the Battle of Hastings. The sight of so many arrows gouging out bloody eyeballs made Alice’s stomach heave and she closed her eyes. When she turned back around and opened them again, a tabloid newspaper was lying on the desk. It hadn’t been there before and Alice hadn’t heard it arrive. Perhaps Mrs Fratterbury was trying to distract her from the arrows and gore with a demonstration of magic.

  ‘We’ve all seen it, lovie, so we all know. At least – Annie C hasn’t seen it yet because she’d already popped over to St. Joseph’s for her IT training when I got here, but everyone else has. So you mustn’t worry about trying to keep it to yourself, putting on a brave face like Patience on a monument.’

  Vague, troubling ideas started to creep into Alice’s weary brain. What had she done last night? Anything so embarrassing it was newsworthy? There was the drinking, the singing, the dancing. Some kind of al fresco nap, she remembered the smell of earth and the feel of damp grass against her cheek. None of this was illegal though, surely, or even that interesting to people who didn’t know her?

  Mrs Fratterbury watched her. Did Alice know? Did she suspect? No – there was no em
barrassment, no shame, just bewilderment. All of Mrs Fratterbury’s fondest hopes were realised: she would be the one to break the news. Picking up the newspaper very deliberately while keeping her eyes glued to Alice’s face, she unfolded it and placed it flat on the table. Alice looked down.

  ‘Booze-fuelled orgies in wife-hunt village!’ gasped the outraged headline, above a set of three pictures. The first showed what looked like an outlandish sexual act against a wall. A woman daubed in red paint was poking her bottom in the air and twisting round to leer at a burly man as he fondled her legs. Beside them, a buxom woman brandished a paintbrush. (Was that Lorraine Watford? Hard to tell with the brush obscuring half her face, but it looked like her mad hair.) The second picture was of a tousled-looking girl in a green dress, lying on the grass with a group of men and women kneeling around her – a girl who turned out on closer inspection to be Alice herself. Her gaze lingered on that photograph for a moment or two before dragging itself to the third picture. This was a close-up of Alice’s bottom half, revealing the unfortunate fact that her skirt had ridden up on one side to her waist, revealing the full glory of her Spanx control pants. A hand could be seen grasping the skirt’s hem – most likely to pull it down, thought Alice, but in the context of the picture, looking as if it was undressing her. A ball of ice dropped from a great height into Alice’s stomach.

  Mrs Fratterbury let the image sink in for a moment and then murmured, ‘Read the article, lovie.’

  Alice obeyed.

  ‘“Last night, in Gently Rising, our spies witnessed disgusting scenes of depravity and debauchery never before seen in the sleepy Mereshire village. Readers will be familiar with the name of Gently Rising as the home of Lord Noblet de Beeble. Naughty Noblet is on the hunt for a mate and doesn’t care who knows it, posting saucy adverts in the local press to lure luscious lovelies to his posh Mereshire mansion.

  ‘“The Daily Hack wonders if the judging committee of the Mereshire Best Kept Village Competition has visited Gently Rising recently. This quaint backwater has won first prize three times in the past ten years, but it won’t pick up any honours in its current state. The village green has been trashed by an encampment of scantily-clad women, all hoping to become Lady of the Manor. The Beeble Babes, as these women have become known locally, can be found in the village pub, the Lion and Lamb, at all hours, boozing and wearing little more than their underwear. According to local reports, it’s not safe for men to walk the streets at night with these sex-mad hussies on the loose.

  ‘“Last night, according to our spies, the debauchery reached epic proportions with an orgy in the village hall to celebrate the birthday of local woman Alice Band – teacher by day and sex addict by night. Revellers were stripping off and daubing each other with strange pagan markings. The nearby fields and woods were a hotbed of wild sex, with good-time girl Alice’s party guests romping among the ancient English oaks.”’

  The article went on to savour each outrageous act of depravity in minute detail but Alice’s attention had wandered. She couldn’t stop looking at the photographs.

  Mrs Fratterbury was making comforting noises and now enquired, ‘Alright, lovie? At least they got your name wrong, eh?’

  Alice looked up. The headmistress’s hand was hovering over a box of tissues, ready to stem the tide of tears which was surely moments away. That gesture seemed to call up something primaeval in Alice’s soul. The block of ice that had landed in her stomach became molten iron and shot through her veins. She sat up straight and looked Mrs Fratterbury in the eye.

  ‘Of course I’m alright, Mrs Fratterbury. I mean, I can see why you’d be worried – it’s a bit embarrassing having your picture in the paper like that, drunk, but it’ll blow over. And we all had such a wonderful time. It’ll be something to tell the grandchildren.’ She smiled at the headmistress.

  Mrs Fratterbury’s look of patronising concern faltered. She pushed the paper nearer to Alice and placed a chubby finger on the article.

  ‘Are you quite sure you read it properly, dear? They called you a sex addict and a good-time girl,’ she added at last, to avoid any chance of a misunderstanding.

  Alice continued to smile. ‘Oh yes! Ridiculous isn’t it? Anyone who knows me knows that’s all rubbish – and who cares about people I don’t know?’ The smile had become almost challenging now, and Mrs Fratterbury dropped her eyes.

  ‘Well. I must say. That’s very brave of you, my dear, and I’m so glad you’re not upset about it,’ she said. ‘Of course I was hoping you’d feel that way,’ she continued, fighting to regain some of her usual complacency, ‘I was hoping there wouldn’t be waterworks and the boy standing on the burning deck and all that kind of hysterics but you never know.’

  ‘No,’ agreed Alice. ‘Well, I’d better be getting to class.’

  ‘Oh, no need, dearie. I called a supply teacher as soon as I saw the paper. I felt sure you wouldn’t be up to taking class today.’

  ‘No problem,’ countered Alice brightly, ‘I’ll pop along and let her know she can go home now I’m here. Ta-ta, Mrs F.’

  The supply teacher was duly dismissed and Alice threw herself into lessons: gluing straws, sharpening pencils and reading stories as if there were no tomorrow. Somehow, she made it through that grimmest of all grim days, fuelled by adrenaline, diet Coke and crisps. Healthy eating was for days when you hadn’t been libelled as a sex addict in a tabloid newspaper alongside an enormous picture of your control pants. At long last, it was the end of the day and the children were gone. Normally she would have stuck around in the staffroom doing some prep for the next day, but even her newly-found iron resolve couldn’t stomach the thought of that so she headed for home.

  Dropping her bag in the hall she turned her phone back on and listened to a series of anxious messages from her sister, her mum and various friends. Slumped down at the kitchen table, she tried and failed to gather the energy to call them back. Having texted everyone the same message – that it was all a silly mistake, she was fine, was having an early night and would call them tomorrow – she scooped up the cat, a cup of tea and the biscuit tin, and retreated to her bedroom. Shutting the curtains, ignoring the knocking at the door and Mia’s voice calling through the letterbox, she turned off her phone again and got into bed.

  Chapter 10

  The day of the interviews wasn’t exactly greeted with a pealing of church bells and villagers with doffed caps lining the streets to the Hall, but expectation shimmered in the air along with the heat. Even Lady Caroline herself unbent so far as to observe to Noblet, when she popped in for an early breakfast, that today ‘was the day of his little social experiment.’ Saskia, who was sitting beside her, picking at a bowl of organic spelt muesli and hemp milk, opened her eyes wide.

  ‘You’re so right, Caroline, it’s a social experiment.’ She turned to Henry. ‘We should have invited the Royal Institution down to monitor it, babe.’

  ‘I can’t imagine they’d have been that interested,’ said Henry, half listening to the conversation and half scanning the papers. Since the fiasco on Wednesday night he’d relieved Gareth of his duties, reasoning that a payment of £200 a month to a paparazzo ought to be enough to receive due warning that one’s girlfriend’s paint-daubed bottom is about to appear in the tabloids. Particularly when he suspected not only had Gareth failed to alert him to the photographs taken in Gently Rising that evening, but had taken them himself. Henry’s calls on Wednesday night had gone straight to voicemail and by the next morning it was too late, the damage had been done. Gareth had sworn blind that he’d known nothing about the pictures, but a little hesitation in his voice told a different story. So now Henry’s link to the press, however ineffectual it may have been, had disappeared and he was forced to keep tabs himself on any de Beeble-related tittle-tattle. He was relieved that Saskia’s name had been kept out of the article and he’d managed to persuade her that no one would recognise her from the photo with her hair obscuring much of her face.

  Noblet’s
plate was piled as high as usual with bacon, eggs, mushrooms, sausages and tomatoes but the pile didn’t seem to be diminishing.

  ‘Feeling nervous, Noblet?’ asked Saskia, eyeing his plate. ‘It’s natural, man – all those women lining up to meet you, expectations are going to be high,’ she continued blithely, setting aside her cereal bowl and turning her attention to a cup of green tea.

  Noblet sprang up. ‘Something I need to check – er – in the library,’ he growled, before shooting out the door.

  ‘Typical Nobby,’ drawled Lady Caroline. ‘He’s always been like that. No stomach for public engagements. Not like dear Henry. See how calm he is.’

  Saskia squeezed his shoulder. ‘Nerves of steel, haven’t you, babe?’

  ‘Seeing as I’m not the one interviewing my prospective wife, it’s rather easier for me to remain calm than it is for Bob, wouldn’t you say?’

  ‘Nothing to do with it,’ retorted Lady Caroline. ‘Nobby would be nervous if he were manning the door.’

  ***

  Those manning the door did in fact have good reason to be nervous. All the applicants seemed to have had the same idea of arriving hours early in order to be at the front of the queue. Derek and his confederate, a dour-faced man called Keith, glowered from the steps of the village hall at the snaking queue of deckchairs, rugs and small tents. These belonged to incongruous-looking creatures whose sparkling finery was gruesomely at odds with the summer morning. Perhaps at midnight in the finals of the Delectable & Divine Drag Queen Dance-Offs these individuals would have passed without comment, but they looked out of place between the fresh green hedgerows. Barricades had been set up the previous evening to force people to queue single file, rather than surrounding the hall in a mass, but these were already bulging under the pressure of numbers. On a grubby beanbag under a Cliff Richard golf umbrella, right at the very front of the queue, was Lorraine Watford. At the sight of Derek emerging from the hall and surveying the crowd, she poked him hard in the stomach.