Celebrity Bride (9 page)

Lord Simpkins's foot is jiggling around up by my knee now. I don't know what to do; every time I knock his foot out of my lap, and look at him in a 'stop right now' sort of fashion, he dribbles at me in a rather revolting way and I'm forced to look away again . . . quickly.

'Divine,' he mutters through a mouthful of pheasant jelly. (Yes, you read that right – pheasant jelly – and it's as unpleasant as it sounds. How could it be otherwise? Pheasant and jelly – two words which have no right to be side by side in the same sentence. How I'm yearning for a KFC in front of the telly with the girls right now.) His foot is on my knee; if nothing else, you have to admire the man's flexibility. Once again, I knock it off, and once again he leers at me. Any minute now I'm going to stab him in the ankle. I'll jab straight through his ludicrously expensive woollen socks with my fork.

'Kelly, dear, do tell us how you met our lovely Rufus. Was it through the theatre?' says Lady Simpkins.

'It was; I work there,' I say, quite pleased to be able to talk about work. I do know about theatre administration even though I know nothing about Shakespeare's contribution to man's understanding of his very consciousness.

'Really. I don't recognise you. What are you in?' she asks.

'In the main office,' I say. 'Right by the windows that look out onto Richmond Green.'

'Sorry?'

'That's the office I'm in, the main one.'

'So you're not in a play?'

'Oh no, no, sorry. I thought you asked which . . . it doesn't matter.'

'What do you do, Kelly?' asks Isabella kindly. I knew I'd like her.

'I'm head of theatre administration,' I say.

'Oh my,' says Lady Simpkins with a loud hoot and a rather absurd chortle, before she turns to shout over to her daughter Olivia, sitting at the far end, next to Rufus. Her husband's foot is practically in my lap. What then? Is he going to mount me, or have I just got all this wrong and he's just looking for a footstool?

I pull my chair back a little so that his leg tumbles off my lap and goes crashing to the ground rather noisily. I'd normally scream at someone if they treated me like this and threaten to kill them if they didn't remove their foot immediately, but how can I when the guy is the single most important person in the world of theatre and someone my boyfriend admires greatly? His Lordship looks over at his daughter, the Honourable Olivia Simpkins, the aspiring model and actress. ('Aspiring', in this context, means 'failed'. You're never an aspiring model because models start at the age of about three, so you're either a model, or you aren't a model. She isn't.) I've completely taken against her for reasons I can't fully explain. There's something about her that annoys me greatly. She has an hauteur to her, you know; a sense of superiority that is wholly undeserved. She wears her father's title like a war medal. The trouble is, she's never been a soldier and never committed acts of stunning bravery, she just acts like she has.

Now I appreciate that this is quite a conclusion to come to when the woman's sitting on the opposite end of the table, and hasn't spoken a word to me, but I just know. You do sometimes. She's opposite Elody, next to my boyfriend, and she's a vision of Sloaney loveliness – resplendent in the family pearls and taffeta. A vision of wealthy, youthful beauty. She has charm, class and sophistication. She probably knows exactly what knife and fork to use and when to stop drinking. Ahhhhhh . . . I hate this. I've got a mad rampant lord on one side of me, and a big, crazy lady with mad wiry hair on the other. I'm just not used to this sort of company. The food has finished but we're all still sitting there. I'm not sure what to say to anyone. I find myself longing for the life I've left behind. I'm soooo glad I'm going back to work next week, and can chat to my mates, do everything to avoid filing and practise catching Maltesers in my mouth; they'd better not have been practising while I've been away.

'Kelly, can I borrow you for a moment?' Elody taps me gently on the shoulder.

'Sure,' I say, immensely relieved to be given an escape from the conversation I'm not having. 'Excuse me.'

I untangle my legs from the lord's (easier said than done; he's quite strong for a bony old man) and stumble a little as I follow Elody towards the main doors; she reaches out a hand to help me. 'Thanks,' I mutter, as two smartly dressed porters I've never met before swing the door open for us to pass through. I tell you, this never happens at Suga Daddys. You have to open all the doors yourself there. In the corridor there's a cluster of women clutching clipboards and talking intensely. As we approach, they fall silent and nod respectfully as I pass. This is so weird. Such an odd lifestyle when you have a couple of mates over for dinner and suddenly your house, your home, is full of strangers.

'You OK?' asks Elody, when we're out of earshot.

'Sure,' I say.

'You didn't seem very comfortable in there; thought I'd better come and rescue you.'

'Thanks,' I say, amazed at her perceptiveness. 'To be honest, I was struggling a bit.' Once I've made that early confession of weakness, all my feelings come tumbling out in one, big wave of emotion. I feel the tears start to spring from my eyes as I tell her how I feel so out of my depth and how Lord bloody James keeps rubbing his foot up and down my leg.

'Come here,' says Elody, wrapping her bony arms around me. 'Now, stop worrying. Lord Simpkins is a complete shit. This is not your fault. You're not doing anything wrong; you just need to learn the rules of the game. These people may seem incredibly complex but the truth is that they're simple, deluded egomaniacs. All of them. You're worth twenty of that ageing Lothario. You just need to smarten up and embrace this lifestyle of Rufus's if you want him to fall in love with you, and that's going to mean getting tough, girl.'

'He's already in love with me, there's no question of that,' I say.

Elody looks at me as if I'm stark, staring mad.

'He is,' I say rather pathetically. 'He is in love with me.'

'Yep, that's why he's going to Los Angeles without you, but by the time I've finished with you, Rufus will be begging you to marry him, and certainly begging you to go on every foreign trip with him. OK. Is that a deal?'

'It is,' I say, not quite sure what deal I've agreed to, but figuring that any help I can get is worth taking at this juncture given that I'm struggling to get through dinner, let alone the rest of my life.

'OK. When we go back in there, you take my seat and I'll take yours. That way, you'll be out of the clutches of Lord Try-it-on, and you'll be able to keep an eye on Olivia and make sure she doesn't flirt with Rufus too much.'

'Right,' I say. 'Thanks. But, what do you mean – flirt with Rufus?'

'Oh you know what Rufus is like,' she says. 'He's used to having women throw themselves at him. He's used to taking a different woman home every night. He can forget he's got a girlfriend if you're out of sight. Might be better if you're next to him.'

'A different woman every night? What are you talking about? That's not Rufus at all. He doesn't have different women every night.'

'Sweetheart, he's a man; a rich man; a rich, famous and incredibly beautiful man. He could have five hundred different women every hour if he wanted to.'

'I know he could,' I try. I can feel my voice rising and ringing with an unhealthy mixture of anger, frustration and confusion. 'All I'm saying is that even though he could, he doesn't.'

'Your devotion is truly touching,' says Elody. 'I think you are extremely kind and patient with him, especially given the history with those two.'

'History? I didn't know . . . What history? Are you saying that Olivia likes him, or something?'

'Likes him?' says Elody, her eyes so wide they look as if they're about to burst out of her face. 'Likes him? She's totally obsessed with him. How many times has she slept with him? Christ they're at it all the time those two. Lord Simpkins introduced them in the hope of Rufus helping Olivia to become an actress. He thought that it would assist her modelling career too, if she was seen strutting around the place with Rufus. The two of them just fell into bed together and pretty much that's their history.'

'I find it so hard to believe,' I say. Rufus and I have talked about everything over the months we've been courting. There's never been so much as a mention of the Right Honourable Bimbo over there. He said he's had one girlfriend since he came to England – a girl called Emma, who was a violinist. They were only together for a few weeks. He's never mentioned Olivia. Even in passing.

'Come on, Kelly. There's nothing to worry about. All you've got to do is make sure you're around him at all times when there are attractive women like Olivia hovering.'

I can't believe this. I never had Rufus down as a womaniser.

'I don't think he's like that, Elody,' I say. 'I don't think he's the sort of man to go off with a whole load of women. I just don't think he's made like that.'

'Trust me, all men are made like that, and men like Rufus who have women hurling themselves at them every day are made more like it than most. You must keep your eyes on him all the time.
All
the time.'

'I can't keep my eyes on him all the time. It's impossible.'

'Then you'll lose him.'

'But what am I going to do when he goes to LA?'

'For the James Bond film?'

'I don't know; he didn't say which film. Something about a press trip.'

'Yeah, that's right. They're promoting
Frozen Lives
, then he has meetings for the new James Bond.'

How does she know so much more about what my boyfriend's up to than I do?

'Look, if you want my advice, get private detectives lined up in LA before he goes,' she insists. 'Go through his case and his pockets, obviously, arrange for bugs to be put in the hotel room and have him followed everywhere. It's the only way. Cindy Kearney's in that film, you know.'

'Is she? Excellent. I think she's great.'

'Yes, and she's also a complete maneater. She used to go out with Rufus, you know. She once joked that she and Rufus couldn't be in the same room without ending up in bed together. You need to check whether Rufus is doing the Bond movie and check whether Cindy Kearney's definitely in it. If the answer to both questions is "yes", you're fucked . . . to put it mildly. Nice necklace by the way.'

'Oh thanks, it's from Rufus,' I say.

'No, no, no, no, no,' she squeals immediately, leaning over my shoulders and unfastening it.

'I don't want to take it off,' I implore.

'Sweetheart, you're going to have to listen to me. Wearing his necklace is like wearing his ring, with none of the security that goes with ring-wearing. It needs to come off. Christ, you have so much to learn. Thank God you stumbled upon me.'

'But Rufus will be upset if I take it off.'

'Making Rufus upset is good. Don't be a doormat. Anyway, he'll be more upset if you don't look the part and, frankly, the necklace doesn't go with the dress at all. He'll think you don't know how to dress. You don't want that, do you? Not on top of all the other problems you're facing.'

'No,' I say, unconvinced, as she removes the necklace and drops it into my bag. How's everything suddenly gone pear-shaped? This whole dinner party has been a fiasco. I'm being molested by an ancient lord while Rufus sits at the other end of the table making eyes at Olivia and trying to get her into bed, in advance of flying to the other side of the world to screw his ex-girlfriend. Shit. I thought me and Rufus were doing really well.

'Speeches. Three minutes, ladies.' One of the businesslike women with clipboards appears at the bathroom door.

'Speeches? There are only a handful of people here. Why the need for speeches? Anyone would think he was Barack Obama.'

'You go and take my seat. I'll go and sit next to Lord Lusty,' says Elody with a smile, and I feel myself warm to her all over again. It's such a relief to have someone in my corner; someone looking out for me in this world of utter bafflement and confusion.

'Thank you.'

Elody and I walk slowly back into the main ballroom and the door is, once again, swung wide open for us.

'Don't eat pudding,' she whispers as she turns to take her seat. 'You need to lose a stone if you're going to compete with all the young glamour pusses. And keep an eye on Rufus. Watch what he's doing with his hands.'

Fuck.

I slip quietly into the seat next to my boyfriend at the far end of the table, still reeling from Elody's words but hoping that the amazement isn't evident on my face. I need to exude elegance from every pore, not to return to the table with the demeanour of a startled rabbit. I've checked the bottoms of my shoes for stray tendrils of toilet paper and I'm sure that my floaty, aqua designer gown isn't tucked into the back of my corset-style lingerie so I know the basics are OK.

I smile at Rufus as warmly as I can, and see the look of confusion in his eyes. 'Why are you not over there, talking to Lord Simpkins?' he asks. 'Is something the matter?'

'No. Elody wanted to sit next to him,' I say. I can't exactly tell him the truth, can I?

'No, Elody wanted to stay here,' he says. 'But she said you kept signalling over to ask whether you could change seats. I really think you should have stayed over there. James will think he's upset you. Where's your necklace?'

Before I can answer or explain things any more fully, I'm cut off by the sound of a gavel banging impatiently. I look over at Rufus, hoping to catch his eye and to mouth some explanation but he's too absorbed in talking to Olivia. She seems unnecessarily close to him. Why didn't I notice this before? Her nose is practically touching his nose. It's ridiculous. Why's he doing this? Why's he openly flirting with her in front of everyone when we all know that he's slept with her about fifty times before?

I feel like screaming. Shit. Now Rufus thinks I'm an idiot, and on Wednesday he's flying to LA with all these glamorous, beautiful people and I'm stuck here and I can't go out because the press write about me, and ahhh . . . I can feel tears pricking at the backs of my eyes.