Country Pursuits (22 page)

Later that evening, the mood was slightly soured for Clementine. She was just settling down with her nightly tipple of Möet, and had switched on the television to get the local news when, to her distaste, Sid Sykes's rat-like face loomed up in front of her. He was being interviewed by a reporter about his bid to buy the Meadows.

‘Churchminster needs dragging into the twenty-first century, and I'm just the man to do it,' he said nasally.

Clementine pushed the red button on her remote control, and his image disappeared into blackness. She could think of somewhere she'd like to drag Sid Sykes. The ghastly man seemed to be everywhere these days. Clementine took another glug of champagne and let out a heavy sigh. Tonight she might require two glasses to get her back on an even keel again.

Sebastian's sulk lasted until Wednesday. He cancelled two business lunches and turned off the mobile that was used solely for Sabrina to call him on. By the time she eventually got hold of him on Wednesday afternoon, she was positively seething.
He was supposed to have accompanied her to an exclusive fashion party in Chelsea on the Tuesday night, and she ended up having to cancel because she couldn't find a last-minute replacement. She had missed out on some serious networking opportunities and a goodie bag worth three thousand pounds.
No one
treated Sabrina Cox like that.

‘Where the fuck have you been?' she screeched at him down the phone.

‘Oh, darling!' he said dismissively. He was sitting in a new oyster and champagne bar that had opened in the City, surrounded by work colleagues. One of them had just closed a mega-bucks deal and they were celebrating. Sebastian's dark mood had finally lifted and he was back to his normal arrogant self. He took a swig of Cristal, rolling his eyes at the sniggering table around him.

‘I couldn't get hold of you, what was I supposed to think?' complained Sabrina.

Sebastian's accommodating mood swiftly evaporated. ‘Who the hell are you to give me a hard time?' he asked her coldly. ‘If I wanted that, I'd go to my fucking wife!' His response was met by a dialling tone. Oh well, he'd sort that out with a bracelet from De Beers and dinner at Nobu later.

‘Old Seb Boy's been given the heave-ho!' chortled one pink-faced man in a loud pinstripe suit.

‘Fuck off, Gilly,' said Sebastian, smiling at him evilly over his glass. ‘Talking from experience, are we? I mean your
wife
; you'd never have the balls to get yourself a mistress as well.'

Monty Gillsworth, fresh from the divorce courts
and paying maintenance through the nose, looked momentarily flattened as the rest of the table slapped their thighs and guffawed.

HARRIET WAS BEING
yelled at by her father. They were standing at opposite ends of the five-hundred-foot ballroom at Clanfield. Ambrose's booming tones easily carried the length of it.

‘I don't want the bloody stage down here!' he shouted, holding a crumpled room plan in his hand.

‘But Daddy—' Harriet started, holding her clipboard like a layer of protective armour in front of her chest.

‘What's that? I can't bloody hear you all the way over there,' he shouted again, forgetting he was the one who had started this exchange. ‘For God's sake come here, girl!'

Harriet gulped and obediently trotted down the ballroom towards him. Her father was being a nightmare. Even though she had actually been doing a jolly good job, he'd already made her change the location of the car park because he didn't want people taking a short cut through the gardens. Now he obviously had issues about where she was planning on putting the stage.

‘Why are you putting it here?' he complained
when she reached him almost a full minute later. ‘Damn awful place.'

‘Daddy, it's not,' she said patiently. ‘We want the stage at that end of the room, so people can come in and see their tables first. The company constructing it want it at that end too, so it's easier for them to bring everything in.'

‘Humph!' said her father. ‘Well, I think it's a bloody silly idea.'

And no doubt just because it's
my
idea, Harriet thought to herself despairingly. She had actually been expecting some praise from her parents, for a change. The car parks were all set up with marshals. She was getting a specialist company in to clean the ballroom and chandeliers one week before the event. The seating arrangements had been organized. Harriet was going to turn one of the downstairs rooms that wasn't really used for anything into a cloakroom, and she'd even managed to persuade Cook to give up her beloved kitchen to Pierre and his team of chefs for the night. The committee was thrilled with her efforts, so it was discouraging, to say the least, to come home to such a negative reaction from her parents.

Unlike her husband, Frances seemed preoccupied and was showing little interest at all. Harriet couldn't understand it: her mother
lived
for things like this. Normally, she'd be on her daughter's back every inch of the way to make sure everything was up to her exacting standards.

Unbeknown to her daughter, or indeed another living soul, Lady Frances Fraser was spending every waking moment thinking about Devon
Cornwall. It was like the man had cast a spell over her, and she found herself in turn enthralled and appalled at the effect he was having. Since that chance meeting in the lane, Frances had thought of little else. Several times she had almost got in her Saab to go round to Byron Heights, under the pretence of talking to him about performing at the ball. But she had checked herself every time; she was a married woman, for God's sake! And not just to any old person either. Her husband's family had lived at Clanfield for generations, and Sir Ambrose Fraser was thirty-second in line to the throne. In truth, the physical side of their marriage had dried up years ago, and the couple now slept in separate bedrooms. But still, Frances had been brought up with a strong sense of family, and knew her duty towards her husband and the Fraser name.

A few days later, however, events were taken out of her hands. It was mid-morning and Frances was sitting in the pink drawing room reading. There was a discreet knock on the door. ‘Come in,' she called, and Hawkins the butler appeared.

‘A Mr Devon Cornwall is here to see you, your Ladyship,' he informed her.

Frances nearly dropped her book. Devon, here? She composed herself. ‘Do send him in, Hawkins,' she told him.

As soon as the butler had left the room, Frances jumped up and looked in the mirror. She looked like a flushed, giddy schoolgirl. Get a grip, she told herself, and had just smoothed her chignon when the door opened.

‘Mr Cornwall,' Hawkins announced.

Devon stood there, in white linen trousers and
some kind of smock top. He was wearing Birkenstocks and a pair of Ray-Ban sunglasses that still gave him that rock-star edge. Frances's heart skipped a beat, but she managed to maintain her composure. They were on her territory now.

The butler withdrew, and Frances waved Devon over to one of the many overstuffed chairs. ‘Do take a seat, Mr Cornwall.'

‘It's Devon, please,' he said, as they sat opposite each other. Again, her immaculate beauty entranced him. Frances's hair was sleek and golden, and she was in a pale-blue cashmere jumper and silk skirt that set off her almost Nordic looks perfectly.

There was a second's silence between them before Devon remembered why he was there. ‘Er, I've come to talk to you about that ball.'

‘Oh?' said Frances politely, even though her heart was hammering around in her chest like a ping-pong ball.

‘Yeah,' said Devon. He paused. ‘The thing is, I gave up performing and all that music industry shit, I mean stuff, years ago.'

And without knowing why, he told her all about his career, the drugs and the drink it brought with it, and his subsequent end in rehab.

‘Gracious, you've led quite a life,' Frances said thirty minutes later. She didn't quite know what to say. Here was her one-time pop idol opening his heart to
her
. She had read articles in the paper about his battles with substances and alcohol, but had never realized quite how low Devon had sunk.

‘The thing is,' Devon repeated. ‘I cleaned up me
life and made a conscious decision to leave music behind. Too much temptation and all that.' He smiled wryly. ‘But there's something about this place, Churchminster,' he waved his arm around expansively. ‘It's making me feel all sorts of things I haven't felt for years. Creative stuff.' He looked at Frances. ‘So after a long hard think, I've decided I would like to play at the ball. I've got some new stuff I've been working on recently, I mean it's only really in the early stages, but I'd love the chance to showcase it . . .' He trailed off, suddenly looking quite shy.

‘I think it's a marvellous idea!' exclaimed Frances. Her eyes were shining. Several times during Devon's candid confessions, she'd found herself almost moved to tears. He was no longer just Devon Cornwall the pop star, he was Devon Cornwall the man. And what a man!

‘You do?' asked Devon, uncertainly.

‘Of course! The committee will be beside themselves when I tell them,' replied Frances. ‘Oh Devon, it's simply wonderful!' She had become quite animated, and Devon couldn't help but smile – the ice queen had melted! He had an irresistible urge to take her into his arms, but checked himself.

‘That's great.' He looked at his watch. He had a business meeting with Nigel and his accountant in twenty minutes. ‘I'd better be going,' he said, and stood up. Frances followed suit. She rang a bell on the wall, formality returning for a moment.

‘Hawkins will see you out.'

As they got to the drawing room door, Devon turned to face her. They were standing barely a foot apart and he could smell her light, flowery
perfume. They both reached for the door handle at the same time, and for a second Devon's hand rested on hers. He looked into her eyes. ‘Do you know what? I'd really like to take you out,' he said softly.

Frances couldn't speak. She could hear footsteps in the hall. ‘I'd like that,' she finally managed, before there was another knock at the door and Hawkins materialized.

Devon winked at her: ‘Be seeing you, then.'

‘Yes, goodbye, Mr Cornwall,' she said gracefully.

Frances shut the door behind him and slid down it, letting out a huge, trembling gasp. What had she just got herself into? For the first time in her life, she feared she was about to be guilty of a severe dereliction of duty.

EVER SINCE ANGUS
had proposed to Camilla, he'd been trying his best. He'd bought her a bedraggled bunch of flowers from the petrol station. He'd stopped his excruciating habit of rolling across from the pub completely blotto and roaring at Camilla's window that he was going to bonk her brains out. Which was just as well for Calypso, whose window was next to Camilla's. She had started complaining she felt like an unwilling extra in a pornographic remake of
Rapunzel
.

In fact, Camilla
did
feel like a princess, locked in her own self-imposed tower. Angus's proposal had been marvellous; all she had ever wished for. So why wasn't she happy? With every day that passed, and every person who congratulated her, Camilla started to feel more desperate. Of course Angus, who had the sensitivity of a forklift truck, didn't notice anything was wrong with his bride-to-be, but Calypso did. She cornered Camilla in the kitchen one sunny summer morning as she was making breakfast.

‘Hey, you making tea? I'll have one.' Calypso watched her sister dig out the Earl Grey teabags,
and then hopped up on the work surface next to the toaster, where two slices of multi-grain bread were toasting. ‘Bills? You are cool about marrying Aberdeen Angus, aren't you?' she asked.

Camilla had her back to Calypso and stiffened. ‘Of course I am. Why do you say that?' she answered in an unnaturally high-pitched voice.

Calypso stuck out a long, tanned leg and examined it. ‘I don't know, you just seem a bit flat about it all. I thought you'd be more, like, totally excited about it? I know you'll probably tell me to mind my own business but . . . Oh no! What is it?' Camilla had turned round to face her, her lower lip wobbling and her eyes full of tears. Calypso jumped down from the worktop and enveloped her in a protective hug.

‘I don't know what's
wrong
with me,' Camilla wailed into her shoulder. ‘Mummy and Daddy are over the moon and Angus is being so adorable. It's what I've dreamt of all my life, what girl wouldn't? But I just feel so empty inside, like it's the biggest anti-climax ever. I can't bear it. Am I some sort of complete freak?'

Calypso looked into her sister's blotchy face. ‘Of course you're not!' she said fiercely. She sighed. ‘Look, sometimes we think we want things in life, and when we get them we don't want them any more.'

‘Are you talking about you and Sam?' snuffled Camilla.

‘No! Christ, Bills, will you stop worrying about everyone else and think about yourself for a change? I know Angus is a nice guy, and you've always had a dream of bringing up loads of sprogs in the country, but maybe it's happened too soon?
Before you know it, you'll be packed off to Highlands Farm to pop out Aldershot heirs and your life will be full of choir practices, making jam and wiping snotty noses.'

‘But that's what I've always wanted!' wailed Camilla again.

Calypso tenderly smoothed the tears from her sister's cheeks. ‘You still might. But what I'm saying is that it might be a bit soon, or you just need time to come round to the idea. It's, like, a
totally massive
life change.'

Camilla stopped snuffling. ‘It
is
all rather a lot for me to take in,' she admitted, and looked more hopeful. ‘Maybe I just need time to adjust.'