Farm Fatale (35 page)

    "Oh, well," he added, looking at the doorbell. "I suppose we'd better go through with it."

    Rosie stabbed the Tudor rose, then leaped back, startled, as "Greensleeves" bonged loudly out of a concealed speaker in the ivy surrounding the lintels. A closed-circuit camera swung simultaneously out from behind one of the mullions. Black and white and intensely decorated, it was unlike any Rosie had ever seen before.

    "Bloody hell," said the scruffy stranger. "Original Elizabethan closed-circuit. Half-timbered, no less."

    The door flew open to reveal an Amazonian figure whose impressive and gleaming gold breasts were barely restrained by a bra of magenta silk sparkling with gold sequins. Her face was almost entirely obscured by a gold turban heaped with jewels, as well as an astonishing amount of makeup.

    Nevertheless, Rosie recognized her. She realized that, subconsciously, she'd been expecting all along to see her again. At least, since an incident involving a Jaguar a couple of weeks ago. The identity of the woman persecuting Jack about his herd and his free-range henhouse suddenly struck her as well. Of course. Who else?

    "Hello, Samantha," she said.

***

Damn it
, Samantha seethed as she beckoned them in ungraciously. She really
had
thought it would be him this time. With the help of the ever-resourceful Sholto, who happened to be a Matt Locke fan, she'd been studying every permutation of his famously flamboyant stage persona, every outfit he had ever worn, to be sure not to miss him when he arrived. But so far
nada
. Instead, it was some woman with scruffy hair who seemed to think she knew her and some bloody builder's laborer. The one she'd lent the elastic band to, by the looks of it. Still, she'd best let them in. Country gentry often looked like cleaners, in her experience. At least they had invitations, even if the laborer's was crumpled and covered in coffee rings.

    "I thought you said you didn't know her," Rosie's companion hissed as they were borne down the hall on a tide of revelers in turbans.

    "I didn't realize I did," she confessed. A procession of waiters carrying platters piled with food suddenly forced their way between them. As the scruffy stranger, looking terrified, was swept away on a tide of falafels, it occurred to Rosie that she had never found out what his name was. Oh, well. Taking a deep breath, she prepared to wade into the crowd to look for Mark.

    Snatches of conversation ebbed and flowed in her ears.

    "Yes," a large old pasha was observing to a woman dressed as Lawrence of Arabia. "She's appallingly rude about him. Going around mocking him for buying his own furniture. Bloody cheek, I'd say, coming from someone who's had to buy her own
castle
."

    "Absolutely," agreed Lawrence of Arabia.

    "If you can call it a castle," added the pasha witheringly.

    Were they, Rosie wondered, talking about Samantha?

    "My name's Florence," a well-built lady in a turban with the bone structure of a shire horse was informing a thin, bearded man dressed as a vicar. "I've lived here for what seems like hundreds of years. They should call me Renaissance Florence, really."

    "Any idea where the drinks are?" a deep female voice suddenly rasped behind Rosie. An inquiring squawk followed her words. Looking round, Rosie saw she was being addressed by a tall blond woman in a sequined yashmak holding a cockerel.

    "That way," shouted a couple of portly ancient Egyptians, pointing down the corridor.

    "Shocking," said the lady with the cock, her green silk pants swishing indignantly as she followed Rosie past a display of flat irons mounted on the wall, some antique forks in frames, and a mangle festooned with rustic hats. "Catherine St. Felix told me it was like a bloody Harvester in here and she's right. Though it could have been much worse, apparently—this Grabster woman wanted to put a horizon pool in the ha-ha until the planning authorities got involved. Nancy Brooke-Sullivan by the way," she added, sticking out a hand. "And you are…?"

    "Rosie."

    "Love the suit, darling. Used to have a similar one myself. Hell's bells, look at this." They were passing through the French windows at the end of the hall and entering Samantha's Arabia
n
Nights
marquee. "Must have cost a bloody fortune. Talk about sheikhing it all about."

    Rose looked round in amazement. Against the billowing purple and magenta silk walls, palm fronds and flaming torches abounded; across the floor, a foot deep in sand, lay artfully arranged piles of tasseled and embroidered cushions. A noisy throng of people dressed as everything from Tudors to Chewbacca shouted and waved at one another, grabbing handfuls of food from the numerous waitresses. One particularly lascivious Roman, Rosie noticed, was grabbing handfuls of waitress as well. Mark, however, was nowhere to be seen.

    Suddenly, Nancy's cockerel erupted in a flurry of feathers and squawks. It was, it seemed, fighting desperately to avoid the proximity of a passing python wound around Sholto, who also sported a sequined fez and the inevitable mobile clamped to his ear.

    "Do you always go around wearing snakes?" asked Nancy witheringly. "Rather off-putting, don't you think?"

    "It's tame," Sholto shot back. "Which is more than can be said for that thing," he added rudely, gesturing at the still-struggling bird. "Do you always go around wearing hens?"

    Nancy bared her teeth in a dazzling smile. "Oh, I always bring my own cock to parties," she rasped smokily. "Far safer than ending up with some stranger's. Don't you think?"

    Rosie giggled.

    Sholto sighed theatrically and ran a hand dramatically across his forehead. "What are
those
doing out?" he shrieked suddenly as a waitress passed with a large bowl of cocktail sausages. "It's supposed to be the
Arabian Nights
, not a PTA barbecue."

    Sholto stormed off, colliding with one of the belly dancers. As the girl swore violently at him, Rosie noticed that her tasseled bra seemed several sizes too big for her and she had a ring through her navel.

    "Nancy,
darling
." Three excited men had rushed up to them. They all, Rosie noticed, wore beards, glasses, and tight cotton jellabas topped off with scarves and hats with large floppy brims. "Where on earth have you been?" they clamored.

    Nancy turned to Rosie. "Meet Johnny, Jimmy, and Larry. The backbone of the Eight Mile Bottom Amateur Dramatic Society— even though they're all professionals, of course. As you can probably tell from those luvvie scarves and hats. Darlings, this is supposed to be fancy dress."

    "Nancy!" chorused Johnny, Jimmy, and Larry chidingly.

    "How can you
say
that," added Larry, rolling his eyes in mock horror. "You know we were all given our scarves and hats with our RADA leaving certificates. We can't
possibly
not wear them."

    Nancy swept up a passing glass of champagne the size of a vase from a waiter with a ruby glistening in his muscular navel.

    "Have that boy washed and brought to my tent," muttered Larry, eyeing the impressive bulge in the waiter's white trousers.

    "Hands off," commanded Nancy, taking a step closer to the waiter and giving him a look that even through a yashmak would never have gotten past the film censor. As the bulge in the waiter's trousers increased in size, she threw her head back and laughed throatily, revealing a row of teeth of which someone in their twenties would have been proud.

    As the waiter stumbled off, reddening, with his tray, Rosie looked on with admiration. Nancy, though undeniably glamorous, was also undeniably heading toward fifty.

    "I don't think he speaks English." Nancy grinned, turning back to the group. "Never mind. You can do what I'm interested in, in any language."

    "There ain't nothing like a dame," chorused the three actors in admiration. "Nancy's a dame, you know," Johnny told Rosie. "We're all very jealous. We want to be dames too."

    "I didn't realize Eight Mile Bottom was so full of superstars." Rosie giggled, halfway down a vase of champagne and feeling considerably more at ease. This is what she had been missing, spending her entire time at Spitewinter. She had never met these merry sybarites in the village shop even. But then, they hardly looked like Mrs. Oakerthorpe's target customers. No doubt they bought everything by mail order from Fortnum's.

    The three actors were looking delighted.

    "Well, I
was
once in a film with Tom Cruise," said Johnny as the others groaned. "It's
true
." Johnny turned indignantly to Rosie. "I was a transvestite alcoholic and tried to pick him up in a bar."

    "In the film, you understand," boomed Jimmy.

    Johnny ignored the gibe. "Oh, yes," he continued to Rosie, "money was no object, of course. The bottom of the bar was in Dublin and the top in Rome. I
adore
Rome, of course. The Eternal City is one of my very favorite places. I love nothing better than standing around admiring old ruins."

    "Yes." Larry smirked. "You did rather a lot of that at one time, I seem to remember. At that pub in Shoreditch called Brief Encounter."

    Johnny glowered at him and slammed his empty champagne glass on a passing tray with such emphasis that the waiter buckled.

    "Well, I once had a scene with Judi Dench," Jimmy announced impressively, amid assorted cries of "Oooh" and "Get him!" "We were supposed to be having prawn cocktail at lunch," he added, "and my line was"—he straightened his back and raised his chin before booming—"'This is the best entree of marine origin I have eaten in nineteen years.'"

    "Coincidentally," boomed Larry, immediately stealing what thunder there was, "my own favorite theatrical anecdote also concerns a crustacean. When I was doing
Hamlet
at Stratford…" He paused dramatically. "
When I was doing
Hamlet
at Stratford
" he repeated, "we tried every night to make the gravedigger laugh by putting something silly in the grave. Got him eventually with an inflatable lobster."

    "Anyway, enough about us," interrupted Nancy, turning to Rosie, her bejeweled hands clasped elegantly around the stem of her champagne glass. "Tell us about yourself, sweetheart."

"Yes.
Tell us
.
Tell us
," the actors beseeched her.

    "I'm an illustrator," Rosie said. "I draw and paint pictures. Very dull, I'm afraid."

    "How absolutely marvelous," declared Jimmy. "I must say I love a bit of a dabble myself. Do you use very thin brushes or quite big ones?"

    "Thin ones usually," Rosie said. "But very thick stiff ones are useful from time to time."

    "Hear, hear," said a voice behind her. Rosie whipped around to find herself staring into the red and shiny face of what was clearly a very inebriated man. His drunken eyes rolled lasciviously over her. "Very well put. I have to say I agree." He stuck out a clammy hand. "Guy Grabster. How do you do. You've got the most enormous grease mark on the back of your jacket, by the way."

    "Oh, no!" Rosie thought with horror of Mrs. Womersley. "Someone must have pressed up against me with a cocktail sausage."

    "Lucky you." Guy sniggered, gazing straight into Rosie's cleavage. "This is obviously a better party than I thought."

    Rosie looked around in panic. The Eight Mile Bottom Amateur Dramatic Society had melted away to watch a muscular young man swallowing fire. "Haven't had anything that
hot
in my mouth for years," Nancy could be heard observing to Johnny.

    She was stuck with this ghastly man, Rosie realized. As Guy clapped a hot, sweaty hand on her back, she groaned. Despite the splendor of the tent surrounding her, the rest of the party was clearly going to be torture. The Marquee de Sade, no less. Where was Mark when she needed him? Where was he at all, come to that?

    "Excuse me." Someone suddenly threw his arms around Rosie and planted a kiss full on her lips. Her relief gave way to confusion as she realized it was not Mark who was snogging her but the scruffy stranger she had met at the door.

    "Friend of yours?" asked Guy.

"That's right," said the stranger.

    Guy shrugged. Just then, his favorite big-breasted waitress, sporting tassels on each nipple, strode boldly up to him offering to refill his cocktail glass from the receptacles she carried in each hand. "I say." Guy hiccuped. "That really is a magnificent pair of jugs you've got there." He put his arm around her shoulders and led her away.

    The stranger flashed an apologetic grin at Rosie. "Sorry about that. But you looked as if you needed some help."

    Rosie nodded. "I did." She was, she realized, blushing. His unorthodox way of rescuing her from her plight had not been unpleasant. It was a long time since Mark had given her a spontaneous kiss. "Thanks."

    Her rescuer grabbed a bottle of champagne from the tray of a passing waiter. "Come and sit down." He gestured at a shadowy corner flickering with candles and piled high with embroidered cushions.

    Rosie hesitated. "I have to find my boyfriend."

    The stranger grinned. "All the more reason to sit down then. He's bound to come past at some stage."

    He gestured with the champagne bottle toward the glittering masses eddying around the richly draped and dramatically lantern-lit marquee interior. Watching sultan collide with snake charmer and Bedouin bang into belly dancer, Rosie could see she would never find Mark in a crowd that resembled rush hour at Pantomime Central. This man was right. If Mark was here—and he
was
, she
knew
it, he
had
to be—her best chance of a reunion was to sit tight. Increasingly tight, she thought, as the stranger refilled her glass.