Farm Fatale (41 page)

    "Can I open it then?" Iseult was clearly hell-bent on liberating the contents of the envelope.

    Rosie shrugged. "If you like."

    Iseult ripped the envelope almost in half. "Bugger," she said ruefully. "That'll halve its value at Christie's." She scanned the piece of paper inside and gave a long, low whistle. "Wow."

    Rosie said nothing.

    "
Bloody hell
," said Iseult, her eyes still glued to the paper while Rosie's eyes remained determinedly fixed on the landscape. "You've won the lottery."

    Rosie's neck whirled round in amazement until she realized Iseult must be speaking figuratively. Matt Locke might be an influential person, but she doubted even he had a hotline to
National
Lottery Live.

    "A lot of people would kill for this," Iseult added after a minute or so's silence.

    "For
what?
" Rosie wondered how long the amateur dramatics would go on. From what she remembered of Dame Nancy and friends at the party, there was quite enough of that in Eight Mile Bottom as it was.

    "But you're not interested." Iseult gave her a wicked look. "It
is
an amazing offer, though. You can't possibly not do it."

    "
What
, for Christ's sake?" Rosie snapped. "Wants me to
sing
with him, does he?"

    Iseult's eyes widened. "It's good, but it's not that good. Sing with him—that really would be a blast," she added wistfully.

    "So what is it?" Rosie asked for the third time. Iseult seemed to have drifted off into a trance of some sort.

    "Oh. Sorry. Matt wants you to do a painting."

    "What of?" A watercolor of the village? Of Ladymead?

    "Him."

    "No way," said Rosie quickly.

    "Well, according to this you discussed it at the party. Or maybe," Iseult added, her eyes an innocent blue, "the champagne did."

    Rosie threw Iseult a furious look.

    "He says here he'll pay you a
fortune
." Iseult then named a sum so staggering that Rosie's brows, which had contracted with irritation, shot apart in amazement. She could not only buy the cottage with that but probably the rest of Cinder Lane as well. Yet she was determined not to be bought.

    "No," she insisted.

    "Why the hell not?"

    "Because Matt Locke is…a liar, he's laid waste to my entire life, he's single-handedly responsible for the fact that I have to leave the village, he's…Oh, I don't know." Rosie ran a hand through her hair and stared fiercely into the distance. "He's
horrible
."

    "Horrible? But he won the Most Gorgeous Man in the Universe title two years running. Not to mention being Best Dressed Male and Most Intriguing Star." Iseult blushed. "OK, I admit it. I've visited his website."

    Rosie shrugged. "I don't care."

    "How can you be so stupid?" snapped Iseult, abandoning any lingering attempt at appearing laid-back. "Think about it. You're having to sell your cottage and you obviously don't want to. For some insane reason, you even want to stay in the countryside. Now listen to me. If you do this bloody painting, you could buy any house in this friggin' village. Except The Bottoms, of course, although someone's going to have to when Dad and I go back to town."

    "They're getting divorced?" Rosie grabbed at the change of subject. Arguing with Iseult was not for the fainthearted. Beneath that frail exterior she had a will of steel and a juggernaut determination to get her way.

    "That's the idea," Iseult said airily. "Well,
my
idea. But I think Dad's coming round to that one as well."

    There was a silence. Rosie realized she was almost in awe of Iseult. "I'm off," she muttered. "Got some work to do."

    "Bet it doesn't pay as well as Matt Locke."

    Her face set, Rosie started to walk off.

    "Here." Iseult, striding after her, shoved the letter into Rosie's pocket. "You're crazy, you know. I'd give anything to be asked to do anything by Matt Locke. Hell, I'll even do the picture for you. I could always learn to paint…"

    
I won't do it
,
I won't
,
I won't, Rosie repeated to herself. But he
r fingers inched toward the letter in her pocket. Round the corner, Iseult safely out of eyeshot, she tore it out and saw, eyes rounding with shock, that Iseult had not been exaggerating about the promised money. Hell, Matt Locke must be loaded. "Come round and we'll talk about it," the note invited in handwriting that was more carefully rounded and uncertain than the autograph slash she had imagined.

    Rosie arrived back at Cinder Lane to discover that Mark had taken advantage of her absence to come round and remove his clothes, books, and records.

    "He's left you, hasn't he?" shrieked Blathnat, who had returned as mysteriously as he had disappeared. As had everyone else. The row of clapped-out vehicles once again festooned the graveyard wall and Arthur's dreadlocked head was once again under the hood of his Transit. Just for good measure, Mr. Womersley was sitting outside his front door in the weak spring sunshine with his radio tuned to the local pop station. As a result, "I Feel Love" was pumping out. As Satchel roared by within inches of her on what was without doubt the noisiest, scrapiest, rattliest skateboard in existence, Rosie reflected that love was the last thing she felt at the moment.

    She looked at Blathnat indignantly. "That's none of your business."

    "Why not? My mum leaves my dad all the time. Although he's so pissed off with her at the moment he's threatening to throw her out. She was a waitress at this party, see, and—"

    "Get inside, you little bugger," yelled Dungarees, coming suddenly round the corner with her breasts, for once, closed to public view.

***

When Rosie finally rang Bella, she had not intended to discuss the Matt Locke offer. But in the end it proved the only way of getting her off what was to her the intensely satisfying subject of Mark's unworthiness as a boyfriend and Jack's grumpiness. While managing to refrain from the exact words "I told you so," Bella, with the adroitness of a
Catch Phrase
contestant, pressed practically every other euphemism into service. She also made the anticipated offer of the room next to Ptolemy in her house.

    "You're very sweet," Rosie said, "but I want to stand on my own two feet."

    Bella sounded amazed. "But, darling, what on earth would you want to do
that
for?"

    When Rosie finally told her about the letter Iseult had given her, Bella was aghast at the idea of refusal. "But of course you must do it, darling, don't be silly. The money's more than enough for a deposit on a really nice property. Which is what you want, isn't it?"

    "Ye-es." The question was—where? Rosie had not yet mustered the nerve to tell Bella, who had blithely assumed she would be returning immediately to the capital, that the only nice properties she was interested in looked out over fields and were hundreds of miles from a Tube station.

    "Bel, I really don't want anything to do with him. Everything that's recently happened to me is Matt Locke's fault. Mark shouting at me; Jack—" Rosie stopped, unable to bear going through the entire unsavory episode again.

    "Jack what?"

    "Oh, nothing. Well, everything. If Kevin—I mean Matt— hadn't kissed me and hadn't been talking to me when Mark saw me, and hadn't hit Mark, and if Jack hadn't gotten to hear about it from that wretched bloody postman…"

    Bella whistled. "And you think that's all Matt Locke's fault?"

    "Definitely," Rosie said emphatically. "Well, sort of…"

    "Sort of nothing," Bella said briskly. "If you ask me, Matt Locke has done you the most enormous favor. Mark's a selfish, pigheaded bastard who's always treated you like shit, could you but see it, and Jack's macho pride has never gotten over his first wife pissing off and leaving him. Not that anyone in their right mind could blame her…" With what sounded like superhuman effort, Bella stopped herself.

    "Hey, don't hold back," snapped Rosie. "Tell it like it is. Don't pussyfoot around on my account."

    "Don't you
see
?" Bella urged. "Matt did nothing wrong at the party. On the contrary, from what you said, he saved you from some hideous lech. And you did nothing wrong either. Apart from not realizing who Matt actually was, of course, which was a
bit
dim, darling, let's admit it. Honestly, Rosie, do people have to go around with flags on their heads saying 'I Am a Celebrity' before you—"

    "But he hit Mark…"

    "My point entirely, darling," Bella said heavily. "Personally, I've wanted to hit Mark for years."

    Rosie felt her foothold on the argument, already weakened by Iseult, begin to slip. Her eyes ached. She longed to put the phone down and just sleep. It was all too much to think about.

    Bella, however, was determined not to let the subject drop. "This portrait is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity," she said decisively. "Everything I've been saying from the start. Forget the heartbroken bloody farmer, go for the heartthrob rock star. He's been given to you on a plate, darling. He's stinking rich—he could probably get Lucian Freud if he wanted. But he wants you.
You
, Rosie. And think of the money. If you don't like him, just think of it as another commission. It doesn't have to be personal."

    Rosie hesitated. There did seem to be a small grain of sense in this. Perhaps it was just possible to regard the portrait as routine work. Even if painting Matt Locke was as far removed as could be imagined from illustrating kumquats for magazine–food pages.

    Rosie felt her resolve flag. The proposal, in any case, had a secret attraction for her. Having seen Ladymead so many times from the top of the hill, it would be fascinating to see inside the beautiful old place. As a sop to Bella, she mentioned this.

    "Hate to disappoint you," was Bella's unexpected reaction, "but it'll be
beyond
hideous, darling. Believe me, I know what rock-star pads are like; I've done enough of them for
Insider
. Post-ironic ghastly, every last one of them. Swirly carpets, fish-tank walls, gold Trim-style phones, and Parker Knolls covered in beige plastic."

    "Are you sure?" Rosie recalled the romantic golden huddle of buildings on the moor. She'd imagined great halls, not fish-tank walls.

    "Oh, absolutely. Table football, vending machines, and inflatable armchairs everywhere you look. Believe me, they're all the same. Just
horrid
, darling."

    "Oh. That's a shame."

    "But think of the money, darling."

***

The following afternoon, after thinking long and hard about the money—even more so after the car had failed to start-—Rosie walked slowly up the long and twisting drive of Ladymead. Her legs ached. It had taken over an hour to make the journey from the cottage to the mansion, a period in which Rosie's dislike and distrust of her forthcoming commission had had time to harden. She was doing it for the money. This did not mean she had to like him.

    It was difficult, however, not to like his estate. As she glimpsed acres of lush parkland between the fat trunks of the lime trees bordering the drive, Rosie tried not to be impressed.

    Rounding the bend and facing the automatic black gates above and around which it was impossible to see, she struggled against feelings of intimidation. It was like something out of a Bond film.

    "I've come to see, um, Mr. Locke," Rosie informed the juddering lens of a security camera. A click, a creak, and then the great gate swung back.

    A fat tower of honey-colored stone stood before her, glittering with diamond-paned windows. Through the archway framed within a tumble of white roses, Rosie could see a paved courtyard; above, amid the riot of turrets and crenellations, a white flag bearing a rose tree and a lamb fluttered briskly in the breeze. It was, in short, the perfect medieval manor house. And at least ten times more beautiful than Rosie had imagined.

    "It's
gorgeous
," she breathed despite herself. It seemed incredible, not to say tragic, that a place with so gracious an exterior could be filled with ironic junk inside. Yet Bella had assured her it would be—and when, Rosie thought with a tinge of sourness, had she ever been wrong? Particularly recently.

    As a tall man dressed in black shimmied into view, she jumped.

    "My apologies if I alarmed you, madam. I'm Murgatroyd, Mr. Locke's butler," the apparition rumbled at her in dignified tones. "This way, please."

    Rosie sighed as she followed. So Bella was right. A butler, no less. Matt
was
a rock-star cliché after all. "I didn't realize he had a butler," she remarked as Murgatroyd glided across the courtyard, his polished shoes almost silent on the smooth and ancient stones. Rosie stumbled after him, taking in a jumbled impression of mullions, roses, the flash of ancient glass, and acres of weathered stone.

    "Well, to be perfectly honest, madam, I don't think Mr. Locke did either, at first," Murgatroyd said.

    Rosie frowned. What did he mean?

    "What I intended to convey, madam," the butler added, evidently noticing her expression, "was that when Mr. Locke bought Ladymead, he very kindly took on all the existing staff. Very good of him, that was."

    "Are there many staff?" Looking up at the ancient walls enclosing her, Rosie imagined an entire army of retainers hidden away.