Hitched! (16 page)

Step two on my plan.

‘When were you going to tell me?’ George’s voice held an edge I
hadn’t heard before.

‘You always knew I was going to be moving on,’ I told him,
rather proud of my cool. ‘I thought you’d be pleased, actually.’

‘Pleased? How do you work that out?’

‘Come on, George, you know I’m not the right woman for you,’ I
said. ‘You want someone sweet and gentle who’ll make scones and wear a pinny and
be in the kitchen when you get home at night. And in case you hadn’t noticed,
that’s not me.’

He swivelled round in his seat to stare at me. ‘I never said
that.’

‘That was what you meant. You want a country girl, like your
grandmother.’

George gave a crack of laughter. ‘I never said Letitia was
sweet!’

‘You know what I mean,’ I said, cross that he was making me
spell it out. ‘The fact is that we want completely different things. You want
dogs and horses and living in the country, and I want a career. That’s what I’ve
planned.’

‘Oh, yes, the Frith Taylor Plan for Life! How could I have
forgotten?’

‘I haven’t forgotten,’ I said evenly. ‘I learnt a long time ago
not to depend on anyone else for my happiness, George. It’s too risky. Much
better to concentrate on a job. At least with my career I have control. When you
build a structure, you start with an idea, and then make a design, and then you
put it together and make something real. That’s a plan. Emotions don’t work like
that,’ I said. ‘You can’t predict what people are going to do or what they’re
going to feel.’

‘That’s for sure,’ said George sarcastically.

I didn’t really understand why he was being so surly. ‘You knew
I felt like this,’ I said. ‘You knew I didn’t want to get involved.’

‘I knew you were
afraid
of getting
involved.’

‘Maybe that does make me a coward, but it’s better than
throwing up everything for something as unpredictable as a relationship. I don’t
want to let go. I don’t want to end up lonely and bitter and sad like my
mother.’

‘You let go with me,’ said George.

I coloured. ‘In bed.’

‘It’s a place to start.’

‘And I can do it because I know you don’t really want someone
like me,’ I tried to explain. ‘Because you’ve always known I’ll be leaving—or I
thought you knew.’

‘I did know.’ George let out a sigh. ‘I just let myself
forget.’

‘It’s been easy to forget,’ I said, thinking of the past six
weeks. ‘We’ve had a lovely time, but nothing’s changed really, has it? I still
want a career overseas, and you still want to stay at Whellerby and build up the
stables there. There’s no way to compromise there.’

‘You’re right,’ said George. ‘We’re doomed.’

I was glad to hear the smile back in his voice. ‘It doesn’t
mean that we can’t carry on having a good time until I go, though, does it?’

‘No,’ he agreed. ‘Although I’m not sure this weekend is really
going to count as a good time.’

‘Are you nervous?’ I asked, glancing at him. He was putting on
a good show of unconcern but I knew that he had to be dreading the meeting to
come.

‘I can contain my excitement at the prospect,’ said George.
‘But this is for Letitia, and in twenty-four hours it will all be over.’

‘Do you know who else is going to be there?’

‘Just Letitia’s immediate family, that is my father and my
uncle, with wives obviously. And Harry.’

George’s voice changed when he said his brother’s name. He
didn’t talk much about Harry, but I had a feeling he was the one George missed
most.

‘He’s married too, isn’t he?’

‘Yes, Charlotte will be there, and the boys.’ His expression
softened. ‘They’re great kids. Two boys, just like Harry and I were.’

‘What about your cousin? The one who was embezzling the hedge
funds?’

‘Giles. Apparently he’s on some work trip that couldn’t be
cancelled,’ George said dryly.

‘Well, that’s something.’ I had doubted my ability to keep a
civil tongue in my head if I’d had to meet the man who had let George take the
fall for him. ‘What happened to him?’

‘Oh, he would have had fingers rapped, but he hadn’t done the
unforgivable. He hadn’t broken ranks, and he hadn’t involved outsiders. He’s
still there, in fact. I feel fairly sure he’ll be Chairman in a few years.’
George smiled but without much humour. ‘Old Giles knows how to play by the
rules, and for the Challoners, as you know, the rules are everything.’

* * *

Audrey rattled her way down the motorway. She wasn’t the
fastest of cars, and it took us nearly five hours to get to Letitia Challoner’s
Wiltshire manor house.

It was dull driving along motorways, but I didn’t want the
journey to end. I like travelling. It’s the only time I put plans on hold. Once
you get into a car or a plane, there’s nothing more you can do. There are no
decisions to be made, no mistakes to be fretted over. I was committed to the
pretence with George and now we were on our way, all we could do was to go on to
the end and think about things when we got there.

Usually I prefer to travel on my own—and, yes, I get the
symbolism—but I had to admit that the journey went quicker with George by my
side. We squabbled over what music to listen to, whether a bacon sandwich should
be made with brown sauce or ketchup and whether it was all right for drivers to
sit in the middle lane when there are no cars in the slow lane—answer: no,
whatever George says about me being a tense driver. Important stuff like
that.

I was trying to distract George, and I did pretty well until we
turned off the motorway at last, and he grew quieter. He directed me down roads
that got narrower and narrower until we wound our way to a pretty village tucked
away in the fold of the Wiltshire downs.

‘There,’ he said, pointing, and I drove Audrey through a pair
of stone gates to stop in front of an old manor house. Unlike Whellerby Hall,
this house looked as if it had grown out of the ground, and the mellow stone
glowed in the June sunshine.

A Bentley and a gleaming Rolls Royce were parked outside the
house next to a top-of-the-range four-wheel drive, the kind that costs the price
of a small house in some areas. The rest of the family were already here.

The gravel crunched beneath Audrey’s wheels as I drew up beside
their cars. I loved Audrey, but even I could see that she looked ridiculous with
her battered lime-green paint and eyelashes. Another place I was obviously not
going to fit in, I thought, and told myself I didn’t care. Audrey might not be
the most stylish car in the world, but at least she had got us there.

I turned off the engine and the silence fell around us like a
stifling blanket. It was a perfect June day and the sun beat down on the metal
roof. I’d been wearing sunglasses to drive, and I took them off and folded them
carefully and put them in their case.

George drew a deep breath and let it out very slowly.
Impulsively I leant over and put my hand on his thigh,

‘It’ll be fine,’ I said.

George’s hand closed over mine and he squeezed it wordlessly.
‘I’m glad you’re here,’ he confessed.

I opened my mouth to say that I would always be there for him,
but closed it with a snap before the words could come out. I wouldn’t always be
there, would I?

I got out of the car instead. No one had come rushing out to
greet us. Not that I expected that. I’d always had to negotiate a bevy of
assistants before being admitted to see my father. The idea that he would be
waiting anxiously to see me, that he would throw open the door and welcome me in
with a hug, was laughable.

‘Do we knock, or what?’ I said, looking doubtfully at the heavy
front door.

‘They’ll be round the back,’ said George, and he took my hand.
‘We’ll go that way.’

The house seemed to be drowsing in the sunshine. Old roses
nodded around the windows and the air smelt of cut grass. The grounds were
beautifully kept, with a cluster of stone outbuildings to one side and gardens
stretching down to a railed paddock on the other. The trees were the fresh green
of an early English summer, and I could hear wood pigeons burbling on the
roof.

It should have been perfect, but I was too nervous about the
meeting to come to appreciate how lovely it was. Not on my own account. It
didn’t matter to me if none of his family liked me—it wasn’t as if I were ever
going to meet them again—but I minded desperately that it wasn’t too hard for
George.

He was silent as he led me around the corner of the house to an
immaculate lawn. I could see a group of people clustered on a terrace outside
French windows that had been thrown open to the sun, and as we headed across the
grass they stopped talking one by one and turned to watch us. Nobody said a
thing.

I looked at George. At first glance he seemed as relaxed as
ever, but I could see a muscle jumping in his jaw and feel the tension in the
grip of his fingers. I plastered a smile on my own face as if I were
anticipating a warm welcome.

There was a moment of utter stillness, then two boys leapt down
the steps from the terrace and came tumbling across the lawn. ‘Uncle George!
Uncle George!’ Clearly they hadn’t been told about the family rift.

‘Hey!’ George spread his arms and scooped up the first to reach
him, swung him round and turned him upside down to yells of laughter. The next
boy leapt at him and all three of them went down in a pile.

Laughing, I glanced from them to the frozen group on the
terrace. A man so like George that he had to be his brother Harry was staring at
the boys scrambling excitedly over their uncle, his face stricken.

George extricated himself eventually and hauled the two boys to
their feet. ‘Meet my nephews,’ he said, grinning, and I was relieved to see that
the tension had broken. ‘Completely wild, of course. Jack, Jeremy, this is
Frith.’

‘Hello,’ I said.

They returned my greeting politely, but it was obvious that
their attention was on their uncle. I didn’t mind. I was pleased they were so
obviously thrilled to see George. They were sturdy boys of about nine and
eleven, I judged, with open faces and the blue Challoner eyes.

‘We didn’t know you were coming,’ they told George.

His smile twisted a little. ‘I guess they were keeping me as a
great surprise.’

An arm around each of the boys’ shoulders, he headed over to
the bottom of the steps.

Nobody on the terrace had moved. They just stood and watched in
utter silence. As we got closer I saw that they were clustered around an elderly
lady who was sitting in a wicker chair, a stick propped against it. Letitia
Challoner was frail but still formidable. I thought she looked as haughty as the
sons who stood on either side of her, glaring at George, and I wondered why he
was so fond of her.

George stopped at the bottom of the steps and smiled at his
grandmother.

‘Hello, Letitia,’ he said. ‘Happy birthday.’

‘You’re late,’ she said.

‘We left at the crack of dawn, I promise you,’ he said easily.
‘Sadly Frith’s car, while, er, characterful, isn’t the fastest on the road. But
we’re here now.’

‘I’m glad,’ she said, and then she smiled and her whole face
lit up. ‘Come here, boy, and give me a kiss,’ she said, beckoning him forward,
and, without a glance at the rest of his family standing silently by, George let
go of the boys and went up the steps to kiss her cheek.

‘It’s good to see you, Letitia.’

‘It’s been too long,’ she said astringently, but her frail hand
touched his hair in a gesture so full of love that my throat tightened.

‘I know,’ said George. ‘I’m sorry.’

Straightening, he looked at the watching group. ‘Hello,
Mother,’ he said, unsmiling. She had a hand to her throat and was staring at him
in shock. ‘Dad.’

The beefy-faced man on Letitia’s other side was obviously his
uncle. ‘Andrew,’ George acknowledged him. ‘And Penny.’ He smiled at Andrew’s
wife, whose gaze darted anxiously between him and her husband, obviously
dreading the explosion that was to come.

‘You’ve got a damned cheek coming here!’ Andrew burst out. ‘Who
asked you to come?’

‘I did,’ said Letitia clearly. ‘George is my grandson, and I
wanted him here with me.’

Michael Challoner was a good-looking man like his son, but his
eyes were hard. ‘You should have told us he was coming.’

‘And have you make a fuss? I’m tired of this nonsense about
George letting you all down. He’s family and I want you all to treat him that
way this weekend. This is my house, and my party, and you’re all to behave.’

Letitia Challoner might be old, but she still had the whip
hand. Her sons exchanged a glance, but they weren’t prepared to argue with
her.

George’s gaze had moved on to his brother. ‘Hello, Harry,’ he
said quietly.

Harry had the same dark gold hair, the same features, the same
lean build, but he wasn’t the same at all. Next to George, he was somehow muted.
There was no laughter dancing in his eyes, no smile tugging at his mouth. When I
looked at him, my pulse didn’t kick, and my bones didn’t dissolve with
longing.

I thought I saw yearning in Harry’s eyes in place of laughter.
George had told me how close the two brothers had been as boys. Harry must have
remembered that too as he watched his own sons throw themselves at their uncle.
For a moment it seemed as if he would step forward and hug his brother, but he
caught his father’s eye and in the end he just nodded back.

‘George.’

There was an uncomfortable silence.

‘And who’s this?’ Letitia swung her gaze to me waiting
awkwardly at the bottom of the steps. George had inherited his blue eyes from
his grandmother. Hers might be faded with age, but they were still sharp.

‘This is Frith.’ George held out a hand, and I climbed the
steps, burningly aware of everyone’s eyes on me. They were all smartly dressed,
ready for the celebratory lunch, and I felt scruffy in the jeans and white
T-shirt I’d worn for driving.