Lots of Love (11 page)

Now that she was outside, Ellen no longer wanted to return to the auction. She wanted to sit outside the pub, letting the cool of the evening carry away the stale tiredness of her long day as she sank a long, ice-cold beer and wound down ready to collapse into bed. If Pheely wasn’t being so sulky, she’d have grabbed her hand and suggested they make their escape over the lawns. But she really needed to find a loo first. She stifled a yawn, noticing that the roses’ subtle scent was being overpowered by Pheely’s cigarette and another, more acrid smoke.

‘Ophelia.’ There was a step behind them.

‘Do I smell sulphur?’ Pheely hissed, spinning around.

Ely Gates was standing behind a wall of cigar smoke, clutching a very fat Havana in one hand. Close to he was even more overpowering and enigmatic – tall, craggy and sombre with that ageing-hero face and intense navy blue eyes. He nodded at Ellen without interest. ‘May I have a word in private, Ophelia?’

‘If you must.’ Pheely shrugged, eyes downcast.

Ellen waited for a moment, hoping for an introduction to enigmatic Ely, but none was forthcoming. ‘I’ll leave you to it, then,’ she offered, and slipped back into the house by an open door at the far end of the terrace to avoid the mob in the orangery.

She found herself in a huge, shadowy dining room, panelled from floor to ceiling with gleaming oak covered in sporting prints and paintings – most of them macabre depictions of various blood sports. The chairs were all missing from around the vast mahogany table, which was littered with Saturday supplements and paperwork. Ellen glanced around for the most obvious way back into the main house.

An open door directly opposite her led to what appeared to be an old-fashioned billiard room. She could just make out the corner of the table and could hear the tap-click-rattle of cue tip sending white ball on its way to strike a coloured ball into a netted pocket alongside its companions. She was about to pop her head in to ask for directions when a door opened out of sight and Lady Belling’s distinctive baritone bark let out a short, exasperated cry of relief. ‘There you are! I need you in the Blue Drawing Room in five minutes.’

‘Why?’ The voice that replied was male, but too smooth and classless to be Sir St John’s colonial croak.

‘You
know
why.’

‘Is she here?’

‘No.’

‘But
he
is, isn’t he?’

‘Of course he is. And you must be civil. Five minutes.’

With the cryptic exchange clearly at an end, the door slammed shut again.

The next tap-click of cue against ball was an angry one, followed by a thud in place of a rattle, as the ball flew right off the table and rolled across the floorboards. A moment later it rumbled through the open door into the dining room.

Ellen watched it roll up to her feet, kissing the pink of her nail varnish as it came to a halt. Looking up, she saw a shadow move across the billiard room, but nobody appeared in the door. There was another angry tap-click followed by the sound of balls ricocheting all over the table. Perhaps now wasn’t the time to make casual enquiries about the manor’s lavatories.

There were two more doors in the panelling to her right. Giving the snooker ball a jaunty kick back into the billiard room, she headed towards them. But when she pulled open the first, she found herself staring at a huge cupboard of silverware.

‘She’s sold the best stuff,’ a smooth voice told her, ‘but you might find a couple of decent Asprey pieces left, if you look hard enough.’

Ellen glanced over her shoulder to see a figure silhouetted in the doorway, a red ball held up in one hand. With the only source of light behind him, it was impossible to make out his age or features, but Ellen was pretty certain it had to be Spurs Belling.

‘Sorry.’ She closed the door and turned to face him. ‘I was looking for something more in the – er – porcelain line.’

He tossed the ball up and caught it. ‘Minton or Copeland?’

‘Armitage Shanks?’

He laughed, white teeth flashing in the shadow, and nodded towards the other panelling door. ‘Through there, then immediately left – go to the end of the corridor, through the double doors to the main hall and it’s under the arch to your right.’

Grateful that she didn’t have to live in a house this huge or complicated, Ellen thanked him and slipped out through the second door. It led to an inner lobby from which there were a multitude of doors and corridors. Taking the first door on the left as she thought she had been instructed, Ellen found herself walking straight into the billiard room. At the same moment Spurs Belling walked back through the dining-room door at the opposite end, so that they appeared like two ballet dancers entering stage right and left.

He looked across in surprise and – now that it was lit by the huge chandelier that hung from the centre of the high ceiling – Ellen saw his face. The moment she did so, she felt a great hammer swing through her chest, splitting her heart wide open.

Ellen had experienced many adrenaline rushes – almost all of them associated with dangerous sports. She had jumped from aeroplanes with nothing but a few metres of silk to save her; she’d thrown herself from bridges and cranes with glorified elastic bands tied to her ankles; she’d skied mountains on a plank of waxed carbon, and she’d emerged from twenty-foot wave tubes balanced on a wooden board moving at twenty miles an hour. She knew the taste of adrenaline as well as the taste of cola, and loved the high it brought.

But the first time she saw Spurs Belling’s face, she couldn’t handle the adrenaline at all. This was all fear with no silk or elastic bands to save her. It turned her into a terrified, frozen plank of wood.

His eyes were dazzling – sterling-silver attraction traps set in a spellbinding face. Without warning, Roberta Flack started crooning in her ears, her deep voice mellifluous with sweet meaning: ‘The First Time Ever I Saw . . .’

‘Shit!’ She wrenched her eyes away and started to back out of the room.

‘It’s okay,’ he called. ‘I’m heading in your direction – I’ll drop you off
en route.
This way’s quicker anyway.’

Not waiting for her – and apparently unaware of the effect he’d just had – he crossed the huge room, beckoning her to follow as he loped past lonely cracked-leather sofas whose companions had clearly been gathered for the auction, then on past a grand piano with no stool. The single room was as big as Goose Cottage, its battered snooker table so dwarfed by the grand dimensions that it seemed no bigger than a butler’s tray. Following behind, Ellen was torn between staring around at a tatty upper-class adult playroom and gazing at Jasper’s retreating back, grateful that his face was out of sight once more, although his bottom came a close second in the magnetism stakes.

With his scruffy jeans, ancient T-shirt, trainers and unkempt black curls, he looked more like a builder’s labourer than a toff’s son. He was certainly built like one, with broad shoulders, sinewy sunburnt arms and narrow hips. And he smelt noticeably of horse.

‘Here.’ He opened a door that led to a high, grand hallway through which the great and the good were milling back towards the Victorian wing, wine in hand. A few turned to look as the door opened, and almost dropped their glasses when they saw Spurs. ‘Straight opposite.’

‘Thanks.’ Ellen couldn’t look at him. She dashed through the door and sought sanctuary in the loo, pressing her hot face to the cool wall beside her as soon as she sat down. Nice one, Ellen, she told herself wretchedly. Kick an aristocrat the snooker balls, get caught ogling the family silver, then ask the way to the loo. You are
so
cool.

His eyes still burned into hers, even though she closed them tight and felt the grit of the tile grout scrape her brows.

She might have guessed that the Bellings’ prodigal son would possess the best genes this side of a Levi Strauss factory, and that no amount of tearaway, drug-dealing misspent youth would have muted his natural, almost feral beauty. That was just typical of the upper classes, who always got the best deals from nature and nurture. Naturally, Spurs Belling had his mother’s amazing silver eyes, freckled skin and wild hair, his father’s rugby-player build and beautiful curved mouth. It went without saying that he would be a sublimely good-looking man – probably as beautiful as any man Ellen had ever encountered in a lifetime travelling with some of the best specimens in the world. And he had that easy, arrogant confidence to match. But that was not what had made her feel so giddy that she’d almost passed out.

Spurs Belling had the X-factor. In all her years of travelling with dangerous sports fanatics, especially surfers, Ellen had only met half a dozen who truly had it. And Richard, who had so wanted it, had never really possessed one cell of X.

Spurs Belling was pure, unadulterated X. It made him very, very dangerous. And, as far as Ellen was concerned, it made him someone to be avoided at all costs. She was going straight home.

She waited until the sounds of the great and the good filing past the cloakroom had faded into the distant burble of the great and the good trapped in the Blue Drawing Room. Then she crept out into the hall and headed for the front doors.

‘Wrong way,’ a voice called behind her.

Closing her eyes, Ellen ground to a reluctant halt.

‘You really do have an appalling sense of direction.’

She turned around and smiled apologetically at two long, muscular legs, refusing to let her eyes travel any higher. ‘Actually, I was going to leave. My dog’s already been alone several hours and—’

‘Mother will be livid.’ He sounded amused.

‘I’m afraid I don’t know your mother, but please apologise for me. I’m Ellen, in case she asks.’

‘You can do it yourself. Mother!
Ellen
wants to apologise.’

‘Whatever for?’ came an impatient bark, as footsteps rattled down a wooden staircase. A moment later two sturdy female legs had joined the denim ones.

Ellen winced and looked up, forcing a big smile. ‘Lady Belling, we haven’t met but—’

‘You’re the Jamieson gal.’ She fixed Ellen with the two silver bullets, clearly impatient to get back to her sitting ducks.

‘Yes. I was just telling your son I have to get home, so I’ll miss the rest of the auction I’m afraid, but—’

‘Nonsense!’ she bellowed, the silver bullets transforming into harpoons. ‘You must come back in. Little Ophelia’s been looking for you everywhere. Rude to let her down, eh?’

‘I’m sure she’ll under—’

‘Come on – trot on. You too, Jasper. You can’t lurk around out here like a butler.’ Five feet nothing of brawn and will-power, Hell’s Bells ushered them both through the double doors as though shooing reluctant Aberdeen Angus up a cattle ramp. As they were propelled through, Spurs muttered in Ellen’s ear, ‘I’ll bid on yours if you bid on mine.’

Ellen stared at the room in disbelief. Almost all the assorted bric-à-brac furniture was now empty. Only the faithful few – Ely and his wife, Hunter Gardner and a few of the old-biddy bidders – remained. The Gin Palace residents had gone, as had the Lubowskis, along with suave Giles and his flame-haired ex-wife.

Sitting on an ornate dining chair in a middle row, as close to the door as possible, Pheely shot Ellen a look of panic-stricken empathy, rolling her eyes. While Jasper slumped angrily into a huge carpet sofa near the front, Ellen nipped in behind Pheely.

‘Where have you been?’ her friend murmured.

‘I got lost on the way to the loo. What about you?’

‘Frogmarched back by Ely bloody Gates. Who was that you came in with?’

‘Jasper Belling, I think. Isn’t it?’

Pheely craned her neck, but he was submerged in the sofa several rows ahead. Only one scruffy trainer was visible. The huge green eyes turned to look at Ellen. ‘That can’t be Jasper. He used to be
so
beautiful. Like an angel, my father always said. Besides, he’s blond.’

Dignified in the face of such desertion, Hell’s Bells clambered on to her library steps and took up where she had left off as though nothing had changed.

‘Lot thirty-one.’ She tugged at the half-moons on their chain. ‘A weekend at Eastlode Park, full board, all facilities at your disposal. Do I hear a thousand pounds? . . . Five hundred, then? . . . Two? It’s in a
very
good cause.’

Ellen could hardly bear to watch as lot after lot was hammered home at knock-down prices, almost all of them to Ely Gates. Gone was the machismo competition among the village men. Most lots flew past with just a single bid, however paltry, securing the promise.

The occupant of the sofa – who might or might not be Spurs – didn’t bid on a single item. Neither did Pheely nor Ellen: they were covertly scraping their chairs closer together to discuss escape tactics.

‘Do you have a mobile phone with you?’ Pheely breathed.

‘Yes, but it’s switched off.’

‘Turn it on and call this number.’ Pheely recited her own mobile number. ‘I’ll pretend it’s Dilly having a crisis and that you must give me a lift. Then we can piss off to the pub.’

‘I have to bid on something before we go. I feel so mean otherwise.’

‘Bollocks you do. Just call the number.’

‘Lot fifty-three,’ Hell’s Bells read from her list. ‘A course of riding lessons donated by Rory Midwinter. Who’ll start me at one hundred?’

‘I’ll bid on this.’ Ellen made to raise her hand. ‘I need to learn to ride so I can trek in Mongolia.’

‘Don’t.’ Pheely grabbed her hand before she could raise it. ‘Rory’s Hell’s Bells’ nephew. He taught Dilly to ride and she’s always falling off. He’s hopeless.’

Since the lot immediately attracted several bids from the biddies trying to get cheap lessons for beloved, pony-mad grandchildren, Ellen acquiesced and reached for her phone.

‘Seventy pounds to Mrs Turnball . . . Going, going, gone!’ The plant stand took another hammering. ‘Right, that means we’ve reached lot fifty-four.’ Hell’s Bells cleared her throat and shot the carpet sofa a hard look. ‘Three wishes to be granted to the winning bidder, kindly donated by Jasper Belling.’