The Ashford Affair (15 page)

Must. Not. Lose. It.

“Yes?” The man behind the desk had tired brown eyes and a voice like Hugh Grant in
Four Weddings and a Funeral.

“Evans,” Clemmie said, more brusquely than she had intended. Her eyes were watering from sleep deprivation and suppressed laughter. “Clementine Evans. You should have a reservation for me.”

The clerk must have been used to dealing with Americans. If he thought her rude, he didn’t show it, just consulted a surprisingly modern computer, hidden behind the fronds of a potted palm.

“Room three-oh-two,” he said. “Will you need help with your bag?”

“No, I can manage,” Clemmie said, before remembering that in London “three” meant “four.” She’d be very surprised if Rivesdale House had anything so vulgar as an elevator. Damn. The bag, which wasn’t that heavy when rolled along, could be very heavy indeed when lugged up three flights of stairs.

It would be just like Paul to make sure his juniors were stuck away three flights up, where the servants used to live. It was the sort of petty put-down in which he delighted.

The man behind the desk was already doing something arcane to the computer. “Passport, please?”

She slid it over. “Has Paul Dietrich checked in yet?”

The desk clerk paused over her passport, looking distinctly wary. “Would you like to leave him a message?” he asked.

She didn’t look like an international hit man, did she? But, then, neither had John Cusack in
Grosse Pointe Blank.
Or maybe he thought she was an angry wife, tracking down her husband’s suspected infidelities. Or something like that.

“I don’t need his room number or anything.” Clemmie took her passport back. “I just need to know if he made it in. I’m supposed to meet him here. We work together.”

The clerk visibly relaxed. “Right.” He said apologetically, “I’ve just started, you see. Still learning the ropes.”

“No problem,” said Clemmie, and smiled at him to show there were no hard feelings. “I can’t even begin to imagine.”

“Neither did I,” said the clerk with a wry smile.

Now that she looked at him, really looked at him, he looked nearly as tired as she was, with purple circles under a pair of warm, brown eyes. It wasn’t just the voice that was Hugh Grant–ish; he looked a bit like the actor, too, with the same floppy-hair thing going, although there was something about the eyes that was more reminiscent of the goofy friend from
Four Weddings,
the one with the country estate who wound up marrying the woman dressed like Little Bo Peep.

“How long ago did you start here?” Clemmie asked.

“We’ve been open for just over six months now.” He nodded towards the framed
Country Life
cover. “That helped rather a lot.”

“Mmm,” said Clemmie.

He must be just about her age. Or maybe a little younger. She was constantly forgetting how old she actually was. Her mental age was permanently stuck at twenty-seven, just past law school, before she had descended into a never-never land of depositions and doc review. It was like a reverse Rip van Winkle; time had gone by and she had aged without being aware of it.

The desk clerk tap-tapped on the computer, with the awkward, two-fingered typing of the self-taught. He was rather cute, really. In that slightly inbred English public-school way.

If this were a novel, she would rediscover her Inner Woman by having a fling with the cute desk clerk.

If this were a novel, it would be Tuscany in summer rather than London in December and she wouldn’t have a run in her stocking and yesterday’s mascara under her eyes. Besides, weren’t Brits supposed to make lousy lovers?

God, she was tired. Clemmie suppressed a yawn. The last of her caffeine buzz had worn off, leaving her entirely drained. Their first meeting was supposed to be at noon, which should leave time for a change of clothes and, if she was very lucky, a hot shower. That was if the plumbing had been updated more recently than the décor. The lobby screamed old money. Unfortunately, in Britain, that also often meant old plumbing.

With any luck, maybe Paul had gotten detained and they’d have to push back the meeting. Screw the shower; she would sell her soul for a nap.

The clerk looked up from the computer. “Mr. Dietrich did check in last night.”

Damn. So much for that.

The lock of hair flopped down over his eyes as he frowned at the keyboard. “Wait a minute. I think he left a note.…”

He rummaged among a pile of papers behind the desk, a gold ring on one hand catching the light. A wedding ring? No. A signet.

That was all right, then, thought Clemmie sleepily. Even in purely imaginary flings, she did draw the line at adultery.

“Miss Evans?” The clerk was holding out a note to her expectantly.

“Oh! Thanks.” Clemmie’s hand bumped against his as she snatched at the note. She mumbled, “Sorry, jet lag,” and hastily opened the note.

Paul used only a fountain pen. It didn’t make his chicken-scratch handwriting any more legible, but Clemmie had had lots of practice deciphering it, usually in an effort to decode crucial words in the margins of key documents at three in the morning, long after Paul had gone home to his homestead in Westchester. This note was scrawled on Rivesdale House stationery,
RHH
with a crest over it.

Paul hadn’t wasted time on unnecessary amenities.
Lunch meeting moved to breakfast. Nine at—
The Hill? No,
The Grill.
The Grill Room at the Dorchester.

Oh, lovely.

He did realize her plane hadn’t gotten in until seven, right? Of course not, that would have meant that Paul had actually read the e-mail she’d sent him with her itinerary. It was already eight forty-five now. Clemmie’s knowledge of London geography was hazy, but she was pretty sure the Dorchester wasn’t exactly next door.

And he couldn’t have e-mailed her because? If she’d gotten the e-mail on her BlackBerry, she could have gone straight from the airport to the Dorchester. What sucked the most was that she couldn’t even complain; like the customer, the partner was always right. She’d have to simper and apologize, even though it was Paul’s own damn fault.

Clemmie cursed. “Sorry,” she said to the desk clerk.

“I’ve heard worse,” he said mildly.

There was no time to go up and change, no time for that shower she’d been fantasizing about since Heathrow. “Do you mind if I leave this with you?” She indicated the suitcase. “I’ve got to run.”

“It will be waiting for you in your room.”

“Thanks,” she said, and meant it. “How far is it from here to the Dorchester?”

“When do you need to be there?”

Clemmie grimaced. “Five minutes ago?”

The clerk took in her skirt suit and high-heeled pumps. “You’ll want a cab.”

He came out from behind the desk, walking briskly past her to the doorman, who was dressed in a dark blue, vaguely military-looking uniform, with gold around the collar and cuffs. In contrast, the clerk looked as though he’d just come down from Oxford, in gray flannels and blue blazer. A few quick words, one sharp blast on the doorman’s whistle, and there was a cab waiting for her. In her fatigued state, it all felt rather like magic.

“Thank you,” said Clemmie sincerely. “You’ve just saved my ass. I mean—”

The clerk’s lips quirked in a smile. “All part of the service,” he said, forestalling any other idiotic remarks she might make. “Good luck.”

He closed the door behind her and Clemmie resisted the urge to bang her head against her knees. No wonder she had been single for years before Dan. Hell, she would have done better with
I carried a watermelon
. Not that she’d really been planning to hit on the desk clerk. But it would be nice to able to open her mouth without jamming a three-inch heel down her throat.

“Where to, love?” demanded the cabdriver.

“Dorchester House,” said Clemmie, and wiggled her BlackBerry out of the side pocket of her bag. She still had a fighting chance of making it on time, but best to e-mail Paul, just in case.

She typed in
D
for “Dietrich,” and before she could get to the
e
Dan’s e-mail popped up instead, still auto-programmed into her BlackBerry. [email protected].

That was “cosine” as in the MIT cheer or the trigonometric principle, pronounced “co-sign.” They’d had a joke about it being chic to refer to Cosine as “Co-zeen,” the same way some people said “Tar-zhay” instead of “Target.”

How are things at Co-zeen?
she would ask during their daily late-night call.
Magneefick!
he would say, his version of
magnifique.
Or sometimes, if the day had gone poorly,
Tres mal,
pronounced “tremmle.” Dan had taken French at school, just as she had, but he was functionally tone deaf. His mispronunciations had trod that uncomfortable line between annoying and endearing. Like so much else about Dan.

The familiarity of it all—DanG@cosine—hit her with a sharp pang of nostalgia. She couldn’t count the thousands of times she had done this, the thousands of times she had BlackBerried him from curbs and cabs and conference calls with a “hey, late for dinner tonight,” or, “Chinese food good for you?” or just an “Argghh, still in office.”

On an impulse, Clemmie typed: “Sorry to have missed your calls; work’s been nuts. In Dallas last week, in London now. Any chance you’re free for dinner next week?”

It seemed weird to sign it “love,” the way she used to, so she didn’t sign it at all. She just clicked “send” quickly, before she could overthink or change her mind. The BlackBerry sent her message spinning off into the electronic aether.

It wasn’t that she was reconsidering or anything, she told herself. They were friends. They had said they would stay friends. And if she was a little tired … and a little lonely … well, that was beside the point.

Clemmie settled back against the seat. The cab was round roofed, capacious, with jump seats across from the banquette, the sort of cab they used to have in New York when she was a little girl. There was something pleasantly antiquated about it. Outside the cab window, London zigzagged past, Hyde Park on her left, the dignified buildings of Mayfair on her right, men in dark suits with furled umbrellas, newspaper sellers on the corners. Only the more modern buildings among the older edifices betokened the ravages of the Blitz.

The women in their own dark suits, the SUVs doubled-parked at the curb, the ubiquitous white paper coffee cups were the only telltale signs of modernity. Otherwise it might have been eighty years ago, white houses blending to gray in the incipient gloom of a rainy winter day. Even 5th Avenue didn’t have this sense of history, this sense that if one blinked, one would find oneself in the same place at another time, ponytails replaced by cloche hats, bare heads covered by bowlers.

In the rush-hour traffic, the cab’s motion had slowed to a crawl. It was warm in the cab, the heater working double time, a fine film of condensation frosting the car windows, silvering the scene outside, like an old photographic plate, faded by time to gentle shades of gray. Clemmie could feel her tired eyelids beginning to droop, past blending into present in the mist of the morning.

Her BlackBerry lurched in her hand, jarring her awake. It buzzed angrily. High priority. Whoever had invented the high-priority message deserved to be condemned to a circle of inferno populated by constantly buzzing BlackBerries. The BlackBerry buzzed again. Groaning, Clemmie hauled herself upright and clicked open the message.

Paul’s message was succinct and to the point. “Where the fuck are you?”

Somewhere nearby, a car horn blared. Someone responded with a long stream of profanity.

So much for once upon a time.

Shoving her hair back behind her ears, Clemmie bent her head over her BlackBerry. “In traffic. On way.”

She was so not looking forward to this meeting.

London, 1920

Addie hated these meetings.

She perched awkwardly on the edge of a heavily embroidered Louis XV chair, legs crossed at the ankles, her skirt riding up just enough to make her feel like a schoolgirl again, still in short skirts, being called in for a ticking off.

There was a lavish tea set out, iced cakes and bread spread with real butter, as if rationing were a thing only imagined, once upon a time. A piece of bread and butter sat on Addie’s plate, the edges beginning to curl. The day was warm for September, warmer in the overcrowded room, with its heavy, brocade drapes. Addie could feel a little bead of sweat inching down her back, just below her shoulder blades.

Little chats, Aunt Vera called the weekly torture.
Just to see how you’re getting on.

Ever since Addie had moved under Bea’s roof, Aunt Vera had shown a surprisingly un–Aunt Vera–like solicitude. Addie wasn’t fooled. It wasn’t Addie Aunt Vera wanted to know about; it was Bea. She wanted to know where Bea and Marcus dined and with whom, whom they entertained, how they lived, and, most important, whether Bea showed any signs of increasing.

Not that she asked straight out, of course. It was all done by indirection, by questions that didn’t seem to lead anywhere until they did. There was always something, some nugget of information that seemed entirely innocuous until Aunt Vera leaned forward, piercing Addie with that look, the same look she’d given her years ago when Addie had told her she wanted to be a hedgehog when she grew up.

Addie was always left feeling obscurely guilty, not quite sure what secrets she was meant to be keeping but sure she had failed Bea all the same.

Aunt Vera took a cake from the tray, licking icing from her fingers with the complete unconcern of the socially secure. “When do they go to Haddleston?”

Haddleston was one of Marcus’ family properties. “I don’t know. That is, I don’t think they mean to go,” she amended. “At least, not that I’ve been told.”

Aunt Vera leaned forward in her chair, both her stays and her chair creaking in protest. “Lady ffoulkes said her girls were going.”

If Lady ffoulkes had said it, it was probably true. Bea wasn’t going to like that. She wasn’t particularly fond of Lavinia ffoulkes or her younger sister, Bunny. Bea had grown even less fond of them ever since Marcus had taken to inviting them up to Haddleston for house parties, Saturday to Mondays that sometimes became Friday to Tuesdays, or even to Wednesdays.