The Love Letter (70 page)

‘Yup – just shaving.’

‘We’re all waiting on you. Did you see Allegra at all before you went in there?’

‘Uh-huh,’ he said, not committing either way, holding her tight to his naked chest.

‘Well bloody hurry up.’ Francis moved off, calling out her name.

Byrne wrapped his arms around her and pressed his lips to her ear, speaking in barely a breath, his voice as soft as an Irish breeze. ‘We can both run away together. Tonight. You and me. Julie and Jimmy.’

She laughed breathlessly. ‘Do you mean it?’

‘I don’t want to be Gordon Lapis, Allegra. I want to be Jago Byrne, with you, on the run.’

‘I thought you wanted revenge?’

‘Right now, I want you more.’

She laughed even more, feeling increasingly hysterical, and he covered her mouth again. Then, sliding his hand away, he kissed her until all the oxygen seemed to float away from her brain in little bubbles containing exclamations like ‘wow!’ ‘zonkers!’ and ‘ker-wizz!’

‘What about the festival?’

‘There’s still a week before Gordon’s due to appear. Run away with me tonight, just tonight.’

‘Live for the moment, live with the consequences,’ she said shakily.

‘Your motto.’ He held her tightly.

‘How do we do it?’

‘You have to go back down there, sit through the meal; I can’t risk Conrad seeing me and it’ll ring too many alarm bells with the family if we both disappear. Tell Francis quietly that I’m unwell, that you’ve just found me throwing up in here. I’ll make sure I stagger around looking suitably putrid for half an hour in case he checks, then I’ll get out and wait for you.’

‘Eascombe Cove,’ Legs said urgently. ‘I’ll take the tunnel from the cellars. We’ll meet there.’

He nodded, kissing her again. ‘I’ll be waiting.’ Then, as she reached for her clothes, he pulled something from a duffel bag on the chair by the bath and handed it to her. ‘Wear these.’

‘What the—?’ She unfolded a pair of freshly laundered Calvin Klein boxers.

‘Put them on,’ he insisted, looking up at her through his lashes. ‘It’s windy out there.’ His dark eyes sparkled. ‘And besides, if I can’t get in your pants right now this minute, which I sincerely wish I could, at least you can get in mine.’

He kissed her again, and it was all threatening to get completely out of hand when Fink, losing patience, crammed his wet nose and solid head between the two of them, wagging his long body for attention.

‘Eascombe Cove.’ Byrne planted one last, unforgettable kiss which seemed to breathe her right inside him. ‘I’ll wait all night if I have to.’

But no sooner had Legs pulled on the pants, along with the hated coral dress and turban, creeping out onto the landing, than Francis stepped out from the shadows of a doorway. Tie loosened and cheeks stained with colour, blond hair spilling across his face, he looked as angry as she’d ever seen him.

‘Legs … Jamie.’ He nodded to the figure silhouetted behind her in the bathroom.

‘Jago’s not feeling too well,’ Legs lied badly.

‘And he hasn’t even tried the soup,’ he drawled. ‘The trouble is, neither has anybody else. You really are spectacularly late for dinner, darling.’

‘Legs was very kindly looking after me,’ Byrne was a far better actor than her, wandering out onto the landing looking very ill indeed. ‘I told her not to bother, but she’s got too kind a heart.’

‘Very true. She’s had pneumonia herself; I’ve been looking after her,’ Francis hissed. ‘She can’t risk a set back. Are you OK darling?’ He felt her forehead. ‘Do you need a rest?’

‘I think Jago’s the one who needs to lie down,’ Legs spluttered.

‘Of course – use my room,’ Francis stepped aside and beckoned him through the doorway. ‘Imee’s rather busy, but I’ll get her to bring you up some herb tea when she gets a moment. There’s poetry by the bed there if you want something to read.’

The moment Byrne was through the door, Francis slammed it shut and gripped Legs viciously under the arm, steering her back along the landing. As he did so, the signet ring slipped from her little finger. She fumbled to grab it, but it dropped out of reach, ricocheted off Francis’s bandaged foot and flew back along the corridor.

Craning to watch its progress over her shoulder Legs let out a whimper as it rolled to a halt in front of the recently slammed door. Not noticing, Francis marched her downstairs at high speed.

‘Be careful around that Jamie-go, darling,’ he said stiffly as he limped alongside her. ‘He’s very underhand, and frankly I think he’s unbalanced.’

‘I’m fine,’ she snapped, unable to think about anything but running away with Byrne.

‘We both know there’s a lots of ill-will against this family out there at the moment, and I’m here to look after you. I’m not letting you out of my sight again.’

‘I don’t need looking after!’ she bleated.

They had almost reached the dining room doors, beyond which Poppy’s guests were already laying into the first course.

Drawing her aside, he fished in his pockets. ‘I think you should see something that came through the letterbox today.’

‘Poppy’s already shown me the letter.’ She turned away, knowing Byrne could never have written prose like that. ‘And I know it was addressed to me, although she kept quiet about that. Were they all meant for me?’ She shuddered, longing to get away from Farcombe more than ever. Byrne would protect her; she trusted him with her life.

‘We didn’t want to alarm you, darling. Conrad is certain it’s the same crank who’s been targeting the agency, misguidedly using you to get to Gordon Lapis. But now this has arrived, which rather changes things.’

The piece of paper he thrust into her hand was a supermarket receipt. On one side it itemised six bottles of scrumpy, discounted chicken thighs,
Ptomemy Finch and the Raven’s Curse
and a magazine called
True Life Crime.
On the back of the receipt, in jagged biro was written
ALLEGRA NORTH WILL CHECK OUT TONIGHT.

‘I’m not letting you out of my sight,’ Francis repeated in an undertone, taking her arm and leading her into the dining room with his usual impeccable manners as he saw her to her chair before taking his own place, apologising politely to those around them for being so late.

‘Francis and Allegra have recently rekindled their romance, so we can forgive them a little unpunctuality,’ Poppy announced theatrically, reaching for her glass and peering short-sightedly along the table at her wayward husband.

‘Hear hear!’ Hector thrust his Chablis in the air, inadvertently emptying most of it over Gayle Keiller-Myles. ‘Let’s all raise a toast to rekindling!’

While the Protheroes smouldered lovingly at one another through the candles, silverware, zinnias and the blur of short sight
in Poppy’s case, Legs avoided Francis’s watchful gaze across the table. To her right was Byrne’s empty seat. She could imagine him already in his running shoes, heading out across the parkland to the cliff path. Her own feet, crammed into tight Moroccan pumps, were jumping and tapping beneath the table as they subconsciously ran alongside him.

Somehow, Legs got through the first two courses of dinner, her mind in a haze as she pushed the uneaten clear soup around her bowl and occasionally inserted a finger beneath her pearl choker to ease her breathing. All the time, she was aware of Francis’s gaze on her like a jailer.

For once, Poppy wasn’t holding court and regaling her guests with monologues; instead, their hostess gazed lovingly and shortsightedly the full length of the table to Hector gazing adoringly back. Conversations cross-currented around Legs like eddying waves pushing a little boat further out to sea. Mostly talk was of Gordon Lapis.

‘Quite unbelievable to have him come here.’

‘Literary coup of the century.’

‘It’ll put Farcombe on the map.’

Not caring that Gordon’s publisher and agent were both present, Yolande Hawkes was taking no prisoners in her outspoken criticism of the festival’s star turn. Sporting a feathered yellow turban that looked like a dayglo cycling helmet with a fluffy aerial, she was holding forth from her seat between Francis and his father: ‘The real Gordon Lapis is bound to be a dreadful little weirdo; look at all the undesirables he attracts amongst his devotees. Howard once wrote a pamphlet entitled
The Pseudo-Intellectual Pseudonym
which shows that writers hiding behind pen names usually harbour inadequacies.’

‘Or just have the misfortune to have been christened Phyllis Stein,’ Édith muttered, exchanging a long-suffering look with Kizzy, with whom she appeared to have made forever friends again.

‘I have only had one book published,’ Yolande droned on. ‘A slim volume about the hidden misogyny of the Suprematism Movement, but I was always incredibly proud to see my name on the cover.’

‘Which is a relief given you still have twenty boxes of unsold copies at home in the garage, my darling,’ said Howard, earning himself a black look from his wife which grew blacker when he lent across to Legs and whispered. ‘Not a patch on Jean Poole’s pamphlet.’

‘I’m sure both are very good reads,’ she said vaguely, glancing along the table and noticing that Conrad had laid down his spoon and was fumbling in a strange way beneath the tablecloth. Opposite him, Kizzy’s chair was empty, the soup barely touched. Legs’ first illogical thought was that the redhead must have dropped her napkin as an excuse to dive beneath the table where she was currently either biting her boss’s ankle or performing a nefarious act. But that hardly rang true in the light of the emotional reunion she’d just witnessed. She had a chilly feeling of déjà vu.

As Conrad pushed back his chair slightly, she spotted his BlackBerry on his lap and realised he was reading a message. She knew immediately it wasn’t good news; all the veins were sticking up on his neck and his thumb was scraping the little device’s touchpad as urgently as a bankrupt with a scratch-card as he scrolled down. Moments later, he made a polite apology to his hostess then hurried around the table to summon Piers Fox before both men left the room.

‘You would definitely enjoy
Black Circles and Menstrual Cycles,
Allegra,’ Yolande was enthusing. ‘I’ll look you out a copy. It’s a marvellous read, isn’t it Poppy?’

‘Mmm, yes darling,’ murmured Poppy, who had been smouldering at Hector throughout the conversation, neither giving a hoot that three dinner guests were now missing. ‘Riveting stuff.’

Suitably encouraged, Yolande launched into the reason why the
revolutionary Russian art movement had led her to associate its geometric shapes with female oppression.

Legs stopped listening. All she wanted to do was get to Eascombe Cove to meet Byrne. She felt increasingly sick with excitement and nerves. She barely noticed that Kizzy had reappeared and was staring straight at her, white-faced. She no longer cared what was going on with Conrad and his posse. Grateful that Édith’s card-swapping meant she was sitting six places down from Francis and didn’t have to look him in the eye, she counted down the seconds and mouthfuls until she was safe to leave the table.

Excusing herself straight after dessert, she bolted to a downstairs loo, where she drew deep, galvanising breaths and splashed her face with cold water before creeping back out. She half expected Francis to be waiting there for her, but to her relief he was still trapped in his seat at the table, politely listening to Yolande Hawkes as she told an interminable story about authenticating an unattributed Malevich painting. She knew she’d had no time to spare to make a run for it along the sea passage, but she had to retrieve Byrne’s ring first.

Gathering up her coral skirts, she dashed across the main entrance hall towards the stairs, then slid to a horrified halt.

Kizzy was barring her way. She reminded Legs of a mermaid more than ever as she curled around the huge stone newel post like a siren on a rock, red hair spilling over her shoulders, face trembling. ‘Don’t abandon him, Legs.’

‘Abandon who?’ she bluffed.

‘You are Tristan and Isolde! Liz and Hugh! Sartre and de Beauvoir, Brangelina! Please stay!’

‘Who says I’m going anywhere?’

‘I watched you just now at dinner.’ Her pretty face softened with sympathy, reminding Legs how sweet and sensitive she could be. ‘I know the signs. I ran away myself, remember?’

‘Then you’ll understand why I have to do this,’ Legs shook her
head, trying to pass, but Kizzy threw out a deep sea tentacle arm, barring her way.

‘You mustn’t leave the house tonight.’

‘Why not?’

The green eyes blinked fearfully, brimming with emotion. Her voice dropped to an urgent whisper. ‘My mother’s a brilliant woman, but she’s a total fantasist at times. She can’t tell the difference between fiction and real life. Right now, she’s totally out of control.’

Legs glanced in the direction of the dining room, praying that Yolande’s Malevich anecdote was still going strong. She personally didn’t care whether it was a fantasy or not as long as it kept Francis distracted.

‘She believes her book is a work of total genius,’ Kizzy went on, still barring the way. ‘She lives and breathes it; she thinks it’s
real.’

‘Well it was non-fiction,’ Legs said distractedly, knowing she’d tuned out most of Yolande’s monologue about art. ‘Please let me past, Kizzy.’