The Wedding Diary (Choc Lit) (24 page)

‘God alone knows, honeybee. What is it with that bloody dog?’ he muttered. ‘Why is it always hanging round the place like a bad smell?’

He turned away again. ‘Annabelle?’ he called. ‘You coming to this party, then? Or have you changed your mind?’

‘Sorry, darling – shoes.’

As Cat stood there flummoxed, feeling stupid, a bony woman in a near-transparent orange dress and glitter-speckled Perspex platform heels came tottering into view.

She stared at Cat with bloodshot, pink-rimmed eyes. ‘Who’s this?’ she asked and blinked her gunked-up lashes.

‘Nobody,’ said Jack, and ushered Annabelle inside.

The woman should sit down again, thought Cat, before she crumples like a broken marionette. She’s clearly stoned out of her mind.

As Cat stood there by herself in the soft summer darkness, she felt the night air kiss her face and cool it down. Then she felt Caspar rub his head against her hand again and felt a little better.

But what the hell was Fanny playing at?

If she was trying to stage a grand reunion between Cat and Jack, and force them to get married after all, she had no business.

Cat was never going to marry Jack. She’d sooner chop her fingers off than wear his wedding ring. So all this was a total waste of everybody’s time.

Jack was a guest, or that was what it looked like. He was all dressed up, in any case. He couldn’t have been told to come and paint the barn, so was he a member of the inner circle now? What had Fanny said – that Jack was busy, that he had auditions? So was Fanny now his agent, had she started representing him?

Or more than representing?

Cat wouldn’t put it past her, or past him.

But, if Jack and Fanny were a couple, who was that toothpick Annabelle, and where did she fit in? She wasn’t some young bimbo, even though she dressed like one. She was fifty, if she was a day. She had a turkey neck, gaunt, stick-like arms which had no flesh on them and deeply-hollowed shoulders, and in that horrid frock she was a sagging cleavage tragedy.

Maybe Jack was renting himself out, providing personal services to desperate old women?

Or maybe Fanny had branched out into the escort business, and Jack was her first escort, and she was taking twenty, fifty, seventy-five per cent?

Cat thought – I’ll go up to my room. I’ll have a little bit of peace and quiet, chill out for half an hour. I’ll drink a litre of water, several litres, and then I might stop feeling quite so weird.

Maybe it was all those champagne cocktails? Or maybe she’d been right about the coma theory?

Oh, I know, she thought, it’s like that Julia Roberts movie, Erin Brocko-whatsitsname.
There’s something in the water. Someone’s putting mercury or arsenic – or those things Homer Simpson makes, isotopes, or whatnot – in the tank back at my flat.

Someone’s out to get me.

So I’ll need to work out what to do.

But now, she thought, I need to have a little break from party, party, party.

She went upstairs and Caspar followed, keeping close.

‘Where are you now?’ hissed Fanny into her mobile phone.

‘I’m on my way,’ said Adam. ‘I’m driving past Heathrow. I’ll be there in – half an hour, forty minutes, right?’

‘It shouldn’t take you that long,’ Fanny told him. ‘What are you driving, darling – a tractor or a hearse?’

‘I can’t afford to lose my licence, Fanny.’ Adam overtook a Tesco lorry which flashed its lights at him as if to warn him that it would get its own back very soon. ‘What’s the tearing hurry, anyway?’

‘I didn’t tell you when I called you earlier this evening, but I’ve mucked it up, and I need you here to sort it out.’

‘What do you mean, you’ve mucked it up?’

‘I thought it was you arriving, sweetheart. Three hours late, of course, but looking like you’d made some sort of effort. I was most impressed. It was someone else, though, and now the girl’s gone to her room, where she’s no doubt sobbing fit to break her little heart.’

‘I’m sorry she’s upset, but what’s it got to do with me?’

‘You like her, Adam,’ Fanny snapped. ‘You damn well know you do.’

‘You’re making wild assumptions, Fanny.’

‘Why are you coming, then?’

‘You nagged me into it.’

‘I never nag, my angel, I persuade. Why are you driving past Heathrow? Your GPS not working?’

‘I haven’t got a GPS. I’m an old-fashioned guy and I use Ordnance Survey maps. Fan, I’m going now. Otherwise I’m going to get pulled over by the motorway police for talking on a mobile.’

‘You haven’t got a hands-free?’

‘No, I’ve never felt I needed one.’

‘Of course you need a hands-free, sweetheart, everybody does. I couldn’t run my business if I didn’t have one. So I don’t know how on earth you manage to run yours. I hope you’re wearing something smart, my darling?’

‘I’m in jeans and trainers.’

‘Tell me that’s a joke, my love?’

‘You didn’t say there was a dress code.’

‘If I had, would you have taken any bloody notice?’

‘Probably not,’ said Adam.

‘You have to be the most contrary man I’ve ever met.’

‘You’re the most contrary woman.’ Adam saw the flashing lights of a police patrol car in his rear-view mirror. ‘Fanny, do you want me there or not?’

‘I want you here, and I want you to hurry.’

As the police drew level, Adam threw his phone down. They clocked him driving sensibly, and passed.

Fanny was still squawking something, but he couldn’t be bothered to listen to Fanny any more.

He should be on his way to Aberdeen.

But if Cat would see him, talk to him, just for half an hour, for half a minute, he could still get to Aberdeen in time, if he drove through the night.

‘Jesus, what a riot,’ said Tess, who had come upstairs to fix her make-up and who now decided she would have a little break from party, party, party. ‘Shove up, Cat and dog.’

So Cat and Caspar obligingly shoved up, allowing Tess to flop down on the beautiful French bed where Cat and the greyhound were relaxing, chilling to the muffled sounds of party, party, party coming from below.

They stared up at the ceiling, Caspar deep in canine contemplation, Cat and Tess zonked out.

‘Those old timers, mate, they’re just amazing,’ Tess told Cat in tones of shock and awe. ‘How can they drink so much and still stand up? Champagne cocktail after champagne cocktail – that woman in the scarlet feathers must have drunk a dozen. I’d be in a coma.’

‘I would, too,’ said Cat. ‘But they’ve had years of practice. They probably go to parties awash with fizz and brandy all the time.’

‘Yes, they must,’ said Tess, and now she raised herself up on one elbow, scrutinising Cat. ‘Hey, have you been crying?’

‘No.’ Cat turned to look at Tess. ‘See – mascara still intact, lipstick not chewed off, all right? I needed to take five.’

‘Only I saw the scumbag and some hideous bottle blonde downstairs, and she was chewing off his face.’

‘It’s okay,’ said Cat. ‘I saw him too, and honestly it’s no big deal.’

‘But why’s he here?’

‘Fan must have invited him.’ Cat shrugged. ‘Do you know something?’

‘What?’

‘I am so over him!’

‘About time too, my friend.’ Tess held up her hand and Cat high-fived it. ‘We’d better go back down,’ she said. ‘Fanny’s going to wonder where we’ve gone. She told me we’re both doing a fantastic job tonight. Showing off Lulu’s gorgeous frocks, I mean. Actually, Cat, she said we ought—’

‘We ought to watch it, mate,’ said Cat.

‘What do you mean?’

‘She’s up to something, I can tell.’

‘You’re paranoid,’ said Tess.

‘I’m not,’ retorted Cat. ‘I still can’t work out what she’s playing at tonight. But I know she didn’t invite us here and dress us up in Lulu’s frocks out of the kindness of her heart. Or even to promote the frocks themselves, although that’s obviously part of it. We’re here to serve some purpose, and I wish to God I knew what her ladyship is plotting now.’

‘I told you, you’re the human sacrifice in the black mass.’ Tess grinned. ‘It must be nearly midnight, so you can’t have long to wait before you meet your doom.’

Adam parked the Volvo next to a brand new silver Jaguar which he could have sworn shrank back in horror.

He wondered if he had some decent shoes and smartish trousers somewhere in the compost in the boot? Perhaps he ought to have a look?

But then he thought – no, sod it. Fan insisted I should come. So she’ll have to take me as she finds me. Let me in, or tell her staff – she’s bound to have some staff, a housekeeper, a butler, maybe both – to throw me out.

When she had told him Cat was crying, it had stabbed him through the heart, to think she might be crying and he might be the cause of it. Or was he deluded, and was he – not Fanny – making wild assumptions and behaving like an idiot again?

There was only one way to find out. He got out of the Volvo and crunched across the gravel, heading for the barn.

The front door was open and, as he walked in, he met three women in black waitress dresses and white frilly aprons coming out.

He passed a door that opened into an enormous kitchen which was silent except for the soft humming of a dishwasher and freezer.

Then he almost fell into a couple of gorgeous apparitions which had floated down the spiral staircase on his right with a sleek black greyhound following them.

The apparitions stared at him with round, astonished eyes, like princesses encountering a churl – if he meant a churl?

He blinked and tried to focus.

‘Cat?’ he began and, as he realised he was right, he felt his face – no, make that his whole body – turn into one big smile.

‘Adam?’ Cat was frowning – in horror, disbelief?

‘Yes, that’s right, it’s him!’ cried Tess. ‘It’s the other scumbag, so now we have the pair.’

‘What are you doing here?’ asked Cat.

‘Fan invited me.’

‘You know Fanny Gregory?’

‘Yes, of course,’ said Adam. ‘We met at Melbury Court, don’t you remember?’

‘Oh, yes – she took your shirt off.’

‘What?’

‘I’m sorry, Adam.’ Cat began to giggle. ‘You’re looking very scruffy, so are you sure you’re coming to the party? It’s all designer frocks and dinner jackets back through there, and you’ll look very out of place.’

It was obvious to Adam Cat had not been crying. Fanny had been lying or mistaken, for Cat’s eyes were sparkling and her cheeks were glowing rosebud-pink. She looked amazing in that beaded dress. She looked like someone who belonged inside the pages of a fashion magazine.

But – oh, the relief – she didn’t look angry. The last time he had seen her, she had been so angry that she had made him flinch. But this evening she looked curious – just curious, and perplexed.

‘Do you want to talk to him?’ asked Tess.

‘I suppose I could,’ said Cat. ‘After all, he’s driven all this way, unless he flew here on a magic carpet.’

‘I’ll see you later, then.’ Tess turned to go back to the party. ‘Come on, Caspar love,’ she said. ‘We need to go and sort those sound men out. They can’t go on playing bloody Abba all the bloody night, even ironically. Yell if this guy tries anything,’ she added. ‘I’ll come back and black his eyes for you.’

‘Come into the kitchen, Cat?’ said Adam.

‘Oh my goodness, there’s an invitation, how can I resist?’ Cat shook her head at him, but followed all the same. ‘I’m very drunk, you know,’ she added. ‘I don’t know what I’m saying.’

‘I do know what I’m saying.’

‘Go on – say it, then?’

‘I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about Mads.’ Adam took Cat’s hands in his and gazed into her eyes. ‘She and I split up before I met you, and that’s the honest truth. I did ask her to marry me. I thought I was in love. But when I met you, I realised Mads and I were just a fantasy – a dream of love. You were the real thing. Oh, Cat, my darling – I’ve missed you so much!’

‘I’ve missed you, too,’ said Cat. She bit her lip, as if to punish it for letting those few dangerous words slip out. ‘Mind you, like I said, I’m very drunk. You can’t believe a single word I say.’

‘I thought it was
in vino veritas
?’

‘You what?’ frowned Cat.

‘It doesn’t matter.’

‘It sounds like something on a sundial.’

‘It means there’s truth in wine.’

‘So I’m telling you the truth?’ Cat put her arms around his neck. ‘Okay, more truth – I think I’d like to kiss you.’

So Adam closed the door behind them and took her deep into the dark recesses of the softly-humming kitchen. Then he kissed her, and she kissed him back with such enthusiasm that he never wanted her to stop.

He found the zip on Lulu Minto’s beautiful green gown.

She found the buttons on his shirt and started to undo them one by one.

‘Adam, we shouldn’t be doing this,’ she whispered, but she didn’t stop undoing buttons.

‘Why?’ he asked as he kissed her some more, as he kissed her mouth, her face, her neck.

‘I’m sure it’s not respectable, snogging in somebody else’s kitchen.’

‘Maybe not,’ said Adam, but he didn’t stop snogging anyway. ‘Do you happen to have a bedroom, Cat?’

‘I believe I do.’

‘Any chance of finding it, do you think?’

‘Yes, perhaps,’ said Cat. ‘We could start by going up the stairs.’

Adam rolled over on his side and realised with a surge of happiness that he had not been dreaming.

Cat was there beside him, her hair a tumbled, glorious dark blonde mass across her pillow, her long, dark lashes lying like feathers on her creamy cheeks, and she looked good enough to eat. Or at least to kiss awake, and kiss and kiss again.

So that was what he did.

‘Where’s Tess?’ she asked, when she had finished being woken.

‘Tess?’ repeated Adam, looking blank.

‘Tess, my friend, this is her room, where is she?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Jesus.’ Cat jumped up and ran into the little single bedroom which was off the master suite.

But to her relief the room was empty, and the duvet on the bed was still immaculate, so no one could have slept there.

She got back into bed. ‘Adam,’ she said nervously, ‘I seem to have mislaid a very expensive cocktail dress.’

‘Green with lots of beading round the neckline?’

‘That’s the one.’

‘It’s in your wardrobe.’

‘But how did it get into my wardrobe?’

‘I put it there,’ said Adam.

‘How, when I was wearing it?’ Cat frowned.

‘You took it off.’

‘What exactly did we do last night?’

‘You don’t remember?’

‘I remember some of it.’ Cat blushed. ‘You told me about Maddy and we went into to the kitchen and we kissed and then we came up here. But there are gaps.’

‘Let me refresh your memory.’

‘Cat, I want to marry you,’ said Adam, when Cat’s memory had been sorted out.

‘Oh, don’t let’s start that again,’ said Cat. ‘It only leads to trouble and confusion, doesn’t it?’

‘It doesn’t have to lead to trouble. I ask you to marry me – you say yes – it’s sorted. Cat, don’t spoil my plans, especially when I’ve got ulterior motives.’

‘What ulterior motives?’

‘I’m hoping to inherit all your worldly goods.’

‘They amount to twenty pairs of shoes, a few designer fakes, a beaten-up old Honda that’s not fit for the road, one sofa I don’t even own – and my enormous debts.’

‘What debts?’ Adam kissed her cheek and wound a lock of hair around one finger. ‘You mean you have a serious shopping habit? You have credit cards and stuff?’

Cat shook her head and sighed. ‘I wish it was that simple.’

‘We’ll sort it out,’ said Adam. ‘It will be all right.’

‘You sound very sure.’

‘It’s going to be fine, you’ll see. But now, shall we get up? We’re Fanny’s guests, remember? So we ought to go and have some breakfast and say thank you for a lovely party.’

‘You didn’t go to a party, Adam.’

‘Yes I did.’

‘But you didn’t have a single drink. You didn’t meet any of the other guests. You didn’t dance.’

‘I had a party of my own in Fanny’s kitchen, then up here.’

‘Fanny,’ Cat said wryly. ‘She does love manipulating people and playing games with them. I still don’t know what game she’s playing with me.’

‘We’ll sort Fanny out,’ said Adam as his phone began to jingle-jangle.

‘Perhaps you ought to answer that,’ said Cat.

So Adam did, thinking it’s unlikely to be Fanny, anyway.

The screen said Malcolm Portland.

‘God,’ said Adam, grimacing.

‘God what?’ asked Cat.

‘I should have been in Aberdeen a couple of hours ago.’ Adam pressed the button. ‘Hello, Mr Portland,’ he began. ‘Yes, I know,’ he said. ‘Yes, I’m very sorry, but I was held up. Yes, it was an emergency. So I can’t be up there until Monday morning now.’

Then Malcolm Portland did a lot of shouting and used a very Anglo-Saxon swear word several times, rather creatively.

Adam let Mr Portland finish ranting. ‘I don’t work for people who speak to me like that,’ he said, and then he disconnected.

‘Who on earth?’ asked Cat.

‘The man who bought the Scottish castle.’

‘The one who wanted you to do it up, and who was going to pay you so much money that you would be able to rent a yard and start employing other people?’

‘Yes.’

‘Oh, Adam, I’ve spoiled everything!’

‘There’ll be other castles.’ Adam tossed his phone on to a chair. ‘I didn’t want his business, anyway.’

‘You did.’

‘I didn’t, Cat. I was almost ready to tell him I was getting out. All he did was make me do it now.’

Twenty minutes later Cat and Adam went downstairs.

It was a lovely morning and the kitchen doors were open wide onto the terrace.

‘A vast improvement, darling,’ whispered Fanny, materialising from behind a variegated fig tree.

‘Fanny, don’t creep up on me!’ cried Cat. ‘You’ll end up giving me a heart attack.’

‘I’m sorry, sweetie pie.’ Fanny lit a cigarette and blew a perfect smoke ring. ‘It’s good to see your tastes have changed, and for the better, too. As I think Tess and Rosie would agree.’

She glanced through the glass doors into the kitchen where Adam, Tess and Rosie were at breakfast. They were now the best of friends, or so it seemed to Cat. Adam was not a scumbag anyway, for he was being smiled at, flirted with and asked to pass the marmalade with much eyelash fluttering and accidental cleavage revelation.

Caspar had his head on Adam’s lap and was gazing up at him with adoration in his amber eyes, probably because he fancied some of Adam’s toast and marmalade, decided Cat.

She hadn’t felt like eating. Out here in the garden, she could breathe in the fresh air and try to get her champagne cocktail headache under some sort of control.

‘What do you mean, a vast improvement?’ she demanded, as Fanny went on puffing like a steam engine and blowing out more smoke rings into the summer sky.

‘What do you think I mean?’

‘I couldn’t begin to guess,’ said Cat. ‘You shouldn’t smoke,’ she added. ‘It’s very bad for you.’

‘It’s my little sin,’ said Fanny, sighing. Then she grinned suggestively. ‘If I had to choose between them, it would be no contest. I can’t say I took to Jack at all. But this one – he’s delicious. I can’t imagine any woman saying no to him.’

‘Fanny, what exactly are you playing at?’

‘I don’t play at anything, my angel. I do everything for real. I’m sure you must have noticed?’ Fanny tapped Cat’s forearm with one crimson-taloned finger. ‘Darling, about Lulu’s lovely frock—’

‘The frock is fine, don’t worry. It’s hanging in the wardrobe in my room.’

‘I was going to say, before I was so rudely interrupted – really, you young people, you have such appalling manners, your mothers can’t have taken any care of you at all – you looked very nice in it last night. So nice, in fact, that darling Lulu got eleven orders for that particular model, and she’s so delighted she says you may keep the one you wore as your commission on the sales.’

‘But Lulu’s frocks are worth—’

‘A cool two or three thousand, maybe more. You mustn’t wear it when you go to get your groceries. You’ll snag it on a trolley.’ Fanny smiled her vixen’s smile. ‘You didn’t do much magnolia-slapping, did you?’

‘I haven’t forgotten, Fanny,’ Cat said sharply. ‘I’ll come back next weekend.’

‘Excellent,’ said Fanny. ‘You could bring Adam, too. Oh look, here he comes. But what’s the matter, darling? You were flirting very happily with the pretty ladies around the kitchen table just a minute or two ago. But now you look quite grim.’

‘I lost him a job,’ said Cat.

‘What happened?’ Fanny asked him, widening her eyes.

‘I had a disagreement with a client who seemed to think he owned me.’

‘Oh dear, we can’t have that,’ said Fanny, smirking. ‘Goodness gracious me, fancy anybody having the enormous cheek to think they might own Mr Adam Lawley! So he’s not your client any more?’

‘No, he’s not,’ said Adam.

‘Where was this client based?’ asked Fanny.

‘Scotland,’ Cat replied.

‘You mean the man in Aberdeen?’

‘Yes,’ said Cat and wondered if Fanny Gregory knew everything.

‘Oh, don’t go and work in Scotland, darling.’ Fanny shuddered. ‘It’s a ghastly place. I went there once, when I was married to a millionaire. It was full of midges, drunks and stags.’

Adam and Tess and Cat went back to London, leaving Fanny on the phone, Caspar trying to extract a rabbit from its burrow by the boundary fence, and Rosie in the kitchen, supervising several cheerful ladies who’d turned up with vacuum cleaners, buckets, mops and dusters in a yellow minibus.

Tess drove back in the Peugeot, taking all the leftovers and the better-looking of the sound men, with whom Cat guessed Tess must have spent the night. He’d been in the garden smoking even more than Fanny, and looking worse for wear.

The other was left to follow in their van.

Cat had been so embarrassed when Tess had begged the tiny cakes and canapés and dinky little scones, even though this meant that Tess and Cat and Barry would have luxury coffee breaks the whole of the next week.

‘But why shouldn’t I have asked?’ said Tess. ‘She’s never going to eat all this herself. She’ll only chuck it in the bin. Anyway, my honey pie, as Fanny said herself – ask, and it shall be given.’

Cat could see that Tess had been bewitched. On Monday, it would be all Fanny this and Fanny that and when could they go back to Surrey? When could they start painting? They must get Bex to come along, as well.

Cat hoped Tess would not start all this angeling and darlinging and sweeting business, too.

Cat and Adam followed in the Volvo.

‘I’m sorry about Scotland,’ Cat told Adam.

‘Oh, don’t worry, Cat. It’s like I told you – I didn’t want that job in any case.’

‘You did,’ said Cat. ‘You were going to earn a lot of money and invest it in your business.’

‘There’ll be other jobs. Tell me about this loan shark,’ prompted Adam, as they turned out of the drive.

‘What loan shark?’

‘I mean whoever’s chasing you for money.’

‘Oh, it’s not a loan shark.’

‘It’s a money-lender, then?’

‘I don’t want to talk about it now,’ said Cat.

Then she walked the fingers of one hand down Adam’s shoulder, down his arm, on to his lap and down his leg. ‘Sorry,’ she added, well aware that she was sounding anything but sorry. ‘I know I shouldn’t distract you when you’re driving.’

‘No, you shouldn’t,’ Adam said as he pulled off the road. ‘What am I going to do with you?’ he asked, then answered his own question at some length and very thoroughly.

‘What’s in that letter on the dashboard, Adam?’ Cat asked half an hour later, pointing to a thick, cream envelope which had a shield or crest upon its flap.

‘A cheque, drawn on some bank I’ve never come across before. At first, I thought it was a joke. But when I googled Mason Armstrong, I found it did exist. It’s a private bank, apparently.’

‘I didn’t know there were such things.’

‘You have to be quite rich to be a customer, or whatever they call you in these places – a client, an investor?’

‘So who’s the millionaire?’

‘You remember that old guy whose tyre I changed when we were on our way to Wolverhampton?’

‘Oh, him – yes, I do.’ Cat felt her colour rise. It had been the day the git came back and she’d run out on Adam. What a fool. ‘Did he send you what he owed you, then?’

‘Yes, and a bit more.’ Adam passed Cat the letter which accompanied the cheque.

My dear Mr Lawley

Do please forgive me for taking such a dreadfully long time to write to you. I have been unwell and have only recently recovered.

I am very embarrassed to have kept you waiting for repayment. But I now enclose a cheque to cover both the cost of taking Boudicca back to my house and to make some little recompense for the inconvenience caused to your good self and to the extremely kind young lady who was travelling with you.

I see from your card you are a freelance project manager, specialising in restoring English country houses. If you might like to do some work on mine, I would be very happy to discuss it.

But I understand you will be busy so I shall not importune you further. I shall wait for you to get in touch with me, which in due course I hope you will.

My most sincere regards and grateful thanks

Daniel Askew Moreley

Cat gave the letter back. ‘He’s sent you – what is it – another two, three hundred pounds?’

‘Yes, give or take a couple of quid.’

‘But Adam, he was poor!’ cried Cat. ‘He wore those awful clothes and drove that horrible old wreck.’

‘It was a rather beautiful old wreck, as I recall. It must have been quite something when he had it first.’

‘Well, he couldn’t afford to be in the AA or RAC.’

‘How do you know that?’

‘I suppose I don’t exactly know. I just assumed. Why are you grinning, Adam?’

‘Mr Moreley’s actually the fourteenth Baron Moreley. I looked him up on Google. I looked his house up, too.’ Adam got out his phone, tapped a few keys, brought up an image. ‘Just take a look at this.’

‘My goodness, Adam, that’s fantastic! It’s Tudor, isn’t it?’

‘Possibly late Tudor, more likely Jacobean.’

‘It’s just your sort of thing,’ said Cat.

‘It might be, yes.’

‘What do you mean, it might be?’

‘It will depend what he wants doing.’

‘But you’ll go and see him?’