A Hopeless Romantic (52 page)

“Well,” Freddie began.

Opposite her, Sean jerked suddenly again, and said urgently, “Lav—oi, don’t
do
that, okay?”

Lavinia looked at him innocently. “What do you mean?” she said primly. Her eyes danced. Laura looked at her. She really was beautiful, not at all like her sister. She looked very like the photo of her mother that had been in that newspaper article about them all. Very 1960s, ethereal and pale, with lots of eyeliner and piled-up auburn hair—and the unconvincingly ethnic outfit, which annoyed Laura. She wanted to take it off her and pop her into a nice, simple Audrey Hepburn–style gown. Then she realized she was sounding awfully like her mother, and smiled.

As Freddie described cuts and prime hunks of pork and seasonings, Laura turned to smile at Charles, to find him staring helplessly at Lavinia. Like a card file in her brain, various nuggets of information started racing through her head, collating themselves. She didn’t need the confirmation—the look on poor Charles’s face said it all.

Lavinia looked across the table at Charles, a mischievous expression on her face. “Freddie!” Freddie ground to a halt. “Charles, darling. Sean says I’m being naughty. I’m not, am I?”

“Yes, you are, Lavinia,” said Charles, and he sounded rather stern. “Stop it. It’s not right. Leave him alone.”

“Thanks, mate,” said Sean, looking wildly around him, then back to Lavinia, who looked solemn for a second and then slid her hand into his lap again.

“Lavinia!” Charles said sharply. “I won’t tell you again. You will not behave like this. Not tonight. Okay?”

He grasped her wrist, clutched it for a second, then released it. Lavinia looked up at him, rather surprised.

“Charles!” she said. Charles met her gaze impassively. “Oh, right,” Lavinia said, and she leaned back in her chair, accepting defeat. She yawned. “I’m so bored, so bored….”

Laura found herself wanting to reach across the table and slap her face repeatedly, and also to tell her to wake up and smell the coffee in the shape of lovely, kind Charles, so obviously head over heels in love with her. She didn’t think Lavinia deserved for anyone to point things out to her, though. She was too self-centered. Yes, thought Laura. She gave her a brief glare, and said brightly to Charles, “It all seems to be going really well, doesn’t it?”

Charles was gazing again. She kicked him. “Charles!”

He turned to her and widened his eyes, as if trying to bring himself back to reality.

“My God,” said Laura. “You really have got it bad, haven’t you?”

“I don’t know what you mean,” said Charles, clearing his throat and delicately arranging the cutlery. The noise in the ballroom seemed to grow a little louder.

“Lavinia,” Laura whispered. “You’re in love with her!”

“I am not,” said Charles indignantly.

“Yes, you are,” said Laura firmly. She smiled, and clapped her hands softly under the table. “Oh, this is wonderful! It’s like something out of a Victorian novel.”

Charles looked down and cleared his throat again. He said stiffly, “Do be quiet.”

“No,” said Laura. “I’m your date for the evening, remember? So you have to put up with me. And my ghastly relations. No, Charles, I know exactly what it’s about. You’re in love with Lavinia.”

“I’m not enjoying this,” said Charles, looking briefly across at Lavinia, who was nibbling Sean’s ear. His face was puce.

“Sorry,” said Laura, feeling momentarily contrite. “Golly, you must really regret having asked me tonight.”

“Pretty much, yes,” said Charles frankly. “Now, be quiet.”

Laura stole a glance at him. “I think you should do something about it,” she said after a pause. “I’m telling you, she needs someone like you. To bring her into line. And you need to look after someone.”

“I assure you—” Charles said, trying to keep his voice low.

“Shh,” said Laura, paying no attention. “You love Lavinia. You have a complex about being in love with your best friend’s sister.”

The tips of Charles’s ears grew pink and he sank farther down in his chair.

“You also have an even bigger complex about not being good enough for her, because you’re only a simple maiden from the village. And all that.”

“I’m not a maiden, Laura, that’s not—well, I suppose—”

“And just when, after years of building up to it, you’ve finally plucked up the courage to ask her out, probably, she starts screwing some teenager who can’t say ‘please’ and ‘hello’ without getting confused. Oh, Charles.”

“Look who’s talking,” said Charles, sitting up crossly.

“What?”

“You’re a fine one to start lecturing me about having a complex about being the simple maiden from the village,” said Charles. “Do you not
listen
to yourself?”

Laura had been so caught up in the romance of Charles’s situation that she wasn’t really paying attention. “Oh,” she said.

“Exactly,” said Charles. “It’s not that simple.” He looked across at Lavinia and Sean, who were whispering to each other, and blinked, very slowly. “Now,” he said, opening his eyes, “tell me. The Chartley satellite dish is on the blink. Have you seen the new series of
Curb Your Enthusiasm
?”

The band had started setting up at one end of the room; people were clearing the tables; guests were starting to move around. The lights were low. Between the din of the room and the softness of Charles’s voice, Laura had to lean toward him to hear what he was saying. She patted him on the shoulder consolingly, and looked up to find the Marquis of Ranelagh crouched down, having a conversation with Lavinia opposite. His eyes flicked over to Laura and Charles, who sprang apart.

“Hello,” said Nick, standing up. “I was just making sure everything’s okay at this end. How are you all?”

He addressed the question to the table at large, and nodded easily as some people raised their glasses to him, others carried on eating, still others called out thanks or rude jokes.

“Great bangers, Freddie,” Nick said, nodding at Freddie. His hands were in his pockets; he took one out and shook Freddie’s. “Thanks a lot. Remind me to come down tomorrow and we’ll settle.”

“Of course, my lord,” said Freddie. Laura was watching Nick; she saw a tiny muscle flex in his cheek involuntarily, and she realized how much he hated the title. She smiled at him, in what she hoped was an amicable, grateful way.

“Having a good time?” Nick asked her.

“Yes, thank you,” said Laura. She was, she realized, much better than she’d expected. “It’s wonderful. Charles is—”

But she got no further. He nodded, just like his elder sister, and turned to talk to Charles, leaving her addressing thin air.

Laura sat there for a moment, as Charles shifted around in his seat and asked some technical question about the remote control on the gates so that people could leave through the main entrance, no matter how late. Nick replied shortly. Tears she could not control filled Laura’s eyes; she murmured to Freddie, “Excuse me,” and, pushing her chair back, stumbled toward the hall. People were standing, sitting, talking, laughing; no one noticed her as she crept out of the huge room and clattered across the great hall, suddenly silent and dark, long moonlit shadows falling across the gray stone floor.

From behind the staircase, deep within the bowels of the house, Laura could hear the clatter of feet, growing louder. She looked around wildly—she didn’t want anyone to see her. There was another door leading off from the hall, and she ran through it, and found herself in a gloomy, long room.

chapter forty-eight

A
s her eyes grew accustomed to the darkness, Laura jumped. She looked around her and realized she was in the picture gallery. Sculptures were scattered the length of the room, cupids, Graces, sleeping fauns, dying centurions, all in bone-colored marble. The floodlights outside gave the unlit room and the figures within a ghostly, ethereal quality.

Lining the walls were portraits, all in the same ebony frames, rows of Needhams and Danverses, rows of marquises, all watching her, their eyes following her around the room. Laura shivered and hugged herself, stroking the silk of her shoulder straps. It was eerie—she felt as if she had stumbled into another world. She stared around her in wonder. So, this is what I missed when I left the tour early, she thought, and gave a tiny laugh in the silence of the room. There was a dimmer switch on the wall; how incongruous, she thought. She took a step to go turn it on, then thought better of it; she shouldn’t really be here, she ought to go back, only—

Suddenly a voice behind her said, “Laura?”

She turned, and there was Nick, leaning against the open door. He came into the room; walking toward her, he said, “What are you doing in here? Catching up on your sightseeing?” His face fell into shadow as he stood beside her.

Laura said, “I—I wanted some fresh air.”

“It’s rather hot in there, isn’t it,” he agreed.

“Yes,” said Laura, although she was actually quite cold. “Yes, it is.”

“You seem to be enjoying yourself,” he said pleasantly.

“It’s a beautiful room,” said Laura, all at once perfectly calm. “I hadn’t seen it before.”

He began to walk slowly down the length of the room; she fell into step beside him, and they were silent for a moment. He looked sideways at her and cleared his throat. Indicating one of the black-framed portraits, he said in a conversational tone, “Very beautiful. Yes. Let me give you the guided tour.”

“Don’t you have to…” Laura made a helpless gesture with her hands.

“Have to what?”

“Do something? Look after the guests?”

Nick put his hands in his pockets and turned toward her. “I don’t suppose anyone will miss us for a few minutes, Laura.”

She blushed, feeling like a silly schoolgirl; but before she could say anything, he pointed to the painting nearest to them. “So. Have you seen this, here? It’s supposed to be a Holbein. Unsigned.”

Laura recovered herself. “Really? My goodness.”

They walked a little farther, and she noticed they were perfectly in step, his tread firm against the light clatter of her heels, almost like a dance.

“One of the jewels of our collection, this painting. Can you see?” He put his hand lightly on her shoulder and turned her slightly away from him.

“Yes,” said Laura, trying not to relax into his touch. “Who is this?” She noted, almost with detached amusement, that her nails were digging into her palms, as if she were nervous, but she didn’t feel it—did she?

Nick said, “Lady Ranelagh, Restoration period. She may have slept with Charles I—but then, who didn’t.”

“Well, who didn’t,” Laura echoed. She stared at the subject, a woman with tumbling golden curls, a confident expression, almost pursing her lips, in love with life. “It’s lovely. She looks nice, doesn’t she?”

“I always think she must have been fun to have around,” said Nick. “Her husband raised the money for Chartley. Got it off Charles I, I think, basically for prostituting out his wife. It was her idea.”

“Families!” said Laura. “My dad’s mum used to get me and my brother to wash her neighbor’s car, and in return he’d mend her garden fence. It’s very much the same thing.”

She was joking, but Nick stopped and stared at Lady Ranelagh again. “You know, it kind of is the same thing, actually.”

Laura laughed. “No, it’s not.”

“People are more alike than you think, Laura.” He moved off smartly without saying any more. “Right. Let’s go a little farther. Here, Lady Charlotte Needham. She married Lord Hastings. It’s by Reynolds.”

“I love that,” said Laura, admiring the girl with black ribbons in her dark hair and a grave, rather serious expression. “She’s sweet. She looks like…” She was going to say “your sister Rose,” but didn’t think it would be proper; yet there was a look of Rose about the girl’s dark, candid eyes, her rather purposeful features.

Nick carried on, and she fell into step with him, down the long, dappled gallery, where faces caught the moonlight and smiled at her.

“And here is the seventh marquis, after whom I am named,” he said, and Laura looked up to find the real portrait of her old friend, the one who had started it all. The seventh marquis smiled benevolently down at them, and Laura’s heart stopped again as she remembered how she had felt that funny, romantic, silly evening when she found the postcard on the bus home.

“He looks…just like you,” she said.

Nick bowed slightly. “I’m honored,” he said. He started walking again, his face impassive.

“Who’s that?” said Laura, stopping again. She pointed up to a portrait of a woman in a long black dress. Her face was in profile, her hand resting lightly on her breastbone. Beside her lay a photo, and a vase with blossoms in it. It was a stark, spare painting, the only decoration the woman herself, and Laura stared, transfixed, because she was so lovely. Nick said nothing.

“It’s your mother, isn’t it?” said Laura, suddenly realizing.

“Yes,” said Nick. “This is when she got married, in 1959. She was only twenty-three. She’d already been acting for about six years by then; she was pretty young.”

“She’s beautiful,” said Laura honestly.

“She was,” said Nick. “I don’t know, I haven’t seen her for years.”

“How long’s it been?” Laura asked softly.

“Since I was eleven, 1981. I was eleven when she…left.”

“And you’ve
never
seen her again?” said Laura.

“No,” said Nick. His voice was bleak. “We weren’t allowed to.”

“Have you thought about it any more?” Laura mimicked writing with a pencil and paper. “I mean—getting in touch with her?”

“Oh, Laura.” His hand was on his forehead; he was himself suddenly. “God, I just don’t know how to go about it. It’s easier to just think you’ll do something about it one day, to save yourself actually doing something about it now. You know?”

“I know,” said Laura. “I do know. Oh, Nick. You have to see her again. You really do. If only for yourself, you have to….”

He looked so dreadfully alone in his black jacket, the hollows of his cheekbones dark in the moonlit room, his eyes unreadable. She stared at him, drinking in the sight of him, her heart clenching as she thought how vulnerable he was, despite everything he had.