Hitched! (8 page)

Snatching up the phone, I answered it just to shut up the
noise. ‘Hello,’ I snapped.

‘Frith, it’s me.’

‘Oh...Saffron.’

Please God, let it not be another forty-five minutes on whether
the guests would think three thousand pounds a bottle too mean, which pair of
Jimmy Choos would go best with Saffron’s dress, or the exact shade of the
specially woven silk coverings for the chairs.

Evidently prepared for a long wait, George tipped back in his
chair and put his feet back on the desk.

‘I’m doing the seating plan,’ moaned Saffron. ‘It’s
so
difficult.’

‘It must be,’ I said, not really listening. I pointed at
George’s feet and mouthed
Down!

Needless to say, he just smiled blandly back at me. It wasn’t a
challenge I was about to resist. Saffron wittered on in my ear as I went round
and tried to lift George’s legs onto the floor. I was hampered by the fact that
one hand was holding the phone, but even so he was incredibly strong.

Refusing to give up, I wrestled one-armed with his legs while
he just leant back in his chair and smiled at my puny efforts. It was only when
I could feel my face turning red with effort that I realised how absurd I was
being, and I started to giggle silently. George was smothering his own laughter
and in the end I had to press the phone against my shoulder so that Saffron
wouldn’t realise just how little attention she was getting.

‘You can see what a problem it is,’ Saffron was saying as I
admitted defeat and perched on the edge of the desk next to George’s feet while
I recovered.

‘Absolutely.’

‘So I’ll sort out a date for you, then?’

Any lingering desire to giggle vanished as the smile was wiped
off my face. ‘What?’ I said, startled. ‘What for?’

‘I’ve just been
explaining
!’
Saffron heaved a martyred sigh. ‘A singleton looks so odd on the top table. I
could ask Daddy not to bring his new girlfriend, but she’s such an attention
seeker, she’d probably make a fuss. Anyone would think she was the only
supermodel on the planet!’

It was the first I had heard about my father’s latest
girlfriend. He had never remarried after Saffron’s mother had left, but was
careful to be seen with a string of spectacular beauties, none of whom had gone
down well with Saffron. If there was any attention-seeking going on, Saffron
liked to be the one who was doing it, and she had no time for any attempts to
outshine her.

I guessed that a supermodel sitting next to you on the top
table wasn’t any bride’s dream but if Saffron loved anyone, it was her adoring
father, and if he wanted his girlfriend there, Saffron would put up with it for
his sake.

‘Of course, if I explained about the odd numbers, I’m sure he’d
understand,’ said Saffron hopefully.

Tell my father that he would have to leave his gorgeous
girlfriend behind so that he could sit next to his ugly duckling daughter, too
boring to be able to get a boyfriend of her own? I didn’t
think
so.

‘Don’t involve Dad,’ I told Saffron quickly.

‘I’ll ask Piers, then. His girlfriend will be on a shoot at the
wedding, and I’m sure he wouldn’t mind being your date for the wedding.’

Without wanting to, I found myself looking at George, who could
obviously hear every word. He smirked at me and gave me the thumbs up.

I smiled back at him, sweetly. ‘Don’t worry about a date for
me,’ I told Saffron without stopping to let myself think. ‘I’m bringing my
boyfriend.’

‘You’ve got a boyfriend?’ Saffron sounded surprised, as well
she might.

‘Didn’t I tell you?’ I said. ‘It’s George.’

George’s chair tipped forward abruptly, and his feet crashed to
the floor.

Result.

‘George?’ Saffron echoed blankly.

‘You remember him when you were up here? Roly’s friend?’

‘Oh, yes.’ I could practically see Saffron’s expression
clearing. ‘I didn’t know you two were...you know.’ For such a sophisticated
socialite, Saffron could be surprisingly prudish. ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

‘I haven’t told anyone else,’ I said, wriggling my bottom more
comfortably on the desk and getting into my story. I was beginning to enjoy
myself. ‘To be honest, Saffron, this is just a physical thing for me. George is
absolutely mad about me, but you know what I’m like. I hate being crowded. It
makes things awkward on the site when he’s hanging around like a lovesick
puppy.’

Lovesick puppy
? George mouthed in
disgust and I spread my hands in a what-can-you-do? gesture.

‘I haven’t told George this yet,’ I confided in Saffron, ‘but
I’m just having a good time with him until I go overseas. He’s got a good body,
and I’m not interested in anything else. I mean, it’s nice to be adored, don’t
get me wrong, but I can see me getting bored with him pretty quickly. Still,
it’s something to do in the evenings up here and he’ll brush up OK for the
wedding, so put him down as my date.’

‘Well, all right, but I wish you’d told me before,’ said
Saffron with a huffy little sigh. ‘It would have saved me a lot of worry about
the seating plan.’

* * *

‘You don’t need to panic,’ I told George when I finally
managed to get Saffron off the phone.

‘You’re the one who should be panicking,’ he said, amused. ‘Now
you’ve got to take me to the wedding and persuade me to act like a lovesick
puppy!’

‘OK, I’m sorry about that, but it served you right for messing
around with my ringtones,’ I said. I was back in my chair, turning the phone
round and round in my hands as the implications of what I had just done began to
sink in. ‘And you won’t really have to go, of course. I’ll make some excuse to
Saffron.’

‘You can’t make it my fault,’ said George. ‘Remember how mad I
am about you!’

‘I’ll tell her I’m getting bored with you.’ I pursed my lips as
I thought. ‘I’ll drop a few hints about your performance in bed, which is
frankly a little...disappointing, shall we say? It’s going to turn out that
you’re really not man enough to satisfy me. Saffron will understand.’

George’s eyes glinted appreciatively. ‘I’m not sure she will.
Having met your sister, I’d have thought she’d need a lot more than a lousy
lover as a reason for throwing out her seating plan.’

Unfortunately, all too true.

Perhaps I
had
got a little carried
away, I thought. I would have to ring Saffron straight back and explain that I
had been joking. Which might take some time. Saffron’s wedding was a Very
Serious Business and she wouldn’t take kindly to the idea of me making light of
it.

My heart sank at the prospect of the conversation.

‘I’ll ring her tomorrow,’ I said. ‘There’s still time for her
to fix me up with this Piers person. Apparently he’s prepared to take me on as a
pity date,’ I added glumly.

‘It won’t be much of a pity date if Saffron tells him how
you’ve been using me as your sex toy.’

‘Oh, she won’t tell him that.’ I pulled down the corners of my
mouth. ‘I can hear her already: “Frith’s quite old and she’s a bit eccentric.
She actually has a career—no, I don’t know how to spell that either, it’s too
shaming—but if you could bear to be seen with her, Piers darling, I’ll make sure
you get in on the photos in
Glitz
...”’ I sighed.
‘It’s pretty humiliating when your date has to be bribed to be seen with
you.’

‘I don’t think you should go with anyone who needs to be bribed
to be your date,’ said George firmly.

‘It’s better than being paired off with my father,’ I said,
‘and the alternative is to be marooned on the top table with a big sign over my
head saying “sad older sister on the shelf”. Piers might not be a prince, but
he’ll be better than telling Saffron I’m going to mess up her seating plan
completely,’ I went on. ‘I know she’s a bit bridezilla at the moment, but this
wedding is so important to her. I can put up with a bit of humiliation for a
day.’

‘Or you could take me, the way you told her,’ said George.

‘That was a joke!’

‘Of course it was, but it’s not a bad idea. Why
not
take me?’

I looked at him in astonishment. ‘I couldn’t ask you to do
something like that!’

‘Why not?’

‘The wedding’s going to be ghastly. You don’t know the meaning
of ostentation until you’ve seen Saffron’s wedding plans! My father’s spending
over a million pounds on this wedding.’ I grimaced with distaste. ‘I love my
sister, but talk about over the top...!’

George spread his hands. ‘It won’t bother me. I can have a good
time anywhere.’

I stopped in the middle of a laugh. ‘You’re not serious?’ I
asked.

‘I don’t mind,’ he said. ‘I brush up OK, and I won’t pick my
nose in public or eat my peas off my knife.’

I could believe it. He had the assurance that would take him
anywhere. George wouldn’t be intimidated by the glossy celebrities or the
flashing cameras the way I was.

I studied him across the desk. He had tipped his chair back in
precisely the position he knew drove me mad and was looking back at me, his eyes
blue, his brows raised humorously, the lopsided curl to his mouth creasing one
cheek in a way that made me feel hollow inside. He was gorgeous, there was no
other word for it.

Infuriating, unsettling, provoking but, yes, gorgeous.

I had no illusions about myself. I wasn’t plain, but I was no
beauty either. Unlike my lovely sister, I was just ordinary. Ordinary, practical
and—it had to be faced—more than a little uptight. Not the kind of girl gorgeous
men wanted to spend the weekend with.

As I remembered all too well. Charles had made that more than
clear.

‘Why would you want to do that?’ I asked, and he smiled at the
suspicion in my voice.

‘I don’t want you trashing my reputation as a red-hot
lover.’

I just looked at him.

‘All right,’ he said, letting the front legs of his chair fall
back to the floor as if to underline that he was serious. ‘I’ve got to admit
that it did occur to me when you were winding up your sister that we might be
able to help each other. There’s something you could do for me in return, if you
felt like it.’

‘There is?’

‘Remember I told you about the grandmother Harry and I used to
spend our holidays with?’

‘The one with the horses and the dogs?’

‘That’s right.’ George hesitated. ‘She’s ninety in June, and
there’s going to be a small family party at her house. When I spoke to her last
night, she said she wanted me to be there.’

I could imagine how difficult that would be for him. I knew how
I felt about having to see my father again at Saffron’s wedding.

‘Are you going to go?’

‘I have to,’ he said. ‘Letitia’s house was the only place that
ever felt like home. She was wonderful to me and Harry. We loved being there.
She gave me my first pony and taught me how to ride. If she wants me at her
party, then I’ll be there, but it’s not going to be an easy occasion. I don’t
know if my parents and Harry even know she’s invited me.’

‘I can see why you wouldn’t look forward to it,’ I said,
wondering just how badly he had messed up to be ostracised by his parents and
his brother. He must have done something awful if they couldn’t forgive him.
‘But what’s your grandmother got to do with me?’

For the first time since I’d met him, George seemed unsure. He
got up and wandered over to the window where the rain was still pelting
down.

‘I was just thinking that it would make her really happy if I
turned up with you.’

I stared at him in astonishment. ‘With
me
?’

‘Letitia would like you,’ said George. ‘She was always very
dismissive of girlfriends I took there in the past. She said they were all
“flibbertigibbets”, and, to be fair to her, most of them were. I thought she’d
approve of Annabel, but when I told her that the engagement was off she just
sniffed and said I was well out of it. She said Annabel had no spine.’

‘And you think I do?’

‘Nobody looking at that straight back of yours could doubt it.’
The warm blue eyes rested on me, and under his gaze I felt that dangerous curl
of warmth flickering to life again inside me. Maybe having a spine wasn’t as
exciting as being sweet and sexy and fun, but, still, it was a compliment.

‘It was Letitia who told me to stop messing around,’ George
went on. ‘She said then that all she wanted was to see me settle down with a
woman of integrity. “Find yourself a sensible girl,” she told me, “and I can die
happy.” I’ve been trying to think about what I could take her as a present, and
I honestly think that what she would like most was to believe that I had found
the right woman.

‘A woman like you, Frith,’ he said, looking straight at me.

Sensible. I was. I kept my life firmly under control and you
couldn’t get more sensible than that, and yet I was unaccountably put out. I
didn’t mind having a spine, but
sensible
? Why not
just come right out and call me dull?

‘Of course, she doesn’t have to know that you’re the kind of
girl who invents dates to foil her sister’s seating plans,’ said George, who had
a truly unnerving ability to read my mind at times.

‘You’re not suggesting we get married and settle down just to
keep your grandmother happy, I hope?’ I said, more tartly than I intended.

‘I wasn’t thinking of going that far,’ said George. ‘It would
be enough if she believed that I had met someone suitable and was thinking about
it.’

‘Are you sure you want to lie to your grandmother?’

‘We don’t need to pretend to be engaged or anything. That
really would be a lie,’ he agreed. ‘But I
have
met
you. That’s not a lie. I think she’d like the idea that I had found someone she
approved of.

‘The family split has been hard on Letitia,’ he went on when I
said nothing. ‘I’d like to make her feel as if everything was coming together
and that she doesn’t need to worry about me any more. Would that be so
wrong?’