In Love Again (5 page)

“No! No, you were saying exactly what I feel. I don’t listen to my detractors, not now at least. After forty years of doing what I do, I think I’m finally confident enough not to care. I’ve seen enough people happy with my work—and maybe even happier in their lives from something that I’ve done, to make their lives more beautiful or comfortable—but it still rankles, doesn’t it? That little naysaying voice—usually our own—about the absurdity of our lives? Unless you are, oh, I don’t know, curing cancer, I guess, I think everyone must have those moments of wondering…what’s the point?”

They both took a quiet sip of coffee.

Boppy spoke first. “When Sarah’s mother died, that was really the final turning point for me. I had been so concerned with what other people thought of me and my work—I mean, let’s face it, in this business, as in most businesses,
it matters
. But Elizabeth James was so strong, so clever, so beautiful, so
everything
, really.”

Claire smiled. “Sarah hardly ever talks about her. It’s lovely to hear.”

“I think it must be horrendous for Sarah. Her father pretty much shut down after he lost her. And the second wife is abominable. I mean, that’s probably too harsh. Let’s just say she’s not my cup of tea. Anyway…” Boppy shook her head. “All of that is simply to say, when I lost my best friend, who really was not just my best friend, but one of the best
people
I’ve ever known, I reached this place of not caring. In a good way, of simply putting myself out there and saying:
This is me. Take it or leave it.
”

“I like the sound of that,” Claire said.

“The only catch is that some people will leave it. You have to be prepared for that. Just not focused on it.”

“I guess I am nearing that place. Trying to figure out what it is I am going to do and just doing it.”

“Yes, which brings us to the supposed purpose of this meeting. What are you aiming to do?” Boppy asked.

“Well, anything, really. I am so willing. With two of the most accomplished sisters-in-law on earth, I feel a bit of an underachiever.” Claire smiled. “But I do have something to offer. I think. Maybe…” Her voice trailed off.

“Confidence not being one of them, I see.” Boppy chided, but it was supportive somehow, as if that was something she could remedy.

“Alas, not quite yet. I’m a bit off kilter.” Claire smiled again. “But I’m steady, I promise. I am, according to my family, damnably reliable. And so eager. I could sort fabrics, answer the phone, do paperwork. I am very meticulous and detail oriented. I pursue workmen and craftspeople rather like a terrier pursues a rat. And I’m a terrible perfectionist, which Sarah thought was somehow marketable. So she suggested I mention it.”

Boppy was the one smiling this time. “Okay. Let me think about the best way to use you. I notice you’re not introducing yourself as the Marchioness of Wick. How does that stand? Are you going to be called away to speak to men in wigs about the sordid details of your marriage, or are you divorced?”

Claire was falling in love with this woman. She was smart and confident and demanding and strong. Her mother had been all those things, but there had been a lack of joy about the Duchess of Northrop, as if bringing up Claire had been akin to training a prized show animal, rather than raising a daughter. Boppy seemed like she might work Claire hard, but might also be interested in being along for the ride.

“I am legally separated. It’s just a matter of time until it’s official. The castle has been shut down, except for the barest bones of the public areas, and I’ve called upon my brother to provide the necessary funds to keep the heat and water running.”

“I’m surprised he hasn’t offered to do more.”

“Oh,” Claire laughed. “Of course, they both offered to buy the whole thing and give it to me. But I couldn’t have that. I think everything will be sorted in the end. My husband—soon-to-be former husband—was a rascal and terrible businessman, but I don’t think he was really cretinous. More vain and careless.”

Boppy nodded. “Go on.”

“Once all of his investors finish pressing charges and everyone gets their money back—which could take years, of course—I think the place will come to me. The property’s not entailed, and the marquisate is finished anyway. The title will die with my husband. Unless he remarries, I suppose.” Claire looked at the ivy-covered brick wall across from where she was sitting, as if the thought hadn’t really occurred to her.

“Anything’s possible.” Boppy raised an eyebrow.

Claire took a deep breath. “You know, I’m not sure it would be the worst thing that ever happened.”

“Good. Okay, why don’t you come upstairs and I’ll introduce you to everyone? I think I’m going to have to come up with a special title for you.
Intern
sounds odd.” The older woman put her coffee mug back onto the silver tray, then looked at Claire.

“Are you offering me a job?” Claire asked, stunned.

“Of course I’m offering you a job.”

“A paid job?”

Boppy laughed again. “Yes, Claire. A
paid
job. I can’t offer you a huge salary. There are too many others who’ve put in their time and worked here for years. It would be bad for morale if I paid you too much. And that sort of thing tends to get around. If you’re willing to forego a benefits package, I can pay you as a consultant—” Boppy snapped her fingers. “Perfect. That will be your title. Claire Heyworth, Project Consultant. What do you think?”

Claire had stood up as soon as Boppy had, so they were facing each other in the crisp autumn sunshine. “I think I might faint.”

Boppy pursed her lips. “Well, don’t.”

“Okay.” Claire smiled. “Thank you.”

Boppy turned toward the metal stairs. “I think we’ll be thanking each other. There are a few clients in particular that I can already think of who will thrill to the fact that I have a peeress on staff.”

Claire cringed. She despised the idea of being marketed as the resident aristocrat. “Ms. Matthews—”

“Boppy. It’s a ridiculous name, but everyone calls me Boppy. Including you.”

They were standing in the quiet front hall by that point.

“Boppy.” Claire looked at the floor, then up at her new boss. Her first boss. “I was rather hoping not to put too much emphasis on my…”

“On your bloodline?”

“Well, I guess you could call it that. Yes.”

“Look here, Claire.” She gestured around the hall. “It’s just a facade, remember? All the work takes place up here.” Boppy pointed at her temple. “Let people think what they want, and you just be you. Leave the rest to me. Please.”

“Okay.” Claire swallowed.

“Okay.” Boppy said with boundless confidence and then led the way up to the offices on the top two floors.

From the moment they reached the second floor and Boppy began showing her around, Claire felt like she was simultaneously drowning and taking her first proper gasp of air. She nodded and smiled and shook hands with the other people who worked for Matthews Interiors. There was a receptionist who sat at an immaculate, petite desk, with a sliver of a laptop and a telephone and nothing else. Not a scrap of paper.

“I like to keep it clean…at least at first glance. You’ll see how it gets progressively more unwieldy the farther we get.”

Claire nodded, terrified at the idea of sitting at a desk without a mug full of her favorite blue pens and several perfectly sharpened pencils and a black notebook with a red spine.

The second floor had been gutted to create an opened-up communal work area. Eight desks lined the walls, four on each side. Luckily, there was more evidence of old-fashioned work methods. One man even had a yellow pad.

Boppy did a cursory introduction, too quick for Claire to retain everyone’s full name, but she repeated their first names three times over as she had always done since her mother had first trained her for the life of a peeress or—more to be hoped for—the wife of a peer.

Claire must have sighed aloud because Boppy turned to look at her over her shoulder. “Oh, don’t worry. I won’t expect you to remember all their names.”

“Ned, Emily, William, Kim, Allison, Skylar, Henrietta, Marni.”

Boppy turned around to face her full on. “Nicely done.”

“Old habits die hard. My mother was a strict taskmistress when it came to introductions.”

The older woman continued up the next flight of stairs to the top floor of the townhouse and paused at the upper landing. “I can imagine it wouldn’t do to forget the ambassador’s wife’s name.”

“Exactly. Though, I’m beginning to realize it might be just as egregious to forget Allison, Skylar, Henrietta, and Marni if you expect to get your projects done on time.”

Boppy rested the palm of her left hand on the brightly polished mahogany bannister. “I have just the project I want you to work on. And there’s a dishy ex-husband.”

Claire’s face clouded. “Oh, I don’t think I’m in the market for dishy just now. Maybe ever.”

“Oh, that’s just ridiculous. I didn’t meet my husband until I was forty. What are you, thirty-five?” Boppy was walking again.

“You’re too kind. I’m going to be forty in a little over a year.”

“Well, for god’s sake, don’t say it like that! If anyone asks, you’re
just
thirty-eight. Free at last and all that.” She turned into a bright open studio space. Four large countertops were covered with fabric samples, carpet samples, paint samples, wallpaper samples, all being mixed and matched and pondered over by four designers. Two were already standing, and they stopped what they were doing to look at Boppy when she entered the room. The other two were sitting on tall work stools. One of them looked up from a piece of fabric; the other remained rapt in what she was doing.

“Up, everyone. I’d like you to meet our new consultant, Claire Heyworth. I haven’t figured out exactly what she’ll be doing for me, so for a start, I’m going to throw her at everyone who’s been giving me a royal pain.” She smiled and turned to Claire. “No pun, darling.” She patted Claire’s upper arm. “This is Simon Connolly, Edwina Sneed, Celine Delaney, and Milt Rubenstein.”

One of the women looked skeptical and set down the piece of fabric she’d been handling, then walked to where Claire stood. “I’m Celine. Nice to meet you. Good luck.” There was a hint of malice, or maybe exhaustion, but whatever it was, it wasn’t a hug. Edwina, Simon, and Milt introduced themselves in turn.

“So who should we sic on her first?” Boppy asked, as if Claire weren’t even in the room.

All four of them spoke in unison: “Pinckney.”

They all started laughing. Claire was momentarily terrified.
How bad could this client be?

“That’s exactly what I thought.” Boppy smiled.

“Dead in the water,” Edwina said as she returned to her worktable.

“Totally unfinishable,” Simon concurred.

“Come into my office and I’ll fill you in.” Boppy turned back to the hall and then into a lovely room that overlooked the garden where they’d had their coffee earlier. “Have a seat.”

Boppy looked at her computer for a second then picked up her desk phone. “Please tell Mrs. Hamilton I’ll see her at the Colony at one o’clock Thursday. Confirm my Friday three o’clock with Mrs. McClintock and let Alice Pinckney know that my new top British consultant, Lady Claire Heyworth, will meet her in Litchfield for the next monthly visit.” She hung up the phone without a good-bye and moved around her office while she spoke. “So, I’m just going to assume that you are pretty much willing to work twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week for the foreseeable future.”

“Yes, I am.” Claire didn’t hesitate.

“Good. I need you to go to Connecticut for the day a week from Saturday. It’s a divorce situation, always a bit tricky, but it’s really been the wife’s design project all along. Everything’s in her name. Alice Pinckney. That’s who you’ll be meeting with. The husband never really took much of an interest, until recently. I mean, I’ve met him, of course.” Boppy did a pantomime of fanning herself. “I can tell you, if I were Alice, I would not be throwing that one back in the water anytime soon.”

Claire smiled and left it at that.

“They started the project about a year ago. I think Alice thought repairing a house might help repair their marriage—”

Claire was taking notes with a small silver pen on the tiny notepad she always kept in her purse and a little scoff must have escaped her lips. “Oh! I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to laugh.”

“Of course, it’s ludicrous. It’s like people who think maybe that elusive third child is really going to keep the marriage together…not!” Both women smiled, then Boppy continued. “Anyway, Alice is contractually obligated to finish the job, but neither one of us is too happy about it. I’ve abandoned a few projects in the past, and it’s always a disaster. My name is attached to it, and then it comes off half-baked. On the other hand, I think they’re eager to sell the property and split the proceeds and move on. I don’t blame them. But they can never agree on anything or focus on the project at all, so it has dragged out terribly.”

“How can I help?” Claire asked.

“The Saturday after next is our scheduled site visit. I’d love for you to familiarize yourself with the history of the project, work on laying out a tight schedule to wrap it up within the next three months, and then go play peacemaker. Maybe encourage Alice to be a little more…amenable…to some of her ex-husband’s financial concerns. I think you have that quality about you. You put people at ease.”

“Me?” Claire almost snorted. “I think everyone in my family walks on eggshells around me.”

“Oh, family doesn’t count.” Boppy laughed, almost a short bark. “My sister hates me one day and cries on my shoulder the next—that’s probably why she hates me the other days, come to think of it. Anyway…” Boppy’s attention was being drawn away again by something that popped up on her screen. “Go tell Henrietta to get you a corporate credit card and to show you where to sit and then you can get yourself situated and familiarize yourself…” Her voice was trailing off as her attention returned fully to her computer screen and she sat slowly. “Off you go.”