Marrying Money: Lady Diana's Story (5 page)

Just when we were drooping from the long day on our feet, heads spinning at all the introductions Mairead put us through
and rapidly losing track of the eligible bachelors who somehow didn't want to hang around, the loudspeaker system crackled to life and someone with a lilting Irish voice announced the judges choice for Ladies Day was...none other than: Sally!

CHAPTER FIVE

I was so proud of my best friend at that moment. I didn't allow the tiny worm of envy that bloomed in my heart any
wiggle room whatsoever. Sally looked so lovely and was so excited as they led her to the place of honour in sponsor's marquee, right next to the Champaign Tent, and presented her with her prize, a beautiful diamond necklace. Mairead whispered in my ear that the jewels were said to be worth ten thousand euros.

N
ot a bad deal for a day spent batting your eyelids at every good-looking fella who wondered into your path. On top of that, there was a clothing voucher from a top retailer, and a Waterford crystal vase.

I was so proud of her that tears actually came to my eyes as she gracefully accepted her prizes and made a short but elegant speech. All those lessons with the home economics teacher, Mrs Vader
, Darth Vader to us, had obviously paid off. Or maybe it was because she hung around me, Sally had picked up some upper crust graciousness and classy manners. I patted myself on the back.

Pushing th
e unworthy thought aside, I clapped, stamped and cheered with the rest of the peasants as Sally displayed her wonderful necklace and strutted through the adoring fans.

Mairead was almost as thrilled as Sally, who went from being
persona non grata
in my cousin's books to being her own best buddy. And I became a nobody, right there on the spot. Yep, little green idol nibbling right at my ego.

“
We'll have a party in Sally's honour! Yes, right at the new house and everybody will be there! And what’s his name from the Independent, and that lady from the Irish Times, Lifestyles section, we’ll invite them all. Tonight, yes!” Mairead trumpeted as she linked arms with a horrified Sally and paraded her around the race track as if the poor girl was a prize filly in the winners' circle.

She neglected to mention she'd already set up an after the races bash for that evening and it took just a couple of cell phone calls to her caterer to change the wording on the cake and add a few 'Congratulations, Sally,
” banners around the place. Still, I suppose it was nice of her to do this, and Sally was certainly eating up all the attention.

Photographers gathered like barracuda in a feeding frenzy to snap shots of the lovely English lass
, who'd won the coveted prize. I didn’t begrudge Sally the jewellery. It wasn’t worth more than a spit in the ocean as far as rescuing Alexandria House was concerned, and I certainly didn't envy her the spotlight.
Okay, maybe just a teensy-weensy bit.
To be known as the English woman who beat out every one of the well-dressed money dripping babes here at the races was quite a coup for a secondary school girl from Ludsey Common.

And I really hoped she was making the most of it. After all, all that finery was on my credit card. But I was tired and depressed and
had had enough champagne. We'd spent three days in Ireland and a fortune of MasterCard and Visa's money, and we were still no nearer to finding the ultimate goal, a nice wealthy husband for me and Alexandria House.

Maybe I was going about it all wrong. Sally had suggested I get a job, but she'd no idea how often I'd tried. It would, frankly, be too humiliating to tell her. I had a degree
in psychology, but most employers didn't want to hire a titled employee, thought it would upset the balance of power. And there was all the hassle that the other Lady Di's employers had to put up with at the day-care when her engagement to the Prince was announced. All those paparazzi hanging around just isn't good for business.

Employers
that did consider hiring me just wanted to use the title as a wedge to get in the door of other businesses. Neither scenario was satisfactory, considering that no-one was willing to pay me the kind of money Alexandria House needed. In fact, there aren't many people who do earn that amount of money on salary.

But I'd noticed
a lot of women here doing well with their own businesses. Mind you, I couldn't for the life of me imagine what a spoiled aristocrat with a degree in psychology and a tumbled-down old house could possibly do as a business. Maybe I could turn Alexandria House into a bed and breakfast place, or a brothel. Now wouldn’t that have the villagers and the ancestral ghosts in an uproar!

While
I was so engrossed in my own thoughts and worry I'd wandered out of the posh part of the enclosure and found myself standing by the rails in the part of the racecourse where the peasants were allowed to stand and cheer. Looking over to my right, I caught sight of a familiar face, the dark haired hunk we'd met at breakfast! Not that he'd want to talk to me, not after the show that Sally had put on.

B
ut I was feeling lonely and could use the chance to exchange a couple of words with someone, maybe even set the record straight about the state of my mental health.

“
Good evening! Your friend was right when he said Ireland's a small world...”

The poor man jumped as if he'd been caught misbehaving in the boarding school toilets.
  He’d probably spent his last few euros on the same horse Sally was still waiting on to get to the finish line, and was considering hitchhiking home to Dublin so he could do the time-honoured thing and throw himself into the River Liffey.

It
didn't seem like the sight of me was doing much to cheer him up. But obviously there was a good upbringing in there somewhere, because he straightened his spine and turned to greet me.

“
Yes, it is a small world. That's one of the problems with the place. Everybody knows everybody else's business, and everybody seems to think they have a right to put their two cents worth in.”

“Well
, jeez, you don't have to be insulting. I'm not trying to pick you up or anything and I certainly don't want to invest two cents in your business.”
They probably wouldn’t accept Visa, anyway.
“But you looked so miserable standing there, and I was glad to have a familiar face to talk to. It might be a small place, but small places can still be lonely. And talking of small places, you should see the little village I live in. But if you don't want to be disturbed, I'll be off then.” And I turned to walk back along the track, biting the inside of my mouth to stop myself sniffling.
Why in the world would I want to sniffle over a rebuff from a stranger?
I called up my upper crust training and stiffened my upper lip to stop it trembling.

The miserable beast surprised me and came running after me, grabbing my arm to slow down my flight. The sudden stop in momentum almost caused me to fly headlong into the muddy trampled grass, so he grabbed my other arm and pulled me towards him. “No, don't go, I didn't mean it the way it sounded. Just—well you have no idea what it's like to live in a goldfish bowl, with everyone knowing everything about what you do and all of them wagging their tongues and making judgements they've no call to make. You just have no idea,” he repeated, his hand on my arm.

As a come on line, it
really sucked. But looking up into his face, and those deep blue eyes, I could see this wasn't an intended pick up line at all. The man was in deep distress. And so was I, judging from the shivers that were flickering over my skin. He seemed to suddenly realise that he was holding me very close, far too close for social appropriateness considering we'd just met, and he let go as if I was red hot.

He started fidgeting with his
pants pleat. I had to laugh, but believe me, if I’d been wearing pleated pants, I'd probably be doing the same thing right now.

When I'm stressed, I talk too much.

“You’re wrong.  I do know what it’s like to live in a goldfish bowl. God, the place where I live, well, everybody thinks they have a right to comment about my business; everything from whether my bills are paid on time to whether I wear a hat to church, or who I sleep with...” I clamped my mouth shut, noting his raised eyebrows.
Too much info, right?
But heaven knows I’ve been the cause for some real gossip.

“I
mean it… sometime you can't seem to do right for doing wrong. And everybody knows, even if you’ve only thought about it. No one offers a hand when you need it, because they're too busy judging and criticising. No one is ever there to just help patch the roof on the west wing or fix the broken glass in the greenhouse, or offer a shoulder to cry on.”

“Well, that wasn't quite the sort of thing I was thinking of, but, you obviously have some idea of what it's like.” He rubbed a hand over his eyes, then looked at me as if seeing me for the very first time. “Would you like to go for a drink?”

“
You know, I thought you'd never ask. Follow me to the posh tent.” I smiled. It was easy to smile at a man like this.

He shook his head.
“I'd rather not go in there. Let's go over to the bar by the stands, it'll be easy to get served there at this time of day, and the beer is better.”

Well, I was sick of champers anyway
. In fact, I was sort of sick of drinking anything at all. The idea of sitting down and having a conversation with another human being was exciting. And the fact that the human being was as attractive as this guy was a no brainer.

It was obvious he
didn't have admission status to the posh club, and was miserable about his life. This should have sounded warning bells. But a girl needs to take time off from suitable husband hunting occasionally. I should be allowed to have a time out from responsibilities. Some of the old biddies back in Ashburnham End seemed to think I'd already taken too much time out already, being over thirty and not married and with child yet.
Bah-Humbug to them, I say.

I followed my new friend, Bill,
happily to the peasants' bar. The place was reasonably quiet. I picked my way over crisp wrappers, paper cups and other litter to a seat in the outdoor section, well away from the portable loos. My companion returned with two pints of something thick and black and velvety looking and we settled down to chat without any of the awkwardness that usually exists when a man and  woman start sizing each other up.
You know, the ‘will she, won't she, should I, shouldn't I, sort of thing, like a pair of cats in an alleyway.
It's called courtship and in my view, it sucks.

The
n again, after my encounters of the Lettuce kind, maybe I'm a bit sour. And, of course, I wasn't looking at Bill as a potential soul mate. Certainly not as a partner for life - or at least until Alexandria house was back in good shape and maybe -
yeuk, ughh, barf
- there was an heir to the family misfortunes.

No, I was seeing this man as a quiet, troubled guy who was probably a lot of fun when he dumped the chip on his shoulder, whatever that was. And right now, I really needed a friend, so here we were.

We chatted quietly about our respective fishbowls, mine a little medieval village in England, his a big, medieval- minded city in Ireland. We talked about books we had read and discovered we liked the same things: Michael Connelly, Stephen King, Patricia Cornwell and Kathy Reichs.  We both believed people who claimed they only read literary works and nothing else were full of b.s. and probably illiterate.

I was actually flattered to see that my new friend's brow was definitely less furrowed and he was much more relaxed.
I, Diana, Lady Ashburnham, had cheered up another member of the human race
! I was feeling so good about myself, until a pack of marauding wolves - actually Cousin Mairead and her entourage - bore down on me with distinct huffing and puffing.

“There
you are, Diana Darling!” Mairead said, making it sound as though Miss Darling was my name. “We’ve been looking all over the place for you! Sally, poor dear, is just exhausted from all the photographs and interviews and well-wishers, and she's ready to drop. I thought we'd get you two home to your hotel in a taxi. James, unfortunately, isn't available. Then all of us will get together tonight at Richard and my new house. You haven't been since we built out at Wicklow, have you? You'll just love the place, and don't bother getting anything to eat, we're laying on a scrumptious buffet.”

I thought I was going to drown under the barrage of words, but then I caught sight of Sally, making 'please rescue me' faces from behind Mairead's skinny back. She really did look worn out, almost as if the new diamond and gold necklace was weighing her down, and I relented.

“Okay, I'll help Sally get sorted out at the hotel, and we'll be at your place later this evening,” I said, standing. Bill stood politely, too.

“If
you're going back into town, I can offer you a lift to your hotel,” my new friend said. “It’s no bother at all, really.”

Mairead fixed him with a gimlet stare, and I thought for a sinking moment she was going to ask him if his intentions were honourable. But all that came out was an
'umph'
that could have meant anything.

“That’s
so sweet of you,” I said to him, trying to make up for my cousin's rudeness. Turning back to her, I said: “Give me the address of your new place, Mairead; we'll get a taxi out to your place
.” Heaven help me, I’d no idea how much a taxi fare was from Galway to Wicklow, or I'd probably have swooned on the spot.