I felt groggy and cotton-brained when I half-woke in my hotel bed. I wanted to sleep all day. And I wanted Alistair not to be there.
But he was.
And he had plans.
And they seemed to include me.
He kept telling me I had to get out of bed because the car was arriving at ten and “they” were expecting us at someplace called Biggleswood in Bedfordshire. I had no idea who “they” were. I wondered if he’d been schmoozing Hobbits these days.
It wasn’t until he made me a cup of instant coffee and forced me to drink it that I came out of my Mandrax haze enough to understand what he was saying.
I repeated his words to try to make sense of them. “OK: Delia and Sir Thomas expect us for lunch; their house in Bedfordshire is called Biggleswood. Are you sure they want both of us?”
“They want to get to know you. They know how important you are to me.”
Or how important I was to some scheme of his. I wasn’t buying his line this time.
I stumbled over my discarded clothes, picked up something vaguely clean, and went to the bathroom to wash and put on make-up. When I emerged I was surprised to find the place tidy and my scattered things no longer littering the room. My pack was zipped and ready to travel.
“That’s really sweet,” I said. “But my clothes get kind of wrinkled in there. I was going to hang them in the bathroom to steam so I’d have something nice to wear later.
“We might want to stay over. It’s a long drive.”
Maybe if I hadn’t taken the Mandrax, or felt some residual guilt about getting violent with him, or I hadn’t felt intimidated by people with titles, I would have figured out a way to say no.
But reality being what it was, I found myself, a couple of hours later, at Alistair’s side, riding in the back of Delia’s chauffeured Bentley on a picturesque English country lane. Our driver was the same man who had witnessed my tearful parting with Jack, but his face showed no recognition. Part of his job description, I supposed.
The car rounded a bend and I saw what had to be our destination: one of the biggest houses I’d ever seen. It made Goose Hill look like a shack. And the grounds were breathtaking. There was even a willow-draped lake equipped with gliding swans.
Alistair gave me a running commentary, telling me the history of the place, from its medieval manor house origins to Tudor and Jacobean additions to the grand Georgian façade that now greeted us.
It was a synopsis of English history in brick and stone.
He claimed he was “helping” Delia and Sir Thomas by giving them tips on how to save money maintaining the place. I smiled and nodded and pretended to believe. As annoyed as I was that I’d been coerced into this visit, I had to admit a little thrill at being invited to dine with the British aristocracy in their native habitat.
Delia and Sir Thomas welcomed us graciously. So did their little four-year-old daughter, Pandora, who greeted me with the announcement that she thought Americans were mostly all right and asked me if I liked the Beatles or David Cassidy better.
I assured her of my loyalty to the Beatles. This seemed to please her.
Luncheon was simple fare—a salad from the estate garden and some ham and cheese sandwiches. Delia wasn’t effusive, but she didn’t seem to be mad at me any more, which was a relief. I could see that she and Sir Thomas were genuinely fond of Alistair, and they entertained us with an unpretentious grace that made my Kennebunkport relatives seem like phony arrivistes.
Sir Thomas had done his homework and talked politely about the superiority of Conway boats and camping equipment. I nodded and tried to say a few things that sounded as if I had a clue about my uncle’s company. Then he praised my father’s poetry and even quoted a few lines. I was blown away that he’d taken the time to research my background. It wasn’t as if I knew a thing about the Humes.
But Alistair talked most of the time, so I didn’t have to say much.
Pandora was talkative, too. She was eager to show me her knowledge of all things American, and at one point burst into a charmingly tuneless rendition of the Mickey Mouse Club song.
Alistair and she didn’t seem to get on, probably because they were both competing for center stage.
After lunch Pandora asked me if I wanted to help her feed the swans and I was only too happy to leave Alistair and Sir Thomas to discuss weatherizing the east wing so I could take a closer look at the lake. Delia led us to the kitchen—a cavernous place where an unsmiling cook gave us a bag of crusts. Delia asked if I’d mind taking Pandora to the lake by myself while she took care of some kitchen business.
I was delighted to do so. Pandora had a fierce determination I found refreshing. She gripped my hand and led me outside, down a pretty pathway to the lake. As we tossed bread to the huge, rather terrifying birds, she told me all about what she liked—the Beatles, sticky toffee pudding, telly, and going very fast on the roundabout at her friend Clara’s house—and what she didn’t like: grownups sitting around talking, mashed turnips, music where ladies sang very, very high…and Mr. Alistair Milbourne. She did not like Mr. Milbourne, she said, because he talked too much about boring things.
“Is he going to be your husband?” she asked as we tossed the last of the crumbs to the swans.
“I don’t think so,” I said, trying to be diplomatic.
“Good,” she said.
When we got back to the house, Sir Thomas and Alistair were waiting to take me on a grand tour. A good deal of the building wasn’t habitable, due to the high cost of repairs. Sir Thomas said he’d been considering for some time turning Biggleswood over to the National Trust, but Alistair had been helping him hang on to the ancestral home with lots of cost-saving suggestions. He’d been a great help for the past year, Sir Thomas said.
I couldn’t tell if Sir Thomas actually meant any of this, or if he was flattering Alistair to build his self esteem to avoid further self-harming dramas, but it didn’t matter. I was mostly pleased to see Alistair seemed as fond of Sir Thomas as he was of Delia. Although it was a bit creepier. A crush on a beautiful actress is one thing. A crush on a whole family is another.
Correction: not the whole family. Alistair had no interest in Pandora whatsoever. He treated her like an ill-trained pet. Or a rival. As if he wanted to be Sir Thomas and Delia’s child in her place.
After much climbing of stone staircases and viewing of musty bedchambers, Sir Thomas ushered us back to the portion of the East Wing where they actually lived. He led us along a corridor and opened the door to a cozy room with a view of the lake. I saw my backpack carefully perched on a luggage stand near the dresser.
“I hope you find this room big enough for the two of you, Nicky,” Sir Thomas said. “It’s where Alistair likes to stay when he’s not using the guest house.”
“Oh, I’m not staying. We’re just here for…”
Alistair gave me a warning look.
Sir Thomas seemed surprised. “Didn’t Alistair tell you we’ve invited you two to stay the week? We thought it would be, er, healthier for Alistair.”
“She loves it. How could she not love this room?” Alistair jumped in before Sir Thomas could reveal any more of Alistair’s devious plan—although I could see I was once again expected to play the role of faux paramour. I suppose Alistair had used the excuse of repairing his relationship with me to wrangle this invitation. I’m sure he’d convinced them that as long as he had his lady love by his side, he would no longer be a suicidal wreck and could once again be a worthy companion and “helper” around Biggleswood.
“Don’t worry,” Sir Thomas assured me with a smile. “We know you’re flying back to Boston Friday week. We’ll make the Bentley available to take you directly to Heathrow.”
At least the bed was full-sized.
The week went by all right, once I got over my anger at Alistair for duping me into spending my last week of vacation with him. I told myself at least I was safe from Grayson Bell’s creepy stalking.
Alistair’s Mandrax helped me get through the nights—luckily he didn’t push me to repeat our night of port-fueled passion—and I spent the days playing with Pandora. She was a musical child who loved to plunk on the piano in the conservatory. She also liked to play rock and roll records and gyrate about looking like a cross between a go-go dancer and a rhythm-challenged pixie. With her mother’s ethereal beauty and her father’s dark, intelligent eyes, she was a captivating child. I was quite smitten.
True to his implied promise, Alistair tolerated my smoking and Delia generously supplied me with cigarettes.
One sunny afternoon while we shared Dunhills and gin on the lawn overlooking the lake, Delia finally opened up to me about Alistair.
“I’m so glad you two worked out your differences. I shouldn’t have blamed you for bolting. I apologize for being so angry. The truth is, I’ve wished Alistair out of my own life, dozens of times. He can be a difficult, complicated young man. But we’re all he has, you and I. He needs us.”
I nodded and lit another cigarette. I had only a few more days to get through. I tried for a concerned-friend tone.
“He has a lot of demons. He suffered through a terrible childhood.”
“Awful. He was bullied at school. They called him Alice, poor boy. Those childhood wounds can have lasting repercussions. And his mother seems to be something of a monster.”
So Delia knew about “Alice.” So much for the secret childhood revelations Alistair claimed he’d never told anybody but me.
“I think everything he does is probably an attempt to please the Gorgon,” I said. “I’m sure it’s why he wears those suits, and thinks he needs to marry an heiress.”
Delia grabbed my hand with startling intensity. “Oh, I’m so relieved. You are going to marry him? Then it’s all right. Everything will be all right.”
I nearly choked on my gin and tonic.
“Um, what will be all right?” I kept myself from revealing more by lighting another cigarette.
“Selling my Mayfair cottage.” Delia blew smoke out of her nose with a heavy sigh. “Thom wants me to sell it. I’ve made something of a muddle of my personal finances and selling the house will solve everything. Alistair sees the wisdom, but it means he’d have to move back here for the winter, since his recent troubles have made it difficult for him to live alone. I don’t mind, but I’d….Well, I think I told you there once was a flirtation between us, and Thom is considering another Broadway play soon. If Alistair were still single, I don’t think it would be appropriate for him to be here, but since he’s engaged to be married…”
Bingo. That was Alistair’s game. He needed a faux fiancée to secure himself a place back here at Biggleswood. I wondered if the proposition of selling the mews cottage had been what prompted his suicide attempt—if that’s what it had been. If so, everything now clicked into place.
I suppose if I’d been a braver person, I would have told Delia the truth right then. But I had only three more days to freedom. So I nodded, gave a noncommittal smile and changed the subject to the care and feeding of large waterfowl.
If anything, the revelation made me more comfortable with Alistair. I now felt like a co-conspirator instead of a mark. That night I let him hold my hand as we drank brandy after dinner and he advised Sir Thomas about selling off some of their dustier antiques to finance urgent repairs to the house.
In our room that night I asked Alistair how he knew so much about managing an estate. “You’re so good at getting things done. It looks as if you’ve become quite indispensable to Sir Thomas.”
“My mother managed a huge estate in Virginia for her husband. I was allowed to visit most summers, when he was away at his house in East Hampton. I learned from her who to call to get things done quickly with a minimum of fuss. The rich don’t want to see wheels turning. They want magic. They expect it.”
“But wasn’t your mother rich, too, if she was his wife?” I didn’t often ask questions about the Gorgon, because they made Alistair clam up or get belligerent. But I decided to take the chance. Something didn’t fit together in this story.
“Of course she was…” His voice rose as if he were going to launch a temper tantrum, but his frown loosened into to a goofy smile as he stopped himself. “I keep forgetting I can tell you things. OK, she wasn’t his wife. She was his housekeeper. He hired her right off the plane where she was a stewardess. My real father was a pilot, which is why I got to fly free everywhere until he died last year, the asshole. He married Mother when she got knocked up, but he never lived with us. So the Gorgon was free to have liaisons all over the damned world. But she gave up her high flying life to run Daddy Bigbucks’ Virginia estate. And of course sleep with him when he was in town. He had a wife who preferred to stay year-round in New York—very convenient for him.”
Truth. From Alistair. Or at least something closer to it than usual. His genuine grin lit up his face and made him look sweet. I gave him a grateful hug. I figured at least some of it had to be true. I could believe he had a mother whose life of “coffee tea or me?” in the glamorous post-War skies had resulted in a bit of unwanted baggage—him.
“That explains so much. Your secret is safe with me.”
He hugged me back, so I figured I was on a roll. I took a chance and asked another question.
“This engagement thing—you don’t really want to marry me, do you?”
He gave me a grin. “Of course not. The Gorgon would have a fit. I’m not even supposed to date a woman who doesn’t have at least twenty thousand in her checking account. And it’s not as if you’re likely inherit Goose Hill. Mummy dear requires an estate.”
Not only was his mother something of a whore, but apparently she’d brought her son up to be the same.
“You’re using the engagement story so you can stay at Biggleswood?”
“Yes. After all, Sir Thomas is an old man. He’ll die long before Delia does. Then she’ll need a husband who can run this place…”
Light dawned. Alistair was a man with a plan. A sick, deluded plan. Likely perpetrated by his mother. I managed to fake a smile, kiss him on the cheek, and crawl into the bed, leaving as large a space between us as possible.
On the day of my flight to Boston, Alistair rode with me in the Bentley to the airport. He said he was going to use the opportunity clear his things out of the Mayfair cottage.
“It’s a shame she has to sell, but she’s done shockingly stupid things with her money,” he said. “So Sir Thom has asked me to be her business manager. And I’ll be helping him with running the estate, as well. They’ve invited me to live in the guest house permanently.”
I murmured that it sounded lovely. But I felt a pang of fear for Sir Thomas.
When we got to the airport, Alistair walked me into the terminal and gave me a sweet, brotherly kiss goodbye. He promised he’d write. I promised the same. I assumed we were both lying.
I checked my pack and rushed toward the gate for my flight home, where I could finally feel relief.
For about a half a minute.
Until I saw the tall, scruffy figure lurking by the waiting area.
Grayson Bell.
He gave me a sly grin. “Do you have any idea how long I’ve been looking for you, Nicky? We have to talk.”