Authors: Lulu Taylor
‘OK, Billy,’ Jemima said, hiding her relief. She patted his hand. ‘You take care, all right? And you know where to find me if you ever need any help.’
‘Help?’ Billy stared at her with his hugely over-dilated pupils. ‘What kind of help? You mean, if I need to score?’
‘Oh, no, darling. Quite the opposite.’
Billy looked blank, as he did so often. Jemima kissed the top of his head and left, hoping that he might somehow elude the clutches of the early death that she feared must await him.
She’d assumed that once she and Billy had broken up, the press would lose interest in her. They did, to an extent. She no longer had to face packs of press photographers wherever she went, but the interest was still there, flaring up whenever she was spotted at some society gala, charity fundraiser or fashion show, looking stunning and fabulously well groomed. Every now and then, she would hear the whirr of the shutter
or
see a battery of flashes in the darkness and know that she’d been papped. The next day, she’d see her image on a gossip website or a tabloid page, always describing her as Billy’s ex and heiress to the Trevellyan millions.
Her marriage, called the society event of the season, had reawakened the press attention and turned into a media scrum. From the moment the engagement was announced, the media worked itself into a tizzy about the beautiful heiress and the lord who lived in a castle – it was too good a fairy story to miss.
Ironically, she met Harry at the very wedding that the press had been so interested in, when they’d assumed she would be taking Billy. Something about him had attracted her at once. Perhaps it was because he was different to the louche, monied crowd she’d been hanging about with for too long. He arrived looking formal and proper in a morning coat, unlike so many other guests who’d taken to disregarding the dress code and turning up in whatever took their fancy: bottle-green velvet lounge suits, pinstriped numbers with open-necked shirts, even jeans. Harry stood out, handsome in his exquisitely cut coat and dark charcoal striped trousers, the sober grey tones brightened by his jewel-coloured embroidered waistcoat. He was tall and fair with piercing blue eyes and an air of robust good health that only comes from hours striding outdoors in the countryside. There was also the unmistakeable set of stubbornness about his chin. He evidently knew his own mind.
All through the wedding, Jemima had been aware
of
him, watching him from the corner of her eye even when she’d been holding court at her table, surrounded by the all usual hangers-on and a few new ones, mostly red-faced old duffers who’d had a couple of glasses of champagne and fancied chatting up that gorgeous young thing they’d read about in the papers.
Harry wasn’t like that. He didn’t seem the least bit interested in her, which only served to fuel her curiosity. Did he have a girlfriend? She couldn’t see him with anybody. Was he gay? She didn’t think so. Men like him weren’t gay, in her experience, though there was always a chance she was wrong. He was sitting at a nearby table, and during the speeches she watched him carefully. His serious face suddenly lit up with laughter when the best man cracked a joke, and she loved the way it transformed him. Then and there she made up her mind to have him.
It was much later, on the dance floor, that they got close to each other. Close up, she was overwhelmed by his masculinity. Most of her friends were fey: skinny artists or boys who took too many drugs to be hungry. The ones who were most well built tended to be gay guys who went to the gym to work lovingly on their six pack and biceps. Very few of her straight male friends were like this: he towered over her, solid and muscular, and she loved how vulnerable and feminine that made her feel. Knowing what she now knew of Harry, it was pretty amazing that she’d managed to score with him. But by dint of Herculean flirting, at one in the morning, they were standing behind the marquee, its white walls dotted with blue, yellow and
red
from the lights, the boom of the discotheque pounding round them, snogging as fiercely as teenagers. Harry tasted so damn sweet – she’d never forgotten it. Perhaps she was too used to kissing guys who’d just smoked a packet of cigarettes, downed a bottle of Jack Daniel’s and put away a few tabs of this or that, but Harry seemed so fresh and clean. It was delicious, just kissing away, feeling her stomach swoop over with lust.
She’d expected him to come back to the hotel with her that night but, as dawn rose over the big house where the wedding was held, he kissed her hand, took her phone number, murmured goodbye into her ear and saw her safely off in a taxi.
‘Hey, Jemima, you scored last night!’ crowed one of her friends who’d been at the wedding and who called as soon as was decent the next day.
‘I know. He’s rather hunky, isn’t he? I never knew I could fancy a blond. I mean, Billy had blond streaks, but you know … all dyed. But this chap was so deliciously old-fashioned, you just wouldn’t believe it!’ Jemima rolled about in her hotel bed, thrilled by the memory of her kissing session the night before.
‘Yes, but …! I have to say congratulations, darling.’
‘Really? Why?’ Jemima sat up, pulling the sheet about her chest. She was more used to people being congratulated for getting off with
her
, rather than the other way round.
‘Don’t you know who that was?’
‘His name’s Harry.’
‘Yeah, Harry Calthorpe.’
‘So? I’ve never heard of him. Who is he?’
Her friend laughed. ‘He’s
Viscount
Calthorpe. He owns a fuck-off great castle in Dorset, darling! He’s the real thing. Eton, Oxford, running the estate – he’s one hundred per cent genuine aristocracy. You’ve only gone and bagged a lord! God, Cressida will be bloody
green
, her mother’s had him earmarked for her since birth. But he’s so hard to get at because he never goes to anything, he’s a complete recluse. Hates parties. Hardly ever comes to London and when he does, he locks himself away at Whites where no girls can get at him. He hasn’t been out with anyone since he broke up with Meredith Buckley-Squire at the Caledonian Ball five years ago. So, well done, Jemima. We were all beginning to think no one would manage to snare Harry Calthorpe.’
‘Oh.’ Jemima frowned and twirled her finger in the rumpled quilt.
‘Well – aren’t you pleased?’
‘I don’t know. I don’t care either way, to be honest.’
When the call was finished, Jemima lay back down and stared up the ceiling. So her mysterious paramour was a lord. She’d met plenty of braying boys in her time and not cared much for them. But after a while, most of them had disappeared into corporate City life, and out of her glitzy, artistic, beautiful-people orbit. Of course she met various titled people at the society bashes she went to –
Tatler
’s Little Black Book party, at which she was a star guest, was full of them – but she was sure enough of her own importance not to need the social boost of being associated with some Lord this, or the Earl of that.
Of course, after the wedding, Harry didn’t call for ages. It was not at all what Jemima was used to. She was quite tempted to track him down and make the first move herself, but something told her that it wasn’t the best way to handle someone like Harry. She had the feeling that if she tried to pursue him, he would freeze and vanish, like a hunted fox. So, for once, she had to be patient. When he finally called, it was to invite her out for dinner.
‘I thought we’d go to Rules,’ he said, ‘my father’s favourite restaurant.’
Jemima, who dined out almost every night, had never been there but she had a sneaking feeling of what to expect and, sure enough, Rules turned out to be an extremely traditional restaurant where the waiters wore black tie and every table groaned with stark linen, heavy silver and wine glasses engraved with the restaurant’s name. The walls were ornamented with hunting prints and antlers, some with old tweed hats hanging off them. The menu was classic – lobster bisque, oysters, ribs of beef, game, and old-fashioned rib-sticking puddings.
‘Is this your favourite too? As well as your father’s, I mean,’ she asked, looking round at the other diners, who appeared to be either tourists or old chaps. Her Prada dress, vertiginous heels and highly groomed appearance looked very exotic here – it was not at all what she was used to. The restaurants she went to had the paparazzi outside, not the hoi polloi inside.
‘Well,’ said Harry, smiling, ‘perhaps it’s seen better days. My pa used to love it here but that was a while
ago
now. He was a big Graham Greene fan, and apparently one of the novels has a scene or two here, so don’t be surprised if you see some bookish types staring about. Food looks good, though.’ He looked worried. ‘Don’t you like it? We can go somewhere else if you’d rather.’
‘Don’t be silly, it’s lovely. Of course we should stay.’ Jemima leaned over towards him, raising an eyebrow flirtatiously over the top of her menu. ‘On one condition. Afterwards, we go to one of my favourite hang-outs. Deal?’
‘Deal. As long as it’s not too racy.’
‘You’ve already said deal so you can’t back out now. Don’t worry, I’m not going to frighten you.’
Two hours later, full of roast beef and sticky toffee pudding, they arrived at Annabel’s, the Berkeley Square nightclub.
‘Oh,’ Harry said, obviously relieved. ‘This is all right. My old man used to come here as well.’
‘Yes – but that was then, and this is now. Annabel’s is so wonderfully private. We can have fun in peace.’ Jemima grinned at him.
So they went in to dance and drink and talk cosily in a discreet corner. Harry was recognised by some old school friends who could scarcely believe that they had just seen Harry Calthorpe dancing in Annabel’s with a beautiful society girl. Then, when the night was over, he saw her into a taxi home, just as he had after the wedding, courteously refusing her purred invitation to come back to Eaton Square with her.
My God
, she’d thought in the taxi on the way home, high on champagne and that curious mix of hormones
that
fizz through someone who might be about to fall in love,
he’s playing hard to get!
She was fascinated by him – by his impeccable manners, his peaceful life, his attitude towards the things that so absorbed her. He was completely uninterested in London life and parties and who was who, who was sleeping with whom, who was richer than whom, where the perfect holiday destination was this year, who had been invited out to so-and-so’s private island. It washed over him. As Jemima told her friends, ‘Darling, he simply doesn’t give a shit.’
Everyone loved the romance of it: the beautiful party-loving girl and the old-fashioned lord who would prefer to wade thigh-deep in an icy river and fish than to go to the most exclusive parties or the grandest society events.
‘You’ll change him, Jemima,’ they told her. ‘What an amazing couple you’ll make!’ And she believed them. That was the trouble.
It had all seemed so perfect; even the first time they slept together had been a whole new experience for Jemima. Because Harry hadn’t leapt into bed with her at the first opportunity, as every other man she’d met had, she’d assumed he was inexperienced and probably a rather clumsy lover, but she’d remained hopeful.
They’d been seeing each other for about six weeks when, at the end of an intimate evening in a small but delicious restaurant near her flat, he’d leaned across the table, taken her hand and said quietly, ‘How about if we have our coffee back at your place?’
Her stomach had somersaulted. At once she felt
nervous,
self-conscious and deliciously excited. ‘Yes … yes please,’ she said, stuttering a little.
‘Good.’ With a discreet gesture, he summoned the bill, paid it and the next minute they were walking together in the cool Belgravia night, strolling to her flat and to the moment she’d been waiting for. She could hardly speak as they went back, his large hand holding her small one.
Is this really me?
she wondered. How many men had she slept with after all? She’d lost count years ago, and didn’t give a fig anyway. As long as it was fun and they both wanted it, who was counting? Sex had become the same as any pleasure: there for the taking. Sometimes it was good, sometimes it was bad. Sometimes she had a strange, drug-fuelled, zany experience – mostly those were with Billy – sometimes she couldn’t remember what had happened the night before. Occasionally she’d had delicious life-enhancing sex with someone sweet just when she’d needed it. Sometimes she’d had the depressing experience of sex with someone she liked but who never called her afterwards, though that was rare.
So why the hell am I so nervous?
She knew it was because Harry had built up to this moment. He’d made her realise that he didn’t sleep with just anyone, that she was special to him. That made her gulp, and hope that she would be worth it. It also made her hope desperately that he would be worth it too.
As she poured him his coffee, she was surprised to find she was trembling and that she didn’t know what to say. When she handed him the cup, it shook violently
on
its small saucer, and their eyes met and they laughed. That broke the ice and dispelled just enough of the tension so that she was no longer frightened. He placed his coffee aside and instead tenderly pulled her on to his lap and kissed her. It felt like the most natural thing in the world and Jemima’s nerves subsided.
Jemima quickly discovered he was no unpractised lover, as she had worried he might be, nor did he let her dominate proceedings as she sometimes did. Instead, their bodies fitted so naturally and easily that afterwards she found herself almost moved by the rightness of it.
From that moment on they were rarely apart. There was no denying that she had fallen in love with Harry, and she was sure that he had fallen in love with her.
But Harry had another love: his home, beautiful Herne Castle and the acres of land that surrounded it. He was fanatical about the great outdoors and nature and farming. His primary concern for years had been to restore and preserve Herne, and to live a quiet, peaceful country life there. It was a side to Harry that Jemima had been told of but didn’t see until the night he drove her to Herne for the first time, in the early hours of the morning after Bea Ogilvy’s ball. As they arrived the sun rose behind the large old house and she could see in his eyes that he was desperate for her to love it too – and she had. The whole scenario was just too romantic for words: the house falling so gracefully and beautifully apart, while its handsome owner passionately tried to save it.