Authors: Pippa Croft
There’s a pop as he twists out the cork and holds the bottle out to me. ‘You first.’
‘No, I think you earned that privilege.’
He
drinks deep and then hands the bottle over. The Prosecco is cool, dry and deliciously fizzy against my tongue. I drink too much in one gulp and hiccup in a very unladylike fashion. Scott bursts out laughing and I do too. Perhaps it’s simply the release of tension between us, but I realize that I’ve laughed too little when Alexander has been around.
The evening sun is slipping towards the horizon when my cab arrives at Falconbury the next day. I stayed in a college guest room last night and managed to get quite a bit of work done. All of the undergraduates have left for the vacation but there were a few master’s and DPhil students around. In fact, I bumped into a couple of friends, Chun and Isla, this morning and we went for a late breakfast.
On my way out of college, I also bumped into my tutor, Professor Rafe, who asked me why I was still in Oxford and hadn’t gone home to Washington. He’s been trying to hit on me all year and warn me off Alexander, but he obviously knew about Alexander’s accident – he is a member of the senior teaching staff and they had to be informed, naturally. I couldn’t deny I’d been visiting Alexander but I lied and told him I’d been staying with Immy. Even so, he gave me a lecture about focusing on my revision and take-home exams and not being distracted.
In one way, he’s right, of course: I
am
distracted by Alexander’s drama – not to mention his body – but
there is no way I’d ever admit that to Rafe. He may be my tutor but he’s also a creep and I would never give him the satisfaction. I mull all of this over on the drive back to Falconbury, where Helen walks down the steps the moment my cab rolls up on the forecourt. From her anxious face, I can tell immediately that something is wrong.
‘I ought to warn you we’ve got a visitor,’ she says in a voice so quiet I can hardly hear.
‘Who?’
She swallows, and I have a terrible feeling of foreboding. ‘Well, Lauren, I’m afraid Valentina arrived last night.’
I was expecting something bad, but not quite this level of bad. ‘What?’
Oh Jesus
, I think to myself,
this really might finish me off
.
Helen grimaces. ‘I know, I’m sorry.’
I swallow hard and try to look slightly less like I’m on my way to the guillotine. ‘Hey, it’s nothing to be sorry about. It’s not your fault. Where is she?’
‘I think she’s gone to the stables with Alexander.’
I tell myself to get a grip. ‘OK, thanks for the warning. I appreciate it.’
‘Do you want Robert to take your bags to your room so you can go straight to the stables?’
‘Thanks, but no. I’ll take them up myself. I could do with a few moments.’
Helen allows herself a brief smile. ‘Good luck.’
OK Deep breaths, Lauren. You
. knew
she’d turn up sooner or later
… I
sit on the edge of the bed and try to calm myself. Any fool might have guessed Valentina wasn’t going to disappear so easily, and that she’d come running as soon as she heard about Alexander’s accident. Maybe she knows I’m here too and wants to cause more trouble – Rupert might have told her.
I pace the room, unable to keep still. No amount of deep breaths will make me feel calm about this; I just know it will end in a massive row and mostly likely heartache for me. I close my eyes and remember the easy, relaxed time I just had with Scott. Am I really up for all this, I wonder to myself. Why am I so bothered by Valentina? She’s just a vindictive witch, and Rupert an idiot who does whatever she asks.
It’s no good
, I decide. I can’t leave Alexander to Valentina any longer. I touch up my make-up, like I’m putting on a suit of armour – then laugh at myself for doing it. After scooting downstairs so fast I’m out of breath, I force myself to saunter casually along the back corridor that leads through the boot room to the stables.
I stop a few feet from the boot room, the door of which is open a few inches.
‘
Amore
, you must listen to me. Surely this latest disaster has convinced you that you must leave the army. When I heard you had been mortally wounded, I almost fainted.’
‘It wasn’t mortal, Valentina, or I’d be dead.’
I hold my hand over my mouth at Alexander’s sarcastic reply. It must be nerves making me giggle.
‘Yet
look at you. You barely escaped with your life!’ She tuts. ‘I think you are being very stoical, but at least it will be a wake-up call for you, and now I am here to help you.’
Help?
Stifling the urge to swear, I hover by the door.
‘You see, you still need me, Alexander.’
There’s a pause after this statement that goes on so long I have to open the door.
‘
Arggh! Fuck!
’
‘Shit, I’m sorry!’
Alexander’s face is screwed up in pain where the door hit him on the shoulder. His Barbour jacket slides to the floor.
Valentina’s glare is enough to strip the flesh from my bones.
‘What do you think you are doing? Alexander is in agony.’
He clutches his lower arm with his hand and winces. ‘I. Am. Not. In. Bloody. Agony.’
‘Sorry, I didn’t know you were behind the door!’
‘You should be more careful, Lauren,’ Valentina snaps, looking me up and down like I just crawled out of a swamp.
Ignoring Valentina, I pick up Alexander’s Barbour but she snatches it from me and tries to drape it around his shoulders. ‘Here,
tesoro
, you must not get cold.’
‘I’m not an invalid,’ he growls and, shrugging the coat aside, brushes past us and stalks off up the corridor.
She
sweeps into the library after him. I follow too, my head held high.
Alexander is facing away from us, standing by the window, clutching his arm.
‘I don’t care what you say,
amore
. I am going to stay here until you are well again. Lauren will fail her exams if she stays, and she doesn’t know how to take care of you anyway.’
Valentina walks up to him and touches his arm but he shakes it off.
‘I’m not bloody helpless. There are plenty of people to help me here. Robert and Helen can lend a hand if I need it, and Lauren is here by choice; we don’t need you too.’
And with that, Alexander stalks off. Pushing open the heavy door with one arm and a sore body gives him trouble but I wouldn’t dare intervene.
I am left with Valentina, standing with her hands on her hips, her lips pursed in frustration. ‘You see the agony he is in? He is a wreck. You are obviously not looking after him properly. I will stay no matter what he says!’
She sits down in Alexander’s chair, and crosses one long leg over the other.
‘The last thing he needs is a nursemaid, Valentina.’
She curls her lip in contempt. ‘A nursemaid? I have no intention of being a nurse.’ She shudders. ‘I would hire someone for that, if I needed it. Obviously, our ideas of therapy are very different.’
A
hot fury burns through me. I stare coolly at her and take my time to reply. ‘Yes, of course, I’ve seen,’ I say lightly. ‘That sex clip left nothing to the imagination. Thank you for sharing it with me.’
She smirks. ‘You are so puritanical, but I guessed you would not be giving Alexander what he needs, what he loves. I am his age, with more experience than you have in your little finger.’ She waves her pinkie at me, tipped with a glossy talon. ‘You know what you are up against now, little Lauren – a real woman – and you’ll be gone before the end of the week now I’m here, you’ll see.’
Her audacity takes my breath away. I don’t want to get in a catfight but really, how much am I supposed to put up with? ‘Oh really? A “real woman”? Not a desperate witch who can’t leave her ex boyfriend alone?’ I ask, with an arched eyebrow. It’s a little below the belt, I admit, but you can be pushed too far.
She raises her eyebrows. ‘Don’t you think hurling insults in Alexander’s home is a little inappropriate? At least you’ve shown your true colours, and your lack of class, if I may say so.’
‘Well, your true colour is definitely green,’ I snap back, utterly furious. ‘Emerald to the core. Try any therapy you want on Alexander, and see what he thinks about it. I have my own life to lead and I’ve wasted enough breath on this ridiculous conversation.’
I try hard not to wrench the door open and let it slam but the sound of the wood hitting the frame
echoes around the grand hallway of Falconbury and causes Robert to stare at me as I stomp up the stairs to my room.
I walk along the landing, where Helen is arranging tulips in a vase. As I pass, she shoots me a questioning look but I can only give her a hands-up WTF gesture. I think I can hear Alexander thumping around in his study but I carry on, back upstairs to our room. I won’t be part of some undignified scrap over him.
If I thought the first dinner party I ‘enjoyed’ at Falconbury was awkward, tonight’s knocks that occasion out of the park. We’ve gathered for supper in the dining room. I don’t know why Alexander wants to eat here; maybe he wants to make a deliberate statement about keeping things formal or about Valentina being part of the past – perhaps it has nothing to do with him and Robert merely assumed that because we had guests, dinner should be served in here.
Whatever, the atmosphere is somewhere below glacial. We sit around the dining table, Valentina at one end, me at the other, with Alexander in between. Valentina is in a skintight dress with a plunging neckline and out of sheer determination not to be accused of trying to ‘compete’ and, I admit, to show how ‘at home’ I am here, I decided to go for a more casual look with new tightly fitting cargos from Anthropologie and a top that’s simple but beautifully cut and always gets Alexander hot under the collar. Though the way Alexander has
his eyes focused on his dinner, I don’t think he’d notice if both of us were dressed as clowns. This is one occasion when I so wish Emma was here, ‘accidentally’ putting her foot in things in her own inimitable way, but she’s away for the night at a charity fashion show.
Alexander manages to get through the soup and main course by communicating in monosyllables. You could cut the atmosphere with a knife. It hardly matters what he says because Valentina is too busy regaling us with stories about her vacations, her parents’ new villa in Sardinia and the expansion of the gallery she owns in Positano. I have a sneaking suspicion that she’s making so many hand gestures to show off her admittedly impressive cleavage.
As soon as dessert has been served, we all retreat to the sitting room – if you can call it a retreat, with the Cold War raging between us. Valentina can’t resist a few remarks about missing General Hunt and how ‘things aren’t the same at Falconbury without him’. I don’t know how Alexander can put up with her comments, they’re so close to the bone.
When she gets up to try and push a cushion under Alexander’s arm, I have murder on my mind. On the other hand, it
is
funny.
‘What are you smiling at?’ she asks, glaring at me as Alexander grunts an ‘I’m fine’ at her. ‘You think it is amusing that Alexander is in pain?’
‘I’m not in pain,’ he growls, clearly wincing as she rearranges the cushion.
‘There,
you see, he’s not in pain. Not from his injury anyway,’ I shoot back, stung at last.
‘That’s because you don’t know him well. Anyone as close to him as I am would know how he really feels.’
Suddenly, Alexander gets up. ‘I am actually in the room. Shall I leave so you can carry on discussing me in private?’
‘
Amore
, don’t be silly. I’m only concerned for you!’
It’s too late. Alexander stalks off, and the cushion falls to the carpet.
‘You see what you have done now?’ Valentina says with a glare of triumph.
Realizing it’s useless to argue with her – and a little pissed at Alexander including me in his comment – I escape to the library and lock the door to give us both time to cool down. The last thing I want is to get into a row with him with Valentina in the house because I suspect that’s exactly what she wants. Maybe Alexander really
is
tired – it hasn’t been long since his op – or just brooding, because when I finally slip into bed beside him, he doesn’t make any attempt to have sex, which is unusual. Irritated by the idea that this would please Valentina, I sit up and do some reading.
I opened my eyes this morning to find his side of the bed empty and a note on my pillow saying he’s gone to walk Benny and will see me at breakfast. I don’t know when he left the house but working on the assumption he’ll be back sooner rather than later, I pull on skinny jeans and my top from last night and head downstairs.
The aroma of cooked bacon and sausages drifts down the hallway from the morning room, but before I can walk in, I hear raised voices. My Italian classes don’t cover some of the vocabulary on Valentina’s side but I can get the gist. Alexander, on the other hand, is making himself perfectly clear.
‘I’ve said I appreciate you coming over to see how I am, but now I think it’s time you left,’ Alexander snaps.
Valentina switches to English. ‘You are a fool! She is only after one thing, your money and your title.’
‘Now you’re being ridiculous. Lauren couldn’t care less about that stuff. And I’m not listening to another word.’
Though I’m seething mad, I’ll give Valentina one thing. She does a very elegant snort.
‘I never thought you would be so naive,
tesoro
, but now I realize how deeply you have been taken in. She must be better in bed than I’d have given her credit for. She doesn’t have the body of course,’ she says dismissively, ‘so she must have some tricks up her sleeve that have warped you.’
I almost laugh at this; she is utterly outrageous. Ignoring the temptation to burst in and throw a few insults her way, I decide to wait in the hallway as Alexander assumes his chilliest tone.
‘Valentina, please don’t force me into asking you to leave this house.’
‘What?’ she blusters. ‘You can’t throw me out! Your mother would turn in her grave and if the general were
alive, he would weep to see how you treat me. You will regret it too – when things go wrong with your cheap little American, you’ll come running back and by then maybe it’ll be too late.’