Lizzie began to feel vaguely indignant. “And you’re telling me this — to
comfort
me?”
“Well, in a way. I mean, they’re too perfect, if you get my drift. They give you the feeling they can’t be real. It’s not just the teeth. It’s the whole woman. She’s like a Stepford Wife. Or a Barbie doll. I’d find it all a bit creepy, if I were James.”
“Did you — did you talk to her at all, in the pub?”
Bruno shrugged. “A bit,” he admitted.
“Well? What did you find out?”
Bruno seemed strangely reluctant to impart any further information. “Does it really matter?” he asked.
“Of course it matters. Come on, spit it out. What do you know?”
“If you insist, then. She’s — erm — her name is Erin. Erin Wilde.”
“
And?
”
“What makes you thinks there’s any ‘and’? Okay, okay.
And
she’s staying at your house.”
“
Mill House?
” Lizzie was incredulous.
“’Fraid so.”
Lizzie shook her head, at a loss for words.
“He works pretty fast, doesn’t he?” said Bruno, almost in admiration. “First the PA, now this tourist. He must have met her in the last couple of days — and already he has her coming to a wedding.”
“No, Bruno,” Lizzie croaked. “I think he’s known her for ages. She’s — I’m pretty sure she’s an ex-girlfriend.”
“An ex-girlfriend?”
“You said she was from Florida, but I think you got it wrong. It’s California, isn’t it?”
Bruno thought a bit and then nodded. “That’s right,” he said. “Santa — Barbara, maybe? I’m not that hot on geography.”
Lizzie huddled down in her chair. “Definitely the ex-girlfriend then.” She was crying now in the way she’d perfected when she first went to Sevenoaks. Soundlessly, without any movement of her facial muscles at all. Tears simply slipped down her cheeks, as if she had incontinence of the ducts all over again.
“I’ll have some tea now,” she said.
As Bruno strode off to find a waiter, Lizzie tried to dry up the tears with a tissue, but it was useless.
She could have forgiven James Sonja Jenkins, maybe. Proximity, opportunity, all those extenuating circumstances; she could have allowed herself to be convinced that he’d unwisely taken comfort because it was more or less shoved in his face.
But he must have gone to some lengths to reclaim Erin, his brassy Californian.
Maybe he’d been having an affair with her all along? Yes, he’d probably been meeting up with Erin for months before he left Lizzie — he went away on enough business trips to facilitate any number of affairs.
Maybe he’d been planning to leave Lizzie for Erin long before he read that misdirected e-mail. Maybe Lizzie’s silly blunder had given him the perfect excuse to bail out. Now that Lizzie had seen Erin with her own eyes, nothing seemed more likely.
How could James ever have let Erin go in the first place? If she, Lizzie, had so much as glimpsed a photo of Erin at the outset of things with James, she’d probably have thrown in the towel there and then. Boot-faced and bandy-legged Erin was not. Nobody could have expected Lizzie to hold her own in the shadow of a woman like that.
Bruno arrived with a tea tray and poured them each a cup. He put three spoons of sugar in Lizzie’s. “For shock,” he said. “Swallow it down and blow your nose. You can’t let them beat you, Lizzie. You’ve got to get out into the fray again. Maria needs you there, for one thing.”
After two cups of tea and some mundane chatter about Ellie, Alex, Madge, Ingrid, Sarah, and the peculiarities of dogwood, Lizzie was able to get her tears under control. It was a bit like staunching a wound. Given enough time, the beginnings of a scab were bound to form, even over a severe injury.
“All right,” she told Bruno. “I’m ready to go back in.” Nothing tangible had changed, after all. She and James were still on the brink of divorce. The only difference was that now she finally knew it was irrevocable.
“You might want to pop into the loo,” Bruno suggested. “You’ve got some black stuff . . .” He gestured at his under-eye area. She gave him a watery smile and went off to reapply her makeup.
Lizzie was on auto-drive for the rest of that ghastly evening. Somehow she managed to smile and chat and circulate. People asked her about her new home, and she told them. People asked her if she had a job, and she told them. People even had the flaming cheek to ask if there was any chance of her and James getting back together again — and she told them.
But she wasn’t prepared to stand in the lineup of single women waiting to catch the bride’s bouquet. She wasn’t that much of a sport. Several voices, made loud and tactless by too much wine, urged her to join the spinsters, but she shook her head and stood her ground, forcing a smile when she caught Maria looking at her anxiously.
The American girl, stylish and supercilious, allowed herself to be pushed into the scrum. As the bouquet arced gracefully through the air, she put up one long arm but the roses and baby’s breath went flying on by. Maria’s awkward niece made a dive for the missile and snagged it by the petals. Hugely entertained, the wedding guests laughed and clapped.
At last, the bride and groom took off in Maria’s convertible, towing sardine tins and an old boot, with the obligatory white writing all over the sides of the car.
Most of the guests went out into the car park to see them off. Lizzie felt a stab of misery to see James and Erin standing hand in hand, waving the car away. They made such a striking couple among the ill-assorted throng of relatives and friends. Looking at them, both so tall and elegant, so obviously a cut above everybody else, Lizzie had to remind herself that she’d once been the woman at James’s side. Watching Erin, she marveled afresh that she, Lizzie, had ever qualified for the job.
Maria and Laurence were bound for a weeklong seaside idyll in a romantic cottage in Pembrokeshire. Lizzie just hoped it wouldn’t rain all day every day, and that there was a decent dishwasher. Then again, it was a honeymoon. Maybe they wouldn’t care if they couldn’t sunbathe. Maybe there’d be no dirty dishes because they’d be eating strawberries and oysters off each other’s naked tummies.
As the car sped off, Bruno took Lizzie by the elbow.
“I think we should call it a night,” he said. “You look completely knackered.”
“Thass nice to know,” Lizzie said. She was having some trouble talking. Her tongue seemed too thick for her mouth. Perhaps those last two or three glasses of wine had been a mistake. “I’m feeling better already.”
“I don’t mean you look awful. I just mean you look tired.”
“Yesh, well. Iss been a tiring old life.”
Turning to walk back into the hotel, she found herself face-to-face with James and Erin. Somehow, she managed to swallow down the choice expletive that sprang to her lips. Unfortunately, Bruno had less self-control.
“Bugger,” he said with feeling, only partly under his breath.
“
Shit
,” James muttered simultaneously.
The only person who didn’t look thoroughly jangled was Erin.
“Hi, er, Lizzie,” James managed. “Having fun? This is a friend of mine, Erin Wilde. Erin, this is — erm — this is . . .”
“Your wife,” Bruno prompted grimly.
“Exactly. My — um —
estranged
wife.”
Erin held out a long-fingered hand, apparently expecting Lizzie to shake it. Lizzie touched the cool fingers for the briefest possible moment. “Great to meet you,” Erin announced in a loud, authoritative voice, as if she had a concealed megaphone tucked into her cleavage. “I’ve heard a lot about you.”
Lizzie always felt stumped when people said that. She knew she was supposed to smile graciously and say something coy, like, “All good, I hope?” But the only response her brain suggested was, “Shut your face, you vicious red-headed husband-snatcher.”
It was probably just as well she couldn’t seem to operate her tongue.
“I gotta hand it to you for not tweaking things at Mill House,” the loud drawl continued. “It takes a real restrained woman not to want to put her stamp on a place. I guess you had the sense to know you couldn’t improve on anything. It’s so classy — totally killer decor, if classic English country does it for you. Right now I’m more into the whole Bauhaus thing.”
Lizzie gaped at the woman. An acute sense of outrage robbed her of the power of speech yet again. If she weren’t careful, Erin Wilde would go away with the impression that Lizzie Buckley was a mute.
Bruno broke the awkward pause with an entirely new conversational gambit. “So what brings you to darkest Gloucestershire, Erin?”
Erin gave Bruno a quick once-over. “We met at The Grey Goose, right?” she asked.
“I’m flattered you remember,” Bruno replied drily.
Lizzie noticed suddenly that Erin was an inch or two taller than Bruno. She guessed that Erin didn’t mind towering over men.
Erin smiled a blinding smile that didn’t cause a single crow’s foot. Lizzie took note of the teeth. A tribute to orthodontistry, she had to agree. “I’m in London on business,” Erin said, snuggling up against James. “But Gloucestershire is pure pleasure.”
Pure pleasure? Lizzie glanced at James. Erin’s hair was tickling his jaw and his hand rested lightly on her shoulder. He wouldn’t meet Lizzie’s eye.
“And what’s your business, Erin?” Bruno plowed on.
“I’m in realty.”
“Reality? As in ‘reality television,’ or something?”
Erin pulled a face that seemed to say, “God, you people.”
“Real estate,” James explained briskly. “You must have heard of Wilde and Enfield?”
Wilde and Enfield. Even Lizzie had heard of them. Their purple and yellow “For Sale” signs were all over the place in Kent. If she’d thought much about them at all, Lizzie would have assumed they were an English company.
“We’re one of the bigger realty multinationals,” Erin said importantly, shaking back her wine-colored hair. “Britain is our fastest-growing market right now.”
“ How — how nice for you.” Not much of a rejoinder, Lizzie realized, but at least her voice was working again.
“Well, we’d better get going.” Bruno put his hand under Lizzie’s elbow. “We were just about to say our good-byes.”
Erin opened her eyes very wide. “Really? Not in party mood tonight?”
Bruno gave his wickedest cherub grin. “Oh, we’re in party mood, all right. More of a private party mood, though. Gloucestershire is pure pleasure for us, too.”
Lizzie suppressed the urge to punch the air and cry, “
Yesss
, Bruno!” At least one of them had enough gumption to strike a blow for the deserted wife.
She stole a look at James’s face as Bruno propelled her away. She might as well not have bothered. His expression was completely impassive. To look at him, you’d have to assume he really didn’t give a flying feather that his wife was apparently off to a night of pure, partying pleasure in the chintzy bedrooms of a local bed-and-breakfast, with a short but well-muscled landscape gardener from Kent.
Just as they were almost out of earshot, Erin Wilde bugled, “Lizzie, you might want to throw on a jacket or something. Your zipper’s splitting.”
T
hank you, Bruno, thank you.”
“For what?”
“For keeping my end up with Ms. Britain-ish-our- fashtest-growing-market.”
“Christ, could you believe the woman?”
Lizzie, fiddling with the knobs under the passenger seat, suddenly crashed backwards into a reclining position. She’d asked Bruno to drive because it was just possible that she was over the legal limit for alcohol in the bloodstream.
“You think she was consheited? Not just, you know — impreshively confident?”
“She was confident the way the Queen speaks the Queen’s English. Way, way beyond the call of duty.”
“Men like confident women,” Lizzie said dismally.
Bruno was quiet for a moment. “Either he likes her or he doesn’t,” he said after a while. “Nothing you can do about it, lass. If he prefers that sort of woman to a woman like you, then it’s his loss.”
Lizzie felt a great surge of affection for Bruno. “You think so, Bruno? You really think so?”
“Phwargh, there’s no comparison! A real estate queen over a
poet
? He’s clearly lost his marbles, love.”
“I’m not really a poet,” Lizzie said, but she felt a bit better. “More of a — a vershi — a vershifier. Can’t even get published, you know.”
“You’re a poet and you know it. Next time you see Ms. Wilde, you let her know you’re above all the trappings of commerce. You’re made of finer stuff.”
“Oh God. Do you think I’ll
have
to see her again?”
Bruno shrugged. “Chances are, love, chances are.”
They made the rest of the trip in silence.
As they let themselves into the dark house with the key Bruno had been given earlier when he checked in, Lizzie felt a terrible sense of letdown and sadness. In some weird way, she’d been looking forward to this wedding, even after she’d found out James was bringing a partner. Yes, she’d been looking forward to the chance to show off her hard-won new body to the assembled cast of characters from her old life in Laingtree. Most of all, she’d been looking forward to twirling around, all slim and satin- clad, looking more sophisticated that she’d ever looked in her life, in front of James.
Whoever said looking good is the best revenge hadn’t factored in an opponent like Erin Wilde. Sure, Lizzie could look good. But what did mere “good” matter if the enemy was fabulous?
All Lizzie’s ludicrous hopes of bringing James to his knees with jealousy and remorse had been swept away for once and for all now. Her husband was being unfaithful, not only with his nasty little PA, but also with a goddesslike redhead from his past, possibly in the Jacobean bed where Lizzie’s children had been conceived. A marriage didn’t recover from a double whammy like that.
By now Bruno had brought Lizzie to the doorway of a bedroom. She was aware that, without him there to support her, she might have had slight difficulty walking in a straight line. “Bag’s in the car,” she told him muzzily.
“No, it’s not,” he replied, swinging it down from his shoulder. “I brought it in for you.”