Chapter 4 #4
‘If you don’t feel you can help us, Will, we understand,’ Grace told him, smiling at him sharkishly. Then she went in for the kill. ‘It’s not as if you owe us anything.’
‘How does Lorcan feel about this?’ he asked, suddenly seeing a way out. He felt sure his friend would never be party to something like this. Kate was his favourite sibling.
‘Oh, Lorcan’s behind it all the way.’ Grace waved away his reservations. With Lorcan in America, she felt on safe ground. ‘We had a family meeting just before he left for New York,’ she continued, ‘and everyone agreed this was the best course of action.’
‘I just can’t imagine him agreeing to it.’
‘Are you accusing me of lying, William?’
Will groaned inwardly. Grace only called him ‘William’ when she was displeased with him. ‘No, of course not, Grace,’ he said. ‘It’s just that I couldn’t agree to anything Lorcan wouldn’t approve of.’
‘I understand that, but Lorcan is behind this 100 per cent.’
‘Ask him yourself,’ Rachel piped up. Grace scowled at her daughter. Rachel ignored her. ‘I’ll tell him we’ve discussed it with you and you can ask him if he agrees the next time you call him,’ she continued smoothly.
‘I’ll do that,’ Will said firmly, giving her a hard look. She held his gaze. If she was bluffing, she was good.
‘Good.’ Rachel smiled complacently. She was enjoying watching Will squirm.
When he had come to live with them, she had expected him to join her band of slavishly devoted admirers and had been more than a little put out when he remained impervious to her charms. She had found it bewildering and annoying that he seemed to prefer Kate, not only tolerating her ridiculous schoolgirl crush but positively indulging it.
He was always helping her with her homework, flirting outrageously with her while hearing her lines of Shakespeare, playing a very enthusiastic Romeo to her Juliet.
He frequently included her in trips to the cinema or to the theatre with him and Lorcan.
He had even taken her to that Trinity Ball when she was way too young and Rachel should have been the one to go.
Rachel liked to think she had broken a few hearts when she married Tom, and she resented the fact that Will’s wasn’t one of them.
‘Now,’ Grace said, ‘how about taking us to lunch?’
‘Sure. I have a few things to finish up here and I’ll be with you.’
‘Right. We’ll go to the loo to freshen up.’
As he watched them leave his office, Will sank back into his chair. He was beginning to sympathise with Kate’s boyfriend. He, too, felt decidedly overwhelmed.
* * *
‘Well, that went well,’ Rachel said to her mother, as they touched up their makeup in front of the mirror. ‘I think we’ve got him on board.’
‘It was going fine until you got carried away,’ Grace hissed. ‘What were you thinking of, telling him to ring Lorcan and see what he thinks? You went too far. He will ask him, you know – and when he does, we’re sunk.’
‘Oh, don’t be such a fusspot, Mum,’ Rachel said, calmly applying more lipstick. ‘I’ve got Lorcan covered. In fact, he’ll be our trump card in getting Will on side.’ She smiled knowingly at herself in the mirror.
‘But how—’
Rachel tossed her lipstick back into her bag and turned to her mother. ‘Okay, listen.’
As Rachel explained her plan, Grace’s smile grew wider and ever more serene.
* * *
‘I’ll be right with you,’ Will said, as Grace and Rachel returned to his office in a cloud of expensive perfume.
He stood up, sent the voice note to Louise, and was putting on his jacket when the phone rang.
He picked up the receiver. ‘Yes?’ he said, glancing at Grace and Rachel apologetically.
‘Bollocks!’ he swore, after a few moments.
‘Who the hell let him out of his cage?’ He was silent, listening.
‘Right, I’ll take care of it.’ He slammed the phone into its cradle angrily.
‘Sorry, Grace, I’ll have to forgo lunch,’ he said.
‘Bloody Owen’s escaped and is holed up somewhere in Temple Bar with an American journalist – no doubt regaling her with tales of drugs and sex with underage groupies. ’
‘Oh, do you have to go?’
‘Yes,’ Will said, fishing in his drawer for his keys. ‘Damage limitation.’
‘Oh well, some other time,’ Grace said. ‘We’ll leave you to it. I’ll be in touch about next weekend.’
Great, Will thought. He pocketed his keys and went out, stopping at Louise’s desk. ‘I’ve made a list of a few things we need to take care of and sent it to you,’ he said. ‘I’m not sure how far I got before I was interrupted.’
‘Sorry,’ Louise said. ‘I couldn’t stop them.’
‘Oh, don’t worry about it. I wouldn’t expect anyone to stop Grace O’Neill in full sail – not even you.
’ This was saying something as Louise was the most capable person Will had ever met.
She was the sort of girl who could conjure up a helicopter in the middle of the desert at a moment’s notice.
Her efficiency would have been terrifying if it weren’t for the fact that she was so kind and down to earth, adored by everyone from Phoenix to the roadies, who regularly fell in love with her when they were on tour.
‘Well, I’m going to root out Owen. Any leads?’
‘I was just talking to Rory,’ Louise told him. ‘He thinks he might be in Bar One.’
‘Okay. I don’t know when I’ll be back.’
‘Good luck!’ Louise called after him.
* * *
Stuck in traffic on the way to Temple Bar, Will had time to brood over the meeting with Grace and Rachel.
The more he thought about it, the more incensed he became.
Damn it, he thought crossly. Since when was it up to him to be everyone’s Mr Fix-It?
As if he didn’t have enough to do chasing around after Owen!
Now he was expected to save Kate from a fate worse than death.
Picking up the pieces after Owen and the rest could be trying, but it was his job, and he had chosen it.
He had never signed up for putting the kibosh on Kate’s love life.
He suspected he wouldn’t have felt so bad about the request if he hadn’t already had a guilty conscience about Kate.
To make matters worse, he wasn’t even sure how guilty he should feel.
He knew something had happened between them after that Trinity Ball, but not how far it had gone – what base they’d got to, as the Americans would say.
That was when he had still been drinking, and he had been absolutely legless by the end of the evening.
He had woken the next morning – as he had on so many mornings in those days – with virtually no memory of the previous night.
The only reason he knew anything at all had happened was because of the bollocking Tom had given him the next day.
He had bumped into Will and Kate during the evening and told Will he had been coming on pretty strong to Kate.
Later he had seen them disappearing in the direction of Will’s room in the college.
Will couldn’t remember the details of Tom’s lecture, but he knew it had revolved around the basic theme of not shitting where you live and that Lorcan would ‘go apeshit’ if he found out that Will had been messing his sister around.
Later, he had flashbacks, and a hazy memory of kissing Kate on the lawn and then waking in the early hours to find her sleeping beside him, still in her dress. When he woke up properly – which wasn’t until late the following afternoon – she was gone.
Kate had never said anything, but she had changed towards him.
She had started avoiding him, and when they did meet up, the old camaraderie between them was gone.
Will suspected he had hurt her, but he couldn’t apologise when he didn’t know what had happened, and it would be too humiliating to her to ask.
He had been aware that she had a girlish crush on him and, in his cups, he had probably taken advantage of it, he thought.
And now Grace wanted him to romance Kate and scupper her marriage plans.
Finally making it through the lunchtime traffic, he parked the car and walked to Bar One. Sure enough, Owen was lounging on a sofa in a dark corner at the end of the room.
‘So, do you enjoy being famous?’ the pretty blonde opposite him was asking flirtatiously in a Californian accent.
‘Well, you never have to wonder where your next shag’s coming from.’ Owen grinned. ‘That’s pretty great.’
Will noticed the phone recording on the table. They hadn’t seen him come in and he hung back, deciding how to play it. Then he strode purposefully up to the table. ‘You,’ he said, eyeballing Owen, ‘outside!’ He jerked his head towards the door.
‘What?’
‘You heard me.’ He put a firm hand on Owen’s shoulder. ‘Out!’
‘Okay, man, no problem.’ Owen raised his hands as if Will was holding a gun to his head. He got up and left.
Will slid into the seat opposite the blonde.
‘You’re Will Sargent,’ she said.
‘I know who I am,’ Will said coldly. ‘Who are you?’
‘Janice Carter.’ She switched off the recording and put the phone into her pocket.
‘What have you got there?’ Will asked.
‘It’s an interview with Owen.’
‘You think that was Owen Cassidy?’
‘Of course it was.’
Will shook his head. ‘It wasn’t.’
Janice seemed at a loss for words.
‘He’s a lookalike,’ Will told her.
‘Oh come on!’
‘I know.’ Will nodded sympathetically. ‘He’s good, isn’t he? Makes a damn fine living out of it, I believe.’
He had flustered her, he could see. ‘Okay,’ she said finally, regaining her composure. ‘If he’s just a lookalike, what are you doing here?’
‘I have my client’s reputation to protect,’ Will said smoothly.
Janice snorted, probably at the idea of Owen having any reputation worthy of protection.