Chapter Five #3
that blush, knocking about forty years off her sixty. “Oh, that old
fool—he’s off on his holidays with some of his friends. Boys’ week,
you know.”
Laurie
couldn’t imagine the sober, imperturbable man who’d ferried the
Fitzroys about their business for decades helling it up with the
lads in Ibiza, but he let it go. His mother was winding herself
around Sasha’s arm like a beautiful vampire clematis. “Gibson,
Sasha needs a bail-out.”
“Oh. Bless her—she’s been much better. But she had a little
turn today, and I thought I’d bring her in. What are you boys doing
here?”
“Just passing. We popped in to say hi to Olivia. Ma, put the
young man down.”
Marielle turned a bright face to him, and surrendered her grip
on Sasha as Gibson took her in hand. “Mais
qu’il est beau! Le pauvre garcon—je suis tellement desolée
encore...”
She lapsed into French a lot now that Sir William could no
longer scold her for it, as if making up for lost time. And Sasha,
no matter how well he thrived, would always be her poor boy, the
one she had betrayed for the sake of protecting her daughter. She
would always be desolately sorry. Gently Laurie pushed back a lock
of satiny hair that had tumbled into her eyes. “Yes, he’s
beau all right,” he told
her, shooting Sasha a sly glance. “But he’s not so
pauvre any more. Look at
him—smart suit, nice briefcase.”
Sasha
obligingly held out his arms and allowed her to admire these
attributes. “Really, Lady Fitzroy. I’m fine.”
“Mon pauvre garcon. Call me
Marielle.”
She was
like a Languedoc queen being gracious to a commoner whom she’d
wronged. Sasha, fundamentally gracious in his own way, only made
her a slight bow, aware of how affronted she’d be if he took her up
on the offer. “It’s good to see you. Mrs Gibson, too.”
Gibson,
his firm ally from the moment when she’d worked out how the land
lay between him and Laurie, turned to Marielle. “Now, my lady.
These good lads of ours have just popped in to see Dr Matthews, so
we’d better let them go.”
“D’accord. But one moment...” She
frowned, emerging from her mists into a moment of clarity. “Laurie,
darling. It’s a dangerous world. You have to look after
yourself—and my poor Sasha too.”
A shiver tightened the skin between Laurie’s shoulder blades.
She was convincing during these rare touchdowns. “We look after
each other, Ma,” he said uneasily. “Ne
t’inquiète pas.”
The
moment passed. Marielle went blank again, then mischievous,
reminding Laurie of the sweet woman she’d been before her husband
had crushed her glitter to dust. “Oh, Laurie. Your accent remains
horrible.” She pressed a jewelled hand to his cheek for a moment,
then sailed off alone up the stairs.
Laurie
watched her go. “You’d better get after her, Mrs G. Hope you
brought your butterfly net.”
“I never leave home without one.” Gibson dug in her handbag,
briefly making Laurie wonder if she’d meant it. “Here. I was going
to put this into the post today, but since I’ve bumped into
you...”
She handed an envelope to Laurie, who took it from her
curiously. The paper was thick and heavy, the address carefully
inscribed. Mr L Fitzroy and Mr S
Petrica... “What’s this?”
“Nothing. Open it when you get home.” She was blushing
furiously again, and when Laurie’s eyebrows went up she backed away
from him, beginning her pursuit of Marielle. “Ridiculous—a woman of
my age! To say nothing of a man of his. But he wouldn’t take no, Laurie,
and... well, eventually it was the only way to make him stop
pestering me. We don’t expect you boys to be able to come. We know
how busy you are.”
She ran
off up the stairs in Marielle’s wake. Sasha took the envelope from
Laurie’s hand. “Wait,” he said in wonder. “Charlie’s off on his
stag do, isn’t he?”
“Right. Though I’d never in a thousand years have thought...”
Laurie broke into laughter. “There’s a little Ealing comedy right
there. The housekeeper and the chauffeur.” He blinked away a
stinging sensation from his eyes. It was funny, God knew, but
Gibson and Charlie had been real and present in his life as a
couple, married or not, since before he could remember—prosaic
guardian angels of the kitchen and garage. “Where are they tying
the knot?”
“St Bartholomew Riverside, on the fifteenth of
July.”
“But that’s a tiny little place. Miles out, too—near Dagenham.
Shall we big it up for them, Sash? St George’s, Hanover Square, and
all the trimmings? We probably could, now we’re going to be
Romeo.”
“No, you idiot,” Sasha told him, chuckling. “They wouldn’t like
that. St Bart’s is lovely, and Mrs Gibson’s family all live out
near Dagenham. That’s why they’re doing it there.”
She has family? Laurie only just
stopped himself from asking. She’d been part of his family, subsumed in the Fitzroy
establishment. “Does it say that on the invitation?”
“No. We were just chatting in the kitchen one night when you
and I went to visit Clara. Didn’t you know?”
“Er, yeah. Of course.” Laurie was mortified, for once too
bitterly so to lay his shame at Sasha’s feet and have it redeemed
by confession. Sasha found his aristocratic gaffes amusing most of
the time, but Laurie was afraid he might not think this one
funny. Laurie, she lived with you for
nineteen years... He reached awkwardly for
a subject change. “Christ. I hope she doesn’t want to leave and set
up a rural pub somewhere with Charlie. Where will I find another
one like her?”
“I shouldn’t worry. She’ll make a great Mrs Charlie, but he’ll
always come second to your mum.”
“God, I hope so. She’s worse than ever, isn’t she? Sorry about
the pauvre garcon routine. And the prophecies of doom.” Laurie shivered, looking
out into the dangerous world Marielle had seen beyond the clinic’s
sunny garden. “What was all that about, do you think?”
Sasha
put an arm around him. “Nothing,” he said firmly. “Look, I love
your ma. But we both know she’s as mad as a hot-air
balloon.”
Laurie
nodded ruefully. “With mile-long paper streamers. Yeah. Come on,
let’s make our getaway before she floats out of Olivia’s window and
somebody scrambles the RAF to shoot her down.” He shielded his
eyes, looking across the road to the row of expensive little shops
on the far side. “Actually, hang on here just a minute. I’ll be
right back.”
He
darted out across the street. Sasha watched him go, wondering what
had happened to the shadowed, anxious soul he’d found outside
Olivia’s office fifteen minutes before. He reached inside himself
for an equal resilience. Marielle and marriage were distracting
phenomena, but he was so tired, his head echoing with the noon-mare
dream. Laurie, returning two minutes later with a huge armful of
flowers, was a surreal, floating vision. He tapped on the limo’s
window. Through birdsong and a weird static hiss in his ears, Sasha
heard him explain to the chauffeur that he was Laurence Fitzroy,
heir to the family misfortune, and could he leave these in the back
seat, and borrow her lipstick?
She handed it over with barely a flick of an eyebrow. Laurie
used it to write on the passenger window—flawlessly backwards, so
that Gibson would see it when she got into the
car—we wouldn’t miss it for the
world. Then he strode over to Sasha,
smiling incandescently, putting the sunlight to shame. He’d taken
one white rose from the dazzling bouquet, and this he tucked into
Sasha’s buttonhole, bestowing upon him at the same time a
bone-melting kiss. “There, sweetheart. Stefan’s in Budapest,
Gibson’s in love. All’s well that ends well—no more bad dreams for
you.”