Chapter 10 #2
‘Shall we go?’ He lifts an elbow for me to slide an arm through and leads me from the room, his strength preventing my trembling legs from giving way beneath me.
The whispers and scrutinising eyes of both men and women are even more uncomfortable than I’ve been imagining they would be.
There’re more people for dinner than were here this morning: at least eighty, maybe more.
As we walk into the grand reception room, we’re presented with a tray of full champagne flutes.
Gregory releases my arm to take two glasses, giving me a chance to absorb the majesty of the old room.
Red satin drapes across the large, arched windows, drawn back in the middle by gold rope ties.
A concert harpist is playing an almost gothic melody as the log fire roars beside her.
Whilst most people stand in their finery, snacking on canapés and sipping champagne, I see Florence talking to a silver-haired man with a matching beard and moustache, a hefty middle, both sitting on tall, wooden thrones.
The thrones are upholstered in thick, red linen and match variations of the same chairs scattered around the perimeter of the room.
I’m handed a glass of champagne on a reassuring smile before Charlotte and Williams make their way towards us.
We have a chance to quickly exchange greetings and gush about dresses before the Duke and Duchess are announced to the room.
The poor Duchess really looks beautiful in her royal-blue two piece but she shuffles in clear discomfort.
The Duke guides her subtly by the elbow, bending his lanky frame a little to give her support.
He thanks the hunt for returning for a fifty-third consecutive year, reminisces about tales of his father, then on completion of his speech, announces dinner.
We make our way into another, even grander – if that’s possible – room. A nudge in my side knocks me into Gregory. His arm flies up protectively and I lean into him, thrilled that Stella is scowling.
‘Ever so sorry, Sarah.’
‘Scarlett,’ Gregory growls at her, a reaction that pleases me immensely. She flashes my delectable gentleman a dazzling smile that isn’t returned, then narrows her focus on me before continuing her strut to her table.
I’m relieved to be perched between Gregory and Williams for dinner. After the Duke says grace for the room, game terrine is placed in front of me. I spread a thick layer over my oat cakes and waste no time settling it into my empty stomach. It really is scrumptious.
‘Good?’ Gregory asks.
‘Delicious,’ I say, after clearing my mouth.
He’s stolen away from me during our main course to indulge another affected woman in conversation.
This one is Adriana, the pretty and much younger wife of Francis, the private equity investor Gregory seemed to dislike when he introduced us in the Shard.
Francis studies me a little too closely as I eat my venison, whilst Adriana throws her head back on a fake laugh and touches Gregory anywhere she can reach despite the fact he hasn’t said anything funny.
By the time my crème br?lée arrives, I’m too full to even attempt it. Gregory’s now in a business conversation with Francis but Adriana’s hungry eyes continue to watch him. I’m beyond fed up.
A different loud, flirtatious laugh makes me lift my focus from the piece of thread I’m playing with on the table.
Charlotte is clearly tipsy and behaving as though she’s overly interested in a middle-aged man who’s admittedly quite handsome in a silvering fox kind of way but far too old for her.
It’s actually a little creepy if I’m honest, the way he’s touching her hair and feigning interest in a story about her watch, which she got for her eighteenth birthday.
That it was just three years ago doesn’t seem to faze him.
‘Want to get some air?’ Williams is leaning in, his hushed tone for only my ears. He seems as truly pissed off as I am.
‘Love to,’ I admit with the first genuine smile I’ve offered this evening.
As I make to stand from the table, Gregory’s hand clamps around my wrist, his face filled with concern. ‘Are you okay?’
‘Yes.’ My tone is sharper than I intend. I force my lips into a soft smile for the other eyes around the table but speak through my teeth. ‘I’m fine. I’m going to get some air with Williams.’
‘I’ll come out in five minutes.’
‘No rush.’ And I mean it. He’s ignored me long enough; why change his attitude now?
Christ, he has me up and down like a yo-yo.
One minute, I’m high on life and him, feeling like I have everything I’ll ever need and want.
The next, the possibility of a break, an opportunity to get my head straight in Dubai, doesn’t seem like a bad idea.
But I’m afraid. Afraid of what I could lose if I go.
Those highs. My reason. My sanity. The reality that we’re on day seven of the countdown to the ballistics report comes crashing to me.
We’re on borrowed time until those findings.
‘How do you stand this every year?’ I ask Williams.
The cold air feels nice on my hot, irritable skin.
He leans forward, resting his elbows on the wall of the veranda. ‘It drives me half-insane but we’ve got some good business contacts here.’
‘Charlotte’s sweet.’ I fold my arms across my chest, the cold beginning to bite.
He shakes his head then drops it to look at his feet. ‘She’s the reason I’m out here.’
‘The flirting?’
‘I don’t know what’s got into her this last year or so. It’s like she’s found sex.’
I smirk, knowing the feeling.
‘I was going to bring Amanda,’ he says, flicking a questioning eye to me. ‘I didn’t want to bring Charlotte after last year.’
I don’t know which statement to respond to first. I want to dig a little about my best friend and what happened last year sounds quite intriguing too. I resolve to tackle both. ‘What happened last year?’
‘Long story short. She got drunk, got flirtatious then got dragged to bed kicking and screaming.’
‘By you?’
‘Gregory. He looks out for her and bollocks me when I screw up looking after her.’
I want to ask why he wasn’t looking out for his little sister himself but I move on to my next intriguing topic. ‘Did you ask Amanda to come?’
‘I was about to when she told me she didn’t want to see me any more. Something about her and space and learning lessons.’
I roll my eyes. ‘She’ll see sense.’
‘Right!’ He pushes himself up as if someone just shot him with adrenalin. ‘Back to fending off the wolves.’
I internally laugh at the thought that he has to fend dirty old men off his twenty-one-year-old sister whilst I’m struggling to fend a load of floozies off my thirty-year-old man.
‘Can I escort you back, my lady?’
‘Actually, I’m going to enjoy this fine weather a little longer.’ I lean forward, replacing Williams in his spot on the veranda and watch a shooting star glide through the crisp, black sky until it disappears.
‘Are you going to tell me what I’ve done wrong or am I going to have to guess?
’ His velvet words reach me just before his dinner jacket is draped across my shoulders, still warm from his body.
I inhale his scent and pull the jacket tighter around me.
‘I’ve been ignoring you,’ he says when I don’t answer.
‘Acting like I don’t exist and entertaining Adriana, you mean.’
‘It’s just business, Scarlett.’
‘Please tell me what business Adriana is in,’ I snap, turning to leave the veranda.
‘Hold the fort,’ he says, grabbing my arm back.
Despite my irritation, I tell him, ‘You mean hold the phone.’
‘Whichever,’ he says resting back on the veranda. I resume my position next to him. ‘She’s in the business of if I don’t keep her happy, I don’t keep her husband happy and her husband is a very wealthy man.’
‘Her husband’s a sleazy dick.’
He laughs, a warm sound that causes me to let out a short laugh too. ‘He is a dick.’ He nudges into my shoulder and drops a kiss on my cheek. ‘Dance with me?’
‘You don’t deserve my moves,’ I say stubbornly whilst tuning into the sound of the band covering Sammy Davis Junior’s ‘Mr Bojangles.’
Taking my hands, he pulls me to him. ‘I’ll see your moves later. Right now, I really want you to dance with me.’
He raises my right hand in the air with his and I shuffle my left palm to his shoulder as he turns us to bo-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-jangles.
‘I’m not sure you have much in common with a man in shabby clothes with a dog.’
‘I have dogs at the farm.’ He smiles, the kind of smile he reserves for me. Liquefying.
I feel his body tense before he leaves me so abruptly, I almost stumble to the floor.
It takes me seconds to regain my balance and process Gregory surging from the veranda into the reception room where the man Charlotte was flirting with is leading her by the hand up the grand staircase to the bedrooms.
It happens quickly. Gregory reaches them at the top of the stairs. Charlotte staggers back as Gregory pins the man by his throat to the wall, just out of view of the rest of the room but not those at the bottom of the stairs and not me, making my way towards the commotion.
‘What the fuck do you think you’re doing?’ Gregory is seething, his muscles bulging beneath his suit, his words a strong, South African bark.
‘Take your fucking hands off me!’
Gregory reaffirms his grip on the man’s throat and slams his head into the stone wall again. Seeing the ruthlessness in his black eyes, I’m reminded of what Gregory is capable of. His rage will kill this man.
‘Gregory! Stop!’ I yell, then move towards them, trying to shift into Gregory’s field of vision.
His dilated pupils find me and soften but then his face contorts and he slams the man’s head against the wall again. ‘Don’t ever lay a fucking hand on her. Do you hear me?’ Head meets stone again. ‘Do you fucking hear me?’
‘Yes, Christ! Let me go!’
Gregory drops his grip and the man falls limply to the ground.
‘You mad bastard. She’s gagging for it.’