Chapter Twenty-Eight
The ball was being held at a posh Cheshire golf resort and spa. As their taxi made its way through the sandstone archway and up the driveway to the main building, Anna felt as though a whole barrage of butterflies were fluttering about in her stomach. She gaped in awe as the taxi stopped in front of another, larger, sandstone building. A number of expensive cars were parking up, out of which stepped amazingly glamorous men and women, all dressed in a concoction of white.
‘I’m going to stick out like a sore thumb.’ Anna’s throat was suddenly dry.
‘Because you’re going to be the most beautiful woman here and I’m proud to have you on my arm,’ Daniel replied.
‘Cringe.’ She laughed shakily at him. ‘But you’re going to have to stick by my side all night and defend me. Tonight you’re going to have to be my knight in black armour.’
‘I won’t let you down.’ He kissed her on the cheek.
‘You’d better not.’ She gritted her teeth, getting out of the car as gracefully as she could.
* * *
Daniel took her arm, leading her up the stone steps and into the foyer, which was decorated with so many pedestals of white roses that it looked like the inside of a florist’s. Anna felt growing fear, aware of the curious glances being cast their way as they walked into the large reception room.
‘This is a disaster,’ she muttered to Daniel. ‘Look at the way they’re staring at us. I feel like a freak.’
‘Take a deep breath and hold your head up high. Most of all, remember you look stunning.’
And then Lucinda was coming forward to greet them.
‘Daniel, darling, so good to see you, but why are you in black?’ She glanced swiftly at Anna. ‘Did you not get the dress code?’
‘Well I didn’t, although you could have let me know last night, when I told you I was wearing a black dress.’ Anna swore she saw a slight smile on Lucinda’s lips, but only for a brief second.
Instantly Lucinda sounded contrite. ‘Oh, no, I’m so sorry. I thought Daniel would have told you.’
‘He forgot, which is why he’s wearing black too, in solidarity.’
‘Really?’ She looked back to Daniel. ‘But you’re the MC. I really think—’
He interrupted her. ‘If Anna’s wearing black then so will I. And if that doesn’t suit, then maybe you’d like to find a replacement for me?’
‘No, no of course not. Don’t be like that Danny.’ She glared at Anna and put a hand proprietorially on Daniel’s arm. ‘Could I borrow you for a minute?’
Danny? Anna had never heard anyone call him that before. Inwardly she groaned. So this was what it was going to be like. Lucinda grabbing what she wanted and Anna left high and dry. She wished she’d stayed at Daniel’s house after all. But Daniel’s response surprised her.
‘I thought we went through everything last night. That’s why you came round to the house, wasn’t it?’
‘Yes, but I didn’t remember everything. And now we’re in situ so to speak.’
‘All I need is for you to let me know when you want me to start and to provide me with a microphone. But, right now, I’d like to get a drink and introduce Anna to a few people. That’s okay with you, isn’t it?’
‘Of course,’ Lucinda replied, her lips tight. ‘As you wish. Now, I must mingle.’
As she stalked off, Anna turned round to Daniel and whispered, ‘Thank you.’
‘Not a problem,’ Daniel replied. ‘I agreed to MC as a favour and against my better judgement. To be honest, I’m terrified. But Lucinda is taking the role a bit too far. I’m not about to become her puppet.’
‘Glad to hear it,’ Anna replied.
‘Now, how about a drink?’
‘Definitely, yes,’ Anna said. She felt as though she would need one if she was going to get through tonight, but she was determined to take it steady. She needed to keep her wits about her.
Daniel took two champagne flutes off a passing waiter and handed one to her. She took a sip, relishing the tartness and the bubbles in her mouth. She had a feeling this was going to be a very long night.
* * *
Half an hour later, Daniel had introduced her to so many people her head was swimming.
‘Daniel, darling, how nice to see you.’ A woman dressed in a tight sheath dress, demonstrating she didn’t have a spare ounce of flesh, enveloped Daniel in a hug, her elbows almost poking Anna in the face. She had no choice but to move a step further away. When the woman eventually released him, she said, ‘So good of you to fill in as MC. Lucinda’s beyond grateful — she can’t stop talking about what a saviour you are.’
As Daniel extracted himself from her grasp he said, ‘Nice to see you, Verity. This is Anna, my partner. Anna, this is Verity, Lucinda’s best friend.’
Verity looked Anna up and down with a barely concealed smirk. ‘Oh dear,’ she said. ‘Didn’t anyone tell you the dress code?’
Anna felt her cheeks flush at the question and wished the floor would swallow her up.
‘I . . .’ She tried to answer, but Verity turned away to screech at a woman dressed in a full-length white silk gown festooned with roses around the neckline.
‘Felicity, how lovely to see you.’ Verity air-kissed the woman around both cheeks. Briefly she turned to Daniel. ‘Lovely to see you, Daniel, but we must mingle.’ She linked her arm through Felicity’s and moved away.
‘Rude,’ Anna muttered.
‘Pay no attention,’ Daniel replied. ‘Those two are a right pair.’
But it was the same for the rest of the cocktail hour as Anna tried to ignore the numerous barbed comments about dress code, even though her face flushed whenever it was mentioned.
‘Just ignore them,’ Daniel murmured. ‘They get off on feeling superior.’
‘Funny how it’s me they’re targeting. Your lack of dress code barely gets a mention.’
‘They’re just jealous,’ he replied. She was grateful for his reassurance, but that didn’t make her feel any less like she didn’t belong.
Lucinda grabbed him as they were sitting down to dinner, so he could formally make the introductions for the evening. Anna was left with an empty space beside her at the dinner table. She looked around for someone else to talk to, but the woman on her other side was deep in conversation with the man next to her. The table was so large it made conversation difficult with anyone other than the person sitting next to you. Everywhere people were deep in conversation with their neighbours and no one made any effort to talk to her, despite the fact that she was sitting on her own. They certainly were a cliquey bunch.
Introductions over, Daniel came back to the table. As he sat down, he took her hand.
‘I’m sorry, it looks as though I’m going to have to keep abandoning you.’
‘It can’t be helped.’ Anna noticed the guilty look on his face.
‘I wish I’d just given a hefty donation to the charity and was curled up next to you on the sofa with a takeaway and a good film.’
‘Oh, me too. Shame we can’t just slip away, but I think people might notice if you weren’t here.’
He squeezed her hand. ‘I know and I’m sorry to put you through this.’
‘It’s okay,’ she said. ‘Once the dinner and auction is over, will there be dancing?’
‘Yes, till the early hours if I know this lot, but we don’t have to stay that long.’
‘Might be nice to have a dance together though.’ She was looking on the bright side. ‘We’ve never done that before, have we?’
‘No, we haven’t,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘There’s a lot of things we haven’t done together. Like go on holiday for one.’
‘There hasn’t been time.’
‘No, we’ve both been so busy, but once the school holidays are over, I’ve got the school more organised and you’ve done your next exhibition, maybe we could get away together, just the two of us, even if it’s only for a long weekend.’
‘Yes, I’d like that,’ Anna said, thinking how wonderful their relationship was when it was just the two of them. It was only when the rest of the world stepped in that the problems started.
After dinner, Daniel was dragged away to compere the charity auction and Anna was left on her own again. She was surprised by how rude these people were. After a few perfunctory sentences, they quickly returned to their conversations. She wondered if it was because she was with Daniel and their loyalty was to Lucinda, or whether it was because they were so shallow they didn’t want to take the time to get to know anyone new.
She watched, mesmerised, as the auction continued. If they weren’t interested in conversation, they certainly enjoyed flashing the cash, or, she thought cynically, making themselves look good in the process. She couldn’t imagine they were doing it for the sake of the charity.
When the auction drew to its close, Anna thought Daniel would come back to the table, but Lucinda clearly had other ideas and took him off to mingle with her guests. At first Anna waited patiently, but after a while her resentment began to rise. Fuelled by champagne, she decided to make a stand. Getting up, she made her way towards them, determined to be included, even if she wasn’t accepted.
Walking up behind Daniel, she put her arm around his waist. He jumped, but when he looked down a smile spread over his face. He extricated himself from Lucinda and drew her to him. Then, turning to the man he was speaking to, said, ‘You haven’t met Anna, my girlfriend, have you?’
For a moment a flash of doubt crossed the man’s face as he looked from Anna to Lucinda. Then he recovered. ‘Delighted to meet you. How did you two meet?’
‘Anna’s a photographer too,’ Daniel said on her behalf. ‘She’s just had her first exhibition, which, if I say so myself, was a bit of a hit. Anna Wright? You may have heard of her.’
‘Anna Wright? Urban landscapes?’ the man asked. ‘Yes, I’ve seen your photographs and I love them.’
Amazed that he had even heard of her, she replied shyly, ‘I’ve got another exhibition coming up soon. And the landscapes this time are much closer to home. Well, closer to your home anyway. I’m focussing the exhibition on Chester.’
‘Really? How wonderful. I can’t wait to see that.’
And they began Anna’s first genuine conversation, with the exception of Daniel, that she’d had all night.
After a few moments, Lucinda cleared her throat. ‘Well, I think I’d better mingle with the other guests. Daniel, will you—’
‘Yes, thank you, I will enjoy the rest of my evening, now that I’ve completed my duties as MC.’
‘Yes, well, um, thank you for doing that. You really helped me out.’
‘My pleasure,’ Daniel said. ‘Anything to help raise money for such a worthy charity.’
‘Enjoy the rest of your evening then.’ She turned to Anna and said coldly, ‘You too, Anna.’
‘Oh, I intend to,’ Anna said, suddenly realising there was only one way to deal with the Lucindas of this world, and that was to show no fear.
* * *
Anna kicked off her shoes as soon as she was through the door, groaning.
‘I don’t know how women wear these all the time, they’re so painful.’
‘But you do look sensational in them. Mind you, I think you look gorgeous in anything.’
Daniel nuzzled the back of her neck and she leaned into him. ‘And I do like it when you have your hair up,’ he said between kisses. ‘You have such a beautiful neck.’ She wriggled in enjoyment at the tingles he was sending up and down her spine. ‘And although you look amazing in this dress, I can’t wait to get it off you.’
She turned to face him and wrapped her arms around his neck, pushing herself closer to him. ‘I’m not sure I’ve quite forgiven you about the dress,’ she said. ‘The way some of those women looked at me.’
‘Forget about them,’ he said. ‘They’re not important.’
He kissed her and then took her hand to lead her up the stairs. She was glad that the evening had ended so well after such an unpromising start. For the rest of the evening Lucinda had kept her distance — Anna and Daniel had danced and laughed and even had some nice conversations with people. She realised it was always going to be difficult when she was on Lucinda’s turf, but she hoped that tonight Daniel had seen how manipulative Lucinda could be when it came to him.
* * *
On Sunday they took a drive out to Lyme Park with Ben, and spent a happy day in the August sunshine followed by lunch in a country pub. Afterwards, when Ben was playing on a slide, Daniel said, ‘I meant it last night when I said we should go on holiday together.’
‘Good, I’m glad. That would be really nice.’
‘We do need to spend some more time alone with each other. I’m aware that even today Ben is with us.’
‘I don’t mind Ben being with us. I enjoy his company and he’s part of you. It’s just his mother I don’t like hanging around.’
‘I know what you mean. I’m sorry, I have tried to put her off, but she’s not getting the message. I’ll have to try harder. Lucinda has a habit of not giving up until she gets what she wants, but it’s not going to work this time. I’m with you and she’s just going to have to get used to the idea.’
‘Good.’
‘I’ve got some work I need to do here in the early part of the week, but then I’m coming back to London to spend some time with you before your exhibition.’
‘Oh, I’d like that,’ Anna said, hoping that things would be all right after all.
* * *
Anna leaned back in her seat on the train and closed her eyes. For once the train wasn’t busy — she was the only one sitting at a set of four seats with a table. While it had been a difficult weekend, she was happy that she and Daniel had had a great day yesterday spending time with Ben, but part of her was glad to be going home, where she could concentrate on her own life and career without having to be part of the drama.
Her phone pinged and she picked it up. It was a text from Daniel saying how much he was going to miss her over the next few days. She smiled sadly at that. She was going to miss him too.
Idly she started to scroll through Instagram, looking at Eva’s account to see if she was up to anything. She hadn’t seen Eva since she’d offered to lend her the dress and she was determined to go and see her as soon as possible. She wondered what she’d make of the situation. She hoped Eva didn’t blame herself for the choice of dress, because the only people who could be blamed for it were Daniel and Lucinda. And while she was still annoyed at Daniel for not telling her in the first place, his was an oversight, whereas Lucinda had been acting out of spite.
She typed Lucinda’s name into the search engine of Instagram and opened up her page. As she had expected, many of the pictures were of the ball, with lots of comments of congratulations. She couldn’t help noticing so many of the pictures were of Daniel and Lucinda together, which made it look as though they were still a couple. She scrolled through the photographs until she saw one of herself, sitting alone on the table looking forlorn. She looked across to the comments. Lucinda hadn’t posted any, but plenty of others had.
Who would be stupid enough to wear a black dress when the dress code was white?
Doesn’t she know anything about dress code?
No wonder no one wanted to speak to her.
Definitely not our sort.
Two of the comments, unsurprisingly, were by the lovely Verity and Felicity. No , Anna thought as she flicked her phone off, tears welling in her eyes. I wouldn’t want to be one of your sort either. It would be nice if she never had to go to Cheshire again, but she had the exhibition to get through. Right now, she wished she’d stuck to taking photographs of London, but it was what it was. She’d just have to make sure the exhibition was as good as it could be. She’d show them she was not someone to be ridiculed.
* * *
Daniel had had a busy morning, meeting the building contractor first thing to go through the renovations to the photography school. He was satisfied that the team knew what they were doing, and hopeful that the work would be completed on time. When he got home he’d work on the text for the pages of the website so that it could go live as soon as possible. And then they would start marketing. He was looking forward to getting his first students through the door. The first course would start at the beginning of January. Initially he would run three-month introductory courses, with a certificate at the end of them. If that went well, he would apply to teach more formal qualifications from September next year. He was also looking forward to actually getting back to his camera, rather than having to deal with estate agents, solicitors and builders. He’d enjoyed project-managing the venture but he’d missed the photography, and being with Anna.
It wouldn’t hurt to spend more time with her and much less time around Lucinda. He’d been nice to his ex-wife to keep the status quo for Ben, but after the way she’d tried to manipulate him recently the gloves were definitely off.
He pulled into his driveway, opened the front door and headed to the kitchen for a much-needed cup of coffee. His phone pinged with an Instagram notification and he opened it up. Social media was an important part of his job and that was what he used it for, but he wasn’t interested in gossip and the tittle-tattling that went on there. He opened up Lucinda’s post, horrified to see there were a lot of pictures of him and her together. Why did that not surprise him? And then he saw the photograph of Anna, sitting alone, looking forlorn, and his heart clenched. He should never have asked her to go with him. He should have known it would be like throwing her to the lions. When he saw the comments he was even more enraged and immediately dialled Lucinda’s number. It took a while for her to pick up, but eventually she did, sounding a little out of breath.
‘Daniel, hello! How nice to hear from you.’
‘I’ve just seen your Instagram post.’
‘Oh, have you? Didn’t the photos come out really well? Not to your standard, of course, but good all the same.’
‘Could you take down the photo of Anna, please?’ He refused to engage in conversation.
‘Oh, don’t you like it? I must admit she looks a bit sad but—’
‘No, I don’t like it. Neither do I like your friends’ comments. You know full well that the dress wasn’t Anna’s fault and you should be ashamed of yourself for trying to make a fool of her.’
‘Daniel, I never meant—’
‘I don’t care what you meant. Please just take it down.’
‘Of course, Daniel, yes, I didn’t think. I haven’t actually seen the comments yet, so I don’t know what you’re talking about, but if my friends have been unkind, then I’m sorry.’
‘So am I, Lucinda. I expect to see that removed immediately.’
‘Yes, of course.’
‘And, just for the record, next time you find yourself short of an MC, find someone else.’
He ended the call with an angry jerk of his thumb. Her protestations of innocence angered him even more. Who was she trying to fool? Not him, that was for sure. At least not any more. He just hoped Lucinda took that picture down before it could do much damage. Certainly before Anna saw it anyway.
* * *
Anna’s phone rang as she made herself a cup of tea in the kitchen. It was Daniel. She paused for a moment, wondering whether or not to answer it, and then accepted the call.
‘Hi,’ she said.
‘Are you home yet? I waited until I thought you would be.’
‘Yes, all arrived safely.’ She tried to make her voice sound breezy, but the memory of those catty comments weighed heavily on her.
‘Yours or mine?’
‘Mine.’ She needed to be around her own family for a few days, with the familiarity of her own life, not a reminder of Daniel’s.
‘Oh. I thought you were going to stay at mine, make it easier for editing.’
‘I was. I might. I’ll probably go there during the daytime, but I wanted to spend some time here.’
‘Of course. I’m sorry. We’re leading a bit of a nomadic lifestyle here, aren’t we?’
‘Yes. Nowhere really feels like home at the moment,’ she said.
‘You’re talking about the weekend, aren’t you?’
‘Yes. I thought I could deal with it, but then I saw Lucinda’s Instagram post.’
‘Ahh,’ he said. ‘I was hoping you hadn’t seen that.’
‘Not exactly pleasant, is it?’
‘I’m furious about it. I spoke to Lucinda earlier and told her to take it down. It’s gone now.’
‘That’s something, I suppose.’
‘I also reiterated that you were here to stay, so she’d better get used to it and rein her friends in.’
‘Daniel?’
‘Yes?’
She paused, not quite knowing how to frame her words. ‘What if it’s not a question of Lucinda reining her friends in?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘It’s just a feeling. She didn’t make any nasty comments on the post, or at the ball, but I get the feeling that she’s behind it all.’ When he didn’t say anything, she continued. ‘I mean, what if she’s loading the gun and getting her friends to fire the bullets?’
‘I don’t think she’d do that.’
‘Don’t you?’
‘No.’ He paused. Then, sounding irritated, he carried on. ‘Look, the main thing is that we don’t let them get to us. I’ve made it quite clear to Lucinda that I’m not happy and I’m definitely not going to be doing her any favours in the future. From now on, our only contact is going to be about Ben. She’ll get the message. And, in the meantime, we need to concentrate on us and our lives. I’m coming back up on Thursday and we can spend some time alone together.’
‘That will be nice,’ she said, although she wasn’t as confident as Daniel that this would blow over so easily.
* * *
‘It was white tie?’ Eva was aghast after Anna filled her in during their visit the next day.
‘I’m afraid so. I stuck out like a bloody sore thumb.’
‘Oh, Anna, I’m so sorry.’
‘It’s not your fault,’ Anna put a hand on her friend’s arm. ‘You weren’t to know.’
‘No, but you should have. I can understand why Lucinda didn’t tell you, but what about Daniel?’
‘He forgot.’ Anna’s tone was heavy with sarcasm.
‘Typical bloke.’
‘I think he just assumed I would know.’ Anna shook her head. ‘Sometimes I don’t think he sees the difference between us.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I’m not from his world. I’m not used to posh restaurants, fancy balls and designer clothes. Even if they weren’t all being so vile to me, I think I’d still feel like a fish out of water.’
‘I wouldn’t worry too much about that. Not being like one of them is a good thing. I thought I was living my best life being a model, but sitting here in this hospital bed, with so much time on my hands, it’s given me plenty of time to think about my life. I thought the models I worked with were my friends, but in all the time I’ve been here, only one of them has come to visit me, and I’m sure that was more out of curiosity than anything else. You’ve been a better friend to me than any of them and I didn’t even know you before.’
‘Oh!’ Anna felt a lump form in her throat and tears welled in her eyes. Eva was such a lovely person. She deserved to have a close circle of friends.
‘I’ve come to realise that what I had before wasn’t friendship. It was more a question of keeping your enemies close. Everyone is competition, you see, and no one trusts anyone. They pretend to, so that they can find out what’s going on in everyone’s life, but really it’s all just fake. I don’t want that in my life anymore.’
‘I can see why. So have you decided what you do want?’
‘Yes. I’m going to get back on my feet.’ She laughed. ‘Quite literally. And together we are going to create a bestselling book, which is going to make our fortune.’
Anna laughed with her. ‘I wish.’
‘Well, it will be a start at least. You know, I earned quite a bit of money when I was modelling, and I was working so hard and trying to live a healthy lifestyle so that I could stay in the game, I didn’t really have much to spend it on. I’ll be comfortable for a while, but, now, I’ve realised that I want to help other people. I’m not quite sure how, but I’m just going to take one day at a time.’
Anna nodded. ‘That’s a good philosophy.’ She’d been overthinking her and Daniel’s relationship. She needed to take a leaf out of Eva’s book and concentrate on the now, on what she wanted to achieve.
‘It’s a shame you won’t be able to come to my exhibition, but it’s in Chester and will be too far for you to travel.’
‘I know. I was hoping to be there too. To be honest, I don’t think I’d have been able to make it yet, even if it had been in London. But you won’t be able to stop me from being there in the future.’
‘That’s something to work towards, then. For both of us.’
‘One exhibition in particular,’ Eva said enigmatically.
‘What do you mean?’
‘I did have one visitor recently,’ Eva said. ‘Charlotte.’
‘Oh, yes, and what’s she been plotting?’
‘We were talking about my book. Obviously I can’t finish it for a while, because it needs to be about my complete recovery, but we were chatting about the launch. What do you say to it being a joint venture?’
‘How so?’
‘The launch of my book along with an exhibition of your photos inside it.’
‘Genius.’ Anna grinned. ‘And this was Charlotte’s idea, was it?’
‘Yes. She’s a force of nature, that woman.’
‘She certainly is. I hope you’re ready for it.’
Eva grinned. ‘Can’t wait.’