Chapter Twenty
Martyn had been waiting in the dark for thirty minutes but he wasn’t tired or sleepy. When he saw the slight figure emerge from beside the Eastingdean Teapot he let her totter on her huge heels down The Butts, then started the engine, flicked on the lights and wheeled slowly out of the car park.
At the side of the road, Honor paused, and he eased the big vehicle up beside her, rolling down the window. ‘Everything arranged to your satisfaction?’
She grinned. ‘Just about.’ Her hair lifted from around her face in the breeze.
‘Hop in,’ he suggested, opening the door and putting out a hand to help her up the tall step. He didn’t trust himself to get out to do it, getting behind her in that short skirt . . .
With a laugh and a whoop she made the jump, her eyes gleaming in the light from the street lamps. ‘Did you hang around just to save me a five-minute walk home? You’re a regular knight in shining armour.’
He shook his head, letting the X5 roll down the street past the silent shops. ‘I hate the idea that you may judge Brighton by Ali Spangles. Brighton’s a fabulous place. I thought you might like to see somewhere a bit nicer.’ He turned right, on to Marine Drive.
‘OK,’ she said, cautiously. ‘But I’ve sold my soul to the devil and agreed to look after the Teapot until Monday so I can’t be real late.’
‘OK. Just an hour or so to enjoy yourself before the hard graft begins.’
He drove back towards Brighton. The coast road at night always did something for him; the sea black and oily below, glittering with yellow lights, the pier’s skeleton exposed by a million bulbs. Turning right into the Old Steine, following the traffic system up through Marlborough Place, he eventually turned off into a quiet nook above the North Laines and parked behind wrought iron railings.
One of the fabulous Regency houses with a curved front and several storeys, it could have been almost anything behind the big black door with 4 Fox Square painted in white. He keyed in his pass number, swiped his card and the door buzzed him in.
‘What’s this place?’ Honor gazed around at the high moulded plaster ceiling and glossy tiled floor.
‘Somewhere quiet.’
A steward in black materialised. ‘Dining, sir?’
‘Just a drink in the lounge.’
The dark figure nodded and faded away, leaving Martyn to lead Honor up carpeted stairs, past the bar on the first floor, loud with talking and laughter, glasses clinking. Past the second floor where diners clustered around tables with snowy cloths, the whisper of cutlery a grace note to the murmur of voices. On to the top floor and a small lounge, empty but for sofas and chairs upholstered in shades of gold and low wooden tables where newspapers had been dropped as if half-read. Martyn chose a curved sofa in an alcove beside a tall white fireplace with plants instead of a fire basket.
A waitress materialised and he ordered beer and once Honor discovered that they served both Budweiser and Schlitz she said, ‘Beer for me, too.’
And whilst they waited for the drinks she gazed around at the room with its worn wooden floor, chair arms burnished to a gentle shine. ‘So, here we are,’ she said, when the waitress had left the drinks. ‘Should I be worried?’
The low lighting painted starbursts in her eyes. He was intrigued. ‘Why?’
She lifted the Bud, served in a condensation-coated stemmed beer glass. ‘This place. It’s kind of secluded, isn’t it?’
He let his lips curve. ‘It’s just a club. There are private members clubs all over England. Fox Place is mainly for people in the media and the arts — kind of an East Sussex Groucho Club. A lot about Brighton is centred on tourists. I like to know a couple of places that aren’t. And it’s somewhere I can count on never finding Robina.’
A group of four women and a man surged into the lounge, splintering the hush, choosing facing sofas in another corner and ordering champagne. One of the women was pink under her smart silver hairstyle and kept protesting, ‘Oh, this is silly! A proper engagement, at our age.’ But she didn’t seem to be able to stop admiring her ring finger.
‘I think I’ve heard of the Groucho,’ Honor admitted, relaxing against the back of the sofa after watching the new arrivals. ‘So why are we here?’
‘To chat over a beer. I think you thought I’d brought you to some den of vice? To introduce you to all my deviant practices?’
‘Of course not.’ But a quirk in her smile told him that maaay-bee such a suspicion had crossed her mind.
It wasn’t what he’d planned to talk to her about but his heart stepped up its beat at the thought. ‘Any particular deviances you have me down for?’
She tilted her head. ‘I haven’t really thought about it.’ But she smiled.
He was tempted to pursue this interesting avenue but, as the champagne arrived for the group in the corner, he dragged his focus back to the conversation he meant to have.
When he’d pulled the X5 into her drive this evening and her bare legs had danced down the steps, right in his line of vision, that dress clinging to all her neat little curves, he’d been reduced to foolish silence. And when she’d taken four goes at hopping up into the passenger seat, her bobbing breasts apparently tied in place by that multicoloured little cardigan thing, he’d nearly had a heart attack.
It would be way too easy to submit her to the clumsiest lunge in the history of man . . .
Instead, he took another drink. ‘So,’ he began. ‘Done any more about finding your mother?’
She wrinkled her nose. ‘The internet tells me I have a bunch of alternatives. Lots of people willing to help — some charities, some businesses. But it seems there’s no need for either. I can go to Brighton Town Hall and read the Electoral Register, and if she’s around, she’ll be on there.’
‘But you haven’t done that?’
She rolled her eyes. ‘I’ve been kind of busy, with the Teapot and with just hanging out in England.’
‘But you’re going to give it a try?’
She shifted to face him across the curve of the sofa. ‘What if I don’t like her?’
‘Isn’t there only one way to find out? Go see her and say, “Hi, I’m Freedom, remember me?”’
She laughed, but looked pained. ‘Come on, I asked you to forget that Freedom stuff. Freedom Lefevre didn’t exist for more than a few weeks and I’ve only ever known myself as Honor Lefevre or Honor Sontag. And introducing myself is not the kind of action that I can easily undo if it goes bad on me. I might just leave things as they are.’
‘Does that mean that you’re going home?’
She looked surprised. ‘I rented your sister’s place for four months so I guess that’s how long I’m here.’
‘I just thought that if your mission was to find your mother . . .’
She looked away. Watched the group in the corner, drinking their champagne, on to the second bottle now, getting louder, clinking glasses and drinking to the future of the happy couple. ‘I don’t think I ever said it was my primary purpose, did I? Mainly, I needed space.’
He waited. Watching her, sitting there, looking as if her dress had been vacuum packed on. ‘So you’re not rushing back to Mr Sontag?’ he prompted.
Her eyes swivelled to his. She finished her beer and sank back against the sofa, twisting her hair, thoughtfully. Her smile had been replaced by a wary notch between her brows. ‘I guess not.’
It was the opening he’d been probing for. ‘I was rude when you tried to tell me about your marriage, before. How about you tell me now?’