Chapter 6 #2
Having dropped his bombshell, Jake skipped back to the garden, leaving Kate studiously trying to avoid Helen’s eye.
‘Did you push Brian over when he was playing Twister?’ Kate asked, desperate to change the subject.
‘Well, he was doing a crab,’ Helen said defensively.
‘Oh. Fair enough.’
Helen laughed. ‘He seems nice, Kate, really,’ she said, bending to put the muffins in to the oven and remove a batch she had already made. ‘I’m sure he meant well about the cow’s milk. But, Kate…’ She straightened.
‘Yes?’
‘Is it true? Did you really have a – you know – sleepover with Will?’
‘No, of course not. I got shafted into staying for a lock-in at the pub last night – by your bloody nanny. I came home smashed and automatically staggered into bed in my own room, which Will’s in. End of story.’
But Helen clearly wasn’t going to leave it there. ‘Kate, when girls in school told you they’d slept with a boy but nothing happened, you didn’t believe them, did you?’
‘No, of course not! But in this case it happens to be true. Nothing happened.’
‘Hmm,’ Helen smiled to herself, her good humour restored now that she had a budding romance to think about. She wasn’t put off by Kate’s insistence that the ‘sleepover’ had been completely innocent.
‘Did you know Lorcan’s here?’ Helen asked changing the subject.
‘No! When did he turn up?’
‘About half an hour ago. He’s in the garden.’
Keen to escape the gleam in Helen’s eye, Kate drifted outside.
Lorcan was sitting at the table chatting to Grace with Carmen glued to his side, positively glowing with happiness.
Will was kicking a ball around with Sam and Jake.
He looked up as Kate came out and grinned at her.
She blushed and bent down to pick up Sam, who had fallen over.
‘You’re okay,’ Kate said gently.
Will watched as she set him back on his feet, ruffled his hair, then let him scamper off.
When he had found her in his bed this morning, he had felt disconcertingly happy.
He had almost kissed her – had been severely tempted to do a lot more.
But, thankfully, common sense had prevailed and he had got out of bed before he succumbed to lust. What Tom had said to him all those years ago still held true: Kate was an O’Neill, and it was way too close to home…
‘Will!’ Jake was yelling, as Sam ran towards the goal.
‘Oops, sorry.’
‘Lorcan!’ Kate put her arms around his neck and hugged him from behind. ‘What are you doing here?’
He craned around to look at her, tired and bleary-eyed. ‘I was pining,’ he said, clasping Carmen’s hand adoringly. ‘I came to get Carmen and bring her back to New York with me.’
Kate felt an odd pang of jealousy. She couldn’t see Brian crossing continents on a whim to be with her – he’d be too worried about his carbon footprint for one thing.
‘Wow! So you’re going to New York?’ she said wistfully to Carmen.
‘Why not? It’s the holidays, so I have plenty of free time.’
‘God, you’re so lucky having the whole summer off,’ Kate said, sitting down opposite them. ‘I wish I’d been a teacher.’
‘But you’re going to Tuscany with Will and the band,’ Grace chipped in. ‘That’s just as exciting.’
‘That sounds like a good gig,’ Lorcan said.
‘Oh, nothing’s decided yet.’
‘I’ve rustled you up some breakfast.’ Helen had come out to join them and plonked a plate of scrambled eggs, bacon and toast in front of Lorcan.
‘You’re an angel.’ He smiled at her gratefully, then tucked in.
‘I made some muffins, too, for anyone who wants them.’ She placed a basket in the middle of the table with a pot of strong, fragrant coffee and a jug of Buck’s fizz.
‘Are you staying for the weekend?’ Kate asked, grabbing a muffin and eating it in two bites.
‘No, we’re flying to New York in the morning. Will’s giving us a lift to Cork Airport later and we’re going to Dublin to get Carmen’s stuff.’
‘Oh, that’s a pity,’ Helen said. ‘We thought we might spend the day on the beach, bring a picnic.’
‘Well, you can count Brian and me out,’ Kate told her. ‘There’s some guru he wants to go and see while we’re here.’
Hearing this, Will looked over at her. ‘You’re not going to go to that dynamic body-shop thing?’ he asked.
‘Well, I think I have to now,’ Kate said, accusingly. ‘I need the Brownie points after this morning.’
‘Well, don’t look at me. It wasn’t my fault!’
‘But, Kate,’ Grace began, ‘the whole point of this weekend was for us to get to know Brian. We’re all here to spend time with him.’
‘I know, Mum, and I’m sorry, but he really wants to go to this thing.
We’ll still have tomorrow.’ Kate secretly thought that she could earn the Brownie points simply by making the offer.
She wouldn’t have to go to the workshop because Brian wouldn’t have the gall to take her up on it.
However, she kept this thought to herself, just in case.
Lorcan was looking curiously from Will to Kate. ‘What happened this morning?’ he asked.
‘Oh, nothing.’ Kate shrugged. She didn’t want Lorcan, of all people, to find out. It would be on the front page of the New York Times in the morning.
‘Brian caught Kate in bed with Will,’ Grace told him matter-of-factly.
‘Mum!’
‘Well, that’s right, isn’t it?’
‘You make it sound like I did it on purpose.’
Lorcan hooted. ‘So you’re saying you went to bed with Will by mistake?’
Good old Will, he thought. He obviously hadn’t wasted any time in laying siege to Kate and hadn’t let the presence of her boyfriend – or the entire family – put him off his stroke.
‘Exactly.’
‘Darling, lower your voice,’ Grace hissed. ‘Will can hear you.’
‘So?’ Kate asked, exasperated.
‘Well, it’s not very nice, is it, when you go to bed with someone and the next day they say it was a mistake? I mean, you don’t like it when it happens to you, do you?’
Kate rolled her eyes. ‘This is different. It was – literally – a mistake. I got into the wrong bed. How did you find out about it anyway?’
‘Jake told me.’
‘Jake!’ Lorcan laughed. ‘I’m glad I came to rescue you from this den of iniquity,’ he told Carmen.
Lorcan was disappointed to learn that Will wasn’t making the progress he had initially thought.
Poor Will. It must be torture for him having to see Kate with Brian when he was clearly besotted with her.
He needed to make more of a play for her.
After all, what person in their right mind would choose Brian over Will?
Lorcan decided it was a good thing he had come home when he had.
He wasn’t around for long but he might be able to push things along a bit, give Will a bit of encouragement, nudge Kate in the right direction.
* * *
Brian returned from the shops to find everyone in the garden guzzling champagne cocktails, with Lorcan holding court – and it was only eleven o’clock in the morning.
Really, the sooner he got Kate out of this environment, the better.
She was far too influenced by her family.
And as for Will! There was no way Brian could let Kate go off to Tuscany with him.
He was pissed off that she seemed to want to take the job.
But it was nothing compared to the fury he’d felt at seeing her at Will’s bedroom window.
He couldn’t quite believe she would be so callous as to carry on with Will right under his nose, yet she looked so guilty whenever he caught her eye – and she’d probably got drunk last night after he’d left the pub…
His mood wasn’t improved when he discovered that Lorcan had popped over from New York for the day because he was missing his girlfriend.
That was exactly the sort of extravagant O’Neill gesture of which he most disapproved.
The worst of it was, they all thought it wonderfully spontaneous and romantic, fussing over Lorcan as if he was some kind of conquering hero.
Brian hoped Kate would never expect him to do anything as idiotic as dashing across the Atlantic on a whim to see her.
He was somewhat mollified when she took him aside and suggested they go to the workshop. ‘Oh great, we’d better get off then,’ he said, glancing at his watch. ‘Do you think someone could give us a lift?’
‘Oh!’
‘I know it’s nearby,’ he said, mistaking the reason for her surprise, ‘but it starts at eleven thirty.’
‘You know, Brian, that thing with Will – getting into bed with him last night – it was just that I was a bit the worse for wear and he was in my old room…’
‘And him being your childhood sweetheart had nothing to do with it, I suppose?’
‘Brian, I told you, we were not childhood sweethearts. I don’t know where Mum got that notion.’
‘Wishful thinking, I imagine.’
‘Look, nothing happened last night. It was just a silly mistake.’
‘Some people would say there’s no such thing as mistakes,’ Brian said. ‘I hope you’re not thinking of taking that job in Tuscany.’
‘Well, yes, of course I am. It’d be really great.’
‘And the idea of being with Will has nothing to do with it?’
‘No! I told you—’
‘And my feelings don’t come into it? What happened to all that stuff about having to discuss it with me?’
‘Of course your feelings come into it. But there’s nothing going on between me and Will, if that’s what you’re worried about. There never has been.’
Brian sighed. ‘Well, we don’t have time to discuss it now. How about that lift?’
‘Oh, um, yes – I’ll ask Conor if he’ll drive us.’
* * *
Kate wandered off, more than a little miffed.
It wasn’t fair. She had explained and apologised, and, as far as she was concerned, she had made amends by offering to go to the workshop with Brian.
But he should have said he wouldn’t dream of going when her family had laid on this entire weekend for his benefit.
He wasn’t supposed to ask someone to drive them there!
Sometimes she really despaired of him. Didn’t he know anything?
Still, she reminded herself, Mr Darcy hadn’t known how to behave properly until Elizabeth put manners on him. She would just have to be patient.