Party Girl at Heart

by Karen Elaine Campbell

  Author Karen Elaine Campbell has spent many years of her adult life employed in the financial sector, both in the UK and overseas. Her first two books are memoir-based and introduce the reader to the colourful world of the British Army. She loves to cook and to eat, so her books are interspersed with delicious family recipes and anecdotes of the trials and tribulations encountered as the wife of a serving soldier.

  The family, husband Chris, son Daniel and puppy Rufus, have all settled in Cambridgeshire now that Chris has retired from the military, allowing Karen to embrace a long held desire to write ‘girly’ romantic fiction. Party Girl at Heart is her second novel.

  Published work

  Don't Forget the Kettle

  (Vanguard Press, 2008)

  ISBN: 978 184386 535 3

  The Kettle in Transit

  (Pegasus, 2010)

  ISBN: 978 190349 056 3

  The Party Girl’s Invitation

  (Vanguard Press, 2011)

  ISBN: 978 184386 918 4

  PARTY GIRL AT HEART

  Past triumphs and secret pleasures

  Karen Elaine Campbell

  PARTY GIRL AT HEART

  Past triumphs and secret pleasures

  Vanguard Press

  VANGUARD E-book

  © Copyright 2013

  Karen Elaine Campbell

  The right of Karen Elaine Campbell to be identified as author of

  this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the

  Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  All Rights Reserved

  No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication

  may be made without written permission.

  No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced,

  copied or transmitted save with the written permission of the publisher, or in accordance with the provisions

  of the Copyright Act 1956 (as amended).

  Any person who commits any unauthorised act in relation to

  this publication may be liable to criminal

  prosecution and civil claims for damages.

  A CIP catalogue record for this title is

  available from the British Library.

  ISBN 978 1 78465 194 7

  Vanguard is an imprint of

  Pegasus Elliot MacKenzie Publishers Ltd.

  www.pegasuspublishers.com

  First Published in paperback 2013

  This edition 2016

  Vanguard Press

  Sheraton House Castle Park

  Cambridge England

  To Michael:

  Some things are sacred.

  Acknowledgements

  I would like to thank Trish for spending many valuable lunch hours reading through the early drafts of this manuscript and providing insight into the intricate workings of her local church.

  Then there are the T59’ers, Sandie, Dave, Linda, Stephen, Sue, Steve and my husband Chris. Your comments on everything from Baristas to Bar Staff and Yachts to Yakori have given me years’ worth of inspiration, for not only this novel, but for ones yet to come.

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  DOMESTIC BLISS

  Chapter 2

  THE ANNOUNCEMENT

  Chapter 3

  MEMORY LANE

  Chapter 4

  PAST HISTORY

  Chapter 5

  THE SKY’S THE LIMIT

  Chapter 6

  THE MOOD OF SEDUCTION

  Chapter 7

  TEMPTING FLIGHT

  Chapter 8

  TRUTH OR DARE

  Chapter 9

  SECRETS

  Chapter 10

  A TEMPORARY REPPRIEVE

  Chapter 11

  ACCORDING TO PLAN

  Chapter 12

  A SERIOUS CONVERSATION

  Chapter 13

  WEDDING GUESTS

  Chapter 14

  A DAY OF RECKONING

  Chapter 15

  BRIDAL FEVER

  Chapter 16

  THE BRIDAL MARCH

  Chapter

  1

  DOMESTIC BLISS

  Crystal picked up a dirty fork from the draining board and half-heartedly attempted to lever partly decayed cabbage leaves and mangled carrot entrails from the underside of the garbage disposal unit, prodding ineffectually at the rubber housing which served as a plug hole in the fancy new stainless steel sink unit. The last thing she needed right now was semi regurgitated potato peelings and shredded cabbage in the Bridge Club ladies’ Pimms, she thought sourly.

  As she stabbed wildly at the plug hole with increasing frustration she felt the rubber seal give way causing the prongs to nose-dive straight down the hole into the hollow guts of the machine. There was an ear-splitting screech as chunky metal melded with mechanical perfection and the fork jammed fast in the workings. She managed to hold onto the end of the handle as it bucked and twisted in her hands, but predictably, after one last valiant, metal churning protest the machine ground to a halt in a puff of smoke. As a final insult, volcanic proportions of burnt vegetables and soggy cabbage leaves spewed up out of the plug hole and a propelled a squishy trail of brownish slurry straight down the front of her trousers. Cursing profusely she tugged the fork back out again and grabbed a tea-towel from the work-surface to mop at her midriff. A liberal smudge of uncooked cake mixture transferred itself from the cloth to her clothes and adhered to the vegetable entrails now sliding damply down towards her trouser leg. Crystal barely noticed as she shoved her hair out of her eyes with a wobbly hand and dropped the mangled fork back down onto the draining board. The faint smell of burnt electrics and fried plastic wafted up from the underside of the pristine kitchen cabinet.

  Her BlackBerry pinged loudly and she scrabbled around in her handbag looking for it, catching sight of the cat, on the work surface again and happily lapping her little pink tongue at the thick layer of cream which lavishly decorated the top of the ‘just iced’ masterpiece sponge cake. Her response was instantaneous; she grabbed the nearest piece of mangled carrot from the pile of vegetable peelings and launched it at the sleek and pampered Persian, howling ‘get off’, as she aimed at the cat.

  Lindsay ceased her licking and stared thoughtfully in her direction, an ear twitched and she flicked the end of her tail disdainfully. With an exaggerated yawn, she casually moved half an inch to one side and watched as the projectile missed its target and soared through the air in a neat arc to land with a loud plop, right in the middle of the thousand dollar fish tank.

  Christ, she’d traumatised the fish now, too. Crystal swore, loudly, for the third time in as many minutes.

  By the time she’d retrieved her phone from her bag, it had stopped ringing. Good. That was one less thing to deal with right now. Whoever it was, they could just darned well wait.

  She eyed the expensive tropical fish, nibbling delicately at the remains of the mouldering carrot, and wondered if it was safe for them to eat vegetables. She had no intention of putting her hand in the tank to get the stuff back out again, so the fussy little fish would have to take their chances with the latest offering, if they were stupid enough to eat rancid plant life then that was their own look out.

  Situation resolved, she eyed the ruined cake. Could it be repaired? Would anyone know that the cat had licked it? Would anyone care? She grinned for the first time that day, as she imagined Imogen with her prissy face all screwed up in distaste as she picked cat hair out of her sponge cake.

  It was almost worth it, almost but not quite.

  Jazz had a blind spot where his sister was concerned, and now she and her husband, Giles, had relocated to Wiltshire, it put them close to home, much too close for Crystal’s liking. Iron-clad Imogen, dictator a
nd despot, and her wimpy husband Giles, floppy and foppy, without a cruel bone in his body and totally lacking a spine, so far as Crystal could tell, what a strange liaison. They were Jazz’s closest family and she knew that he adored them, but did they have to live so close? They had been just about bearable at a hundred mile distance, but now they’d bought the large house on ‘The Green’ Imogen had transferred her energies to living the all-embracing country lifestyle and spent the majority of her time here, much to Crystal’s annoyance. She said that they wanted to start a family, and she thought that the ‘country’ air would do her good, so she had spent most of the past month loudly declaring to all and sundry that she’d ‘had her tubes done’, dramatically naming a posh London clinic and standing aside looking smug, waiting for the interest that followed in the wake of her blatant name-dropping. The woman was a complete menace. She was happy to disclose intimate details about the ‘procedure’, relaying tiny tit-bits of salient information in a hushed voice from behind her hand, like it was a dirty secret or something not quite polite.

  Imogen was more than a challenge, Crystal thought ruefully as she pushed her hair out of her eyes again and attempted to put right the damage that the cat had created. Well, she could jolly well eat cat hair cake today, it was her own fault for catapulting herself down here to the village and insinuating herself into the middle of their nice, neat, orderly lives, she thought. To be honest, she was fed up with hearing ‘Imogen says this, or Imogen says that’ at home these days, the darned woman seemed to have an opinion on everything, especially where her relationship with Jazz was concerned, and she wasn’t sure just how much more she could take right now.

  Imogen had been finding it hard to ingratiate herself with the ‘locals’ and therefore expected Crystal to entertain her on an almost daily basis. What had started out as a simple neighbourly gesture on her own part, had rapidly become a regular chore. Imogen now fully expected Crystal to drop everything at a moment’s notice to join her for lunch at the tennis club or an afternoon tea at the golf club whilst Giles entertained clients on the course.

  ‘I’d be dreadfully bored on my own, darling’ Imogen had purred down the telephone line just last night, as she’d issued instructions on where Crystal was to meet her and when, ‘oh, and could she just bring one of her darling sponge cakes and a jug of Pimms too please? She’d intended to make a cake herself, but Crystal was just so much better at that kind of thing than she was, and they were just so bloomin’ fussy around here, too.’

  Crystal smiled, Imogen had failed to mention that she’d tried to palm off the elderly spinsters of the village with a supermarket ‘value’ cream cake the last time that she had hosted a coffee morning and had been forced to throw it all in the dustbin later in the day as the ladies had departed and each had politely refused the cake on offer, proclaiming to be ‘on a diet’ or other fairly flimsy excuse. What Imogen had neglected to register though, was that news travelled fast in a small community, and Crystal had been treated to several veiled statements regarding Imogen’s choice of refreshment when she had popped into the small village shop later in the day.

  Crystal rubbed at her temple, Imogen was quite blatantly taking advantage of her familial relationship with Jazz by getting her to make the darned cake for her, but it was difficult to refuse his sister without causing offence. Her proprietary manner and increasingly unreasonable demands were starting to cause friction in their relationship and she could see the situation escalating, if she allowed her frustration with Imogen to show.

  She sighed as she filled in the dents in the smooth surface of the creamy icing and removed one tiny stray cat hair. She hated making cakes, and yet here she was, with a deadline looming, dutifully playing Betty Crocker in the kitchen, whilst Imogen entertained herself racking up more social invitations in her diary.

  Today it was a ‘bake a cake’ sale in aid of some children’s charity or other at the Bridge Club and tomorrow they were supposed to be ‘doing a spot of shopping’ in Hampstead and then on to Harrods. Just why Imogen needed to drive all the way to London to visit her favourite deli when there was a perfectly good shop a within reasonable travelling distance just defied belief. There was something arranged for Friday too, but she couldn’t actually remember what it was. When would it all end, that’s what Crystal wanted to know. Her patience was wearing incredibly thin.

  “Just humour her darling,” had been Jazz’s answer when she’d tackled him on the subject over dinner last night. He didn’t seem to understand her total frustration at the pointlessness of spending half of a perfectly good day twittering away with the local busy bodies at a coffee morning or worse, driving a hundred miles in a Land Rover devoid of heating or suspension, just so his spoiled sister could buy half a pound of marinated mushrooms and charcoal grilled peppers in organic olive oil. Why couldn’t she eat sausages from the butcher in town just like everyone else?

  ‘She has a delicate constitution, always has had.’ Jazz had replied, a little gruffly, as he smiled fondly and considered his sister. Just why he felt affinity with her, Crystal couldn’t even begin to comprehend. Jazz, her sexy, powerful, city-slick lover, was also company director and dynamic corporate mogul in his professional life, so why he had a distinct blind spot where his sister was concerned, Crystal just couldn’t fathom. She was a spoilt pampered bitch of the first order, and that was putting it mildly, she thought, uncharitably.

  So, here she was, at eight o’clock in the morning, when she should be already working, trying to get to grips with a swanky new kitchen that she didn’t even want or like so that she could ‘humour’ Imogen and pop by at the silly coffee morning later, in between clients. As for this thing on Friday, she’d ring her gran later and make her apologies. Hetty would understand that business came first; her gran was on her own wavelength.

  She wouldn’t mention the problems with Jazz though; her gran had made her opinion on the subject of moving in with Jazz very clear, right from the start. She wouldn’t get any sympathy there. She’d burned her bridges in that department years ago. She knew that even now, years after the event, everyone was waiting for her relationship with Jazz to come unstuck. Some people had long memories and her gran had spelled out in words of one syllable exactly why she had thought Jazz was unsuitable in every conceivable way. True, he’d had a string of very public affairs behind him and a pack of press reporters stalking his every move, but she’d not been any kind of angel herself, so the spectre of his past had barely registered at the time. She’d leapt into the relationship with her customary lack of discretion, fallen hook, line and sinker for his steely magnetism and the air of dark brooding authority which he wore effortlessly. Once she peeled him out of his work clothes, the traditional Germain Street suits and plain, dark silk shirts that he favoured, he chose comfort over style for casual wear. Well-fitting levis stretched lovingly over firmly muscled thighs or some old college rugby shirt moulded to his lean frame with the sleeves rolled up to expose nice strong fore-arms dusted with a sprinkling of fine dark hair. She wasn’t sure if it was his attitude or his appearance that set the antennae twitching on women from eighteen to eighty, but either way, Gran wasn’t immune either; she recognised his type.

  It was clear that Gran had her welfare at heart, but she needed to live her own life, her own way. They had agreed to disagree over Jazz long ago, but she knew that Gran was still waiting for the ‘crash’. They bred ’em tougher and meaner in the old days, as Maisie, her neighbour and font of all village gossip, was fond of saying. Maisie was one of Gran’s oldest friends and shared her no-nonsense approach, she’d seen straight through Jazz’s urban mask the first time she’d set eyes on him, and she wouldn’t have stood for any nonsense from Imogen either. Good, honest, open speaking was her forte and you should just hope that you were never on the receiving end of it either; she could flay the hide from a horse-whip at ten paces could Maisie, if the situation demanded it.

  Crystal finished off the icing with a flourish of raspb
erry pink fondant flowers. There, that should cover up the cat paw prints perfectly, she thought with a grimace.

  Lindsay surveyed her from the kitchen windowsill, tail hanging down into the clean, dry and perfectly polished kitchen sink, the end twitching slightly and her ears flicking in annoyance as she realised that her prize treat was not about to be returned to her any time soon.

  Crystal eyed the two cream cartons discarded on the work surface. “Come on, over here you little monster,” she instructed the cat.

  Lindsay gave her a gimlet stare and her tail twitched again. Was this for real? She lifted a paw and replaced it again carefully on the windowsill.

  Crystal grinned. “You’ve made me half an hour late, you’ve probably helped me poison the fish and that trail of floury paw prints from the cake bowl to the windowsill is definitely not mine, madam. So, now you’re refusing to come over here and take the cream I left for you are you? You’re a total princess, Lindsay, you know that, don’t you?”

  Lindsay screwed up her face in an exaggerated yawn, then she stretched delicately and padded soundlessly over to the unit where Crystal stood, raising her head so that Crystal could pet her.

  “Boy, you sure know how to make people dance to your tune, don’t you?” Crystal asked the cat. “I wonder if it works for people too?” She mused out loud. She continued to stroke the cat’s soft, warm fur and Lindsay rubbed against her in satisfaction.