Bad Brides

by Rebecca Chance

  ‘Aww, how lovely – my kids being Lords and Ladies! I can’t wait,’ Brianna Jade said blissfully. ‘And Edmund, don’t worry. I won’t make a fuss about calling the kids American names like Presley or Kaylee or—’ she giggled, ‘Latisha. We’ll pick proper British ones. I don’t want them embarrassed.’

  ‘Good to know,’ Edmund managed to mumble: the prospect of the heir to the Respers estates being called Lord Presley had never even occurred to him.

  ‘And I don’t want to start having kids straight away, either,’ she assured him. ‘I think we should take some time to settle down with each other, don’t you? Properly get to know each other. Like you said, fall in love.’

  There was a shyness in her voice as she said the last words, a shyness that was, however, combined with confidence. Brianna Jade had no real doubts that she and Edmund would have any problems learning to love each other. He was a truly great guy, and they had so much in common with their love of the countryside; she felt that they were halfway there already. And she had healthy self-esteem: adored all her life by Tamra, Brianna Jade had no trouble believing that even an Earl would find her as lovable as her mother did – hell, she’d happily settle for him finding her almost as lovable as that.

  They had crossed the lawns and were heading up the stone steps of the terrace now, and he stopped for a moment to kiss her on the lips.

  ‘Taking our time sounds absolutely fine to me,’ he said. ‘An excellent plan.’

  ‘And Mom won’t be in any hurry to be a grandma, trust me on that,’ her daughter commented. ‘Not with having had me so young.’

  ‘Not even to a sweet little daughter called Latisha?’ Edmund asked. ‘You know, that name is rather growing on me. I think Lady Latisha sounds rather elegant.’

  ‘Edmund! No!’ his fiancée shrieked, slapping his arm before realizing that he was joking.

  ‘Oh ha ha! Very funny!’ she said, giggling, and Edmund was laughing too as they reached the top of the terrace to the spectacular vision of the Fracking Queen in all her splendour.

  Chapter Three

  Tamra Maloney, a champagne flute in her hand, was standing by a table covered in a white cloth which bore not only a bottle of Cristal in a large silver wine cooler, but two more flutes awaiting the engaged couple. Seeing that her daughter’s future as the Countess of Respers was not only assured, but that she and Edmund were getting on well enough to laugh together, the mother of the bride’s full lips curved into a smile that bordered on a positive smirk of satisfaction. With her slightly slanting dark eyes and mane of red-gold hair, at that moment Tamra resembled a beautiful jungle cat: she could almost have been a lioness after a successful hunt, stretched out along a tree branch, purring with pleasure after having eaten her fill.

  Even with his beautiful twenty-four-year-old fiancée on his arm, Edmund could not help the instinctive reaction he always had at the sight of her mother. Tamra Maloney simply took your breath away. She wasn’t just beautiful, she had a quality of barely leashed sensuality, a gleam in her dark brown eyes, that had several of Edmund’s friends eagerly comparing her to a young Sharon Stone. Dominic, with whom Edmund had roomed at college, was already insisting on being Edmund’s best man purely to give him enough status to hit on Tamra at the wedding.

  ‘Sod bridesmaids,’ Dominic had leered enthusiastically, ‘I want the mother of the bride. Talk about hot cougar action! That woman could fuck me into pieces and I’d die with a smile on my face.’

  ‘Dom,’ Edmund had said crossly, ‘that’s the grandmother of my future children you’re talking about. Please!’

  But looking at Tamra now, in a fitted silk wrap Givenchy dress that was perfectly decent but still clung to every lush curve of her body, at her flawless, lightly tanned skin, her strawberry-blonde hair held back with Michael Kors sunglasses, and around the long stem of her neck a De Grisogono rose-gold necklace set with diamonds, so elaborate and heavily worked that only a woman with her height and confidence could have carried it off, Edmund couldn’t actually blame Dominic for lusting after his mother-in-law-to-be. She and Brianna Jade could have been sisters, could almost have been twins from a distance, until you saw that Tamra’s eyes were bigger, darker, and gleaming with a lust for life and a wealth of experience that Brianna Jade, simpler, sweeter, happy to settle down into country life at twenty-four, would never acquire.

  Brianna Jade’s a Sienese icon, Edmund reflected, but Tamra’s a Titian; that colouring – the red lights in the hair, the golden skin, the deep brown eyes, she’s a classic Titian beauty. I must tell her – I think she’d rather like that. Shame we had to sell our own Titian in the 1950s . . .

  Tamra’s wide brown eyes, framed in ridiculously thick dark brown lashes, not all of which she had been born with, glanced swiftly towards her daughter, taking in the ring on her finger, the smile on her face, the snug link of her arm through Edmund’s, and Edmund’s own contented expression. Tamra had had the most discreet plastic surgery money could buy; her features moved so easily that it was clear she hadn’t had Botox; but Botox, now, was for amateurs, as were fillers, short- term fixes that messed with one’s face disastrously in the long run. Casting directors in Hollywood were increasingly refusing to even see actors whom their agents couldn’t guarantee were free of both.

  The really clever men and women were taking a much more measured approach, one which required no riskily invasive procedures at all: a double blast of microdermabrasion followed by gel lathered on the face and a cold laser, like a little flashlight, trained on the skin for at least forty-five minutes to stimulate collagen production. As Tamra smiled, there was barely a single line creasing the smooth high forehead or fanning out from those marvellously compelling dark eyes. Her lips, infinitesimally plumped by the discreetest of collagen injections – the only injectable Tamra permitted herself, and only because her doctor performed them behind the lip, rather than into it, giving a tiny extra fullness without changing the shape at all – parted as she breathed out a long, utterly complacent sigh of relief and triumph in equal measure.

  She’d done it. Her baby was going to be a Countess. All Tamra’s hard work, the struggle and graft and frustration and tears and picking herself up off the damn floor every time she fell down, starting all over again, time after time – everything had been worth it to see Brianna Jade like this, marrying a really good guy who would take care of her and who just so happened – hello! – to be a damn Earl! Her grandchildren were going to be Lords and Ladies! Pretty good for Tamra Jean Krantz from Kewanee County, Illinois!

  She wanted to run towards Brianna Jade and Edmund, to burst into much-needed tears of sheer happiness, but over here people seemed to be more stick-up-their-ass, and while she and Bri were determined not to have their moxie ground out of them by stuck-up Brits, Tamra was okay toning it down a little to fit in. Go along to get along, as she’d always said. So Tamra put down her glass and walked quickly halfway across the terrace, met there by her daughter, who had moved just as fast; they didn’t cry, but they fell into each other’s arms, hugging so tightly that Brianna’s four-carat diamond engagement ring left a dent in her mother’s firm, tanned bare back below the halterneck tie of her dress when they finally released each other. They looked into each other’s eyes, light hazel into dark brown, as they had so many times before, their bond as tight as it could be, and, as so many times before, mother and daughter exchanged an unspoken message.

  Don’t cry. No tears. We’re on top of the world, you and I.

  A pageant competitor and her stage mother had no problem at all either crying on demand or controlling the impulse. Both of the women swallowed in unison, took deep breaths and broke into smiles so joyful that Edmund, who, in true gentlemanly fashion, had crossed to the table to pour drinks (by his code, ladies should never have to fill or top up their own glasses when a gentleman was present) was so dazzled by their sheer wattage that he spilled some Cristal on the tablecloth.

  ‘All my dreams for you have come true, hon
ey,’ Tamra said to Brianna Jade, reaching out to stroke her hair. ‘I got there in the end, didn’t I?’

  ‘You did, Mom,’ Brianna Jade said happily. ‘You really did.’

  Clasping her daughter’s hand, Tamra turned to Edmund, who had managed to fill the champagne flutes without any more spillage and was waiting politely for his fiancée and future mother-in-law to finish their women’s moment.

  ‘Edmund, I know you’ll make my little girl a wonderful husband,’ she said contentedly.

  ‘I’d better, Tamra,’ Edmund said with an amused twist of his lips. ‘Or I rather think you’ll make my life a living hell.’

  Tamra burst out laughing. ‘I will, dammit,’ she admitted. ‘You’re damn right. Jeez, Bri, I found you a British Earl who tells it like it is and has a sense of humour! I never thought I’d manage that.’

  ‘And he’s very good at serving drinks, too,’ Brianna Jade said as Edmund handed them flutes filled with pale straw-coloured Cristal, studded enticingly with tiny bubbles. The three of them clinked glasses. Edmund and Brianna Jade sipped the champagne; Tamra, however, sank the contents of her glass in a single, effortless drag.

  ‘I’d have killed at the keggers if I ever went to college,’ she said cheerfully. ‘Hell, I needed that. This has been a long time coming.’

  She put down her glass on the stone balustrade and took in the scene before her. The sun had almost set now, and dark rose streaks were reaching across the lawns, darkening the leaves of the ancient oaks in the woodland beyond. Those trees had been planted by the first Earl of Respers, centuries ago, a fact that never ceased to make Tamra marvel. She had come from nothing, dirt-poor German immigrant farming stock; now her grandchildren would be Lords and Ladies, would inherit this beautiful stately home, climb the historic trees, play on the lawns, slide, screaming with happiness, down the banisters of the staircase which had been carved with acanthus flowers by Grinling Gibbons himself in 1640 (apparently that was a huge deal as Edmund mentioned it constantly – she’d have to look it up). Tamra was a stickler for detail.

  Tamra turned to lean against the balcony, looking up at the golden stone expanse of Stanclere Hall. Edmund and Brianna Jade were finishing their champagne, talking quietly but happily. Tamra’s eyes rested on her daughter’s fiancé for a moment.

  He’s a good-looking, well set-up guy. Nice shoulders, strong bone structure, tight abs. That’s all the farm work, I guess – he seems pretty into all of that. Funny that we came from a farm and that’s where Bri’s ended up. He’s not handsome, but he has a real nice face; better that way. Gorgeous guys are nothing but trouble. Yeah, Edmund’s one of the good ones. And hell, I should know! The amount of men I’ve had to size up instantly in my time . . .

  She noticed with pleasure that Edmund was actually listening to what her daughter was saying. A man who listened to a woman was worth his weight in gold. Tamra had seriously never thought that she’d hit the jackpot like this. To nail, for her daughter, an Earl who was thirty-four – the perfect marrying age for a guy – and didn’t just have his own hair and teeth but was actually pretty hot in a low-key British way; no denying that was like the relentless ring of a casino slot machine flashing a golden horseshoe triple bonus on the screen as coins flooded out into the trough below.

  But, she conceded, Edmund had hit the jackpot too. Tamra had more money than God and she was no tightwad about spending it.

  She gazed up at the expanse of the Hall, a smile of wry amusement on her perfect lips. Mentally, she listed all the things that urgently needed fixing: the roof, the dry rot, the plumbing, the electrics, pretty much every damn thing. Like the lawns, the Hall looked great from a distance; close up, Tamra could see a whole lot of crumbling window frames, perilously bent guttering and stone that needed repointing – apparently the whole Hall needed repointing, a job that would literally take years. But Tamra was fine with that. It was the deal. And the Hall, after all, was held in trust for her grandkids; it wasn’t like she’d plough money into this only to have Edmund sell it out from under her. He couldn’t even if he wanted to because of the entail. Doing up Stanclere Hall was an investment in the future of her family.

  Plus, she got to put in en suites all over, with underfloor heating and proper American power showers. Oh my God, I can’t wait! That trickle that comes out of the taps and shower heads here . . . ugh, not just a trickle, but kinda yellow too, like washing your hands in pee! The plumbing’s going to be the first thing I tackle . . .

  ‘Tamra? May I?’

  Edmund was courteously proffering the Cristal bottle, and Tamra never said no to a drink.

  ‘You know,’ she said, flashing him her best teasing smile as she held out her glass, ‘you should really call me Mom now, Edmund, like Bri does.’

  This time Edmund spilled some champagne over his tie as Tamra and Brianna Jade giggled in unison at the appalled expression on his face.

  ‘It’s okay, son, I was just messing with you,’ Tamra said, sending her and Brianna Jade off into even more giggles as Edmund’s eyes widened in horror at the prospect of Tamra calling him ‘son’ from now on.

  ‘Don’t worry, Mom’s just playing,’ Brianna Jade said, taking the bottle from her fiancé before he accidentally poured the rest of the contents over his handmade Lobb shoes.

  ‘Honestly, Tamra, it’s odd enough calling my future mother-in-law by her first name,’ Edmund admitted, pink-cheeked now. ‘Let alone . . .’

  He simply couldn’t look at the stunning woman in front of him – she was forty, he knew, but she looked ten years younger – and remotely connect the word ‘Mom’, or even ‘Mummy’, with her in any way. His own mother, who had died with his father in a small plane crash on a bird-watching safari in Botswana seven years ago (ironically, it had been a cormorant flying into one of the engines that had caused the disaster) had been a considerably more – well, motherly figure, with her sensible tweeds and greying hair. Picturing Mummy clad in Tamra’s silk wrap halterneck dress, her hair held back with Tamra’s designer sunglasses and her liver-spotted arms bared . . . the image was so surreal, and Edmund had such a flash of sadness for his parents in that moment, that he couldn’t speak another word.

  ‘It’s hard that you don’t have your own folks still here with you,’ Tamra said, reading his mind with disconcerting acuteness. She reached out to pat his arm sympathetically. ‘I’m so sorry. They were too young to go.’

  Edmund nodded in thanks, took the glass Brianna Jade was handing him and drank some more; he appreciated her words very much, but was too British to be able to respond to them. Tamra understood this too.

  ‘I love the taste of champagne,’ she observed, deliberately lightening the mood, ‘but those damn bubbles can get up my nose sometimes.’

  ‘You can stir them out,’ Edmund said, clearing his throat, glad to have the conversation changed. ‘With a champagne whisk. My grandmother had some – they’re rather lovely old things. She had one she wore around her neck in a little silver case: you pull it out and all these sort of filaments pop out and you put it in your glass to whisk the bubbles away.’

  ‘Cool,’ Tamra said appreciatively.

  ‘I’ll make sure we fish them out for you and give them a good polish,’ Edmund said, smiling at her. ‘The silver here’s been awfully neglected, and we don’t want to give you a tarnished whisk! We’ll have it all ready for you in time for cocktail hour tomorrow.’

  ‘Edmund, I would love that, and you’re really sweet to make the offer,’ Tamra said – she had got the hang of saying ‘really’ instead of ‘real’, as the English did – ‘but I won’t be here tomorrow. I’m heading off back to London now. Time to leave the newly engaged couple in peace and quiet.’ She winked at them, a perfectly executed gesture, one set of enviably thick eyelashes fluttering for a moment on her smooth cheek. ‘Last thing you guys want is Mom hanging around! So I’m going to love you and leave you. I got the maid to pack me up again while you guys were sorting yourselves out. I mean, if Bri
turned you down at the last minute, Edmund, we’d be leaving anyway, and if she said “yes”, I needed to get the hell out of Dodge. So either way it was a no-brainer.’

  ‘But Tamra, it’s getting dark now,’ Edmund protested politely, though inwardly he was full of admiration for her skill and excellent manners: leaving the newly engaged couple alone together displayed a sensitivity he hadn’t expected from her. ‘Why not at least stay till morning? You’ll want your dinner, surely.’

  She laughed in his face in the nicest possible way, her teeth just as mother-of-pearl and perfectly aligned as her daughter’s.

  ‘Oh Edmund, honey, you know I barely eat at the best of times,’ she said fondly, patting his arm again. ‘I have a hamper ready to be loaded into the car – smoked salmon and bresaola and Cristal all waiting for me on ice. I’ll just pick at some protein and drink all the way home.’

  ‘But—’ Brianna Jade began, only to be interrupted by her mother.

  ‘Ssh, honey,’ Tamra said with huge affection, enfolding her daughter in another tight hug. ‘You’ll be fine. You and Edmund have way more interesting things to do than sit around and make conversation with your mom, for God’s sake! Right, Edmund?’

  She winked at him again, a devastatingly appealing wink that said that she knew that he and Brianna Jade hadn’t even kissed before today and that she imagined he had plenty of ground to cover now. Edmund’s shirt collar was suddenly tight and damp with sweat; he ran a finger inside it to loosen it up.

  ‘See you very soon,’ Tamra said, kissing him lightly on the cheek, her very expensive perfume enfolding him for a moment. ‘And don’t worry about me being bored in London on my lonesome! I’m seeing Lady Margaret tomorrow for a boozy lunch – Jeez, that woman can drink like me, it’s a real pleasure hanging out with her – and I’ve got a meeting with the publicist to talk about the first set of engagement pictures in Hello!’