by Maya Rodale, Caroline Linden, Miranda Neville, Katharine Ashe
“Did you mention that he is your oldest and about to be former best friend?”
“I knew I could count on you. You can get away for a week or two.” He could hear Mark grinding his teeth when he told him the dates.
“I’ll have you know, my darling, that I was planning to spend my holiday in the south of France soaking up sun with the beautiful people. If I save your cute arse this time, will you promise me sex?”
“Anything but that. I’ve been trying to be gay for you since prep school and it just won’t take. You’ll have to make do with Nanny.”
“I’ve been trying to be straight for Nanny since the first time I came to Brampton, but no dice. She doesn’t fancy me. If I agree to get into my fast German car and drive to your rescue, promise me she isn’t cooking dinner tonight.”
“Arwen doesn’t like Nanny’s food.”
“I like her already.”
“So I booked a table for three at the Preposterous Pineapple. Eight o’clock.”
“Oh God, why? Why not The Bull’s Head?”
“Because Ted the landlord always calls me the Honorable Harry in that tiresome way. It won’t even occur to Sheila and Carol to blow my cover.”
Mark laughed. “Let me get this straight. Miss Arwen the elf doesn’t know you are the son and heir to Lord Melbury and the owner of Brampton House?”
“I told you about those ghastly people who came for shooting and kept calling me Lord Harry and one of the wives kept groping me and crept into my room in the middle of the night. After that I told everyone in the estate to just call me Harry—not that they don’t anyway—or Mr. Compton if strictly necessary. I think Miss Arwen regards me as His Lordship’s odd job man and I’m perfectly fine with that.”
“And you want to be loved for yourself. You’re such a romantic.” Mark knew him far too well. “What’s she like?”
“Very bossy. Also pretty as a picture, sexy as hell, and frighteningly clever.”
“Darling, she sounds just your type. Does she lust after your brutish proletarian muscles?”
“God, I hope so. No, I don’t, not really. This is business and too important to be cocked up.”
“Did you really say cocked up? You’ve been in the country too long, Harry, and you need to get laid. Much better forget this mad idea and come to Cannes with me. There will be slutty Eurotrash to suit every taste.”
“I can’t. Duke Austen made me an offer I can’t refuse and now I must make sure he doesn’t take it back.”
Chapter Three
Much to Arwen’s relief, Harry drove her into Melbury in the Land Rover where they were to meet the hotel manager at a restaurant. His history at the Delaville Group was impressive. Arwen had only had cocktails in the ultramodern bar of the midtown Delaville but she’d recommended it to the out-of-town guests of her wealthier and more sophisticated customers, those who would find the Plaza lacking in exclusivity, and she’d drooled over hospitality magazine pictures of Delaville hotels in Venice and Paris, Rome and Rio among others.
The Pineapple of Perfection, occupying the first floor of a red brick town house, featured scrubbed pine tables, candles, red and white checked cloth napkins, and the hum of English-accented conversation. Delicious smells assured Arwen that Nanny was not doing the cooking. She still had a craving for rare red meat.
A tall woman with a long face and a longer caftan greeted Harry with a kiss on the cheek. “How are you, Harry? I haven’t seen you for yonks. Mark is waiting for you on the terrace.”
“I’ve been busy, you know how it is. Sheila, this is Arwen Kilpatrick. She’s here from America to see about having a wedding at Brampton.”
“How do you do, Arwen?” Sheila said. “Brampton’s a marvelous place. Carol and I are thinking of having ours there.”
“Congratulations, darling,” Harry said. “I didn’t know you two had decided to take the plunge.”
Sheila simpered, an expression that was odd on her slightly horsey face. “She went down on one knee, the little angel, so what could I say?”
“Do bring her out to our table for a drink, if she has a moment. Sheila’s fiancée,” he explained to Arwen, “is the cook here.”
“What about yours?” Sheila asked. “Boy or girl?”
“I’m the wedding planner, not the bride,” Arwen replied.
“Let me know if you need any help catering. We offer a unique menu here.”
“I look forward to sampling it. I love the name. How did you think of it?”
“In Sheridan’s play The Rivals, Mrs. Malaprop uses the phrase instead of the pinnacle of perfection.”
“Of course! One of the original malapropisms. I saw that play in college.”
“And since the pineapple is an ancient symbol of hospitality, we thought it was ideal.”
Arwen was thoroughly charmed. Perhaps she’d hire this couple to put on a pig roast one evening of the wedding celebration. That would be very rural and traditional and make a nice change from the formality of the surroundings.
Sheila led them out to a delightful little back patio scented by a flowering shrub. An incredibly good-looking man, occupying the only table, put down a martini glass and stood to greet them. While Harry’s concession to dinner out was an open-necked white shirt tucked into clean jeans and tasseled loafers with no socks, Mark had stepped right out of the pages of GQ: tousled blond hair, a perfect scruff, and swathed in Armani from head to toe. The man should be a male model, except that he looked both alert and intelligent. Arwen’s mouth watered. What girl could possibly object to dining alone with two such magnificent male specimens? Her sorority sisters at Emory would die of envy and before the night was over they would. First on the agenda was to get a selfie of the three of them and post it on Facebook. She’d already determined that the town of Melbury was not cell-signal challenged.
“Mark Delancey,” he said and actually kissed her hand. Normally she’d think it a douche move but she’d forgive anything from such a gorgeous man. “Harry definitely underestimated your charms.”
“Did he? That’s an ambiguous statement.”
“She is clever. For God’s sake get the girl a drink before she learns all our guilty secrets. The raspberry martinis are excellent.”
“They are organic,” Sheila said. “As is all our food.” She went off to get the drinks.
Arwen was all for organic, locally raised meat. It reminded her of home. “So what’s good to eat here?” The question was interrupted by her phone, which made her jump. Even in a couple of days she’d become used to not being constantly interrupted by calls. “I’m sorry,” she said, glancing at the screen. “It’s my mother. It may be an emergency.”
“Arwen, honey, it’s Molly.” Molly Stanton’s voice sounded crackly and distant.
“Hi, Mom.” Arwen had taken an early stand against calling her parents by their first names, as soon as she started grade school and discovered no one else did. “What’s up? Are you okay? Is Dad?”
“Benjamin is fine. You sound awfully far away? Where are you?”
“I’m in England, visiting Brampton House about a wedding.”
“I thought you said Brampton. How funny.”
“I did.” She couldn’t think of any reason why her mother had even heard of Brampton, let alone find her being there either strange or amusing.
“I wanted to let you know we are taking a trip for a few weeks.” That was unusual. After traveling the world in their youth, Benjamin Kilpatrick and Molly Stanton had settled on their Pennsylvania farm and rarely budged.
“Where?”
There followed a lot of crackling and a few indistinct words before the phone went dead.
“Everything all right?” Harry said. “You look baffled.”
“My parents are going somewhere but I’m not sure where. It sounded like the Isle of Man, but it could have been Burning Man or Afghanistan.”
“Not the last, I hope.”
“Where’s Burning Man?” Mark asked.
“It’s a thing in the Nevada desert,” Harry said. “Hard to explain.”
“Hippies?”
“Exactly.”
Arwen was tempted to ask how Harry had heard of an event frequented by devotees of alternative cultures. But she really didn’t want to talk about her charming, loving, incredibly embarrassing parents. Time to get serious and grill Mark about his experience. Then she would enjoy dinner and decide which of the pair she’d most like to flirt with. She wasn’t a hundred percent sure Harry wasn’t gay, Mark too. Possibly together. She’d never heard men say darling so often. She sent Mark an enticing little smile along with her first zinger.
“What philosophy would you bring to ensuring the comfort of a small wedding party while maintaining an atmosphere of informality and ease?”
Mark answered without hesitation. “I see myself as the majordomo of an estate in the heyday of aristocratic power, where My Lord’s guests conduct the business of the nation and their private flirtations untroubled by countless servants who cater to their every need while remaining invisible. The titans of high tech are the new nobility. Here’s Sheila with your drink.”
She decided he was delectable and perfect, and so was the martini.
“Would you like to hear our menu?” Sheila said. “We don’t have a printed bill of fare. Our philosophy is a small but exquisite choice of dishes, changing daily according to the whims of the chef and the season. We use local ingredients whenever possible. ”
Talking about philosophy did sound kind of pretentious when Sheila did it. Arwen made a mental note to expunge it from her vocabulary unless speaking of Schopenhauer or Nietzsche, which she tended to avoid. She prayed that the chef’s whim included something red and rare.
“Because it’s unusually hot, Carol has made two salads as starters.” Sheila spoke with all the drama of Emma Thompson accepting an Academy Award. “A lovely quinoa with scallions, broad beans, and dates, topped with wood-grilled pine nuts for crunch. Or you might prefer crispy kale and tofu with shredded coconut and a mango vinaigrette.”
Uncharitably, Arwen wondered what percentage of these ingredients were local to southern England. Since she loathed both tofu and kale with equal fervor, she opted for the quinoa.
“Good choice,” Sheila said. “So much nutrition. And for the main course may I recommend our signature veggie burger with porcini mushrooms and nondairy creamed cauliflower, served with a pomegranate ketchup and parsnip bacon.”
Cauliflower? She was getting a very bad feeling about The Pineapple of Perfection. “Where’s the beef?” she asked. Harry and Mark looked guilty, as well they might.
“Where’s the wine list?” Harry asked.
“Didn’t these naughty boys explain that we’re vegan? If you’re dying for protein, and I know just how you feel after a long day, Carol will make you a lovely grilled tofu steak with caper salsa.”
Sheila had barely left with their order before the men succumbed to hysterical mirth. “You should have warned me,” Arwen said. “I was going to hire these women to roast a pig. Oh my God! Tofu!”
“Don’t worry,” Harry said. “The food really is excellent and I’ve ordered a good bottle of wine. Sheila’s devotion to veganism stops at the wine cellar door.”
His charming hangdog grin made her feel a little bit excited, or would if she could be sure he wasn’t gay. She asked Mark a few more questions and was soon satisfied that with him in charge she needn’t worry about guest services at Brampton. They moved on from martinis and quite delicious vegan snacks to wine and appetizers. She knew she was being played, but these boys were good: far too charming and far too persuasive as they sang the praises of Brampton along with a liberal dose of flattery.
“Arwen has the most brilliant ideas,” Harry said. “Her suggestions for tents and lighting in the garden are perfect. She wants something called fairy lights in all the shrubberies.”
“Not all, I hope,” Mark said. “There’s nothing more conducive to snogging than a dark shrubbery. I could tell you stories…”
“Tact, Mark. And discretion.”
“I know Arwen would enjoy hearing about…”
Arwen wasn’t so sure. “You both know the place well.”
“I’ve lived in the area all my life,” Harry said. “And Mark has been visiting almost as long. We were at school together. That’s why you can absolutely rely on us to make sure Duke’s nuptials go off without a hitch.”
She took a deep breath, pushed aside her wineglass and swallowed a chickpea. “Stop, please guys. I’m thinking and I can’t concentrate with you both telling me how fabulous Brampton is. I’ve seen it, I’ve heard you, and I’m convinced.”
“So the wedding goes ahead here?” Harry asked.
She raised a hand to silence him and made her brain go through a checklist of salient points, a habit she’d developed over the years. She made written lists too, especially those relating to money and numbers, but she liked to keep the most important stuff in her head where she could retrieve it without constantly checking her computer. The mental exercise often turned up problems she hadn’t foreseen. The major issue she could see with Brampton was the lack of a kitchen staff. It simply couldn’t be assembled and ready in time, but she’d already agreed that she could hire a caterer for the weeklong affair. The solution gave her far more control over menus than she’d have with an established chef, set in his ways. Which left only one thing.
“You promise there will be Wi-Fi all over the house and gardens?”
“On my honor,” Harry said. With his English accent, he sounded like a character in a PBS series or one of Jane’s Regency novels. How could she not trust him?
“In that case—”
“Yes?” the men said in unison.
“Yes.”
“Great news,” Harry said. He and Mark exchanged pleased nods, apparently the British version of a high five. “You won’t regret it and I so look forward to working with you.”
“One thing. Remember that Duke and Jane want absolutely no paparazzi. You can’t tell anyone whose wedding it is. The guests won’t even know exactly where they’re going until the last minute.”
“Not a problem. I haven’t told anyone whom you represent and as far as the staff and locals are concerned, it will be the merely the Big Wedding. If I assure them it isn’t a film star or anyone they’ve heard of they won’t care.”
“Why don’t you call Duke now,” Mark said, “while we order champagne?”
Instead she called Jane, raving about the beauty of the place and promising a long conversation the next day to start nailing down the details. By the time they’d polished off a bottle of Veuve Clicquot she was thoroughly relaxed and contemplating a working vacation romance. What happens in England stays in England, surely.
A sensible girl—and with her crazy parents Arwen had always had to be sensible—would combine flirtation with a useful contact in an important company in the hospitality industry. Business and pleasure. Yes, Mark the Armani-clad smoothie was the better bet, but Harry the hunky handyman was hellishly hot. He raised his glass to her with a lazy smile that gave her the shivers.
As long as they weren’t totally into each other, which given her luck was all too possible.
“Arwen darling,” Mark said, refilling her glass. “Are you New York born and bred or did you come by your Proenza Schouler black dress the hard way?” He had to be gay. Or maybe English straight men knew designers.
“I grew up on a farm in Pennsylvania and went to college in the south, where I learned to appreciate manicures and catered affairs.”
“And wisely moved to New York. Which couldn’t you stand: the heat or the crazy?”
It wasn’t often anyone realized that the only thing to do when you were a cross between a hippy and a steel magnolia was to move to Manhattan. “You have an impressive understanding of American culture.”
“I went to college there. Princeton.”
“You too, Harry? Didn’t say you were
friends from school?”
“Poor Harry stayed in England, where his most interesting cultural experience was going to the pub with a lot of oarsmen.”
“Hence his physique.”
“He is quite ogle-able, isn’t he?”
Arwen’s woozy eyes veered from the way the handyman’s tanned neck set into his collarbones. “Is that a word?”
“For heaven’s sake, Mark.” Harry was actually blushing. God, he was cute. But so was Mark. Arwen probed with a stilettoed foot, dodged the table leg, and hit pay dirt with a warm limb. But whose? With whom was she playing footsie? God, her grammar was good.
Harry stood up. Question answered, rather to her disappointment. She should have recognized the touch of Armani against her ankle.
Harry said something about going to the loo and saying hello to Carol in the kitchen. Through the door into the main dining area she saw him stop at a table and say hello to a middle-aged couple. Friendly with everyone, he seemed universally popular.
Mark twinkled at her across the table and gave her calf a rub. “Really darling, I thought you lived in New York. What happened to your gaydar?”
“I don’t have one. In college I was voted the Girl Most Likely to Fall in Love with a Homosexual.”
“A sign of excellent taste. We are superior beings.” He shot his pale pink cuff revealing gold crested cuff links. “Not that I don’t enjoy playing footsie with a pretty thing of any sex, but I don’t think I’m what you’re looking for.”
“Are you and Harry…?”
“Just good friends.”
Yes! She gave Mark’s groomed perfection a last look without any regret.
The one downside of life in the city was the dating, or lack of it. Admittedly she hadn’t given the matter the energy it deserved. On arrival she’d technically still been with her college boyfriend, but the relationship had shriveled on the vine of weekend train rides to Washington, DC, where he worked for a congressman. She sometimes thought his main appeal had been the fact of him being a Republican and pissing off her parents. Since then, consumed by growing her business and pursuing designer clothing on deep discount, she’d had occasional dates and less frequent hookups with a disparate collection of New York professionals introduced by her friends. Being away from home and a little blitzed on champagne made her realize how one-dimensional her life had become.
