The waiter, who had approached me from behind, gave me a huge grin as he deposited the fresh round.
“Max,” I exclaimed when he’d gone, “I said something sexy and he didn’t get scared away!”
“Well done, Becks, now drink that up like a good girl and we’ll work on the smile. Oh, and how do you feel about a little shopping tomorrow?”
“For what?”
“God give me strength,” he muttered. “For clothes.”
I thought about my wardrobe. Then I thought about my credit limit. Then I thought about Sir Charles Shipley.
“Let’s make a list.”
Thirteen
Fabulous new hairstyle. Check.
All new makeup employing all the latest beauty breakthroughs. Check.
A vast number of brushes with which to apply makeup. Check.
Hair care products, skin care products, nail care products. Check.
Slinky little dresses and flirty little skirts. Check.
Selection of tops with plunging necklines. Check.
Lingerie. Double check.
Shoes and bags. Oh my God, Check.
Everything that could be purchased had been purchased and it gave me an increasing sense of confidence as the piles of shopping bags grew. Whether Max’s lessons in womanly wiles would prove effective was still open to question, but after two days of intensive training, I was as ready as I’d ever be for an English country wedding.
I HELD MY BREATH as we approached the grounds. I was Jane Eyre, getting her first glimpse of Thornfield Hall. I was Maxim de Winter’s new bride, seeing Manderley for the first time. I may even have been Miss Elizabeth Bennet, viewing Mr. Darcy’s Pemberley.
All right, I was more than a little carried away.
But Lakewood lived up to expectations. The first thing anyone said when we rounded a corner and the house came into view was “Oh, thank God!”
The speaker was Connie.
She turned to Ian’s brother, seated across from her in the vast silver limousine that had been waiting for us at the station. “Phillip—it’s wonderful! I can’t believe you talked Sir Charles into letting us have the wedding here. It’s just…” She began waving her hands in front of her face in an I-can’t-spoil-my-mascara sort of way.
Phillip looked slightly puzzled. “Oh, but he does it—”
“He does it out of friendship for the family,” Ian cut him off. “Our families have been close for generations.”
The house was an enormous structure, all gray stone and glittering windows. It had a turret. It had a cupola. It had any number of flourishes for which I had no name. Parapets? I cursed myself for not boning up on nineteenth-century architecture as fodder for discussion with Sir Charles Shipley.
As we got closer, Connie grabbed Trinny’s arm. “You told me the flowers weren’t out yet. Look—there are flowers everywhere!”
Trinny extracted herself from Connie’s grip. “I thought you were worried about the roses,” she explained smoothly. “Of course the rhododendrons are out, and the spring flowers in the back around the fountain.”
Very briefly, it looked like Connie might pass out. Then she recovered and began explaining things to those of us whose families hadn’t been coming to Lakewood for generations.
“There are several fountains, as well as a Victorian-era folly overlooking the lake. But the fountain that Lakewood is famous for was brought over from Italy around 1850. It’s a stunning example of baroque architecture, and the wedding ceremony will be held in front of it.”
And she wasn’t even referring to her notes.
She went on in a tour-guide voice. I learned that Lakewood was the name of the estate, and that Lakewood House was…well, what it sounds like. I got a little distracted by the somewhat unsettling way Vida was looking at Phillip Hastings as he followed Connie’s lecture. I had to admit, he was worth looking at. He had the compact, graceful body of an athlete, and the same flawless bone structure and honey-colored hair as his sister, Trinny.
Connie was still going on. “There’s also a beautiful walled garden with masses of rhododendrons and a rose trellis. We’ll have a reception there the evening before the wedding.”
I could tell Connie was mentally drafting the society page’s account of her wedding. A reception was held in the walled garden…
“And if the weather gets dicey, we can move it indoors to the conservatory,” Ian added helpfully. “Which might be very nice as well. It’s enormous and filled with palm trees and so on that Charles’s family had sent from the West Indies a hundred years or so ago.”
I had a fleeting mental image of Sir Charles Shipley bending to kiss me by moonlight in his tropical conservatory. It left me the instant the car pulled up to Lakewood’s massive front steps. Because standing at the top of them was the Lord of the Manor himself.
“I’M AN IDIOT and I don’t deserve to live.”
It was an hour later and we’d all been shown to our rooms to freshen up before tea in the Red Drawing Room.
“It wasn’t that bad,” Max told me unconvincingly.
Vida and Max and I had been assigned rooms along the same hallway—“Spinster’s Alley,” as Vida had named it when it became apparent we were in a separate wing from everyone else. But she was just bitter because Phillip and Trinny, although technically among the ranks of the spinsters, had been situated closer to the host. Vida and Max had waited until the somewhat scary housekeeper had gotten out of sight before they’d both come to my room to comfort me.
It had been that bad.
“Maybe you should avoid slippery shoes,” Vida suggested gently.
“Maybe I should ask the gardener for some quick-acting poison.” I spoke into a throw pillow. I had to. I’d fallen facedown onto the bed in humiliation and couldn’t bring myself to get up.
I had tripped. I’d managed to get out of the car and make it up the stairs fine, rejoicing that my ankle had healed to the extent that I didn’t have an ungraceful limp. I’d even made it inside the house. Then, just as I’d been approaching the LOTM, wearing my new Prada heels and rehearsing the witty little quip I’d make when greeting him, I’d gone sprawling—sliding—across the Italian marble floor of the central rotunda until I had come to rest inelegantly at the feet of Sir Charles Shipley.
He’d smiled in a “What can be wrong with this woman?” kind of way as Max had hoisted me up. Then he’d turned us all over to the slightly scary housekeeper.
“Becks, if you stay facedown like that, your eyes will get all puffy,” Max cautioned.
I sat up. “There’s no recovering from this,” I told them. “I mean, at the party it was one thing. It would have been the funny story we told our grandchildren about how we met. But a second time?” I hugged the pillow to my chest.
“Grandchildren?” Max asked.
“You can recover,” Vida assured me. “And you have to. I fully intend on throwing myself wantonly at Phillip Hastings, and I’ll be damned if I’ll be the only one making an exhibition of myself.”
“Wantonly?” Max echoed.
“Don’t worry. I think I’ve got the exhibitionism covered.” I rubbed my aching butt. “Vida, how am I supposed to face him after that? I mean, he probably dates princesses or something, and I’m this crazy woman who’s already displayed her panties to him in disturbingly similar circumstances both times I’ve seen the man. Does this sound like the behavior of someone who’s likely to prompt a guy into declarations of undying love? I don’t think so.”
“Undying love?” Max exclaimed. “Wanton exhibitionism? Grandchildren? Who are you people? What has this wedding done to you?”
Vida ignored him. “Look, I’ve asked Phillip to give me some pointers with a soccer ball on the east lawn. You do what you like, but if I were you, I’d ask Sir Charles to take you on a tour of the house immediately after the stupid tea party.” She paused on her way out the door. “Seriously, Becks, do you want the man? Or are you going to give up on day one?” She gave me a last f
irm look before leaving.
“I think that’s what you call ‘tough love,’” I told Max.
“What are you going to do?” he asked.
I sighed. “I’m going to put on whatever outfit you tell me to and ask for a tour of the damn house.”
ACTUALLY, the house was fabulous. It was a castle decorated in Early Fairy Tale. And Vida had been right. I’d recovered. What I’d not managed to do was get my personal Prince Charming alone. Following the lengthy afternoon tea, Field Marshal Connie had pulled her bridesmaids and assorted attendants aside for a leading-up-to-the-wedding-day strategy session. It was ages before we rejoined the men, and by that time Sir Charles was at the center of a conversation about local politics.
But maybe it was better that way. It gave me an opportunity to study him in a group setting, which could only improve my ability to tailor my romantic overtures to suit him. After all, you can never know too much about your target market.
And he was so nice to study.
He was as tall as I’d remembered, and had one of those elegant English physiques that seem to belong in white linen shirts and khaki trousers—very Brideshead Revisited, with possibly the tiniest bit of Out of Africa thrown in.
He had light hair, almost blond, and while I usually don’t go for fair men, on Sir Charles Shipley it just seemed to work. Particularly when it flopped down a little on his forehead and he had to run his long tapered fingers through it to get it out of his sparkling blue eyes. The man was perfect.
I was determined to make him mine.
And the vision of perfection was heading in my direction.
“Well,” he greeted me with a charming smile, “you look fully recovered.”
I didn’t ask him which of my spectacular falls he thought I’d recovered from. Instead I returned the smile, hopefully with equal charm rather than a horrible grimace. I trusted that Max had worked wonders with my technique when Sir Charles Shipley didn’t cringe and back away.
“In fact,” he moved closer, and his voice took on a low conspiratorial tone, “you look absolutely gorgeous.”
I was never letting anyone but Max tell me what to wear ever again. Thankfully—because I didn’t have a quick comeback—he didn’t wait for me to respond.
“I do hope I’ll be seeing a lot of you this week.” Was it my imagination, or was that smile just the slightest bit suggestive? “Hopefully not flat on my back,” I responded. Then I died a thousand deaths as I realized what I’d said.
“I mean, not falling down. I mean, standing up, I mean—”
I was saved by the bell. Or at least by a very loud gong.
“Ah,” Sir Charles Shipley made a sort of strangling sound, “yes. That means we dine in an hour. Perhaps we should dress. Can you find your way to your room?”
“Of course,” I said automatically. Then I mentally kicked myself for passing on the opportunity for him to escort me through all those long hallways.
There was that smile again and, amazingly, it was still suggestive. Was there the possibility that he was attracted to incoherent babbling?
“Until tonight, then.” He sauntered away.
“Tonight,” I managed to reply to his retreating back.
Vida appeared in front of me. “How did it go?”
“Honestly?” I watched Sir Charles leave the room. “I have no idea.”
Fourteen
I was back on track, or at least not completely out of the running, and I figured the sensible thing was to come up with a plan. Also a schedule. We were going to be at Lakewood for six days. That didn’t leave much time to make Sir Charles Shipley mine, so I had to make every minute count.
Max had already chosen the outfit I was supposed to wear to dinner—a sort of silky sweatery ruby-colored dress with a daring halter top. I had some reservations about it. If I slipped again, there was no telling what might fall out.
Luckily, Roger’s assistant Shayla showed up to help with my hair and makeup. Roger had instructed her to make Vida and me presentable for all public appearances, so we’d seen a lot of her lately. She was cute and round and bubbly and bouncy, which I’m ashamed to say had made me assume she was also stupid. But she’d proven me wrong. At least in terms of style, the woman was a genius.
I expressed my concerns about the dangers of the dress.
“We could use tape,” she suggested.
“You mean on the bottom of my shoes?” An alarming pair of Manolo Blahnik evening sandals.
Shayla did her best not to laugh at me, but I could tell it was an effort. “No, I mean on your breasts.”
I think my mouth fell open because she did laugh this time.
“Don’t worry,” she giggled. “People use it all the time. It’s double-sided so it sticks to both your skin and the dress.” She pulled a roll of the stuff out of her bag of tricks and demonstrated the technique using her forearm and sleeve.
There was so much I didn’t know about being a siren. “If you say so.”
She said so.
She did my makeup quickly, then turned to the serious business of tugging my hair into a style she promised would be sexy and chic. While she was at it, I grabbed a legal pad and pencil. It was time to draft my Sir Charles Shipley plan of attack.
DAY ONE: Get LOTM aside after dinner for an intimate conversation. Impress him with wit and charm. Avoid embarrassing declarations. Do not slip. Do not pop out of dress.
DAY TWO: Request a Lakewood tour. Suggest conservatory, grounds, or stables. Mention love of riding and wait for him to take the bait. In the evening, exploit opportunities for romance at scheduled club dinner dance.
DAY THREE: Possibilities: trip to nearby town for sightseeing, exploration of island on the lake, picnic. Again, don’t miss chance for after-dinner romance. Think conservatory.
DAY FOUR: Challenging, as he’ll have many host duties having to do with wedding preparations. Try to be of assistance to him. Make things easier. Make him realize how lucky he’d be to have you around all the time. At evening garden reception, be devastatingly attractive and flirt with other men. (Verify this tactic with Max.)
DAY FIVE: Wedding Day. Perfect scene for romance. Be fabulous. Drive him crazy.
DAY SIX: Do Not Go without sealing the deal. Obtain invitation for follow-up visit or statement of his intention to come see you. Also possible, a romantic vacation together. But Do Not Go without knowing where you stand.
I reviewed my plan with satisfaction as I heard the gong sound again. The writing was barely legible, due to Shayla’s efforts, but that was all right. And I had left unwritten the most important guiding principle of all, but that was all right too. Because there was no way I was going to forget my new personal mantra. Don’t fall down. Don’t be a bitch. Don’t fall down. Don’t be a bitch.
Shayla allowed me to peek in the mirror, and—miraculously—I looked the part of a chic, sexy dinner guest. It was good to be in the hands of a professional.
I met Vida in the hallway and tried not to gasp. Shayla had visited her before taking care of me, and the transformation was amazing. Her blond hair sort of shimmered up into a glittery clip and her dress made the absolute most of her square shoulders and defined arms.
“Do you know how much gunk I have in my hair?” she asked me.
“Don’t talk to me. I’ve got tape on my tits.”
We were both a little giddy. The game was afoot.
I WAS THWARTED almost immediately.
The plan called for cutting Sir Charles Shipley off from the rest of the pack after dinner, but it soon became glaringly apparent that this was not going to happen.
It was all Phillip’s fault. “Charles, you must show Ian your new pool table. He tells me he’s gotten quite good in America.”
That’s all it took. We left the Chinese Dining Room and headed for the Turquoise Parlor, which opened up to the Billiard Room. I felt as if I’d wandered into a game of Clue. The men went off to play pool, but Vida and I got stuck talking wedding talk with Con
nie and her mother, Ian’s mother, and the rest of the girls.
Except for Trinny. For some reason she seemed to be exempt from normal bridesmaid duties. She was in playing pool with the boys. How did she get away with it?
“Do you believe her?” Vida mouthed to me across the sea of women. She nodded toward the other room, where Trinny was just accepting a light of her cigar from the LOTM himself.
Damn—he should be lighting my cigar, not hers! Well, all right, if he did light a cigar for me, I’d probably go into watery-eyed coughing spasms, and heaven only knew if my double-sided tape would be equal to the strain. But still.
I made my way around the crowd to Vida. “This was all your stupid Phillip’s idea.”
“I know,” she agreed darkly. “Do you think we can make a break for it?”
But at that exact moment, Ian’s mother turned to us and demanded to have a description of the dresses we’d be wearing on the Big Day. By the time we had fully discussed every last tuck and seam, Sir Charles Shipley was excusing himself, citing some phone calls he had to make to Tokyo.
The party broke up after that. The only thing further I have to report is that double-sided tape is a bitch to take off.
DAY TWO. Another opportunity for romantic success. However…
Connie woke me up early, having already roused Vida, and dragged us both to the florist. We spent hours looking at more varieties of white, off-white, cream, and ivory blooms than I had ever dreamed existed. The flowers had all been ordered months before, and the designs had been agreed on weeks before, but that didn’t stop Connie from endless discussions with the florist about durability versus elegant presentation, referring often to illustrations and reference materials she had brought with her. Vida and I kept checking our watches.
We got back to Lakewood in time for lunch, but not in time to meet up with a certain elusive soccer star and his aristocratic friend.
The Balance Thing Page 9
