by Cody Young
Susannah didn’t seem to hear her father’s ugly words. She smiled a radiant, bridal smile. Carl touched her face and wondered if he dared have another go at that kiss.
A little while later, Carl boarded the train with his pretty young wife. He had never travelled first class in his whole life, but this was their honeymoon and he wanted to do things right. The Brodericks had given him some money and Mr Fortescue had trebled it, of course. He could hardly believe his luck.
They took their seats, side by side, and Carl accepted a copy of the newspaper from a boy in railway uniform. He turned the pages until he found the article he was looking for. ‘Missing woman found alive’.
Susannah tapped his arm, playfully. ‘Why are you reading that nonsense?’
‘Because this column is about us and I am curious to see what it says. I’m certain they won’t have printed the truth.’
Susannah smiled as if she didn’t care one way or the other. ‘When we get to Brighton, Carl, will you have your way with me, again?’
He put down the newspaper and flashed her a smile. ‘Of course.’
He was getting used to her forthright way of asking about things now.
She glanced at him, coyly. ‘Will you wait until tonight, or will you do it straight away, when we get to the hotel?’
He took hold of her hand. Her gloved hand seemed so small, when it was enclosed in his. ‘I will do whatever you want.’
She only hesitated for an moment, eyes all round with innocence and charm. Then, adopting the manner of a girl choosing a ribbon for her hair, she announced: ‘I should like you to do it to me now, without any further delay!’
He laughed. ‘I’d gladly oblige, but do you think we might upset those people over there?’
They had already attracted some disapproving scowls from a pair of stern old women seated not far away, but Susannah didn’t even pretend to care. She glanced around, saw the two old biddies with the iron grey curls, and let out a disappointed sigh.
‘Is it very far to Brighton, do you know?’
He nuzzled closer. ‘Only another half an hour,’ he promised, ‘and when we get there I shall pleasure you again and again and again.’
Susannah pouted. ‘But the waiting is so very, very hard.’
He gave her thigh a surreptitious squeeze. ‘Not just the waiting, either.’
Susannah giggled and reached out to see if he spoke true, but Carl was quicker and snatched her hand away. He brought it up to his lips and kissed it instead.
‘Look here,’ he said, picking up the paper again. ‘Let’s read all about what we’re up to. It will help take our minds off the other little matter.’
‘Oh, it’s not little, Carl, it’s not little at all.’
‘Susannah. I’ll not last til Brighton if you don’t stop saying things like that, my love.’
Susannah suddenly wore a straight face. She composed herself and folded her hands. ‘Now I understand why it is so very important - to have something absorbing to read on the train!’
Carl smiled and read out the carefully worded statement that had been released for the morning papers. ‘Susannah Fortescue is safe and sound honeymooning in Brighton with her new husband.’
Susannah laughed. ‘A blatant lie - we have not yet set foot in the town!’
Carl gave her a playful kiss on the cheek, and continued to read aloud. ‘We are reliably informed, by a source very close to the family, that the girl’s ‘abduction’ was no more than a malicious rumour propagated by one of Fortescue’s opponents …’
‘That’s true enough,’ Susannah whispered to Carl, ‘Father always was his own worst enemy.’
‘Ah, politics!’ Carl laid the paper aside and pulled his sweet young bride into his arms. ‘Who gives a penny for politics, when all I really want is an hour behind a locked door with a lovely little girl like you!’
He spoke of an hour, but he pulled her into a deep kiss that promised her a lifetime of pleasure.
Johnny Doesn't Drink Champagne
Read an excerpt from Cody Young's latest novel
IT’S ALWAYS BEEN MY DREAM to go to London, and now, at last, I’m here.
Well - almost. I’m at Heathrow airport and it’s packed with all kinds of people. I’m standing near the baggage claim waiting for the giant tartan wheelie bag my grandma insisted on lending me for the trip. Seriously uncool, I know. I look down at my feet, standing for the first time on English soil. Or English carpet tiles, at least. My sneakers are new and chafing a little – that ten hour flight from Chicago was a killer.
It’s late – nearly midnight. I look around for the rest of my group. Twenty-eight teenagers on a high school trip to London, all from the same small town in the Midwest. Can’t be too hard to spot. I was last off the plane because I left my coat under the seat and had to go back. I gaze across a sea of unfamiliar faces, and I wonder if any of them made the journey for the same reason I did. I see tourists, backpackers, and airline pilots. Young women in headscarves and old men with walking sticks; moms with screaming babies, and guys with big ice-hockey bags. Tall skinny girls who look like runway models and men in bright colored robes, jabbering away in languages I’ve never heard before. But then, the noise seems to fade away – as if someone has turned the volume right down. A chill goes through me. I turn, as if I know he’s there, though I swear I have no idea why.
That’s when I see him.
In one endless moment that lasts less than a fraction of a second, he is imprinted on my mind. He could have stepped out of the pages of a magazine. My memory takes a dozen photographs, yearning to remember the heart-searing beauty of his face. An entirely masculine beauty that only now I understand. Yes, perfection exists - because he exists. His jacket is dark and austere - perfectly cut. The word ‘Armani’ comes to my lips like the words of a whispered incantation. Silently, I form the syllables, but I’m unable to make a sound. He moves through the crowd, heading my way. I can’t quit staring. No man alive deserves to be blessed – or cursed – with looks like his.
He moves as if cameras flashed around him, lighting up the perfect angles of his face. His hair is dark, longer than average, swept into a sleek side part. In my mind, I caress it. I run my fingers through the strands, and yes - it is as smooth as silk. I shiver. I shake my head to dispel the decadent images that cloud my mind. I long for him to look my way – and yet I fear it too. For if he looked into my eyes, I feel sure I would see disinterest or disappointment in his. A blue jeans girl with a soap-and-water beauty routine; I wouldn’t get more than a glance. My faded shirt with butterflies on the front isn’t likely to impress a man who wears Armani.
But as I stand there, he turns his head, and his eyes meet mine. My heart cries out in agony of the sweetest kind. He has fiercely intelligent eyes, darker than my own - much darker. The eyes of a French nobleman, or an Italian movie star, glittering as they turn to meet my helpless, hopeless stare. His face is more youthful than I first thought. He could not be more than twenty, or twenty-one. But I’m a schoolgirl, and I have no business eyeing up strangers in unfamiliar airports in the middle of the night.
I know I will die if he smiles at me. He looks like a man who smiles often. For the paparazzi. And yet tonight, he is alone.
He is so close. I fight a wild impulse to reach out and touch his sleeve. I long to feel the texture of the charcoal wool beneath my trembling fingers. I clench my hands into fists and fight with all the mental strength I possess, and I do not move from the spot. I realize I’m in his way, but my feet won’t move. They will not obey my desperate command to step out of his way and let him pass.
His brows arch in enquiry as if to ask why I stand - shock still - in front of him. A hint of a smile plays upon his lips. He knows. He knows the reason for my stunned, involuntary stare. I swallow in mortified embarrassment. But still I let my eyes feast on him.
My face flames and my tongue tries to remember how to speak. “Forgive me,” I murmur and step aside.
The smile dies on his face, and a look of surprise replaces it - if I am not mistaken. There is another emotion too, there in the depths of his glittering dark eyes, and it scares me.
Anger? No. Surely not. My helpless adoration wouldn’t make him angry.
Fear? It could not be. Guys who look like that don’t feel fear.
Recognition? Yes. Recognition. But that’s not possible. I would definitely remember if I’d met him before.
To my undying surprise, he reaches out. He reaches out and touches me! He grips my arm and his grip is tight and unrelenting. I gaze down and see his strong male hand, gripping hold of my arm. I can feel his strength through the soft cotton fabric of my shirt.
“What did you say?” he demands. His accent isn’t French, or Italian. It’s English.
I gulp. “I think I said ‘forgive me’. I was in your way and I …”
“Say it again!” His eyes glint with that dangerous emotion I saw just a moment ago.
I am shaking now. He is a stranger. He is, without a doubt, the most beautiful young man I have ever set eyes on. Yes. But at this moment, he is behaving like a crazy person. Even in my dazed and delusional state I can see that. I glance around wildly, and I wonder how I came to be separated from my group. I must shake free of him and find the others. Brody and Lydia and everyone else. Mrs. Bertorelli. I’d even be glad to see her, just now.
“You know, I gotta go.” I look down at his fingers on my arm.
His grip doesn’t falter. “Say it again!”
It seems best to humor him, so I smile a weak, idiotic smile. “Forgive me.”
“It’s you! Madeleine!” He speaks with real astonishment in his voice and he expects me to know him.
“No. No. I’m Madison. I’m sorry!” The words are out of my mouth before I realize how dumb it was to tell the guy my real name.
“Madeleine! I should have known!” He sounds quite angry now.
It bothers me that he picked a name so similar to my own, but surely this must be a coincidence?
I shake my head. “I’m not Madeleine.”
He frowns. He studies my face, searching for signs of recognition.
“You’re not Madeleine?” His dark eyes seem almost soulful for a moment.
“No. Sorry.”
He lets go my arm, and the confident, movie star manner evaporates. I stare into his troubled dark eyes and glimpse something I did not expect to see. Tenderness. Confusion. Sadness. Somewhere inside this know-it-all, seen-it-all, super-cool guy, there is a boy, not much older than myself. But then, he narrows his eyes.
“My mistake,” he says, in a voice laced with anger and suspicion. Then he inclines his head, giving me a curt, old-fashioned bow. “I apologize.”
I try to smile, but the whole conversation has been rather unsettling. He seems to expect more, so I give it my best shot. “No problem. Could have happened to anybody!”
“Jet lag,” he says, tersely.
I realize that I have succeeded in putting him off balance. Quite a turnaround from just a moment ago. I nod in hearty agreement, though one surreptitious glance at his Calvin Klein face reveals no sign of exhaustion. No lines, no shadows under the eyes, nothing. Just smooth, perfect skin, and glittering dark eyes. He’s as crisp and fresh as that starchy white shirt he’s wearing. Probably travels First Class all the time.
I tear my gaze away and try to concentrate on the matter in hand: finding my bag. I study the luggage carousel like my life depends on it. I fix my attention on the row of black and navy bags passing by, giving each one serious consideration as if it might turn tartan and shout ‘surprise!’. But all the time I feel his presence – just a few feet away. I try to remain focused on waiting for my bag, but now and again, I steal a sidelong glance at him, and I strongly suspect him of doing the same.
Out of the corner of my eye, I see him get something out of his pocket. I risk taking another look. It’s a little piece of paper, old and yellow. He stares at it, scowls, and then he crumples it up in his fist. I watch as he lets it slip from his fingers and fall to the ground. Quite deliberately.
A loud American voice startles me. “Madison! There you are!”
Mrs. Bertorelli. Cross with me. Worried about me.
I can see from her face that she’s tired and I’ve put her through the wringer. She’s a short woman, a New Yorker, with a wide face and a double chin. She wears her hair in one of those styles that has ‘a lot of volume’ and she must have sprayed it to hell and back so it didn’t deflate while she was on the plane. With hair like that she wouldn’t even need a neck pillow. The color is basically purple, though I’m sure it must have said something like ‘burnished mahogany’ on the box. She’s waving her fat little hands at me, to get my attention. Her rings are glinting in the artificial light. She wears a lot of rings, on all but the third finger of her left hand.
“Madison, honey. There you are!”
“Oh. Hi … Sorry!” I don’t say the fatal words ‘forgive me’ this time.
“We’ve been looking all over for you! Everyone else has gone to find the bus.”
“I had to go back for my coat, Mrs. B. I left it on the plane. One of the fight attendants went in and got it for me.”
“I see,” she says, and she reaches out and touches the jacket with her short stubby fingers, as if to make sure I’m not faking. “I guess you can’t go round London in September without a jacket,” she says grudgingly.
“It’s still August, Mrs. B.,” I remind her gently.
“You know perfectly well what I mean. Put it on. It’s cold outside tonight. Thank goodness I’ve found you. I thought I was one down before we even made it to the hostel.”
I haul on my jacket, obediently. “Sorry I scared you, Mrs. B.”
“Oh my gosh, Maddie. Is that your bag?”
I turn and see the giant tartan eyesore being swept away on the conveyor belt. It’s already out of my reach, and so I try pushing my way through the crowd to see if I can rescue it, apologizing all the way. I catch frustrating glimpses of it as I try to shove my way through to try to grab hold of its old plastic handle. I can see I’m not going to get it. It’s heading serenely towards the black rubber strips concealing the entrance to that unknown, unnamed area out back. The place where all the lonely unclaimed bags end up. I suppose I’m in for a long, long, wait while it does another lap of honor around the entire system. Or worse – they might pull it off the conveyor and send it to Lost Property.
I sigh. Mrs. B isn’t going to be thrilled about this.
Then I see him again - the man in the immaculate charcoal suit. He appears through a gap in the crowd and suddenly he’s right there - reaching out his hand to grab my bag . I see his outstretched arm and his pale, elegant, fingers, rescuing my runaway bag, just before it disappears out of sight. He lifts it up and off the conveyor, and then he checks the label. I watch him tweaking open the tag and taking a look.
I frown. Now he knows where I’m staying. I bite my lip.
He looks up and catches my eye. He looks kind of angry – in a sultry, stormy sort of way - but he moves towards me, and holds out the offending tartan bag.
“I believe this is yours, Miss Lambourne.”
I take hold of the handle, and my fingers graze against his as we do the exchange. I look up, feeling grateful and a little guilty. “Thank you.”
“Not at all.” His tone is light and casual. His eyes are not.
“My teacher’s waiting for me.” I say, desperate to get away, but mesmerized by him all the same. I’m drowning in his dark eyes. Yearning to feel the glancing touch of his hand again. Knowing I never will.
“Of course,” he says. Very British. Very proper.
He turns away and releases me from his spell. I can breathe again, and I remember my manners. “Thank you. Thank you so much!”
He spares me one last, intoxicating glance. “Fare thee well, sweet lady.”
His strange turn of phrase leaves me struggling to make sense of h
im, again. I stare as he disappears into the crowd. Fare thee well. What archaic words they are, and used so lightly, so naturally, as if he spoke like that all the time. I feel a tiny surge of pleasure, and I can’t suppress a smile. Sweet lady. He called me ‘sweet lady’! Though I have to say his voice was a little gruff and bitter when he said it.
But he said it, all the same.
Again, it’s Mrs. Bertorelli who breaks into my little daydream with her harsh New York whine. “Now wasn’t he your guardian angel, huh? He came along just in the nick of time.”
I smile weakly, and struggle with my bag. The ancient mechanism that allows the handle to extend seems to be jammed. At this rate I will have to drag it like a dead animal out of the airport, instead of wheeling it gracefully away like everyone else.
“Didn’t kill him to help out a pretty girl, of course.” Mrs. B says, with a laugh.
I bite back a swear word that comes to my lips, and tug at the handle of my horrible bag. At last it gives. The handle extends and I straighten up. I can wheel it along – slowly and with a repetitive bump every few inches. One of the wheels must have gotten squashed out of shape or something. It’s like towing a little drunk guy along by the hand. A little drunk guy in a huge tartan overcoat.
“Move it along, Maddie! I wanna be on the bus, honey. My feet are killing me. I need to take the weight off and I still have to get all those kids settled into the hostel. If that bus has gone without us I am going to be so mad!”
“I’m doing my best, Mrs. B.” I try to sound cheerful and upbeat, but it’s late and I’m tired too. The crowd has thinned out a little, and we start walking towards the door that leads to passport control. I see something pale on the floor up ahead of me – a scrap of paper, discarded like an old candy wrapper. People are walking right over it, treading it into the carpet, but I am drawn to it like a magnet. I feel certain that I know what it is and I want to go see if I’m right. I watch people passing by and dread that one of them will notice it first and take it before I can get there – but of course, they don’t. To them it’s just a piece of litter.
