“We very much appreciate your looking us up, Mrs. Swabucher.” Ben spoke with all the enthusiasm I lacked. “And I would like to think one of the reasons is that word of Abigail’s delectable cuisine has reached you even in London.”
“I’ve kept abreast of your success, you may be sure of that, dear boy. You have a fine establishment, no doubt about that.” The lady’s glance took admiring note of the Regency ambience and returned immediately to our faces. “But the truth is, my sweet young things …”
“That you came to see us,” I said in hollow accents, “for a more specific reason.”
“Exactly!” Mrs. Swabucher nodded her powder-pink head. “At the risk of bursting Bentley’s bubble, my mission on this occasion is to have a chat with you, darling Ellie, in regard to a business matter. Which isn’t to say, dear boy”—she waggled the feather boa at my beloved—“that I wouldn’t be delighted for you to join us for a glass of white wine before lunch.”
“Thank you, but I wouldn’t dream of intruding,” Ben responded at his most suave. “I’m sure you have been looking forward to spending quality time with my wife, and I—at the risk of sounding like Martha in the Bible—am needed in the kitchen.” He offered his arm to Mrs. Swabucher and a quizzical look to yours truly. “If you will allow me the honour of escorting two lovely ladies, I will see you seated at the best table in the house, before making myself scarce.”
The journey into the dining room could not have seemed longer had I been crossing the Sahara on a camel that decided to lie down and die every third step. A business matte? What could that mean, other than Mrs. Swabucher wished to use my name and—God help me—my photo in an advertising campaign for Eligibility Escorts? My face plastered in every tube station in London! To be gawked at by every man, woman, and child going up and down the escalators! It was too horrible to contemplate! Veering off the path between the linen-clad tables, I collided with a chair and mumbled an incoherent apology to the gentleman who got soup all down his shirt. And he thought he had problems! If the campaign was a success, what hope was there that I wouldn’t show up, large as life, on buses and billboards in Chitterton Fells?
My knees gave out at the moment that Ben pulled out a chair for me at a table in the window nook overlooking Market Street. I was afraid to lift my eyes beyond the pink blur that comprised Mrs. Swabucher lest I see a man on a ladder, propped against a warehouse building across the way, pasting down the first giant poster.
Ben and I were ruined. Our lives as pillars of the community in rubble. But in typical male fashion, he failed to get the point. Through lowered lids I could see him moving Mrs. Swabucher’s wineglass an inch or two closer to her bread and butter plate, adjusting her dessert spoon and fork, and shifting the bud vase so that it did not crowd the salt and pepper shakers. I could hear the rich murmur of his voice as he extolled the virtues of an exemplary white burgundy, recommended the chestnut mousse, the curried eel, and the roasted pheasant. And then he was gone. Never had I felt more alone than in that crowded room, with Mrs. Swabucher seated across the table. I wanted to rise up from my chair, toss my serviette in her face to throw her off balance, and rush out to the kitchen into Ben’s arms. “Please,” I would beg him, “take me and our adored babies far, far from the madding crowd and the wagging tongues to an uncharted island where no one has heard of Eligibility Escorts!” But, alas, this was the 1990s and the helpless female had gone the way of lead pots and button boots. Besides which, Mrs. Swabucher did not deserve to be treated like the Black Death.
“Excuse me!” I shot from my chair and clutched my throat. “I think I dropped my grandmother’s pearl brooch by the reception desk, and I won’t be able to enjoy my lunch for fear of someone trampling on it. If the waiter comes while I’m gone, please go ahead and order for me.”
“Don’t rush, Giselle dear.”
“I won’t,” I said, stepping on Sylvia Babcock’s wedding present and catching my heel in the strap of my handbag before making my getaway. Luckily, Abigail’s other patrons had taken care to confine their belongings so that they did not constitute a danger to anyone jaywalking between tables. And I succeeded in exiting the dining room without further incident, if one discounted my sending a waiter into a spin that would have won him top marks in an Olympic figure-skating competition.
Mercifully, Ben was alone when I barged into the kitchen whose stainless-steel majesty demanded that each and every saucepan be always on its mettle whether suspended from the chef’s rack or on duty on the cooker. The most indomitable fly would take one look at the gleaming white surfaces and get the hint to buzz off. A sauce simmering in a coddle cup gave a couple of small, tasteful burps, but otherwise all was serene despite this being the lunch-hour rush. A master of organization, that was my husband. And as I breathed deeply of the air ripe with the aromatic memory of sun-drenched olive gardens and cottage kitchens in Provence, I felt the panic occasioned by the arrival of Mrs. Swabucher drop from my shoulders like … a pink-feather boa.
“Ellie! You came, my darling one.” His arms were around me and his lips came down on mine in a kiss of utmost tenderness. I reached up to touch the smooth plane of his cheek. It was a moment to be treasured, had the timing been right.
“Ben, we have a problem—”
“So that’s it.” He stepped back from me but maintained hold of my hand. “You came here to toy with me, but your conscience won out. Foolish female, don’t you know that I am the ultimate cad? Married women have long been my specialty.”
“Ben—” I began again.
“Now I begin to see the light!” His black brows drew together in a mock scowl and he tossed my hand aside, then wiped his on a handkerchief plucked from his pocket. “You’ve discovered you left your purse at home and find yourself in the embarrassing position of having to make a deal with me in return for a free lunch for you and Mrs. Swabucher. Tough luck, Ellie. I can be a hard man when pushed to the brink, and I’ve always found it an incredible turn-on to watch a tearful woman slogging through a mountain of washing up. Of course”—his eyes narrowed and his lip curled—“dessert would be extra, but I am sure we can come up with some arrangement to suit my male appetites.…”
“Please”—I grabbed the hankie away from him and threw it in his face—“don’t be an idiot! You know perfectly well that the first time I’m asked to pay for a meal at Abigail’s I’ll burn the kitchen down. And don’t tell me,” I continued as he opened his mouth, “that my doing so would add a few sparks to our relationship. I need you to be serious and tell me what to do about Mrs. Swabucher.”
“I don’t get your point, Ellie.” Ben leaned against the working surface, ankles crossed, the picture of a man without a fear in the world.
“You heard her!” I pushed my hair back from my beaded brow. “She said she was here to discuss a matter of business with me, and that can mean only one thing. Mrs. Swabucher intends to make hay out of your … my … our involvement with Eligibility Escorts. Oh, I don’t mean she’s going to blackmail us or anything like that, but …”
“I should think not.” Ben’s eyes had darkened from turquoise to emerald. “We have nothing to be ashamed of—or do you feel differently on that subject, Ellie?”
“No, of course not,” I said, “but I don’t think either of us would wish to show up on a billboard for E.E.”
“Think what the neighbours would say!”
“Exactly!” He understood. I breathed a sigh of relief.
“Or the members of the Library League,” he continued in the most silken of tones. “Heaven forbid that we should shock the brigadier or the pompous Lord Pomeroy. Yes, my darling, I do see that my past employment, if leaked to the population of Chitterton Fells, could be an insupportable embarrassment to you.”
“You’re making me sound quite horrid,” I flared. “And you’re completely off the mark: It’s not that I’m ashamed of how we met, it’s just that people, not knowing that you worked for Eligibility only because you were trying to write
a spy novel at the time, might misinterpret the situation.”
“That wouldn’t bother me.”
“You don’t care that in addition to the nasty things people might say about you, they might conclude I was desperate to get a man, whatever the price?”
“I’ve never viewed our marriage as anyone’s business but our own, and I’m rather surprised to discover you would rather we had met at a vicarage tea party.” Ben retreated to the cooker and began stirring the sauce in the coddle cup. “One of the things I always loved about you, Ellie, was your willingness to let the world be damned.”
“We have the children to consider.”
“True enough, and I wouldn’t worry even if Mrs. Swabucher does spill the beans. No one who knows you, sweetheart, would believe you ever did anything so preposterous as to rent a man for a weekend and end up marrying the renegade.”
“Thanks a lot!” Wiping my eyes with the back of my hand, I banged open the door into the foyer, putting a dent in the forehead of the luckless waiter about to enter the kitchen, and plowed forward towards the dining room, where I was brought up short. Just inside the entryway stood Brigadier Lester-Smith, briefcase in hand, engaged in conversation with a tall, broad-shouldered man, the town’s foremost solicitor, my friend Bunty’s ex-husband, Lionel Wiseman. Both men expressed pleasure at seeing me, and the brigadier added the information that they were meeting for lunch to discuss some minor details of Miss Bunch’s will.
“Mrs. Haskell is going to refurbish the house for me,” he cheerfully advised his legal advisor.
“Excellent!” Mr. Wiseman inclined his handsome silver head in my direction. “That, coupled with your family obligations, should keep you busy. Too busy, I imagine”—he cleared his throat—“to see much of Bunty.”
“Oh, no.” I tried to steady my breathing and keep my gaze from flickering to Mrs. Swabucher. “I plan to keep in touch with Bunty.”
“Mrs. Wiseman is a valued member of the Library League,” supplied Brigadier Lester-Smith.
“Splendid!” Mr. Wiseman spoke to the room at large. “I’m pleased to know my ex-wife is keeping herself occupied. Do you happen to know, Mrs. Haskell, if she is seeing anyone special?”
“You mean a man?” I asked.
“One tries not to be a dog in the manger.” Avoiding my gaze, Lionel Wiseman looked straight at Mrs. Swabucher, and the brigadier followed suit.
“That woman in pink,” the latter said from the floor, where he was scrambling to pick up his dropped briefcase, “she’s … a remarkable-looking woman, if you’ll pardon the observation, Mrs. Haskell. I’m not up on ladies’ fashions, but that feather boa does attract the eye.”
It had obviously taken his breath away. The brigadier was wheezing heavily as he got to his feet, and I wondered if I might be witnessing that trademark of romantic fiction—love at first sight. Personally, I felt as if a cannon ball were lodged in my chest as I realized that he might react with starry eyes to the discovery that I was lunching with Mrs. Swabucher and request diffidently that I introduce him to the Venus in Pink. Thank God for Mr. Wiseman. He intercepted a waiter, and after a few moments of murmured conversation, imparted the news that there wasn’t a spare table to be had in the next thirty minutes, and suggested to Brigadier Lester-Smith that they try their luck at the nearest pub, The Dark Horse.
“We’d better hurry so as not to make you late back to your office, Lionel.” This response contained a definite note of relief, causing me to suspect, as the two men bade me good afternoon and made their departure, that the brigadier’s courage had failed him and he preferred to moon upon the lady’s charms from a safe distance rather than risk his hopes being forever blighted by her indifferent response to his impassioned gaze.
Mrs. Swabucher was studying the leather-bound menu and looked up only when I sat down at the table and spread my serviette across my knees. If she had seen me talking with the two men, she gave no sign of it, and I forgot all about the brigadier as I contemplated her cheerful face.
“You’re back, Giselle.” She lifted her water glass and took a sip. “Did you find the brooch?”
“The what? Oh, you mean …?”
“The one that belonged to your grandmother.”
“Oh, that one.” My hand moved to the neck of my blouse. “It wasn’t in the foyer and I’m beginning to think I didn’t wear it after all.”
“Very likely, but you’re still worrying about it, aren’t you, dear? You’re all flushed, and who can wonder in this warm weather. What you need is to have a nice cold drink. The waiter, such a nice young man—very handsome in an Italian sort of way—came to take our order, and I told him we would have the pheasant, roast potatoes, and parsnip fritters. No counting calories on such a special occasion, those are Aunty Evie’s orders. If Ben had wanted a skinny wife, he wouldn’t have married you, would he, dear?”
“I suppose not,” I muttered, staring at the table.
“He loves you just the way you are. Always remember that and don’t try to change; time will take over that job for you. One day before you know it, you will look at Ben and discover that seemingly overnight you have both grown old and wrinkled—”
“Mrs. Swabucher!” Desperation drove me to interrupt the flow of her voice. “I will always be grateful to you and Eligibility Escorts, but—to be completely blunt—I’m not interested in participating in a national advertising campaign!”
For a moment I thought she was choking. Then I realized I was hearing a chuckle. “Silly me! I should have known, Giselle, you were bound to think I was talking about Eligibility when I spoke of a business matter, but in fact I sold that business a couple of years ago, for a very tidy profit, when I decided to embark on my new adventure.”
“Really?” I was dimly aware of the waiter setting our luncheon plates before us.
“I had grown disenchanted with Eligibility.” Mrs. Swabucher broke her roll apart and spread butter with a liberal hand. “Except in rare situations such as yours and dear Bentley’s, I found the element of romance lacking in the escort business and, as I am sure you realized at our first meetings I am a romantic to the core.” She pressed a hand to the breast of her powder-pink suit. “Leafing through my files day after day to find the right gentleman to escort a sad little widow to a West End play failed after a time to make my heart sing.” She smiled impishly at me. “Would you please pass the salt and pepper?”
Struggling to overcome my astonishment, I pushed the little pots towards her and picked up my knife and fork without any immediate plans of using them. “Do … tell me about your new venture.”
“As my late husband, Reginald, used to say”—Mrs. Swabucher cut into her pheasant with enthusiasm—“we learn far more from our successes than our failures. And Eligibility taught me how to assess masculine potential for extraordinary romantic appeal at the commercial level. I became the business agent for a young man who had ambitions of working as a cover model for novels. The rest, as they say, is history. And I know you will agree with me, Ellie, that no one has ever added such luster to romantic fiction as the heroically handsome—”
“Karisma!”
“So now you know why I am here, Giselle.” Mrs. Swabucher had managed to polish off most of her pheasant while I sat gawking at the woman who had guided the dream lover to the pinnacle of fame and fantasy. “When my secretary took your phone call yesterday, asking if Karisma would come to Chitterton Fells for a benefit, I was not present. But later, when she told me, I was most upset that I had missed speaking to you. Because a request from you, or dear Bentley, makes for a very special circumstance.”
“I’m a member of the Library League …”
“A worthy organization, I’m sure.” Mrs. Swabucher laid down her knife and fork. “And of course I also thought immediately that in addition to my desire to be of service to you, Giselle, you do live in that delightful little castle, which would be the perfect background for a series of photos of Karisma. We could use one for next year’s
Dream Lover Calendar, or even put together an entire book of them. So what I am proposing, dear, is that Karisma, accompanied by myself, his hair designer, his athletic trainer, and his photographer, stay at Merlin’s Court for a couple of nights when coming down for your little library’s benefit. You don’t have to concern yourself, or dear Bentley, with preparing meals. Karisma eats only high-fibre, protein-sparing, vitamin-enriched meals prepared for him by his personal chef. Did I say that Emanuel will be coming too? Now, tell me, dear, are these acceptable terms, Giselle?”
Acceptable? Karisma, the realization of every female fantasy, a guest in my home? The concept of being able to gaze at will upon his breathtakingly handsome visage and unparalleled physique was so incredible that I dug my nails into my sweaty palms and welcomed the pain as proof that I was not dreaming.
Belatedly, I realized I wasn’t breathing either. “Mrs. Swabucher … Ben and I will be honoured.… Do you have some dates in mind, ones that would not coincide with Karisma’s really important commitments, that I could present to the Library League? And of course they will also need to know what fee he will charge for appearing at the benefit.”
“Karisma and I have discussed the matter and, in consideration of my relationship with you and dear Bentley, Karisma is pleased to forgo the customary honorarium. I won’t mention the amount because you would fall off your chair, Ellie. But we are talking about a national treasure.” Mrs. Swabucher adjusted her feather boa about her shoulders and smiled benignly at the waiter as he bent to remove her plate. “You haven’t taken a bite, Giselle,” she said as I indicated to the man that I had finished eating. “Still worrying about your weight, aren’t you, dear? So silly, because as my beloved Karisma will tell you when you meet him, he sees beauty in all women no matter what shape, size, or age.” Her eyes grew misty. “He is truly a man for all seasons of the heart.”
How to Murder the Man of Your Dreams Page 17
