by Linda Welch
After spending so much of our brief stay inside the inn, the old place felt familiar, the ambience comforting. The fog brought the evening on early so all the old wall lamps glowed. Fat candles in octagonal holders of gold-tinted glass on each table added to the effect. The polished wood of floor, bar, stools, tables and benches shone like glossy chestnuts. The inn was filling up, most of the tables taken. Voices chattered and murmured. A cheer came from a group of guys playing darts in the Games Room.
Royal enthusiastically dug his fork into a chunk of pork pie and sent peas skipping and rolling off the plate. I watched one come to rest on the edge of the table, picked it up and flicked it at him. “Bad boy. Where are your manners?”
He caught the pea and put it on the edge of his plate. “Want to put me over your knee?” he asked with a sly grin.
I tried to compose my features. “No.”
“Can I put you over my knee?”
“What is it with you wanting to put me over your knees? You know I don’t go in for the kinky stuff.”
“Kinky?”
“Spanking and that shit.”
“Did I say spanking?”
The image my mind created of me on Royal’s knees doing something other than spanking sent it haywire. In fact, a whole load of images came near to putting it in overload.
“Do you mind if I join you?”
I recognized the voice. Yes I do. Go away. My good mood abruptly dissipated. But I took a little breath and plastered a smile on my face before I turned it up. After all, Royal had his arm around my shoulders, hugging me close.
Lorraine, in a tight outfit of green jacket and matching pants over a cream camisole which barely covered anything, slid along the spare bench till she sat opposite Royal.
Suddenly at the table, Carrie loomed over Lorraine. “Her again! The nerve of the woman!” she chirped.
Lorraine feigned a shiver. “Brr. Have you been out there? Wouldn’t think it’s summer would you, ‘specially after the heat we’ve had.”
Royal smiled warmly at her. Damn him. “It is rather dank. Reminds me a little of London.”
Now why did he say that? It gave her an opening.
She chuckled. “Ah, London. Remember when we got lost in Hyde Park? The fog was so thick.”
I couldn’t imagine Royal getting lost in a London park. Another country, maybe, but not an itty bitty park.
“But you weren’t really lost, were you. I was, but not you. Just pretending so I’d be scared and… .” She met my eyes as her words trailed away. I could imagine the end of the sentence. “… .and cuddle up to you.” Or something similar.
I kept my smile. I will not smash you in the face. I will not break your kneecap under the table. I will not reach across and ram this pickled onion up your nostril.
Yeah, I had it all together. Good on me. But she had better not push her luck. A man might not cotton on, but any woman would know the age-old game she played.
I could play that game. Royal and I held hands beneath the table. I brought our hands up to the tabletop and slowly rubbed my thumb over his knuckles as I shifted to snuggle in his side. He smiled and bent his head to kiss the top of mine.
Lorraine’s smile blinked out. At that moment she became transparent to me. I could see clean inside her delusional little brain.
“Where does your mother live?”
She blinked and frowned slightly. “Abbey Estates, on the Marlborough road.”
“Ah. And whereabouts in Little Barrow does your brother live?”
She waved a hand at the front entrance. “He has a bungalow on the outskirts.”
“Ah,” I repeated noncommittally.
“What have you been doing with yourself then?” she asked Royal.
Royal replied with another smile. “We went to Avebury today.”
“Avebury in the fog. What fun!” she gushed.
I wrinkled my nose. “No fog, just a lotta rain. Got soaking wet so we came back here pretty smartly. Had to have a nice, long, hot shower.” I smiled at Royal. “Didn’t we, Sweetie.”
With a swift swivel back and forth of my eyes, I saw color rising in her face, her mouth set, and Royal giving me a look like he wondered if my doppelganger sat at his side.
Then I mentally chastised myself. What are you doing, girl? Deliberately trying to make Lorraine jealous, that’s what. I’d never experienced the emotion before, never had someone blatantly go after my man and never had my hackles rise over another woman.
The novelty bemused me, so I missed their conversation. I came back to the present to hear Lorraine speaking of a party she and Royal attended. “It was such fun, Royal. I hope we can do it again sometime.”
Over my dead body.
Royal’s face wore a puzzled frown. Was he finally catching on?
“I’m going to the loo. Coming?” Lorraine said to me.
“I don’t need to.”
“Oh, come on, it’s a girl thing.”
Yeah, I knew, although I’ve never understood why women in a party feel they have to visit the ladies room together. Janie told me it’s so they can discuss the men they are with.
I narrowed my eyes. She gave me a smile sweet enough to curdle my stomach.
I slipped from beneath Royal’s arm and slid to the end of the bench. “Be right back,” I told him as I got to my feet.
He gave me a what’s going on? look, which I pretended not to see.
I followed Lorraine to the passageway and the inn’s fanciest Ladies. This should be interesting.
Carrie came hot on my heels. I made a shooing motion with my hand and glared fiercely. She stopped walking with an irritated little shake of her head. You stay! I mouthed. I didn’t need any distraction from Carrie if Lorraine and I went mano-a-mano.
Lorraine didn’t hold the swinging door for me and I almost got it in the face. I punched it open with the flat of my hand and followed her in. The room had a shining tile floor, two freestanding washbasins and two wooden stalls. A nice display of artificial flowers and greenery sat in one corner and a big eucalyptus wreath hung on the wall between the stalls and a full-length mirror.
Lorraine stood facing me in the middle of the small room. I put my back to the wall, crossed one leg over the other and folded my arms over my chest. “You want to say something to me?”
“Yes, I do,” she said briskly. “What you said in the shop, you’re right, I should tell you what’s on my mind, what’s going to happen.”
She had already lost me. “Happen?”
“You won’t like it.”
I bet. “Go ahead, get it off…” I dropped my gaze “… your chest.”
Her lips clamped so hard, her chin puckered. “Now I found Royal, I’m not letting him go.”
Really? I snorted through my nose. “Let him go? You don’t have him.”
She took a step nearer and poked herself in the chest with an index finger. “I can have him anytime I want. All I have to do… .” and she crooked her finger.
This bizarre conversation reminded me of talking to shades, and that comes naturally to me - you don’t encourage those who are irrational. I uncrossed my legs, pushed away from the wall and dropped my arms. “Sorry, this conversation is over. I’m going back to Royal. I suggest you don’t join us.”
“You want to hit me, don’t you.”
“What? I don’t want to hit you.”
“You’d enjoy it. You’re bigger than me, stronger than me … go ahead, I can’t stop you.”
I rolled my eyes ceiling-ward.
She fixed her eyes on me in a challenging stare. Then her face crumpled, eyelids squeezed together. Tears leaked from the inner corners of her eyes and dribbled down the sides of her nose. She hugged her waist and barreled through the swinging door.
Dumfounded, I stood in the Ladies staring at my reflection in the mirror. “Was that, or was that not, totally weird?” I asked myself aloud.
I walked from the bathroom to hear harsh sobbing punctuated by a voice spea
king brokenly.
I crept to the entrance of the bar and peeked around. Royal stood in the aisle between tables, Lorraine plastered to him, his arm around her violently shaking shoulders. Inn patrons gathered around, but left me a clear view of the little drama.
“And she … and she … and she threatened me, Royal! She said if I don’t stay away from you she’ll … she’ll hurt me!”
You bitch! I almost ran right in there, but noticed Royal’s expression. She did not see the bunched muscles in his jaw, the vertical line between his eyebrows, come and gone in a flash. I hung back, but his gaze zeroed in on me.
He looked furious. He wasn’t angry with me, was he?
Royal’s gaze swept the room sternly, making eye contact with every person there. I recognized the cop nothing to interest you, folks, move it along look. Then he turned Lorraine around. “Let us go where we can talk.”
I darted to the opposite side of the entrance. Lorraine didn’t see me as Royal guided the poor, pitiful thing from the room to the passage. He didn’t look my way, but he’s Gelpha, he knew I watched them.
I moved into the entrance with hands on hips. The weight of a dozen gazes burned me as everyone gave me the evil eye.
I threw my hands in the air. “What? I didn’t do anything!”
I stormed to the passage and stuck my head through the open backdoor, but didn’t see Lorraine and Royal in the courtyard.
“They went upstairs,” Carrie said.
My jaw dropped, then snapped up. To our room? I headed up.
The door stood ajar. I heard voices in there. I put my ear to the crack. “She needs help, Royal. She’s out of control. This has nothing to do with us, with our relationship. It’s my professional opinion.”
By angling my head, I could see in the room. Royal stood by the bed, Lorraine sat on the edge of it, clasping both his hands, earnestly looking up at him.
“You must get her the help she needs.”
Royal’s eyes narrowed. “What do you advise?”
“Send her back home.”
“We will leave soon anyway.”
“No! Don’t cut short your holiday because of her. We could do so much together, Royal.”
I pushed the door open. Lorraine‘s eyes flared out of proportion. She clenched the material of Royal’s sleeve with one hand. “Don’t let her hurt me!”
Exasperation swept over his face, followed by distaste which lifted one corner of his lip.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
“Lorraine is a therapist. After talking to you, she feels you need to work out a few problems.”
I stepped in the room, leaving the door open, feeling my entire body stiffen. “You didn’t mention her profession.”
“I did not think of it.” As he spoke, he gently released Lorraine’s fingers from his sleeve. “Tiff, Lorraine says you threatened to hurt her.”
“I don’t know how she came up with that.”
Lorraine cried out, “She’s lying!”
His smile was slight, but there. He knew I hadn’t threatened Lorraine. Why would I? I had nothing to fear from her where Royal was concerned.
I made a decision. The situation would escalate if I stayed, it would become a confrontation. I would show Royal I trusted him to deal with Lorraine.
“I’ll leave you two to have a nice chat.” I nodded at Lorraine. “She has an agenda, and it’s nothing to do with my mental health.”
I went to the wardrobe, got my jacket and left them to it.
Carrie stood at the bottom of the stairs. I went past her. “I’m going for a walk. Stay here.”
“I am not your child, you can’t order me around.”
She made me think of Jack and Mel. Sometimes I talk to them as if I’m a mom who expects her kids to do what she says, when she says, no questions asked. I should not do that. I stopped with my back to her. “Carrie, please stay here.”
“Is something wrong, dear? Did it not go well up there? Don’t tell me he believes her?”
I turned so she could see my face. “He doesn’t. I left them alone so he can calm her down. She’ll just get more hysterical if I stay. So I’m taking a walk and I don’t feel like company. Okay?”
Her shoulders went up and down. “You only had to say.”
Head down, hands in my hip pockets, I walked away from The Hart and Garter. The dratted fog felt like a clammy skin clinging to me. I pulled up my hood. Temperatures in England sure changed in a flash and now the chill bit at me.
So, Lorraine was a therapist. It validated my theory a lot of them go into the profession because they have huge issues of their own. I have heard of some who spend as much time sharing their personal trauma with their clients as their clients share with them. Some think because they had a shitty life, they’re eminently qualified to counsel others in similar circumstances. Don’t believe me? An acquaintance, who’s a child and family therapist, told me she would not let ninety-percent of her graduating class treat any one of her clients. And I don’t think much of any profession which likes to label people and sort them into convenient categories.
The child welfare system sends kids in their care to therapists, and you see more than one when you give your foster parents and social worker constant heartburn. Yeah, I learned a lot about therapists back then.
I stomped on, past The Ugly Duck and down the alley. I tried to steer my thoughts in another direction, but Lorraine and her profession dominated them.
I bet she grew up in a cozy little house with a cozy little family, graduated with honors, got a degree and a job with a fat paycheck. How many of those goddamn therapists, or psychiatrists, or psychoanalysts, or whatever they call themselves had their foster father corner her in the bedroom and stick his hand down her shorts.
The reek of garlic on his breath, one hand on my throat as the other groped in my panties. “You do it with Neil. I’ll show you what a man can do.”
I denied the impulse to grab the hand at my throat, and instead used both my hands to pull his from my pants. Then I put my knee where it hurt. His instinctive response bowed him over, clutching his injured anatomy. I grabbed the lamp off the bedside table and smashed it over his head. I wonder if he still has the scar.
I got off easier than other girls in his care.
If asked, I say I left Utah at eighteen, but I was sixteen when I lit out. Neil came with me.
Did Lorraine’s boyfriend try to sell her when he ran out of cash?
Neil was my friend, my love. For the first time, someone refused to be driven away by sullen moods and crankiness. He became a need, an addiction, the first and only person of whom I could say mine! I let him become my world. But my world shattered one night in Boise. We were rummaging in dumpsters, starving, not a cent between us. He disappeared for an hour and came back with an elderly guy who smelled of tobacco and alcohol. “You won’t be doing more than what you do with me,” he said. “And he’ll pay us.”
He was no different than Frank Osmond. Both wanted my body, not the person who lived inside.
I blinked furiously, angry at the tears pricking my eyes. Damn. Hadn’t thought about that in an age. Didn’t want to think about it. Never would have if not for fucking Lorraine.
I stopped, pulled in a breath so deep I felt it in my stomach, and let it trickle out slowly. Think of something else, Tiff. The past is just that, over and done.
I took a left down Church Lane. I’d go talk to Johnny.
Whoosh. The fog ahead of me billowed, swirled away to leave a clear patch and condensed back around an indistinct figure. I reached for a gun I didn’t have.
“Tiff!”
“Royal.” I sagged. “You’d be hurting right now if I had my gun.”
“I doubt it. You are a lousy shot. I thought you were in the barroom. What are you doing out here?”
“I am not a lousy shot,” I said righteously. I’m not a deadeye dick like my supercilious partner, but I hit what I aim at, else the State of Utah would not have gra
nted me a concealed-carry permit.
He stepped in. “I’m taking Lorraine back to London.”
“Right now?” I hoped she wouldn’t go psycho on him.
“She will cause trouble if she stays here. I want her gone.”
I wanted to clap my hands and say goodie! but restrained myself. I nodded as I kept a serious expression on my face. “I think that’d be for the best. What about her mom and brother?”
“Her brother lives in Birmingham and her mother died last year. She is staying at The Castle Hotel in Devizes. She heard I was in London, discovered our destination and followed us here.”
“How did she know? We were only in London an hour or so.”
“I told you I called a couple of people and asked them to see what they could dig up on the Nortons – she is friendly with the wife of one of them.”
So I was right all along. She did come after Royal. “You must have made a huge impression on her when you were dating,” I couldn’t resist saying.
“Maybe. But I think it is more that she is unstable.”
I snuffed back a snigger. Unstable? An understatement.
“Are you ready?”
My head reared. “I’m not going with you!” The thought of hours in a car with Lorraine … no way!
One more step brought him near enough to touch. “I am not leaving you here on your own when people have tried to kill us.”
I was already in a really foul mood and one thing I did not like about our relationship was Royal’s tendency to be overprotective. I had lost count of the number of times I told him I could take care of myself. It began the day early in our relationship when he declared he would never leave my side again, and I resented the implication I needed a watchdog hovering protectively over me. “You’ll be back in no time at all.”
His jaw clenched. I slowly raised one eyebrow.
He finally said, “Four hours, tops. I will take you back to the inn.”
I shook my head. “I’m gonna have a quick word with Johnny, then head back.”
There was that look again. I took a step backwards. “Are we gonna fight about this?”
