by Wendy Holden
But weren't everyone's looks obvious? Rosie thought. Obviously good or obviously bad. "A pretty hard act to follow however you look at it," Bella concluded.
Nervously, Rosie scrolled back through her memory. Had she missed something? Had Matt mentioned Champagne directly? Oh, God, he had. At the party. "What my ex-girlfriend called MTF," he had said about Guy Grabster. "Must Touch Flesh." But she could remember neither his expression nor the tone of voice in which he had said it. At the time, it hadn't seemed important.
Chapter Twenty-four
Rosie spent a troubled night in which fitful dozes were alternately dominated by blond women with enormous breasts and Matt himself. Looming ever closer, a wicked expression in his long green eyes, his heavy lips twisted with malicious intent. As the church clock struck seventeen, she climbed out of bed exhausted. More bushy-eyed than bushy-tailed, she thought, examining the black smudges of sleeplessness in a mirror whose lack of a recent clean did not improve things greatly. Nonetheless, as soon as the silver hood of the Mercedes slid up to the window, Rosie was out of the cottage like a ferret out of a trap.
Or like a ferret out of Arthur's house. The lane outside rang with the shrieks of Satchel, Blathnat, and a clutch of other children with equally well-developed lungs. "The ferret's escaped," Satchel screeched excitedly, attempting to run past Rosie into her cottage.
"Well, it's not in there," Rosie told him firmly as she locked the door and climbed into the back of the Mercedes. It rolled off, to the assembled whoops and jeers of the children.
"Is Matt feeling better today?" she asked Murgatroyd eagerly.
"Mildly so, madam. Unfortunately, he was up all night again."
At this evidence that the album was still going badly, Rosie's spirits sank slightly. She decided not to inquire further.
Piled up on the backseat of the car were a number of newspapers. Murgatroyd, it seemed, had bought the daily press on his way to pick her up; obviously his way of killing two household birds with one stone. And birds, Rosie saw, was right. The front page of the topmost tabloid was almost completely dominated by a huge photograph of a leggy, big-breasted blonde leaning forward into the camera with a rapacious and red-lipsticked grin. "Champagne's Fatale Attraction," proclaimed the headline.
So this is what Champagne D'Vyne looks like, Rosie thought, reading the caption and taking in the pale blond hair, perfect teeth, expensive skin, and breasts that rose triumphantly from the dress with no visible means of support. She stared at the picture, trying to suppress the drumbeat of dread that had struck up within her. Bella was right. Champagne was a hard act to follow. Only, Rosie thought determinedly, I'm not trying to follow her.
Model, journalist, and aspiring actress Champagne D'Vyne, gushed the accompanying paragraph, is on a role, literally. The blond society beauty, as famous for her string of celebrity boyfriends as for her wellknown social column, is to star in the forthcoming multimillion-dollar "rustic romp" Farm Fatale. See page 8 for full story.
Feeling oddly numb, Rosie obeyed and read on. "It's my first starring role and I'm ecstatic," purrs D'Vyne, who beat off stiff competition—rumored to include Cate Blanchett, Kate Winslet, and Gwyneth Paltrow—to land the part. "I've no idea how I did it." She dimples. "I simply put my best front forward." Farm Fatale is being directed by acclaimed U.S. director Brad Bergspiel, 85, who also happens to be D'Vyne's boyfriend. Bergspiel's recent hits include the Oscar-winning supermarket love story Aisle Always Love You in which Meg Ryan's portrayal of a ditzy blond checkout assistant landed her the Best Actress statuette, and last year's box-office-buster, the gritty gymnastics comedy Arse over Tit, which starred Gene Hackman as an inspirational sports teacher and was hailed as The Full Monty with parallel bars. As Bergspiel is currently in the hospital in the U.S., D'Vyne has taken over and is currently scouting for locations in the British countryside. D'Vyne, 26, whose previous escorts include singer Matt Locke…
Rosie hurriedly put the paper down. She felt a sudden chill in the air. Had Murgatroyd turned up the air conditioning? Staring at the impassive back of his head, she was suddenly seized with the panicked urge to find out what, if anything, the butler knew about the woman who had once figured so largely in Matt s life.
"Amazing, isn't it?" Trying to sound amused, Rosie grabbed the paper and held up the front page so that Murgatroyd could see it in his rearview mirror. "Wouldn't have had her down as the rural type, would you?"
She waited, coiled like a spring, as, beneath his peaked cap, the reflected Murgatroyd raised an eyebrow. "If I may say so, madam, I have to disagree."
"Really?"
"Indeed, madam. From what I can gather, Miss D'Vyne was very skilled at making hay while the sun shone."
Rosie had no idea how to convert this gnomic remark into a full explanation of what the relationship with Champagne D'Vyne had meant to Matt. Not least because Murgatroyd's mouth looked determinedly clamped shut. Silence descended in the Mercedes' interior. Oh, well. Why was she worrying about it, anyway? As Rosie looked out at the fields romping away to the horizon, her heart soared at the thought of what lay ahead. Matt had told her he loved her, hadn't he? Too good to be true it may have seemed. But it had been true and—Rosie glowed at the memory—it had definitely been good.
Murgatroyd stopped in front of the archway beneath Matt's tower and murmured that it being such a lovely morning, Madam might like to wait in the courtyard for five minutes while he parked the Mercedes. Rosie happily assented and climbed out of the car, looking up at the ancient stones, golden against a sky as blue as a Madonna's robe. It was a lovely morning, but then it would have been were it pouring. She breathed in the cool, fresh air, quietly ecstatic at the thought of seeing Matt again at last. Only a few minutes to go now.
"Play to your strengths, darling," Bella had instructed. "Show your lovely teeth. Give him a big smile when you see him."
"AEIOU," Rosie mouthed obediently, stretching her mouth about in order to warm up the muscles of her face as Bella had advised. She was thus occupied, grimacing extravagantly at the sky, when an imperious voice rang out in the silence like a gunshot.
"And who the hell are you?"
It was like being hit in the face. Standing in the archway, the sun from the courtyard behind streaming through her ice-blond hair, thin, braceleted arms tightly folded, and slender brown legs planted aggressively apart, was the most exquisitely lovely woman Rosie had ever seen. Although she had seen her before, a mere ten minutes ago, in fact, on the front page of Murgatroyd's newspaper. But even if she hadn't, there would have been no doubt that this was the legendary Champagne D'Vyne.
Rosie stared at her feet first. Slim and tanned they were, Rosie recognized, and the other end of the pedicurial universe from her own unloved toes, shoved unceremoniously into the unvarying trainers. Champagne, by contrast, swayed atop a pair of killer-heeled magenta mules festooned with flowers and sequins.
Rosie raised her eyes to Champagne's legs. Legs that, with their smooth, caramel, elegantly oval kneecaps and thighs set so far apart you could drive a bus through them, positively shouted of the benefits of exfoliating, tanning, and waxing, not to mention godlike genes. Helplessly, Rosie recalled her own gray and whiskery calves. A glimpse of Champagne's skirt, a mere slip of lace-edged ice-blue satin, set Bella's voice booming in her head: "There's no such thing as a skirt that's too short. Another universal truth for you."
Above the universal truth, Champagne's slim hips curved into a tiny waist. Above this a feather-trimmed fuchsia cardigan barely contained her famous breasts. Miserably, Rosie recalled her own arrested buds beneath the inevitable fleece. The only similarity she had with the goddess before her was hair color, yet Rosie knew her own unruly, strawlike mass bore, in truth, little resemblance to the shining river of white fire flowing over Champagne's straight and shapely shoulders.
During the nervous nanosecond she dared to look directly into Champagne's face, Rosie registered a straight and perfect nose, slanted green eyes, and inflatab
le lips oddly suggestive of Matt's. Oddly suggestive all around, in fact. The woman before her positively thrummed with sex. Again in stark contrast to herself.
Champagne, she recognized, wasn't just the kind of woman who stopped traffic. She was the kind of woman who made planes fall out of the sky. And men fall head over heels. And never get over it.
"Who did you say you were?" Champagne repeated, obviously satisfied with the impression she had made.
"A friend of Matt's." Rosie tried to sound as unfazed as her hysterically chattering teeth would permit.
"A friend?" Champagnes exquisite lip curled in contempt. She raised a perfect arc of eyebrow and swept Rosie with a glare like a green laser. "He didn't say he was expecting any friends."
Rosie's heart thundered with panic. What was she doing here? Bella's voice again: "He had a nervous breakdown when she left him." And now she was at Ladymead, lounging against the tower wall as if she owned the place. As if…Rosie's throat contracted. Her palms began to sweat. Had she and Matt…could they have…There was, of course, no point wondering why. One glance at this sublime creature and it was obvious.
As for when, that, too, was obvious. She had not seen Matt yesterday. He had been in bed all day. He had been up all night last night. With…? Well, it was staring her in the face, wasn't it? Or rather Champagne was. Smirking nastily.
Rosie swallowed hard. "Er…I've come to do Matt's picture," she stammered, horribly aware, before this paragon, of her own sartorial shortcomings. Why hadn't she listened to Bella? Then again, nothing short of plastic surgery, a personal shopper, and a limitless platinum card would have brought her anywhere near the style, taste, and perfection of the vision in front of her.
"Picture?" The vision snorted. The sun caught several large jewels on her long, thin fingers as she beat them irritably against her folded arms. Unlike her own digits, Rosie noticed, they were completely free of paint stains, scalpel cuts, and garden dirt under the nails. "Oh, I see," Champagne said sneeringly. "You work for Mattster. Well, I'm afraid the session for today is canceled."
Mattster. "Canceled?" Rosie croaked, her mouth dry. "Did he…I mean, did he ask you—"
"To come and meet you and tell you? Yeah," snapped Champagne, her voice fast and irritated. "Couldn't come himself— he's frightfully busy. With a picture, too, as it happens. One with me in it. He's terribly excited that we're filming Farm Fatale here…"
Rosie's legs had turned to stone. Her bowels felt dangerously wobbly.
Filming? She recalled the newspaper report—"D'Vyne is currently scouting for locations in the English countryside." "But…" Rosie's brain pushed feebly, trying to make sense of it. "But why did Murgatroyd come to pick me up?"
"Because Matt's been too bloody busy to tell him not to, obviously," snapped Champagne. "You're hardly at the top of his list of priorities, you know." She stuck her brown globes of breast forward, shooting Rosie a mocking glance from beneath suggestively lowered lids. "Now I suggested you toddle off home, yeah?" She yawned. "Mattsters not going to be requiring your, ahem, services anymore. Not while I'm at Ladymead, at any rate. And who knows how long that might be?"
Watching her turn on her foot-high heels and, with the graceful, spindly lurch of a colt, click-clack back across the cobblestones, Rosie felt the world fall in. She reeled as the ground rushed up to meet her, catching herself just in time. As she staggered down the Ladymead drive, snatches of conversation surfaced and stung her brain.
Not while I'm at Ladymead, at any rate. And who knows how long that might be? Because Matt's probably been too bloody busy to tell him not to…to meet you and tell you…
Rosie raised her eyes and stared hard at the heavens, which, appropriately enough, had begun to cloud over. How could Matt do this? Had it all meant nothing to him? After all he had said? She was swallowing back the sobs so hard her throat hurt. She'd been a quick shag, nothing more. A one-day dalliance to be dumped as soon as the real love of his life came back to him, hair and breasts flowing. A woman who made even Bella look plain.
Bella, of course, had been right about Champagne. Matt, like Jack, had never got over the One That Got Away. Another widower grieving inconsolably over a dead relationship. Except that this one was all too alive. Champagne's hair, her skin, even her narrow and spiteful eyes, had all been bursting with vitality. Her cardigan, in particular, had been bursting.
"Mattster's not going to be requiring your, ahem, services anymore." Matt must have told Champagne about the afternoon they had spent in bed. Cringing, Rosie recalled the mocking green gaze, the curved, curled lip. She shut her eyes tightly and immediately saw Matt and Champagne lying, sated, a tangle of elegant limbs, in the four-poster bed. "But did you have to fuck her, darling?" she could hear Champagne's bored drawl. "I mean, not really fair, was it?"
***
"Rosie?" The twentieth time the phone rang, she finally picked it up. The faint hope that it was Matt had finally triumphed over the strong fear that it was Bella.
In any event, it was neither.
"Mark." Rosie swallowed hard, unwilling for him, of all people, to realize she had been crying.
"Well, don't sound quite so embarrassingly thrilled to hear from me."
Rosie, head whirling, could barely understand what he was saying. Why should she be thrilled to hear from him? Her mind still churning with Champagne and Matt, she was struggling even to remember who he was.
"Everything all right?" breezed Mark. Fine.
"Been managing with the, um, mortgage?"
Mortgage? What was that? "Er…"
"Good," said Mark briskly. "Now, listen, Rosie, I want you to help me. I'm on the verge of a big break here. Biggest of my life probably. Working on a massive story about, ahem, your friend Matt Locke…"
"He's not my friend," Rosie snapped, vehemently enough to stop her voice from shaking.
"Well, whatever he is. Now you know this film, Farm Fatale— Champagne D'Vyne's filming it at Ladymead and all that."
The walk home had been as long as it had been painful and the one conclusion Rosie had drawn was that nothing was now more dead to her than Ladymead and its inhabitant. Or inhabitants. Blanking them out altogether was the only way she could cope. "What makes you think I know anything about it?"
"Well, the postman mentioned having seen you going up there."
"So?"
"So I need help, Rosie," said Mark urgently. "Come on. Spill the beans. 'Fess up. Sing. Tell me what's happening with those two. You know. I know you know."
Oh, I know, thought Rosie, screwing up her face tightly against tears. I know, all right. In the back room of her brain, she realized what Mark was asking. For the dirt on Champagne and Matt. The gossip, tickled up with a spot of speculation. To give him this would, she reflected bitterly, be a neat enough revenge for Matt's treatment of her and for Champagne's arrogance. It would be a slap back, a salve for being told to toddle home, yeah, as her services were not required.
"Rosie? You still there?"
Rosie looked out of the window, her mind whirring and clicking with the possibilities. For she could give Mark even more than he bargained for. Much more. Everything Matt had told her about his past, for instance. His Rock-Star Hell. Well, it would certainly help with Her Rejected-and-Used Hell.
"Lots of money involved, Rosie," Mark whispered, trying not to think about the budget costs.
Rosie wavered. In ordinary circumstances, she would have slammed the phone down instantly, but these were not ordinary circumstances. Of course, it wasn't the kind of thing a nice girl like her did. But hadn't that been the problem all along? Too nice. Too understanding. Too romantic. Too gullible. She'd been too easy. Too lacking in self-respect. The desire for revenge rose within her. Matt had used and abused her unforgivably. What was stopping her from doing the same to him? No more Miss Nice Girl, thought Rosie, as the blood rushed noisily to her head. Looking at the receiver, she saw her knuckles were clenched white.
"Think of the power you have,
Rosie…" Mark's persuasive whisper slithered, serpentlike, into the fast, red, whirling center of her thoughts. Power. Now she had the power. Matt had had power over her. He had made her love him. He had abused her. And now…
"For old times' sake, Rosie," wheedled Mark, scenting closure.
In Rosie's nearly persuaded brain, something snapped. The whirling stopped.
"What did you say?" she gasped.
"Old times' sake," repeated Mark easily. "You know, the life we shared, hopes and dreams and all that."
Rosie's thoughts came slowly but very sharply into focus. Hopes and dreams? Yes, well, she had had hopes and dreams. The countryside, the cottage, a new life. And Mark had gone along with that. Not to please her, heaven forbid. Not because he loved her, for God's sake. But because it fitted with his ambitions at the time. That sodding column.
