An Eligible Bachelor

by Veronica Henry

  ‘It must be awful.’

  ‘Yep. One up from prostitution, really’

  He replaced the safety guard carefully on the blade. When he looked up, his demeanour seemed more cheerful.

  ‘So – where’s this hot chocolate, then?’

  That had been nearly six months ago. And of course, once Richenda had made up her mind that this was the man for her, there was little that Guy could do.

  She slid out of bed and into the adjoining bathroom. There was just time to make herself look presentable before Guy came back with the tea. She spent two minutes with her whitening toothpaste, cleansed her face, applied a hint of mascara and lip gloss and ran some serum through her hair. Then she flipped out her contact lenses, studiously ignoring her reflection while she applied some drops. She could never bear to see those myopic, watery pale-blue eyes staring back at her. She stuck her lenses back in hastily and double-checked the results.

  Perfect. She finished with a squirt of Bulgari to her cleavage then, satisfied that she had perfected that just-got-out-of-bed-but-utterly-irresistible look, slipped back between the sheets to wait for her fiancé.

  The florist’s van had woken Madeleine Portias. She peered out of the window of her flat in the coach house and saw it disappearing through the gates. The little green van with its distinctive logo, ‘Twig’, had been a familiar sight at Eversleigh Manor over the past few months. They’d done very well out of the recent filming, as they’d supplied all the floral arrangements for Lady Jane Investigates which, being a lavish period piece, had been many.

  In fact, the whole community had done well. The inhabitants had moaned and groaned when the streets were blocked off for filming, but the truth is the local economy had boomed. Hotels, B&Bs, pubs and restaurants had enjoyed maximum bookings all year, whether through cast and crew or curious tourists. Now it was coming to an end, though Madeleine had been assured by the producer that Lady Jane was fairly certain to be recommissioned for another series.

  When the location manager had come knocking at the door eighteen months ago, Madeleine had been initially horrified at the suggestion that Eversleigh Manor be used for filming. Until the fee was mentioned, and it began to dawn on her that this would be the ideal way of financing her pet project.

  After her husband’s death four years before, it had soon become apparent to Madeleine that keeping Eversleigh Manor running just for herself was quite ridiculous. With Tony alive, there had been some point. But now her charming, absent-minded, genius of a husband had gone, the house felt as redundant and useless as she herself did. Its rooms echoed with emptiness. But Madeleine wasn’t one to be defeated. She was determined to find some way to suppress the dreariness of grief. It was that or a bottle of paracetamol, and although sometimes she went to bed with a dread of waking up, she wasn’t one for melodramatic gestures. She was a coper; a doer. She needed a challenge, a purpose, for herself and the house, something that would bring them both back to life.

  Friends urged her to do bed and breakfast. People would fall over themselves to stay the night in a manor, they insisted. But for Madeleine this didn’t have quite enough glamour or cachet. It smacked of drudgery, watery poached eggs and bed-changing and having to be polite to people you couldn’t stand the sight of. She had in mind something with more impact; something with a bit of style. After much deliberation, she hit on the idea of country house weekends. It was the perfect compromise, allowing her to live unhindered during the week and then pull out all the stops for forty-eight hours. Guests – a maximum of twelve – would arrive on the Friday night and enjoy a simple kitchen supper. The men would spend Saturday shooting, fishing or at the races. The ladies would spend the day shopping in Cheltenham or being pampered at a local day spa. Saturday evening would be a magnificent five-course dinner in the dining room, with fine wines and Havana cigars, and guests entering into the spirit of the occasion, with the men in black tie and the women in evening dresses. The very best of everything would be served, from Loch Fyne oysters to Prestat after-dinner chocolates. The shining mahogany table in the dining room would be laden with gleaming silver, glittering glass, the huge five-armed candelabra dripping beeswax, Waterford rosebowls stuffed with magnificent blooms, their scent mingling with the smoke from the fireplace. Then on Sunday, the guests would be gently nursed back to reality with a late breakfast, the newspapers, a roaring fire and the offer of a place in the family pew if any of them were in need of salvation before taking their departure.

  Simple but opulent. Unashamed but tasteful luxury. Live like a lord for a weekend. A taste of the life that people craved, that they’d read about in Wodehouse and Mitford and seen in Gosford Park. It was an ideal fortieth birthday celebration, or anniversary, or an excuse for well-off thirty-something couples to escape their responsibilities for the weekend and totally indulge. Of course, it wouldn’t come cheap, but Madeleine had a shrewd idea that she could get away with charging outrageous prices, as the sort of people she was likely to attract got a kick out of being thoroughly profligate. She knew it was new money she was going to be entertaining, and that more likely than not they wouldn’t be sure which of the knives and forks they should be using, but she didn’t mind exploiting the nouveaux riches, not at all. And if she could teach them something, so much the better.

  So when the location manager sat down in the kitchen at Eversleigh and outlined exactly how much she stood to make, Madeleine grasped the opportunity with both hands. It was serendipitous. While Lady Jane Investigates was being filmed, the rest of the house could undergo a refurbishment financed by the hefty location fee. The film crew only wanted to utilize the exterior and the main reception rooms – the magnificent hall and stairs, the drawing room, the dining room and, for each episode’s denouement, the library – and part of the deal was that they would decorate those to Madeleine’s order, as well as leaving the curtains and furniture specially commissioned for the drama. The existing curtains were far too dull and faded and wouldn’t show up well on television, so sumptuous, rich drapes were hung, and fat, velvet-covered sofas brought in. Meanwhile, six of the bedrooms upstairs were repainted – in some cases replastered – and thick, luxurious carpet was laid in a tawny, old gold the colour of a lion’s mane. A joiner fitted wardrobes into awkward nooks and crannies along with discreet cabinets – televisions, DVDs and sound systems with hidden speakers were essential if she was going to get the price she was planning on charging.

  Thank God Guy had come back in the middle of it. She loved her son dearly, but he exasperated her. He was always off on some madcap adventure, subsidizing his travels by writing articles for newspapers and magazines about his experiences, as bonkers and irresponsible as his father had once been. She’d finally mastered the computer in Tony’s study, sending Guy subtle emails via his Hotmail account that hinted he was neglecting his filial duty; his two sisters had homes and families of their own to run, and couldn’t really be expected to pitch in. He’d reappeared eventually, deeply tanned and dishevelled, and together with Malachi, her gardener-cum-handyman, he’d been bringing the house and grounds up to scratch. It was incredible how quickly things deteriorated without a man about the place.

  Madeleine drew on her dressing gown and went out into her little kitchen to make tea. When she’d first moved into the flat above the coach house, she’d thought she would hate it, and assumed she would move straight back into the main house as soon as the production team moved out. But now she’d decided she’d stay. The flat was warm and cosy and, above all, manageable, and she could keep an eye on proceedings while having her own space.

  She realized she was feeling quite excited. Filming was finished; the production team were going to spend the next couple of days restoring order and then the Portias family would have Eversleigh to themselves. They then had a week to kick things into touch before the first of their weekends took place. Madeleine had scarcely needed to advertise. The success of Lady Jane Investigates had taken care of that – there had been no le
ss than six articles in the weekend papers which meant they had a raft of bookings already between now and next April, when the film crew was provisionally scheduled to film another series.

  Madeleine was under no illusion that the next few months were going to be anything other than jolly hard work. But that had been the whole point of the project – to have something to throw herself into. Anyway, she wasn’t afraid of getting her hands dirty. She did, however, need Guy’s full attention. He’d been somewhat distracted lately by that girl. Madeleine thought Richenda was perfectly sweet, but was glad that after today they’d be seeing the back of her.

  She poured herself a mug of strong tea and began to write a list.

  A squeaking floorboard in the corridor outside alerted Richenda to Guy’s return, and she snuggled back down under the covers, spreading her long, dark hair out on the pillow around her head and shutting her eyes.

  He came in behind an enormous bouquet.

  ‘Darling, you shouldn’t have.’

  ‘I didn’t,’ he replied. ‘They’re from Cindy Marks.’

  Richenda sat up, batting her lashes in bewilderment as she read the tag.

  ‘However did she find out?’

  Guy sighed.

  ‘I don’t know,’ he answered. ‘I would have liked a couple of days to get used to the idea myself.’

  Richenda buried her nose in the roses, hoping that the greenery would hide any hint of a blush on her cheeks. She might be an actress, but she wasn’t all that used to deception. She’d already deleted any evidence of the call she’d made to Cindy at four o’clock that morning from the confines of the bathroom. Not that Guy had a suspicious nature, or would have a clue how to get into Call Register on her tiny Nokia – he was the only man she’d ever met who didn’t know how to use a mobile phone – but it was better to cover your tracks when the stakes were this high.

  She sighed.

  ‘I suppose we’d better do a photocall. They won’t leave us alone until we do.’

  Guy was filled with panic.

  ‘Not today. I’ll need a shave. And a clean shirt. And…’

  Richenda wound her arms around his neck.

  ‘No, darling. Not today. Anyway, I want the world to see you as you really are. That’s the whole point. That’s why I love you. Because you don’t pretend.’

  ‘So what will the headline be? Beauty and the Beast?’

  He scraped his stubble against her cleavage. She squealed with delight, then took his head between her hands, forcing him to look at her.

  ‘Seriously. We need to do something official or there’ll be photographers crawling all over the place.’

  Guy’s face clouded over.

  ‘OK. But do me a favour. Can we wait until I talk to my mother? I don’t want her finding out we’re engaged when the hired help comes in brandishing the News of the World.’

  ‘Not the News of the World,’ corrected Richenda. ‘The Daily Post Cindy will have an exclusive.’

  ‘Whatever,’ said Guy, with a slightly sinking heart, and swearing inwardly that he would never touch Taylor’s again.

  2

  Guy took his mother to the Honeycote Arms. The pub in Eversleigh was perfectly good for a quick pint, but the food was acknowledged as dreadful, serving either soggy baguettes or rock-hard scampi. The Honeycote Arms, by contrast, was an epicurean paradise, warm and welcoming, and Guy managed to secure a table in the bar by the fire that was well out of earshot of the other diners. He installed his mother in the more comfortable of the chairs, and went over to the bar.

  While he waited to be served – the Honeycote Arms was always buzzing at lunchtime – he took a moment to ponder his predicament. Things had happened rather fast for Guy that day: in an ideal world after last night’s party he wouldn’t have been long out of bed, but waking up to find himself engaged had brought with it a sense of urgency that couldn’t be ignored. Swept along by the momentum, this was the first moment he had had to draw breath and analyse his true feelings.

  When he’d first met Richenda, he couldn’t deny that he’d thought of her as a novelty, a delicious little pleasure to indulge in while he went about his daily tasks, a consolation prize for being dragged back to do his filial duty. They were, he considered, borderline obsessed with each other, but he had to admit the relationship was largely based on walks in the wood, fireside suppers in this very pub and rather a lot of furtive sex – they had to avoid the rest of the film crew and his mother, which of course made it all the more thrilling. Yet Guy had assumed that once filming had finished, Richenda would drift back to London, that their relationship would wither and die, like a holiday romance. Somewhere along the line, things had changed – to the point that she was about to become his wife!

  It had certainly taken him by surprise, for he wasn’t the type to be trapped into marriage. Indeed, he’d spent many years dodging commitment; had become rather expert at extricating himself from relationships as soon as they showed any sign of becoming serious. For Guy had a somewhat misguided conviction that women were buying into a package rather than him, that it was the lure of being the lady of the manor that made him attractive. It was why he spent so much time travelling. When you met a girl in the surf of Sri Lanka, or in a hot, sweaty club in Havana, they weren’t aware that thousands of miles away sat a pile of Cotswold stone that made him the most eligible bachelor for miles around. But even then, he hadn’t met the right girl for him, because at the end of the day he knew his future lay at Eversleigh. He couldn’t escape that responsibility. And whoever he chose had to be able to deal with it in just the right way. Over the years, he could have had his pick of solid, sensible English girls who would have set to with gusto, chummed up the vicar and sat on committees and transplanted bulbs to their heart’s content. But that wasn’t really Guy’s style. Whoever he finally married had to have a bit more about them.

  And Richenda certainly had that. Her status was, in a twenty-first-century style, on a par with his. She was definitely no gold-digger. In fact, if anyone was going to be accused of gold-digging, it was probably him…

  ‘Hello? Guy? Anyone in there?’ His daydream was shattered by Barney, the landlord, grinning at him curiously.

  ‘Sorry, mate. I was miles away’

  ‘What can I get you?’

  Guy snapped out of his trance, ordering with alacrity, and ten minutes later he was digging into a slab of game terrine with pear chutney, while Madeleine picked at a plate of smoked duck breast. Madeleine scarcely ate. It wasn’t that she didn’t appreciate food. But she’d spent time in Paris before meeting Guy’s father, and the city had had an influence upon her, which included an obsession with being painfully thin. On a more positive note, it had left her with a knack for choosing accessories – a knotted silk scarf, an artfully draped pashmina, suede loafers and always, always real jewellery – that stopped her from becoming the caricature of an English country woman, but also gave her an air of Parisian froideur.

  Eventually she put her fork down and fixed him with a perspicacious glare.

  ‘So,’ she said. ‘Lunch out. What’s it all in aid of? I hope you’re not planning to bugger off again?’

  Guy took a slug of Honeycote Ale. It gave him both a hair of the dog and some Dutch courage before dropping his bombshell.

  ‘I’ve asked Richenda to marry me.’

  ‘I see.’ She surveyed him frostily, her eyes as chill and unforgiving as a winter’s morning. ‘This is all rather sudden, isn’t it?’

  Humour and cajoling, Guy knew, could restore her eyes to a softer blue. He smiled winningly.

  ‘We’ve known each other nearly six months.’

  Madeleine gave a disdainful sniff.

  ‘Hardly under normal circumstances. It’s not what you’d call a conventional courtship.’

  ‘Well, no…’

  ‘I mean, we’ve all been living in a fantasy world for the past few months. And I can see how easy it would be to imagine yourself in love…’

&nb
sp; ‘Mother. Please. Give me some credit.’

  ‘I’m just pointing out that when this circus has gone and you actually have to do some hard work, the reality might be different. For both of you.’

  ‘We have taken that into consideration.’ Guy lied glibly, infuriated with his mother for voicing fears he hadn’t even voiced to himself yet.

  She raised an elegant eyebrow.

  ‘I know how impulsive you can be.’

  ‘Impulsive, yes. But not stupid. I’m quite certain I’m doing the right thing.’

  ‘How can you be so sure?’

  Guy leaned forward, gesticulating with his knife.

  ‘Because Richenda knows who she is. She’s a person in her own right. She’s confident, talented, successful. And I don’t think she’ll be intimidated by Eversleigh. Or swept away by it.’ Guy chose his words carefully, knowing this was the only chance he had to convince his mother he was doing the right thing. ‘I think we’ll be an ideal partnership. We both have things in our lives that are incredibly important to us, that give us our identity. So we’ll be able to support each other. But at the same time give each other enough space to be who we are…’

  He cringed inwardly, knowing he was talking like some grim American chat-show host, but it seemed to do the trick. Madeleine sighed.

  ‘Well, I suppose television stars are the new aristocracy,’ she conceded, and lit a cigarette while he was still eating, another of her French affectations and one that Guy found deeply irritating. ‘Does she realize what being mistress of Eversleigh entails? It’s virtually a full-time job.’

  Guy stabbed at an errant cornichon with his fork. ‘Maybe you could talk her through it? You know what’s involved far better than I do.’

  ‘I’d be delighted. I think it’s only fair to let her know what she’s letting herself in for. And how irresponsible the Portias males can be.’

  Guy smiled inwardly at this little dig, then realized that Madeleine was merely subtly shifting the balance of power by allying herself with Richenda. He put his fork down and pulled one of his mother’s cigarettes out of the packet. He found he was suddenly nervous. He had won his mother over all too easily, for the time being at least. There were no more obstacles in the way, a prospect that was rather unnerving. He wondered whether he’d secretly wanted Madeleine to wade in and stop the proceedings, tell him she forbade it. But of course she wouldn’t have. He was a grown man, after all, and she had absolutely no reason to object.