An Eligible Bachelor

by Veronica Henry

  ‘That’s all right, love,’ said the driver, who recognized that she was genuinely upset. ‘I’ll be getting a few more fares from the ball tonight – there’ll be some of them who won’t know what they’re giving me, so I should make it up.’

  He grinned at her as she shut the door and waved. As he drove away he wondered what had happened to make her so desperate to get away from the festivities.

  Honor walked into the house. It was freezing: she had been expecting to stay over at the Beresfords with Ted, so she’d let the wood-burning stove go out. She was too tired to bother to light it again now, so she boiled a kettle quickly for a hot-water bottle and put a T-shirt on under her pyjamas. She climbed into bed and lay there shivering, chilled to the bone, scarcely able to believe that less than an hour ago she had come face to face with her nemesis.

  The first time Honor saw Johnny Flynn she knew he was trouble. He was clinging on to the hotel reception desk, demanding a taxi, swaying from side to side as if on the deck of a ship in a force-nine gale. Kim, the panic-stricken receptionist, had summoned Honor, who was just about to slip off home. Weekends at the Jefferson were always hell, but things had usually calmed down by midnight. Not tonight.

  ‘He’s been with the racing lot,’ Kim whispered. ‘He wants a taxi back to Bath.’

  ‘Tell her, will you, darling? She’s saying it can’t be done.’ The brogue was unmistakable.

  Oh God, thought Honor. Drunk and Irish. She surveyed her customer with a critical eye. A local trainer had been celebrating a win at the races in the restaurant. He’d spent a small fortune. It wasn’t worth upsetting one of his party – Leslie Pinfield was a valuable customer, putting his entourage up at the Jefferson whenever they ran at Bath. A win meant copious bottles of champagne long into the night.

  But there was no way she was going to let this specimen into a taxi. The firm the hotel used wouldn’t appreciate someone tossing up in the back of one of their cabs. Honor didn’t want to risk losing them; they were a valuable part of the service she provided, and reliable cab firms were hard to come by.

  ‘I’m sorry, sir. We’ll never be able to get you a taxi at this time of night. Perhaps we could get you a room instead?’

  ‘Good idea, good idea,’ proclaimed Johnny. ‘I think I need to lie down.’

  He tipped back his head and shut his eyes.

  ‘Oh, Jaysus,’ he groaned. ‘Tell the bloody room to stop spinning, will you?’

  Honor and the receptionist exchanged amused glances as Honor flicked quickly through the hotel register to find a vacant room, then slipped the key off the hook.

  ‘Follow me.’

  As he let go of the desk it was obvious he was unable to walk unaided. Honor grabbed an elbow, and found herself taking his full weight. Luckily, he wasn’t a heavy man – about five foot eight, and slender. He slid an arm round her waist and dropped his head on her shoulder.

  ‘Sure, you’re an angel. How will I ever thank you?’

  ‘By not getting into this state in my hotel again.’

  ‘Your hotel, is it?’

  ‘I’m the manager.’

  ‘Oh.’

  He craned his neck to peer at the badge on her breast pocket.

  ‘Honor McLean. Manager,’ he slurred. ‘Well, in that case, Honor McLean, I have a complaint.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Your bloody staff have been force-feeding me champagne. They’ve been pouring it down my neck, as if I was a fucking goose…’ He stopped for a moment to regain his balance, as if the effort of walking and talking was too much. He gazed at Honor for a moment, and a smile spread across his face. ‘I hate champagne.’

  ‘Obviously,’ said Honor drily. ‘Come on. We’re nearly there.’

  ‘Nearly there!’ Johnny sang, and made a supreme effort to put one foot in front of the other. Honor tried not to laugh. In spite of his appalling inebriation, there was something rather charming about him. With his Irish setter red hair sticking up and his boyish features, he looked like a squiffy teenager at his first sixth-form dance. Though on closer scrutiny Honor guessed he was in his late twenties at least. And what she had first mistaken for skinniness was wiriness; she could feel the hardness of his stomach muscles under his shirt. His arms were rock solid too. She wondered if he was a jockey – his build, the fact that he was Irish. But somehow she thought not. Although he could barely stand, see or talk, he still had an air of polish and sophistication that jockeys didn’t generally have. His clothes and his shoes and his watch didn’t say jockey either, though she couldn’t come up with an alternative.

  At long last, they reached the door of the room. Grateful that they hadn’t passed any other guests en route, Honor managed to support him as she unlocked the door, then steered him gently inside and over to the bed. He sat down on it squarely, then fished around vainly for the packet of cigarettes in his shirt pocket.

  ‘Don’t even think about it,’ said Honor firmly. ‘This is a non-smoking bedroom.’

  ‘Bollocks to that,’ he said, and pulled them out of his pocket defiantly. Taking advantage of his slow reaction time, Honor snatched the cigarettes away from him, trying not to laugh at his indignant air as she put them into her own pocket.

  ‘Hey!’

  ‘I suggest you take your shoes off and get into bed. Sleep it off.’

  Johnny needed no second telling and flopped back on to the bed, staring up at the ceiling.

  ‘I think I’ll have a full fry-up in the morning,’ he declared. ‘Will you bring it to me?’

  Honor handed him the breakfast order.

  You’ll have to tick off what you want and leave it on the door handle.’

  She hid a smile as she pulled the door to. The last glimpse she had of him he was looking at the breakfast order, completely baffled. It was upside down.

  ‘Who was he, anyway?’ she asked Kim as she returned to the reception desk.

  ‘Johnny Flynn,’ Kim replied. ‘Believe it or not, he’s a vet. Specializing in horses. Leslie Pinfield thinks the world of him, apparently.’

  Honor looked appalled.

  ‘I wouldn’t trust him with a guinea pig,’ she said, ‘let alone a bloody racehorse.’

  But she couldn’t help feeling rather intrigued, and wondered if he’d still be there by the time she came on duty the next morning.

  Going into the hotel business hadn’t been Honor’s original career plan. She’d fallen into it rather by default. Her father had been an engineer in the oil industry, and as a result the family had led a rather luxurious ex-pat lifestyle, living in Dubai, Sri Lanka, Kuwait, Hong Kong – glamorous locations with a lifestyle to match. Nevertheless, every time they visited family in the UK, Honor had been left with the feeling that she was missing out on something. She would gladly have swapped the swimming pools and servants to live in the same place for more than two years running. She found the lifestyle superficial – which, of course, it was – and more than anything dreaded turning into her mother, queen of the ex-pat scene, living for nothing more than bridge and gin.

  Honor was delighted when her parents had come home to England for a two-year stint while she was doing her A levels. Determined to put down some roots, she got herself a job as a chambermaid at a local hotel at weekends. She’d soon impressed them enough to fill in as receptionist during the holidays, and once she’d finished her exams was called in by the head of personnel, who persuaded her that she had just the right combination of patience, diplomacy, attention to detail and the ability to delegate for the hotel industry. She’d got a coveted place on their management course, and worked her way up, travelling the world that she already knew so well.

  By twenty-five she was sick of the sunshine and beaches she’d already had her fill of. Once again she found herself longing for a place of her own in England, and a job she could get her teeth into, as well as the chance to exercise some creativity. She was tired of the hotel chain, tired of looking at the same décor whether she was in Thailand or Tahiti,
although she was grateful for the training which had made her a desirable commodity. She scoured the trade journals, not interested in the salary so much as the challenge, and the ideal opportunity soon presented itself.

  Maddox Jefferson was a Hollywood screenwriter and anglophile who wanted somewhere luxurious to stay when he visited the UK, and had hit upon the idea of opening his own hotel – partly as a tax write-off, partly because he wanted a change from the industry that had made him a millionaire several times over. He had fallen head-over-heels in love with Bath during research for one of his screenplays, and bought a crumbling Palladian mansion which he intended to convert into a luxury hideaway. He needed a crack team to help him do it, for what he knew about running hotels he could write on the back of a postage stamp. But he certainly knew what he expected from one.

  As soon as he met Honor he wanted her on board. She knew what was important and what wasn’t; the difference between flash and classy. He wanted understated style, and he could tell just by looking at her that she had a natural instinct for what was right and how to pull it together. Thus she was taken on as his right-hand girl, there as a sounding board and to mediate between the architects, designers and chefs, with a view to her managing the hotel when it was finished.

  It was a thrilling few months for both of them –chaotic, nerve-racking, exhilarating and nail-biting – but finally the hotel was open. It was to be called the Jefferson – at Honor’s suggestion, for Maddox’s ego wasn’t that big – as it sounded like somewhere you knew about, somewhere you had to be. It wasn’t a large hotel, only twenty-four bedrooms, but the restaurant and bar were deliberately designed to attract non-residents. They also enabled Maddox to indulge two of his other great passions, art and wine: the rooms were hung with the hundreds and hundreds of paintings he had accrued, some great, some insignificant, and the cellars were spoken of in hallowed tones.

  Once it was open, Honor ran the hotel like clockwork, and found she was never bored, because Maddox was constantly coming up with crazy and innovative ideas to attract new custom – screenwriting courses, jazz weekends, a ‘Ladies Who Lunch’ programme. With the money she’d saved by living in staff accommodation over the past five years, and Maddox’s generous salary, she bought herself a garden flat in Bath. It was only tiny, because property prices in Bath were steep, but she was delighted at long last to have somewhere she could call her own home. And she soon had her own network of friends. She was thoroughly content. Over the next two years she had a series of semi-casual relationships and no lack of admirers, but she met no one she could imagine spending the rest of her life with. She enjoyed her own company too much; she liked to go home in the evening and eat exactly what she wanted without having to consult another person, watch what she wanted on television without a running commentary, go to bed at nine o’clock at night or two o’clock in the morning without considering someone else. It wasn’t that she was selfish. She would happily sacrifice her independence if the right person came along. Only they hadn’t yet…

  The day after her skirmish with Johnny Flynn, she came in at nine to find he had already flown the coop.

  ‘I got him a cab at about half six,’ the receptionist told her. ‘He looked pretty green.’

  Honor felt a fleeting moment of regret. She’d been secretly looking forward to teasing him in the cold light of day, to see his reaction to her once the booze had worn off. Would he still be steeped in that warm Irish charm; suffused with irresistible affection and naughtiness? Or would he be cold, upright and sensible? Somehow, she thought not.

  ‘Where was his taxi to?’

  ‘Somewhere near Bradford-on-Avon, I think.’

  Honor wondered if he lived there, or if he was staying with friends. Then she gave herself a shake. What was she thinking of, wasting time over a customer? She had work to do.

  Two hours later, a magnificent bunch of yellow roses appeared in her office. Behind them a pale but ebullient Johnny, a rueful expression on his face.

  ‘All I can remember from last night is you. I can’t remember what I said, but I hope it wasn’t too filthy. It probably was, because even now I’m thinking what I might like to do to you. So I’ve come to pay for my room, and apologize, and say thank you. And ask you out for dinner.’

  Honor was disarmed, charmed and intrigued. He took her bemused smile as an assent.

  ‘Do you want small and intimate or loud and buzzy?’ he asked.

  ‘I’ve always wanted to go to the Hole in the Wall. But you’ll never get a table.’

  ‘I will.’ Johnny looked into her eyes and smiled. ‘I’m very good at getting what I want.’

  It was such a cheesy line, Honor should have backed out of the date there and then. But somehow from him it didn’t seem corny. Just horny. Those topaz eyes were burning right through her; she felt herself set alight inside, just as a magnifying glass sets light to a scrap of paper, suddenly and unexpectedly.

  The table was duly booked for eight o’clock that evening. Honor, normally unexcitable, had tried on every single outfit in her wardrobe that afternoon, and finally fled into Bath at four o’clock to buy something new. She was usually confident in whatever she chose to wear, but nothing had seemed quite right. She wanted something soft, to detract from the hotel manager’s image, but not too girly. Sexy, but not too obvious. Trendy, but not fashion-victimy. She whirled in and out of several shops before the manageress in her favourite boutique managed to calm her down and help her focus.

  ‘I’ve never seen you like this before,’ laughed Paula, calmly working her way through the rails, pulling out Honor’s size. ‘Is it a special occasion?’

  Honor looked sheepish. Normally she came in to the shop at the beginning of each season and coolly selected half a dozen outfits from the new collections to try on, from which she chose three to buy.

  ‘It’s just dinner,’ she said lamely. ‘But everything I’ve got seems too stuffy and grown-up. Or too casual.’

  ‘In other words, you want to look like a fox. But not one that’s touting for business.’

  ‘Exactly!’ Honor felt relieved that Paula understood. Which was why she always bought her clothes from her. It took Paula twenty minutes to kit her out, in a black pleated silk skirt splashed with red roses that came to just above the knee, and a short-sleeved black sweater.

  ‘Wear your black knee-length boots – the ones you bought to go with the Jil Sanders suit,’ she instructed. Paula was intimate with the contents of her best customers’ wardrobes; they always went away happy if what they bought went with what they’d already got. It was one of the secrets of her success.

  As Paula wrapped her purchases in monogrammed tissue paper it was heading for half past five. Honor realized she’d never have time to paint her nails, shave her legs and Immac her bikini line.

  ‘Nails or bikini line?’ she demanded.

  Paula opened her eyes wide, and grinned mischievously.

  ‘Well,’ she said, ‘I’ve never known a man take any notice of a decent manicure.’

  By seven thirty, she was dressed in all her finery and pleased with the result. And before she left, she made sure her flat was immaculate. She’d changed her sheets earlier to her best set, put a jug of fresh tulips in the fireplace and replaced all the candles. As the taxi driver rang her bell to say he was waiting, she slipped a bottle of champagne in the fridge. Just in case. She was shocked by her own behaviour. She would never normally contemplate asking someone in after a first date, but there was something about Johnny that made her feel fluttery inside. She blatantly ignored the voice in her head warning her to be careful.

  He was already at the restaurant when she arrived, in a stripy Paul Smith shirt, looking surprisingly fresh. But then he’d spent two hours in the gym, on the treadmill and in the sauna, sweating out the excesses of the night before, followed by a revitalizing aromatherapy massage. And now he was sipping gingerly at a glass of mineral water.

  ‘I thought I’d better take it easy after last
night,’ he said sheepishly. ‘I couldn’t face champagne myself. But if you’d like a glass…’

  Honor grinned.

  ‘I would, actually,’ she said. She definitely needed something to calm her nerves.

  Over dinner, they talked nineteen to the dozen as they ate, the delicious food almost secondary as they shared their pasts between them. Johnny was indeed a vet, attached to an equine practice in Wiltshire, and had become the darling of the local horse set as he often seemed to work miracles. Healing hands, some said he had, but he pooh-poohed their theory.

  It’s not magic. It’s just a question of listening and looking. A lot of the time it’s just common sense.’ Like many people with a talent he made light of his gift, but it was obvious that he succeeded where others failed. Only the night before he’d been celebrating a win with a horse that had been on the brink of being destroyed.

  ‘No one else had any faith in it. They were going to put the poor bugger down, get the insurance money. But I knew he could do it.’

  By the time they’d finished sharing a pudding between them, Honor realized that she’d had the lion’s share of the bottle of Sancerre they’d ordered – Johnny had only managed a glass. Yet the slight giddiness she felt, the thrumming of her heart and the pinkness on her cheeks weren’t caused by the wine. As Johnny signed for the bill, a silence fell and they looked at each other, saying nothing but everything, as the waiter arrived at their table to tell them the taxi was there. Honor shivered as Johnny slipped her coat on, his fingers just lightly brushing her collarbone. They sat in the back of the taxi holding hands as the driver navigated the late-night traffic on the way to Honor’s flat. Honor rested her head on Johnny’s shoulder; he ran his thumb lightly over the back of her knuckles and she felt a delicious tingle run down her spine. When the journey came to an end, by tacit agreement Johnny got out too, paying the driver, and as Honor slid the key into the lock she was grateful for her earlier foresight.