by Lizzie Lamb
‘I’ve seen your bedsit, so - thanks but no, thanks. We’ll move you into mine. I don’t intend spending the next couple of months sleeping on your sofa, stepping over drunks on the doorstep, or fighting my way past all the junk littering your hall floor, every night after work.’
‘Oh, that’s a bit harsh. And I suppose you live in an exclusive block in Mayfair, do you?’ she asked with some asperity.
‘Chelsea. A little backwater just off the King’s Road.’ He paused, as if he was expecting a reaction to the postcode of his des res. However, Charlee’s mind was on a different tack, wondering if she could put up with him 24/7.
‘Really?’ she said, disbelievingly. ‘I thought you lived in that camper van when you weren’t abroad. Mind you - Chelsea? I’ll be able to register our wedding list at the General Trading Company or Harvey Nicks - how cool is that?’ she said, unable to resist the opportunity to wind him up. The last twenty-four hours had been a nightmare for her and she felt he deserved to suffer a little.
‘I thought we agreed -’
‘Only kidd-ing,’ she said as his frown was back in place. ‘Jee-zus, you really are allergic to weddings and happily ever after, aren’t you? ’
‘Ring,’ Ffinch began, obviously trying to rein her in. ‘Is that on your list, Montague?’
‘I’ve got plenty of dress rings we could use -’
‘I’m sure you have, but I have no intention of this assignment falling at the first post because your ring looks like it came free with a copy of some supermarket magazine.’ He shook his head and then went on more seriously. ‘I’ll provide the ring, but you’ll have to look after it.’
‘I’ll sign a chitty, if you like,’ she replied, pertly. He sighed and passed a weary hand across his eyes.
‘This is going to be the shortest engagement in history, but something tells me it’s going to feel like the longest.’
‘Which brings me to another dilemma,’ Charlee began, giving him a direct look.
‘Which is?’
‘When it’s all over, Sam’s got his snaps and we’ve saved What’cha! from bankruptcy, we’ll go our separate ways, yeah?’
‘Of course,’ he said.
‘Okay, let’s establish up front. Who’s the dumper - and who’s the dumpee?’
‘The what?’ He looked at Charlee as if she’d sprouted horns. ‘I swear, five minutes in your company and I feel like I belong to a different generation.’
‘That’s because you’re over thirty and need to lighten up, Ffinch.’ Her cheeks dimpled as she grinned unrepentantly at him.
‘You said that to me, on Christmas Eve. I didn’t need your unasked for advice then, and I certainly don’t need it now.’ Charlee looked at him and then saluted him, unabashed.
‘Message received, loud and clear.’ She thought about the rest of that cliqued phrase: and get laid. The way the women swarmed round him, it didn’t look like he’d have any problems in that department. She pulled a face - so what was his problem?
‘What was - that?’ he asked.
‘What?’
‘That face.’ He drew a circle in the air, which Charlee assumed represented her face.
‘Nothing I need to share. The point is,’ she stuck the pencil behind her ear, put the pad on her knees and leaned forward, ‘I’ve got my reputation to consider.’
‘You’ve lost me there.’
‘We get engaged; we break off the engagement. People will want to know why. After I photograph Anastasia looking all dishevelled, you repay Sam for giving you your first break and he spoils Mirror, Mirror’s exclusive, what then?’ She gave him an honest look. ‘You’ll go off on another one of your hazardous trips and I’ll be left at What’cha! with everyone thinking you’ve dumped me.’
‘And that would bother you, would it?’
‘What do you think? Of course it would. I don’t want people laughing at me behind my back because I couldn’t hold on to a man like, well - like you.’ She bit her lip; the way she’d phrased it made it seem as if she was punching above her matrimonial weight. That in the normal run of things Ffinch would be out of her league.
‘Don’t worry, when it’s all over you can dump me as publically as you like. On the Ten O’Clock News, a plane trailing a banner over London that reads: Montague dumps Ffinch - and a plague on both their houses. Hell, you can even take out a double-page spread in The Times and I’ll pay for it. Such things don’t matter to me.’
‘Well, they matter to me,’ she said. He stood up, making it clear he was dismissing her. ‘One more thing -’ Ffinch groaned and glanced at his watch. ‘Will you stop acting like a man on his way to execution and start looking like a man who’s deeply in love?’ she demanded with some asperity. ‘Really, some of the looks you give me are far from flattering if you must know.’
‘You do a pretty good line in withering looks yourself, Montague.’ They looked each other up and down and she saw a rare flash of humour in his face before it disappeared.
‘And that’s another thing - Montague. I think you should get used to calling me Charlee when we’re around my family. Smoke and mirrors, you see; or, Charlotte if you prefer. I know you told me back in Sam’s office that only your friends called you Rafael, so …’
‘I guess you can call me Rafa, if you must.’
‘I must,’ she replied. She sensed that she’d worn him out with her objections, suggestions and plans. When she’d googled dengue fever last night, she’d discovered how potentially life-threatening it was. No wonder he often looked pale and drawn, his eyes dark-ringed with fatigue. But underneath she sensed steely purpose - as if some devil was driving him.
Whatever it was, Charlee suspected it had nothing to do with spiking Mirror, Mirror’s exclusive, and everything to do with Anastasia Markova’s attendance at the boot camp.
Just then, Sam came back into the room wearing an Emma Bridgewater Christmas apron and a frazzled expression. Charlee and Ffinch exchanged a humorous look and then killed it, but not before Sam caught it.
‘If you tell anyone that you’ve seen me wearing an apron, holding a wooden spoon in one hand and a page from a cookery book in the other, Montague - and you, too, Ffinch - I’ll …’ he threatened, waving the spoon at them.
‘Our lips are sealed, Chief.’ Walking over, Charlee removed the spoon and the laminated recipe card from his hands. ‘Let me help you. There’s only room for one domestic goddess in the house, and for the moment it’d better be me.’
Chapter Seventeen
Granny’s Ring
Over breakfast the next morning, Charlee was subjected to the third degree.
‘Your partner has a very high opinion of himself, doesn’t he?’ Jack demanded as their mother rustled up the ‘full English’ at the Aga. ‘He was bloody rude to us at the meet, smirking away, his arm around your shoulder - as if he found us vastly diverting.’
‘It’s just his way. You get used to it.’ She shrugged and spread her toast with butter. She resisted the urge to tell Jack that Ffinch did find them highly amusing and his mocking nickname for them.
‘And what’s with the whole Carlotta, thing?’ Tom demanded, frowning into his breakfast. ‘That was a bit, creepy, wasn’t it? I mean, it’s not as if you’re Spanish.’
‘There’s an air about him, as though he’s the cat who got the cream; like he owns you, or something,’ Wills put in. In retrospect, Charlee now knew what Ffinch’d been up to before the meet and was pleased it’d worked. However, having had enough of their cross-examining she felt it was her turn to wind them up.
‘Oh, don’t worry, it’s not as if I’m virgo intacta and being seen with Ffinch is ruining my marriage prospects.’ Everyone round the table spluttered into their breakfast but Charlee carried on eating toast, calmly. ‘Anyhoo, what time are you three leaving today? I promised I’d go over to the Walkers’ Stud and watch the DVD of Poppy and Daphne at HOYS back in October.’
‘HOYS?’ Miranda questioned, eating the gluten-free muesli s
he insisted on making fresh every morning. No wonder she looked permanently miserable, Charlee thought. Having spent three days with George and her sister-in-law, she’d reached the conclusion that a little of the newlyweds went a very long way.
‘Horse of the Year Show,’ Charlee’s brothers chorused, openly pleased to be moving on from a discussion of their baby sister’s sex life.
‘My Little Pony,’ Wills said, picking up his bacon rasher and eating it with his fingers.
‘Poppy Walker’s obsessed,’ Jack added, earning a glowering look from Charlee. ‘I don’t know how you can bear to sit through a DVD of horses knocking down poles and prancing sideways, Charlee. You don’t even ride.’
‘I can ride,’ Charlee corrected him. ‘I just choose not to.’ She banished a childhood memory of her pony careering round the bottom field after Jack or Wills had slapped it on its rump with a willow wand. That event had scared the bejeezus out of her and she hadn’t been on a horse since. ‘I’ve told you - when they equip horses with a set of brakes and a gear lever, I might consider getting back on one. Besides, it’s no different to you three watching rugger on Sky Sports. I don’t think the Harlequins will be knocking on the door asking the Montague brothers to play for England any time soon.
She had the satisfaction of seeing their faces droop at her honest assessment of their sporting prowess.
‘Oh, can I come?’ Miranda asked brightly, entering into the conversation.
‘No, you can’t,’ Charlee replied. ‘You’d be bored to tears and start droning on about George’s political ambitions. Poppy and I are going shopping later. Just the two of us,’ she added in a voice that left no room for negotiation. Truth was, Ffinch was still over at the Walkers' and there were one or two agenda items she wanted to go over with him.
‘Charlotte, that was very rude,’ her mother remonstrated, and then sighed as if it was no more than expected. ‘Never mind, Miranda, you and I can go into Woking to see what’s open. I’d better make the most of your company; the house will seem empty once you and the boys have gone.’
‘And that’s not rude, I suppose?’ Charlee demanded. Coming home and staying for a few days seemed harder than ever. When she’d first returned from university during the long vac, her childhood friends were still living in the vicinity and she could hang out with them. Now, like her, they had jobs elsewhere and had dispersed. She had become a stranger in her childhood home and while she felt immeasurably sad about that, she acknowledged it was a rite of passage. One day she’d return to find that her mother had kitted her bedroom out as an art studio or a sewing room and she’d be pushed out of the nest forever.
The sooner she and Ffinch announced their engagement and headed back to London, the better. Fortuitously, the bell jangled above the kitchen door and she scraped her chair back on the flagstone floor.
‘I’ll go,’ she said, glad of the excuse to escape.
Crossing the hall, she let out a pent-up sigh over the way things had turned out between herself and her family. But sadness and regret were pushed to one side when she spotted Ffinch’s distinctive camper van sitting on the drive.
Bugger!
What did he want?
He wasn’t supposed to turn up until after her brothers and Miranda had gone home. Convincing her parents their engagement was bona fide would be hard enough without the rest of the family asking one hundred and one awkward questions. She ran over to the door, wrenched it open, grabbed him by the sleeve of his flying jacket and dragged him into her father’s study.
‘You really are getting into the spirit of the thing, Montague. How romantic,’ he grinned, ‘my new fiancée can’t keep her hands off me.’
But Charlee wasn’t in the mood for his snarky comments or for what passed for humour with him. She closed the study door behind them and pressed her back against its thick panels as though keeping ravening wolves at bay. She gave him a searching and far from welcoming look.
‘What are you doing here? You were supposed to stay away until this evening.’
‘I couldn’t stay away. The attraction between us is too strong.’ He put his hand over his heart and gave her a longing look. ‘I’ve come to see your father to ask him for your hand.’
‘No, no, no. That’s out of the question. Are you mad?’ She closed the gap between them to make her point. ‘We’ll simply tell them that we’ve got engaged. That way, when we - I - break it off, it won’t be such a big deal.’ Chewing her lip, Charlee thought rapidly. ‘Maybe we should wait until we’ve got the ring?’ Things were moving too quickly and she had a sneaking suspicion that the reality of being Ffinch’s fiancée might be more than she bargained for. More than she could handle, even. He seemed wired, in uncharacteristic jovial mood and keen to get the show on the road - and that started alarm bells ringing, too.
‘I have the ring. I had it couriered from my parents in Edinburgh and it arrived this morning. Amazing what can be arranged if one is prepared to pay above the going rate.’ He tapped his breast pocket with two fingers and then rooted in his wallet. ‘I’ve cobbled together an announcement for The Times, the sooner we declare our undying love to the world, the better. See what you think.’ Charlee took the piece of paper from him, not much liking the sound of cobbled together or his sarcastic undying love. ‘I didn’t know your middle name so I’ve left a space for you to fill it in, should you think it necessary. My feeling is: plain and simple is the way to go.’
Mr R. Fonseca-Ffinch and Miss C. Montague
The engagement is announced between Rafael, son of His Excellency Ambassador Salvio Fonseca-Ffinch and Mrs Richenda Fonseca-Ffinch of Killiecrankie, Edinburgh, and Charlotte, daughter of Doctor and Mrs Henry Montague of Highclere, Berkshire.
‘Oh,’ Charlee let out a shaky breath. ‘That looks very … official.’
For some absurd reason she didn’t want to think about, her heart felt heavy and the enormity of what they were about to undertake hit home. It all seemed a mocking step too far, now. Tears pricked her nose and the print swam in front of her eyes. Fingers shaking, she handed the paper back to him, stuck her hands in the pockets of her jeans and stood looking out of the window with her back towards him.
‘Shouldn’t it be?’ Ffinch seemed genuinely puzzled by her reaction. ‘I thought the idea was to present everyone with fait accompli and give them no time to ask searching questions. We might as well do the dirty deed while the Ruperts are here and get it over and done with in one fell swoop.’
‘Over and done with? Dirty deed? One fell swoop?’ Charlee spun round, her voice thick with emotion. ‘Don’t overdo the romance, will you Ffinch? We wouldn’t want me to swoon and fall into your arms, would we?’ She wiped her finger inelegantly under her nose, let out another shaky breath and then composed herself. ‘And stop referring to my brothers as the Ruperts,’ she snapped, and normal service was resumed.
‘We’re play-acting, aren’t we?’ he reminded her and then frowned and looked at her quizzically. ‘Aren’t we?’ he insisted, as if sensing her hesitation.
‘Of course we are. I remember the deal - I’m not to go all mushy on you. It’s just … well, I’ve envisaged this day in my mind and it was nothing like this.’
Ffinch looked at her long and hard and then his expression softened and his grey eyes filled with compassion, understanding. ‘I keep forgetting how young you are. I think you’re hard-bitten like me - and love has no place in your life … Cheer up, Montague, think of it as a dry run for the day when the great love of your life walks through the door and sweeps you off your size fives.’
Charlee might have known he couldn’t be soft-hearted or empathetic for long.
‘Four and a halves, actually. And I suppose you’ve been engaged at least a dozen times? You probably have to fight women off with a cricket bat. It’s all a formality to you. Well, I need a few moments to get used to the idea and then we can go into the kitchen and tell my family the “good news”.’ She enclosed the words in ironic speech marks; she
didn’t want him to get the wrong impression about her - or her dedication to the job.
‘Okay, let’s have a little breather,’ he conceded. ‘You sit and tell me about this room, your father, your relationship with your parents. The Ruperts … sorry.’ He guided her over to the tweed-covered office chair by her father’s desk and made her sit while he roamed the room looking at family photos on the wall. They were mostly sporting photos of her brothers at boarding school in various guises - cricket, rugger, football and even fencing. There was one rather unflattering photo of her wearing braces and holding a lacrosse stick and she hoped Ffinch wouldn’t dwell on that one for too long. ‘Charlotte - Charlee. I guess your parents were expecting another boy and out you popped.’
Charlee didn’t like the offhand way he referred to her arrival into the world, or how close to the truth he was. Her parents had been anticipating the arrival of another boy and had Charles James all lined up for him and had hurriedly changed it to Charlotte Jane. She remembered his mocking ‘Carlotta’ and despite feeling put out with him, shivered. The name sounded like it belonged in a Latin country, where the sun always shone and the skies were unfailingly blue. Where romance flourished . . .
‘How come there are twice as many photos of the Ruperts than there are of you?’
‘Because there’s four of them and one of me?’ Charlee suggested, annoyed that he’d pricked her bubble. She didn’t want him playing amateur psychologist for a second time and rushed on. ‘Don’t you know that in large families the law of diminishing returns comes into play?’
‘I’m an only child; you’ll have to explain,’ he said, sitting on the end of the desk. Fearing for the safety of her father’s precious fishing flies Charlee pointedly moved them out of his way.
‘With the first born, album after album is filled with photographs of the precious babe. Then along comes the next and the next. The parents are exhausted, distracted and fewer photographs are taken to mark the rites of passage - first pony, first day at school and so on. Until, by the time the last child is born - in this case, me - no one bothers anymore.’
