[Escape 01.0] Escape for the Summer

by Ruth Saberton

  “Delighted to meet you at last,” Laurence was saying in polished upper-class tones, as he took her hand in his. He was attractive, Andi thought, in a severe hawklike fashion, and those dark stormy eyes were definitely compelling. When he smiled down at her it was as though the sun had come out after months of cloudy skies, and she couldn’t help smiling back.

  “This heatwave is marvellous, isn’t it?” he continued politely. “Simply marvellous for boating.”

  He was still shaking her hand. Andi felt a bit as though she were meeting Prince William at a garden party, and had to resist the urge to curtsey.

  “Angel tells me you are here for a few weeks staying with friends,” Laurence said. His vowels were so precise and his pronunciation so razor sharp it was amazing he didn’t slice his tongue. “Is that for the whole summer or will you move back with your family?”

  Over Laurence’s Ariat clad shoulder Angel was pulling frantic faces. Andi hadn’t a clue what she was on about or what pack of fibs her sister had told Laurence, but the meaning couldn’t have been clearer: don’t tell him anything!

  “Mmm, that’s right,” Andi hedged. Not for the first time, she could have cheerfully throttled her sister. She hated lying, even by omission. In fact, especially by omission; hadn’t that been Tom’s forte?

  “Enough of the touchy-feely bollocks,” said Travis cheerfully as he barged past, with armfuls of inflatables and ski lines. “Plenty of time for all that once we’re on the water. Time and tide don’t wait, even for viscounts.”

  Laurence laughed. “They might for multimillionaires!”

  Travis grinned. “They certainly do! I’d have the lot dredged and a bigger pontoon stuck in!” He leapt onto the boat and whooped. “All aboard the Wet Dream!”

  Angel, shrieking with laughter, was already jumping down from the pontoon while Gemma, looking very worried, clambered awkwardly behind her. Although they were boating she was dressed in a white floor-length skirt, every inch of her swathed awkwardly – and inappropriately for today’s water sports – in fabric. She looked like a prim Victorian sea bather.

  Andi shouldered her rucksack. She was half inclined to turn tail and just head back for the caravan. Some time on her own, the calls of wood pigeons and blackbirds the soundtrack to her day rather than Travis’s foghorn tones, was a very appealing notion. Only a nagging sense of unease and an unwillingness to leave her sister in the care of the Mr Toad of the boating world prevented her from running for the hills.

  “Is he always like this?” she asked Laurence, nodding towards Travis.

  Laurence gave Andi an apologetic smile. “Trav’s all right once you get to know him. A lot of that bluster comes from having to survive the public school system. You can probably imagine that a bunch of upper-class twits weren’t particularly kind to a boy whose pater sold pet food for a living. I class myself as one of those upper-class twits, by the way, but I hope I’ve grown up a bit since Eton.”

  “So you’re school friends?”

  He nodded. “Shared a dorm and then a study. When Pa died he was really there for me. A chap never forgets things like that.”

  “I felt the same about some of my friends when my mum died,” Andi agreed, but Laurence looked puzzled.

  “Forgive me, but I had no idea. Angel hasn’t mentioned it. I thought she was with your parents now?”

  Andi could happily have chucked her sister, presently cavorting around the RIB in the world’s smallest bikini – which was more like three of Barbie’s hankies lashed together with dental floss – in the water and held her under until the bubbles stopped. Luckily she was saved from trying to invent some plausible tale by Travis yelling for Laurence to move his ass right now. Then the casting off, stowing of picnic hampers and digging out wetsuits began.

  “I hope this isn’t a big mistake,” Gemma whispered to Andi as the girls settled themselves on the boat. Her freckled face was etched with worry and her eyes were terrified saucers. She glanced nervously at Travis, who was more interested in checking out Angel as she sprawled across the front of the boat than in coiling the dock lines, which lay in blue tangles across the deck. “Do you think he knows what he’s doing?”

  Andi recalled yesterday’s trip out on the water with Jonty. Whereas he had moved deftly around the boat, coiling ropes and trimming engines with the ease that came from years of experience, Travis was galumphing about and making a great show of actually not doing very much at all. Apart from writing the cheque for the RIB, she strongly suspected that the closest he had ever come to boats was playing with one in his bath. Still, she decided not to voice her misgivings to Gemma, who was looking worried enough as it was. Fortunately, she escaped having to make false reassurances when Gemma was suddenly distracted by something going on further along the pontoon. Following her gaze, Andi saw a snot-green ski boat casting off, followed by two little RIBs crammed full with camera crew and fluffy boom mikes.

  “That’s Callum South,” Gemma breathed, actually clutching Andi’s arm in excitement. “He’s filming his new show today. Look! There he is!” She pointed towards a chubby man poured into a wetsuit and surrounded by an entourage. Andi squinted against the light. If it hadn’t been for those trademark bedspring curls she would never have recognised him.

  “I thought you were over your crush on Callum South?” she said, surprised at just how excited Gemma was. After Cakegate his name had been mud in their caravan.

  Gemma didn’t meet her gaze. “That was just a misunderstanding. At least, I think it must have been,” she added hastily. “He probably has lots of fans doing crazy things all the time.”

  “You baked him a cake,” Andi pointed out. “It was hardly an act of lunacy.”

  “But it could have had anything in it,” Gemma argued. “How was he to know I’m not a stalker wanting to poison him?”

  Across the water Callum was being wrestled into a buoyancy aid. One of his entourage was yanking the straps tight in the style of a lady’s maid fastening a corset. That reminded Andi of something Jonty had said and she called to Travis, “Have we got life jackets to put on?”

  “They’re not compulsory, baby,” he hollered back. “But bikinis are! Come on, strip off! Don’t be shy!”

  “Tosser,” she muttered. It was going to be a very long day.

  Gemma paled. There was no way she was taking her clothes off! Nervously, she backed away to the stern and perched on the side of the tube.

  “We can put the life jackets on once we’re out at sea,” Laurence offered, seeing the look of concern on Andi’s face. Coiling a bowline expertly, he added gently, “It’s flat calm today, so there’s no need to worry.”

  Andi, recalling how safety conscious Jonty had been, wasn’t convinced.

  “I’ll take one anyway,” she said stiffly. “Gemma?”

  Gemma – who was busy waving at Callum South, and not doing much to prove she wasn’t a deranged stalker – shook her head.

  “God, no way. I’ll never do it up. Anyway, I’m so fat I’m bound to float.”

  Laurence passed Andi a life jacket before making sure that Angel, despite her protests, was safely belted up too. Then Travis turned the ignition and the quiet of the morning was blasted into smithereens as massive twin engines roared throatily into life. Travis grinned from ear to ear.

  “Let’s see what this baby can do!”

  “Come and join me up here!” Angel looked up from basting her long limbs in tanning oil. “You’ve got your bikini on, haven’t you?”

  Actually, Andi had – but she had absolutely no intention of stripping down to it in front of Travis, who was clearly under the delusion that he was the Hugh Hefner of Rock. Ignoring her sister, she pointed to the kill cord dangling from the console.

  “Shouldn’t you put that on?”

  Travis grimaced. “I don’t need to lash myself down. Not while I’m manoeuvring, anyway. The thing’s a major pain in the ass. Don’t look so worried. This is one of the most powerful boats there is, not lik
e that pile of crap you were in yesterday. She can handle anything.”

  “It’s not the boat I’m worried about,” Andi grumbled. Still, everybody else seemed happy enough and it did look as though it was going to be a beautiful day. Perhaps she should lighten up and try to enjoy herself? Jonty and Jax could already be up at the boatyard, hitching Ursula’s trailer to his Defender and preparing for a day out on the water. They would have made a big picnic and packed their swimming gear, and perhaps Jonty would even have brought the snorkels? He’d been talking about taking her snorkelling; perhaps he would take Jax instead? Why not?

  Andi took a seat and resigned herself to spending the next couple of hours aboard Travis Chumley’s floating penis. The RIB glided away from the pontoon, drawing many admiring glances, and headed out into the estuary.

  “This is the sexiest boat in Rock,” Travis boasted, turning around and flashing his Armitage Shanks white teeth at Andi. “She cost over a mil.”

  Andi could only imagine what she would do with a million pounds. Definitely not buy a boat, even one as pretty as this and with a Bose stereo pumping out Lonely Island’s “I’m on a Boat” at about the same decibel level as a 747 taking off. As far as she was concerned, Ursula, despite all her quirks, was far superior. She had class, which was something Travis would never understand. Still, he seemed thrilled, as did Angel and Laurence, who were sunning themselves at the front. Turning around, Andi saw that Gemma – who was perched on the side – was looking worriedly at the boat just ahead. Callum South, a rubber mummy in his wetsuit, was balanced precariously on the stern. Even from here she could tell that his face was pea green.

  “Is he OK?” she asked.

  “He hates the water,” Gemma explained. Her brow pleated with concern. “To be honest, I don’t think he’s a very good swimmer.”

  Andi was just about to ask Gemma quite how she knew this when a jet ski whipped past them, heading out towards the horizon in a blur of speed and spray.

  “That looks awesome!” Angel said admiringly. “Wow! I’d love to go that fast!”

  Travis screwed up his nose. “Think that’s fast? You’ve not seen anything yet. This little baby will whip his ass!”

  And then, without so much as even a cry of “Hang on!”, he pushed the throttle to flat out and the RIB surged forward like Skippy the Bush Kangaroo. Quite how she stayed on board, Andi had absolutely no idea; bags went flying, screams ripped through the air and Angel’s suntan lotion splurted everywhere. The forwards motion shot Travis onto the deck with such a thud that he hit his head hard and lay gasping like a landed mackerel while the RIB hurtled across the river, heading straight towards a small sailing boat.

  It was as though the world had turned upside down and the beautiful morning was morphing into a slow-motion horror movie. Out of the corner of her eye Andi saw Laurence holding his head with one hand, blood trickling through his fingers, while the other clung on to Angel with all its might. Andi glanced around wildly for Gemma. Where only moments earlier she’d been sunning herself on the side of the boat, now there was no sign of her. Andi’s heart almost rocketed out of her chest with terror. Gemma must have lost her balance when the boat had surged forwards, and shot straight off the stern and into the water! Jonty’s comment about how the propellers were little more than blenders was suddenly and dreadfully stark in Andi’s mind, and she began to panic. Where was Gemma? And was she all right?

  Travis was still sprawled across the deck, and the small boat was getting alarmingly close. Somehow, and with strength she hadn’t known she possessed, Andi managed to lurch towards the console and yank the dangling kill cord with all her might. Abruptly the engines were silenced, everyone was jolted forwards and the boat reared to a halt.

  With her heart hammering in her chest and her breathing harsh in her ears, Andi sagged against the console. For a moment she couldn’t speak.

  “Are you all right?” Laurence was asking as he joined her. Taking the kill cord from her trembling fingers he added, “Bloody well done, by the way, for thinking to stop the engines. If you hadn’t done that...” He shook his head, freckling the white deck with blood. “Well, it doesn’t bear thinking about.”

  Angel crouched next to Travis. “He’s hit his head really hard. I think he needs an ambulance.”

  If he didn’t now, he certainly would when she got her hands on him, Andi thought grimly. What a moron.

  “Never mind him; we’ve lost Gemma,” she said. “She must have fallen overboard when the boat took off. We have to find her: she could be hurt!”

  Beneath ten layers of fake tan, Angel turned white.

  “Oh my God! And she hasn’t got a life jacket on either!” She grabbed Laurence’s arm frantically. “We have to go back!”

  Laurence’s face was dark with anger. “We certainly do. Keep your eyes open and see if you can spot her in the water. We can’t risk running her down.”

  Angel was crying now, her mascara running like Alice Cooper’s, but Andi was beyond tears. As Laurence started the RIB she scanned the water desperately for signs of her friend. It was only when they were almost back at the pontoon that she realised the film crews were no longer anywhere near the bogey-green ski boat. Instead, their RIBs were out in the middle of the river and she could hear shouts and laughter. Screwing up her eyes against the sun’s glare, Andi could just about decipher two shapes bobbing about in the water. One was seal-black and clinging tightly to the second which, from Andi’s distant vantage point, looked like a big white blob. Even from this far away it was impossible to miss the flash of cameras.

  “Over there!” Angel shrieked, pointing in exactly the same direction. “She’s in the water by those boats!”

  Without hesitation, Laurence put the RIB into gear and moments later they were alongside. Sure enough, Gemma was floating in the water, her long skirt spread up around her waist, making her look for all the world like a giant jellyfish. She didn’t look any worse for her ordeal, but when Andi thought how she must have missed the propellers by inches she felt sick to her stomach. The film crew must have caught the accident frame by frame.

  But it wasn’t the accident that had captured the attention of the press. As Laurence manoeuvred the boat carefully around to lower the ladder, Andi realised that Gemma was floating easily but supporting in a life-saving position another swimmer, who was thrashing around and spluttering, his eyes wide with fear. Callum South, reality TV star and macho footballing hero, was also overboard – and the press was relishing every second of his terror.

  Chapter 29

  Angel was beside herself with excitement. What a day this was turning out to be! OK, so the near-death experience on the water was something she could have done without, but the events that had followed completely made up for it. Not only had Laurence been the most demonstrative and attentive so far, holding her close to his heart and brushing butterfly-soft kisses onto her mouth, but now he was sweeping her away from Rock and the trauma to Kenniston Hall.

  Angel had Googled Kenniston so many times on her iPhone that it was a miracle she hadn’t worn the web pages out. She could hardly wait to see the place in the real world. What she didn’t already know about the Palladian mansion, with its landscaped gardens, follies, grottos, lakes and thousands of acres of land, wasn’t worth knowing. If she were to go on Mastermind her specialist subject would be the Elliotts of Kenniston Hall, and she wouldn’t have any problem answering questions about the Capability Brown landscaped parkland or the catalogue of Chippendale furniture. As Laurence’s Aston Martin purred along the high-banked Devon lanes, each mile bringing them closer to his ancestral home, Angel thought she would combust with excitement, leaving just a pair of Louboutins (borrowed from Vanya) smouldering gently on the bushbaby-soft carpet.

  “You’re still shaking,” remarked Laurence as his left hand strayed to her knee. He squeezed it gently and her stomach fluttered. “I am so, so sorry about everything that happened earlier. I could murder Travis with my bare hands for what
he did to you all.”

  If Angel was shaking, it was because her nerves were strung more tightly than violin strings at the thought of seeing Kenniston, rather than because she was suffering some kind of post-traumatic stress disorder from the boating accident. To be quite honest she was feeling remarkably chipper about the entire episode. It had all taken place so fast that it had been over before she’d even realised quite what had happened. One minute she’d been sunbathing on the bow, and the next she’d been catapulted into Laurence’s chest – which wasn’t the worst thing that could have happened – before her sister had somehow managed to stop the RIB. Gemma was fine, if sodden; Andi was furious and Travis concussed, but there was no real harm done. Personally, Angel thought her sister was a bit OTT with all the boat safety stuff anyway, but when she’d seen how concerned Laurence was about her she’d managed to dredge up a few tears – thinking about her overdraft usually did the trick – and before long she was being folded into his arms and treated like glass. Result! Murder Travis? Not likely. In fact, Angel could have kissed him!