[Escape 01.0] Escape for the Summer

by Ruth Saberton

  Gemma could have done without it; that was for sure. Still, none of this was Cal’s fault. If anyone was to blame it was that idiot Travis. If Gemma ever laid eyes on him again she’d tell him exactly what she thought. And if there was any water nearby she’d have a bloody good go at drowning him and see just how much he liked it.

  “It’ll all blow over in a day or two,” she said gently, because Cal looked so downcast. The chirpy Irish chappie from the telly was nowhere in evidence. To try to cheer him up she added, “Honestly, something else will happen and then this will all be forgotten. It’s a non-story anyway.”

  “I don’t give a toss about the story!” Cal said hotly. “I couldn’t care less what they all think about me.” He shook his head and raked a hand through his golden ringlets. Gemma suspected there had been quite a bit of this already today – the curls were in danger of turning into dreds. The look quite suited him.

  “I’m sick to my back fecking teeth with it all,” he continued. “Being told what I can eat, where I can go, who I can talk to, what I can wear. Jaysus! It’s a miracle I can even go to the bog by myself. Everywhere I go there’s somebody trying to shove a camera into my face or sell a story on me. I tell you, Gemma, this celebrity stuff isn’t what it’s cracked up to be.”

  Gemma, who had spent the last ten years of her life believing that there was nothing she wanted more than to be famous, was starting to agree. Oh dear. That was seriously going to bugger up her career plans. Maybe she would stick to baking?

  “But most of the time it’s fun, isn’t it?” she asked hopefully.

  Cal’s usually merry face was drawn and lined, and as he gripped the wheel she noticed that his nails were bitten almost to the quick.

  “Most of the time I’m so busy pretending to have an amazing time that I don’t really think too much about it,” he said. “That’s the key to it, Gemma. Don’t think, for Christ’s sake. Just keep going; pretend everything’s great and ninety-nine percent of the time it will be. Jaysus, I know I haven’t got anything to moan about but sometimes it’s all too much.”

  “So do something else,” she said.

  “Like what? I’m a fat, washed-up footballer with a massive house to pay for and a bloody expensive family to support in Ireland. My mammy would be broken-hearted if the family farm had to go.” Cal shook his head. “Gemma, I’m a fecking eejit. I’m mortgaged to the gills. I have to keep going.”

  Gemma wasn’t buying this. She’d read Hello! and OK! enough times to know that footballers were loaded. After all, she’d yet to bump into Posh Spice in Primarni.

  “You must have made loads when you were playing?”

  Cal looked shamefaced. “Sure, sure, and I spent it too. Big houses, supercars and Playboy models don’t come cheap. Aw feck it, I’ll have to go on This Morning and grovel a bit about my hero image being a bit misleading. I’ll eat sodding lettuce for a month. I’ll let the Loose Women take the piss. I’ll really diet hard and not cheat.” He paused thoughtfully. “Maybe the show could feature me learning to swim or something? Jaysus, they’ll have me in a rubber ring before I know it. And do you know the worst thing of all?”

  Gemma didn’t.

  “All I can think about right now is how hungry I am,” Cal said sadly. “There was no breakfast this morning. Mike said the sight of me in a wetsuit was enough to put the nation off its breakfast and practically had the fridge padlocked. I know that I’m shallow but, Jaysus, I am famished.”

  He looked so miserable as he said this that there was only one thing Gemma could think of to cheer him up. They were on the A30, Cornwall’s closest thing to a motorway, which led to a very important place indeed – McDonald’s. In Cornwall these were rare, so whenever she chanced upon one Gemma stopped. You just never knew how long it would be until you saw another. Pasties were all well and good but when it came to a really good pig-out there was nothing quite like a Big Mac. As the road began to descend a steep hill and the Golden Arches loomed before them, Gemma knew it had to be a sign.

  “Do you see what I see?” she said, pointing.

  “Oh my God,” breathed Cal. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

  “Big Mac meal, large fries and a strawberry milkshake?”

  They stared at the vision in front of them. The car drew closer. There were only seconds to make the decision.

  “Oh feck it,” Cal said, yanking the wheel so hard she nearly fell off the leather seat. “We deserve a bit of a treat after yesterday and all that crappy press. Big Mac here I come. I’ll diet tomorrow.”

  “Me too,” Gemma promised, thinking ruefully of the costume she had to wear for Viola. Those tights showed every lump and bump. She really ought to try harder to lose that weight. Thank God Chloe hadn’t recognised her bum. Gemma had checked her phone several times but thankfully there were no missed calls or angry messages from her agent. She was safe.

  Fully resolved to be good after this final calorific binge, Cal and Gemma headed to McDonald’s. While Cal, still clad in his disguise, bagged a corner table, Gemma queued and ordered. She glanced across at him, worried that he was attracting attention, but to be honest this was more likely to be down to the fact that he was wearing a scarf in July and shades inside. He must be sweltering. He was right, Gemma thought. Being a celebrity wasn’t much fun at all. While she squirted ketchup into tubs and grabbed as many serviettes as she could, Cal huddled down in his seat and tried his best to look unobtrusive. He wasn’t very good at it and several diners were looking over.

  “Chill,” Gemma told him as she set the tray down. “Look around; there’s nobody here except holidaymakers and kids. Try and look normal. That way nobody will notice.”

  “What’s normal?” Cal said bitterly.

  Gemma rolled her eyes. “Two overweight people in Maccy D’s scoffing fast food, that’s what. Just look like it’s what we always do and nobody will look twice. Honestly.”

  Looking nervous, Cal unwound his scarf. The glasses and baseball cap remained intact, though. She plonked herself down opposite him and raised her thickshake in a toast.

  “Here’s to ignoring headlines and health-food freaks!”

  “Amen to that,” Cal said, bumping his paper cup against hers. “I don’t know about you but I’m starved, so I am! Let’s get stuck in.”

  So get stuck in they did, and Gemma didn’t think a burger had ever tasted so good or been so much fun. As they ate they chatted, dunked fries in ketchup and discovered that they both loathed gherkins. They were having such a good time that they failed to notice the man at the table opposite, who was tapping away urgently on his mobile and scribbling notes onto a tattered pad. It was only when he took a photo on his phone and the flash lit up the restaurant that Cal looked up in alarm. When he realised what had happened, the smile slid from his lips just like the relish sliding from the food held halfway to his mouth. Gemma, just on the brink of shovelling in the last of her fries, turned to see what had got his attention – and found herself blinking in the glare of several more mobile cameras.

  Their eyes met in horror. The food fell from Cal’s grasp and frantically he tried to pull the cap low over his face. Everyone in the restaurant was looking his way, pointing and whispering.

  “That’s Callum South!” somebody cried, and instantly they were surrounded.

  Callum grabbed Gemma’s hand and tugged her out of the seat.

  “Come on,” he said, his head bent low, “let’s get out of here while we can.”

  But even before they’d reached the door, Gemma knew it was far too late for that. Yet more mobiles were snatching pictures, and in a nanosecond Twitter and Facebook would be buzzing. She’d probably be a hashtag before they’d even reached the car. As if things weren’t bad enough for Cal as it was... Already his phone was ringing and he was as white as his car.

  This was not going to be good.

  Chapter 33

  Angel didn’t think she’d ever been so cold. Even reclining in a ginormous four-poster bed �
�� so high from the worn carpeted floor that a small set of steps was required to reach it, like something out of The Princess and the Pea – wasn’t enough to compensate for frozen fingers and toes.

  Frozen fingers and toes? In the middle of the UK’s hottest summer for a decade? This was crazy. Did all the blue blood and years of practice in draughty public schools make the landed gentry immune to the cold or something?

  When Laurence had shown her to the guest room Angel had been overwhelmed with excitement. In the rosy rays of the setting sun the large bedchamber had been blushed with peachy light that lent it a romantic glamour and, she realised later on, hid the holes in the carpets and faded Chinese wallpaper. No, these things had bypassed Angel’s radar entirely; she’d been far too busy racing to the floor-to-ceiling windows that gazed out over acres and acres of rolling parkland and imagining herself dressed up and watching the carriages trundle up the drive for a ball. OMG! It was like landing in a virtual-reality episode of Downton Abbey!

  “Do you like it?” Laurence had asked. He’d leant against the doorframe as he’d spoken, the easy posture speaking volumes about how comfortable he was living in a house the size of Buckingham Palace. As they’d wandered hand in hand through the endless maze of corridors she’d worried that she’d need a satnav to ever find her way back down to the kitchen for evening sups, as the Elliotts referred to dinner. He’d looked so perfect framed there, his glossy dark hair falling across his face and his grey eyes bleak with worry, that her heart had turned a slow and most unfamiliar somersault. Suddenly she’d wanted nothing more than to make him happy.

  It was a very peculiar sensation.

  “It’s beautiful!” she’d said, and had been rewarded with such genuine delight that it was hard to say whether his smile or the sunset had been brighter.

  Laurence had crossed the room and swept her into his arms. As he kissed her and the spacehopper-orange sun bounced on the horizon, Angel had basked in both the rays of light and his happiness. Kenniston was heaven on earth, she’d decided as she kissed him back. She could happily stay here forever!

  Just a few hours on though and it was a very different story…

  After a meagre supper of bread, cheese and pickle – eaten at the kitchen table rather than in the sumptuous candlelit dining room of her imagination – Laurence and Angel had huddled up on the sofa in the drawing room, which would have been romantic except for the fact that his mother insisted on joining them. When the viscountess had eventually retired for the night, Angel had hoped that maybe Laurence would make love to her on the rug by the fire; she fancied him so much she was prepared to overlook the fact that it was a particularly moth-eaten lion skin with a suspicious case of mange, but the pack of assorted dogs had already hogged the spot and lay basking in the warmth. There was no hope of snuggling up with Laurence either, because a huge and very smelly Labrador was wedged in between them, panting contentedly and drooling. Much as Laurence melted her knicker elastic and much as she liked dogs, Angel wasn’t overly keen on sharing this romantic scenario with a four-legged friend.

  Maybe this is just the way aristocrats do things? she’d thought when they’d returned to the kitchen and Laurence had brewed up the weakest-looking tea she’d ever seen, served with value-price digestives that seemed to have passed their sell-by date (even the dogs weren’t impressed). After all, wasn’t the Queen super stingy, according to rumours, and dog mad? So it didn’t quite look like this on Made in Chelsea, but that was probably all put on for the show. Gemma was always saying that reality TV was a contradiction in terms. The posh telly totty probably all lived in one wing of their family seats too. Cheered by this thought, she’d perched on the Aga and then Laurence had kissed her again until her tea turned cold and the stars freckled the sky. Then she hadn’t thought about much at all, apart from the delicious sensation of his mouth meeting hers.

  It had been a bit of a surprise to find herself alone in the guest bedroom, when his touch had turned her entire body to the consistency of Cadbury’s caramel, but Laurence was frustratingly old-fashioned; after escorting Angel to her room, he’d kissed her goodnight and left her alone.

  That was weird. Men never, ever turned down the chance to stay the night with Angel. Not that there had been a huge amount of them, but the ones she had given the green light to had never backed off. Confused and disappointed, she began to get ready for bed.

  The room was bitterly cold. In her thin vest top Angel was soon shivering. This place was Baltic! Rubbing her arms in a vain attempt to keep the goosebumps at bay, she looked around for some source of heat. The enormous marble fireplace, all blue-veined like a giant Stilton, might look the part but it hadn’t seen a decent blaze for a very long time. Ashes dusted the grate, speckled with a few twigs fallen from long-ago nests in the chimney, and the log basket was empty. A quick inspection of the bed soon revealed that there was no electric blanket. The huge sash windows, so romantic at sunset, were old and tired. Draughts blew in icy blasts across the room; in an attempt to stop them she tugged at the ancient velvet drapes, only to be practically asphyxiated by a dust cloud.

  One thing was for certain: this house seriously needed taking in hand. Maybe if things worked out with Laurence she could have a go at redecorating? Goodness only knew that the place was in need of a makeover.

  As she undressed in the light of a small lamp, Angel shook the dust from her clothes and soothed herself by imagining how wonderful Kenniston would look with the walls all painted in neutral tones and with the windows cleaned and fixed. Maybe some of those tatty tapestries could be shoved into the attics? And as for the dogs, they needed to be kicked out of the living space. She’d never seen so much dog hair before. Perhaps as an engagement present Laurence would pay Sarah Beeny to come over and help?

  Angel had become lost in a lovely daydream where she and Laurence were planning a wedding, second only to William and Kate’s, so it was a horrible shock when the light bulb popped and the room was plunged into darkness. Angel shrieked, but in such a large stately home no one could hear her scream. And neither could they appear with another bulb.

  Angel was in despair. What on earth was going on at Kenniston? This wasn’t at all what she had imagined. If it hadn’t been for the magic of Laurence’s kisses and the way her bones melted just at the thought of him, Angel would have been so out of here. As she stumbled through the darkness, bashing her shins on the bed steps, she realised with a jolt of terror that she must really, really like Laurence. Maybe even more than like. And not just because he was a viscount, either. To be honest that didn’t matter a toss when Travis had nearly drowned them all. All she’d cared about then was that his first thought had been for her safety. Angel was used to guys worrying about her looks. That was a given. She’d been Alex’s little princess, adored and paraded about until she’d grown too old and he’d lost interest. Then she’d dated various men who liked to have her on their arms but who soon lost interest when Angel wanted more. It hurt but it seemed to be the way these things went. That was why she’d decided to cut her losses with all the true love stuff and just stick to the serious business of finding a rich man. Gemma could keep the romantic fantasies. Angel felt tired and cynical but she knew the truth: all princes soon turned into frogs once they’d been kissed. And one frog was pretty much the same as another, so the chosen frog may as well be loaded.

  Laurence, though, wasn’t anything like this. He made her laugh, he protected her when she was in danger and he was so easy to talk to that several times she’d had to stop herself from telling him the truth. The words had been right on the tip of her tongue and she’d had to bite them back or drown them in the champagne that they were invariably drinking. It sounded mad but she almost felt that Laurence would totally understand. He was a kindred spirit. Her other half. Her soul mate.

  Was she in love with him? She must be to even contemplate staying the night in this dusty, freezing house. Jewel of Palladian architecture or not, the harsh truth was that Kenniston
was a skip. It needed serious work…

  Oh bloody, bloody hell; wait a minute, thought Angel, stopping in her mental tracks before she got too carried away with thoughts of design, garden parties and even a TV makeover.

  Was she in love with Laurence Elliott?

  Maybe.

  She sank onto the floor and placed her head in her hands. This was not good news. At all. In her experience, being in love sucked. Just look at how Tom had walked all over Andi, or how Gemma, funny caustic Gemma, had been reduced to a complete sap around her useless ex. And then there was the sad case of her mother who’d been treated like dirt by their handsome, charismatic good-for-nothing bastard of a father. No good ever came from falling in love. Her parents’ example said it all.

  Angel batted this thought away; bitter experience had taught her that dwelling on her parents never brought her anything except heartache. Thinking about them in the dark and when she was cold and on edge was not going to help.

  The drapes had successfully concealed any friendly moonlight and there was no way Angel was going to risk contracting bubonic plague or whatever other dire germs might be lurking in that fabric. Those curtains hadn’t been cleaned since Henry VIII was in nappies. If only she knew where to find Laurence. Whether he was gentlemanly or not, Angel didn’t care. She would stay the night with him – but there was no way she could find her way to his room without a map. The endless passageways were bad enough, but the fact that all the light bulbs on the corridor had been removed and the place was pitch black was another matter altogether. If there was one thing Angel hated almost as much as being cold then it was the dark. When she was a kid she’d shared a room with Andi, who’d always been there when she’d had a bad dream or not been able to sleep. The night was when thoughts about losing her mother always came, too, and she’d wake with a start, her heart hammering and her skin slick with sweat. Angel would rather bin her designer shoe collection than admit this to anyone but, grotty as it was, she actually enjoyed sharing the small caravan bedroom with Andi. As shadows pooled across the room and a severe-looking Elliott ancestor sized her up with beady grey eyes, Angel’s pulse broke into a gallop. She wasn’t sure she would last the night alone in here.