London Tides: A Novel (The MacDonald Family Trilogy Book 2)

by Carla Laureano

  “Brunch at Mum’s. We’re taking out the four on Monday?”

  “I’ll be here.”

  Ian hiked his kit bag onto his shoulder and clambered down the stairs to ground level. Instantly his unanswered questions crowded in. What was Grace doing back in London? Had she been looking for him? Or had he imagined the petite blonde standing on the bank? The woman he’d seen had much shorter hair than his Grace—

  His Grace. The words, even spoken in his head, made his stomach clench. She had made it clear she had no interest in being his Grace when she left. They’d shared a life, a bed, a home for two years, but when it had come time to make it permanent, she’d run. Even in retrospect, there’d been no signs it was coming.

  No. He wasn’t going to do this today. He’d already wasted far too much of his life rehashing what went wrong with Grace. Regardless of her location, he was better off without her.

  Forty minutes later Ian knelt on the cold cement of an underground car park in Emperor’s Gate to unlock a heavy chamois cover. A smile came to his face for the first time since leaving the club. If he were honest, his dutiful attendance at his mother’s monthly garden brunches had far less to do with the overly fussy food and pretentious conversation than his method of transportation.

  A 1966 Austin-Healey BJ8, a classic piece of British automotive history, and the one car he’d dreamed of owning since childhood. It had taken him two years and considerable expense to restore her, from the rusted-out, two-tone paint job to the ripped, black leather interior. The classic car always served as an excuse to avoid the gossip and slip away with the other auto enthusiasts, including his uncle Rodney. In fact, Rodney was solely to blame for the vehicle’s existence. He’d been the one to take Ian and his younger brother, James, to races at Silverstone and the occasional classic car meet. Jamie had never latched on to the idea, but those outings had been the highlight of Ian’s childhood.

  Now that Ian owned his dream, the trouble was finding time to enjoy it. London’s traffic and its congestion zones made it hardly worth the effort to drive, and work and rowing kept him well tied to the city. Maybe he should take another trip to Scotland and check on the progress of the Skye hotel. Completely unnecessary, of course—Jamie and his fiancée, Andrea, had matters well in hand—but it would be a useful excuse for a short escape.

  The twenty-five-minute drive to Hampstead went much too quickly, and he’d barely managed to settle the tension from Grace’s unexpected appearance before he turned off to his mother’s estate. He punched in the gate code and waited for the wrought-iron gates to swing inward. Somehow the opulence of the house struck him as even more excessive than usual as he navigated through the newly landscaped allée to the front of the spectacular Georgian-style manor, all heavy red brick and mullioned windows. He might have spent school holidays here while at Eton, but he’d never dared call it home.

  He left the car beside several other expensive vehicles, shrugging his suit jacket on as he went, and headed to the center of the parterre, where several tables had been set up. At least a dozen people milled about, glasses already in hand. Almost immediately, an elegant, dark-haired woman in a cream-colored suit and matching hat caught sight of him and made her way over.

  “Ian, darling!”

  “Mum.” Ian accepted her embrace and kissed her on the cheek. “You look lovely.”

  “And you look quite dapper yourself, Son.” Marjorie took a surreptitious look around. “You didn’t bring anyone, did you? Good. I want you to meet Rachel Corson. You remember the Corsons, don’t you? The father is in shipping, and the mother—”

  “Mum, stop.” He cut her off before she could go further in her description. Knowing her, she already had them married in her mind. She’d been fairly vocal about his inability to accomplish it himself. “The last time I met one of your friends’ daughters, it was a disaster. Let’s not repeat history, shall we?”

  Marjorie leveled a look at him that managed to fall short of motherly concern. “Five minutes.”

  “No.”

  “I knew you’d see it my way. Don’t go anywhere. I’ll be right back.”

  Ian sighed and tugged on his tie, which had already begun to feel too tight. Twenty-five minutes in the Healey did not in any way make up for this.

  “Run while you still have the chance.”

  Ian twisted toward the voice at his shoulder. “Rodney, you startled me.”

  “Bloody Mary?”

  Ian took a glass from his uncle and looked him over. If Marjorie was impeccably put together, her younger brother always had a studiously mussed air, as if he had been rudely summoned away from a game of snooker. His suit was expensive but rumpled, and he might have forgotten to comb his hair that morning. His eyes, however, missed nothing. Unfortunately.

  Ian sipped the cocktail and barely covered his cough. “Might you add some tomato juice to the vodka next time? It’s not yet noon.”

  “Only way I can get through these events of your mother’s. And you’ll need it if you plan to stick around for her latest matchmaking attempt.”

  “That bad?”

  “Pretty, but insipid.”

  Ian took another sip, intending to fortify himself for the inquisition, but the trail it burned down his throat convinced him to set the glass on a nearby table. He decided to cut to the chase. Rodney would get it out of him eventually anyway. “Grace is back.”

  “Ah.”

  “That’s all you’ve got to say? Ah?”

  “What do you want me to say?”

  “That I’m mad to be thinking about her after what happened.”

  Rodney shrugged.

  “You don’t think so?”

  “You were happy with Grace right up until she disappeared.”

  “We were too different. Look at Mum and Dad. They were happy for a while; then Mum left.”

  “There’s much more to that story than a few differences.” Rodney tossed back the rest of the cocktail, then set his glass down beside Ian’s. “And you are not as much like your mother as you think. You drive the Healey?”

  “Of course.”

  “Let’s go have a look, then.”

  Ian cast a glance back at Marjorie, but she had been waylaid by a group of her guests, none of whom could possibly be Rachel. He hoped. A judge with his family, or maybe an MP. They all looked alike to Ian. He followed his uncle back around the side of the house to the drive.

  “How’s work?” Rodney asked.

  “Work is … work.” It wasn’t that Ian disliked his job exactly. His brother, Jamie, was a renowned chef who had built his first restaurant into an empire that now included six locations, several cookbooks, and a recently completed television cooking program. There was no way he could handle the details himself, and Ian was good at details. But it wasn’t exactly the career he’d envisioned for himself

  Fortunately Rodney didn’t press, instead stopping next to the Healey to give it an admiring once-over. “Beautiful car, this is. Shame the only time you bring it out is for your mum’s brunches.”

  Ian crossed his arms over his chest. “Say what you really want to say.”

  “Am I that transparent? Fine, then. I want to know when you’re going to give yourself permission to do what you want to do.”

  “I am doing what I want to do.”

  “Are you? Just because Grace left doesn’t make your mother right. Not about who you are, what you do, who you love.”

  “You’re telling me that I should give Grace another chance.”

  “I’m telling you that you don’t need anyone’s permission. Your life is between you and God. And don’t give me that look. I know I’m a drunk. God loves me anyway.” Rodney circled the car, squatted down to examine the grille, stood back up again. He winked at Ian. “If a beauty liked that belonged to me, I wouldn’t be spending my Saturday here with the rich and boring.”

  Rodney wasn’t entirely talking about the car. Ian loosened his tie and strode resolutely back to the gathering, hopin
g his mum wasn’t yet looking for him. She’d more willingly excuse murder than rudeness. A sign of poor breeding, she’d say, which was ironic considering most of her English friends thought Ian’s Scottish upbringing made that a foregone conclusion.

  Sure enough, his mum wore a look that told him his escape had not gone unnoticed, and she unleashed the full force of her glare as soon as he got within shouting distance. Fortunately one of her staff drew her off before she could head his direction. A reprieve, if only temporary.

  Outdoor brunch at Leaf Hill was distinguished from indoor brunch only by the location: the china, crystal, silver, and linen were simply transported onto the patio in their entirety. Ian followed the flow of guests to the patio table and found his designated spot to Marjorie’s left. The judge stopped on his mum’s other side. When the older man leaned down to whisper something in her ear, Ian’s eyebrows reached skyward. Was this more than just a political connection?

  “Ah, I should have known.” A pretty, young woman—ginger hair, pale skin, warm brown eyes—appeared beside him. She held out a hand. “Rachel Corson. And let me apologize in advance for however my matchmaking mother set this up.”

  This was Mum’s mystery woman? He briefly shook her hand, then pulled out her chair. “Ian MacDonald. And I rather think we have my mother to thank for it.”

  “Or they’re in collusion together.” A hint of wry humor lit her eyes. “Mum’s been after me to give her grandchildren, and she’ll take any excuse to foist me off on an unsuspecting bachelor. Embarrassing, isn’t it?”

  At least Rodney had been wrong about one thing. Rachel wasn’t insipid. She chatted amiably about various topics as they devoured the impressive brunch spread: scrambled eggs with salmon, eggs Benedict, and truffled brioche with sautéed mushrooms. Only when she began talking about her studies at the London School of Economics did he figure out she must be nearly twenty years younger than him. Mum must have been getting desperate if she was thrusting girls not even out of uni at him. As if that wouldn’t make him feel ancient.

  By the end of the meal, he just wanted to make a quick escape. Climb into his car and drive, watch the speedometer climb, and enjoy the wind-up of the roadster’s throaty engine. But he knew he would sedately navigate the heavy traffic back to the garage in Emperor’s Gate and walk the handful of blocks home to his flat.

  “What did you think?” Marjorie asked when he said his farewells.

  “She’s practically a child, Mum.”

  Marjorie fixed him with a reproving look. “I’m trying to help.”

  “I know you are. But this is the sort of thing a man needs to work out for himself. Right?”

  She didn’t answer, a sure sign the subject was far from dropped, but she made him bend so she could kiss his cheek. “Don’t work too hard.”

  “I won’t,” he promised, aware it was somewhat of a lie. Besides rowing, what else was there?

  He turned the Healey back to Southwest London, but he couldn’t even take his usual pleasure in the trip. By the time he let himself into the first-floor flat of his historic Gloucester Road building, his resigned mood had turned downright foul.

  It was completely irrational, of course. The brunch at Leaf Hill had been fine. His mother’s meddling had resulted in a rather pleasant conversation, even if Rachel hadn’t sparked the least bit of interest besides the acknowledgment that she was a very pretty girl.

  Why exactly was that? Age aside, she was one of the more interesting women he’d met recently. And yet it hadn’t even crossed his mind to get her phone number.

  The beginnings of a headache throbbed in his temples as he crossed the modest reception room into the kitchen. He poured himself a glass of orange juice from the refrigerator and stood in the wash of cold air, his fingers clenched around the tumbler. Blast Grace. He’d been doing fine before she showed up on the bank this morning with her camera, looking …

  … like Grace. The mere sight of her was enough to bring up long-buried memories—the smell of her skin, the taste of her mouth, the way her body fit against his. The brogue that her years away from Ireland hadn’t completely eradicated, a lilt that surfaced whenever she was angry or upset. Those last months, her eyes had lost their haunted look. She had smiled more freely, laughed more often. And then she had simply disappeared without a word. How could he have been so wrong about her?

  Let her go.

  As if he had any choice. No matter how hard he’d tried to move on, the past still held him by the throat.

  Ian went to the shallow drawer by the sink and lifted out a stack of publications. Ten years of newspapers and magazines, Grace’s career documented in print. Photos from the Times and the Guardian that had been picked up from the AP wire. Beautifully composed essays on African farmers or bush hospitals from the magazines of humanitarian organizations. The National Geographic story about Ugandan child-soldiers being treated in trauma counseling centers, an essay as powerful as it was heartbreaking.

  Grace possessed the rare ability to capture the humanity in any subject, whether it was the unemployed worker angry with the establishment or a hollow-eyed boy wielding an automatic weapon. In the last several years, her work had gotten more daring, the settings progressively more dangerous. Only someone who had endured her own share of tragedy could see past the surface of the story to the hurting souls beneath.

  Now she was back—not in Los Angeles, where she’d begun her career, or Dublin, where she’d been raised, but London, where she’d once intended to make a life with him. That had to mean something.

  Jake would know where Grace was staying, especially now that he was dating her friend, Asha. Ian had his mobile phone out of his pocket and the number on the dialer before he realized what he was doing, then slammed the phone back down on the counter.

  No. He wasn’t going to run after Grace and beg her for an explanation. If she wanted to talk to him, she obviously knew where to find him.

  Chapter Three

  Asha lived on the third floor of a typical red brick mansion block in Earl’s Court, a transitional neighborhood in Southwest London not far from the museums and Hyde Park. Or it had been transitional once. As Grace hefted her cases and bag out of the black cab at the curb, it was clear more things had changed in ten years than just her. This little neighborhood was no longer a haven for broke students and immigrants, if the shiny new Jaguar parked a block down was any indication.

  Grace paid the driver through the open front window and palmed the key Asha had given her, the pile of belongings in front of the stairs making her wish she had packed more lightly. Even so, she’d brought hardly any personal items. The stack of black hard cases held her camera bodies and lenses, her lighting setups, and most importantly, her film archives.

  Four trips up and down three flights of stairs later, Grace collapsed against the door marked 14, shoved the key into the lock, and pushed. Nothing happened. She held down the latch and threw her shoulder into the door until it opened with a crack. Grace grinned. The door had stuck for as long as she could remember—only worsened with every coat of new paint—but Asha refused to have it shaved down. An extra layer of security for a woman living alone, she’d said.

  The interior of the flat, however, had changed, the warm jewel tones that her friend had once favored now painted over in shades of cream and white and gray. There was a new pullout sofa in the living room, which would serve as Grace’s bed while she stayed, and photography on the walls. Grace didn’t need to look to know they were the framed shots of India she had sent Asha for her last birthday. Their prominent positions warmed her.

  It took nearly as much work to get her things into the flat, where she stacked the cases neatly in the corner, taking up as little of the tiny space as possible. Then she wandered into the kitchen, which featured a table and four chairs, a two-burner hob, and a small refrigerator. Grace opened the door and smiled when she saw the fridge was empty but for a bowl of fruit and a half-finished carton of milk. So maybe Asha’s quick of
fer of hospitality hadn’t been completely unselfish. They’d once lived together, and Grace had quickly discovered that Asha’s idea of cooking was heating up takeaway.

  Tandoori chicken for dinner, it was.

  Grace double-checked the pantry and freezer to see what ingredients she would need to buy—all of them—and then plopped down on Asha’s sofa with a notepad. This was one of her favorite dishes, learned on the trip to India in which she’d first met Asha. It also happened to be one of Ian’s favorites. She and Ian’s brother, James, had tinkered with the recipe in Ian’s kitchen, arguing over the right proportions of cinnamon and black pepper and ginger. The memory, fond as it was, made her insides clench. When she’d left Ian, she hadn’t just abandoned the man she loved; she’d abandoned her adopted London family as well. James, Ian’s sister Serena, all their mutual friends. Naturally, when it was clear Grace wasn’t coming back, everyone but Asha had rallied around him and shut her out. She’d been arrogant to think it didn’t matter, naive to think they’d come around.

  She sighed and tossed the pad onto the sofa next to her. Thinking about the past was pointless. Ian’s reaction had told her all she needed to know: her return was an unwelcome surprise. If she really wanted to make a life for herself in London, she would have to do it without him. It had been only nostalgia and grief that had made her believe she could change things.

  Grace’s mobile pulled her out of her introspection. She fished the phone from her jacket pocket and pressed it to her ear. “Grace Brennan.”

  “Grace! You’re here!”

  The clipped London accent of her friend and gallery owner Melvin Colville brought a smile back to her lips. “You got my message.”

  “I did. Are you free to come by the gallery today?”

  “Of course. What time?”

  “Four this afternoon? And bring your slides if you have them.”

  “I do. See you then.” Grace clicked off the phone, her spirits rising, then glanced at her watch. It was barely eleven, which gave her plenty of time to buy groceries and get the chicken marinating for dinner, then dig out the slide negatives that corresponded to the scans she had emailed Melvin before she left Paris.