A Proper Cuppa Tea

by K. G. MacGregor

  * * *

  Channing waved off the flight attendant’s offer of champagne, a fine Grand Siècle. Bubbly was for celebrating, and she was having none of that today. “Gin and tonic, please.” She’d try not to dump this one in some wanker’s lap.

  Most of her first-class companions were tucked into private compartments along the window. Her suite was paired with another in the center row, these designed for couples traveling together. As if she needed another vicious reminder of her wretched life. Seated alone in the open space, she felt exposed.

  How bloody fitting that she’d completely forgotten to cancel Payton’s reservation. Now she could stare at the empty seat for the next seven hours. One last twist of the knife.

  Asserting matter over mind, she forced her shoulders to relax against the cushy leather. Her suite was replete with a workstation she didn’t need, a state-of-the-art entertainment system she didn’t want, and a set of plush knit pajamas with the ostentatious First stitched onto the chest. Payton Crane would have appreciated such pampering.

  “To expedite the boarding process, please step into your row to allow others to proceed.”

  Squeezing her eyes tightly shut, she stifled a groan. A hundred years of commercial aviation and people still didn’t know how to board an aeroplane. How hard could it be to find a seat and sit your arse in it?

  The interminable delay to takeoff compounded her misery. Getting out of Boston was the necessary first step to putting her life back together. How many women through the ages had thought their affair with the married boss would be the one in a million to end happily?

  “This is you, darling—five-F.” A male flight attendant abruptly appeared in the opposite aisle, gesturing toward what would have been Payton’s seat.

  The young woman who followed him stopped short, her eyes wide with surprise. “Are you serious?”

  “Didn’t I promise to take care of you, luv?”

  In the muted cabin light, Channing first thought her a teenager. The most obvious clues were the backpack on her shoulder and short honey-colored hair that looked, to put it bluntly, unattended. A pretentious coed setting off on a gap-year tour through Europe’s youth hostels on Mummy and Daddy’s dime.

  Except instead of shredded denim, she wore neat ankle trousers with a cropped jacket, and gray textured flats. Office casual. Once she sat beneath the reading light, the faint lines of her smile were more apparent, putting her closer to Channing’s age.

  So not a coed.

  “Jeremy, this is incredible. Thank you.” She went to work right away manipulating her footrest and entertainment screen. “I was planning to sleep all the way to London but now I’ll have to stay awake so I can appreciate the perks.”

  “Enjoy it, darling. I’ll speak with Muriel so she knows to treat you like a princess.”

  Absolutely not. Channing couldn’t abide a chirpy seatmate fidgeting all night with her seat controls. She waved her fingers to catch the flight attendant’s eye. “I beg your pardon…Jeremy, is it? I do believe there’s been a slight mistake. I don’t mean to be inhospitable but I actually purchased both of these seats, you see. I assumed that meant I’d have the space to myself.” Her voice withered slightly under the woman’s incredulous glare.

  “Oh dear, my paperwork shows it as open, Miss…” He ran his finger down a folded list. “There you are, Miss Hughes. Did you inform the ticketing agent of your intention to purchase a two-seat ticket for single travel?”

  “I’m not familiar with the particulars. All I know is—”

  “See, I show that five-F was originally ticketed to a Passenger Crane. Your intended companion perhaps? Except Mr. Crane failed to check in so his seat was returned to inventory. Those are the particulars I have.”

  “Those are the particulars I have,” she snipped, mocking him under her breath. Then with gritted teeth, she added, “I don’t suppose you have another suite available…perhaps one by the window with a bit more privacy.”

  “I’m so very sorry. It’s a full flight. But Miss Latimer’s previous seat is available in our economy section if you’re interested. Just hit that little button and Muriel will be happy to assist you with the move.”

  As he disappeared behind them, Channing noted with displeasure that her face was warm, thus probably red. Humiliation always announced itself. Not only had she been condescendingly upbraided for what she considered a perfectly reasonable request, she now was left sitting in the company of someone who likely thought her a misanthrope. Not that she wasn’t.

  “Well…that was awkward,” Miss Latimer said passively, her lips tightening in a barely discernible smile. She ran her hands along the armrests and wiggled her outstretched toes, the playful rejoinder of a bratty child who’d just tattled on her sister.

  Channing was in no mood for such impishness…though she’d probably not get away with chucking another drink. “My apologies. I’ve had quite the miserable day and had deemed myself not fit for human company. I assure you it was nothing personal.”

  “No offense taken.” Checking herself in a compact mirror, the woman tamed her disheveled hair with her fingertips, sweeping the curls into an orderly bob. Like any good haircut, it had the instant effect of raising her refinement level a notch. “If it makes you feel better, I’ve been on kind of a lousy streak too.”

  “Please, I wouldn’t want to be the sort of person who’d feel better because someone else was miserable as well.”

  “Like I said, no worries. Considering I’ve stacked a seven-hour flight on top of a fourteen-hour workday, I’m pretty sure I’ll be lights out right after dinner.”

  Lovely. So on top of feeling like utter shite for what she’d already faced today, she could add embarrassing herself with a temper tantrum.

  Muriel returned with her cocktail. Annoyingly pert in her trademark ascot and garrison cap, she squatted beside Channing to speak softly, “Did you happen to notice who’s on our flight? It’s Terrence Goff.”

  Recognizing the name, Channing followed her eyes several rows ahead where the chiseled television star, a rugged Hollywood hero-type whom the gossip rags linked to starlets half his age, was hanging his blazer in a small closet next to his seat. Payton’s secretary gushed like a schoolgirl over his popular series, a firehouse drama filmed on location in Boston. Channing was utterly unimpressed.

  “I only point him out because he asked if you were someone special.”

  Oh, for the love of — “What did you tell him?”

  “That all of our first class passengers are special, of course.” From Muriel’s coy smile, she relished her role as potential matchmaker. “I’d be quite pleased to make an introduction if you like.”

  “I would not like, actually.” She’d rather be doused in petrol and set ablaze. She twirled the stone of her sapphire ring downward so it looked like a wedding band and positioned her hand so it was prominently displayed. “If he should ask again, would you please just inform him that I’m no one he should know?”

  No sooner had Muriel walked away than Goff caught her eye and flashed a blinding smile. To her horror, he strutted the few steps toward her seat, teeming with self-assuredness.

  “Oh, bloody hell,” she muttered, swiveling abruptly toward the seatmate she’d just abused in hopes of dissuading him with the appearance of being engaged in conversation. A pointless exercise, she realized, as his spicy cologne announced his arrival.

  The woman, Miss Latimer, reached casually across the dividing console and took her hand. “Sweetheart, did you remember to stop the newspaper?”

  “I…” Seconds ticked by before she grasped that she’d been thrown a lifeline. “Yes…yes, I called them this morning.”

  As the actor’s footsteps made a hasty retreat, Latimer held her gaze. And her hand as well. By her devilish smirk, she was exceedingly pleased with herself. “That should keep him out of your hair.”

  Stunned to silence, Channing drew her hand back ever so slowly, as though she’d been petting a dog she
was worried might bite. Or maybe she was the dog, too fearful to trust a simple gesture of kindness.

  Chapter Two

  There was always that one arsehole. In this case it was Terrence Goff, who’d raised his window shade to enjoy the Arctic sunrise. Never mind that it was still the middle of the night in Boston and everyone else aboard the flight was trying to sleep.

  Not everyone, Channing conceded. Her seatmate had kept her promise to go to sleep immediately after dining but now was up and about, presumably in the loo preparing herself for arrival. On her seat was an unzipped overnight bag, its luggage tag identifying her as Lark E. Latimer, MD. Perhaps on her way to an international medical conference.

  Her snap judgement of Latimer as a privileged slacker obviously had been well off the mark. To say nothing of the fact that her own impending inheritance of millions hardly left her in a position to scoff at someone else’s entitlement.

  Muriel materialized at her shoulder with a breakfast menu. “Tea or coffee?”

  “Tea, please.” Of the things she missed most about England, a proper cuppa tea was high on the list.

  Latimer returned, a fresher version of the woman who’d plopped into the seat last night on the verge of exhaustion. She’d changed into a shirtwaist dress, its hem well above her knee. A touch of makeup smoothed her complexion and highlighted her unusual eye color, an amber tint that almost perfectly matched her hair. Quite attractive, Channing decided. A pleasant personality would easily carry her across the line.

  “Here you are,” Muriel said, depositing a tea tray. “And for you?”

  “I’ll have tea also,” Latimer replied.

  Rested and in a more charitable mood than the night before, Channing felt compelled to prove she could be personable. “I’d have pegged you for coffee.”

  “A few years ago, you’d have been right. I switched to tea when my work started taking me abroad. Turns out there’s a lot of really bad instant coffee out there.”

  “And a lot of bad tea as well.”

  “I suppose, but my tea palate isn’t refined enough to know bad tea from good.” She put away her toiletry bag and swapped her flats for woven leather pumps with sturdy heels. Other than the daring hem, it was an understated business look that didn’t boast of power. If she was headed to a conference, she clearly hoped to blend into the background. Except eyes as remarkable as hers wouldn’t allow her to go unnoticed.

  “Then I take it you’ve not yet come to blows over when to add the milk,” Channing said.

  “How about I take my cues from you, assuming you’re the expert?” She proffered a friendly smile and held out her hand for a shake. “I’m Lark Latimer, by the way.”

  Channing took her hand, remembering its spirited warmth from when she’d briefly held it the night before. By her mental calculation they were almost two hours from landing. A bit long for mindless prattle, but it was too late to retreat from a conversation she’d initiated. “Channing Hughes.”

  “You’re heading home?”

  Escaping Boston was more like it. “It would seem so, yes. Not exactly the prodigal return I’d planned.” Her dream for this particular trip had been two years in the making, a chance at last to show Payton some of the people and places that meant so much to her. That fantasy was now a steaming pile of—

  “That’s the movie for you. It never quite measures up to the book,” Lark said.

  “You have no idea.” Deflecting the subject, she nodded toward the small suitcase. “Looks to be a quick trip for you. Conference?”

  “Oh, this is just the stuff I needed for the plane. I checked a monster suitcase. No telling where it is now though. I was supposed to be on the earlier flight but I got hung up in security. Logan drives me crazy sometimes.”

  “Logan’s a walk in the park compared to Heathrow. Glad I’m not connecting.”

  “Ditto.” Lark stowed her suitcase just in time for Muriel to deliver her tea. “All right, I’m ready for my tea lesson. How much milk and when?”

  “First, you must allow the tea to steep for four and a half minutes. No more, no less.” She seized Lark’s forearm as she grasped the tag that hung from her ceramic teapot. “Leave it be. It’s not swill.”

  “Sorry, my bad.”

  “While you wait, you might start with a few drops of milk—a tablespoon should do nicely.” She meticulously prepared her own cup in demonstration and took a sip. “There, perfect. Sugar if you must, though a more sophisticated palate might prefer a biscuit on the side.”

  “Really, what kind of savage would add sugar?”

  “Certainly not a proper tea snob.” Channing mentally conceded that Lark’s appreciation of her sardonic humor redeemed her overall as an otherwise unwelcome seatmate. “Yours should be ready soon.”

  “I have twenty-eight more seconds…twenty-two…sixteen.”

  “Oh, go on. Don’t be such a literalist.”

  Lark poured haltingly as the jet skipped over a couple of bumps. “I don’t suppose anyone has ever pointed out that you’re kind of intimidating?”

  “Yes, that… I truly am sorry for trying to have you evicted from first class. You struck me as a tad over-stimulated. I thought perhaps you should be somewhere more restrained. For your own safety, of course.”

  “That’s really quite touching, such concern for someone you’d never even met,” she replied drolly, proving she too could play the sardonic game. “Seriously though, I get why you might have been annoyed. You weren’t expecting company and then I came and crashed your space.”

  “Crashed my pity party is more like it.”

  “Any chance it gets better now that you’re heading back home?”

  “Hard to say, actually. Home isn’t what it used to be.” With her beloved Poppa now gone, she was the last leaf on the Hughes tree. “My grandfather’s not here anymore. He died in early March.”

  “I’m so sorry.”

  “Very kind of you to say.” Though Poppa’s death had little to do with her current mood. “Barely two days after I returned from his funeral, my relationship ended—not my idea—so there’s another loss to process. A rather disastrous office affair…as if there’s any other kind. It makes for a wretched working environment once it’s over. So wretched that yesterday morning I cleaned out my desk and resigned.”

  “Wow. And you’re already sitting on a plane to London.”

  “Oh, I was going anyway to settle the estate, but I’d hoped Payton was coming too, which is why I’d purchased two tickets.” Such blathering was so very American. Yanks vented their emotions at the slightest provocation, whereas the British were more stoic. Channing was neither and both, having lived half of her life in each place. “And I have literally no idea what I’m going to do next.”

  “Look at it this way—you get to start over. The world is your oyster.”

  “I suppose if one fancies mollusks… I know, I know. Crack one open and perhaps there’s a pearl inside.”

  “Exactly. And there’s only a moderate risk of contracting hepatitis.” A deadpan delivery, very British. “So an office romance, huh? We have a gross saying for that…something about not making a mess where you eat.”

  “That would have been helpful advice if I’d thought to heed it. Especially since it was my boss,” she whispered. “My married boss.”

  Lark wrinkled her nose ever so slightly.

  “Oh, I saw that—bit of a sneer.”

  “I didn’t sneer.”

  “You most certainly did. But I won’t hold it against you. Everyone judges. It’s precisely why we keep such affairs secret, even after they’ve run their course. There’s no such thing as a sympathetic home wrecker.”

  “I’m sure it’s never as simple as people make it out to be.”

  “Simply ruinous if we’re being honest.” The worst of it was the complete surrender of her self-respect. “It never had a chance really. There was always Payton’s loving family, Payton’s important job. An imbecile could have predicted it woul
d end horribly. I blame myself for allowing her to string me along for two bloody years. All the while she got to have her cake and eat it too.”

  “It’s not like any of us have control over who we—” Lark’s jaw went suddenly slack, as if frozen before a glib thought could escape her lips. “Her?”

  Channing couldn’t help her wry smile. Payton had been right about that—no one would ever suspect an office affair between women, especially if one was married to a man. That presumption had provided them the necessary cover to carry on under everyone’s noses.

  Amused by Lark’s flummoxed expression, she stood and stretched. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I should freshen up before all these men realize they smell dreadful and need a shave.”

  * * *

  In a million years, Lark would never have guessed a woman like Channing Hughes batted for her team. Funny how first impressions took root. The context in which she’d first seen her—with the “three little pigs” harassing her in the lounge—seated her firmly in Lark’s mind as a woman whose style and seductive sway invited the appreciation of men.

  “My bad,” she mumbled, chiding herself. “My so bad.”

  Channing had gone curiously quiet following her startling admission, busying herself with a magazine after returning from the lavatory. Completely stupefied by the arousing mental image of Channing with another woman, Lark had blown her chance for an appropriate reply. Anything she said now would sound contrived or gratuitous.

  As the jet touched down on the runway, she reviewed her landing card and made sure the rest of her documents were easy to access. The worst part of the journey was still to come. First was getting her extended work permit through passport control. Then she had to clear customs with her gigantic suitcase and somehow get all of her luggage from Heathrow to King’s Cross and onto a train. Stairs and ramps and doors and tickets.

  Pointing toward the burgundy passport that marked Channing as a citizen of the UK, she casually offered, “Lucky you. You’ll be home having lunch before I’m even out of the airport.”