The audience go aaaah. I turn a bit red and take a sip of my drink.
‘Not many people can stand up to my father,’ Leo continues, getting another laugh from the audience. ‘But Lucille is one of them. She’s also unusual and creative, a passionate philanthropist who’s not afraid to be herself, to be different from the crowd. It’s a complete bonus that she’s also the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen in my life. What I suppose I’m saying is that . . . Lucille, you’ve changed me. You’ve lit me up. And in front of the press, in front of my peers, in the interests of being as bold and as honest as you . . . I want to tell you . . . ’
What . . . What does he want to tell me?
‘That I . . . I think you’re kinda terrific.’
I throw my head back and laugh out loud. ‘I think you’re kinda terrific’ is a line from Grease 2.
As the audience burst into applause, Leo hurries down off the stage, races over to me, swoops me out of my chair, up into his arms, and spins me round with glee. I laugh into his neck and, as he puts me back down, he leans in close and whispers into my ear.
‘I love you, Luce.’
I stop mid-chuckle.
What?
He loves me?
Is this a joke?
I peer up at him. He’s staring tenderly down at me, and not at all in a jokey way.
God.
I can’t believe it.
Matilda Beam’s tips worked, and Leo . . . loves me?
Does this mean that we did it? That the experiment has succeeded?
Wow.
Wow.
I expect to feel a surge of relief. Finally, I can go back to Grandma and Valentina and tell them that, yes, How to Catch a Man Like It’s 1955 has worked. I don’t have to see Leo again, I don’t have to risk any more of these dangerous feelings.
But I don’t feel relief. I feel happy and fizzy and guilty. Really fucking guilty. And a bit sad, like I’ve lost something, which is stupid, because you can’t lose something that is based on a lie.
Leo loves me.
And . . . I think, shit, I think I might love him. Fucking hell. I don’t know what to do. I can’t love Leo Frost. Surely it’s impossible after only three weeks. Not to mention the fact that he thinks I’m someone completely different. And the fact that I don’t fall in love.
Is this how love feels? Like the most amazing, inconvenient fucking nightmare?
At my hesitation, Leo searches my face, his expression melting from one of joy into one of nervousness.
I open my mouth to respond. I think I’m about to tell him that I love him too when, suddenly, Postman Gavin appears in front of me, a concerned look on his boyish features.
‘Peach is really drunk and I’m worried. She needs you. She’s in the cloakroom.’
Oh no.
‘Take me to her,’ I say immediately.
As Leo blinks in confusion, I throw him an apologetic shrug before dashing off with Gavin to find my friend.
Gavin hurriedly leads me to the small church cloakroom. He waits outside while I go in to where Peach, massive ballgown pooled in the space around her, is sprawled on the floor under a rail of coats, head leaning dozily against the wall.
‘Peach, are you all right?’ I squat down to her level.
‘I don’t feel too good,’ she groans, mascara smudges smeared on her cheeks. ‘Am really drunk. Think it was the tequila.’
Damn right it was the tequila. This is my fault. I shouldn’t have told her to have a shot. I knew how nervous she was tonight. I should have kept a better eye on her. How could I not have predicted this?
‘Everything is spinny, so spinny.’ Her eyes close slightly. She’s absolutely fucked. Shit. Is this the state I used to get myself into?
‘We need to get you back home,’ I say, helping her to her feet.
‘Bed.’
‘Yup. That.’
Outside, Gavin is waiting on a bench in the church foyer. He looks worried, and decidedly more sober than he did earlier. ‘Are you all right?’ He hurries over to us, taking Peach by the arm. She leans against him, swaying from side to side.
‘Just a bit too much to drink. She’s all right,’ I reassure him. ‘Listen, I’ve got to go back in to get my handbag.’ I cast my thumb in the direction of the Nave. ‘You guys sit down there – ’ I point to the bench – ‘and I’ll be back in a sec.’
Gavin nods, rubbing Peach’s back as he helps her over to the bench.
Right. OK. Bag. I dash back into the ballroom. I move quickly through the bustle and towards our table, when I spot Leo sitting there deep in conversation with Summer. She’s showing him something on her mobile phone. His cheeks are red, his handsome face is stony.
Oh my God.
He knows.
He knows.
I halt right in front of the table, my hands starting to tremble.
The pair of them look up at my arrival. Summer gives me an innocent smile. Leo looks at me in astonishment, blinking furiously, his eyes watering.
‘Leo, I can explain—’ I start, but before I can even finish my sentence, he’s shot up, his chair toppling over on the floor behind him.
‘I don’t want to know,’ he says in a strangled voice, darting right past me, his head down to the floor.
I turn back to Summer, my whole chest thudding hard.
‘What did you say to him?’ I hiss.
Summer shrugs delicately and picks up her champagne flute. ‘The guy just publicly told everyone he’s infatuated with you. He deserves to know the truth. That you’re the woman in the onesie who humiliated him at The Beekeeper launch. That – for whatever bizarre reason – you’re lying to him and pretending to be someone else. That you’re not exactly the demure woman you’re painting yourself to be.’ She chuckles to herself. ‘Though maybe I shouldn’t have shown him the picture of you mooning someone on that night out in Leeds last year. He seemed pretty shocked about that one . . . hashtag awkward.’
‘You’re a fucking nasty piece of work,’ I spit, grabbing my bag from under my chair and racing after Leo.
‘You cause destruction wherever you go, Jess!’ she calls out after me. ‘You really need to sort yourself out!’
I flip her the bird and dash back out into the lobby, where Peach is dozing on Gavin’s shoulder. I spot Leo slamming out of the front doors of the building.
‘Hold on right there,’ I shout over to a puzzled-looking Gavin, as if he’s a dog and I’m telling him to stay. ‘Don’t go anywhere. I’ll be back in a second.’
When I get outside I can’t see Leo, but I do spot three town cars from the company he hires lined up on the road. He must be in one of them. He’s got to be.
I open the first car door.
‘Leo?’ I pop my head in. The car’s empty apart from a sleeping driver, who jumps up in shock as I bellow right inside his earhole.
‘Sorry!’
I race to the second car.
‘Leo?’ I call again. But this car’s just got Benedict Cumberbatch inside, tapping something out on his phone. He looks furious at my interruption. ‘Excuse me, this is a private vehicle,’ he says imperiously.
‘Oh, bloody fuck off, Benedict,’ I grump, throwing him my mightiest withering glance.
He stutters furiously and I slam the door on him.
I go to car three.
Leo has to be here.
I yank open the door. There’s no driver, but Leo’s in the back seat, staring forlornly at his trophy. He looks up at me, his eyes steely. I slide into the car and close the door behind me.
‘I’m so sorry,’ I choke out. ‘I am so, so sorry.’
He looks absolutely gutted. I’ve made such a huge mistake. As soon as I found out about his past, as soon as I realized that he wasn’t all bad, as soon as I thought we might be developing real feelings for each other, I should have put a stop to the whole project. I should have come up with another way to get the money for Grandma. I’m such an idiot.
‘Why?’ he asks
me, his lovely moss-green eyes now distressed and desperate. ‘Why would you not tell me that we’d met before? That your name is – is Jess? I don’t understand. Was I really so rude to you that night at the book launch that you felt like you had to pretend to be someone else?’
Fuck. All he knows is that I’m not who I say I am. I have to come clean.
‘It was for a book,’ I say quietly, embarrassed.
His eyes widen in horror. ‘What?’
‘We wanted to write a book about how my grandma’s 1950s romance tips would work in the modern day. And . . . we chose to try them out on you.’
‘Who’s we?’ he asks in dismay.
‘Um, me, my grandma and . . . Valentina Smith.’
He blinks. ‘Your grandma? And Valentina? My ex. She put you up to this? Fucking hell, what is this?’ He puts both hands to his head.
‘I didn’t think that you’d fall for me! Or, well, for Lucille. Valentina told us you were a sleazy eternal bachelor!’
Leo shakes his head. ‘What the fuck? This is sick. I told you I regretted the way I treated my exes. I apologized to Valentina so many times. I told her when we first hooked up that I wasn’t looking for anything serious, that I was seeing other people. But she still got angry when I didn’t want to commit. I felt shitty for hurting her, I said sorry a million times, but she didn’t want to know, told me that I was evil. I’m not evil. I don’t deserve this!’
‘I didn’t know you’d apologized,’ I protest. Valentina left that bit out. I reach out to touch him, but he shoos me away as if I’m a fly.
‘I can’t believe you would take part in her getting some sort of fucking revenge on me.’
‘It wasn’t revenge,’ I urge desperately. ‘I didn’t think you’d actually like me . . . ’
His voice breaks. ‘Well, I did.’
‘God, I like you too,’ I plead. ‘More than like, Leo, but it’s complicated. I’ve never—’
‘Get out,’ Leo interrupts, his face stony, his usually amused eyes flat and hard.
‘Just let me explain, Leo,’ I try. ‘I think I might be falling in lo—’
‘GET OUT!’ He dives across me and throws open the car door. ‘Please, Luce . . . Fuck, I mean whatever your name is.’
I nod slowly, gathering my bag from where it’s laid on the car seat beside me. ‘I’m so sorry,’ I whisper, climbing out of the car. I turn back to say something else, anything else, that might make this better, but Leo’s already slammed the door closed. He’s gone.
I stumble, dazed, back into the Christ Church lobby. It feels like I’m walking through water.
‘Are you all right?’ Gavin says when he sees me. ‘You’ve gone as white as a sheet.’
His voice sounds echoey and far away.
‘I’m fine,’ I swallow, pulling out my phone to call a cab. ‘I just want to go home.’
Peach dozes the whole way back. Gavin, now fully sober, is back to his awkward, shy self, though he does keep checking to see Peach is all right.
After dropping Gavin off at his flat, we drive back to Bonham Square. I can’t get Leo out of my head. The expression on his face in the car. Betrayal. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to forget that.
Back home, Grandma is tucked up in bed. I know Peach would be distraught if Grandma saw her in this state, so I help her up the stairs as quietly as I can and into my room. I make her down a pint of water, help her to get changed into a nightie and tuck her into my bed, turning her over onto her side.
I get in beside her. She murmurs something that sounds like ‘sorry’.
‘Don’t worry, it’ll be OK,’ I whisper, stroking her hair away from her face.
But I’m lying. Because the truth is, I don’t think any of this will ever be OK.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Every Good Woman ought to pursue a partner of equal or greater breeding and education. This is the person with whom you will spend your life, raise your children. They must have the means to take care of you, else you will be destined for a life of strife and financial worry.
Matilda Beam’s Good Bride Guide, 1956
I can’t sleep.
Every time I start to doze off, I think of Leo and my heart lurches and wakes me up. And when it’s not that bringing me out of sleep, it’s Peach turning over in the bed and lobbing me in the face with her arm.
With a sigh, I climb out from beneath the duvet and pace around my room, halting when I feel a sharp prick in my toe.
‘Ow!’ I hiss, grabbing my foot and hopping up and down. I pick the offending shard out of my foot. It’s a tiny piece of porcelain from when Jamie’s nephew Charlie knocked over Felicity.
I gape at the rest of the dolls. Mum’s dolls. I wonder if this sad aching I have inside is the feeling Mum had all the time? Is this what drove her over the edge?
I check the time on my iPhone. Two a.m.
Pulling on my dressing gown, I creep out onto the upstairs landing and peek up at the attic door, spotting a little rope cord dangling from it. Reaching on tiptoes, I pull the cord down as slowly as possible and unfold the wooden ladder super quietly.
As I step onto the first rung of the ladder, it gives a massive creak. I freeze. If Grandma catches me sneaking up here after she told me not to, she’ll have a right paddy, and tonight has already been quite craptastic enough, thank you.
When, thirty seconds later, it becomes clear that Grandma didn’t hear the creak and I’m safe, I carefully climb the rest of the way into the attic and close the hatch softly behind me. I sneeze instantly. Urgh, it’s so dusty up here, I can smell it!
Feeling along the wall for the light switch, I find it and flip it on. The attic is illuminated by the glow of a bright, bare bulb dangling from the rafters. I shake my head as I see boxes and toys and papers and old trophies and books and more boxes. Attic is empty my arse. Grandma was totally lying. I pluck a trophy from where it’s balancing on top of an open cardboard box and look at the inscription.
Kensington Young Ballet Competition. Winner – Rose Beam.
And then I pick up an old school blazer with a label sewn into the collar.
Property of Rose Beam, Class 4 Blue.
Whoa. This is all Mum’s stuff! No wonder I never saw any around the house – it’s all crammed in here!
Opening odd boxes, I rifle through them eagerly. There are school reports, a signed theatre programme from Romeo and Juliet, old shoes, tape cassettes, half-used bottles of perfume and a few disco flyers for a club called the Blue Canary.
Then I spot – half covered by a turquoise stripy duvet cover – a large black trunk nestled in the darkest corner of the attic. I traipse over, muffling another sneeze as I dislodge a couple of teddy bears which proceed to fall off the top of a cardboard box and bop me on the head. Sitting down cross-legged in front of the trunk, I yank off the duvet cover, bunch it up and chuck it over to the other side of the attic. Then I slowly lift open the lid of the trunk.
Inside, there are envelopes and folders, old magazines and letters. Then I notice, buried beneath all the paper, a small pile of brightly coloured patterned notebooks.
Frowning, I grab the notebook on top of the stack and open it up.
The first page is scrawled with large, looping script in the kind of thick blue ink that can only come from a fountain pen. I recognize the handwriting in an instant.
It’s Mum’s handwriting.
Rose Beam’s Diary
My hands start to shake.
Rose Beam’s Diary
9th July 1985
I can’t write properly, my hands are shaking so much. Dammit. I need to breathe but I can’t catch my breath.
I’ve just been downstairs as Mum was calling me. She was sitting in the drawing room with Dad, and they both looked so serious. I thought they were going to tell me that someone had died. Before I could ask who, Dad told me to sit down. Then he said that I wouldn’t be seeing Thom any more. At first I laughed because I thought he was doing one of his stupid jok
es, but then Mum started crying and completely wigging out and I knew that they were serious. Dad told me that he’d had one of his friends look into Thomas Truman’s background and he’d found out that Thom is a known gambler with a string of debts who was obviously using me for our money. I told Dad how ridiculous he was being because I know all about Thom’s card playing, but that he loved me and that it was real, true love. Thom paid me back every penny of the money I lent to him and I told them so.
And then Dad told me the worst thing anyone has ever said in my life. He told me that last night he went to see Thom at his house and offered him twenty thousand pounds to leave London and never see me again. According to Dad, Thom took it without a second thought. I don’t believe it. I can’t believe it. Dad said they hadn’t spent all this time, effort and money to bring me up well, only for me to marry a layabout who was after the family money, that something scandalous like this would ruin the family’s hard-earned reputation. Mum dashed over to hold me, but I pushed her away. How has she let this happen? She just sat by Dad’s side, agreeing with everything he said like she always bloody does.
At that point I ran out of the room and out of the house. I got the Tube to Thom’s house. John answered. As soon as he saw me, his face crumpled. And then he gave me a note. From Thom. I tried to open the envelope but my hands were shaking so much that John had to do it for me. The note wasn’t even worth being in an envelope. It simply said, ‘I’m sorry.’
I asked John where Thom had gone and he claims to have no idea. How could I have been such a fucking idiot.
Rose Beam’s Diary
10th July 1985
I went to the theatre to see if anyone knew where Thom had gone. Apparently he phoned in his resignation last week, and everyone is very upset that he’s let them down. They don’t know the half of it.
Rose Beam’s Diary
12th July 1985
I’ve been in my bedroom for two whole days and only now have I stopped crying. I think I’m physically all out of tears. Mum keeps knocking on the door, trying to bring me food and warmed milk, and each time I tell her to fuck off. I’ve never used bad language in front of my parents before. But now I don’t care. They mean nothing to me. I want to tell her what she’s done. I want to tell her that I’m pregnant, that I’m having Thom’s baby and that she’s ruined everything. But she doesn’t even deserve to know. Dad doesn’t deserve to know. They are toxic and old-fashioned and cruel . . . And Thom . . . I’ve made such a fool of myself.
The Vintage Guide to Love and Romance Page 28
