“So where’s the odd-job man then?” asked Angel when Andi rejoined her. “Mending boats or mowing the lawn today?”
Andi sighed. Her sister made no secret of the fact that she thought Jonty was a waste of oxygen. “I know he’s nice and good company,” she’d wailed the last time Andi had mentioned him, “but so’s a dog. Rock’s crawling with seriously loaded guys, babes. Can’t you at least give one of them a chance?”
Andi had tried to explain that she wasn’t looking for anything except friendship and, besides, she wouldn’t date somebody purely because they were wealthy, but her sister had just pulled faces and tutted.
“Jonty’s getting the boat ready for launching this afternoon,” she said now, tipping a sachet of sugar into her hot drink and watching Angel wince. At the thought of the afternoon ahead, her stomach flipped. She could hardly wait to feel the wind rip through her hair and hear the growl of the engine as they buzzed up the river. It was probably the closest she would ever get to being a Bond girl!
“I bet it’s not as big as Laurence’s—” Angel began to say, and then clammed up like the scallops on Padstow quay. She pretended to suddenly be totally absorbed in the activity on the Camel. “I mean, I bet it’s not as big as some of the other boats.”
Andi’s cup was frozen halfway to her lips. Her carrot cake was instantly forgotten.
“Laurence? I take it this is the mystery man?”
“Oh look! Is that a Lotus?” said Angel hastily, but Andi wasn’t so easily distracted. As a seasoned elder sister she was well and truly used to getting the truth out of Angel, although now they were in their twenties she’d rather not use Chinese burns or have to sit on her.
“So is this Laurence the reason you’ve been coming home in the small hours, hogging the bathroom even more than usual and wearing a soppy expression?” she teased.
Now it was Angel’s turn to blush.
“Maybe,” she said, suddenly fascinated by the polished surface of the table; then, when Andi prodded her with the cake fork, “Ouch! OK then, yes! Laurence is the guy I’ve been seeing.”
“Don’t stop now,” Andi said. Slowly and deliberately replacing the fork, she settled back into her seat and crossed her arms. “I’m listening and I want to hear everything. Go on, spill!”
So spill Angel did, and for the next half an hour Andi’s coffee went cold and her cake untouched while she listened to tales of viscounts and stately homes, exclusive houses at Daymer Bay, fast RIBs and trips to flashy restaurants. Angel scarcely drew breath as she described how utterly gorgeous Laurence was and how much she liked him. Andi was taken aback because she couldn’t ever remember seeing her sister so animated about a man. Usually they all chased Angel like crazy while she got bored, leaving Andi and Gemma to field the phone calls, make excuses and pick up the pieces of all their broken hearts.
“So, you see why I can’t possibly have him drop me back at the caravan,” Angel concluded, once she’d finished explaining why Laurence always dropped her at the Alexshovs’ house, where she hid until he’d driven away, before walking two miles back to Trendaway Farm. No wonder she was losing weight and never in until the small hours, thought Andi in despair.
“If he finds out that I live in a caravan and am just a beautician he’ll soon lose interest,” Angel summarised.
“Doesn’t he like you for who you are?” Andi was confused.
“Of course he does, obviously,” Angel said with the total confidence of the very beautiful, “but he’s a viscount and he’s only ever dated aristocrats and wealthy girls. When he’s totally and utterly head over heels with me of course I’ll tell him the truth. By then he won’t care anyway.”
Sometimes her sister didn’t so much take the biscuit as the entire chocolate-digestive factory.
“But you’re lying to him,” Andi pointed out. She was shocked by her sister’s glib attitude. In Andi’s book a relationship had to be based one hundred percent on honesty and trust. She knew from very bitter experience how once a partner lied about one thing it was very hard to trust them. But Angel, the moral equivalent of Teflon, didn’t seem at all concerned.
“Technically he’s just making assumptions,” she said airily. “I’ve never actually told him I live at Vanya’s.”
Andi knew there was no point arguing, so she changed tack.
“So, if you found out he wasn’t a viscount it wouldn’t matter? You’d still feel the same?”
Angel stared at her as though she was crackers. “What are you on about? He is a viscount.”
“But if he wasn’t? Say he turned out just to be an ordinary guy?”
“He isn’t an ordinary guy. I Googled him! Kenniston Hall is huge, Andi! It’s been in his family for donkey’s years. And he parties with Prince Harry and everything. Don’t worry, he really is who he says he is.”
At least one of them was. Andi gave up. Angel simply didn’t get it. When the truth came out this Laurence would either embrace his inner chav or take for the hills. She just hoped her sister didn’t get too hurt in the process.
“So it’s all on with Laurence then?” she said, returning to her cake and hoovering it up. Honestly, thirty minutes with Angel and she was comfort eating. No wonder poor Gemma had a weight problem. “As far as it can be, of course, seeing as he hasn’t really got a clue who you are?”
Angel bit her lip. “Well, sort of. The thing is he hasn’t made a move yet. I know he fancies me. I just don’t get it.”
She looked so concerned that Andi couldn’t help laughing. Angel was usually a man magnet, so it must be blowing her mind to encounter resistance.
“Perhaps he’s just being a gentleman,” she suggested. “Some guys actually like to buy a girl dinner first.”
“Hmm, maybe.” Angel didn’t look convinced. “He invited me back to his last night and I really thought that this was going to be the night it happened. I could tell he really wanted to. The way he was looking at me was so hot my knickers were practically melting.”
Andi clapped her hands over her ears. “Too much information already!”
“Don’t panic; that’s as exciting as it gets. When we arrived back at his house – it’s seriously stunning Ands – one of his mates had turned up unannounced. Honestly, I couldn’t believe the cheek of it. He was treating the place as though it was his own, helping himself to Laurence’s booze and everything. That put the end to any hopes we might have had of being alone together. I had a quick drink and then Laurence called a cab for me. He said he really needed to talk to this guy.”
“Maybe his friend was in trouble and needed help? Perhaps he was broke and needed a place to stay?” Andi offered. She’d lost count of the times she and Tom had been about to eat or go out only to be interrupted by her sister in the throes of some crisis. Angel of all people should be sympathetic.
But Angel shook her head. “He’s Travis Chumley. Of Chumley’s Chunks?” she added when her sister looked blank. “He’s the heir to the Chumley pet-food empire and seriously loaded. He and Laurence were at Eton together, apparently, so I don’t think he came over for a handout. It’s bloody selfish; he could easily stay in a hotel. I hope we’re not going to be stuck with him; I’ll never get Laurence to myself then. Not if he’s got a single mate in tow who’s going to want to hang out all summer. Oh, it’s so unfair! Why did he have to turn up and interrupt us?”
Andi had no idea. She was just about to offer an explanation along the lines of maybe this Travis was lonely, or just wanted to see his friend, when Angel cried, in the fashion of Archimedes in the bath, “Oh my God! I’ve got it! I’ve had a brilliant idea!”
Andi’s heart sank because she knew this expression of old. It had last been uttered when Angel was planning how to gatecrash Peter Andre’s party – and look how well that had ended. When Angel got an idea into her head, that was normally that. Nothing would move her.
Unfortunately.
“My God!” she was declaring triumphantly. “Am I, or am I not, a genius? I’
ve just had the best idea to keep Travis occupied and sort out all your money problems.”
“Oh really?” Since Angel was to finance what Posh Spice was to fast food, Andi wasn’t holding her breath. When she lay awake at night, her eyes wide open and her heart hammering with fear, she seldom thought of calling on her sister for fiscal advice.
But Angel was almost bouncing in her seat with excitement. Turning to Andi, eyes wide, she said, “Yes, really. Big sis, this is your lucky day – I’m going to introduce you to Travis!”
Chapter 25
By the time she reached the pontoon Andi had just about stopped laughing at Angel’s latest ridiculous idea. Honestly, sometimes she worried that her sister really was a few lipsticks short of a MAC counter. As if she would be interested in dating somebody just because he was going to inherit a few million tins of cat food!
“Do it for me then,” Angel had pleaded when Andi told her exactly what she thought of Project Date Travis Chumley. “How will I ever get to have time alone with Laurence if his sad single mate is always hanging around like cheap aftershave? We’ll probably never get together; he’ll have to marry some titled girl who looks like a horse and I’ll die of a broken heart! Can you live with yourself then?”
Andi had said that, on reflection, she thought she probably could, so Angel sulked into her coffee for the next twenty minutes before dashing off to meet Laurence and, she’d said pointedly, probably Travis as well. When she died a lonely old spinster, she would know exactly who to blame.
Andi shook her head. When it came to drama, Angel could give the RSC a run for their money. Living with Gemma must have rubbed off on her.
Heaving her rucksack, now crammed with delicious picnic bits from the deli, onto her shoulders, Andi walked to the far end of the pontoon and stared out across the water. A beach-ball sun beamed across the estuary and she shaded her eyes with her hand, trying to see if she could make out which of the boats zipping over the water might be Jonty, but the light was too bright to see anything much except their lacy wake. She perched on the end of the wooden platform and dangled her legs over the sea, listening to the call of the gulls and slap of waves against the pontoon. The sunshine was sprinkling freckles across the bridge of her nose, Jonty was on his way to pick her up by boat and she had a rucksack stuffed with crusty rolls and Cornish Brie. Did life get any better? And would dating a millionaire make her feel any happier than she felt at this moment? Somehow, she didn’t think so. There was no way she was going to get embroiled in any of Angel’s madcap schemes. Sometimes her sister made Andi felt like a right old stick-in-the-mud and closer to a hundred and twenty-nine than twenty-nine, but she couldn’t help it; she didn’t approve of Project Rich Guy. At all. Angel could argue until she was blue in the face that this was no different from what Jane Austen’s heroines had been up to, but Andi wasn’t buying it. If a relationship wasn’t built on the truth then it wouldn’t take long before the quicksand of fibs sucked it under. Besides, as far as she remembered, Mr Darcy had never been led to believe that Lizzy Bennet was an oligarch’s daughter...
On the other hand, Angel did seem genuinely distraught about not being able to spend time alone with this Laurence, which was most unusual. Normally she played it so cool it was a miracle none of her boyfriends got frostbite. Andi swung her legs thoughtfully. This could mean one of two things: either Laurence Elliott ticked all the boxes on her sister’s extensive list, or – and this was an extraordinary possibility – Angel really liked him. This idea made her stomach twist nervously. What if Angel was wrong and Laurence ran a mile when he discovered who she really was? Angel might give the impression of being shallower than a flea’s paddling pool but Andi knew better. Angel was actually very tender-hearted and once she loved somebody she adored them, no matter what. Years of having to mop up her sister’s tears when Alex let them down had taught Andi that much. She just hoped that Laurence Elliott, viscount or not, wouldn’t prove to be a disappointment.
“Andi! Hello!”
She looked up with a jolt; she’d been so deep in thought about Angel that she’d failed to notice Jonty had come alongside the pontoon in the boat and was smiling up at her. Gazing down, she saw herself reflected in his mirrored shades, her hair a startling tangle of reds and damsons against the bright blue sky. It hardly seemed possible that she and the always-immaculate Angel were related.
“All ready for the maiden voyage?” Jonty asked, sliding the shades onto the top of his head and reaching out to take her hand. Strong, tanned fingers closed around hers and squeezed gently. “It’s OK, don’t worry. Just throw the bag down first and then jump down. I’ve got you. You won’t fall in.”
Something about him inspired absolute trust and, bag launched first, Andi jumped from the pontoon towards the deck. Jonty caught her waist and lowered her carefully. For the briefest moment she felt the corded muscles of his arms tighten around her and her heart seemed to miss a beat. Then, almost before she could even stop to think, she was safely on board. Although the small boat was lurching like Angel and Gemma on a pub crawl, Jonty barely moved. He was totally at home on the water. Andi shifted her weight cautiously. It felt a bit like being on the Tube; she’d soon get used to it.
“Welcome aboard!” Jonty grinned, scooping up her rucksack and stowing it carefully in the hold. “Well, here she is, on the water at long last. What do you think?”
This sleek little vessel with its jaunty red hull, cream leather seats and gleaming deck was a million miles away from the sad flowerpot she’d seen in pictures. The electronics were state of the art, all the fittings were highly polished and the engine was purring away like Bagpuss. Although this was probably the oldest craft on the Camel and nothing like the flashy RIB Angel had been posing on the day before, Andi didn’t think there was a nicer boat anywhere. She might not be the newest or the most expensive, or even the fastest, but she’d been restored with such care that she was priceless. All Jonty’s hours had been a labour of love, but it had been worth every second and Andi told him so.
His answering grin could have powered Rock’s street lighting for a year.
“That’s exactly how I feel,” he nodded. “I know she’s old but she’s got heart. And she’s been in a Bond film too. She’s sleek and sexy – a true Bond girl. What more could a man want?”
Andi laughed. “So she’s the Ursula Andress of the boating world?”
“Wrong film; I think Ursula Andress was in Dr No, which was the first Bond film.” His brow crinkled thoughtfully. “I’ve been struggling to come up with a name for her and I think you might have just nailed it. What do you think of Ursula?”
“I love it, but don’t you want to choose the name?”
Jonty passed her a life jacket, and then helped her secure the ties and tuck them in. His deft fingertips brushed against the bare skin of her arms and, although the sun was hot, she shivered.
“I was half thinking about calling her Miranda,” he admitted shyly, tugging the straps tight before turning his attention to his own. “But I think your name would be better suited to something more elegant and classy and new; a Princess maybe? Or a yacht?”
Andi was flattered. The way her life had gone lately, Ursula had been an exact metaphor when she was rotting and full of weeds. Her, elegant and classy? Really? Was that the impression Jonty had of her? She felt a twinge of unease; would he still feel the same if he knew about Tom and her sacking?
“I think Ursula is perfect,” she said, trying hard to shove these bad memories back into the dark corners of her mind. “So, Mr Bond, where are we going?”
Jonty opened up the throttle and the boat glided gently away from the pontoon.
“I thought we’d go gently up to Wadebridge, grab some chips and then float back with the tide,” he said over his shoulder. “I don’t want her maiden voyage to be out to sea, just in case we hit a problem.”
“More chips? I’ll sink the boat.” Andi glanced ruefully down at her stomach. She always had a wonderful time
with Jonty but a lot of their activities seemed to involved cream teas, pasties or chips.
Jonty knocked the boat into neutral and turned to face her. Although she couldn’t see his eyes from behind the shades, Andi felt the intensity of his gaze and her skin danced with goosebumps.
“You look perfect,” he said firmly. “Absolutely perfect.”
As they put-putted upriver to Wadebridge, Andi allowed herself to bask in both the glorious sunshine and Jonty’s words. Although she knew she quite obviously wasn’t perfect – as someone who’d spent most of her formative years being compared to Angel, she was far too aware of her own physical flaws to ever be under such an illusion – it still gave her a Ready Brek glow that he might think so. She stole a glance at him, intently concentrating as he guided the boat upstream, and found herself wondering what the soft skin just below his ear would feel like against her lips.
Right! Stop there! Andi scolded herself. Honestly, thoughts like these were so not the way to go. If she carried on like this she’d be looking at the cognac-hued skin of his strong forearms and the muscular chest sculpted beneath the soft white tee shirt. The heat must be getting to her. Maybe she should just hurl herself overboard into the icy river? There was no way she was going to allow herself to think like this. They were friends and she was not going jeopardise that. Besides, after Tom she was steering well clear of men. Her face felt hot, and not just from the sunshine. She really hoped he couldn’t tell what she was thinking.
Luckily for Andi, Jonty might be skilled with all things marine but like most men he wasn’t a mind reader. Calling her over, he gently showed Andi how to steer the boat and trim the engine. Before long she was so engrossed in this task that she scarcely noticed he was standing so close to her that their forearms brushed. And if when he put his hand on hers to help guide the steering her heart skittered like the moorhens alongside the riverbanks, then it was from the excitement of driving the boat, nothing more.
Escape for the Summer Page 21
