The Garden Intrigue

by Lauren Willig

  “What?”

  “I know, that was my reaction, too. And it gets worse.” Catching a heel on the worn carpet that ran down the center of the hall, I stumbled in my too-high heels.

  “Worse?” He caught my arm, drawing it through his for support, mine or his.

  “According to Cate—no, you haven’t met her yet,” I added, before he could ask. “She’s their clipboard girl, and I’ve told her she can use our computer if she likes. Don’t worry, you’ll like her.”

  Colin was beginning to look a little bewildered. “What does this have to do with Dempster?”

  “Right.” I took a deep breath. “Anyway, according to Cate—you know, the clipboard girl—Dempster got the job through personal connections. Apparently, he’s dating someone connected to the film.”

  The carpet came to an end just at the landing. We stood at the top of the stairs, the polished wooden banister stretching along in front of us. One of Colin’s ancestors had redone it all during the height of the Arts and Crafts movement, getting rid of the old white moldings and pale paint, replacing them with heavy walnut and shiny brocades. Small golden gargoyles on a dark green background snarled down at me from the wall.

  Colin turned to me, his sun-streaked hair bright against the hunter green backdrop. “Do you think—?”

  I shook my head. “I don’t know. She didn’t say.” I didn’t like this any more than he did, but there was no ignoring the evidence. “Who else could it be?”

  Colin pressed his eyes closed. I could see the network of fine lines around his eyes, pale against his suntanned skin. There was more than one way to save the world. Colin might not be a swashbuckling double-oh-something, but he had his own variety of hero complex. He had single-handedly held up his sister through the trauma of their father’s death, their mother’s defection, and Serena’s own romantic disasters.

  I squeezed Colin’s arm. “She’s a grown woman.” Serena was a full two months older than me. Right now, I felt positively ancient. “She’s old enough to make her own decisions.”

  “Yes. She has done, hasn’t she?” Colin nodded towards the stairs, his face showing nothing, revealing nothing. “Shall we go down?”

  I thought of and discarded at least half a dozen saving phrases. She didn’t mean it; she does love you, you know; that’s not what I meant. None of them would do the least bit of good. It would only draw us both further into a conversation neither of us really wanted to have. Sometimes, talking about it doesn’t make it better.

  There was also the selfishness factor. My relationship with Colin still felt, even six months in, too new and fragile to risk, even for a good cause.

  I wrinkled my nose at him. “Unless you want to order takeout and have it delivered up to the second floor? Right. I didn’t think so.” We made it about two steps before I tugged him to a halt. “There’s one more thing you should know.”

  “Don’t tell me,” Colin said flatly. “They’ve decided to rebuild the whole house as a Disney castle and staff it with singing Martians.”

  “Er, no. Jeremy’s seated us at opposite ends of the table.” I did my best to dispel the image of a kick line of musical Martians pouring our after-dinner tea. That was probably DreamStone’s next movie, with Micah Stone as the kick-ass alien hunter. “The joke will be on him when we spend the whole evening communicating in semaphore. Like that Monty Python sketch with Cathy and Heathcliff.”

  Colin slid his arm around me for a quick squeeze. “Whatever Jeremy might think, it is still my table. No one’s seating arrangement is set in stone.”

  “Except for Micah Stone!” We paused on the landing where the stairs turned. “That was a joke.”

  Colin scanned the arriving guests from the safety of the balustrade. “Do you see Dempster?”

  From the landing, we had an excellent view of the center hall. The house had never been a grand mansion, only a modest gentleman’s residence, but, to my apartment-bred eyes, the hall was still a generously proportioned one. It might not be Blenheim or Chatsworth, but it could still hold a good thirty people with room for catering staff to circulate with their faux silver rent-a-trays. The door kept opening and closing, admitting more and more people as cars made hash of the carefully combed gravel circle outside, some veering off onto Colin’s precious lawn.

  They were a mixed bag, the guests. I amused myself by playing Spot the Americans. It wasn’t a fail-safe game, but I prided myself on a fifty percent accuracy rate. It wasn’t just the clothes, but something about expression and carriage. My theory has always been that different vocal constructions shape our facial muscles differently, so that you can tell an American face from a British one simply by the way the person holds her mouth.

  Not a fail-proof system, but reasonably reliable. In this case, there was the added clue of the Curse of the American in England, the attempt to out-British the British, the Americans wearing what they presumed Brits wore for a country house weekend, while the Brits themselves, a far flashier and more glamorous crowd than the gang at the pub or the academics of my acquaintance, were dressed in the latest of Madison Avenue couture. DreamStone backers, I imagined, or friends of Colin’s mother and her husband. They moved in moneyed circles, hobnobbing with the artsier end of the international jet set—and by artsy, I mean those who bought art, not those who produced it. That was Jeremy’s job. He sold high-end art, acting as agent to a series of prestigious modern artists, among them, Colin’s mother.

  I didn’t see Colin’s mother. I gathered, from what I had heard, that she had a phobia about Selwick Hall. The phrase “gives me hives” may or may not have been used. Besides, this production was Jeremy’s baby, not hers. It didn’t matter to her that her only son might be involved or that his life might be disrupted by it.

  My fingers had curved into claws on the timeworn walnut of the banister. I forced them to unclench and went back to scanning the crowd.

  Below me, I could hear someone saying in cut-glass tones, as pretentiously posh as Dempster’s, that, heavens, no, she wasn’t here with the film crew, she was the representative from Manderley; hadn’t they heard of Manderley?

  I looked down and saw a perfectly coiffed blond head, not a hint of telltale roots showing, highlighted to feign a vacation in St. Barth’s, cut in a kicky sweep not unlike my last haircut, the one that had now grown out into straggles. Oh, damn. Unconsciously, I reached for the ends of my hair, too short to put up, too long for style.

  Even up half a flight of stairs, Joan Plowden-Plugge still had the power to make me feel like a mugwump.

  I tugged at Colin’s sleeve. “Hey. What’s Joan doing here?”

  “I didn’t invite her,” he said quickly. I believed him. Not out of consideration for me and my feelings, but because Joan had made no bones about her desire to become mistress of Selwick Hall, or at least of its master. “She’s here for Manderley.”

  “And you’re okay with that?” Colin had been quite clear about wanting to keep a lid on publicity, at least as it pertained to Selwick Hall. The movie itself he couldn’t do much about. That was DreamStone’s province.

  Colin’s lip twisted. “I’m not okay with any of this.”

  Fair point. That wasn’t what I’d meant, though, and he knew it.

  He leaned a hand on the other side of the railing next to me, boxing me in. “Look, if I have to have reporters in my home, I’d rather it be Manderley than one of the tabloids.”

  I wasn’t sure a periodical that looked down its nose at Town & Country as hopelessly plebeian counted as a substitute for the gossip rags. But if Colin thought doing a piece in Manderley would stave off the tits’n ass crowd, then so be it. I had my doubts. Where Micah Stone went, there went the paparazzi. And nothing would suit Jeremy better than a double-page spread of himself in front of “his” ancestral home, complete with wellies and a gun propped over his shoulder.

  Colin looked down at me, his hazel eyes concerned. “I know Joan isn’t your favorite person—”

  “I
can’t imagine where you get these ideas,” I muttered. Just because she had all but hired a coyote to drop an Acme anvil on my head.

  “But I’ve known her since we were children. I trust her not to say anything…” Colin paused, searching for the right phrase.

  “Libelous?” I’m not the child of two lawyers for nothing.

  Colin pushed away from the railing. “Embarrassing.”

  “Right. That, too. Do you think we should go down, or shall we just stay up here and keep staring at people? I’m fine going either way.”

  “Was that a hint?” Colin asked.

  “It was more of a directive.” I took his arm in a proprietary grasp. Take that, Joan Plowden-Plugge! She might have two names, but I had one Colin, and, by gad, I wasn’t sharing, not for all the cupcakes in kindergarten. “I could use one of those glasses of bubbly.”

  “Only one?”

  “Do you really want me to get blotto and start singing show tunes?”

  Colin’s lips brushed the top of my head. “You’re cute when you’re blotto,” he said.

  I noticed he didn’t say anything about my singing ability.

  “You’re just hoping I’ll lose it and say horrible things to Jeremy so you won’t have to.” Oops. Did I say that out loud?

  Colin didn’t seem too perturbed by the prospect. “That would be a plus, yes.”

  I poked Colin in the arm. “There’s Dempster.”

  We weren’t the only ones who had spotted him. Joan’s carefully highlighted head turned and, with just the right words of good-bye, she excused herself and maneuvered her way through the crowd, her black dress narrow enough not to make so much as a whisper as she passed. Her heels were a modest inch and a half. Sling-backs. Unlike me, she wasn’t relying on the shoemaker’s art for lengthening and slimming.

  Toad.

  How did she know Dempster? The Vaughn Collection, I guessed. It made sense that the editor of a fine-arts magazine would be on more than nodding terms with the archivist of London’s answer to the Frick Collection.

  But this looked like a hell of a lot more than nodding terms. Holding her champagne glass out to the side, Joan leaned in, not for the traditional air kiss but for a solid peck on the lips. As she leaned back, Dempster’s hand settled in a proprietary way just above her waist.

  What?

  I looked at Colin, gawping like a child catching Mommy with Santa Claus. If Santa Claus was evil, that is. And if Mommy were the wicked stepmother. “Did you—?” I said.

  Colin shook his head, looking just as befuddled as I felt. “No. I—No.” He looked down at them, a man at sea. “They are colleagues.…”

  “His hand is still on her ass,” I pointed out. “That’s not collegial behavior.” A little lightbulb went on in my brain. “Do you know what this means? Serena didn’t invite Dempster. Joan did.”

  Colin seemed insufficiently excited by this revelation.

  I tugged on his sleeve. “Don’t you get it? Serena isn’t back together with Dempster!”

  Not to mention that now Joan was safely off the market, so maybe she’d stay out of our hair for five minutes. And by ours, I meant mine. It would be nice to go to the pub without Joan throwing darts at me instead of the board.

  “I got that,” said Colin slowly. I followed his gaze and saw what had caught his attention. Oh, damn. There was another corollary to Serena not being back together with Dempster, one I hadn’t quite thought through.

  Serena stood in the shadow of the front door, looking like someone had just run a knife straight through her heart.

  Dempster had been using Serena, and the odds were that he was probably using Joan, too. He had even made a play for me. I didn’t think the man was capable of decent, disinterested affection. But I doubted that would make much of a difference to Serena right now. All that mattered was that the man who had broken her heart was in her home in the company of another woman.

  I had spent months privately griping about Colin cosseting Serena, about our relationship being crowded with three when it ought to have been cozy with two. And let’s just say I hadn’t been too happy with her when she had sided with Jeremy, flinging Colin to the wolves. But now…

  “Go to her.” I gave Colin a little push. “She needs you.”

  Colin did his best imitation of an Easter Island statue, nothing but the finest granite.

  “Fine,” I said. “I’ll go.”

  I started down, slipping and skidding in my inappropriate heels, only to find myself checked four steps up by Dempster.

  “Eloise!” he said volubly, for all the world as though he were the host. I could see Serena over his shoulder, looking shadowed and fragile. It wasn’t lost on me that even though she had grown up in this house, it was Serena who was coming in from outside. Some people, it seemed, were doomed to be perpetual outsiders, like a moth at the far side of a lighted patio, always hovering just out of reach of the light.

  I was too generally pissed off to bother with the amenities. “I see you’ve found another way of getting into Selwick Hall.”

  Dempster’s chest expanded. “I’m the historical consultant for the film,” he said.

  From what I’d seen, calling it a film seemed like a stretch. “I wasn’t talking about the movie. Excuse me.”

  “I’m glad you’re here,” Dempster said suavely, ignoring my attempt to get around him.

  “Why? So you can steal my notes?”

  I had to give him this much. He put on a good show of confusion.

  “What’s this?” Colin had come down behind me. We might be having our own tiff, but it was a solid front when it came to barbarians at the gate. Colin’s fingers fumbled for mine.

  I slid my hand gratefully into his.

  “Ask Dempster,” I said, nodding at the other man. “Ask him just what he’s looking for at Selwick Hall.”

  Chapter 21

  What use is compass, map or chart,

  Or any of the mariner’s art?

  My mast is broke, my rudder gone,

  Darkling I drift, and all alone.

  —Emma Delagardie and Augustus Whittlesby,

  Americanus: A Masque in Three Parts

  He couldn’t shake the image of her face.

  Augustus slipped away around the side of the house, moving with a stealth that had been ingrained by time and brutal training. He had good cause to be grateful for that training. It was all that was keeping him from barreling headfirst over the nearest shrub. He felt entirely disoriented, adrift, at sea. Gravel crunched beneath his feet, the only sign he was still on a path. The curtains had been drawn in the house, but enough light leached through them to provide a vague illumination, a strange echo of light, worse than no light at all.

  What in the hell had just happened in there?

  To his left lay Bonaparte’s dollhouse of a theatre, smug on its own patch of ground. Dark now, all dark, entirely dark, no Emma inside playing with props or rocking back on her heels to look up at him with her hair all any which way and a smudge on her face.

  He could still feel the texture of her hair beneath his fingers, thicker than he would have thought, thick and sleek and straight, blunt at the ends where it had been cut short, frizzled in bits where her maid must have experimented with the curling iron and failed. He could feel the silk of her hair and the delicate shape of the scalp beneath. She had a mole behind one ear, just a little bump in the skin, but his fingers remembered it, mapping it onto the landscape of her body, familiar terrain made unfamiliar, discovered and rediscovered.

  Weeks they had spent together, bent over a desk, passing at a party, sending notes back and forth with a speed that made the messengers drag their feet and ask with palpable reluctance, “Is there a reply?” in a way that suggested they knew the answer would be yes but hoped for no.

  No, no reply. Augustus had nothing to say. He was muddled, befuddled, baffled, perplexed, kerflummoxed. Confusion robbed him of the facile phrases that rose so easily to his lips, left him only with a ca
cophony of image and emotion, none of it reducible to the simple parameters of prose or even the lying truths of poetry.

  No matter, she had told him, or something to that effect. She understood. Augustus was bloody glad someone did. Perhaps Emma might deign to explain it to him.

  This was Emma. Emma! Emma of the too-low dresses and too-shiny jewels and too-bright smile and too-late parties. Emma who flitted and frolicked and sent him tea cakes and made sure he wore his cloak. Emma, who had somehow wiggled her way into his life, tucked securely next to his heart like a talisman in his coat pocket, a comfortable presence only to be noticed in its absence. One didn’t take it out and play with it or consider the purpose of its existence; it was simply there.

  He couldn’t fancy Emma. She was just…Emma. Always there, always in motion, always running half an hour late. He admired the statuesque, the stately, the serene, Grecian goddesses made flesh, alabaster without the pedestal.

  Then why couldn’t he stop thinking about Emma? And why in hell wouldn’t she stop to talk? She had certainly been eager enough to talk when it involved his emotions.

  Augustus stubbed his toe on a bit of loose gravel and cursed. It did little to relieve his feelings.

  The graveled circle in front of the house was crowded with carriages in various stages of unloading. Servants swarmed over them, disentangling the luggage that had been roped to the roofs, handing down boxes and trunks, while the aristocracy of the serving world—ladies’ maids and manservants—hovered to ensure the correct dispositions of their masters’ belongings, complaining loudly about clumsiness and protesting as trunks came tumbling down. Farther along, empty conveyances were being led down the trail to the carriage house, the horses to be unhitched and taken to the stable for grooming and feeding. It was a scene a world removed from the genteel gathering in the gallery, nosy, boisterous, busy.

  Augustus paused in the lee of a miniature potted plant, watching, as from a world away, the bustle in front of him.