Royd was unable to share the earl’s apparent calm at the turn events had taken. Before he had even spoken to Kyle he had been ninety-nine per cent certain that the marriage hadn’t a hope in hell of surviving. Now he was a hundred per cent sure, and he knew who was going to have to foot the bill. He glared in impotent fury at his son, unable to gain even the slightest grain of comfort from the fact that his soon to be ex-daughter-in-law was also the ex-close friend of the future king of England.
Serena was surprised at the depth of her disappointment as she drove at high speed past the gaggle of reporters at the gates. Damn Kyle. If he hadn’t wanted to drive, he could at least have been happy for her to drive! The news of their elopement would soon be in all the national papers, and being in town with him, receiving the congratulations of all her friends and endlessly celebrating would have been fun. As would a continuation of the glorious, almost nonstop sex they had been enjoying. She swung out of Bedingham Village and on to the main road south, pressing her foot down hard on the accelerator. Damn Kyle. Damn him, damn him, damn him!
As far as the press were concerned, her arrival in London, and her presence at the more exclusive discos and nightclubs without her spouse only served to elevate a minor society story into a major one. ‘Runaway Lady Serena Parties Without Groom’ was one headline and ‘Anderson Heir Stays Home While Bride Cavorts’ was another. Serena did not care. The elopement, and her subsequent discarding of her groom, had only added lustre to her already wild and reckless reputation.
On her first night in town, after a party at Annabel’s that had gone on until dawn, she had been escorted back to the Chelsea house by a long-standing male friend, and had shocked both him and herself by saying on the doorstep, a note of surprise in her voice, ‘You can’t stay the night, Toby. I’m a married lady now. Adultery after forty-eight hours of wedded bliss is a little steep, even for me.’
‘But I thought the elopement was just a joke,’ Toby Langton-Green protested, piqued.
‘Well, it was,’ Serena said, her thought processes slightly dulled by the amount of champagne that she had consumed. ‘But it’s not a complete joke, if you see what I mean.’
‘Dashed if I do,’ Toby said, swaying unsteadily on his feet. ‘Not as if the fellow would know, is it?’
‘No,’ Serena agreed. ‘But I would know.’
Toby hiccuped, not relishing the thought of a drive back to his own bed in Hampstead. ‘And does that matter?’
‘Yes,’ Serena said, intrigued at the discovery. ‘I’m afraid it does, Toby. Strange, isn’t it?’
‘Bloody peculiar,’ Toby agreed. ‘If I can’t sleep in the marriage bed, or what will be the marriage bed if the groom ever deigns to put in an appearance, can I at least sleep on the sofa?’
‘Yes.’ She yawned. ‘But don’t wake me when you leave, Toby. I haven’t slept for forty-eight hours, and I won’t want to get out of bed until the end of the week.’
She staggered exhaustedly across the threshold, heading unhesitatingly for the bedroom. Toby remained in the minuscule living room for a minute or two, eyeing the sofa with reluctance. It really did look damned uncomfortable. He removed his evening jacket, extricating his arms from the sleeves with difficulty, and went in search of Serena. The very least she could do was to loan him a pillow for the night. She lay on the bed, facedown and fully clothed, snoring softly, and he was able to flop thankfully down next to her without her giving any protest.
Serena remained in town all week. The newspapers continued to avidly follow the story of her elopement, fuelled not only by her own fevered partygoing, but by that of her groom’s.
Twenty-four hours after Serena had driven away from Bedingham, Kyle had also left his father-in-law’s roof, whether amicably or not, the press were unable to decide. They had scrambled into cars and followed him, certain that he was driving to London in order to reclaim his erring bride. They were wrong.
His destination was not Chelsea but the Dorchester, where two of his cousins and a mutual friend from college had just checked in. Within hours the groom and his cronies were out on the town, painting it red. For five newsworthy nights, Serena could be found dancing with Toby Langton-Green or a dozen other old admirers at Annabel’s and the Cromwellian, and Kyle could be found squiring any one of a number of debutantes to the Claremont and to Ronnie Scott’s. Flocks of photographers followed in both their wakes, eager for the moment when the paths of bride and groom would cross. Against impossible odds, they did not do so.
Serena and her entourage would abandon the hexagonal-sided dance floor at Annabel’s for the slightly larger one at The 400 only to miss a full-scale confrontation with Kyle and his cronies by seconds as they boisterously left The 400 for the Ad Lib.
Media interest mounted when the earl announced that following the elopement and civil wedding of his daughter and Mr Kyle Anderson of Boston, a church wedding was to take place at Bedingham’s fourteenth-century parish church.
Serena read the news with interest. There were times when she had to admire her father. To have made such an announcement, and gone ahead with all the plans necessary for such a wedding – when she and Kyle were hitting the headlines daily and separately – showed breathtaking aplomb. She wondered if arrangements for her wedding dress and her bridesmaids’ were also being made in her absence. And if Kyle was as bemused by the situation as she was.
At the thought of Kyle, her bemusement vanished. That morning the William Hickey column had published a photograph of him dancing with one of her old school chums at The Darkroom. She had been there herself earlier in the evening, with Toby, and was not sure if her fury was because she had been cheated out of confronting him, and freezingly ignoring him, or of confronting him and being rapturously reunited with him. One thing was certain. She wasn’t going to be the one to contact him! He would have to contact her!
He didn’t do so, and the date of the wedding drew closer. When his cousins returned to the States, Kyle returned with them, and while his parents remained at Bedingham, announcing that they would not be returning to Boston until after the wedding ceremony, Kyle was photographed wining and dining young women in New York.
Serena didn’t know whether to be amused or outraged. The date was set, and it had not been an easy wedding to arrange. The bishop, whom her father had approached for permission, had agreed that a church wedding was desirable even though a civil ceremony had already been conducted. He was not so sympathetic, however, when it came to his attention that the bride and groom were no longer on speaking terms and not even on the same side of the Atlantic. It had taken all her father’s considerable charm to persuade the bishop to allow the second ceremony to take place.
‘Don’t worry about your dress, darling,’ her mother had said to her airily over the telephone. ‘Mary has all your measurements and is going ahead with the most wonderful design.…’
‘Mary?’ Serena had asked, mystified.
‘Quant. Sweet girl. I’ve invited her and her husband to the wedding, of course, and Mr Jagger and the Animal man.’
By Animal man, Serena assumed her mother was referring to Eric Burden. ‘What about the groom?’ she asked, intrigued. ‘Have you invited him as well? And has he accepted?’
‘I’m not sure I like your sense of humour, darling,’ her mother had replied crisply. ‘Of course Kyle will be there. How could he not be?’
‘Very easily. According to this morning’s newspapers, he’s still in New York.’
‘New York isn’t far away these days.’ Her mother’s voice was bland. ‘Why, even Socialists go there for holidays now.’
At the mention of Socialists, Serena was reminded of Lance. She hadn’t seen him since the day of the concert and was missing his companionship and acerbic remarks almost as much as she was missing Kyle’s lovemaking. ‘Where’s Lance?’ she asked, a small frown furrowing her brow. ‘Is he back at Bedingham yet?’
Lance had removed himself from Bedingham the weekend that she and Kyle had el
oped, informing his mother that he was about to take part in an antiwar vigil outside the American Embassy. Serena had watched the television news attentively, but though the demonstration had been reported at length, she had seen no sign of Lance’s distinctively tall, slender figure and silky pale hair.
‘No, darling,’ her mother said without apparent concern. ‘These demonstrations of his go on for weeks sometimes. Was Kyle hoping he would be best man?’
‘Kyle and Lance barely know each other,’ Serena responded dryly. ‘And I’m quite sure that Lance is the last person on earth Kyle would invite to be his best man. If Kyle is going to turn up at the church, and if he’s had the forethought to ask someone to be his best man, both of which events I think highly unlikely, then he will ask one of his innumerable cousins or a buddy from Princeton.’
When she had replaced the telephone receiver on its rest she had gazed long and hard in a nearby mirror. Kyle could easily have got in touch with her if he had wanted to. The address of her mother’s Chelsea house was hardly a secret, nor was the telephone number.
She tilted her head thoughtfully. Neither, of course, was the address and telephone number of the Dorchester, which was where Kyle had been staying until his departure for the States. She could have got in touch with him if she had wanted to. And she was honest enough to admit that she had wanted to. After all, it wasn’t as if they had quarrelled bitterly. The few days they had spent together had been unbelievably wonderful. Yet she hadn’t telephoned the Dorchester, and now the wedding that had been arranged for them was only three days away.
The frown that had creased her brow when she had been talking to her mother deepened. An army of Blyth-Templetons was due to descend on Bedingham in droves; flocks of Andersons were about to depart from Boston at any moment aboard a private plane chartered by her father-in-law. And she still hadn’t decided what she herself was going to do.
Was she going to be there? Was she going to walk down the aisle on her father’s arm, in her Mary Quant wedding dress? And if she was, would Kyle be there at the altar, waiting for her? The newspapers were already running bets on the outcome, and the odds were heavily against either her or Kyle being at the church for what was being termed the nonwedding of the year.
She turned away from the mirror abruptly. If only Lance hadn’t left in such an annoying way, then she would at least have had someone to share the ridiculousness of the situation with. As it was, there were times when she was beginning to find it extremely boring.
Moodily she turned on the bath taps and emptied half a bottle of Chanel No. 5 into the steaming water. But she wasn’t bored with Kyle. If the truth were known, she was missing him dreadfully.
When there were only twenty-four hours to go before the ceremony, her father finally telephoned her with what he seemed to regard as a minor query. ‘Wondered if you’d seen Kyle lately?’ he asked pleasantly. ‘His parents haven’t. They’re at Bedingham again. Until the wedding.’
‘There isn’t going to be a wedding, Daddy. Or, rather, there isn’t going to be another wedding. One’s obviously quite enough.’
‘Poppycock. Has to be another wedding. Your mother wouldn’t like it if there wasn’t. You should be here by now. Rehearsal at the church and all that sort of thing. I’ll tell your mother that you are on your way. Don’t want her getting into a state over everything. Kyle’s mother isn’t being much of a help. She was quite hysterical at breakfast. Has some fool notion young Kyle is going to make a mess of everything.’
‘Well, he probably is,’ Serena said, wondering how on earth she could have let such a farcical situation arise. ‘He’s obviously not going to be there, and neither am I.’
‘Don’t be a silly girl,’ her father said lovingly. ‘Wouldn’t be cricket if you didn’t turn up. Bad for the family name and all that,’ and he severed the connection, leaving her standing there, the telephone receiver in her hand, tears glittering on her eyelashes.
There were no signs of tears when Toby Langton-Green picked her up that evening in his MG.
‘The papers are doing you proud,’ he said, dropping a copy of the Evening Standard. ‘The latest odds on complete debacle at the church tomorrow are fifty to one. If only one of you turned up, I’d stand to win a quite tidy little sum. I don’t suppose you’re thinking of doing so, are you?’ he asked hopefully.
Serena glared at him. ‘Don’t be an ass, Toby. Do I look like a bride on the eve of her wedding?’ She was wearing over-the-knee derring-do snakeskin boots and a shocking pink, breathtakingly short minidress, the material glittering and shimmering and clinging to her curves as though it were a second skin.
‘No,’ he said frankly, putting the MG into gear and pulling away from the curb. ‘Can’t say you do.’
He turned into the King’s Road, heading west toward Chiswick. ‘I thought we were going for drinks at the Peppermint Lounge and then on to White’s?’
‘We are.’ Toby was elegant in a lace-frilled evening shirt and blue velvet dinner jacket. ‘But there’s a party I’d like to drop in on for a few minutes.’
Serena looked across at him doubtfully. Toby was looking extremely pleased with himself. As if he knew something that she didn’t know and it amused him.
‘If you’ve arranged for newsmen to be there, so that you can hit tomorrow’s headlines as “The Man who Escorted the Bride who Never Was” then you’re going to be very disappointed, Toby. I’m not playing.’
‘Of course you’re not, dear girl,’ Toby said understandingly, patting her knee as he rounded Fulham Palace Road. ‘Wouldn’t dream of it. Nasty things, reporters. Avoid ’em like the plague myself.’
The party was in a towering block of luxury flats overlooking the Thames.
‘Toby!’ squealed their hostess, pushing through the crush to greet them. ‘Serena, darling!’
Serena stared beyond her to where Kyle was lounging against a far wall, one foot crossed over the other at the ankle, a whisky glass in his hand. Their eyes met as streamers flew and champagne corks popped. ‘Toby!’ Serena admonished. But she was elated as the corners of Kyle’s mouth twitched and broke into a dazzling grin, ‘Toby! You devil!’
‘Had to do something, old girl,’ he said, his grin nearly as wide as Kyle’s. ‘Stand to make a tidy sum if one of you turns up tomorrow. If you both turn up, I stand to make a bloody fortune!’
Kyle eased himself carelessly away from the wall and crossed the room towards her. ‘Long time no see,’ he said affably, reaching out for her with a strong hand and drawing her close. ‘Don’t we have a date somewhere tomorrow?’
‘Oh, you bastard!’ she sobbed, her arms sliding around him, her body fitting in perfect familiarity against his. ‘You unbelievable, impossible, evil-natured, wonderful bastard!’
As far as media attention went, it was without doubt the wedding of the year. The elopement and then the bizarre separation and subsequent behaviour of the bride and groom had aroused prurient interest. The presence of pop stars such as Mick Jagger and Eric Burden, and personalities such as Mary Quant, insured that there was a full complement of reporters and photographers present when the bride and her father arrived at Bedingham’s ancient ivy-covered church.
Her dress was of white lace, miniskirted and daringly low-necked. Instead of the usual white satin pumps, she wore knee-high white kid boots, and her veil was the length of her dress, billowing around her and held in place by a single, lush white Bedingham rose.
She was followed down the aisle by two of her friends from finishing school, who had been delighted by the countess’s suggestion that they would surprise Serena by being her bridesmaids, and their dresses, too, in lemon silk, were knee-skimmingly short.
The only blight on the ceremony was the mysterious absence of the bride’s twin brother.
‘I don’t understand it,’ Serena said, turning to her mother as they posed for photographs before leaving the church for the reception. ‘Where on earth can he be? Do you think we should report him to the pol
ice as missing?’
‘Oh, I don’t think Lance would like that at all,’ her mother said. ‘You know how he feels about the police.’
Serena knew how Lance felt, but she was becoming so worried that she was beginning not to care.
‘It’s been four weeks,’ she said to Kyle as they were driven the short distance back to the house in her father’s Silver Shadow Rolls-Royce. ‘He’s never disappeared for so long at a stretch before. Not even when he was taking part in the vigil outside South Africa House.’
‘For goodness sake, forget about him,’ Kyle said equably. ‘He’s not a child. The only people who could be excused for worrying about him are your parents, and neither of them seem even faintly upset.’
‘Neither of my parents are what you might call obsessively caring,’ Serena said, twisting her new diamond-encrusted wedding ring around her finger. It lay snugly next to the cheap, shiny ring she had originally been married with and which she had adamantly refused to remove. ‘In fact, they can’t even be described as normal.’
For once Kyle agreed with her. ‘But whereas Lance would know they wouldn’t be worrying about him, he would certainly know that I would be worrying.’
Kyle looked across at her, one eyebrow rising slightly. It wasn’t the first time he had noticed the throb of emotion in her voice whenever she spoke of her brother. He had met him only briefly, when he and his parents had first arrived at Bedingham, and he hadn’t been overly impressed. There was something weak, almost effeminate about Lance Blyth-Templeton, and from what he had heard of his political affiliations, he doubted if they would ever have much in common.
‘He’s probably at Bedingham,’ he said, not caring much whether he was or he wasn’t. ‘The wedding was a bit of a free-for-all. You can’t blame him for skipping it.’
The reception was already under way as their Rolls slid to a halt outside the south entrance. Eric Burden performed a rendition of House of the Rising Sun without the benefit of his group, Mick Jagger sang Come On, and Kyle and Serena, remembering the circumstances under which they had previously heard him sing it, exchanged hot looks and then burst into shouts of uncontrollable laughter. When old Herricot eased himself through the crush to her side and whispered to her that Master Lance had arrived and was in the old nursery and wanting to have a few words with her, Serena’s happiness was complete.
White Christmas in Saigon Page 13
