Bad Brides (15 page)

Ken’s previous two marriages had produced no offspring, something that had never bothered him. It had been an unexpected, but charming bonus that with Tamra he had found not only a
gorgeous trophy wife, but a pretty, affectionate, grateful daughter: he had lavished money and attention on Brianna Jade in order to turn her, Cinderella-like, into a sophisticated glowing blonde
princess fit for the highest circles of West Palm Beach society. But cooking lessons would not have fallen into the princess category. Maybe a Cordon Bleu course would have been acceptable, but
Brianna Jade would have to have known her way around at least the basics of a kitchen before she dared to go near something as smart as that.

Well, so much for Mrs Hurley teaching me how to cook,
she thought wistfully.
Maybe I should take up embroidery. That sounds very aristocratic. Ladies are always embroidering on
those wooden circle things in the movies. And it might not be exactly practical, but it would be something to do. I’m not brainy like Mom, I can’t lose myself in a book like she does. I
need a hobby I can do with my hands . . .

She was over the lawns now, heading at a long, easy lope down the slope that led to the ornamental lake. Even before it came into view, she heard the clash of chisels on stone, the whine of
machinery which was hoisting replacement blocks into place to substitute some that had been found to be dangerously cracked. The work on the bridge was well under way, would be completed in plenty
of time for the wedding. Brianna Jade skirted the lake, waving cheerfully at the men labouring below, who stopped, shading their eyes with their hands, to watch the blonde vision that was the lucky
Earl’s bride-to-be flit past in her trainers, her long tanned legs lifting and falling effortlessly, her bosom strapped down with a sports bra but still with enough of a jiggle to keep them
hypnotized.

‘Lucky bugger – all that and pots of money too,’ one of them commented, shaking his head.

‘You seen her mum?’ another one asked, whistling long and low as Brianna Jade’s bouncing ponytail disappeared around the back of the gazebo. ‘If he’s
really
lucky he’ll be doing ’em both!’

‘You filthy bugger,’ the first one said happily. ‘
That
’ll be summat to think about later . . .’

The gardens were separated from the farmland beyond by what was called a ha-ha, which Brianna Jade had thought for ages was some sort of in-joke of Edmund’s: eventually she had looked it
up and discovered that it was actually a real word, meaning what they’d call a ‘drop-off’ in the States. The land fell away sharply below the gardens so that animals grazing, or
farm workers toiling away below, could see the boundary, but the Respers family and guests strolling in the pleasure gardens would merely perceive a long green stretch of lawns and plantings
flowing gently into the rolling fields beyond. Combine harvesters were ticking away in the distant fields, the air crisp with warm summer scents, the perfume of linden trees and freshly cut hay; it
was a glorious perspective, a perfect English late-summer panorama, and Brianna Jade stopped for a moment to appreciate it. She was incredibly lucky that all of this was so soon to be hers,
inherited by her children, this countryside that had to be among the most beautiful in the world, these lands so rich and verdant that she couldn’t see why anyone would ever want to live in
town when you could be surrounded by this pastoral bliss instead . . .

And then another scent reached her nostrils, and she inhaled it with even more delight than the smell of fresh hay and linden. It wouldn’t have appealed to many people, but to Brianna Jade
of Kewanee, Illinois, the smell of a pig farm was as delicious and familiar as lavender to a girl who had grown up in Provence. She was too young to have seen the Bisto gravy ads where eager
children with pug noses followed the visible brown trails of meaty gravy smell to their point of origin, but what she did now was just the same; sniffing the air like a bloodhound, she jogged
around the ha-ha, tracking the odour of pig as it grew stronger, eventually spotting the farm buildings and fenced pens up ahead where her quarry had to be located.

Pigs! They were her favourite animal. She’d grown up around them: everyone had pigs in Kewanee. People laughed at the current fashion for keeping pot-bellied pigs as pets, but why not?
Pigs were friendly, loyal, and very clean. They recognized people and their voices just as much as dogs did, and they sure as hell never tried to hump your leg.

‘Oh
wow
!’ broke from her lips as she reached the first pen. Forgetting all about needing to cool down and stretch after a run, she hung eagerly over the railing, staring at
the animals inside. They were huge, with wide-set lop ears that drooped over their eyes, almost covering them completely. The dirty white colour of their hair, dappled with big black spots, made
their forward-thrust noses seem even pinker; snuffling with excitement at seeing a new human, several of the sows trotted forward to greet Brianna Jade and see if she had any scraps to throw them,
oinking happily in greeting.

‘Hey, ladies!’ she said, squatting on her haunches to scratch their backs, digging her fingers in just the way she knew they would like, utterly careless of her shellacked nails.
Their hair was silkier and straighter than the pigs she’d known back home, but they were every bit as friendly, jostling to get close to her even when it was clear that no mid-morning snack
would be forthcoming. Their noses were soft and smooth against her knees as they pushed their faces through the bars.

‘Oh, you’re
lovely
!’ she cooed at them. ‘Good girls, lovely ladies . . .’

She could have stayed there all day hanging out with them, and they would have been very happy; when one of them eventually wandered off to flop down on the short grass with a heavy grunt,
another came over to take her place. It was only an awareness that she had lunch at one, and would need to be back, showered, and nicely dressed in time for it which made Brianna Jade, reluctantly,
climb back to her feet; even then, she noticed a stick propped against the railing and, knowing exactly what it was for, picked it up and started scratching the sows further down their backs, which
sent them into fresh snuffles of excitement.

Happy memories were flooding back to her. Days in Kewanee, when she was old enough to roam around with her friends, or even on her own, hanging out on the local smallholdings, helping the
farmers with the farrowing sows, lugging pails of slop and dumping them into the troughs, cleaning out the sties. Tickling their tummies as they rolled over enthusiastically and waved their
trotters in anticipation. Sweeping the wood shavings they slept in into neat piles that they would burrow in happily, watching them wallow in the summer mudslicks, as Mrs Lutz explained that pigs
didn’t sweat and wallowing was the only way for them to cool down in the heat . . .

Winning Pork Queen at the Kewanee Hog Day fair had been the highlight of her life, the best thing that had ever happened to her; being the crowned queen, standing on the tractor trailer, her
sash arranged over the pigskin jacket she wore proudly over her cheap blue pageant dress, hearing the crowd cheer as she scattered Oreo cookies on the finish line of the hog race, the signal for
the competing pigs to be released and scamper as fast as their trotters would carry them towards the enticing black-and-white cookies . . . oh, how happy she’d been at that moment! Her heart
had literally been as full up with happiness as a trough brimming over with potato peelings.

And of course, the irony was that my winning Pork Queen was the thing that made Mom think I could compete in pageants and take me away from Kewanee and all the lovely pigs.

She sighed.
Mom never lets me say a word about Kewanee. She took away that pigskin jacket, and all the photos of me in my crown holding a cute little piglet and kissing it. Those were
such
cut
e photos . . . Okay, I know why she doesn’t want us talking about it any more. I do get it. We’d get so teased about it – no, way more than teased. Torn to
shreds. We’d never hear the end of it.

But it’s hard not talking about some of the happiest memories I’ve ever had. Maybe the happiest.

‘Ooh-arr,’ came a deep male voice, and Brianna Jade, who hadn’t realized there was anyone else around but the pigs, jumped about a foot and looked around her wildly for the
origin of the sound.

‘Ooh-arr,’ the voice said again, and this time she located its origin: an enormous, muddy man standing inside the pen, having just emerged from the shed. He was wearing ancient,
faded dungarees over a T-shirt, and he was leaning on a big, equally muddy spade; she couldn’t quite understand how he had got so filthy. It was only later that she would realize that there
was a wallowing patch out behind the back of the shed that needed to be watered and turned over in the absence of rain.

He raised a hand and brushed it across his face, probably meaning to push his hair back, but only succeeding in plastering brackish mud across his forehead in a thick diagonal stripe; there were
already splashes of mud up his legs and over his arms from vigorous work with the spade. The sun was behind him, and mostly what Brianna Jade could see was a looming, hugely muscled shape, his
biceps swelling like melons below the short sleeves of his T-shirt, his wellington-booted legs spread as wide as his massive shoulders. It looked as if it would take the forklift that had
transported the Rayburn ranges to move him if he didn’t want to budge.

‘Um, hi?’ Brianna Jade said, putting down the stick and resting it against the railings. ‘The pigs are
great
.’

He just stood staring at her. It was beginning to feel like a confrontation in a Western movie, as if he were the local lawman, she were new in town, and he wasn’t sure whether to trust
her with the pigs or not. Like, uh, a pig sheriff.

‘I was just scratching their backs,’ she said a little nervously. ‘I really like pigs – I kinda grew up around them. Anyway, I should get going! Uh, nice to meet
you.’

‘Ooh-arr,’ the man rumbled again without moving a muscle.

She turned and started to walk away, then broke into a jog, heading back the way she’d come; after a few minutes, with the ha-ha coming into view in front of her, she turned to look back.
The man-mountain was still there, huge hands planted on his spade, staring after her.

Jeez,
she thought.
I’ve never seen anyone nearly that big over here. They don’t usually come that size in the UK.
Back home in Illinois, they bred on a massive
scale: it was all the German and Scandinavian stock, large farmers who had emigrated from Europe in search of land, been nourished on the abundant protein so easily available in the New World, and
grown even larger, like a race of giants. When the Future Farmers and Future Homemakers of America conventions rolled into town, hotels trembled for their furniture. The looming silhouette of
someone whose hands were almost as big as his spade made Brianna Jade oddly nostalgic: she had always been one of the tallest girls at pageants, the wide square shoulders inherited from her farmer
father perfect for carrying off elaborate draped dresses, but she’d often felt big and awkward next to the smaller Asian or Hispanic-origin contestants, with their small bones and delicate
frames, the dancers who did ballet or rhythmic gymnastics for the talent section, tiny and flexible in their leotards.

While back home in Kewanee, I was normal. Hell, next to that guy back there, I’d be positively petite!
She couldn’t help grinning as she skirted the ha-ha, heading back to
the Hall.
I should have told Mom to take me to Germany instead of Britain, snagged a whatever-they-have over there. A Prince, maybe. Hey, maybe even a King – Herzoslovakia has one going
free!

The main entrance of Stanclere Hall, with its double-winged stone staircase and impressive carved oak doors, was only used on formal occasions. It seemed weird to Tamra and Brianna Jade to have
such an impressive front door and barely use it, but Edmund had looked so taken aback at the idea that they access the house by anything but one of the side doors that they had given up any attempt
to change his mind. If they were going to join British society, Tamra had observed, they had to figure out the non-negotiables. En-suite bathrooms, kitchen overhauls: no problem at all. Using the
main door on a regular basis: absolutely out of the question.

So Brianna Jade looped round the façade of the house again. She was too sweaty by now to be comfortable going in by the terrace which overlooked the lawns and led to the main suite of
entertaining rooms. The drawing rooms might be dilapidated, the stucco on their ceilings peeling, their rugs faded, their draperies moth-eaten, but they were still too formal to walk through in
damp, tight Lycra exercise wear. She was making for a side door with glass panels that led to a back hallway that would take her up a staircase to the first floor, directly to the bedroom wing.
Stanclere Hall, unlike many other stately homes that had been added to with each new generation, had been built in one well-planned swoop, and the interiors were not the confusing maze that others
had become with the addition of new wings over the centuries.

But as she swung around the side of the Hall, having slowed to a walk to cool down, she saw her fiancé’s battered old Land Rover pulling up by the stables, Edmund coming back from
his morning’s work to join her for lunch. Before she had more or less moved in, he had stayed out in the fields all day, taking a packed lunch like the farmhands did; but, to keep her company
and build up their relationship, he had deliberately changed his routine. She was sure it was an inconvenience for him but was too grateful to tell him not to do it. The lunches were a lifeline to
her, broke up the monotony of her days enough that she could get through them successfully.

Edmund swung down from the Land Rover, not seeing her walking towards him, and stood there for a moment, rolling back his shoulders, as hot and sweaty as Brianna Jade: his T-shirt was sticking
to his chest, his ancient, stained jeans clinging to his legs. The Earl of Respers pulled up the hem of his sweat-stained T-shirt to wipe his face and revealed his torso, lean and muscled, but not
overtly, the body of a man who did regular physical work, not a gym rat. Her trainers crunched on the gravel and she stopped, wanting suddenly to watch Edmund when he wasn’t aware that she
was there.