Bad Brides (26 page)

‘Good girl,’ he said to her. ‘There’s many as ’ud just reach over without asking. Just scratch her behind the ears while she’s eating, eh?’

He shifted over, his great arms sliding along the rail to make room for Brianna Jade in front of the sow; she couldn’t help noticing the size of his forearms and biceps, bulging below the
rolled-up sleeves of his faded check shirt.

‘Yeah, I know,’ she said, stepping up onto the bottom rail so that she could lean over enough to scratch the bristly skin between the sow’s large, forward-slanted ears.
‘I grew up round pigs. I come from Illinois – that’s pig and corn country.’

‘Is it now?’ Abel said, bending to pick up some straw and angling it into his mouth, chewing it, his eyebrows raised in interest. ‘You got Berkshires over there, then? In
America?’

‘I don’t know what a Berkshire is,’ Brianna Jade confessed.

‘This lady’s a Berkshire,’ Abel said, chewing away. ‘It’s the breed.’

‘Oh! I get it! We’ve got Yorkshires, Durocs, Hampshires, Landraces, Spots . . .’ Brianna Jade frowned in concentration. ‘Those are the main ones I can think of. Lots of
English breeds that you guys brought over when you came to settle.’

‘What’s a Duroc, then?’ Abel asked, head tilted. ‘Never heard of that.’

‘They’re the only native American ones I know,’ Brianna Jade said eagerly, very happy to be talking about a subject in which she was genuinely interested: try as she might, she
just couldn’t find Edmund’s discourses on arable farming half as fascinating as pigs. They’re big and dark red – real red, and real gentle too. Very easy-going.’

‘Ooh-arr,’ Abel said, nodding. ‘I know the ones. We just call ’em “reds” over here, leastways that’s what I’ve always heard ’em called. Nice
friendly beasts.’

‘What are the ones up front, the spotty ones?’ Brianna Jade asked. ‘I keep meaning to look them up. They’re real friendly too.’

‘Those’re Old Spots – Gloucester Old Spots, to give ’em the full name,’ Abel informed her through his straw. ‘You won’t have seen them over in America,
I’d guess. They’re a rare breed nowadays. Dunno why – lovely beasts, they are. We feed ’em from the cider and perry orchards here – they love the fruit, they do, and
it makes the meat taste sweet as sugar. If you’ve had pork up at the Hall that melted in your mouth, miss, that’s Old Spot.’

‘Mrs Hurley made pork and apple medallions the other night with cream and cider,’ Brianna Jade said. ‘Oh my God, that was so good!’

Though I didn’t have the cream, just a tiny smear off Edmund’s plate, because of fitting into my wedding dress,
she remembered gloomily.
How I wish everyone was like
Abel and thought I was skinny already.

‘There you go!’ Abel said, grinning. ‘I can see that you grew up round farm animals, miss. We breed ’em to eat ’em, and that’s the truth.’

‘They have great lives here, I can see that,’ Brianna Jade said sincerely. ‘And I really love pork! We ate so much of it back home. Our big fair’s called Kewanee Hog
Days, and you should see the barbecue pits they have there – oh my God, the ribs are
incredible.
When I won the Pork Queen pageant, we all had to make a pork dish as part of the
competition, and I made this Tater Tots casserole. I don’t suppose you can even get Tater Tots over here?’

‘Never even heard of ’em,’ Abel said cheerfully.

‘They’re
way
yummy,’ Brianna Jade said wistfully, quite forgetting her British language lessons. ‘They’re sorta like hash browns in little crunchy bites
– you buy them frozen in big bags.’

‘Ooh-arr – like potato crunchies from Iceland!’ Abel said, nodding vigorously again. The straw was chewed down now: he spat out the end lustily and it shot over the sow’s
back and onto the ground.

‘You get potatoes all the way from Iceland?’ Brianna Jade was really confused. ‘Don’t you, like, grow them here?’

Abel threw back his head and laughed, a deep rumbling noise like the Jolly Green Giant, a huge bellow that literally did sound like ‘Ho ho ho!’ Even the pig looked up briefly before
lowering her snout once more and recommencing her feed. He was laughing at what she’d said, Brianna Jade knew, but she didn’t feel at all offended: there was no mockery behind it.

‘Iceland’s the name of a supermarket,’ Abel explained, turning fully to face her, rocking back on his heels, his hands in the pockets of his dungarees. ‘Most of the
food’s in freezers, so that’s why they called it—’

‘Iceland! I get it!’

They grinned at each other in complete amity, and then Brianna Jade jumped as if she’d been electrocuted. Suddenly she realized that her Lycra exercise clothes were clammy with sweat, her
stomach rumbling with hunger, she was thirsty and she needed to stretch: hanging out with Abel and the pig had completely distracted her from anything else. But that wasn’t the source of her
real discomfort. She had been so relaxed in this conversation, more relaxed than she had been during her entire stay at Stanclere Hall, that she had not only slipped back into Americanisms that she
was trying to eliminate: much worse, she had let slip the information about being Pork Queen of Kewanee, something that Tamra had banned her pretty much on pain of death from ever repeating.

‘What is it?’ Abel said, frowning deeply, his thick eyebrows drawing together. ‘You look like you seen a ghost!’

‘My mom – I’m not supposed to—’ Brianna Jade took in a deep breath. ‘What I said about being Pork Queen – I’m not supposed to tell
anyone
! It’s not what the Earl of Respers wants people saying about his wife, you know?’ She looked up at him, and an even scarier thought struck her. ‘You know who I am,
right? Oh boy, I didn’t even think of that!’

Now Abel was laughing again.

‘Who else would I think you were, miss? We’ve never seen anything like you round these parts. Running round like you’re always in a hurry. I saw you with the Old Spots many a
time, but I thought it wasn’t my place to talk to you, seeing as you’re going to marry Mr Edmund. But then you came over here to see the Empress, and we got chatting away, all
easy-like, just like I might with Mr Edmund. I wouldn’t repeat a word that you told me, miss, if you’d rather not. Not to a living soul.’

‘
Thank
you,’ Brianna Jade said with huge relief, sensing without a shred of doubt that he was telling the truth.

‘But I
would
like to tell my gran what you put in that casserole, though,’ he said, and he winked at her.

She giggled, turning to leave.

‘You take cream, cheddar cheese, eggs,’ she said over her shoulder. ‘All beaten up together. You cook pork sausage and slice it in and then bake it with the Tater Tots on top.
I used to spike the cream with a little bit of Tabasco.’

Abel nodded. ‘I’ll tell Gran,’ he said.

‘Wait, what did you call the pig?’ Brianna Jade pivoted back on the rubber heel of her running shoe, just catching up to something he had said.

He winked again.

‘She’s called Empress of Stanclere,’ he told her. ‘So that makes one empress and one queen right here, doesn’t it?’

Brianna Jade flinched, and he made a swift, reassuring gesture, a wave of his hand that said she had nothing to be concerned about.

‘Don’t worry, miss. It’s our secret.’

‘Thank you,’ she said again, and paused. ‘You’re Abel, aren’t you? Edmund told me a while back.’

He nodded. ‘Abel Wellbeloved, at your service.’

He reached up and tugged at the front of his hair, like pulling a forelock, a gesture that Brianna didn’t understand.

‘And I’m Brianna Jade,’ she said. ‘I mean, you probably know that. Call me that, please, not “miss”. It’s been so nice hanging out with you just now.
I’d like
someone
here to call me by my name
.
’

‘I could give it a try,’ he said doubtfully.

She flashed him a gorgeous pageant smile that rocked him right back on his heels.

‘Thanks, Abel!’ she called over her shoulder.

It was only as she was rounding the lake that it occurred to her that of course she had someone at Stanclere Hall who already called her by her name: her fiancé.

But that’s the thing – Edmund’s my fiancé, and Abel’s like – well, almost like a friend. A fellow pig-loving friend. Who I can see most days when I visit
the pigs. And talk to about pigs, and Tater Tot casseroles, and life back home in Kewanee . . .

Brianna Jade felt a huge, happy smile spread across her face as she jogged back to the Hall. Despite the fact that Abel was one of her fiancé’s employees, and a lowly one at that,
she’d felt more relaxed, more normal in that conversation than she had with anyone since she’d come to live at Stanclere Hall.

Even with Edmund
, a little voice said to her disloyally.
You don’t chatter away as easily with Edmund as you just did with that pig farmer.

Well, that makes sense!
she told herself firmly.
There’s no pressure on you and Abel to fall in love, is there? He’s probably married already with tons of kids. Country
people get hitched young. I’d be married with kids too if I’d stayed back home in Kewanee.

And to her horror, a wave of nostalgia hit her hard, harder than she could possibly have expected. Memories of running round barefoot, the soles of her feet like leather, chasing the
landlords’ chickens and piglets: the Lutzes had always been nice about keeping an eye on Brianna Jade while Tamra worked all the hours God sent at the feed store and then put in a shift at
the local bar at Hogs and Cobs.

Tamra had been so proud of the house she’d rented for her and BJ, a rickety old two-bed one-storey behind the Lutzes’ place which Dieter Lutz had jerry-rigged with a totally illegal
electric cable running perilously from theirs. But it had a proper porch, with a rusty old swing on it to boot, even if they were too scared to both sit on the swing together in case it broke.
Plus, the main thing, it wasn’t a trailer. No one would ever say that she had raised her daughter in a trailer park, Tamra had always said, her jaw set, her beautiful lips pressed tightly
together: she’d work three jobs before she ever let herself and Brianna Jade end up there. To be honest, living in a trailer wasn’t the stigma people familiar with the cliché
might think: there were some pretty nice trailer courts in the area, not cheap by any means. They were a lot cleaner and neater than the tumbledown shack the Lutzes charged Tamra peanuts to rent.
But it was a house, and to Tamra that meant the world.

And it had been a wonderful childhood for Brianna Jade. Kids didn’t care about rickety floorboards, pipes you had to bang with a hammer to get the water to flow, the crawl space below the
house being a squirrel colony: what Brianna Jade remembered was the long summer days spent entirely outdoors, playing with the Lutzes’ cats, learning where each hen liked to lay her eggs,
helping feed the turkey being fattened up for Thanksgiving and the pigs for Christmas. She and Dorothy Lutz had cried and hugged each other and been very sad to say goodbye when, after Brianna Jade
won Pork Queen, Tamra packed up her and her daughter’s scanty possessions and took them on the pageant circuit.

Jeez, BJ, you’re remembering Kewanee like it was paradise, and that’s crazy!
she told herself firmly as she crested the rise and the glorious spectacle of Stanclere Hall,
bathed in soft September sunshine, came into view, breathtaking as always.
Look where you ended up! You’re not missing the freezing winters when it was colder in the house than outside,
or those Converse sneakers Mom bought for you at Goodwill which were so torn up it was easier to go barefoot and pretend you preferred it. You’re not missing that part at all. You just loved
the farm life, the livestock, how simple it all was.

Even jogging along, she heaved a sigh.
I do miss not worrying about what I wear, or how much make-up I have on, or how much I weigh. But actually, I still have to worry about all that, and I
suppose I always will as the Countess of Respers.

She had to stop this line of thought. It wasn’t remotely helpful. Brianna Jade was going to be Countess of Respers, which was her mom’s dream, but after her marriage she’d take
things in a different direction than her mom might anticipate. Tamra was hoping that Brianna Jade would be a high-society Countess, moving in the best circles, throwing fabulous house parties,
skiing in the winter, summering in Antibes in luxury villas. Brianna Jade, however, was envisaging a much more rural existence. Breeding dogs, learning to ride well enough to join the local hunt,
visiting the pigs and the Empress of Stanclere on a daily basis; she was figuring out ways to fit into Edmund’s farming life, and thought that her plans were going to work out pretty
well.

’
Cause after I get married, Mom’s going to realize that I’m not going to want to do as many photo shoots for glossy magazines as she’d like. Of course, I’ll go
along with some to keep her happy, but I refuse to spend the rest of my life dolling myself up and watching my weight. I’ve been doing that since I was fifteen, and I’m really looking
forward to being able to hang up my curling irons, spend whole days without a lick of make-up, and eat as much cream sauce with Mrs Hurley’s pork medallions as I want.

The last image, in particular, cheered Brianna Jade up so much that as she slowed to a walk for her post-run cooldown, she was smiling again. Ready for a long drink of water, and for lunch in a
couple of hours, if her rumbling stomach could wait that long; but she had sugar-free gum in her room, that old pageant trick to make you feel like you were eating when you weren’t, and
hopefully it’d keep her going until the cold roast beef and salad Mrs Hurley was making her for lunch.

‘Miss Brianna! There she is. Miss Brianna, there’s a phone message for you.’

It was Mrs Hurley herself, craning out of the kitchen door to catch Brianna Jade on her way back into the Hall.

‘Really?’

Brianna Jade turned towards Mrs Hurley, her perfectly shaped eyebrows rising a little in surprise. She had her own mobile, which no one else would have dreamt of answering; it was unprecedented
for anyone to ring her on the main Stanclere Hall phone line, which was used mainly by Mrs Hurley for placing orders and communicating with tradespeople.