Bad Brides (36 page)

‘Christ,’ Dominic murmured devoutly, whipping the hem of his dinner jacket over his crotch.

‘But I think we could all do with stretching our legs a bit?’ Edmund was saying. ‘We’ve got billiards and table tennis, but my contribution to the entertainment’s a
rather fun idea I’ve been planning: does anyone feel like a game of croquet?’

‘
Outdoors?
’ Milly, who was very tiddly by now, squeaked in surprise.

‘We’ve got torches set up all around the lawn, so we can see what we’re doing, and to warm us up a bit,’ Edmund revealed. ‘And I ordered a set of glow-in-the-dark
balls off the internet! Who’s up for it?’

Almost everyone was. Dominic made a valiant attempt to convince Tamra to sneak upstairs with him and make a start on the mattress test-run, but she was fizzing with energy and loved the idea of
outdoor croquet with glow-in-the-dark balls. She slapped him away playfully as he grabbed at her in the corridor outside her suite; they had all raced upstairs to change into warmer clothes and
flat shoes for the women.

‘I’ll come and find you later,’ he promised. ‘Here, right? I’ll come to your room?’

‘Of course.’ Tamra tossed her hair back. ‘Do I look like a woman who has to sneak down corridors to get laid?’

‘You look like fucking sex on legs,’ he said, snatching her hand and pressing it eloquently to his crotch for a second, moulding her palm around the outline of his cock. ‘Feel
how hard you get me? I can’t wait till I get you naked—’

But just then Edmund and some other house guests rounded the corner of the wing, and Tamra, saying: ‘Hold that thought, tiger,’ slipped through her door and shut it firmly in his
face. For a second or two, she considered giving herself a quick orgasm or two, taking down the pressure that was pounding between her legs; she was swollen herself, the blood racing to her crotch,
and the feeling of Dominic’s cock had had almost exactly the effect he had intended. Almost: it hadn’t been quite as big as she had been hoping for.

But hey, there are angles that’ll work for that. And I’m always up for a good ass-fucking, she thought with a wicked smile. Best thing to do with an average-to-small dick. God,
I’m horny!

Tamra had been so busy putting together the shoot and the house party, pulling Stanclere Hall into shape (or parts of it – the main guest wing and some of the public rooms; there were
definitely doors that still needed to remain firmly closed to guests) that she hadn’t had time to let loose, to ring Diane’s agency and book herself in a boy or three.
Jeez, Dominic
had better have been eating raw meat and working out to keep up with me tonight!
she thought.
I’m loaded for bear.

Dominic was late to the croquet game, and when he did arrive his smile was even more devilish than usual. Even by the flickering light of the many torches, it was obvious that he had been up to
something. Edmund asked suspiciously what the hell he’d been doing, but Dominic just smirked and wouldn’t say a word. Edmund frowned, but Tamra just assumed that Dominic had, frankly,
been knocking out a quick one before joining the game, and winked at him flirtatiously. She was hugely impressed with Edmund, who had not only put a great deal of effort into organizing this
croquet game, but had done it all secretly, knowing that she had more than enough on her plate without adding this idea of his into the mix. She told him so as they awaited their turns, sipping hot
mulled wine and rum toddies from antique cut-glass punch cups, their gloved fingers carefully clasping the miniature curved handles, another lovely surprise that Edmund had arranged with Mrs
Hurley.

‘It was supposed to be a treat for Brianna Jade,’ he said rather wistfully as he blew on his toddy. ‘She loves croquet, and she was talking the other day about the hot buttered
rum drinks that you have over in America. I thought she’d really like all this. I did pop into her room, but she’s lying down and says she has a terrible headache. It must have started
before the shoot, I think, because she didn’t seem quite her usual cheerful self when it was all going on . . .’

‘God, your British understatement,’ Tamra said bitterly, slugging down her rum, her eyebrows raised. ‘Not quite her usual self? She’s in pieces! I don’t know what
went wrong today, but I’m going to get to the bottom of it, I promise you that—’

‘Tamra! You’re up!’ Lance called, and Tamra handed her cup to Edmund and went off to take the stroke for her team.

Dominic, however, having turned up late, had found all the teams full and no chance to play; he compensated by drinking steadily for the entire duration of the game, and by the time they all
strolled over the lawns back to the Hall, he was visibly reeling. A murmured word from Edmund: ‘Old chap, you’re totally bladdered and you stink of rum, I’d stick my head under
the cold tap if I were you’ – and Dominic staggered upstairs, hauling himself up by the balustrade, heading for his room to follow Edmund’s advice.

He was just towelling off when the door of his bedroom burst open and his host stormed in.

‘Dom, what the
fuck
!’ Edmund shouted. ‘I had a feeling you’d been up to no good when you turned up at the croquet court, so I went up to my room, and sure
enough, you’ve been up to your old tricks! You put a bloody raw fish in my bed, you bastard!’

Dominic, whose head was spinning from the amount of rum he’d added to the whole bucketful of cocktails, champagne, wine, and brandy he’d already drunk before the lethal punch bowl
had been produced, reeled back from this onslaught, clapping his hands to his temples.

‘Really loud,’ he moaned. ‘Ow, Ed, no need to shout.’

‘I’m not bloody sleeping in there!’ Edmund yelled. ‘I’ve got a poor maid coming to take the damn fish away, but I’m not sleeping on that mattress! Honestly,
Dom, it’s the total limit! How did you even get a fish – did you take one from the kitchen?’

His eyes fell on the cooler pushed against the bedroom wall.

‘God, you planned this out enough to
bring
one?’ he said incredulously. ‘Dom, that’s so bloody juvenile! We’re in our thirties now, you know? I’m
getting married, settling down . . .’

An even more serious thought struck Edmund then.

‘I tell you what, no way am I letting you anywhere near organizing my stag night,’ he said with awful emphasis. ‘You’ll take me on safari in Africa, get me drunk, take my
clothes off, tie me to a tree and shove raw chillies up my bum like Toby did to Plumpy Thurston.’

Dominic hung his head: this was indeed exactly what he had been envisaging for Edmund’s stag night.

‘Look, get your toothbrush and your pjs and whatever else you need,’ Edmund ordered firmly, ‘and fuck off into my room. You put that fish in there, and you can sleep with the
smell – it bloody stinks.’

No problem,
Dominic thought drunkenly.
I’ll be ravaging that gorgeous cougar all night long in her palatial boudoir. I’ll be fine – I won’t need to spend the
night in Edmund’s stinky-fish room either.

He couldn’t tell Edmund that, of course; his friend had already made it clear that he took a very dim view of Dominic flirting with Edmund’s mother-in-law-to-be. So Dominic gathered
his toothbrush and picked up his pyjama case, which had been laid out for him by the maid on his four-poster bed, and made his way down the corridor to the master bedroom of Stanclere Hall. Even
after the sluicing down with cold water, he wasn’t feeling very well: on arrival, he shut the door behind him, took a couple of deep breaths and then staggered over to the imposing bed to put
down his pyjama case.

Unfortunately, bending over to put the case on the bed was his undoing. It was the fish reek that did it. Edmund hadn’t been exaggerating about the smell: it was as if, for extra stink
effect, the fishmonger had gutted other fishes and shoved the entrails into the mouth of the one Dominic had bought. Lifting his head again brought on a violent case of the retches. Everything he
had eaten and drunk that evening came up, suddenly and furiously, and it was lucky for Dominic that there was a wastebasket next to the bed, because there was no way he could have made it to the
new en-suite bathroom. The contents of his stomach took quite a while to void, and the wastebasket was brimming with gelatinous gunge by the time he felt, gingerly, that the last clutching spasms
of his upper colon were finally beginning to recede.

It was by no means the first time Dominic had upchucked, and it was very unlikely to be the last. He was fairly phlegmatic about the situation: these things happened when you partied hard.
Better out than in. All he needed now was a little rest before he went back downstairs and completed his seduction of Tamra, that glorious American sex goddess. There was a large and comfortable
leather armchair in Edmund’s room, and Dominic subsided into it, closing his eyes.

Bit of shut-eye, and I’ll be as good as new
, were his last thoughts before he passed out, exhausted by his recent endeavours.
Wake up in twenty minutes, wash my face, brush my
teeth, shove on some more aftershave, shag till dawn. Perfect.

His chin dropped to his chest and he started to snore heavily. It was a deep, rumbling snore, a precursor to equally deep sleep: Dominic passed out completely until dawn was breaking and the
smell of his own vomit woke him to a raging, dehydrated hangover.

No one else had hit the punch bowl as hard as Dominic; Minty and Sophie were not completely steady, but the cold air had balanced out the alcohol. Edmund proposed a game of
Twister in the library, and Tamra shot him a very approving glance. This was how to run a house party, moving guests from one delightful activity to another, ideally ensuring that no one got too
raging drunk along the way.

‘You’re doing a great job,’ she said to him as they walked towards the library, leading the way. ‘I really didn’t expect you to be such a good host.’

Edmund grinned, his smile very boyish. ‘You must think I’m completely devoid of all the social graces, Tamra,’ he said teasingly.

‘I love the way you guys talk!’ she said, very amused. ‘Like you swallowed a dictionary! You’ve got to admit, Edmund, all of that stuff you were spouting about not
wanting to have parties in the Hall—’

‘Not wanting to have them non-stop, when I have a farm to run,’ he corrected her. ‘But I must admit, I wasn’t expecting to enjoy this weekend half as much as I am.
Obviously posing for photos isn’t really my thing . . .’

‘Hey, that’s the price of the ticket,’ Tamra said, flashing him a smile that teased him back.

‘But yes, I do know that’s the price of the ticket,’ he agreed equably. ‘And seeing the old place come to life like this is genuinely,’ he considered for a moment,
‘inspiring. Truly, I mean that.’

‘Wow, Edmund, seriously?’ Tamra put her hand on his arm, dropping the joking, her dark eyes fixed on his; in her four-inch heels they were almost the same height. ‘That’s
the biggest compliment you’ve ever paid me.’

He patted her hand; the house guests flooded past them, pulling out the Twister mat from the box on the console table, arguing about whether they should all play at once or in a series of
matches.

‘I owe you an apology, Tamra, for being a bit of a grumpy bastard yesterday,’ he said disarmingly. ‘I realize, to be honest, that my parents weren’t exactly gifted at
entertaining. It always seemed like a terrible headache for them when we needed to host parties – and, to be even more honest, the state of the place was an embarrassment too. It felt like
Mummy was always scrabbling around to manage something remotely decent, and failing, you know? Just sort of constant humiliation, if I am being completely frank. This is worlds away from all of
that.’

‘Oh, Edmund!’ She squeezed his hand hard, full of sympathy; she knew what it was like to be embarrassed by poverty. ‘No wonder you didn’t want to have parties!’

The Twister group had drawn lots, and Minty and Tarquin were the first up; already the spectators, perched on the Chesterfield armchairs or standing smoking by the fireplace, were collapsing in
fits of giggles as Lady Margaret, who had taken command of spinning the pointer to avoid any pressure to play herself, announced: ‘Right hand green!’ and both Minty and Tarquin fell
over each other competing for the same convenient dot of colour.

‘You’re gifted at being a hostess,’ Edmund said simply. ‘You make it look easy. Whereas Mummy made it seem like she was waging the Battle of Stalingrad every single time.
I mean, if things are fun, it makes all the difference in the world.’

They both glanced over at the Twister mat, Minty and Tarquin spidered out across it, Minty’s narrow hips piking up over Tarquin as she tried desperately to reach back with her foot to a
yellow dot: even Lady Margaret had tears of laughter in her eyes as she spun the pointer again.

‘I’d say things are definitely fun,’ Tamra agreed. ‘And now the Hall’s running so well, I can pass the reins over to Brianna Jade. Once the building works are
finished, of course. I just know she’s going to love throwing parties just as much as I do . . .’

She started strong, but the expression of doubt on Edmund’s face made her tail off.

‘Well, she will. In time. As she builds her confidence,’ Tamra said more feebly.

‘Tamra, she’s more than fine as she is,’ Edmund said gently. ‘I’m not expecting her to be like you, and nor should you, if you see what I mean. She’s finding
her own place here.’

‘Yes, at the damn pigsties,’ Tamra murmured crossly. ‘I swear, it’s her favourite place in Stanclere.’

Edmund laughed. ‘I love it down there too, you know,’ he said reassuringly. ‘You have to let her be herself, Tamra.’

‘Oh, shut up!’ Tamra slapped his arm. ‘How dare you make more sense than me, when I’m kinda the mother and you’re the son? That’s completely the wrong way
round!’

‘Tamra, stop saying that!’ Edmund said, irritated. You’re only a few years older than me. It makes me feel fantastically awkward, to tell you the truth.’

‘I’m sorry. I only do it because it annoys the crap out of you,’ Tamra said, her smile dazzling. ‘You know I do. And now I need a drink, dammit!’