Bad Brides (43 page)

Eva had to giggle, not only at Ludo’s having nailed the current trendy climate, but at his own shudder of distaste as he described it.

‘Really, dear, that’s the better option,’ Ludo said kindly. ‘Go forth and date widely. They have a lovely expression in Italy –
chiodo scaccia chiodo,
which means, more or less, “one nail drives another one down”. And as far as I’m concerned, the more nails the merrier, eh?’

He looked at her, his gaze sharp.

‘I know that my words are going right through one ear and out the other without being absorbed,’ he said. ‘But one sows the seeds, you know? It’s all one can do. Now I
advise you to go back to your suite, put on one of the very luxurious robes with which this fabulous hotel provides us, pop to the spa and see if they have any last-minute cancellations for
treatments. It’s all going on Mr Ormond’s bill, and his fiancée assures me his credit card can take it, so I suggest you hit the hammam and the plunge pool with everything you
have.’

‘Thank you,’ Eva finally managed to say, putting down her glass.

‘Mmn-hmn. You’re very welcome,’ Ludo said. ‘Look, dear, if you find you simply can’t get over him and need to play the waiting game – I do see that he’s
quite a catch: he’s terribly pretty to look at, means well, has tons of money, and is probably the only musician one actually thinks won’t avail himself of all the available
groupies.’

He reached out for the bottle: the waiter was there before him, however, his white-gloved hand pulling the green prosecco bottle from the ice bucket and finding it empty.

‘
Ancora, signore
?’ the waiter asked.

‘
Si, un’ altra bottiglia, per favore
,’ Ludo said. ‘Don’t worry, dear,’ he added to Eva. ‘I’m perfectly capable of finishing the whole
thing on my own. Where was I?’

‘Um . . . the waiting game?’ Eva mumbled, pulling her jacket around her more tightly, and not really because she was cold: the subject under discussion was so close to her heart that
even the mention of her possibly being coupled with Tarquin made her shiver from head to toe.

‘Oh yes.’ Ludo looked grave. ‘Eva, you know my situation, don’t you? You’ve met Liam.’

Eva nodded, finishing her prosecco: she wasn’t a big drinker, and her head was spinning now from the wine at lunch and the afternoon aperitifs.

‘He’s never going to come out officially, and he’s never going to leave the Church,’ Ludo said sadly. ‘So what’s a boy to do? I love him more than anything in
the world, and he loves me more than any other person. But being a priest is equally important to him as being with me, and I can’t change that. Here I sit, planning everyone’s perfect
weddings with their antique teapots and lilies of the valley, God help me, when what I want more than anything is to plan my own. But I can’t, and I probably never will. Not as long as
I’m with Liam. I know the new Pope’s making nice noises about being gay-friendly, but the gulf between “you’re not all going to hell” and “feel free to get
married and settle down” is still
gaping
wide.’

He sighed.

‘Not to whinge on, of course,’ he said as the waiter returned with a bottle dewed with cool drops from the chill of the terrace’s wine fridge. ‘But just to make the point
that sometimes one finds oneself in situations that one simply has to accept. If you really think you can’t stand to be with anyone else but Tarquin, the waiting game is all you have left.
And you’re going to have to hold your chin up and smile so successfully that sarcastic queens like me don’t spot that, as Aretha Franklin sings so wonderfully, you’re laughing on
the outside, crying on the inside. Because most of us, I’m sorry to say, will mock you horribly for it.’

Eva nodded, her eyes wide and concentrated.

‘I’m so sorry about—’ she started, but Ludo was already waving her away with a sweep of his hand.

‘Please! We don’t dwell,’ he said firmly. ‘And we
certainly
don’t apologize for things that aren’t our fault. Now pop down to that spa like a good
girl, have a steam and a nice cry and get it all out so you can look bright and fresh for dinner and like you don’t have a care in the world, while I ring my beloved and tell him that
Thunderbirds are Go for Chianti next spring.’

He suited the action to the word, picking up his iPhone and flickering his fingers over the touch screen as Eva obediently stood up and proceeded to follow his instructions exactly as he had
laid them out. Ludo was quite right. Crying her heart out in a hammam turned out to be the single most therapeutic thing she had ever done in her life.

Stanclere Hall, February

‘Miss Brianna?’

Mrs Hurley put her head round the corner of the library door, her voice sounding unaccustomedly tentative. But then, everyone had been on tenterhooks around Brianna Jade for the last couple of
months, even Edmund; ever since the engagement party, the staff and master of Stanclere Hall had been walking on eggshells trying to keep her happy, and failing. Naturally, they all assumed that
the key issue was the abject failure of the
Style
photo shoot, and they also took for granted that Tamra’s storming out immediately after evicting Milly meant that Tamra was furious
not just with Milly, but with her own daughter.

Because Tamra had not been back to the Hall since then. All the energy she had pumped into the first phase of the renovations, all the detailed plans and loving care that she had brought to the
magnificent redecoration of the central wing and the public rooms, had now dissipated in a puff of smoke. Instead, she was travelling widely, photographed in the gossip columns tossing back her
hair and smiling for the cameras, a different handsome tanned young man by her side in every new photograph: from the Sandy Lane Hotel in Barbados to Cabo San Lucas in Mexico to the Amanpuri resort
in Phuket, she had spent the last couple of months hitting a whole range of the most exclusive winter-sun holiday destinations, partying hard, sometimes with Lady Margaret, sometimes with the
latest gigolo of choice.

The building works at Stanclere continued, of course, according to her instructions, now supervised by a project manager hired by Tamra. Ironically, although Tamra had previously driven the
workers crazy with her relentless drive for perfection, now that she was absent, everyone missed her. With Tamra in charge, they had all known that they were doing their absolute best, because
there was no alternative: if they didn’t execute a task perfectly, they would have to tear it out and do it all over again. This had swiftly raised standards all over the site, especially
because Tamra, a very successful businesswoman, had been as swift with praise as she was with criticism, and had wielded her power to give bonuses with the skill that came with experience of
managing people. The works had flown along before: now they chugged at a slower pace, done perfectly competently, but without Tamra’s taste and flair.

If anyone had expected Brianna Jade to step up to the plate and take over now that her mother had gone AWOL, they learnt their lesson fast. After a few attempts by the project manager and Mrs
Hurley to consult with her, they had both backed off, it being very obvious that the questions were bouncing off Brianna Jade. All she could offer was a weak smile and a muttered: ‘Just do
what Mom would do, I guess,’ in answer to every question. The poor girl was under the impression that her mother was so angry with her failure to connect with the
Style
photo shoot
that she had packed up and taken off for London, washing her hands of her daughter. Tamra had even refused to come back for Christmas and New Year, which had been a huge blow to Brianna Jade: they
had never been apart for the holidays before, and Tamra had been planning a lavish fortnight of celebrations and parties at the Hall before the disastrous weekend of the shoot put paid to all
that.

Instead, Tamra and Lady Margaret had celebrated Christmas in London at Lady Margaret’s house in Eaton Square and then flown to Barbados to see in the New Year: Tamra had told her daughter
airily in a phone call that she felt that, in order to bond with Edmund, Brianna Jade really should spend the holidays with her fiancé without her old mother getting in the way. Brianna Jade
had sobbed and protested and told Tamra that she was ridiculous even to
think
that, let alone say it, but Tamra had been utterly unyielding, even when her daughter asked in tears if she
could come to London to see her mother for Christmas: all Tamra would repeat in reply, like a robot parrot, was that Brianna Jade and Edmund needed to bond without her in the way.

No matter how much Brianna Jade begged and pleaded and pointed out that Edmund was very fond of her mother, respected her drive and energy, was happy for Tamra to treat Stanclere Hall like her
own country home, Tamra would not be swayed. The only moment Tamra had strayed at all from the robot parrot script was when Brianna Jade, desperate now, had suggested that Edmund himself call his
future mother-in-law to reassure her that she was always welcome at what was now his and Brianna Jade’s home.

That, for some reason, had made Tamra utterly hysterical. Brianna Jade couldn’t imagine why, and she didn’t get an answer, no matter how much she asked. She barely even knew if her
mother had heard the question. Tamra screamed incoherently that Brianna Jade had no idea what she was talking about and that she and her daughter needed a break, before pretty much hanging up on
her.

It was the first fight they had ever had – not that it was even really a fight, as Brianna Jade hadn’t been able to get a word in edgeways. She’d stared at the phone in her
hand as the line went dead, unable to believe what had just happened.
Needed a break?
What did that even mean? How could a mother and daughter who loved each other as much as the two of
them did possibly need a break? What could Brianna Jade have done so badly wrong that her mother didn’t want to see her any more? Had freaking out at the photo shoot really been such a
terrible crime that Tamra couldn’t forgive her? Oh God, would Tamra
ever
forgive her?

Ever since then, Brianna Jade had effectively been in mourning. Her relationship with her mother was the only close one she had ever known, and it had been the greatest source of love,
companionship and trust she could imagine. Tamra might have dragged her daughter round every pageant conceivable, taken her on the road when Brianna Jade, a homebody, would much rather have stayed
in Kewanee, but there had never been any doubt in Brianna Jade’s mind that her mother was doing everything for her daughter’s benefit.

All Mom ever wanted was to see me happy and settled with no money worries,
Brianna Jade thought miserably.
But how can I be happy without her? Of course we can’t live together
for ever, just the two of us. I know that! I was totally fine sharing a house with her and Ken, and I’d be just as fine if Mom came and went from Stanclere Hall, kept her rooms here, kind of
lived here half the time, came for all the holidays. And Edmund would be too!

I just wish she hadn’t reacted like that when I said he could call her and tell her he wanted her to come for Christmas. It’s like she’s mad at both of us now.

As far as bonding with her fiancé went, Brianna Jade could not deny that Edmund was being as lovely, sympathetic and understanding about her grief at her mother’s disappearance from
her life as she could possibly have wanted. Seeing Brianna Jade’s misery, Edmund had bent over backwards to treat her with kid gloves, spending much more time with her than he had before, and
although Brianna Jade was very grateful for his care and attention, she couldn’t help feeling a little odd about it. She loved the company, was highly relieved that Edmund was devoting his
time to her, and yet it was as if he wanted something from her, was
waiting
for something from her, that she couldn’t figure out and so didn’t know how to provide. There was an
air of anticipation, of excited expectation, that hovered around him for the first month or so after the photo shoot, and he was being so sweet and thoughtful to her that she really tried, even
through her sadness, to give him whatever it was that he wanted in return.

However, Brianna Jade might not have the business smarts and organizational skills of her mother, but she was clever and intuitive, and she couldn’t help sensing that whatever Edmund was
waiting for, he wasn’t getting it. He was as kind and considerate as ever, but the anticipation seemed to fade, replaced by a sort of . . .
resignation
, was how she would have put
it.

She’d made some attempts to ask him if there was anything missing from their relationship, and he had assured her that there wasn’t; that night, when they were having sex, however,
there had been a very odd moment when she had suddenly screeched because, apparently, his watch strap got caught in her hair, pulling it nearly out by the roots. It had been really painful; he had
apologized profusely and explained what had happened, because it was night-time and so dark she couldn’t see a thing. It had been the next day before she had had the even odder thought that
Edmund never actually
wore
his watch to bed . . .

Which had made Brianna Jade wonder nervously if Edmund was secretly into some sort of kinky sex stuff that she definitely would not welcome at all. A previous boyfriend had wanted to spank her
with a hairbrush once, and she’d told him exactly where to shove it; she wasn’t judgemental at all, was more than happy for everyone to get on with doing whatever they wanted with
whomever they wanted, but no one was going to spank her or pull her hair or do anything freaky with her, thank you very much. The boyfriend had derisively called her vanilla, to which she’d
snapped back that it was her favourite ice-cream flavour and not to let the door hit him on his way out.

However, since that scream of shock at what was hopefully an accidental hair-pull, Edmund hadn’t tried anything like that again – if in fact he had even tried it in the first place
– and things had settled back into the normal, regular, vanilla sex routine, which Brianna Jade found perfectly satisfactory. She found herself wanting sex more than ever these days, probably
as a compensation for Tamra’s absence; the physical contact was hugely comforting, the cuddling afterwards maybe even more so. She was leaning on Edmund so much for comfort at the moment, and
could only be grateful that he was responding.