Girls Who Travel (14 page)

28

A
WEEK
LATER
,
I went in search of Elsbeth in the hopes of getting some information about Aston. I was missing some vital chunks of his story, and I knew Elsbeth was just the well-connected, loose-lipped woman to ask.

I found her in the sitting room, washed in midday sun, and reading a serious novel with a cobwebbed man on the cover. She looked up brightly when I came in, as if she were just dying to be interrupted.

“Hey, Elsbeth. Sorry to disturb you. I just wanted to ask if we could have a little chat sometime today, obviously not right now because you're reading, but whenever you're free.”

Elsbeth placed her finger along the seam of the fat book. “Now is fine, lamb. What's up?”

“Are you sure? I can come back . . .” I motioned to the door.

Elsbeth shook her head vigorously. “Please, Kika. Take a seat,” she said, sounding a little desperate.

I jangled my shoulders. “Okay. I just wanted to make sure that you're happy with how everything's been going with the girls.”

The overstuffed upholstered armchair moaned with old age as I sat. The fabric was opulent in an overdone Marie Antoinette way, but uncomfortable as hell, demanding perfect posture out of me.

“Yes, Kika. Mr. Darling and I are very pleased. How sweet of you to ask. I love the initiative you're taking by escorting them all around London. Mina was telling me about all the museums they've been to with you. But remember, you
do
have weekends free. I hope you don't feel obligated to spend time with the girls—though they love every minute with you.”

“It's okay, I like taking them to museums on the weekends.” I dawdled. “So that party last weekend was fun. The girls were very well behaved.”

“Weren't they?” She beamed. “I introduced Mina to so many people, and she dealt with it all smashingly. Of course, I barely saw Gwen, but I saw you two running around playing a fabulously creative game of some sort.”

I bared my teeth self-consciously. I guessed she didn't see me spill that drink and hide under the bar.

“So, um, at the party I ran into our neighbor, you know that guy Aston Hyde Bettencourt? I didn't know he was going to be there . . .” I let my sentence trail off like a fishing line.

Elsbeth made a throaty noise. “Lamb, of course Aston was going to be there. The Richmond Group is Mr. Darling's main client at the moment. Why, you know that.”

“What does Aston have to do with the Richmond Group?”

She paused for a moment and rested her hand on her chin. “Oh no, but of course, you wouldn't know, would you?”

“Know what?”

“Oh, how silly of me. I should have explained earlier.” She removed her reading glasses and placed them in her lap. “It was just that I didn't realize you two were friends, but of course you would be: two bright, young things in an old-moneyed neighborhood like this. There are not too many people your age around here, are there?”

I scrunched my eyebrows, fully intrigued now. “So, what is it?”

“Hmm? Oh right. You want to know about Aston. Aston's grandfather is Sir Richmond Bettencourt,” she said.

I waited for her to continue.

Elsbeth held off a moment longer to give me time to figure it out, but when I didn't make any motion of comprehension, she continued. “Sir Richmond Bettencourt, the founder of the Richmond Group,” she clarified.

I squinted at the information. “What? But Ronald Richmond owns the Richmond Group.”

“Oh no, lamb. He runs the North American division, but his last name is a mere coincidence. The Richmond Group is named after Aston's grandfather's first name. His grandfather is now deceased, though.”

I dismantled the information then reassembled it in the context of my own life:
So Aston really is a rich kid, like, a super-rich kid.
No wonder Bae was all over him like white on rice.

“This whole square of houses actually belongs to the Richmond Group. That's why we live right next door to
Aston; it's corporate housing of sorts since Mr. Darling is consulting for them exclusively at the moment. At least we'd call it corporate housing in America; I'm not sure they use that term here.”

“Elsbeth, what about Aston's father? He's not around anymore?”

Elsbeth shook her head.

I slowly put it together. That was why Bae backed off so quickly when he said I was his date that night: He owned an empire. The bigger picture took shape: Bae worked for
him
. He could
fire
Bae! But before I could flesh out my retaliation fantasy any further, Elsbeth snipped through my thoughts with what she said next.

“Both of his parents have passed. A tragic car crash, only five years ago, I think. Aston was still at school at Oxford I think, or Cambridge—one of those schools. So catastrophic and untimely.”

My hand cupped my mouth to stifle a gut-socking gasp. “No,” I whispered, but Elsbeth didn't hear.

“They both died instantly. That's why he lives with his grandmother—there's no one left. Poor soul! Not that his grandmother isn't a good influence. She's a big patron of women's education. She basically started Harrington Gardens School for Girls, where Mina and Gwendolyn go. I haven't met her yet, but supposedly she's always there . . .”

I stopped listening to Elsbeth.

When Elsbeth saw that I wasn't paying attention, she stopped talking. We both sat in a motionless silence, the blow of shock and sadness blunting me into wordlessness.

“Oh my God.” The handful of interactions I'd had with
Aston came flooding back to me in a sickly montage, crippling me with heart-stopping regret. “I had no idea. Elsbeth, I've been
so
rude to him!”

“Oh, Kika, you're never one to be rude. Just a little, um, free with your words sometimes, but never in a malicious way. Besides, I'm sure he's tired of people walking on eggshells around him, anyway. He probably just wants to be treated like a normal boy.”

When I didn't respond, she asked, “So what happened between you two? You're friends?” Elsbeth rounded her eyebrow.

“Well, not really. But we talked a bit at the party—I just feel so terrible. I can't imagine losing my mom.” I got up and walked to the window, which coincidently faced Aston's house.

“We just got off on the wrong foot.” I flicked my gaze back at Elsbeth in camaraderie. “We're just from very, very different worlds,” I clarified, as if this would explain it all.

“Now Kika, don't be a snob,” said Elsbeth, snapping shut her book.

The clap made me plop back down. “Me? The snob?”

“Yes! Reverse snobbery. Prejudice. Don't hold it against him that he's well-off. Elizabeth Bennet was quite prejudiced against poor Mr. Darcy, remember? And just think how wrong she was about that.”

I tucked my hair behind my ear. “I don't think there was anything ‘poor' about Mr. Darcy. And if I remember correctly, he snubs her first.”

Elsbeth wiggled uncomfortably. “Well, lamb. There's nothing wrong with you two being friends now, is there?” she asked. “He's a very respectable young man. Even the tabloids can't dig up much dirt on him, save the occasional snatch of
dating gossip. They all want to make him out to be an international playboy, pinning him with this girl and that one, but they never have any real scandal.”

Elsbeth continued: “And you could use a friend, a new girl in a new city like this.”

I smiled at Elsbeth, knowing she thought Aston was just the perfect catch as an orphaned, wounded billionaire. With maybe a nice set of abs and a penchant for acoustic folk guitar . . .

I felt my ears get hot, and I chided myself for thinking about that little bit of his stomach that I had seen that day. I wish I never saw it.

Still, I knew what I had to do.

29

I
SNUGGLED
INTO
my bed, concentrating on the whiskey-colored lamplight worming its way through the half-drawn curtains. I never fully closed my curtains. I liked to be woken up by sunshine.

Sleep refused to come to me. It was obvious why:
I want to make things right with Aston. I want to—I don't know—tell him that I
liked
his guitar playing!

It weighed heavily on me that he thought I disliked it. In a plea bargain deal with my insomnia, I resolved to stop by Aston's house first thing tomorrow morning after dropping the girls off at their early morning choir practice.

Clive usually dropped the girls off at school, but as the weather grew steadily milder, I started walking them there. Mina would make me turn around at Gwen's school, so I wouldn't embarrass her at the older kids' entrance.

“I can go the rest of the way myself, Kika,” she whined. I always gave in.

•   •   •

M
ORNING
CAME
QUICKLY
.
Too quickly.

As I made my way toward Aston's house, I felt the tightness from last night return to my stomach as if I had just taken my belt in a notch.

Face-to-face with the shiny red door, I lifted my hand to create a sharp rapping sound. The moment my hand dropped, I got the urge to bolt.

A few painful moments later, the door opened.

“Kika.” Aston sounded surprised. “Everything all right with the house?”

“Yeah, fine. It's nothing like that.” Now that I knew he was sort of our landlord, the question made sense. “Um, do you have a second to talk?” I gestured at the doorstep for us to sit.

Aston closed the door gently behind him. He had on another one of his tatty Aran sweaters, and his hair was in its usual untamed arrangement.

“Oh no. What is it, then?” he asked before we even sat.

I sat first, facing forward toward the street and garden beyond it so that I didn't have to look directly at his fluid blue eyes.

“Aston, look. I just wanted to say thanks again for what you did with Bae Yoon. That really meant something, you know?” I said swiftly before I could chicken out.

“Did it?” he asked slowly. He sat down beside me on the steps and also faced forward. We both looked at the garden.
It wouldn't be long now until it would burst into life, all green and blossoming and aromatic.

“To me it did.” I was speaking too fast, but like sliding on ice, I couldn't stop myself now. I just had to ride it out or crash. “And I think we got off on the wrong foot. And I wanted to start again—if that was okay with you. And I hope—”

Aston interrupted me: “Who told you?” He stared at the pavement between his sneakers.

I didn't understand. “What?”

“You heard about my parents, I presume?”

I looked down, resisting the question. “I did. But that's not what this is about,” I protested.

Aston stubbed the ground with the heel of his sneaker, looking like an unhappy little boy.

“I'm so sorry, by the way.” My voice was slight, like I was trying to muffle my impotent sympathy. “It's terrible,” I added. Words felt so inadequate.

Aston stared into an unspecific nothingness. “That's quite all right. You needn't have bothered. Thank you. Very much indeed. So what was it that this was regarding, then?”

I responded too rapidly, too defensively. “The guitar. Your guitar playing!” I sounded as if the idea just struck me.

He crooked his neck to watch me, his stare goose-pimpling my skin.

My words were twitchy, but I managed to chirp out my real feelings: “I like the way you play.”

I closed my eyes, tilting my face sunward to sever all eye contact. But I still felt him staring at me, burning through my red-veined eyelids and my unbearably thinly veiled pity for all that he had been through.

“I wanted you to know that. It really bothered me for some reason. That's all,” I added. “That's what I wanted to tell you. That's what this is about.”

I turned to Aston, but now he looked away. He looked confused or maybe relieved. We sat side by side in silence. Somehow, this was okay.

When Aston spoke, he took his time. “So you enjoy folk music?”

“Love it. I really do. It sounds like home to me. I used to listen to it growing up; my mom played it nonstop on her sixties' turntable. She teaches her yoga to folk music. No sitar music in her classes.”

He offered me a begrudging smile.

I continued: “And your playing—I don't know, it just really struck me. It reminded me how much I love it. And miss it in my life.”

He took a moment and then dipped his head unhurriedly as if he understood. “If you like, I'm playing at the Arts Club on Gloucester Road next weekend.”

I spanked my palms on my thighs. “You're inviting me to watch you play?”

“Very good, Yank,” he said with his trademark cheek and bent semi-smile.

I gave him a wry smile back. “Can't.” But before he spoke, I clarified. “I mean, I would love to, I just can't next weekend. I have someone coming to visit me. This weekend I'm free, though.”

I didn't know I wanted to hear folk music so badly until I said that last part.

“Actually I meant this Saturday. You see, I play there every weekend. So Saturday at half nine, then? You may be home late.”

“I can handle that,” I said defensively.

“Surely you can,” he said. “I'll come and fetch you. We can walk there if you'd like, of course.”

I sprang up. “Sounds good. See you.” I was down his stoop and halfway to my house before I recognized the bounce in my step.