Lots of Love (20 page)

Standing on the splashed paving stones beside the pool, watching her stoop down to fetch her clothes and sandals, Lloyd was tempted to stop at his mother’s house on the way to the restaurant and warn her that there might be a family wedding imminently.

The moment Lloyd swigged back his first glass of champagne at the Duck Upstream, it was abundantly clear that he couldn’t hold his drink. ‘You are,’ he told Ellen, in an undertone, his accent half-way between mink and manure, ‘
the
most fantastic thing to come into my life since Seaton’s International.’

That was when Ellen discovered that she had misinterpreted Lloyd Fenniweather’s smooth, mock-toff banter. He was not as posh as he made out, nor as worldly wise. The smooth-slicker act – and it was an act – rapidly came unstuck
in vino veritas,
and his egotism grew gargantuan.

‘I love this place,’ he told her, looking cockily around the room. ‘It used to be such a dump, but Pat and Gina – they’re the new owners – have turned it around totally. I’d like to own somewhere like this some day – as a hobby, of course. I plan to retire at forty.’ His accent was slipping like a teenager’s makeup now, revealing the soft, fresh-faced local burr beneath the wised-up drawl.

The Duck Upstream was, as Pheely had warned, a gourmet pub rendered so pretentious by its current owners that it would make New York feel unfashionable, London feel unhistorical and Paris feel like a bad cook, or at least that was its smug belief. When trading as the plain old Pheasant, it had attracted a strong local and tourist following, eager eaters returning again and again for the legendary home-made sausages, the freshly barbecued trout and the beef and ale pies. Now villagers rarely if ever ate there, and most of the custom came from London and overseas. The car park looked like a prestige motor showroom, the coat rack was a small designer boutique and the dining room resembled Harrods’ fine furniture repository.

Ellen hated it. Lloyd clearly thought he had brought her to Mecca-on-the-Wold.

‘Tonight is really special.’ He fixed the Demerara eyes on her and burned every calorie in them. ‘You are so sexy. I bet you never thought you’d meet somebody like me while you were here, did you?’

‘No – not exactly,’ she said awkwardly.

‘We’re going to be so good together.’ He winked roguishly and squeezed her knee with a sweaty hand.

Before Ellen could think of a polite brush-off, an eager hostess had swept in on them like a magpie on a pair of glittering earrings.

‘Everything all right, so far?’ she asked, in an affected voice, thrusting menus into their faces.

‘Divine, Gina.’ Lloyd blasted her with the white smile. ‘This is Ellen – you’ll be seeing a lot more of her. She’s just moved into the village.’

Gina thrust out a paw and arranged her face in a wince-like smile; the Mallen-streak hair and antique jewellery created a theatrical counterpoint to her chi-chi restaurant.

Ellen shook her hand. ‘And I’m about to move out again, as soon as Lloyd has sold the house.’

Lloyd let out a little growl. ‘We’ll see about that.’

‘Well, enjoy!’ Gina winced her way into a muted gay laugh. ‘We like to make our diners feel like members of our special family.’ She swooped off through a swinging door to scream at her staff for failing to spot that Lloyd’s glass was at a low ebb.

‘Lovely woman,’ Lloyd purred, giving Ellen a hot look and raising his glass to his lips before he remembered that it was empty.

Rather than go for all-out, wallet-stealing pretension, like the nearby Eastlode Park, the Duck Upstream claimed to encourage a ‘friendly, convivial dining experience’, but Ellen found nothing convivial about the hushed library-reading-room atmosphere, the purse-lipped waiting staff and the modern minimalism that had stripped the old pub of its character.

Diners like she and Lloyd started off (like children in the infant’s class) by reading their menus over a cocktail and an appetiser in the Mallard Drawing Room – the old pub saloon, now with natural plaster walls and a seagrass floor scattered with uncomfortable glossy green sofas that required muscular legs to stay on board. Ellen braced her calves to stop her bum sliding off and dipped her head to avoid a nearby spiky flower arrangement as she read the menu and worriedly watched Lloyd order more champagne. ‘Don’t you think you should go slow if you’re driving?’

‘I thought I might leave the car here and pick it up in the morning,’ he murmured, with a suggestive wink. ‘Seen anything you fancy?’

Ellen gripped her menu. Not you, I’m afraid, she thought wretchedly. Oh, God, why do I get myself into these things? Excited, flirtatious Lloyd was about a fifth as sexy as smarmy, calculating-agent Lloyd. Smarmy Lloyd, in turn, was hardly sexy at all compared with irritated, pretentious Lloyd. And that Lloyd, it transpired, didn’t really exist at all. She had made him up to satisfy her desire for a little low-level sexual tension.

‘We’ll have to come here on a Wednesday next time – they have a fantastic pianist, really romantic,’ he said cheerfully, as he read the menu. ‘Shall we start with oysters?’

‘I’m allergic to seafood,’ Ellen lied. ‘I think I’ll just have the warm sardine salad.’

He smiled indulgently and patted her knee again. ‘I hate to tell you this, Ellen, but sardines live in the sea.’

‘I can eat fish.’ She gave him a withering look.

He tilted his head and smiled playfully. ‘I love all your curious little ways. You are a creature of mystery.’

He was sounding more and more like Austin Powers. Ellen felt mildly sick.

‘What’s endive?’ he asked, as he read down the list.

‘Posh word for disgustingly bitter lettuce,’ she said distractedly, checking her watch for the fifth time and wondering how much longer she could stick it out.

‘Can you cook, Ellen?’ He looked up through sugar-spun brows.

‘I do toast,’ she said honestly.

He laughed far too much at this, white teeth revealing no fillings and the pinkest of healthy gum. The waiter sallied forth with another glass of champagne and an order pad. Lloyd plucked the glass from his hand and aimed it at Ellen’s. ‘I do toast too. Let’s toast
us
.’

A nearby American couple who had been frantically earwigging, let out loud ‘Awwwws’ and raised their glasses too.

Ellen steadied hers as it took a side impact from Lloyd’s and decided she had two options. She either nipped to the loos now, threaded her way through the window (that was this week’s expert ruse) and fled, or she got extremely drunk.

‘Madam?’ The waiter was tapping his pen on his pad.

Ellen felt a growl in her belly after a week of eating nothing but beans on toast. Casting Lloyd a thoughtful look, she reminded herself that he was (a) selling her house, (b) physically very attractive and (c) paying. What the hell? She was a grown woman. She drained her champagne and requested a top-up at the same time as picking out her sardine starter, a steak and as many side orders as she could find listed.

‘I’ve lost my hunger for anything but your eyes,’ Lloyd told her, in a low purr, as soon as the waiter had gone. ‘But do I love a girl with a healthy appetite – just so long as she knows how to burn it off afterwards.’

Ellen smiled weakly.

‘And you certainly look as though you know how to keep fit.’ He ran his eyes over her body. ‘I bet you work out all the time.’

‘I prefer mental workouts these days,’ she said.

‘Oh, me too!’ His accent was rougher now than a farmhand’s. ‘When I’m down the gym, I always go mental.’ He waited for the big laugh, and when it failed to materialise, he let out one of his sexy growls. ‘Relax, Ellen baby. Enjoy yourself. It’s not every day you meet someone you want to work out with as much as this, if you catch my drift.’ He drew a loose strand of hair back from her face and stroked her neck. ‘I can’t wait to kiss you again. I bet you feel the same way, don’t you?’

Ellen snatched the fresh glass of incoming champagne gratefully and took a swig, working a few things out in her head. It is not his fault, she told herself. It would be the same with anybody.

She’d been right in thinking it was too soon after Richard to start seeing other men, however casually. She hadn’t actually been on a date with a stranger since she was sixteen, and the rules had been different then. You went to the cinema, a disco or a party and didn’t really talk to each other. You just waited for the lights to go low and ‘Careless Whisper’ to come on, then snogged each other. All she’d really wanted from Lloyd, she now suspected, was a snog – nothing more. She’d wanted to pick up where she had left off thirteen years ago and build from there. Initially, when faced with Lloyd’s obvious good looks, she had liked the idea of snogging him. Now she’d done it, she felt as if she’d eaten too much chocolate – guilty and sick and not nearly as satisfied as she had hoped.

Lloyd, by contrast, had barely lifted the foil from the fruit-and-nut. He was anticipating at least a one-night stand, if not a great deal more. As far as he was concerned, the snogging had barely begun.

While one waiter whisked towards Ellen and Lloyd with two appetisers the size of hula-hoops, which he described floridly as ‘aubergine mini-bagels drizzled in oregano-infused oil and topped with pimento tapenade’, another was ushering in a large party to try their luck on the green helter-skelter sofas.

Glad of the distraction, Ellen watched as he held open the door, bowing and half kneeling like a medieval courtier, to admit Ely Gates, who strode in with his puddingy wife. Behind them came the lofty, jowly Sir St John with Hell’s Bells marching to heel, and to the rear the three children of the combined party – Godspell the Goth, a small, dark-eyed youth, who had to be Enoch Gates, and finally, scowling furiously, Spurs.

Those luminous silver eyes glared around the room as he stalked into it, landing on Ellen and kicking her right to the back of her chair before they moved past her without a glimmer of recognition. This time, the G-force made her reel in shock, because she suddenly recognised why she’d been attracted to Lloyd in the first place. Spurs Belling made her feel recklessly sexual just by looking at her. Men like Spurs, those rare X-factor hooligans with a wild spirit and heartbreaking magnetism, had so much sex-appeal that they made Ellen combust on impact. On the day she had wriggled through the attic window, the knowledge that Spurs was watching had made her blood boil with excitement. And she’d met Lloyd while she was still glowing in its candescence.

Men like Spurs were the reason Ellen’s love for Richard had always been compromised, despite their years together. Richard made her feel warm inside, but she secretly craved the sort of intense heat he could never spark. And poor Lloyd just left her cold.

She wrenched her head away and stared at her aubergine mini-bagel, feeling the hole in her heart as clearly as she could see the hole in the doughy hula-hoop before her.

As the party was ushered past her and Lloyd, Lady Belling gave Ellen a curt nod of recognition. But Spurs failed to acknowledge her. Not looking to left or right, he headed directly for his table. He was, she noticed, sporting the same ancient jeans and flip-flops he’d worn dog-walking a week earlier, matched rather eccentrically tonight with a white shirt and striped tie to conform with the restaurant’s dress code. The combination would have looked ludicrous on anybody else, but he carried it off with absurd, sullen cool. She felt her heart smash against her ribs and her skin prickle with the heat of pure, intuitive attraction.

‘Good evening.’

To Ellen’s surprise, Ely Gates had smoothed his Conservative Club tie to his starched shirt and was stopping at their table. ‘Lloyd, my boy.’ He stooped down to bestow an evangelical double handshake on Ellen’s disastrous date. ‘Are you in good health?’

‘Very well, thank you.’ Lloyd was choir-boy gauche in the presence of the village Machiavelli. ‘Have you met Ellen Jamieson?’

‘Not formally.’ Ely fixed her with a gaze that could have burned souls for lesser sins than accepting a dinner date with Lloyd without marriage playing a part in her future plans. ‘Although I believe I rudely failed to introduce myself at Lady Belling’s fundraising evening.’ He extended one long-fingered hand, his eyes lasering into hers so intently he seemed to be checking her optic nerves. ‘Elijah Gates.’

‘I know.’ She smiled nervously up at him as her hand underwent a long, crushing shake with no possibility of shaking in return. He was spectacularly charismatic and scary. With his neatly trimmed beard, smart suit and gleaming shoes, he reminded her of an old warhorse groomed and rugged in plush retirement, yet capable of letting rip and charging that half-tonne powerhouse body up a hill, given half a chance.

‘I hope Lloyd has convinced you that my offer is a reasonable one?’ He smiled, but his eyes remained arctic with intensity.

‘Your offer?’ Ellen looked at Lloyd, who was frantically trying to reaffix the big white smile to his face.

‘I should have explained.’ He glanced awkwardly between them. ‘The offer on Goose Cottage came from Ely – hmm –
Mr
Gates.’

‘My mother always loved that cottage,’ Ely told Ellen, in his rich, old Cotswold accent. ‘She said it was a magical place, and that as long as geese are kept on the land, it makes for long marriages, ripe riches and good health.’

‘Sounds great,’ Ellen wasn’t sure her father would agree, ‘but surely it would seem very small to you after Manor Farm?’

He let out a bark of amusement. ‘I do not wish to buy Goose Cottage for myself, child, simply as an investment.’

‘I see.’ She smiled awkwardly, feeling silly. ‘Well, I think Mum and Dad are holding out for a bit more.’

‘And I shall hold out for their agreement,’ he said coolly. ‘My offer for the cottage remains open, as Lloyd will have explained. I know its value. We’ll see who gives in first, shall we? Now, if you’ll excuse me . . .’ He swept off in a puff of cigar smoke.