R Is for Rebel (17 page)

Work complications wove together with repairs that were needed on the pool. Appointments with buyers in Paris reminded him uncomfortably of Marisa's frequent desire to discuss her wedding dress. He found this type of blending annoying and disconcerting.

Eliot got up to meet her about halfway across the kitchen. She dropped her briefcase on the seat of one of the barstools near the counter and put her arms out wide in a welcoming gesture. A gesture that welcomed praise of Marisa, Eliot thought cruelly.

He took her in an embrace and congratulated her again on the great accomplishment of securing funds for the Tanzania project. He started to kiss her on the neck (since he didn't really feel like kissing her on the lips). He needn't have worried about false intimacy, he realized, as she pushed him cheerfully, but surely, away.

“Eliot, you are too sweet. But where's that champagne you promised me? I'm parched.”

Eliot smiled at her brass tacks demeanor. She probably thought he smiled out of affection, but he knew it was more out of relief that he wouldn't have to feign an interest in physical contact. He was simply worn out.

“Right here, darling.” He opened the glass-fronted industrial refrigerator that had been one of his few concessions to the Bohemian Bourgeoisie. Of course, any refrigerator would have kept his food and drink the proper temperature, but he wanted a restaurant-grade Traulsen, and decided he would simply live with the guilt and absurdity of spending five thousand euros to have one.

Despite his financial success, his modest upbringing made Eliot rather self-conscious about vast displays of wealth. His jet was the glaring exception to the rule. His car was old, but reliable. His house was very old, and reliably needy. Even though the house's posh location made the price exorbitant, buying and restoring it had been an act of love, not commerce.

The champagne cork popped with a satisfying
THWAP
, the hiss and breath of the bottle emerging through his fingers as he caught it. Eliot had already set out two crystal flutes on the counter and filled them with quick efficiency. He handed one to Marisa and then rested his empty hand on the cool marble counter. After a few seconds of silence, he realized she was waiting for him to toast her accomplishment. He raised his glass and gave her a silent wink. He just could not quite bring himself to say, “To you,” and have to watch her preen.

She winked back and took a grateful sip of the cool, crisp liquid. “Aaah, that is heavenly, Eliot. Thank you. The meeting tonight was so boring, I thought I was going to jump out a window.” She took another sip and let her eyes close a bit.

Eliot took the moment to have an objective look at his wife-to-be. He narrowed his gaze and looked at her as he would have looked at a runway model or a piece of jewelry. The parts were impeccable: the long, thick blond hair, cut with expensive precision at the middle of her back, letting everyone know she was feminine, but not frilly. Her cheekbones were severe from her mother's side of the family: high near the crest, giving her eyes an almost Inuit aspect, especially when she laughed and they lifted even more at the outside edges. Nose: perfectly straight, no-nonsense. She contended her nose was too Gallic, whatever that meant. And her mouth. Well. Eliot found it very easy to objectify her mouth. She had a full, wide mouth, that, unfortunately, she did not enjoy in the least.

“What are you looking at?”

Her tone was sharp, but her look was bordering on seductive. Eliot knew it was only bordering because Marisa never bothered with seduction. “Who has the time to bother with that?” she'd once laughed as she'd grabbed his hand in hers to haul him up into bed for a tumble.

“Your beautiful face.”

Why Eliot, are you going all sentimental on me?” she asked in a rather clinical fashion, as if she were interviewing someone for the Kinsey Report.

Quite
the
opposite
, he thought, but thankfully caught himself before uttering the words aloud. “Hardly sentimental, Mari. You know you're beautiful. I was just remarking on it.” He raised his glass again. She was just as opposed to messy emotional discussions as he purported to be on the phone with his mother, and he could tell she appreciated his transition back into the familiar territory of friendly banter.

“Do you want to watch a movie? Have you eaten?” he asked, moving further into the happy country of practicalities.

“We did eat during the meeting, but I would love to jump in the shower and watch something with you afterward. That sounds perfect.” She clinked her glass against his, passed behind him, and picked up the bottle of champagne, smiling over her shoulder as she took the whole thing with her and headed up the stairs to the bedroom and master bath.

Marisa still had her own apartment in the center of Geneva, but she kept a full wardrobe of clothes and complete selection of toiletries and personal effects at Eliot's in Versoix. After they got engaged, they had agreed that they would keep both places after they were married as well, the apartment being a great crash pad for visiting friends or after their own late nights at their respective offices in the city.

Initially he had thought she would sell her apartment and they would live together in his house, or that she would want them to buy a new house together, but she was right in her practical approach, he reminded himself. He was slipping into sentimentality again. Why would she want to go to the trouble of getting a new place to start their married life together when, between the two of them, they already owned two perfectly good residences?

Now that he thought of it, Marisa was quite fond of all things that were Perfectly Good. She was grateful in that way. If something was already Perfectly Good, why mess with it? Which, several months ago, had led to a premarital discussion of the Perfectly Good nature of their childless state. Over the past year, Eliot had become fairly certain that he had no interest in children whatsoever. Marriage was something he could get his mind around: companionship, friendship, sex, a life partner. The thought of children, on the other hand, set him into a world of worry. While he and Marisa were well matched as spouses, he doubted very much that they would see eye-to-eye as parents.

In his younger days, Eliot had entertained absurd notions of attaining his career ambitions by the time he was forty and then abandoning them altogether to devote himself to a huge family. Penny and Will Cranbrook had started early, but they'd only been able to have one child. Eliot wanted to make up for all those solitary hours of his own childhood with a large, loud, boisterous next generation of Cranbrooks.

Apparently, it was not meant to be.

After Eliot and Marisa started discussing marriage, Eliot figured the discussion of children was not far behind. He had been avoiding the topic because he had assumed Marisa would want children. It seemed likely that Marisa would welcome the idea of more Marisas. But then he was just being mean. He need not have worried. Marisa burst out laughing at the idea of being a mother.

“Eliot! You have been worrying, haven't you?” They'd been in a small French restaurant in Annecy.

“Well, not worrying really. Just wanting to discuss it.”

“Look at me, Eliot. Do I look at all maternal to you?”

Eliot smiled his response. She looked like a Valkyrie, the kind who did not produce babies… the kind who ate them.

Perhaps Marisa deserved some credit. She obviously knew herself a lot better than Eliot knew himself. As a matter of fact, he was probably the most sentimental person, and certainly the most sentimental male, that he had ever come across. His mother suspected this, but he'd never confessed it to anyone else.

Eliot's parents were a ridiculously happy little unit. He had no illusions that theirs was the norm, or even replicable. Somewhere along the line, the idea of being ridiculously happy had become merely ridiculous. He and Marisa suited. That was enough.

As he stood there in his kitchen, holding the stem of the champagne flute between two fingers and listening to the shower turn off upstairs, he thought about the most satisfying moments of his life. The ridiculously happy ones. They certainly did not include corporate buyouts or share prices. They included a Parisian balcony. And a Caribbean beach. And a kiss next to a Dumpster behind a crowded bar in Iowa.

They included Abigail.

***

Abigail finished the meeting at the Sorbonne in about an hour. The professors did not commit to the foundation absolutely, but they were wonderfully encouraging and said they would be back in touch with her within two weeks with their final decision. Seeing it as a near-victory, Abigail decided to treat herself to a quick visit to Cadolle. The tepid reminders brought on by naff scarves and cell phones were nothing compared to the silky version of the hair shirt with which Abigail now tortured herself. In the year since she'd last seen Eliot Cranbrook, she had become a lingerie addict.

He had created a monster. And no more Marks & Spencer ticky-tacky thigh-highs from the sale bin either. Abigail had become a connoisseur. She preferred to buy her treats in Paris, sneaking off to Louise Feuillere or Carine Gilson whenever she got the chance. She wasn't above popping into Agent Provocateur or La Perla when she was home in London, but Cadolle was her particular favorite.

She walked into the shop and waved to the woman behind the fancy gold-filigreed counter.

“Bonjour, Abigail.”

“Bonjour, Therese.” Abigail sighed gently under her breath at the absurdity of being on a first-name basis with an haute couture corset maker. “Anything new?”

Abigail was usually in Paris every couple of weeks to visit her mother or just to get out of London and out of her head. Her French accent was still appalling, but she had a thorough vocabulary when it came to undergarments.

“Yes. We just received a new shipment. Come.” The older woman led Abigail back to the rear of the shop and took a delicate, pale peach lace garter belt off the rack, holding it up for her inspection. “What do you think?”

Her fascination with lingerie was not just about Eliot. First, that would have been psychotic. Second, well, she didn't know about second, but she knew she loved how she felt when she had her practical blacks and navies and grays and serviceable wools on the outside, and something peachy and soft like this against her skin. It felt like a kindness she could give to herself, this touch of invisible elegance and beauty that no one would ever see. Okay. Maybe one day in the very remote future someone would see it and enjoy taking it off her eager body—or leaving it on and proceeding apace anyway; that would be fine too—but in the all-important present, these little pieces of feminine art gave Abigail a pleasure all their own.

“I love it. The color is sublime. Do you have a matching bra and corset?”

Therese smiled. “Of course. How could we not?” She gave a little shrug and turned. “One moment.”

Abigail looked around at a few other pieces that she considered a tad ambitious. The cupless bras and black lace bondage bits were not her thing. Especially since no piece of lingerie would ever make her feel quite so deliciously bound as the feel of Eliot tightening the strings of that small white satin corset in front of the fireplace at the Plaza Athénée. Or, even better, the way he wrapped his strong fingers around her waist with that ever-increasing pressure. Somehow, black lace struck her as ersatz or grasping after the reality of his controlling hands.

She paid for the three new items and thanked Therese for her assistance. After returning to her mother's to collect her bag, Abigail made her way to Gare du Nord to catch her train.

The Eurostar pulled into London's Waterloo Station at exactly 8:17 Friday night. Abigail felt lighter the minute she stepped off the train and had her feet firmly back on British ground. Paris put her in a fug of abstracted self-analysis that bordered on depression, marriage announcements or not. The train trip back from France had been the perfect decompression chamber. She went over her meeting notes from the Sorbonne, and then uploaded them to the foundation's server for her assistant to have them properly edited and then sent out to the board in advance of their February meeting.

Abigail hopped on the Tube from Waterloo to Green Park station and was at Devon and Sarah's loft in Mayfair by 8:40. She tried to convince herself that she was only having dinner with her family, not facing a firing squad. She pressed the buzzer and went up the narrow staircase that led directly to their home, rather than the main door that led to Sarah's shoe shop. She could hear the laughter and music coming from Devon and Sarah's apartment.

Waiting at the top of the stairs, trying to collect herself, Abigail closed her eyes and took a deep breath. When Abigail opened her eyes, her sister-in-law Sarah was leaning out her front door, staring at her. “What are you doing out here, Abs?”

“Just preparing, I guess,” Abigail answered.

Sarah gave her a knowing look, half-joy, half-sadness. “Oh, Abby. Are we that overwhelming?”

As if on cue, her two brothers and her other sister-in-law burst into uproarious laughter at some (probably bawdy) joke. Bronte guffawed.

“That was unfortunate timing,” said Sarah.

“It's just me.” Abby said, still waiting in the foyer. “I know I'm long overdue for a family grilling. I've been coasting for too long without the four of you raking me over the coals. Is Wolf here at least?”

“Sorry, no nephew to run interference. Just the grown-ups, with their grown-up opinions and grown-up—”

Bronte swore loudly and emphatically just then.

“—enthusiasm,” Sarah finished.

“No point in delaying further, I suppose.”

Sarah took Abigail's small wheelie bag and opened the door wider to let her lead the way into the large open space. Her favorite people in the world all leapt up and surrounded her with hugs and offers of drinks and questions… questions… questions.

“Look! Stop!” Bronte demanded the floor, interrupting everyone. “I am so fucking pregnant I might not even make it to the end of supper, so I get to go first. Where the hell have you been? I haven't seen you in over a month. Wolf is apoplectic.”

“It's been really busy at the foundation's offices. I've been—”

“Yeah, yeah. We all work, Abs.”

“Be nice, Bronte.” Max put his arm around his wife's shoulders and smiled at Abigail. A warm, it's-okay-whatever-it-is kind of smile.

Abigail wanted to cry.

“Come sit down,” Devon said softly as he put his arm around his younger sister and led her over to the seating area in the middle of the room. “What do you want to drink? Beer or champagne? Scotch?”

“Scotch sounds lovely.” Abigail sat down on the large, ornate French sofa that was one of Sarah's contributions to what they all referred to as the humanization of Devon's design aesthetic.

Sarah poured her a big welcome-home scotch and handed it to her slowly.

Max and Bronte sat close to one another on a smaller couch, Devon sat next to Abigail on the large sofa, and Sarah sat in an overstuffed armchair, her lovely legs stretched out in front of her and crossed with ladylike care at her ankles.

“Well?” Sarah prompted.

“Well, what?” Abigail took a cautious sip of the scotch, closing her eyes in pure pleasure. “Devon, you are such a star for having this great scotch on hand.”

“What else would I have?”

Abigail smiled her thanks, then opted for offense rather than defense. “So what's with the family meeting? This is feeling way too confrontational. I don't even get Wolf on my team.”

“Abs, this is so
not
confrontational,” Bronte launched in. “We just haven't been together in weeks and it usually happens that you come out to Dunlear for the weekend or we meet up in town, and for one reason or another it just hasn't happened for a while, so here we are. So, I'll be the bitch as usual and talk about the elephant in the room. What did you think about the announcement of Eliot's marriage?”

Max rolled his eyes at his wife's blunt approach, but he also admired the affection that inspired it. They all knew how Abigail could withdraw—occasionally to other continents—in her effort to avoid too-close examinations of her feelings, especially those of the close-family variety.

“Do I even get to eat before the inquisition?”

Devon patted her leg. “You never eat before ten, so don't pretend you're all of a sudden peckish. We ordered the food about fifteen minutes ago. It'll be here in a bit. Want a crisp?”

“No, I don't want a crisp!” Abigail's voice was tight. Why did they all have to love her so much? “This is like a bad movie of the week on the telly. Is this an intervention?”

Sarah spoke gently. “Abigail, you know we're not prying. Well, maybe we are, but if we don't act, who will? Certainly not you. It has been over a year! Not like I'm keeping tabs, but it happens to coincide with our wedding anniversary, so it's difficult not to notice. We've all been through our share of…” She looked at Devon with enough love to kill him, then winked. “…delayed gratification when it comes to loving members of your family. Even for a Heyworth, you've waited long enough.”

“All right. Setting aside the fact that you invited me here with false promises of spicy food and lots of Kingfisher, I will tell you.” Abigail looked at each one of their nosy, affectionate expressions. “My life is filled with rewarding, fulfilling sources of happiness. Anything else seems grasping somehow. There is nothing else to tell.”

All four of them started speaking at once and Abigail took a pleasant sip of her scotch. Then another.

Max pulled rank. “Quiet. I go first. This is not an inquisition, Abs, you know that. We're all so happy and proud and all that. The foundation is a huge accomplishment; your efforts over the past year have gone far beyond admirable. You've created something of deep, intrinsic value that will go on long after any of us are still bumbling around to see it. We're not talking about that and you well know it.”

“But that's just it, isn't it? A year ago, you were all focused on how I needed to take myself more
seriously
and build something and create meaning and all that. Now you're acting like that was just some sort of item on my life's to-do list. It's reprehensible of you to diminish the importance of that now.”

“You should have been a lawyer,” Devon added with disgust, then continued with deep affection. “Abby, you and I are too much alike to mince words. You're spending more time worrying about the health and well-being of the Ugandan women's water supply than you are about your own right to happiness. I'm not saying this from a place of judgment.”

Bronte leaned her head on Max's shoulder in a small, tired gesture that did more to clench Abigail's heart than any of their compassionate words ever could. Max had been a brittle mess after their father died, and now he was a source of comfort to everyone. Somehow, through his relationship with his wife, the seemingly impossible had been accomplished. A spell had been broken. Bronte caught Abigail looking at them. “What? I'm so sorry to fade. I'm full of energy one minute then bordering on collapse the next. I'm sorry. Twins are hard.”

“It's not that,” Abigail said. “It's just that you all seem to deserve”—she forced herself not to become overly emotional, but it was difficult—“one another's affection. I just don't know what I deserve anymore.”

Sarah moved over to the couch, so Abigail was sandwiched between her and Devon. “I swore I wasn't going to get involved, but I can't stand it another minute. I know Eliot still has feelings for you—”

“What? Have you talked to him about me? You promised—”

“Of course I haven't talked to him about you! It's just so flipping obvious. He's like Mr. Bingley for chrissake: ‘Are
ALL
your sisters still at home?' That sort of thing.” Sarah was holding Abigail's hand, lightly rubbing the top with her other hand. “It's okay to want to talk to him, Abigail. Don't you want to be
sure
?”

“I was such a tiny blip on his radar. He spends his life with supermodels and accomplished fiancées. It's all too ridiculous. I'm ridiculous!”

Devon slapped both of his hands on his thighs. “Okay! That's enough of that then. No pity parties allowed. I was happy to go along with all this American prying-in-the-name-of-caring nonsense, but only up to a point. Which has been reached.” The intercom buzzed and Max and Devon both leapt to get it.

“The food is here,” Max added, as if they didn't all know that already.

Sarah spoke in a low voice so only Bronte and Abigail could hear. “They are complete frauds, you know. They are far more emotional than either of us, Bron. You Heyworths like to pretend you are all sewed up tight, but the smallest rip in your seam, and you're flooding out all over.”

“Come and get it,” Devon called across the room as he opened the brown bags and undid the carryout containers. Sarah had already set the table and put a stack of antique French plates on the kitchen counter.

They all piled on the food, opened up many bottles of the promised Kingfisher, and got down to the much more enjoyable—to Abigail's mind, at least—pastime of gossiping about other members of the extended Heyworth family.

Toward the end of dinner, while Max, Devon, and Abigail were dipping their spoons directly into the pints of ice cream in an act of lifelong defiance against their mother, Sarah turned to Abigail and asked, “Why don't you come to Paris with me for Fashion Week, Abs?”

“Why in the world would I do that?”

“Because it's fun and Bronte can't come in her condition.”

“I could too!” Bronte protested.

“No you may not!” Max barked.

“I love it when you are all bossy.” Bronte batted her eyelashes in mock obedience to her husband.

Abigail had looked in their direction and Sarah continued, “Ignore those infants, please. Come to Paris. It will be plain old fun. I'm staying in a crazily over-the-top luxurious two-bedroom suite at the Ritz, and we can just strut around at Dior and Galliano and your cousin James is going to be there, with Mowbray showing its fantastic women's line—”

“Stop!” Bronte pretended to cover her ears. “I can't listen to another word of what I'm going to miss. It's torture. These babies are not even out and they are already cramping my style!”

Everyone laughed at Bronte's false frustration. After getting pregnant with their first child, as Max liked to joke, after a wink and a smile, it had taken over a year for Bronte to get pregnant again. They were all relieved and overjoyed that it had turned out to be twin girls. Big brother Wolf was already telling everyone who would listen that the princess train was coming.

Abigail gave in to Sarah's prodding, knowing full well that some sort of accidentally-on-purpose crossing-paths with Eliot was obviously part of her well-meant plan. “All right, Sar, I'll go with you, but let's drop the pretense that there's not some Eliot component to the whole thing.”

“I never pretended otherwise,” Sarah answered with a snotty impersonation of an upper-crust British accent, turning her nose up and taking a sip of her beer as if it were vintage Dom Perignon. “I'm going to drive there. I'm leaving two weeks from tomorrow. I have too many clothes and shoes and what-have-you to take the train. Let's make a day of it and have a little road trip.”

“Sounds great. In the meantime, I'm going home. You're all way too happy for me to spend any more time here.”

“We'll give you a lift,” Max chimed in as he picked up a stack of plates and brought them over to the counter next to the sink.

“Perfect.”

***

Soon after returning from Paris
that
weekend
, Abigail had set about finding her own place to live. Her mother had balked at the idea.

“But Northrop House is so big and accommodating and right there in the middle of Mayfair.”

“Mother. It's just not on for me to be living with you when I'm a grown woman. I need my own place.”

“I wish you would stay for my sake,” Sylvia said quietly when they were finishing a game of cards one Saturday afternoon.

“Really?” Abigail was stunned.

“Yes. But I suppose it's selfish of me. I've loved having you.”

“Oh, Mother. You know I've loved being here, but… how about this? We'll look for the perfect place for me to buy. If we look for one we
both
love—since we know that's not likely to happen right away—I can stay here and at least feel like I'm looking for my own place. We'll call a proper estate agent and have showings and everything.”

“Oh, I love that idea.”

“I'm thinking Shoreditch or Spitalfields—”

“Absolutely not.”

Abby burst out laughing. “Mother! I'm the one who's going to be living there, not you.”

“All right.
Please
no
. Is that better?”

“Yes,” Abigail replied. “Much better. And what's so horrendous about Shoreditch anyway?”

“How would I know? I've never been there. Just the sound of it.
Shore. Ditch
. No.”

Abigail laughed again. “Okay. I'll make my way into darkest Shoreditch when you have a previous engagement.”

“If you must. Why don't you look here in Mayfair?”

“I'll give up on Shoreditch if you give up on Mayfair.”

Her mother was wonderful at games and negotiations of all types. She licked the tip of her pencil and ripped the page off the small elegant pad she'd been using to keep score of their card game. “Perfect.” She used the grid of the scoring sheet to keep track of the various neighborhoods.

“I'll trade you Mayfair for Shoreditch.” She wrote out the name of each of those neighborhoods in her neat hand, then struck them through with a perfectly straight line of her pencil.

They spent the next hour riffling through the
A
to
Z
together and winnowing down the selection, negotiating out the likes of Chelsea and Spitalfields, Sloane Square and Bethnal Green. Abigail was going to live wherever she liked, but she loved this idea of her mother participating in the search. It felt more ambitious somehow.

Eventually, though, Sylvia released Abigail from their bargain. As her relationship with Jack Parnell progressed and she was in London less and less often, Sylvia was forced to admit that a twenty-eight-year-old woman living alone in a six-thousand-square-foot mansion was, as Abigail had said, just not on.

A limited staff stayed on and the house was made available to everyone in the family. Wolf in particular enjoyed spending the occasional weekend there with Abigail and showing her which room would be his when he was the duke. “Duke like Papa!”