Royal Pain (26 page)

“Yes, I do know.”

“Fair enough. Let’s try to enjoy the rest of our meal, shall we?”

“Yes, let us try.”

Max took the final spoonful of soup, placed his utensil between the bowl and the charger, picked up his napkin, and wiped his lips.

From there on out, Bronte became quite adept at using her right hand only. Luckily, fish was the main course, so she could use the side of her fork to slice it and then stab at the food without having to resort to the use of her knife. By the end of two grueling hours, she was on the verge of breaking down. Not just sobbing—more like willy-nilly running through the streets with arms waving and teeth gnashing.

The duchess, on the other hand, managed to look as though she had just had a splendidly charming dinner from which she hated to tear herself away. Bronte had to confess a grudging admiration for the woman’s ability to reflect absolutely none of her true feelings through her appearance.

Sylvia rose from the table and placed her napkin on her chair. Her sons both stood. Bronte froze. Her mother’s voice was clanging in her mind: “A lady never stands.” Was there a mother-in-law exception?

“Very well. I must be off. Thank you for inviting me to dinner, Maxwell. Devon.” Slightest pause? “Bronte.”

Sylvia glanced at each of them in turn as she said their names, nodded infinitesimally, then stepped away from the table and crossed the restaurant.

All three watched—Devon turned where he stood to see her—as she walked up the steps and out to the street level. When the outer door had shut firmly and several more seconds had passed, Bronte picked up her barely touched glass of wine (forming her
left
hand into an unwieldy fist around the stem of the delicate crystal), downed it in its entirety, then raised it as if it were a stein at Oktoberfest to intercept the passing waiter.

“Another bottle of the Pouilly-Fuissé, please.”

Devon picked up his glass, smiled, and chugged in filial solidarity.

Max looked at both of them and shook his head in mock disparagement.

Devon started to laugh, slowly and in low tones at first, then unable to refrain, he had to put one hand over his mouth and one hand over his middle to keep from embarrassing the people dining nearby with his guffaws. Bronte looked at Max and smiled, then got up and walked around to his side of the table, took his face in her hands, and kissed him deeply.

She pulled away an inch or two to see the softness had returned to his gray-wolf eyes.

“That’s better,” she whispered.

She took the seat in which Sylvia had been sitting, scooted it closer to his, took hold of one of Max’s hands, and laced her fingers through his. “I’m having second thoughts.”

Devon stopped laughing instantly.

Max just smiled and started shaking his head again.

“What kind of second thoughts?” Max asked.

“Well, remember how I said I didn’t want a prenup, except to say I definitely didn’t want anything and all that, you know, putting everyone’s mind to rest and all that? Well, I don’t think I want to put her mind to rest. Is that wrong?”

Devon started laughing again and this time the people at the neighboring table smiled at Max and Bronte with a look of empathy that implied, “Aren’t you nice to spend the evening with your mentally handicapped friend?”

The three of them spent another two hours together and enjoyed a few more bottles of wine, with Bronte helping them laugh over every bitter proclamation Sylvia had uttered. The restaurant was totally deserted and the chef-owner, Lucinda Birch, ended up coming out of the kitchen to see how their meal had been.

Bronte was rosy-cheeked and confessed she would have to come back for another meal because this one had been utterly lost on her bitter palate. Ten minutes later, Lucinda came out of the kitchen with a bowl of steaming pasta in a saffron sauce with three sautéed scallops placed elegantly on top.

“Try this. It’s lovely with the Pouilly-Fuissé. The recipe is from one of my favorite cafés in Marseilles.”

They invited the chef to join them and poured her a glass of wine. Bronte took one bite and thanked all points in the universe for the return of her taste buds, then turned to the woman-angel-chef who had prepared the dish and asked, “Will you be my mother-in-law?”

Lucinda smiled. “Would that I could! I think there’s something in the books about mothers-in-law having to be the mothers of your husband, but maybe that’s just a story I heard.”

Bronte loved this woman. Something about the saffron and the wine and those three perfect scallops, and the wine. This woman was an earth goddess of some sort. A genius of love. The love of food perhaps, but still, love nonetheless.

“Are you enjoying the pasta, Bron?” Max was leaning on one elbow.

“Mmmm-hmmm. Why do you ask?”

“Just the fact that you are swooning with your eyes closed while you eat it. Other than that, no reason.”

She opened her eyes and swallowed the last bite of saffron bliss. “I think you had better take me home.”

Devon and Lucinda were enjoying a friendly debate about farm-raised versus wild salmon as Max helped Bronte get up. She wasn’t slurring exactly, but her tongue felt a tiny bit too thick for her mouth, so she decided to wave her thanks to Devon and Lucinda.

“The best!” was all Bronte could get out as Max grabbed his briefcase and guided her up to street level, where he hailed a cab. Her head rested against his shoulder during the ride home, and she couldn’t wipe the easy grin off her face. She vaguely remembered him helping her across the cobblestones, into the house—
their
house?
she wondered—and up the stairs, where he undressed her in a gentle, matter-of-fact fashion, then tucked her soundly into bed.

Max went back downstairs, barefoot, with his shirt untucked. He went into the kitchen and poured himself a huge glass of ice water, then stepped out onto the cool, misty terrace at the back of the little house and turned to look up at the night sky.
No
stars
in
London
, he thought.

He took a deep, satisfying swallow of water and sat down on the stone bench near the wall of climbing ivy. The city sounds were muffled by the moisture; a horn seemed distant and irrelevant. The slight squeak of a car’s breaks nearly dissolved as it trailed over the garden wall. The unexpected ring of his cell phone in his pocket brought him back to himself.

Devon.

“So I’m just getting in a taxi and heading home… that went well tonight, don’t you think?”

“You are either facetious or demented or blind… which is it?”

“Honestly, it was hardly a blood bath. Sylvia hadn’t had time to assemble her army. She was a lone wolf. What could she do? And Bronte is, well, as you of all people know, the bomb. So what are you worrying about?”

“Who said I was worrying?”

“I did.”

“It’s nothing. I mean, it’s everything, but it’s probably nothing.”

“Tell me the everything part.”

“Well, dinner was, as you said…” Max breathed in. “Mother didn’t have time to sharpen her talons beforehand so she didn’t do too much damage, but on the way there, Bronte got a bit…
peevish
.”

“I’m sure she was just nervous at the prospect of meeting the dragon.”

“I guess, but it was the first time she really turned it on me. I mean, I was up against it in New York trying to get her to see the absurdity of letting another day go by, of worrying over the year that we’d already squandered and all that. But…” His voice trailed off and the cell phone cracked and gaped into the silence.

“But what, Max? You feel like you’ve done your pitch and closed the deal and now it’s time to move on to the happy bit?” Devon’s laugh was not cheerful.

“I get it, Devon. The party’s just starting and all that. But I’m telling you, she’s not the type to wig out, and she was on the flipping verge.”

“Oh, this is rich. I’m pulling up to my flat, so I don’t have time to congratulate you further, but suffice it to say I will be encouraging the very astute Ms. Talbott to wig out early and often. Priceless. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.” Max thought he heard Devon chuckle again and then the line was dead.

Max finished his water, set the glass down on the slate paver at his feet, and let his hands fall between his legs, elbows resting on his thighs, neck stretched as his head hung down.

Devon’s mirthless laugh echoed in his mind. Maybe he was being an idiot, expecting Bronte to be woven into the fabric of his life within a matter of days—although, to his mind, it felt like the year they had been separated had somehow been part of the progress of their relationship.

A friend of his at the University of Chicago had been a recovering addict, and when Max had asked him one time, hypothetically, why he couldn’t just pick up a beer after twelve years of being clean, his friend had explained with a metaphor he had heard at a twelve-step meeting.

“Even though I am no longer using, my addiction is progressing at the same rate as if I were. So, let’s just say I go for twenty years without, then pick up again? It will not be like I get a new lease on twenty spanking new years of do-over; it will be like the waterfall has been coursing full bore for twenty years, and within a matter of months—probably days, in my case—I will be right down there where the hardest sheets of water are crashing against the huge boulders at the bottom. It’s always there… waiting, rubbing its hands together with despicable relish.”

Max shook his head and tried not to compare his adoration of Bronte Talbott to Stefan Gebhardt’s adoration of alcohol, but something about the analogy stuck. He was not going to let her baseless fears about how it would all turn out destroy the reality of how good it already was. Together, Max thought, they had momentum. They had staying power.

He stayed outside for a while longer, letting the rustling night air clear his thoughts of frantic women, arable hectares, and canary diamonds. Finally, he picked up his glass, went back inside the silent house, and headed upstairs to be with the woman he loved.

The dormer windows that opened into Max’s bedroom were clearly designed to convey the wrath of an evil god as the sun’s rays beat down on the anvil of Bronte’s pickled brain.

“So thirsty,” she half whimpered, half croaked, one hand trying feebly to cover up her eyes while the other patted blindly for Max’s arm, leg, anything. “Max?”

She opened one eye between her fingers to see the silhouette of Max’s—spectacular, really—body leaning casually against the jamb of the bathroom door. Naked and brushing his teeth, he was quite the specimen. She tried to feel the tiniest stir of passion, but felt only the stir of impending nausea.

“I should make you get up and get the water and painkiller on your own, but I’d never forgive myself if you went ass over elbow across the loo.”

He turned back into the bathroom. She heard him tap the excess water off his toothbrush with two brisk smacks against the side of the sink, then drop it into a glass. He filled a glass with water, shook out a couple of pills, and returned. He walked back to the bed and sat down with a cheerful bounce.

“You are hideous.” Bronte felt the vibrations of the mattress pound through her skull like multiple fists.

“Just thought you’d want a gentle reminder that a third bottle of Pouilly-Fuissé is
never
a good idea. You know, for next time.”

“Have mercy on me,
darling
Maxwell
.” She smiled as she imitated his mother’s drawn-out, caustic tone of voice and formal full-name habit. He moved very gently across the bed, the smell of his freshly showered skin like a purifying balm as it reached her nose.

He looked down at his crushed angel: eye makeup smudged, hair in a state of complete confusion, cheeks red with the flush of alcohol.

“You are a beautiful train wreck. I shall be merciful.”

“I don’t think I can lift my head off the pillow.”

“Even better.”

“And I can barely talk.”

“That would be a novelty.”

“Hey!” But she couldn’t even muster the energy to be genuinely offended.

He helped her get to a half-sitting position as he handed her the two yellow pills, then cradled her in the crook of his strong arm as she drank shakily from the cool glass of water. He took the glass when she was finished and put it on the bedside table, then lowered her back down onto the pillow.

She was groaning quietly. “I so hate myself at times like this.”

Max wanted to talk to her about her mini freak-out in the taxi on the way to the restaurant, but figured this was not the best time. “Don’t you have meetings today?”

“Holy crap. I am supposed to meet the estate agent about scouting locations for the Sarah James London boutique. What time is it?”

“It’s only seven fifteen. What time are you supposed to meet?”

“She was going to pick me up here at ten. Fuck.”

“You’ll be fine. Just sleep for an hour or two more and you’ll be great. I have to get ready for my meetings. Everything is coming to a head today. The land stewards, the agricultural engineers, the solicitors…”

He was talking more to himself than he was to her as he headed across the bedroom to his large walk-in closet. He had converted a useless, smallish bedroom into a pleasant fitted wardrobe. He hated to admit how much he loved the precise order of everything in there. A place for everything and everything in its place, as his father used to say.

He came out of the closet, giving each of his cuffs a firm tug out of his suit jacket, and looked down at his miserable fiancée. She had one bleary eye opened.

“Do you still want to go to David and Willa’s tonight?” she asked feebly.

“I don’t know, Bron. Can we play it by ear? I really need to focus on work and—”

“I am so sorry, Max.”

He stopped worrying about his clothes and took a long look at her. “What for?”

“You know what for… I warned you it was going to happen,” she croaked. “That I would get needy and demanding and petulant. I am a—” Her voice caught, and it wasn’t just from a raging hangover. “I am weak with loving you and I hate that. You’re going to pay.”

“Aw, Bron. Don’t. It’s all good. Devon thinks you should keep up the petulance as much as possible.” He was putting a strand of her mussed hair gently behind her ear. “We’ll get it all sorted. And you were right. There’s no fire.” He kissed her sweetly on her temple. “But right now I absolutely have to run. I adore you. Have a wonderful day about town and text me if you need me.”

He picked up his cell phone from his side of the bed. “I don’t know when we’ll be taking breaks from the negotiations, but I will try to stay in touch. You go on ahead to David and Willa’s and I’ll try to meet you there if I can.”

“I love you, Max.”

He was standing at the top of the stairs and turned back to look at her.

“I love you too, Bron.”

Then he was down the stairs and out the front door within a few minutes, the sound of his strong stride on the cobblestones trailing into the dormer windows as Bronte drifted back into an agitated half-sleep.

Her cell phone rang at nine o’clock on the dot. As soon as Bronte said hello, Willa was off and running with her eager babbling before Bronte had half a clue who was on the other end.

“…and another couple that I think you will adore; he’s some sort of French banker friend of a friend of David’s and she’s at
Harpers
& Queen
, and—”

“Hel-lo…” Bronte’s voice sounded like hell.

“Bronte?”

“Willa?”

“What’s the matter with you?”

Scratchy voice. “Just your run-of-the-mill hangover. Had the pleasure of meeting the duchess last night—”

“And you got sauced?!”

“No, I mean, yes, eventually. I managed to hold it together while she was there, but by the time she left the restaurant, apparently it seemed like a very good idea to order two more bottles of wine…”

“Oh, Bron!” Willa said, more amused than critical.

“Whatever. I feel better than I did two hours ago. And I’m glad you called, since I’m supposed to be picked up by the estate agent in about an hour. What can I bring tonight?”

“Oh, just you and your darling husband-to-be—”

“It might just be me sans darling husband-to-be, since he’s going to be sequestered for most of the day with this deal he’s been working on for the past nine months. Do you still want me solo?”

“What kind of question is that? Of course we still want you. He’ll turn up later I’m sure. And we’ve got plenty of food. I’m in the mood for a curry, so I’ll probably make too much as usual.”

“Oh that sounds—well, it sounds revolting right this second, but I know it will be just the thing when this fog of pain lifts from my stupid head.”

“Bronte, you are hilarious. Oh, by the way, did you know that your old beau from Chicago is living in London now? That chap from Texas?”

Bronte had let her head fall back to the pillow after her failed attempt at sitting in an upright position earlier in the conversation, so there was no chance of her falling out of the bed.

“Uh, no, I did not know that.”

“I think he’s friends with the French guy who’s coming tonight or something. David will fill you in; he’s been in touch with him a couple of times. Come ’round about six thirty so we can catch up before everyone else gets here at seven thirty. You have our address, right?”

“Mm-hmm.”

“Great. Totally casual. See you then, doll.”

The line went dead and Bronte whispered, “Bye, Willa.”

Why did she give a shit if that
person
from Chicago—who never gave a shit about her—lived in London? It was one of the biggest cities in the world, for chrissake. She lifted up the lead weight that did double duty as her skull and made her way into the bathroom to shower off her physical and mental fog.

She reached into the shower enclosure and turned on the water, dreading the cold spray on her arm. She tried to whip her hand out of the way and banged her elbow into the glass door.

“Fuck.”

She shut the offending door while the water heated up and went over to the sink to brush her teeth and take stock of her hungover self. She reached into her dopp kit, realizing she had obviously forgotten to take her birth control pill last night, in her oblivious stupor. Actually, she hadn’t taken one on the overnight flight either, now that she thought about it.

“Great…” she muttered as she dug deeper into the brown-and-white striped vinyl bag from Henri Bendel, a going-away present from Carol Dieppe when Bronte had first moved to Chicago.

After a few more seconds of digging around, she finally crouched down on the floor and dumped out the entire contents of the bag. Mascara, toothpaste, lip gloss, eyeliner, blush, dental floss, eye shadow, face cream, a few stray cotton swabs, eye makeup remover (could have used that last night, she thought), three tampons, and an earring that she thought she had lost months ago all rolled out onto the white bathmat.

“Fuck.”

She felt like a poster child for idiocy as she turned the stiff bag inside out, like there was some magical secret compartment that she had never seen but had somehow managed to put her pills into without remembering. She could have Carol FedEx the pack, but fuck, even then it would be more like three pills missed.

“Fucking genius.”

She shoved the contents of her dopp kit back together and took off the oversized white T-shirt that Max had apparently changed her into in her inebriated state last night. She stayed in the scalding shower longer than necessary, letting the steaming water wash away the residue of the previous night.

Sally Fenworth arrived at ten o’clock exactly. Her brisk knock on the front door jarred Bronte out of her coffee-inhaling reverie.

“What a pleasure to meet you, Ms. Talbott! I am really looking forward to showing you around the various options for a Sarah James boutique here in London! It’s going to be a wonderful day! I am so glad that Mr. Mowbray suggested you call me!”

Her enthusiasm was utterly enervating. Bronte stood in the door, her coffee mug held stiffly in front of her, staring at the effervescent Ms. Fenworth as if she were a rare anthropological artifact at the Natural History Museum. The little description card would read: “Overcheerful Sloan Ranger, Early Twenty-First Century.”

“Ms. Talbott?”

“Yes. I’m so sorry. I’m a little jet-lagged. Would you like to come in?”

“Oh, no, thank you. I mean, of course, if you’d like a few more minutes to get ready, but I have scheduled seven appointments over the next three hours and the first one is at ten fifteen at Brompton Cross.”

“Perfect. I’m ready. Let me put my coffee cup in the sink and I’ll be right out.” Bronte gathered up her bag, took a quick scan of the kitchen and living room, then headed out for the day.

***

Max hadn’t looked up from his desk from the moment he’d arrived at work that morning. When he finally took note of the time, it was four o’clock in the afternoon and he needed to touch base with Bronte. He needed some fresh air as well, and decided to step outside while he dialed her up.

“Hey, you!” Bronte snapped with a good dose of cheer.

“You sound like you are on the mend.”

“Thanks to you. The seven a.m. water and painkiller—followed by two good hours of sleep—did the trick. How’s it going over there? Are you whipping the arable hectares into submission?”

“Let’s just say if anyone’s getting whipped, it is probably me. But I’m taking a break from that for the moment. Tell me about your day and take me away for five minutes.”

“Oh, all right. I’d rather hear you, but I will oblige since you were so… accommodating last night. The way-too-bubbly Sally Fenworth showed up at ten o’clock… precisely. We saw a slew of perfect little boutiques if Sarah has any real interest in this whole London thing. I stopped into a few stores and also went into Mowbray’s… ooh la la… quite the Britishy situation over there—all that wood paneling and manliness everywhere. Then came home and—”

“You…”

“What?”

“Nothing. Go on.”

“Well, all right, but you sound stressed.”

“I am. But not about us. Go on. What else? You sound like you are panting.”

“Very funny. I’m just walking down the Fulham Road where I picked up a couple bottles of wine for tonight. I know Willa said not to bring anything, but it seems a little rude to show up empty-handed.”

“Time’s almost up, love. I shouldn’t be here for more than another hour or so. Do you want me to go straight to David and Willa’s or pick you up at home?”

“I love that.”

“What?”

“That… the
home
bit. I like the idea of you… of us… of a home. Which reminds me, ugh, so idiotic, but I forgot my pills at home in New York and had a little minicatastrophe on the bathroom floor this morning. I think we better, you know, be careful for the next few weeks.”

Max felt the floor drop out from under him. “I have to walk back into the conference room now, Bron, so I can’t really process what you just told me. I think you may be implying that there’s a chance you are pregnant, but I am so unable to take that in at the moment, that, well, I am just going to pretend I have no idea what you are talking about.”

“It’s not that big a deal. I can get the morning-after pill—”

“Bronte.”

“Max.”

“Bronte—”

Simon Ramwell, Max’s land steward, poked his head out of the front door of the townhouse and did a pantomime of tapping his watch.

“I’ll be right there, Simon.” Max waited for him to reshut the door, then tried to breathe.

“Max. Please. Don’t get upset. Go finish your meetings and we’ll talk about it later tonight. It’s not a big deal either way.”

“Bronte. It’s a huge deal to me.” How could he even begin to convey how huge, especially if it was a boy? An heir? The next duke? How could she be so cavalier? “I never would have… we never would have been so careless in New York and in the shower if you were
not
on the pill. I’m going to have to—”

“Please, Max. I’m sorry I mentioned it. Go back to your meeting and we’ll meet up at David and Willa’s. I’m not pregnant… I mean, it is hugely unlikely.”