Christmas at Tiffany's (54 page)

‘Thank goodness for that.’

‘Oh yeah,’ Dean said seriously. ‘I’ve seen Suzy on the warpath before. I ain’t letting
her
down! How’s she doin’, anyway? Baby must be getting big.’

‘There’s a few more weeks to go, but she’s getting pretty tired. I’ve had to force her to let me help.’

‘I bet she’ll be one of them mums that’s up and working the next day, like ain’t nothing happened.’

‘Oh, I hope not. She needs a proper rest. As well as having a baby and doing her usual workload, she’s also organizing our best friend’s wedding two weeks before the birth, and her brother’s a month later.’

Dean gave her a funny look. ‘Really? I thought that had been cancelled.’

‘Sorry?’

Dean checked his book. ‘Yeah, look, there it is.’ He pointed to a big red line through the Sallyford name. ‘Shame. They’d asked for Himalayan blue poppies. Dead rare they are. I’ve only been asked once before to order those in. Still,’ he shrugged. ‘Can’t have ’em getting married just ’cos the flowers is right.’

‘No,’ Cassie murmured. ‘Not because of the flowers.’

When she got back, Suzy was still in her dressing gown, which barely closed around her, brewing some coffee.

‘And how was that? Find him okay?’ She set a cup in front of Cassie.

‘Oh yes, yes. Once the halogens had burned through my retinas it was fine.’

‘It’s not that bright in there.’

‘And I’m just about back to body temperature,’ Cassie said, continuing her moan.

‘I’d have thought it was obvious it’d be cold. Flowers don’t look their perkiest in the heat. Talking of which – that came for you.’ She pointed to a small potted rose standing on a wonky round table by the window.

‘Ooh, who’s it from?’ Cassie asked, darting over and looking for a card.

‘Doesn’t say. Don’t worry, I’ve had a good look. Luke, perhaps?’ Her toast popped out from the toaster and she put it on a plate and walked over to the table.

‘Hardly! Unless the thorns have been dipped in poison. The last communication I had from his lawyer was that the
Vogue
story was going ahead.’

‘No way! I thought you’d got it all stopped.’

‘In Paris, yes. But they’ve got different privacy laws in the States, and he’s got copyright.’ She gave a defeated shrug.

‘Well, can’t you fight it?’

‘I could – if I had more than eighteen quid in my bank account.’

‘No! You don’t—’

‘Not literally, Suze! But not far off. I’m just going to have to get my head round the fact that most of the western world is going to see me naked.’ She was silent for a minute, and then a slightly hysterical laugh escaped her.

‘What’s so funny about that?’ Suzy asked. ‘I’d be topping myself. I have to whistle just so that Archie can brace himself for the sight of me coming out of the bathroom.’

‘It’s not that,’ Cassie sighed. ‘I was just remembering how terrified I was of Gil’s reaction to me in the
nightie
dress. I mean, it was because of that that I was trying to find him that night. If I’d just worn the velvet one, I still might not know about him and Wiz, even now. Instead, half the world’s going to see me in the buff! How ironic is that?’

‘That’s mad karma, babe. You must have done something really bad in a previous life!’

‘I’m beginning to agree,’ Cassie smiled, brushing the tops of the rose bush. They hadn’t opened yet, but she could tell from the buds that the petals were a delicate pink.

Suzy looked over at the rose bush. ‘Hey, that couldn’t have come from Henry, could it? Didn’t you ask about flowers from him?’

‘No. The others came as seeds. I had to grow the damn things. Why suddenly send me a plant?’

Suzy shrugged, and Cassie remembered what Dean had said.

‘By the way, Dean said something.’

‘Oh yes? Dean says a lot. Trust me. Can’t stop him.’

‘He says Henry’s wedding
has
been cancelled.’

‘Yes, he just rang. I’ve put him straight, don’t worry. There had been a query over the reception venue’s availability and I’d forgotten to cancel the first date option, that’s all. It’s all sorted.’

‘Oh. Good,’ Cassie said flatly.

‘Is that disappointment I hear in your voice?’ Suzy asked, a small smile twitching her lips.

‘No, not at all,’ Cassie replied, sitting back in the chair. ‘I was just getting fed up with being told first one thing and then another. I mean, hello? New hat? Should I get some new shoes? And dresses need to be sorted . . .’ Her voice trailed away.

Suzy pulled herself up to standing. ‘Well, worry no longer. It’s all on. I spoke to him this morning, actually. He sounds a lot happier. They’ve broken through the ice and reached the Gakkel Ridge. I think he’d rather be swimming with seals than examining the new anthropogenic pressures on the pristine Arctic ecosystems, but . . .’

Cassie shot her a look. ‘You have
no
idea what you’re taking about
at all
, do you?’

‘None whatsoever,’ Suzy agreed as a big, noisy yawn escaped her. ‘Lawd, I’m tired.’

‘Go and have a nap,’ Cassie said. ‘I’ll take over whatever you were doing here.’

‘Oh, would you? I was just looking through the brochures to draw up a shortlist of dresses for Miss Second-Weekend-in-September-Chiswick. She says she wants something modern and simple. No hoops or ruches or anything that makes her look like an Austrian blind.’

‘Sure thing,’ Cassie smiled. She’d gone from girl Friday to girl Monday-through-Friday in the blink of an eye, but she kept the smile on her face until Suzy had shuffled out of view. Then she laced her fingers around the warming cup and gave a weary sigh, eyeing the happy-ever-after brides on the table as if they were the enemy.

The days began to pick up pace as Suzy’s various deadlines loomed ever larger and Cassie attuned herself to the neurotic, just-below-hysteria pitch that most brides-to-be operated at.

‘God, tell me I wasn’t like that,’ she muttered to Suzy as they came out of a meeting with a prospective bride who wanted the cast of Riverdance to perform at her reception.

‘Some hope. You were so dreamy you could have got married in a dustbin and thought it was romantic.’

Cassie pulled a face. ‘Was I really that bad?’

‘Worse. Nothing would have stopped you,’ Suzy said, opening the car door. Cassie was doing all the driving now, as Suzy was struggling to get Cupcake behind the wheel. She clicked her seat belt on. ‘What did make you fall for him, anyway?’

‘You mean apart from the voice?’ Cassie asked, throwing her bag into the back seat. She’d bought a pleather Top Shop one to replace the Maddy Foxton bag she’d ended up giving to Katrina Holland. Not exactly a fair swap.

‘Fair enough. I get that.’

Cassie turned on the ignition and pulled away. ‘I don’t know that it was one thing, really. Just the package, I guess. He was older, confident, self-assured. Dry sense of humour that I like. I was far from home and he just . . . made me feel safe.’ She gave a shrug as they pulled on to the Fulham Road.

‘You never saw the boring, pretentious, affected arrogance that we all saw then?’ Suzy asked innocently.

Cassie gave a startled laugh. ‘He’s not that bad!’

‘You’re defending him? What on earth is wrong with you? You’re supposed to curse the very mention of his name.’

Cassie sighed. Being so busy for the last few weeks had had a positive effect on her mood, but she still felt she was barely more than sleepwalking most of the time. The divorce proceedings were dragging – her solicitor seemed unable to get through to Gil’s; she’d had to suspend her litigation against Luke due to insufficient funds; and all hell had broken out amongst the girls. Suzy had told Kelly everything that had happened in Paris, and Kelly had sided with the two of them immediately, to the effect that Anouk found herself sacked by email as both Kelly’s bridesmaid and Suzy’s baby’s godmother. Cassie was grateful for the support, but also depressed by it as the girls’ exhortations breathed fire into the new enmity and made it a living thing.

‘It’s too exhausting. I can’t live with that much hate inside me, Suze. I’m just not made that way.’

‘
Don’t
tell me you’re going to forgive him?’ Suzy asked, indignation pulsating all over her.

Cassie paused. ‘Forgive, no. But I just don’t want to keep it with me.’ She swung the car through amber lights and Suzy grabbed the handrail. ‘I want to keep on moving – physically, geographically – until the hurt is so far in the distance, I can’t really remember it any more.’

‘So what are you saying? What about Wiz?’

‘What about her?’

‘Don’t tell me you’re forgiving her too.’

‘I’m not forgiving either of them,’ Cassie said sharply, and there was a brief silence between them. ‘But at the end of the day . . . she’s a mother,’ she shrugged. ‘Once she fell pregnant with Rory – even if it was accidental – she must have had a deep need to keep her son with his father. You can’t blame her for that.’

‘You most certainly can!’ Suzy said crossly. ‘Gil was not hers to take.’

‘No . . . But he was Rory’s.’

‘Ugh!’ Suzy exclaimed, crossing her arms petulantly over her belly. ‘I don’t know what to do with you, really I don’t. You’re far too soft. I worry about you, Cass. I fear you haven’t learnt anything this year, that you’ll let someone else use and abuse you, just like they did.’

Cassie didn’t say anything. True, she might be softhearted, but Suzy must know after all these years that if she believed something, she stuck to it.

They sat behind a bus chugging along the King’s Road.

‘Of course, I don’t suppose it’s ever occurred to you that there could have been a different way to play all this?’ Suzy said in a lighter, more playful tone.

Cassie arched an inquisitive eyebrow. ‘That being . . . ?’

‘Why, to seduce Gil one last time, get pregnant, bear the rightful
legitimate
heir, get the entire estate passed over to your child, kill Wiz and adopt Rory as your own, of course. Not considered that option?’

Cassie burst out laughing. ‘No. But now that you mention it, I’ll keep it as my Plan B. It’s a good back-up. Modest. Achievable.’

They pulled up outside the mews. A blacked-out top-of-the-range Range Rover with all the toys was parked opposite. ‘Hmmm, swanky,’ Suzy muttered, trying to get herself elegantly out of the tiny car. Not easy when she was – as she kept saying – as full as an egg.

They were just through the front door and kicking off their shoes when the bell rang.

‘I’ll get it,’ Cassie called to Suzy, who had made a beeline for the bedroom and an elasticated waistband.

Cassie opened the door.

‘Katrina!’

The older woman smiled. She was wearing sunglasses and a Hermès scarf wrapped around her hair as though she was Grace Kelly and had travelled here in a sportster, not – Cassie could see the chauffeur standing by the car opposite – in an armoured tank.

‘You are a difficult woman to keep up with,’ Katrina smiled. ‘Almost as many air miles as me.’

‘How did you find me?’

Katrina dipped her chin. ‘Anouk,’ she said, with a look that suggested she knew something, if not all, of what had happened at the Dior party. ‘May I come in?’

‘Uh, yes, yes of course,’ Cassie replied, holding the door wider. ‘Suze! We’ve got a guest.’

Suzy walked back into the sitting room, rubbing Cupcake. She’d changed out of her chic Diane von Furstenberg pregnancy dress into one of Archie’s tracksuits, and a vast expanse of tummy was now on show.

‘Katrina, this is my friend, boss and landlady Suzy McLintlock. Suze, this is Katrina Holland.’ She stalled. It didn’t seem right to call her a friend. ‘We met in Paris. Mrs Holland is one of Anouk’s clients.’

‘Katrina, please,’ Katrina said, shaking Suzy’s hand lightly. ‘And I’m one of Bas’s clients too, don’t forget.’

‘Of course,’ Cassie nodded.

‘It’s a pleasure,’ Suzy said, trying to suck her tummy in – a totally pointless exercise, but she recognized her guest instantly from the gossip pages. Everyone knew Katrina Holland was a serial bride and Cassie watched her friend thinking how
great
would it be to get her on her client list! ‘We were just making tea. Would you like some?’

‘Thank you. That would be lovely.’

Suzy nodded and dashed out, and straight back into her DVF dress. Cassie wondered whether she’d be able to cobble together a matching teacup and saucer from her lovingly mismatched collection. She wasn’t sure Katrina Holland would ever have put anything other than Limoges to her lips.

‘Please, won’t you take a seat,’ Cassie said, indicating the patchwork linen sofa. She sat down opposite on a calico-upholstered wing chair.

Katrina swung a large bag over to Cassie. ‘I wanted to bring this to you,’ she said quietly, her eyes flicking towards the kitchen door to make sure they were alone. ‘And to thank you for what you did for me in Paris.’

Cassie peered in, hoping to God she wasn’t giving her her old bag back. Even if it had been dry-cleaned, she wasn’t sure she could feel the same way about it, knowing that it had been used as a receptacle for something other than chewing gum and biros.