Escape for the Summer (37 page)

But even before they’d reached the door, Gemma knew it was far too late for that. Yet more mobiles were snatching pictures, and in a nanosecond Twitter and Facebook would be buzzing. She’d probably be a hashtag before they’d even reached the car. As if things weren’t bad enough for Cal as it was... Already his phone was ringing and he was as white as his car.

This was not going to be good.

Chapter 33

Angel didn’t think she’d ever been so cold. Even reclining in a ginormous four-poster bed – so high from the worn carpeted floor that a small set of steps was required to reach it, like something out of
The Princess and the Pea
– wasn’t enough to compensate for frozen fingers and toes.

Frozen fingers and toes? In the middle of the UK’s hottest summer for a decade? This was crazy. Did all the blue blood and years of practice in draughty public schools make the landed gentry immune to the cold or something?

When Laurence had shown her to the guest room Angel had been overwhelmed with excitement. In the rosy rays of the setting sun the large bedchamber had been blushed with peachy light that lent it a romantic glamour and, she realised later on, hid the holes in the carpets and faded Chinese wallpaper. No, these things had bypassed Angel’s radar entirely; she’d been far too busy racing to the floor-to-ceiling windows that gazed out over acres and acres of rolling parkland and imagining herself dressed up and watching the carriages trundle up the drive for a ball. OMG! It was like landing in a virtual-reality episode of
Downton Abbey
!

“Do you like it?” Laurence had asked. He’d leant against the doorframe as he’d spoken, the easy posture speaking volumes about how comfortable he was living in a house the size of Buckingham Palace. As they’d wandered hand in hand through the endless maze of corridors she’d worried that she’d need a satnav to ever find her way back down to the kitchen for evening sups, as the Elliotts referred to dinner. He’d looked so perfect framed there, his glossy dark hair falling across his face and his grey eyes bleak with worry, that her heart had turned a slow and most unfamiliar somersault. Suddenly she’d wanted nothing more than to make him happy.

It was a very peculiar sensation.

“It’s beautiful!” she’d said, and had been rewarded with such genuine delight that it was hard to say whether his smile or the sunset had been brighter.

Laurence had crossed the room and swept her into his arms. As he kissed her and the spacehopper-orange sun bounced on the horizon, Angel had basked in both the rays of light and his happiness. Kenniston was heaven on earth, she’d decided as she kissed him back. She could happily stay here forever!

Just a few hours on though and it was a very different story…

After a meagre supper of bread, cheese and pickle – eaten at the kitchen table rather than in the sumptuous candlelit dining room of her imagination – Laurence and Angel had huddled up on the sofa in the drawing room, which would have been romantic except for the fact that his mother insisted on joining them. When the viscountess had eventually retired for the night, Angel had hoped that maybe Laurence would make love to her on the rug by the fire; she fancied him so much she was prepared to overlook the fact that it was a particularly moth-eaten lion skin with a suspicious case of mange, but the pack of assorted dogs had already hogged the spot and lay basking in the warmth. There was no hope of snuggling up with Laurence either, because a huge and very smelly Labrador was wedged in between them, panting contentedly and drooling. Much as Laurence melted her knicker elastic and much as she liked dogs, Angel wasn’t overly keen on sharing this romantic scenario with a four-legged friend.

Maybe this is just the way aristocrats do things?
she’d thought when they’d returned to the kitchen and Laurence had brewed up the weakest-looking tea she’d ever seen, served with value-price digestives that seemed to have passed their sell-by date (even the dogs weren’t impressed). After all, wasn’t the Queen super stingy, according to rumours, and dog mad? So it didn’t quite look like this on
Made in Chelsea,
but that was probably all put on for the show. Gemma was always saying that reality TV was a contradiction in terms. The posh telly totty probably all lived in one wing of their family seats too. Cheered by this thought, she’d perched on the Aga and then Laurence had kissed her again until her tea turned cold and the stars freckled the sky. Then she hadn’t thought about much at all, apart from the delicious sensation of his mouth meeting hers.

It had been a bit of a surprise to find herself alone in the guest bedroom, when his touch had turned her entire body to the consistency of Cadbury’s caramel, but Laurence was frustratingly old-fashioned; after escorting Angel to her room, he’d kissed her goodnight and left her alone.

That was weird. Men never, ever turned down the chance to stay the night with Angel. Not that there had been a huge amount of them, but the ones she had given the green light to had never backed off. Confused and disappointed, she began to get ready for bed.

The room was bitterly cold. In her thin vest top Angel was soon shivering. This place was Baltic! Rubbing her arms in a vain attempt to keep the goosebumps at bay, she looked around for some source of heat. The enormous marble fireplace, all blue-veined like a giant Stilton, might look the part but it hadn’t seen a decent blaze for a very long time. Ashes dusted the grate, speckled with a few twigs fallen from long-ago nests in the chimney, and the log basket was empty. A quick inspection of the bed soon revealed that there was no electric blanket. The huge sash windows, so romantic at sunset, were old and tired. Draughts blew in icy blasts across the room; in an attempt to stop them she tugged at the ancient velvet drapes, only to be practically asphyxiated by a dust cloud.

One thing was for certain: this house seriously needed taking in hand. Maybe if things worked out with Laurence she could have a go at redecorating? Goodness only knew that the place was in need of a makeover.

As she undressed in the light of a small lamp, Angel shook the dust from her clothes and soothed herself by imagining how wonderful Kenniston would look with the walls all painted in neutral tones and with the windows cleaned and fixed. Maybe some of those tatty tapestries could be shoved into the attics? And as for the dogs, they needed to be kicked out of the living space. She’d never seen so much dog hair before. Perhaps as an engagement present Laurence would pay Sarah Beeny to come over and help?

Angel had become lost in a lovely daydream where she and Laurence were planning a wedding, second only to William and Kate’s, so it was a horrible shock when the light bulb popped and the room was plunged into darkness. Angel shrieked, but in such a large stately home no one could hear her scream. And neither could they appear with another bulb.

Angel was in despair. What on earth was going on at Kenniston? This wasn’t at all what she had imagined. If it hadn’t been for the magic of Laurence’s kisses and the way her bones melted just at the thought of him, Angel would have been so out of here. As she stumbled through the darkness, bashing her shins on the bed steps, she realised with a jolt of terror that she must really, really
like
Laurence. Maybe even more than like. And not just because he was a viscount, either. To be honest that didn’t matter a toss when Travis had nearly drowned them all. All she’d cared about then was that his first thought had been for her safety. Angel was used to guys worrying about her looks. That was a given. She’d been Alex’s little princess, adored and paraded about until she’d grown too old and he’d lost interest. Then she’d dated various men who liked to have her on their arms but who soon lost interest when Angel wanted more. It hurt but it seemed to be the way these things went. That was why she’d decided to cut her losses with all the true love stuff and just stick to the serious business of finding a rich man. Gemma could keep the romantic fantasies. Angel felt tired and cynical but she knew the truth: all princes soon turned into frogs once they’d been kissed. And one frog was pretty much the same as another, so the chosen frog may as well be loaded.

Laurence, though, wasn’t anything like this. He made her laugh, he protected her when she was in danger and he was so easy to talk to that several times she’d had to stop herself from telling him the truth. The words had been right on the tip of her tongue and she’d had to bite them back or drown them in the champagne that they were invariably drinking. It sounded mad but she almost felt that Laurence would totally understand. He was a kindred spirit. Her other half. Her soul mate.

Was she in love with him? She must be to even contemplate staying the night in this dusty, freezing house. Jewel of Palladian architecture or not, the harsh truth was that Kenniston was a skip. It needed serious work…

Oh bloody, bloody hell; wait a minute
, thought Angel, stopping in her mental tracks before she got too carried away with thoughts of design, garden parties and even a TV makeover.

Was she in love with Laurence Elliott?

Maybe.

She sank onto the floor and placed her head in her hands. This was not good news. At all. In her experience, being in love sucked. Just look at how Tom had walked all over Andi, or how Gemma, funny caustic Gemma, had been reduced to a complete sap around her useless ex. And then there was the sad case of her mother who’d been treated like dirt by their handsome, charismatic good-for-nothing bastard of a father. No good ever came from falling in love. Her parents’ example said it all.

Angel batted this thought away; bitter experience had taught her that dwelling on her parents never brought her anything except heartache. Thinking about them in the dark and when she was cold and on edge was not going to help.

The drapes had successfully concealed any friendly moonlight and there was no way Angel was going to risk contracting bubonic plague or whatever other dire germs might be lurking in that fabric. Those curtains hadn’t been cleaned since Henry VIII was in nappies. If only she knew where to find Laurence. Whether he was gentlemanly or not, Angel didn’t care. She would stay the night with him – but there was no way she could find her way to his room without a map. The endless passageways were bad enough, but the fact that all the light bulbs on the corridor had been removed and the place was pitch black was another matter altogether. If there was one thing Angel hated almost as much as being cold then it was the dark. When she was a kid she’d shared a room with Andi, who’d always been there when she’d had a bad dream or not been able to sleep. The night was when thoughts about losing her mother always came, too, and she’d wake with a start, her heart hammering and her skin slick with sweat. Angel would rather bin her designer shoe collection than admit this to anyone but, grotty as it was, she actually enjoyed sharing the small caravan bedroom with Andi. As shadows pooled across the room and a severe-looking Elliott ancestor sized her up with beady grey eyes, Angel’s pulse broke into a gallop. She wasn’t sure she would last the night alone in here.

Maybe she could call him? Brightening at this thought, she fetched her bag, tipping the contents out onto the threadbare carpet and patting the floor until her fingertips brushed her iPhone. Yes! Almost faint with relief, she swiped the screen, only for her heart to sink when she saw that there was no reception. She couldn’t even phone him. It looked as though she was well and truly on her own. With a whimper, Angel scurried up the steps and dived into the bed, tugging the covers up to her ears. Whether her teeth were chattering with terror or cold she really didn’t know, but they could have doubled for castanets.

Angel lay in bed with her eyes screwed tightly shut. She shivered.  Even her nose was going numb. In an attempt to distract herself, Angel tried to concentrate on adding up the value of the antique furniture and the ornate gilt-framed portraits – but the insistent chill seeped through her skin, into her bones, and froze her very thoughts. She tried burrowing beneath the covers but the scratchy blankets and starchy sheets were about as yielding and snuggly as granite. Besides, the bottom sheet was decidedly damp. Her icy feet had lost all sensation. Would she even make it to the morning? Somehow Angel doubted it. She’d be a blonde ice-lolly by dawn.

Just as she was contemplating jumping out of bed, wrapping herself in one of the blankets and wandering the corridors in search of Laurence like a tragic Shakespearean heroine, there was a soft rap of knuckles on the door.

“Angel?” murmured a voice into the darkness. “It’s me, Laurence. Are you awake?”

Angel could have wept with sheer relief. She didn’t think she’d ever felt as lonely as she did right then, marooned in the giant bed in the middle of the sea of holey carpet.

“Yes,” she whispered.

There was the soft padding of footfalls across the floor. Then the bed dipped to the left and seconds later she felt the solid warmth of Laurence pressed against her.

“Angel! You’re frozen!” He pulled her close against him, his hands gently rubbing her arms. His warm lips dropped butter-soft kisses onto her cheeks, her lips and her poor frozen nose. As she felt the warmth of his skin against hers, Angel began to defrost. This wasn’t difficult. Laurence’s touch turned her blood to lava.

“I’m so sorry,” he was saying. “I forget how cold it is here. I guess you get used to it when you’ve grown up with it.”

Angel nodded, but to be honest she didn’t really see how you could ever get used to the cold, or why you would even need to when there were giant cast-iron radiators and enormous fireplaces everywhere.

Then again, the way his lips were grazing her neck you could probably heat the whole of Kenniston from the fire igniting deep inside. She closed her eyes and allowed herself to drift away on the blissful current of his touch. The cold forgotten, she twined her arms around his neck and turned to kiss him, long and deep. It was a kiss that promised everything and for a moment Laurence kissed her back before breaking away and sighing. In the darkness she heard his breathing, just audible above the thudding of her own heart.