The Balance Thing (11 page)

“This is your room?” I asked.

“My room,” he agreed. His jacket was off, then his shirt. I'd pulled off his tie somewhere on the stairs. “My bed,” he swept me forward. “And I want you in it.”

After that it was a matter of hot hands working swiftly to rid me of my bridesmaid regalia. “Oh, yes,” he said, his eyes lighting up, as the dress slid down to reveal the strapless corset Connie had insisted on underneath. He opened the top hook with his teeth. God bless Connie.

His hands were everywhere, and I could feel him straining to get to me. I reached for his zipper and heard him groan. When I wrapped my hand around him, he gasped. Then his fingers found me, and I stopped breathing entirely for a while.

The corset was a distant memory, and my breasts were filling his hands, then his mouth, as I dug my fingers into his shoulders and held on. Then he suddenly pulled away from
me, raising himself up to change position, and our eyes locked.

Sir Charles Shipley, naked in the moonlight, smiled slowly at me. And it wasn't at all what I'd imagined.

It was better.

T
he movies are so right about so many things. They're right about how one night can change everything. About how the memory of that night can make your blood sing and your heart race and your whole life look candy-colored and new. The movies are right about birds warbling and flowers blooming and the sun shining and the whole damn thing.

Here's where the movies are wrong:

In the movies, there is inevitably a simple misunderstanding that causes the lovers to break up. This happens two-thirds of the way into the show. Long enough from the beginning that we can't stand the thought that the two stars won't end up together, and long enough from the end that we have time to watch them flail around like idiots until that perfect meant-to-be final shot.

The basic flaw in all of this is the initial breakup. Because no real woman would walk out on her man just because of something she suspects, or something she's found, or something she overhears, without giving him absolutely every opportunity in the world to clear it all up and make her happy again.

Women—and by women I mean myself—need to be conked over the head before they realize it's over. Our capacity for denial is so vast, and the stubborn refusal to admit defeat so strong, that sometimes even a moderate conk (for example, finding another naked bridesmaid in your new boyfriend's bedroom) won't do the trick. If he won't explain it away, fine. A resourceful woman—again, me—can do that for him.

Maybe she got lost and fell asleep in the wrong room.

Maybe he was just on the point of fending her off…

Maybe they used to be lovers, and now she wants him back, but it's too late because he's fallen for me!

Maybe he's a jerk and I'm an idiot. But that one doesn't cross a real woman's mind until later.

 

BEFORE THE DISASTER,
there was the wedding breakfast.

Everybody was once again in nice clothes and there were mimosas and pastries and assorted miniature foods and it was in the Morning Room, rather than the Breakfast Room, which meant there wasn't a table, so we had to balance the delicate little china plates and cups and things on our laps while we all talked about what a beautiful ceremony it had been and what a lovely bride Connie had been and how the band had been delightful and the food delicious and, in general, how splendid it was to have played a part in the whole thing.

There was no discussion about who had hooked up with whom, and which beds had remained unslept in. That would have been bad form. But if the remoteness with which they greeted each other and the distance they maintained were
any indications, there were two couples who'd had hot, sweaty sex the night before. And I'm not talking about Connie and Ian. Those two sat sipping, nibbling, and opening presents while the two couples in question discreetly ignored each other.

The two couples that any idiot could have pegged if they'd taken a moment to think about it were Phillip and Max, and—miraculously—myself and Sir Charles Shipley.

He was the model of decorum. I caught the occasional sly glance passing between Phillip and Max (I'm sure Vida did too), but from the LOTM there was not the slightest hint of a suggestion of an intimation that he had anything but the most proper host-guest relationship with any person present.

Only I knew differently.

“I just don't get it.” Vida made this attempt at small talk.

“Uh huh,” I said. Sir Charles Shipley was speaking with Connie's parents. He looked good talking to parents. I pictured him talking to my parents. Yep, it looked good.

“I mean, look at him,” Vida went on. “How the hell can he be gay?”

I looked over at Phillip. He plucked a small rosebud from a vase and placed it in his buttonhole. “I don't see it either, Vida,” I assured her.

Ian now stood and said something funny that I missed. I was a little sad about that because I didn't think I'd ever heard Ian say anything funny, and now it was possible I never would. Then he placed a hand on Sir Charles Shipley's shoulder, and they excused themselves and left the room.

“I wonder what that's about,” I said.

“Probably settling the bill,” Max spoke from behind me and I jumped.

Vida turned away. “I'm back to never speaking to you again.” She headed for the pastry cart.

“I hope she gets over this,” Max said tiredly.

“What do you mean, ‘settling the bill'?”

His eyes widened. “Whoops. I wasn't supposed to say anything.”

“But you did, so what do you mean?”

Max cast a furtive glance around to make sure we weren't being overheard. “Phillip told me about it last night. He's not a friend of your Prince Charming at all. Ian just asked them to pretend to be old chums because he didn't want Connie and her parents to know he'd rented out this shack for the wedding.”

“What?”

Max elaborated. “Ian wanted Connie to have this whole dream wedding thing, but he actually doesn't have any old family friends who managed to hang on to their old family houses.”

“What?” It seemed to be the only comment I was capable of.

“But Trinny knew about Lakewood, and when Ian mentioned he was looking for a castle for his princess's wedding, she arranged with your boy toy to lease the place out for the week.”

“You're kidding!”

Max shook his head. “So the whole family-being-friends-for-generations thing is a sham, and Ian is probably writing out an enormous check as we speak.”

Wow. The LOTM was certainly better at keeping secrets than Phillip was. I had a moment's flare of jealousy that Max had gotten better pillow-talk scoop than I had, but then I
remembered that Sir Charles Shipley's mouth had been engaged in pursuits other than conversation in the night, and I melted a little.

“Connie doesn't suspect a thing?” I asked Max.

“And Ian doesn't want her to, so—shhhh.” He cut himself off. “They're leaving.”

Ian had returned to the party and the bride and groom were saying their good-byes. There was a tremendous flurry of activity involving rose petals being tossed and bouquets being thrown (nowhere near me or Vida), and then they were gone. Out through the garden gate and off to Paris.

Which meant I had exactly three hours in which to close the deal with Sir Charles Shipley before the cars came to take us to the station. I was already packed, but I had major unfinished business. I hadn't forgotten my five-day plan. “DO NOT GO without knowing where you stand” was the last item on the list, and it was time to find out.

I didn't see him anywhere in the crowd, so I looked in various drawing rooms and studies in the general vicinity. Then I wondered if he'd gone back to his room to change (having observed that's what the English upper classes do between meals), so I tracked him to his lair.

I knocked quietly on what I vaguely remembered as his door and thought I heard his voice inside, so I took a quick look around to make sure I wasn't observed and scooted in, a smile on my face caused by the knowledge that we could have a lot of fun in our three remaining hours.

My LOTM was already in bed. And already naked. Which would have been great, except he was already having sex. With Trinny.

I think I wasted a lot of time blinking because he was out
of bed and wrapped in a paisley dressing gown before I could say anything. Even then, what I came up with wasn't brilliant.

“What—”

“Rebecca, are you still here?” he asked me.

“What—”

Trinny cleared her throat softly. “Shouldn't you be packing or something, Becks?”

“What?”

This is the point at which the maybe-this-is-just-a-horrible-mistake possibilities were presenting themselves in my mind. But it wasn't. It became clear with Sir Bastard Shipley's next words that this wasn't a mistake at all.

Last night sure as hell had been.

“Look.” he attempted one last charming smile. “As fun as last night was, I hope you didn't think it was anything more than…” He brushed that damn lock of hair out of his eyes and shrugged. “Well, part of the wedding package.”

I stared at him until he spoke again.

“Isn't it time for you to go home now?”

I ran.

 

THE HALLWAYS SEEMED
to close in on me as I took random turns trying to find my way out to somewhere I might possibly be able to breathe. I eventually staggered outside and away from the house.

I don't know how long I wandered around in the gardens, stunned at my own stupidity. And I don't know at what point I started muttering at the birds and flowers, cursing the Bastard Lord of the Bastard Manor as well as the Conniving Blond Bitch who'd been in his bed.

Eventually I found myself out of breath on the hill by the lake. I saw George in the distance struggling to pull the enormous white swan across the lawn, and suddenly I wanted nothing more than to exhaust myself in some pointless physical labor.

“Hey, George!” I yelled. To hell with behaving like a lady. I was a brash Yank, and I'd yell to the gardener if I felt like it. Take that, Sir Snobby British Shipley.

I gave George a hand, relieved that he didn't ask if I'd had a good time at the wedding. With much huffing and puffing, and after tearing several satisfactory gouges in the immaculate lawn, we got the completed swan boat into the water. It bobbed a bit and leaned a little drunkenly to the left at first but eventually evened out and floated just like you'd expect a swan-shaped pedal-boat to float.

George turned to me, rubbing his hands in anticipation. “Shall we take her out?”

Now that the work was over, I wasn't really interested anymore. “Will it hold us both?” I asked doubtfully.

“She”—George stressed the pronoun, reminding me we were talking about a ship here—“should be able to hold a family of four. So unless you weigh more than the equivalent of a mother and two children, we should be just fine.”

“Fine. Whatever.” It's not as though I had a lot to live for anyway.

“Splendid!” The old man beamed.

He held my hand rather gallantly until I was safely seated, and then we began to pedal, and wonder of wonders, the silly thing worked.

We moved across the water to the tune of George's delighted mutterings and the soft
splish-splish
of the paddles. It wasn't until George gave me a slightly puzzled smile
and said, “Is something troubling you, my dear?” that I deteriorated into the most pathetic woman on the planet. And to make the humiliation complete, I started to cry.

I would have expected a proper old Englishman to be flustered by a woman's tears, but George wasn't. He simply produced a clean white handkerchief and made the occasional soothing comment such as “There's a good girl” and “Mustn't worry about it” as I choked out the whole sordid story between sobs.

I'll say this for myself—once I let go, I really let go. I didn't stop with the tale of the night before. I told George all about my stalled career, my many recent layoffs, and my inability to get my life back under control. I even gave him a semi-hysterical version of Connie's date-laziness theory.

Some might say my complete breakdown was overdue, and what better place to have it than on a floating swan with a complete stranger that I'd never have to see again?

Eventually I took a huge sniff and the tears dried up. I realized we were at the center of the lake, and George had stopped pedaling. The water was like silk around us, and the view of Lakewood House in the distance still had that damned fairy-tale quality.

“There. You feel better now, don't you, poppet?” George asked.

“I feel like an idiot,” I told him. “I never cry.”

“Never? Not even at American movies? Personally, I can't get through that scene in
Casablanca
where they start singing ‘La Marseillaise.' But I'm just a sentimental old fool. Always have been.”

I looked at Lakewood, dancing in the shadows as clouds passed quickly overhead. We were silent for a while as a dis
turbing thought took root in my mind. It had to do with Prince Charmings and knights on white horses—now a horribly real image for me—and being rescued. Had this just been some incredibly predictable Cinderella thing? Was my can't-get-a-decent-job, can't-recognize-a-decent-guy, stuck-making-cartoon-vampire-noises life back home so bad that I'd been seduced by a standard escapist take-me-away-from-it-all scenario?

God, what a depressing thought. And with it, inevitably, the rain began.

I looked over at George. “How seaworthy is this swan?”

“I suggest we don't find out,” he responded. “How do you feel about pedaling?”

We made it to the dock as the downpour really started. I worried about the old man getting soaked as we hauled the swan to safety, but I suspect he was in better shape than I was.

“There,” he said briskly, as we made it to the boathouse. “That's all right, then.” He extended a dripping hand. “My dear, I shall think of you always whenever I see a swan.”

“Thank you.” I stood on tiptoe to kiss his rainy cheek, then went back to the house, back to London, and finally back home.

Thank God.