Well Groomed (25 page)

‘Tell them I recommended her.’ He smiled at Henrietta and then Beccy as he tore the scribbled sheet from his diary and handed it over. ‘I saw you at Ruttleford trials last year – you were on that bay mare Stefan’s riding now, weren’t you?’

Beccy nodded, so pink in the face that she looked as though a huge bubblegum sphere had just popped in it.

‘You’ve got a lot of guts.’ Hugo winked. ‘I admire that more than anything. Keep at it and you’ll be terrifying the hell out of me in a couple of years. Just don’t get too good, too soon.’ He grinned and then started to walk towards the drinks table.

‘Thank you!’ Henrietta called after him, flushed with success and turning to shoot Tash a victorious look.

She was speechless with shock and burning with shame for not having done more for Beccy herself. It wasn’t because she was mean, it was because she was gutless – she still felt like a complete tyro herself, battling to keep up in a game of draughts, while Hugo was a total chess-master.

‘Tenner for your thoughts.’ Niall had pushed through to her side and was eager to shake off the last few attention seekers who were still waggling arms and glasses at him.

Tash bit her lip and watched as Henrietta, having plucked up the courage with a swift swig of wine and flushed from her recent success, approached Niall now to elicit some help on Emily’s behalf. Slouching beside her, Emily looked decidedly embarrassed at her mother’s red-faced twitchiness. Tash felt her anger flare, thinking that Emily was really old enough to stand up and ask for herself.

Sally, who had dumped Matty by a display of medieval armoury, wandered up to stand beside Tash.

‘I just overheard Sophia telling Ben’s aunt that she needed to invest in a decent foundation,’ she giggled in an undertone, swigging champagne. ‘To which the aunt boomed, “Garment or fund? Because, I can assure you, I have both!” Sophia suggested Lancôme and legged it. What’s Niall looking so constipated about?’

‘Henrietta’s just having a word with him about Emily’s work experience,’ whispered Tash, still feeling an acid-burn of shame drenching her cheeks for being so ungenerous to her step-sisters. No doubt Niall was now offering Emily a highly paid job as his script adviser, she realised unhappily.

But when she glanced at him, Niall was looking evasive.

‘Sure, I’ll ask,’ he was saying vaguely. ‘But you really need someone from the production side in your favour – that’s the way in now.’ He looked at Emily’s silent, expressionless face dubiously. ‘I’m just an employee really,’ he apologised.

Embarrassed for him, Tash hung back and found herself standing next to Matty, who had pursued his wife and was glowering with disapproval as he always did at Sophia’s parties, which was why he was invited to so few.

‘But I thought you were the star on this Four Wheel Drive thing?’ Henrietta was asking Niall anxiously, glancing towards Tash for support. ‘Surely you could ask if Emily can just observe for a day?’

‘It’s not as simple as that,’ he started, eyeing Emily’s snarling mouth dubiously.

‘Are you after a job then, Em?’ Sally butted in, looking cheerfully at Henrietta’s morose daughter.

‘Yeah.’ She shifted her bovver boots nonchalantly.

‘On this film Niall’s in?’ Sally persisted.

‘Yeah,’ Emily continued, scuffing her shoes and looking at no one, seemingly transfixed by the cat’s cradle of her laces.

‘I can get you something to do on it, I should think,’ Sally promised easily. ‘I’m working on it myself.’

‘You what?’ Tash, Matty and Henrietta all gaped at her in disbelief.

Only Niall found this highly amusing. ‘Christ – it’s like the Redgrave family around here,’ he whistled. ‘Any second now, Tash my darling, and you’ll tell me you’re the stunt co-ordinator. I need another drink.’

Escaping to the long, cluttered drinks table to refill their glasses, Tash found herself queuing behind Hugo’s straight, unfriendly back in broad-shouldered made-to-measure jacket. He was having a laughter-saturated conversation with a very rakish and razzled-looking older blonde who was flirting like mad with him, huge predatory eyes drinking him in like an ecstasy raver spotting a long, chilled Evian bottle. Neither turned to acknowledge her.

Hastily averting her gaze, Tash caught sight of her mother who, having cornered Henrietta to chat about weddings, was now eager to pull her back into the proceedings.

Shrugging apologetically, Tash held up her drinks glasses by way of an excuse and waggled them to emphasise her point. But she hadn’t noticed that hers was still half-full and its contents spilled neatly down the centre pinstripe of Hugo’s beautifully tailored jacket.

‘What the Christ?’ He spun around, his cool eyes taking in the yellow peril behind him and narrowing.

‘I might have guessed,’ he sighed. ‘Really, Tash, if you want to attract my attention, you can just say my name.’

The rapacious blonde found this extremely funny. Tash failed to muster a glint of a smile.

‘I’m very sorry,’ she said as sincerely as she could, even though she was secretly rather pleased with her gaffe. ‘Send me the dry cleaning bill.’

‘Sure.’ He made to turn away, but Tash – spurred by Henrietta’s gallant nerve – decided that now was her chance to perform at least one of her duties, however reluctantly.

‘I hear you and Zoe have been seeing quite a lot of one another?’ she asked without subtlety, wanting to get her promise over and done with.

‘Have we?’ Hugo turned back unwillingly. ‘No more than usual.’ He shrugged carelessly.

‘Oh.’ Tash was rather taken aback. Perhaps he was being cagey. She decided to test the ground.

‘She’s lovely, isn’t she?’ she asked, just as Hugo stretched his empty glass towards a very hairy member of Bea Meredith’s staff who was dispensing freshly squeezed orange juice from a jug.

Studying the fluffy-chinned woman, Hugo raised an eyebrow as his glass was filled. ‘If you say so, Tash,’ he said condescendingly.

Tash ploughed on. ‘Yes – I mean, she has two teenage kids and a hell of a workload, and yet she still looks so glamorous all the time, and is tirelessly patient and friendly.’ She held out her two glasses to the withered, hirsute hag in the white pinny who looked as though she should have been pensioned off at around the time of decimalisation.

Hugo, glasses refilled, lingered on, fascinated by the conversation. Behind him, the blonde had melted away, shooting Tash dirty looks. ‘Do you really think so?’

‘Of course.’ Tash regarded him in mild astonishment, wondering if he saw another, less amiable side to Zoe – perhaps she was a secret sex siren. ‘She’s also wildly attractive, and she has that cool, blonde charm I’d just kill for,’ Tash said ardently. ‘I mean, I’m sure a lot of men would just die to be with her.’

His forehead creased, Hugo regarded the hairy waitress again, his face a study of attempted concentration. ‘Well, she looks as though she’s out-lived a fair few, yes.’

‘That’s a terrible thing to say!’ Tash gasped. ‘She looks incredibly young for her age. She’s only two years older than Kirsty,’ she pointed out indiscreetly.

‘Now that
is
bitchy,’ he murmured, his eyes dancing with sudden malice. ‘I’d almost say you were trying to set me up here, Tash.’

She flushed, realising that she had been as utterly indiscreet as ever – blunderingly steering him to exactly where she had her feet glued into the deepest, stickiest of holes.

She shrugged as coolly as she could and scratched her nose. ‘You could do a lot worse.’

Hugo laughed, still staring at her as though she was mad. ‘Like what? A positively ancient Scottish event rider?’

Tash squirmed inside her yellow PVC, realising she was nosing far too far into his personal life. But, remembering her promise, she decided to go for broke. For some crazy reason her heart was going ten-fold to the baker’s dozen in her chest and her cheeks were starting to flame with colour now. She realised to her amazement that she actually wanted to carry out India’s ludicrous instructions.

‘I know it’s none of my business—’

‘Quite,’ he snapped.

‘—but Kirsty is engaged,’ Tash gabbled.

‘I know that.’ He took a slurp of his drink too quickly, showing a very pink tongue as he licked a drop of juice from his lip. His blue eyes were lapping hers up, one moment icily angry, the next conceitedly amused. Suddenly, he looked at her very worriedly, his head tipping forward so that his voice could drop to a breath and still be heard. ‘Do you think I should give her up?’

Tash was slightly disturbed by the gravity of his question, but felt that it was a distinct moment of breakthrough on India’s behalf.

‘Well, I think it would be best for her sake,’ she replied carefully. ‘I mean, she stands to get really hurt if this goes on much longer. Richie is coming over to stay next month, after all.’

‘Right – yes, so true.’ He nodded earnestly, seeming to absorb this. ‘I can see that. You really do have her best interests at heart, don’t you, Tash?’

Tash didn’t like the way he said that. And a flicker in his eyes startled her – they were like the flint sparks of a gas hob waiting for ignition. She had seen just that look before and knew for certain that it preceded an explosion of such velocity that she’d lose her eyebrows.

‘I just thought—’ she bleated, desperate to back-track and explain.

‘And may I say how flattered I am that you take such a keen interest in my love life,’ Hugo continued, his voice as icy as Sophia’s champagne. ‘To the point of trying to involve yourself in it directly by sending me a Valentine’s card plastered with semi-nude pictures of yourself.’

‘But that was a mistake—’ Tash felt herself burning under an instant blush of mortification as she realised what he was saying and how loudly he was saying it. Niall was just yards away.

‘Which I have to thank you for, incidentally,’ he stormed on, ‘as it’s caused great amusement amongst my staff who’ve pinned it to the tack-room wall.’

‘Oh, God!’ Tash covered her eyes in shame. ‘It wasn’t—’

‘But as I haven’t the slightest interest in you sexually, darling,’ he hissed, his voice again dropping to a snarl that only she could hear, ‘I suggest you butt out and leave me alone before I ask Niall to prise you off.’ He grinned maliciously. ‘And I shouldn’t imagine he’d be too pleased to hear how your affections wander so rampantly while he’s away filming his little pics, would he?’

With that, he turned on his heel and left her mouthing at thin air like a trumpeter who’s suddenly found his instrument whipped away.

‘Tash darling!’ Alexandra raced in from the left, bangles jangling. ‘Henrietta and I have just been planning everything down to the last T. I think the reception flowers should be all white and buckets of rustic corn-structure things to represent your vocation, don’t you? Have you been having a nice chat with Hugo? I heard Niall asked him to be an usher earlier today.’

‘He did?’ Tash asked weakly.

‘Yes – Hugo seemed delighted. Said he’d always wanted to tell your family exactly where to go.’

IN VERY HIGH DUDGEON, Matty was not talking to Sally at all. He was horrified that she had even met up with Lisette again, let alone taken a job with her behind his back. Within minutes of the revelation, he had packed all the children into the car and was waiting sulkily in it, listening to Any Questions on the radio at full blast.

Sally had two more drinks and did another circuit of the room to irritate him.

James had been hitting the red wine more often than he should have done because Emily was driving them all back to Berkshire later (she liked driving the Jag to these occasions because her step-father always got so pissed that he fell asleep and failed to notice the fact she was doing over a ton in the fast lane for most of the return journey).

He was also drinking too much because he found the family that his older daughter had married into intimidating. A Calvinist corporate achiever who had worked eighty-hour weeks throughout his thirties and forties to enjoy the benefits of an affluent life, he was continually aware of his own inadequacies – particularly his failure to be knighted, which always irked him. He was immensely proud of Sophia’s progress, of her position and standing, yet found himself increasingly in her shadow nowadays. She was a gossip-column regular, whilst he very occasionally made it into the business pages. As the sternest of father figures, this unsettled him. He was aware of her continuing respect, her uncompromising love of him, but her aristocratic marriage and title tainted this. And her stuffy, stand-offish in-laws – particularly Ben’s terrifying mother, Bea, and deaf, barking father, Henry – made him feel about twelve. They were amazed and ‘charmed’ that he still had to work for a living. James, who ran one of the most successful venture capital institutions in the City, didn’t want to charm people, he wanted to frighten them. This haughty, haw-haw world, although alluring and in many ways enviable, was not his own. He could sneer all he liked when he was away from it, but when he was confronted with it, as now, it made him feel left out.

He was therefore rather staggered that they all appeared to take to Niall so easily – his big-hearted charm and loud, riotous humour delighting them, his star-status exciting them. James was continually astonished that everything was so easy for this Irish braggart, just because he was good-looking, way out and gilded with that elixir of popularity – fame. They even seemed more willing to accept Tash by association. James had once been ashamed of his younger daughter; now he was appalled and angered to find himself jealous of her too. Her recent snub about not being given away by him – a topic he himself was aware of bringing up in a fit of petty spite – served to compound his niggling irritation with her. He was itching to air his animosity. And he was now very drunk.

They were gathered by the door as Tash and Niall made to leave – Sophia and Henrietta talking weddings, Alexandra and Ben talking holidays, and Tash and Niall talking cars. All spoke at once in a cacophony of noise – deep, light, husky and sharp voices all fighting for air space like multifarious plane engines at an airshow. Only Emily and Beccy, now bored to oblivion by the whole proceedings, kept silent. Lurching up with a full glass of red wine, James cut across them all.