An Eligible Bachelor (36 page)

She knelt in front of him and unzipped his trousers, then carefully extricated his penis over the waistband of his Hom briefs. The delicate touch of her fingers caused it to swell in front of their eyes, unfurling itself slowly and deliberately until it stood upright in all its magnificence. Looking down in awe, Charles felt relief and a hint of pride, then watched in amazement, hardly daring to
breathe, as Fleur wrapped each breast either side of his cock until it was nestling in the deliciously warm, soft cradle of her cleavage.

‘It’s OK,’ she whispered. ‘This doesn’t count. Officially you haven’t been unfaithful.’

Charles wasn’t entirely convinced. Wanking yourself off between a woman’s tits was about as intimate as it got. Suddenly he imagined Henty’s dear, sweet, shocked expression: what if she could see him now?

‘I can’t do this!’ he insisted, pulling away.

‘Oops!’ said Fleur. ‘Too late…’

In a steaming hot shower, Guy had a chance to wash off the grime from his journey and go over what had happened. He thought he had every right to be angry. Bloody furious, in fact.

The whole thing unsettled him. Not so much her murky past – he’d said himself she couldn’t help that – but her lies. And the fact she’d obviously only come clean to him because she’d been found out. And he hadn’t liked the way she’d dealt with it subsequently; her behaviour had turned his stomach slightly. He wondered about the tears. Were they real, or just for effect? In fact, he felt wary about her whole performance. She’d made him feel unreasonable, almost a monster, then wheedled forgiveness, albeit reluctant, out of him. Was this going to be a pattern in their marriage? Her using subtle emotional blackmail on him to get what she wanted, with her wily, actressy ways?

Pumping a generous handful of her shampoo into his hand, Guy scolded himself for being too hard. It was
pretty normal female behaviour, he supposed, to manipulate men. They started young by working on their daddies: he remembered seeing his own sisters at work on his father, and being amazed at what they could con out of him – and even more amazed that he didn’t see through them. Now he realized that of course he
had
seen through them – it was just so much easier to give in. Guy had capitulated as his father had before him. He hadn’t had the strength or the energy to withstand Richenda, and she had won.

In the past, he’d never gone for the manipulative type. His preference was for straightforward girls with a bit of spirit. No nonsense. Richenda had been something of a departure in that she was an unknown entity, but he had been entranced. Bewitched and intrigued. Besotted, even. He’d fallen for her head over heels, but perhaps he’d been mistaken to let things move along so quickly.

All in all, he felt rather foolish, especially when he considered all his resolutions on the journey up – his determination to make up for his neglect over the past few days, even though that had been out of his control. And she had repaid his goodwill by betraying him. Not that he thought she’d deliberately set out to con him. But he did feel aggrieved that she obviously didn’t feel she could trust him. And he still had a sneaking suspicion that if she could have kept her secret for a little longer, if not for ever, then she would have. That really wasn’t great grounds for a marriage.

Sighing, Guy picked up a bar of soap. Maybe he shouldn’t judge her too harshly. He’d known all along that they needed to get to know each other better. He had to
give her the benefit of the doubt. And he certainly wasn’t going to spoil her evening. He was too much of a gentleman to do that.

Charles sat bolt upright in the back of the taxi feeling thoroughly sick. He wasn’t sure whether it was the surfeit of champagne, the smell of Fleur’s scent that his own skin seemed to have absorbed as if by osmosis, or the thought of what he had allowed her to do to him and what that meant. Shit! He had been so perfectly in control of their relationship. He had only meant it as a minor diversion – a little flirtation to boost his ego.

He’d been feeling rather depressed lately, as if he’d reached a point in his life where that was it – no more excitement, no more achievements. The heady rushes that went with love and success belonged to the next generation; it was his turn to bow out gracefully. Charles certainly hadn’t felt ready for slippers and gardening and Radio Four. He was only forty-one. Fleur had made him feel young and attractive and successful again. Giving her the prospect of fame had turned him on, even though he knew it had been a long shot. But he’d decided to play on it in the meantime: it gave him the chance for a few clandestine encounters that had given him the frisson he yearned for, even though he’d had no intention of letting it go anywhere.

Now it had gone way too far and he was panicking. He must have been mad! He didn’t trust Fleur one little bit. She was, he knew instinctively, the type to cause trouble if she felt like it. And what made him feel even sicker was the fact that she had known exactly what she
was doing all along. He’d played right into her hands. Or rather, her breasts. Basically, he’d jeopardized his marriage for thirty seconds of semi-pornographic self-gratification, and now he was panicking.

The incident only served to remind him just how much he loved Henty. Of course he did. It was just that the magic had gone out of their marriage. The spontaneity. The romance. Which wasn’t surprising with four demanding children. He remembered why he had fallen in love with her in the first place. Her guilelessness, her naivety, her humour, her gung-ho attitude to life. Of course four children and nearly fifteen years hadn’t been kind to her, but Henty wasn’t the type to freak over it. Not for her the facial peels and brow-smoothing injections that Fleur obviously relied upon. But so what if she looked a little plump, a little worn round the edges; if her sloppy sweatshirts and down-at-heel loafers weren’t cutting edge? Henty, his lovable squidgy Henty, was real. And he’d neglected her, kicked her to one side. He was a vain, self-centred monster. What right did he have to think the world owed him an endless injection of self-indulgence and thrills? Which, if this afternoon’s encounter was anything to go by, made you feel hollow and empty.

For a moment, he compared the two women.

Fleur: artificial, grasping, manipulative… that just about summed her up.

Henty: loving, giving, patient, kind, tolerant, happy-go-lucky, undemanding… the list went ever on.

As the taxi slewed heavily round a corner, Charles groaned. It was all very well him realizing he should appreciate what he’d got. It might just be too late.

The driver was looking at him in alarm.

‘You’re not going to chuck, are you, mate? Only, if you are, you can get out here.’

Guy sat on the sofa dressed and ready, sipping from a bottle of St Miguel he’d taken out of the fridge, wondering what on earth all those people were doing. He estimated that it had taken him approximately fifteen minutes to get ready. Richenda had been ensconced in her room for over an hour and a half with no less than three minions.

Finally she emerged. And he had to admit that now he could see what had taken the time. She looked absolutely breathtaking. Her dress was very simple, cut on the bias in pale grey-green silk chiffon shot through with silver, so that it shimmered like a moonbeam. Her skin reflected the milky glow of the three-strand pearl choker round her throat; her hair was smoothed back into a knot tied loosely at the nape of her neck, with just a couple of strands falling free. She looked like an ethereal apparition that had sprung from some legend – a mermaid princess.

‘You look beautiful,’ said Guy, and he meant it.

Her responding smile lit up her features, doing more for her than any make-up artist. She took his arm in hers, and he breathed in the scent of ripe figs. He had, for the time being, forgiven her.

‘Let’s go,’ she said. ‘The limo’s waiting.’

Charles stumbled up the drive to Fulford Farm filled with resolve. He was going to take the day off tomorrow. He’d take Henty shopping, treat her to whatever she wanted,
then they’d go somewhere for lunch. Stratford. He thought Stratford would be nice. They could even try and get tickets for a matinee at the RSC. They hadn’t done that for years.

Delighted with his plan, too drunk to realize that it was the plan of a guilty man and that Henty might think it was strange, he slipped in through the front door, deposited his camcorder in the study so as not to arouse suspicion, then made his way to the kitchen.

The atmosphere hit him at once. Sultry Latin jazz was oozing out of the sound system. Henty was sitting on one of the kitchen units with a glass of white wine in one hand, swinging her legs. Her eyes were sparkling, her cheeks slightly flushed, and she was giggling at something Travis was saying. He was sprawled carelessly in a chair, nursing a bottle of beer and looking very much at home.

‘Hi, Charles,’ Henty said, matter-of-factly, no hint of warmth in her voice. ‘We started without you, I’m afraid.’

Charles swayed slightly, blinking, trying to assess the situation.

‘Looks like he’s started already,’ drawled Travis, and the two of them burst into laughter. It rang mockingly in his ears, and he started to protest, but his words came out slurred. He must be drunker than he thought – he had a dim memory of Fleur topping his glass up more often than her own.

‘Another one of your boozy media lunches?’ asked Henty lightly, and the words sliced through him like a knife. It was true – he often came home half cut from schmoozing. But there was no need for her to be so
disparaging. It was part of the job. Ninety per cent of deals were done over a restaurant table.

It was just a pity
he
hadn’t managed to pull one off lately.

Fear turned the champagne in his system to acid, burning through the walls of his stomach and seeping into his bowels. He couldn’t bring himself to burst in through the bubble Henty and Travis had drawn around themselves. They’d been having fun before he arrived, he told himself. Now they looked wary, unsure how to accommodate the intruder.

‘I’m going to bed,’ he managed to mumble, turned on his heel and shut the door.

Just as Honor had known he would, Johnny forgot the ingredients for the Thai chicken curry that evening.

Or didn’t forget, exactly. He’d been held up tending to a horse with a tendon injury. He could have stopped off at the supermarket for all the stuff, but then he would have been late. Or even later than he already was.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I’ll run into Eldenbury for a takeaway.’

‘Don’t worry,’ said Honor, resigned. ‘I’ve got plenty of stuff in the fridge.’

How had she known that the promised meal wouldn’t materialize? Because she knew Johnny only too well. This was familiar territory. Promises, promises. Followed by excuses. The eternal let-down. It was almost as if, once he’d made a vow, he had to break it. Oh well, she told herself. If you didn’t expect anything from Johnny, then you weren’t disappointed.

He had, however, brought a DVD player together with a load of pirated movies he’d got from one of his clients.

‘Isn’t that illegal?’ Honor asked.

‘Yes,’ said Johnny, but before she could protest Ted had spied a copy of the latest Disney movie and she’d had to give in. They were sprawled on the sofa together now, laughing uproariously at the animated antics. Their mirth was infectious: Honor found herself smiling as she
whisked up the batter for toad-in-the-hole and poured it carefully over the sizzling sausages in the baking dish, taking care not to let the hot fat sputter up on her skin. She slid the dish back into the oven, then selected two round onions from the string hanging off one of the butcher’s hooks in the ceiling and sliced them thinly for the onion gravy.

Minutes later the onions were browning nicely, well on their way to becoming caramelized, and Honor leaned back on the kitchen cabinets to draw breath for a moment. She picked up the glass of wine Johnny had poured her and sipped it contemplatively, looking at Ted. He was sitting with his legs crossed, his head on Johnny’s shoulder, trying to fight off the fact that he was tired, for he knew the minute he showed signs of fatigue he’d be packed off to bed. Her heart constricted inside her. Ted was so like Johnny. Surely he looked at him and saw himself? How much longer could she keep up this pretence?

She saw the little boy’s lashes finally give in and fall on to his cheeks. It always amazed her how he could be laughing one minute and fast asleep the next. Honor went to scoop him up and carry him up the stairs, but Johnny nudged her gently out of the way.

‘I’ll take him.’

He lifted him up effortlessly – Honor had to admit that it was becoming more and more difficult for her to lift him – and in his sleep Ted put his arms round his father’s neck and his head flopped on to his shoulders. Her heart was in her mouth as Johnny reached the door.

‘Johnny –’ she began.

He turned.

‘He… hasn’t brushed his teeth,’ she finished lamely.

Johnny grinned.

‘I’m sure it won’t hurt just this once. He can do them twice in the morning.’

He disappeared through the door, her one-time lover, carrying their son. She took another big slurp of wine, hoping to dispel the questions and doubts that were whirling round in her mind.

I’m not a celebrity, get me out of here.

Guy was hating every minute of the evening but trying desperately not to show it. From the moment their limo had arrived at the hotel and they’d walked in through the entrance, past the roped-off area that held back the straggle of paparazzi, he’d been squirming in discomfort. It was all so fake; a tawdry attempt by the newspaper to emulate the glitter of the more prestigious award ceremonies in order to boost its circulation. And the tragic thing was that the actors and actresses and presenters that it was purporting to celebrate went along with it happily despite the fact that it was a total set-up and the winners were bound to be rigged. The lure of column inches, it seemed, was a strong one. They were more important than talent in this day and age. Celebrity and notoriety could fast forward a career; no one with any ambition turned down the opportunity to be in the public eye. So the place was packed out with wannabes, has-beens and the faces of the moment, all of whom had spent at least the last week planning what to wear and being groomed for the occasion.