Beautiful People (34 page)

    "Yes!" Darcy agreed delightedly. "Isn't that great?"

    Belle swirled her hair. "No, it isn't. Who asked her to do that? I've asked the driver to come at eight. I wanna check out the local scene, see what's going down…"

    "Er…" Darcy began.

    Just at this minute, Mara appeared with a large plate of what looked like sliced meat. Sugar, in Belle's arms, immediately started to strain and snap.

    "Oooh!" Darcy exclaimed. "That looks amazing, Mara!"

    Mara smiled. "Is antipasto. Local specialities," she said proudly. "Salamis, proscuitto, air-dried ham, sliced smoked sausage, and chorizo."

    Using one of the forks on the side of the plate, Darcy, eyes sparkling, peeled off a dark red layer of ham.

    "No, thanks," Belle snapped as Mara offered her the plate. "I never eat anything with a face." Sugar, who most definitely did, snapped at a row of salami at the edge. Mara tugged the plate away in disgust. "You are vegetarian?" she asked Belle. "Okay, fine. I bring some grilled vegetables."

    Belle eyed the housekeeper. "Like I said," she retorted rudely as Sugar dragged off a pile of ham. "I don't eat anything with a face."

    "Vegetables don't have faces," Darcy remarked.

    "Sure they do," Belle snapped. "Have you ever looked really closely—I mean really closely—at an onion?"

    Mara's lips had tightened angrily. "I go get secundo piatti," she muttered, stomping off with the dog-licked antipasto, which she now held at arm's length.

    "Don't bother!" Belle shouted rudely after her. "We're going out."

    Mara, who had turned at the villa entrance, looked stony. Darcy, indigant at being roped into whatever Belle was planning, was about to assure her that she wasn't going anywhere and that secundo piatti would be most welcome, when there came the loud bleep of a text message being delivered. Darcy whipped out her phone and flicked it open.

    From above, Emma saw, instantly, her entire demeanour change.

    "I'm terribly sorry," she gasped apologetically to Mara. "But actually, I have to go out myself. Can't the main course keep?" she added pleadingly.

    "Or feed it to my nanny," Belle suggested in a sneering tone. "She needs to keep her weight up." As the listening Emma gasped with fury, Belle grabbed Darcy's arm. "Let's go."

At the table occupied by the seven Britons at the Italian restaurant, a discussion about corporal punishment was in, as it were, full swing.

    "I don't believe in hanging," Hugh declared.

    "I don't believe in hanging either," Richard agreed.

    "Quite right," Hugh said heartily. "Hanging's too good for them. Bring back the drawing and quartering, that's what I say." He dug his fork into his spaghetti with relish.

    The twins Ivo and Jago, meanwhile, were trying to prise from Orlando what he intended to do during the ritual year off before university. "If, that is, you're actually going to university, Orlando," Ivo taunted.

    "He is," confirmed Georgie grimly from where she picked over lobster linguine at the end of the table.

    Orlando drained his bottle of Italian lager crossly. Did he have no say in the matter? Were his opinions irrelevant? Actually, he wanted to go on a gap year even less than he wanted to go to university. He had no desire to save pygmy elephants in Borneo or teach English to villagers on the slopes of Kilimanjaro. He didn't want to do film-making in Paris or surf skills in South Africa.

    What he really wanted to do was get a job, any job, and actually have some money of his own. Like that nanny, Emma, he had met in the airport.

    He wished he had her mobile phone number. She kept slipping into his head, and whenever she did, he had a sensation like a fresh breeze on a close and humid day. He remembered her unaffected smile, her scrubbed and shining cleanliness, her keen and searching gaze, her air of independence and of being absolutely frank. It would, he thought, be good to see her again. More than good.

    "You'd never last a gap year anyway," Ivo was scoffing as pudding arrived on the table.

    "Better bugger off and do Surf Science at Mousehole University or something," mocked Jago, tucking into a large portion of tiramisu.

    Orlando stared with loathing at his persecutors, with their stupid stiff Eurotrash clothes and Raybans stuck on the top of their ridiculous big hair. Who did they think they were? Hugh bloody Grant?

    He resented the fact he had never worked in his life. Especially as the time he'd meant to spend studying he'd actually used to watch television.

    Seeing Orlando's miserable face, Richard was about to come to his son's defence when he realised his leg was trembling in a disconcerting manner. It took some time to work out that, unexpectedly, he was receiving a call on his mobile phone.

    He cleared his throat. "Excuse me," he said softly as he stood up. "I seem to be required by one of my constituents."

    "Good man!" roared Hugh from the other end of the table, unsteadily holding aloft at least half a bottle of Chianti in an extremely large glass.

    "I know what Orlando should do in his year off." It was Laura who had spoken, lounging at the other end of the table from Georgie, eyes glittering in the candles that had now been lit, one hand playing with her long black-red hair which, combined with her white face, reminded Orlando of evil queens in Disney films.

    "What?" asked Georgie eagerly, while Orlando met Laura's teasing gaze apprehensively from under his brows. He had no idea what was coming but had every idea that he wasn't going to like it.

    "Ensnaring," Laura said, in tones of nasal triumph, "some plain and dumpy heiress with his looks.'"

    Everyone turned to look at Laura.

    "Why not? He's marvellous breeding stock," Laura drawled, looking Orlando up and down in a way that made him blush and burn.

    Hugh, who prided himself on intimate acquaintanceship with the ways of the gentry, now joined in. "Absolutely," he boomed, his sharp, wet teeth flashing in the candlelight. "A thoroughbred stallion that any landowning family with a suitable mare would be thrilled to get into stud. Eh, Orlando?"

    Orlando pressed back into his chair and stared stonily at the table, but his heart hammered beneath, his guts twisting with embarrassment that he had been spoken about, in public, in such sexual terms. Beneath the hair he tried to shake protectively over his face, his cheeks burned. He looked helplessly at his father. But Richard, pacing the table-crammed courtyard with his mobile pressed to his ear, clearly had other matters on his mind.

"Mr. Fitzmaurice! Theodora Greatorex here."

    "Mrs. Greatorex. What can I do for you?" Richard forced a pleasant tone into his voice. If one of his constituents chose to call him on holiday, then so be it. Representation of the people was a noble calling—or so he persisted in trying to believe, despite the contradicting presence of Hugh Faugh.

    "Have you any idea what, ahem," Mrs. Greatorex, in Wellover, took a deep, dramatic breath, "doggering is?"

    Richard started so fiercely he almost fell over. "Doggering?"

    "You don't mean," Richard hissed, bending slightly and heading instinctively for the shadows cast by the houses, "dogging, do you, Mrs. Greatorex? The practice of, ahem, how exactly shall I put this…"

    "Casual sex with strangers in the open air? I most certainly do, Mr. Fitzmaurice," thundered his interlocutor from her converted chantry in Gloucestershire as Richard, hundreds of miles away in Italy, reeled across the village street. "We all do in Wellover, let me assure you. Every Friday night, without fail."

    Richard's jaw fell slackly open. Was he hearing properly? Had the heat done something to his head? Wellover? Mrs. Greatorex?

    It could not be possible. Dogging was something footballers did in pub carparks in Essex. Wellover was as far from such a scenario as could be imagined. It was the archetypal English village. Its doorways rioted with roses; its gardens nodded with gladioli; its windows were mullioned; and its inn, a muzak-free zone, was full of polished brass and quiet bonhomie. Its church was well attended and adhered to the King James Version; its village green was clean and kempt; its inhabitants, all white and mostly fifty-plus, subscribed to the
Telegraph
en masse and had stockbrokers.

    Wellover was in the
Domesday Book
and regularly and effortlessly saw off all comers in Best-Kept Village Competitions. Period dramas were regularly filmed there. Keira Knightley had been in the village shop and Colin Firth in the post office. The only dogging Richard had ever associated with Wellover were ladies in tweed briskly striding the local leafy lanes in the company of brushed and glossy spaniels.

    "I didn't realise," he said faintly, wondering nonetheless why he was being selected for this extraordinary confession. Was Mrs. Greatorex suggesting he joined them? He waited for her to speak again. He had to be sure of what was being discussed here, whether the practice was being condoned or condemned. Fools not only rushed in where angels feared to tread but also ran the risk of losing their seats.

    Mrs. Greatorex spoke. "It appears," she said in stately tones, "it appears…"—the stately tones shook a little—"it seems…" she added, with an audible sniff, "that Wellover, our beautiful Wellover, is…"—there was a shuddering sound as Mrs. Greatorex seemed to fight for self-control—"the dogging capital of Europe!"

    "Oh dear," said Richard, staring hard at the tarmac.

    "Russell's Leap—you know Russell's Leap, of course…"

    Richard confirmed that he did. The landmark referred to was a well-known beauty spot in the woods not far from Wellover.

    "Well, it's there they go. Every Friday night." Mrs. Greatorex's voice was shaking again.

    It was the "they" that clinched it. Mrs. Greatorex was ringing to complain then. Richard felt oddly relieved. The thought of the Parish Council Chair bent backwards over a car bonnet, tweed culottes round her ankles, had been a disturbing one.

    "And what I'm ringing to ask, Mr. Fitzmaurice, is…"

    "Yes?" Richard whispered shakily.

    "…what exactly you're going to do about it."

"Whaddya mean we gotta walk?" Belle screeched as the car drew up in the carpark at the foot of the village.

    "It's a historic site," Darcy explained agitatedly, anxious to get Belle out of the car as soon as possible. Her heart was pumping double-speed; her very nerve-ends were tingling at the thought of seeing Christian.

    Of course, it would have been better if he had texted earlier to suggest they met in Rocolo. Then she could have given poor Mara more notice. But when, finally, Christian's call had come, it had been unignorable. And Darcy's main regret, as they bowled along in the limo, was that she had not had more time to prepare herself. Jeans, T-shirt, and no make-up didn't seem much of an ensemble. But none of this would matter to Christian. He was always telling her she was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen.

    "I don't do walking," Belle snarled as the driver opened the rear door.

    Hardly surprising, in those. Darcy glanced at Belle's shoes. Seven inches and counting, and with soles that looked as thin as ballet slippers. She would feel every cigarette butt on Rocolo's cobbled main street.

    Nine o'clock at Marco's, Christian had said. Darcy stole a glance at the heavily jewelled timepiece on the thin arm clutching the dog. Five minutes to. Darcy's heart skipped. Get Belle up the hill in those shoes in five minutes?