Christmas at Tiffany's (22 page)

‘Long enough to permeate cashmere. Besides, it’s not just turkey in there. There’s goose, chicken, pheasant and pigeon as well. You
don’t
want to smell of pigeon.’

Kelly stared at her, astonished. ‘You’ve got all that going on in my little oven?’ She bent over again and stared in at the browning birds. ‘Will it cope?’

‘Will I, you mean? Honestly, when I get my hands on Henry . . .’ She took another glug of the wine. ‘He’s got a perverse sense of humour. I had to soak the potatoes in the bath, the carrots in the sink and the parsnips in the . . . you know.’

There was a horrified silence.

‘Not the . . . !’ Kelly gasped.

‘No!’ Cassie chuckled. ‘They went in with the carrots – just – but I was seriously eyeing up the fish tank, I tell you. There was nowhere else to go.’

‘Well, you didn’t have to make it quite so hard on yourself, doing a
five-bird
roast. I mean, what’s wrong with a pasta bake?’

Cassie rolled her eyes. ‘Even students would look down on that, Kell. Besides, this was my speciality back –’ She stopped herself from saying ‘home’. ‘Back in Scotland. I rustled these babies up every week in the shooting season. I had to. Cook couldn’t be trusted. On one shoot we cut into it and found a miniature of Gordon’s in the woodcock.’ She paused for a moment, treasuring the memory of Gil’s face.

‘Can I do anything to –’ Kelly looked around the destroyed kitchen, immaculate in her black shirt and trousers – ‘help?’

Cassie wrinkled her nose at the polite but insincere offer. ‘Just ask Bas to take the flowers off the table now. I’m going to serve up. We’re going to be kneeling, I’m afraid – that an option in those trousers?’

‘Kneeling at a dinner party? Henry didn’t have that in mind.’

‘Knowing Henry, he probably did.’

Everyone whooped with delight as Cassie carried the bird to the coffee table, her arms trembling slightly with the strain. It weighed nigh on 30 pounds, and with all the trimmings as well, it was all she could do not to thump it down like a weight.

Luke jumped up to help her, positioning it safely in the middle of the table and taking the opportunity to ‘kiss the chef’, which elicited more whoops of delight.

‘Who’s carving?’ he asked, fork and knife in his hands as Cassie brought through the hot plates.

‘I will,’ Brett said, sharpening the knife against the fork with a flourish, the blades flashing. He was casually dressed in navy chinos, a blue Oxford shirt and orange Ralph Lauren V-neck, and Cassie noticed how Kelly’s eyes followed him everywhere. When they sat, it was with legs touching. When they talked, it was with eyes locked. When they laughed, it was together. Her friend was a goner.

Within minutes, the plates were heaped with food and the scented candles completely overwhelmed by the aroma of gravy and peppery red wine. Brett stood up to say grace, and as Cassie closed her eyes, his voice faded away and she was back in the dining room at Lammermuir, the dusty deer staring down from the walls, huge bunches of heather picked from the moors arranged at the windows, an aromatic peat-fire in the ancient fireplace throwing out ferocious heat and making the cut-crystal twinkle in its glow. And Gil, his mellifluous voice soft against the harsh laughter and boorish shouts of the shoot dinner as he told an elegant joke – or maybe a filthy one, just told elegantly . . .

‘You okay?’ She felt a warm hand on her back.

She opened her eyes. Everyone was looking at her. Luke was scanning her face.

‘Sorry – what?’

Kelly glanced at Bas, concerned. ‘Brett just raised a toast to you and Bas for putting this together. It’s absolutely wonderful, Cass – thank you.’

Everyone raised their glasses. ‘Hear, hear.’

‘Although,’ Kelly said, looking from her plate to everyone else’s, ‘why have I got the smallest bird? Is it the woodcock?’

‘Pigeon.’

‘Why have I got the entire pigeon and everyone else has got the medley?’

Brett winked at her. ‘Because it’s got the tenderest flesh. Carver’s prerogative. Why else do you think I offered?’

Kelly tipped her head to the side, touched, and everyone tucked in. Nat King Cole had segued into Ella Fitzgerald, and were it not for the fact that they were eating their roast sitting cross-legged on sofa cushions on the floor, they could have been anywhere but the centre of Manhattan. The room glittered like a jewel with the tealights, and the conversation bubbled and hummed along with the clatter of cutlery and bursts of laughter.

‘Oh!’ Kelly said after a while. ‘I thought this was boned.’

‘What’s wrong? Hit gold?’ Bas asked, drinking his wine. His lips had stained to the colour of port, and in the gathering dark, his eyes beamed out against his tan. He looked drunk but happy, and for once didn’t look like he was thinking about Stefano.

‘Wouldn’t that be nice,’ Kelly said, trying to winkle the bone out with her fork. ‘That would solve a few problems.’

‘Maybe it’s the wishbone,’ Luke said, looking at Cassie. ‘She could make a wish, right?’

Cassie frowned. ‘Does a pigeon have a wishbone? Do you know, I’m not sure.’ A small light suddenly shone in her eye, making her wince. She moved away as the light bounced around the table, darting from one person to the next, like Tinkerbell on day-release from the bell jar.

The gasp that followed drew all eyes to Kelly. A diamond solitaire was dangling on the prongs of her fork, and Brett, thanks to the shortcomings of the apartment’s dining facilities, was already, conveniently, on his knees.

‘I know it’s only been a couple of months,’ he began.

‘Ten weeks last Thursday . . .’ Kelly murmured. ‘But I’m not . . . you know, counting.’

Brett shook his head at her. ‘Well, it’s been the longest ten weeks of my life, wondering how long I had to hold out for before enough time had passed for me to acceptably do this. But I just can’t wait another day, Kelly. I knew the moment I saw you shielding Cassie like some . . . bodyguard. I just knew you were the one.’

His voice wobbled, and he coughed to try and regain some composure. Then he took the ring off the fork, quickly dunking it in his water glass. ‘Thank God it’s platinum,’ he murmured. ‘God knows what temperatures it got up to in the middle of five birds.’ Everyone chuckled, as he polished it with his napkin.

He looked at Kelly again and everyone else was forgotten.

‘Kelly Emma Hartford . . . will you make me the happiest man alive and agree to be my wife?’

There was a deafening silence – Bas had grabbed the remote as soon as she’d started fishing for the wishbone – as Kelly beamed back at him, the answer never in doubt.

‘There’s only one thing to say to that,’ Kelly whispered, a smile on her lips and a tremor in her voice. ‘What’s taken you so long?’

‘Is that a yes?’ he croaked.

Kelly wrapped her arms around him. ‘Just try and stop me.’

Cassie and Bas yelled with joy, jumping around the apartment, arms around each other as the two lovers kissed until they came up for air and were mobbed as well. And in the background, Luke’s camera whirred and click-click-clicked, capturing the happiest Thanksgiving day ever for posterity.

‘You realize those will be the best engagement photos of all time,’ Cassie slurred happily, her arm locked through his. They were walking back to his apartment downtown – a formidable forty-eight-block walk, but Cassie was craving some fresh air after a day spent cooped up in the kitchenette.

‘I know,’ Luke smiled. ‘I’ll give them the set as an engagement present.’

‘The girls will go nuts. Nooks because it’ll mean a fabulous new dress; Suzy will just be panicking because it’s so soon.’

‘Yeah, but she hasn’t seen them together. She’d be fine if she did. They’re clearly meant for each other.’

Cassie nudged him in the ribs. ‘Who knew
you
were such a romantic,’ she teased. ‘Don’t tell me you believe in destiny.’

Luke looked down at her. ‘Of course I do. Doesn’t everybody?’

Cassie stared at the yellow taxi cabs chuntering stop-start down Park Avenue. It was two in the morning but as busy as if it had been twelve hours earlier, truly earning its name as the city that never slept. The only people in bed were the under-tens. Everyone was in party spirit.

‘No,’ she shrugged. ‘I don’t.’

Luke stopped walking. ‘You don’t believe that there’s someone out there who’s destined to be with you – and you alone?’

Cassie shook her head. ‘Nope.’ She sighed, trying to smile. ‘Not any more.’

‘So what do you believe in, then?’

‘I don’t believe in anything – fate, destiny, serendipity. Call it what you will. It’s all just sentimentality for justifying the choices we make and choose to live with.’

‘I never had you down as cynical.’

‘I’m not saying I don’t believe in love. I just don’t believe that there’s only one person we’re supposed to live our lives with. I mean, I think we can love various people in our lives – it just comes down to timing and circumstance when you decide to finally quit the search and say, “Okay, I’ll stop with you. You can be The One for me.”’

‘Wow,’ Luke said softly after a moment, stroking her cheek with his hand. ‘I bet you didn’t think that three months ago.’

Cassie looked away. She hated seeing the pity in his eyes. ‘Well of course not. You don’t stay in a marriage for ten years if you don’t fully believe that your life belongs with that person.’ She gave a derisive laugh. ‘Although obviously Gil managed it.’ She breathed out slowly.

After a moment she looked back up at him, her poise recovered. ‘But look at me now. I’m living in New York, working in the
fashion
industry, for God’s sake, enjoying a delicious affair with a renowned and highly disreputable photographer. I didn’t see
that
coming three months ago either.’ She stood on tiptoe and kissed him. ‘I am living proof that there’s no such thing as destiny.’

Luke, drawn though he was by her kiss, pulled away.

‘And what if this – your life out here, with me –
this
is your destiny? What if you made a mistake marrying Gil? Maybe I’ve been waiting all these years for his secret to come out so that you would be propelled over here and into
my
arms. What about looking at it that way, huh?’

Cassie laughed. ‘It’s a nice thought,’ she giggled. ‘But I don’t think so. You can hardly wait for the bath to run.’ She tickled him in the sides and he laughed with her.

‘I’ll tell you one thing I definitely can’t wait for,’ he said suddenly, shooting out his arm to hail a passing cab. ‘I can’t wait to get you back to bed.’ And he grabbed her hand, pulling her into a run, determined not to lose another second.

The doorbell buzzed insistently. Both Cassie and Luke wriggled further beneath the duvet rather than face the insolent morning that was trying to wake them so early, like a toddler wanting a five a.m. breakfast.

It buzzed again.

‘Urgh, what time is it?’ Cassie moaned, her slender arm reaching out from under the goose-down and patting the bedside table for the clock. They’d been up – down, all around – till four, and, having both booked the day as holiday, had no plans to stir before noon. She was vaguely aware of using Luke’s torso as her pillow.

8.42 a.m.

‘Tell me this is a dream. A really, really bad dream . . .’ His voice faded back into sleep.

The buzzer again.

‘Oh, for God’s sake!’ she muttered, sitting up crossly and throwing the duvet back so that they were both uncovered.

Luke shielded his face from the sudden brightness of the overcast November morning, but made no other attempts to move. ‘Ignore it. They’ll go.’

Again.

‘That’s it!’ she said through gritted teeth, focusing enough to see the door and make her way over to it.

‘Who the
fuck
is it?’ she shouted angrily. Working for Bebe had taught her a few choice words.

‘You
swear
now?’ came back the startled voice.

There was a stunned pause on both ends of the speaker system.

‘Suzy?’

‘Not just . . .’ purred another voice.

‘Nooks!’

‘So are you gonna buzz us up or what? Because I could kill for a coffee and it’s bloody freezing out here.’

Cassie pushed the entry button in a daze. Luke was sitting up in bed, his hair one entire matted mess, woken at last by Cassie’s flabbergasted tone.

‘It’s the girls! They’re here!’ she said in a panic, looking at the state of the two of them. Both nude, hungover and reeking of sex. Quickly she sprinted across the floor and pulled on the first clothes she came to – his blue boxers and the grey cashmere jumper she’d so coveted the night before. Suzy was right. It was a cold morning. She was just pulling on his socks when the heavy steel door swung open and she found herself staring at her two supposed-to-be-far-flung best friends.

‘What are you doing here?’ she screeched, skittering over to them, slipping on the floor slightly.

‘You buzzed us in, remember?’ Suzy smiled, hugging her hard. Anouk, in a grey rabbit-fur jacket, was especially cuddly.