Love and Liability (Dating Mr Darcy - Book 2) (9 page)

“Oh, I gave up lollies and pinafores ages ago.” She smiled politely and shook his hand, then turned to her father. “Dad — sorry to interrupt, but there’s something I need to ask you. It’s important.”

“Sounds like an imminent request for money, Alastair!” John said, and chuckled. “I’ll leave you to it. I need a top-up, at any rate. Nice to see you again, Holly.” He lifted his glass in salute and wandered off in search of the bar.

“Nice to see you,” she echoed. He really
was
rather sweet.

“Holly,” her father said in a low but firm voice as he drew her aside, “I’m not lending you any more money. I thought I made that abundantly clear.”

“You did. No, it’s my car. It’s been acting up, and I hoped you might take a look at it.”

“What’s the problem?”

“Well, it’s nothing specific; it’s just been acting a bit…wonky, lately.”

“Holly, you need to be more exact in your description than ‘a bit wonky’ if you want a mechanic to fix it. Of course, I’ll have a look under the bonnet…tomorrow.” He glanced over her shoulder. “Excuse me, but I need to rescue John from Lady Blandford’s clutches. We’ll talk later.”

“Okay,” she sighed. “Thanks, Dad.”

“That
can’t
be little Holly James, can it?”

Startled, Holly looked up as an older woman approached her and brayed, “What a
lovely
dress. Vintage, is it? Biba, or Ossie Clark?”

“Biba. You have a very good eye.” Impressed despite herself, Holly realized this must be Enid, the other half of John-and-Enid. “It’s been a long time. Are your sons here?” she enquired. “I’m sorry, but I’ve forgotten their names.”

“I’m afraid William couldn’t make it. He’s married now, you know, with three boys. But my youngest is here…” Enid cast a vague glance around the drawing room. “At least, he
was
. He went outside with your father just a moment ago…ah!” She broke off as Alastair came back in through the French doors that led to the garden.

“Alastair,” Enid enquired, “is my son with you?”

“Yes, he’s just coming along. He and John and I slipped out to have a quick look at the Morgan.”

“-fantastic car,” the young man coming in after Holly’s father was saying. “Didn’t you have one, Dad, back in the day?”

“I did indeed!” John exclaimed, rosy-cheeked from the excursion and from his second bourbon on the rocks. “In my Cambridge days, I had a dark green Morgan. Loved that car — and so did the girls!”

“Before you men launch into your car talk,” Enid said, “Henry, darling, come here. There’s someone I’d like you to meet. You and she were playmates, years ago.”

Henry?
Warning bells sounded in Holly’s head. Her startled gaze came to rest on the tall, broad-shouldered man who’d entered the drawing room behind her father. Her eyes widened in shock.

Oh, no. It couldn’t be…but it was. John-and-Enid’s oldest son was…

Henry. Alexander. Barrington.

Chapter 13

Or, to be more precise, it was Hank, the little boy next door who’d sometimes shared her sandbox and backyard wading pool. He’d particularly enjoyed digging up bits of petrified, sand-covered cat poop, flinging them like missiles at Holly with his plastic shovel.

She’d disliked cats — and Hank — ever since.

“Alex?” she blurted.

His smile froze. “Holly!”

“What are
you
doing here?” they both asked at once.

“Oh — you know each other?” Enid asked, puzzled. “You played together as children, but that was ages ago—”

“Yes.” Alex glanced at Holly, his expression unreadable. “She interviewed me recently for her magazine.”

A slim blonde appeared beside Alex and held out her hand to Holly. “Camilla Shawcross. Did I hear Alex say you work for a magazine?” she enquired. “Which one?
Elle
?
Vogue
?”

“Erm, neither.
BritTEEN
, actually. It’s a teen magazine.”

Her face fell. “Oh? How…nice.” She turned to Alex. “Would you be a lamb and fetch me a drink?”

Holly stared at her. Was Camilla Alex’s
girlfriend
? Her eyes widened. “Oh, my God — you’re Red Thong!” she blurted.

Camilla stared back. “I beg your pardon?”

Alex shot Holly a sharp glance.

So it’s true
, she realized.
Camilla Shawcross is the owner of the red thong that was tucked in Alex’s pocket
.

“Did you just say ‘red thong’? What on earth are you talking about?” Camilla demanded.

Holly cleared her throat. “Oh! Nothing. I just bought a…a red thong the other day. Love it! Wish I’d gone…erm, Team Thong, a long time ago!”

Camilla looked at her as if she were a dead bug and turned away.

“‘Team Thong?’” Alex muttered as Camilla disappeared into the drawing room. “What the hell are you trying to do?”

“Sorry,” she hissed back, “but it just came out! I’m right, though, aren’t I?
She’s
Red Thong!” she accused, eyeing Camilla Shawcross’s silk-clad back.

“Yes! No!” He scowled and ran a hand through his hair. “None of your bloody business!”

“I’ll take that as a ‘yes’,” Holly retorted.

“Don’t you dare to breathe a word of this to Camilla,” he warned. “Or I’ll tell your father that you carry a raspberry-flavoured condom at the ready in your handbag.”

She gasped. “You wouldn’t!”

“I would,” he said grimly. “Quid pro quo, Ms James.”

“That was a consolation prize at a hen party! You don’t think I carry flavoured condoms around with me, do you?”

He eyed her. “I don’t know. Do you?”

“Alex?” Camilla paused in the drawing-room doorway and cast an expectant glance back at him. “Are you coming?”

“Yes. Yes, of course.” He gave Holly a last, warning glare and made his way to the drawing room.

Desperate to avoid Alex and Red Thong, Holly found her mother. “Is dinner nearly ready? I’m famished.”

“Mrs Henley assures me it’ll be just a few minutes more,” she promised. “Have a glass of something sparkly in the meantime, and mingle, darling.”

“Mingling is the last thing I want to do,” Holly muttered. But she grabbed a glass of Prosecco from a passing tray, took a deep breath, and dutifully made her way into the drawing room.

Relieved to see Alex and Camilla deep in conversation with her father across the room, she took a seat as far away from them as possible on the sofa.

As she made polite conversation with Lady Blandford, Holly took a small square of Cheddar skewered with a frilly toothpick and a very lengthy sip of Prosecco.

“I don’t know how you young people deal with that dreadful traffic every day!” the earl’s wife was saying. “It’s such a waste of one’s valuable time.”

“Yes, the traffic out of the city today was awful,” Holly agreed. “Do you go to London often?”

Her ladyship gave a shudder. “Oh, heavens, no. I make it a point to avoid London at all costs.”

“I’m sure that’s very wise of you, Lady Blandford.”

Holly looked up to see Alex standing before them, a drink in hand.

“London has its faults,” Holly agreed, irritated by his habit of popping up unexpectedly, like the Cheshire cat. “But as someone once said, he who grows tired of London grows tired of life.”

“Samuel Johnson.” Alex raised his brow. “Unfortunately, unlike in Sam’s day, London also means traffic, and train delays, and congestion charges.”

“Oh, don’t be so negative, darling.” Camilla came to stand beside Alex and linked her arm possessively through his. “I absolutely adore the City.”

“Ms Shawcross, I believe?” Lady Blandford enquired, and half rose to extend a regal hand. “It’s a pleasure.” She glanced at Holly. “Ms Shawcross is an MP, you know.”

“No, I didn’t.” So Red Thong was a Member of Parliament as well as Alex Barrington’s girlfriend, Holly realized. The surprises just kept on coming.

“Speaking of which,” Camilla said as she consulted her watch, “I’ll need to leave soon. I’ve a surgery in the morning. I have to make an early night of it, I’m afraid.”

Holly regarded her with interest. “A surgery? Oh — so you’re a doctor, as well as an MP?” Evidently Camilla Shawcross had more abilities than Superwoman.

“A doctor? Oh, my goodness, no!” she said, and let out a peal of laughter. “What a ridiculous notion.”

“A surgery is a clinic held with an MP’s constituents to discuss issues of concern,” Alex explained. “It normally takes place on Saturday, since Parliament sits during the week.”

“Oh.” Hot with embarrassment, Holly pasted an intelligent look on her face and nodded. Inwardly, she seethed. Camilla had an uncanny ability to make her feel incredibly stupid — particularly in front of Alex Barrington.

“I’ll say goodnight, then,” Camilla announced. “It was lovely to meet you, Lady Blandford.” She gave Holly a brief nod. “Goodnight, Ms James.”

“Shall I walk you to your car?” Alex asked.

“No, it’s not necessary.” She added huskily, “After all, we’ll see each other again, soon enough.” She brushed her lips against Alex’s cheek, gave him an intimate smile, and left.

Holly stood up, intent on making her own excuses. Suddenly she wanted nothing so much as to flee back to the safety of her room with its posters of horses and boy bands. She felt out of her depth and invisible whenever Camilla Shawcross was around.

“Would you like a canapé?” Holly’s mother asked as she approached them with another tray. “I have some delicious prawns on offer.”

“Thank you.” Alex nodded politely and took one. “Holly?”

She shook her head. “No. I’m good.”

“Well! I can see you two are getting on like a house on fire.” Cherie smiled at Alex. “I don’t know if you remember, but Holly used to tuck her little pug up in the pram and push him round your garden when she was little. She told me she wanted to marry you when she grew up,” she confided, “and have lots of babies—”

“Mum,” Holly cut in, scarlet with embarrassment, “I was
five
. I also ate Marmite-and-jam sandwiches and wore the same dress every day, neither of which I do any longer. Let me help you with that tray, shall I?”

She followed her mother into the kitchen and hissed, “
Please
don’t talk about babies and marriage in front of Alex! It’s mortifying. You’re as subtle as…as Ted Nugent.”

“There’s nothing like a gentle nudge where men are concerned,” Cherie said firmly. “Besides, he’s a vast improvement over that dreadful musician you were seeing.”

“You’ll be happy to know that Mick and I broke up. He and his amplifiers have departed from my life — permanently.”

“Well, I’m not sorry to hear it. You can do
so
much better, darling. Here, take this out and circulate.”

So saying, her mother thrust a tray with cheese and pineapple cubes skewered onto a grapefruit into Holly’s hands.

“What on earth is that naff thing?” Holly asked as she eyed the tray with distaste.

“It’s a cocktail hedgehog. Offer it to Henry first.” And she nudged Holly out of the door.

Well, Holly reasoned as she circulated with the cocktail hedgehog, Alex hadn’t said anything to indicate he’d seen the
BritTEEN
interview. Surely he would have confronted her by now.

Ergo, she reasoned as Mrs Henley finally appeared to call everyone in to dinner a few minutes later, there was really no need to tell him about it yet, was there?

No need at all.

Chapter 14

At dinner, Holly found herself seated between Alex and Lady Blandford.

This isn’t so bad
, she decided, and began, by degrees, to relax a bit. After all, Camilla Shawcross was gone, she had Alex all to herself at dinner, and she hadn’t heard a word back from Sasha.

Which meant, Holly hoped, that her off-the-record interview disaster with Alex wasn’t, perhaps, such a disaster after all? If it was, Sasha would surely have called her back by now.

Alex reached inside his jacket pocket and leaned over. “Don’t tell anyone, Ms James, but I’m having a quick look at my messages before the soup arrives.”

Holly, smoothing the napkin on her lap, froze. “Messages?”

“Yes. I’m expecting an email, rather an important one.” He began tapping the screen.

“No!” she squeaked, panicked. “You can’t do that!”

“I can’t do what?”

“You can’t look at your messages!”

He looked at her oddly. “Why on earth not?”

“Because…it’s rude, that’s why. Incredibly rude!”

“It’ll only take me a second, I promise.”

Oh, crikey, Holly thought as her panic escalated, if Alex played her voice message now, he’d know that his off-the-record comments had been published in
BritTEEN
. He’d be livid. He’d tell everyone at the table what she’d done, and they’d all think she was a proper berk—

“I can’t get a signal,” he grumbled after a moment.

“Oh, yes, you’ll find that, living out here in the country, WiFi can be as unreliable as the Lib Dems,” Alastair remarked. A ripple of laughter went round the table.

“Let me try,” Holly urged, and held out her hand for the phone.

Alex frowned. “Perhaps if I just hold it up a bit, I might get one or two bars…”

In an agony of despair, Holly eyed his mobile. “That’s the new myPhone, isn’t it?” she asked, and lunged for it. “Look at what a lovely, big screen it has! Let me have a look, please!”

But he held it fast. “Ms James, I’d really rather you didn’t touch my phone—”

“Don’t worry. I only want to look at it.”

She reached out and attempted to wrestle it away from him, but he held fast. “Just — let me — see — the bloody — thing!” she hissed.

Unfortunately, as Holly grappled with Alex to wrest control of his mobile, it flew out of their hands and sailed aloft, landing with a dull splash in the tureen of vichyssoise that Mrs Henley had just set out on the table.

There was a moment of horrified silence.

“My vichyssoise!” Mrs Henley gasped.

“My phone!” Alex exclaimed, and half rose from his seat. “You’ve ruined it!”

“I’m certain it’s fine,” Holly assured him, although secretly she had her doubts. She leaned forward and fished the mobile, dripping with creamy leek, potato, and chicken stock, out of the tureen and held it up gingerly. “See? It’s perfectly okay. A little vichyssoise never hurt anything.”