Marrying Up (3 page)

And still did. The initial storm of misery had passed, but Jake had ebbed ever since at the edge of her consciousness, ready
to break in at unguarded moments and twist her bruised heart anew. Now, however, as she heaved Mrs Pankhurst along, Polly
realised that for the first time in weeks, another man was filling her thoughts. The stranger with the dog, whom she had snapped
at.

From the park at Oakeshott, the road home ascended through fields of hilly lime-green pasture scribbled with pale grey limestone
walls. At the top were the moors, where a spectacular carpet of heather, purple as an emperor’s robe, stretched away to the
horizon. This was bordered by a grey stone wall supporting great javelins of willowherb, bright pink against the soft amethyst
behind. A honeyish, herby scent was borne on the fitful breeze; Polly’s ear caught the fizzing chatter of larks.

The stranger was still there in her mind’s eye, dark eyes looking apologetically into hers. Polly felt a twist of guilt followed
by a ripple of shame. Should she have been quite so cantankerous? The damage had been minimal after all; five minutes with
a rake and the place looked as good as new, or rather, old.

She tried to push the uncomfortable thought away, but another, equally uncomfortable, immediately rushed in to replace it.
This evening, and what lay ahead.

It was all Mum’s fault. ‘You’ll never guess who I ran into today,’ she had said when Polly, exhausted, collapsed through the
door the night before.

‘Brad Pitt, Angelina and the kids?’

‘Janet Donald!’

Polly, puffed out, had slumped on to a kitchen chair. ‘Janet Donald?’ The only Janet Donald Polly could think of was the mother
of a girl she had known at school, a girl from the same village. But she had never been friends with Allison Donald, or even
liked her very much.

‘You’ll never guess!’ Mum had continued excitedly from the stove. ‘Allison’s home from university as well! Isn’t that a coincidence?’

Only in as far as all universities tended to break up for the summer, Polly had thought, moodily contemplating the pepper
and salt pots.

‘We thought it would be lovely to get you two together,’ Mum had trilled as she tipped boiled potatoes into a drainer. ‘Do
you good to catch up with an old friend.’

Friend! Polly had frowned. Among those who had taunted her about her childhood squint Allison Donald had been one of the ringleaders.
She had straight black hair, a self-satisfied smile and hooded eyes reminiscent of a snake’s.

‘You’ll have a lovely time,’ Mum had said confidently, pounding away with the masher. ‘Allison’s very keen to meet you again,
Janet says.’

‘Really? Why?’ Allison had never been keen before. But perhaps it was odd that she was even at home. Allison had always regarded
the village as rather beneath her.

Mum, spreading the mash over the top of a shepherd’s pie, had not seemed to hear the question. ‘We arranged that you should
meet in the Shropshire Arms at eight o’clock tomorrow.
They’ve done it up there – the Duchess designed it all herself, apparently – and it’s very nice, they say. Oh, and by the
way –’ She had looked up from making swirly patterns with her fork – ‘she’s changed her name, apparently.’

‘The Duchess?’

Mum had chuckled. ‘
Allison
. She calls herself Alexa.’

‘Why?’

‘Janet’s not sure,’ Mum had reported over her shoulder as she bore the finished shepherd’s pie to the oven. ‘But you remember
Allison. She always was – well – different. Between you and me, I think she thought she was a bit better than the rest of
us.’

Now Polly dragged Mrs Pankhurst up the last few hundred yards to the top of the hill. Chest heaving with the effort, she slumped,
clinging to her handlebars for support and trying to draw breath into her overstretched lungs. After a few moments admiring
the view, she swung a leg over Mrs Pankhurst’s wide, cracked yet supremely comfortable leather seat and pushed herself off.

After the agony of ascent, whizzing downhill was delightful. A breeze in every sense of the word.

Mrs Pankhurst descended at first in dignified fashion between the dry-stone walls. With the slopes of twisting bracken stretching
beyond on each side, it was like travelling down a grey parting in a great head of curly hair.

The road became steeper and the bracken gave way to slopes of brilliant sunlit green. Mrs Pankhurst, whose great weight meant
that downhill she was a force to be reckoned with, now dramatically picked up speed. The sunlight, dazzlingly bright, streamed
through the branches of the overhead trees. Mrs Pankhurst went faster and faster.

Polly tore round a bend and, unable to avoid a large, sharp stone in the middle of the road, went straight over it. Immediately
the road beneath her felt hard and rattly through the wheel rims. A tyre had gone. Mrs Pankhurst had had a blowout.

Screeching to a halt, Polly pulled the heavy iron frame on to
the grassy verge and stared in despair at the previously fat rear tyre now hanging limply from the wheel. Damn. Damn.
Damn
. It would be a push of at least an hour from here.

Nor was that her only problem. She now felt a tiny shock on her hot forearm. Something had dropped on it; a bead of water.
She had hardly noticed that the sun had suddenly gone; looking up, she saw that the hot blue sky was bunched with angry dark
clouds. One of the storms summer was famous for was clearly about to do its worst.

Another tiny shock, and another. The beads of water became large spatters. Within seconds, it seemed, the landscape around
became first blurry, then completely obliterated by a solid sheet of grey water. The black tarmac rippled with streaming wet,
its edges a mass of muddy bubbles.

Polly huddled against the wall, taking what shelter she could from a somewhat sharp and inhospitable thorn bush. Salt water
was running down her hair and dripping in her eyes. Her jeans clung wet and heavy to her thighs. Her shirt stuck to her breasts
and back. It was like sitting under a power shower, only she was fully dressed and outside.

She waited, head bent, for the pounding of the rain on her skull to be over. She hooked dripping hanks of hair back over her
ears with hands that were red and shiny with wet. Meanwhile, on the verge, Mrs Pankhurst was slowly sinking into the softening
mud.

She cocked an ear. Through the fizz of rain on the road and the drip of it in her ears, she could hear something. An engine,
coming over the summit, grinding down the hill. It got closer, halted opposite her and she heard the yank of the handbrake.

‘Are you all right?’ someone shouted. Polly peeped through her streaming hair at an exceptionally dirty Land Rover, its tyres
thick and shiny with mud, spatters of the same decorating the doors. The windows were down, although she could not see the
driver. It was difficult, through the rods of rain between her and the vehicle, to see at all, and anyway, a large dark-coloured
dog,
turning round and round in the passenger seat, was blocking her view of anyone else.

‘Fine,’ she shouted back. The storm would end as soon as it had begun; in any case, did she want to accept a lift from a stranger?
The Land Rover did not drive off, however. She heard the driver’s door bang and someone’s feet on the wet road.

As a tall, dark shape approached through the rain, a thrill as unexpected as it was violent shot through Polly. It was him.
The man with the dog from the dig.

‘It’s you,’ he said softly.

A powerful wave of self-consciousness had followed the thrill. She could feel her breasts sticking to her vest. If she stood
up, her nipples would protrude like coat pegs. And so she remained crouching despite the cramp in her calf.

‘You’re very wet,’ he remarked, a hint of a smile in his voice.

‘So are you,’ she replied, although awkwardness gave it the quality of a retort. ‘Yes,’ he agreed, laughing. The ferocious
rain had turned his hair into a shining black slick. His checked shirt clung to his chest and shoulders. Polly felt suddenly
breathless. She stared at the dripping grass.

He was examining Mrs Pankhurst, sprawled in an undignified fashion across the verge. ‘This yours?’

‘Yes.’

‘Wow. It’s quite vintage.’

‘Yes.’

‘You’ve got a flat tyre.’

‘Yes.’

‘Let me help you up,’ he said decisively. She tried to demur but his grip was strong. Pulled gently over the streaming ground,
Polly struggled to maintain her bent posture.

‘Have you hurt your back?’ he asked her.

‘Yes,’ Polly lied.

‘Where do you live?’ He sounded concerned. ‘I’ll take you home.’

He led her round to the passenger door. The dog, who evidently bore no ill will despite all the names she had called him,
revolved excitedly on the passenger seat barking with delight. ‘In the back, you,’ his master commanded, hurriedly brushing
the worst of the mud off the seat and gesturing to Polly to get in.

From the window, she watched him heave Mrs Pankhurst out of the mud – a compliment the bicycle repaid by liberally smearing
his clothes. Straining under the weight, he glanced up, saw her looking and grinned.

He was being so cheerful, despite being soaked through and filthy on her account. She had, Polly realised as he finally swung
himself into the driver’s seat, caused him far more trouble than his dog had ever caused her.

‘I’m sorry I was so rude to you earlier,’ she blurted at the exact moment the Land Rover engine started up. ‘I’M SORRY I WAS
SO HORRID,’ she shouted, just as a gear change quietened the roar down. From the rear, the dog barked in alarm.

‘Don’t worry about it,’ he said lightly. His voice was level and warm. That he was well-spoken she had noticed before, although
there was, she now detected, a hint of something else there too, a slight accent, possibly.

They drove the first few miles in silence. Polly could not think of anything to say and he, apparently perfectly relaxed,
did not even seem to be trying. They rattled along, the tyres hissing through the wetness of the road.

‘I’m Max,’ he told her eventually.

‘Polly.’

‘You like being an archaeologist?’

‘I’m not one yet,’ Polly muttered. ‘Still studying.’ She realised she must sound as if she was contradicting him. Why was
everything coming out so awkwardly?

The rain had slowed to a sprinkle; a strong sun was breaking through the clouds. His eyes, Polly saw, were not dark brown
as she had thought but the rich dark blue of a warm night sky.
Drops like diamonds were swelling on the ends of hair turned a glossy black by the rain.

‘What do you do?’ she asked bluntly.

‘I’m a vet.’

‘Round here?’ Polly was surprised. The local vet was a diminutive Scotsman whose manner was as short as his physique. It was
hard to imagine this cheerful, solicitous creature working with him.

Max shook his damp, dark head. ‘No, still studying.’ He flashed her a smile. ‘Like you.’

So he was home for the holidays too? ‘You live here?’ And yet there was something about him that was ineffably un-local.

‘No. Someone on the Oakeshott estate’s a friend of . . .’ he passed a hand through his hair and looked suddenly awkward, ‘my,
um, family and so I jumped at the chance to work on the farm in the holidays. Tell me when to stop, by the way.’

She had not noticed them driving into the village even. But now she saw they were passing the low stone wall that ran in front
of her parents’ cottage. ‘Here,’ she exclaimed, flustered.

Max slammed on the brakes hard and the vehicle stopped abruptly.

‘Sorry.’

‘It’s OK,’ Polly muttered.

He leant towards her, his eyes seeking hers. ‘Can I take you out for a drink?’ The dark blue eyes crinkled. ‘To apologise?’

‘Apologise?’ Polly repeated cluelessly.

‘About Napoleon and all that.’

‘Napoleon?’ She was even more mystified. What had he had to do with it?

‘The dog.’

‘Oh, him.’ It seemed so long ago. ‘That.’

‘Him and that, yes. Are you free tonight?’

Polly was about to nod, then she frowned, remembering Allison Donald. Her frown deepened as she weighed up the possibilities.
Change Allison to another night? Blow her out
altogether even – from what she remembered of Allison, she would not have hesitated in Polly’s place.

‘Just thought I’d ask,’ Max said easily, leaning over and shutting the door with a bang. As the vehicle roared away, she realised
he had misinterpreted her frown. He thought she was turning him down.

The Land Rover was disappearing round the bend. Only now did Polly realise it had taken Mrs Pankhurst with it.

The gleaming bridal carriage with its plumes and ducal coat of arms drew up outside the Abbey’s Great West Door. Alexa, helped
out by liveried footmen, glided into the cool gloom of the ancient cathedral.

The Bach cantata coming from the great organ could barely be heard above the murmur of the crowd. The place was packed. Royalty
was present, as well as nobles and notables from several counties around. Adding a particularly decorative touch were the
friends of the bride and groom, the cream of the young London set of whom Alexa and her fiancé were the leaders. These occupied
several pews in the middle of the nave, seats spilling over with long brown legs in short pale dresses and tumbling hair gleaming
from the attentions of monogrammed silver hairbrushes and the best colourists in Chelsea.

Alexa wafted gracefully past in her long white satin dress. It was cut close to her slender figure and its neckline was demure,
the better to show off the anything-but-demure gems above it. The diamond necklace had stones the size of apricots, and a
pair of matching enormous peardrops sparkled at her ears. Brought back by an ancestor who had been Viceroy of India, the celebrated
parure contained some of the biggest gems out-side the Crown Jewels. As Alexa passed beneath one of the medieval stained-glass
windows, a rainbow shaft of light set the necklace and earrings ablaze with an almost painful brilliance.
Shutting her eyes against the dazzle, Alexa could see the facets imprinted on her retinas.