The Second Time I Saw You: The Oxford Blue Series #2 (25 page)

At this hour, there’s no way I’m going to wander out to the street to hail a cab. The staff have left now, and won’t be back until morning to clear up the mess, so I decide to find Jocasta and ask her to give me a number. I hear her voice coming from a room off the hallway and walk inside.

‘Jocasta, thanks for a great party but –’

Two faces glance up at me from the sofa. One is hers and the other is Rupert’s.

‘Oh, hello, Lauren. I’ve got a friend of yours here.’

‘Good evening, Lauren, or perhaps I should say good morning now.’

That lazy, sneering voice could have been designed to bring me crashing down to earth. He lounges on the sofa, smoking a cigar. He’s dressed in white tie and tails with a garish waistcoat, now stained with something yellow, and he reminds me of Mr Toad. My first thought is to wonder if Alexander has told him about our row. Then I remind myself that Rupert can’t hurt me now. Nothing can.

Jocasta smiles benignly – obviously she has no idea of the animosity between Rupert and me. ‘Oh, of course, I forgot you two know each other through Alexander. What a shame he couldn’t make it, but duty calls. My father’s a lieutenant colonel in the Guards so I know what it’s like when you’ve someone close on active service.’

‘Lauren must be out of her mind with worry but she’s trying to soldier on and be brave, aren’t you?’
So, he doesn’t know …

He crosses one leg over the other and the smoke from his cigar wreathes through the air, catching at my throat. I come close to hating him.

‘Alexander would hate anyone moping and worrying over him, and I’m not the hand-wringing type.’ I turn to Jocasta. ‘Jocasta, thanks for a lovely party but I’m off now. Do you have the number of a cab company?’

‘You’ll have a wait, at this hour.’

‘That’s fine.’

‘I’ll go and find one. I think there’s a card in the kitchen drawer. Hang on.’

I decide to hang on elsewhere but before I can leave the room, Rupert speaks. ‘I know you and Alexander are history.’

You know that thing about not being able to be hurt any more? I lied. But I toss his barb back at him. ‘And?’

‘I knew it would happen sooner or later. It was inevitable.’

‘You know fuck all about me, and I don’t care what you think about Alexander.’ I hate myself for rising to his bait but I’m tired and screwed over and sick to death of his sneering.

He brushes ash from his thigh. ‘Nice try but I can see you’re trying not to cry even now. I know you’ve had a major row and I know why. No one crosses the Hunts, I warned you way back. They band together
when they’re threatened. I guessed it wouldn’t be too long before Alexander came to his senses.’

‘You’re sick.’

‘No, I’m only looking out for my family.’

‘
Your
family! You’re not part of Alexander and Emma’s lives. You’re out to destroy him because you know you’ll never have what he has.’

‘Meaning you?’ he sneers. ‘You’re a very beautiful girl, Lauren, bright, classy, but you’re not One of Us. Not quite the thing, as my grandfather liked to say. Incidentally, he was Alexander’s grandfather too.’

‘Isn’t nature cruel?’ I say, trembling with anger inside. ‘You appear to have got all the asshole genes.’

He laughs and exhales smoke, which stings my eyes and makes me want to cough.

‘I offered you plenty of chances to jump ship, so to speak. You and I could have had a good time, but you’re not the one for Alexander and everyone can see it. You should have told him about Emma and Henry Favell. Bad, bad decision, but I’m not surprised you tried to go all big sister on her. The thing is, you’ll never be Emma’s big sister, and when Alexander told me that you knew she was seeing Favell and lied to him about it, I wasn’t surprised.’

I feel physically sick when he says this and the fact that Alexander has related the whole thing to him – and blamed me – makes me sick with anger and disappointment. While I struggle to reply, Rupert flows on, spewing out more bile.

‘Did you enjoy the tape, by the way?’

I stare at him, anger building. ‘
You
sent it.’ Instantly, I think I already knew. It had to be.

‘Don’t you want to know why?’

I smile at him icily. ‘No.’

As his face falls in surprise and disappointment, I fight against every urge to engage with him and tell myself not to give him one ounce of satisfaction. I turn towards the hallway and my intake of breath is audible because the woman blocking the doorway is Valentina.

‘
Ciao
, Lauren.’

She towers over me, in stiletto-heeled boots and a black leather mini dress that must have been sprayed on to her.

‘What are you doing here?’ I manage.

‘Rupert invited me. I am sooo sorry to hear that you’re having more problems with Alexander.’

‘No, you’re not,’ I spit, cross with myself for rising to her bait.

She reaches out to touch me but I shrink back.

‘If you think he’s going to rush back into your arms, you’re even more deluded than I thought you were.’

‘I don’t
think
he’s going to rush back to me, he already has.’ She smiles. ‘I think you have seen the tape by now?’

‘Yes I have, and we both ignored it.’ This is a slight twisting of the facts but I’m in no mood for semantics by now.

‘That wasn’t what I heard.’ Rupert smirks at me from the sofa.

‘How do you even know what happened? I didn’t tell anyone about it except Immy and Alexander and they wouldn’t have told you.’

He sniggers. ‘Oh come on, I can picture the scene.
I really thought you deserved a Valentine’s Day surprise.’

He’s unbelievable, but I don’t need to ask him why he wants to split us up so badly. He’s envious of what Alexander has and jealous of anyone trying to enter his world.

‘So what? That clip could have been filmed years ago.’

Valentina sniggers. ‘No, it was filmed the day I went to Oxford to comfort Alexander and we ended up in bed. I hear Alexander entertained you too later, and I can’t say I’m happy about that, but you know Alexander, always doing his duty. You’re just a toy for him.’

I can’t speak. She’s just tapped into my deepest fears and suspicions.

‘Poor Lauren. The whole time you and Alexander have been seeing each other, I’ve been sleeping with him. While you think he has been training’ – she brackets her long red nails around the word ‘training’ – ‘and taking care of things at Falconbury, he has been screwing me.’

‘You’re lying, Valentina, and I refuse to listen to any more.’ I begin to walk off, deciding I’ll find a taxi elsewhere.

‘No, it is you who is deluding yourself. Alexander has told me that I’m the only one for him, and we’ll get married when you’ve gone back to Washington. When he comes back from this place he has gone, I’ll be waiting.’

‘Then you’ll be waiting a very long time, but I don’t care what you or Alexander do, not that I believe a single word you’ve said. You’re desperate and, in my humble opinion, completely out of your mind. And as for you, Rupert, when Alexander finds out you sent that clip, he’ll cut off your tiny dick. It’s a shame I won’t be here because I’d have enjoyed watching that. Now, get out of my way, I’m leaving. I don’t like the class of people at this party any more.’

Barging past Valentina, with Rupert’s sneering laughter ringing in my ears, I march out of the room and straight out of the front door of the house. I don’t believe her for a moment. She’s deranged and outrageous and I shouldn’t even care now that Alexander and I are over, yet even the minuscule possibility that he may have been taking me for a ride all along stabs me like a knife.

The moment I step out of the shelter of the portico, my hair and coat are drenched, but I don’t care. I stumble down the street in the dark and rain, tears pouring down my face. I’ve had far too much booze or I wouldn’t waste a tear on any of them, Rupert, Valentina, or even Alexander. Eventually, I see a black cab and I step into the gutter and stick out my hand.

London flies past in a neon blur, obscured by the raindrops chasing down the windows. I’m tired, I keep telling myself as the tears run down my face. Even though he’s unreasonable, maddening and unfair, I still struggle to believe Alexander would string me along
while sleeping with Valentina. But there’s a small niggle there, as Valentina knew there would be, that makes me wonder. God knows, she was right when she said he does his duty. He’d definitely have no problem at all about finishing with me and telling me why, if he wanted to get back with her.

Yet, even now, I see his hand on her butt at the hunt ball, and the way he let her crawl all over him.

Fuck, fuck,
fuck
.

All the insight in the world isn’t helping me feel any less shitty than I do now and I don’t like the face that stares back at me from the window, miserable, unravelled and forlorn. That face is not mine; it’s not
me
. I take a deep breath, and another, and try to calm down. By the time we reach Immy’s flat, I’ve stopped crying and a new determination has taken hold of me. I’d like to say it was steely, but it’s far too brittle to be called that.

I hand over most of the notes in my wallet to the driver and let myself into the apartment, thanking every lucky star that Immy insisted I have my own key when we first arrived.

I strip off my wet clothes, dry my hair on a towel and crawl into bed, even though it’s past four a.m. and I wonder if it’s worth getting into bed at all. Nine weeks ago, I landed in this city, ready to make a fresh start. Instead, it’s been a term of angst and trouble. I hate the drama, the uncertainty, the lack of trust and the fact things are getting so serious that they have affected my
studies and dreams for the future – yet I have to admit I can’t quite get Alexander out of my head.

There, I admitted it, and I hate myself for it more than I ever have.

There’s no point in trying to sleep while I’m in this mood so I switch on the light and sit up in bed, but that only makes my head throb like crazy. No wonder – I started on the booze at three p.m. I get out of bed and fetch a glass of water from the bathroom, trying to remember in which of my bags I put the Advil. After opening all the zippers of two bags, my brain feels like it’s pulsating, but there’s no sign of the pills. Finally, I resort to the trolley case. The pills must be there, in the compartment under the lid. My relief at finding the packet is overwhelmed by another discovery, one that temporarily eclipses the pain in my head.

The blister pack of pills is there, and so is something else: a small white envelope addressed to ‘Ms Cusack’ in handwriting that I know instantly. What I do not know is how this letter got in my case: not only did I not put it in, it wasn’t here when I unpacked a few days ago. I know that because I now remember the last time I needed the Advil, for the period pains that seized me when I first arrived at Immy’s. I took two pills and the letter was not there then, and nothing will convince me otherwise. Sleep deprivation and being hungover can’t explain it.

Even as I run my finger under the edge of the envelope, sawing at the edge of the thick paper, my hands aren’t quite steady.

Inside, there are two sheets of white notepaper, heavy and creased sharply so that each half is precisely the same size. Opening them in my lap, I flatten out the crease with my palm.

Alexander’s bold script, sloping to the right, fills each side of the sheets. The words flow along in thick whorls of dark-blue ink. I picture the fountain pen in his hand and him sitting at his desk, writing the letter. Then I read on and realize it may not have been written at Falconbury at all but in some barrack room or hut.

Dear Lauren,

By now, you’ll probably be back in Washington. Probably still hating the sight of me – and I can’t say I blame you – because I wasn’t the nicest person the last time you saw me. In fact, I may have behaved like a total shit.

May
have behaved like a total shit?

Perhaps I should have phoned you to tell you what’s in this letter, but I wasn’t sure you’d take the call nor that we wouldn’t have ended up shouting at each other again.

Closer to the truth is that I’m being a coward and find it easier to put what I want to say down on paper. Not that I’m given to this sort of stuff, as you’ll see.

I’ve a couple of letters to write at the moment, because it’s what we always do before we go on an op like this, ‘just in case’. It’s a pain in the arse and, as you can guess, it tends to
sour the party atmosphere somewhat. However, it falls to me to bully the guys into doing it and I’m supposed to lead by example, so …

Here’s the thing, Lauren. After you left, it occurred to me how fucking ridiculous it is to leave off saying the things we need to say until after we’re dead. That is, as you might put it, ‘crazy’.

I shake my head and realize I’m smiling and crying at the same time. I turn over the page.

So, here goes. I suppose I owe you an explanation of why I kicked off when I found out you knew Emma was still sleeping with Henry Favell.

Suppose he owes me an explanation! That’s an understatement. I rub my hand over my face, wiping away the tears. No wonder he didn’t want to phone me, not that I’d have answered the call, of course. Of course not, Lauren. Fuck, a tear splashes on to the paper and I brush it away with my fingertip, blurring some of the words. There’s a few words missing but I get the gist.

I think you know that Henry and I were at school together. He was two years above me at Eton, in fact, and it won’t surprise you to know that he was a grade-A tosser even then. Cutting a long and sordid story short, he made my life a misery, particularly so after my mother died. I was thirteen, and when I’d recovered from the accident and was sent back to
school, the nightmares started. Henry was in the same dorm as me and he made the most of it, taunting me for crying at night and calling me ‘loony’ and ‘mental case’. There were other things too, but I’ll spare you the details of those.

‘Why? Why spare me, when you’ve started?’

I’m talking to the air here, but I can’t help it. I want to know
everything
. I also have to stop reading and take a few deep breaths before I pick up the letter again, watching the writing grow smaller and tighter and the letters slope more steeply.

Now, I’d laugh in Cavell’s face before I punched it, but back then, after my mother died, I simply couldn’t handle it. I suppose I could have gone to the staff, but there was absolutely no way I was going to draw any more attention to myself and, of course, no one ever told on another boy, no matter how much of a misery he made your life. As for telling my father, I’ll leave you to draw your own conclusions what use that would have been.

By the way, Emma knows nothing of the bullying and thinks I hate Henry only because he may be after her inheritance (which he is, of course, but that’s another matter). There’s something else too that I don’t want to put down on paper, but let’s forget that. All you need to know is that I don’t want him anywhere near Emma.

After hearing all of this, you may wonder why Henry was at the ball at all, but the Favells are – were – old hunting friends of my parents. My father invited them, and he had no idea of what had gone on between Emma, Favell and me.

Are you still reading? Thinking I’m a coward and obsessed? Hating me, still, for the way I blanked you that morning?

In that case, there’s nothing I can do, but I needed to tell someone – you – about my reasons and the way I feel.

I’ll probably be home soon and regret I ever sent this. I may even be back by now, but if not, you should know that where I’ve gone and what I’m doing means they won’t be giving me a medal – posthumous or otherwise – and you won’t hear about it on the news either. So if my corner of a foreign field ends up being some dusty hellhole, be a friend to Emma for me, would you? Because I know, now, that you meant well, and I shouldn’t have judged you so harshly. I do see what a difficult position you found yourself in, though I couldn’t see it at the time.

I race straight on to the second sheet.

So, it seems I’m on to a second page, having intended to write only a brief note. Maybe I won’t send the first one, maybe I’ll only send this one. I don’t know where you are right now, who you’re with – if it’s Scott, I guess I’ll have to suck it up. I know he will.

But. If you’re not with Scott, you’d better watch out.

Because if I ever get the chance again, I’m going to carry you off somewhere and lock the door on the rest of the world. I’m going to peel off those hundred-dollar knickers I know you’re wearing, Ms Cusack, and have you until neither of us has the energy left to walk or speak or even think. I know you thought I was joking when I said I could break into your room any time I wanted and you wouldn’t even know about it.

So, how do you think this letter got into your bag?

What
?
‘My God, you are unbelievable, Alexander Hunt!’

Ah, now I’m smiling because I can picture your face, hear your gasp of outrage and feel you bristling with indignation. I
may
be joking about that but this much is absolutely true: I want you so badly it physically hurts, and all I can think about is having you back in my bed, naked, probably furious with me, perhaps rightly, but there despite everything. Because I think you can’t stay away from me, Lauren, and I know damn well I can’t stay away from you.