True Colours (18 page)

‘
Which was what?’ Sebastian almost said ‘smart arse’; she could hear it in his voice.

‘
I won’t know until we get a sample of paint back to the lab, but we can lift the various layers until we find the original, match it. It’s not rocket science.’ Alex couldn’t resist the dig. Sebastian ignored it, contemplating his shoes for a second.

‘
Find out what it was. It would be great to go back to the original. But how about the curtains? If you’re going to restore it accurately, how do we find out what they looked like?’ He nodded to the cream and gold brocade drapes, foxed and fading, the deep gold tassel running along the box pelmet beginning to detach itself, hanging precariously in places, twenty feet from the floor.

‘
I can go back through the original records, cross-reference them with contemporary documentation, diaries, bills of sale from similar houses built at the time, find a fabric that would be in keeping.’

‘
Okay.’ He paused for a moment watching her closely.

She certainly knew her stuff; he had to give her that.

For a moment, Sebastian felt like pinching himself, was she really here in the flesh after all these years? Standing in that shaft of sunlight, her red jacket glowing like a ghostly Hussars tunic, the golden lights in her hair illuminated, dust particles dancing around her in an aura, Alex looked like an apparition, a manifestation from his dreams.

‘
And the bedrooms?’ Sebastian tried to keep his voice level, to hide the maelstrom of emotions that were welling up inside him like a geyser, the pressure making his head pound.

Why did you go? Sebastian ached to shout it out to her across the room, to listen to the echo of his voice reverberating round the cornicing, through the years that separated them.

‘
Same applies; we can take them back to the original or as close as possible to it.’

‘
That sounds good. Mum redecorated them years ago; lots of Laura Ashley floral prints. The guest rooms aren’t too bad but they need to be brought up to date.’

I know, Alex bit it back, nodded instead.

‘
Do you need to see upstairs?’ For a second Alex felt his eye linger on her, like an x-ray, running from her patent court shoes to her white silk t-shirt, sucking the air out of the room all over again. Upstairs. The two of them. Alone?

‘
Helloooo, Sebastian…’

The sound jolted them both. Caroline. Her tone unmistakable.

Tossing Alex a wary glance, Sebastian strode across the floor, his footsteps unnaturally loud. Out through the double doors, out to the balcony, Dodo at his heels. Alex took the moment to try and put away her notebook, fumbling helplessly with the flap on the outside of her briefcase, unable to make the notebook fit into the outside pocket, unable to focus. If she had felt dizzy before, now she was positively reeling.

‘
We’re up here, in the ballroom.’

‘
See, I knew he was here somewhere.’ Sweet, cloying, like a precocious child.

With the notebook finally stowed, Alex slipped her briefcase decisively onto her shoulder, and summoning all her reserves of control, followed Sebastian out onto the landing, her own heels clicking on the boards, vaguely aware that Caroline must be talking to someone downstairs, the distinct tones of several voices reaching her.

‘
Here he is!’ Alex heard Caroline kissing Sebastian as he reached the bottom of the stairs, steeled herself as she crossed the mezzanine to the top of the flight. She couldn’t see them until she swung around the ornate finial of the main banister, a smile fixed in place. But at the top step she stopped dead, one foot hovering uselessly in the air. Below her, Caroline, this time wearing pale pink jeans and stiletto-heeled pink suede boots, the flounces on her oyster silk blouse lifting gently as she moved, was bending over an elderly man huddled in a wheelchair, a red tartan rug tucked in tightly around his knees. Alex’s heart skipped an entire beat.

Guy Wingfield. Lord Kilfenora. Sebastian’s grandfather.

Alex suddenly realised she was holding her breath, unsure whether she was more shocked by seeing him, or by the fact that he was in a wheelchair…looking so old, so helpless. She hadn’t seen him for sixteen years and he’d been in his seventies then, so he must be almost ninety now. Somehow, Guy Wingfield was fixed in Alex’s mind just as she had last seen him; it had never occurred to her that he could have aged so much. It was like meeting up with an old friend who has had a baby – suddenly the child is reading and writing and you’ve entirely missed the passage of time.

‘
Now young lady, tell me what your plans are when you’ve finished school, what is it you’re planning to do with your life?’ his voice echoed back to her through the years , soft, paternalistic; the smell of the leather in his study; beeswax polish, spinning around inside her head like an insane merry-go-round; so friendly back then…

TWENTY ONE

‘
I really do have to get back to town Caroline. I’ve several meetings lined up.’

‘
Oh don’t be silly, Sylvia’s here now.’ From the top of the stairs Alex watched as Caroline turned to an extremely overweight woman, easily fifty but trying hard to look twenty years younger, her wardrobe trapped somewhere in the Eighties along with shoulder pads and cobalt blue eyeliner, hair a back-combed creation in bleach and hairspray. She was smiling broadly, her voice as high-pitched as Caroline’s, her accent ridiculously affected.

‘
I just need to get a feel for the ballroom darling, shouldn’t take long.’

‘
I really don’t think you need me…’ Sebastian glanced at his watch, his irritation obvious.

‘
I want you to be happy with everything.’ Caroline paused, pouting. ‘Honestly darling, I don’t know why you’re so tetchy.’ Seeing the look on Sebastian’s face, Caroline changed tack faster than a racing yacht in a squall, sympathy suddenly oozing from every perfect pore. ‘You must be working too hard, you deserve a day off. After all, what’s the point of being the boss if you can’t decide to disappear once in a while?’ bowling on, sensing his hesitation, she caught a movement out of the corner of her eye and glanced up the stairs, ‘And look, Alex is here too.’ She turned to the old man, speaking conspiratorially, ‘she’s the one I was telling you about, I’ve asked her company to redo the apartment and she’s doing Sebastian’s offices. I just know they’ll be great, they come very highly recommended.’ She made it sound like she’d discovered Impromptu Design personally, that she had retained them. ‘They’re doing the Spanish Cultural Institute.’ Then, as if everything was settled, ‘So that’s perfect. We can get everything done in one day. Could you imagine if the ballroom clashed with my flowers?’ she tittered, patting Guy Wingfield on the shoulder like he was a pet dog.

Feeling like a voyeur, frozen at the top of the stairs watching the tableau unfold below her like a Greek tragedy, Alex took a deep breath. She couldn’t hide up here forever, pretending to be invisible, praying they’d all forget about her and wander off so that she could scuttle down the stairs and get back to her car, make for the gates in a cloud of dust. That just wasn’t going to happen. Taking a deep breath, pushing up the sleeves of her jacket, praying her legs would carry her without folding beneath her somewhere half-way down, Alex started to move. One foot at a time, her heels impossibly loud on the wooden treads. She cringed, so much for being invisible. But she kept going, heading down towards Caroline; towards Guy Wingfield; towards the butch woman in the navy trousers and a white smock pushing his chair, his nurse presumably; towards Sebastian.

‘
And I’m sure Guy would love everyone to stay, wouldn’t you darling?’ Her arm around his shoulders, Caroline bobbed down by Guy Wingfield’s side, speaking to him like he was a small child. Alex shuddered; she obviously didn’t know him very well. But her simpering and flirting seemed to have the desired effect on the old man as he nodded, raising his hand, gesturing to the nurse.

‘
Lunch. Call Gráinne woman, tell her we’ll be five for lunch. And none of that soup slop, we want a proper meal. In the Palm House. Nice and warm in there, too damned cold in the dining room.’

Alex wasn’t sure what shocked her more, his choice of words or their delivery. His tone was just as commanding as it had once been, but his voice had diminished to little more than a croak, its deep resonance lost in old age, the words slurred. Sixteen years was a long time for all of them.

Then what he had actually said hit her - lunch? Alex’s whole body suddenly went chill. How could she stay for lunch, sit and try and make civilised conversation here, with them? As if reading her mind, Sebastian glanced up at her, his eyes meeting hers for a second, sending a message loud and clear, think of an excuse. Alex was already working on it, didn’t need a prompt.

‘
I’m afraid I have a meeting too.’

‘
Tsh,’ Caroline shot her a pithy look, ‘I’m sure you can postpone it, explain that this job is bigger than you expected it to be. You wouldn’t want to disappoint Lord Kilfenora now would you?’

Alex opened her mouth to protest, shutting it again quickly. Caroline wasn’t going to take no for an answer, and in a flash of revelation, she could see exactly how Sebastian had ended up getting engaged to her.

As she reached the bottom step, looking at them all standing there, Alex felt the past crashing around inside her head like breakers in a winter storm, the wind biting, making her eyes sting, chilling her to the bone. She’d got down the stairs, but now she had to face Guy Wingfield, be introduced like they’d never met before. What would he say? Would he realise who she was, recognise her after all these years? Nodding politely to the wedding planner, Alex could feel her palms sweating; her heart thundering in her chest and she was sure her colour was rising. This was it.

She needn’t have worried. Close up, Alex could see the infamous Lord Guy Wingfield had aged beyond anything she could have imagined. The last time she’d seen him he’d stood six feet three, had filled his clothes, ‘a fine figure of a man’ Gráinne the cook had always called him, striding around the estate with the presence of a man twenty years his junior.

Now his pale blue eyes were rheumy and glazed, his white hair sparse, the skin on his hands and face spotted with age, gnarled like the bark of an ancient oak. And, as he sat hunched in the chair, one hand seemed to lie uselessly across his knee. Had he had a stroke? Surreptitiously, Alex tried to look at him properly, realised the whole left side of his face was frozen. Barely acknowledging her presence, he fumbled with the rug tucked around his knees, a ball of saliva forming at the side of his mouth. The nurse whipped out a tissue and gently dabbed it away. Embarrassed, Caroline flicked her long hair over her shoulder, adjusting the sunglasses on the top of her head. Obviously, there weren’t going to be any introductions.

Breaking the uneasy moment of silence, Sebastian pulled out his phone, flicking it open.

‘
No signal. I need to phone Joss, get her to reschedule. I’ll use the study.’

‘
Take Alex with you, so she can make her excuses.’ Caroline grinned broadly, obviously relieved that the focus had been diverted from the unpleasantness of old age, delighted her plans were falling into place. She turned to the nurse, ‘Just make sure there’s nothing too heavy for me won’t you? Gráinne can be very heavy-handed with the butter. I want to be able to fit into my wedding dress,’ Caroline tittered and patted her flat stomach to somehow illustrate her point. ‘Now, I’ll just show Sylvia the ballroom and we can meet back down here.’ She turned back to Sebastian, ‘How’s that?’

The study. Jesus. Alex gritted her teeth, nodding curtly to Caroline, and was about to turn and stalk into Guy Wingfield's private room when she realised she wasn’t supposed to know where it was. Pulling herself up, she glanced at Sebastian, one eyebrow raised. He scowled, picking up her unspoken thoughts as easily as he had done when she was seventeen. Dodo seemed to read her mind too, standing up expectantly, forcing her muzzle into her hand.

‘
It’s this way.’

Clicking his fingers at the dog, Sebastian headed for the study, his jaw set.

The room hadn’t changed one tiny bit since Alex had been there last; even the newspapers flung across the sofa table set behind the burgundy leather chesterfield looked the same. Three of the walls groaned under the weight of generations of accumulated leather-bound books. In front of the fourth wall, Guy Wingfield’s Victorian pedestal desk was flanked by two sash windows, dust dancing in the sunlight filtering through the panes, through the wisteria wandering across the front of the house like a wild beast that had escaped from the Palm House. As she went to follow Sebastian inside, the smell of old cigar smoke hit her like a slap in the face, and she was seventeen all over again: the sun hot on her back, her head filled with impossible dreams, the flush of first love, life absolutely perfect…until…she could feel her head beginning to spin, nausea rising. Guy Wingfield might be an old man, might be incapacitated, but she should never have come back...

Unaware that she’d stopped dead behind him, Sebastian strode across the room and picked up the antique phone on the desk. Steadying herself on the doorframe, it took Alex every ounce of composure to pull herself together, to walk into the room, her mouth unpleasantly dry. The fire had been lit, was dancing merrily in the grate, inviting, welcoming. Like the fires of hell. The room was warm, homey, but Alex felt a chill right to her core.

‘
Joss, it’s me. Yes I know. Caroline wants us to do lunch here – I know, I know. Can you put off the Minister again and re-jig the rest of the afternoon? I’ll be in, in the morning, anything serious ring the house will you? The mobile reception’s hopeless here.’ He paused, listening to her response. ‘I know, Tell me about it.’