True Colours Read online

  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.’

  Then, as abruptly as the conversation had started, it finished.

  Deliberately trying to look like she wasn’t listening, Alex hovered beside the fireplace, the heat from the flames warming her legs, Dodo flopped down on the hearth rug at her feet, her stub of a tail twitching. The mantelpiece was crowded with photographs, silver frames polished, gleaming. Sebastian in his school uniform; his parents at the bottom of the Grand Staircase like a picture from Homes and Gardens, a pair of spaniels at his father’s feet – tweed jackets and cords, his mother’s favourite Hermes scarf, a basket of holly hanging on her arm.

  ‘I hadn’t realised your grandfather was ill.’

  Sebastian bit back a retort you wouldn’t would you? Instead he shrugged, pulling his tie loose, unbuttoning his collar, ‘He had a stroke. He’s paralysed down one side – well, you could see – he’s hanging in there but he’s almost blind now, is beginning to lose interest.’

  Blind? No wonder he hadn’t recognised her.

  ‘It’s a shame, he was always so active.’ It’s a shame, Alex cringed at the platitude, in her head a voice crying out, he deserved it: he was a mean manipulating bastard. She bit her tongue. Behind her, Sebastian sighed audibly.

  ‘Your dad must be really busy now, running the estate, trying to keep everything going.’

  ‘My dad?’ the harshness in Sebastian’s tone cut through Alex like a mugger’s blade. He was standing by the window now, his hands thrust into his pockets, staring at her, his face frozen, eyes wide with shock. She continued hastily what had she said?

  ‘I mean running Wingfield Holdings, as well as the whole estate.’

  Alex’s words fell into a silence that gaped between them like a rocky chasm. It took a moment for Sebastian to answer, like he was struggling to find the words. In the end he went for the bald facts.

  ‘My dad’s dead. Both of them are.’

  ‘What? How?’ It was Alex’s turn to look shocked.

  ‘Didn’t you know?’

  She shook her head vigorously, pulling a chunk of hair behind her ear as it threatened to fall into her eyes, her face drained of colour, ‘When?’

  Sebastian bit his lip, his face tortured. When he spoke, his voice was barely a whisper,

  ‘A month after...’ he cleared his throat, ‘a month after you left.’ There, he’d said it. AFTER YOU LEFT. It bounced off the walls ricocheting between them like a bullet.

  ‘A month?’ Alex was aghast, her voice pitchy, betraying the surge of emotion that was bubbling up inside, threatening to drown her. She’d loved his mum; she had been there for her after her own mother died, not pushy, not prying, just there for a chat when she needed it. She’d been the lady of the manor but she’d always made time for Alex, listening to her worries as they tied up the orchids in the Palm House, or arranged flowers in the morning room. How could her dad not have told her? He’d never mentioned the estate after she left, must have taken it that she didn’t want to know – he wasn’t wrong there. Why hadn’t he told her?

  And suddenly she understood. She’d chosen to leave, to leave Sebastian, to leave Kilfenora, and if her dad had told her, she would have had to come back for the funeral. He must have understood how hard it was to leave once, without coming back and then having to do it all over again.

  What Tom Ryan didn’t know was that coming back just wasn’t an option…

  Alex’s voice was quiet when she replied,

  ‘I didn’t know. Oh God, I’m so sorry.’ She could feel a tear pricking the corner of her eye,

  ‘What happened?’

  Sebastian’s voice was gruff, ‘It was a road accident. They were in South Africa looking at a vineyard, buying wine for Dad’s collection, they’d just arrived in Cape Town; some bastard jumped a red light and ran them down.’

  She turned away, the sense of loss, the whole sense of loss, just too much to grasp.

  ‘And your grandfather?’ The words caught in Alex’s throat.

  ‘He had the first stroke about three years later. The second was the big one. I’ve been looking after everything since then.’ His voice was thin, practical but drained.

  A pang of sadness welled up inside Alex like water on the boil, threatening to bubble over. To the outside world he looked like he had it all: the looks, the money, the title, the successful business, but when you scratched the surface, went below the veneer, he was just like everyone else, he had had his own share of pain and loss.

  She was on the back foot again. Well and truly.

  Before she could say anything, the door burst open to reveal Caroline hanging on the doorknob as she finished her conversation with the wedding planner who was obviously standing behind her in the hall.

  ‘I thought a pink carpet up to the front door. Red’s just, well, just a bit icky… And starting from the gravel. You’ll have to measure it.‘ Turning back into the room, oblivious of the tension, she started talking to Sebastian like Alex wasn’t there.

  ‘It’s going to be so pretty. Sylvia wants to put a gazebo down by the lake, covered in flowers. We can serve the champagne for the toast down there before the fireworks.’

  Sebastian’s brow creased, ‘I thought we were going to do the toasts by the fountain in the Palm House. Isn’t that why it’s being repainted? It’s a bit of a trek down to the lake.’

  ‘Oh no, it’ll be perfect. Soo beautiful, and the fireworks will reflect in the water, everyone will see them if they’re down there.’

  ‘If it rains, it’ll be a mud bath.’

  ‘She’s going to carpet it, all around the gazebo.’

  ‘Carpet the grass?’ Sebastian sounded incredulous.

  ‘Isn’t it just the best idea?’ Caroline was glowing, her face animated.

  ‘Have you discussed the budget with her? It’ll come out of her fee if she goes over.’

  ‘Oh, tsh, we want it to be beautiful. After all, you only get married once don’t you?’

  Sebastian didn’t answer, shook his head in disbelief, looked out the window again. Alex could see the tic under his eye beginning to flick.

  Apparently not noticing, Caroline continued, ‘And I had the most marvellous idea. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to organise a shooting party for the guests who are staying on? We can have lunch on the Long Ridge, go after that stag.’

  ‘In June? Don’t be ridiculous the season doesn’t start until the first of September.’

  Caroline pursed her lips, her eyes narrowed as she tried to come up with a solution.

  ‘Clay pigeons then. We can ride up to the Long Ridge, set up the clay machine thingy up there and we’ll have full silver service for lunch. What do you think?’

  Sebastian didn’t reply, continued to watch whatever it was that he was looking at outside. Caroline didn’t seem to notice, but went to cuddle up behind him, putting her arms around his waist from behind, tucking the fingers of one hand into the top of his trousers. ‘It’ll be such fun, so Victorian. And at least there’s no chance of you shooting the gamekeeper this time!’

  For a moment Alex wasn’t sure she’d heard right, but as her eyes jerked up from their contemplation of Dodo’s slumbering form, they met Sebastian’s in an appalling moment of clarity. He was looking at her sideways, his f
ace pale.

  ‘The gamekeeper?’

  Caroline looked around at Alex as if she had forgotten she was standing there, still grinning from the memory of what was obviously a funny incident. For her at least.

  ‘It was such a terrible shot.’

  ‘Thanks Caroline, I think Alex has to call her office now.’ Interrupting, Sebastian turned around, unwrapping himself from her, trying to physically usher her towards the door. ‘We’ve got a lot to get through before lunch. Need to talk about the budget with this Sylvia woman of yours.’

  But Caroline didn’t stop, kept talking, her face serious, like she was imparting vital information, ‘Sebastian missed the beast completely, and then when we went after him for the next shot, there was the gamekeeper, what’s his name?’ Caroline looked back at Sebastian for confirmation, but, his face closed, appalled at her indiscretion, it was Alex who answered, her voice low, dangerous.

  ‘Tom Ryan.’

  Caroline didn’t seem to notice, or wonder for that matter, how the interior designer happened to know the gamekeeper’s first name – she was too wrapped up in the story.

  ‘It was lucky really that the stag ran the way he did or we’d never have found him.’

  ‘Thank you Caroline. I really don’t think we need to tell everyone estate business do you?’

  Incensed now, the tic in his face on overdrive, his jaw clenched, the scar on his chin bright white against the flush of his skin, Alex could tell Sebastian was fighting to keep his voice calm.

  ‘A bit out of season weren’t you Sebastian, after a stag at the end of February? Surely the season finishes at the end of December doesn’t it?’ Alex’s mouth was pursed, her eyebrows raised in question.

  ‘It wasn’t a stag, we’ve been having trouble with the hinds; we’d agreed we needed to cull a few.’

  ‘But we got the gamekeeper instead,’ Caroline giggled at her own joke, ‘He was checking some traps or something. He was out cold when we found him; Seb had almost blown his leg off.’