A Hopeless Romantic Part 40

The band had started setting up at one end of the room; people were clearing the tables; guests were starting to move around. The lights were low. Between the din of the room and the softness of Charles's voice, Laura had to lean toward him to hear what he was saying. She patted him on the shoulder consolingly, and looked up to find the Marquis of Ranelagh crouched down, having a conversation with Lavinia opposite. His eyes flicked over to Laura and Charles, who sprang apart.

"h.e.l.lo," said Nick, standing up. "I was just making sure everything's okay at this end. How are you all?"

He addressed the question to the table at large, and nodded easily as some people raised their gla.s.ses to him, others carried on eating, still others called out thanks or rude jokes.

"Great bangers, Freddie," Nick said, nodding at Freddie. His hands were in his pockets; he took one out and shook Freddie's. "Thanks a lot. Remind me to come down tomorrow and we'll settle."

"Of course, my lord," said Freddie. Laura was watching Nick; she saw a tiny muscle flex in his cheek involuntarily, and she realized how much he hated the t.i.tle. She smiled at him, in what she hoped was an amicable, grateful way.

"Having a good time?" Nick asked her.

"Yes, thank you," said Laura. She was, she realized, much better than she'd expected. "It's wonderful. Charles is-"

But she got no further. He nodded, just like his elder sister, and turned to talk to Charles, leaving her addressing thin air.

Laura sat there for a moment, as Charles shifted around in his seat and asked some technical question about the remote control on the gates so that people could leave through the main entrance, no matter how late. Nick replied shortly. Tears she could not control filled Laura's eyes; she murmured to Freddie, "Excuse me," and, pushing her chair back, stumbled toward the hall. People were standing, sitting, talking, laughing; no one noticed her as she crept out of the huge room and clattered across the great hall, suddenly silent and dark, long moonlit shadows falling across the gray stone floor.

From behind the staircase, deep within the bowels of the house, Laura could hear the clatter of feet, growing louder. She looked around wildly-she didn't want anyone to see her. There was another door leading off from the hall, and she ran through it, and found herself in a gloomy, long room.

chapter forty-eight.

A s her eyes grew accustomed to the darkness, Laura jumped. She looked around her and realized she was in the picture gallery. Sculptures were scattered the length of the room, cupids, Graces, sleeping fauns, dying centurions, all in bone-colored marble. The floodlights outside gave the unlit room and the figures within a ghostly, ethereal quality.

Lining the walls were portraits, all in the same ebony frames, rows of Needhams and Danverses, rows of marquises, all watching her, their eyes following her around the room. Laura shivered and hugged herself, stroking the silk of her shoulder straps. It was eerie-she felt as if she had stumbled into another world. She stared around her in wonder. So, this is what I missed when I left the tour early, she thought, and gave a tiny laugh in the silence of the room. There was a dimmer switch on the wall; how incongruous, she thought. She took a step to go turn it on, then thought better of it; she shouldn't really be here, she ought to go back, only- Suddenly a voice behind her said, "Laura?"

She turned, and there was Nick, leaning against the open door. He came into the room; walking toward her, he said, "What are you doing in here? Catching up on your sightseeing?" His face fell into shadow as he stood beside her.

Laura said, "I-I wanted some fresh air."

"It's rather hot in there, isn't it," he agreed.

"Yes," said Laura, although she was actually quite cold. "Yes, it is."

"You seem to be enjoying yourself," he said pleasantly.

"It's a beautiful room," said Laura, all at once perfectly calm. "I hadn't seen it before."

He began to walk slowly down the length of the room; she fell into step beside him, and they were silent for a moment. He looked sideways at her and cleared his throat. Indicating one of the black-framed portraits, he said in a conversational tone, "Very beautiful. Yes. Let me give you the guided tour."

"Don't you have to..." Laura made a helpless gesture with her hands.

"Have to what?"

"Do something? Look after the guests?"

Nick put his hands in his pockets and turned toward her. "I don't suppose anyone will miss us for a few minutes, Laura."

She blushed, feeling like a silly schoolgirl; but before she could say anything, he pointed to the painting nearest to them. "So. Have you seen this, here? It's supposed to be a Holbein. Unsigned."

Laura recovered herself. "Really? My goodness."

They walked a little farther, and she noticed they were perfectly in step, his tread firm against the light clatter of her heels, almost like a dance.

"One of the jewels of our collection, this painting. Can you see?" He put his hand lightly on her shoulder and turned her slightly away from him.

"Yes," said Laura, trying not to relax into his touch. "Who is this?" She noted, almost with detached amus.e.m.e.nt, that her nails were digging into her palms, as if she were nervous, but she didn't feel it-did she?

Nick said, "Lady Ranelagh, Restoration period. She may have slept with Charles I-but then, who didn't."

"Well, who didn't," Laura echoed. She stared at the subject, a woman with tumbling golden curls, a confident expression, almost pursing her lips, in love with life. "It's lovely. She looks nice, doesn't she?"

"I always think she must have been fun to have around," said Nick. "Her husband raised the money for Chartley. Got it off Charles I, I think, basically for prost.i.tuting out his wife. It was her idea."

"Families!" said Laura. "My dad's mum used to get me and my brother to wash her neighbor's car, and in return he'd mend her garden fence. It's very much the same thing."

She was joking, but Nick stopped and stared at Lady Ranelagh again. "You know, it kind of is the same thing, actually."

Laura laughed. "No, it's not."

"People are more alike than you think, Laura." He moved off smartly without saying any more. "Right. Let's go a little farther. Here, Lady Charlotte Needham. She married Lord Hastings. It's by Reynolds."

"I love that," said Laura, admiring the girl with black ribbons in her dark hair and a grave, rather serious expression. "She's sweet. She looks like..." She was going to say "your sister Rose," but didn't think it would be proper; yet there was a look of Rose about the girl's dark, candid eyes, her rather purposeful features.

Nick carried on, and she fell into step with him, down the long, dappled gallery, where faces caught the moonlight and smiled at her.

"And here is the seventh marquis, after whom I am named," he said, and Laura looked up to find the real portrait of her old friend, the one who had started it all. The seventh marquis smiled benevolently down at them, and Laura's heart stopped again as she remembered how she had felt that funny, romantic, silly evening when she found the postcard on the bus home.

"He looks...just like you," she said.

Nick bowed slightly. "I'm honored," he said. He started walking again, his face impa.s.sive.

"Who's that?" said Laura, stopping again. She pointed up to a portrait of a woman in a long black dress. Her face was in profile, her hand resting lightly on her breastbone. Beside her lay a photo, and a vase with blossoms in it. It was a stark, spare painting, the only decoration the woman herself, and Laura stared, transfixed, because she was so lovely. Nick said nothing.

"It's your mother, isn't it?" said Laura, suddenly realizing.

"Yes," said Nick. "This is when she got married, in 1959. She was only twenty-three. She'd already been acting for about six years by then; she was pretty young."

"She's beautiful," said Laura honestly.

"She was," said Nick. "I don't know, I haven't seen her for years."

"How long's it been?" Laura asked softly.

"Since I was eleven, 1981. I was eleven when she...left."

"And you've never seen her again?" said Laura.

"No," said Nick. His voice was bleak. "We weren't allowed to."

"Have you thought about it any more?" Laura mimicked writing with a pencil and paper. "I mean-getting in touch with her?"

"Oh, Laura." His hand was on his forehead; he was himself suddenly. "G.o.d, I just don't know how to go about it. It's easier to just think you'll do something about it one day, to save yourself actually doing something about it now. You know?"

"I know," said Laura. "I do know. Oh, Nick. You have to see her again. You really do. If only for yourself, you have to...."

He looked so dreadfully alone in his black jacket, the hollows of his cheekbones dark in the moonlit room, his eyes unreadable. She stared at him, drinking in the sight of him, her heart clenching as she thought how vulnerable he was, despite everything he had.

She went over to him. "Not my business," she said, and shivered. "I'm sorry."

He looked down at her. "What for, Laura?" he said, smiling. "What on earth for?" and he took her left hand in his right hand and put it in his jacket pocket, then did the same with her right hand, his fingers closing around hers, so that she was facing him. He said quietly, "So. I thought we weren't speaking to each other."

"You were quite horrible to me last time I saw you, in London," said Laura.

"Laura, shame on you." His hands, in their pockets, tightened around hers. "You were the last person I was expecting to see there. That was a good day, that day, and you came along and ruined it."

"Charming!" said Laura.

"I mean," he said, his mouth close to her ear, "that was the first day I hadn't thought about you. Constantly. And then there you were. Having a really bad day. And I was trying to make it better, but I didn't know what to do-what to say..." He trailed off. "How's work, by the way?"

"Work?" said Laura, momentarily wrong-footed. "It's fine. Great, actually. Much better than when I last saw you."

"Really?" he said. "Why?"

"Oh..." Laura looked around her, weighing up whether to go into Marcus's about-turn, and found the eyes of an Elizabethan lady in a ruff on her. She looked down. It wasn't important, not here; she shouldn't bother him with it all, even though she really wanted to. "Nothing. Don't worry about it. But thanks, though."

"Really?"

"Absolutely," she said, wishing she could talk to him, tell him everything, but not feeling able to here, under the collective gaze of his family, alive and dead. "I'm sorry about that night. It was-weird."

"You ran off," said Nick. "Again."

"Well..." Laura shifted on her feet. "I'd had a bad evening. And I felt completely out of place. And then Cecilia phoned you, and-I just thought you were being polite, and trying to get rid of me."

"She was checking up on me," said Nick. "I should have told her to go away. I'm sorry."

"And yet here she is again," Laura pointed out.

He sighed. "Oh, G.o.d. I promise you, there's nothing going on between me and Cecilia. My sister invited her tonight. Nothing to do with me."

"Where is she?" Laura said curiously.

He jerked his head up. "Actually, she gave up. Told me I was pathetic and went to bed about fifteen minutes ago. Her bed, obviously. She's got her own room. She has, Laura. Believe me."

"Nick," said Laura, putting her hands up, "really-it's none of my business."

"Isn't it?" he said, his voice reverberating in her ear, his lips close to her hair. "It's nothing to do with you, is it?"

"No," said Laura, shaking her head and looking up at him, bemused. "Nick-you're the Marquis of Ranelagh. I'm nothing. Well, not nothing, but...You can do what you want, I don't-"

"You still don't see it, do you?" said Nick. "Seriously, you still can't see it?"

"What?" said Laura.

He ran his hands through his hair and, not looking at her, said, "What if being with you was the first proper conversation I'd had with someone for years? That I felt like the person I really was, for once?" He backed away and gripped his tie, loosening it. "G.o.d, Laura. Don't say that, not you, especially not you."

"What do you mean?"

"You can't see it, even now?" he said tiredly. "I'm not the Marquis of Ranelagh, that's not me. That's the thing I inherited, just like you inherited your total stupidity from some family member of yours, I don't know who."

Laura gasped in outrage, and he smiled wickedly at her in the darkness. She shivered.

"Silly girl. I'm sorry. You're cold." He looked at her appraisingly, then took off his jacket and put it around her shoulders.

"Thank you," she said.

"My pleasure," he replied, mock-formally. He took a quick breath, and said, "We seem to have been going around in circles, haven't we? But let me just say this." His voice was softer. "I'm not the marquis. I am sometimes, of course. But I'm still the person you met this summer, before it all got confusing, bogged down with all that other c.r.a.p." Laura made to say something; he held up his hand. "Listen to me, Laura. I'm Nick. My mum ran off with someone when I was eleven, I haven't seen her for more than twenty years, and my dad and I didn't get on. He was a bully. I liked geography at school, I hated French. I like The Sopranos. I don't like a.r.s.enal. When I was in America for the summer when I was nineteen, I slept with a stripper."

"Really?" said Laura, interested despite herself. "Where?"

He shook his head, trying not to smile. "Tell you later. Let me finish. All of that stuff I told you, I could talk to you about. About how much I love the house. About the way to run things, how it all means so much to me. Just like any other job, without all this other c.r.a.p getting in the way."

"What c.r.a.p?"

"You know," he said impatiently. "Fawning. Ceremony. Old ladies in car parks. Insane men with tour guides. People bowing, asking the same questions all the time. It's my responsibility. I have to deal with it, and I don't mind, in fact I'm proud of it; but you-you made me feel like a real person for once. And I-I wanted to do the same for you. I wanted you to feel better about yourself, to realize how completely, totally wonderful you are, Laura."

He took her hand and kissed her palm gently, his forehead touching hers; and out of the corner of her vision Laura saw the portrait of his beautiful, smiling mother, her dark eyes watching them. She gave a ragged, deep sigh, as Nick pulled her toward him. He bent his head and whispered, "Oh, Laura..."

"No," Laura heard herself say. She looked up. There, on the opposite wall, the seventh marquis stared down at her, clutching his book. "I can't, Nick. Not here." She stepped back a little from him.

"What do you mean?" said Nick, his brow furrowed, his face instantly closing up.

"Not here," Laura said softly, making a tiny gesture with her hand. "These-all of them. I can't."

"I don't understand," he said, releasing her other hand and shaking his head slowly. "Don't-don't do this, Laura."

"Nick," said Laura. She had to make him see why it was so important. "They're the reason we can't be together. All of these people, here." She gestured the length of the room. "You and me-when I'm with you, it doesn't matter. And I can see you in my flat," she added rather inarticulately.

"What on earth are you talking about?" said Nick. "I've never been to your flat."

She took his hand. "I mean, I can see you talking to my friends, lying on my sofa." She squeezed his hand; he had to see what she meant, had to. "Us, together, normal. That's why I-I thought I was falling in love with you. Not because of any of this stuff. The fairy-tale romance bit of it, Nick-I don't want that. I just want you, do you understand?"

His jaw was set. "Laura. But all of this-this is me."