Page 14 of Love and Loathing

“Good. I didn’t think so. That’s at least one advantage you have over my children.”

He moved towards the door, then paused, giving Aubrey a speculative look.

“Rumour has it you took a date to the Awards on Friday?”

Aubrey said nothing. No one at all would have been able to tell his heart had nearly stopped.

“I know you’re a private man,” continued George, “but is it serious?”

“Like a hole to the head.”

“Excellent. Bring her with you.”

Aubrey stared. “Bring…?”

“She’s a looker, I take it? Bound to be, with your eye for things. Bring her to Conyers. Domnall’s weak for pretty women. It’ll put him in a good mood. Make him want to show off a bit, talk big numbers.”

“It’s not… It was a one-time thing. Entirely over.”

He didn’t bother to ask if George’s wife would be coming. Rumour had it she was currently shacked up with her latest lover in Dubai.

George frowned. “Pity. Oh well, Aubrey. You’ll just have to charm him yourself.”

A few weeks later, Aubrey drove to Lancashire to spend a weekend with his boss, his intractable client, and the woman who had broken his heart. Twice.

He drove fast, illegally so, hoping he might die. But God was cruel and spared him.

It was a bright blue September afternoon when he arrived, turning off a country lane onto a winding, gated driveway, parkland to left and right, lush grass studded with enormous oak and beech trees.

“Blimey,” he muttered as the house itself finally came into view, revealing itself in calculated glimpses as the driveway curved, now lined by an avenue of limes.

Conyers House. An enormous rectangle of red brick, too big to be truly beautiful, too arrogant, the way it stood fast, a hundred glimmering glass windows surveying the sweeping gardens.

Aubrey, having worked in wealth management for years, and being the son of an extremely successful lawyer, was no stranger to money. But still. It was a house designed to awe, and it did the job.

No wonder,he thought bitterly to himself as he guided his car round the driveway to the left of the house as instructed,that the daughter of such a place is so damned uppity.

At least she wouldn’t be here. He’d reassured himself of that with an extremely subtle set of questions put to Roscoe.“She hates the place,”her brother had told him.“Especially if our dad’s there. Last I heard, she’s planning to stay in London for the foreseeable.”

One less thing to worry about. He just had to survive everything else.

He’d hoped to arrive before Domnall and Liv and give himself some time to acclimatise, steel himself, but as he parked outside a set of old sandstone stable buildings at the side of a vast courtyard, he heard the unmistakable sound of helicopter rotors and looked up just in time to see Domnall’s private conveyance come in to land on the other side of the stable block. Hardly fair, was it? Road vs air.

Stiff, grim, dreading everything, he got out of the car and picked up his suits in their covers from their hook in the back, slung his leather travel bag over his shoulder, and headed for the first of the many doors set into the house’s back, ducking gratefully through it just as he saw George Blackton and another man come out through one further down.

He was lost almost immediately, following a dark, wood-panelled hallway deeper into the house, an innumerable number of gold-framed paintings of what appeared to be every horseever in existence decorating the walls. He crossed a gallery, ancient Blackton ancestors staring down at him, and found himself in another hallway that seemed exactly the same as the first, except the paintings this time were of dogs.

What a bloody maze. Surely there was a housekeeper or a—

He found himself in a huge, domed entrance foyer, the triple-height ceiling painted with heavenly Renaissance scenes, the plaster scrollwork gilded. He stared up at it, getting that strange, trespassing sense he always felt in churches. Then he heard a step, turned to the broad staircase, and came face-to-face with Evelyn Blackton.

She trod lightly down from the last step, smiled widely, and said, “Hello, Aubrey. Fancy meeting you here.”

“You.” Heat flushed his neck—all anger, not embarrassment. “You can’t be here.”

She tipped her head to the side, puzzled. “But I live here.”

He should have driven faster. Or maybe he had crashed after all and this was Hell. Evie’s presence strongly supported the theory. Except, no matter her opinion, he didn’t quite believe he deserved the fire and brimstone.

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