Buch lesen: «Starlight Over Bluebell Castle»

For M – for everything xx

Prologue
Beaman and Tanner’s Christmas Party – Seven Years Ago

Jessica Ridley tilted back her head to watch the illuminated number above the door of the lift as it scrolled past floor after floor on its way to the penthouse level of the luxury hotel overlooking the London Embankment. Beaman and Tanner, the events and PR firm she’d been working for since graduating that May, had hired the entertainment space for their staff Christmas party. With access to the roof terrace above the penthouse included, it promised to be one of the best spots in town to take in a spectacular view of the London Eye all lit up for Christmas later in the evening.

If she could still see at that point. She pressed a fingertip to the corner of her eye, barely resisting the urge to rub, and cursed her decision to wear the contact lenses she’d been talked into trying by her mother. The lift dinged to announce her arrival, and the discomfort of her new lenses was soon forgotten as a hostess in a stunning black dress stepped forward to greet her with a smile. In short order, her name had been checked off on the hostess’s list and Jess had been steered towards the ladies’ cloakroom to divest herself of her coat and boots.

Hanging up the little backpack she’d used to carry her silver evening bag and black heels, Jess swapped the cosy boots for the strappy, sophisticated shoes and muttered a small prayer of thanks for the gel inserts her mum had reminded her to buy. When her school friends had been cramming their toes into the latest fashionable footwear, Jess had been clumping around in the Clarks wide-fit brogues Mum had insisted upon. She might be blessedly free of corns, hammertoes and other unsightly horrors she’d been warned cheap shoes would cause, but all that growing room meant her size seven adult feet were not the right shape for most high heels within her limited price range.

It took a couple of halting steps before she found her balance on the thick pile carpet. A couple of lengths of the wide area between the cubicles and the sinks later, she was feeling more confident of her footing. Her blasted eye started itching again, sending Jess scurrying over to the sinks to check her make-up in the brightly lit mirrors. Satin-lined wicker baskets rested in the spaces between each white porcelain bowl, stuffed with every imaginable emergency supply a woman could need from tampons to deodorant and perfume. She even spotted a little sewing kit tucked into one corner.

With a damp cotton bud, she managed to remove the small streak of mascara beneath one eye without destroying her eyeliner. Much heavier than her usual neutral shades, the black liner and sparkling silver eye shadow made her olive-green eyes look huge. It was strange seeing the whole of her face without the comforting shield of the dark-framed glasses she was used to seeing perched on the bridge of her button nose. She felt oddly naked without them.

Make-up checked, shoes and bag exchanged, there was really no excuse for Jess to linger in the bathroom any longer. She cast a quick glance towards the cubicles, contemplating the wisdom of a pre-emptive wee, before deciding against it. By the time she’d wrestled down her tights and the enormous Bridget Jones pants beneath them, she’d be all hot and bothered. Before she could change her mind, Jess forced herself to leave the safety of the bathroom and returned to the lobby to find the smiling hostess waiting at a discreet distance. With a sweep of her arm, she ushered Jess towards the entrance to the party then left her with a quiet wish that she enjoy her evening, the siren call of the lift summoning her to greet a new arrival.

Smoothing a nervous hand over one velvet-clad hip Jess took a deep breath, fighting the temptation to tug at the hem of her party dress which suddenly felt at least three inches too short. The midnight-blue sheath had been an impulse purchase when she submitted to her mother’s cajoling and joined her in the buffeting, shoving crowds thronging Regent Street a couple of weekends ago. A clever section of ruching stretched from a diamante flower on her left-hand side across to the opposite hip, falling in forgiving waves that disguised any hint of a tummy her support pants had failed to suck in. The wide shoulder straps provided perfect cover for her bra, the front scooped low enough to show off her décolletage without flashing more than she was willing to share with anyone other than a lover – not that she had many of those lined up. Though she’d had had her fair share of boyfriends at university, none had developed into anything long-term.

Only one man had caught her eye since leaving university, and Tristan Ludworth was so far out of her league she could drape herself naked across his desk and he’d probably still not take the hint. Not that Jess did any hinting. Just the sight of Tristan was enough to make her feel giddy and off-balance, like being in a high-speed lift. She could hold her own with him when it came to work stuff, but only by removing her glasses whenever he was in the vicinity. A blurry, out of focus Tristan was a lot easier to cope with.

The only other man she’d had a serious long-term crush on was her older brother’s best friend, Steve, back when she was thirteen and first starting to notice boys. He’d always felt like a safe option to practice her new and tender feelings on. Their mothers had been friends for years, and Steve had always been a familiar presence in her life. He’d tolerated her awkward teenage flirting with kindness, and never made her feel foolish.

Nothing about the way Tristan made her feel was safe. Exhilarating, yes, with a hint of something dangerous and outside her comfort zone. Like riding a roller-coaster, when she’d always preferred the steady even pace of the merry-go-round.

For a fleeting moment she wished she’d stuck with the perfectly serviceable black crepe evening dress hanging unused in her wardrobe. It had always been her plan to wear it tonight – sophisticated and understated, her mother had assured her when she’d first bought it as a wardrobe staple, pointing out how the forgiving drape of the material hid the excess weight that seemed to settle around her middle and bottom the moment she even glanced at a slice of cake. Safe and boring more like, a mutinous little voice had whispered in the back of her mind – perfect for someone who had never chosen the road less travelled in any of her twenty-two years. Head down, study hard, do the right thing, had been the mantras she’d carried from childhood into uneventful adulthood. Just lately those mantras had started to feel less like sensible rules to live by and more like the restraining reins her parents had made her wear as a clumsy toddler eager to explore.

The arch of her mother’s eyebrow when she’d descended the stairs at home earlier might have dented her confidence had her dad not swooped in to twirl her around before planting a kiss on her cheek and declaring she’d be the belle of the ball. Her mum’s face had softened then and she too had kissed Jess before bombarding her with such a flurry of questions about what she was taking with her – yes, she had her gloves, no, she hadn’t forgotten her personal alarm, yes, she would be careful and take a taxi if she was at any risk of walking on her own for any distance – that she’d not had time to consider whether she should change her dress until she’d been ensconced on an overheated tube train whisking her in from the suburbs, and by then it had been too late. Only now, dithering as she was, she wished she’d stuck to her usual, practical style.

‘God, Jess, just open the bloody door,’ she muttered, furious with herself.

‘Talking to yourself is the first sign of madness, or so they say.’ The voice purring just behind her ear sent a shiver down Jess’s spine that had nothing to do with nerves. Feeling a blush rising to burn her cheeks, she tilted her head to glance up and back into the face of a fallen angel. And if there was anyone who could tempt her into sin it was Tristan Ludworth. As ever when she met the hint of wicked humour in his chocolate brown eyes, butterflies fluttered in her middle.

He’d joined Beaman and Tanner the same week as her, and from the moment he’d sat down beside her at the company induction day, she’d been drawn to him. She shouldn’t like him – they were rivals on the same graduate training programme and, come the summer, they’d be fighting it out for a permanent position on the staff. The trouble was he was so charming and funny it was impossible not to like him.

He was the son of an aristocrat, according to the coffee room gossip mill, and Jess could well believe the lips currently smiling down at her had been born with a silver spoon between them. And there was no way the tuxedo he wore had come off the peg, it fit too well – the jacket hugging his broad shoulders, and the trousers the perfect length to cover the tops of his shiny, patent-leather shoes. His bow tie – classic black, not like those awful novelty ones some men wore – looked hand-tied, and the handkerchief sticking up from the top pocket was a flash of deep maroon silk, not one of those fake white triangles glued to a bit of cardboard. He’d never looked so gorgeous, nor so unattainable.

There was an innate confidence about him, something that could’ve easily tipped into arrogance had he not been so damn nice to everyone. Where she fretted and worried over saying or doing the wrong thing, he seemed to breeze through the day without a care in the world. Which was why no matter how hard she worked, he would beat her in the final selection, and break her heart in the process.

Shifting position so that he was beside her, Tristan raised a finger to tug gently at one of the tumbling curls she’d left trailing from the complicated up-do it’d taken three hours in front of a YouTube tutorial to arrange earlier. ‘I like this,’ he said. Lowering his hand, he brushed the shoulder strap of her velvet dress. ‘And this.’ The deep timbre of his voice sent another shiver down her spine. ‘You look fabulous, Jess; like a gorgeous Christmas present just begging to be unwrapped.’

Warmth spread through her. Not because she thought for a moment that Tristan was being serious in his flirting, but because he’d obviously sensed her nervousness and was going out of his way to make her feel good about herself. It was the kind of thing he’d done since that first day they’d met – like the time he’d given her a little pep talk before her first big solo presentation, or the silly congratulations GIF he’d sent via their internal messaging service when she’d been part of the team that had managed to win back a big client who’d briefly left Beaman and Tanner for a rival company.

Feeling brave, she fluttered her lashes at him. ‘You’ll have to be a good boy and see what Santa leaves you under the tree.’ Oh God. Had she really just said that to him? She hadn’t even had a drink yet, and she was already making a fool of herself.

Mouth kicking up in one corner, Tristan offered her his elbow, covering the hand she rested upon it with his free one. ‘I promise to be a very good boy, although this gorgeous dress of yours is going to make that very difficult. Come on, Cinderella, let me be your Prince Charming and escort you into the ball.’

The next couple of hours passed in a whirlwind of laughter, free cocktails and not quite enough of the delicious nibbles on offer to counteract the alcohol. She and Tristan had ended up at a table with a group of co-workers all in their early-to-mid-twenties. So many people had complimented her on her dress, she quite forgot her inhibitions and let the evening carry her away on a wave of fun and frivolity. She barely had time to sit and ease her sore toes before one or other person in their group declared whatever song was blasting across the dance floor as their absolute favourite and away they all went to dance.

As the current song wound up to its climax, Tristan grabbed her hand and spun her out and back in a twirl. Unsteady from too many cocktails and the unfamiliar heels, Jess placed a hand on his chest to steady herself and let out a breathless laugh. Raising his hand to cover hers, Tristan squeezed her fingers lightly. ‘Having a good time?’

Jess nodded, regretting the action as it made the spinning in her head worse. ‘A bit too much of a good time, I might have to slow down if I want to make it to midnight.’

Whether through fate or serendipity, the music switched from fast-paced to a soft ballad. Around them, people left the floor in laughing groups, though a fair number shifted into pairs and began to sway to the music. Jess made to follow their friends but was stopped short when Tristan refused to release her hand. When she cast him an enquiring glance he tugged gently, drawing her back into him.

‘I thought you wanted to slow things down?’ he said, with that mischievous smile that did all kinds of stupid things to her insides.

‘This isn’t what I had in mind.’ Her voice came out breathless.

Circling his arm around her shoulders, Tristan held her close, the sway of his body a temptation she was powerless to resist. ‘No? It’s been all I’ve thought about since I first saw you in this beautiful dress.’

Not sure how to take his comment, Jess laughed. ‘You shouldn’t say things like that, or you’ll give a girl ideas.’

Expecting him to laugh along with her, she was shocked when the hand resting on her hip tightened. ‘Good. I want you to have ideas about us, Jess. In fact, I want you to spend the next couple of hours thinking about the fact that before this evening ends, I’m going to kiss you.’ With one last squeeze of her hip, he backed away from her, a knowing grin plastered across his face.

Heart racing, she turned in the opposite direction and fled for the safety of the ladies’. Locking herself in the far end cubicle, Jess pushed the seat lid down and sank onto it, knees wobbling. Though he’d been smiling, there’d been no mistaking the promise in Tristan’s eyes as they’d parted on the dance floor. He wanted to kiss her! A little giggle escaped her mouth and she clamped her hand over it. What if someone walked in and caught her laughing to herself?

What if they saw Tristan kissing her? This was her first proper job. Getting mixed up in an office romance might ruin her chances of being taken seriously. But, it was Tristan – the man who made her stomach do somersaults, and her heart race a mile a minute. The man who went out of his way to do nice things for her, for reasons other than his general decency perhaps? The man who would be certain to beat her to the permanent position if she did anything to diminish her reputation in the eyes of their superiors.

She might have sat there for another hour mooning over what could never be, had her bladder not decided to remind her quite forcefully just how much she had drunk in the past couple of hours. With a sigh, Jess stood and began the inelegant task of wriggling down her tights and underwear, almost groaning with relief as her stomach was released from the tight confines of her elasticated pants. She was in the process of struggling back into them when the external bathroom door banged open and she caught the tail end of a conversation.

‘… even more gorgeous than usual in a tux.’ Jess recognised the speaker as Michelle, one of the two company receptionists. She froze, not wanting the woman to know she was there. Though she’d never been overtly rude to Jess, there was an undercurrent to the way she treated her, as though she resented being asked to do things by the new girl – even when they were part of her job description and she never seemed to have a problem when anyone else asked her to make a drink for a visitor or to book a courier.

‘I know, right? Tristan’s so hot, he puts James Bond to shame.’ The second voice belonged to Nicola, the other half of the formidable duo who handled everything from dealing with visitors, to answering the phones and sorting the post without so much as a chipped nail or a single hair out of place. Jess had never seen either of them ever looking anything other than perfectly made-up and turned out. ‘I’m going to ask him to dance when we go back in,’ Nicola continued, her voice distorted in a way that told Jess she was applying lipstick as she talked.

‘Good luck with that,’ snorted Michelle. ‘You’ll have a fight on your hands the way Shrek has been hogging his attention all night. God, did you see the way she was hanging off his neck on the dance floor just now? I felt embarrassed for him.’

Jess found herself frozen in place, hunched over, her tights still halfway up her thighs. The bitchy edge to Michelle’s voice was harder and meaner than anything she’d heard from her before. And – God – had she really just likened Jess to the ugly ogre cartoon character? She clutched at the wall for support as she listened, the pair of them oblivious to her presence.

‘Everyone knows Jess has had a crush on him forever.’ Nicola said. ‘But tonight it’s downright embarrassing the way she’s traipsing after him like a dog with its tongue hanging out. As if he’d look twice at a fat lump like her.’

‘More like a bitch in heat.’ Michelle cackled. ‘And you’re right. How can she possibly think a man like him would fancy someone like her? That’s the trouble when you’re as nice as he is, I suppose – some people get the wrong message. Let’s go and find him and let him know we’ll run interference for the rest of the night. Give the poor guy a chance to enjoy himself without Shrek stomping on his toes.’ The pair’s laughter faded as the door closed behind them.

Shocked and humiliated, Jess tried to focus on the task of pulling up her tights, and not on the burn at the back of her eyes. How was it possible people knew she fancied Tristan when she’d gone out of her way to keep it to herself? Perhaps she wasn’t as discreet as she’d believed and the whole office was laughing at her behind her back. Horrified at the thought, Jess yanked at the thin nylon of her tights, manging to rip a big hole in the left thigh which immediately zoomed down to her ankle in a ladder. ‘Damn it!’

Vision swimming with tears, Jess kicked off her heels and yanked off the ruined tights. The pale, mottled skin of her legs looked shockingly white in the harsh overhead lighting. Now what was she going to do? She couldn’t go back out there flashing her dead-fish coloured legs, for God’s sake! Despair gave way to hope as she recalled the baskets of supplies on the counter tops. Leaving her heels on the floor of the cubicle, she padded barefoot across the thickly piled carpet and began to rummage. She came up with two pairs of tights, both of them size small. In desperation more than hope, she took one pair back into the cubicle but couldn’t get them much more than over her knees before the fibres stretched so thin and tight she knew it was no good.

Feeling wretchedly sorry for herself, Jess tried to push her naked toes into the narrow confines of her heels. Her feet had swollen after so many hours in the unfamiliar shoes, and that combined with the lack of any barrier between her bare skin and the leather made it almost impossible to get them back on. A couple of steps was all it took for her to know she’d rub a blister if she tried to wear them like that. Why was everything going wrong for her, tonight of all nights? A hot tear coursed over her cheek, and Jess stumbled over to the mirror to grab at a handful of tissues. No amount of deep breathing, cheek pressing, and dabbing could stem the trickles. She wasn’t exactly crying, but her eyes wouldn’t stop leaking and the salt of her tears made her contacts start to itch.

Between rapid blinks, she managed to get the right one out, only to drop it. Its slide down the plug hole was the last straw. ‘Sod it.’ Removing the other one, Jess flicked it into the sink and turned on the tap to flush it after its mate. Her ruined tights were balled up and chucked into the waste basket, the hated heels pried off and shoved into her backpack along with her evening bag. Retrieving her glasses, Jess popped them on and met her gaze in the mirror. A sense of calm descended as she reached up to tug and pull at the myriad pins holding her up-do in place. Curls tumbled around her shoulders only to be gathered up in one of the spare scrunchies she kept in the front pocket of her rucksack.

Securing her hair in a rough ponytail at her nape, Jess then pulled out a knitted bobble hat and tugged it down over her ears. Coat on and zipped to the neck, feet and calves snug in her furry boots, she cast one last glance in the mirror as she slung her backpack over her shoulder. She should’ve stayed at home tonight. It was clear she didn’t fit in here, and the idea of spending another second around people who thought so little of her they made up cruel nicknames behind her back was more than she could stomach. It turned out she wasn’t a blue velvet dress kind of girl, after all. And, she thought as she reached for the door handle, that was just fine with her.

Thanks to a points failure, it took Jess ages to get home and by the time she slotted her key into the front door all she wanted was to crawl into her pyjamas and curl up in bed with a mug of hot chocolate. Before she could turn the key, the door was yanked open and she was confronted with the sight of Steve, her brother’s best friend, red-eyed, his face an agonised mask. ‘Oh, Jess,’ he said, dragging her into his arms. ‘He’s gone. Marcus is gone.’

No. No, no, no, no, no. It couldn’t be, he couldn’t be, not her darling big brother. After everything they’d been through with him the past couple of years. The endless worry, the thousands of pounds her parents had spent on rehab. A scream echoed down the stairs, inhumane, animalistic, a sound no human throat should be capable of making. As the waves of grief smashed into her, Jess clung to Steve, his strong arms the only thing that kept her from being swept away.