Katie Oliver - Christmas At Pemberley - And the Bride Wore Prada

Scotland, and Colm, were a part of her now.

Which reminds me , she thought as she headed downstairs to ask Pen if she might borrow a car, I need to go to the store and buy a tin of shortbread or a bottle of wine to take to Colm’s...it wouldn’t do to show up for Sunday dinner at the gatehouse empty-handed.

And she had to tell him she was leaving soon.

Would he even care? she wondered as she went into the drawing room in search of Mrs Campbell. He probably wouldn’t spare her another thought once she was gone.

There was no sign of Pen. She’d been here recently, though; a half-empty cup of tea with her red lipstick on the rim sat on one of the end tables, next to a basket piled with fashion magazines. Curious, Helen picked one of the magazines up. Surely, she thought as she flicked rapidly through the pages, Tom would want her to stay here until the wedding story was photographed and filed.

Her page-flicking slowed. The fashions were from the Seventies, and the models wore things like crocheted vests, bucket hats, wedge heels, and wide-legged trousers.

‘Shades of Studio 54,’ Helen murmured, and quirked her brow. Why on earth did the Campbells keep a basket of Seventies fashion magazines to hand?

Then she saw it. Pen Campbell, or Pen Park as she was known then, strode across the glossy page in a pair of wide-legged white slacks and a black crocheted crop-top, laughing. It was an ad for a women’s cologne, Insouciant .

Pen was attractive, with her green eyes and auburn hair, and she was the picture of youth and health.

Her interest piqued, Helen flipped through a few more magazines. Pen was everywhere – on a cover here, in a cosmetics ad there, gracing dozens of photo shoots and spreads – proving that she’d once been very sought after in the fashion world.

But one photo in particular caught her eye. Pen and another model were posing for a picture in Annabel’s, the fashionable London nightclub, with Graeme Longworth, candidate for prime minister. He was smiling, amused by something Pen had just said.

Helen remembered the first time she and the others had dined with Archie Campbell and his wife. He’d proudly made mention of Pen’s quasi-celebrity past.

‘Had flings with a couple of film stars, she did, and then there was that chap – oh, what was his name, darling? I always said he was sweet on you...he almost ran for prime minister?’

‘Graeme Longworth.’

Then Pen had changed the subject.

Her thoughts racing, Helen returned the magazines to the basket.

She went up to her room and shut the door, then pulled out her laptop. She typed Longworth’s name into the search engine, but nothing of interest came up, aside from a few old photos and news of his sudden withdrawal from the election for PM in the mid-seventies. There was plenty of speculation as to why, but nothing more.

Archie’s voice echoed in her head. ‘There were rumours of a scandal of some sort, and so he withdrew.’

She typed in Pen Park’s name next; again, she found little of import, only photos from her days as a model, news of her marriage to Archie Campbell, and later, articles about the drowning death of her eldest son, Andrew.

On impulse, Helen picked up her mobile and rang Tom. ‘What do you know about a chap named Graeme Longworth?’ she asked when he picked up.

There was a long pause. ‘Why do you ask?’ A note of wariness crept into his voice.

‘Well, it’s purely conjecture on my part,’ she mused as she scrolled through the list of links on her screen, ‘but I think I might know why Longworth abandoned his bid for PM. And I think her name was Pen Park.’

Instead of scoffing, or dismissing her idea out of hand, Tom let out a short breath. ‘Give me directions to Draemar.’

‘What? Why, are you coming up here to the Highlands?’ she asked, and blinked. ‘But you despise Scotland.’

‘I do. But we need to talk. Is there somewhere in the local village where we can meet? Somewhere private?’

‘Well, yes,’ she said, frowning, ‘the pub, if I can borrow someone’s car, but—’

‘Right, I’m coming straight up. I’ll be there late this afternoon. Book me a room somewhere. In the meantime,’ he added, ‘do me a favour.’

‘Of course.’

‘Keep your gob shut about this. And don’t tell anyone I’m coming up there.’

Helen entered the Draemar Arms pub late that afternoon and slid into a seat at a booth in the back. Unable to locate Mrs Campbell to ask to borrow a car, she’d offered to do the grocery shop for Colm in exchange for the use of his Range Rover, and he’d agreed.

She took off her hat and gloves and shrugged off her coat – the snow might’ve stopped, but it was still bloody cold ‒ and glanced around the dim interior.

At this hour of the day, the place was nearly empty. Tom hadn’t arrived yet.

She got up to order two pints from the bar and returned with them to the booth, then took a sip of her lager and settled in to wait.

Colm took out the carrots and potatoes and rinsed them under the tap. He skinned the carrots with long, sure strokes of the peeling knife. He set the frothy tops and peels aside to flavour the broth for a future lamb stew. Waste not, want not, wasn’t that the old saying?

A lifetime of scrimping and saving and getting by meant he was no stranger to making do with very little. He left school at fifteen, and in the intervening years he’d washed dishes, been a waiter, run delivery routes, crewed on a couple of freighters, and tended bar. It was good, honest work; and some of it had paid well. He worked hard and kept to himself.

The years following Alanna’s death had been bleak and unending. He got up, he worked, he came home and drank himself into oblivion, and passed out.

He liked it here at Draemar. The Campbells were decent people who paid well and left him to run things without interfering. For the first time in a long time, he felt a cautious hope.

He looked forward to Sunday dinner with Helen tomorrow. It surprised him, this anticipation; after all, what did he, a dour widower with a murky past and no future to speak of, have in common with a street-savvy London tabloid reporter?

Absolutely nothing, that much was sure.

And yet...he couldn’t stop thinking about her, wondering what she was doing, if she thought about him as he sometimes thought about her. He enjoyed sparring with her. She was quick, and clever.

And she’d looked a hell of a lot more fetching in that terrycloth robe than he ever had...

He flung a dish towel over his shoulder and stared, unseeing, out the window at the snow-covered tree branches. Sex with Helen had been amazing. Oh, he’d been with his share of women over the years; but none of them had meant anything. He’d forgotten them by the next day.

Helen was different.

She was the first woman – the only woman – he’d felt something for since losing his beloved Alanna.

And that fact, more than anything else, scared the hell out of him.

Chapter 33

‘I’m here.’

Helen looked up from her beer to see Tom sliding into the booth across from her. ‘I got you a pint.’ She nudged his glass over.

‘Thanks.’ He shrugged off his jacket and laid it aside. ‘No one knows you’re here, I take it?’

‘No. Archie and Pen went out for dinner and a film,’ she said. ‘And the rest of us…well, let’s just say we’re all going a bit bonkers, stuck in that castle for the last few weeks. Everyone’s escaped for the evening.’ She leant forward. ‘So tell me what this is all about.’

He didn’t answer. Instead, he reached into his shirt pocket and withdrew a photo and laid it on the table, then slid it across to her. ‘Have a look.’