Best of Fiona Harper

That meant, of course, that Nicholas was to be just who he should be—Prince Charming, for want of a better description—and I was more than willing to step into the shoes of his devoted princess. I sighed and reached for a pain au chocolat, completely forgetting myself.

If I’d thought Izzi was excited at dishing out the ‘boy’ parts, as she called them, she notched it up a gear when it came to us girls.

‘I’m going to be Lady Southerby,’ she said, clapping her hands loudly and waiting for us to all hoot and exclaim. ‘Isn’t it going to be wild! I’m going to be a crusty old matriarch and you’re all going to have to do as I say!’

‘Not much change there, then,’ Marcus said again, as he rammed half a croissant into his mouth and sprayed crumbs everywhere.

Izzi was far too pleased with herself even to give him one of her withering looks. And then she turned to me.

My heart began to pound. I clasped my hands together on my knees and looked at her with wide, unblinking eyes.

‘You’re going to love your part, Coreen,’ she said. ‘I guarantee it’s absolutely perfect for you.’

CHAPTER FIVE

Perhaps, Perhaps, Perhaps…

Coreen’s Confessions

No. 5—I’ve worn red lipstick every day of my life since I turned seventeen.

‘I STILL can’t believe Izzi did that to me!’ The corners of my mouth tugged downwards and made my bottom lip protrude slightly. ‘I thought we were friends!’

Adam glanced over at me, but kept his attention on the road. Just as well, really, since we were hurtling around the M25 in his Range Rover. ‘It’s been two weeks, Coreen. You need to let it go.’

Okay, I may have mentioned my displeasure regarding the matter to Adam a few times already.

‘It is what it is,’ he added, with an annoying air of superiority. ‘Sometimes life doesn’t hand us what we want, so we have to find a way to make what we have got work to our advantage.’

I folded my arms across my chest and stared at the number plate of the car in front. ‘Thank you for that bit of priceless wisdom, Socrates.’

Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Adam had lifted one eyebrow. I decided his character for the murder-mystery weekend was going to his head. He was being annoyingly serene in the face of my abject distress.

‘I don’t need you to get all philosophical on me,’ I said sulkily. ‘I need you to be…to be my…’ What was the word I was looking for? It wouldn’t dislodge itself from my memory banks.

‘Your back-up?’ he suggested.

Exactly! I told him as much.

His mouth straightened out of its ever-present smile. ‘Always,’ he said quietly. ‘You know that.’

I sighed loudly and let my folded arms drop into my lap. Yes, I did know that.

Adam indicated and swiftly changed lanes to overtake a van. I held my breath, wishing I was behind the wheel instead. Adam might be steady and reliable in most aspects of his life, but none of that seemed to rub off on his driving. If my car had had a bigger boot we wouldn’t be having this problem, but unfortunately my treasured Beetle didn’t have the space for all this lovingly pressed vintage clothing.

He saw me tense up and chuckled under his breath. ‘Just because I’m here this weekend to be your “back-up”, it doesn’t mean I can’t have a little fun along the way too.’ And he pressed harder on the accelerator, reaching a speed my poor little Volkswagen could only dream about.

‘Mongrel,’ I muttered, as I dug my fingernails into the edge of my seat.

‘Drama queen,’ he shot back.

I didn’t have much of a defence to that, so I slumped back into the comfortable leather seat and tried to smooth down the little catches I’d made with my nails only seconds earlier before Adam noticed them.

‘When did you get rid of Dolly?’

Dolly had been Adam’s old Land Rover. Older even than my little car. He’d had her ever since I could remember. But when he’d come to pick me up that afternoon he’d arrived in a gleaming new Range Rover, with a glossy black exterior and parchment-coloured leather seats. It was almost sexy—at least as sexy as a giant hulk of a machine like that can be.

‘Oh, I haven’t got rid of the old girl,’ Adam said, smiling to himself. ‘But I need something a little more…confidence inspiring…when I go to meet clients. And a vehicle that doesn’t backfire rust and can get from A to B without the help of a recovery truck tends to help with that.’

I trailed a finger along the immaculately stitched seam on my seat. Dolly Mark Two was certainly very impressive. And rather expensive, I’d have guessed. How on earth had Adam managed to afford her? I hoped he hadn’t sold a kidney or something.

The clock on the dashboard said twenty to three. Only fifteen minutes more and we’d be at Inglewood Manor. Everyone else was due to arrive around four, to get ready, but Adam and I were getting there early so I could hang the outfits in each of the guest’s rooms and check that every last cufflink and clutch bag was present and correct.

Ugh. Thinking about what everyone was wearing just made me remember the fashion monstrosities that I was going to have to wear over the coming weekend, and that brought me both down to earth and back to square one.

I closed my eyes, shook my head and let out a loud huff. ‘I still can’t believe that Izzi—’

‘Get over it, already!’ Adam half-yelled, half-chuckled, cutting me off. I clamped my mouth shut and resumed my pout.

I suppose Izzi hadn’t sabotaged my plans on purpose. She was just dying to get out of her glamorous clothes and play against type. She must have thought I’d be game for a laugh, ready to do the same. I really shouldn’t be cross with her, but I had to be cross with someone, and she was the only one in the firing line at present.

Adam performed another bit of outrageous overtaking and then looked over at me. I grimaced back.

‘Okay…’ he said in conciliatory kind of voice. ‘Maybe you have got a little bit of a point.’ I didn’t like his tone, for all its sympathy and understanding. When Adam stopped bantering and talked to me that way it only meant one thing—trouble.

He let out a soft chuckle as he clocked a large blue road sign up ahead. ‘What was Izzi thinking when she cast a girl who changes her mind every ten seconds as Constance?’

I was too depressed to box his ears or give a witty comeback. I just sat in silence as Adam turned off the motorway and headed in the direction of Inglewood Manor.

Yep. That was my role for the whole weekend: Constance Michaels. The dowdy, frumpy sister of Adam’s country vicar. Not a hint of silk or chiffon in Constance’s wardrobe—oh, no. That was all going to rotten old Louisa. I was stuck with tweed and dreary floral prints. Sensible shoes and good, clean living. It was going to be dire. The only consolation was that as the Reverend Harry Michaels’s sister I’d be able to give Adam all the ear-flicks and Chinese burns I wanted, and he wouldn’t be able to complain.

As we turned off the main road and through an imposing set of gates I sat up straighter in my seat. We were finally there. But, rather than the sweeping drive through open parkland that I’d imagined, the road to the manor was lined with fir trees. I could half imagine that they’d picked up their skirts only moments before and run to stand on the edges of the drive, eager to see the approaching guests. Through their dark branches I glimpsed clipped lawns, rose gardens and finally a vast redbrick house.

It wasn’t until we were almost directly in front of Inglewood Manor that the drive widened and split to circle an oval-shaped lawn dotted with miniature firs in the most beautiful assortment of shapes and sizes.

I’d seen pictures of Inglewood Manor before, of course. Had known that it was grand and elegant. But now that I was actually there I realised that this vast multi-roomed house was also very pretty, even though it rose to three storeys. The windows were long and perfectly proportioned, and the unusual parapet of stepped battlements and cones, along with twisting redbrick chimneys, gave the house a fairytale air.

It struck me that Nicholas Chatterton-Jones was a man with a very attractive guarantee. Generations of tradition cemented his feet to the ground; he’d been bred to stay put, to build a family not to tear it apart. Chatterton-Jones men didn’t do runners. Never would. So why did that realisation make me feel more nervous, instead of more convinced I’d pinned my hopes on the right man?

Adam brought the car to a halt, switched it off, and turned his body to face me. ‘Raring to go…Constance?’

I jabbed him in the shoulder with a fingernail. ‘Just you remember that Socrates met a very nasty end. Poison, if I remember rightly. And this is a murder-mystery weekend.’

The corners of Adam’s eyes crinkled. ‘I hear the deadly draught was self-inflicted in that particular case.’

I ignored him. ‘Bring the clothes in, will you?’ I said, waving towards the boot, and then I opened the door, exited the car with an elegant sweep of my legs and walked off to the huge wooden front door, channelling every bit of Marilyn I could.

‘Starting to understand what drove the poor bloke to it,’ Adam muttered as he pulled his key out of the ignition and jumped out of the car.

The rest of the afternoon went in a bit of a blur. Before I’d even unpacked all the clothes the hordes descended, and rather than being able to concentrate on making what I’d got to wear work to my advantage suddenly it was, ‘Coreen, can you do this zip up?’ or ‘Coreen, how do I put spats on?’ Or a million and five other stupid questions.

I hardly had time to notice the lovely wood-panelled landing between the various bedrooms, or lose myself in the ornate plaster ceilings, elegant furnishings and antiques.

Izzi had decreed that no one should see anyone else before the Great Unveiling Ceremony. Under no circumstances were we allowed to fraternise before six o’clock cocktails, when the murder-mystery rigmarole was going to commence. As a result, I was the only one allowed to see anyone in full costume before the allotted hour, and I was rushed off my feet running errands, pinning hair, finding lost gloves. Marcus even had the gall to pat me on the bottom and ask me whether I could fetch him a cup of tea. I gave him a look that left him in no doubt as to where I would insert that cup of tea if I ever returned with it.

I was most miffed with Izzi for laying down the law in this way. I had hoped I’d get at least half an hour to remind Nicholas just how gorgeous I was before Constance had to put in an appearance, but Izzi was into her character right from the get-go, cracking the whip and generally making sure we did nothing to spoil her elaborately planned fantasy weekend. I was starting to think the whole idea was more trouble than it was worth.

Finally, when I’d sorted out all the last-minute fashion glitches, I managed to scamper back to my room, close the door behind me and slump against it for a few seconds’ rest. This was the sort of room you saw in posh interior decorating magazines, and I could hardly believe I’d get to sleep in it for two whole nights. Everything was elegant cream and muted duck-egg blue. There was even a magnificent mahogany four-poster bed, so at least I could imagine I was a princess between midnight and dawn, if nowhere else this weekend.

I took in a few deep breaths, drinking in the serenity of my surroundings. I needed it. There was only a quarter of an hour left for me to get myself ready, and it was going to take half of that time to de-Coreen myself.

Taking off the fifties garb was easy enough, although I had a moment of mourning when I slid my feet out of my heels and sank them into the thick carpet. I looked at myself in the mirror. My suspicions had been right. My usual style of bra definitely had too much va-va-voom for a tweedy female missionary wannabe, and I had to replace it with something much plainer.

I left my make-up until last. I’d never gone anywhere in broad daylight without my liquid liner ‘wings’ and my Crimson Minx red lippy. Not even to the corner shop on a late-night chocolate run.

I stared at myself in the mirror for a few seconds. Really stared. This would be the last time I’d look like me until late Sunday afternoon. Constance was going to take over until then. I could already hear her tutting at the crimson lipstick, so I held up a tissue to wipe it away. The tissue hovered less than a millimetre from my lips and then my hand dropped to my side.

I couldn’t do it. Couldn’t wipe that last piece of myself away with just a few swipes of a tissue.

The eyes would have to go first instead. I wouldn’t have to watch myself. The liner needed a thorough scrub with a lotion-splodged bit of cotton wool, and I had to close my eyes to make sure I’d got into every corner. Once that was done I opened my eyes again and had another go at eradicating the Crimson Minx.

Another false start.

Another tissue dropped straight into the bin with not even smudge of red on it. I had a feeling I could have gone on like this all afternoon, but noises on the landing jolted me out of my repetitive loop. Voices. From what I could make out, the others were now all ready and impatient to show off their glad rags.

After taking a deep breath, I plucked another tissue from the box on the dressing table and did what I had to do without letting myself stop to think, scrubbing hard with the tissue until there was no Minx left, just smooth, soft pink skin.

I looked up. Met myself in the mirror. It wasn’t a pretty sight. There was black grit in the corners of my eyes and a faint red tinge to the skin around my lips, making it seem as if the ghost of a clown hovered about me. And she was there. Looking back at me. Pleading with me.

I turned away quickly, unpinned my hair and brushed it through, then put on the ghastly olive-green tweed suit I’d intended to force on Louisa and slipped my feet into a pair of sensible brown lace-ups. I then picked up my compact and got to work on my face, not making eye-contact with myself again until I was finished. Until I was Constance, with her severe bun and pinched expression, and the reflection in the mirror was safe again.

I walked away from the dressing table and surveyed the damage in the full-length mirror in the en-suite bathroom. I dared myself to take every detail in, to face what I had made myself. Well, if Nicholas wanted ‘less’ he was certainly going to get it from me this weekend. And, since Louisa Fanshawe definitely was the ‘more’, that should put me at an advantage, shouldn’t it? As I kept staring in the mirror I realised it wasn’t so bad. I might be prim and proper and prissy on the outside, but now I’d recovered myself I could see my inner minx was alive and well and blazing out through my eyes.

There was a knock at the door and I almost jumped out of my skin. ‘Who is it?’ I called back.

‘Me,’ came a lazy rumble I couldn’t help but recognise. Adam’s voice always makes me think of long Sunday lie-ins and rumpled sheets.

I took one last look at Constance in the mirror, thinking I’d show her a thing or two this weekend, and then went to open the door.

I hadn’t seen Adam at all since I’d starting primping and preening the other guests. I’d offered to help him, but he’d said that I bossed him around enough when he was fully dressed and he didn’t need me doing it while he was in his boxers too. Impossible man. I was sure I wasn’t that bad really.

When the door swung wide I don’t know why I was so shocked. It wasn’t as if I’d expected to see Adam in his soft, worn denim jeans and his usual just-fallen-out-of-bed hair-style, but even though I’d picked out his clothes myself—the dove-grey suit, the brogues and dog-collared shirt—I wasn’t prepared for the transformation. Too busy thinking about my own, I suppose.

I stepped backwards, letting Adam pass me and walk into the room. I’d always thought that vicars were supposed to be safe, almost gender-neutral kinds of creatures, but even with a nice suit on and his wayward hair smoothed down there was still a hint of…wickedness about him. Not helped by the mischievous smile he wore as he looked me up and down.

The warmth in his eyes deepened. ‘You look gorgeous,’ he said, doing a credible job of keeping a straight face.

I rolled my eyes. ‘I look like an over-stuffed olive,’ I replied, gesturing with my eyes towards the jacket buttons straining at my chest. When I’d chosen this outfit I’d imagined Louisa looking really frumpy, with the too-large jacket hanging off her bony shoulders. It didn’t look quite the same on me. I’d been particularly pleased with the thick pair of round-rimmed—

Glasses!

I’d almost forgotten them.

‘Just you wait until you see the finishing touch!’ I marched across to the dressing table, picked up the tortoiseshell specs and slid them on carelessly. One hinge was a little loose, and they wobbled precariously on the bridge of my nose. I turned and gave Adam a defiant look, daring him to contradict me.

He just ambled towards me, stopping when he was only inches away. Slowly he pulled his hands from his pockets and straightened the specs with a tiny nudge of his fingers at either edge, all the while smiling into my eyes. He must have got them at just the right focal length, because suddenly everything that had been blurry and off-kilter snapped into focus and I noticed for the first time how the warm conker in the centre of his irises melted into dark chocolate at the edges. He dropped the softest kiss on the tip of my nose and stepped back.

‘I’ve always had a thing for girls who wear glasses,’ he said in his Sunday morning voice.

I wanted to grin back at him, to thank him for knowing the right thing to say to make me feel better about my horrible tweedy costume, but my lips were temporarily glued shut.

At first all I’d wanted was for him to join me in my tweed-related ranting, but he’d sidestepped my invitation and done the opposite, making me feel warm and confident. He’d given me what I needed before I’d even known it myself. Just like the takeaways he brought me. But even as warmth seeped through me, I shivered a little too. Adam’s unusual gift for cheering me up was lovely, but it was out of my control. Something I’d never be able to coax or tame. Something he could deprive me of if he wanted to. And on that level I didn’t like it much.

‘Ready?’ he asked, and offered me his arm in an exaggerated formal manner.

I stood tall in my sensible heels, lifted my chin and placed my arm in his. This was no time to get maudlin.

‘Born that way,’ I said as we stepped through the door and headed downstairs.

I had a light-headed feeling as I walked down the vast carved oak staircase with Adam. I was aware of my laced-up feet treading on each broad step, of my hand skimming the banister, but I felt oddly disconnected from those sensations, and the excited murmuring of the other guests drifted up from the hall below in a muffled fog.

At the half-landing there was a tug on my sleeve. Adam’s fingers lightly gripped my upper arm and he steered me to look over the banister.

‘Look,’ he whispered, his breath warm in my ear. ‘Look at what you’ve accomplished.’

I blinked and was instantly back in my own body, totally aware of the warm pressure of his fingers on my arms and suddenly his words made sense.

Down below the rest of Izzi’s party had gathered, all dressed top-to-toe in the outfits I’d put together. Outfits I’d scoured the markets and auction houses of London for. Clothes and accessories that had kept me awake into the small hours of the morning as I matched and paired and mentally sorted them. And when I’d finally drifted off I’d had weird convoluted dreams about pearl buttons, Oxford trousers and hat pins.

‘Oh…’ I said.

Just for a moment I had the strangest feeling I’d been catapulted eighty years into the past and was spying, ghost-like, on a real nineteen-thirties house party. Were these really the same people I’d measured and had breakfast with only a fortnight before?

I spotted Izzi first, her grey crimped wig drawing my eyes instantly. She was holding an ebony cane, but every time she got excited she forgot to lean on it and started gesticulating wildly instead.

My gaze only lingered on her for a second, because I instantly searched the group for Nicholas. He stood out, taller than the other two men, looking all dark and handsome and dashing. I can’t say he looked an awful lot different. But what was I expecting? One could hardly expect perfection to improve upon itself.

Julian and Marcus had scrubbed up well, looking very dapper in their single-breasted suits, sharply creased trousers and stiff white collars. I’d done a good job. Satisfied, I moved my attention to the females of the group.

Jos was bobbing around in her maid’s uniform, and flirting with Nicholas in a manner that would certainly get her sacked if she really was the ‘help’. I tried not to look at Louisa. The bias-cut dress in burgundy silk I’d picked out for this evening looked far too good on her slender figure, and the finger waves framing her face just served to emphasise her amazing cheekbones, which even I had to admit were her least duck-like feature.

Izzi spotted Adam and me as we reached the bottom of the staircase and let out a squeal. ‘Oh, look at you!’ And then she shoved her cane into Julian’s unready hands and raced across the marble-tiled hall to inspect us more closely. A rather unbecoming smile for an elderly lady crept across her mouth as she looked Adam up and down. ‘Well, hello, Vicar,’ she purred. ‘Remind me to come and confess all my sins to you later. I’m afraid there are rather a lot. You won’t be too shocked, will you?’

Adam grinned back. ‘I’ll do my very best not to be, but it depends just how naughty you’ve been.’

The eyelash bat and pout that Izzi gave him pushed things a little too far for my liking. I thought we were supposed to be in character, but she looked ready to dribble down the black high-necked dress I’d found her. I coughed, partly to draw her attention away from Adam, but mostly to save the taffeta from drool marks.

Izzi dragged her eyes from the Reverend Michaels and started to walk around me, plucking at my tweed jacket and inspecting every little detail. ‘The transformation’s amazing!’ she muttered. ‘I would hardly have recognised you!’ As she came round to the front again, she spotted my glasses and let out another squeal. ‘Isn’t it a hoot?’ she said, grabbing my hand and dragging me towards the rest of the group.

‘I’m practically an owl,’ I replied, rather dead pan.

‘I just knew you’d be a good sport about this,’ she half-whispered, half-giggled into my ear.

I didn’t do anything to disillusion her. I needed to keep on Izzi’s good side this weekend, didn’t I?

Now we were all gathered, Izzi introduced the murder-mystery weekend organisers she’d hired, who were playing the parts of Lord Edward Southerby, Izzi’s character’s husband, and the housekeeper. They gave us a brief introduction to the weekend, which I mostly ignored, and then handed us large white envelopes with our characters’ names on them.

We were then led through into the drawing room. I could see why Izzi had decided to ‘borrow’ the family home for the event. It was perfect. The Chatterton-Joneses’ drawing room was chockablock with antique furniture, and stern-faced portraits were everywhere on the moss-green walls. The room was so huge that there wasn’t only one seating area but various groupings of sofas and chairs, the largest of which was in the centre of the room, close to the stone fireplace. They were upholstered in a deep plum jacquard, half hidden by a million tapestried cushions in all shapes and sizes. Anywhere else this decorating style would have seemed haphazard and messy, but in the drawing room of Inglewood Manor it just softened the effect of the vast fireplace and the grand plasterwork ceiling, making the space seem both elegant and comfortable at once.