Page 54 of Hit For Six
The kitchen was dreamily high spec for such an old house but somehow the Beauchamp-Carmichaels had pulled the fusion off. Lola suspected this was down to Helena’s exacting standards. She pulled up a sumptuously padded teal ‘bar stool’ at the white quartz-topped island and sat a brief while to admire her surroundings.
Monty flung open more doors now, grabbing an armful of lavish crockery and ceremonially dumping it on the worktops as Lola held her breath at his bravery. Then he went back to the fridge and pulled out a bottle of chilled pink champagne. It must have cost a bomb.
‘Just a little sip before we fulfil our duties.’
He rifled through a row of cabinets, finally finding the flutes he’d been looking for, then he expertly popped the cork and poured. But one delicious slurp turned into a whole glass by the time they remembered the plants and Monty led them outside via French doors across the vast flood-lit lawns to a Victorian greenhouse.
‘Hide and seek must have been interesting when you were a kid,’ she said, feeling her nerves dissipate as the booze continued to fizz through her veins.
Which wasn’t to say Lola could ever get used to Monty’s childhood home but she supposed there were worse places to spend the night, so she’d give it a try.
‘It was! When my mother decided to let her hair down, me and my sisters had a ball. We’d never run out of places to stow ourselves away. Which could sometimes get the lady of the manor in a right panic! Beyond this we have the paddocks and a good bit of rolling countryside. Then there’s the swimming pool and tennis courts.’
Lola’s brain strained to conceive of the scale of the estate. Maybe it would be easier in daylight.
They went inside the greenhouse and Monty turned on the tap to fill up a couple of watering cans while Lola pondered whether she might have been transported to Kew Gardens. The place was massive. It could have been opened to the public as its own attraction. Frankly, it was bonkers to trust just Monty to remember to come here and water this lot. They tended to everything, from Variegated Monstera to Philodendrons, splitting the tasks between them. Lola had a lesson in Latin, following Helena’s written instructions that had been documented in a visitor’s book (who had one of those in their house, let alone their greenhouse?). And they left the stunning orchids well alone. But Lola couldn’t believe that she had to pull Monty back from the cactus! If they ever ended up living together– which was a vision she could imagine all too clearly, a vision that excited her– then they’d have to make do with dried flowers. Suddenly, Lola’s homely daydream had her imagining Squiffy curled up between the pair of them on the sofa, too. She was getting carried away.
Back in the relative warmth of the kitchen, Monty whipped them up gourmet chicken pizzas from a certain supermarket and chocolate truffles from Fortnum and Mason.
‘I want you in every room, Lola.’
His eyes flashed with intensity as the velvety cocoa melted on her tongue and Lola felt like she was back in first date mode, her skin tingling with want.
‘That might require a bit more energy than even tonight’s meal can provide.’
‘Let’s crack open a second bottle of the pink and take our glasses with us,’ he said, his eyes never leaving her. ‘We’ll do a tour of the house. Even I need to refresh my memory on the number of rooms… and then you can choose where and how you’d like me to worship you.’
‘Bloody hell, Monty.’ Lola tried to break the tension before she melted into a puddle on the kitchen floor herself.Who didn’t know how many rooms their childhood home had?‘Don’t leave me anywhere. I might get lost.’
‘Not a chance. And it’s ghost-free, I promise. My mother got it exorcised when we moved in and since then, not a peep.’
‘That’s reassuring! I must admit, I did wonder.’
Lola felt herself relax a little more. She wouldn’t have pegged Helena as someone who believed in the spirit world. It was good to know that she was more open-minded than Lola had first thought. Monty selected another bottle of champagne from the fridge and collected their flutes as he walked over to Lola slowly, holding her gaze until their lips met and the next thing she knew, she was moments away from begging him to have sex with her on the island. She pushed him back playfully, spun around on the bar stool and jumped off before that could happen.
‘Oh, you’re leading the way, are you?’
‘As long as you stop me before I open the door to your parents’ bedroom, then yes.’
Lola led Monty along the vast corridor of the ground floor, tentatively pushing the door of the first room on the left. She’d felt quite the rebel as she’d marched past yet more judgemental portraits, almost flipping them a series of birds.
‘Good choice,’ said Monty. ‘After you.’
She stepped into the room and even though it was dark for a few seconds before Monty flicked on the light switch, she just knew that she was standing in a library. The distinctive smell of books was heavenly.
‘Look at this!’ she said, as if Monty had never set foot in the room before.
‘One of their many showy, barely used spaces, yes. It’s pretty impressive. Full of signed first editions but sadly no secret doorway in the bookshelves. It’s all bullshit, though. My parents never read.’
‘I find that hard to believe when they were watching a Shakespeare play the other night.’
Lola ran her fingers along some of the spines, trying to quell her envy.
‘My father likes to feel intellectually superior and my mother only went because it’s what all the women in her Cotswold social circle do. She purposely memorises lines from Will’s plays. She’s the same with her book club. Most of her cronies are. They’ll read the first couple of pages of the latest Man Booker prize then hop online to get a gist of the summary so they can have a fake debate about it at their next get-together.’
‘Well, that’s just.’ Lola turned. Monty’s face looked so handsome illuminated by the glow of the moon creeping in through the curtains. She was going to finish her statement off withtragicbut feared that the walls, shelves and books had ears. ‘I love everything bookish– from thrillers to romcoms, period dramas to cosy mysteries… when I’m feeling clever. But reading what you want and what you love should be the motto of any book club.’
‘You’re far cleverer than me, who has had everything handed to him on a plate. And yes, it should. Never a truer word.’
