Page 77 of Meet Me Under the Mistletoe
“You punched your friend in the face, don’t you even feel a little bit remorseful, you selfish pig? You could have really hurt Jez.”
But Guy wasn’t listening. His eyes were fixed on Isaac, who had just emerged from the stables.
“Here he is!” Guy called, his arms outstretched as he stumbled crablike from left to right. “The man of the hour!”
Isaac ignored Guy, walking straight past him and taking Nory gently by the arm to move her a little way across the yard, out of Guy’s reach.
“Wos up with you?” Guy jeered. “Strong silent type?”
“Are you okay?” Isaac asked Nory, helping her to unfasten her helmet and taking it from her. With his other hand, he tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. She smiled up at him reassuringly, while Guy swaggered nearby in her peripheral vision.
“I’m fine,” she said. “Annoyed and a bit shaky but fine.”
“Oy!” came Guy’s voice. “Gardener!”
“Ignore him,” Nory urged Isaac.
“I intend to,” Isaac replied. “But we do need to get him out of here.” He looked back at the stables; the remaining horses were braying and banging against their doors.
“I’m talking to you!” Guy shouted.
“Guy, for fuck’s sake, go back to the castle and sleep it off!” came Jeremy’s muffled voice from between his knees.
“Do you need a doctor?” Isaac asked, kneeling beside Jeremy.
“No, I’ll be okay. My arse has gone numb with the cold, though.”
Isaac looked at Nory. “If I handle the lager lout, do you think you can help Jeremy back to the castle? I’ll get one of the stable hands to go with you.”
“Yes, of course,” said Nory. “I’m worried about you, though. I’ve never seen Guy like this. I don’t know what he’s capable of.”
“Don’t worry about me.” He gestured back to where a small band of surly-looking estate workers had gathered. “I’ve got plenty of backup.” He smiled, then kissed her cheek.
“Oy, oy!” Guy hollered.
Isaac and Nory turned to look at him, Guy pointed straight at Nory.
“Been there, mate! Done that and got the T-shirt!”
Nory barely had time to register her indignance before Isaac strode over to Guy and punched him squarely in the face. Guy went down like a sack of potatoes and lay spread-eagle in a pile of horse dung—just in time for the others to trot back into the courtyard to find two of their friends on the ground bleeding and the other snogging the gardener.
Twenty-one
With two of their number incapacitated, the hack had been abandoned before it even began. Nory and Pippa helped Jeremy back to the castle. Guy was manhandled—while sobbing his remorse loudly—from the stables to his room by Charles and Isaac. Charles took his arms and Isaac his legs, while Jenna screeched that he was ruining her pre-wedding party, and Ameerah took photos on her mobile phone, presumably to be used as evidence against him later.
By the time they had gotten back to the castle, Jenna had wound herself up into such a frenzy that she was convinced Guy would be the ruination of her entire wedding, and was threatening loudly that she was going to disinvite him. Even Charles was unable to calm her down.
“Why did we think he would’ve changed?” she yelled. “He’s always been like this; at school he was an argumentative twat and he’s still the same now. Even his own wife can’t stand him! And how will it look in the wedding album when two of the groomsmen are bloody black and blue? How do we explain that to our future children?”
“Jenna, honey, this will be one of those things we look backand laugh about,” said Charles soothingly. “It’ll be a great story to tell our children.”
But Jenna’s ninety-mile-an-hour thought processes had doubled back from their future children to the wedding day.
“OK! Magazineare going to be here, and my wedding party looks like they’ve just emerged from a bare-knuckle fight at a carnival! I need to call my PR and my PA and my agent, where’s my fucking phone?”
“Baby, calm down. We can get the photographer to airbrush the bruises out,” said Charles.
“I’ve got a better idea, let’s just airbrush Guy right out of the wedding!” She leaned over the banister at the top of the first landing, sending petals and leaves from the garlands fluttering down the stairs as she yelled, “Guy Bailey, I hereby rescind your invitation to my wedding, you utter fuckwit!”
