She squinted at it for a moment, then looked around the room, trying to see it with fresh eyes, trying to understand what Alex would see when he arrived here in an hour’s time.
This had been home for most of her life. They had lived in the Mayfair townhouse for thirteen years, upgrading from the Virginia Water mansion when her father had sold his pharmaceuticals business and made his second fortune. The building was reasonably understated from the kerb – handsome but muted, built in red brick with a super-glossy black door and a cloud of box balls neatly arranged in a parterre out front. Inside, though, was a different matter. Marble floors, grand chandeliers that weighed as much as a small car, and Ionic columns testified to the historic grandeur of the house, and the roll-call of former residents read like a Who’s Who of London power players, including former prime ministers, Napoleonic-era ambassadors, a Nobel Prize-winning scientist and the scandalous mistress of King Edward VII.
Miles’s room was much like any other eighteen-year-old boy’s, with empty beer bottles proudly stacked in a pyramid in the empty fire grate and a Chelsea poster stuck to the walls, slightly off plumb. Mrs Titchenor, their housekeeper, was under strict instructions to leave Miles’s room ‘as is’ and not to tidy or clean in there more than once a day. ‘Teenage boys need some chaos,’ her father had proclaimed, although it was impossible to imagine him ever having been a chaotic teen. Nonetheless, it was still a room bigger than her entire Bayswater flat, with deep coving, highly polished oak parquet and an eighteenth-century statuary marble fireplace, and it occurred to Tara now that for a man who’d grown up hobo-style on farms throughout Southern California, this might be something of a shock.
Perhaps they ought to have gone out for the first meeting after all. Neutral ground would put Alex more at ease, surely? It wasn’t like it was going to be a relaxing experience for him, asking her father for her hand, moments after they met. Here.
But it was Alex who had insisted. ‘I want to know your life – warts and all,’ he had joked, and she knew she couldn’t hide this from him. At some point he would have to come face to face with the reality of her background; better to get it over and done with early. She wasn’t good with secrets.
‘So why are you here?’ Miles asked curiously, watching her scan the room. ‘Marge is insisting I wear a collared shirt.’
She looked back at him, knowing her brother already suspected more than just a meet and greet. He had good instincts – about people as well as situations.
‘So that you can all meet my new boyfriend, Alex.’
‘How new?’
‘Four months, thereabouts.’
‘Box-fresh, then. Is there much point?’ he groaned. ‘Surely he’s not going to last another four with you. Any minute now he’s going to know what I’ve been saying for years: that you’re an uptight goody two-shoes who wouldn’t know a good time if it hit you in the—’
‘Oi!’ She threw a cushion that hit him in the face.
Miles laughed. ‘Where is he, anyway?’
‘Arriving shortly. He had some things to finish at work first. And I wanted to get here beforehand and warn you to be nice.’
‘Why? Is he fragile?’
‘Yes, actually, he’s precious – to me. And I don’t want you scaring him off.’
‘Me? Scare him off? I think you’re overestimating my powers.’
‘He’s an impoverished student. Doing a biology PhD at Imperial. This’ – her hands vaguely gesticulated around the grand room – ‘isn’t his bag.’
Miles looked bemused, still tossing the ball rhythmically above his head. ‘So we’ve got to pretend we don’t live here?’
‘Just tone everything down. Don’t mention the boat, the cars, definitely not the plane. Not the houses.’
‘What? Not even Gstaad?’ he pouted, taking the mickey.
‘Nothing,’ she said in her best warning voice. ‘Nada. Zip.’
He gave a dramatic sigh. ‘This will be so dull.’
‘Actually I can guarantee you’re going to love him. He’s incredibly handsome and he’s got a very dry sense of humour.’
‘Hmph, well, that’s the oldies’ needs covered. But I still don’t see what’s in there for me.’
Tara smiled. ‘He’s a die-hard Chelsea fan.’
‘I thought Mum said he’s a Yank?’
‘Californian, actually. But he got taken to Stamford Bridge his first week in London and he’s been a True Blue ever since.’
‘Yeah? What’s his view on Drogba?’
‘I don’t know. Probably that he’s a god or something?’ she shrugged.
‘Like, duh! No one can touch him for pace, power and skill on the ball.’
‘Yeah. That’s what he said,’ she fibbed. She had never had a conversation about Chelsea with Alex, other than to mention in passing that her brother was a fan – there were far more fun things they could be doing – but if it brought Miles onside . . . Holly thought she was reserved with new people, but Miles could be positively hostile. Her hard time at school had been nothing compared to his – the only boy who’d received more tackles on the rugby pitch had been the son of the exiled prince of Greece.
He sat up. ‘What time’s he getting here?’
She grinned and checked her phone. ‘Twenty minutes or so.’ She took her feet off the sofa and stood up. ‘So I’d better check in with Mum, at least. Do you know who Dad’s on the phone to? Can I look in?’
‘Gerard.’
‘Oh,’ she groaned. ‘Better leave it then.’ Gerard was their father’s investment manager and as such almost the third wheel in their parents’ marriage. ‘I’ll go see Mum. But come down when you hear Alex get here . . . and remember what I said.’ She brought a finger to her lips.
‘I know, I know. We’re humble peasant farmers and all this is a figment of our hallucinatory imaginations.’
She went down the hall, chuckling to herself.
Her parents’ suite was on the next level up and took over the
