Secret Schemes and Daring Dreams (16 page)

‘As of now, nothing. Theo was just leaving.'

‘You know what you are, Emma?' Theo shouted. ‘You're nothing but a scheming little —'

‘Theo!' George burst out. ‘Calm down, mate. What's all this about?'

‘Ask her!' Theo spat, glaring at Emma.

‘Look, why don't we —?' Adam cut in.

‘Oh go to hell! Get lost, the bloody lot of you!' With that, Theo turned on his heel, and shoved his way to the door.

‘I can't believe it,' Emma said tearfully to Lucy in the Ladies five minutes later. ‘How could Theo imagine for even a second that I could be interested in him?'

‘I don't know why you're surprised,' Lucy replied. ‘Harriet's sweet but she's not Theo's type. Whereas you are. Looks, money, contacts . . .'

‘That's just what George said.' Emma sighed. ‘Why am I so dumb, Lucy?'

‘You're not dumb,' Lucy said loyally. ‘You just – well, you like arranging other people's lives. And remember, you got it right with Adam and me.'

‘Well, I'm never going to try it again,' Emma pronounced, blotting her lip gloss and picking up her bag. ‘But what am I going to say to Harriet? She was over the moon at the thought of the Regatta Ball.'

‘The what?'

‘Nothing.' Emma pushed open the door and walked back into the dimness of the club. ‘Just another sign of my total uselessness.'

George was hovering near the door.

‘Where's Freddie?' Emma asked.

‘He's taken Jake home,' George said. ‘He was feeling rough and since that lot . . .' He jerked his head towards the bar where Nick, Dylan and Ravi were play-punching one another and downing yet more drinks. ‘. . . are incapable of driving, Freddie said he'd run him home.' He eyed Emma closely. ‘Anyway, what is it to you where he is?'

‘Nothing.' Emma was miffed but, in all honesty, the fun had gone out of the evening and the last thing she felt like was flirting. ‘I just need to call the hospital to find out what's happening to Harriet.'

‘I already did,' George said. ‘She's being discharged. It was just a bad sprain, nothing broken.'

‘I've got to get home and be with her,' Emma said. ‘Can you help me find a cab?'

‘I'll come with you,' George said. ‘I've had enough of this place anyway.' He took Emma's hand and began pushing his way through the crowd of dancers. ‘Don't
worry,' he said gently. ‘I know it's been a disastrous evening, but it's only a sprain and Harriet will be fine in a couple of days.'

Emma shook her head. ‘Her foot may be,' she murmured. ‘But it's her heart I'm worried about.'

As the taxi turned into the lane that led to Hartfield, Emma was relieved to see the light twinkling from the window of the guest bedroom.

‘She's back,' she said. ‘Oh George, what am I going to say to her? I should have listened to you – I got Theo all wrong.'

She expected a lecture from George but, instead, he was staring out of the taxi window.

‘That's Freddie's car,' he said, gesturing to the Porsche parked in a lay-by near the bus stop. ‘If there's one person on this planet I don't want to see tonight, it's him.'

‘He's probably up at the Teletubby house with Jake,' Emma pointed out, as the taxi turned into her drive. ‘Checking he's OK. You have to admit, it was nice of him to drive him home.'

‘There's something about that guy I don't like,' George muttered. ‘He's so full of himself.'

Emma decided not to pursue the matter.

‘Aren't you coming in?' she asked as George clambered out of the car.

He shook his head. ‘I'm knackered,' he said. ‘And besides, I want to see how Mum and Dad are doing. I get the feeling Dad's not as well as he's trying to make out.'

‘He's just tired,' Emma said.

‘I hope that's all it is.' George sighed. ‘So – see you tomorrow morning, yes? Half past eight?'

‘You what?'

‘Emma, Harriet can't work with a dodgy ankle, can she?' he reasoned. ‘And we've got four rooms booked this weekend. Beds to get ready, flowers to do, tea trays to organise.'

‘But your mum . . .' She caught sight of George's expression and changed her mind. ‘OK.' She nodded. ‘Will do. Wish me luck with Harriet.'

‘You don't need luck, Blob,' he said. ‘You need a bit more common sense. And a bit less nosiness about other people's business.'

He gave a twenty pound note to the taxi driver and strode off across the drive towards Donwell.

Emma stared after him. There was only one thing that stopped her being gutted by his words. He'd called her Blob. And much as she'd always hated the nickname, there was something rather comforting about that tonight.

CHAPTER 8

EMMA KNOCKED ON HARRIET
'
S DOOR, FEELING SLIGHTLY
sick. ‘Harriet? Are you awake?'

She didn't wait for a reply but peeped round the door. Harriet was sitting up in bed, flicking through a copy of
Heaven Sent
magazine.

‘I'm so sorry,' Emma blurted out. ‘It's all my fault.'

‘Don't be silly,' Harriet said. ‘It wasn't as if you pushed me off the breakwater, was it? Anyway, it's not broken.' She stuck her foot out of the bedclothes and showed off her bandaged ankle.

‘A few days and it'll be fine,' she said. ‘Thank goodness – imagine if I was hobbling at the Regatta Ball!'

Emma's stomach lurched at the excitement in Harriet's voice.

‘How did you get home?' Emma asked hurriedly, if only to delay the moment of truth. ‘Who brought you?'

‘You will never guess! Freddie and Jake!'

Emma was dumbfounded. ‘Freddie? Jake? But how? I mean, why?'

Harriet tossed the magazine on one side and hitched herself up on to the pillows. ‘Well, I had just been discharged and collected these painkillers . . .' She gestured to a packet of analgesics by the bed. ‘. . . and I was hobbling out to get a taxi and these three guys came up behind me and started calling out things like . . . well, I can't even say what they were calling out.' Harriet had turned a livid shade of pink and was picking at the corner of the duvet cover. ‘I tried ignoring them, and I prayed that a taxi would come up Eastern Avenue and then one of them put his arms round me and . . .' She paused. ‘It was horrible, I was so scared and then guess what? A car pulled up and Freddie jumped out and he yelled at the guys that he was calling the police and they ran off.'

‘Thank God for that! Oh Harriet, you've had an awful evening. And now Theo —'

She checked herself just in time. Luckily, Harriet did not appear to have heard.

‘Freddie was really sweet,' she said. ‘And Jake made a real fuss of me too, made me sit in the back with my leg up and kept telling Freddie to drive slowly so I didn't jar my ankle.'

‘That was kind, especially as he was feeling ill himself,' Emma admitted.

‘Ill? He didn't seem ill,' Harriet said. ‘Not the way he was polishing off a double burger and fries!'

‘That's weird, because . . .'

‘And Theo? Did Theo get back OK?' Harriet asked anxiously.

Emma opened her mouth to confess everything and
changed her mind. After all, she might not have to tell the whole, horrible truth. Now that Theo knew he had no chance with her, he might, just possibly, decide that Harriet wasn't so bad after all. And that way no one would lose face. Especially her.

A night of tossing and turning proved to her how shallow those thoughts had been. As if she would want her friend to be treated as second best! At seven o'clock, she heard the loo flush in Harriet's en suite. Still in her pyjamas and bare-footed, she padded along the landing to the guest bedroom.

‘Harriet, I've got something to tell you.' She knew that, now the time had come, she couldn't beat about the bush. ‘About Theo.'

The way Harriet's eyes lit up and her cheeks flushed pink almost broke Emma's heart.

‘Yes?' Harriet breathed eagerly.

‘Something terrible has happened,' Emma began.

‘To Theo? Is he ill? Has he been hurt?'

It was the genuine concern in Harriet's voice that did it for Emma. Theo Elton didn't deserve – never had deserved – someone as sweet and caring as Harriet.

‘No, he's fine. It's just that – I've made the most awful mistake. I really thought he was dead keen on you, otherwise I would never have pushed you together and . . .'

‘And . . . he's not?'

Emma took a deep breath. ‘Last night, after that bastard had left you at the hospital all on your own, he came over to the club and he told me – Harriet, it's me he fancies, not you. I'm so so sorry.'

For what seemed like an eternity, Harriet didn't speak.

‘Do you hate me?' Emma whispered.

Harriet swallowed hard. ‘Of course I don't,' she replied. ‘I mean, I know you thought that he liked me and, well, I was beginning to think you were right, but to be honest – well, he was never going to want someone like me, was he? I'm not nearly classy enough or . . .'

‘You are far too good for him,' Emma stressed. ‘And if I hadn't been so blind, I would have seen that ages ago.'

‘And – are you and Theo – well, seeing one another?'

‘Get real! Me and that jerk? No way. You and me are going to do one thing from this moment on. We're going to forget that Theo Elton ever existed.'

Emma's fury over Theo was further increased half an hour later when she stopped at the office to pick up the new menu cards and found him stuffing papers into the shredder. It took a few moments for her to realise just what it was that he was destroying.

‘Hang on – that's my picture!' she cried.

‘They're all your pictures,' he grunted. ‘See?' He chucked the remaining photographs at her.

‘You at the night club, you sitting in the rose garden, you giving me the come on – look.'

‘How dare you!' Emma shouted, throwing them back at him. ‘I didn't ask you to take these. And as for coming on to you, I wouldn't do that to Harriet.'

‘Oh, so I'm good enough for your precious friend, but not good enough for you, right?' Theo thundered, shredding the last few pictures, picking up his laptop case and pushing past her. ‘Well, stuff you!' With that, he stormed into the hall, leaving Emma to contemplate, just a mite guiltily, his penultimate remark.

It took a few moments before she realised that he hadn't left. His clipped tones could be heard through the office door, along with a high-pitched girly sort of giggle that certainly – to Emma's utmost relief – wasn't Harriet's.

When she peered round the door, she was taken aback to see Theo, his anger apparently evaporated, leaning against the wall chatting to a petite, auburn-haired girl who was clutching a Dictaphone and a spiral notepad.

‘Can I help you?' Emma asked, cutting in on their conversation. ‘Emma Woodhouse, Guest Relations Manager.'

‘She wishes,' muttered Theo.

‘Hi, I'm Miranda,' the girl said, proferring an immaculately manicured hand.
‘Cheerio!
magazine. I was Feature Writer of the Year last year.'

Get you, thought Emma.

‘I've come to see Tarquin Tee about Split Bamboo. He said to meet him at The Lodge, but I couldn't find the address.'

‘Not the lodge, his eco-lodges,' Emma corrected her. ‘I'll take you.'

‘I'll show Miranda the way,' Theo broke in. ‘I was just leaving anyway.'

‘No, I can . . .'

‘I'm sure, as Guest Relations Manager, you have more important things to attend to,' Theo snapped. ‘Come on, Miranda – it's just across the lane.'

Emma was about to tell him where to go when she heard the back door slam and Harriet's voice greeting Mrs P in the kitchen.

‘OK, bye!' she said hastily, ushering Theo and Miranda to the door. ‘You'd better hurry – Dad hates to be kept waiting.'