Page 83 of Under Your Spell

‘It doesn’t matter anyway, because you’re not here, are you? He had to satisfy himself with pictures of me having a frank conversation with an inept delivery driver, who Lil then had to make a cup of tea for while he practically wept into her shoulder. Jesus, why do people need so much coddling? I’m surrounded by incompetents.’

‘It’s your burden to carry,’ Theo says. ‘Thanks for letting us know. Looks like we picked the right time to get out of Dodge.’

‘You certainly did. I wonder if he’s still out there,’ Serena muses. ‘I could turn the garden hose on him.’

Theo smirks. ‘Sounds like you’ve got it handled. Can you let David know, too?’

‘Will do,’ Serena says and cuts off the call.

‘Are you okay?’ Theo asks me.

I shift in my seat. ‘I guess so. I don’t like how close that was, but like Serena says, we’re out of the way now.’ I watch his face closely. ‘What about you? Are you okay?’

‘Me?’ He taps his fingers on the steering wheel. ‘Sure.’ When I stay quiet, he glances over and gives a short laugh when he meets my eye. ‘Okay, I’m annoyed. I don’t like thinking about photographers at Granny Mac’s house because of me, but we avoided any major disasters.’

‘What about now? Are you worried they’ll follow you to the wedding?’ I feel that lurch in my stomach again at the thought.

‘I’m always worried where my family’s involved,’ Theo says with a lightness I’m certain he doesn’t feel. ‘But there’s no reason to think it will be a problem. And the hotel has security. It’s not vulnerable in the same way the house was. They’re plenty used to dealing with celebrities. It will be fine.’

I’m not completely sure if he’s trying to convince me or himself, but when he takes my hand and presses his lips to it, just as he had on my birthday, I try to ignore the tight feeling in my chest.

Despite Serena’s warning, I had underestimated the reality of Lisa’s wedding venue. Almost four hours later, we pull up a long, gravelled drive lined with tall, sentry-like poplar trees, all slender elegance, providing a canopy of soft, bright green. Birds are singing. The light is actually dappled.

When we finally reach the end of the drive, we turn a corner and the view of the hotel opens up in front of us.

‘What in the Jane Austen is this place?’ I ask, dazed.

‘Yeah,’ – Theo glances up – ‘I think they used it in one of the Pride and Prejudice films or something. Lisa’s mad for that stuff.’

The building is a dream, all tall Georgian windows, climbing greenery and pale honey-drenched stone. There’s a wrought-iron conservatory attached to one side of the hotel, flowerbeds spilling over with frothy pastel-coloured roses, and an enormous lawn mown in such perfect lines of alternating light and dark green that I half wonder if someone’s been out with a ruler and cans of spray paint.

Theo pulls the car to a stop, and as we get out, a woman in a smart black suit and impossibly high heels clips down the front steps.

‘Mr Eliott,’ she says warmly, and she almost manages to maintain a perfect air of professionalism, but when Theo smiles and holds out his hand to shake hers, there’s the tiniest catching of her breath.

‘I’m Cassandra,’ she says, ‘the hotel manager, and I’ll be overseeing everything this weekend. We’re going to make sure your sister and her fiancé have a perfect wedding.’

‘That’s all that matters, and please, call me Theo.’ He turns to me, wraps his hand around mine, pulling me forward. ‘And this is my guest, Dr Clementine Monroe.’

‘Hi,’ I say shyly, and I sense Cassandra’s curiosity, even as she greets me smoothly. It’s in the way her eyes linger on me, the way I feel her making a quick inventory of my person. That feeling of uneasiness grows as several other staff members arrive, a younger woman to move the car, and a pair of men in their twenties to collect our bags. These three are less skilled at hiding their interest, and Cassandra’s smile grows slightly strained as they blush and stammer, and cast a lot of wide-eyed glances Theo’s way and several at me, too.

Theo takes it all in his stride, obviously used to it, and I try to force myself to relax. After all, they’re not being rude or difficult. It’s not bad… it’s just weird. In an abstract way I know that Theo is very famous, but I’m so used to thinking of him as my Theo that it’s jarring to realize that he belongs to all these people too.

With a sinking feeling I realize how familiar this all is, how the looks and the strangled buzz of excitement used to follow us whenever I was with Ripp. For a moment I remember how it felt to hold his hand while people stared and whispered, and inched closer to us, how it made me want to crawl out of my skin and hide.

Thankfully, I’m not given too long to dwell on that because a tiny body comes storming through the door at a hundred miles an hour screaming, ‘UNCLE THEEEEEEEEEEO!!!!!!’

And then the strange mood is broken as Theo’s four-year-old niece hurls herself into his arms, and he is laughing and spinning her around.

‘Hannah-banana!’ Theo groans. ‘When did you get so big?’

‘When you were away,’ the little girl answers earnestly. ‘I got big because you only saw me on the computer and so you must have thought I was very small.’ She holds her fingers apart to indicate how tiny computer-screen Hannah was.

‘Very true,’ Theo agrees. ‘Now, let me introduce you to someone very special. This is Clemmie.’

‘Hi, Hannah,’ I say with a little wave.

Hannah looks at me consideringly. ‘Why is she very special?’ she asks Theo. Her tone conveys her doubt over this assessment.