Henrik looked at Mia-Mary, who seemed to have witnessed the exchange and had just been talking him through what had happened, although it still made no sense to either of them.
‘This afternoon,’ she said, meekly, scared that she might be next.
A rage rose through Vivian, but she was acutely aware that the customer was still waiting for advice on which bottle of wine to choose.
‘Why?’ she demanded under her breath. Mia-Mary shrugged, and before she could even attempt an answer, a furious Vivian said, ‘Don’t worry about it.’
She strode back to the table and put on her prettiest of smiles, using every fibre of her being to repress her anger and fight the fire in hand.
Vivian was seamless in her ability to put on a good front. It was what made her such a natural in hospitality. She always had been good at smiling her way through a shitstorm. Vivian the firefighter. Vivian the peacemaker. Vivian the people pleaser.
‘I’m sorry sir, our sommelier is otherwise engaged but would you allow me to advise you?’
The man looked happy to be favoured with Vivian’s attention, especially now he knew who she was. He nodded.
‘Are you looking for a white or red?’ She looked to the group, who agreed a white would suit their dishes.
‘We have an excellent 2019 Chardonnay from Piemonte that Michael our sommelier brought in recently, or a sublime Chenin Blanc from the Du Kok Estate in South Africa…’
As Vivian reeled off her suggestions she smiled, a disarming, charming smile that belied the fury within.
The man looked at his party, impressed, and back at Vivian.
‘We’ll go for the South African, thank you, dear.’
Chapter Twenty
‘Oh, to have proper roast potatoes, how do you do it Emmeline?’ Lexy asked as if Emme was a clever puppy who had just performed a trick.
The Harringtons had got back from Italy just an hour ago, to the smells of roast chicken, roast potatoes and stuffing. Bill had taken Bella off for a bath in the hot tub, and Harry had wailed because he wanted bratwurst for dinner again.
Apparently he only ever wanted bratwurst for dinner, even when he got to dine at society weddings, five-star hotels, Michelin-starred restaurants, or on the KristallKit concierge food service. Lexy had shared this with Emme as if to sayyou know what kids are like, as Emme prepped the veg, but she didn’t really. Her own niece and nephew always seemed grateful with whatever dinner was put in front of them. After the way he’d discarded his Paddington bear and now this, she was starting to get the impression that Harry seemed like a bit of a bratwurst himself.
Now the kids were showered, bathed, and sitting at the table with their parents and Emme, while Lexy reflected on a wedding that would be the talk of the region– as was the fact that Lysander Steinherr was back in town. That part delighted Lexy especially, as if Lysander Steinherr were Ryan Gosling.
Now Emme was sharing her tip for the perfect roast potatoes:
‘Par boil for six minutes, drain, fluff them up, add a little flour and roast in hot olive oil!’ Emme smiled, thinking about all the roast dinners she and Tom had shared: in the kitchen of her Balham flat, or his flat in Dulwich; or at a thousand pubs in between, while they read the Sunday papers and played boardgames.
Then it hit her like a ten-ton truck. Emme had never felt so dowdy, talking about her mother’s perfect roast potato recipe while the blonde glamazon from the café was probably back in Tristan Du Kok’s apartment, coming down his schlong. At least that exquisite image had nudged Tom out of her thoughts. Perhaps thiswasthe distraction she needed.
‘They’re really very good…’ nodded Bill, looking at his plate as if it were a mirage in a desert.
Emme looked at Bill, the harangued husband. He had caught the sun at the wedding. His blue eyes jumped out against his silver hair and he looked nicer in his Sunday lounging gear than he did in his stuffy work suit. Tomorrow he’d be heading back to his Zurich bolthole for the week, and Emme’s job would begin in earnest.
Get stuck in, she thought, relishing that she could start work proper and forget all the noise in her head. But while Lexy returned to wedding gossip– this time the bride’s Givenchy wedding dress– Emme smiled and nodded, and thought about how, only streets away, across the river, that damn man from the airport– Tristan Du Kok and his roguish grin– could be distraction enough to keep her occupied here in the mountains.
Chapter Twenty-One
Lysander Steinherr, whisky on the rocks in hand, looked at the portrait above the fireplace. It was a curious thing and he had always hated it. For some reason, his father had commissioned an artist to draw a family that didn’t ever exist. Walter and his children had sat for the artist when Lysander was fifteen, Anastasia was twelve, Caspian was eight and Vivian, as blonde and angelic as a cherub, was six– and the artist had left a gap for their mother, which he later painted in using a wedding photograph of Walter and Anna Maria. The artist had deigned not to put the children’s dead mother in her wedding dress at least, but it made for a very unsettling family portrait, which only Walter enjoyed looking at. Wives two and three, Mechthild and Susan, both despised the portrait of course. Kiki thought it quite funny. Fortunately, it was such a part of the furniture in the Steinherr mansion that no one really seemed to notice it any more. It was just there.
Lysander looked up and actually studied it for the first time in years: the proud patriarch; the sad children; the haunting figure of the mother, only her top half visible behind the progeny she couldn’t have known at that age, a loving arm around her family. Lysander gently muttered, ‘What the fuck,’ to himself, as Anastasia sashayed in.
‘How was the wedding of the year?’ she asked, with an acerbic bite.
Lysander turned around.
‘Oh, hi.’
