Page 42 of Hit For Six (Balls and Banter #1)

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Lola

There had been some lovely, thoughtful dates over the last ten days.

The Bridgerton tour of Bath was definitely up there with Lola’s favourites.

And Lola and Monty seemed to be back on the right track.

She’d also had the opportunity to play the assertive card regarding Showdown’s order.

As unlikely as the deal might prove to be, it gave her the genuine excuse that she needed: if it did come off, Harry would pay her a magnificent bonus and that would enable her to arrange a private operation for her mum all by herself.

But she wouldn’t brag to Monty. It wasn’t her style.

She needed this break away with Monty. It wasn’t going to be as relaxing as a hotel but hopefully she could stop fretting about her surroundings and enjoy it.

He opened the car door for her and cupped her face for the kind of kiss that would have half of Daniel Street– and an eye-rolling cat– twitching at their curtains.

‘Stop it! Save some for later.’

‘Oh, there’ll be plenty more where this came from.’

Lola slapped Monty playfully. She plonked her overnight bag in the footwell of his Volkswagen Polo, and her foot caught on something sharp and scratchy on the floor.

She kicked it underneath her bag. It felt more than a little weird to be going to his parents’ house and Lola had needed a lot of reassurance that nobody would know she’d stayed over; that even if they did, Monty (in his own words) was ‘entitled to bring a plus one to water the plants’.

Lola might not be green-fingered but she supposed he could use the supervision so as not to drown the poor orchids.

Monty jumped into the driver’s side and they flitted through the Bath traffic, until he indicated a left for the petrol station.

‘Won’t be long. Can I get you anything in the shop?’

‘Definitely not any of those wilting bouquets.’

Monty looked over at the remnants of the depressing display next to the newspaper rack outside the front door and they both recoiled.

Once he’d filled the tank and was queuing to pay, for some reason, Lola thought to investigate what had irritated her foot.

She lifted her bag and saw a slightly dogeared Showdown business card.

That was strange. But she was always picking things up and absentmindedly putting them in other places.

She must have added it to one of her backpack pockets when she was getting her things ready.

She stuffed it in an inside compartment and zipped it up.

Monty returned to the car with a couple of microwave meals and a bottle of red wine.

‘Just in case the cupboards are bare. Not that my folks own a microwave, but we’ll see what happens to it in the oven if we get desperate. And we can swap the vino for one of my dad’s Chateauneuf-du-Pape’s from the cellar.’

‘Naughty boy!’

Lola squeezed his thigh.

‘I have forewarned you how tonight’s going to play out, Madam…’

Lola’s pulse fired with the engine as Monty started the ignition and they decided on a vintage eighties backing track.

Twenty-five minutes later, Upper Badminton hove into view accompanied by The Pet Shop Boys’ West End Girls .

The universe had a sense of humour, even if these lyrics completely reversed Lola and Monty’s situation.

She couldn’t help but smile as Neil Tennant serenaded her arrival at the exclusive village.

Lola had come this way before on a picturesque drive with friends when they’d been seeking a quintessential country pub for Sunday lunch, but it had been an age ago and she’d never fixated on the properties.

That would have been punching above her weight.

It still was. The further Monty turned off the main road, passing idyllic Cotswold honey stone cottages and the occasional mansion, the greater her apprehension grew.

Until he pulled up outside a set of imposing wrought iron gates topped with a coat of arms. Now Lola knew in no uncertain terms that she needed to quit while she was ahead.

How could she ever keep up with this kind of opulence?

Monty got out of the car and punched a code into a gadget whose front was obscured from view by a mass of ivy, the gates swung open and soon they were pootling down a neat tree-lined drive to the most incredible house she had ever seen in her life.

‘Beauchamp-Carmichael Manor!’

‘That’s… just a bit breathtaking.’

Lola thought back to her parents who would probably be watching a documentary and reading Take a Break magazine right now, a cuppa in their hands.

Their usual Friday night routine. She felt as if she’d been thrust into a parallel universe.

This place had to measure almost one fifth of the Royal Crescent.

It was fronted with the most magnificent Georgian pillars and tendrils of large honeysuckle bushes softened its edges.

The tyres crunched to a stop next to a majestic water fountain that looked like something you’d find in Rome, and Monty got out of the car to open her door.

‘Come on, let’s get the gardening done out of the way so we can make ourselves at home,’ he said. ‘But don’t get too used to this kind of service, my lady. Housekeeping is on holiday this week,’ he joked as he took Lola’s trembling hand and they grabbed their overnight bags.

Lola was relieved at the lack of staff, but the feeling was short-lived because the entrance hall was like something out of a National Trust property.

A humongous chandelier was suspended from the ceiling.

Lola couldn’t help but wonder if anyone had swung from it after too many glasses of champagen.

And stained glass windows vied with fausty portraits, whose expensive eyes had a penchant for following new guests to assess their behaviour.

‘Don’t worry, we’re not related to any of them,’ said Monty. ‘They came as a job lot with the house.’

Fortunately, Monty had switched the underground heating on from afar, to get the place warmed up.

A tiny bit. There was nothing remotely cosy about this building and even though she’d not yet ventured into a single room, Lola also wondered how the mega rich could decide to call somewhere like this home.

But she bit her tongue, remembering that Monty had grown up here so it was important to be respectful.

‘We’ll leave our bags here then choose one of the spare bedrooms.’

Monty winked, gesturing for Lola to put her things on a throne that looked identical to the one tucked in the corner of his lounge.

She wasn’t so sure that she’d be up for anything more adventurous than snuggling under the duvet with a mug of cocoa.

How was she supposed to kick back in this place?

She’d be petrified of breaking not just something but everything .

He twiddled a knob on the wall and the kitchen was bathed in light, revealing a veritable palace within a palace.

‘Oh, my god!’ she said.

‘It’s practically the size of my apartment,’ Monty agreed with her assessment.

‘Far too big when it’s just the two of them rattling around.

Then again, the staff need feeding too. Speaking of which.

’ He held a finger in the air and scooted over to the giant cream Smeg fridge freezer, flinging the door open to peruse its contents.

‘Oh, Lola. We won’t need our back ups after all.

I’m going to make us a little feast tonight! ’

Monty was probably forgetting that the list of Lola’s foodie dislikes extended beyond the avocado. But it sounded like there weren’t any of those on the menu at least.

‘I guess it would be pretty hard to give up a space like this,’ she said belatedly, hardly able to take it all in.

The kitchen was dreamily high spec for such an old house but somehow the Beauchamp-Carmichaels had pulled the fusion off.

Lola suspected this was down to Helena’s exacting standards.

She pulled up a sumptuously padded teal ‘bar stool’ at the white quartz-topped island and sat a brief while to admire her surroundings.

Monty flung open more doors now, grabbing an armful of lavish crockery and ceremonially dumping it on the worktops as Lola held her breath at his bravery. Then he went back to the fridge and pulled out a bottle of chilled pink champagne. It must have cost a bomb.

‘Just a little sip before we fulfil our duties.’

He rifled through a row of cabinets, finally finding the flutes he’d been looking for, then he expertly popped the cork and poured.

But one delicious slurp turned into a whole glass by the time they remembered the plants and Monty led them outside via French doors across the vast flood-lit lawns to a Victorian greenhouse.

‘Hide and seek must have been interesting when you were a kid,’ she said, feeling her nerves dissipate as the booze continued to fizz through her veins.

Which wasn’t to say Lola could ever get used to Monty’s childhood home but she supposed there were worse places to spend the night, so she’d give it a try.

‘It was! When my mother decided to let her hair down, me and my sisters had a ball. We’d never run out of places to stow ourselves away.

Which could sometimes get the lady of the manor in a right panic!

Beyond this we have the paddocks and a good bit of rolling countryside.

Then there’s the swimming pool and tennis courts. ’

Lola’s brain strained to conceive of the scale of the estate. Maybe it would be easier in daylight.