Camelot (working title)

CHAPTER ONE

It was a hot, sticky day. The kind of day when your ice-lolly melts straight away and all the shops have their electric fans plugged in. The train compartment was cramped, filled with serious shoppers, holidaying families and foreign tourists, all squished together in a boiling mess.
Laurie Highgate sat on one of the rough blue seats, her striking face turned towards the window as she watched the countryside roll by. Laurie was the typical English rose, and the pride of high society. Her hair was shoulder length and a glossy chestnut brown, though currently it was hidden under an expensive, wide brimmed straw hat from Harrods. Her sky blue eyes were almond shaped and listless, her fair skin flushed from the heat of the day. She was eighteen and had just been shopping for her school uniform and books for her last year at Marymont Boarding School.
She uncrossed her legs underneath her pale yellow sundress and clutched her bags tighter as an apparently parentless three-year-old tried to take a good look through them.
That morning her father had offered her the services of his chauffeur and Rolls Royce. Laurie had refused, wrongly thinking that it would be fun to take the train for once, like all the normal girls did. But now, stuck listening to the squabbling and gossiping of the lower classes, she wished she had listened to him.
The three-year-old returned once more, his fingers now sticky from some sweet and Laurie turned to shoo him away, accidentally elbowing the boy beside her in the ribs.
“Oh gosh, I’m sorry!” she said, blushing.
He smiled and shook his head, “Don’t worry about it.”
But Laurie didn’t even hear him, a different kind of heat was now flooding through her and she wished she had a portable fan. Or a cold shower.
The boy was about her age and certainly more beautiful than any boy had a right to be. His hair was a fiery red but brown at the roots and tied back in a short ponytail. His skin was paler than her own and he managed to look ice-cool even in the heavy heat of the compartment.
“I’m Luce,” he said, holding out his hand. “Luce Elliot.”
There was a hint of a French accent mixed with his perfect English and, as she looked into his clear grey eyes, Laurie forgot her former grumpiness.
“Laurie,” she said.
He smiled, showing a set of perfect teeth.
She could hardly believe she hadn’t noticed him before. How long had he been sitting there beside her?
“You don’t seem like the type of girl one would usually find on an overcrowded train,” he said.
Laurie smiled. He was right about that.
“I was up getting school stuff,” she told him. “I rather wish I hadn’t taken the train.”
He nodded and played with the clean, white cuffs of his shirt.
“Me too.”
“But aren’t you French?” she asked before she could stop herself. “I thought you were a tourist.”
He laughed at her then but she wasn’t insulted. His manner was easy and there was something familiar about him, like they had met sometime before.
“I am French,” he said. “I live there mostly, in my parents’ chateau. But I came to do my last school year in England.”
She nodded; her perfect, Cupid’s bow mouth open in a silent O.
Luce looked at the soft pink lips and felt an indescribable desire to kiss her, right there on the train in front of everyone, after only just meeting.
He was known as a bit of a playboy back in France. Most of his relationships lasted just a matter of weeks. His motto to life was ‘I’ll try anything once’. But boys or girls, no one person had ever held his attention like her.
He thought of his mother, and her desire for him to find a nice girl to settle down with. He had been sent to England to ‘grow up’ as his father had put it. They were a lot stricter in England, he had been told. A lot colder, it would be good for him.
Luce had certainly found his father’s words to be true. There was no cheek kissing among friends in England. A brief handshake and a ‘jolly good to see you old man,’ was the friendliest it got, even from his grandfather.
Laurie brushed away a stray curl that had fallen from beneath her hat and he watched the motion, transfixed.
“A chateau?” she asked. “Are you a society boy in France then?”
He thought of the parties and masque’s back home and nodded.
“You could say that. What about you, I take it you belong to the horsey set?”
She nodded.
As if he hadn’t guessed the moment he laid eyes on her demure sundress and elegant features. You didn’t find girls like her hanging about downtown.
Laurie licked her lips, unconsciously flirting. She stopped herself when she realised it as she knew it wasn’t proper.
He ran a long fingered hand through his hair, retying the ponytail.
She took off her hat and tossed her glossy hair over her shoulder.
Their eyes met and they both smiled, aware of how ridiculous the situation was. Most of the people around them were now watching openly, or at least listening in.
Why couldn’t they have met somewhere else, where they could be alone?
Laurie’s phone buzzed in her bag but she ignored it, pretending that it was someone else’s. She knew who was calling; it was the only person who ever bothered to text. Mostly people emailed her or left a message with the family butler, or just turned up at the Manor.
She fanned herself with the brim of her hat and the red rose she had tucked into the side that morning fell onto her lap. Luce reached his arm out swiftly, creating just a tiny breeze in the humid air, and picked it up by the delicate stem.
“It’s from my garden,” she said. “They only bloom in high summer.”
He sniffed it, breathing its intoxicating scent, much like her perfume, which lingered in the hot air.
“Highgate Village Station,” the driver announced over the crackly speaker system.
It was her stop. She stood, her dress crinkled a little at the back. Luce watched her with disappointment evident in his eyes.
“I’m two more after this,” he said regretfully.
She nodded and wished she could stay. But her father was holding a dinner party that night, and she had to pack for her return to school the next day. They stared at each other for a long moment and then she turned away before the strange feeling, whatever it was, got the better of her.
As she train sped away from the platform she waved towards his window, hoping he could see her.
Then, blowing along on the breeze created by the train, her rose flew back to her and she could see it, his hand, waving back as the train rounded the corner and out of sight.
Laurie sighed and picked up her bags. It was only a little cooler in the country than it had been on the train and she was glad her father’s Rolls would be waiting outside the station.
To call it a station was perhaps a bit of an exaggeration. It was one red tiled, red bricked room and a cracked concrete platform. An old, off white signpost proclaimed ‘Welcome to Highgate!’, and a few pots of flowers sat here and there. She dragged her purchases over to the Rolls and the driver, Smith, helped her to put them in the boot.
The interior of the big black car was, thankfully, air-conditioned, and as it sped away through the village, she let her arm hang out of the window, trailing in the warm air.
Luce, she thought, remembering the boy on the train. She realised that she could have asked for his mobile number, or his email, or even the name of the school he would be attending. Anything to see him again.
The village was a quiet, rather too rural affair. The houses were small and thatched. There was one corner shop and one post office. An old and now unused well marked the centre. Highgate Manor, Laurie’s home sat about two miles from the village itself, surrounded by open green fields and leafy forests.
It was a huge, red sandstone building with towers and shuttered windows. The entrance gates were moulded in the shape of ivy and the vast rose gardens and herb gardens tended to by a team of green fingered gardeners. Laurie loved it.
It was only as the car rolled down the lengthy white gravel driveway that she allowed herself to remember Alaric and feel just a bit too guilty.
Alaric Penderghast was her long-time boyfriend, and had first been her friend, ever since they were little.
He came from one of the richest families in the United Kingdom. His father had houses and estates in England, Scotland, Ireland, France, Italy and America. He was polite, well-dressed and just a little bit prim. He was as English as a cup of tea or strawberries and cream at Wimbledon. As far as Laurie’s vast family was concerned, he was her destiny.
Despite her new obsession with the mysterious Luce Elliot, Laurie still smiled as she thought of her dark haired boyfriend. She loved him, she always had. He was in Scotland at that moment, visiting his Uncle’s castle, as he did every summer. He always came back in time for school, just as the roses began to wither.
As her maid, Maria, closed the bedroom door behind her (after placing her young mistress’ bags on the large four poster bed), Laurie took out her mobile phone and flipped it open to see the screen.
‘I’ll see you tomorrow, darling,’ the text read. ‘Can’t wait, love A. xxx.’
Laurie flopped down on the cool white sheets with a dreamy smile on her face. The last time she had seen him had been the day after school had closed for summer. She had wrapped her arms around him at the train station, uncaring of the scene she was making. She hadn’t wanted him to leave.
He had wiped away her tears, as he did every summer, and kissed her sweetly on the lips.
Alaric wasn’t the type to get over emotional in any situation; he was always proper and always admirable. He was everything a well brought up young man should be, and as far as the rest of the world was concerned, she was his equal. But deep inside Laurie had always wondered if she really deserved him.
Her mind flickered to Luce once more and she frowned, shutting her phone on the text. She would never see the French boy again anyway, so why bother to waste time worrying about him.
The smell of the feast the cook was preparing reached her even through the three floors and many rooms that separated hers from the kitchen.
Laurie looked towards the enormous ebony wardrobe her father had brought her back from Japan and sighed. There, hanging on the outside was the simple white dress and pearls she was to wear for that evening’s dinner party.
In the absence of her mother, who had died when she was only three years old, it was Laurie’s duty to act as the hostess. But the guests would mainly be her father’s friends, all of whom were old and boring in her young opinion. The night would be one long drag of stifled yawns and feigned interest. But she would sit through it. She had no choice in the matter, and tomorrow she would return to Marymont in any case. So this would be the last dinner party for a long while.
Laurie rang the little golden bell that sat on her bedside table and her personal maid, Emily, rushed in and through to the en suite to prepare her young mistress’s bath.
Within a few minutes she was relaxing in a warm envelope of hot water and lavender scented bubbles. Classical music played at an appropriate volume from her portable CD player and Emily scurried about in the bedroom, waiting to do her mistress’s hair. Laurie was having a hard time deciding between a French plait and a chignon for that evening’s style. She would wear it up because that was the way Alaric liked it best and even though he would not be there, she would still think of him.
“The guests arrive in merely half an hour,” Emily warned from behind the heavy wooden door.
Laurie sighed and flexed her toes, admiring the pale pink polish. Her feet were pale and dainty, as perfect as the rest of her. When she pulled the plug the water drained quickly away and the balmy evening air hit her skin instead. She stood and slipped on her white bathrobe, patting herself dry before pulling the white silk dress over her shoulders. It slid over her like a second skin. She wound the pearls around her neck and looked in the mirror.
A chignon would do.
“Emily,” she called as she stepped out of the bathroom and slipped her feet into a pair of pearly white sandals. “I think I want a chignon!”
Emily nodded and waited until the younger girl had settled herself down in front of the dressing table. She wiped her rough hands on her clean white apron and then proceeded to dress her mistress’s hair.
Emily herself was a local girl, her family had always worked at the Highgate house and she was no different. But she often couldn’t help but be jealous of the daughter she had been assigned to serve.
Laurie was beautiful, and she always got everything she ever wanted. Her boyfriend was devoted and handsome, whereas Emily’s own boyfriend, Steve, had dumped her by text just two days before. Prior to that he had often plagued her with questions about the young lady she worked for. In fact Emily doubted that he had ever really been interested in her at all. She had just been a stepping stone on his way to Laurie. Not that he would ever stand a chance with the high born brunette. She had Alaric, and in Emily’s opinion she would have to be mad to ever give him up.
Laurie’s perfect pink lips opened in a smile as she admired her reflection. She reached into her make-up drawer and applied a small dab of lip-gloss to her lips. That would be the only make-up she would wear that night. Alaric always preferred her to look natural and fresh and she was dressing in honour of him, even though he was not there, to make up for her silly thoughts earlier in the day.
But the eyes that she imagined widening at the sight of her were not the clear grey of Alaric’s but instead the mysterious brownish-green belonging to Luce Elliot.

She spent the night making small talk and trying to avoid the sometimes lecherous eyes of the male guests. She ate the watercress soup and creamy chicken and sipped two glasses of champagne in a ladylike manner.
She went to bed at half past twelve after kissing her father on the cheek and dreamt of a speeding train and the wind in her hair.
In the morning she awoke at six am to find Emily standing over her and tapping her foot impatiently.
“Sorry Miss, but your father told me to wake you up. The car will take you to Marymont in an hour,” she said, handing Laurie her dressing gown and slippers.
Laurie dressed in her grey school pinafore with the air of one still floating through a dream. Thoughts of Luce had disappeared with the night and it was now the thought of seeing Alaric once more that made her skin tingle and her heartbeat speed up.
God, how she had missed him!
Without him near nothing seemed in order and she always felt that she was splitting at the seams, but when he held her, when he smiled at her, she was always whole.
The morning was cool, and indeed the weather reporter on the radio reported that rain could indeed be on its way.
Yes summer was finally over, Laurie thought as she stretched her arm out of the car window, and Alaric was coming back.
She couldn’t wait to see him.