Love from London Read Online Free Page B

goodbye and go back to the house in a trotting fashion — Jesus, two seconds in this country and even I’m moving like a horse. But a happy one.

Chapter Three
    I’m scarcely inside the house when a glass of red wine is shoved in my face. Um, hello, did someone forget I’m underage? “Drink up, Love,” Angus says. “A toast to the evening.”
    I take a quick sip and then see Arabella lazing on the chaise longue in the — well what would be called a living room in normal circumstances but here is more aptly called a drawing room. Large windows go from floor to ceiling, set with heavy silvery blue drapes with tiny vines embroidered on them. I wish for a second that my dad and Mable could see it all. Then again, I could used to this world on my own.
    “Bukowski! Where the hell have you been?” Arabella smiles, stands up, looking more incredible than normal — or maybe I’m just totally relieved to see a familiar face (as opposed to, say, a random hot guy’s in a gazebo). She’s got on deep maroon lipstick and her hair is coiled like her mother’s, so she looks dramatic and casual at the same time, with jeans and pointed green heels that on anyone else would look like lizard feet.
    “Piece — it’s about time,” I say but don’t allude to any of her possible adventures lest she get in trouble with her parents. I can totally picture her sneaking around London’s hottest spots with Tobias the Prince. He’s not really a prince, he’s a lord. But still…a cousin or some relation — nineteenth in line to the throne or something).
    She hugs me and whispers, “Yes, I saw him, yes it was fucking brilliant and yes you will meet him soon.”
    I’m about to burst with my own semi-sordid details of an afternoon of feeling like I wandered into an awesome mini-series, but soon we’re hustled upstairs to change for dinner.
    “You don’t have to change, of course,” Angus says as we’re almost to the top of the grand staircase. “But feel free to — or not.” Or have rules, or not. Or make sense, or not.
    “I can’t believe you grew up here!” I have to be allowed to gush a little now. Arabella sighs and brushes her teeth for probably the fifth time today — she’s got a bit of a dental fetish, or at least loves toothpaste. I introduced her to Glide floss in the states and you’d have thought the woman had seen God.
    “Bracker’s? Yeah yeah yeah, it’s grand. Fab, all that. But it’s just like every house, really, once you get used to it.” She spits in and rinses. “You know, good, bad, ugly, enchanting.”
    Somehow, this reminds me of talking with Charlie on the Vineyard this past fall — about happy families being all the same and unhappy ones being unique. I wonder where mine falls in that spectrum — or Arabella’s. The Vineyard — America — Hadley Hall — everything on that side of the ocean seems far away right now. I could totally get sucked into life here — my own personal rabbit hole a la Alice.
    “Well, so far, I’m going to have to say enchanting.”
    At dinner, the parade of funk, fun, and fabulosity continues. The dining room, which I hadn’t seen yet is long and rectangular. The whole table is up on a mahogany platform, so sitting at the table feels like being up on a stage — which I guess is the point, given the dramatics running through the veins of this family.
    The huge windows are draped with burgundy velvet curtains, miniature topiaries twirl up towards the chandelier which is set with real candles. The spirals remind me of my garden of non-Eden moments this afternoon with Asher and while part of me hopes he doubles as a butler, most of me is relieved to find him absent from the rest of the night.
    Shalimar de Montesse has her curtain of hair down, Angus Piece is dressed in what I would call a pseudo tux, but what Arabella informs me is a DJ (dinner jacket), and Arabella is in a blue slim satin sheath dress — you know, normal attire for a family dinner. The fact