Boot Camp Bride Read online

  Romance and intrigue on the Norfolk marshes

  Boot Camp Bride

  by

  Lizzie Lamb

  Lizzie Lamb is now on my list of authors to look out for!

  Boot Camp Bride 2013

  E-edition published worldwide 2013 © Lizzie Lamb

  http://www.lizzielamb.co.uk

  All rights reserved in all media. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic or mechanical (including but not limited to: the Internet, photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system), without prior permission in writing from the author and/or publisher.

  The moral right of Lizzie Lamb as the author of the work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  Kindle Edition

  This book is a work of fiction. All characters and events featured in this book are entirely fictional and any resemblance to any person, organisation, place or thing living or dead, or event or place is purely coincidental and is completely unintentional and not intended by the author.

  ISBN 978-0-9573985-4-2

  For Sir Roger de Bushby

  A dear friend who is sadly missed.

  Meet you at the Coal Shed, Thornham Staithe on the morning

  of the high tide,

  Dodger.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One No, No, No

  Chapter Two The Devil Wears Primark

  Chapter Three Rock, Paper, Scissors

  Chapter Four Mad, Bad and Dangerous to Know

  Chapter Five Your Starter for Ten

  Chapter Six Fools Rush In

  Chapter Seven The Unwilling Apprentice

  Chapter Eight An Offer You Can’t Refuse

  Chapter Nine Just Another Frog

  Chapter Ten Are You Writing This Down?

  Chapter Eleven This One’s a Classic

  Chapter Twelve Hand Over the Phone, Ma’am, and No One Gets Hurt

  Chapter Thirteen Speak Russian to Me

  Chapter Fourteen I Didn’t Know You Cared

  Chapter Fifteen A Blooding

  Chapter Sixteen Charades

  Chapter Seventeen Granny’s Ring

  Chapter Eighteen Economical With the Truth

  Chapter Nineteen The Homecoming

  Chapter Twenty Green Card

  Chapter Twenty-one Green-Eyed Monsters

  Chapter Twenty-two Sex, Lies and Telephoto Lenses

  Chapter Twenty-three Forget the Bucket and Spade

  Chapter Twenty-four Keeping Up Appearances

  Chapter Twenty-five Look Out for the Vultures

  Chapter Twenty-six Mates?

  Chapter Twenty-seven The Whole Truth

  Chapter Twenty-eight Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow?

  Chapter Twenty-nine The Runaway Bride, I Presume?

  Chapter Thirty He Who Must Be Obeyed

  Chapter Thirty-one A Storm in a Samovar

  Chapter Thirty-two Don’t We Scrub Up Well?

  Chapter Thirty-three Zero Dark Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-four Home is Where the Heart is

  Chapter Thirty-five A Fish Called Wanda?

  Chapter Thirty-six Kettle and Pot

  Chapter Thirty-seven Partners … in Crime

  Chapter Thirty-eight High Tide and Summer Solstice

  Chapter One

  No, No, No

  Charlee was listening to Amy Winehouse on her iPod in the large walk-in cupboard that doubled as a storeroom for copier paper, last year’s Comic Relief publicity material and those computers even the techno-geeks couldn’t fix. The sign on the door read ‘Photo Archive’. But looking round the room crammed with filing cabinets and office detritus - and with the sour smell from an abandoned mop bucket wafting towards her - Charlee decided that a spell in rehab was beginning to look an attractive alternative. Trying to keep her spirits up, she sang along with Amy at the top of her voice.

  No one ever came down to the basement of What’cha! Magazine of their own volition and the photo archive was rumoured to be haunted. But Charlee guessed that was just a story put about by the post boys to scare her. She glanced once over her shoulder in the windowless twilight, shivered, and then continued with her task. Editorial wanted 'before/after' photos of celebrities whose facelifts had gone wrong. And, as a lowly intern who had seriously pissed off the fashion editor, Vanessa Lloyd, Charlee had been given the task.

  Listening to the iPod was a small act of rebellion on her part. Out of sheer vindictiveness - and just because she could - Vanessa had banned the use of iPods and mobiles during office hours. However, Charlee’s defiance couldn’t compensate for the crumminess of the task. Or the fact that she’d been sitting in a cramped position for two hours, flicking through photos of lopsided celebrities, dying to use the loo.

  Her - that is - not the celebrities!

  Cutting-edge journalism? Hardly.

  It all seemed far away from the heady day last summer when she’d graduated with a first in Modern Languages and Political Studies. Then she’d imagined herself reporting from a war zone above the rolling titles of a breaking news story on the Beeb. Instead, here she was, wondering if it was possible to get dowager’s hump from sitting hunched over a low desk for hours on end while all feeling left her lower limbs.

  ‘Montague,’ a voice growled. ‘Is that an iPod I see?’ A pair of hands clamped over her knotted shoulders.

  In one well-practised move, Charlee put her hand up her sweater, pulled out the earphones and hid the wires from view. She spun round expecting to find Vanessa Lloyd standing there ready to give her a ticking off for not being on task. Instead, she found Poppy Walker - daughter of What’cha!’s editor-cum-proprietor - her best friend and confidante.

  ‘You’ve just shaved five years off my life, Walker, know that?’ Charlee said, now she could breathe easy again. Poppy ignored her, looking round the dinginess of the photo archive and wrinkling her nose instead.

  ‘What is that smell?’

  ‘I’ve been down here so long I’ve become immune to it. But I think it’s coming from that mop bucket over there.’ Charlee collected the ‘before/after’ photos together, making sure that she’d left markers in the filing cabinets to show where they’d come from. She knew exactly who’d be putting them back once Editorial had finished with them.

  ‘Poor Charlee,’ Poppy sighed. She reached into an oversized designer handbag, pulled out a bottle of perfume and sprayed a suffocating cloud of some exclusive, spicy scent in Charlee’s direction. ‘There, sweetie; that ought to stop dogs running after you in the street.’

  ‘Thanks, mate.’ Charlee put a sarcastic stress on the word, but the irony was lost on Poppy. She wasn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer and was only kept on at What’cha! because her family owned the magazine. And no one - not even the almighty Vanessa - dared to complain to Sam Walker about his daughter.

  Charlee regarded Poppy with fond exasperation.

  Last summer, she’d written to every newspaper from The Times to Pigeon Fanciers’ Weekly in an attempt to get a toehold in the world of journalism - but none of them had bothered to answer her letters or emails. As the weeks stretched into months, Poppy had spoken to her father on Charlee’s behalf, brushing aside Charlee’s half-hearted protests that she was cashing in on their friendship. The result was a year’s internship at What’cha! during which time Charlee had to prove herself worthy of Sam and Poppy’s belief in her.

  ‘Why can’t you do this online?’ Poppy asked, waving a hand in front of Charlee’s face and breaking her dream.

  ‘That’s exactly what I asked - dared to ask - Vanessa.’

  ‘And your head is still attached to your shoulders?’ They exchanged a look of fello
w feeling. Vanessa’s high-handedness with interns was legendary, but her dislike of Charlee verged on the pathological. It was Charlee’s avowed intention to make Vanessa review her low opinion of her and eat her caustic words. All she needed was a chance, an opportunity to show everyone her mettle. She had it in her to be a great journalist; she felt it in her water. One day her lucky break would come along and when it did, she’d be ready.

  Dreaming of being handed the Pulitzer Prize for Journalism, Charlee locked the door of the photo archive and put the key in her pocket.

  ‘I don’t know why you’re bothering to lock the door. I mean, you’d have to be a very desperate thief to break in at dead of night and steal a Windows 95 computer or a Betamax video recorder. Wouldn’t you? ’Bout time Daddy consigned half this junk to the techie-graveyard. I would tell him so myself, but he might give me the job of sorting it out.’ Poppy glanced at one of her manicured nails and pulled a glum face. ‘He says I’ve got to work harder or he’s halving my salary and some of the horses will have to be sold off.’

  Charlee laughed at her woeful expression. Poppy was an excellent rider, it was one of the things she excelled at. Despite What’cha! Magazine having been in her family for three generations, journalism came a very poor second to eventing, in her opinion.

  ‘Corners are being cut and sails trimmed, Miss Walker,’ she said with mock-severity. ‘We’re in the middle of a double-dip recession in case you hadn’t noticed. Apparently, we own the copyright to these photos, and have to use them instead of buying new ones from the usual agencies. Editorial’s budget has been slashed in view of last month’s disastrous sales figures.’

  ‘In view of Vanessa’s long lunches and fiddled expense account, you mean,’ Poppy added, before giving herself another squirt of perfume and returning it to her bag. ‘If there’s another cull in the office you can bet old Teflon Knickers will come out of it unscathed.’

  As style editor, Vanessa was highly regarded because of her address book and contacts with the rich and famous. She kept an army of not-so-rich-and-famous waiters, hairdressers and stylists on retainer to ensure that she had first pickings of the juiciest items of celebrity gossip. She was almost untouchable, feared as much as revered. Her nickname: Teflon Knickers, referred to some of the less scrupulous things she’d done in pursuit of a scoop.

  At What’cha! Magazine, the end, in most cases, justified the means. Its tagline said it all - what’cha want is what’cha get!

  ‘So what brings you down here?’ Charlee prompted, wishing she could get a glance in Vanessa’s famous little black book. Just once.

  ‘Oh yes. Fear not, for I bring you glad tidings of great joy,’ Poppy said, waving her arms about and striking a pose.

  ‘Oh yeah?’ Charlee asked suspiciously.

  She remembered Poppy peeing herself in excitement at their first nativity play whilst waiting to deliver the same line, but wisely didn’t remind her of it. Christmas was only a few days away and clearly Poppy was already in the party mood whereas Charlee’s Christmas spirit was languishing in the doldrums.

  ‘You are so going to love me for this, Montague. Most of Editorial’s gone down with the norovirus. Chief wants stand-ins for the book awards tonight. Sort of rent-a-crowd,’ she tailed off, perhaps sensing that her sales pitch wasn’t having the desired effect on its target audience.

  ‘And?’

  ‘And. You’re one of them. I got you a ticket. Ta-da.’ She gave a little twirl, clearly relishing her role as fairy-godmother-cum-archangel and waving the precious ticket under Charlee’s nose.

  ‘I don’t believe it,’ Charlee said, showing sudden interest.

  What’cha!’s Book of the Year Award was legendary and invitations were coveted, even among the rich and famous. It was the celebrity/style magazine’s token nod towards ‘The Arts’ and the prize money was so generous that even the most donnish professor was keen to be nominated. Apart from the money and the kudos, the winner was guaranteed mega sales and an appearance on all the major chat shows. Something not to be sniffed at when purse strings were being tightened.

  Charlee had only been at What’cha! a few months but knew it was more than her life was worth to accept a perk like this. She had no illusions about her place in the pecking order: one step above the cleaning staff, but well below the boys who brought round the mail, sandwiches and takeaway cappuccinos from Pret A Manger. The only perks likely to come her way were a few bent paperclips and dried-up biros. Or, if she was lucky, organising Secret Santa or the sweepstake for the Grand National next year - always supposing she was kept on at the end of her internship.

  Book launches? Champagne receptions?

  She didn’t think so.

  By accepting the invitation, she’d probably offend some old dinosaur who’d worked at What’cha! for at least a thousand years, and be bludgeoned to death with the lid of the photocopier for her temerity, her corpse hidden in the photo archive and -

  Maybe that’s what the smell was. An intern who’d got above herself.

  ‘Thanks; but no thanks,’ Charlee sighed. ‘I’m going straight home. There’s an M&S chilli in the fridge with my name on it. I’m going to have a long bath with lots of candles, slurp a bucket of wine and then start writing Christmas cards.’ Even to her ears, it sounded dull, with a capital D.

  ‘Christmas cards? Are you mad - the last date for posting them was two days ago. Tonight’s for fun. You’re coming to this award ceremony, or I’ll get Daddy to stop your Christmas bonus.’ Poppy grinned to show she was joking. But judging from the way she was blocking Charlee’s access to the stairs, it was clear that she wouldn’t take no, or even maybe, for an answer.

  ‘Norovirus, you say?’ Charlee asked, her spirits lifting once more.

  ‘Synchronised - Projectile - Vomiting. ’ Poppy emphasised each word with a shudder. ‘But good news for you and the other little elves in Editorial.’

  ‘I’d be doing Chief a favour, then?’

  ‘It’s your duty to attend, Montague,’ Poppy said sternly. ‘And don’t tell me that you haven’t been sitting in that health hazard that passes for a stock room wishing for something - or someone - to whisk you away?’ Clearly sensing Charlee’s weakening resolve, Poppy walked backwards up the stairs, dangling the invitation and singing: ‘We Three Kings of Orient Are’.

  ‘Okay, okay, I give in. On one condition.’

  ‘Anything.’

  ‘You stop singing or I’m going back into the photo archive.’

  ‘Very amusing.’ As Charlee reached out for the invitation, Poppy turned and ran ahead of her, openly delighted that she’d finally caved. ‘Be ready by seven o’clock. And Montague -’

  ‘Yes, Walker?’ Charlee caught up with her and snatched the heavily embossed invitation out of her hand.

  ‘Do something about that awful smell, sweetie.’

  Then she ran up the stairs with Charlee close on her heels, threatening retribution.

  Chapter Two

  The Devil Wears Primark

  Charlee stepped out of the taxi around about eight o’clock and pulled her pashmina around her, warding off the wind that came straight off the Thames. Sharp and cutting, it whistled round her exposed legs and ankles and she wished now that she’d worn a coat. But, she was young and reckless and not even the threat of double pneumonia could dampen her enthusiasm for tonight’s event. In fact, learning to suffer the cold without complaint would stand her in good stead when she worked on a serious newspaper and not a celebrity-driven magazine. Slipping into one of her customary daydreams, she imagined herself in Afghanistan where the wind scoured through the Khyber Pass. She’d suffer it all without complaint as she hunkered down in her fatigues, staking out the Taliban with a platoon of soldiers. Ready to report what the living conditions were like for our Heroes out there.

  No privation was too great for Charlee Montague, the pundits would say, her dedication to the job is legendary.

  Totally wired, Charlee skipped up the marble st
eps of the art gallery where the event was being held. Christmas was just around the corner and if that meant a groan-inducing stay at her family home, at least she was free from the dungeon of the photo archive. As she waited for Poppy to pay the driver and give him a generous tip, she was determined to make the most of this God-given opportunity. Tonight she would make her mark or die in the attempt. Journalism was as much about luck as talent; about being in the right place at the right time and getting the scoop. This could be her chance to mingle with people who would spot her potential and offer her a place on a team of talented young writers. Editors and subs who would give their eyeteeth to -

  ‘Charlee, snap out of it. While you’re dreaming of winning the Pulitzer Prize - again - I’m freezing my assets off,’ Poppy complained, teetering on heels guaranteed to wreak havoc on the natural wood flooring in the art gallery. ‘Come on, let’s pard-ee, girlfriend.’

  The huge glass doors swung open and as Charlee crossed the threshold, she gave a little shiver that had nothing to do with the cold. Squaring her shoulders, she stepped into the overheated atrium which was filled with the hum of voices and a hundred clashing perfumes.

  ‘Invitation?’ An impatient voice stopped Charlee and Poppy in their tracks. Sally, Vanessa Lloyd’s familiar, was collecting the stiffies and checking for gatecrashers. When she clocked Charlee, she pulled a face and snatched the invitation out of her hand. Her laser beam eyes subjected it to a thorough examination as though she suspected it was a counterfeit, manufactured in true Blue Peter fashion at Charlee’s kitchen table that very afternoon and the ink was wet. ‘How did you get this, Montague?’ She glanced at Poppy standing just out of earshot. ‘Oh, I get it. Friends in high places.’ Her acid tone made clear exactly what she thought of those interns who’d made it here by default and courtesy of the norovirus.