Chapter 19
William slammed the car door and locked it, raced around to the passenger side and helped Buffy out. It seemed like they just simply HAD to keep touching each other. They walked along with arms around each other, holding hands, kept on giving each other little kisses…
Will glanced at his watch. They’d driven down to Cornwall for the day, and it was another scorcher.
“Lunch?”
“Hmm,” Buffy nodded
“Come along then!” William walked with a purpose, and Buffy was surprised they walked past first the pub, then several café’s.
“Can you smell that – (William took a deep sniff)
“Baking?” Buffy asked with an eyebrow quirked
“Only the best Cornish pasties you’ll ever find!” They walked to the ‘Traditional Cornish Pasty Shop’
William bought two large traditional Cornish Pasties to go and they went and sat on a bench over looking the sea on the front.
“Hmm, hmm hmm! This is SO yummy!” Buffy declared between bites, and she said to William that before they left, they must get some more to take back to the cottage with them.
They went and sat on the beach after lunch, hiring a couple of deck chairs and an umbrella. William did some sketching and Buffy fell asleep. It was on the last quarter of the page he drew her, the other three quarters were of her lying on the beach, leaping for the Frisbee and just sitting with her arms wrapped around her knees looking out to sea. She was wearing the sundress and looked beautiful in it.
Buffy woke and smacked her chops –
“I fancy something sweet………can we have ice cream or something?”
“Sure, nearly time to go home anyway, so shall we buy one and take a slow walk back to the car?”
On the way, Buffy changed her mind and they went into a little tea room. She’d decided that she wanted to try a Cornish cream tea instead as she was also dying for a cuppa.
So William ordered one for two people and the lady went and fetched them a huge pot of tea, four freshly baked scones, a pot of strawberry jam and dish full of creamy yellowish clotted cream
They fed each other the rich confection, giggling and getting cream on their fingers and faces. When they’d drained the teapot they went back to the car and home, but first stopping back at the pasty shop to get some more pasties!
They got into the cottage and William put the pasties in the fridge and asked,
“Okay little one, what do you want to do now?” William would have sworn he saw a glint in her eye and she sidled up to him, running her hands up his chest and over his shoulders
“Give you three guesses…” She whispered seductively and they began to kiss with mounting passion………
ooOOoo
William woke to the sound of his mobile ringing
“Hello?”
“Will – William is that you?”
“Xander! Is everything okay?”
“Don’t worry, everything is fine, all I’m ringing up to tell you is, I had a woman called Lilah Charles from Art World magazine, she came here to the gallery especially to see you, she wants to know if you’ll be one of the judges at this years Leonardo Art Awards, it’s in Milan on the 7th, it’s a weekend thing – go on Friday the 6th come back Sunday the 8th the main event on the Saturday - and she needs to know by tomorrow – it’s all expenses paid, and for two people”
William smiled and said to Buffy,
“Ever been to Italy?” Buffy grinned, shook her head then propped it up on her arm.
“Fancy coming with me on the 6th of next month – go Friday come back Sunday – I’m going to be a judge for an art exhibition, but we do get free time”
“Wow…Italy – oh yes!” She launched herself at him and they laughed
“Hello – Will – William, is there somebody there with you?” Xander asked
“Not just any old somebody, Buffy! – My girlfriend Buffy!” William said with a big grin on his face
Xander laughed and said,
“She found you then, great!”
“She certainly did – and now we’re an item!”
“Man that’s – oh that’s just fantastic William, I’m so pleased for you – I’ll tell Anya there will be two for Sunday lunch then!!”
“Okay my friend, tell Lilah Charles I’ll do it – and Buffy will be with me!”
“Sure thing boss- take care – oh I can’t wait to tell Anya, she’ll be so pleased!!” They both laughed again and said their goodbyes.
ooOOoo
“But surely you have SOME money, I mean how are you going to pay your tax bill for a start?” Cordelia asked
Angel shrugged
“Dunno”
Cordelia shook her head, she really did despair of her boss
“Well, how much HAVE you got then?”
“Cold, hard cash? – About $180,000”
“WHAT – Where’s the rest of it? - Where’s it all gone?”
“You tell me!”
“You seem to be remarkably calm for a man who has the tax man after you for over three million dollars, and a mad Arab too!”
“I thought you said Arreeza wouldn’t do anything!” Angel said
“Well….he probably won’t”
“Oh great, I’m worrying about that again now!” Angel said
But to Cordelia, he didn’t really look worried, mildly inconvenienced at best she thought, she also thought, ‘he’s up to something’ but she couldn’t guess what…
ooOOoo
The rest of the week passed in a blur of sheer bliss for Buffy and William, days out in the car to various places, a donkey sanctuary, a sheepskin factory where they both bought matching body-warmers, rugs and moccasins. A farm that kept bees and Buffy spent a fortune on natural beauty products and honey. The weather had been fantastic and after another day on the beach…
“I can’t believe the weather – everybody told me it would be raining most of the time!” Buffy said as they walked back to the car.
“Ah well, that’s other people for you, you can tell them different. What do you want to do tonight?” William asked
“Um…hmm, let me think…let’s stay local – I fancy seafood…can we go to ‘our’ restaurant?” The little fish restaurant that William had taken her the first night had quickly became ‘our’ restaurant, they’d been back several times since that first time.
“Of course little one – we can go anywhere you like”
Buffy squeezed his hand and homed in and gave him a kiss
“I love you…you have me spoiled!”
William’s heart leapt and he couldn’t stop smiling when she said that, he caught her around the waist, swung her around and kissed her
“And I love you too!” They giggled and ran to the car
“We must see about getting your flight changed tomorrow – it’s silly us being on different airlines on flights three hours apart, we’ll get you changed to my flight, and I’ll upgrade us to Club class, might as well have a bit of comfort going back!”
Buffy smiled and said
“Great, but lets not talk of leaving here, we still have five days yet!”
ooOOoo
“I’m sorry Angel, but I’m NOT travelling all the way to NY on a Greyhound bus, and that is final – we’d have to start out like, yesterday anyway to get there for the 26th!”
“Can your friend the pilot help us?”
“I’ll find out” Cordelia took out her mobile phone and made a call
“…………Okay then, thanks bye”
“What did he say?”
“He said he could only take us as far as Texas, but that there’s a friend of his taking some cargo to New York he’ll take us AND bring us back the next day for $200”
“Great, you’re a star Cordy!”
“Yes, well…don’t forget it! – I’ll ring this guy he told me about”
“You do that…I want to make one or two calls myself.” Angel moved out of Cordy’s ‘office’ and into his sitting room. He rang his rock-star friend, Rack – he owed him money and Angel wanted it back, pronto. The phone rang for ages, until…
“Hell-lo!” A dusky voice greeted him. This threw Angel off for a second, until he guessed it was one of Rack’s groupies or something…
“Can I speak to Rack please” Angel asked slightly irritated
The voice that greeted him giggled and said
“Well now sugar-plum…daddies asleep, well nearly all of him…all except one naughty part…daddies been taking Viagra!” Angel rolled his eyes and heard another female voice in the background
“Daddy! DA-DEE –WAKE UP!”
“Huh, whassamarrer, what time is it…ooh fuck, what have you done to me knob – gis a ciggie……wha – phone –who is it?”
“Rack…RACK it’s me!” Angel shouted
“Who – oh Angel….what do you want man…little busy here…oh Jesus…come and take care of this babe…oooohhhhhh fuck that’s good…”
“RACK!”
“WOT – trying to get a fuckin’ blow job ‘ere…what d’ya want…oh yeah babe don’t stop that!”
“For god’s sake you’re either off your face on coke or screwing yourself stupid – when can I talk to you? Rack…Rack, are you there Rack….for fuck’s sake!”
“He’ll call you back, he’s um…he’s got his mouthful at the moment, bye-ee!” the dusky voice informed him
Angel angrily ended the call.
Earlier on that morning Angel had had a letter from his accountant about what he’d lost investment wise and other things, one of which Angel had forgotten, he’d bought Rack an old tour bus when he was ‘strapped’, and wanted Rack to return the money for it.
And another pressing thing for him…he needed to do an experiment about how long one of his pieces would take to catch fire under a halogen lamp…
ooOOoo
Buffy lay asleep on the bed. William had out his watercolour box and sketchpad, he put a thin azure wash over the sundress he’d drawn her wearing on the four little poses he’d sketched of her.
He then put a thin golden flesh-coloured wash over her skin, yellow and golden streaks in her hair. He stood back and smiled at his work.
“Hmm…A Study In Blue I think I’ll call this” he said to himself quietly.
“Hmm baby what’s that?” Buffy asked stirring and stretching
“Oh, it’s nothing!”
“Show me…please?”
William turned the drawing book towards her, and she saw the four sketches and smiled and sat up
“Oh Wow! William!”
“You like?” he asked smiling
“Oh my god that’s fantastic – I love it! – Gods you are SO clever!”
William grinned shyly and said
“I thought I’d call it A Study In Blue”
“Can I buy it off you?”
“Of course you can’t! You can have it if you want it Little One!” Buffy bounded off the bed and into his arms
“That will look fantastic over the fireplace at home! – You’re so talented!”
“You’ll have me big headed if you’re not careful!!”
“Never, oh come here – it’s lovely, you’re lovely…I love you!” She reached up on tippy-toe to kiss him
“I’ll get it properly mounted and framed for you”
“That would be wonderful………now…let me thank you…” She kissed him again and tugged his tee shirt upwards
“There’s no need, Little One!”
“But I want to thank you……………………properly”
William chuckled; he certainly wasn’t going to argue with her!!
ooOOoo
When Cordy had gone home, Angel set about his experiment.
He’d got a few pieces of ‘Urban Decay’ art work that hadn’t made his grade for exhibition, and he used those. He put the artwork on the coffee table, and set an anglepoise lamp with one of the halogen lamps put in it at the distance the lights at the gallery were from the exhibits, roughly 40 inches. He put the smoke alarm on the coffee table too just in case it was a long time before it caught fire and he didn’t want to fall asleep………
Six hours later, the ‘artwork’ was hot, but NOT on fire. He felt sick and began to panic, what was he going to do? He tried raising up the exhibit, but for it to smoulder it had to be practically touching it – that was absolutely no good to him!
He thought about using some sort of accelerant, gasoline or kerosene – but then forensics could easily pick up on something like that so he couldn’t use either – than he remembered what the polyurethane varnish had said on the tin, NOT to be used near naked flame – he went into his studio and fetched half a pot of the stuff, and a brush
After painting some more varnish over the artwork, he set it under the halogen light, he was holding the loaded brush, and an idea came to him, he swirled it over the lamp itself and immediately there was a smoky whiff came off it, the artwork began smouldering too, it was exactly 6 minutes smouldering when the lamp caught fire, dripped lighted plastic onto the art and it caught fire. Angel grinned – He got his kitchen hand-held fire-hydrant and swooshed out the flames, cleared any evidence of his little experiment away – his plan was going to work!!!
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