Don't Lose Your Head (Roger Taylor)

7. Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For

A/N-- Welcome to another instalment of whatever trashy soap opera this story is! Enjoy, haha💜

Layla
July, 1985

"Lord Tewksbury, I really do need you to stand still."

"I have told you countless times to refer to me as Wesley in private!" The elderly man across from me huffed irritably, "And you must be near finished by now!"

I exhaled slowly through my nostrils, "We have only been here for thirty minutes Lord- Wesley."

"Yes, well I feel quite fatigued." Lord Tewksbury shifted from foot to foot, "Can't you go any faster?"

Lord Wesley Tewksbury, Marquess of Huntly, had commissioned me to paint his portrait, which is how I ended up in a secluded, sod off manor in the middle of Scotland on a random Friday. If Wesley had not offered to pay for my travel expenses, I most likely would have turned down the opportunity. I recently discovered that I could charge a small fortune for such jobs, because if someone in this day and age was silly enough to want an old-fashioned portrait, they were silly enough to pay an arm and leg for it. However, I couldn't exactly fleece Lord Tewksbury because he was a good friend of my grandfather.

"I did ask if you'd like to be seated for the portrait Wesley, we can still change it up if you'd like?"

Wesley rapped the sleek black cane (which was the only thing keeping him propped up) on the small raised platform he had choose to stand on. "No! Men appear much more imposing when upright."

I snorted a laugh but quickly tried to disguise it when I felt the Marquess' dark eyes flick over toward me. "Did you know I fought with your grandfather in Gallipoli?"

"Of course. Grandad always speaks very highly of you."

Wesley's weathered face appeared stern at a first glance, but after thirty minutes of intense study, I was able to find signs of that heart of gold he was hiding beneath his prickly exterior. Every so often his eyes would twinkle with stories of days gone by, and a smile threatened beneath his bushy white moustache at the mention of my grandfather. I swallowed the urge to tell Wesley to try and keep his smile. It made him look much younger and I was already... being kind with my brushstrokes, but this would have saved me the bother.

"My god, Lulu," My grandfather's gruff voice scared the ever living fuck out of me when it suddenly caught the back of my ear, "How much is he paying you to take those years off of him?"

"Oh you've ruined the surprise, Northy!"

My grandfather had passed down his big brown cow eyes to my father, and then me. His hair, now silver, had once been a somewhat tame red, which he had also handed down to my father and I. It had always irritated me that I seemed to be a Williams through and through, but I didn't mind so much when I convinced myself I took after my grandfather and not my father.

"Grandad?" He pulled me into a tight hug, "Did you know I would be here?"

"Of course, dear, you know nothing happens around here without my knowledge." He flashed me a cheeky grin.

Lord Ernest Ralph Williams, 3rd Viscount of Northcliffe, was perhaps the last newspaper man with a bit of integrity left in England. He had tried to bring the Daily Mail out of the dark shadow of his father (a close friend of Oswald Mosley), and succeeded. For a few decades the Daily Mail dealt little with the entertainment sector but now his youngest son, my father, had tarnished the Northcliffe peerage once again. Grandad was not at all quiet about his disapproval, which I always found quite entertaining on the seldom occasions we were all in the one room.