Indiscretions (22 page)

He’d left her when she’d realized she was broke. He’d blamed it all on her, told her they were her decisions and he’d only done what she asked. It was true, wasn’t it? He’d told her every time he’d got a good tip on the market and she’d said okay. It wasn’t his fault that he’d lost more than he’d won—it happened all the time to lots of people. Anyway, it was time to leave, he’d had enough. She acted too old for him, and besides, things were looking good then, he’d just been chosen for the lead in the TV show. He was Chelsea in
Chelsea’s Game
.

Everything would have been okay if she hadn’t died like that … and if it weren’t for those bastards Kaufmann and Reubin! They’d blackmailed him! There was no other word for it. Shit! They were good at their jobs, there was no doubt about that, but Kaufmann was taking thirty percent as agent and personal manager, and Reubin had appointed himself his lawyer at a mammoth retainer—the more Rory earned, the bigger the retainer would grow. It’s only fair, Rory, Stan had said in that smoothie-lawyer voice of his, only fair, considering the circumstances.

Rory stared at his attractive image in the mirror and reconsidered the circumstances. He didn’t like them, nor the possible consequences of them, at all. He was a young
man on the threshold of a great career, he had no choice but to be blackmailed by Reubin and Kaufmann.

“Rory?” The assistant director put his head around the door. “Dirk’ll be ready in five, okay?”

“Yeah.” Rory checked his appearance in the mirror. Goddamn, he was sweating—his forehead needed powdering again. He hoped they wouldn’t work late tonight. He had a date with the waitress from the Café Rodeo, the cute one who’d admired his sweater. She was a dancer usually, but she’d had hepatitis and lost her job over at CBS. He planned to take her to Sally Fox’s party, it should be a blast. He ought to get some more streaks done in his hair—wasn’t it looking a bit dark at the front? Jenny’s hairdresser sure was good, though, he’d know what to do.

“Ready, Rory?”

Rory ran his finger along the folded paper that had contained the coke and rubbed it thoughtfully across his gums. He must remember to put the proper inflection on the name in that next shot.…

He walked out onto the set, put his arm around Shelly, and waited while continuity checked the shot and Dirk tightened the camera angle. This time he got it in one take.

“Brilliant, Rory, brilliant,” called Dirk. “I knew you’d get it this time.”

10

Venetia knew she shouldn’t have come. Lawten Hall was tucked away in the wilds of Wiltshire, in a landscape of frozen fields and stark trees that matched Mrs. Fox-Lawten’s personality exactly. When she appeared at the front door and icily instructed her in future to use the servants’ entrance, Venetia knew she should have got the message then, and turned around and left her to it. But she had contracted with the agency to cook for a weekend house party of fourteen, and therefore she stayed. And it was three days’ work, which would boost her income considerably.

The trouble had started before she had even taken off her coat and Sondra Fox-Lawten had swept into the kitchen to discuss the menus. No mention of a cup of coffee or showing Venetia her room—and it was a good thing she hadn’t, because then for sure Venetia wouldn’t have stayed. Her room was in the attic, which, when the Fox-Lawtens had renovated the old house, had been omitted from the central heating system. The poky room
was furnished in meager junk-shop style, and a single-bar electric fire was its only source of warmth.

The first battle had come over the menus, which they had previously discussed over the phone so that Venetia could do the shopping and precook some of the dishes. Now Mrs. Fox-Lawten had changed her mind—or rather Tony Fox-Lawten had decided he must serve a ’64 Haut Brion with the main course at Saturday evening’s dinner party—when there would be six extra guests—and so now they weren’t to have chicken poached in champagne with white grapes, around which Venetia had built the rest of her menu. They were to have pheasant, which meant that something lighter would have to be substituted for the terrine of wild game she had spent hours preparing at home. And the vegetable would have to be changed. It made a hell of a lot of extra work, and she already had enough on her hands with all those people to serve breakfast, lunch, and dinner—as well as afternoon tea for those who wanted it.

Tony Fox-Lawten had popped in to introduce himself on the Friday evening when he’d returned from the City. “Hear I’m in a spot of bother,” he’d said, sticking his head around the door. “Came to apologize.” His busy eyes had checked her out and he’d smiled as he crossed the kitchen. “Hello, hello, hello, we don’t usually have cooks who look like this.” Venetia brushed the hair from her eyes, wishing she’d remembered to tie it back, and folded her arms firmly over her apron. Tony Fox-Lawten was short and tubby with pink cheeks and the bluish chin of a man who had to shave twice a day to keep from looking swarthy.

“It’s no bother, Mr. Fox-Lawten,” she’d said politely. And then, damn it, she’d told him, “Well, as a matter of fact it was a hell of a nuisance and caused a
lot
more work.”

“Sorry, sorry, I’ll make it up to you. A bit extra in the
pay packet, you’ll be all right. How about a drink, eh? Perk you up a bit. You probably need one if Sondra’s been keeping her usual pace. Quite a perfectionist, Sondra. How about it, then—gin and tonic?”

It was amazing, thought Venetia, how true to form they all were. Could it be just her rotten luck or were the whole of the English shires peopled with lecherous husbands, freed from the week’s City pinstripes and feeling their oats?

Tony Fox-Lawten had taken her refusal in his stride, but he’d adopted the habit of popping into the kitchen, “just to see how she was getting along.” Venetia could have managed very well without any Fox-Lawtens hanging around.

Friday had gone fairly smoothly, although the pace was staggering. There had been no time for a meal for herself; she’d had to snatch bits and pieces as she went along. Guests began arriving at three in the afternoon and Venetia had been serving tea from then until six. After that it was drinks at eight o’clock, and dinner at eight-thirty. Which had left her exactly two hours to prepare a meal for fourteen. It was a good thing she’d made the salmon mousse and the summer pudding and brought them with her, or she would have been sunk; and it was a good thing, too, that she’d prepared the turkey pie for Saturday’s lunch, because by the time breakfasts were over it was already lunchtime.

The real fight with Sondra Fox-Lawten had come right after Saturday lunch. It had been after midnight when Venetia had gone to bed and she hadn’t slept because the room was so cold—she could see her breath floating in the moonlight in front of her. Miserably she’d contemplated getting up and making herself a hot drink but had decided she’d probably wake someone if she did, and she didn’t fancy an encounter with Tony Fox-Lawten in her night attire. She’d got up at six-thirty to prepare the
pheasants and crisp game chips and to fix breakfast trays to be relayed to the various bedrooms by Mrs. Jones, the daily from the village. After that she tackled lunch. By three-fifteen she had just placed the last dish in the dishwasher and turned on the machine when Mrs. Fox-Lawten came in to see her.

“We shall have tea at five, Venetia,” she’d commanded, “and I’d like you to make some nice little canapés to serve with drinks.”

“You should have asked me earlier, Mrs. Fox-Lawten,” Venetia had said quietly. “I’m afraid there’s no time now.”

“Of course there’s time.” Sondra Fox-Lawten raised a well-penciled eyebrow. “You’re not doing anything now, are you?”

“Yes,” Venetia replied evenly. “Yes, I am doing something. I have been in your kitchen since six-thirty this morning and now I am going to that freezing attic you feel fit to call a bedroom to lie down for exactly one hour and a half until it’s time to get tea. After that I will be busy with dinner. I’m sorry, Mrs. Fox-Lawten, but there will be no canapés.”

“Well, really!” Sondra’s greenish eyes had popped and she had patted her newly set auburn hair agitatedly; no one ever talked to her like that! “I must remind you that you are here to do a job! I’m paying you to cook—not to lie down!”

“I shall cook, Mrs. Fox-Lawten,” said Venetia, walking out of the door, leaving Sondra standing there. “Dinner will be on time.”

She’d regretted it later. She would probably have been better off making canapés in the kitchen than trying to stay warm in that grim little room.

Tony Fox-Lawten showed up in the kitchen at teatime, just when she was munching on a ham sandwich.

“I see you don’t starve yourself, then,” he said pointedly. “What’s this I hear about a dustup with Sondra?”

“Mr. Fox-Lawten, if I were like my sister India, I would have told Mrs. Fox-Lawten what to do with her canapés and her dinner party. I was at least polite.”

“I’ll bet you were.” He grinned. “You’ve got better manners than Sondra. All her family’s money comes from butcher shops, and sometimes I think it shows up in the genes!”

Venetia had just decided that maybe Tony Fox-Lawten wasn’t all bad when he made his move.

“How about a little drink later, just you and me?” he said, grabbing her hand.

“No, thank you,” she said, polite as ever.

“Oh, come on, now.”

There was a sound of a footstep on the hall.

“I’ll see you later,” he called, whisking off in a hurry—no doubt afraid of Sondra’s genes, thought Venetia nastily.

And then at seven-thirty, when she was in the throes of preparing dinner, Sondra Fox-Lawten floated into the kitchen in pale blue chiffon and goose-pimples and knocked over the bowl of redcurrant puree that was to be served with the pheasant.

“Bloody hell,” she screamed, “look at my dress! It cost four hundred last month at Harvey Nichols—how could you be so stupid as to leave the dish on the edge of the table?”

Venetia watched the spreading red-purple patch on the dress, horrified—four hundred pounds! Ruined! But it wasn’t her fault, the dress was the floaty sort that caught on everything, she must have flung out her arm and just caught the dish.

“I’m sorry about the dress, Mrs. Fox-Lawten,” she said, “but the dish was where it should be. I’m afraid your dress wasn’t.”

“I shall speak to the agency about this,” threatened Sondra Fox-Lawten, stopping herself just in time from saying that she wouldn’t pay—that had better wait until later,
after
the girl had cooked the meals. She didn’t want to be left stranded, and at least she’d get some value out of her for the ruined dress.

Sondra flounced out of the kitchen and Mrs. Jones, busy with the silverware for the table, commented, “She’s a bit difficult, Mrs. Fox-Lawten, but don’t you worry yourself, love, it wasn’t your fault.”

“I know,” replied Venetia wearily.

Mrs. Jones disappeared to do her table and Vennie slumped against the fridge, tears stinging her eyes. Damn it, she wanted to make a success of this. Why were there always so many problems? Her vision of an exclusive catering company with herself as its head, supervising all of London’s smart parties, began to dwindle.

Tony Fox-Lawten appeared in the doorway, a bottle of gin in one hand and a bottle of tonic in the other.

“Here we go,” he said. “I thought you might need a drop of this after I saw Sondra’s dress—that puree has gone right through everything, she swears she’s stained purple and has to have a bath.” He laughed at the idea of a purple Sondra, and despite herself, so did Venetia.

“I’d love a drink,” she agreed, “but it really was her own fault, you know. The dish was on the table and she brushed it off with her sleeve.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Tony said, handing her a drink and omitting to tell her that Sondra had no intention of paying her. “Cheers, then—here’s to us.”

Venetia’s eyes met his over the top of her glass. She could see the pass coming a mile off.

He put down his glass and threaded his fingers through the strings of her blue-striped apron where she had tied them at the front. “Come a little closer,” he murmured. “I want to ask you something.”

“What?” Venetia hung back as he put an arm on her shoulders, pulling her toward him.

“I’m in London every day, you know. We could see each other there—have dinner perhaps? Maybe at your place?”

“My family wouldn’t like it,” said Venetia.

“Then somewhere else—you know what I mean. It could be fun—and no Sondra to worry about.”

His breath smelled of gin and Venetia averted her face, vainly attempting to prise his hands from her apron strings, as he bore down on her.

Sondra Fox-Lawten stood in the kitchen doorway in her pink satin housecoat observing her husband making advances toward the help.

“You little tart!” Her voice cut shrilly through the quiet kitchen and Tony jumped back from Venetia as though shot.

“Oh, now, Sondra, it’s not what it seemed. She just had something in her eye, that’s all. The girl didn’t mean anything by it.”

Sondra was caught in a dilemma. Sod it, she thought, I should have tackled her about it later—I can’t tell her to leave now or whatever will I do about dinner? And there’s Sunday lunch, and all those breakfasts.