Into Temptation (Spoils of Time 03) (2 page)

For some reason, the success of Giles’s book,
The People’s War
, published by Lyttons in 1949, had not particularly pleased Celia; she saw it as a rather unnecessary distraction for him from the proper business of running the company. In fact, Giles knew that very little he had done properly pleased her (with the possible exception of his Military Cross). It was a very hard thing for him to bear.

He went over to Helena and patted her rather awkwardly on the shoulder; physical contact of any kind between them, not simply sexual, had long since ceased.

‘There there,’ he said, ‘don’t cry. No need for that.’

‘I know there’s no need,’ said Helena, sniffing and wiping her eyes on the back of her hand, ‘I just can’t help it. I’m so happy for you Giles. You’ve waited so long. Of course you still won’t have what is your right but – well, at least, you are the Managing Director. It’s marvellous. I wonder who her shares will go to?’ she added, the ‘her’ taking on a vicious note. Helena and Celia had always disliked one another; in the year since Oliver’s death, the dislike had turned to something more insidious, more ugly. In both of them.

‘God knows.’ In fact he had not even thought of them.

‘They should go to you. As the senior member of the family.’

‘I don’t suppose they will. Anyway, we only hold – individually at any rate – such a nominal amount, it’s not as if we still owned the company. It hardly matters, does it?’

‘But Giles—’

‘Helena, please. Don’t start. Not now. I dare say she will hold on to them. Whatever she says about retirement.’

‘Well she has no right to.’

‘She will think she has every right,’ he said and sighed.

There had been no mention of the shares; no doubt Celia would use them as a weapon to declare her favouritism, to indicate the area she saw as most important. It wasn’t quite true that she held so few they were scarcely worth considering; due to Barty’s considerable generosity, the family still held 32 per cent of the London company shares. Given the great success Lyttons London (as it was now called) had enjoyed over the past five years, those shares were certainly worth having. Thirty-two per cent, the number so easily and charmingly divisible into four: one quarter each for Giles, Venetia, Jay and for Oliver and Celia jointly. It had been most graciously done; so graciously indeed, that Celia, for one, found it easy to overlook the fact that any generosity had been displayed at all.

Giles, all too aware of the need for gratitude, and of the intense discomfort of the situation, still found a wry pleasure in it. Who would have thought, all those years ago, that Barty would come to hold such power over them . . .

He turned his thoughts from Barty and switched back to the present. It would be marvellous; absolutely marvellous without his mother. Of course, he and Venetia and Jay often had their differences of opinion but those differences could now be resolved by discussion, by reasoned, informed debate, taking in factors like profitability, the competition, an author’s track record. As from this afternoon, this very afternoon, he could set up new financial systems, processes of evaluation, long-term planning. Venetia would be pleased, he knew; she found her mother’s conduct within the company anarchic. The only difference between them was that Venetia adored Celia, and fiercely admired and valued her talents. It was a very important difference.

But the greatest puzzle of all, of course, was why Bunny Arden? When everyone had thought, with Oliver dead—

‘Well Cousin Giles.’ Jay walked into his office an hour later. ‘Pretty exciting, isn’t it?’

‘What’s that?’ said Giles cautiously.

‘Oh come on, old chap. We know each other better than that. Celia leaving us to do our job, that’s what. Bloody marvellous. Let’s be frank. Might even drink to it. I’ve got a bottle of bubbly next door. How about it?’

Giles nodded slightly wearily, and watched Jay as he went to fetch the champagne. He felt very ambivalent about Jay. Celia adored him, and so did Barty – not that they saw very much of Barty these days of course – and there was no doubt he was everyone’s favourite throughout Lyttons. Which was a hard thing to cope with. On the other hand, Giles was unable to dislike him either. Jay was so good-natured, so permanently sunny, his rather bluff manner disguising a brilliant mind and a virtually flawless editorial judgement. He had another quality which made him the company star – an extraordinary ability to win. As well as living out his charmed life at Lyttons as Celia’s favourite, he was married to ‘one of the most beautiful girls in London’ according to
Vogue
where she was frequently featured. Victoria Lytton was tall, slender, blonde, with huge blue eyes and awesomely good legs; as good-natured and charming as Jay, she had already presented him with two sons, and had just embarked on a third pregnancy which she had stated firmly was not only her last, but which would produce a little girl. No one had the slightest doubt that it would.

The extraordinary thing about Jay was that he was not only liked and admired within the company, where his editorial skills combined with a cool financial judgement, and an ability to recognise the strength of business-based arguments, but his authors liked and admired him too. His only fault was that he was inclined to be lazy; life had been too kind to him, too easy, he had long since ceased to be hungry. On the other hand, that very quality gave him an easy, relaxed way with his authors; he always seemed to have plenty of time. He could communicate with them on a deeply sympathetic and instinctive level, and was a most brilliant editor, recognising their sensitivities, valuing their talents, nurturing their hugely individual contribution to the Lytton mix. It was not only the brilliant new young authors – including Kit Lytton himself and a startlingly original female writer called Clementine Hartley, only three years out of Oxford and with two best-selling novels already to her credit – but the older generation too, who found almost to their surprise that they felt valued by and at ease with him: women fiction writers like the great Nancy Arthure, whose success had made Lyttons the envy of the publishing world, Lady Annabel Muirhead, the biographer – and Sebastian Brooke, the venerable elder statesman of the book world, with his elegant time-fantasies written for and loved by children and admired by adults.

Sebastian who had actually had a meeting arranged with Giles and Celia that very afternoon, to discuss the Coronation year edition of his books; Sebastian who had phoned in an appalling rage to enquire why Celia’s secretary had seen fit to cancel at half a day’s notice so important a meeting; Sebastian who was even now in a taxi travelling to Cheyne Walk, consumed with rage, to elicit an explanation from Celia herself for the true reason behind her announcement; and why she had chosen not to discuss it with him first.

CHAPTER 2

A scream echoed down the stairs, followed by a short silence and then a burst of sobbing. And then footsteps, stumbling over one another and finally, on the first-floor landing, as Adele’s family appeared from various rooms to enquire whatever the matter might be, a laugh of sheer triumph.

‘That was
Record
on the phone.’

‘Didn’t hear the phone,’ said Geordie, with careful obtuseness.

‘That’s not the point.’

‘Well, Maman, what is? That was a terrible noise, it quite frightened me.’

‘I’m sorry, Noni sweetheart. But I was very excited.’ Adele gave her daughter a kiss.

‘What about?’

‘Well—’

‘Oh, Mother, do come along, this is very boring.’

Adele looked at her son’s impatient face, and smiled.

‘
Record
, the American magazine, you know—’

‘Yes, Maman, we know.’

‘
Record
have asked me to cover the Coronation for them. Be their official photographer. Now then, what do you think about that?’

‘Darling, that is amazing. Really quite wonderful. Here, let me give you a kiss.’

‘Oh God,’ said Lucas, with exaggerated weariness, ‘not in front of the children, please.’

He turned away, walked into his own room; Adele looked after him, her mood suddenly punctured.

‘Ignore him, darling,’ said Geordie. ‘He’s just being deliberately awkward.’

‘Of course he is.’ Noni’s lovely little face was concerned. ‘Stupid boy. Congratulations, Maman, that’s so exciting. Wait till I tell the girls at school tomorrow.’

‘I don’t suppose they’ll be terribly impressed,’ said Adele smiling at her, thinking of the hugely sophisticated girls in Noni’s set at St Paul’s Girls’ School.

‘Of course they will. We all are, aren’t we Noni darling? Definitely calls for a bottle of champagne. Come along down, girls, it will start our evening off with a swing,’ said Geordie.

‘I’ll – just see if Lucas would like to join us,’ said Adele quickly. ‘You go on down.’

She knocked gently on Lucas’s door; no answer. She opened it slowly. He was hunched over his books, his thin shoulders oddly vulnerable looking. She went over to him, put her arms round them; he turned to look up at her, his expression oddly blank.

‘Darling—’

‘Yes?’

He was such a handsome boy, with his dark eyes and hair and long, slightly gaunt face: at fourteen heart-catchingly like his father. His father, who she had loved so much and – Adele switched her mind determinedly away from the past, back into the present.

‘Darling, won’t you join us downstairs? For some champagne?’

She had thought the sophistication of the offer might move him, but he frowned.

‘No, thank you. I’m a bit tired and I have to finish this essay by tomorrow. But of course I’m very pleased for you Mother. Congratulations.’

‘Thank you. But Lucas, you will come to the dinner tonight, won’t you? Grandmother will be so disappointed if you don’t. It’s a big occasion for her.’

‘I was going to ask you if it was really necessary.’ His voice was formal, rather flat. ‘It will be so late when we leave, and I’m sure she won’t miss me.’

‘Lucas of course she will. She adores you, you know she does.’

‘Does she? I’m not so sure. Great-grandmama, yes, she was fond of me, well we lived together didn’t we? But – no, I don’t think Grandmother is specially fond of me. And surely she of all people would understand that I need to work.’

‘Yes. Of course.’ Adele gave him a quick bright smile.

He turned back to his books, dismissing her.

‘Perhaps you could write her a little note. Explaining?’

‘Oh Mother, do I really have to? I’m trying to concentrate. I told you, she won’t care.’

‘I think she will,’ said Adele, her voice flat suddenly. ‘But – if you don’t have time . . .’

‘Oh, for heaven’s sake—’ He pulled a piece of paper towards him, scrawled over it in black ink in his illegible handwriting, and handed it to her. ‘There. Give her that.’

Adele looked at it. ‘Dear Grandmother, Sorry I can’t be with you. I have a lot of work to do. Lucas.’

‘Thank you,’ she said carefully, longing to throw it down again, to say it was outrageously rude, that Celia would be very hurt, that he owed her something better than that. But she had to tread so carefully where Lucas was concerned. He was the typical adolescent, morose, secretive, hostile – all the things that, these days, parents were told had to be understood and humoured.

‘I was never allowed to behave like this,’ Geordie had said plaintively once when she had begged his forgiveness for some particularly hostile outburst from Lucas.

‘I know, darling, and neither was I. But Lucas has had such a difficult time. His history isn’t exactly ideal. We have to try and help him through it.’

‘It’s me that needs the help,’ said Geordie with a sigh.

‘I know. And I do sympathise so much. But at least we have our own little angel. And Noni adores you.’

‘And it’s mutual. All right. I will continue to try to apply the damnable American science of psychology to your son. And turn the other cheek. I can tell you, both of them are getting quite sore.’

‘Thank you darling. Oh, I love you.’

And she did; she adored him. The second – and last – she so often told him, great love of her life; so different from the first, bringing her a happiness she had never dreamed of finding again – and a great deal of fun as well. There had been the occasional problem, of course. He was, as Celia had remarked more than once, too charming for his own good, one of those people who lift the mood of a room simply by walking into it; life was easy for him, he had great talent, to be sure, but success had come swiftly after the publication of his first book, under Barty’s guidance. Men as well as women liked him, he was always the focus of attention (and if he was not he didn’t like it), a life enhancer in every way. Adele had always been aware of a slight unevenness in their relationship, a sense that she was more fortunate to have him than he to have her; and she had been half afraid, more than once, that the flirtations he carried on almost compulsively had become a little more serious than was comfortable. But she had never found any real evidence; and when she had taxed Geordie (very gently) on the matter, he had been so shocked, so hurt, that she had felt ashamed of herself.

‘It’s you I love and you I’m married to,’ he said, ‘and I’m the luckiest man in England. Would I really risk losing that, do you think? I’m sorry if I’ve worried you, and I’ll try to be less sociable in future.’

Venetia, who was of a rather more cynical turn of mind than her sister, and with rather stronger suspicions, could not help thinking that Geordie’s gifts as a writer and storyteller, his way with words and his ability to fantasize, were as much use to him in his marriage as his professional life, but she loved and cared for her sister far too much to say so. If she ever found proof herself, she said to her mother, ‘I would kill him. But I think he loves her in his own way, don’t you?’

To which Celia replied that she did, that marriages came in all shapes and sizes, and Adele’s seemed to fit her very well for most of the time: ‘One should never go in search of trouble,’ she said, ‘if it’s there it finds one soon enough, in my experience. As you know yourself,’ she added.

‘Yes, and look at us now,’ said Venetia, ‘twenty-five years nearly, despite a fair bit of trouble.’

‘Well there you are,’ said Celia, as if that settled the matter.

‘Lucas is very tired,’ Adele said now, walking into the drawing room, ‘he has asked to be excused this evening.’

‘Well he can un-ask,’ said Geordie. ‘I shall go up myself and tell him—’

‘Darling don’t. There’s no point. If he comes he’ll just sit and sulk and—’

‘He needs a good thrashing,’ said Noni briskly. Adele looked at her, amused at the archaic language, the stentorian sentiment.

‘Noni, really. You don’t mean that.’

‘I do, Maman. He’s a beast. And you spoil him. And it’s not fair. Anyway’ – her tone altered, became grown up and smooth – ‘many, many congratulations. We’re very proud, aren’t we Geordie?’

‘Very proud. Well done. Will that mean you’ll have a place at the Abbey?’

‘I – suppose so. Goodness, what an honour. Mummy will be hugely annoyed.’

‘Will Lord Arden be there tonight, do you think?’ said Noni.

‘Apparently not. Strictly family, Mummy said. So that we can ask questions, I presume.’

‘Sebastian isn’t coming either. Izzie rang me earlier for a chat. He’s in a huge bait.’

‘Well – he’s not family either,’ said Adele firmly.

‘I suppose not. But – he feels like it.’

‘What else did Izzie say?’ asked Geordie, his face intrigued.

‘Geordie—’

‘I’m interested. I want to know. Like Noni, I think of Sebastian as family. I guess he must be very upset. About the whole thing. I mean—’

‘Geordie,’ said Adele, her voice suddenly stern, ‘not now.’

‘Oh Maman,’ said Noni impatiently, ‘don’t be silly.’

‘And what is that supposed to mean?’

Noni’s face, so like her mother’s, ironed itself out, her dark eyes blank, her mouth set in a sweet smile.

‘Nothing,’ she said. ‘Come on, we’d better go. Geordie, your tie’s crooked. I’ll just get my coat while Mummy fixes it.’

She left the room; Adele looked after her, then turned to Geordie.

‘Do you think she knows?’

‘My darling, of course she knows. They all know.’

‘But – who will have told her?’

He smiled at her. ‘I can’t believe we’re having this conversation. Again.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘You were so shocked when you found out that Henry knew. And Izzie.’

‘Darling Izzie.’

‘Well, yes. Very darling. I adore her too. But she’s not a child. Twenty-three now. Of course she had to know. Sebastian’s her father.’

‘Maybe she told Noni. They’re very close.’

‘Maybe. Or Henry Warwick, or Roo, or their naughty sisters. Children do talk, Adele.’

‘I know but – well, maybe I should talk to her about it.’

‘Oh, I don’t think so. She doesn’t seem too bothered. She’s a very worldly young lady.’

Noni came back into the room, a velvet cape draped over her arm.

‘Darling you look so lovely,’ said Geordie. ‘You make an old man very happy. Here, let me help you into that.’

‘Geordie! Hardly old. You don’t look much older than Henry.’

‘What nonsense,’ said Geordie, clearly delighted with this tribute. And indeed it was true. With his American preppy looks and style, his long, lean body, his floppy brown hair, his wide grey eyes, he could have been almost any age from twenty-five upwards. In fact he was forty-two, a year younger than Adele; while Henry Warwick, Venetia’s eldest son, with his swarthy, dissolute good looks, his already-developing banker’s paunch, his slightly fruity manner, did indeed look much older than his twenty-four years.

‘Come on,’ said Adele, ‘this mutual admiration society is making me feel quite jealous. And besides, we mustn’t be late. Mummy would never forgive us.’

But in fact dinner was served over half an hour late, and Celia was not in the drawing room to greet her guests; she was repairing the ravages to her face and her composure induced by a long session with a raging Sebastian which had run for over two hours and had only ended when he left the house just as Jay and Tory arrived.

‘And the last words we heard were “I wish you well with your fucking Nazi”,’ whispered Tory to Adele, ‘and he was actually crying, tears streaming down his face. Darling Sebastian, I wanted to run after him, but Jay said he was best left alone.’

‘Izzie’s at home,’ said Adele. ‘I do know that. She’ll comfort him. Oh, poor, poor Sebastian. I just can’t bear to think what he must be feeling. Why has she done this, why?’

‘Darling I don’t know.’

‘She really is the hugest mystery,’ said Adele with a sigh. ‘Always has been. Oh dear. Well perhaps she will explain something of it tonight. Tory that is the most divine dress.’

‘Not bad is it? Covers me and the bumpess quite neatly. She’s growing awfully fast. I think she’ll come out bigger than her brothers. Four months to go and look at me.’

Adele looked at Tory, in her high-waisted, softly sashed dress, her fair hair drawn smoothly back from her lovely face, and thought it was actually hard to tell she was pregnant at all.

‘Don’t fish for compliments, Tory Lytton,’ she said briskly, ‘but here’s one anyway, you look divine. Now we’d better go in, and do our bit. Thank goodness Bunny isn’t here, it would have been hideous—’

‘Who’s Bunny?’

‘Lord Arden. Old nickname, he’s called Peter, you see, and—’

‘Peter Rabbit! Of course. I didn’t realise you know him that well!’

‘He helped me escape from France. In 1940. Got me – well – ’ she hesitated ‘ – more or less got me – a place on one of the very last boats from Bordeaux. We travelled back together. Me and him, and the children of course.’

‘I hadn’t realised. It sounds madly exciting.’

‘It was terrifying. But he is a sweetie.’

‘So was Oliver. Your mother seems to attract gentlemen.’

‘He’s a much softer touch than Daddy,’ said Adele. ‘He wasn’t anything like the pushover he seemed.’

‘So Jay always tells me. Not my observation, but—’

‘No it’s true. His will was as strong as Mummy’s and he was just as awkward in his own way, but he kept it well under wraps. Boy, darling, hallo, how many of your dynasty have you brought with you?’

‘Only four,’ said Boy Warwick, giving them both a kiss. ‘God, I don’t know which of you girls is more beautiful. Adele my darling, let me get you a drink. I’m acting as hostess for the time being.’

Adele relaxed; if Boy was in charge of things, then there was no need to worry. Of all his virtues, his ability to make any event run sweetly smooth was, in her view, the greatest.

Suddenly, absurdly, she longed for her father; sitting in his wheelchair by the fire, dispensing the odd mixture of charm and detachment that had been so uniquely his. There would have been no tantrums had he been there. But then there would have been no cause for any, not this evening at any rate, she thought, shaking herself mentally, no shocking announcement to make, no well-buried griefs to disturb . . .