Into Temptation (Spoils of Time 03) (45 page)

Geordie said he would wait until Tuesday.

‘But I warn you, it may be the last time you’ll ever want to see me.’

She knew, even before she put the phone down, that it must be about Izzie. And hoped, desperately, that she wasn’t responsible for it, however remotely.

Adele sat in her room, shivering violently. She felt as if she might be sick again. She kept being sick. The concierge had booked her flight, had told her the cab would be collecting her at three to take her to Idlewild, that she should ring when she wanted her luggage taken down, had asked her most gently, clearly sensing her distress, if she would like him to order a meal or a drink from room service.

She had refused; all she could tolerate was sips of cold water. She was furiously restless; if she lay down, she wanted to be up again, pacing the room, and even as she did that, she felt so exhausted she wanted to lie down once more.

She had managed to remember to take her pills: indeed they had come to seem her only friends. During the long hot Sunday – when she had stayed in her room, the curtains drawn, telling herself she could manage, she could bear it, she would survive, no one need ever know about her humiliation, the dreadful, dreadful rejection, she would just carry on as if nothing had happened, would go back to London, saying she had had a good trip, yes, seen
Record
, not seen anyone else, had taken lots of good pictures for her portfolio, no, Geordie had been out of town, and so had Barty, she hadn’t seen anybody – she had taken her pills very carefully, these so she could sleep, those so she could face the day, counting them out painstakingly, swallowing them with the large glass of water Dr Cunningham had stressed was important. Her pills: her link with sanity, with courage, with feeling the world was all right. When she knew it was all so hopelessly, terribly wrong.

The phone rang; she picked it up. Maybe Venetia, maybe the bellboy—

‘Adele, this is—’

Geordie. She slammed the phone down. She would not, could not speak to him. Ever, ever again. How could he have done that to her, had an affair with Izzie, of all people, betrayed her so cruelly? She couldn’t even bear to hear his voice, that light, charming voice; the thought of having to look at him, that smiling, handsome face, made her want to vomit. He had phoned her repeatedly the day before, had come to the hotel, and the concierge had rung up to say he was there. ‘Please tell Mr MacColl,’ she had said, ‘that if he doesn’t leave the hotel at once, I shall call the police and have him removed.’

She had felt better for a while after that . . .

She had acted with great dignity on the Saturday night; she could see them both watching her in some awe. It had almost been funny at first, while she was still numbed with shock, seeing their faces, Geordie white-faced, brilliant-eyed, speechless, Izzie flushed, tearful, manically active. Adele had asked them to get her a cab, and Izzie had jumped up and rushed out, clearly grateful to have something to do, leaving Geordie there, standing in the kitchen doorway, speaking only once, to ask her if she was all right. She had ignored the question, had sat stolidly on the sofa in the window, waiting for Izzie to come back with the cab, had only moved once and that was to get Noni’s picture off the mantelpiece and put it in her bag.

They had both seen her into the cab, it had been an absurd performance, Geordie holding the door for her, Izzie watching, as if she had spent a happy, normal day with them, both of them asking her yet again if she was all right. She had got back to the hotel feeling odd, but quite normal, quite excited, in a way, by the drama, had gone up to her room and ordered a bottle of wine and a club sandwich and then while she was waiting for it, had begun to realise what had happened.

She still felt no real pain: she was able to contemplate the situation quite calmly and almost dispassionately, thinking what she might do, how soon she could divorce Geordie, what she would tell Noni.

She had had a bath then and sat at the bathroom mirror, studying herself, wondering how old she actually looked now, comparing her drawn, unarguably lined face with Izzie’s young one, wondering if people would be able to tell what had happened just by looking at her, see that she was an abandoned wife, a failure.

And then the pain began; so bad she felt at times she could hardly breathe through it; blinding, awful pain, born as much of Izzie’s treachery as Geordie’s, and a humiliation so deep and so frightful she wondered if she would ever be able to face the world again. Somehow, somehow people must never know. Never know that for the second time in her life she had been deserted by the man she loved, set aside in favour of another woman. Somehow she had to live through this, keep it a secret, never ever tell.

‘Darling I won’t tell anyone. Ever, I swear. Stop it, Adele, stop being so frightened. No one need know, no one at all.’

Venetia sat on her bed with her sister, holding her; she had taken her straight back home, had arranged for Nanny to take Clio to stay in Berkeley Square. Adele was not well, Venetia had explained, she needed complete peace and quiet, she had picked up some bug in New York and would be in bed for several days.

Although it would take more than several days for her to recover from what had really happened in New York, Venetia thought soberly, looking at Adele’s ravaged face, at her thin, shaking body, hearing the pain and humiliation in her voice. How was she going to survive this? How?

A terrible rage began to grow in Venetia as she tried to comfort and to soothe Adele; against not only Geordie but Izzie as well, who had done this thing to Adele, already so frail, so unhappy, who had loved them both so much. If either of them had walked in then, she would have quite simply wanted to kill them.

CHAPTER 24

It was cold on the moors; an icy, creeping cold that seemed to seep into the veins. There was no colour anywhere; just shades of grey. It wasn’t raining – quite – but the air was sodden, deadening; even the periodic shouts of the beaters, the barking of the dogs, seemed muffled, almost ghostly. Celia, who had declared herself, at breakfast, absolutely ready for a good day’s shooting, was trying hard to resist the temptation to go back to Glenworth Castle, trying not to think of the roaring fires, the deep sofas, the trays of drinks and boxes of cigarettes, the creaking but modestly efficient central heating that the first Lady Arden had had installed in a few of the downstairs rooms.

But that would be admitting defeat; and defeat was not something Celia cared to glance at, let alone embrace. Bunny had told her not to come, had warned her, indeed, that it would do no good to the cough which plagued her, but she had laughed at him, called him an old woman, said that she wanted to come, that it was going to be fun. Which it had been – at first. She was the only woman out with the guns, had done well, bagged several brace, with the help of one of her father’s beloved Purdeys.

Lord Arden said it was unsafe, it was so old. Celia had retorted that any gun was safe in the right hands, a slightly below the belt reference to Lord Arden’s increasing tendency to miss the birds and hit other targets instead. This was all right when it was trees, but occasionally, and tragically, he hit a dog; and once (rather less seriously, as he was fond of saying over the third round of port) a beater. There was no great harm done, it was only a flesh wound, but Celia told him briskly that the very first time her father did such a thing, her mother forbade him to shoot ever again.

‘Well darling, I’m sorry, but I’m not prepared to accept that. There’s no real danger to anyone and I enjoy it far too much.’

They had had a very good lunch, brought out by the servants, a marvellous consommé, which was at least half sherry, and some excellent pies. Several of the wives had joined them, but that was a good hour and a half ago, Celia’s hip flask was empty, and tea seemed a distant mirage. The rain had started now in earnest and was making its insidious way between her neck and her coat. She started to cough, endlessly; her throat was sore. Damn it, she’d had enough; pride or not, she was going back. Only, how? The Land Rovers had gone back to Glenworth, bearing servants and wives and empty picnic hampers, and the only one left was lost to sight in the mist; she could hardly summon it simply in order to be taken home. It would make Bunny very angry. Well, too bad; she was just going to—

‘You all right, Celia?’ a voice came out of the gloom behind her; it was Nigel Morrison, one of Lord Arden’s great friends. ‘Not flagging, are you? God, I admire you. Not many women would stay out in this. My wife wouldn’t even come out to see us off on a day like this, I can tell you. Bunny must be very proud of you.’

‘Oh, it’s absolutely what I love best,’ said Celia, smiling at him, fastening the storm flap of her Barbour more tightly. ‘Come on, Nigel, we’re missing the action here.’

When they finally got back it was almost dark, pouring with rain; she was so cold she felt sick and her head was throbbing, her throat on fire. She lay in the bath, longing to go to bed, but the same pride that had both driven and kept her out, forced her to the dinner table and to insist on the wives staying with the men while the port was drunk. She knew Lord Arden hated that, but she didn’t care; at her age one deserved some privileges, and sitting with a lot of dull women (and God, they were dull up here, she hadn’t realised how dull) talking about the servant problem and the challenge of keeping a full larder, was not what she wanted to do. But by the time she fell into the great bed she notionally shared with Lord Arden, there was a pain in her side like a knife and her cough kept her awake most of the night.

In the morning, Lord Arden insisted on calling the doctor who diagnosed pleurisy and said she must stay in bed.

‘Otherwise, Lady Arden, you’ll get pneumonia and probably put yourself in hospital. Your temperature is over a hundred and one, and that throat looks absolutely dreadful.’

‘Very well,’ said Celia meekly, grateful, in spite of feeling so bad, not even to have to consider preserving her reputation as the most stalwart female gun that day, ‘I’ll stay. But I have to go back to London tomorrow. It’s my granddaughter’s engagement party and I can’t possibly miss that.’

‘Lady Arden, you cannot go back to London. You cannot leave that bed. I’m sorry. I will be back in the morning. Now, you need penicillin, I have some here, but a prescription will need to be fetched, and you must drink plenty of fluids. And of course no smoking,’ he added with a glare in the direction of the silver case and lighter on her bedside table.

He had not treated Celia before; had he done so, he would have been less surprised to find her gone from Glenworth in the morning, and to hear she was on the London train.

She did feel appalling, she realised, as she sat watching the countryside fly past the window, the dark dankness of the North slowly becoming a sparkling frosty southern morning. Much as she loved Glenworth, the climate was truly awful. But it was hard to appreciate the beauty fully; her head ached so badly she could hardly see, and her throat felt so raw she could scarcely bear to swallow anything, even the weak cool tea which she had ordered as her breakfast. Normally she loved breakfast on the train, wolfed down bacon and eggs and fried bread and black pudding. She also felt quite severely dizzy; and the pain in her side had not really eased, in spite of the penicillin.

She frowned out of the window; she hated and despised illness, saw it as a weakness, and a waste of time. But she had been feeling terribly tired lately, going into Lyttons every day had been an immense struggle, in spite of the excitement of commissioning General Dugdale to write his memoirs under her Biographica imprint and the wild success of
Contrasts
. It had already been reprinted three times, and the Christmas orders were excellent; none of Giles’s fears had been realised, the critics and the public had accepted it for what it was, a love story set against the background of a very modern social problem, and had in no way seen it as an attempt to capitalise on the misfortunes of the people it chronicled so vividly. The publicity had been immense; Hugh Meyrick had been interviewed by every conceivable newspaper from the
Daily Mirror
to the
Guardian
, and every journalist had praised his careful research, his lack of sentimentality or sensationalism, his vivid dialogue.

She was also very pleased by Keir’s performance in the company. She had been worried, not that he would prove less talented than she had thought, but that he would regret his decision, weary of the work, resent the way she had got him there. He wouldn’t leave; he wouldn’t dare. But he could stop trying, make it clear that his interest was lukewarm, that Lyttons was second best.

However, he had worked like a demon, stayed late, come in early – she worried sometimes about Elspeth, at home with Cecilia, but at least she was back in London with her friends – turned in ideas with impressive regularity, didn’t mind the most menial task, coped with Giles’s hostility, capitalised on Jay’s goodwill towards him – and displayed no resentment towards her whatsoever. That last must have been difficult, she thought; whatever the crime, the punishment is seldom welcome.

She could not, of course, have recognised the true reason for his behaviour: that at last he was doing what he had wanted so passionately to do when he left Oxford. Far from the price of her silence being high, it had actually proved extremely low . . .

She had other more serious worries; Adele had returned from New York in a state of appalling misery, the cause of which only Venetia knew. Used as she was to the exclusive nature of the twins’ relationship, Celia still found this almost unbearable. Adele was clearly no longer mildly depressed, she was in despair; when Celia suggested that Geordie return home to care for her, Venetia simply said that was out of the question.

‘And don’t ask me any more, Mummy, because I am absolutely not able to tell you.’

‘Is it Geordie, has the marriage finally broken down? I always thought—’

‘Mummy please. You can’t help. I wish you could. I wish someone could. Dr Cunningham comes the closest, and he’s seeing her three times a week.’

‘She’s so horribly dependent on those pills,’ said Celia, ‘it does worry me. Pills never cured anything.’

‘These are doing a pretty good job,’ said Venetia firmly. ‘And she’d be lost without them. Please leave her be, Mummy. She’ll come through it, she’s tougher than she seems. Meanwhile, all we can do is be as supportive as we can. All right?’

‘All right,’ said Celia.

‘It’s a pity Izzie’s not here,’ said Noni. ‘Mummy was always so fond of her. I miss her dreadfully. I can’t believe she’s not coming over for Kit’s wedding. I don’t actually understand it, do you? I mean I know she’s busy but—’

‘Not really,’ said Venetia, who had written a cold note to Izzie, forbidding her even to think of coming near Adele. ‘Given her past relationship with Kit, maybe she can’t quite face it. God, is that the time, Noni darling, I must fly. Appointment at Belinda Belville with Amy, we’re both having the most lovely things made for her party and she has some very interesting ideas for The Dress as well. Try not to worry too much about your mama, she’ll be all right in the end, I know she will. And Lucas is home next week, isn’t he, that will cheer her up.’

Lucas, always wretched Lucas, thought Noni. None of this would have happened without him. Just the same, it would be good to have him back; he would lighten the atmosphere in the house at least.

Noni was not alone in thinking Izzie’s absence from Kit’s wedding was strange; Celia was extremely puzzled by it. It was so unlike her, she had always been so very involved with the family, the excuse that she was too busy just didn’t make sense. She worried that perhaps Izzie was ill; that the abortion had taken its toll on her health, but a letter from Barty assured her that all was well on that score.

‘Izzie is fine,’ she had written, ‘looking marvellous, working very hard, and doing so well at Neill & Parker. They are pitching for other work now apart from book advertising and have got a few small jobs. It is just that it is an impossible time for her to get away. She is desperately upset about it, but feels there is nothing else she can do.’

That was clearly nonsense, Celia thought; of course Izzie could come over for the wedding, however busy she was, she could be spared for a few days and indeed she wrote to the boys herself, asking if it were possible. A letter came back from Nick, addressed to Lady Celia Lytton, Countess of Arden, almost by return of post, echoing Izzie’s own letter, and regretting that she couldn’t be spared. She put it away very carefully in a locked drawer in her desk; it was one that she thought Lord Arden probably should not see.

In the end, she decided that perhaps Izzie was finding the prospect of Kit’s marriage more painful than she was prepared to admit; she put this idea to Sebastian, who was hurt and angry at Izzie’s refusal to come. He scowled at her and said that Venetia had said much the same thing, but he really couldn’t believe it.

‘She should be feeling perfectly all right by now. It was ten years ago, for God’s sake.’

‘Sebastian,’ said Celia gently, ‘is ten years really such a very long time? When it comes to such matters as these? How long is it since you first brought
Meridian
to me? Almost thirty-eight years. Are you telling me you feel all right now? As you put it?’

He was silent; then shook his fine old head and smiled at her.

‘Not entirely, no. Do you?’

‘Of course not,’ she said and smiled back at him, very tenderly.

Her own pain at the wedding plans and her exclusion from them was intense; there were times when she could scarcely even bear to contemplate it, times when she still hoped everything would change and that an invitation would arrive. In fact, that had become a horribly vivid recurring dream: the letter coming through the letter box, or finding it lying on the mat. And there were times when she felt so angry that if the invitation had come, she would have refused it. She felt humiliated too, sleep increasingly eluded her and even work, always her panacea for misery, was ineffectual. As the date drew nearer – only six weeks now – the pain and the humiliation grew daily worse.

Clementine had been to see her, to apologise; ‘I’ve tried everything, Lady Arden, even threatened to postpone the whole thing, but absolutely without success. I’m so terribly sorry. There is nothing I would like more, do please believe me, than to have you there, at our wedding.’

Celia smiled at her, patted her cheek; she was a sweet girl, she thought, so pretty, so charmingly English-looking, with that wonderful pink and white skin and clear blue eyes and deep dimples, and the lovely bouncy red hair. How sad, she thought, that Kit would never see her, never see the beauty. She had the most lovely voice, however, low and melodious, and an exquisite, slightly mannered way of expressing herself; no doubt that had had a great deal to do with his falling in love with her.