Into Temptation (Spoils of Time 03) (59 page)

‘So – don’t expect me to be your best friend or anything. I’m still shocked at you, at what you did. But – don’t blame yourself too much. Oh, and no need for Noni to know. About you, I mean. We’ve all agreed, the less said the better. Well, goodbye, Izzie. I hope you have a good trip back to New York.’

Izzie watched her tall, elegant back as she walked out of the lounge of Browns and felt deeply comforted.

Barty was feeling very tired, but oddly happy. She supposed it was being back in England, back in the heart of the Lyttons; she wouldn’t have chosen to be there for ever, but in her present crisis it was wonderfully restorative, removing her as it did into not only a different country, but into what felt like a completely different world, far from Charlie and the anxiety and guilt he aroused in her. Above all, this visit had given her time, not just away from him, but a realisation that she had plenty of time in which to make decisions, take actions. There was no rush.

And then there was the action she had decided to take, which was making her feel very happy, very at ease. She slept very soundly the night after she had made her visit to the offices in Chancery Lane, better than she could remember for a long time. The result of her visit was now placed under the tray of the small jewellery box she had brought with her. She felt it was safer there; the box had a key which she kept in her handbag, and the box itself was in the hotel safe. There was no danger of Jenna or Cathy finding it.

The whole thing made her feel that her life had somehow come back to order, that things were in a better shape. She planned to tell Celia and no one else what she had done; Celia would be so pleased, so very, very happy.

In this new stage of her life, that had come to seem very important.

‘Well,’ said Elspeth, ‘all’s well that ends well. Poor Adele. She must be very ill, to be in a nursing home. But at least she’ll get some proper treatment now. And poor Izzie, finding her, having to cope.’

‘Yes,’ said Keir. He appeared to be hardly listening.

‘According to Amy, there was something going on between Izzie and Geordie while he was in New York. What do you think?’

‘What do I think about what?’

‘Oh, Keir! Do listen. I’m asking you what you think. About whether Izzie and Geordie had an affair.’

‘Obviously I have no idea,’ he said shortly.

‘Well obviously, but do you think it’s possible? I mean, do you think people sometimes behave out of character, Keir?’

‘Sometimes, I suppose so, yes.’

‘Of course love – or whatever you like to call it, sex, I suppose really – does funny things to people. But I just don’t think Izzie would—’

‘Can we please stop this conversation?’ he said, ‘I’m not really enjoying it very much.’

‘Oh. All right. You look awfully fierce, Keir, what’s the matter?’

‘I’m – worried,’ he said shortly, ‘Very worried.’

‘What about?’

‘What about!’ he said. ‘I’ll tell you what about, Elspeth. Money. We’re in a bit of a mess. I had a letter from the bank this morning, we’re very overdrawn—’

‘Are we? Oh Keir, why didn’t you tell me?’

‘Because it’s the sort of thing I’d rather handle by myself. But – they want some security against the overdraft. And I don’t have any. We could move, I suppose, somewhere cheaper, but—’

‘Keir, we can’t move. We’re so happy here. And anyway, we don’t own this flat, so—’

‘I’m aware of that. I could use it as security if we did.’

‘Of course. Sorry. And you’re worried about the baby, as well, aren’t you?’

‘Just a bit. Yes.’

‘How would it be if I did some freelance work? Don’t look like that. I’m not talking about going out to work. I could do it here, during the evening, or while Cecilia’s asleep.’

‘No,’ he said, ‘I won’t have it. If I can’t keep my own wife and family I’ll—’

‘You’ll what?’

‘I’m not sure. Get another job, possibly.’

‘Well you could try. But you’re doing so well at Lyttons. It’s just a question of hanging on. Have you asked Giles again for a rise?’

‘No. He made it very clear there wouldn’t be one.’

‘Keir, please. Think about me doing some editing.’

‘I’ve told you, Elspeth, I won’t have my wife going out to work.’

‘But that’s the whole point. I
won’t
be going out to work. No nannies, nothing like that. I’ll be here, with the children. And it could make all the difference.’

There was the slightest hesitation before he spoke again; she noted it, marked it down.

‘The answer’s no. We’ll manage.’

Right. This was it. If ever there was a cue, it had been given her then. Deep breath.

‘But Keir, we’re not managing. That’s the whole point. It’s not your fault, it’s not mine. It’s just a fact, it’s a very difficult time, when you’re young and having babies. It’s not as if we were the only ones. Tory told me they’re in a frightful pickle—’

‘I’m not interested in Tory.’

‘Well you should be. I don’t know quite why you’re so against me working. What do you think your mother’s doing, when she looks after the shop for your father? Tell me that, would you please?’

Two days later, she was able to phone Jay and ask him if he had any freelance editing she could do.

‘Like Clemmie’s next book. She told me at the wedding she wished so much I could do it with her . . .’

Jay said he would be delighted to give her some editing.

As much as she could handle.

‘Wish my wife could do something useful, earn a bit of money.’

‘Oh Jay,’ said Elspeth with a sigh, ‘you might just drop that into a conversation with Keir. Just casually. I’d be really, really grateful.

Noni lay awake half the night, after her mother was taken to the nursing home, thinking about it, about how desperate she must have been, castigating herself for not having realised it and for not doing more. She also wondered how they could all think she was so stupid. That she really didn’t know. About Izzie and Geordie. When not only Venetia knew, but all her Warwick cousins, and Barty . . . She had gone along with it, with the fiction, for the time being, because it was easier, it saved a lot of painful discussion, and it saved her from getting involved. And because she didn’t quite know what to do about it. The most hurtful comment had come from her grandmother, talking to her mother: which was actually when she had first learned about the affair.

‘Of course Noni’s too busy being an international beauty at the moment to be very concerned about anything much else . . .’

That had been the phrase and it had hurt Noni more than almost anything she could ever remember. That she should be seen as some sort of empty-headed, self-centred bitch; when in fact she had been so hurt and shocked over everything that had happened over the last few years, ever since Lucas was first sent away, in fact, that she had scarcely been able to bear it. She had seen all of it, from the very beginning. Lucas’s bad behaviour, Geordie’s growing impatience, her mother’s blindness: and then Lucas’s desperate misery, Geordie’s stubborn selfishness, little Clio’s sorrow, Adele’s refusal to move in with Geordie – she had seen it all as no one else had. And been unable to do anything about any of it.

She had tried: she had tried so hard, to support her mother, to steady Clio, to dissuade Geordie from leaving, to reason with Lucas. It had all been horribly difficult; she had felt herself slowly drowning in it all, dragged down by the selfishness and in-fighting. When Izzie, her only support for a long time, had gone to America, she had found it almost unbearable; getting into Oxford had been a help, but the oppressive misery at home was counter-productive to her studies. And then it had happened: her modelling career, a sudden and wonderful explosion of relief, a dizzy, starry escape; suddenly she had not felt like the last in line but the first, an important person, to be courted, flattered, worried about, any irritation soothed, her least desire satisfied, her slightest worry removed. It had meant such fun, too: evenings spent dancing at the Café de Paris and Quaglino’s, dining at Les A and the Mirabelle, flattered and fawned upon by a lot of funny, charming, well-connected young men, being at the heart of London’s most in-crowd, it had been very restorative. Her shyness melted away, her weary anxiety lifted like morning mist; she felt quite literally a different person.

Two days after the wedding, her agency asked her if she would like to do a few days’ work in Florence the following week; she accepted without hesitation.

Lucas was also horribly upset. Like Noni, he felt guilt and a heavy burden of shame. He had sat in the waiting room at the nursing home with Noni, waiting to see Adele, white-faced and silent. His behaviour was as responsible for what had happened, he knew, as much as anything else. Always before he had managed to make excuses for himself: tonight he didn’t even try. He looked at himself, and he hated what he saw. And when he was finally allowed to see his mother, looking somehow emaciated, lying in the high bed, her dark eyes sunk into her drawn face, trying to smile as he kissed her and took her hand, he found himself weeping, like a small boy.

‘I’m sorry, Lucas,’ she managed to say, ‘so sorry.’

He always said afterwards that was the night he really began to grow up.

Barty was having dinner alone at the hotel when Dean Harmsworth, the company secretary, telephoned her: clearly embarrassed, he had felt, nevertheless, it was essential to contact her. Charlie had been forging her signature on company cheques; several had come in over the past few days; what did she want him to do about it?

‘I have to go back to New York immediately,’ she said to Celia. ‘I’ve managed to get on a flight in the morning. I’m sorry, we still had a lot to discuss. But—’

Celia said nothing, except that it must be something very important. Barty hesitated for a moment then told her why.

‘Only please don’t tell anyone, will you? I don’t want this getting about, it’s bad for Lyttons and, of course, bad for the girls.’

‘Of course not,’ said Celia. ‘Will you take the girls with you?’

‘I can’t. I can’t get them on the flight, and anyway, I don’t want them around while I talk to Charlie. Jenna’s down on the farm, she’s perfectly happy, I could probably leave her there a little longer. They could fly back together next week as arranged, they’re quite old enough. And Cathy seems happy with the Warwicks—’

‘Very happy,’ said Celia coolly, ‘apparently she and Fergal are conducting a teenage romance. Venetia found them together in his bedroom only last night. She made a frightful fuss, I’m glad to say, and Cathy is now being kept practically under an armed guard.’

‘Oh God,’ said Barty, ‘that child. Were they, well—’

‘Heavens no. Fully clothed. Venetia was going to tell you, she found it quite amusing, if irritating.’

‘I can’t really ask her to keep Cathy, then, it’s an awful responsibility.’

‘Of course it’s not. Venetia’s quite used to wayward girls. She’s got the housekeeper on the job when she’s at the office, watching them with a very beady eye, and Boy’s given Fergal a tremendous dressing down. No, don’t worry, Barty, you have more than enough to think about.’

‘I’ll phone Venetia, apologise. Oh dear . . .’

Venetia was perfectly happy to keep Cathy, she said.

‘She’s quite sweet in her own way. Just a few too many hormones. Like Fergal. It’s their age. Don’t worry Barty, I can cope with that. And if Jenna comes up at the weekend, she has enough sense for the two of them. She’s an absolute delight; you must be very proud of her.’

‘I am,’ said Barty simply. ‘Terribly proud.’

She phoned Home Farm; Joan answered.

‘Hallo Barty, nice to hear from you. Jenna’s been a little sweetheart, good as gold. Helping me a lot, riding with Joe – it’s wonderful to see them together, she’s got him really talking, he never says a word, usually.’

Barty told her what she wanted; she could almost hear Joan beaming down the phone.

‘Course she can stay. It’ll be a pleasure.’

‘Could I speak to her, please?’

‘Course you can. They’re in the tackroom. My word, she’s a worker. You’ve done well with her, Barty, you really have. I’ll just get her. Want to speak to Bill?’

‘Well – yes, if he’s there.’

Billy’s heavy, slow voice came on to the line.

‘Hallo Barty. Doing all right?’

‘Yes, fine, Billy, thank you. But I’ve got to go back to New York in the morning, unexpected problems. So I was hoping Jenna could stay a bit longer. Joan said it would be all right.’

‘Course it is. We love having her. Got the boys right out of their shells, she has, and she’s got a real feeling for the farm. She’s a good girl, Barty, you must be ever so proud. I often wished these last few days that Mum could see her. She’d have loved her, she really would.’

‘Do you think so? I hope so.’

‘I know so. Well, you look after yourself, Barty, and we’ll look after Jenna. Come again soon, won’t you?’

‘I will, Billy, thank you. Thank you.’

Jenna came to the phone; she sounded wary.