Into Temptation (Spoils of Time 03) (73 page)

‘There is a very great deal of talent in this company. That is our power. And we have to hold fast, to fight for what we know is right, and never give in. At the moment it seems we will never recover our independence, but one never knows what is over the horizon. And when and if the time comes, we – I’m sorry, you’ – she smiled, mischievously, her eyes dancing – ‘must be absolutely ready.’

‘Sounds like the Battle of Britain all over again,’ whispered Jay to Venetia; she gave him a withering look and then suddenly choked into her coffee. Celia looked at them both very coldly.

‘Perhaps you would like to share the joke with us all,’ she said, ‘otherwise, please concentrate on what I am saying. This is a serious meeting, and a serious matter.’

They were duly silenced; Venetia, looking down at her hands like a naughty little girl, Jay shifting slightly uncomfortably on his chair.

‘I have tried,’ said Celia, ‘in making this decision, to look forward. That is what we must do, if Lyttons is to survive. It is very easy for older people,’ – she can’t bear to use the word ‘old’ Venetia thought – ‘even middle-aged people, to look back, to cling to the past, if you will forgive the cliché, to refuse to welcome the future. That is extremely dangerous. And in passing my shares on, in the way I have chosen, I feel I am welcoming the future. That is why I hope you will feel able to agree that they are going to the right hands.’ She stopped, smiled sweetly into the room, round the table. God, she’s enjoying this, thought Jay, loving every moment, her last great performance, or even, possibly, her encore. ‘I want them to go to someone who absolutely understands our traditions, but who is possessed at the same time with the courage for a new and innovative approach.’ Another pause. Come on, come on, Giles thought, tell us, and please, for the love of God, let it be me.

‘And I hope you will also feel able to agree with me that they should go not to just one person, but two.’

Another long pause; who, who? thought Venetia, her mind racing over the options, Giles and me? That would be kindest. Jay and me? That would be cleverest. Giles and Jay? That would be the most diplomatic—

‘I give my shares, with complete confidence and my love, to Elspeth and Keir.’

Another silence: an almost frightening silence. Elspeth, feeling dazed herself, half thrilled, half tearful, smiled at Keir, reached across for his hand. He did not take it, just sat rigidly still, his eyes blank. So he was going to fight on against her: bastard. Absolute bastard.

Venetia struggled to smile, not to look – what? What did she feel? Put out, she supposed. It was too soon; they were too young. They hadn’t worked long enough, battled enough, hadn’t seen enough. Athough her parents had been just as young, when they had taken Lyttons into their control, shaped it exactly as they thought best: and with great success.

It seemed almost incredible now. And Elspeth and Keir would learn. They would not have it all their own way, rather the reverse. So – perhaps it was a good idea, given that there was plenty of time. And it was a clever option. Had she chosen one or the other, it would have been difficult, in all sorts of ways. This could heal the rift between Elspeth and Keir, force him to accept Elspeth’s return to work, soothe his pride, smooth his path. She smiled at Elspeth, then at her mother.

Jay struggled harder; this was grossly unfair; Keir Brown, not a Lytton, not even very experienced, clever, yes, hardworking sure, talented certainly: but not a Lytton. Getting Celia’s shares. Well, half of her shares. And was he himself really so far over the hill as not to be the next generation, the future Celia was so suddenly obsessed with, had he become, in his forties, the past? He could eventually have passed his own shares to Keir, that would have been fine. But for him to have them now, a young man in his twenties – it was very hard. Old witch; she’d always loved him, flirted with him, got him into the company. It was gross favouritism. All Jay’s pleasure at being given Biographica faded away. This was going to be very hard to live with.

Giles felt only a sick, dull misery, a despair, a sense that it was over, that he had lost for ever any chance of running the company, of running even the 30 per cent which was left to them. That was all he had got after a lifetime of hard work, of disappointment, of humiliation at his mother’s hands, and this was the final one: still only a small percentage of a small percentage.

He found it hard even to remain sitting at the table, so wretched did he feel . . .

‘Well,’ said Celia. She smiled brilliantly round the room, ‘I think we should all have a glass of champagne, don’t you? Toast Keir and Elspeth’s future. And my rather delayed retirement. Giles, would you—’

But before Giles even had that satisfaction, of refusing to run to her bidding for the last time, one appalling last time, Elspeth stood up. Someone had to say something, she knew: and it should be Keir, he should have the grace, the good manners, the humility even. But he wasn’t going to. He was angry: very angry. And she knew exactly why.

‘Granny, I would like to thank you. Very, very much. Keir and I are both immensely grateful and immensely proud of the faith you’re putting in us. We’ll try very hard not to let you down, to earn that faith. And to wish you, of course, a very long and happy retirement. Will you all join me, please, in a toast?’

Venetia, watching everyone carefully, while helping Jay – not Giles, who sat slumped in misery – to serve the champagne, noticed two things. Two important things. That Keir had still not said a word, had not smiled, even. And that her mother’s face, when Elspeth wished her a long and happy retirement was, beneath the warm, dazzling smile, infinitely and dreadfully sad. And the expression in her dark eyes, looking round the boardroom for what she had promised to be the last time, was oddly fearful.

CHAPTER 38

It was a dreadful loss to the office. Lytton House seemed sadly changed, less vibrant, without Celia – improperly dressed, as Keir put it. Jay had laughed, but it was true. Celia had lent not only her brilliant mind, her history, her unequalled associations with the industry to Lytton House, she had given it glamour. For weeks, they expected her to return, to hear her voice calling imperiously from her office, to see her tall figure, her still-lovely legs walking down the corridors, to look up and see her standing in front of their desks, with yet another idea, observation, suggestion, criticism. But it did not happen. And day by day they missed her not less, but more.

They speculated endlessly as to the reason for her departure: that Lord Arden might have finally put his long-suffering foot down, that she was weary of it all, that she was afraid of losing her edge, of not contributing as she should, that at last she had decided to make room for other things in her life. The arguments she had expressed, entirely reasonable and logical coming from anyone else, were simply unacceptable coming from her. The debate went on and endlessly on, not only in the office, but in restaurants, over dinner tables, in the boardrooms of other publishing houses.

It seemed astonishing afterwards, when they all knew, that no one had guessed the real reason.

Sebastian had known: from the very beginning. She had gone to see him, the day after she had seen the consultant, on the anniversary of Barty’s death – and how appropriate that was, he thought. She had walked into his study, looking very pale, and stood in front of his desk. He looked up at her and smiled.

‘Hallo, my darling. I wasn’t expecting you today. You look tired.’

‘Sebastian,’ she said with a sigh, ‘you should have learned by this time in your life that there is nothing more depressing for a woman than to hear that she looks tired. It’s worse than being told she looks a fright. One can do something about that.’

‘All right. You look a fright.’

‘I know I do,’ said Celia. She sat down. ‘Hold my hand, Sebastian. I’ve had a bit of bad news.’

And Lord Arden knew; she told him as well, in her new affection and gratitude to him, told him what was happening to her, her tone very matter-of-fact.

‘Sorry,’ she said when she had finished, ‘I’m going to be a bit of a nuisance, I’m afraid.’

Lord Arden looked at her for a long time, his expression, as usual, good-natured, slightly impassive. Then it changed; his lip quivered just for a moment, and his blue eyes filled surprisingly with tears. And then he went over to her and took her hand, bent and kissed it.

‘Don’t you worry about that, my dear,’ he said, ‘you’re worth a bit of bother, I’d say. What do you want to do?’

‘Bunny, would you mind very much, if I moved permanently into Cheyne Walk?’

‘Of course I wouldn’t. You’ve never really settled here. Want me to come with you?’

She didn’t, of course; but in the most loving gesture of their entire marriage, she told him that she did.

Elspeth was having a hideous time; Keir had managed to remain silent until they reached home that day, and then he had rounded on her, savaged her, told her she must have known, that she and Celia had cooked it up between them, a clever ruse which would make it impossible for him to argue with her presence in the office, would force him to accept a proper role at Lyttons for her.

At first shocked, then angry, and finally deeply hurt, Elspeth stopped arguing with him, or trying to convince him. Nothing would persuade him otherwise, he said, he was sickened by the manipulativeness of it, by such a conspiracy against him and his beliefs. He could not live and work within such an open flouting of what was, to him, a deeply important principle of their marriage.

At first she had thought he would get over it, would come to terms with it; but as the days went by and became weeks and his anger remained, an anger against Celia as well as herself, she began to despair. She would not, indeed she could not, give in; it was unthinkable. Her pride and delight in her grandmother’s gift was boundless. She felt capable of anything; her brain soared, teemed with ideas, she had a fierce new energy, a permanent sense of excitement. Rejecting the shares was simply not an option; and she saw Keir’s hostility as a rejection of herself.

She offered him compromises (while wondering why she should): to wait until Robert was a little older, or to work a three- or four-day week until both children were at school, but he was adamant. Either she refused to accept her shares, her place on the board, continue as she had been, working from home as an editor, or he would leave Lyttons himself.

‘Our marriage should come first,’ he said, at the end of one particularly vicious row, ‘and it clearly doesn’t, as far as you are concerned. You may pursue your own ambitions, nurture your own appalling ego at the expense of your family if you wish. I will not be around to see it. Please make your choice. I will not be forced into compromising my principles, Elspeth, and that is all I have to say.’

Elspeth talked to Marcus about it; he said all the right things, of course, that Keir had no right to subject her to such emotional blackmail, that he was living in the past, that he could not deny her her rightful place at Lyttons, that he was dreadfully wrong to try to suppress her talents.

‘But Marcus,’ she said, loyalty to Keir rising rather surprisingly to the surface, ‘you told me yourself that it was your career that broke up your own marriage. Don’t you regret that?’

‘I regret that my marriage is over,’ he said, ‘of course. But I couldn’t have given up my career for it. I just couldn’t. It would have been a betrayal of myself. And I think it would be the same for you.’

She found it quite sobering that he should speak in the same language as she had used to herself. It made her more thoughtful still about their relationship.

Celia was deeply distressed; that a gesture which she had genuinely thought would lead Elspeth and Keir out of the quagmire they had worked themselves into, should have proved so misguided. She tried to talk to Keir, but he refused to listen. He saw her as the chief architect of his misery, as much to blame as Elspeth; between them they had humiliated and diminished him, and it was not, he said, to be borne.

‘I just don’t know what to do,’ Elspeth said, visiting her grandmother one morning in Cheyne Walk. ‘I really think he means it, he’s not going to give in.’

‘And – are you?’

Elspeth looked at her. ‘Of course not. How could I? You want me to have your shares, and I’m going to have them. It’s a great honour and it’s exactly what I most want in the world. This is about me, Granny, as much as the shares, it means the person I am is not the person Keir wants me to be. I think that’s very serious. Ending my marriage suddenly seems the better option. No, I’m not going to give in.’

‘Oh Elspeth,’ Celia sighed. ‘I really thought it was going to solve your problem. I thought it was such a clever idea. Poor Keir. He must be very unhappy.’

‘I can’t think why,’ said Elspeth crossly.

‘Darling, of course he’s unhappy. No one behaves like that if they’re feeling positive, and sure of themselves. Your grandfather was just the same. Absolutely impossible whenever he felt threatened.’

She looked steadily at Elspeth. ‘You don’t think – you don’t think he’s guessed? Or even found out for sure?’

‘Guessed what?’ said Elspeth quickly.

‘Darling, I’m not a complete fool. And neither is Keir.’

Elspeth met her grandmother’s eyes. She blushed.

‘Are you terribly shocked?’

‘Of course not. Just the same, I think you would be very wise to finish it.’

‘Do you really? But Granny, Marcus understands me, he knows what I’m about, he values me, the real me. And you know why it started, because of exactly what I just said, because Keir doesn’t. He wants someone who doesn’t even exist. God knows why he thought I was that person.’

‘I expect because he loved you.’

‘But I’ve just told you, he doesn’t love me. Not the real me. And he’s been vile to me for so long, I can’t even remember what it was like when he was nice.’

‘I know all that. But he senses he’s losing you. And he’s very frightened. It’s making his behaviour worse.’ She stopped, looked intently at Elspeth. ‘Do you love Marcus?’

The question took her absolutely by surprise, forced the truth out of her.

‘No,’ she said, ‘no I don’t. He’s charming and thoughtful and funny and I do find him terribly attractive and – well, like I said, he knows and appreciates who I really am . . . But I don’t love him, no. And he doesn’t love me, either. I – I suppose I love Keir. I can’t think why, but I do.’

‘In that case, Elspeth, finish it. It may be a very glamorous and exciting affair, but it simply isn’t worth it.’

Elspeth got up and walked over to the window, looked across at the river. ‘May I ask you something?’ she said. ‘Something – very private? I so need to know.’

‘You may.’

‘Did Grandpa love the – the real you?’

‘I suppose he must have done,’ said Celia, and she smiled at Elspeth. ‘Although the real me drove him almost mad. But I think he was more sure of himself than Keir. Keir clearly feels very beleaguered. Beleaguered by Lyttons.’ She hesitated then said, ‘You know, I did think of leaving my shares entirely to him. For that very reason.’

Elspeth stared at her. ‘To Keir? Really? That would have made Giles cross! And Mummy.’

‘Would it have made you cross?’

‘No,’ she said slowly. ‘No, I don’t think it would. I think I’d have been very pleased.’ She smiled at her grandmother. ‘I really must love him, mustn’t I?’

‘You must.’ Celia kissed her. ‘You’ll do the right thing, Elspeth. You’re my granddaughter, and more like me than any of them. Now, if you will excuse me, I must go upstairs and have a little rest before luncheon.’ Elspeth was too involved in her own problems to find this remark odd.

Feeling more than slightly guilty, Izzie went to see a specialist in New York. Mary Desmond was not only a highly successful and brilliant gynaecologist and obstetrician, but she was also deeply involved in research into the new birth control pill and had done some very interesting trials on it.

She was impatient for its launch; mainly because it would bring an end to the dreadful agonies and scars, both physical and psychological, which thousands of young women like Isabella Brooke had had to endure.

She was particularly moved by Izzie in her anguish; she looked so young, little more than a child, with her long golden-brown hair and her pale face with its huge brown eyes. It was hard to believe she was twenty-nine.

She had listened to her carefully, to her fears about why she had not conceived, and asked her how long she had been working on it, as she put it, examined her, and then met Izzie’s eyes very directly and said, ‘I can’t find any immediate reason why you should not conceive. Of course there are investigations we can make, but it seems a little early. I promise you, Miss Brooke, there is no real reason your abortion should have affected your fertility. You say there was no serious infection at the time, as far as you know – and I do assure you, you would have known about it – and therefore you have probably avoided the real danger.’

‘How?’ said Izzie, ‘I mean, what would that have done?’

‘Well, it could – only could, mind you – have blocked your fallopian tubes. There are three things you need in order to conceive: eggs, healthy sperm and unblocked tubes. I have no way of knowing how healthy your boyfriend’s sperm is,’ – her eyes twinkled at Izzie – ‘but we can try to establish whether or not you are ovulating properly. What I want you to do is make a BTC for me.’

‘What’s that?’

‘Sorry. We medics always forget we speak a different language. A basal temperature chart. I want you to take your temperature every single day. The temperature dips just before ovulation. It’s surprisingly reliable. I presume you don’t have any pain or discomfort around the middle of your cycle?’

‘Not that I’ve noticed. Is that – ’ she hesitated ‘ – is that a bad thing?’

‘Of course not. It’s just that some people do and it’s an easier way of knowing that you’re ovulating. Now, provided that’s happening, and there really is no reason to think it isn’t, that would be reassuring. We can also check your tubes, just to make sure they’re not blocked. However, it isn’t entirely pleasant, and it’s usually done under anaesthetic. We can do it two ways, either with gas, which we blow through your uterus and thence up into the fallopian tubes – we can hear it, believe it or not – or we can do it with dye, inject it into your womb and then do an X-ray. It’s called a tubal insufflation. But I wouldn’t recommend it yet. It’s far too early. Let’s see how you’re doing with the ovulation.’

‘And what about my cervix? Might that have been damaged?’

‘I certainly couldn’t see any evidence of it.’

‘But if it is—’

‘Well, if it is, and as I say, I don’t think it is, it might have become what we call incompetent. Which would mean there was a risk of miscarriage in the second trimester. At about fifteen or sixteen weeks. If that did happen then we could put a stitch in the cervix so that it wouldn’t happen again.’

Izzie stared at her in horror, envisaging the longed-for baby lost again.

‘Couldn’t we do it anyway?’

‘No. It’s not done as a preventative device. There are risks attached, as with all medical procedures. But it would be there, as a second string. Literally,’ she added, with her wide, warming smile. ‘You do know, don’t you,’ she added, ‘the best way of getting pregnant?’

‘No,’ said Izzie hopefully. Maybe she was going to say that you had to make love lying on your side, or under the kitchen table, or when the moon was full, something simple like that.

‘Have lots and lots of sex and just enjoy it. Especially when you’re ovulating, of course, but at other times as well. Mother Nature can be surprisingly perverse. Most infertility is the result of infrequent intercourse. Did you know that?’