Into Temptation (Spoils of Time 03) (83 page)

Adele had been crying; she led Venetia upstairs and into her bedroom, shut the door.

‘Look at these. I found them in the cellar. In an old wall safe. They’re Mummy’s diaries.’

‘Diaries! I didn’t know she kept diaries.’

‘Well, she did. And they’re – oh Venetia. They’re so – so dreadful to read.’

‘Why dreadful?’

‘You’ll see. I mean it’s strange, reading them, anyway. It’s like getting part of her back. You can hear her voice, and of course some things are happy, but some – well, come here, sit down, look, this is for 1909. You wouldn’t believe the things that are in it, I’ve marked the place, it’s so sad. And so – so shocking. And then this one is—’

‘Look,’ said Venetia firmly, ‘go and fetch us a cup of tea. I’ll read this one and then I’ll at least know what you’re talking about. Don’t cry, Dell darling, it can’t be that bad.’

But when Adele got back, Venetia’s own eyes were huge with shock, and wet with tears. She held out her arms to Adele, put them round her.

‘Oh Dell. I see what you mean. How awful it must have been. She was so young, when you think about it. And – writing it down. How could she do that, risk anything so dangerous?’

‘Well,’ said Adele, blowing her nose, wiping her eyes on the back of her hand, ‘you know Mummy, never frightened of anything, if she thought it was right. But, yes. Anyone could have found it, anyone.’

‘Although not down there.’

‘Oh, I don’t think it’s been down there that long,’ said Adele. ‘If you ask me, it’s a new hiding place. It was quite clean inside the little safe, it was behind the old dolls’ house, you know, and the diaries weren’t dusty. I bet there are lots more. But – where, Venetia? Where are they?’

‘God knows. Maybe she destroyed them. Oh, Dell, look at this. The very last entry.’

‘I hadn’t got that far.’ Adele looked. Looked through more tears:

If this is the end, rushing at me, then so be it. I would almost prefer it that way; I hate the alternative. I said goodbye to my darling this afternoon; just in case. He gave me great courage: as always. No one else knows yet. Except Bunny, of course. He’s been very sweet. I should have been nicer to him. I should have been nicer to everyone. My only regret, I think
. . .

The twins sat there, crying, reading the fragments of a great love story: and learning things about their mother they would never have believed in a thousand years.

CHAPTER 45

Secrets have a chameleon-like quality: changing in form and character as they move from place to place, from person to person. Thus an exquisite love story becomes a torrid affair; an act of mercy becomes a crime; innocent love becomes incest, fidelity fraud, generosity fecklessness, discretion cowardice.

Useless for the first informant to say no, no, you don’t understand, it wasn’t like that. The secret, once released, runs out of control, gains a life of its own, travels faster and faster, taking on ever more dangerous forms, becoming ever more unrecognisable . . .

All these things Giles Lytton knew, almost without realising it; and his painstaking protection of Celia Lytton’s diaries, his infinite discretion, his agonised caution, were justified within just a very few hours, as the secret was ripped out of his careful hands and thrown recklessly away.

The twins telephoned Sebastian, thinking that, as the great repository of Celia’s secrets, he must know, might have the missing diaries himself; he sighed and said yes, of course he had known: ‘I never read them, of course, she never let me – apart from the ones you’ve got there. She showed me those, that last day – ’ His voice shook, there was a pause. ‘And I warned her it was dangerous, writing everything down. But it was a sort of addiction. She did it every night, said she couldn’t sleep until she had.’

‘So Daddy must have known?’

‘Oh yes, she said he worried about them even more than I did, although I don’t think he realised how – how detailed they were. How did you find them?’

‘Dell was in the cellar, helping Jamie get out some wine. He wanted to see the dolls’ house. It was an amazing chance. I suppose she put them there.’

‘No,’ he said, ‘I did.’

He had been to see her the day before she went into hospital; ‘I think she knew it might be – final. And she was worried about a few things. A bit feverish, quite unlike herself. Worried about Clemmie’s baby, made me promise to see she had it in the London Clinic, with her gynaecologist, not in what she called some dreadful public hospital. I said I would. As if anyone could tell that girl what to do. Worried about Jenna, too, said she didn’t trust Charlie, that I was to keep an eye on things there.’

‘Not surprised,’ said Venetia.

‘You’re all so horrid about Charlie,’ said Adele, ‘anyone can see how much he loves Jenna and she him, for that matter.’

‘Maybe. Anyway, she was also terribly worried about Elspeth and young Keir, that they were going to break up. Said she’d made things worse, and wanted to say she was sorry to him. And she gave me a message to deliver to him in – well, in case.’

‘Did you tell him that?’ asked Venetia.

‘I tried. But not until he’d left Lyttons and Elspeth, and he was being so bloody awkward. He was really quite rude to me on the phone. I thought he could stew in his own juice. Maybe I should have persevered. Oh dear – ’ he looked distressed.

‘Don’t worry about him,’ said Venetia. ‘He’s well able to take care of himself.’

‘I think so. And then, she was worried about the diaries. Not most of them, just these three volumes. Well you can see why, I suppose, only it’s so long ago – as I say, she was feverish, and upset – anyway, she’d brought them from the office and she gave them to me, told me to put them in that safe down in the cellar. She said she’d have done it herself, only she didn’t have the strength to move the dolls’ house. I said why couldn’t I destroy them, but she said no, no one would ever find them there. God knows how you two did, you really are clever girls. She was thinking of turning the whole lot into a book, radically edited of course, but she thought those two would be just too dangerous in the wrong hands. Fortunately, they’re still in the right ones.’

‘Yes,’ said Adele, smoothing the leather with her hands. ‘It’s what I shall do in my twilight years, Sebastian,’ she said, ‘or twilight months, anyway. It’ll be a lovely project and you can help me.’

‘Just a minute,’ said Venetia, ‘did you say they were in the office?’

‘Yes, in that safe in her room. You know, the one she kept all the manuscripts in and a few old contracts.’

‘And – nobody knew?’

‘No. No, I’m certain. I never told anyone, and she certainly didn’t.’

‘Now hang on,’ said Venetia, ‘Giles said he’d cleared out that safe. The day he found her marriage certificate to Bunny. So – my God. The bastard. The bastard—’

Giles was making notes for a speech he was going to make when he looked up and saw the twins. They were so clearly extremely angry that he actually shrank back in his chair, every bit as afraid of the pair of them as he had been as a small boy, confronted by a threat to tell their mother something wrong that he had done, or even a joint beating up, which could be quite painful, four wiry little arms, four tough little feet, two sets of sharp little teeth.

‘Where are the diaries?’ said Venetia.

‘Why didn’t you tell us?’ said Adele.

‘What’s in them?’

‘Who else knows about them?’

‘What gives you the right to decide what to do about them?’

‘Have you told anyone?’

‘What about Kit?’

On and on it went, fierce, ferocious questioning, their voices rising, identically querulous, their eyes brilliant, identically angry.

‘Oh stop it,’ he said wearily, ‘just stop it, please.’

‘Why should we?’ said Adele.

‘Why can’t you answer us?’ said Venetia.

‘Because you won’t bloody well let me.’

‘We’re letting you now.’

He was silent for a moment, just looking at them; then he sighed and said, ‘I’m sorry. Very sorry. I just didn’t know what to do.’

‘Oh really? And why didn’t you ask us?’

‘Because I was so worried. Afraid of what would happen, if word got out.’

‘Oh, that’s charming,’ said Adele.

‘Really touching,’ said Venetia.

‘I mean we’d have sold them to the highest bidder wouldn’t we, Venetia?’

‘Of course. Is that what you were afraid of, Giles, us telling someone, talking to the press?’

‘No,’ he said wretchedly, ‘no, of course not. But they are – highly inflammatory.’

‘Well, we can see that. Although we’ve only read three.’

He looked at them. ‘Three?’

‘Yes, the unfinished one, just before she died, 1919, and, oh, Giles. The year she – well, the year Barty’s mother had that baby.’

‘What baby?’

‘Oh God,’ Venetia sat down suddenly. ‘You haven’t seen that one, have you?’

‘No. How could I? It was missing.’

The twins looked at each other.

‘Look,’ said Adele, after a moment, ‘I have guests arriving in an hour. I must go home.’

‘Does anyone else know?’

‘Sebastian. But he knew anyway. And Jamie.’

‘Jamie Elliott?’

‘Yes.’

‘Oh Christ. Why tell him? This is exactly why—’

‘Do shut up, Giles,’ said Adele, ‘he was with me when I found them. He only knows they’re diaries, not what’s in them. Don’t worry.’ She started to walk out of the door, then turned and said, with a smile on her lips, ‘I’ll tell you what I am going to find difficult this evening. Looking at the saintly Felicity Brewer in quite the same way.’

‘Why?’ said Giles.

‘She and Daddy had an affair. Mummy found out. Now at least we know why she was always so frosty about her.’

‘Oh God,’ said Giles, ‘this is getting worse and worse.’

‘Not at all,’ said Venetia. ‘Don’t you think he deserved it?’

‘You look gorgeous,’ said Marcus Forrest. ‘Absolutely gorgeous.’

Elspeth smiled at him.

‘Bit better than earlier.’

‘No, just different.’

He looked different too: more relaxed. She supposed he’d got used to the idea.

‘I should hope so. A small fortune’s difference. Spent at Monsieur Rene’s in South Audley Street.’

‘And what does he do? Nothing too French, I hope.’

She always forgot how he made her laugh.

‘Depends what you mean by French. He does my hair.’

‘That’s allowed. And – ’ he leaned forward and kissed her cheek – ‘not Number Five?’

‘No,’ she said, ‘I didn’t think it was appropriate.’

‘Elspeth! Why not?’

‘Things have changed, Marcus, haven’t they? It’s not quite the same as it was.’

‘I – suppose not.’ He hesitated. ‘It’s a little early, I suppose, to ask you if you have any plans?’

‘Very early. I have no idea.’

‘Well, that’s natural. You must be feeling very confused.’

‘I am. Yes.’

‘I was wondering if you were going to proceed with a divorce.’

Obviously still worried he was going to be cited.

‘I – don’t know. I don’t think I have any grounds, actually.’

‘But—’ he stopped. Keir had grounds; that was clearly what he had been going to say. She wasn’t going to let him get away with that.

‘But of course Keir does.’

‘I – suppose so, yes.’

There was a silence. He was looking very uncomfortable again.

‘I’m so sorry,’ he said, ‘so very sorry. For my part in it. I feel very guilty. I really do.’

Well, that was something.

‘Thank you,’ she said, ‘I don’t think you need to, though. Feel guilty, I mean.’

‘You don’t?’ The relief on his face was almost funny.

‘No. I don’t. I don’t think it would have happened if I’d been happier.’

That hurt his vanity, if nothing else.

‘It can’t have helped,’ he said, ‘and I wish you’d told me before. I hate to think of you going through it all on your own.’

‘And what would you have done, Marcus?’ she said for the second time that day. She couldn’t resist it. ‘Got on a plane, come over to comfort me?’

‘Possibly.’

He smiled at her rather awkwardly. He was clearly finding her mood difficult to read. She decided to put him out of his misery. It had served its purpose.

‘No, honestly, Marcus, I really don’t think you should blame yourself. I was miserable, everything was going wrong, you were a lovely diversion.’

‘Yes,’ he said, ‘yes, I see.’

Relief was struggling now with hurt pride; it was quite funny, really. One minute he’d been afraid she’d land him in court, or turn up on his doorstep with her two children, the next he was upset because she obviously would do neither.

It was a shame, really; it would have cheered her up, to continue their affair. But she just didn’t want to. She suddenly saw Marcus quite clearly; he lacked reality. He was a very good actor playing a smooth, well-dressed charmer. A self-absorbed charmer, watching himself carefully all the time. Making sure he did everything right: he even made love as if he had had lessons. Oh, he did it very well, no doubt about it, carefully, considerately, asking her if she liked what he was doing.

When Keir had made love to her, he just – well – just loved her. It was something they had shared so passionately and so all-consumingly that it would never have occurred to either of them that it might not be what the other wanted.

But – Keir was gone. He had left her and her life. He was harsh, critical, hostile, and arrogant. He had taken what she and her family had given him and thrown it back at them, deliberately and without a gracious word; what place could he have in her life now? God, she was a mess; God, she was lonely.

But at least she knew about Marcus. She kissed him on the cheek.

‘I’ve got to go now. I’m so sorry. I’ll see you tomorrow. And thank you for tea.’

Her message, she knew, was perfectly clear.

‘Mr Patterson is being very patient, wouldn’t you say?’ said Jamie to Kyle. They were sitting in the lounge at Claridges, having tea.

‘Very,’ said Kyle.

‘I think the information should turn up quite soon now, don’t you?’

‘Oh I should think so. Quite soon.’

‘Perhaps while we’re here even.’

‘Perhaps.’

‘It would be a nightmare if—’

‘God yes. Absolute nightmare.’

They sat there, contemplating a future where Charlie Patterson had control of Jenna’s vast fortune. It was indeed a nightmare.

Lucas had planned to go away for a long weekend the day after the service; to stay with friends in the country, with a very pretty girl called Florence who had been in his tutor group. After all, he was about to be locked up in barracks for weeks at a time. But – now he felt he might stay at home. His mother seemed a bit over-excited. His older sister was leaving early the following day, for a modelling assignment in Milan, his small sister was always overjoyed to have him at home; and while he wasn’t exactly enjoying the great influx of Lyttons, he found some of them, and particularly the Americans, interesting. That old girl Lily, once a Gaiety Girl as far as he could make out, was wonderful, he could have talked to her for hours, and he really liked Jamie Elliott and Kyle Brewer. He was of half a mind to try to spend some time in New York. He might even chat up that guy Marcus Forrest who everyone was so rude about. He seemed OK to Lucas.

And then there was Jenna; he was greatly intrigued by Jenna. Not just by her beauty, and the vibrant sexuality of which she was quite unaware – unlike her horror of a stepsister – not even by her obvious interest in him, but by her courage and her self-assurance. Not many girls her age would even contemplate standing up to speak in a vast church filled with famous and distinguished people; Jenna was, although terrified, as she told him cheerfully, facing her ordeal with great fortitude.