Rivals (20 page)

    To Valerie's disapproval Cameron got out a cigarette. Picking up a pink candle, Rupert lit it for her.

    'You hunt with the same pack as Tony?' she asked.

    'Sometimes,' said Rupert softly. 'Sometimes after the same quarry.'

    Looking round at his suddenly predatory, unsmiling face, she felt a quivering between her legs. Christ, she wanted him.

    'D'you want a lift home?' he said.

    'No.' She could have wept. 'I brought my own car.'

    'The Lotus?' said Rupert.

    She nodded.

    'Nice Corinium perk,' said Rupert, instantly returning to his former flippant mood. 'I see James has finally got himself a Porsche. I'll have to get rid of mine.'

    'I don't know much about horses,' murmured Cameron, frantic to hold his attention, 'except my boss's wife looks like one.'

    'You won't oust her by bitching,' said Rupert. Then, aware that Tony had suddenly stopped talking to Sarah and they were both listening, he said, There are three things you need in a horse: balance, quality and courage. Same as a woman, really.'

    'I'd add intelligence," said Cameron.

    'I wouldn't.'

    'Don't you like achieving women?'

    'I don't like ballbreakers.'

    There was a chorus of oohs and aahs as Taggie came in with the moated ice cream castle. It was the last lap. Once she'd served this, and cleared away, she could relax. 'What d'you do at Corinium?' Rupert asked Cameron, as he idly watched Taggie moving round the table. She was bright pink in the face, her tongue clenched between her teeth in her efforts to hold the pudding steady. Any makeup had sweated off. Her dark hair was fighting the pins that held it up. But nothing could disguise the length of leg, or the long dark eyelashes, or the voluptuous swell of her breasts. She was going anti-clockwise again, but most people were too plastered to notice. 'I produce Declan,' said Cameron. 'Why don't you come on the programme?'

    'What?' said Rupert, dragging his thoughts back from Taggie.

    'Come on the programme. I'm sure you and Declan would strike sparks off each other.'

    'I don't want to,' said Rupert flatly. 'I don't need that kind of wank, and you'd never hear any chat above the rattle of skeletons tumbling out of cupboards.' Having just served Valerie, Taggie was moving slowly round towards him.

    'How d'you get on with Declan?' he asked Cameron wickedly.

    'Utterly obnoxious,' said Cameron. 'He really pisses me off.'

    Rupert watched Taggie to see if she'd rise.

    'Very pretty,' he said, examining the pudding. 'Feel I ought to get planning permission before I dig into this. Thanks, angel," he added, helping himself to a piece of battlement and a dollop of cream. Ignoring him, Taggie moved round to his other side to serve Cameron.

    'How on earth does Declan's wife put up with him?' asked Cameron.

    'You'd better ask Taggie,' said Rupert. 'Maud's her mother.'

    Cameron paled visibly. Noticing Taggie for the first time, she tried to remember what ghastly things she'd said about Declan. 'I'm sorry. I didn't realize.'

    In embarrassment she helped herself to too much pudding. The whole thing swayed. Rupert could smell Taggie's body, could feel how hot, and nervous and trembling she was. Her skirt was so short. Almost without thinking, he put a leisurely hand between her thighs. The next moment Taggie gave a shriek and dropped the very considerable remains of the pudding all over Cameron's seven-hundred-pound smoking jacket and black satin trousers. 'You stupid bitch,' screamed Cameron, forgetting herself. 'What the fuck d'you think you're doing?'

    In tears Taggie fled to the kitchen.

    Remembering one must behave with dignity at all times, Valerie swept an almost hysterical Cameron upstairs.

    Lizzie turned on Rupert: 'You bastard," she yelled. 'Don't you realize this was her first job? She's been trying to break into catering for months. She cooked like an angel and you had to fuck it up.' 'With looks like that,' said Rupert, retrieving pieces of broken plate from the floor, 'I wouldn't have thought a career was that important.' 'Don't be so fucking insensitive. Didn't you know poor darling Taggie's dyslexic? Can't you imagine how ghastly it is being the only unbright one in such a brilliant family?' 'Oh Christ,' said Rupert, truly appalled. 'I simply didn't know. It was entirely my fault, Freddie. I couldn't resist goosing your cook, but really you shouldn't have dressed her in such sexy clothes. I'd better go and apologize.' 'Leave her bloody alone,' said Lizzie, rushing out to the kitchen to comfort a sobbing Taggie, who was being ineffectually patted by a swaying Reg.

    'Go and get a cloth and a dustpan and brush, and clear up the mess," Lizzie told him, 'and give everyone another drink.' There there, duck.' She hugged Taggie.

    'I'm so sorry. I wanted everything to be perfect for Mrs Jones,' sobbed Taggie.

    'You mustn't worry. It was the most marvellous food anyone's had in years.' Lizzie pulled off a piece of kitchen roll to dry Taggie's eyes. 'Rupert's a bastard. He just can't resist a beautiful girl.' 'Cameron is changing into one of my ge-owns,' said Valerie, sweeping in.

    'I'm so sorry, Mrs Jones,' said Taggie in a choked voice.

    'I was just telling her how brilliantly she cooked,' said Lizzie.

    Valerie was livid. She'd been shown up as not doing the cooking at all.

    'Pull yourself together, Agatha,' she said sharply. 'Go and collect the rest of the plates, and see if Lord Baddingham and Miss Cook would like some fresh fruit, as they didn't get any dessert.' 'Cameron got her just dessert,' giggled Lizzie.

    'I can't go back in there,' said Taggie aghast.

    'You will,' said Valerie, 'if you want to work for me again.'

    In the dining-room James was furious with Lizzie for making such a fuss over Declan's idiot daughter, and Sarah was furious with Rupert for so openly groping Taggie. She'd tried to be laid back about her affair with him, but now all she could feel was a red-hot lava of jealousy pouring over her. Tony, on the other hand, was delighted by the turn of events. 'Child's clearly over-emotional and unbalanced like her father,' he kept saying. 'Bloody good cook,' said Freddie.

    And when Taggie, very tear-stained and head hanging, brought in a bowl of peaches and grapes, Monica leaned out and squeezed her hand. 'Delicious dinner, my dear. I've got a girl's lunch next week. Perhaps you'd like to help me out with that? Nothing elaborate, very cosy. I'll ring you tomorrow.' Gulping gratefully, Taggie said she'd love to.

    Attention was then taken off her by the return of Cameron, wearing one of Valerie's black ge-owns. It was perfectly frightful with a bow on the bum, and much too tight. 'I prefer you as a bloke,' said Rupert, wiping a blob of cream off her chair.

    'I'm desperately sorry,' mumbled Taggie, as she passed Cameron, 'I'll pay for it.'

    'You couldn't begin to,' hissed Cameron.

    'Don't be a bitch,' said Rupert sharply. Putting a hand on Taggie's arm, he said, 'I'm really sorry, angel, it was all my fault.' Taggie didn't say anything, but seemed to shrink away.

    James sidled up to Valerie.

    'One of my programmes is on in a minute. Would anyone mind if I slipped upstairs and watched it?'

    'Of course,' said Valerie. 'In fact I think, ladies, we'll all go upstairs.'

    Cameron got her own back by flatly refusing to go and staying to drink port with the men. Little good it did her. Tony got Freddie in a corner and persuaded him to have lunch immediately after Christmas to discuss his joining the Corinium Board, and, leaving Cameron with the frightful Paul, Rupert went off to the kitchen. Here he found Taggie loading the washing-up machine and making coffee. 'Go away!' she sobbed. 'You're the most m-m-m-malefic man I've ever met." "ere, 'ere,' groaned Reg from underneath the kitchen table.16

    The following Monday Declan stormed into Cameron's office without knocking. 'You were at Valerie Jones's dinner party.' 'Right,' said Cameron coolly. Inside she quailed, wondering if Taggie had told Declan how she'd screamed and sworn at her, and how earlier she'd bitched about Declan to Rupert. 'I gather Taggie tipped the pudding over you. I'm sorry,' said Declan. 'If you can't get the marks out, I'll be happy to refund you.' 'It was no big deal," said Cameron, absolutely weak with relief. 'I took them along to the cleaners on Saturday, they'll be just fine.' 'Then we'll pick up your cleaning bill.' 'Rupert can bloody well do that.'

    Declan's face hardened. 'The bastard -poor little Tag. She was distraught.'

    'She did really well,' protested Cameron, feeling she could afford to be generous. 'The food was terrific, and Monica asked her to do a lunch for her.' 'I know. Monica rang on Saturday. That cheered Taggie up.'

    'It was all Rupert's fault,' said Cameron, deciding to put the boot in.

    'Wait till I get my hands on the bastard.' 'Why don't I ask him on to your programme?' said Cameron idly. 'That'd be a much more subtle way of burying him.' Declan paused in his prowling and thought for a minute. It was violently against all his principles to ask someone deliberately on to the programme in order to do a hatchet job. 'He really screwed her up," insisted Cameron, who wanted an excuse to ring Rupert.

    'All right,' said Declan.

    Even Tony was temporarily roused out of his anti-Declan mood. 'Bloody good idea. If Declan does a Maurice Wooton on Rupert, I'll double his salary.' Cameron rang Rupert. 'I'm just checking out on your availability over the next few months.'

    'You should have come home with me on Friday,' said Rupert.

    Because he was horrendously busy and not given to introspection and would much rather spend any spare second in Gloucestershire on constituency work, or with his children or his horses, or in bed with Sarah Stratton, Rupert then told Cameron he had no intention of going on Declan's programme. Cameron played her trump card. 'I'll tell Declan you're too chicken.'

    That nettled Rupert: 'Don't be silly. All right, I'll think about it.'

    And with that Cameron had to be content.

    As Christmas approached Declan grew more depressed. He was totally disillusioned with Tony. He felt like a damsel in distress, who, having been rescued from the BBC by St George, had promptly been put on the game. Not a day passed without some loaded request to open Monica's Christmas Bazaar for the Distressed Gentlefolk, or draw the raffle at the NSPCC Ball (tickets seventy-five pounds each), or take part in Corinium's Pantomime to Help the Aged, or turn on the lights in Cotchester. Declan refused them all, which increased Tony's animosity and enabled James Vereker to step caringly into his shoes. The implication was the same: if you bothered to make use of our excellent research team,

    you could pull your weight as a member of the Corinium team.

    Sapped by endless rows. Declan was aware his programme was losing its edge. He was still very high in the ratings, but he knew people were beginning to turn on in the hope he'd be better this week.

    Desperate for some kind of intellectual satisfaction, he was getting up at five every day to spend three or four hours on his Yeats biography, but was too drained to make any real progress. He was also grimly aware that he wasn't paying enough attention to Maud. After a long bout of lethargy, excited about Caitlin and Patrick coming home for Christmas, she was having one of her spates of frantic energy, which invariably involved spending money. She came to the office Christmas party and charmed absolutely everyone.

    Patrick arrived the next day, walking through the door slightly drunk, with four suitcases of washing. 'Is this the Priory laundry?'

    'Why did you come by taxi?' asked Maud, flinging her arms round his neck.

    'Because I wrote off the Golf yesterday.' At that moment Caitlin rang from school. 'Patrick's home,' said Maud in ecstasy. 'Well he can come and collect me in the Golf, the Mini's too shaming.'

    Christmas Eve saw scenes of frantic revelry at Corinium. The whole building thrummed with lust. Seb Burrows from the. newsroom scaled the front of the building when drunk, and placed Charles Fairburn's Russian hat on one of the red horns of the Corinium ram. Another joker put rainbow condoms on the horns and tail of the bronze Corinium ram in the board room, just before Tony ushered in the local representative from the IBA for a Christmas drink. Secretaries with tinsel in their hair ran shrieking down the passage blowing squeakers. Just as James Vereker passed the board room door, carrying a pile of Christmas presents from caring fans out to his car, four shrieking secretaries converged on him and unzipped his flies. His trousers dropped, to reveal seasonal boxer shorts covered with Santas, just as Tony was ushering the IBA man out. Tony was absolutely livid, but not so livid as Cameron, who'd opted to work over Christmas for want of anything better to do, when she discovered Tony had dispatched Miss Madden to choose Christmas presents both for her and Monica.

    "I bought two diamond bracelets,' whispered Miss Madden conspiratorially. 'I thought you might like to choose first.'

    'I'll take the bigger one,' said Cameron grimly.

    James was even more annoyed to find that Declan had ten times more Christmas cards than he had, and that the Christmas tree in Reception completely obscured James's framed photograph. Declan's photograph had been deliberately left unhidden for all to admire.