Into Temptation (Spoils of Time 03) (24 page)

‘I really long to see that place again,’ said Sebastian the night before they left, ‘it took hold of my heart.’

‘It certainly has a hold of mine,’ said Barty, ‘it’s so very precious to me. Oh Sebastian, it’s lovely to have you all here. I’ve so enjoyed having Izzie, and when Geordie arrives it really will feel like being at home.’ They were alone, that evening. Izzie had taken Kit out to dinner with the boys to a restaurant in Greenwich Village.

‘Yes. Poor Adele, she’s having a rough time. Celia is quite worried about her, thinks she’s heading for some kind of breakdown and she certainly looks dreadful. I could kill that boy for doing this to them, but as Celia says, they both have right on their side. And you know, I never quite – ’ He stopped.

‘Never quite what?’

‘Oh – I don’t know. I was going to say never quite trusted Geordie.’

‘Sebastian, that’s a dreadful thing to say. Everyone loves Geordie, he’s so charming and sweet and—’

‘Oh I know all that. Of course he’s charming and sweet. But I did always feel exactly that, that he was a touch lightweight, not up to it when – if – the test really came.’

‘I think you’re wrong,’ said Barty stoutly, ‘he put up with Lucas for ages.’

‘He did. But then he didn’t use much subtlety. It was as if he was tired of that game and wanted a new one. Demanding that Lucas was sent away, refusing to consider any alternative when it was so clearly a disaster – I felt it rather suited him to be a martyr. He does like to star in a drama, our Geordie, if you ask me.’

‘Well I feel very sorry for him. And for Adele. For all of them, actually. It reminds me of Laurence and his situation as a child, you know. I do understand how hard Lucas must find it.’

‘Precisely my point. Maybe you should have talked to the wretched boy. Celia says his behaviour is definitely improving, but then Geordie has gone.’

‘Give it time. Things may improve. Now Sebastian, I seem to be hearing a lot about Celia,’ said Barty, her eyes dancing suddenly. ‘I understand there’s been a rapprochement.’

He glowered at her, suddenly his old self.

‘Yes, well, there was a certain amount of misunderstanding. We’ve addressed that. And it’s very nice to have her – friendship again.’

‘It must be.’ She gave him a quick kiss. ‘I’m so glad. And so is Izzie.’

‘How is she? She seems happy.’

‘She’s wonderfully happy. She likes her job, she loves being here, she’s made some friends, and we all get on so very well. Jenna adores her.’

‘Where is Jenna this evening? It seems very quiet.’

‘It is. She’s out with her friend Cathy. Who you will met, she’s coming to Southampton with us. She comes nearly everywhere with us,’ Barty sighed.

‘Don’t you like her?’

‘Oh, she’s all right. She keeps Jenna happy. It’s always a worry with an only child, you know.’

‘I never worried about Isabella.’

‘I don’t suppose you did. Poor child. Only teasing, Sebastian, don’t look at me like that. Anyway, her father is bringing her over tomorrow, before we go. It’s a school holiday and—’

‘Her father?’

‘Yes. He’s a widower.’

‘Nice chap?’

‘Very nice,’ said Barty quickly. She avoided Sebastian’s eye.

‘Barty. I sense something – interesting here.’

‘Oh – not really. Goodness, he’s—’ she smiled at him quickly then saw his eyes probing hers and said, ‘No, actually, Sebastian, you’re right. And I’m very glad you’re going to meet Charlie. I’d so like your opinion of him.
In loco parentis
, so to speak.’

‘Heavens Barty. Sounds very serious.’

‘It is – a bit. He’s – well, he’s asked me to marry him.’

She still couldn’t quite believe it herself. It had been a shock so profound that she was still shaking the following morning. And she wasn’t at all sure how they had arrived there. Via bed, of course; and why had she allowed that, she wondered, cursing herself for what seemed, with hindsight, infinite foolishness. And yet – also with hindsight – she couldn’t pretend it hadn’t been extremely good. Really extremely good. Not wonderful, of course, but then she had not expected that. Wonderful sex belonged in another life, another country, with Laurence; Nothing could touch that, nothing reach it; it was hers, and it had given her happiness, wonder, absolute fulfilment – and Jenna.

But now, twelve years later, she was lonely; getting to know Charlie had made her realise that, had reminded her of how many evenings she had sat alone, unable to discuss work, problems, anxieties, joys; and failures, successes, plans, hopes. How many nights she had lain alone in the great bed at South Lodge – and in her smaller one in Manhattan – feeling isolated, uncared for, growing older, all alone. How many days and weeks and years she had spent, just with Jenna, loving her, wondering at her, watching her – and watching her grow up. How many years she saw ahead of her, with Jenna gone, herself quite alone.

She had been quite unprepared for it, for her desire to go to bed with Charlie. They had been out to dinner; Cathy was staying at the Manhattan house, they were leaving for Southampton in the morning; the girls were both asleep when they let themselves in. Maria too had gone to bed; the house was quiet. Dangerously, awkwardly quiet.

‘Do you want a nightcap before you go?’ she said.

‘That’d be nice.’

‘Bourbon?’ It was his favourite.

‘Yes. I’ll get it. I know where it is.’

‘All right. I’ll be in the den.’

She put the radiogram on, kicked off her shoes, settled on the couch. He came in with the bourbon and two glasses.

‘That’s nice.’

‘Isn’t it? Haydn.’

‘I didn’t mean that. I meant you. So relaxed.’

‘Aren’t I usually relaxed?’

‘No,’ he said very seriously. ‘No, you’re not. You’re always just a touch edgy around me.’

‘Well I can’t think why,’ she said with a quick laugh. ‘You don’t make me feel edgy, Charlie—’

‘I think I do,’ he said, handing her a glass, sitting beside her, giving her a quick kiss, ‘and I think I know why, too.’

‘Oh really?’

‘Yes. It’s because of Laurence. All those memories getting churned up, you fighting them off, hating me for disturbing them . . .’

He was right, she realised, as always he had read her perfectly. She was just drunk enough to tell him so.

‘From that very first time at South Lodge, when you understood about – well, how I felt about you being there, you seem to know me. Really know me.’

‘And do you think you know me?’

‘Actually, no,’ she said, sitting back, looking at him carefully. ‘I really don’t think I know you at all. Well, not in the same way. You’re a bit of a dark horse, Charlie Patterson.’

‘Really?’ he said, and his eyes behind their spectacles were pained. ‘I try not to be. I’m a very simple sort of guy really. Most of the time I just tick over, doing my best for Cathy, trying to do my job . . .’

He was silent; then he suddenly said, into the near-darkness, into the music, ‘So you couldn’t have known I’d fallen in love with you, then?’

‘No,’ she said, genuinely astonished – although afterwards, the next day, she realised that she must have known, at least suspected, but had crushed it, like every other emotion. ‘No, Charlie, I couldn’t have known.’

‘Well,’ he said, sitting apart from her now, his face heavy, avoiding her eyes, ‘well I have. I didn’t want to, it was too difficult, impossible even—’

‘Why impossible?’ she asked, genuinely surprised.

‘Barty! You can’t be that stupid. You really cannot.’

‘I’m sorry, Charlie, but I obviously am. You’d better explain.’

‘You’re a very rich, very powerful woman. You might live behind this façade of being just Jenna’s mom, and a single one at that, and caring for her and taking the girls for wonderful weekends and sailing and riding with them, but we both know that’s not the real you.’

‘Yes it is.’

‘No, Barty, it isn’t. You have an extraordinarily successful career; you’ve had what was clearly a wonderful marriage—’

‘Not all wonderful,’ she said soberly.

‘Well – extraordinary, anyway. Your life-story is exceptional. You own one of the most important publishing houses in both the United States and in London. You mix with the rich and famous. It’s just that to me – well, obviously, we see these things differently. As we both know. I worry about not having money, you seem to worry about having it.’

She looked at him; it was such a difficult area, this, and he was very proud. He never mentioned his own financial situation, except to tell her that Cathy’s grandmother paid her school fees; she had once offered, quite light-heartedly, to invest some money in his business and he had been really angry.

‘I would so absolutely hate that,’ he had said. ‘Please, please don’t mention anything of that sort ever again. The balance of our relationship is difficult enough as it is.’

‘I don’t see why.’

‘Well you should,’ he had said, sounding almost truculent, and the evening had ended early and uncomfortably. It was the first and last time money had been mentioned. Until now.

‘And then,’ he said, ‘your family background is also powerful and moneyed—’

‘I’ve told you, Charlie, it’s neither.’

‘Yes, yes,’ he said impatiently, ‘I know all about the poverty and the slums. The fact is that from the age of two, or whatever you were when Lady Celia took you home, you grew up amidst fabulous wealth. I’m afraid it won’t wash, the other story, Barty. And how can I compete with all that?’

He looked so genuinely wretched, so nervous that she was quite shocked. And suddenly she saw herself through his eyes, as a rich and very spoilt woman, wielding considerable power, both domestically and professionally, a woman not unlike Celia, in fact; she had become exactly the person she would once have wanted not to be, and so shocked was she by this perception of herself, that her eyes filled with tears.

‘Hey,’ he said, putting his arms round her. ‘Hey, Barty, don’t do that. I didn’t mean to upset you, I was just—’

‘Charlie,’ she said interrupting him, and suddenly she was angry as well as sad, ‘Charlie, you have simply got to understand. I was born in a slum. Do you have any idea what that means? No, of course you don’t. It means a big family.

‘I was the fifth, you know, living in a basement room crawling with damp, half underground; it means four children having to sleep head to toe in a bed, babies, like me, having to sleep in a crate, toddlers – like me – being tied to a chair all day in case they hurt themselves crawling about.

‘It means women slaving all day and most of the night, on too little food because the children and the men must have it, it means washing hanging permanently across the room, it means your father coming home drunk and knocking your mother about. And then your mother knocking you about, because she’s too exhausted, too desperate, to cope any longer. It means babies not being wanted, being dreaded, it means – ’ she hesitated, then went on ‘ – it means babies being born malformed through malnutrition, and dying immediately, it means dreading infant deaths, not so much because of any sorrow, but because of paying for the funeral. It means no hope for the future, little education, no break in it anywhere.

‘And yes, I was taken away from all that, and do you know what that meant, Charlie? It meant that I was well-fed and well-clothed and educated, but it also meant I lost my family, everything I knew, it meant my brothers and sisters all rejected me, except for Billy. It meant I felt awkward and lonely, not sure who I was all the time I was growing up, condemned to permanent gratitude and a sense of inferiority. Now then, do you really think I have led a life of such privilege? That I am so removed from reality now that I am out of touch with ordinary people, with ordinary worries and concerns? Because if you do, then you do me a great injustice. Very great indeed.’

She was crying now, crying hard, all the old hurts crowding back in on her, adding to the new one of Charlie’s view of her. He sat in silence for a long time, staring at her; then he moved nearer to her, put his arms round her.

‘Of course not,’ he said. ‘Of course I don’t think that. I – I guess I just hadn’t realised quite how – how bad it was for you.’

‘Well then,’ she said, ‘now you do.’

‘Yes. Yes, I do. And I admire you more than ever. What you’ve done, what you’ve achieved. It can’t have come easy.’

‘No,’ she said, sniffing, ‘no it didn’t. That’s for sure. Not even Laurence and – and – ’ she waved her hand rather helplessly round the room ‘ – all this came easy. Rather the reverse. I didn’t want it, not really. I’m glad more of it didn’t come to me.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean that most of Laurence’s money went to his other children. In trust. What we – I – have is the tip of the iceberg.’

‘Some iceberg,’ he said quietly.

‘Yes, I know. But, well, he didn’t know about Jenna, she got nothing, of course. I got the houses and a few – well quite a lot of shares. It seemed enough somehow. It is enough. More than enough.’

‘You didn’t think of fighting for more? Not even for Jenna?’

‘Charlie! Whatever for?’

‘Well,’ he said, ‘because you should have it. That’s what for. It’s yours.’ He looked quite distressed; she was surprised.

‘Does that matter?’

‘I – don’t know,’ he said. And then, seeing her eyes on him, said quickly, ‘No. No, of course not. I guess you don’t exactly need it.’

‘Charlie,’ she said, ‘there’s something I want to say to you.’

‘Yes?’

‘I hope – well, I do very much hope – that you can see through it all. Can see me, the real me.’

‘Of course I can.’ He smiled at her suddenly. ‘It’s the real you, thatI – love. That’s what’s so special about you, that I can see through it. Am I really going to love some terrifying kind of tycoon? I’d give anything for you not to be that person. So that I could—’

‘You could what?’

There was a long silence; then he said, ‘So that I could feel you might – love me back.’

‘Oh Charlie. You haven’t been listening to me. I’m me, Barty Miller, I’m very uncomplicated really.’

‘And what does that mean? That you – do love me?’