Into Temptation (Spoils of Time 03) (67 page)

‘Harold Charteris suggests that we see these people ourselves, ICFC. Rather than rushing around talking to investors like—’

‘Yes, yes, like bulls in china shops. Of course. Good idea. Can you fix that, Mr Charteris?’

Harold Charteris said he could.

ICFC were unable to help.

‘They have a limited pot of cash, that’s the simplest way I can describe it,’ said Charteris, ‘and at the moment, it’s fully committed. However, all is not lost. They gave me the name of another outfit, more initials I’m afraid, Lady Celia, BISC, short for British Investors in Small Companies. Known in the trade, rather inevitably, as Biscuit. I’ve spoken to them, asked if they can help, and they were quite optimistic. The first thing they would want to do is send one of their researchers into the company, to see if we are the sort of outfit they would like to work with.’

‘What you mean is snooping around, watching us work,’ said Giles. ‘Good God. I don’t know that we’d like that very much, Mr Charteris.’

‘I’m afraid, as the saying goes, you’ll have to lump it, Mr Lytton. If you want to proceed with these people. I do assure you it’s entirely standard. And then we need to have ready what amounts to a portfolio on the company: cash flow details, accounts for at least the past five years, list of assets, work in progress, all that sort of thing. We should get to work on that straight away. Time is running out on us. Only about three months left.’

Giles sighed. This was obviously going to be very hard work. His depression had not eased; he still felt literally heartsore. The only thing boosting his morale was the incredible success of
Deer Mountain
, as they had decided to call
Deer Diary
.

The book had proved, against all the odds, to be a huge success; the initial print order of twenty thousand had moved up to thirty, then fifty and finally, by late-November, an unthinkable seventy. It was clearly going to be the hit book of that Christmas; people literally stood in queues for it, put their names down for more copies. Venetia had launched a highly successful promotion, selling limited-edition prints of the illustrations with the book; a jewellery company had even suggested a
Deer Mountain
charm to go on charm bracelets. That had been too much for Giles.

‘We’re a publishing company,’ he had said to Venetia, ‘we’re not in the novelty business.’

She had been very cross.

And now there was a children’s version planned for the following year, and a possible sequel the year after that; the family had completely stopped sniggering about it. Even Marcus Forrest was impressed . . .

Izzie had spent a lot of time telling herself there was nothing to worry about. They weren’t even trying to have a baby, for heaven’s sake. It would have been a terrible idea, they were so busy building up Neill & Parker, they worked night and day, and they’d got the most wonderfully exciting new account, a small publishing company called McGowan Benchley.

They were the perfect client, young, innovative, and fun. As Mike put it, they had balls. They were staking everything on their launch; Bruce McGowan had remortgaged his house, and Johnny Benchley had sold his beloved Cadillac, his sailing boat and, as he put it, sent his children out to work. What he meant was he’d sent his wife out to work, which meant the children going into a crèche. They had found some premises on the West Side and seemed to spend twenty-four hours a day there. McGowan Benchley and Neill & Parker had clearly been made for one another.

Neill & Parker had pitched against a much bigger agency, who had given a brilliant presentation the day before they had, had spent a lot of money turning their boardroom into a bookshop, mocking up expensive posters and showcards. The word on the street was that they had got the account, that they were unbeatable. There was one thing they didn’t have, though; and that was Izzie.

Izzie had come up with a copyline and a concept which, as Johnny Benchley put it, just blew them away. After two weeks of doing something that literally felt like beating her brains out, she had gone for a walk one day, partly to get away from the boys and the enraging sight of their eyes fixed hopefully on her every time she looked up. She had wandered into a thrift shop and found an old dictionary of quotations which she bought for Nick, who collected dictionaries of every kind. Flicking through it in the coffee shop at Macy’s where she stopped for a rest, she had found a quotation by Mark Twain, from a speech he had made to a club in New York.

‘A classic: something everybody wants to have read and nobody wants to read.’

She put it down, stared ahead of her for a bit, then read it again. And again.

Two days later, after thirty-six hours without sleep, they went, rather bleary-eyed, to McGowan Benchley’s offices and presented her copyline: ‘McGowan Benchley. For tomorrow’s classics. The ones you’ll want to read today.’

The account was worth quite a lot of money: a two-hundred-and-fifty thousand-dollar launch, which meant a fat fee. It was going to pay for a new office.

They were beginning to feel financially sound, even before Barty’s gift to them. And that had turned Izzie’s thoughts in the direction of all sorts of rather serious things. Like buying a proper place to live. Getting married. And – having babies. Just now and again, because she did know Nick wanted babies one day and wouldn’t mind too terribly if they had an accident, she had – well, risked things a bit. The first time, she had been quite worried, because she was so sure it would work and she’d have to confess to Nick; the second, she tried not to think about it; the third, she was actually disappointed; and now, she was getting worried, because she was beginning to be sure it wouldn’t work.

She thought about it more than she ought to, she knew. She couldn’t help it. If she hadn’t had the abortion it wouldn’t even have crossed her mind. But the guilt of that, the anxiety because she had never told Nick about it, the fear of what he might say, the terror that she had been damaged in some way and so could never have babies: that guilt and fear not only crossed her mind, they criss-crossed it, backwards and forwards, again and again, wearing a groove in it.

Only, of course, it was silly. Very silly. But – she worried just the same.

One morning in late November Marcus Forrest called Elspeth into the office which he had made his own, saying he would like to speak to her. Elspeth went in, rather as if to a headmaster’s study, her heart thudding, but Marcus smiled at her.

‘Sit down, Elspeth. How are you feeling? I must say, you seem to have recovered very quickly.’

‘Yes,’ she said, aware, even as she spoke, that she was at least two sizes too large, that her hair hadn’t been seen to for months, that her clothes were unfashionably loose-looking. ‘Yes, I feel very well. He’s an awfully good baby.’

‘Good. And you’re back with us, which is excellent.’

‘Well—’

‘I like that series of children’s books you’re doing; very clever. Was that your idea?’

‘Half mine. I thought a series based on the alphabet like that would be good; then the author came in to see me with some rough ideas and we put them together.’

‘Very clever. Good publishing. The sort your husband does so well. Nice young man, your husband, clever as well. Anyway, I want to make you a proposition.’

‘Oh,’ she said. She didn’t feel quite up to propositions of any kind.

‘I think you should be working for us full time. I think you’re wasted with this rather vague arrangement of yours.’

‘Jay’s happy with it,’ she said carefully.

‘I’m aware of that. But I’m in overall charge of editorial arrangements here, and I don’t think we’re getting full value from you.’

‘But it works perfectly well,’ she said, panic rising, ‘I get the work done, in fact I probably get more done, because I’m not wasting time travelling and I can see the authors when necessary, sometimes at home, sometimes here and—’

‘Elspeth,’ he said gently, ‘I’m not criticising you. Or the arrangement. I think it’s remarkable what you’ve achieved, given those arrangements and your two very small children. No, I’m offering you a new job. I want you to be one of the senior editors. I would like you to work on the main women’s fiction list, reporting to Jay.’

‘To Jay?’

‘Yes. And ultimately, of course, to me.’

‘I – see,’ she said. Only senior editors reported to Jay. This was an extraordinary thing she was being offered. The room seemed very light and bright suddenly, she felt dizzy and slightly shaky. ‘Yes, I see. Well – thank you. Thank you very much.’

‘So I take it you’ll accept?’

‘Well – I – ’

He looked at her and he was no longer smiling, no longer trying to be charming; the pale-blue eyes were quite hard.

‘Now, there is a condition to this. Obviously you couldn’t do that job in your present situation. You would have to be in the office, full time. You would be working very hard. It would be a very responsible position.’

‘Yes, I see,’ she said again.

‘So – I’d like your answer as soon as possible. Obviously you’ll have to discuss it with your husband.’

‘Thank you,’ she said, and then heard herself saying, while knowing it was dreadful, foolish, dangerous even, ‘I will discuss it with my husband, of course. But I think you can take it that my answer will be yes. And thank you. Thank you very much. I’ll try to justify your faith in me.’

‘I have absolutely no doubt that you’ll do that,’ he said, and he was the other Marcus again, smiling, charming, easy. ‘I’m really delighted, Elspeth. I think we’ll enjoy working together.’

‘No, no, no!’ Keir’s face was so changed by rage that she scarcely recognised him, his dark eyes blazing, his mouth a thin, angry line. ‘No, you will not, Elspeth. You will not start working full time. I won’t have it.’

‘
You
won’t have it! Well, that’s very interesting.
My
wishes and ambitions don’t come into it, it seems. You decide everything for me, do you, Keir? I’m sorry, I hadn’t quite realised that.’

‘Oh, don’t start all that claptrap with me,’ he said. ‘You know perfectly well you’re cheating on our arrangement, you have been for months, only I’ve been foolish and weak enough to turn a blind eye. You promise me this, that and the other, pretend you’re doing what I want, when in fact you’re doing the opposite. You’re my wife, Elspeth, you’re the mother of my children and you will stay at home and look after them, not go running around, indulging yourself and your ambitions and your ego. My God, when I think, when you first announced that you were pregnant, how you said of course you would do anything I said, anything I wished, if you could only keep the baby. When did you ever do anything I said, Elspeth? I would like to know that.’

‘And why should I? I’m your wife, not your servant. And besides, I never said that, I said I would manage on my own if you hadn’t been prepared to marry me, and I would have done. I could have—’ she stopped. This was dangerous, dangerous ground.

‘Oh, aye, you could have done.’ He became more Scottish when he was upset. ‘Of course you could, and perhaps you’d like to rub my nose in that a little more. Explain how you had to cut yourself down to size and live in the only way I could afford.’

‘But I did,’ she said, and she was shouting now, ‘I did do that, lived in that horrible flat in Glasgow, all on my own, it was awful. I was lonely and miserable and bored, but I did it—’

‘Very good of you,’ he said, ‘very good indeed. Well, I’m sorry if I’m such an unsatisfactory husband, Elspeth. Very sorry. But the fact remains. You do not do that job, and you can tell that smooth bastard so in the morning. Otherwise our marriage is over. That’s my last word.’

In the morning, still angry, she went to see Marcus Forrest and told him that she would like a little more time to consider his offer, if that was all right.

He said it was: ‘It’s a big decision for you, I can see that.’

‘Thank you,’ said Elspeth. ‘I’ll try and let you have an answer very soon.’

Then she went to tell Keir what she had done. And thought she had never loved him less.

Charlie Patterson stared at Jonathan Wyley across his large desk. It was at least twice the size of a standard desk, with only one neat file, a pad of paper and a pencil, and an even neater pile of law books set at the back of it. Three-quarters of its vast expanse was clear of anything at all.

Jonathan Wyley was one of the most senior of all the senior partners at Wyley Ruffin Wynne; and Wyley Ruffin Wynne was one of the most important and successful of all the most important and successful New York law firms, while being young and high profile rather than old and discreet. That was why he’d gone to them, staking everything he had, all the money left in his classic car company account. He wanted a firm so hot, so clever, so clearly able to command respect, that no one, from the very beginning, could dismiss what was said on his behalf.

‘So – you think we have a case?’ he asked, and his voice had a tremor in it, so excited was he, so awestruck, so terrified that he might have heard wrongly.