Original Sin (80 page)

‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered, ‘I never meant to hurt you. I do love you.’

Slowly, sadly, he took a step toward her and took her into his arms.

‘I’m sorry too,’ he whispered. ‘I really am.’

CHAPTER SIXTY–EIGHT

By the time Tess got back to the party, most guests had left the tables. Some were laughing and drinking champagne in the garden, others had begun to drift back to their hotel rooms. Looking around for Sean, she saw a glint of rich red hair. Paula Asgill was sitting alone at a side table, staring down into her coffee.

‘Paula,’ she smiled, walking over. ‘I haven’t seen you in two weeks.’

Paula looked up and smiled. ‘No, there’s been lots to do. Lots to think about,’ she said with unexpected warmth.

Tess was pleasantly surprised; Paula’s demeanour had always been so prim and icy, but there was softness around the eyes that hadn’t been there a few weeks ago. Perhaps not every crisis was a bad thing, she thought.

‘Did you get my interview with
Metropolitan
magazine arranged?’ asked Paula.

Tess nodded. ‘Next week, it’s all set. Full copy approval.’

Alongside everything else she’d had to do over the last few weeks, Tess had set up an interview for Paula with
Metropolitan
, a smart society read that ran puff–pieces alongside glossy photo–shoots of all the Park Avenue Princesses who mattered. Tess had struck a bargain with Shelley Vine the editor; she would get a scoop that would reverberate all around Manhattan, as long as she promised to treat Paula and her family in the most sympathetic manner possible. Tess could tell that Paula just wanted to get her story out there, to finally be free of the burden, but, having talked to Shelley, Tess genuinely believed that Paula could come out of it unscathed.

‘Well, thanks for everything, Tess.’

‘I was just doing my job.’

Paula shook her head, meeting Tess’s gaze. ‘No, it was more than that.’

‘So what happens now?’ said Tess, a little embarrassed. ‘I hear that William is stepping down from the company.’

‘Yes, from the CEO job at least. Leonard wants to retire in the new year, so William might take on his international development role, but we’ll see,’ she smiled again. ‘The emphasis is on our own little family for the moment. We’re buying a house in North Carolina, maybe somewhere near the mountains. I think it will be good for both of us to spend more time out of the city. I’m not sure that fierce competition and stress is particularly good for you, especially when we want to try for another baby.’

Tess was amazed to see Paula’s face glow at the thought of it. Tess had always thought of Paula as a particularly hard creature but, in the end, it turned out she was just running away from her demons. It wasn’t difficult to see what the trauma of having to deal with a disabled daughter would do to a young girl with no support network, but the endless acidic guilt of having abandoned her must have eaten away at her year after year. Perhaps Paula was harder than she had given her credit for, thought Tess as she excused herself and went to the bar for a martini. She took out the olives and knocked the drink back in one, steeling herself for what she had to do next.

‘There you are.’

Turning, she saw Sean. ‘What’s up?’ he said, his big green eyes searching hers.

Dammit, am I that transparent?
Tess thought.

‘Oh, nothing,’ she replied dismissively. ‘I just needed to speak to Leonard. Have you seen him?’

‘He went back to Jewel Cay on the boat with my mom about ten minutes ago,’ said Sean. ‘Honey, are you okay?’

No, I’m not okay
, she thought, averting her eyes. She had been unable to settle all day, debating over and over in her head whether to act on the information she had pieced together on Olivia Martin’s disappearance. Her first instinct was to tell Meredith and let her sort it out; after all, that was her job, wasn’t it? But then how would Meredith feel about her publicist accusing her brother of killing Olivia? And, assuming it was true, would she really want to know after all these years? More importantly, how would Sean feel about it? At best it would create a family rift, at worst … well, she didn’t want to think about that. Anyway, it wasn’t as if Tess had any real proof about what happened on the night of Meredith and Howard’s wedding and, even if she did, what real purpose would it serve to dredge up old secrets that would cause the family so much pain? Certainly it would not help Brooke and David, whose private lives she was being paid to protect. But – and this was what Tess kept coming back to again and again – what if this was
murder
? If Leonard had killed Olivia, how could she keep that secret to herself: just file it away under ‘unpleasant truths’? She didn’t know Olivia or her family, but she did know that if she had been in a similar situation, she would want to know the truth about her loved ones, even if was difficult to bear. And that was the final twist, of course: Meredith had married Howard for social convention and companionship, but her heart had belonged to Olivia. Surely she would want to know what had really happened? But at what cost?

Tess forced a smile on her face. ‘Don’t worry, I won’t be long.’

She leant forward and kissed him on the lips. For one second, she wanted to wrap herself in his arms, tell him everything, let him help her. But that was a cop out. This was something she had to do herself.

‘Can I come to your room later?’ he smiled lazily.

‘I’ll be waiting,’ she said, hoping against hope that, by then, things would not have changed irrevocably.

*

Tess was the only person on the small boat ferrying guests to and from Jewel Cay. Sitting in the darkness, she watched the lights strung from the masts of the million–dollar yachts moored at the hotel’s dock get smaller and smaller. The short journey across smooth waters still made her stomach churn;
maybe that Martini was not such a good idea after all
, she thought, hopping onto the jetty. The house in front of her looked like a huge ghostly face – the glowing windows its eyes and nose, the double–fronted oak doors a gaping mouth, and suddenly Tess thought about taking the boat straight back to the hotel and climbing into bed with Sean.

Be brave
, she scolded herself.
You’re almost there
. A maid smiled as she opened the front door and pointed towards the east wing of the house. Tess could hear gentle classical music coming from the drawing room and through the open doorway, could see Meredith and Rose and Robert Billington laughing over champagne. She moved away before anyone saw her: Leonard wasn’t with them. Over the past twenty–four hours she had got to know the layout of Jewel Cay well, so she walked across to the other wing of the house. The corridors were dark, but light was spilling from the far room that Tess knew was Leonard’s study. Quietly approaching, she peered around the door of the room, a hexagonal space with long windows and wood–panelled walls decorated with maps and nautical paintings. Her pulse jumped as she saw Leonard sitting behind a huge sea–captain’s desk.

‘Heavens Tess,’ he laughed. ‘You did give me a fright!’ He stood up to beckon her in. ‘Come in, come in. Shouldn’t you still be at the party? I thought we’d leave you youngsters to it.’

Tess smiled weakly, suddenly finding that she couldn’t swallow as she looked at him. What made this worse was that she
liked
Leonard Asgill.

‘I have to ask you something, Leonard,’ she said finally, with more resolve than she felt. She moved a few feet further into the room but remained standing, still not wanting to get too close.

‘I have to know what happened on the night of Meredith’s wedding. I have to know what happened to Olivia Martin.’

His smile was rigid, but his tone remained light.

‘Surely that’s all water under the bridge,’ he said, ‘We all read the
Washington Spy
story, but it didn’t have any impact – old news. Certainly the wedding is still going ahead tomorrow, which it wouldn’t be if Wendell Billington believed a word of what was being alleged.’

‘I know what happened, Leonard,’ she said softly, forcing herself to meet his gaze.

His smile relaxed until his mouth was a thin line. ‘No one knows, Tess,’ he said. ‘No one will ever know.’

‘No one except you.’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ he replied airily.

‘I think you do, Leonard,’ insisted Tess. ‘You’d do anything for family, isn’t that what you told me once? Support them, protect them? Does that extend to killing for them?’

He put down his pen. The genial smile had now completely left his face.

‘
To what
?’ he said, his eyes narrowing. ‘How can you say such a thing, Tess? After everything this family has done for you.’

Tess could feel her fingernails pressing into her palms. Her resolve was wavering, but she had to go on.

‘You were in the rose garden the night of Meredith’s wedding, weren’t you, Leonard?’ she persisted. ‘You had just had sex with Mary–Ann Henner and, when she left, you saw your sister and Olivia come into the rose garden. You overheard Olivia blackmailing Meredith.’

‘This is nonsense!’ he said, his voice angry and raised.

Tess heard a noise behind her and turned to see Meredith standing in the doorway, her face still. For a long moment, her eyes locked with Leonard’s, then he looked away.

‘Well, Leonard?’ she said. ‘Is she correct?’ Meredith’s voice was taut yet even, her eyes hard as flint.

‘Of course she’s not right. This is fantasy, supposition.’

Meredith closed the door to the study, the satin of her Valentino couture rustling as she walked slowly into the room. ‘I want the truth, Leonard.’

Leonard sank back into his chair. ‘It is the truth.’

His sister walked up to the desk and placed both hands on the dark wood.

‘Tell me!’ she hissed. ‘Tell me now.’

For several long, painful moments, he just stared back at her. Finally he gave a tiny shrug and nodded.

‘Yes, Mary–Ann and I were in the rose garden. She returned to the party but I stayed back to have a cigarette. You and Olivia came in, but I was sitting on the ground so you didn’t see me. I heard you talking, and I heard how much money she wanted.’

His expression darkened. It was a few seconds before he continued.

‘Olivia was a slut, Meredith,’ he whispered. ‘A few weeks earlier I found out that she had been sleeping with Howard. I tried to warn her off, but she just laughed at me. Then I saw her chatting up everything that moved at the wedding.’

‘What happened, Leonard?’

He stood up and paced to the window, staring out at the blackness.

‘I went to her cottage to talk to her, maybe even threaten her a little. I’d tried the softly, softly approach and where did that get me? So I told her she was a two–bit whore and she wouldn’t get a penny out of us. But she was as high as a kite – she patted the bed and told me she wouldn’t mind fucking me too.’ He turned to look at Meredith. ‘She said it turned her on to keep it in the family.’

‘What did you do to her?’ breathed Meredith heavily.

Leonard turned back to the window, staring at his own reflection in the black glass.

‘I grabbed her. It was easy; I was so much bigger than her. Bitch tried to scratch me with her nails, so I held her down on the bed, my hands on her shoulders. Before I knew it they were around her neck. My two hands could wrap all the way around her neck. I kept squeezing, telling her to leave my sister alone. She was nodding or struggling, I couldn’t tell which. Then she stopped.’

He turned back and looked from Meredith to Tess and back again. ‘I only meant to scare her,’ he said, his voice low and cracked.

Meredith’s body was rigid as she leant on the desk. ‘I loved her, Leonard,’ she whispered.

Leonard spun round angrily. ‘You loved her?’ he sneered. ‘You loved a slut who was blackmailing you?’

‘Don’t you dare!’ screamed Meredith, sweeping a glass off the desk. ‘Don’t you dare try to justify this. You killed the woman I loved!’

Leonard looked his sister in the eye. ‘I didn’t want you to be … like that. You’d never have stopped paying her. With your money and with your heart, I was saving you from that. I was looking after you.’

‘Looking after me?’ said Meredith incredulously. ‘When have I ever needed that?’

Leonard laughed mockingly. ‘Oh, and you’re always so careful, always so in control? Well, what about all those grubby little relationships you’ve had since, all those companions? Why do you think they have never come out? The inherent decency of dykes?’ he spat. ‘No, Meredith, I paid them all off.’

She glared at him and a single tear trickled down Meredith’s cheek.

‘Where did you put her body?’ she asked, her fury and bitterness barely concealed. ‘
Where?
’

Leonard sat down heavily in his chair.

‘I took her down to the river,’ he said finally. ‘I did it for you, Meredith. I was
protecting
you.’