Sins (40 page)

Ella could have gone, even though she hadn’t accepted Brad’s invitation to stay at the beach house he was renting for the summer, so that he could work on his new book. She wasn’t short of invitations from various members of the editorial team but since she’d lied to Brad that she had some research work to do that could only be done in the city, she had had to stay put.

She loved New York but there were still times when she missed her family. Sometimes the two different sides of her head were at war with one another: the sentimental, vulnerable side longing for home and its emotional comfort, the ambitious side knowing that only New York could provide her with the opportunity to prove herself.

She was doing very well professionally. Yes, it was true that as yet she might not be writing for
Time
magazine, filing the kind of hard-hitting factual gritty exposés of the harsh realities of people’s lives that appealed so much to her instinct to protect the weak and vulnerable. But Brad had complimented her on the style she brought to her articles for
Vogue
, and they’d often talked together about their shared belief in the power of television documentaries, and how much they’d both like to work as investigative journalists on them.

The article on which she was working now–about the connection between art and the rich patrons of artists–should have been demanding more of her attention
than it was. On Monday morning she was interviewing a prominent socialite well known for her patronage of the arts, one of several interviews Ella had arranged. A photographer had been booked as well, but her heart had sunk when she’d realised who it was–Oliver Charters.

She’d known that he was here working in New York and contracted to
Vogue
for twelve months. The Art Department were already raving about the vibrancy and innovativeness of the first fashion shoot he’d done for them, and she’d had to admit that the photographs were good.

He had a way of making the models look sensual–so much so that, to her own irritation, Ella had not been able to look at any of the photographs without imagining that he had had sex with the models before shooting the pictures. They had that look about them somehow, that look of having been satisfied. Unlike her.

She gave a groan and threw down her notebook. She was back to Brad again. She literally ached inside for him and could not sleep at night for wanting him. Perhaps if she told him…But how could she?
No one
was a virgin at her age. She could visualise the look of horror on his face and the way he would back off from her. It was bad enough being a virgin, without anyone else knowing.

Brad was probably lying beside a pool now, sunbathing, a long cool drink at his side, his tanned torso rippling with male muscle. She could just imagine herself smoothing suntan lotion over his shoulders and then down his chest, over his thighs, strongly and hard,
whilst his swimming shorts outlined…Ella gulped in air. It wasn’t just pictures inside her head that her imagination was arousing. But this was neither the time nor the place for thinking the way she was thinking. She directed her thoughts into more practical channels. She and Brad had so much in common, their shared interest in investigative journalism, in particular. She wasn’t a fool. She knew perfectly well that it was lust that was motivating Brad’s pursuit of her; she’d seen that reaction often enough, after all, and it confirmed to her that far more men fell into lust with women first and then fell in love with them second than the other way round.

She could have lived with that had she been able to delight and enchant Brad with her sexual skill. He could fall in love with her later, once he’d realised, as she already did, just how close they were to something approaching soul mates. She’d heard, for instance, that he didn’t want children. She’d read that in an article about him that she’d sourced, guiltily ashamed of the almost obsessive urge she’d felt to possess every smallest bit of information about him that she could.

She knew how passionately he felt about his writing and his mission to root out City Hall corruption and reveal the wrongdoings of ‘big players’ for the benefit of ‘the small guy’–a mission she shared. Like her, he chose the theatre and the arts over nightclub life. He was well travelled and wanted to travel more–she too wanted to roam the globe. He was against the Vietnam War and had spoken out publicly.

Oh, yes, he was perfect. The trouble was that there
were other women, women who were far more experienced and knowing than she, who also thought that.

The reality was that for the first time in her life Ella was experiencing what it felt like to fall in love and to feel so passionately about that love that she was prepared to break what she’d previously thought of as unbreachable rules to have it. Only the rules that constrained her were rules she’d made herself, not society’s, and she couldn’t break them without risking destroying the desire that Brad felt for her.

He’d teased her about the ocean not being far away from his rented house and the shore being private enough for skinny-dipping. She’d had a hard time stopping her toes from curling up in her shoes, listening to him saying that. She shared an office with three other assistant editors and they all thought she was crazy for keeping Brad at a distance.

‘It’s that British reserve,’ one of them had said, whilst one of the others had giggled and commented that she hadn’t seen much British reserve in evidence the night she’d taken a visiting London rock group out to dinner.

‘They were all as high as kites and fresher than a locker room full of jocks. They were just so cute and sexy.’

The heat was really getting to her, and Ella thought enviously of Denham, with its cool green gardens and large airy rooms.

Thinking about Denham was safer than thinking about Brad, in any case.

‘Got any plans for the weekend?’ Janey asked Rose on Friday, the morning after Rose’s dinner with Josh, as they shared the pot of tea Rose had made. The kitchen door was open to let in the fresh morning air. Like in most houses of its era, the kitchen faced northwards and was in the basement–all the better to keep food cool and fresh. Without the Aga Amber had had installed, though, it would have been freezing cold in the winter as it was always shaded in semi darkness.

Rose knew that her business was now successful enough for her to have found herself a small flat, if she had wished to do so, but even though she was the kind of person who enjoyed her privacy and her own company, she knew that she would miss the familiarity of the Cheyne Walk house if she were to move out. Janey, though, she suspected would very much like to have left and moved into a flat with her current boyfriend, if such a thing had been acceptable.

The sixties might have brought a new era, with what the establishment considered to be a disgraceful laxity of morals, but not even such young women as Patti Boyd,
had lived with her Beatle boyfriend, George, before they had married. A girl might sleep with as many different young men as she chose, she might even stay over with him for days on end but, as everyone knew, it was not acceptable for her to move in with him permanently.

‘I’ve got to go out to Sussex to look at a house for a potential commission that David Mlinaric has passed on to me,’ Rose answered.

Her head was pounding from the tears she had shed silently into her pillow last night, and she was still feeling sick over Josh’s news. She knew what he had told her but she still couldn’t bear to accept that it was going to happen, that she was going to lose him completely. The small crumbs of his affection and friendship had nurtured her for so long, but now she was facing a brutal starvation, which somehow she would have to survive. Last night all she had wanted to do was pull the bedclothes over her head and simply stop existing, but of course she couldn’t do that. She had responsibilities to her clients, after all. The years since she had learned that she and John could share the same father had taught her how to stand on her own two feet emotionally, but right now, Rose admitted sadly, she would have given anything to have someone to turn to, someone older and wiser, and most of all someone who loved her and cared about her.

Someone? Didn’t she really mean her aunt Amber? That was all in the past, Rose reminded herself. She had pushed down inside herself her bitterness and feeling of betrayal when she had first realised how her aunt had let her down. In the end she had decided it was easier
simply to pretend that everything was as it had always been–for everyone’s sake–even if she and Amber knew that things had changed between them and even though that meant her carrying a lifelong burden of sadness and loss. Only now she had an additional loss to deal with–the loss of Josh–and Rose didn’t think she was strong enough to bear that on her own.

‘The Sussex house is owned by a rock singer; David didn’t say which one. He just said that he’s too busy to take it on and that he thought I might like the challenge,’ she told Janey.

Rose hadn’t been able to sleep for hours after she had come in from seeing Josh–from saying goodbye to Josh, she reminded herself–so she had to force herself to try to appear normal this morning.

‘What about you, Janey, are you doing anything special?’

‘No, I’ve got some work to get ready for the new season’s fashion show in September. I’m warning you now that I’m going to want you to model for me again. Cindy thinks I should be focusing on coming up with a cheaper range for the American market, something like Mary Quant’s Gingerbread range, and I’ve promised her that I’ll try and come up with something. Charlie and I are going to Annabel’s tonight. If you’re back in time why don’t you come with us?’

Rose nodded, although in reality the last thing she wanted to do was socialise. Josh still considered his King’s Road premises to be his flagship salon and he would be there now. Rose closed her eyes and gave in to the ache of her own need.

The salon would be frenetically busy, seeing as it was a Friday, filled with King’s Road dolly-birds, giggling and gossiping and flirting with the stylists as they demanded the latest cuts ready for the social whirl of the weekend.

To an outsider everything would look unbelievably chaotic, with loud music playing and the stylists working at full pace, whilst the poor terrified juniors shampooed and cleaned up, but to Josh they were all part of an orchestra that he was conducting, no part of what was going on hidden from him as he soothed, complimented, flattered and worked.

Automatically Rose touched her own perfect bob. If he did go to New York she would have to find a new hairdresser. Tears burned the backs of her eyes, forcing her to blink them back fiercely.

Rose’s appointment was at three o’clock in the afternoon, later than she would have liked since she would have to drive back to London, but it couldn’t be helped, she acknowledged as she set out for Sussex in her bright red Mini.

It was a sunny day and she was wearing an outfit she loved and which she’d put on in an attempt to boost her mood, a dress from Janey’s summer collection in a lovely shade of antique yellow with a deep printed border in soft black rather like a Greek frieze. Janey had used the fabric so that the dress, which was short, slipped over the head in a narrow shift style, but had long, almost medieval-style sleeves. The fabric was so sheer and fine that it was virtually transparent, so underneath it Rose was wearing one of Mary Quant’s new all-in-one ‘bodies’
–a white one with her trademark flower emblem on it. On her feet she had a pair of yellow plastic shoes the exact same colour of her dress.

Her pattern books were in the boot, along with her portfolio containing photographs of some of her décor projects. David had been too busy to tell her much about the client or his requirements. He had simply said that he knew she wouldn’t let him down.

The Sussex countryside was pretty, but its prettiness couldn’t lift her spirits any more than her favourite dress could, Rose admitted later as she slowed down to look for her destination once she had driven through the village she had been told to look out for. All she could think about was losing Josh.

It seemed incredible to Rose that Josh was oblivious to her feelings, but of course she was glad that he didn’t know. The last thing she wanted was for him to pity her and feel sorry for her.

She was so engrossed in her misery that she almost missed the open gates flanked by a pair of pretty gatehouses, beyond which lay an overgrown drive bordered by oak trees.

Denham had a similar drive, although Denham’s, like the land that lay beyond it, was well tended and productive.

Here the grounds were neglected, rough pasture spiked with weeds, which ultimately ended with what looked like a ha-ha and then a sweep of lawn leading up to the house itself, Georgian and neat, rather than commanding, perched on top of a raised knoll so that the house had the effect of looking down over its surrounding land.

The only sound to break the drowsy heat of the day when Rose had climbed out of her Mini was distant bird-song. The house looked forlorn and abandoned, the windows grimy and curtainless, the paint on the front door chipped and blistered.

Just as she was beginning to wonder if she had come to the right place, the front door opened and a man came out.

Tall, with a tangle of light brown curls streaked with blond where the sun had touched it, and wearing jeans and an open-necked shirt, he smiled at Rose, having looked her up and down approvingly.

‘Groovy.’ He extended his hand and added, ‘I’m Pete, by the way.’

She had recognised him, of course. It would have been impossible not to; he was the lead singer with one of the country’s most successful rock groups.

Rose gave him her best professional smile and shook his hand.

‘You’d better come in and have a look round,’ he told her.

Rose followed him into an elegantly shaped hallway, although the shape was the only elegant thing about it. The walls were grubby, pieces of the ornamental plaster from the cornices and the ceiling lay on the floor, and the banister was missing from the staircase.