To Be the Best (46 page)

‘You’re very wise, Paula. I will try…’ Amanda’s lip trembled. ‘But I miss him so much.’

‘Of course you do, it’s only natural. And you will – for the longest time. But I also think you should take solace from the fact that Sandy is out of his suffering now.’ Paula paused, then added softly, ‘Let him go, darling, let him rest.’

It was difficult for Amanda to speak, and she simply nodded several times, swung her head, stared out of the car window. She felt too emotional to respond coherently, and she knew that Paula would understand and respect her silence.

But a short while later, when they were sitting in the Concorde lounge, sipping coffee before the flight, Amanda suddenly leaned closer to Paula, said in a low voice, ‘Thanks for being such a good friend. I do appreciate it.’ She looked off into the distance, before murmuring softly, ‘How uncertain life is, isn’t it, Paula? None of us know what might happen to us next…people’s lives can change in the flicker of an eyelash…’

‘Yes…life
is
tenuous. But it’s also quite marvellous, you know. And life is for the living. We must get on with it.’

‘Grandy always said that!’ Amanda brought her gaze to Paula’s and a smile broke through. ‘I had the most amazing phone call from Francesca last night…she’s pregnant.’

‘That
is
lovely news! We’ll have to do some shopping for baby clothes in New York.’ Paula picked up her cup, took a swallow of coffee, and eyed Amanda thoughtfully over the rim. Placing the cup in its saucer, she said carefully, ‘Forgive me for prying, but you’re rather keen on Michael Kallinski, aren’t you?’

Amanda looked at her, surprise flashing in her light green eyes. A faint blush tinged her neck, swept up into her pale cheeks. ‘Is it
so
apparent?’

‘Only to me. Don’t forget, I’ve known you since the day you were born.’

‘He’s
not interested in
me,
though,’ Amanda asserted.

‘We’ll see about that.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Michael’s spent a great deal of time with you lately, but always on business, dealing with their takeover of Lady Hamilton Clothes. Now he ought to see you in a different light, in social situations, with other men flocking around you…which they generally
do,
so don’t shake your head in that way. Whilst you’re both in New York, Shane and I are going to be giving a few dinners and cocktail parties…I want to make certain Michael gets to know you even better. And in a more personal way.’

‘Oh,’ was the only thing Amanda could think of to say.

‘Trust me. Your future looks very bright you know, from my vantage point.’

‘And so does yours,’ Amanda was swift to say. ‘I feel certain you’re going to get the Larson chain.’

‘I sincerely hope you’re right,’ Paula said, and crossed her fingers.

As the British Airways Concorde flight took off for New York, a Qantas flight from Hong Kong was simultaneously landing at Heathrow.

Within an hour the passengers had disembarked, the luggage had come down on the carousel, and Jonathan Ainsley, looking like the prosperous business tycoon he was, walked through customs and out into the arrival hall.

His eyes scanned those people waiting near the barrier, and he raised his hand in greeting when he saw the flaming red hair and beaming face of his smartly-dressed cousin, Sarah Lowther Pascal.

Sarah waved back, and a moment later they were embracing affectionately.

‘Welcome home, Jonny,’ Sarah said as they drew apart, looked each other over appraisingly and with mutual approval.

‘It’s nice to be back. It’s been ages.’ He grinned at her, motioned to the porter to follow with his luggage, and grabbing Sarah’s arm, led her out to the car park.

‘I
am
glad your trip to London coincided with mine,’ Jonathan was saying some ten minutes later as they rolled comfortably towards London in the large chauffeur-driven limousine Sarah had hired to meet him.

‘So am I,’ she said. ‘Yves wanted me to come to see the gallery that represents him here, and I had some business of my own to attend to this week. So it was perfect timing, Jonny.’

‘And how is Yves?’ Jonathan asked.

‘Extremely well,’ Sarah answered, her voice full of enthusiasm. ‘Painting with great brilliance at the moment.’

‘And selling very well too,’ Jonathan murmured, and glanced across at her. ‘Not stinting you, I see, if the jewellery is anything to go by…and that
is
a Givenchy suit, isn’t it?’

Sarah nodded, smiled with pleasure at his compliments.
‘He’s very generous, but my own investments have been paying good dividends…’ She gave Jonathan a sidelong glance. ‘And how is Arabella?’

‘Wonderful!’ Jonathan’s face instantly lit up, and he began to talk about Arabella and their life in Hong Kong in great detail, hardly drawing breath.

Sarah wished she had never brought up the woman’s name. She hated her cousin’s wife.

Settling back against the butter-soft, wine-coloured leather of the car, she appeared to give her attention to Jonathan, nodding from time to time, looking as if she was absorbing every word he uttered, but, in point of fact, she was not listening to one single thing he was saying.

She’s innocence, all innocence, Sarah thought, her mind focused on Arabella. But I spotted her type the minute I met her. She’s clever and crafty and out for the main chance. And she’s got a past, that one. I’m sure of it. I just wish I could warn him about her, but I daren’t. She found it hard to believe that Jonathan had been taken in by Arabella Sutton. Even Yves, usually uninterested in other women, had appeared to be bewitched by her when Jonathan had brought her to stay at Mougins earlier in the year. Of course, she
was
charming. And beautiful. All that silver hair, the sloe eyes, the sensational figure. A sexpot, I bet, Sarah thought disparagingly, loathing her, irrationally. What did it matter to her whom her cousin married. Except that she cared about Jonny, cared about his well being.

She had her own family now, an adoring husband, an angelic and gifted child. But Jonathan represented her past, her ties in England. Her parents were alive and so were Jonny’s, her Aunt Valerie and Uncle Robin. But somehow Jonathan was the one she loved the most, even though he was mostly responsible for her estrangement from their other cousins, and aunts and uncles. The rift in the Harte family had so distressed her. Although she harboured dislike for
some of them, she nonetheless felt the sting of banishment, minded that she was no longer a member of that distinguished clan.

Arabella fascinated Jonny, that was quite obvious. Sarah hated competing for his attention. She had had to do that when Sebastian Cross was alive. Bosom chums they had been, Jonathan and Sebastian, from their days at Eton. And they had stayed close. She used to wonder why. Sebastian had not been very nice. Sleazy, in her opinion. And he had had such a strange fixation about Jonny. If she had not known otherwise, she would have sworn Sebastian was gay. But his reputation as a womanizer had preceded him. Now she wondered if that had actually meant anything. Sebastian had been such an odd bird. He had died of an accidental overdose of cocaine. He had had nothing but bad luck after Jonathan left England, had made nothing but disastrous business deals. She had heard that he died flat broke.

Jonathan touched her arm, exclaimed crossly, ‘You seem far away, Sarah, haven’t you been listening to me?’ He peered into her face, his pale eyes narrowing shrewdly.

‘Yes, yes, of course I have,’ she protested, now truly giving him her fullest attention, not wishing to displease him. Jonny had quite a temper, was easily provoked.

‘Is something bothering you?’ Jonathan pressed, as usual attuned to her, as if he could read her mind. He had always managed to unnerve Sarah because of this ability.

‘Actually, I was just thinking about Sebastian Cross,’ Sarah admitted. ‘It was odd the way he died, wasn’t it?’

Jonathan was quiet for a fraction of a second.

‘Yes,’ he said at last. ‘Very odd indeed.’ There was another pause, before he volunteered quietly, ‘He was bi-sexual. I didn’t know, of course.’ He looked Sarah fully in the face, confided, ‘He only admitted that to me when he flew out to Hong Kong to see me, the first year I was there…he confessed that I was…er…er…well, the object of his passion, shall we say?’

‘Oh dear,’ Sarah said, not particularly surprised by this sudden revelation. ‘How frightful for you.’

Jonathan smiled narrowly. ‘In all truth, it was, Sarah. But he took my rejection of him very well indeed. Or so I believed at the time.’

Sarah said not a word, watched him acutely.

He asked eventually, ‘Do you think that’s why he died, Sarah? Do you think that the overdose was intentional…you know, an
accident on purpose?’

‘It has occurred to me from time to time.’

‘Sad really.’

‘Yes.’

‘How rude of me, darling, I forgot to ask after that adorable child of yours. How is little Chloe?’ Jonathan abruptly changed the subject, not wishing to dwell on Sebastian Cross, to rake over the past. He was only interested in the future, which he had been looking at very closely of late.

‘Chloe is simply wonderful,’ Sarah said, glowing as she launched into a recital about her daughter, one of her two favourite subjects, the other being her husband. ‘She fell in love with her Uncle Jonny…and before I left France earlier this week she made me promise I’d bring you back to Mougins for the weekend. You will come, won’t you?’

‘I’ll certainly try.’

‘Good,’ Sarah half turned in her seat, gave him a long and searching look. ‘What did you mean when you phoned me from Hong Kong and said our day would come, that we’d soon get our own back on Paula?’

Jonathan leaned closer. A wicked and knowing smirk spread across his bland face. ‘I believe that no one is infallible, that even the smartest tycoons can make flawed judgement calls at times. And I have always known, deep down, that Paula O’Neill would make a mistake one day. I’ve been waiting…and watching…and my gut instinct tells
me she’s about to do something foolish. The odds are there, you see, she’s had too good and too long a run for her money. And when she makes her fatal error I shall be there. Ready to pounce.’

Sarah gave him a penetrating stare, her green eyes quickening. ‘What do you mean? How do you know? Tell me, Jonny, tell me more!’

‘Later,’ he said, squeezing her arm in the very intimate way he had with her. ‘Let’s wait until we’re in the privacy of my suite at Claridge’s…and then I shall explain how I aim to destroy Paula O’Neill.’

Sarah shivered with pleasure and anticipation at the thought of Paula’s downfall. ‘I can’t wait to hear your plan. I’m sure it’s brilliant…and how I’ve longed to get
my
revenge on that cold, frigid, thieving bitch. She stole Shane from me, quite aside from everything else.’

‘Of course she did,’ Jonathan concurred, fanning Sarah’s festering hatred of Paula, as he had for years, needing an ally in his scheming, if only for moral support.

He put his hand in his jacket pocket, and his fingers curled around the pebble of mutton-fat jade. His talisman. It had brought him great good luck in the past. He had no reason to doubt that it would do so again.

Unnatural deeds do breed unnatural troubles.

Macbeth:
W
ILLIAM
S
HAKESPEARE

One must therefore be a fox to recognize traps, and a lion to frighten wolves.

The Prince:
M
ACHIAVELLI

All or nothing.

Brand:
H
ENRIK
I
BSEN

‘You really are the best thing that ever happened to Philip,’ Daisy said, filled with love and respect for the young American woman who was her daughter-in-law.

Madelana’s face lit up, and she laughed lightly as she settled herself more comfortably on the sofa. ‘Thank you. That’s a lovely thing to know.’

They were sitting in the drawing room of the house at Point Piper in Sydney, which Philip had owned for a number of years, and where he and Maddy now lived for most of the week when they were not at Dunoon. It was August and a lovely afternoon, even though it was still the winter season in Australia, and earlier Madelana had opened the French doors leading out to the terrace and the garden beyond. A soft breeze drifted in, made the silk draperies flutter and whisper, carried with it the mixed scents of honeysuckle and eucalyptus and the salt tang of the sea.

After a moment, Madelana smiled at her mother-in-law and added, ‘Anyway, I have to say the same thing about your son, Daisy. He’s made me a whole person again, chased all my sorrow and gloom away, and given me so much love that there are times when I think I might just burst with happiness.’

Daisy nodded, understanding exactly what she meant. It had always pleased her that Maddy was so open, without guile, and readily able to articulate her feelings. Also, it was gratifying to know that her son was such a good husband, had adjusted to being a married man after years of playing around, and that he and Maddy were so blissfully happy.

‘When a marriage truly works there’s nothing else like it in the world, nothing that can take its place,’ Daisy said with
great feeling. ‘And it’s pure joy to have a relationship with a man who gives so much of himself…as both Philip and Jason do.’

Daisy paused, quickly glanced to her left, stared at the various photographs of David, her late husband, taken with Philip, Paula and her twins, Lorne and Tessa, and with she herself. Happy, loving family pictures which Philip kept grouped on a small side table near the fireplace. She was thoughtful for a moment, remembering her life with David, and when she swung her head and smiled across at Maddy it was with a certain ruefulness.

‘When David was killed in the avalanche I thought the world had come to an end for me. And of course it had in so many ways,’ Daisy confided, speaking to Maddy about her first husband in a more intimate way than she ever had before.