Chapter Twenty-five

Los Angeles, London, New York, 1985

FATHER KENNEDY WAS a little worried about Lady Morell. She seemed such a fragile little thing, and seeing the photograph of Hugo Dashwood with Miles had obviously given her a big shock. She had tried very hard not to show him what a shock it was, had managed to smile and say what a nice picture, and it was wonderful to know what they both looked like at last, but she had turned very pale and he had insisted she sat down and had a drink of tea before she left again.

She had told him she had to get back to the hotel, that she had a friend coming to see her; that was a good thing, Father Kennedy thought, she had obviously had far too much time on her own at the moment and whatever it was about the photograph that had upset her so much, then she could talk to this friend about it.

‘Would you like to take the picture?’ he had said to her, and she had said yes, please, she would get a copy made of it and then send him the original back if that would be all right.

And holding her baby rather closely to her, she had walked to her car and then driven off without another backward glance.

Well, she clearly didn’t want to talk about it. In Father Kennedy’s experience, people always talked in their own good time. He was not about to press her. He only hoped he had not gone too far in showing her the picture.

What she clearly had no need to know at all was the true relationship between Dashwood and the boy. That had been something entirely between Lee, himself and the Almighty, entrusted to him in his capacity as priest, and nothing on this earth, or indeed anything that might be waiting for him in the next, would drag it from him. And besides, and he had often thought this down the years, who was to say that Lee had been right in her absolute certainty that Hugo Dashwood had fathered Miles? The boy had certainly looked sufficiently like Dean, and Father Kennedy had learnt quite early in his priesthood that guilty women were particularly skilful at deceiving themselves, at distorting facts, to their own advantage or otherwise, depending on their characters. So the doctors had all told Dean he was sterile; well since when had doctors not been known to make a mistake? Small miracles of this kind took place all the time. Look at all the babies that were conceived the moment their parents adopted someone else’s child. No, the parentage of Miles Wilburn was not something Father Kennedy was prepared to discuss with anybody, anybody at all.

He put it determinedly out of his head and fell to wondering how he was going to feed up to thirty hungry people that night with one small ham. Jesus had managed it, of course, or its equivalent, but then he had had powers denied to Father Kennedy.

Michael Browning arrived at Phaedria’s bungalow at six o’clock that evening. It was dark, and there was no light inside; he thought perhaps she might still be out at the hospital and went into Reception to ask.

No, they said, Lady Morell was there, she had been there all afternoon, perhaps she was asleep? Should they ring through? No, Michael said, he would go himself and knock on the door; she was expecting him. Probably they were right and she was asleep.

He went back and knocked; Phaedria’s voice answered. She sounded strained, odd. ‘Who is it?’

‘It’s the serenading team,’ he said. ‘Only we left the violins at home. Can we come in?’

The door opened; Phaedria stood before him, ashen. Her eyes were swollen, and there were deep shadows under them. She was shaking. ‘Oh, Michael,’ she said. ‘I’m glad you’re here.’

‘Phaedria, honeybunch, what on earth is it? It’s not – not.’

‘No,’ she said, and there was just an echo of a smile on her stricken face, ‘no, Julia’s fine.’

‘Then what is it?’

She walked through to the sitting room, picked up a photograph from the table. ‘Look.’

He looked. ‘It’s Julian. Who’s that with him?’

‘Oh, that’s Miles.’

‘Oh. So he did know him. Nice-looking boy.’

‘Yes. But that’s not the point. This isn’t Julian. Well it is, but it isn’t.’

‘Phaedria, you’re not making any sense.’

‘None of it makes any sense,’ she said, and there was a sob in her voice. ‘Well, no, that’s not true. It’s beginning to. This is Hugo Dashwood, Michael, Julian was Hugo Dashwood. He was obviously leading a completely double life. That none of us knew about.’

‘I don’t care if Miss North is in a meeting with the President, or Lord God Almighty. Get her on the phone, for Christ’s sake.’ Roz, her hand shaking, gripping a large whisky, was on the phone to New York.

Miles, a little disconcerted by the monumental hornet’s nest he had disturbed, sat watching her, silent, not knowing what to do.

‘Ah, Camilla, yes, I do realize you were in a very important meeting and I am very sorry, I really am, but I simply have to talk to C. J. Do you know where he is? No, it’s nothing to do with Miranda, but it is desperately serious. I just have to talk to him. OK, fine. Thank you. He’ll tell you about it himself, I expect. Goodbye, Camilla.’

She put the phone down, dialled another number, taking gulps of the whisky. ‘C. J.? Oh, thank God I found you. I just had to talk to someone in the family. No, Miranda is perfectly all right. Yes, I know this is Camilla’s private number, she gave it to me herself. What? Michael’s out of town, Christ knows where. C. J., I don’t know quite where to begin on all this, but please please just listen and tell me what I ought to do. We know who Hugo Dashwood is. What? Miles has solved it for us. Miles. M-I-L-E-S. Yes, he’s here. He turned up this morning. God, it seems years ago now. Yes, of course it was a shock. I’m sorry, of course I was going to tell you. Well he’s very nice. Oh, I can’t go into all that now. That’s not why I’m ringing you. Well, not exactly. C. J., Hugo Dashwood was my father. What? Yes, of course Julian Morell was my father. They were one and the same person. He was leading some kind of a double life. Oh, C. J., I feel so terrible, and I don’t know where to turn or what to do. I can’t, simply can’t tell Letitia, or Mummy, not yet. It would be too shocking for both of them. It’s all so horrible. No, I haven’t told Henry Winterbourne. Do you think I should? All right. What about Phaedria? Oh, C. J. Could you please come home?’

Phaedria had booked herself on to a flight a day earlier, with Julia, having insisted Michael return to New York.

‘We have enough problems and traumas on our hands already,’ she said, smiling at him rather wanly over her packing, ‘without Roz deciding we are having the love affair of the century.’

‘Don’t you think maybe we should at least try it out?’ he said. He was sitting watching her, holding the baby on his knee with one hand, and the telephone in the other, trying without success to get through to his secretary in New York. ‘Christ, this girl has to have the opposite of a raise. What would that be, do you think?’

‘A fall? I don’t know. Try what out anyway?’

‘Having the love affair of the century. Or at least the week.’

‘No, I don’t. Do you think you could try getting Richard Brookes for me on that line? Oh, no, it’s hopeless – it’s still only six o’clock there. God, it will be nice to be back in the same day as everybody else.’

‘Phaedria, do you feel nothing for me at all?’ said Michael, his dark brown eyes looking at her gloomily over the baby’s head.

‘You know what I feel for you,’ she said, suddenly serious. ‘And I don’t know how I would ever have got through last night without you. But I just can’t let myself think about it, and neither should you. Besides I’m not at all convinced you don’t still love Roz. There are some pretty strong emotions running between you and her, if you ask me.’

‘Well,’ he said with a sigh, ‘you may be right. I don’t think so, but you may be. I tell you one thing, if she’s set a private detective on me, we don’t stand much of a chance. I mean, who is going to believe I spent an entire night in your bedroom simply holding your hand? It’s against nature. I can hardly believe it myself. Here, I think your daughter is looking for something that I can’t provide.’

Phaedria looked at the small head rooting hopefully against Michael’s chest and laughed, unbuttoning her shirt, taking the baby; they both looked at her tenderly as she started sucking greedily, her little fists clenching and unclenching with pleasure.

‘And there’s another thing,’ he said gloomily. ‘You will keep flashing those amazing tits at me, and then letting her have all the fun. It just isn’t fair.’

‘I’m sorry,’ she said, ‘and thank you for everything. Maybe – well, let’s not talk about it.’

‘All right, we won’t. Not yet. Anyway, you do look much better.’

‘I feel better,’ she said, almost surprised. ‘Now the worst of the shock is over. Or maybe it’s just numbness. Somehow a lot of the guilt has gone.’

‘It has?’

‘Yes. Discovering that Julian was – well, more devious than I’d ever imagined.’

‘What did I tell you?’ he said, a look of mild triumph on his face. ‘He didn’t deserve you. He didn’t deserve any of you. Sorry,’ he added hastily at a warning flash in her eyes.

‘Maybe not. But maybe we all contributed. That’s what we don’t know. I can only think this life here – there, God knows where else it went on – was some kind of desperate escape.’

‘My darling, you’re too loyal by half. He was a lunatic. He had it made from birth. There was nothing to escape from.’

‘Michael, you don’t know that. You just don’t know. Please don’t make these judgements.’

‘OK, OK,’ he said and there was genuine anger now in his face. ‘I’ll shut up. I know when I’m beaten. But if and when we ever know the truth behind it all, and I’m right, you won’t be able to hear yourself think for me yelling out “I told you so”.’

She smiled at him, put out her hand. ‘All right. And then I’ll listen. Meanwhile, what I do feel, and what I suppose is making me feel better, is that this has been going on so long, it can’t possibly have been all my fault. Or even all Roz’s.’

‘No.’

‘I’ll tell you the other thing that really made me feel less awful,’ she said suddenly.

‘Me?’

‘You, yes, and in particular you asking me if something had happened to Julia. I suddenly realized nothing mattered terribly compared to her.’

‘Well, I’m glad I contributed something.’

‘You contributed a lot.’ She looked at him and sighed, suddenly very weary, very sad. ‘Well, I certainly shan’t forget yesterday. First the photo of Hugo, from Father Kennedy, then Miles turning up in London.’

‘I wonder how Roz is,’ Michael said suddenly. ‘This can’t have been exactly good for her either. Did you speak to her?’

‘What do you think?’

‘I think you didn’t.’

‘You’re right.’

‘She will be beside herself,’ he said, ‘she adored her father.’

‘I know she did. Maybe I should call her.’

‘Well, it would be a pretty big olive branch. Just about the whole tree. But it would be nice.’

‘I’ll call her in an hour or so. She’s probably asleep.’

Roz wasn’t asleep. She felt as if she would never sleep again. She was possessed of a feverish, almost hysterical restlessness; every time she had felt her eyes closing she had seen Miles looking at her over her father’s photograph and her mind snapped into frenzied activity again.

She wasn’t quite sure what she felt: pain, confusion, disbelief, outrage. She felt as if everything that her life had been based on had been shot at, and was steadily and relentlessly crumbling away underneath her. She had made Miles go over his story about Hugo Dashwood and the part he had played in his life a dozen times; there were still no clues as to why her father should have done such a thing, and how he could have kept it from them over all these years. His mother, his child, his wives, his mistresses – all of them had known him so little, that he could perpetrate this deceit upon them; it was monstrous, obscene.

She shrank from having to tell Letitia: maybe she wouldn’t have to. Perhaps they could keep it from her. No, that was. impossible. She would have to be told that her son had been a devious, unscrupulous monster, and it was going to fall to her, Roz, to tell her. There was no one else in the family who could take that responsibility, was close enough to her, cared for her enough. Except – Roz suddenly thought of Susan. Susan and Letitia had always been very close. And Susan was so wise and calm. She might be able to handle it. But then the thought of having to tell even Susan about her father and his other life hurt her so much she shut that escape route off as well. Her mother would also have to be told. Eliza would be less deeply hurt, but it would still be damaging, humiliating. Thank God they had managed to keep the whole thing more or less out of the press. What a field day they would have with this. And how horribly that would add to the hurt of everyone who had loved and trusted Julian. God, thought Roz, sitting up in bed for what seemed like the thousandth time that night, why, how could he have done it? And how many other people had known him as Hugo Dashwood, surely it wasn’t just Miles and his family, there must have been others, people everywhere, who had known her father, and yet had no idea at all who he really was, who his real family were, his true home, his proper self. How extraordinary that Phaedria should have made the discovery on the same day, almost at the same time. Henry had phoned her to tell her about Miles’ arrival in England and said she had been almost hysterical and slammed the phone down. It was only when he had phoned her the second time, to tell her about Hugo’s identity, that she told him she had known, that had been the reason for her earlier grief. For the briefest moment Roz felt a flicker of sympathy for Phaedria; she suppressed it fiercely. Of them all she deserved the least sympathy over this. She had only known Julian Morell for less than three years; she did not have a long, happy, private piece of history with him, that she was now being forced to surrender, to have to realize there had been another life, possibly, probably, even other loves, that she had no place in, no part of.

‘What was he like?’ she kept saying endlessly to Miles. ‘What sort of person was he, did you like him, what did he do, how did he talk, what did he say to you?’

And Miles, anxious not to make her pain worse, to reassure her, began to rewrite history too; Hugo Dashwood had been very kind, very generous to them all: to his dad, he had helped his dad with his business a lot, his mother always said, and he had been very good to his mother, he had visited her when she was dying, and of course to him and his grandmother. His grandmother had really really liked him, depended on him, looked to him for everything, and he had been wonderfully good to her; she had talked to him much more in the last few years than he, Miles, had. Roz should talk to her.

And had he never even hinted of a family in England? Well yes, he had, but it had not been this family, of course; he had told them (very little, very very little) about a wife called Alice, and two little boys, Miles thought, or maybe it was three. (And oh, God, thought Roz, was that family somewhere too, was that a real family or a second fantasy, were they living somewhere, wondering what had become of their father, waiting for him to come home? The nightmare grew and grew as she thought about it, lived through it.)

‘Honestly,’ Miles said to Roz, looking at her concernedly, his dark blue eyes full of sympathy, ‘I never did get to know him. He was my dad’s friend, really. My dad’s and my mom’s. More my dad’s. Well, that’s what my mom said. She never seemed specially to like him. He made her a little nervous. Jumpy, you know? As far as I can remember, anyway. You have to remember I was only thirteen when my mom died. It’s a long time ago.’

‘Of course,’ said Roz. Oh, God, it’s all so totally baffling. Why did he ever have to do such a thing? What did he gain? I just don’t understand it.’

Miles looked at her. ‘Me neither,’ he said and then, anxious, eager to help, ‘would you like me to call my grandmother? Only I warn you,’ he added, ‘she doesn’t make a lot of sense these days. I don’t know what good it would do.’

‘No,’ said Roz, ‘no, I don’t either. It would probably only upset her. I’ll wait till C. J.’s here. He may have some idea what to do.’

She didn’t really have a great deal of faith in C. J. But he was family and he was better than nothing. She longed passionately for Michael. He would know what to do, how to handle it. Where was the bastard, and why did it have to be now, of all times, she had lost him?

And then suddenly, in the middle of her raging, she was assaulted by a thought so hideous, so malevolent that she experienced it as physical pain, a sick, awful pain, violent and sudden, like the crick of a neck, a crack of an elbow on a hard surface. She crushed it, raced away from it, wrenched her mind towards other things, other people; but it lay, coiled up in her mind like some obscene monster, and occasionally, when she was least prepared for it, it would shift, stir, and threaten her again and again.

C. J. looked down at the grey depression beneath him that was Heathrow in November and wondered why on earth he had agreed to come back. Life had been just beginning to improve, to brighten, to simplify even; he was happy with Camilla, she made him feel appreciated, significant, calm, and those were balm to his almost mortally wounded soul. They had much in common; they were suited intellectually, emotionally and, much to C. J.’s surprise and pleasure, sexually. They had the same background, had been reared to the same upper-class American standards, attended identical schools, talked the same language in the same accent, understood the same jokes, shared the same values. They and their families, they discovered, had generations-back mutual friends; had they been the same age they would have attended the same parties, gone to the same places on vacation; probably met, certainly have been attracted to one another, possibly even married.

They had also both been through similar personal crises: emotional involvement with equally unsatisfactory partners (hardly surprising really, as C. J. remarked one night as they ate supper after a concert, when you considered those people had been father and daughter). They found their situation amusing, charming even, a wry twist to each of their tales, and that of the Morell family; the pain they had both suffered swiftly eased and even cured by this new pleasure. Well, the pleasure was, for the time being, ended. C. J. sat waiting obediently for the captain to tell them they could leave the plane, and felt resentful.

Camilla had been extremely patient and understanding about the whole thing, she dispatched him (after some particularly earnest sex: she was practising a series of new positions, suggested by her sex therapist and based on some Lesbian erotica she had been given to read) and assured him that her analyst had managed to cure her almost completely of possessiveness, through showing her her own value, and by teaching her to trust her lovers and the value they put on her (C. J. was a little worried by the plural here). He also felt rather sobered by the reflection that he seemed to be, for the time being, the only male in the Morell family at the moment.

He only had hand luggage; he went straight through customs and out into the arrivals area: to his surprise Roz was waiting for him.

‘Roz! I didn’t think you’d be here.’

He hadn’t expected her to look quite so bad; she was ashen, hollow-eyed, she had no make-up on, she had scarcely brushed her hair. He had never seen her looking anything other than svelte, even in their most intimate moments; it was a shock.

‘Hallo, C. J.,’ she said, and her voice was listless, subdued. ‘Thank you for coming home. I’ve got the car outside. I came because I need to talk to you so badly, and I just couldn’t wait any longer.’

‘OK, let’s go.’

C. J. looked at her, saw her lips quiver slightly and felt remorseful; he put out his hand and touched her arm briefly. ‘I’m very very sorry about it all, Roz,’ he said. ‘I don’t know what to say.’

‘Yes, well, just for now listen,’ said Roz, and he could hear her fight back the tears, ‘I simply don’t know what to do. The first thing is that someone has to tell Letitia, and quickly. Who should it be? Me? You?’

‘I’ll talk to her if you like,’ said C. J., shrinking from the task. ‘I’d rather not but I will.’

‘Well, maybe if you could. It would be a great help.’

‘All right,’ he said, ‘I’ll go and see her. But you’ll have to tell me some more first. Otherwise I shan’t be a very satisfactory news bearer.’

‘Yes, of course. Well, I don’t know that much, of course. It appears that this man, Hugo Dashwood, that is, my father, was a good friend to Miles’ parents. He did business with Miles’ father, visited his mother when she was dying and then when Miles was older, sent him to college.’

‘You mean paid for him to go?’

‘Yes.’

‘How extraordinary.’

‘The whole thing is extraordinary. I simply cannot imagine why my father should have done such a thing. I mean maintained this double life. I mean, what would have been the point? It wasn’t as if he desperately needed to do it, he always did exactly as he liked anyway. He didn’t have a clinging little suburban wife somewhere, or business problems that he needed to get away from. I just don’t understand it.’

‘What did Miles say he was like?’

‘Reading between the lines, he didn’t like him much. He said his mother didn’t either. But he does keep saying how kind and generous he was. He says his mother told him that my father and his father did business together. But Miles’ father was obviously quite poor. He was a salesman. What business could my father have had with him?’

‘Well, maybe in his other life he was a much more modest person.’

‘Maybe. But Miles says he always seemed to be rather rich. And he did put Miles through college.’

‘Still doesn’t have to have been a millionaire.’

‘I suppose not.’

‘Did he know anything about this other life?’

‘Well, my father obviously fed him a load of claptrap. Told him he had a wife called Alice and some little boys. Alice! It’s so peculiar. I just feel as if I’ve fallen down the rabbit hole myself.’

‘I’m sure you do. Poor Roz. What’s Miles like?’

‘Charming,’ said Roz briefly. ‘You just cannot help liking him. Terribly good-looking, very blond and Californian, and very very kind of relaxed.’

‘And how has he reacted to it all?’

‘Well, of course the news about Hugo Dashwood and my father doesn’t mean all that much to him. I mean he hardly knew the man, and it certainly wasn’t an unpleasant shock for him, just something rather intriguing. I do feel sorry for him though, he was leading a perfectly happy life bumming round the Bahamas with a nice little girlfriend called Honey or Sweetie or something, and he’s been catapulted into this dungheap.’

‘I thought he was in Miami.’

‘Yes, well he was, latterly. Oh, it’s a long story. We had lunch with him yesterday, Granny Letitia and I, and he gave us a potted autobiography. Only inevitably it led to Letitia’s autobiography, as more and more champagne went down.’

‘Prince of Wales?’

‘Prince of Wales,’ said Roz, and smiled briefly. ‘It’s nice to see you, C. J. How – how is Camilla?’

‘Very well,’ said C. J., returning the smile, knowing what the question must have cost her. ‘She sent you her – her best,’ he reported faithfully, aware how oddly American the message sounded but unable for obvious reasons to translate it to the English and ‘love’.

‘How kind,’ said Roz. ‘Well, C. J., I have to admit it was a shock hearing about you two, but I’m delighted if it makes you happy.’ Her tone managed to imply this was very unlikely.

‘Thank you,’ said C. J. He wished Roz would drive a little more slowly; she was doing seventy-five on the Hammersmith flyover and it made him very nervous. He knew from past experience it was no use saying anything to try and deter her; she would simply put her foot down harder. ‘Er – how’s Michael?’

‘I’m afraid I don’t know,’ said Roz in a voice that mixed suppressed rage and icy disdain. ‘Well, I imagine. He’s – away at present.’

‘I see. So he doesn’t know anything about all this?’

‘Absolutely nothing.’

C. J. had the sense not to pursue the subject.

‘You look very tired,’ he said carefully. ‘Would you like me to drive?’

‘No, I told you, I like driving, I find it therapeutic. I am tired, I hardly slept last night. I don’t know quite why,’ she added, ‘but I’m taking you to Cheyne Walk. I thought you could have a shower if you want to, and there are still some of your clothes there, and we can talk some more.’

‘Sure.’ He looked at his watch; it was nearly six, English time; it had been an endless day.

‘Where’s Miles?’

‘Exploring London. He thinks it’s just wonderful. And buying some clothes. He’s hardly got anything with him. But he’ll be back soon. I asked him to have supper with us.’

He liked Miles. It was impossible not to. He was so straightforwardly engaging, so charmingly mannered, so easy to talk to; entirely unfazed by the situation he had walked into, so disinterested in his potential wealth and power, so concerned to be helpful and constructive in the situation. He sat eating supper in Roz’s kitchen, listening quietly as she talked to C. J., occasionally putting in a suggestion, offering a view, proffering his help; C. J. thought it was a very long time since he had met someone he liked so wholeheartedly.

‘I’ll go and see Letitia this evening if you like,’ C. J. said, pushing a half-eaten plate of food away from him. ‘It has to be got over, after all.’

‘Oh, I wouldn’t do that,’ said Miles. ‘You should never give people bad news at night. Sorry,’ he added, ‘nothing to do with me. But that’s what I would think.’

‘You’re right,’ said C. J. ‘I’ll go first thing in the morning.’

‘OK,’ said Roz. ‘And I’ll fly up to Mummy then as well.’

‘What can I do?’ asked Miles. ‘I could go and meet whatsername, if you like. She’s flying in in the morning isn’t she? I could tell her what’s happening. Would that be helpful?’

‘Oh, there’s no need for that,’ said Roz quickly. For a few hours she had forgotten that particular aspect of the situation, of the fight between her and Phaedria for Miles’ support. She was going to have to watch Phaedria very carefully.

‘OK,’ said Miles. ‘Whatever you say. But I have to get to know her. Seemed a good way. And she could use the help maybe.’

‘Well, Pete Praeger, my father’s – her – driver will be meeting her,’ said Roz. ‘And she’ll have the child with her. She’ll be very distracted. You can meet her later.’

C. J. looked at her sharply. So she was politicking already. He was surprised she was leaving Miles in London alone with Phaedria at all. Roz wasn’t.

She looked at Miles thoughtfully. ‘Why don’t you come to Scotland with me?’ she said. ‘My mother would adore you, and it would take her mind off the other trauma.’

‘Roz,’ said C. J., ‘I don’t know that is a terribly good idea. Eliza might be very upset by the news about your father.’

‘C. J.,’ said Roz firmly. ‘I think I know my mother and what would and would not be best for her rather more intimately than you do. Besides, Miles has nothing to do in London – yet,’ she added, giving the word a mildly threatening ring, ‘and it’s so boring for him. Would you like to come, Miles?’

Miles was looking at Roz with an interesting expression on his face: it was half amused, half thoughtful, and there was another element altogether, which C. J. could not quite define; he filed it away for future examination. It was only when he was safely back in his own flat in Sloane Street later that night and thinking about the evening and its conversations that he was able to analyse it. It had been, without doubt, sexual interest.

‘Sure,’ said Miles. ‘Sounds fun. Didn’t you say she lived in a castle? That’d be great.’

‘Oh well, have it your own way,’ said C. J. ‘I’ll take care of Phaedria, then.’

‘C. J.,’ said Roz. ‘I really cannot see why Phaedria will need taking care of. She has been doing nothing for almost two months other than lying around in that hotel, soaking up the sun; she hasn’t even been looking after the child. It’s been in hospital. I’m sure she can get herself installed in her own home, with the assistance of God knows how many staff, without you putting your oar in.’

‘All right, Roz, all right,’ said C. J. ‘I take your point. I happen not to agree with you, that’s all. I shall go and see her and make sure she’s all right.’

‘Oh, have it your own way,’ said Roz. ‘I’d forgotten how you had made her your personal good cause. No doubt she’ll be glad to see you. She’ll be trawling sympathy all over London, I expect.’

‘Roz, I do think you might be just a little more sensitive about her,’ said C. J. ‘She has also had a fearful shock. And she’s been out there quite alone, she hasn’t had anyone to talk to about it at all.’

‘Oh, I doubt that,’ said Roz, and there was a ferocious expression on her face. ‘I daresay she’s found some broad shoulder to cry on. Probably a masculine one. Anyway, C. J., you do what you think best. It’s nothing to do with me, after all.’

Miles had been listening to this exchange with a look of almost incredulous interest; Roz suddenly became aware of it and changed the subject.

‘We’ll probably come back from Scotland on Thursday,’ she said. ‘So could you let everyone in the office know I’ll be away till then? I suppose once this particular phase is over we need to talk to Richard Brookes about Miles.’

‘Who’s Richard Brookes?’ asked Miles.

‘The company lawyer. Next to the family, he is the person who will most need to talk to you. Explain your position there. Sort out what will happen short and long term.’

Miles looked alarmed. ‘Long term there’s no happening,’ he said. ‘I just want to go home.’

‘I know,’ said Roz, ‘but one way or another, you have to offload your share on to someone. You can’t just cut and run.’ She smiled at him. ‘You’re one of us now, for better or worse, and you have to face up to it.’

‘Are you really not interested in becoming part of the company?’ asked C. J.

Miles looked at him as if he had just suggested night was day, or black white.

‘I certainly am not,’ he said. ‘I don’t want to sound rude or ungrateful, but I just can’t imagine anything more awful than having to run even a smidgen of a company. You can just have it with my blessing.’

‘Very wise,’ said C. J. ‘I would feel exactly the same.’

‘No, but as I explained to Miles yesterday,’ said Roz, ‘he certainly shouldn’t just give his share away. If that’s what he finally decides to do. I think you should go into it a little more thoroughly, Miles. But whatever you do decide, you should certainly sell it. Don’t you think so, C. J.?’

‘Absolutely,’ said C. J. ‘And then you can sail away on your surf board to your very own tropical island or whatever with – what’s her name?’

‘Candy,’ said Miles. ‘Candy McCall. Yeah, a tropical island might be nice. Shall I show you a picture of her?’

‘Oh, do,’ said C. J. politely. He looked after Miles as he went in search of his jacket, and the collection of pictures of Candy he carried in it.

‘Nice boy,’ he said to Roz.

‘People keep calling him a boy,’ said Roz irritably. ‘He’s only two years younger than me.’

‘Well, he seems a boy,’ said C. J. ‘It’s that Californian innocence. Ah, Miles, let’s have a look.’

Candy’s sweet, deceptively guileless smile greeted them from the beach, from a restaurant, from the poolside of the hotel. C. J. and Roz studied her, her almost indecent youth, her blue eyes, her freckles, her colt-like legs.’

‘She’s lovely,’ said C. J., meaning it. ‘And she’s how old?’

‘Eighteen. We want to get married, but her old man won’t hear of it.’

‘Oh, he’ll come round,’ said C. J. easily. ‘Fathers do, don’t they, Roz? Pretty predictable people really.’ He spoke without thinking; he was appalled to see Roz’s face suddenly whiten and tears fill her eyes. ‘Oh, Roz, I’m so sorry,’ he said, pushing his chair back, going to her, trying to put his arms round her. ‘I didn’t think. I’m so sorry.’

‘Well, you should think,’ she said, and it was almost a cry of pain that escaped her. ‘You bloody well should think.’ And she got up and walked quickly out of the room.

‘Oh hell,’ said C. J. ‘Now I’ve done it. I have a rare talent,’ he said to Miles, half smiling at his own incompetence, ‘for annoying and upsetting her. It was one of the things that most characterized our marriage.’

‘You didn’t mean anything,’ said Miles. ‘You were just being polite to me. She’ll see that, surely.’

‘You don’t know Roz,’ said C. J. ‘She has trouble seeing that sort of thing, and anyway, she’s desperately upset, it was very thoughtless of me.’

‘Shall I go and talk to her?’ asked Miles. ‘I haven’t annoyed her yet.’ And he smiled his radiant, slightly conspiratorial smile at C. J.

‘You could try,’ said C. J. ‘I might just go home now. Tell her I’ll ring her in Scotland when I’ve talked to Letitia. Are you sure you don’t mind going up there?’

‘Absolutely not,’ said Miles. ‘It’ll be fun. In a way. More fireworks though, I guess.’

‘I guess,’ said C. J. ‘Well, it’s been very nice meeting you, Miles. No doubt I shall be seeing some more of you. I’m sorry your introduction to this family has been so extremely traumatic.’

‘Oh, don’t worry,’ said Miles. ‘It beats waiting, I can tell you that.’

‘Waiting? Oh you mean being a waiter?’

‘Yup.’

‘I would doubt that slightly myself,’ said C. J., smiling. ‘Anyway, good night Miles. And thank you.’

‘What for?’

‘Oh, I don’t know. Being a calming influence.’

‘That’s OK.’

Miles went out of the kitchen and up to the drawing room; Roz was there, gazing blankly out at the river. ‘Hi,’ he said. ‘Can I come in?’

‘Yes, of course. Sorry about that. C. J. is an insensitive idiot.’

‘He seems pretty nice and sensitive to me.’

‘Well, maybe he is. I guess there’s too much emotion between us just at the moment.’

‘There’s too much emotion around all of you at the moment. And I guess it’s going to get worse.’

‘Yes, you’re right, of course it is. And somehow I have to be able to cope with it calmly. And I don’t see how I can.’

‘You should let it all out a bit,’ he said. ‘You’re too tense. It really helps to yell now and again.’

‘Do you ever yell?’

He looked at her, and smiled. ‘Not often, because I don’t often get worked up. I just don’t seem to be made that way. But when I do, yes, I yell. And Candy yells a lot.’

‘What makes Candy yell?’

‘Oh, all sorts of things. Her dad. Her stepmom. Boredom. PMT.Me.’

‘I can’t imagine –’

‘What?’

‘You making anyone yell.’

‘Oh,’ he said, ‘you’d be surprised. I make her yell, I make my granny yell, or used to. I make old Mrs Galbraith yell like anything.’

‘But how?’ she said. ‘What do you do?’

‘Nothing,’ he said, ‘that’s exactly it. Nothing at all.’

‘I’ve never met anyone like you before,’ said Roz, smiling at him.

‘I don’t know how much of a loss that is. Would you like me to massage your neck and your shoulders? I bet you’re one huge knot. Never fails.’

‘I hate being massaged,’ said Roz quickly. It was true. ‘It makes me feel more fraught, not less.’

‘You’ve never been massaged by me,’ he said. ‘Now shut up, and sit there, on that chair, so I can stand behind you. OK. Now then, just close your eyes and relax. Oh, your ex husband’s gone, by the way. He said to tell you he was real sorry and that he’d call you in Scotland in the morning.’

‘Well, that’s par for the course,’ said Roz. ‘He would just disappear like that.’

‘I thought he was really nice,’ said Miles. His strong brown hands were working on her neck now. ‘Don’t resist, just shut your eyes and relax like I told you to.’

‘Oh, he is really,’ said Roz. ‘Sorry. You must think I’m a frightful bitch.’

‘Not really,’ said Miles consideringly. ‘I think you’re terrific.’ This was said so sincerely, with so patent a disregard for flattery, that Roz smiled, suddenly less angry and hurt.

‘That’s better,’ said Miles. ‘I felt that.’

‘What?’

‘You relaxed. You should laugh more. Life isn’t really so serious.’

‘It is,’ she said, ‘at the moment.’

‘Yeah, I guess so.’

‘You’re right, though. Michael – my man as you call him – always makes – made me laugh. It’s one of the reasons I – well, I miss him.’

‘Why don’t you call him?’

‘I can’t.’

‘Why not?’

‘I just can’t.’

‘OK,’ he said, smoothing down over her shoulders now, working his thumbs into the bones at the top of her spine, ‘you know him. I don’t. I’d like to, though. He sounds like a real fun guy. How’s this?’

‘It’s lovely,’ said Roz, and it was true. She felt soothed, calmed, rested. It was partly talking to Miles that helped, partly a great natural weariness suddenly carrying her away, and partly, she had to admit, the sensation of extraordinary pleasure and warmth which was being conveyed through her body.

‘Good. I told you it would help. Tell me about your mom.’

She told him. She told him about her childhood, about all her mother’s lovers, about Jamil al Shehra, about the husbands, about Pierre du Chene, about Peveril.

‘She sounds like quite a lady.’

‘She is.’

‘Like her daughter,’ he said. There was something in his voice, a new depth, that shot through Roz like a charge. A fierce, probing one. One she could not begin to contend with. One she did not even want to think about.

‘That’s fine, Miles,’ she said. ‘Thank you. I – I think I’ll go to bed now. Can you let yourself out?’

‘Of course,’ he said, and as she turned to face him, to walk out of the room, she met his eyes, and felt confused, disoriented, almost physically disturbed. She looked away, smiled coolly, walked past him, but it was too late; he had seen it, and shown her that he had seen it, with a smile of his own, a brief touch of her hand.

‘Good night,’ was all he said. ‘I’ll call you first thing, find out when we have to go.’

He might seem a boy, she thought, lying in bed later, drifting into unconsciousness with the help of a very strong sleeping pill, but he undoubtedly had the sexuality, the carnal knowledge of a very experienced man.

Phaedria finally reached Regent’s Park, exhausted, the following afternoon.

Julia had been very good and slept through most of the journey, waking only to feed and gaze sweetly around her, occasionally smiling her surprised, lopsided smile; nevertheless it was a relief to get her home and into the arms of Mrs Hamlyn for a few hours.

Michael had seen them both off at LA airport; he had taken her in his arms, and given her a huge bear hug.

‘I daren’t kiss you,’ he said, looking at her tenderly, lovingly, his eyes nonetheless amused both at himself and her for their entirely (as he put it) profligate restraint, ‘not even on your forehead. I would forget myself entirely and ravish you here and now right in front of Immigration. Now take great care of yourself, and call me if you need me.’

‘I will,’ she said. She felt she could have stayed there in his arms, safe, protected from the fears that filled her, for hours, days; she pulled back, looked at him, at his gloomily amused face, his restless dark eyes, interminably exploring her, his oddly hard, tough, mouth – she had begun to dream of that mouth and what it could do to her – felt his warmth, his solid, comforting, caring warmth, and somehow managed to smile; but she felt chilled and totally bereft as she finally walked away from him towards Internal Flights.

All the way home she thought alternately of him and Julian; her mind and her emotions a jumble of hurt and fear, longing and confusion. It occurred to her suddenly, as she looked out at the endless blue beside and beyond her, that she had never met Michael, never been with him, under circumstances that were not extraordinary; when she had not been ill or frightened, or grieving or shocked. And yet he managed unfailingly to make her feel calmer, happy, safe, to make things seem hopeful, and normal, and above all interesting. He was very sexually attractive (very very sexually attractive, she thought, wrenching her mind with an effort from a rather too vivid contemplation of what might have been) but, more unusually, he was emotionally exciting, he gave life, people, experiences, a new vividness and interest.

Well, it was not to be, she thought; she would just have to find them less vivid and interesting, and to suppress the ferocious feelings that roared through her body every time she even thought about him. He belonged to Roz, and even had she been less afraid of Roz, less hostile to her, Phaedria would not have considered taking him away from her. The pain of seeing Camilla’s head on the pillow of her bed, hers and Julian’s, in New York, was still fresh and raw in her. She would not, could not, inflict that on anybody. Not even Roz. Moreover, just now Roz, probably even more than she, needed Michael. Even in her own considerable unhappiness, Phaedria shuddered at the thought of the hurt Roz must be enduring.

And there was another pain, equally fresh and raw, still in her, that she knew made it impossible for her to enter into emotional commitments. She had, with all their problems, their battles, the shortcomings of their relationship, loved Julian very much; he had been her first lover and her first real love, and he had died only six months earlier. She was still cautiously, painfully working her way through her grief – rekindled suddenly and horribly by this new trauma, and she was simply not ready to go forward into anything else.

Quite suddenly as she sat there, gazing blankly out of the window, unbidden, unwelcome, a terrifying thought came to her. Straight from a nightmare, worse than a nightmare: so bad she had to get up, walk up and down the aisle for a while, order herself a drink.

‘No,’ she said to herself, half aloud. ‘No. Not possibly.’

Her voice broke into the baby’s sleep; she stirred, half opened her eyes, moved her tiny arms. Phaedria looked at her, and picked her up suddenly, holding her very tightly. ‘Oh baby,’ she said, ‘what troubles we seem to have, you and I.’

‘It’s lovely to have you home, madam,’ said the housekeeper, taking the baby, looking at her, smiling at her, ‘isn’t she beautiful and she looks just like –’ She broke off, confused, not sure if she was saying the right thing.

‘It’s lovely to be home, Mrs Hamlyn. Yes, I know, she looks just like her father, doesn’t she?’

‘She does. Who’d have thought it?’ said Mrs Hamlyn with a sublime lack of logic. ‘Er, Mr Emerson is here, madam, up in the drawing room. Shall I put baby in the nursery? You must be very tired, I’ll bring you some tea.’

‘I’ll just come up with you and settle her. She’s been feeding all the way from Heathrow, I don’t think she’s hungry. But yes, I am tired. Thank you so much for getting the nursery organized, Mrs Hamlyn, I do appreciate it. I believe some nannies are coming for interviews tomorrow?’

‘Yes, they are. Mrs Morell has seen all of them, and liked them, but she said you must have the final say, of course.’

‘Well, me and Julia. Everyone has been so kind. I’ll just go and say hallo to Mr Emerson, Mrs Hamlyn, and then I’ll follow you up.’

C. J. was sitting by the fire; he looked drawn and pale.

‘Hallo, C. J.! It’s lovely to see you. I’m so glad you’re here.’

‘Hallo, Phaedria. It’s good to have you back.’

‘Well,’ she said, looking at him mockingly reproving, ‘I gather you haven’t been here very much, C. J. Business in New York, I heard.’

‘Er – yes,’ he said awkwardly. ‘Who told you that?’

‘Oh,’ she said lightly, ‘I have spies everywhere.’

‘You must do. Phaedria, I’m so sorry about all this.’

‘Oh,’ she said, ‘yes, it’s been an awful shock. But worse for Roz, I imagine. How is she?’

‘Pretty wretched. Very angry.’

‘Yes, she would be angry. I am quite. But not as much as her, I imagine.’

‘Nobody,’ he said with a sigh, ‘can be as angry as Roz.’

‘That’s true. Except perhaps her father.’

‘Well, yes. I’ve just left Letitia,’ he said.

‘Oh God,’ said Phaedria, ‘how is she? Poor Letitia. I did wonder, you know, if she had to know at all. But I suppose she might have heard some other way and that would have been worse.’

‘Rather strangely,’ said C. J., ‘she seemed to find it all rather – well, amusing would be too strong a word. But she was rather manic about it. She certainly didn’t cry or faint or anything. She just couldn’t stop talking about it.’

‘I’m not surprised,’ said Phaedria. ‘It would appeal to her on an intellectual level. She would regard it as a kind of personalized entertainment. I think when it sinks in she might feel very differently.’

‘Maybe. Could you ring her later and see how she is? I didn’t want to leave her, but she more or less shooed me out.’

‘Of course I will. I must go and see if Julia’s settled down, and then Mrs Hamlyn’s bringing us some tea.’

‘Fine.’

He seemed very depressed.

Phaedria reappeared laughing. ‘Well, I’ve lost that baby. Mrs Hamlyn won’t let me near her. There’s a mutual admiration society going on up there; it’s hard to say who’s talking the most nonsense.’

‘Good. How is she?’

‘Julia? She’s marvellous. Thriving. Smiling. Guzzling.’ She sighed suddenly, a vision of Michael looking at her over Julia’s downy head surfacing from her subconscious. She pushed it irritably down again. If she was going to get sentimental about him every time she even fed the baby, there was little hope for any of them.

‘And how are you?’

‘Tired. A bit shaken, I suppose. Oh, I don’t know what to think, C. J. Who on earth was I married to? Julian? Hugo Dashwood? Or someone else altogether. I feel such a fool, apart from anything else.’

‘You shouldn’t,’ he said. ‘We all knew him much longer and we never suspected anything either.’

‘No, but I was married to him. Supposed to be one mind and one flesh and all that sort of thing. How could I have been so obtuse?’

‘Phaedria, you weren’t being obtuse. The guy was – well, I hate to say this, but obviously just slightly odd.’

‘OK, but there I was madly in love with someone not just slightly, but extremely odd. And I had no idea. Some marriage.’

‘Well, we all have to learn to live with it. Roz is finding it horribly hard.’

‘I’m sure. Where is Roz anyway?’

‘She’s gone up to Scotland, to see her mother.’

‘Goodness,’ said Phaedria, ‘I wonder how on earth Eliza will take it?’

‘I think probably very well,’ said C. J. ‘I think hers will be more like Letitia’s reaction. She’ll see it as a stupendous piece of gossip.’

‘Yes, well, she must be stopped from talking about it,’ said Phaedria. ‘Apart from anything else, I don’t think Letitia could cope with it being all over the papers. Nor could I for that matter,’ she added soberly.

‘Don’t worry. Roz had thought of that. She was prepared to threaten her mother with all kinds of loss of privilege, no more lunches at Langan’s, forbidding Jasper Conran to go and stay with her, that sort of thing,’ said C. J.

‘Good, I’m glad. And tell me about the famous Miles? What’s he like? And where is he? I want to meet him.’

‘The famous Miles is delightful,’ said C. J. ‘You just can’t help liking him. Very very good-looking –’

‘I know that,’ said Phaedria quietly, reliving suddenly the horror of seeing the photograph, the dizzy shock, standing there in the bright sunlight with Father Kennedy, feeling nothing but darkness and chill, ‘I’ve seen a picture of him.’

‘Have you? Oh, in Los Angeles, of course. Well anyway, he’s extremely charming, in that very Californian laid back kind of way, very very genuine and natural, and absolutely unspoilt. He’s completely fazed by all this business, hardly knows what day of the week it is, but he’s handled it extremely well. Just sitting and smiling and trying to be helpful.’

‘He sounds a bit too good to be true,’ said Phaedria briskly. ‘And – well, have you any idea at all, has he, what he might want to do?’

‘His initial reaction was just to hand it over and go back to California with his girlfriend,’ said C. J. ‘He just doesn’t basically want to know.’

‘Well, that could simplify things I suppose,’ said Phaedria. ‘Or alternatively complicate them. What does Henry think about it all?

‘God knows,’ said C. J. ‘I don’t think he’s met too many people like Miles. Maybe you should talk to him.’

‘I will. Anyway, where’s Miles now?’

‘In Scotland with Roz.’

‘Good God. What on earth for?’

‘Well, I may be doing her a terrible injustice,’ said C. J. carefully, ‘but I kind of feel Roz doesn’t want him left around for you to get your hands on.’

‘Oh, God,’ said Phaedria wearily. ‘Machiavelli had nothing on Roz, did he? I don’t know if I have the stomach for all this, C. J. We obviously have a very bloody battle ahead of us.’

‘Letitia? Hello, it’s Phaedria.’

‘Darling, how lovely to hear your voice. How are you, and when can I come and see you and meet that baby? I would have come out to see you in LA but my fool of a doctor said I shouldn’t.’

‘Letitia, have you been ill?’

‘Not seriously, darling, only flu. But I did feel a bit tired after it. I told him the sunshine would do me good, but he didn’t seem to see it that way.’

‘Letitia, you must take care of yourself. You do too much.’

‘I do far too little,’ said Letitia briskly. ‘That’s half the trouble. I’m thinking of coming back to work full time. Could you find me some little task, do you think? As accounts clerk or something?’

‘Oh God, I’m sure we could,’ said Phaedria, ‘it would be marvellous.’

‘Good. Well maybe after Christmas. I’ll come for an interview. Now then, when am I going to see you both?’

‘Whenever you like. The baby is simply beautiful, Letitia, and she looks just like Julian.’

‘Oh, how wonderful. It’s all too good to be true. Shall I come over in the morning? I expect you’re tired now.’

‘I am a bit, but if you really want to, I’d love to see you now. I could send Pete.’

‘No, darling, I’m a little tired myself. I’ve had – well, a rather interesting conversation with C. J.’

‘I know. That’s really why I rang. To see if you were all right.’

‘Much more all right than you – anyone – might think. Of course it was a shock, but you know, Phaedria, I had suspected something like this. Well, no, not suspected, that is putting it too strongly, but it certainly wasn’t as – well, surprising, as it must have been to you.’

‘Really, Letitia? How extraordinary. Tell me why.’

‘Oh, I don’t know. It seemed such a nonsense, leaving that will, that inheritance to a complete stranger. It had to be a kind of riddle. And most riddles have perfectly obvious answers after all.’

‘I suppose so.’

‘You see, he did have this passion for deceit. Secrecy is perhaps a kinder word. He loved it even as a little boy. He used to go to such lengths to surprise me with birthday presents, things like that. And then there was his Resistance training in the war; he had to assume at least two, three I think, completely different identities. Separate papers, passports, everything. He adored it and he was brilliant at it. It’s my guess this thing started as a sort of game, that he was bored one day and decided to see how far he could take it and then it got out of hand; probably when this poor woman’s husband died, and he was looking after her, or decided to keep an eye on Miles, he had got rather close to them all and it was just too late to say, “Er – actually, I’m not who I said I was.” Do you see what I mean? And then of course –’ her voice trailed away just slightly; there was a short, painful silence. ‘There – there just might be another explanation. Don’t you think?’

‘Oh,’ said Phaedria quickly, determinedly, hearing in Letitia’s quiet, almost detached tone the black nightmare that had first attacked her on the plane drawing nearer reality, ‘if you mean what I think you mean, no, I don’t. Not possibly. That couldn’t be right. It just couldn’t.’

‘No, of course not,’ said Letitia. ‘No, obviously it couldn’t. Well, perhaps we can talk about it all a bit more tomorrow. When I come and meet that baby. Now then,’ she said, deliberately changing her tone of voice, her mood, ‘you’ve heard about Miles, have you?’

‘Well yes –’

‘I mean how deliciously handsome and charming he is?’

‘I’m beginning to get the idea,’ said Phaedria, laughing, relieved to feel the nightmare fading again, ‘I shall meet him tomorrow, I imagine. Roz has whisked him off to Scotland so I can’t steal a march on her and inveigle the shares away from him while she’s not there. Poor Roz,’ she added, ‘I understand she’s terribly upset.’

‘Yes, she is.’

‘I did phone her to try and speak to her, but I missed her twice. I thought I’d ring her tonight at Garrylaig. She must see it as the ultimate betrayal. I mean, all this time she’s thought that through all the relationships, all the wives, all the mistresses, she came first, that he loved her best, and now there’s been this shadowy figure, this other life all along.’

‘It’s a pity Michael isn’t here with her,’ said Letitia with a sigh, ‘I understand they’ve quarrelled. Again. Now of all times. Well, I do hope they make it up. He really is the only man in the world who can handle her. She needs him terribly badly.’

Phaedria wondered, as she put the phone down, if she had detected or merely imagined a very slightly ominous note in Letitia’s voice.

Eliza took the news remarkably well.

‘Nothing that old so and so did would surprise or shock me, darling. If you told me he’d made off with the crown jewels or that he had personally murdered Lord Lucan, I would think it par for the course. I think it’s all rather romantic. I just wish I’d known before, when he was alive, and I could have teased him about it all. You mustn’t be too upset, Roz, he really was rather – well, odd. I know you loved him terribly and if it’s any comfort to you, I think you were the only person he really loved in return, but I don’t think this means you have to think he loved you any less.’

‘He must have quite loved Miles,’ said Roz soberly, ‘to have done this to us all.’

‘I don’t think so. Quite the reverse. If he’d really loved him, he would have brought him out of the wardrobe or whatever the expression is, before. Good God – I – no, no, surely not. Probably not. Well –’

‘Mummy, what on earth are you talking about?’

‘Oh, I don’t know,’ said Eliza, appearing to shake herself. ‘Just a thought. Take no notice, darling. My mind’s wandering. Senility setting in. Miles is frightfully handsome, isn’t he?’ she said quickly. ‘And what a charmer. We could hardly have a more delightful pretender to the throne, could we?’

‘Not, not really,’ said Roz listlessly. ‘I’m sorry, Mummy, I simply can’t take this rather pragmatic view of yours. And Letitia’s, it seems. C. J. phoned and says she’s just fine. Says she’s always suspected it or some such nonsense. I just see it as an awful betrayal.’

‘Oh, I think the will was,’ said Eliza, ‘don’t get me wrong. But this double life business, well, it’s just too ridiculous. Silly. You mustn’t let it upset you too much.’ She looked at Roz’s drawn, pale face and shadowed eyes. ‘How’s Michael?’

‘Fine,’ said Roz briefly. ‘Very busy.’

‘Really? I would have thought he would have been over, with all this.’

‘Why ever should he? He has a business to look after. Why should a lot of nonsense like this have him rushing away from it?’

‘He knows how much you loved your father. He wouldn’t think it was nonsense. When is he coming over?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Roz irritably. ‘I really haven’t discussed it with him.’

Eliza gave her a probing look. ‘Have you quarrelled?’

‘No. Well, in a way, yes.’

‘What about?’

‘Oh, just about everything. I don’t want to talk about it.’

‘Don’t lose him, Roz. He’s the right man for you.’

‘That’s not what you said once,’ said Roz bitterly. ‘And I have a broken marriage to show for it.’

‘I know and I was wrong. Although I don’t think I want to take the entire responsibility for your divorce on to my shoulders. But pride is a destructive thing, Roz. If it’s even half your fault, you should apologize.’

‘It isn’t,’ said Roz shortly, ‘and I’m not going to.’

‘All right, darling. Have it your own way. How’s Phaedria?’

‘I haven’t the faintest idea,’ said Roz. ‘She only got back today.’

‘Ah,’ said Eliza, ‘so that’s it. You were afraid she’d get Miles on to her side while you were up here. I did wonder.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ said Roz. ‘I just thought he might as well come and meet you than hang around in London.’

Eliza looked at her. ‘Which way do you think he’s going to jump?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Roz wearily. ‘He doesn’t want to jump at all. Just go home again to California and his girlfriend.’

‘Well, offer to buy him out and then he can.’

‘I know, but it’s not as simple as that.’

‘Why not?’

‘Well, because he knows he has to make a decision.’

‘Well, darling, I would have thought you were capable of leaning on him quite hard enough to persuade him. I would also have thought,’ she added, an expression that was half humorous, half shrewd in her green eyes, ‘it might be quite a pleasure. Come along, darling, let’s go and have tea. I haven’t told Peveril too much about all this yet, he already sees us as only a little better than the Borgias.’

‘Mummy, I don’t think you should tell anyone about it,’ said Roz. ‘I don’t want the gossip columns getting on to it. It would damage us all.’

Eliza’s large green eyes were widely candid. ‘Of course I won’t, darling. Who would I tell?’

‘Oh, nobody much. Just a few close, intimate friends. Nigel Dempster, Peter Langan. Your friend Marigold Turner. No, Mummy, you really are not to talk about it. To anyone.’

‘So in that case, who is Miles supposed to be?’ said Eliza crossly.

‘An old friend of the family who’s been mentioned in Daddy’s will. Who it’s taken us a while to track down. OK? We really cannot afford a major scandal about all this.’

‘Rosamund, whenever did I show any predilection for mixing myself up in major scandals?’

‘Oh,’ said Roz, looking at her mother with a mixture of exasperation and affection, ‘just about every week of your life so far. Come on, let’s go and have tea. I can’t wait to see Peveril and Miles together.’

‘They were something else,’ said Miles happily to Roz as they flew back to London in the company plane next morning. ‘I thought he was just the neatest old guy I ever met. I said I would ask him over to stay with us in California in the summer. He said he had always wanted to surf.’

‘Good God,’ said Roz, contemplating with great pleasure the vision of Peveril complete with knickerbockers and deerstalker riding a board in the Malibu surf. ‘Can I come too? I wouldn’t miss that for anything.’

‘Sure,’ said Miles. ‘I’d really like that. And you could bring little Miranda, too,’ he added, ‘she’s a cute kid. Does she live up here all the time?’

‘No, it’s just that she was up there anyway, it’s good for her, the air and so on, and with all this drama going on, I thought she and Nanny might as well stay for a while longer.’

Miles looked at her curiously. She talked about and indeed behaved towards Miranda as if she was a small, none-too-familiar puppy; he had heard the English were very odd in their attitude to their children, first shutting them away in nurseries with starchy uniformed nannies, and then sending them straight off to school: it was obviously true.

‘I guess she’ll be off to boarding school soon,’ he said. Roz looked at him sharply, suspecting he was trying to score off her, but he smiled back at her with such transparent friendliness that she had to smile back.

‘Not for a year or two,’ she said. ‘In fact, not till she’s at least eleven.’

‘Did you go to boarding school?’

‘Yes, I did. And I hated it.’

‘So why send her at all?’

‘Well, because she has to go some time,’ said Roz, looking at him as if he was querying the basis of the entire British constitution, ‘because it’ll be good for her.’

‘It wasn’t good for you.’

‘How do you know?’ she said, quite crossly, ‘what was good and bad for me?’

‘Lots of things have been bad for you, I’d say,’ he said. ‘Otherwise you’d be happier.’

‘How do you know I’m not happy?’

‘I feel it,’ he said, ‘I feel it and I see it.’

‘Well, that’s just ridiculous.’

‘Why? Are you happy?

‘Well, not at the moment, no. Of course I’m not. I have a lot to be unhappy about.’

‘Like this business with your dad?’

‘Yes, of course.’

‘Yeah, that’s tough. I can see that. But before that were you happy?’

‘Well, yes, of course I was.’

‘That’s all right then,’ he said, leaning back in the seat, looking out of the window. Something about his complete air of relaxation and detachment irritated Roz.

‘Don’t you believe me?’

‘Not really.’

‘Why not?’

‘You don’t seem like a lady who’s happy. Not to me. Of course I may be wrong.’

‘You are.’

‘Good,’ he said, ‘that’s fine. You should know, I guess.’

‘Yes, I certainly should.’

‘OK. I’m really glad.’

He looked at her, his dark blue eyes examining her green ones, scanning her face, and smiled. ‘It’s all right,’ he said, putting out his hand, covering hers with it. ‘You don’t have to take any notice of me. I’m just a schmuck from California. I guess I don’t understand you guys at all.’

‘No,’ said Roz, pulling her hand away, still irritated. ‘You don’t.’

‘OK,’ he said lazily, ‘but don’t get so uptight about it.’

‘I’m not uptight.’

‘You are, Roz,’ he said. ‘You’re seriously uptight. But if you won’t talk about it, then it has to stay your problem. If you don’t want me to help, that’s fine.’

‘And what,’ she said edgily, ‘do you think you could do to help?’

‘Oh,’ he said, his eyes caressing hers briefly, moving down, resting on her mouth, ‘I could do a lot. I told you that the other night.’

Roz was silent for a while, digesting this, trying to suppress the conflicting emotions within her: irritation, misery, a desire at once to get closer to Miles and to keep her distance, and despite herself, the odd sense of physical disarray, of pleasant warm confusion he induced in her.

She looked at her watch. Only twenty minutes to go. Discretion won.

‘It’s very very kind of you,’ she said, coolly courteous, ‘to be so concerned about me. But I really am perfectly all right. Or will be when this is over.’

‘Good,’ he said. ‘I’m really glad. I think I’ll take a nap.’

He smiled at her again, reached out in a tender, unexpected gesture and touched her cheek, and then closed his eyes and was asleep in seconds.

Phaedria was just finishing her breakfast and concurrently giving Julia hers when the phone rang.

‘Hi, darling. It’s me.’

Her head promptly disintegrated into a million fragments; she felt a rush of huge, bright pleasure, followed by the now familiar sense of panic and unease.

‘Aren’t you speaking to me? Don’t I get any kind of a reward for having Franco wake me at five in the morning just so I could hear your voice? You’re a hard woman, Lady Morell.’

She laughed. ‘I’m sorry. I was surprised.’

‘Good. That was the idea. I plan to keep surprising you, catching you unawares. Eventually, I plan to catch you so unawares you won’t even know what you’re doing, and whether it’s all right to be doing it. How are you?’

‘I’m fine.’

‘Good. And what are you doing?’

‘Feeding Julia.’

‘Oh, God,’ he said, ‘oh, God.’

‘What’s the matter?’

‘Oh, nothing,’ he said, ‘just having a little trouble with a particular part of my anatomy. Brought on by the image of Julia taking her breakfast.’

‘Oh, Michael,’ she said, with a mixture of a laugh and a sigh in her voice. ‘Don’t, please don’t.’

‘Listen, honeybunch, I’m trying not to. It isn’t easy.’

Phaedria gave up. ‘It’s so nice to hear your voice.’

‘That’s better. What are you going to do today?’

‘Not sure. Yes I am. I’m going to meet Miles.’

‘Ah. Where was he yesterday?’

‘In Scotland,’ said Phaedria. ‘With Roz.’

‘Good Christ. She’s not letting you get your hands on him, is she?’

‘Fraid not.’

‘Will you promise to call me when you’ve finished with him?’

‘Why?’

‘Now, that is a ridiculous question. I can hardly believe you’ve asked it. Because I want to know what he’s like. Because I want to know how you get on with him. Because I want to know what might be happening. Because I need to know how goodlooking he is, in case I have to get jealous.’

‘Michael, please please stop talking like this.’

‘Why?’

‘You know why.’

‘I know why you think I should. I really don’t know that I know. I have been giving our situation a great deal of thought, and I have come to a conclusion or two. Do you want to know what they are, or shall I stop donating half my income to the Bell Telephone Company and go back to sleep?’

Phaedria was silent, struggling with herself. Then she said, ‘Yes, I want to know.’

‘OK. Here we go. I think you’re terrific. I think you’re clever and funny and beautiful. I love being with you. How am I doing?’

‘All right.’

‘Only all right? For Christ’s sake, Phaedria, here I am reciting a love letter over the Atlantic and all you can say is it’s all right.’

‘Sorry. But you know – well, you know what I think.’

‘I plan on destroying your capacity to think. Can I go on?’

‘All right.’

‘I want to go to bed with you.’

‘You can’t. I’ve told you. Don’t even think about it.’

‘Darling, I can’t think about anything else.’

‘You have to. You have to think about Roz.’

‘I’ve thought about Roz. Very hard.’

‘And?’

‘I don’t love her any more.’

‘How do you know?’ she said, and her heart was thudding so hard she could scarcely hear him.

‘I just do. I did love her, very much. I loved a lot about her. But she’s killed it. Strangled it. It’s dead.’

‘Michael, you can’t do that to her.’

‘Do what?’

‘Fail her now. You just can’t. She’s so unhappy.’

‘Phaedria, I was so unhappy, lots of times. I was so unhappy, so lonely for her, I didn’t know how to stand it. She didn’t give a monkey’s fart. She said she did, but she didn’t. All she ever cared about was that company and that father of hers. Your husband. I beg your pardon, I don’t mean to insult him . . .’

‘Please don’t –’

‘Sorry. I have to try and explain it and he is crucial to the explanation. I spent years fighting him for Roz. It didn’t stop when he died. Now I seem to be fighting him for you.’

‘No, you’re not.’

‘Well that’s what it feels like. OK, let’s drop him. Let’s go back to us.’

‘There isn’t an us,’ she said, with such a huge effort it physically drained her.

‘Phaedria, there should be. There has to be.’

‘There can’t be.’

‘There will be. I swear it.’

‘Michael –’

‘Phaedria, listen to me. Please, darling, please listen for God’s sake.’

‘I’m listening,’ she said, her resolve weakened by the urgency in his voice.

‘Good. Because it’s very important. Very important.’ He was silent for a moment. Outside, she heard a car pull up. Pete perhaps, back with the files she had sent for from the office.

‘Phaedria, I know we have problems. Difficulties. I can see we have to take our time, tread carefully. But I can’t go back to Roz now. I absolutely cannot.’ There was a pause. And a knock at the front door.

‘Phaedria. I am rather seriously in love with you.’ Another pause. Voices.

‘Phaedria, I think – no, for God’s sake, I know, I want you to –’

‘Good morning, Phaedria.’

Phaedria slammed the phone down.

Roz was standing in the doorway.

‘Good morning Phaedria,’ she said again. ‘Please don’t let me disturb your phone call. Was it important?’

‘No,’ said Phaedria. ‘No, not at all. Good morning, Roz. How are you?’

‘Very well, thank you. A little – tired, shall we say, but well. So this is the baby?’

‘Yes.’

‘Very nice,’ said Roz, glancing dispassionately at Julia rather as if she were an ornament or a dress she didn’t like the look of very much, but felt forced to at least acknowledge.

Phaedria looked at Roz steadily. She was pale but composed; she was wearing black, as she so often did, with a scarlet scarf knotted round her shoulders. She looked dramatic, fierce but not hostile, indeed she was smiling faintly.

‘Well,’ she said, ‘welcome back to London.’

‘Thank you. Roz, I’m so sorry about the news – about your father. I did try to ring you several times, but . . .’

‘I know you did,’ said Roz. ‘Thank you. I got the messages.’

Phaedria stared at her, so effectively rebuffed she couldn’t even speak.

‘I – I think I’ll just take Julia upstairs,’ she said after a moment. ‘I’ll ask Mrs Hamlyn for coffee.’

‘Don’t worry,’ said Roz. ‘I won’t be here long.’

‘Well, I’d like some,’ said Phaedria firmly. ‘Excuse me for a moment.’

She put the baby in the cot and looked down at her for a while, then as if drawing strength from her, stood up very straight and walked back downstairs.

Roz turned and looked at her, taking in the tanned skin, the glossy hair, the slender figure.

‘You look very well,’ she said. ‘But then I suppose you would. You have just had what amounts to a very long holiday.’

‘In a way, yes.’

‘But you are fully recovered at last.’

‘Oh, I am very fully recovered. It’s been Julia’s health that has kept me there, as you know. She was very frail.’

‘But she’s well now?’

‘Oh, very, thank you.’

‘And when are we to expect the pleasure of seeing you back at work?’

‘Oh, very soon,’ said Phaedria, ‘as soon as I have Julia settled with a nanny. I’m looking forward to it.’

‘I daresay you are. You must have been bored and – lonely over there. Or weren’t you?’

A cold crawling chill invaded Phaedria’s body; she felt sick. So that was it. She swallowed hard and met Roz’s eyes steadily.

‘Not really. I made friends. I had Julia. I was at the hospital most of the time.’

‘Oh, good,’ said Roz, poisonously sweet, ‘and then you had visitors, I believe?’

‘Yes, I did. Several.’

‘Several?’

‘Yes, several,’ said Phaedria steadily. ‘My father, of course.’

‘Of course.’

‘And Susan came, and C. J. and David Sassoon, and your mother.’

‘So she did. How very thoroughly you have become a part of this family. Inveigled yourself into it.’

‘Hardly inveigled,’ said Phaedria, meeting her stormy eyes. ‘I did after all marry into it.’

‘You did. I tend to forget that. I somehow get the impression you do as well, from time to time.’

‘I don’t know what you mean, I’m afraid,’ said Phaedria.

‘Don’t you?’ said Roz. ‘Well, never mind. I believe Michael came to visit you?’

‘Yes,’ said Phaedria. ‘Yes he did. He came to see us.’

‘Us?’

‘Yes us. Me and the baby.’

‘How touching.’

‘It was very nice of him.’

‘Very. Extraordinarily nice. He stayed at your hotel, I believe?’

Phaedria had not realized she had known this. She swallowed again, hoping Roz wouldn’t notice.

‘Yes,’ she said, ‘yes, he did.’

‘For two nights?’

‘Yes.’

‘You slut,’ said Roz quite quietly.

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘I said you were a slut. My father has only been dead six months, that child of yours is only just born, and you start sleeping around with anyone who takes your fancy. Who else has been consoling you in your widowhood down there? C. J.? No, he hasn’t got the balls. David Sassoon? You always did have the hots for him.’

‘Roz,’ said Phaedria, keeping her voice quiet with a huge effort, ‘please could we stop this. I’m finding it grossly insulting. I know it’s very hard to believe, I can see what’s happened is very unfortunate and difficult for you to accept, but nothing, absolutely nothing happened between Michael and me.’

‘I don’t find that hard to believe. I find it impossible.’

Phaedria shrugged. ‘That’s your problem.’

‘Is that all you have to say?’

‘What else could there be?’

Roz was silent for a moment.

‘I think you’re lying,’ she said.

‘You can think what you like,’ said Phaedria. ‘I really don’t care. I do care, though,’ and there was an icily warning edge to her voice, ‘if you share your thoughts with other people. I have not slept with Michael Browning, or indeed anyone else, nothing whatever happened between us and that is the end of the matter. Have you talked to Michael about it?’

‘Yes. He spun the same fairy story.’

‘Oh Roz,’ said Phaedria, ‘it’s not a fairy story. It’s –’ and her lips twitched, despite herself, into a half smile – ‘too unlikely to be untrue. Please for all our sakes take his word for it, if you won’t take mine. God, we have enough real problems, I would have thought, without manufacturing any more.’

‘Most of our problems,’ said Roz, ‘can be laid at your door. If you hadn’t set out to trap my father, to worm your way into the company, to get your hands on his money, there would be no problems at all now.’

‘Roz, I did not trap your father.’

‘Oh really? I suppose he fell madly and hopelessly in love with you, and just swept you off your feet. And his money and his position meant nothing at all to you. Because if that’s so, I don’t quite understand why you can’t just go away now, leave us alone, instead of hanging on for dear life, apparently totally set on getting your pound, or rather millions of pounds, of flesh. And anything else that might catch your fancy in the process.’

‘Roz, I think I’d like you to leave,’ said Phaedria. ‘I don’t want to listen to any more of this.’

‘I don’t suppose you do. Nobody else would say it, would they? They’re all so besotted with you, so totally deceived by your innocent face, and your little-girly ways, your grieving widow number. Well, I’m not. You make me want to throw up.’

‘Get out,’ said Phaedria, her eyes blazing. ‘Just get out. And shut up.’

Roz looked at her consideringly.

‘All right,’ she said at last. ‘I’ll go. I don’t believe any of what you say but I can’t prove it, that it’s not true, so before you start threatening me with slander action again, you have my word I won’t share my thoughts. For now.’ She looked at Phaedria very intently, the hatred in her eyes almost a physical force.

‘Is there anything else you’d like to consider trying to take away from me? she said. ‘First my father. Then my birthright. My lover. Well, I do assure you there’s something you are not going to get your hands on, Phaedria Blenheim, and that’s Miles and his two per cent.’

‘Well,’ said Miles, ‘you certainly are a good-looking family.’

He was standing in the doorway of the drawing room at Regent’s Park; Phaedria had invited him to tea. Roz had gone straight to the office after her morning’s visit to Phaedria, and was consequently unable to keep him under her eye any longer.

Phaedria inclined her head just slightly. ‘Thank you. I could return the compliment.’

‘Please do,’ he said, smiling. ‘A little flattery and I’m anyone’s.’

‘Are you really?’ She smiled. ‘Come in and sit down. Mrs Hamlyn is bringing tea up in a minute.’

‘Thank you. So this is the famous baby?’

‘This is.’

‘She’s cute.’

‘Isn’t she?’

‘Of course,’ he said, ‘she has a head start on most of the human race, beginning her life in California.’

‘I do have to agree with you,’ said Phaedria with a sigh, looking out at the greyness of Regent’s Park, the leaden sky, the dripping trees. ‘It seemed to me just the nicest place in the world. I was so happy there.’

‘Me too.’ He sat down. ‘And I plan to go back there just as soon as ever I can.’

‘Do you really?’

‘I really do. To Malibu. To the beach.’

‘My goodness,’ she said, ‘here you are, one of the most potentially powerful and rich young men in the world, and all you want to do is sit on a beach in California.’

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Don’t knock it.’

‘Oh,’ she said. ‘I’m not knocking it. I envy you. I think it would be marvellous.’

‘Well,’ he said with simple logic, ‘you could go wherever you liked, couldn’t you? You’re not exactly pushed for the fare.’

‘No, that’s true. But I have – well, things to do.’

‘It’s very odd,’ he said, dropping the argument, ‘to hear myself described as powerful. Or even rich. I’ve always been so hard up and so – well, unpowerful.’

She smiled at him. ‘The correct word is impotent.’

‘Yeah, well,’ he said grinning back, ‘I’m not that. Thank heaven.’

‘Good,’ said Phaedria briskly. ‘That must be very nice for someone.’

‘I hope so.’

‘You must feel you’ve strayed into some kind of bad dream,’ said Phaedria suddenly.

‘Well,’ he said, ‘it’s not all bad. But it is pretty strange. I really want to get back soon, but I can see I have some decisions to make first.’

‘Not really,’ said Phaedria. ‘Surely they can wait.’

‘Oh, no,’ he said, ‘I’d rather get it settled. Stay maybe a week or two, and make up my mind. Then go home with a clear conscience.’

‘And you wouldn’t even consider staying and getting involved?’

He looked at her and smiled into her eyes. Phaedria, who had not yet been on the receiving end of this particular experience, felt momentarily weak. She had no interest in Miles whatsoever, he was absolutely not the type of man she found attractive, and yet at that moment, had he chosen, he could have trawled her into a fairly immoderate level of sexual interest.

‘No,’ he said in answer to her question. ‘Not for a moment.’

She was confused by him, and the tangle of her thoughts.

‘Sorry? Not for a moment what?’

He smiled again, aware of what he had done to her. ‘Not for a moment would I consider it. Getting involved.’

‘So what do you intend to do?’

‘Sell up. Take the money and run. Initially I thought I’d just run, but Roz said that was silly.’

‘Did she indeed?’ said Phaedria thoughtfully. ‘That was very scrupulous of her.’

‘I think she is quite scrupulous,’ said Miles cheerfully, beaming at Mrs Hamlyn who had come in with the tea tray. ‘Here, let me take that from you, ma’am.’

Mrs Hamlyn beamed back, and rolled her eyes in a rather extraordinary way; Phaedria was momentarily alarmed; then she realized Mrs Hamlyn was flirting with Miles.

‘Thank you, Mrs Hamlyn,’ she said briskly. ‘I’ll ring if we want anything else.’

‘I wondered if Mr Wilburn might like something more substantial to eat,’ said Mrs Hamlyn. ‘That’s not much of a tea there, not really.’

‘Oh, no ma’am, thank you,’ said Miles, smiling at her again. ‘I already had a huge lunch. But it’s really kind of you to think about it.’

Mrs Hamlyn rolled her eyes again and walked reluctantly over to the door.

‘Well,’ she said hopefully, ‘there’s plenty of food in the kitchen.’

‘Maybe another time,’ said Miles. She looked up at him as if he had just suggested a weekend in Paris.

‘Maybe,’ she said with a last roll, and was gone. Phaedria looked at Miles and grinned.

‘You mustn’t flirt with my female staff,’ she said.

‘Am I allowed loose on the males?’ he said.

‘Certainly not. Now then, come and have some tea, and tell me again exactly what you want to do.’

‘Well,’ said Miles, ‘what I really want to do is get married.’

‘Anyone in particular?’

‘Yes, my girlfriend. She’s called Candy. Candy McCall. She’s eighteen.’

‘That’s young,’ she said, ‘to get married. And how old are you, exactly? You look quite young to be getting married too.’

‘Twenty-seven.’

‘Goodness. The same age as me.’

‘I don’t suppose anyone told you you were too young to get married.’

‘Well, they did and they didn’t,’ said Phaedria.

‘I guess they said you were too young to marry – Sir Julian.’

‘Correct. They did. Miles, my husband – or Hugo Dashwood, as you knew him – stepped in when your mother died, did he, and took you on?’

‘Yes and no,’ said Miles carefully. ‘We didn’t exactly see a lot of him. We never did. Not until my dad died, anyway. Or rather until my mom was ill. Then he came to see her a lot.’

‘And – how do you remember him?’

‘Well, he was very English, you know? A little formal. He was very generous, and real good to my gran. She thought a lot of him.’

Phaedria looked at him thoughtfully. ‘Does that mean you didn’t?’

‘Well – yes and no. He was very clever and all that. And it was real good of him to put me through college. I appreciated that. But we didn’t have – well, a lot to say to each other.’

‘I’m surprised,’ said Phaedria, and meant it. ‘I would have thought you would.’

‘Why?’

‘I’m not sure. I just would have thought you’d get on.’

He smiled regretfully. ‘Sorry. No. Of course, the thing I most minded about is all explained now.’

‘Which was?’

‘Well, I got mad because he wouldn’t give me a job in one of his companies.’

‘I can’t imagine you getting mad.’

‘I hardly ever do. But I was then.’

‘Well, as you say, it’s explained now.’

‘Yup. I suppose it is.’

‘And you studied at college? Maths . . . and you graduated summa cum laude, someone said?’

‘Yup.’

‘And you don’t want to use that?’

‘Nope. I just want to marry Candy. Buy a nice house in Malibu, maybe get a boat.’

He leant back on the cushions, smiling at her. ‘I can see you all find it real hard to understand. But I find it hard to understand the way you live. Working, worrying, fighting as far as I can see. I mean Roz is a real nice person, she could be so happy, you know, and she makes herself wretched, fretting about where the next million’s coming from or going.’

‘No, you’re wrong,’ said Phaedria, adjusting with difficulty to the vision of Roz as a real nice person (hadn’t Michael said something similar a hundred, a thousand years ago?) ‘it has absolutely nothing to do with the next million. Or not a lot. What it’s about is seeing something work and knowing it was you that made it work. It’s very exciting.’

‘Uh-huh.

‘You and Roz aren’t too fond of one another, I gather,’ he said suddenly.

‘Really? How do you know that?’

‘Oh, I know she’s jealous as hell of you. I know she thinks you’re having an affair with her bloke –’

‘What!’ said Phaedria. ‘She told you that?’

‘Yeah, she did. More or less.’

‘Well, she’s wrong.’

‘I told her she was wrong,’ he said, leaning back on the sofa with an expression of some complacency on his face.

‘Well, thank you,’ she said, amused. ‘That makes two of us. And I don’t think she believed either of us. But how did you know, anyway?’

‘It just didn’t seem very likely.’

‘Why not? I’m intrigued. When you hadn’t even met me. Or him for that matter.’

‘I’m not sure. You’d just had a baby, and you were in a vulnerable position, weren’t you?’

‘Was I?’

‘Well, yes. She’d been able to do what she liked here for a couple of months. You wouldn’t have been so dumb as to upset her that much. She’s pretty strong stuff, after all.’

Phaedria looked at him in silence for a minute. ‘Miles,’ she said, ‘are you quite sure you wouldn’t like to get involved with the business? It seems to me you have a real feeling for company politics.’

Miles was lying on his huge bed in Claridge’s, feeling lonely and trying to ring Candy. He was missing her and he was missing home, and he hadn’t the beginnings of an idea what he was going to do about the situation he had landed up in. He was also being assailed by a fear of such proportions, such complexity that he could see that quite soon he was going to have to talk it over with someone or go mad. In the absence of having anyone to talk to he was trying to crush it, to ignore it, to push it to the bottom of his mind, but it went on rising up, ugly and threatening. In a desperate attempt to get away from it, he tried to occupy his mind with his dilemma.

As he saw it, he had three, maybe four choices. He could sell his share to Roz. He could sell it to Phaedria. He could offer them one per cent each, which probably neither of them would accept. Or he could sell out to someone else altogether. Of all the choices, he most favoured the last, because it would involve him in the least emotional trauma, but it could be an almost impossible burden to offload. The sum of money involved – running into at least seven, possibly eight figures – would be considerable: but more relevantly perhaps, the buyer would have to be a person of quite extraordinary character, both personal and professional, hurling himself, as he would be, instantly into the eye of one of the most ferocious hurricanes in commercial history.

There was another option, of course, which was simply to go back to Candy and the beach, and leave them all to it, but that would mean sacrificing the money. Miles reflected rather wistfully on the seven or eight figures. It was an awful lot of money. Too much. Too much for one person. Of course he could do a lot of good things with it, give lots away, to people like Father Kennedy, and his grandmother, and Little Ed and Larissa and the boys in the bars, but it would still leave a lot behind. He wondered if he might just go home without it. He had an uneasy feeling Candy wouldn’t be too pleased. And it would land him right back in the same old situation, with him not being able to marry her, and maybe doing awful dreary jobs like the one in the bank.

He went over his conversation with Henry Winterbourne again:

‘You are a very very rich young man. You have been left a two per cent share in this company, which is worth, at a modest estimate, four billion pounds. The other beneficiaries to the company, as opposed to the personal, fortune, Mrs Emerson and Lady Morell, each hold forty-nine per cent of the shares. I need hardly spell out, I feel, the crucial role you have to play. Whether you get involved with the company or not.’

‘No cash, no money, just on its own, with no strings?’ Miles had asked hopefully.

‘No cash,’ said Henry firmly. ‘If you want cash, you have to sell. Or, of course, become a salaried director of the company. Which you are perfectly entitled to do, in any case.’

‘Oh, Jesus,’ Miles had said, ‘what a creep.’

‘I beg your pardon?’ Henry had said, and Miles had apologized, and said nothing, he hadn’t meant anything, and had asked Henry what two per cent meant in hard cash terms, and Henry had told him. And it was all very scary.

Miles sighed. Maybe he could go and see the old lady, he liked Letitia the best. Even if she wouldn’t talk about the women, as he had come to think of Roz and Phaedria, he would like to hear more about her youth and how she had practically been engaged to the Prince of Wales, almost become Queen of England. And she might be able to offer him some advice at the same time. Miles dialled Letitia’s number, invited himself to dinner, dressed himself up in the new clothes he had bought the day before – an off the peg, dark grey wool suit from Gieves and Hawkes, a pale blue island cotton shirt from Harvie & Hudson, and a splendid hand embroidered red silk waistcoat from S. Fisher in the Burlington Arcade – and then, looking quite heartbreakingly and romantically handsome, carrying a huge bouquet of pink sweetheart roses, set off on foot (ensconsed in his new loafers from Wildsmith’s of Prince’s Arcade) to win Letitia’s heart further.

Phaedria sat in her white study in Hanover Terrace, trying to concentrate on the company reports, sheets of figures, financial forecasts she had had brought from the office. Whatever else happened to her now, she had to get back to work. That was a clear, crucial need. It could wait no longer. She had to get back and she had to try and win; and in that case she needed to be absolutely au fait with the situation in the company. It had been one hell of a day.

She went over it in her head as she began to tidy up the files: first Michael’s phone call – God, why hadn’t she been able to get hold of him, where was he, she had phoned four, five times, to try and apologize, to explain why she had slammed the phone down, to tell him about Roz’s visit. His secretary had just kept saying he was out, and Franco had exhibited his quite outstanding capacity for saying nothing at all. Well, she could try again tomorrow.

And then there had been the hideousness of Roz and what she had done to her; it wasn’t so much her words, she could have anticipated every one of them, it had been her style of delivery, the burning hatred in her eyes, the ugly rawness in her voice.

Maybe she should duck out. Offer Miles some more of the company, sell out to Roz. Why not? What possible future for her lay in that writhing, albeit gilt-edged, can of worms?

Upstairs she heard Julia yelling lustily; there was certainly nothing fragile about her these days. She would fix herself a cup of warm milk (feeding babies induced a desire for such childish pleasures), take herself up to the nursery and meditate upon the advantages and possibilities of a new future away from Morell Industries.

Holding her mug of milk she walked into the nursery; the baby had worked herself into a fury and was kicking frantically, her small face red with rage, her fists flailing indignantly at the unsympathetic air. Phaedria smiled, put down her cup and bent over, pulling back the covers, murmuring to Julia; she looked up at her mother, suddenly silent for a moment, and fixed her with a gaze of great intensity from her dark eyes. Julian’s eyes. Julian’s baby. His legacy to her, just as much as the money, the company, the nightmare. What of her father lay in this small, tough little creature? His brain, his charm, his capacity for survival? What would he have wished for her? What was her due as his daughter?

Things suddenly became very clear to Phaedria. Julia was the heiress to this kingdom now, as much as Roz. She might turn her back on it, walk away, on her own account, but she could not do it for Julia. That was not a decision she could or should make.

The company was her inheritance, bequeathed to her, unknowingly, by her father; he would want it to be hers. She would never know her father, but she could know what he had done, what he had fought for and created, and through that she would learn much of him, appreciate his brilliance, his shrewdness, his toughness, his power. Phaedria could talk to her about him, show her photographs, make sure she knew and loved the people and things that he had known and loved. But the company, the heart of the company, was also the heart of Julian, a living manifestation of what he had been. And so Julia had to be part of it too.

Well, she thought, stroking the small head, playing with the small, frond-like fingers, feeling the strong, satisfying sensation of the hungry little mouth working at her breast, how did that alter the situation? Did it mean she could not, after all, walk away from it all, did it mean she had to battle on indefinitely? Probably, and it would be painful and wearisome, but at least now there seemed some sense in it all. And what of Miles’ share? He had not even begun to understand the complexity of this situation even as it had stood; if she were to attempt to explain the factor of Julia in the equation, he would be still more confused. No, that was wrong, he would not be confused: Miles was not stupid: far from it. She felt for a moment the nightmare, the monster, surfacing again; she crushed it relentlessly down.

A thought suddenly roared through her brain; she sat frozen, still, turning it over. Would Miles sell his share to Julia? God, how neatly, how gloriously beautifully neatly that would resolve things. What was the sum Henry had mentioned? Eighty million. Could she raise that and buy the share on Julia’s behalf? It was a great deal of money. It would mean selling many things: pictures, jewellery, houses, but she could probably do it. And then what would the legal implications of that be? As Julia’s mother, it would to all practical purposes give her control. Roz would fight it to the death; Miles might not agree. But she could ask him. She could see what he thought.

She looked at her watch. It was nearly midnight. He would probably be asleep. Not the best time. She wanted his head clear when she talked to him. She would ring him in the morning. Maybe she should talk to Richard or Henry first. Richard. He would be more realistic about it, take a more pragmatic view. It might be quite impossible. It might be against the law. But she couldn’t really see why. She suddenly felt excited, exhilarated, her weariness forgotten. If only she could talk to someone. She looked down at the head now lolling blissfully relaxed against her and smiled: in time, Julia could fulfil that role for her. She was not alone for ever.

‘Come along, little one,’ she said aloud. ‘You can’t go to sleep yet. I have to change your nappy. And I have some news for you. Mummy has had an idea . . .’

She was so engrossed in her thoughts and her task that it took her a long time to realize the phone was ringing. She picked up the nursery extension, a safety pin still in her mouth.’

‘Yes?’ she said, her voice muffled.

‘Phaedria?’ Michael Browning’s voice came at her, disturbing her, delighting her, across the Atlantic, rough, angry, as she had never heard it. ‘Phaedria, I have phoned to say three things. One is that I love you. Two is that I intend that you should marry me. And three is that you are never, ever to put the phone down on me again.’