AN Outrageous Affair

by Penny Vincenzi

  Piers looked at him. ‘If my reputation, indeed my life are ruined by this book, if everything I have worked for, both on a personal and professional level has been destroyed, then no damages can compensate me. If – what shall we say – allegations have been made, and people believe them, no amount of money paid to me is going to change their minds.’

  ‘Well, you see, Mr Windsor, the law doesn’t quite see it like that. If the damages are large enough, then what the court has done is state categorically that it has found the book to contain serious libel: the information in it is without foundation, and the perpetrators of the libel must be forced to admit that they have been in error.’

  ‘I’m afraid I don’t find that very satisfactory, Mr Marshall,’ said Piers Windsor. ‘To use a vulgar phrase, mud sticks. I cannot imagine any sum of money which would compensate me for what I fear this book might contain. No, we have to stop the publication beforehand. Somehow.’

  ‘Well, if we are to stop it, we have to be sure that the book is not only defamatory, but untrue. If a man who is a pillar of the community is beating his wife and nobody knows, and then a book is published stating that he does so, he has not been libelled: merely defamed. I cannot stress this too strongly, Mr Windsor. It is why I would urge you to take me into your confidence.’

  Piers looked at him for a long time: then he said, ‘I think perhaps I should begin by going to visit Mr Phillips. I shall go alone, and then I shall report back to you.’

  ‘Very well. I wish you every good fortune.’

  ‘How kind,’ said Piers and gave him one of his sweetest smiles and left the office.

  Nicholas Marshall sat looking after him in silence for a while; then he remarked, to the floor-to-ceiling bookcase that was his normal confidant on such occasions, ‘There goes a guilty man.’

  Caroline was in the stables when Piers phoned: she had been for a long ride with Jack, it had rained most of the way, her back ached, and she was tired and irritable. She felt tired and irritable a great deal of the time at the moment, wet rides or not; she could see she had only herself to blame for the disagreeable form of her life, but it didn’t make her feel any better. She missed Magnus horribly; but she also missed Joe and she was missing Chloe and the children with a fierceness that surprised her. Chloe had cut her from her life with a ruthlessness that had startled her. She had never really apologized for her outburst at the time; and had not made a single overture to her mother since. If Caroline phoned her, she was coldly polite. She made an excuse not to see her at Christmas, she wrote polite notes to say thank you for presents, and she sent flowers on her mother’s birthday. When Caroline phoned her, made her confront the issue, she said simply, ‘I love Joe very much. I just can’t bear the way you’ve hurt him,’ and put the phone down.

  Caroline couldn’t quite bear the way she’d hurt Joe either. It was completely impossible to justify, to make excuses for. She had hurt him beyond all endurance, and he had done nothing, nothing at all, to deserve it. He had not married her, but he had most certainly loved, cherished and, in the truest sense of the word, kept her, had been loyal to her, been there always when she needed him, taken on her children, cared for Chloe, helped her with Fleur, and for the sake of a little sexual excitement, a desire for adventure, she had rejected him totally, deceived him, damaged him almost beyond endurance. She felt shocked at herself, shocked and sickened; and alone in her distress. She talked to Jack about it, he being the only person with whom she could have such a conversation, and not even he was able to help, to reassure her about herself and the way she had behaved.

  ‘We all make mistakes, Caroline,’ he said simply. ‘Life’s about trying to put them right again.’

  The problem was, she couldn’t see how she could put this one right. She wrote to Joe, a short letter, telling him how sorry she was, how ashamed; anything more seemed nauseatingly hypocritical. Joe had not replied. She had finished swiftly, angrily with Magnus, as much appalled by his behaviour as her own; but once the rage was over, she found herself sadly bereft. He had been such a strong, powerful force in her life and for quite a long time; she found herself not merely alone, but alone in a flat, bleak landscape with no light or shade in it, and no hope as far as she could see of finding any ever again.

  And seeing pictures of Joe in the papers with Rose Sharon, with whom, they both insisted, he was just good friends, didn’t help in the least.

  Jack took the call: ‘It’s Mr Windsor,’ he said to her, his face and voice equally blank.

  ‘Thank you, Jack. Tell him I’ll take it at the house.’

  ‘Piers? Is anything wrong?’

  ‘No, no, everything’s fine,’ he said. ‘Chloe and the children are all well. I just wondered if I could ask you a possible favour, Caroline.’

  ‘You can certainly ask, Piers. I don’t know if I’ll be able to deliver.’

  ‘I don’t either. But I think it’s worth trying. It’s about this book. That your – friend’ – he made the word sound particularly obscene – ‘Magnus Phillips is writing.’

  ‘Ah, yes,’ said Caroline, ‘the book.’ Against all logic she felt a sudden loyalty to Magnus.

  ‘I . . .’ He paused, clearly searching for exactly the right word. ‘I very much need to know what he’s likely to write in it. About me.’

  ‘Yes? I hope you’re not going to ask me to find out, Piers. Because he certainly won’t tell me. And I certainly don’t know.’

  ‘Well, I just – wondered. If you could give me any clues. I’m taking legal action and any information I can glean will be invaluable.’

  ‘Yes, Piers, no doubt it will. But I’m afraid I can’t help. Can’t help at all. Magnus and I are not on speaking terms.’

  ‘I just wondered if you might have any clues . . .’ His voice sounded strained, slightly odd.

  ‘No, Piers, I’m sorry,’ said Caroline and put the phone down.

  Then she sat looking at it and felt remorse creeping over her slowly. This book, this wretched book, that was threatening to tear their lives apart, pulling in so many strands from so many directions: it was not just going to damage Piers, but almost everyone she loved or had loved, everyone who had been important in her life. Chloe, her sweetly conventional life and status disrupted, made ugly, not only by present scandals, but by past ones, an illegitimate and, more importantly, an unacknowledged sister exposed, a past indiscretion that was in no way her fault reaching out and spreading into every corner of her life; and Chloe’s children, of course: Pandora at least was old enough to be hurt by it. That indiscretion, her indiscretion, its sweetness turned sour, a sacrifice made with such honour, such courage, made to seem ugly, furtive. And then Fleur, already so hurt, so confused, so starved of love, what would it, could it, do to her, to have her history misrepresented in the pages of a book, written with the express and sole purpose of sensationalism? She realized with a sense of acute shock that since her affair with Magnus had begun, she had scarcely thought of Fleur; had relegated her to her past, her distant past, when she had been another person, with other concerns. Maybe, just maybe, that was where Fleur did now belong; they were clearly never to be close, never friends. But this book, this awful horrible book, would that not revive all those emotions, rip the skin off them, make them raw again? And what might it, would it say about Brendan, this book? Would his sad history, retold, refurbished, with the same purpose, become yet more disgraceful, move further from its truth?

  Caroline sat there, suddenly careless about all the others, thinking only about Brendan, as she so rarely dared to do, and as she sat, he became alive again. Alive and young, and brave: a hero, her hero, her love, with her, walking, talking, loving. She saw him, with total clarity, the dark blue eyes flicking over her, the tall, almost gangly body, young, oh so young that body had been, so hungry, so potent; the cropped dark hair, the slow, lazy smile. She heard his voice again, his light
, American voice, with its distant touch of Irish, calling her name, talking to her, tenderly, sweetly, telling her how much he loved her, how he was going to take her home with him, marry her, make her his for ever. And she felt him, felt his hands on her, felt his mouth on hers, felt him in her again; and felt her love for him, certainly, determinedly happy.

  Then he was gone again, lost from her, and with him, her small, beloved daughter, gone both of them, far away, to the other side of the world, lost for ever, taking with them all of her happiness, all of her youth, leaving her a shell, a painful shell, living out a marriage with someone she did not love, and motherhood to another daughter who had meant then almost nothing.

  And it was remembering Brendan, seeing him, hearing him, feeling him with such force, such clarity that gave her the courage to fight for him and for Fleur, to justify what she had done, however wrongly, just one more time. Not for Piers, not for Chloe, not for Fleur even, but for Brendan, that he might finally be shown to be the person she had known, the person he had truly been.

  Magnus returned her slightly nervous, tentative call within half an hour.

  ‘Caroline! How charming to hear from you.’

  Shit, he had the sexiest voice she had ever heard: deep, roughed up, slept in. She felt, despite her hostility, a pang of longing so fierce she had to close her eyes, grip the edge of the hall table. ‘Magnus. Yes. Well, I expect you know why I’ve called.’

  ‘One of two reasons. You want me back. Or you want to know about the book. Possibly even both.’

  ‘I absolutely do not want you back,’ said Caroline. ‘What I said at our last meeting still holds.’

  ‘What was that? Oh, yes, that I was disgusting. Strong words, Lady Hunterton. To describe a humble seeker after truth.’

  ‘Don’t give me that, Magnus. Seeker after truth just possibly, providing it’s going to pay its way one way or another, humble absolutely not.’

  ‘My darling, you do have a way with words. I don’t know why you don’t try your hand at my business.’

  ‘Thank you, Magnus, but I wouldn’t care to. I’d be too worried about my immortal soul.’

  ‘Oh, Caroline, I’m sure your immortal soul has a place very safely reserved for it up there, whatever you did from henceforward.’

  ‘How kind of you.’

  There was a silence. Then he said, ‘So you want to know about the book? What I’m going to write and about who?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Caroline briskly. ‘That’s what I want.’

  ‘Well, it’s quite a lot to ask.’

  ‘I don’t know. Since we’ve provided you with most of the material.’

  ‘Now there,’ he said, ‘you are quite wrong. Hopelessly wrong. This book, my darling, extends a very long way further than any boundaries set by you and your charming family.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I mean it has a cast of thousands. In the best Hollywood tradition. I can never remember finding a project so enthralling, so all-encompassing. All human life is in this book. You’d be amazed.’

  ‘Would I?’ said Caroline.

  ‘Yes, you would. Do you really want to know about it?’

  ‘Yes, of course I do.’

  There was a very long silence. Then he said, ‘Which particular aspect of it, Caroline? Which aspect concerns you the most?’

  She was silent, trying to form the words, to lead him; he cut into her thoughts.

  ‘You know I can’t tell you, don’t you? You know I can’t even think about telling you.’

  ‘You could,’ she said, her voice heavy with pain. ‘Really you could.’

  ‘No, Caroline, I couldn’t. It would be wrong, and besides, it would serve no purpose. I am writing this book, because above all it has become immensely important to me. The story in it is an extraordinary example of distorted truth. The more I discover, the more astonished I become. And the more I feel the real, the true truth should be straightened out. Held up to the light. Offered for consideration.’

  ‘Magnus, please! Please don’t.’

  ‘Don’t what, my darling?’

  ‘Destroy us all.’ She could hear the words sounding ridiculously dramatic even as she spoke them.

  ‘Caroline,’ said Magnus, ‘this story is not going to destroy you all. I promise you that at least. And a great many people that I have talked to feel it should be told. That it brings credit where credit might not be expected. That is my defence. I can’t stop it now. It’s too late. In every possible way.’

  Caroline put the phone down.

  Magnus sat looking at his own phone and shook his head at it reprovingly. Then he put on the thick horn-rimmed spectacles he wore at his typewriter and returned to the chapter he was writing on Piers Windsor’s schooldays. It was very sad, and rather touching reading: it brought a lump to his throat.

  ‘Magnus Phillips,’ he said aloud, ‘you are one hell of a writer.’

  Two hours later, he had a crashing headache; he decided to go for a long walk. He smiled with sheer pleasure as he set out along the Brompton Road towards Knightsbridge, looking at the taxis, the people, the firework-bright shop windows, and thought of the walks he had occasionally been persuaded to go on with Caroline, endless cold disagreeable things, with nothing to look at but hedges and fields, and usually to the accompaniment of a great deal of driving rain. The countryside and her love of it had been one of the worst aspects of the relationship he had had with her.

  He missed her though: he hadn’t realized how much until he had heard her voice that day. It hadn’t been love – at least he didn’t think it had been love, he was a little unfamiliar of the emotion, wary of it – but it had certainly been true affection. And great sex. Really great sex. She was an extraordinarily joyful and imaginative creature in bed. And fun. Lots of fun. He was sorry it was over. And sorry she was so upset as well. Was he really such a shit? Should he really pack this whole thing in? Was it really going to destroy so many lives?

  He stood quite still for a full minute, considering this, and then moved off again, deciding that this was, as always, not a consideration for him. Lives were there, held by their owners, to do as they wished with, and they must accept the consequences. It was a tough philosophy, but he genuinely perceived it as the truth. Magnus held immense store by the truth: it was the one thing he felt worth fighting for. This book told the truth, and a strange and fascinating truth it was: and, like a piece of good surgery, it would first hurt and then heal. They would all get over it. They were all strong enough. Even Chloe. Certainly Chloe. He smiled for a while, thinking of Chloe. He was extremely fond of her; it was that fondness, the sympathy for what she had to endure in the form of Piers Windsor and the hoops she was dragged so persistently through, that had made him want to explore the background to the whole thing in the first place. She would find that very hard to believe, of course: that and the fact that he was so fond of her. But he was: Chloe was – Magnus struggled to find the right word to describe Chloe and could only manage good. She was good, through and through, transparently and sweetly good: loyal, brave, loving. Too good for her own cause. Piers didn’t deserve her. Christ, he didn’t deserve her.

  He had walked a long way now: right up Piccadilly, almost at the Ritz. He was feeling much better: a drink might complete the cure. He went into the Ritz, had a whisky, and left again almost at once. He wanted to get back to work now. He hated having to break; it was almost like having to stop making love, the disentangling of concentration, but work was easier to get back to: a permanently eager mistress. He would walk on down to Piccadilly Underground station and get the tube back. Back to Piers and his schooldays and his loneliness and his terror: he started thinking of Chloe again, of how she might have responded to that unhappiness, of how much she would have heard about it, and thinking about her with such intensity that he seemed suddenly to see
her with extraordinary vividness, her long red hair slightly wild, her sweetly serious pale face a little drawn, with its great brown eyes anxious, her body taut and tense. Then he realized that it was not in his imagination or his memory at all that he saw this Chloe, but in actual fact; for she was there, in front of him, perhaps ten yards away, standing alone, hailing a taxi. No time for her to be out, a respectable young matron and mother like her, it was bedtime, bathtime, story time. And then he realized, his mind moving into its highest level of professional perceptiveness, assimilating that fact and her patent agitation, as taxi after occupied taxi went past her down Piccadilly in the six o’clock rush, that she had emerged from the Albany, alone. Confused, anxious, and physically less self-contained than usual.

  Who lived in the Albany? Magnus wondered, watching her finally capturing a taxi, throwing herself into it, leaning back in patently huge relief as it waited to swing round in a U-turn and take her off in the direction of Knightsbridge and her home: why, a most interesting person lived there, in bachelor splendour, Magnus had been there for drinks parties, even once or twice for dinner, before he had become so totally Chloe’s long-term admirer. Ludovic Ingram lived there.

  Then he saw, dreadfully, Chloe’s face change as she saw him too, saw him watching, realized what he had seen and what the significance of it had been, her eyes grown wider still with terror, with horror, and then she really was gone, dragged away from him, her tormentor, into the anonymity of London.

  Only the anonymity had come a little late.

  ‘I’d like to come and see you.’ Piers’s voice was clear, firm, oddly confident. Magnus was surprised.

  ‘But of course. When would you like to come?’

  ‘As soon as possible. Tomorrow morning perhaps.’