Wicked Pleasures

by Penny Vincenzi

  At seven, they went upstairs and changed; Virginia reappeared in a white Chanel suit, and what was known as a Jackie pillbox on her dark hair; they climbed into Fred’s Rolls and were whisked off to Idlewild Airport on the long haul of a flight to London and thence Venice.

  Virginia went to her marriage still a virgin; it was Alexander’s wish, and her body would have had it otherwise, but her heart was touched. She was impatient and hungry (and relieved at her own hunger) but she waited. Alexander had become more ardent, since their engagement; he kissed her passionately, desperately almost, he caressed her body, her breasts, her thighs, tenderly, deliciously, gently, he told her how beautiful she was, and how desirable he found her, and she liked and enjoyed it, responding urgently to the kisses, but too shy, too afraid of appearing awkward, of offending him even, to attempt to return the caresses. But she never felt he was in the slightest danger of becoming out of control, of breaking the discipline he had set upon them both; and even one night when they had lain for hours in one another’s arms on the couch in her sitting room at East 80th, and she had felt such soaring, stabbing hunger that she could hardly stand it, and had looked at him, her eyes huge and dark with sex, and said, half laughing at the situation, ‘Alexander, please, there is no need for this agony,’ he had set her away from him, and gazed into her eyes and said, ‘Virginia, there is. For me there is. I’m just an old-fashioned guy, as they say over here. I love you very, very much and I want you utterly utterly perfect on our wedding day. Please try to understand.’

  They reached Venice exhausted. Virginia had not slept on the plane, or at least only very fitfully; her head throbbed, her back ached, her eyes were sore when she finally stepped out of the plane at Marco Polo airport. She was tired, fretful, hostile towards Alexander. Every time he touched her hand or tried to kiss her cheek she drew back; the magic of her wedding day, the love she had felt for him for the last six months, the desire that had been swooping through her increasingly strongly ever since she had set eyes on him, had all deserted her. She felt herself an icy, stony, exhausted shell.

  And then as she stepped onto the landing stage where the water taxis waited, still silent, dull with tiredness, she saw it, the golden light of Venice, tipping onto the water, and she felt the gentle, pervading warmth of the Italian sun, touching her like a lover, and she looked out across the sea towards the tender, misty outlines of the city, and it touched her heart and she felt that in some strange way she had come home.

  In the water taxi, following the white posts down the lagoon towards the city, struck with a joyous almost physical delight as it took substance before her eyes, golden and terracotta and white against the blue water, the bluer sky, disbelieving, almost fearful of its beauty, she turned to Alexander and smiled. ‘You were right,’ she said. ‘Right to make me wait.’

  He took her hand, smiled back at her. ‘And this is only the foreplay,’ he said.

  He had booked a suite at the Danieli in the old part of the hotel. ‘Chopin stayed here,’ he said.

  Virginia leant out of the window, gazing enchanted out at the lagoon, weak with weariness and pleasure. ‘How wise of him.’

  ‘Well,’ he said, ‘he lacked one advantage I have. He didn’t have you. Are you happy?’

  ‘Very happy.’

  ‘Come here.’ He opened his arms; she went into them. ‘I love you so much,’ he said. ‘So much. Later we will explore. I want to show you everything, San Marco, the Bridge of Sighs, the Doge’s Palace. All the clichés. But I expect you want to rest.’

  ‘Oh no,’ said Virginia, ‘no, I don’t want to rest, Alexander. I feel I could never be tired again.’

  ‘Then –’He looked at her, his eyes probing hers. ‘Then what would you like? Now?’ A smile played on his lips; he reached out and touched her face.

  ‘Well –’ and she looked down suddenly, confused, nervous, ‘well, I –’

  ‘You look nervous.’

  ‘Alexander, yes, yes I am.’

  ‘My darling,’ he said, leaning forward and kissing her gently, ‘there is nothing to be afraid of.’

  ‘No, of course not,’ she said, trying to smile. ‘It’s just that I – well, you wanted a virgin, Alexander. You have one. And we do tend to be a little fearful.’

  ‘Of course,’ he said. ‘I understand. And I am a little nervous myself. If that makes you feel any better.’

  ‘A little.’

  There was a silence; she waited for him to make some kind of move, but he sat there, just looking at her, his eyes very tender.

  There was a knock at the door. It was a waiter with champagne, and a huge dish of wild strawberries.

  ‘Put them there,’ said Alexander to him. ‘By the bed.’

  ‘Si, signore.’

  He withdrew, closing the door silently. Alexander went over to the table, opened the bottle, poured two glasses. He held one out to Virginia.

  ‘Come and lie down on the bed with me,’ he said, ‘and just let me tell you how much I love you.’

  She drank the glass quickly: too quickly. She felt dizzy, uncertain of herself. She looked at him, and then away, her eyes shadowy with tension. Alexander put his own glass down, quickly; it was an oddly decisive movement, he seemed suddenly less patient, less gentle. He pushed her back onto the pillows, stroking her hair, his lips moving down onto her throat. He began to unbutton her blouse, to caress her breasts; Virginia, filled with sweet, hot fire, lay, her head thrown back, her arms winding first gently, then more urgently round his neck. His lips were on her nipples now, kissing them, licking them; she felt the sensation travel down through her body, increasing the heat in her loins. She moaned, moved against him; he sat up and again paused, paused for quite a while, and then began to undress her, gently, carefully, kissing her as he went, moving down, caressing her stomach, his fingers moving tenderly across it, down, towards her thighs; he removed her skirt, her stockings, her panties; she could feel her own wetness, her own heat. She was naked now, quite naked; a long, slender white body, carved out of the rich red brocade of the bed cover. Alexander looked at her, studying her, touching her, kissing her; and she opened her arms again, smiled at him, a joyous, confident, reckless smile, the smile of love. ‘Come and join me,’ she said.

  And he hesitated once more, just for a moment, and then began to kiss her again, harder than ever, his hands exploring her, there, there in the warmth of her, and she was throbbing with sex and love, frantic for him.

  ‘I love you so much,’ he said, and he sounded gentle, almost sad suddenly, ‘so very very much.’ And then he pulled away from her, and began, very slowly, to remove his own clothes, and his eyes never left her face, not for a moment, and then he walked over to the window and closed the shutters so that the room was in darkness and came back to the great bed and drew her into his arms.

  Chapter 4

  Angie, 1963

  Angie hoped she wasn’t actually going to shit in her pants, but it was beginning to seem quite horribly likely.

  She shifted on her chair, trying to ease her discomfort, and wondered how much longer she was going to have to wait. God, she was in agony. Maybe she wasn’t cut out after all to be powerful and successful, if this was what it did to your guts. What on earth was the silly woman doing there, behind that door?

  Angie looked around the tiny room she was in, trying to distract herself. She supposed it must have once been some kind of servant’s room; no doubt the Countess of Caterham enjoyed keeping people waiting in it. It could hardly qualify as a room, it was more of a cupboard, nothing in it but a chair and a tiny low table, with neat piles of Vogues and House and Gardens. She was tempted by the Vogues, but knew she should be more interested in the House and Gardens; she had tried to concentrate on them, but her discomfort was too great. She started to count. Just as she reached fifty-five the door opened and a face that she recognized from photographs in gossip columns and magazines appeared, smiling at her.

  ‘Miss Burbank! I’m so sorry to have kept
you waiting in this horrible little room. Long long call to a very tiresome client. Please come in.’ Her voice was low and very slightly husky, her accent soft and drawly, rather than the New York twang Angie had expected; she stood up, finding to her relief that her bowels had miraculously called themselves into order, and followed the Countess of Caterham into her office. On the threshold she looked around, stopped quite still by surprise and pleasure at what she saw: a room quite unlike anything she could even ever have imagined. If this was an example of her ladyship’s work, then Angie liked it.

  What had amounted to the entire basement floor of the Caterham house in Eaton Place had been converted into one great room, the supporting pillars cleverly masked by smoked-glass dividing screens in very dark greenish blue. The tiled floor was a pale pale icy version of the same colour and the walls – such of them as could be seen between endless framed antique architectural drawings, and a floor-to-ceiling set of shelves, stacked with what looked like open books with rainbow-coloured pages – were stark white.

  The lights hanging low over the two smoked-glass and chrome desks were in beautifully worked wrought iron, painted white, and the chair behind what was obviously Lady Caterham’s desk was not a predictable chrome and leather affair, but an exquisitely carved wooden one, with a cane back and seat.

  It crowned the room, that chair; Virginia saw Angie staring at it and smiled at her. ‘It’s nice, my chair, isn’t it? It’s Charles II.’

  ‘Really?’ said Angie, carefully nonchalant. If Lady Caterham was going to try and engage her in a discussion about antique furniture, then she would know she was in the wrong place, and she wasn’t going to stay and be made a fool of.

  ‘Yes. But I really like it because it’s unpredictable. Like the lights. I nearly had those stained-glass Tiffany jobs, but I thought that’s what everyone would expect. Especially my being American. So I had the blacksmith at Hartest, that’s where we live really, make these. Do you like them?’

  ‘Very much,’ said Angie carefully, thinking how much prettier stained-glass lights would actually look. ‘What are those book things on the shelves? With the coloured pages?’

  ‘They’re fabric sample books,’ said Virginia. ‘You show them to clients, help them make up their minds. To be treated with great respect – the samples, not the clients – they cost a fortune. So do the wallpaper books.’

  ‘I suppose they would,’ said Angie, trying to sound knowledge-able, and surprised that anyone as patently rich as the Countess should be concerned with cost. ‘That’s Hartest House, isn’t it? Behind you.’

  She had prepared carefully for the interview. Suze had told her how important that was. She went to the big public library in Westminster and looked up the Caterhams in Who’s Who; Alexander Caterham, she learnt, was the ninth Earl, and had inherited the title and the house, Hartest House in Wiltshire, when he was nineteen years old. He had married Virginia Praeger (‘only da’ it said ‘of Frederick and Elizabeth Praeger of East 8oth St, New York and Beaches, East Hampton, Long Island’) in April 1960. They had a daughter, Lady Charlotte Welles, born in January 1962.

  ‘Yes, it is Hartest,’ said Virginia, looking at her slightly surprisedly and then round at the original architect’s drawing and plans for Hartest which hung on the wall behind her desk. ‘How very clever of you to recognize it.’

  ‘Well,’ said Angie, giving her a quick, almost conspiratorial grin. ‘I looked it up, you know.’

  ‘What do you mean, you looked it up?’ said Virginia, intrigued.

  ‘Well I knew I was coming to see you, so I thought I should find out a bit about you.’

  ‘I find that very engaging,’ said Virginia, smiling at her; she had a nice smile, Angie thought, very warm and soft; it lit up her face, which could actually look rather sad. Angie had noticed that in several of the photographs. She also had to admit that the Countess was very beautiful. Far more beautiful than she had expected. The photographs, even if they could show her perfect heart-shaped face, her almost impossibly straight nose, her wide, curvy mouth, couldn’t begin to do justice to her colouring, to the dark, auburn-tinted hair, the pale pale creamy skin, and the amazing tawny eyes. She liked Lady Caterham’s clothes too: if this was class dressing, she couldn’t wait to join in. Virginia was wearing a pale pink suit, in slightly bumpy tweed, with navy braid edging to the neckline and cuffs and pockets, and large gold buttons. A white flower was pinned to her jacket, rather than a brooch; she wore pearl and gilt earrings and white and navy sling-back shoes. Angie didn’t know it, but she was looking at couture Chanel, in its purest form.

  ‘Well now,’ said Virginia, ‘sit down, Miss Burbank. Would you like a coffee?’

  ‘I’d love one,’ said Angie, who hated coffee and would have killed for a cup of strong sweet tea, ‘thank you. Black, no sugar,’ she added, as Virginia paused holding the cup. God, it was going to be horrible.

  ‘So,’ said Virginia, ‘let me tell you what I’m looking for. I suppose the proper name would be a secretary, and there would be some letters and things to type, but really I need more than that, or do I mean less, someone to be more of an assistant really, but in a very humble way, someone to run about and collect things, take swatches over to clients, pick up curtains when they’re made, that sort of thing. Would you mind doing that, Miss Burbank?’

  ‘No of course not,’ said Angie, trying not to sound too much as if she thought it was a daft question.

  ‘Well, you’d be surprised how many people would. Feel they’re trained to be secretaries, not messengers. Um – can you drive?’

  ‘Not quite,’ said Angie carefully. ‘I haven’t passed my test.’ Difficult to pass a driving test when you weren’t old enough to have a licence.

  ‘Well that’s a pity. But maybe you could manage in taxis and things. For now.’

  ‘Well, it might be better,’ said Angie, ‘I haven’t got a car anyway.’

  ‘Well that’s not a problem,’ said Virginia, slightly impatiently, ‘you could use mine. Obviously.’

  ‘Oh. Yes.’ Christ, this job was getting more jammy by the minute.

  ‘Well, now let’s see. Your typing and shorthand are obviously very good. The agency was really enthusiastic about you.’

  ‘Oh, that’s nice.’ Good old Suze; she’d done her proud; she hoped she could live up to it.

  ‘Er – how old are you, Miss Burbank? Are you really twenty? You don’t look it.’ The tawny eyes were amusedly watchful; Angie relaxed suddenly and grinned back. ‘No. No, I’m not. I’m only eighteen. Just eighteen actually. But it sounds so young, I didn’t think you’d even have seen me.’

  ‘I might. I must say I’d put you at eighteen. But anyway, it doesn’t really matter.’

  Angie smiled at her. ‘Good.’ Silly cow. She might think it mattered if she knew she still wasn’t quite sixteen.

  ‘So tell me about yourself. What have you been doing up to now?’

  Oh, thought Angie, not a lot; not much I could tell you about. ‘Well, I’ve been temping mostly,’ she said.

  ‘Really? That must be fun,’ said Virginia. ‘A different job every week.’ She sounded slightly wistful.

  ‘Not really,’ said Angie. ‘As soon as you find out how they do the filing, and how they all like their coffee, you have to leave again.’

  ‘I suppose so. And did you learn your shorthand and typing at school?’

  ‘No, evening classes,’ said Angie carefully. She didn’t want to be asked awkward questions about certificates. Anyway, the crash course she had been given by Suze and her own painstaking practising had turned her into a much more efficient secretary than all those snooty pieces like Marcie in the last place, who had been to Pitman’s and could hardly bear to risk their red talons on the typewriter keys. Suze had told her that, and the first temporary job she had done had certainly confirmed it: the man had told her she was wonderful, the best girl he’d had all summer. That obviously had something to do with the fact she’d not thrown a mental when
he pinched her bum behind the filing cabinets, and been careful to cross her legs particularly high on the thigh when she was having trouble with dictation, and had to ask him to slow down a bit; but the fact remained she was quick and neat, and she worked hard, and kept her filing tray empty. She couldn’t understand the other girl in the office who left hers until it spilled over the top; it just made it so much more work, and she was always looking for things halfway down the pile.

  ‘Tell me about yourself,’ said Virginia, smiling at her. ‘Do you live at home?’

  ‘Well – sort of. I live with my brother.’

  ‘And where are your parents?’

  ‘Well, my mother died last year.’

  ‘I’m sorry. That’s sad, when you’re so young. You must miss her.’

  ‘Oh I do,’ said Angie earnestly, recalling with sudden vividness standing at her mother’s graveside and looking down at the coffin with a cold blank where grief should supposedly have been.

  ‘And what about your father?’

  ‘He left us. Years ago. We live with our gran and grandad, Johnny and me.’

  ‘And what does your brother do? It’s nice you have him, at least.’ Virginia was obviously slightly thrown by this sad history, as she was meant to be.

  ‘Yes, we’re quite close. Johnny works in a shop.’ Well he did. Some of the time.

  ‘So why do you want this job?’ asked Virginia suddenly. Angie was thrown slightly off balance by this change of mood.

  ‘Well – I do prefer working for a woman.’

  That was a popular one, Suze had said. And anyway it was true. ‘And I do like houses. I mean I’ve never lived in a really nice one. But I love reading about them. And I’d like to find out how they get that way. Nice. You know? And I’m always changing my own room round, redecorating and so on.’

  ‘It isn’t just discussing colour schemes, you know,’ said Virginia. ‘In fact that’s the easy bit. It’s dealing with a lot of rather particular, very capricious people.’