The quote, in Mike’s illegible handwriting, arrived three-quarters of an hour later; by the time Angie had deciphered it, typed it into Virginia’s estimate and made the necessary adjustments, the post had gone. She sighed. Well, she’d just have to deliver it in person. It wasn’t far. Just near Harrods, off Beauchamp Place. She was getting to know the smarter areas of London rather well. Shit, it was nearly six, she’d never get a taxi. If only she could drive. Well, she could hike it. The Russell and Bromley pumps were very comfortable. She put the Rolodex in the safe, locked up the office and half walked, half ran down to Sloane Square, up Sloane Street, round the back of Harrods and up Beauchamp Place, bumping endlessly into wearily irritable Christmas shoppers; by the time she reached the South West Three, she was flushed and flustered.
The glass door was wide open; a few plastic easy chairs and low splay-legged tables stood in the dingy reception area; the carpet which had once had a frenetic orange and beige print beneath years of grubbiness was worn thread-bare, and the fake oils in gilt frames of beauty spots in the British Isles made the room infinitely more depressing rather than less. It was cold and the blow-heater someone had helpfully placed in the middle of the room was doing no more good than if it had been belting out hot air into the middle of Knightsbridge. A short, stout man, with dark hair and bright, currant-like dark eyes, flanked by a pair of tall girls, was standing by the blow-heater. He looked at Angie, and glowered at her.
‘The hotel is closed.’
‘Yes, I know. Mr Stern?’
‘Sure. Yes, that’s me.’
‘I’m Angie Burbank. I work for Lady Caterham.’
‘Oh, do you now? Well, you can tell Lady Caterham she sure as hell isn’t working for me. No way, no way at all. That estimate is three days late. This is a hotel I want to open, I run a business, you know? Have you heard of business in this country?’
‘Some of us have, some of us haven’t,’ said Angie cheerfully. ‘Lady Caterham certainly has. She’s been working on your plans round the clock. I have them with me. And estimates.’
‘Too many clocks,’ said M. Wetherly Stern. ‘I wanted that estimate this afternoon latest. I’m talking to another decorator, and he’ll be here in thirty minutes. I’m sorry, Miss – what did you say your name was?’
‘Burbank,’ said Angie. ‘Angie Burbank.’
She saw one of the tall girls exchange an amused, eye-raised glance with the other over Stern’s head. As always when she felt at a disadvantage, adrenalin rushed to save her.
She put her hand out, touched Stern’s hand very gently.
‘Please, Mr Stern,’ she said, ‘I know these quotes are late. It’s my fault. I – I lost the original quote. Lady Caterham will probably fire me when she finds out. Please – please take a look at her plans. I know you’ll like them. Really.’
Stern’s eyes met hers: bright, burning dark eyes, surprisingly large, with very long eyelashes. Angie concentrated very hard, and felt tears rush to the back of her own large green ones. She had always been able to cry to order. She looked down, swallowed, then up again; Stern smiled at her suddenly, and rather slowly, and she became aware, with a swift sure rush of sexual instinct, that he was looking down at her, that there weren’t many people he could look down at and that he was enjoying it. She mentally thanked the girl from Liberty once again for making her buy the low-heeled shoes – in the stilettos, their faces would have been level – and smiled at him tentatively. He said nothing. She bit her lip, looked down again, waited. More silence. She sighed. ‘Very well. I don’t blame you. I’ll take them back.’
Stern suddenly laughed. ‘Well, I like honesty. Let’s take a look at them. You deserve that. That can’t have been easy. You girls –’ he looked up at the two brunettes –‘you girls go find some coffee somewhere, and bring it back here while I look at Lady Caterham’s plans.’
‘Oh, thank you,’ said Angie, ‘thank you very much. Could we maybe put the plans down on that table, while I go through them, explain them just a bit. I know Lady Caterham would like me to do that. I really do think you’ll like them. They’re very – English. I do think it’s clever of you to have spotted the potential of this hotel.’
Stern still didn’t look at the plans. He was still staring at her, his large dark eyes exploring her face, her tangle of blonde hair, her tiny slender body. ‘You’re a very little girl,’ he said, ‘to be doing what seems to be quite a big job. No more than a schoolgirl, are you? How old are you, exactly?’
Angie took a deep breath and, for the first time that afternoon, told the truth. ‘I’m sixteen,’ she said, ‘well, nearly sixteen and a half.’
‘Well, Miss Burbank,’ said M. Wetherly Stern, ‘I find myself very impressed with you. Very impressed indeed. Now let’s have a look at these plans – how would you like to do that over a glass of champagne?’
‘I’d like that very much,’ said Angie. ‘Thank you.’
‘So he took me to the Hyde Park Hotel, where he’s staying, and plied me with champagne, which was lovely, and looked at the plans, and asked me to have dinner with him next week,’ she reported to Virginia the following morning. ‘So I said I would. And he definitely likes the plans. I’m sure he’ll phone any minute. He said he would, before ten. Oh, listen, that’ll be him now, I bet.’
She picked up the phone.
‘M. Wetherly, good morning. Yes, I’m very well. Thank you so much. Yes I enjoyed it too. Lady Caterham is here now, and she’d like to speak to you. Yes, I’ll see you next Wednesday. I’m looking forward to it already.’
Virginia was amused to hear a slightly more breathy, schoolgirly note in her voice than usual.
M. Wetherly Stern told Virginia he wanted her to do the hotel; he said he was very impressed with her plans. Virginia took Angie out to lunch at an Italian restaurant in Ebury Street to celebrate and to thank her. ‘But I’m worried about you. I fear he’s a dirty old man. Are you sure you’re not getting into rather deeper water than you can handle, Angie?’
‘No, of course not,’ said Angie, ‘I really like him. I like older men. My first boyfriend was twenty-five and I was only fourteen. And I don’t think he’s a dirty old man at all, actually. I think he’s sweet. He’s certainly not greasy. He’s got the most beautiful great dark eyes and incredible eyelashes, and he’s very polite and respectful, and his hair doesn’t have a smidgen of grease on it, and he has a really nice smile, and he doesn’t have bad breath, and he made me laugh a lot.’
‘Well, you certainly seem to have studied him,’ said Virginia. ‘Er – Angie, can I ask you something?’
‘Of course,’ said Angie, knowing what was probably coming. She picked up her wine glass, and took a large swig.
‘Angie, exactly how old are you? I know you told Mr Stern you were sixteen because you reckoned he had a Lolita complex, but is that the truth?’
‘Well – yes. Sort of,’ said Angie. ‘I mean, yes it is. Oh God, is that awful? You’re not going to fire me, are you? For lying to you?’
‘Angie,’ said Virginia, ‘don’t be ridiculous. How could I fire you? I can’t imagine running the business without you now. But I wish you’d told me the truth at the interview.’
‘Well you really wouldn’t have hired me then,’ said Angie. ‘I mean eighteen was pushing it, wasn’t it? Be honest?’
‘Well – maybe. A bit. Anyway, here’s to you, and Mr Stern. Not as a couple, I hasten to add.’
‘M. Wetherly,’ said Angie, ‘that’s what he likes to be called. And why not a couple? I think it could be fun.’
It was fun; she enjoyed the company of M. Wetherly more than she had ever enjoyed any man’s. He was extremely funny; he was gentlemanly and considerate; he had a simple honesty which endeared him to her, and he was very very rich. He bought her endlessly beautiful presents, perfume, a Gucci watch, a gold bracelet, a pearl choker, silk shirts, cashmere sweaters; he took her to the theatre, and out to dinner, to places she had only ever dreamed of, but familiar to her as
her own name, from her reading of the gossip columns, the Caprice, the Ritz, the Terrace Room at the Dorchester, Le Gavroche, and a wonderfully cosy, clubby place called the Guinea in Bruton Lane, off Berkeley Square. He also took her out shopping to buy evening dresses; his taste was a little different from the girl at Liberty’s, he liked very tight slinky black crêpe dresses, scarlet lace shifts, gold and silver lamé Grecian-style numbers. Angie loved them all; the only thing she was always careful about was staying in low-heeled shoes. She discovered a designer called Jean Varon who made long high-waisted dresses with tiny bodices adorned with sequins, ostrich feathers, even smocking, in white crepe and red satin and black silk, and bought every one she could find. M. Wetherly took her dancing to Annabels which he belonged to, and plied her with champagne, and told her she was the most beautiful girl he had ever known. He was thirty-six and divorced, and Mrs Stern lived in some splendour in New Mexico; they had no children.
He had made his money from cement; had been a millionaire at twenty-three on the back of the building boom of the fifties in Europe. He had homes and mistresses in New York and Paris, he told Angie; he thought it was wrong to deceive her. He had never lived in London although he knew it well; now he was looking for a house there, to keep an eye on the hotel – the first, he hoped, of a chain. After he had taken her to dinner three times, he asked her if she would consider going to bed with him. Angie, who found him surprisingly attractive, said she certainly would; the experience was pleasant but not earth-shattering, M. Wetherly being nervous and very gentlemanly. As they lay in a companionable silence afterwards, sipping champagne, she asked him about his sexual fantasies. There was a long silence; then M. Wetherly turned towards her, circling her small firm breasts with his fingers, and said, slightly shamefacedly, that he had always rather liked the idea of schoolgirls. Angie, who had suspected as much from their first encounter, said nothing, but the next day she went to Daniel Neals and bought a gym slip, a shirt, a tie, a girdle and some dark green knickers, and after dinner that night she said she had something to show him. Up in his room, she told him to wait while she went and got ready in the bathroom; he settled excitedly on the bed, uncorking the champagne, and the expression on his face when she emerged, looking slightly shy, her long fair hair tied up in bunches, her slender legs encased in black stockings, tie slightly awry, a satchel hung on her right shoulder, was better, she told Dee, than all the presents put together.
‘Oh Angela,’ said M. Wetherly. ‘Oh Angela, how very sweet you look.’
‘Well,’ said Angie, sitting down on the bed beside him, ‘I’ve kept it all. I thought it might come in useful.’
‘And it has,’ said M. Wetherly fervently, ‘it has.’
‘But,’ said Angie, who had thought about this scene quite carefully, ‘I don’t think all my clothes are named properly. Marked, you know, with my name. I thought perhaps you should check. And you do remind me of my headmaster so much. He was very strict you know. If we didn’t have all our clothes marked, he used to get very cross with us. Sometimes he even spanked us. Why don’t you start with my stockings, and work through everything?’
‘Angela,’ whispered M. Wetherly, as he tenderly began to unknot her tie, ‘I think I love you.’ The next day he bought her a staggeringly expensive diamond bracelet: ‘For the sweetest seventeen I know.’
Angie didn’t tell Virginia any of the details of her relationship with M. Wetherly. She thought she would be shocked. She just said he had bought her dinner two or three times, and as far as she was concerned, he was just a nice old sugar daddy who enjoyed her company.
She wasn’t sure if Virginia believed her, but it saved her from having to feel guilty or worry about her. She was happy, interested, doing well at her job. For Christmas, Virginia gave her an orange fun fur coat, a bonus of £100, and a rise of £5 a week. She took Angie out to lunch at the Caprice and told her she couldn’t imagine the business without her now, and that she hoped she would never leave. Angie said she never would.
It was two weeks before Christmas when she had her first proper conversation with Alexander. She had seen him innumerable times; he spent the middle of the week in London, with Virginia, travelling up on Monday evening and down on Thursday. ‘He doesn’t really like any of this, but he puts up with it. I’ll tell you why one day,’ Virginia said. He steered very clear of the office during the day, and was out a great deal; he was on the boards of several companies, and always seemed busy. But he would come down in the evening, to collect her, and as he put it ‘take her home’; it was a little joke, which he seemed to enjoy more than she did. Angie wasn’t quite sure if she liked him, and he seemed rather tense, fraught a lot of the time. But he was extremely good-looking; the first time she found herself looking up at him, Angie felt literally weak at the knees. She had been working one evening at about six thirty in the small outer room, sorting samples onto a colour board for a new client; she heard footsteps and didn’t even look up, thinking it was the butler, who often brought down a tray of drinks for Virginia.
‘My goodness,’ said a voice, ‘what devotion to duty!’ and she had looked up and found herself gazing into a pair of eyes that were so intensely blue, so amused, so appreciative that even the memory of M. Wetherly’s burning brown ones faded into nothing.
‘Oh!’ she said. ‘Lord Caterham. I suppose,’ she added, feeling even more foolish every minute.
‘You suppose correctly. And you, I suppose, are Miss Burbank. I have heard so much about you, about how you have transformed my wife’s working day, but I had no idea how decorative you were. It is extremely nice to meet you. How do you do?’
He held out his hand; Angie jumped and took it. It was a very firm, but rather cold hand; she felt an odd desire to take it in both hers and warm it. ‘So is my wife in there? In the holy of holies?’
‘Sorry? Oh, yes, yes she is. Working on something we’re late with. I’m sure she’d be pleased to see you.’
‘I certainly hope so,’ he said, and she felt instantly foolish, cross with herself for saying anything so silly.
‘I’ve just arrived from Hartest,’ he said.
‘Ah yes. The lovely house,’ said Angie.
He looked pleased. ‘You know about Hartest?’
‘A bit. That it’s eighteenth century, built by – um, Adam, and that it’s considered very beautiful indeed.’
‘It is not only considered so, it is very beautiful indeed,’ he said, ‘you must come and see it one day. You would love it.’ Angie wondered how long it might be before a genuine invitation was issued: a very long time, she was sure. ‘Now if you will excuse me I must go and drag my wife away from her important work, we are going to be late for a very tedious dinner if we’re not careful.’
‘Of course. Do go in.’
She felt silly again, as if she was playing at being hostess to him in his own house; she stood up and watched him go into the room, and as he shut the door behind him, she heard him say, ‘Darling! What a funny, sweet little creature out there,’ and felt sillier still. It would be nice, she thought, to feel on a slightly more equal footing with the Earl. Then she shook herself. She had a long way to go before she could expect to do that.
The week before Christmas, he came up on the Wednesday; Virginia and he were attending some charity ball. He was in his dinner jacket, pacing up and down in the drawing room as Angie came through the house to leave; she felt shy suddenly, looking at his tense back, and tried to slip past him. She was in a hurry in any case; M. Wetherly was buying her dinner before departing for New York for Christmas. He had business there, he said, sadly neglected, that he should see to after Christmas; and he had promised Sonia, his young lady in New York, to spend Christmas with her. ‘Although I have to confess, Angela, I would rather be here with you.’ He did not expand on this theme; Angie did not press him. She was very fond of him, but she didn’t want things to get too heavy. The more Sonias and Mariannes (the name of the Paris mistress) there were, the better she liked it.
‘Angie!’ Alexander was bestowing his most gracious smile on her: practising for the tenants for Christmas, thought Angie irreverently. ‘Are you trying to sneak past me? Let me wish you Happy Christmas. Come and share a glass of champagne with me. My wife is clearly going to be quite a while yet.’
Angie smiled at him and went into the drawing room. There was a bottle of champagne and two glasses on the black marble mantelpiece; one was already filled. Alexander handed her the other. ‘I was hoping to have a drink with my wife, but she doesn’t deserve it. And you do, from everything I hear.’ He poured the glass very full, smiled at her. ‘Happy Christmas, my dear.’
Angie felt belittled, more than ever on a par with the tenants by the ‘my dear’, but took the glass, sipped it and smiled up at him. ‘Thank you, Lord Caterham. And to you.’
‘Oh, please call me Alexander. I hate all that, and I know you and Virginia are on best-friend terms.’
She looked at him slightly surprised. Surprised that Virginia would consider her like that, and still more so that he should know about it.
‘Well,’ she said, ‘we do seem to get along very well.’
‘I’m pleased,’ he said, ‘she needs a friend. She doesn’t have very many.’
‘Really?’ said Angie. ‘She – you and she – seem to be always going to parties and things.’
‘Yes, yes, of course, but I don’t mean a social circle. I mean a friend. There is someone in the country she is quite fond of, a neighbour, Mrs Dunbar, but apart from that she hasn’t formed any very close relationships. She has found it very difficult, coming from America, having to settle down here, build a new life, more difficult than I expected.’ He sounded faintly exasperated; Angie looked at him sharply and then at the bottle and realized several glasses had already been drunk.
‘Well,’ she said carefully, ‘it can’t have been easy. Leaving her family and everything behind.’
‘Ah, yes,’ he said, ‘her family. Yes, well she certainly misses them. Especially her brother. Baby, have you heard about him? Ridiculous names, these Americans have. Baby! I ask you. He’s six foot four, big as an ox.’
Wicked Pleasures Page 9
