‘Yes, I knew that was the deal when I agreed to marry you,’ said Brooke. ‘I’ve always known the deal.’
Finally he looked up. His eyes were sad.
‘Sounds like you don’t want the deal, any more.’
Brooke didn’t say anything. She blinked as fat tears began to roll down her cheeks.
‘I’m sorry, baby,’ said David. ‘I want this opportunity. I really want to do it.’ She could see how much this meant to him and it broke her heart.
‘I thought you wanted Congress,’ she said. ‘The Connecticut seat.’
His handsome face looked awkward, confused. ‘I’m thinking I could do this and then go straight for Senate, or maybe a governorship somewhere.’
Brooke bit her lip until she tasted blood. She could barely believe that only an hour ago, she had been thinking this was the happiest day of her life. She covered her face and gulped at the air.
Slowly, she realized that David’s arms were around her.
‘I want to take this job, but I do want you to be happy too,’ he said urgently into her ear. ‘If it means that much to you, I can turn it down. I will turn it down.’
Gently, she pulled away from him. ‘I never said I wanted you to do that,’ she said softly, wiping her face.
The agent knocked on the door and entered cautiously.
‘So what do you think?’ she smiled.
‘I think we’ve got a lot of thinking to do,’ said David, looking at Brooke.
Brooke nodded. ‘Yes, we have.’
CHAPTER FORTY–SEVEN
‘I thought you were supposed to be on holiday.’
Tess closed her eyes and cursed. She had been trying to sneak past Patty Shackleton’s door unnoticed. Most mornings it was her first port of call on her way to her own office, but today she didn’t feel like seeing anyone, least of all shrewd, intuitive Patty, who had an uncanny ability to read people’s moods.
‘Sorry, Pats,’ said Tess, standing in the doorway awkwardly. ‘Just in a bit of a rush. I’ve got a few urgent calls coming in–’
‘So how was the trip?’ interrupted Patty.
‘Great. Nice. Not much of a holiday, really.’ She thumbed towards the door. ‘I’d better get on.’
‘So everything went okay with Sean?’ said Patty, not letting her go. ‘He didn’t screw the new Miss Asgill Hawaiian Glo?’
‘Yes, everything went well. No, he didn’t have sex with Candy Cooper.’
Patty lowered her chin and raised her brow. ‘Tess? I know that expression.’
‘What expression?’ said Tess, feeling her cheeks prickle. Don’t blush, she scolded herself, don’t blush.
Patty pointed at Tess’s face. ‘That expression. In the legal profession, we call it guilt.’
Flustered now, Tess touched her face, as if she could feel her own expression.
Patty’s eyes opened wide. ‘Shit, Tess, no!’ she gasped. ‘Tell me nothing happened.’
‘What are you talking about?’ said Tess, stepping into Patty’s office and casually shutting the door.
‘You and Sean Asgill, in Hawaii.’
Tess frowned. ‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ she said, trying to bluff it out. ‘The man’s an ape. An under–evolved, cocksure, brain–dead primate.’
Patty clapped her hands together gleefully. ‘You dark horse. You had sex with him!’ Patty broke down into helpless giggles.
‘As if!’ snorted Tess. ‘My opinion of him as a self–centred prick has not changed since before the trip,’ she said. ‘Anyway. Did you want something?’
Patty covered her mouth to stifle her sniggers.
‘What I wanted to discuss before this revelation,’ she said, once she had regained control, ‘is the great news about Kevin and Jack.’
‘What news?’ asked Tess eagerly, taking a seat opposite her.
‘I take it you haven’t spoken to Jemma? I know she tried to call you in Hawaii.’
Ah, those must have been the missed calls she had seen on the phone when Meredith called in Hana, thought Tess, suddenly furious that Sean bloody Asgill’s seduction had got in the way of something this important. Tess hadn’t had time to speak to her flatmate yet, having only got back to New York late the night before.
‘Well, Jemma took a trip up to Greenwich and did some digging around,’ said Patty, a pleased look on her face. ‘She followed Jack’s mum, Melissa, to some swanky dinner party and crawled around the back with her long lens. She got some lovely shots of Melissa taking cocaine through the conservatory window. Turns out Mel and Steven the boyfriend have a real taste for the white stuff.’
‘What?’ said Tess, with amazement. ‘That’s incredible.’
Patty was nodding. ‘When Jemma couldn’t get hold of you, she called me. I faxed the photographs over to Melissa’s house, then called her up and asked her what Steven’s very conservative bank would think of his coke habit.’
‘What did she say?’ asked Tess, thinking that Patty would have made a very good tabloid journalist.
‘She slammed the phone down,’ smiled Patty. ‘But she obviously called her own lawyer soon afterwards, because, a few hours later, she was back on the phone, and suddenly they are happy with the existing custody arrangement.’
‘So Jack stays with Kevin?’
‘Yes!’ squealed Patty, drumming her hands on the table, her usual cool, composed façade completely gone.
‘Kevin must be overjoyed,’ said Tess.
‘I’ve never seen a man down a bottle of champagne so quickly.’
‘You had champagne?’ She didn’t want her voice to come out all brittle, but it did. Her first rush of happiness was now replaced by a hollow sense of somehow missing out.
‘We just had a little celebratory supper at Ryan’s on Bleeker Street,’ replied Patty.
‘The four of you? Kevin, Jem, and Jack.’
Patty looked embarrassed. ‘Jack was staying at a friend’s and Jemma was working. I think Kevin just wanted someone to celebrate with.’
‘Of course,’ said Tess. ‘I’ll call him right now. It’s brilliant news.’
Her secretary Annie popped her head around the door.
‘Sean Asgill is on the line for you.’
‘I’m busy,’ said Tess, not looking up.
‘He says it’s important.’
Patty had a playful smile on her lips. ‘So take the call … ’
‘I’m busy,’ said Tess firmly. She had no desire to speak to Sean Asgill ever again if she could help it.
‘Well, I’ve got some emails to send,’ she said, heading for the door. ‘Thanks so much for everything with Kevin and Jack, Patty. It’s way beyond the call of duty.’
‘My pleasure,’ said Patty, and Tess knew she meant it.
Back in her office, she sank back into her chair and switched on her computer.
There were dozens of emails since she’d last checked her BlackBerry.
Distractedly, she clicked on the most recent. With a lurch, she spotted the address it had come from: [email protected]. She sat up and quickly read it.
It’s not that complicated. Let’s at least talk about it. Call me.
Tess angrily clicked the ‘delete’ button. ‘In your dreams,’ she whispered.
‘What dreams would these be?’ said a voice.
She looked up and saw Meredith standing there.
‘Meredith,’ said Tess, a little flustered, wondering how long she had been there. It was a company joke that Meredith was so thin and dainty she could enter the room like a ghost.
‘Is everything all right?’ she asked, her eyes searching Tess’s.
‘Of course,’ said Tess, thinking that, when her son was involved, nothing was ever all right.
‘In which case,’ said Meredith smoothly, ‘can we talk?’ She closed the door and moved across to sit elegantly on the chair opposite Tess’s desk. She opened her handbag and pulled out a blue letter.
‘Because I’ve just received another one of these.’
The Sundowner Hotel in Charleston was the sort of plantation house that was once exceptionally grand, a proud symbol of the wealth and power generated by cotton in the eighteenth century before the Civil War. Now the Sundowner seemed to live up to its name, having become part of a big mid–market corporate hotel chain, and seemed to have lost a little of its charisma and charm in doing so. But the location of the hotel, in the historic district of the city, more than made up for it, thought Tess. The pastel–coloured town houses, gas–lamp streetlights, and grand clapboard houses with Juliet balconies and shutters – they all had a romance and a certain faux–English grace that was somehow appropriate for a city named after King Charles II.
The air–con hit Tess as she walked into the Sundowner’s grand but slightly peeling lobby and she was glad of the cool. The weather was beginning to turn towards the fall in New York, so the balmy warmth of South Carolina had been most welcome, but a Southern lady never perspires, she thought with an inward smile. In these surroundings, Tess could actually imagine herself as a character in Gone with the Wind, especially when the concierge with a thick Deep South accent directed her to the Mistral Bar; this was the fictitious home town of Rhett Butler, after all.
Her good mood evaporated as she spotted the man she was meeting. Ted Kressler was in his late fifties, with a grey moustache. He was dressed in dark trousers and an open–necked blue shirt. A crumpled jacket hung over the back of his chair. He didn’t rise when he saw her, simply put down his paper, and nodded.
‘I thought I’d get a table by the window,’ he said. ‘Don’t suppose you’ll be in town long, but you can see everything worth seeing from this spot right here.’
‘How kind,’ said Tess thinly, taking a seat opposite him and holding his gaze.
‘What do you want, Mr Kressler?’
When Meredith had given her the blue letter three days earlier, Tess had been surprised that the anonymous sender had decided to reveal himself, signing off his simple message with a scrawled telephone number. Tess had wasted no time in arranging a meeting; there were only six weeks to go until the wedding and she wanted nothing and no one to spoil her clean slate and jeopardize her bonus. Ted Kressler had to be dealt with as swiftly and ruthlessly as possible.
‘Can’t we start with a little old–fashioned Southern hospitality?’ He called over a white–coated waiter and ordered two bourbons.
‘I wish I had the time,’ said Tess coolly, shaking her head at the waiter. ‘As I said, what do you want? I feel certain you do want something.’
She pulled out the first letter Ted had sent and put it on the table.
Your family has a secret, it had said. Which secret, exactly? wondered Tess. They’ve got plenty.
The bourbon arrived on a silver platter and Ted took it, settling back in his chair, a smug expression on his face.
‘How about I tell you a little story?’ he smiled.
Tess rested her hands in her lap and tilted her head. ‘Please do.’
‘I’m from North Carolina and for five years I was with a marvellous woman. She died recently.’
‘I’m sorry,’ said Tess, not feeling too much sympathy for this obvious opportunist.
‘The lady’s name was Marion Quinn,’ said Kressler, leaning forward and handing Tess a photograph. In it a smiling lady of about forty was flanked by a little boy and a very young girl aged about four who was in a wheelchair. The girl in the wheelchair was obviously severely disabled. Her long hair was shiny and golden as corn, but her head flopped to one side of her body, her small shoulders were hunched. It was the sort of photograph that made you instantly sad.
‘The lady in the picture, that’s Marion,’ continued Kressler. ‘She was as sweet as she was pretty. She lived hereabouts and she used to take in foster kids – all the ones no one else wanted. Sick kids, handicapped kids. She had the patience of a saint.’
Tess pointed at the handicapped girl in the picture. ‘Was this little girl one of her foster children?’
Her words had a shot of both curiosity and wonder. Professionally she was trying to work out the connection to the Asgills, but privately she was marvelling at this remarkable woman who would take on a child who was not her own flesh and blood, a child that must take enormous time and personal strength to look after. Most of all, she wondered what a woman like Marion Quinn was doing with Ted Kressler, a man clearly on the make.
‘That’s an old photo,’ said Kressler, sipping his whiskey. ‘Marion took in those kids nearly ten years ago, before I was with her. A few months after this photo was taken she got sick, Crohn’s disease. It was pretty bad and she couldn’t do the foster thing no more. Those two kids went back to their natural parents.’
Tess looked at him, wondering where this was leading, but suspecting this was just the beginning of the story.
‘The little girl was called Violet,’ he said, pointing to the young child in the wheelchair. ‘Marion heard rumours that Violet’s mother didn’t want her no more and, well, you can imagine how that made Marion feel; made her feel as if she let poor little Violet down. Then she heard the child had been put up for adoption. As it happened, Marion had met Violet’s mother a few times before and she tried to get back in touch with her, maybe persuade her to keep Violet, but it was too late, the mother had moved out of town. She didn’t care nothing for the kid. Anyways, before she knew it, child had gone to new parents.’
‘Mr Kressler, I’m a busy woman, can we get to the point? How does this involve my clients?’ asked Tess. She was trying to brazen it out, but suspicions were already forming in her mind. Kressler waved away her protestations; he was clearly going to tell the story at his own pace.
‘I met Marion five years ago when she moved down to Charleston. She wasn’t as sick as she had been then, so we got married.’
‘And when did she die?’
‘Beginning of summer.’
He paused and drained off his bourbon.
‘Of course, I had to go through all her stuff, sort things out. She used to keep this file full of letters and pictures from the kids she’d looked after, real sweet. But then I found something interesting.’ He pulled out a toothpick and began to clear something from his teeth. ‘I found an old New York Times newspaper clipping that she’d kept. A story ’bout eight or nine years old, a story about a New York model called Paula Abbott who was marrying some super–rich heir to a cosmetic empire.’
Tess and Ted looked at each other across the table. Ted put the toothpick down on the table and smiled.
‘The little girl Violet, the handicapped foster kid? She was called Violet Abbott.’
Tess instantly recalled that Paula’s maiden name was Abbott, one of the bits of trivia she’d picked up when she’d researched the family before she began working with them.
‘Paula is Violet’s mother?’
‘You didn’t know that?’ he laughed sarcastically. ‘I don’t suppose she would have told many people. Probably not the sort of thing you boast about in polite society, that you dumped your kid because they weren’t perfect.’
Tess pursed her lips. ‘It’s speculation at best, Mr Kressler. Abbott is not exactly an unusual name.’
Kressler laughed. ‘Oh, give me a break.’
He reached into his jacket and pulled out another creased photo and slid it across the table. ‘As I said, Marion kept everything, she was quite a hoarder.’
The photo was old and grainy, but it was clear enough. Paula can’t have been more than twenty. She was kneeling down next to the girl who, heartbreakingly, appeared to be smiling at her mother.
‘Same girl as in the New York Times wedding story, right?’ said Kressler, a note of triumph in his voice.
Tess couldn’t deny it. Impossible though it seemed, Paula Asgill had another daughter. Focus, Tess, focus, she told herself. Was this really such a big deal? After all, John Kennedy had a sister closeted away in a mental asylum and it didn’t do his political caree
r any harm. But a nagging voice in her head told her that things were different back then; in the Sixties the mainstream press didn’t pick over a public figure’s private life and use it as fuel to burn them at the stake.
Still, this might be a scandal, but it wasn’t an overdose at a sex party. Tess could certainly spin this in a more positive way – frightened young girl forced into adoption by circumstance and poverty, society is to blame, the child was well cared for – but there was one big stumbling block to that approach. Meredith. She wouldn’t like this at all. Tess had no idea how badly a scandal about Paula’s past would upset the Billington family, but she knew for sure that Meredith had been firm about one thing: no controversy before the wedding. None at all.
‘Is it money you’re after, Mr Kressler?’ said Tess.
‘Smart girl. Money for my old age,’ he said matter of factly. ‘Marion looked after that kid good. She never told no one.’
‘Which is more than can be said for you.’
Kressler ignored the jibe. ‘This Paula’s a wealthy woman now,’ he said. ‘She got the life she wanted at the expense of her child. Well, now she can afford to pay me to keep her little secret.’
There was a tiny part of Tess that agreed with him. She wondered how Paula could have given her child away? She had seen how hard Kevin Donovan was prepared to fight for Jack and what the thought of living without him had done to him. Tess felt sure that if she were a parent she wouldn’t – she couldn’t. She paused, realizing it was the first time she had thought about motherhood in a very long time.
‘It isn’t going to look very good, is it Miss Garrett?’ continued Kressler wiping his palms on his trouser legs. ‘Even down here we’ve heard of the Billington family. I don’t reckon a grand family like that is gonna like seeing Paula Asgill disowning her handicapped kiddie like that.’
‘I didn’t come here to be blackmailed, Mr Kressler,’ said Tess.
Kressler appeared unmoved. ‘Do you know how much Marion got for looking after Lucy?’ he said. ‘Two hundred dollars a month. She paid for the medical bills out of her own pocket. She wasn’t a rich woman, just a decent one.’
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