Old Sins

by Penny Vincenzi

  ‘Well,’ she said, relaxed by the champagne and their sudden closeness, leaning forward, kissing him in an entirely friendly manner on the cheek, ‘I’ll think about it, but I don’t think you should do it. When I get back from New York next week and I’m back in the office, we can have lunch if you’re still here, and discuss it properly.’

  She spoke without thinking, and then suddenly realized what she had said, that she had told him she was going to New York, and looked at him wide-eyed in horror; he saw it all, grasped the implication of what she had said, realized what it must mean to her that he knew.

  ‘It’s all right,’ he said, smiling at her, reaching out, patting her hand, almost fatherly, ‘I won’t say anything. I swear it.’

  She looked at him and half smiled back, pale, frightened, as amazed by his swift perception as she was distraught at what she had said.

  ‘Come along,’ he said, refilling her glass, ‘you have to trust me. You can. Now forget it. I won’t tell. And I’d love to have lunch with you in January. OK? Now I must go. Candy will be wondering what’s happened to me.’

  ‘Of course,’ she said, struggling to relax, to smile, ‘I’ll come and see you off. And thank you, Miles. For everything.’

  ‘That’s OK.’

  On the front steps of Marriotts she kissed him again on the cheek.

  ‘Give my love to Candy, Miles. Happy New Year. And – sorry about this afternoon.’

  ‘No, it was my fault. Just forget it. Happy New Year, Phaedria.’

  He drove up to London, turning the afternoon over and over in his mind, thinking about her. She was a far more complex person than she appeared. Sexy too. He hadn’t realized that at first. She didn’t project sex like Roz did. She’d seemed rather cool, distant, despite her beauty. Well, she’d been through enough in the past year to turn anybody frigid.

  And what, he wondered, trying vainly to urge the Ford Escort into a speed above sixty-nine, was she going to be doing in New York? And with whom? As if he didn’t know.

  Phaedria went inside and up to the nursery where Julia was wailing indignantly and took her down to the kitchen to feed her, trying to calm herself. What on earth was the matter with her? First her appalling behaviour on the downs, and then letting it slip about New York. God, she hoped Miles would keep his word. If he told Roz now, everything, all her self-control and self-denial (God, she thought, I sound like a nun) would have been for nothing. Should she have spelt everything out further, made him understand how important it was Roz didn’t know? Maybe she should phone him in London. No, probably best not. That would simply make seriously heavy weather of the thing. He had promised and she had to trust him. And if he was going to tell, then her going on and on about it would simply make things worse. God, he was sharp. Extraordinary that under that lazy, laid-back charm should lie such piercing shrewdness. Maybe Richard was right, maybe in the long run he would decide to stay, discover he had a taste for the real world. She was sure he would be extremely successful if he did. She wondered for the hundredth, the thousandth time what his parents must really have been like.

  Phaedria smiled, reliving for the hundredth time the relief, the happiness she had felt when Letitia had talked to her about Miles and Julian, dispelling the nightmare, once and for all. She had not realized, and she told Letitia she had not realized, how fearful she had been. She had even told Michael about it when he phoned that night: about the fear and the fact that it was groundless. ‘Jesus, honeybunch,’ he said, ‘I cannot believe, I really cannot believe, that you have only got around to telling me all this.’

  And why, she said, had he really then suspected it all along? And he had said yes, of course he had, anyone with half a mind would have suspected it, but since she had never said anything about it before, he had assumed it had been thought of and cleared up in the very beginning. ‘Oh,’ said Phaedria, sounding and feeling very small.

  She managed, by the time she went to bed, to convince herself that Miles would keep quiet about New York. She couldn’t do anything else really, anyway, she was entirely at his mercy; but she kept envisaging his honest, wide blue eyes, his voice, concerned for her as he swore not to tell, and she felt she really did not need to worry. She put him firmly out of her head and turned her mind to the two days ahead. Two days that would, she felt sure, set the pattern of her life, one way or another, for years ahead.

  She went to sleep thinking about Michael. But she dreamed about Miles.

  ‘Candy thinks I should come and work for the company,’ said Miles to Roz, ‘hang on to my share. What do you think?’

  ‘God,’ said Roz, ‘what an idea. I don’t know, I wouldn’t have thought you’d like it.’

  They were sitting by a roaring fire in the Great Hall of Garrylaig Castle, two days later; Miles had phoned her to see if he could come up a day or two early for the promised Hogmanay, as Candy had had to go back home early. Dolly had done a bunk with her new toyboy and Mason was distraught.

  ‘That’s what Phaedria said,’ he said.

  ‘Phaedria? When did you see her?’

  ‘Day before yesterday. I wanted to talk to her about something.’

  Roz looked at him sharply. Was he deliberately trying to wind her up? But his eyes were smiling, his face open, as friendly as ever.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Oh, a proposition she put to me.’

  ‘I suppose you’re not going to tell me?’

  ‘That’s right. It’s confidential.’

  ‘Have you – have you thought any more about the outside offer?’

  ‘Yes, I have.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘And I kind of like it. It would let me off the hook. But the one thing I can’t understand is how it would be any good for you.’

  ‘Well, it wouldn’t,’ said Roz coolly. ‘That’s surely not the idea anyway. It wasn’t designed to be good for me. But it would at least break the stranglehold with Phaedria. And it’s only two per cent after all. Not a very powerful stake.’

  ‘Could grow though.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘Oh, they might work on one of you. Buy some more. Inveigle you on to their side.’

  ‘Not me. Her possibly.’

  ‘But Roz, you’d still be at loggerheads with her. Still couldn’t resolve anything.’

  ‘Of course we could. There’d still be a casting vote. Every time.’

  ‘I suppose so.’

  ‘And I think she’d weary of it anyway. She only wants to get control now because of me. She has no real interest in it.’

  ‘What about Julia?’

  ‘What about her?’

  ‘Don’t you think she might want some of it for her?’

  ‘No. Why, has she said anything to you about it?’

  ‘No.’

  Roz, looking at him sharply, trying to read his face, saw nothing in it at all; it was smooth, devoid of emotion, his eyes totally blank. It unnerved her slightly, that look; it was so unlike Miles. It stirred unwelcome emotions, odd, placeless memories. She struggled to disentangle them, but couldn’t; Miles was talking again.

  ‘Tell me why you think me working for the company would be such a bad idea?’

  Roz thought fast. Maybe it wasn’t an entirely bad idea. He was bound to tire of it fairly soon. In the meantime, she felt confident, she could draw him slowly, imperceptibly further towards her side. It would also be quite amusing. She would enjoy seeing Phaedria trounced slowly and agonizingly, rather than in one swift, straight move. She could actually have enormous fun with the situation: a real live cat and mouse game. Besides she enjoyed Miles’ company enormously. The sexual attraction she felt towards him apart, he relaxed her, made her laugh, forget Michael, forget everything. It would be wonderful to have him around all the time. She had no intention of trying to seduce him sexually, it would be undignified, it would be politically inept, and besides there was Candy. She had no stomach just now for any kind of sexual drama. But the fact remained that he charged everything up i
n a very agreeable way, made her feel good, alive, aware of herself. She enjoyed his company, in the fullest possible sense; it would be the greatest fun to have him around the office.

  ‘Why does Candy like the idea so much?’ she asked, playing for time, time to think about it, to plan her answer more skilfully.

  ‘Well, I guess she likes the idea of being married to a tycoon, as she calls it. And then her dad says if I’m working, you know, for you, then we could get married straight away. She’d really like that.’

  ‘Wouldn’t you?’

  ‘Yeah, yeah, I would. I want to get married to her really badly. But being married to her in London, working, wasn’t really what I had in mind.’

  She looked at him shrewdly. ‘It would depend, maybe, on what you did?’

  ‘Yeah. Candy was talking to old Mrs Morell about it. She had some really wild ideas.’

  ‘Like what?’ said Roz, slightly irritably. It was too bad of Letitia to think she could still interfere in the running of the company.

  ‘Well for instance, she thought I would like being involved in the stores. And maybe I would. I could just about take that, I guess. I like clothes and nice things.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Roz, looking at him as he lounged in front of the fire, his long long legs encased in Levis, worn with brown knee-high leather boots, a dark green cashmere polo from Ralph Lauren, a soft brown leather jacket. ‘You’ve learnt your way round the London shops pretty fast, I must say.’

  ‘Yeah, well it isn’t difficult.’

  ‘What other ideas did Letitia have?’

  ‘Well, she thought I might like working with the design guy. What’s his name, David Somebody?’

  ‘Ah,’ said Roz, ‘David Sassoon.’

  ‘Yeah, that’s it. I did art at high school. I liked it.’

  ‘Yes, but with the greatest respect, Miles, you can’t just walk into a very high-powered design set-up and think you can start making waves on the strength of a few school art lessons. It’s a very sophisticated business these days; you’d have to go to art school, learn what you were doing.’

  ‘OK, OK,’ he said, smiling lazily at her. ‘No need to get all uptight. It was only an idea anyway. Nobody’s actually gone out and bought me a desk. I haven’t even thought it all through yet.’

  ‘Sorry.’ She smiled at him with an effort. ‘It’s just that it’s a very complex business. I get upset when people imply it’s simple.’

  ‘You get upset altogether too easily,’ he said. ‘I keep telling you.’

  ‘Yes, well, I don’t have that much to be happy about at the moment,’ she said.

  ‘Oh, I don’t know. You have a few pluses in your life.’

  ‘Like?’

  ‘Well, like you’re not starving, are you? Not pushed for the odd buck?’

  ‘No. No, of course not. But –’

  ‘But money isn’t everything. Is that what you were going to say?’

  ‘Yes. Yes, I was.’

  ‘It isn’t everything,’ he said with a sigh, ‘but it sure is a lot. You ask a few people who don’t have any, see what they say.’

  ‘Yes, I know,’ she said, ‘and of course I’m very lucky in that way, we all are, but it doesn’t, it really doesn’t, buy happiness, contentment, love; it doesn’t ease pain.’

  And to her horror she felt her eyes fill with tears.

  ‘Come on,’ he said, ‘that’s good. Cry. Cry and cry. Yell if you want. Let it out.’

  ‘I can’t,’ she said, smiling at him shakily, ‘not here. Everyone would hear.’

  ‘OK. We’ll go for a walk. Come on.’ He put out his hand, pulled her up. ‘Get your coat.’

  ‘Oh, this is ridiculous,’ she said, ‘going for a walk just so I can let out a primeval scream or two.’

  ‘It isn’t ridiculous at all. You need it. You don’t have to scream anyway. You can just talk it out if you want to.’

  ‘Oh, all right. Let’s go for a walk anyway. The dogs would like it.’

  They fetched coats, put on boots, and Peveril’s three labradors, who had been prancing excitedly round the Great Hall ever since they had first heard the magic word, followed them ecstatically down into the woods.

  ‘Now I feel silly,’ said Roz, brushing aside a small branch, ‘I can’t cry now, you’re watching me.’

  ‘OK. You don’t have to cry. You don’t even have to talk. I keep telling you, I just want to help. This was the only way I could see just then.’

  ‘You are a nice person, Miles,’ she said looking at him, ‘you really are. Why are you so nice?’

  He shrugged. ‘Don’t know. My mom and dad were pretty nice people. I guess that helps. My granny is real nice. I’ve had some very nice girlfriends. Plenty of people to set me a good example.’

  Roz looked at him. ‘I know Granny Letitia talked to you about – about the possibility that my father was yours. I was worried about that, too. I never told you and I’ve never managed to talk to you about it since, but I was awfully glad that he wasn’t. That it wasn’t possible.’

  ‘Me too. For lots of reasons.’

  ‘Yes.’

  He looked at her and grinned. ‘Wild, huh? Us being related. Brother and sister.’

  ‘Yes, well,’ said Roz shortly, ‘we’re not.’

  ‘No.’

  He was suddenly very quiet, walking through the leaves, kicking them almost savagely.

  ‘What is it, Miles?’

  ‘Oh – oh, nothing.’

  ‘Now you’re not letting things out. Come on, tell me. If you want to.’

  He turned to her, and she saw his blue eyes were full of pain, that there were tears in them. She stepped towards him.

  ‘Miles, what is it? Please tell me.’

  ‘Oh, well, I was just remembering, you know, it was the last time I ever saw her; she was in the hospital dying, and I was only small, thirteen years old, and I remember thinking I couldn’t bear it, and I lay there, on her bed in the hospital in her arms, and I just wanted to stay with her, to hold her hand and go with her wherever she was going, and I knew I couldn’t, and I was so unhappy and kind of scared. In the end she went to sleep and they came and told me I should leave, and I had to climb off the bed very gently, very carefully, and go without waking her, and that was the moment when she died for me. Actually she died the next day,’ he said, brushing the tears from his face, ‘but I never saw her again.’

  He sat down abruptly on the wet ground; Roz sat beside him. She put her arm round his shoulder, took one of his hands, rested her head against him.

  ‘I know it’s trite to say it,’ she said, ‘but I think I do know how you feel. And I’m so sorry. But at least you said goodbye to your mother. You were able to say everything you wanted to. That must be a comfort, I should think.’

  ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘yes, it is. They were happy days in a way, when she was dying. Can you imagine that?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Roz, thinking of the nightmare three days of her father’s death as he lay in intensive care, an obscene mesh of wires and tubes in and around him, when she had stood and looked at him from outside the room, refusing to go in because Phaedria had been there sitting beside him. ‘Yes, I think I can.’

  ‘Well,’ he said, ‘it’s a long time ago. Mostly I don’t mind any more. Obviously.’

  ‘Well, I’m very sorry if I made you unhappy. I wouldn’t have done that for anything.’

  He turned and looked at her, took one of her hands and kissed it, then leant forward and kissed her mouth, tenderly, gently, lovingly.

  ‘You’re a nice lady,’ he said. ‘You didn’t. And I like you very much. Very very much.’

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  New York, Scotland, London, Eleuthera, 1985–6

  PHAEDRIA SPENT MUCH of the flight to New York being sick. She reflected miserably, looking at her ashen, haggard face in the mirror in the plane lavatory, that until she had got mixed up with the Morell family she had never been sick in her life and for the past year she seem
ed to have been throwing up almost constantly. It did not seem quite the sort of thing normally associated with life with the rich and famous; she wondered, managing a shaky smile at herself, where she had gone wrong.

  She also felt bereft without Julia, without her constant, reassuring, demanding company. She didn’t exactly feel worried about her, Nanny Hunter was quite wonderful and they were staying at Marriotts with Mrs Mildred to keep an eye on things as well, and the excellent GP down there had promised to look in every day just to make sure the baby was perfectly well, but she was quite simply missing her horribly: she felt oddly distracted, some piece of her still fixed firmly behind. Well, it was only for four days. Four days: and two of them with Michael. Phaedria felt interestingly nervous at the notion. She felt she was being presented to him, or at least presenting herself, for examination, rather like an interesting species under the microscope. It was the first time they would spend any time together by arrangement, from choice, and it felt oddly awkward, embarrassing even.

  On the other hand, it was a glorious prospect. She surveyed the time, uninterrupted, unthreatened, time to talk, to do things, to make discoveries about one another, and smiled with pure pleasure. Then she considered that the time was likely, indeed certain, to involve a great deal of sex, and she felt sick again. It was not the prospect of the sex itself that was provoking the nausea, but sheer fright at the thought of actually, finally, having to go to bed with Michael. She wanted to, she longed for it, had been longing for it for what seemed like ever, but there was something oddly calculating about the circumstances in which it had to happen. ‘Here you are,’ Fate seemed to be saying to them both, firmly, sternly even, ‘together at last. Perform.’ This was, as the saying went, no rehearsal, and she was terribly afraid she was going to fluff her lines.

  Her fear was partly, largely even, she knew (and recognizing this knowledge sent her lurching into the lavatory yet again) because Michael had had this long, long affair with Roz. And then Phaedria was not confident about herself and her own sexuality at all; she had only ever been to bed with Julian, and he had been (she supposed) very skilful and talented. But she had always been aware that her own input had been very limited, indeed Julian had tended to discourage anything but a fairly passive role from her in bed (and would have liked the same kind of behaviour elsewhere, she thought with a pang that was half amusement, half regret). And much of the time, she had not felt that she was very responsive to him even: there had been occasions when their lovemaking had been wonderful, exquisite even – the night in the car, the last night before Julian’s heart attack, on their honeymoon after she had recovered from her sunburn – but the very fact she could tick them off on her fingers worried her even; maybe she was frigid. Sex certainly hadn’t been up to now a highly motivating force in her life; she often worried also that since Julian’s death she really had not felt any serious frustration at all. Michael had stirred her senses, made her think about sex a great deal, but then, she felt, to a degree that was the emotional excitement of their relationship rather than her own physical needs. At least, she thought, she had felt something very strong for Miles that day; at least something good had come out of it.