To Be the Best

by Barbara Taylor Bradford

  ‘Jonathan darling, how did it go?’ she asked, coming over to him, kissing him on the cheek.

  Jonathan was devastated by what he had just read about his wife, and he could hardly bear her to touch him. He had to hold himself rigid in order not to react to her kiss, or strike her.

  He had loved her, had considered her to be his most perfect possession. She was imperfect now, soiled, damaged, worthless.

  Again she said, ‘How did the meeting go at Harte’s?’

  ‘So-so,’ he muttered noncommittally, controlling himself even though the rage boiled inside him.

  Arabella looked at him oddly, detecting a sudden coldness in him, then she immediately dismissed this as irritation with Paula O’Neill, his bête noire.

  Turning, she walked back into the sitting room where she had been reading, settled herself on the sofa. Her knitting bag was next to her, and she opened it, took out the baby’s jacket she was making, began to ply the needles.

  Jonathan walked in after her, put the envelope down on an end table, went over to the bar, where he poured himself a neat vodka.

  He stood sipping it, regarding her, thinking how heavy with child she looked this afternoon. The baby was due any moment, and as much as he wanted to confront Arabella head on, he knew he must restrain himself. He did not want her any more, and he would divorce her as quickly as possible, but he certainly wanted his child… his son and heir.

  He said, conversationally, ‘Did you ever know a man in Hong Kong called Tony Chiu?’

  If Arabella was startled by this question, she did not show it. ‘No, why do you ask?’ she murmured, all calm contentment.

  ‘No special reason. His name happened to come up at lunch with my solicitors today. I thought you might have run across him in your travels, know something about him.’

  ‘I’m afraid I don’t, darling.’

  He finished the vodka, reached for the envelope and crossed the room. Taking the chair facing her, he said, ‘You lived in Paris for years… but you never want to go there. Why is that?’

  ‘It’s never been my favourite place,’ she said, lifting her eyes from the knitting, smiling at him lovingly.

  ‘Then why did you live there for almost eight years?’

  ‘My work was there. You know I was a model. And why all these questions about Paris, Jonny darling?’

  He said slowly, ‘Are you afraid to go to Paris?’

  ‘Of course not. And why are you being so strange? I don’t understand you.’

  ‘Are you afraid you’ll run into some of your old… paramours, is that what it’s all about, Francine?’

  Arabella gazed at him. Her pitch-black eyes were full of innocence. ‘I don’t know what you’re getting at, or why you’re calling me Francine.’ She laughed lightly, shook her head.

  ‘Because that’s the name you used when you were a call girl.’

  ‘What on earth are you saying?’ she cried.

  ‘Don’t deny it! The documentation is all here, courtesy of Paula O’Neill. You can read it for yourself,’ he said, pinning her with his eyes. ‘It’s an investigation into my life, and they’ve done quite a number on yours, too.’

  Arabella had no alternative but to take the documents he was thrusting at her.

  ‘Read them.’

  She was suddenly terrified. She saw the dark gleam in his eyes, the cold implacability on his face. He could be cruel, dangerous when crossed, she knew that, knew all about his temper. She did as he said, scanning the pages swiftly, not wanting to read, knowing the papers were damning. But words jumped out at her; she took in the general contents, and her heart tightened in her chest.

  She handed them back to him. Her face was the colour of chalk. Tears glittered in her eyes. ‘Darling, please, you don’t understand. Let me explain. Please. My past has nothing to do with today, with now, with you, with us. It happened so long ago. I was very young. Only a child, really. Only nineteen. I left that life behind me long ago, Jonny darling.’

  ‘I’m going to ask you one more time,’ he said. ‘Do you know Tony Chiu?’

  ‘Yes,’ she whispered.

  ‘Did he back your antique jade business in Hong Kong?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘We’ve been in business before at different times. He’s a bit of an entrepreneur.’

  ‘And he put you on to me, didn’t he? Set me up as a target for you. He wanted you to ensnare me, to marry me so you could keep an eye on me. For him.’

  ‘No, no, that’s not true. Oh Jonny, I fell in love with you! I did! You know I did.’

  ‘Admit you set me up. I know everything,’ he railed at her.

  She began to shake. Floundering, she cried, ‘Yes, I did try to ensnare you, that night at Susan Sorrell’s, when we first met. But very soon after that I became involved with you. I didn’t want to do anything but love you. Truly. You must know that from our time at Mougins, from our extraordinary intimacy there, the way we became almost one person.’

  ‘I can’t believe anything you say,’ he exclaimed, going to pour another drink.

  She watched him go, return to the chair. Once he was seated again, she said, ‘I told Tony I couldn’t give him any information about you. That I wouldn’t. And that decision was reinforced more strongly than ever when I became pregnant with our child… I love you,’ she repeated, meaning this, her eyes riveted to his face.

  ‘And are you involved in the drugs with him?’

  ‘I don’t know what you mean,’ she cried, truly baffled.

  ‘For God’s sake, don’t keep denying things,’ he shouted. Something in him snapped. He jumped up, took hold of her shoulders, shook her violently. ‘Whore,’ he yelled at her, ‘tart, putain. I loved you, no, adored you. I thought you were the most perfect thing, the most beautiful woman in the world, without blemish. But you’re nothing… dirt.’

  Arabella began to weep uncontrollably. ‘You’ve got to believe me, Jonny. I love you with all my heart, and I’ve told him nothing—’

  ‘Liar!’ he screamed at her.

  She reached out to him, grabbed his coat sleeve.

  He shook her hands off him, his face filling with contempt and hatred. ‘Don’t touch me.’

  Suddenly Arabella’s face twisted and she brought her hands to her stomach. ‘The baby! I think the baby’s coming. I’m having a contraction. Oh please help me… help me, Jonny. Get me to the hospital. Please,’ she begged.

  ***

  Arabella was in labour by the time he got her to the London Clinic. She was taken to the delivery room immediately.

  Jonathan went to wait in the lounge reserved for expectant fathers in the famous private clinic. An hour and a half later his son was born. A nurse came to inform him of this, explaining that he could see his wife and child shortly.

  He did not care about his wife. His only interest was in his son. The heir he had always wanted. He would take the child away from her as soon as he could. Women like Arabella—whores—were not interested in children. The boy would be brought up as an English gentleman. Suddenly his mind turned to schools. He would send the boy to Eton, where he had gone, and then to Cambridge.

  Settling into his thoughts, he sat quietly, waiting patiently to see his child. He realized he was excited, that he looked forward to holding the baby in his arms. His father and mother would be happy. This was their first grandchild. Perhaps he would call the boy Robin. After the christening, the reception would be held at the House of Commons. As a leading politician and Member of Parliament, his father could easily arrange that.

  He switched gears, contemplated Paula O’Neill, considered the problem of the Harte stores. More than ever he was determined to go through with his plans to wrest control of the chain from her. He must. There was his son and heir to consider now.

  A nurse came to fetch him sooner than he expected. He followed her down the corridor to the private suite he had booked for Arabella a month ago. The nurse showed him in, disappeared, murmur
ing she was going to get the baby.

  Arabella was in bed, propped up against the pillows. She looked pale, exhausted.

  ‘Jonny,’ she began, reaching out her hand to him. Her eyes were imploring. ‘Please don’t be like this with me. Give me another chance, for the sake of our child. I’ve never done anything to hurt you. Never. I love you, darling.’

  ‘I don’t want to talk to you,’ he snapped.

  ‘But Jonny—’ She broke off as the door opened. The same nurse walked in, this time carrying the baby wrapped in blankets and a lacy cashmere shawl.

  He hurried over to the bed as the nurse placed the baby in Arabella’s outstretched arms. They looked down at their child together.

  Jonathan stiffened. The first thing he saw was the epicanthic fold of the eye, that little bit of skin covering the inner corner that was unmistakably Oriental.

  The shock on his face mirrored the stunned expression on hers. Arabella looked up at him speechlessly.

  ‘This is not my child!’ Jonathan shouted, his rage exploding. ‘It’s Tony Chiu’s! Or some other Chinaman’s, you bloody whore!’

  He pushed past the incredulous nurse, half stumbled, half ran out of the suite, wanting to put as much distance between himself and Arabella as he could.

  ***

  The uniformed chauffeur turned on the ignition and the stately, silver-grey Rolls-Royce pulled noiselessly away from Claridge’s, rolled off on its way to London airport.

  Jonathan leaned back, sank into the glove-soft leather of the seat. His rage was monumental, would not abate. He could not get over the shock of Arabella’s past, her duplicity, her treachery, and the knowledge that she had been sleeping with another man whilst married to him. An Oriental man. There was no way she could ever deny that. The baby was living proof. Tony Chiu, Jonathan thought for the umpteenth time. Her old friend and benefactor was the most likely candidate.

  He glanced at his briefcase next to him on the back seat, and his mind zeroed in yet again on the report. He was not sure how much truth there was in the information it contained about Tony Chiu’s activities. But if the man was laundering money through Janus and Janus, he was going to put a stop to it. Immediately. And somehow he would find a way to even the score with his Chinese partner.

  Jonathan could not wait to get back to Hong Kong. He glanced at his watch, saw that it was only nine-thirty. He had plenty of time to catch the midnight flight that would take him to the British Crown Colony.

  Slipping his hand into his pocket, he automatically curled his fingers around the pebble of mutton-fat jade. He brought it out, stared at it in the dim light of the car. His eyes narrowed thoughtfully. It no longer looked the same. Somehow it had lost its luminosity, its lustre. But it was his talisman. He laughed hollowly to himself. Some talisman. It had brought him no luck recently. Only bad joss. Very bad joss.

  Rolling down the window, Jonathan flung the pebble out into the street, watched it roll away into the gutter.

  The car sped on. He sat back, smiled to himself. He was glad to be rid of the jade piece. Now, perhaps, his luck would change.

  Epilogue

  We are each the authors of our own lives… there is no way to shift the blame and no one else to accept the accolades.

  PAUL MCGILL, in A Woman of Substance

  They sat together on the rocks at the Top of the World.

  It was a glorious Saturday afternoon in late September. The sky was the colour of speedwells and glittering with sunlight, and below them the implacable moors were softened by wave upon wave of purple heather. Somewhere in the distance there was the sound of rushing water as a stream tumbled down over rocky crags, and on the lucent air there was the smell of heather and bracken and bilberry.

  They had been silent for a while, lost in their own thoughts, enjoying being together again, being up here where it was so peaceful.

  All of a sudden Shane put his arms around Paula, held her close to him. ‘It’s wonderful to be home, to be with you,’ he said. ‘I’m lost when we’re apart.’

  She turned her head, smiled at him. ‘I feel the same.’

  ‘I’m glad we came up to the moors today,’ Shane went on. ‘There’s nowhere like them in the whole world.’

  ‘Grandy’s moors,’ Paula said. ‘She loved them, too.’

  ‘Especially up here, at the Top of the World.’

  ‘Grandy once said that the secret of life is to endure,’ Paula murmured and looked at him quizzically. ‘I hope I will.’

  ‘Of course you will, my darling. You have. In fact, you’ve not only endured, you’ve prevailed. She’d be very proud of you. Emma always wanted you to be the best. And you are.’

  ‘You’re prejudiced.’

  ‘I am indeed. But that doesn’t make my statement any less true.’

  ‘I almost lost Harte’s, Shane,’ she whispered.

  ‘But you didn’t. And that’s what counts, Paula.’

  He jumped off the rocks, took hold of her hands, helped her down. ‘Come on, we’d better get back. I promised Patrick and Linnet we’d have nursery tea with them.’

  They walked through the heather, holding hands, buffeted forward by the wind as they headed for the car parked on the dirt road. Paula stole a look at him, loving him, relieved and happy that he had returned from Australia. He had arrived in Yorkshire last night, and he had not stopped talking since, full of his plans for rebuilding the Sydney-O’Neill Hotel.

  Paula came to a sudden halt.

  Shane also stopped, turned to look at her. ‘What is it?’ he asked. ‘Is there something wrong?’

  ‘I hope not,’ she replied, starting to laugh. Her eyes were bright with happiness. ‘I’ve wanted to tell you since last night, but you haven’t given me the chance—’

  ‘Tell me what?’ he probed.

  She leaned into him, looked up into his face, that face she had known and loved all her life. ‘We’re going to have another baby. I’m almost three months pregnant.’

  He pulled her into his arms and hugged her, then held her away. ‘That’s the best welcome home present I’ve ever had,’ Shane said, smiling at her.

  And he continued to smile all the way back to Pennistone Royal.

  An Excerpt from A Woman of Substance

  By Barbara Taylor Bradford

  CHAPTER ONE

  Emma Harte leaned forward and looked out of the window. The private Lear jet, property of the Sitex Oil Corporation of America, had been climbing steadily up through a vaporous haze of cumulus clouds and was now streaking through a sky so penetratingly blue its shimmering clarity hurt the eyes. Momentarily dazzled by this early-morning brightness, Emma turned away from the window, rested her head against the seat, and closed her eyes. For a brief instant the vivid blueness was trapped beneath her lids and, in that instant, such a strong and unexpected feeling of nostalgia was evoked within her that she caught her breath in surprise. It’s the sky from the Turner painting above the upstairs parlour fireplace at Pennistone Royal, she thought, a Yorkshire sky on a spring day when the wind has driven the fog from the moors.

  A faint smile played around her mouth, curving the line of the lips with unfamiliar softness, as she thought with some pleasure of Pennistone Royal. That great house that grew up out of the stark and harsh landscape of the moors and which always appeared to her to be a force of nature engineered by some Almighty architect rather than a mere edifice erected by mortal man. The one place on this violent planet where she had found peace, limitless peace that soothed and refreshed her. Her home. She had been away far too long this time, almost six weeks, which was a prolonged absence indeed for her. But within the coming week she would be returning to London, and by the end of the month she would travel north to Pennistone. To peace, tranquillity, her gardens, and her grand-children.

  This thought cheered her immeasurably and she relaxed in her seat, the tension that had built up over the last few days diminishing until it had evaporated. She was bone tired from the raging battles that had
punctuated these last few days of board meetings at the Sitex corporate headquarters in Odessa; she was supremely relieved to be leaving Texas and returning to the relative calmness of her own corporate offices in New York. It was not that she did not like Texas; in point of fact, she had always had a penchant for that great state, seeing in its rough sprawling power something akin to her native Yorkshire. But this last trip had exhausted her. I’m getting too old for gallivanting around on planes, she thought ruefully, and then dismissed that thought as unworthy. It was dishonest and she was never dishonest with herself. It saved so much time in the long run. And, in all truthfulness, she did not feel old. Only a trifle tired on occasion and especially when she became exasperated with fools; and Harry Marriott, president of Sitex, was a fool and inherently dangerous, like all fools.

  Emma opened her eyes and sat up impatiently, her mind turning again to business, for she was tireless, sleepless, obsessive when it came to her vast business enterprises, which rarely left her thoughts. She straightened her back and crossed her legs, adopting her usual posture, a posture that was contained and regal. There was an imperiousness in the way she held her head and in her general demeanour, and her green eyes were full of enormous power. She lifted one of her small, strong hands and automatically smoothed her silver hair, which did not need it, since it was as impeccable as always. As indeed she was herself, in her simple yet elegant dark grey worsted dress, its severeness softened by the milky whiteness of the matchless pearls around her neck and the fine emerald pin on her shoulder.

  She glanced at her granddaughter sitting opposite, diligently making notes for the coming week’s business in New York. She looks drawn this morning, Emma thought, I push her too hard. She felt an unaccustomed twinge of guilt but impatiently shrugged it off. She’s young, she can take it, and it’s the best training she could ever have, Emma reassured herself and said, ‘Would you ask that nice young steward—John, isn’t it?—to make some coffee please, Paula. I’m badly in need of it this morning.’