His face had taken on a stony look. They were standing on the bridge just in front of the Danieli but as Ellie finished speaking he wheeled round, gripped her by the shoulders and shook her.
‘I have never in my life wanted to shake sense into someone as much as I want to do it to you,’ he said through gritted teeth. ‘I suppose your campaign to vilify me is as strong as ever…?’
‘You bet it is.’ Ellie winced as his fingers dug into her flesh.
‘And if I buy the land and go ahead with my... plans, you intend to run a damaging profile on me?’
‘You’d better believe it,’ she snapped.
‘And you would prefer to do all that rather than put your trust in me and back off?’
Briefly she wondered if he wasn’t just a little deranged making such an unreasonable demand but her feelings were too far gone to exercise even the smallest modicum of restraint.
‘You can bet I would.’ She practically spat the words out. ‘I’m not Caroline Granger, or Matt Harksey or my father. I don’t need you like Roger Nelson, or need to be damaged like Serena. I’m me, Ellie Carter. Independent of and totally unafraid of the Stirling family...’
‘We will leave Serena out of this, if you please. You don’t know what you’re saying, you...’
‘Don’t I?’ she yelled back. ‘She had a nervous breakdown. What did you do to Roger Nelson…?’
‘Nervous breakdown? Are you quite mad? Announces she’s pregnant and then a week after we’re married says she isn’t? Who the hell is likely to have the breakdown? And as for Nelson, what the fuck do you suppose I’m running... a charity for burnt out cases... for Christ’s sake...’
She wasn’t even listening. Her fury, the months of pent-up rage that had engulfed her at the memory of their night in his library, came pouring out.
‘... and just because there was a momentary lapse of common sense — not that hard when someone is out to deceive you on a grand scale — don’t delude yourself that it was anything more than a mistake.’
Her shaking voice seemed to calm him. He released his grip on her shoulders, ran a distracted hand through his hair and said harshly, ‘Well, I’m glad of that at least. Eleanor, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you... not now or at any time.’
‘You haven’t,’ she flashed back at him. ‘You’ve hurt my family, not me personally. Look, I don’t want to do what I’m doing. It’s something you couldn’t possibly understand, you’re so wealthy. But I can’t see Oliver hurt — or my father. Not again.’
‘Oliver would be just as hurt if Oldburns bought that land,’ came Theo’s sharp reply. ‘But you’re not writing a profile on him, or pinpointing him so sharply in your campaign.’
‘Possibly,’ she conceded. ‘But Oldburns’ bid is lower than yours and with a bit of luck, Oliver might be able to scrape enough together to match it.’
‘I doubt it,’ he said. ‘If he can’t match it now, he never will. Oldburns want it for holiday homes, and they have enough assets to sell off to raise the capital to underwrite any initial losses they might make. What else has Oliver got besides Delcourt?’
Ellie turned away, biting her lip. She knew he had a point, but at least with Oldburns they had a chance of preventing a redevelopment scheme. Local opinion was running quite high and as Joe McPhee had shrewdly pointed out, Basil Oldburn, who was now nearing retiring age and with an eye to living a more relaxed life at his luxury home on the edge of Willetts Green, would be easier to see off.
He would not want his retirement disturbed by local resentment, especially at the golf, Rotary and yachting clubs of which he was a prominent member.
Ellie did not, however, see why she should tell Theo that or that Joe had warned them that Theo’s history at Willets Green was not exactly riddled with negatives. Sizeable donations to the local hospital, a new gym for the comprehensive wasn’t going to harm any campaign he might have to redevelop a piece of land. And he had the finances to make sure he did.
She remembered Joe telling them at the start of the campaign that there were enough go-ahead young people who would willingly swap sides if Theo offered employment locally as an inducement to halting their opposition to his plans.
Ellie tried one last time to appeal to him, impulsively putting her hand on his arm.
‘Theo, just listen to me. Oliver and I have always had to work for what we wanted. No bottomless well of money such as you have ever existed for us. We lost our home and we had to fight life with the only weapons we had. Ourselves. Delcourt is all Oliver has, all I’ve ever wanted for him. Oh, for God’s sake, Theo, for the last time, will you just back off?’
She heard him swear softly under his breath and before she knew what was happening, he had pulled her into his arms, his mouth came crushing down on hers. For a brief second she was too stunned to move — and to be truthful she didn’t want to.
‘Why did you do that?’ she said, breathless and visibly shaken as he released her, wondering for one ecstatic second if he was going to agree. But his next words turned her to stone.
‘I did it,’ he said, ‘because after what I’m going to tell you, I think I can predict the end of any relationship we might have had. Oliver will know today that I signed the papers two days ago. I own Linton’s Field.’
She stepped back. The sound of laughing voices floated across the silent night air. She could hear Jed, Debra and Prince Stefano coming to find them. She felt the colour drain from her face.
She gazed at Theo, who looked shattered.
‘You know, I’ve felt a lot of things about you over the past few months,’ she said in a surprisingly steady voice. ‘I never thought I would ever, ever have to add hate, but it’s just gone right to the top of my list — just above "contempt".’
Turning, she walked away, head held high, back along the quayside, oblivious to the furious gaze of Debra, the puzzled expression on Max’s face. She didn’t notice the rapid exchange between the Prince and Jed, she just kept on walking and when she heard Jed’s footsteps running after her and felt his hand on her arm, she just shook it off.
‘Not now, leave me. Just leave me,’ she whispered. And disappeared into the darkness of the side street to the safety and sanctuary of her hotel.
Chapter Thirty
The proofs of the profile on Theo stared back at Ellie from Jerome’s desk. James Baldwin was distinctly nervous.
So too was Jerome. Trying not to show it, he rearranged the objects on his desk top around so much Dixie finally had to grip his wrist to stop him.
‘Ellie,’ said James earnestly as Jerome glanced anxiously from one to the other. ‘There is enough in this piece for it to be seen as libellous, and even if we could make the case stand up it is really very dodgy. He could certainly make a case for it to be hugely damaging and he has the funds to go into court. Even if the jury were convinced by what you said, it sounds just about as prejudiced as you can get. And a jury would probably find for him.’
Ellie looked impatiently at him. ‘He knows my sources, he hasn’t denied them. He can’t. He knows I’ll run this piece. He hasn’t even tried an injunction because he knows it’s pointless.’
James tried another tack. The article must have been painful for her to write, it implicated her father and by association her brother and herself. Ellie was white and as immoveable as a mountain.
At Jerome’s insistence she had agreed to have ‘a personal account’ as a strapline, but James was aware that did not exonerate the magazine from any action Theo Stirling might take.
‘Ellie, we’ve had one waltz around the law courts this year. If he sues he will win. There’s no doubt about that at all. Or at the very least we will have to offer him a fortune to stay out of court. I must, as your lawyer and,’ he paused and glanced at Jerome who was as frightened by it all as he was fascinated, ‘and as your very good friend, recommend that you think very carefully about what this will do to you.’
Ellie looked up at him and her eyes were dead.
The two men exchanged startled glances. James was even more nervous.
‘Ellie, if this is a personal thing, I beg you, think. Do you want to end up looking like a vengeful woman? Remember how you loathed Kathryn Renshaw.’
Theo’s voice came back to her. ‘A lot of people will suffer if you do it.’
Too right, she thought bitterly. And all because of him.
‘That’s different,’ she said quietly. ‘Kathryn Renshaw was getting back at her husband. Believe me, James, I am prepared to take anything he can sling at me. But after this article is published, unlike Kathryn Renshaw, I can get on with my life. He is meaningless to me.’
The atmosphere was still tense. Ellie noticed that Jerome had made no decisions at all, but had left it all to her. Of course he had. Where Roland would have argued fiercely for a brilliant exposé to be published without further ado, totally backing his writer, Jerome was keeping his head below the parapet and his options wide open.
The silence was broken as James with one brisk movement gathered up the proofs and started to shuffle them together.
‘Will this guy Harksey back you?’
‘Yes.’
‘Any of the others?’
‘No. I don’t know their names,’ she confessed.
James rolled his eyes to heaven.
‘What about... what about your father?’
Ellie smiled wearily. ‘No, absolutely not. But that won’t be necessary. My brother is prepared to back me to the hilt.’
Resigned to an afternoon of scrutinizing every word and even possibly seeking counsel’s advice, James rose to leave. Ellie went with him to the door. As he disappeared into the outer office, he put an arm around her shoulders.
‘I think you might find life a little difficult getting interviews for a while, once this appears. He’s respected in the City and they’re a fairly clannish bunch. Anyway,’ he said, squeezing her arm, ‘don’t forget we’re lunching later, if, of course, I have any appetite left.’
That afternoon James and then Jerome okayed the final proofs, Ellie checked the copy once more and resolutely scribbled her initials on the pages so that the subs would know she had seen and approved the text and the captions to the pictures before despatching it on its first stage of it’s journey to publication at the printers. The courier was already waiting in Angus’s office.
Angus had been fully expecting to run Ellie’s interview with the Prince, but at the last minute Jerome had ordered him to pull it and replace it with this astonishing profile on Theo Stirling.
The printers were waiting for it; everything else for that issue had been sent down the day before. They were used to Ellie cutting it fine getting the final copy to them, but by anyone’s standards this was pushing it.
Since the night in the Europa a week before, when she had sat on her tiny balcony nearly all night, too shocked and distressed to sleep, Ellie had been working on automatic. She had lost. Oliver had lost. She had phoned him the next morning, to discover he had been trying to contact her. Theo and Conrad Linton had done a deal. Planning permission had been granted.
‘It took us all by surprise,’ Oliver admitted. ‘All we can do now is keep opposing anything he tries to do, but as far as we can judge, it’s a delaying tactic rather than a solution. Are you there, Ellie?’
She was sitting on the edge of her bed, the white voile curtains of her room billowing in the breeze from the open windows leading to the balcony, where a breakfast tray lay untouched on the table.
‘Yes,’ she said dully. ‘I’m here. What are you going to do?’
She heard Oliver take a deep breath.
‘I’m not sure. See the solicitors, check if there is anything we can do. I’m not sure I’ve got the stomach to go on fighting, have you?’
‘No,’ she said. ‘No, I haven’t,’ and when she put down the phone she wandered out on to the tiny terrace, leaned her hands on the railing and gazed unseeingly out across the canal and whispered to herself, ‘Or the heart.’
Oliver didn’t need to remind her that she had assured them that she would never run that feature. He knew that now she had to.
His livelihood was now severely threatened. It was a last desperate bid to stop Theo violating the idyllic setting with unsightly buildings.
Ellie arrived back in England on the next available flight, leaving Jed and Rosie to come back a day later, Rosie because she wanted to take advantage of a Sunday in Venice with Piers and her small son had been scooped up to stay with her mother for the weekend. Jed because... because, he said, not quite looking Ellie in the eye, Stefano could turn out to be a good contact.
Ellie’s responses were automatic.
‘Of course,’ she said and left. It was only when she was on the plane that she wondered briefly if Ashley was going to find out about the Prince.
Clive was trickier.
After several attempts at getting her attention as they ate dinner in his apartment later that evening, he finally removed her plate, put it in the kitchen, took her hand and led her to the sofa where he waited silently for her to speak.
‘I think,’ he said carefully, ‘I think this has gone on long enough. Don’t you? Do you think you could just tell me, Ellie, my dear girl, what is it?’
Tears were rolling down her cheeks. He gathered her into his arms, rocking her as though she were a child, and waited for the sobs to subside.
‘Now,’ he said, handing her a fistful of tissues, ‘let’s have a talk that I think we have both been trying to avoid, is that not so, my precious?’
Switching off the telephone, he moved away from her to the far end of the cluttered sofa, where he failed to see one of Sean’s spiked running shoes.
‘Jesus,’ he howled, leaping up. Ellie started to laugh and thought how endearing and normal and sweet he was. And she just hoped she wouldn’t lose him forever, because she knew now it was hopeless to pretend the weight she had been carrying around for months would not make a difference to them.
Taking a deep breath, she began and Clive never took his eyes from her face. It was only when she had finished that he realized he was sitting with an empty glass so he leaned over to reach for the Bollinger, making a big fuss about refilling his drink, so that she wouldn’t see his eyes had filled with tears.
Chapter Thirty-one
For the first time ever she had fallen out with Jed, who had urged her to reconsider, convinced that Theo was straight in spite of what he had done.
‘Let me talk to him,’ he urged. ‘Let me try and sort all this out. Honestly, Ellie, I’m sure there must be a way out of this.’
Ellie was too angry, in too much pain to listen to him.
‘Why should he listen to you?’ she demanded. ‘He doesn’t listen to anyone. He wouldn’t listen to me. I think you’ve done what everyone else has done, fallen for the charm. Probably fallen for him. I wouldn’t put anything past him.’
Jed had just swung on his heel and slammed his office door.
Paul, on the other hand, had been delighted she was doing it, which only served to depress her further.
Now Ellie glanced rapidly through the final proofs of the feature, and then ran with the damaging spread down the corridor as though a moment’s delay might weaken her resolve and handed them to Angus.
‘We’ll just make it,’ he told her, smiling without pausing as he swiftly marked the corrections on to the copy on his screen. ‘Haven’t lost an issue yet.’
As he spoke he pushed the finalized disk into a folder, sealed it and gave it to the courier saying cheerfully that if the traffic was reasonable he should get it to the printers in Milton Keynes, before eight o’clock. The presses were due to roll at three the next morning for the issue which would appear on the bookstands a few days later.
Ellie watched transfixed as the final nail in her relationship with Theo Stirling went in and with a heavy heart w
ent back to her own office, collected her bag and jacket and treated herself to a taxi home to Fulham. Oliver had been in London consulting his solicitors, and was due to meet her there.
A long weekend at Delcourt supporting each other’s spirits was what she sorely needed. A heavy dose of Miles and Chloe to take her mind off the fact that she had never before felt that her life was so pointless or aimless.
One swift look at her face was all it took for Jerome to agree that he would only contact her if it was really urgent, and for the first time that she could recall he wished her luck with the filming of her specials with Letty.
On the way home Ellie thought again about ringing Clive. She wanted to talk to him so much, she missed him desperately. But she also knew she had to be fair to him. If only he had been angry, shouted at her, just called her a few names, she would have felt better. But he had said nothing, merely asked her to let him think for a while. Then she had quietly let herself out of the flat, leaving him standing by the window still holding Sean’s shoe, absently turning it over and over in his strong, gentle hands.
Oliver had arrived in Fulham shortly before her, letting himself in with the key Ellie had given him, and didn’t look exactly ecstatic as he handed her a drink.
‘Mark says there is very little we can do. Theo has every right to do what he likes with the land. Local pressure and your feature is all we have left.’
‘Then I think,’ Ellie said, draining her glass, ‘that you and I should get going and maximize what we can. C’mon, Oliver, we’ve been in worse spots than this,’ she comforted him.
‘You’re right. Grab your bag and... oh hell, you’ve got a visitor,’ he finished as the doorbell pealed.
Frowning, Ellie opened the door, half hoping but half knowing it wouldn’t be Clive.
The elegant figure of Ria Stirling standing on her doorstep at six o’clock in the evening was not what Ellie had expected at all.
Another Way Page 37