An Absolute Scandal

by Penny Vincenzi

  “You are an extraordinarily fascinating woman,” he said, “as well as successful and clever. I hope your husband appreciates you.” She felt him move nearer to her again, felt the heat of him, smelled the whiskey breath. “You’re very sexy, Elizabeth, you know that? Sexy and beautiful. How about we go and hit the dance floor?”

  She looked at John and she quite literally longed not only to dance with him but to talk to him some more, drink with him some more, possibly even go to bed with him, for she had no doubt that that could happen too, at the end of her little adventure. How wonderful to return to Simon, knowing she was still desirable, still desiring.

  But: “I’d love to, John, and thank you for the invitation. I really am tired—I’m sorry. I’ve enjoyed our talk though. Very much. And thank you for the champagne. It was lovely. I’ll see you in the morning.”

  He was arguably the most powerful man she knew, and however attractive that made him, it also made him dangerous; she had seen too many such liaisons and the quicksands they created. She couldn’t risk it. It would be an act of infinite folly.

  He smiled at her, regret in the astonishing blue eyes, and she could see he understood. All of it. Which made her at one and the same time want him even more and yet be absolutely sure that she had done the right thing.

  Chapter 12

  CHRISTMAS 1989

  Simon was dreading Christmas: the first time they wouldn’t be at Chadwick. The rest of the family, apart from Tilly, were quite looking forward to it: Elizabeth because it would be easier, Annabel and Toby because they would be nearer their friends.

  But for Simon it was yet another mark of a very public and high-profile failure: having been the golden boy all his life, successful at school, successful with women, immensely successful at work, he was having to watch as the symbols of that success—the lovely houses, the horses, the spectacular holidays—slowly but steadily whittled away. They were all going skiing early next year, at half term. It might be the last year, he warned them, “But let’s bloody well make it a humdinger.”

  And what he saw coming now, as they moved with sickening inevitability towards the next year, the third set of losses, was a reckoning of such vast proportions it was all he could do, especially in the middle of the night, not to panic totally, pull out, and run away. It was very frightening indeed: and it was an absolutely lonely terror that he found it hard to share, even with Elizabeth. Only his fellow sufferers provided proper comfort, only they understood the predawn terrors, the sense of dreadful impotence. Although the lawsuit promised some relief from that: if it ever happened. He was beginning to despair of that as well; there had been no further word from George Meyer.

  And then, just before Christmas, he got two calls that cheered him immensely. The first was from Catherine Morgan: Could she come and see him, if his offer was still open? Her voice was very tentative.

  “Of course you can. It’d be lovely to see you.”

  He invited her up to his office; she came in, clearly impressed by its grandeur, the deep leather sofas, his huge desk, the books lining the walls, the rather fine black marble fireplace. She looked tireder than ever; she was wearing exactly the same skirt and sweater as she had at the meeting. He wondered if she possessed anything else. He sat her down, asked for some coffee for them both.

  “How are the kids getting on at school?”

  “Oh, just about all right,” she said, but her eyes were shadowy. “That’s why I’m here. Caroline isn’t doing too badly, there are a few what you might call nice little girls there, but for Freddie it’s pretty miserable really. He gets teased endlessly about his accent, and about being rather bright academically. He often comes home looking very upset and even with a few scrapes and bruises, but he’s so brave and he refuses to admit there’s anything wrong. I could kill those boys: I feel absolutely desperate about it. I just don’t know what to do.”

  “And you don’t have any family?”

  “No. Both my parents died while we were in Hong Kong and their legacy has gone to Lloyd’s as well. And my in-laws are…well. Not very approachable. Anyway, that’s why I’ve come to see you. I thought if—well, if you were mad enough to take me on, then I could perhaps put Freddie back in the independent sector. But then is that fair to Caroline? And I certainly can’t pay two lots of school fees.”

  “Well, if she’s doing all right, I shouldn’t fret about that, not at the moment anyway,” said Simon. “Now, tell me about yourself—professionally, I mean. How up on all the new technology you are, that sort of thing.”

  It transpired that she was very up on it—and she began talking about spreadsheets and documents. “I’m a very good typist, and I can do shorthand, and, well, I’m quite a good secretary although I say it myself. But I am tied to school hours, I can’t possibly pay anyone to look after the children. The other thing I’ve thought of is selling the flat, moving into rented accommodation, that would provide a few terms’ fees, but I worry all the time about next year and how much money I might have to find then.”

  “Catherine, don’t sell your flat, whatever you do,” said Simon. “The market’s on the up again, it’ll be worth more soon. I think your working is the answer. All you need is an enlightened boss. Like me.”

  “Yes, well, it does seem pretty lucky. You’ve got children of your own, of course?”

  “I have. Two still at school and one out in the big wide world, working.”

  “Oh really? What does he do?”

  “She. She’s a hairdresser. Not what I’d have chosen for her, I have to say, but—”

  “Why not?” asked Catherine. “I think it’s a really good job for a girl. You spend your days making people look better, which must be very satisfying, and then when you’re married and have babies, you can still do it, working from home.”

  “I suppose so,” said Simon. He felt rather ashamed of himself suddenly, presented with this blindingly sensible view of Annabel’s job. All right, she might not be getting a degree, but what good had his fine degree and his high-profile job done him, now the chips were down. It was a genuinely good and useful career, and he resolved in future to say so.

  “Right then,” he said to Catherine, “I have a personal secretary and she works pretty long hours, but we do need someone to help my assistant’s PA; the current incumbent is leaving to have a baby. I’ll call her in, in a minute, and you can have a chat with her.”

  “It sounds too good to be true,” said Catherine, “but won’t she mind about the hours I can do?”

  “No, she won’t. Provided you can come in fairly early, make up the time a bit there—banking’s an early-start business, or the sort we do—she’ll thinks it’s fine.” In fact, the secretary in question didn’t think it would be fine at all, but she was rather dazzled by Simon Beaumont; all the secretaries were. Together with most of the female staff.

  “Yes, I do think I could manage that—getting in early, I mean.”

  “Good. Now, I don’t know what you’re earning at the moment…”

  “Nine thousand. I know it sounds a lot, but it doesn’t seem to go anywhere and—”

  “It doesn’t sound a great deal,” said Simon, thinking that this was roughly what Boy’s vet’s bills came to. “How does twelve sound to you? Twelve and your season ticket? There now. Take it or leave it.” He smiled at her. “I think you’d suit us all very well.”

  Catherine said she would take it, and had great difficulty restraining herself from hugging him.

  And then, three days before Christmas Eve, he got another call.

  “Simon Beaumont?”

  “Yes.”

  “Simon, it’s George Meyer.”

  “Oh, hi. I was beginning to wonder when I’d hear from you.”

  “Yes, I’m sorry. The thing is, I felt we had to get the solicitor absolutely right and the first one I approached fell by the wayside. As did yours, I seem to remember. And then I had to go to the Gulf for a month—”

  “Yes, your office
did explain. Doesn’t matter.”

  “Anyway, are you still with me?”

  “Absolutely. Especially as I reckon I’ll be in for well over half a million next year. The house’ll have to go. I’m just bracing myself to contemplate putting it on the market, buying something smaller.”

  “You should be grateful you’ve got a house. Mine is long gone. There’s something very…seminal about having to sell your house. Everything becomes very shaky without it. I don’t mind admitting I shed a few tears the day mine went. Beautiful place it was, in a lovely part of Cheshire.

  “Well anyway, I do now have a solicitor for us. Absolutely top-notch, reputation as a fighter, wants to meet as soon as possible.”

  “Fine. Count me in. When do we see this chap?”

  “Well, as I said, the sooner the better. Get your diary out. But—there’s one thing, and I don’t know how you’ll feel about it.”

  “What’s that?” said Simon, reaching for his diary.

  “It’s not a chap.”

  Alan Richards and Barry Grove were having lunch in the George and Vulture, a favourite bar with the City boys as well as the serious bankers and the Lloyd’s people. The long bench tables, always cosy, were packed so tightly that it required a certain dexterity to move hand to mouth. The noise level was also considerable; a newcomer to the scene would have considered speech out of the question. Alan and Barry were not newcomers.

  “What you doing for Christmas then?” asked Barry, taking a large swill of beer. “Spending it with Heather?”

  “Splitting it,” said Alan. “Her parents for lunch, mine for the evening. And then Boxing Day I’m taking her to the races at Sandown Park. You?”

  “Oh, going round my brother’s. Him and his wife, they really know how to do Christmas. First bottle opened straight after breakfast and then it’s nonstop till bedtime. Pretty good day on the whole. I’ve never been to the races, though. I envy you that. Do you put a lot of money on the gee-gees?”

  “Not me. Maybe a tenner each way on the George the Sixth—that’s the big race of the day. Hey, why don’t you come with us? Heather won’t mind—the more, the merrier.”

  “Cheers, mate, I might just do that,” said Barry. “But I like a certainty, myself, with my money. Premium bonds, that sort of thing. Or Lloyd’s. I mean, that’s what they all thought; poor buggers.”

  “Yeah. Incidentally, I meant to tell you I heard someone talking the other day, round in the Jam Pot it was, saying that there are those that think it wasn’t just bad luck got all those people into trouble. The word is that there’s a sort of conspiracy going on.”

  “What sort of conspiracy?”

  Alan looked around, and then thought no one could possibly hear a word he said. “Lloyd’s needed more money and sharpish. So they hauled in a lot of new people, blinded them with science, didn’t look too hard at their equity and bunged them in the dodgiest syndicates. Reckoned they’d never know the difference. Well, no one does, do they?”

  Barry shook his head. “Certainly don’t. Most of them are like me at the races—don’t have a clue, poor suckers.”

  “But it is only a rumour,” said Alan again, “and you didn’t hear it from me—right?”

  “Heard what?” said Barry. He grinned at Alan, then went on more soberly: “But if it is true, then it’s pretty bloody rotten, I’d say. You up for another one of those?”

  “Yeah, why not,” said Alan. He pulled his handkerchief out of his pocket, wiped his forehead. As he put it back, he knocked the arm of the man sitting next to him. “Sorry, mate.”

  “No, that’s OK,” said the man. “Wonder you can breathe at all in here. Someone’s gone to get me a pint as well. If he’s back before teatime I’ll be impressed. You work in the City then?”

  “Well, sort of. For Jackson and Bond, underwriters—you know them?”

  “Yeah, course. At Lloyd’s.”

  “You in the business? S’pose you must be, or you wouldn’t be here.”

  “In a way. I’m a hack,” said the man, “work for the Daily News. On the City pages.”

  “That interesting, is it?” said Alan.

  “Sometimes. Look, I couldn’t help hearing what you were saying just now. About Lloyd’s. I’d be really interested in hearing a bit more—if you felt you could talk. It sounded quite—well, it intrigued me. Let’s just say that.”

  “Sorry,” said Alan shortly, feeling a rush of panic rising in his throat. “Never talk to the press. More than my job’s worth. And I don’t know what you heard, but—”

  “Let’s just say I’ve heard something a bit like it before,” said the man. “About Lloyd’s pulling a few fast ones on people. Well, if you ever did want to talk to me—in the strictest confidence, of course—just give me a bell. Here’s my card.”

  “Thanks,” said Alan, taking it gingerly, as if it might burn him. “No offence or anything, but I don’t think I’ll be using it.”

  The man shrugged. “Fine. But you never know, there might be another story, one that you were less worried about…”

  “Who said I was worried?” said Alan.

  “I did. Look, I’m going to cut and run, my friend’s got my pint and he’s waving me to move outside. Nice to talk to you. Merry Christmas.”

  “Merry Christmas,” said Alan.

  He smiled rather warily at the man. He was quite young—no more than thirty—and Alan had an idea Heather would have considered him a bit tasty. He was dark, with fairly close-cropped hair, and he was wearing quite a sharp suit. He looked at the card: Joel Strickland, it said, City Editor, Daily News, Butts Wharf, E.1., direct line 01–271–7913. Well, that was one number he wouldn’t be ringing. Just the same he put the card carefully in his wallet. You never knew.

  Lucinda was to spend Christmas with her parents, together with her sister, Susannah, and her extremely pompous husband and rather dull children. It was not an attractive proposition. She hadn’t even spoken to Nigel; he had sent her a note, giving her some times when she could go and pick up her things, and asking her to leave the keys on the hall table. At least after that she had some clothes, and a few photographs, although most of them were of the two of them together. She had left her keys with a note, saying once again how sorry she was; there was no reply.

  She felt totally ashamed; horribly remorseful at making him so unhappy, and very depressed. She seemed to herself a worthless, useless creature. She couldn’t sleep, couldn’t eat, lacked the energy even to read.

  Blue Horton supposed he was dreading Christmas. He certainly ought to be, it was going to be pretty bloody awful, although his vast family did manage to make quite an event out of it, lot of eating, awful lot of drinking, and his mum did the best Christmas dinner in the world, and his dad always dressed up as Santa Claus for the kids, and in the evening they all got completely hammered and the males tried to get a poker school going only it never lasted long because the girls rolled back the carpet and they had a good old knees-up. Twenty-four of them last year there’d been, counting the kids; they all went to his parents’ house in Chelmsford, not because it was the biggest in the family but because they knew no one would ever be able to do it half as well. From time to time, during what he thought of as the Lucinda period, Blue tried to picture her joining in; bit of a worry, but she’d probably get used to it. But he wasn’t actually dreading it too much, because he was so bloody miserable all the time he couldn’t imagine ever feeling any worse. Every day was horrible, and this would be another one exactly like it.

  Two months it was now, just over actually, since that awful night, and he didn’t feel the slightest bit better.

  He’d loved her so much, so very, very much—no, more than loved her, he’d bloody well worshipped her, he’d have died for her if she’d asked him, chucked himself out of the window of McArthur’s without a moment’s hesitation.

  He’d told her that once and she’d sat looking at him, very seriously as she did, with her lovely eyes wide, and then she’d sai
d, “But Blue, if you did that, what would be the point of my living either? I’d just have to jump out after you.” And then she’d giggled and said, “Bit of a waste, really, both of us gone.” God, he missed that giggle. And those eyes. And—well, there was nothing he didn’t miss really, it was horrible.

  Debbie and Richard always had a row on Christmas Eve; Debbie said it was part of their Christmas tradition. It seemed funny afterwards too; at the time, with emotions running high anyway, due to the stress of Christmas, it seemed more serious.

  This year was no different. She went into the study to get some more Sellotape and found Richard looking morose, staring out of the window.

  “What’s the matter with you?” she said briskly.

  “Oh, nothing you’d sympathise with.”

  “OK. Let me be unsympathetic. Just tell me.”

  “I’m worried about Mother. If you really want to know.”

  “Richard, I’m sure she’s fine.”

  “No, Debbie, she’s not. She’s been very upset by our not going down—she loved last Christmas and so did the children. As did I.”

  “We all did,” said Debbie carefully. “I just thought this year it would be nice to be on our own as a family. We did invite her here, you know. And she refused.”

  “Yes, I know.”

  “So—”

  “Debbie, we’ve been through this. She has the animals and so on to look after. And she likes to do Christmas her way, dress up the house, follow her own traditions…”

  “Well that’s very unusual isn’t it? So do I!”

  “We don’t have traditions in the same way, you know we don’t.”

  “Yes, because we always have to follow hers.”

  He ignored this. “And the children love it there, you know they do. It just doesn’t seem much to ask really, to make her happy.”

  “It seems a lot to me. Packing everything up, trailing down there in a huge traffic jam, missing things here; the children might like midnight mass at Oxwich, but they also like going to our church for the crib service and seeing all their friends. And I like seeing all our friends. I’m looking forward to going to Jan’s tonight and Sarah’s on Boxing Day, instead of trailing round all those big houses, trying to make conversation with people I don’t know and don’t want to know.”