‘Sorry.’ Brett forced himself to look at the judge, and not at Tatiana, who was crossing and uncrossing her legs on the other side of the aisle in a distinctly distracting manner. He’d told Angela he wanted this court case over, and Tatiana out of the village and out of their lives for good, and he meant it. The girl disconcerted him, attracting and infuriating him in equal measure. Something about her drew him in, but not in a good way. More like the Death Star, exerting an irresistible force over any stray spacecraft that happened to fly too close.
Judge McGyver was talking, his voice a droning irritant in the back of Brett’s mind. He was calling for opening arguments. Justin Greaves and Raymond Baines both stood up. For a split second, Tatiana looked across at Brett and their eyes met. A crackle of electricity passed between them. Brett wasn’t sure if it was lust or hatred. Then she looked away.
The battle had commenced.
Later that same afternoon, Max Bingley was enjoying the drive back from Arundel. He’d been at an NUT conference, some nonsense about opting out of OFSTED reports. It had rained all day while Max was stuck inside, listening to a bunch of dreary, leftie graduate teachers bemoaning the state of the education system. But now that he was on his way home, free at last, the grey skies had miraculously cleared, and the still-wet fields around him glistened like emeralds beneath a bright September sun. The entire landscape seemed fresh and alive after the rains, the flint cottages of the villages washed clean, and even the winding lanes gleaming black, like newly poured rubber.
Max looked at his watch. It was still only four thirty, and he had no particular reason to rush home to Fittlescombe, other than a pile of SATs marking that could definitely wait till the weekend. On a whim, he turned left at a wooden sign for Alfriston, and soon found himself parking his Mini Cooper by the green and stretching his long legs in one of England’s prettiest villages.
Max hadn’t been here for years, not since he was a young married man and he had brought his girls to Drusilla’s zoo nearby. Happily the village hadn’t changed much. It was a more twee, slightly more touristy version of Fittlescombe, but deeply charming nonetheless, with its beamed Tudor sweet shop full of glass bottles stuffed with old-fashioned gobstoppers and sherbet saucers, its second-hand book shop and its wisteria-clad coaching inn, The George. It was the latter that called to Max, with its open front door, through which could be glimpsed both the bar and a pretty beer garden beyond. After the unrelenting tedium of today’s conference, Max reckoned he deserved a pint at the very least. Taking off his jacket, he sauntered inside.
‘What can I get you?’
The barman was young and ruddy-cheeked, a typical Sussex farm boy. Max cast his eye over the list of local ales written up on the chalkboard behind him when he suddenly froze. There, sitting a few tables away in a floaty blue dress with flowers printed on it – white daisies – and her blonde hair loose to her shoulders, was Angela Cranley. Max’s first thought, other than surprise at seeing her here, was how young Angela looked, and how happy. Moments later he saw why. A man – a young, handsome man – returned to the table carrying two glasses of wine.
Max felt as if he were watching a scene from a movie. The tableau only lasted a few seconds. The man sitting down and smiling, making a joke that had Angela rocking back in her chair with mirth. They hadn’t kissed or touched one another, but it was clear from their body language that there was a powerful attraction between them. This was a side to Angela Cranley that Max Bingley had not known existed.
An affair! Who would have thought it?
In those few seconds, Max felt all manner of things. Happiness, to see such a lovely, downtrodden woman looking happy for once; nostalgia, for his own days of passion – how very long ago they seemed now. And an uncomfortable, unwelcome emotion that he was loath to acknowledge, but at the same time couldn’t deny: envy. Max envied the young man at Angela’s table, bitterly. He wanted to be the one to make Angela smile that youthful, pretty, carefree smile. He wanted to be the one to rescue her from her ghastly husband and her lonely life, shut up at Furlings like the Lady of Shallot. Before he’d had a chance to delve deeper into any one of these emotions, Angela turned and saw him. The colour drained from her face.
‘Mate?’ The barman broke Max’s reverie. ‘What can I get you?’
‘Oh, erm … a pale ale please,’ said Max. Angela said something to her companion, who looked at Max with ill-concealed irritation. Seconds later, they both made a hurried exit.
Max felt awful. He’d clearly intruded on a private moment. Entirely accidentally, of course. But he felt guilty all the same, as if he were some sort of revolting old peeping Tom.
His beer arrived. He drank it gloomily and had almost finished when he felt a tap on his shoulder.
‘Hello.’ Angela was alone. She still looked pale, although not quite as horrified as she had done when she first saw him. ‘I suppose I owe you an explanation.’
‘My dear Mrs Cranley …’
‘Angela.’
‘Angela. You owe me nothing of the kind. I’m mortified to have intruded.’
‘You didn’t,’ said Angela, with a shy smile. ‘Shall we go outside?’
The beer garden at the back of the pub was completely deserted. Angela and Max took a seat beneath a gnarled apple tree, its trunk bent double with age, and watched two pale blue butterflies flutter and weave their way across the sky. Across the meadow behind the garden wall the river Cuckmere could be heard burbling merrily, the only sound other than the constant chirrup of birdsong and the occasional lazy bleat of a sheep from the surrounding fields. The Cuckmere met the river Swell further down the valley, which meant that the same water they were watching now would be flowing through Fittlescombe in an hour or two. For some reason the thought made Angela happy.
‘It’s lovely here,’ she said.
‘Yes,’ Max nodded. You’re lovely, he wanted to add, but he was too old to make a fool of himself over a woman. Especially a woman a dozen years younger than he was, who was already encumbered with both a husband and, apparently, a lover.
‘I know what it looks like,’ Angela blurted, feeling silly and shy and a little sick. ‘But I’m not having an affair.’
‘Right,’ said Max. He hadn’t expected such a forthright declaration, and wasn’t sure how to respond. ‘I see.’
‘Didier’s just a friend.’
Didier. A Frenchman. Max didn’t know why, but somehow it irritated him even more that a Frenchman should have been responsible for the look of pure, unadulterated happiness on Angela’s face a few moments ago.
‘It’s the court case this week,’ Angela continued, ‘up in London.’
‘Ah, yes,’ said Max. ‘Tatiana’s challenge to her father’s will. That must be stressful for you.’
‘It has been,’ said Angela. ‘But it also means Brett’s been staying up in town for a few days. Didier’s a friend but he’s …’ she hesitated, searching for the right word … ‘he’s not a friend Brett would be comfortable about me meeting. That’s why I agreed to meet today, and why we came here. I love Fittlescombe, but people do tend to gossip.’
Max laughed loudly. ‘That’s quite an understatement. Listen,’ he said, keeping his tone friendly, ‘you have nothing to explain to me. Your private life is absolutely none of my business.’
‘Perhaps not,’ said Angela. ‘But I … I care what you think.’
Max was touched.
‘I think that you’re a very nice woman who’s put up with a lot and who deserves some happiness of her own,’ he said, truthfully.
‘Really?’ Angela brightened. ‘It’s just that you looked so shocked when you saw us just now.’
‘Not shocked. Surprised,’ corrected Max.
‘And disappointed,’ added Angela.
Max smiled. ‘That’s only because it was another man and not me.’
‘We’re not having an affair, you know. That’s the God’s honest truth. I think he wants to. But I can’t.’
; ‘Why not?’ said Max.
Angela seemed floored by the question.
‘Well I, er … I mean …’
‘Because of the children?’ Max prompted.
‘Partly,’ Angela admitted. ‘I had a tough time this summer and Didier, well, he was there. He helped. I should have cut off contact when we got home, but I didn’t. I suppose part of me liked the attention.’ She gave another small, self-deprecating smile. ‘Perhaps I’m having a mid-life crisis?’
‘Well, all I can say is, you look very well on it,’ said Max kindly, raising his glass to hers. In another life, he thought, other circumstances, I could have been happy with this woman. I could have made her happy with me. ‘Now please, we must both forget this afternoon ever happened. I never saw you, and you never saw me. Agreed?’
‘Agreed,’ said Angela. ‘Thank you.’
She’d always liked Max Bingley. But, as of today, she decided, he was a friend indeed.
She’d decided something else too. She wouldn’t see Didier Lemprière again.
Tatiana Flint-Hamilton stood on the pavement in a daze. Her lawyer stood uselessly next to her, unsure what to do.
‘Will you be all right to get home?’ Raymond Baines asked. ‘I’m getting a taxi back to Victoria. We could take the train together if you like.’
Home. Tatiana let the word tumble through her mind. Where was home now? Not Furlings. Judge Sir William McGyver QC had been brutally clear about that. ‘Frivolous’ was how he’d described Tatiana’s challenge to her father’s will. ‘Wholly without merit.’ Even Raymond Baines, who’d always been bearish about their chances, had thought that the hearing would run to two days. Instead the judge had dismissed their arguments out of hand, showing a partiality towards Brett Cranley and an utter lack of compassion for Tati from the very beginning that quite took her breath away.
There could be no further appeal from here. A ‘no’ from the High Court was binding and final. Winded with disappointment and grief, Tati felt as if her father had died all over again.
Baines was still standing next to her. ‘I don’t like to leave you here alone, Tatiana,’ he said, looking anxiously at his watch. Raymond Baines badly wanted to get home to his wife, his sausage and mash supper and the latest episode of DCI Banks that he’d recorded on Sky Plus last night. The Flint-Hamilton case had been more stress than it was worth from day one, and though he hadn’t expected the outcome to be quite so swift, he had expected it. Everyone had. Except his client.
‘I’ll be fine,’ Tati said numbly. ‘Thank you for your help, Mr Baines, but do go home. I’ll make my own way.’
The fat little lawyer scuttled off, leaving Tati staring at the traffic in the fading afternoon light. All around her the world continued to come and go. Horns blared, rush hour rushed. But Tatiana felt frozen in time, stranded on the Strand like a lost puppy, bereft.
‘Get in.’
A black cab had pulled up to the kerb beside her. Brett Cranley was in the back seat, holding the door open. Half hidden in the shadows, his dark hair and eyes looked blacker than usual, mirroring his dark suit. And dark nature, thought Tati. Bastard. When he smiled his teeth shone, like a wolf’s.
‘What do you mean “get in”?’ she asked. ‘I’m not going anywhere with you.’
‘Yes you are,’ said Brett. ‘Don’t be a sore loser. Come and have a drink with me.’
Tati almost laughed. ‘Are you serious?’
‘Deadly,’ said Brett. ‘Why? What else are you doing? If you stand there much longer the pigeons’ll start to crap on you.’
Despite herself, Tatiana laughed. He was right about her having nothing better to do, and nowhere she wanted to go. Marco was expecting her call. She’d already arranged to stay at his place tonight, assuming that the case would run until tomorrow at the very least. But she couldn’t face talking to him now, explaining the humiliation of today’s proceedings, listening to his sympathy. At least with Brett Cranley she could be what she wanted to be – angry. She got into the cab.
‘Where are we drinking?’ she asked.
‘The Ritz,’ said Brett. ‘Where else?’
The shock still hadn’t worn off as they walked into the Rivoli Bar. The place was full of suits, almost none of them English, and busy, given that it wasn’t yet six. Every man in the room turned to look at Tati, most of them because she was such a stunning girl, although one or two clearly recognized her from the newspapers. Nobody recognized Brett, which suited him perfectly. He steered Tatiana to a quiet corner table and ordered a bottle of vintage Dom Perignon 1990.
‘No champagne for me,’ said Tati. ‘I’m not celebrating.’
‘Suit yourself,’ said Brett.
‘I’ll have a bourbon on the rocks,’ Tati told the waiter, who nodded and left.
Brett looked at her appraisingly across the table.
‘You know, you could look on today’s verdict as an opportunity,’ he said.
‘For what? Penury?’ Tati said witheringly.
‘No. For moving on with your life. You’ve been clinging to the past for a year now. Let go.’
‘I’ve been fighting for my birthright,’ Tati said furiously. ‘Fuck. Wouldn’t you?’
‘Not if I knew I couldn’t win,’ said Brett.
‘I didn’t know that,’ said Tati.
‘Yes you did.’
She glared at him in furious silence. The drinks arrived. Brett barely sipped at his champagne. He watched as Tatiana downed her Jack Daniel’s in one, immediately ordering another. She’d kicked off her shoes under the table and untucked the camel silk shirt from the cream woollen waistband of her suit skirt. Little by little, the armour was coming off, but not the fighting spirit. There was something belligerent, almost violent in her self-destructive tendencies. Disastrous relationships. Court cases she couldn’t win. Taking herself out with hard liquor, as if the answer to her problems lay at the bottom of a cut-crystal glass.
‘I saw a lot of Jason while you were away,’ she said, deliberately baiting him. ‘He’s such a sweet boy.’
‘He is,’ Brett agreed. Tati gave him a surprised look.
‘If you really think so, why are you such a cunt to him all the time?’
Brett winced. He didn’t like to hear women using that word. It made them sound hard and ugly. He didn’t want Tatiana to sound hard and ugly. But he answered the question nonetheless.
‘He’s too sensitive. He needs to toughen up.’
‘Says who?’ said Tati, knocking back another huge slug of bourbon.
‘Says me.’
‘And who made you the expert on everyone else’s lives?’
‘I don’t know. Who made my son’s life any of your business?’ retorted Brett.
‘He’s my friend,’ said Tati.
‘Bullshit. He’s just a kid. He fancies you rotten and you enjoy the attention.’
‘Do I?’ Tati was toying with Brett now, playing suggestively with an ice cube from her drink while she maintained eye contact.
‘If you really cared about him, you’d stop encouraging him,’ said Brett, unable to tear his eyes away from Tati’s lips.
‘Well you should let him be himself,’ said Tati. ‘Stop trying to turn him into a miniature version of you. Not everyone’s cut out to be a heartless bastard, you know.’
‘Is that what you think I am?’
Tati looked deep into Brett’s dark eyes. She recognized something fragile there – she knew from their encounter back at Logan’s parent-teacher day that Brett Cranley wasn’t without weaknesses – but he masked them with so much aggression and ambition and testosterone that they were all but completely buried most of the time. Brett wasn’t handsome in any classical sense. Not like Marco. But he was the most masculine man Tatiana had ever met, as strong and unyielding as a wall of flint.
‘It’s not what I think you are,’ she said boldly. ‘It’s what you are.’
Brett’s hand shot out across the table, like a spider lurching suddenly for its pr
ey. He firmly held her wrist. Tatiana’s heart rate shot up, a mixture of fear and desire taking over her body.
‘Let’s get out of here,’ said Brett.
The cab ride was almost unbearable. Aware of his body next to hers, the rock-hard thigh beneath his trouser leg bumping occasionally against her skirt as they sped through the cobbled streets, Tatiana sat rigid and alert. It was as if she were preparing herself to react to danger, to a threat. And yet it was she who’d invited the danger in, she who wanted it like an addict craving a hit. She could stop the car at any time. Get out. Go back to Marco’s place, end the madness. But the electrical sexual tension between her and Brett kept her rooted to the spot like an erotic force field.
Brett’s flat was in Mayfair, so close they could almost have walked it. He paid the driver, then wordlessly took Tatiana’s hand and led her first into the lobby, then the lift. His hands felt warm, his palms surprisingly rough, like a labourer’s. The lift was of the old-fashioned type that closed with a metal cage.
I’m trapped, thought Tatiana. Locked in with the tiger. But when Brett increased the pressure with his fingers she returned it instantly, so wracked with desire she was half surprised that her clothes hadn’t already melted off her.
They got out at the top floor. ‘The penthouse,’ said Tati wryly. ‘Of course.’
They were the first words either of them had spoken since they left the bar at the Ritz. Brett made no answer, other than to open the door to his flat and pull her inside. The moment the door was closed he kissed her, pinning her back against the wall, his hands grabbing at her hair, then sweeping down over her breasts to settle on her waist. It was tiny, like a doll’s. For some reason that excited him even more. Tati closed her eyes as he picked her up and carried her into the bedroom, dropping her onto the bed. When she opened them again she found herself in a luxurious but utterly masculine room. The walls were lined with taupe silk paper, there were black and white photographs of old racing cars and some bizarre, red-tasselled piece of chinoiserie above the fireplace. All the furniture was in heavy dark wood, and even the silk quilted bedspread was brown. It was like lying on melted chocolate.
The Inheritance Page 20