Even Adam had protested. ‘Beth is still a child,’ he had said, horrified at Jerome’s intention of taking her with him on a yacht cruise with a party of people more famed for their indiscretions than for their good sense.
‘Nonsense. Elizabeth hasn’t been a child for years,’ Jerome said airily, with no sign of guilt for the fact. ‘If I don’t take her with me, I shall be seduced by my host’s wife, and you wouldn’t want that to happen to me, would you, mon brave?‘
They were in the casino in Monte Carlo, relaxing in the Salon Rose after both losing badly at baccarat. Jerome leaned back in his wine-red velvet-upholstered chair, resplendent in a dinner-suit hand-made for him in Savile Row. There was more grey in his hair than there had been when Serena had died, but he was still a formidably attractive man. Large, expansive, delighting in the good things of life. Adam regarded him with despair.
‘If Elizabeth hasn’t been a child for years, then the fault is yours, Jerry. All this spending time with you and your friends is robbing her of her childhood. She needs friends her own age; she needs someone looking after her needs, not to be continually looking after yours. She needs to be back at the Royal Academy again, studying music.’
‘Rubbish,’ Jerome retorted, one leg crossed nonchalantly over the other. ‘She would be bored to death in London after the life she has been living these last few years and she would be bored to death with friends her own age,’ he added, as Adam began once more to protest. ‘This mother-hen attitude of yours is becoming tedious. Why don’t you marry, for God’s sake, and get it out of your system by fussing over a wife and a brood of children?’
Adam grinned, amused at having succeeded in rousing Jerome to irritation. ‘I may just surprise you and do that one day. Meanwhile, when are you going to stop using Beth as protection against predatory females?’
‘When females stop being predatory,’ Jerome said with a return of good humour. ‘I have no desire to marry again, Adam. And no desire for any relationship that taxes the emotions. A little light diversion now and again is very welcome, but nothing more strenuous.’
‘Is Princess Luisa Isabel strenuous?’ Adam asked, his good-natured face sombre for a moment as he considered the prospect of Beth coming to terms with a stepmother. ‘I understand she’s very much in favour at present.’
‘Ah, yes,’ Jerome almost purred with satisfaction. ‘Luisa regards music as being of monumental importance to the well-being of mankind and so, naturally, Elizabeth adores her.’
‘And you?’ Adam asked curiously. Jerome’s women friends all had three things in common. They were beautiful, well bred – and their reigns were of short duration. The princess was showing surprising signs of durability.
‘Luisa is perfect for me,’ Jerome said with disarming honesty. ‘She adores my bank balance, is admiring of my prowess in the boudoir and, as my antecedents feature nowhere in the Almanach de Gotha, would no more dream of marrying me than of marrying her chauffeur.’
Adam didn’t know whether to be relieved or sorry. An indulgent stepmother, sympathetic to her needs, would transform Beth’s life for the better. There would be a stable home, instead of a hotel suite, disciplined schooling instead of her haphazard attendance at the lycée He ran his fingers through his thick shock of sun-bleached hair. It was obviously an event that was never going to come to pass. Jerome had discovered he was a bachelor by nature, and he was enjoying living like one. He could only be grateful that he was, in his way, a responsible parent. He rose to his feet, mentally calculating his current bank balance.
‘Come on, Jerry, I’ll have to see if I can win back some of my losses or I’ll be thumbing a lift home.’
He had won back enough to be able to enjoy an illicit week in Paris with the wife of one of Jerome’s business friends. It was an enjoyable diversion but nothing more. At thirty-seven he had never yet been seriously tempted to marry, though he regretted the fact that he had no children.
It had been six months since his last visit to the Riviera. Jerome and Elizabeth had cruised the Adriatic with the friends he had been so disapproving of, Beth’s postcards to him indicating that the only harm to befall her was a mild attack of boredom. They had been to Deauville for the polo, Lausanne for the flower festival, and Oporto for the wine pageant.
‘I’m looking forward to seeing Uncle Adam again,’ Elizabeth said when she whirled in from school. ‘Has he arrived yet?’
‘No.’ Jerome was amused by the way she clung to the appellation of ‘uncle’to a man who was no blood relation at all. ‘He’s driving down, and I don’t expect he’ll be here till nearer seven.’
‘Then, there’ll hardly be time to have him to ourselves before the party starts,’ Elizabeth said, throwing her bulging schoolbag on to a satin-upholstered Louix XV chair and shrugging herself out of her regulation blazer. ‘Have the buffet-tables been laid yet?’
‘They’re doing it now,’ Jerome replied with a slight gesture of his hand towards the adjoining room.
Elizabeth could hear the clink of silver and the low murmur of the maids’voices as they prepared the room for Jerome’s guests. ‘Good.’ She knew it would never have occurred to him to have gone next door and checked that everything was to his liking. Such details had become her responsibility. As had his business arrangements. She booked restaurants for him, remembering which merchant banker was a vegetarian, which a fish fanatic. She had a card-index file of birthdays and anniversaries, and Jerome’s friends remarked with pleasure how much more thoughtful he had become as they received cards and flowers, all with his best wishes, all sent by Elizabeth.
He had already showered and was dressed and sitting on the balcony, sipping a dry sherry, languidly surveying the early-evening strollers on the palm-lined promenade below him.
‘I’m going to have a bath and change,’ she said, dropping a kiss on his temple, wondering if she could also manage to do the homework that was required of her and doubting it. She would need to check the food when it was brought up, make sure that the musicians knew which of Jerome’s favourite tunes to play, ensure that his surprise birthday cake was brought into the room on cue.
She hurried out of the room and down the wide, thickly carpeted corridor to her own suite. She had to write an essay on Napoleon’s victory at Borodino, the task made no easier by the requirement that it be written in French. Once in her own smaller, but no less opulent suite, she ran a deep bath, taking her schoolbooks into the bathroom with her. ‘On 7 September 1812, Napoleon faced the Russians at Borodino on the outskirts of Moscow,’ she began to write with one hand, feeling the temperature of the water with the other. By the time she was describing the heavy losses that the Russians sustained under General Kutuzov she was in lace-trimmed lingerie, about to step into the white chiffon creation that had been designed for her by Elsa Schiaparelli.
‘Kutuzov lost nearly half his men,’ she scribbled hurriedly, hoping that the water-splashes decorating the page would dry with no tell-tale marks. The white chiffon dress hung tantalizingly on her wardrobe door. ‘Damn Napoleon,’ she said under her breath, pushing the book to one side and slipping the froth of chiffon off its padded hanger with a shiver of delight.
Two hours later, when Adam belatedly arrived to find the party already under way, he, too, surveyed her with pleasure. ‘You look absolutely fabulous, Beth,’ he said as she flung her arms around his neck and he hugged her tight. ‘I can hardly believe it’s you! What happened to the little girl in short socks?’
She laughed delightedly, a slight flush touching her cheeks as she drew away from him. ‘Do you really like my dress? It’s a Schiaparelli. Daddy took me to Paris specially to be measured and fitted for it’
Her sun-gold hair fell softly to her shoulders, held away from her face with a pale blue velvet ribbon.
‘Madame Schiaparelli has done you proud,’ Adam said, aware of a curious tightening of his stomach muscles as he released her. The dress had not been designed to make her look any older than she was. Yet
for the first time he realized that she was no longer the child he was accustomed to. There was a flowering sexuality about her, the more disturbing because it was artless and innocent. The wide curving neck of the dress and the puffed full-blown sleeves gathered into a ribboned band a fraction above her elbows emphasized her natural fragility. The bodice was plain, almost medieval, but there was no mistaking the rounding swell of her budding breasts, the minuteness of her waist as her skirt fell in a soft swirl to her white satin-clad feet.
He felt strangely uncomfortable as she guilelessly took his hand, leading him into the crowded room and introducing him to the people she knew he had not met before.
By midnight he was happily intoxicated on champagne and casting his eyes over the single ladies with no apparent escorts. His attention was caught by a petite blonde, a backless dress of shimmering coral silk dancing softly over her honeyed skin, a mischievous light in her eyes. He grinned to himself, confident of his ability to attract, hoping there would be no tiresome husband to evade.
There wasn’t, and he found the remainder of the party highly enjoyable. Her name was Francine; she was a Parisienne, in her mid-twenties, and had been invited because she was a house guest of Jerome’s close friends Frank Jay Gould and his wife. In the early hours of the morning he drove her back to the Goulds’luxurious home in Juan-les-Pins, kissing her goodnight with zest, arranging to see her again that evening.
The hood of his Austin Swallow was down as he motored back along the curving coast road to Nice. The sun was rising golden over the Mediterranean, the dew-fresh air fragrant with the tang of the pines, and in a couple of hours’time he would be breakfasting with Jerry and Beth. He swept through Antibes at high speed, whistling cheerfully.
‘God knows I don’t ask much of you,’ Jerome grumbled when he returned to the Negresco. ‘Just a little company when the junketing is over. Where the devil have you been?’
A score of maids were busy removing all signs of the junketing, and Jerome was ensconced in his bedroom, clad in an elegant silk dressing-gown, a brandy in his hand.
‘Escorting a young lady home,’ Adam said, kicking off his shoes and sinking down into a comfortable chair.
‘Selfish bugger,’ Jerome said, looking pained. ‘The last guest went an hour ago. I’ve been sitting on my tod ever since.’
Adam tried to look suitably sympathetic and failed. ‘Where’s Beth?’ he asked, ignoring the brandy on the glass-topped coffee-table and pouring himself a fresh orange juice instead.
‘In her room. She insists she has to attend the lycée this morning and that she has an essay to finish before she does so.’
‘This morning?’ Adam said incredulously.
Jerome shrugged his massive shoulders. ‘I’ve told her she doesn’t have to. I fancied a drive up to La Colombe d’Or for lunch, and if she goes to the wretched lycée she won’t be able to come with us. There are times when I suspect that child of selfishness.’
Adam ignored the ridiculousness of such a statement and said again, unbelievingly: ‘She has to finish an essay this morning?’
Jerome regarded him with irritation. ‘Yes. I’ve said so twice. Quite clearly.’
‘But she can’t have had any sleep! The party didn’t finish till five!’
Jerome’s strong-boned face was querulous. ‘I haven’t had any sleep. I was looking forward to a chat with you when the last reveller had been evicted. A long leisurely breakfast with you and Elizabeth; a reviving snooze and then a drive up to Saint-Paul-de-Vence for lunch. You let me down by careering off God knows where, and Elizabeth lets me down by forgoing breakfast in order to write about Napoleon!’
‘For heaven’s sake, Jerry,’ he said relentlessly, ‘you should have squared all this with the lycée days ago.’
‘The lycée’, Jerome said heavily, ‘is very uncooperative. Now, as it doesn’t look as if Elizabeth will be breakfasting with us, have we to order it now? I’m famished.’
Adam was tempted to give breakfast a miss and instead knock on the door of Beth’s suite and ask her if she needed any help with Napoleon. He suppressed the urge. A thirty-seven-year-old man knocking on the door of a thirteen-year-old girl at half-past six in the morning would look definitely suspect. Especially a thirteen-year-old as tantalizing and desirable as Beth.
He set down his glass so savagely that orange juice spilled on to the glass top of the table. Desirable! God in heaven, was that really how he had seen her? The answer came thundering back at him and he rose abruptly to his feet, feeling sick and disorientated.
‘What the devil’s the matter?’ Jerome asked in concern. ‘Are you feeling ill?’
‘No, I’m fine. Let’s have breakfast,’ he said tersely, the blood pounding in his temples. ‘I think I’ll sit on the balcony for a while and get some air.’
Jerome watched with raised eyebrows as he strode from the room. Adam was the most emotionally stable person he knew, yet something had violently disturbed him. He wondered if it was the pretty French girl he had escorted home, and followed him out on to the balcony. ‘Women are the very devil, but it’s not like you to allow one of them to needle you,’ he said sympathetically, seating himself on one of the wicker chairs and regarding his friend with interest.
Adam gave a barely perceptible shrug of his shoulders and said with an air of forced ease: ‘You’re on the wrong track, Jerry. I’m not needled, just a little tired.’
‘That’s OK, then,’ said Jerome, not for one moment convinced. ‘We’ll breakfast out here. The sun is already warm; it’s going to be a hot day.’
Adam stared out over the Baie des Anges, his back rigid, his fists driven deep into his trouser pockets. God. Did all men have moments like these? Moments when their sexuality turned traitor on them, taking them by surprise and filling them with horror?
‘I’m thinking of doing a little cruising this year,’ Jerome said as a waiter set scrambled eggs and smoked salmon and apricots down on a glass-topped cane table. ‘Do you fancy coming along?’
If he had been asked twenty-four hours ago, Adam’s immediate reaction would have been positive. Now he firmly shook his head. Beth, clad in a bathing suit or a sun-dress might face him with more home truths than he could handle.
Jerome shrugged and turned as a shadow fell across the table. ‘Ah, there you are Elizabeth,’ he said with satisfaction. ‘Has Napoleon received his just deserts?’
‘Not yet,’ Elizabeth said with a tired grin. ‘He’s still cock-a-hoop after thrashing the Russians at Borodino.’
‘Never mind,’ he said as she sat down. ‘The retreat from Moscow lies in wait for him.’
She turned to Adam. ‘Did you enjoy the party?’ she asked, a smile dimpling her cheeks. ‘I saw you with Francine. She’s very pretty, isn’t she?’
‘Very,’ he said, aware of an overwhelming feeling of relief. She was wearing a cotton school-dress and short socks and sandals, and he felt for her what he had always felt – a love untainted by anything base.
‘We’re going to La Colombe d’Or for lunch,’ Jerome said, crumpling his napkin on the table and rising to his feet. ‘Are you going to come with us?’
Her smile faded, and Adam could see the fatigue in her eyes. ‘No, Daddy, I told you. I have to go to school.’
‘Then, Adam and I will lunch without you,’ he said, not concealing his irritation. ‘I’m going for a lie-down now,’ he continued, addressing himself to Adam. ‘Let’s meet in the bar at twelve-thirty.’
Adam nodded, more than ever annoyed by Jerome’s cavalier attitude towards Beth. He was going for a sleep. She was going to the lycée after no sleep at all, not even a kind word.
He had already determined to leave Nice later in the day. His carnal reaction to Beth, however fleeting, had shaken him too profoundly for him to want to stay. As he saw the tiredness on her face and the unhappiness Jerome’s dismissive words had caused her, he determined that before he left for Cannes or Menton he would do what he had intended doing for years. He w
ould give Jerry a dressing-down that he would have to take note of.
As Elizabeth ignored the covered hot dishes and reached for an apricot, he said concernedly; ‘You look exhausted, Beth. Have you had any sleep at all?’
Despite her weariness she grinned, ‘I dozed off once or twice as the Russians were routed.’
Although still furiously angry with Jerome, he laughed. ‘Do you get your French history a little one-sided at the lycée?’
Her dimples deepened. ‘If you mean do we concentrate on French victories and ignore French defeats, then the answer is yes.’
His own smile faded. She was sitting with the half-eaten apricot in her hand, her wheat-blonde water-straight hair skimming her shoulders, her green-gold eyes full of laughter despite her tiredness. He remembered Serena lying in a hammock at their holiday cottage in the country, sewing in an enormous hat, laughing and welcoming and golden. Beth had inherited all her beauty, all her sparkle. His throat tightened. He had loved Serena, but he had never been in love with her. Yet if Beth were older.…
‘Why are you looking so morose?’ she asked suddenly, leaning across to him and taking his hand. ‘Aren’t you happy to be back in Nice with us?’
He squeezed her hand tightly and then released it. ‘I’m leaving for Cannes later this afternoon,’ he said, hating himself as disappointment flared through her eyes.
‘But why? Do you have to?’ she asked bewilderedly.
He looked down at her and felt something terrible tremble within him.
‘Yes,’ he said, his voice hard and queerly abrupt. ‘I have to. Goodbye, Beth.’ He didn’t see her again for two years.
His affair with Francine had deepened to the point where he was seriously considering marrying her. She possessed a china-doll prettiness that turned heads wherever they went, an impish sense of humour and, despite the diversions of living in Paris, he knew that she was faithful to him during their frequent separations.
They were on holiday in Rome and had just strolled out of the Hassler after a late breakfast and were walking down the Spanish Steps towards the Via del Corso when Francine said suddenly: ‘Isn’t that Jerome, chéri? Standing at the foot of the steps?’
A Multitude of Sins Page 4