As always when there was a confrontation looming, she’d been horribly stressed the night before. Twitching with nerves and frustration in her lonely king-size bed, she’d tried to masturbate but was so tightly wound she found she couldn’t come. Thanks to her short hair and deliberately masculine dress sense, most people assumed she was either a lesbian or just not interested in sex. In fact her boyish look, like her punchy, aggressive personality, was only a disguise, armor she’d donned in her teens to protect her from her father’s rejection and never quite learned how to take off. She yearned to be loved and desired, but sex was a game she simply didn’t know how to play. The few lovers she’d had had all tended to be older men, fairly obvious father figures, but they never lasted for long. Her longest relationship, of eight months, had been with one of her professors at Harvard, a kind, bookish divorcée in his early fifties. Drawn by her fierce beauty and intelligence, he had done his best to coax her out of her shell as a lover, constantly assuring her of her beauty and gently offering his love. But Honor’s insecurities were so huge—deep down she loathed the athletic boy’s body she went to such lengths to maintain, and she had about as much sexual confidence as a pimply teenager on a first date—that in the end he, too, gave up.
Sexual frustration added to the tension that snaked its way around her heart now, in the back of the limo, at the prospect of returning to Palmers. She was coming back not just as Trey’s daughter and Tertius’s granddaughter, but as the boss. It was a strange and, at times, terrifying feeling.
Thankfully, by the time the car swung into the grand graveled forecourt, she’d pulled herself together sufficiently to make a suitably confident entrance. The hotel’s timeless, half-timbered elegance was just as she remembered it. Originally built as a wealthy merchant’s summer home in the late eighteenth century, Palmers had always exuded a sort of genteel restfulness, with its wraparound wooden porches and forests of trailing wisteria clinging to the ancient walls like barnacles. Most of the older homes in East Hampton were made of gray, weathered wood. But Palmers stood resplendently white, a single iridescent flake of snow amid the verdant green of her gardens.
To Honor, that pristine whiteness had always been a large part of the hotel’s magic. But today she could see that the paint was not only fading but actually peeling away in places. Even worse, nickel-sized pieces of facade had begun breaking off in chunks and had been left lying scattered on the steps and front lawn like giant crumbs from a wedding cake. As for the gardens themselves, Tertius would be spinning in his grave to see how overgrown and neglected they’d become, with dead leaves blowing everywhere and weeds left to multiply unfettered amid his beloved English rose garden.
The place was a disgrace.
Striding grimly up the steps into the lobby, Honor threw the receptionist into a spin by demanding that the manager appear immediately.
“I’m afraid Mr. Hammond is, er, unavailable just now, Miss Palmer,” stammered the hapless girl. “We weren’t expecting you until tomorrow.”
“So I see,” said Honor, snapping the dead head off one of the wilted roses in the vase by the door and staring pointedly at the overflowing wastepaper basket in the corner of the lobby. “Where is he?”
“Well, I…” The girl trailed off, blushing the color of an overripe beet. If she looked any more awkward she’d probably burst into flames. “I’m not a hundred percent sure he’d want me to say.”
Honor’s lips tightened. Resting both hands on the desk, she leaned forward ominously. “What’s your name?”
The girl swallowed. She was older than Honor and a good foot taller, but she didn’t think she’d ever felt quite so intimidated in her life. It was the deep, gravelly voice that did it.
“Betty,” she mumbled. “Betty Miller.”
“OK, Betty,” said Honor. “I’m going to ask you one more time. And either you tell me where Mr. Hammond is, or I fire you. Do you understand?”
The girl nodded miserably.
“So.” Removing her sunglasses, Honor smiled patiently. “Where is he?”
“He’s at the golf club,” whispered Betty. “He’s been there all morning.”
Guests who heard the screams and yells coming out of the manager’s office a few hours later were sure that some of them must have warranted a reading on the Richter scale.
“But, Miss Palmer, you’re being completely unreasonable!” Whit Hammond could be heard shouting himself hoarse. “I was entertaining guests. That’s a legitimate part of my job. Perhaps if you knew a little more about the hotel business, or were willing to listen to wiser heads—”
But Honor hadn’t let him get any further.
“Don’t patronize me, you lazy son of a bitch,” she roared. “I know enough about the hotel business to realize you’ve been ripping my family off for the last God knows how many years.” Leaning across the desk—this morning it had been his desk, but now it was most definitely hers—she brandished the rolled-up spreadsheets like a sword.
“Those numbers don’t tell the whole story,” he spluttered lamely. “It’s a lot more complicated than that.”
Honor felt her upper lip curling with disdain. Whit personified everything that was wrong with Palmers: overweight, stubbornly complacent, his florid cheeks crisscrossed with broken veins that spoke of a lifestyle of high living and neglecting his duties.
“You’re right,” she said. “The numbers are only half the story. The other half is shoddy housekeeping, poorly trained staff, a kitchen that would have us closed down in a heartbeat if anyone from Safety and Health saw it. This was the greatest hotel in America once, Mr. Hammond.”
“With respect, my dear,” he simpered, “that was a long time ago. Things have moved on.”
“Yeah,” said Honor. “They have. And now they’re moving on again. You no longer have a job here. And I am not your dear.”
The decibel level had shot up still further at this point, with plenty of you can’t do thises and you’ll be hearing from my lawyers thrown in for good measure. But within an hour the manager who only yesterday had been considered part of the furniture at Palmers, with a job for life, had packed his things into a couple of boxes and driven out of town like a spluttering, paunchy Jesse James.
By the end of the day, some twenty-five other staff had followed in his wake, fired with equal firmness and finality by a righteously indignant Honor. And there would be more to come. The era of the freeloader was well and truly over at Palmers, and anyone who didn’t like it could lump it.
It was after eight in the evening by the time Honor finally emerged from Whit’s ex-office. She was exhausted—she hadn’t even had a chance to take her case up to her suite and unpack, never mind eat or take a shower. Right now, though, the number one thing she needed was a drink. Heading for the hotel bar through the lobby and the library with its roaring open fires and thickly comforting red velvet upholstery, she couldn’t help but notice the way that staff scurried out of her way like terrified rats. Even the guests looked distinctly ill at ease. By the time she clambered up onto a bar stool and ordered her Scotch on the rocks she was starting to feel about as popular as Lady Macbeth.
“Tell me,” she turned to the middle-aged man sitting next to her, “can you see the blood on my hands? Or am I imagining things?”
“I’m sorry?” He looked perplexed, and she instantly regretted being so obtuse. Partly because he was probably a guest and the last thing she could afford to do right now was alienate another paying customer, and partly because he was, she now realized, distinctly attractive, in a gravelly, distinguished, older-man sort of a way.
He was wearing a slightly threadbare tweed jacket and corduroy pants, giving him the air of a somewhat countrified Cary Grant. Until Honor had accosted him, he’d been reading Stephen Hawking’s A Brief History of Time, which for some reason she found both surprising and endearing. Somehow it wasn’t what you expected in East Hampton, or at least not in the Palmers’ bar.
“Never mind,” she sai
d. “I’m afraid I’m talking gibberish. It’s been a long day.”
“Well.” Putting his book to one side, the man smiled, revealing a row of slightly crooked teeth. Even those seemed to suit him. Perfect dentistry would have clashed with the whole academic Indiana Jones vibe he had going on. He reminded her a bit of her Harvard professor, although perhaps not quite as gentle. “Why don’t you let me buy you that drink, and you can tell me about it.”
Honor waved her hand in protest, but he wasn’t having any of it.
“A woman shouldn’t drink alone,” he insisted. “Especially not whiskey.”
In another place, with another man, Honor would have taken umbrage at this sort of sexist pronouncement. As it was, she merely smiled and offered him her hand. She hadn’t the stomach for another battle this evening. “Well, in that case, I’ll accept the offer, thank you,” she said. “I’m Honor Palmer.”
For some reason this nugget of information seemed to throw him off stride. For a moment he didn’t say anything at all. When he did speak again, it was hardly the most articulate of responses. “Honor Palmer. Good God.” He kept shaking his head, mumbling to himself like a lunatic. “Honor Palmer. After all these years.”
“Er, have we met?” Now it was Honor’s turn to look baffled. Just her luck that the only attractive man in the hotel should be a nut job. It was turning out to be that kind of day.
“We have, yes,” said the man. He was smiling again now. “But I don’t expect you to remember. You must have been, oh, about eight at the time. Sitting on your mother’s knee in the garden just out there. I’m Devon Carter,” he added belatedly.
Carter. Honor turned the word over and over in her mind, like an interesting pebble, searching for some clue to its meaning. Devon Carter. It did ring a bell. But she couldn’t quite place it.
“My family’s from Boston too, originally,” he explained. “We’ve been coming out here in the summers for over a century, just like the Palmers—although sadly we never did quite as well in the Hamptons as your family. My father and your grandfather were good friends.”
Honor snapped her fingers. “Evelyn. Your dad was Evelyn Carter, right?”
Devon nodded. “Exactly. Apparently our great-grandfathers used to play poker together back in Boston. My dad used to say that old man Palmer died owing his grandpa a fortune. But maybe that’s apocryphal.”
Honor laughed. “Well, if you’ve come looking for your money, Mr. Carter, I’m afraid you’ve come to the wrong place. Between my sister and this place,” she looked around her at the distinctly down-at-heel, half-empty bar, “I’m pretty much cleaned out right now.”
“It’s Devon,” he said, looking her directly in the eye in a way she found both flattering and disconcerting. “And it isn’t your money that interests me, Honor.”
Honor blushed. He was flirting with her! Men never flirted with her. At long last she felt herself letting go of some of her pent-up tension and starting to relax. It was nice. He was nice. At least, he seemed to be.
“Are you propositioning me?” she asked bluntly. She never had learned how to do the coy, eyelash-fluttering thing.
Devon grinned. He was looking less teacher and more naughty schoolboy by the second. “If I am, then I’m afraid I shouldn’t be,” he said. “I’m probably old enough to be your father. And besides,” he stared deeply into the amber liquid in his own glass, “I’m married.” Honor couldn’t help but notice that he said this last with all the enthusiasm of a man admitting to advanced-stage syphilis.
“You don’t sound too happy about it,” she observed.
Devon shrugged. “It is what it is.”
It was as if she’d inadvertently popped a balloon. All at once his mood had shifted from playful to serious. The next thing she knew he was looking at his watch and gathering up his coat, preparing to leave.
“Please, don’t leave on my account,” she blurted, unable to keep the disappointment out of her voice. “I was only kidding about the proposition thing.”
“Look, sorry,” he said, pulling out a twenty-dollar bill and leaving it on the bar beside the pretzels. “It’s not you. I have to get home, that’s all. But it was a pleasure meeting you again, Honor. Really. Maybe next time you’re in town we can catch up properly.”
“I’d like that,” she said. “Actually, I’ll be staying in town for a while, if you—”
But he’d already gone, hurtling out the door like he had a fire to get to.
She seemed to be having this effect on people a lot today.
“What do you know about that guy?” she asked Enrique, the barman, after he’d gone.
Now in his sixties, Enrique had been running the bar at Palmers since before Honor was born. As one of the few staff who knew for sure his job was safe, he was more than happy to stop and chew the fat with her.
“Devon Carter? He’s Mr. East Hampton,” he said, “or at least, he is for the summers. Comes out here every year with his family, sometimes for Easter too. He’s on the planning committee, secretary of the Golf Club, part-time deacon over at St. Mark’s…”
“Jeez, OK, OK,” said Honor, frowning. “I get the picture. He’s Ned Flanders.”
“Not quite so God Squad,” chuckled Enrique, surprising Honor by getting the Simpsons reference. Somehow he didn’t seem the type. “But he’s big on family values, yeah. Definitely not for you, my dear.”
“For me? Oh, don’t be so silly,” said Honor, blushing again. “Although, for what it’s worth, I’ll have you know I’m huge on family values. And I bet you my family’s much more valuable than Devon—deacon-of-St.-Mark’s—Carter’s.”
Enrique smiled and poured her another drink.
“It’s good to have you back, Miss Palmer.”
“Thanks,” said Honor with a sigh. “But I’m afraid you’re the only person around here who thinks so.”
CHAPTER FOUR
LUCAS TRIED TO tune out the drunken ramblings of the stinking tramp sitting next to him on the tube as he reread the article in yesterday’s Evening Standard.
“What saddens me most,” says bubbly Heidi, her eyes brimming with tears, “is that Carina’s the innocent victim here. She’s a four-year-old child that desperately needs help. How can her own father let her down like this?”
The paper had devoted two full pages to the interview and pictures of “bubbly Heidi,” explaining that she was now a trainee nursery school teacher—although looking at her brassy hair and short black skirt it came as no surprise to Lucas to learn that her previous occupation was “exotic dancer.” It was in this incarnation that she’d met and become involved with the millionaire hotelier and hedge fund guru, Anton Tisch. The same Anton Tisch whose office Lucas was currently on his way to, for the third time in as many days.
“He makes himself out to be this kind, charitable man, like some sort of saint,” Heidi goes on damningly, “yet he won’t even provide basic medical care for his own kid. It’s disgusting.”
If the story was accurate, Lucas was inclined to agree. Apparently, having fathered a daughter by this cretinous-looking young woman, Tisch had only agreed to pay basic maintenance for the child when forced to do so by court order. This, despite having, conservatively, nine hundred million–odd dollars in the bank. Like so many of the Eastern European and Russian superrich who’d washed up in London in recent years, the original source of Tisch’s vast wealth remained an open question. Certainly he was known to have close links with Ilham Aliyev, president of Azerbaijan and ultimate controller of the Baku-Ceyhan pipeline responsible for piping a million gallons of oil a day into Western markets. Though no longer in the energy business—his passport described him as a fund manager and investor—Tisch’s money still reeked of Caspian crude.
When doctors had diagnosed his illegitimate daughter with severe autism a year ago, Heidi had gone back to her erstwhile lover asking for more money to pay for a nurse and to help fund a place for the little girl at a special school. But Tisch had told her to tak
e a running jump. Unable to raise the legal fees to fight him a second time, Heidi had sold her story to the tabloids instead.
Of course, it might not be true. To be honest, Lucas wanted to believe it wasn’t; not least because it was depressing to learn that the man he hoped would soon be his employer was tighter than a mosquito’s asshole and had about as much compassion as a Nazi concentration camp commandant. But something about bubbly Heidi’s face told him she was telling the truth. She might be a tart, but she didn’t look like a liar.
“Embankment. This is Embankment.” The oddly soothing automated woman’s voice rang out through the speakers. “Next stop, Westminster. Change here for Charing Cross and other mainline stations.”
Only one more stop, thank God. There were lots of things Lucas hated about London: the weather, the prices, the way strangers kept calling him “mate.” But he reserved an especially vehement dislike for the filthy, overcrowded underground system. Normally he’d have walked the four-odd miles from the Cadogan, where he was staying, to Tisch’s office overlooking the Thames. But despite the fact that it was August, the rain today was torrential, and he couldn’t afford to show up looking like a drowned rat.
He’d been to London before, to visit Ben, but never for more than a few days, and he’d spent most of those trips too drunk to know his left from his right, never mind what city he was in. But having lived here now for nearly two months, he was having serious second thoughts. Why couldn’t he have set his heart on a job somewhere warm and civilized, like Madrid or Rome? With his languages and starred MBA, he could have gone just about anywhere in Western Europe. Did he really have to pick this grayest, wettest, most astronomically expensive of cities and surround himself with a nation of people he had long ago learned to loathe?
Unfortunately, the answer to that was yes. Lucas had made a decision years ago never to aim for anything less than the best. And in the world of luxury boutique hotels, the Tischen Cadogan was the best. No question.
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