Despite the significant change in their relationship, Roger’s attitude towards Sarah didn’t appear to have altered at all. He was entirely accepting of her, seeming to believe that she must be as happy with him as he was with her. Sarah’s feelings were rather more ambivalent. Much as she liked Roger, there were times during the following days when she could hardly believe that she’d ever finished up in bed with someone who bit his nails and wore the same shirt two days running. She knew her friends would think she was mad if they found out she was seeing him. She would see Roger hurrying across Caper Court with his shoelace undone and his robing bag bumping on his shoulder on his way to court, and she would say to herself that she really should tell him to get his hair cut – and then ask herself why she should care about such appalling hair, on such a ramshackle human being. One morning she saw Roger and Leo talking together in the clerks’ room, and it set off a flood of mental comparisons from which Roger emerged a poor second, leaving Sarah convinced that whatever had started between her and Roger must be over, that it had been some momentary madness from which she had surely recovered. But that same night found her lying in Roger’s bed, quite contented to be there with him, talking and making love.
The whole thing was utterly confusing.
Equally puzzling was Roger’s equanimity, the apparent opacity of his feelings for her. She had no idea how deep these ran, and told herself often enough that she didn’t much care, either. Sometimes there were sublime and astonishing moments in their lovemaking when it seemed to her that everything unspoken had found its sure and perfect definition – but then, that was just sex. And in Sarah’s view, sex was a notoriously poor indicator of true feeling, particularly in men. She decided it was best simply to enjoy the relationship for what it was-whatever it was. She certainly had no intention of getting serious about someone like Roger.
‘I should really be doing some preparation for the hearing tomorrow,’ said Leo.
Adriana touched one crimson-tipped finger to his mouth, then trailed it down across his neck and shoulder. She smiled. ‘This is much more important.’
‘I thought one of your chief aims in life was to win this case?’
‘It is. We shall. It’s been going so well that it looks like winning itself. Don’t you think?’
Leo rolled on to his back. ‘I never take anything for granted. Neither should you.’
‘I think you can afford to relax for one evening.’
‘Relax?’ He leant across, drawing down the sheet, and kissed one full, soft breast. ‘Since you are the most relentlessly demanding woman it’s ever been my good
fortune to go to bed with, I wouldn’t call this relaxing. And it’s the second evening in a row. In fact, I don’t know how you talked me into this.’
‘I think you do,’ murmured Adriana.
‘Mmm. Well, in future, weekdays are strictly off limits. That’s going to be my working rule.’
‘How wonderfully stern and professional of you!’ She moved her body against his. ‘In that case, you will have to come away with me this weekend.’
‘Will I? Where were you thinking of taking me?’
‘My friend Lili Vosterliz is having a party at her villa in Tangiers. We can fly to my place in Marbella on Saturday, and you can come with me to the party. There will be all kinds of interesting people there. Rich people. Do you like rich people?’
‘When they’re paying my exorbitant fees, yes,’ replied Leo, as he debated whether or not he should accept this attractive proposition. ‘Otherwise, it depends.’
‘On what?’
‘Well, let’s see now. Take you. You’re very rich—’
‘Very. And I pay your fees.’
‘True. But there are other attractions.’ He slipped one hand beneath the sheet, and after a few seconds she gave a short, breathless sigh and closed her eyes.
Then she laughed. ‘Will you come?’
‘Oh, yes,’ said Leo, and kissed her. ‘I imagine I will.’
It was with some bemusement that Leo surrendered himself to Adriana’s caprices for the weekend. So far his encounters
with fabulously rich people had been confined to those occasions when they came to him in chambers with their litigious anxieties, eager for his help. The prospect of seeing all that affluence and arrogance at play intrigued him.
On Friday evening, while he was working out what clothes to take, Camilla called.
‘Hi, how are you?’ asked Leo, sitting down on the edge of the bed, absently fingering the mauve silk of a Paco Rabanne tie.
‘Missing you,’ said Camilla. ‘This work’s getting rather repetitious. It’s Friday afternoon, and all I want to do is catch a plane home and see you.’
‘I know,’ said Leo, reflecting that it would put something of a spanner in the works if she were to do so. He felt something approaching mild guilt. ‘I miss you, too. Still, only another fortnight.’
They talked for a while about Camilla’s work, and about chambers, Oliver, and the purchase of the Gratton Crescent house. Then Camilla asked, ‘So, what are you up to this weekend? Are you seeing Oliver?’
Leo didn’t miss a beat. ‘No, he’s with Rachel. I’ll probably just catch up with a few pieces of work. The
Persephone
hearing is taking up most of my time.’
‘Ah-the lovely Adriana. She still hasn’t got you into bed yet?’
If anything stupefied Leo more than the remark itself, it was that it revealed just how pitifully little she knew him. The guilt he had failed to feel earlier now hit him hard. Without difficulty, he replied, ‘No, she hasn’t. Shame on
you for thinking it. Makes me wonder what you’re getting up to out there.’
Camilla laughed. ‘Actually, my assistant is a very sweet young man called Gordon, and I think he’s on the verge of asking me out. But don’t worry, I won’t let myself be tempted.’ She gave a little yawn. ‘Anyway, I’d better get on with some work. Shall I ring you tomorrow evening, if you’re not busy?’
‘Why don’t you make it Sunday evening instead? There’s a film I thought I might go and see tomorrow.’
‘Okay. Whatever. I have to go now. I love you.’
‘I love you, too. Bye.’.
He put the phone down and sat for a few reflective moments, before deciding that it didn’t matter. If anything, the deceit saved Camilla from unnecessary misery. By the time she got back, the thing with Adriana would have played itself out. He was certain the affair was as unimportant to Adriana as it was to him, and would be over when the case ended, if not before. It was merely an amusing diversion, just like the coming weekend. Camilla’s ingenuous remark about Adriana made him wish, in a way, that he’d never started this affair – but he had, or she had, and he simply had to make the best of it. No point beating himself up over it. He stood up and got on with his packing.
The following morning Leo and Adriana flew in Adriana’s private jet to Marbella, where a car met them and took them out to the estate. The house was a spectacular creation, built in three tiers of white stone which sloped
back to the hillside, overlooking the shimmering waters of the Costa del Sol. A vast terrace, dotted with orange and lemon trees in stone tubs, stretched all the way round the house, and spread out to embrace a magnificent swimming pool, surrounded by well tended gardens.
‘I had the house rebuilt five years ago,’ said Adriana, leading Leo round the terrace to the back. She slid back a vast glass door and they stepped from the warm sunshine into the cool exterior. ‘The original was horrid, very old-fashioned.’
She led Leo through the house, her little heels clacking on the marble floors. A middle-aged woman in a flowered dress came to greet them.
‘Ah, Maria – can we have lunch in half an hour? On the terrace by the pool, I think.’ She turned to Leo. ‘Come – let’s go upstairs. We can have a shower first.’
It seemed, however, that Adriana had something else in mind. As soon as they reached the room her mouth was on Leo’s, and she was tugging off his clothes. Twenty minutes later, Leo was lying exhausted, watching the hypnotic billowing of the long gauze curtains which separated the bedroom from the balcony beyond. Adriana had gone to shower. Leo thought about joining her, but was apprehensive that it might spark off another lustful session. She certainly was insatiable – a kind of beautiful little female Onassis.
Moments later Adriana padded through, wrapped in a vast white towel, which she discarded as she approached the bed. She nestled next to Leo.
‘We could forget about lunch, if you like,’ she murmured.
‘I don’t think so,’ replied Leo. ‘I’m famished. I only had coffee for breakfast.’
‘I don’t care. I’d rather stay here for now.’ She ran a hand over his chest. ‘Don’t say no. I’m not nice if I don’t get my way.’ She smiled, and he was momentarily struck by the expression in her dark eyes.
‘No,’ said Leo. He sat up. ‘My turn to take a shower. And then we’ll have lunch. After all, you put your housekeeper to the trouble of preparing it.’ And he rose and crossed the marble floor to the adjoining bathroom, wondering if he was going to hear the crash of a flying object from the hand of a small, thwarted shipping tycoon.
Adriana merely lay on the bed, gazing thoughtfully after him.
After lunch, Adriana said, ‘Come – I will show you my art collection. Well, a part of it.’ She led him downstairs to a specially constructed gallery below the ground floor of the house, and flicked on a small row of lights. Leo wandered in amazement from picture to picture, gazing at each one in turn. Every important painter of the twentieth century seemed to be represented in her collection. He stopped in front of a Picasso, depicting a woman in muted greens and blues, sitting in a chair, head on one hand. Adriana strolled to his side. ‘You like it?’ Leo nodded.
‘It’s of his lover, Marie-Therese Walters.’
‘I know.’ Leo’s gaze was fixed on the painting. ‘I’ve seen its sister work,
Nue Aux Colliers.
I was at Christie’s
the day it was sold, a couple of years ago.’
She glanced at him speculatively. ‘You know a little about art?’
‘I’m something of a collector myself,’ replied Leo. ‘But on a more modest scale.’ He turned to Adriana. ‘The other picture sold for over six million pounds, as I recall.’
Adriana smiled and shrugged. ‘It’s nice to be able to buy the things one likes.’
Leo inspected the rest of the paintings in silence. They were truly wonderful. It was the closest he had ever come to understanding what it would be like to own such treasures. He estimated that there must be tens of millions of pounds worth of works of art in this house alone.
‘I hope you’re well insured,’ he observed, taking a long last glance around before Adriana switched off the lights.
‘Of course. Now,’ said Adriana as they went upstairs, ‘I have a little business to attend to, after which I’m going to spend a little time with my masseur, and then I’ll get ready for the party. Would you like a massage? Ramon is quite wonderful.’
Leo decided he would content himself with a swim. Afterwards he lay in the green, warm silence of the garden, reading through some papers which he had brought. His attention drifted. He watched small butterflies dipping in and out of the sunshine, flickering over the flowers, and realised suddenly how grateful he was for this respite from his own world. He was able to relax in London – he had the house in Oxfordshire and the flat in Belgravia, and plenty to keep him amused – but since this morning, when he
had first stepped into the unashamedly luxurious interior of Adriana’s jet, he had a sense of being transported to an idyllic existence far removed from humdrum reality. He let his mind drift over the pleasures encountered so far. The jet, the miracle of dispensing with all the crap of commercial flights at Heathrow and Gatwick, and the hell of other people … the private car from the airport … Adriana’s magnificent house … Adriana herself, the compact, sensual perfection of her body … making love to her while the gauzy curtains billowed against a Mediterranean sky … the unexpected delights of her art collection, savoured like sweets when he was a child … a delicious lunch by the pool, prepared by some other, expert hand … and not having to clear up afterwards …
Leo closed his eyes and let the papers fall from his fingers. He might be comfortably off, with his legal practice and his moderately expensive tastes carelessly indulged, but this world of Adriana’s was something else altogether. Work was altogether out of the question. He should concentrate on the bliss of the present, and the knowledge that nothing more arduous was required of him over the next few hours than a helicopter trip from Marbella to Tangiers, to a party stuffed with the rich and famous and amusing, on a warm summer evening far from the cares of home.
‘Well?’ asked Adriana, as she unclipped the diamonds from her ears several hours later. ‘Did you like it?’
‘Somewhat,’ replied Leo, tossing his jacket aside and lying back on the large bed, which had been made up with
fresh linen since they had last occupied it. That was another thing he could get used to. That, and the knowledge that the damp towels on the bathroom floor would have been cleared away and replaced with clean ones.
She sat next to him on the bed, smiling and stroking his face with one finger, her tantalising scent as fragrant as her breath. He thought he would never tyre of the wonderful smell of her. ‘What an English thing to say. “Somewhat”. What does that mean?’
Leo’s mind skated over the people he had met – the fashion designer with white hair, whose fingers trembled as he smoked and from whose mouth poured a staccato series of outrageous stories; the German multi-millionaire who had arrived from his Kenyan estate with half a dozen beautiful women by his side; the hostess herself, a tall, exotic Brazilian in a swirling, iridescent Missoni silk caftan and emeralds, who had orchestrated an evening of magnificent opulence; the divinely beautiful Hollywood actress, the screen epitome of unattainable perfection, who had cornered Leo for twenty minutes and bored him rigid; the wizened ex-politician, a relic of some sex scandal from the Seventies, prowling the party for gossip, a Monte Cristo clamped between his teeth; the crashingly beautiful young Italian aristocrat who had flashed his blue eyes so often at Leo that both knew perfectly well where, under other circumstances, they would have finished up together … And the scent of wealth, the clothes, the jewellery, the sleek cars parked outside, the yachts, the jets, the helicopters – all the trappings that translated
human beings from the shabby average to the affluent elite … The evening had been transparent and mystifying all at the same time, both electrifyingly stimulating and monstrously tedious.