Molly raised her glass and smiled. ‘I’ll drink to that.’
Molly hadn’t had so many compliments since she’d had that discreet Harley Street eye-lift two years ago. The turnout was spectacular. At least 200 people were milling around The Standlings’ clipped gardens on a blistering hot summer’s day and most of them were social A-list. There was a senior flight of executives from the Midas Corporation, and important bankers. She had also commandeered a handful of wealthy Europeans who were passing through London. Adam had been in touch with a raft of wealthy friends from New York, a software billionaire, a cosmetic mogul. And all for a little village fête.
Molly smiled with pride; she’d played this one perfectly.
As soon as the renovations on The Standlings were completed, Molly had been in a hurry to show them off to as many people as possible, but she knew a string of dinner parties would be both tedious and expensive, so had decided that the best way to showcase the house was to play to its strength as a quintessentially English manor. Her idea of throwing a Saturday afternoon garden fête came to her when she read an article about Liz Hurley’s new life in Gloucestershire. As soon as she’d had the thought, she’d
known it was genius. Genius. It would show a softer, philanthropic side, with key people from the village being invited for rustic colour and all profits from the tombola and coconut shy going to anti-seal-clubbing or whatever was hot that month.
The day of the fête, The Standlings looked like the Garden of Eden. The sun was shining, the flowerbeds were bursting with jasmine and sweet peas, the rose garden was in full bloom and the lawns had been mowed into two-tone stripes of soft and vivid emerald green. All along them, tents and stalls were doing a bustling trade. Molly’s beauty therapist friend was offering Indian head massages by the potting shed, the Women’s Institute were manning a jam stall and the raffle was bursting with all manner of pashminas, jewellery and perfume that had failed to meet their reserves on eBay. In the lower field, there was a bouncy castle in the shape of a pirate ship and the local scout pack were offering pony rides. Oiling the wheels was a jolly Victorian-themed bar run by Len Barry, landlord of the local pub, who had a stonking crush on Molly. Len was also overseeing the barbecue, which was grilling delicious meat and sausages provided by the Delemere farm shop. It was fun, it was elegant, it was respectable.
‘I thought we were having a small barbecue,’ laughed Marcus, hooking an arm around Molly’s shoulder. They were standing on the terrace overlooking the lawns, the smell of candyfloss and sausages wafting around them.
‘If you’re going to do a job, you have to do it properly,’ she smiled, resting her head on his shoulder.
‘You’re wonderful, you know that?’ replied Marcus.
Molly moved even closer towards him, like a Siamese cat rubbing against its owner, knowing she had scored a bull’s-eye.
The village fête idea appealed to Marcus’s closeted country-gent side, the side that wanted to keep horses and play lord
of the manor in his big house in the Chilterns. Ever since the drink-driving episode, she had felt her relationship with Marcus cool a little. He could be such a sanctimonious little prick sometimes, demanding she stop drinking, smoking, having fun. Well, if he wanted the dutiful little village wifey with no vices, he could have it, she thought slyly – the image of it, anyway. But today’s triumph seemed to have warmed things right up and she knew her timing was perfect. When Marcus thought she was doing Pilates in the bedroom, she was listening, always listening. She had loitered outside his study late at night, eavesdropping, waiting for some nugget of information. And now, it seemed, it was here. Stock options. Cashing in. It was all music to Molly’s ears. Something was brewing at the Midas Corporation and, one way or another, she was going to have part of it.
Karin was secretly seething. Either Marcus had instructed some top-flight events company, or she had underestimated Molly. The Standlings village fête was fabulous; traditional without being stuffy, fun without being cheesy. She had even won a Hermès scarf on the tombola. And the turnout was remarkable; even the sprinkling of Great Horsham village locals gave it a certain homespun charm, although the presence of Diana and Christina – apparently they and Molly had all struck up some sort of bizarre friendship at the detox weekend – had made her bristle. But what had irked her the most was the presence of that glamorous blonde banker Claudia Falcon, whom she had spotted laughing with Marcus about ten minutes ago at the jam stall. The woman certainly looked good today. Her blonde bob had been pulled back into a chignon, she looked relaxed in a pair of wide linen palazzo pants, some Grecian sandals and a beautifully cut vest-top.
Stop being so paranoid and relax
, thought Karin. She
took a deep breath and reminded herself what Lysette had said in Paris:
How do you know it’s her?
‘You don’t get this in Manhattan,’ said Adam, coming up behind her, carrying a tankard of beer. ‘It’s a really good day, isn’t it?’
‘You fired Molly from the Midas Corporation, remember? Now is not the time to start eulogizing about her work. She’ll have you for unfair dismissal before you know it.’
‘I didn’t fire her,’ replied Adam, still smiling. ‘Her contract was up. She was working on a case-by-case basis.’
Yeah, right
, thought Karin, sipping her iced tea.
Nothing to do with her shagging around on your best friend
.
‘Anyway, what are people like Claudia Falcon doing here?’ she asked innocently. ‘I didn’t know Marcus wanted it to be a work thing.’
‘It isn’t. But why miss an opportunity like today to keep good people happy?’
‘Kay, honey, there you are,’ said Christina, trotting up with a large tumbler of Pimms and taking her arm. ‘Come on, Molly is desperate for us to come look at the house. Diana and Donna are already in there.’
Karin rolled her eyes as Adam kissed her on the cheek and went to join Marcus and Claudia at the tombola.
‘Can you believe this place?’ said Karin to Christina, still trying to keep her eye on Adam. ‘It’s like a Jilly Cooper wet-dream.’
‘I think it’s rather fabulous. Highgrove chic,’ said Christina as they climbed the stone steps away from the gardens into the house.
‘She’s hardly Camilla Parker Bowles is she?’ said Karin.
‘Not yet, darling, not yet.’
Inside, they found Molly was giving the guided tour to Diana and Donna in the master bedroom.
‘Marcus didn’t want anything structural done to the place
so it’s all cosmetic,’ said Molly, pointing out the newly hung eau-de-nil silk damask walls and cream shot taffeta hanging at the windows. ‘As you can see there’s bags of room up here and lots more scope for improvement: a second study, nursery.’
‘A nursery?’ said Karin, lifting an eyebrow, ‘and who would that be for?’
‘You never know,’ said Molly tartly, looking Karin up and down. ‘Some of us are still of age.’
Molly took Karin and Diana downstairs for a look at the drawing room, then showed them through the French windows so they could sit out on the patio away from the crowds. They watched Molly and Christina walk arm in arm over to the bouncy castle, their high heels sinking into the grass.
‘Can you believe she’s thinking about a nursery?’ laughed Karin. ‘I bet her ovaries dried up about five years ago.’
When there was no response from Diana, Karin looked back at her friend. ‘You’re quiet.’
‘Oh, I’m fine’ said Diana. Karin frowned and searched her face for clues. Diana certainly looked impeccable, and things seemed to be going well for her family. Martin had just floated his online betting company, which had been valued at over £1 billion pounds, the offering heavily oversubscribed. Overnight, Martin and Diana were worth over £500 million, and they could have sold the shares five times over. But still, Karin thought she saw a sadness in Diana’s face.
‘Are you sure you’re okay?’ asked Karin. Under her wraparound sunglasses, Karin could see her friend’s eyebrows crease into crooked lines.
‘Not really,’ she smiled weakly.
Karin touched Diana’s knee sympathetically. ‘Honey, what’s wrong?’
A single tear rolled down from under Diana’s shades. ‘Last week I told Martin I had come off the pill and he almost had a seizure,’ said Diana, pressing a fingertip on her cheek to blot the tear.
‘Didn’t you discuss it?’
Diana shook her head so a wispy tendril of hair escaped from her chignon. ‘We’ve been married a year. I thought it was about time we started thinking about children.’
‘But he doesn’t?’
‘Got it in one, girlfriend,’ said Diana, dabbing under her shades with a table napkin. ‘After I told him, it was as if he suddenly decided he didn’t want to be married.’
‘Come on, he loves being married to you,’ laughed Karin gently. It was true. Every one of Diana’s girlfriends had been envious of the energy with which Martin had pursued her. She’d moved in with him only three months after they had met at that day in Savile Row and within six months he had presented her with a twenty-carat diamond engagement ring that set a new yardstick for her circle’s trophy jewellery.
‘I thought so too,’ said Diana, her voice cracking. ‘But the issue of children … it’s as if it’s made him wake up and want to be young, free and single again.’
‘But you did ask him if he wanted to have children with you before you got married …?’
Diana’s sob gave Karin her answer. It was so easily done; an unspoken issue was always an awkward one, and why bring up something that could break a deal? ‘I didn’t ask him then, no,’ said Diana. ‘But I asked him now. He said he didn’t want any more kids. Said he just wanted it to be just me and him and no responsibilities, no decisions to be made other than where we should go on holiday, Miami or Mustique, Barbados or the Bahamas.’
‘And I take it that’s not your dream?’
‘I love our life,’ said Diana, her voice almost a whisper.
‘But I’ve always wanted children. I never knew how much until Martin said he didn’t want to have any more.’
Karin looked at her. Behind the grooming, the diamonds, the head-to-toe Gucci, was a traditional, blue-blooded Home Counties girl. Her family’s star had fallen, their fortune dwindled to nothing, and in Martin she thought she could rekindle her family’s glory by marrying well. But that’s what she’d wanted all along; not the position, but the family.
‘And is having children a deal-breaker?’ asked Karin, trying to meet Diana’s gaze.
She couldn’t see her friend’s eyes through the black lenses, but she could see the tiny sad nod of her head, the movement that said ‘yes’.
Karin looked out at the Chiltern Hills, a smudge of muted colour in the sun, and shivered. It was funny how things changed. By the end of the summer, Diana could be falling out of the magic circle of millionaire wives. And Molly could be coming in.
Summer was standing by the hog-roast, helping the six-year-old son of the village butcher squeeze ketchup onto his hot dog. She was in a short white cotton dress so thin that the shadow of her body was visible in the sun, a stark contrast to the hazelnut brown of her long legs. It was the first weekend Summer had had off since Monaco and, while it had been enormous fun, she needed a break. Filming for ‘On Heat’, she had been to opera festivals, literary festivals, summer parties, Royal Ascot, the tennis, the Veuve Clicquot polo, Sardinia and St Tropez. Professionally, she had been on a steep learning curve, but she thought she was doing pretty well. Certainly, Simon Garrison kept saying that ‘On Heat’ was the best programme their production company had ever done. She took a swig of Pimms and the little boy ran off in the direction of the pony rides.
‘Why don’t you come and squeeze my hot dog?’ whispered Adam into her ear, running his fingers lightly along her arm.
She turned round to see him looking relaxed in a pair of jeans and a navy polo shirt, while the sun had smeared a streak of colour across his nose.
‘Adam. Don’t,’ giggled Summer behind her hand, looking round anxiously to see if anyone was watching. ‘Where’s Karin?’
‘She’s gone for a tour around the house with your mother. I think we’re safe for a while. But, just to be sure, why don’t you come and have your fortune read?’ he asked, jerking his head towards a striped tent at the bottom of the garden. ‘Meet you there in two minutes.’
Feeling a frisson of nerves and sexual excitement, she loitered for a count of 100, then followed Adam into the small tent. There was barely enough room for the two of them to move – and there was no sign of the fortune teller.
‘Where’s Madam Zorba then?’ asked Summer as she felt Adam’s hand slide up her thigh and under her panties. She groaned, every nerve end jangling with anticipation and the real prospect of getting caught.
‘I crossed her palm with silver to make her go and take a coffee break,’ mumbled Adam, biting gently on her earlobe.
Lifting her slightly into the air, he pushed her onto the tiny table behind her, slipping his hand up her thigh while his lips brushed her neck with kisses.
Summer arched her back and groaned softly. ‘Adam, please. Don’t. Someone is going to come.’
‘Hopefully you,’ smiled Adam, his fingertips dipping under her panties, finding her hot and wet. As he slid his finger over her clitoris, she gripped the edge of the table with desire, her nails clawing at the red baize of Madam Zorba’s
table. Gasping, struggling to regain control, she forced herself to think of Karin only 100 feet away. Suddenly Summer had a flashback to all the times she had lain in her bed at night, the sounds of her mother having sex filtering through the walls. Right then, Summer felt the same guilt and shame, the same uncomfortable mixture of desire and disgust.