Party Games (7 page)

John appeared a few minutes later with a bottle of Pinot Grigio in a metal ice bucket. He poured a glass out and handed it to her.

‘Thanks, babe.’ She stuck her nose in and contemplatively inhaled honeysuckle and wild grass. ‘Do you really think an American company owns Pear Tree?’

‘Who knows? I just felt so sorry for Felix I had to say something.’

She looked over to where Amanda was talking animatedly to Ginny. Ginny was nodding and responding, but didn’t look her normal cheery self.

‘Amanda’s oblivious, isn’t she?’ Catherine asked. ‘Poor Ginny.’ She watched her husband take a sip of wine. ‘Do you think Beau is involved with Pear Tree?’

There was a discreet cough behind them. Felix stood there with a pint of real ale in his hand.

Catherine was mortified. ‘Felix, I didn’t mean …’

He smiled tiredly. ‘It’s fine, really. I just wanted to come and say thank you to John for stepping in back then.’

‘It is very possible a foreign company is behind this, Felix,’ John told him.

‘Maybe you’re right.’ Felix looked up at the castle and sighed. ‘I might be an old fool, but I don’t think even Beau has got the chutzpah for this one. At least I really hope not.’

He looked so defeated. Catherine felt desperately sorry for him. ‘I’m sure it will all work out,’ she told him.

Felix gave her a resigned smile. ‘I hope so.’

The new Michael Bublé album had been tinkling in the background. It was suddenly drowned out by a rhythmic thudding reverberating through the air. Everyone stopped to stare as a red helicopter rose out of the hills. The registration was unmistakable: B-RAIN.

The backdraught from the propellers whipped up napkins and ruffled people’s hair. The noise was terrific. Catherine imagined Beau sitting beside his pilot, tanned face carved and unsmiling. She glanced at Felix, but his expression was unreadable. The aircraft hovered over them for a second before swooping away across the valley.

Vanessa had been in her office all morning. She had the house to herself for once: Conrad had gone to Harley Street for his monthly check-up and Dominique had taken the chance to ride along in the Bentley and go shopping at Harrods. Even Renata was out, visiting her cousin in Cheltenham for the day. The house was blissfully quiet without the constant blast of American chat shows from the TV in the basement.

She fired off another email to her PA and sat back thoughtfully. The meeting with the executive producer and controller of ITV1 had gone extremely well. Vanessa and Conrad had done a script read-through in the producer’s office, and although Conrad had lingered a
little
too long on his introduction, they had seemed to like it. A schmoozy lunch at The Ivy had followed, with lots of significant looks and enthusiastic laughing, always a good sign.

Conrad was already practising his speech in front of the mirror, but Vanessa didn’t want to get carried away. They hadn’t signed the contract yet, as she kept
reminding him. It was hard not to be buoyed by his enthusiasm though, and it reminded her why she’d fallen in love with him in the first place.

Her mother wasn’t around to chide her about not wearing lipstick, so Vanessa had left her face make-upfree and piled her tawny hair up in a bun. She was wearing a simple cashmere vest and the black DKNY leggings Conrad said made her look like a village hall aerobics instructor.

She felt something lick her bare foot. Sukie was sprawled out under her desk like a fluffy slipper.

‘Are you hungry, my darling?’ Vanessa asked.

The dog jumped up and started wagging her tail furiously.

‘Biscuit?’ Vanessa asked.

Sukie did a circle of excitement. ‘Come on then, darling!’ Vanessa said, geeing her up. ‘Biscuits, Sukie, biscuits!’

The hypo-allergenic dog food was kept in the utility room, a huge place the size of most people’s kitchens. She bent down with a treat. The dog snatched it out of her hand and trotted out without a backward glance.

Animals were about as loyal as most humans she met, Vanessa thought wryly. They got what they wanted out of you and got the hell out.

She opened the utility door to let in some fresh air and went back into the kitchen. That weekend’s
Cotswolds on Sunday
lay on the worktop. Getting herself a glass of San Pellegrino, she sat down to flick through it. Amongst the stories about bus shelters being demolished and a knicker thief on the loose, a headline caught her eye.

‘THE PROBLEM WITH PEAR TREE!’

It was an article about the Ye Olde Worlde development. Vanessa read it with more interest: she and Conrad had both been alarmed by the prospect of having a theme park at their back door. She was surprised to see Beau Rainford’s name mentioned as a possible investor, although his lawyers had issued a strongly worded statement denying any involvement. There was a grainy shot of Beau in black tie, gazing insolently into the camera. Would Beau do something like that? Vanessa wondered.

Over the years, the Powells and Beau had crossed paths at several parties. Conrad couldn’t stand Beau, but Vanessa suspected it was more the fact that Conrad was jealous that someone was better looking than him. She had never been into blonds herself, but Beau was really something. She’d read somewhere that his latest squeeze was the Givenchy model Valentina Volosky.

The emails would be mounting but Vanessa didn’t feel like going back to work just yet. Leaving the kitchen, she started to wander through the downstairs. Every room looked like a page in
Homes and Gardens
. The dining room that sat thirty, the fully stocked library no one ever used, the gym wing complete with Swedish sauna and a Pilates reformer machine costing four thousand pounds. Vanessa had never been into cocaine or getting annihilated on alcohol. This place was her drug. Everywhere she looked was success, the best of everything.

For the millionth time she wished her dad were alive to see it. An only child, she had been extremely close to her Armenian father, Raoul. He was the only person
who’d been able to soften his wife’s sharp edges. Her parents had met when her dad had spotted a beautiful girl standing in the rain at Piccadilly Circus with a small suitcase. ‘I just saw this sadness,’ he’d tell Vanessa. ‘I knew at that moment I wanted to protect her.’

She loved hearing the story, because it showed a vulnerable side of her mother that she had never got to see. Unlike Raoul, who’d regaled the family with tales of his life back home, Dominique had never really talked about her upbringing. She’d been born on the French-speaking island of Réunion, a beautiful but poverty-stricken place in the Indian Ocean. Her parents had been killed in a car crash when she was a baby, and Dominique had been brought up by her strict grandmother. As she got older herself, Vanessa often wondered if the early tragedy in her mother’s life had contributed to her inability to reach out to her own daughter.

Dominique had stayed at home to bring up Vanessa, while Raoul Jardine had run his own carpet-fitting business. He’d worked hard to make sure his daughter received the education he’d never had. His proudest achievement had been sending her to Vespers, a renowned private school in Holland Park.

It had been the darkest time of Vanessa’s life. A dumpy, shy teenager, she had stuck out painfully among her leggy, worldly contemporaries. She was bullied about her rough accent and terraced house, excluded from weekend plans and boy talk. The other mums shunned Dominique at the school gates, jealous and intimidated by her beauty. No matter how hard Vanessa tried to fit in, she was still ‘Gippy Jardine’, the
girl with a moustache whose dad was a lowly carpet fitter.

The miracle intervention had come at eighteen. She discovered Jolene for the first time and then, overnight, her puppy fat had literally melted. Suddenly she had become beautiful. Ten years later, she was richer and prettier than any of those bullies at school. That was why having money was so important. Every pound Vanessa made, she made to show
them
.

A brown speckled bird landed on the lawn, beak stabbing the grass in a hunt for worms. When she’d met Conrad he’d promised to take care of her, but Vanessa felt it was increasingly the other way round now. She ran the house and paid their staff, took the conference calls with PR brands and sponsorship people. If she let herself think about it, the amount of responsibility she had would overwhelm her.

Dominique was another constant worry. Vanessa knew she missed her husband desperately, but Vanessa had lost her father as well. When had anyone sat
her
down to ask if she was OK?

Her eyes suddenly brimmed with tears. She wished so much her dad were here. He’d always known how to make her feel better. He’d be able to stop her mother crying at night in her bedroom, and end the yawning emptiness Vanessa was starting to feel these days, no matter what she’d achieved. Her father would know how to stop her marriage unravelling and turn Conrad back into the man she’d married …

She was crying so much she couldn’t see. At first she thought she had a false lash in her eye, but then the dark shape outside the window moved again. Her
despair was immediately replaced by a new emotion. Fear.

There was a scruffy, wild-eyed man in the garden. And he was looking straight at her.

Vanessa dropped to the floor in a panic. How had he got in? The Porsche was in the garage and there were no cars parked out the front. He must have thought the place was empty and decided to try his chances …

She always thought she’d be completely capable in a situation like this, but she found herself frozen with fear. A shadow fell on the white carpet. Oh God, he was outside the window …

‘My jewellery’s upstairs!’ she screamed. ‘Just take it and get out!’ She thought of the story in the papers recently about an actress who’d been held at knifepoint in her own home. Something brushed against her face, making her shriek again. It was Sukie, with one of her ornamental silk cushions in her mouth. Aghast, she watched as the dog trotted into the middle of the room with the cushion and started to grind in an unladylike fashion against it.

‘Sukie!’ she whispered hysterically, but the dog took no notice.

There was no noise from outside. ‘What do you want?’ she screamed. Was this unknown assailant getting off seeing her cower like a frightened animal?

Mustering up the courage, Vanessa peeked up from under the windowsill. There was no one there. She got up, shooting fearful glances everywhere. Where had he gone? Was he in the house? An icy fist clenched in the pit of her stomach. She’d left the utility door open.

A man’s voice sounded. ‘Hello, anyone in?’

She clutched her chest and tried to still her frantic heart. Burglars didn’t call out a greeting, did they? Picking up the paperweight from the desk just in case, she crept out into the hall. ‘Hello?’

Then Vanessa nearly had her second heart attack of the day. The intruder was standing right there, in her kitchen!

‘What do you want?’ she demanded hysterically. ‘My husband is here, you know!’

He glanced at the paperweight. ‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you.’

If this
was
a burglar, he was the best-looking one Vanessa had ever seen. A second improbable thought quickly followed.
Of all the days not to put on make-up …

‘So shall I ask him about gardening work then?’ the stranger asked.

She put the paperweight down on the worktop, within reach for safe measure. ‘I’m sorry?’

‘I’m here about gardening work,’ the man repeated. His voice was mellow, almost musical in its quality. Vanessa couldn’t stop staring at him. His face was framed by a halo of thick, black unruly curls that made him look like a fallen cherub. She put him in his late twenties, with the crinkles and laughter lines of someone who spent a lot of time outdoors.

‘Has Tamzin sent you?’ she asked.

‘Who’s Tamzin?’

‘My PA, she’s recruiting for me at the moment.’ Her earlier fright had made Vanessa’s voice shrill. ‘Why didn’t you use the intercom?’

‘The gates were open.’

‘They were? Oh.’ She swallowed. ‘My husband must have forgotten to shut them when he left.’

He surveyed her with a hint of amusement. ‘I thought you said your husband was in?’

‘He is. I mean he was. He’s, er, gone out.’ Vanessa trailed off. He really had the most unusual eyes, a silvery, iridescent colour. She wondered if he might be a Romany gypsy.

The man held his hand out. ‘Dylan Goldhawk.’

‘Vanessa Powell.’ She felt the rough calloused palm against hers and snatched her hand back.

‘Are you local?’ she asked.

‘I’ve just moved into the area.’ He looked at her curiously. She realized her eyes must be red. ‘Allergies,’ she said curtly. She jumped as Sukie brushed past her ankles and headed straight for Dylan. He bent down and put a tanned hand on the dog’s tiny head.

‘Hello, mouse. My dog would eat you for breakfast.’

‘Her name is Sukie,’ Vanessa said pointedly. ‘And I do hope you haven’t brought your dog on to the premises.’

‘Don’t worry, he’s in the van.’ Dylan grinned. He seemed to be in no hurry to go anywhere. She felt completely out of her comfort zone.

‘As it happens we are looking for someone on a temporary basis. Do you have any references?’

‘Nope.’

‘No? So you just turn up at people’s houses and offer your services?’

‘If you’re not happy with what I do don’t pay me,’ he said simply. ‘I’ve never had any dissatisfied customers before.’

The businesswoman in Vanessa winced. ‘You’d better give me your mobile number, then.’

‘I don’t have one.’

Vanessa slept with her BlackBerry virtually clamped on her ear. ‘You don’t have a mobile phone?’

Dylan gave an easy grin. ‘I’ve obviously caught you at a bad time. Why don’t I come back in a few days when you’ve had a chance to think about it?’

‘You can’t just turn up, I could be out!’ Had he never heard of a schedule before?

‘So I’ll leave a message.’ He gave her a crooked smile that showed off surprisingly white teeth. ‘Nice to meet you, Vanessa.’

‘Goodbye, Mr Goldhawk,’ she said formally.

‘See you, Mrs Powell.’