Rivals (40 page)

    Slowly Cameron was taking in the beauty of the room, registering the Romney, the Gainsborough, the Stubbs and the Lely on the pale-yellow walls. Determined not to be impressed, she asked almost too aggressively, 'How can you possibly live on your own in this great barn?'

    'I don't,' said Rupert. 'I've got Mr and Mrs Bodkin who look after me, and the children are often here at weekends, and there's - er - usually a house guest.' I asked for that, thought Cameron, biting her lip.

    'Don't worry.' Rupert read her thoughts. 'In order not to besmirch the memory of our last blessed encounter, I've been holding my own ever since. I suppose you've been sating yourself on Lord B?' 'Much less than before,' said Cameron quickly.

    The grandfather clock struck midnight.

    'D'you know what day it is now?' asked Rupert.

    '1st May,' said Cameron, glancing at her Rolex.

    'D'you know our local poem?' said Rupert, grinning and putting on a Gloucestershire accent:

    First of May, first of May, Outdoor fucking starts today. But as usual it do rain. So we fucks off indoors again.

    As he moved towards her he stopped, smiling. 'Will it be too cold for you outside?'

    'Not if you keep me warm,' whispered Cameron.

    Outside under the moonlit magnolia he took off her clothes, slowly kissing her all over where each garment had been, until she was squirming and helpless with desire. She could feel the dew-drenched lawn under her back. Rupert's cock was really incredible. As he slid inside her, she felt all the amazed joy of a canal lock suddenly finding it can accommodate the QE2.

    When she made love to Tony, she always shut her eyes. She didn't want to see the uncharacteristically untidy hair, the bulging eyes, the clenched teeth, the veins knotting on

    his forehead as he came. She liked him sleek and in control. With Rupert she kept her eyes open all the time because he was the stuff of fantasy, and because she didn't want to miss a second.

    Deciding the ground was too hard for her, he later insisted she went on top.

    'You're so beautiful,' he said, watching her transported maenad face, ghostly in the moonlight.

    Lousy at accepting compliments, Cameron had to joke. 'Didn't your mother tell you off for lying on the grass?'

    'I'm not lying,' said Rupert, arching his back up into her. 'I'm telling the truth.'

    As Cameron opened, so did the heavens.

    'But as usual it do rain,' murmured Rupert, moving in and out of her. 'D'you want to fuck off inside again?'

    'Not for ages,' gasped Cameron. 'At least it'll wash off the sweat.'

    She woke in Rupert's huge Jacobean four-poster to find him gone and a note beside the bed saying he was doing a morning surgery at his constituency and would be back around lunchtime.

    Looking round the beautiful room with its peachy walls, corn-coloured carpet, yellow-and-pink-striped silk curtains on the four-poster and at the windows, and rose-pink silk chaise-longue, Cameron felt she was waking in the middle of a sunrise. It was an incredibly feminine room for a man. Then she remembered the pale-blue hall and the pale-yellow drawing-room, and decided it must all be Helen's taste. On the dressing table, amid Rupert's clutter of betting slips, silver-backed brushes, cigar packets and loose change, were photographs of his children. The girl, exactly like Rupert, had the same arrogant blue-eyed stare; the boy had very dark red hair and large dark wary eyes. Having met Rupert's pack last night, Cameron felt seven step-dogs might be an easier proposition to take on than two step-children. Helen must have been spectacular to produce kids like that. Mad on sight-seeing, she was plainly a sight herself.

    Outside, through a frame of rampant, budding clematis, lay the valley, pale green except for the occasional wild cherry tree in flower, or the blackthorn breaking in white waves over the hedgerows. From an ash grove by the lake she could hear the haunting, sweet cry of the cuckoo. How could Helen have walked out on such a view and such a man?

    Having showered and dressed,.Cameron went downstairs. The dogs lying in the hall thumped their tails and followed her into the kitchen. There the housekeeper, Mrs Bodkin, was friendly but unfazed by her presence. Perhaps, like people in trains, she could afford to be friendly, knowing Cameron wouldn't be in situ for long. She mustn't get jealous and paranoid. Tony was turned on by rows. Rupert, she suspected, would be bored, and walk away from them.

    She took some orange juice and coffee out onto the terrace. That must be Declan's house across the valley, still just visible through the thickening beech wood.

    She wondered what he'd been up to since his fall from grace. How strange that on 1st January with Patrick she'd looked across at Rupert's house and thought, What a kingdom, and now, four months later, here she was.

    She stopped only briefly to glance at the library and the first editions, which could be examined at length on a less lovely morning, then set out with the dogs to explore. There was a wonderful untamed beauty, rather like Maud O'Hara, about the garden. Green leaves were uncurling on the tangled old roses, the peacocks and crowing cocks once clipped out of the yew hedges were looking distinctly shaggy. The swimming-pool was full of leaves, the beech hedge round the tennis court was in need of a cut, the lawns dotted with daisies were still lit along the edges by pools of dying daffodils. Rupert and this place need a woman, thought Cameron, to cherish and sort them out.

    The stables, on the other hand, were immaculate, and filled with beautiful, well-muscled horses. More horses were out in the fields. The girl grooms treated Cameron with the same we've-seen-them-all-come-and-go politeness displayed by Mrs Bodkin.

    I'll show them, thought Cameron, as she set out through the beech woods. I'm the one who's going to hang in.

    The ground was still carpeted with bluebells. Only when she pressed her face close could she distinguish their faint sweet hyacinth scent from the rank sexy stench of the wild garlic. The dogs charged ahead, but the shaggy lurcher called Blue kept bounding back solicitously to check she was all right, shoving his wet nose in her hand, giving her a token lick. It was all so beautiful; she had never felt so happy or so right anywhere.

    She had wandered for a mile or two when suddenly she breathed in a sticky, sweet familiar scent that made her tremble. Ahead, a copse of poplars, rising like flaming amber swords, was wafting balsam down the woodland ride towards her, evoking the times she used to inhale Friar's Balsam under a towel as a child, reminding her all too violently of her mother and Mike. Instantly her euphoria evaporated. She glanced at her watch. It was half past twelve. She must get back. Grey clouds were creeping over the sun; it had become much cooler. She even felt a spot of rain. As she dropped down the wood towards the house an owl hooted. Surely it shouldn't hoot at midday? Through the trees she could see the lake grey and blank now as a smudged mirror, and as she reached the big lawn she gave a moan of horror. Last night's deluge had stripped all the petals from the magnolia, scattering them over the grass. Last night's bride was naked now.

    The dogs converged, barking, as a car drew up at the front door. Cameron hoped it was Rupert, but it turned out to be a youth delivering some boxes of T-shirts, who gazed at Cameron in admiration.

    'This is the first lot. Mr C-B wanted them in a hurry,' he said. 'Tell him the stickers, the posters and the badges'll be ready by Monday.'

    Cameron couldn't resist having a look. The T-shirts were a beautiful cerulean blue, with a dark bronze drawing of a boy shading his forehead on the front and the words Support Venturer on the front and the back. They must be for some sporting event. Taking one upstairs, Cameron stripped off and put it on. It fell just below her bush. Suddenly feeling incredibly randy, she hoped Rupert hadn't got anything planned for the afternoon. As it was much colder, she shut the window, trapping a tendril of clematis which was already wilting and bruised from being trapped on previous occasions. Trying to insinuate its way into-Rupert's bedroom, like her and every other woman, thought Cameron wryly.

    Next minute the front door banged. Very slowly she walked downstairs. Rupert was looking at the boxes in the hall.

    'They're great,' she said. 'Can I keep one?'

    Rupert glanced up and froze for a second.

    'Hullo, angel. Did you sleep well?'

    'So well,' murmured Cameron seductively, 'that I'm ready to be exhausted again.' She lifted the T-shirt to show him her bush. Then, when he didn't react as she'd expected and come bounding up the stairs, she said, 'What is Venturer, anyway?'

    Rupert's eyes seemed to have gone a darker, more opaque shade of blue and lost all their sparkle. 'Come and have a drink,' he said.

    Disappointed, Cameron followed him into the drawing-room. Suddenly he seemed incredibly tense and, when she refused a drink, poured himself two fingers of neat whisky and drank it in one gulp. Then he pulled her down on to the sofa beside him.

    'Look, sweetheart, this is a bit difficult, but there's something I've got to tell you.'

    Cameron went white. Suddenly in that baggy T-shirt, she looked as fragile, pale and defenceless as one of the anemones that strewed the paths of Rupert's woods.

    'You want to pack me in?' she whispered.

    'No, no, quite the reverse.' Very gently he smoothed a tendril of dark hair behind her ear and stroked her rigid, quivering cheek.

    'But you may want to pack me in. Freddie Jones, Declan and I are pitching for the Corinium franchise. We've called ourselves Venturer.'

    At first she was so relieved that he wasn't trying to end the relationship she couldn't think straight.

    'You and Declan? How long has this been going on?'

    'Since the day after Declan walked out.'

    'So turning up in Madrid wasn't only to see a football match?'

    'No.'

    'Or showing such interest in my career and the goings on at Corinium?'

    'No.'

    'Did you read the application in my briefcase?'

    'I photostated it.'

    She was trembling violently now and her lips were quite white.

    'Don't worry,' he reassured her. 'Declan was so appalled by my skulduggery he refused to read it; so we haven't pinched anything.'

    'And I suppose you arranged those riots as an excuse to fly straight home once you'd got what you wanted?'

    'Uh-uh,' protested Rupert. Two stabbed cops, twenty-five people injured and a burnt-down stand is going too far even for me.'

    'But driving down to see me before I flew out to LA and all those questions you asked me? Did you give that "Stowaway" story to Dempster?'

    Rupert nodded. Truth, however devastating, was the only answer now.

    'And, Christ, how much have I already told you this weekend?' whispered Cameron, looking at her watch. 'And our application's already gone in.'

    Rupert had expected rage, tantrums, having his face clawed, but not this numb state of shock.

    "I trusted you,' she said slowly. 'You're the first person I've trusted since I was fourteen. I thought you were so caring, you bloody Judas. This is the worst thing that's ever happened to me.'

    'It isn't as awful as it seems,' said Rupert soothingly. 'I thought you were the sexiest thing on two legs the moment

    I saw you. Didn't I offer you a lift home after Valerie's dinner party? I would have moved in both at Declan's party, if young Patrick hadn't been making the running, and at Corinium, if Tony hadn't been hanging about. If I hadn't fancied you to death, I'd never have bothered coming out to Madrid. I wanted to level with you but I didn't know how you'd react. We couldn't afford to let you rush back to Tony and tell him everything, in case he exoceted our bid before it got off the ground.'

    Cameron leapt to her feet, tugging down the T-shirt. 'And I figured you were really interested in me. What a joke. I know how Declan detests me. He must have cracked up, and I suppose Patrick and that dumbass Taggie were in on it too. Christ, you must have been all laughing yourselves sick.'

    She was crying now angry,

    agonized rasping tears, and Rupert suddenly appreciated her terrible insecurity, her paranoia, her vulnerability and her terror; for the first time his heart was truly touched by her. Getting up, he tried to take her in his arms and comfort her.

    'Angel, you've got it wrong. No one's laughing at you. I want you, I absolutely adore you. We all want you to join Venturer. We were just picking our moment. We've got an absolutely alpha line-up, but you'd be the jewel in our crown, and you'd be totally free to make the programmes you wanted.'

    'Get out of my way!' screamed Cameron. 'I hate you! I never want to see you again!' And, diving under his outstretched arms, she bolted out of the door.

    Rupert had never felt such a shit in his life. She'll have to get her clothes and her suitcase from upstairs, he thought; I can cut her off on her way downstairs. But Cameron shot straight out of the front door, and next moment he heard the wheels of the Lotus crunching on the gravel. Tony was probably still on his way down from London and Cameron couldn't rage round to The Falconry in nothing but that T-shirt, but she'd be on to him on the telephone in a flash. The early-warning system had gone off. It was just a matter of time before the H-bomb landed.