Those Wicked Pleasures (3 page)

Elizabeth and her mother joined their audience and accepted tall glasses of Tom Collins, Emily’s favourite after-tennis drink, along with praise for their game. It
was Lara’s mother who was the first to see the change in her. It must have been marked because she commented on it immediately.

‘Lara, how very grown-up you have become recently. A young woman, no longer our girl.’ All eyes were on her. Her father stepped away a few paces. She wanted to run back into his arms. Her mother did not give up. ‘You seem suddenly to have blossomed into such an attractive young thing. Not our baby any more. Oh dear, I suppose we will have to do something about that. Coming out, a summer ball, take you around a bit.’

Lara felt resentful at her mother’s tone. It made Lara seem like just another of Emily’s charities, to be organised and exploited to raise enviable amounts of money through her friends. Only in this case the aim would be to let American high society know there was a second heiress coming up the line after Elizabeth to inherit Emily’s title of Grand Dame of American high society. And the look she bestowed upon her youngest child – love? Well, maybe, but certainly an arm’s length kind of love, the sort where nannies and chauffeurs and private schools fill the breach. The kind where brothers and sisters rather than Mama are enrolled to love baby.

Will Mama ever give me the same kind of proud, loving glances she delivers on cue to my brothers, and to Elizabeth, her first-born and favourite? That same old niggling question. All her life she had heard her mother’s: ‘Baby demands too much attention.’ ‘Spoilt with love is our baby.’ ‘Too vain. Too self-centred.’ Well, maybe so, Mama, but I’m not a patch on you. And Lara wondered what her mother’s secret was. Everyone loved or adored or was afraid of Emily Dean Stanton. Even Lara.

She heard her sister say, ‘You can count on us for the London Season, can’t she, Jeremy? Oh, what fun.’

Now she felt even more like a cause the two women
were taking up. All eyes were on the game again, including Lara’s. Reversion to the family mania: competitive tennis. But the game could not hold her attention; her sexual need dominated all else. She went to sit next to her brother Max. They looked at each other and smiled. ‘I’m always so happy when you’re home, Max.’ She gave him a huge hug, and felt tears of relief at having a man’s arm around her, returning her affection, but she held them back.

Max ruffled her hair. ‘You do seem different, Baby. Mom is right about that.’

Albert, the butler, announced tea was served in the roof-top pavilion. Somehow motherly authority managed to call a halt to the game in progress. In the pavilion they were treated to a sumptuous spread of cucumber sandwiches: small squares of luscious buttered brown bread, cut slim as a leaf, with even slimmer roundels of cucumber. They melted in the mouth. Bite-size strips of devilled-ham toast: silver salvers heaped with them. Baroque French silver baskets draped in white linen napkins edged in lace proffered tea cakes, crumpets and scones to be eaten with dollops of Devonshire cream and strawberry jam. A Madeira and a coconut cake beckoned from pedestal dishes of antique Gallé glass. There were madeleines, florentines, and a Tarte Tatin, whose plump caramelised apple halves lured even the stern male competitors, outpointed for once on gastronomic delights.

The butler served tea from a Georgian silver service, a maid served coffee from another, and a third offered hot chocolate from a Queen Anne chocolate pot. To Lara, who was not feeling very happy with herself or her life, everyone seemed to be in an enviably buoyant mood. Laughter and easy charm seemed to flow around the tea table. She tried to brace herself and look objectively at
her family and their friends. They were such a happy, easy-going, handsome and vibrant group, in their casual tennis whites and cable-knit V-neck sweaters, exuding health and energy. She had to admit to herself they were all more interesting, more vital, than she was, than most of the people she knew. Lara was suddenly bored with her life. David was right, as usual. Time to go out, take a hold on the world, and find a love of her own, a sex life of her own. Everyone else in that room had done it. They must have been at some time in their lives right where she was now. They had all grown up. So would she. She felt momentarily better. There was scope for a second cup of tea, another cucumber sandwich.

David appeared just in time to take the last slice of Tarte Tatin and offer a forkful to Lara. She almost choked on it when the twins’ father asked, ‘What have you done with my daughters, David?’

Was it her imagination or was it a look of knowing relief she saw in the faces of her brothers when David answered, ‘I’ve left them in Bergdorf’s. They claim they haven’t anything to wear for this evening.’

Everyone but Lara laughed. The twins, both married to Hong Kong millionaires, were famous for their chic. They had arrived with their father and umpteen pieces of Louis Vuitton luggage, and two maids whose sole function was to play wardrobe mistresses and dressers to the two women. Lara’s mind dwelt on Max, Steven and John and the look that had passed between them and David. Had they, too, indulged themselves in the arms of Mr Lee’s daughters? Once again, jealousy took a grip on Lara. She despised the feeling, she must not fall victim of it: she tried to shake herself free.

Why did she feel so betrayed? So deserted by the men in her family. So isolated from intimate love. Oh, if only she had not blundered into David’s room, had not seen
on his face and those of the twins the thrill of illicit sexual lust. How naive she had been about sex, its drives, its fantasies. Now she knew for certain they were not confined to her thoughts or steamy movies. They were practised by men and women as loved and respected as her own family. And amusing, beautiful women, not just hired whores.

It was Henry Stanton who snapped Lara back into the present. ‘Too bad about the Gold Cup.’ He sat down next to her, bent forward and took a scone, placed it on his plate and broke it open. Lara spooned out clotted cream from the silver bowl for him. He turned to face her and smiled. Ever since she was old enough to do so, it was their habit at tea-time for Lara to dress his scone for him. A heaped spoon of strawberry preserve topped off his favourite tea-time confection. She watched him bite into the scone. Lara loved her father, his handsomeness, his authority, his genuine kindness. He was the most powerful man she had ever met: she measured all others by him.

‘I was damned sure that yachting trophy was going to be yours this year.’ He placed his plate on the coffee table. Putting his arm around his daughter, he spoke to the others in the room. ‘This girl can outsail all the boys in the family and most of the club members, Chou, and I’m surprised that it’s not us swilling champagne from the Club’s gold cup. Well, maybe next year.’

Lara could have hugged him for not showing disappointment. Instead she was content to lean against her father. He discreetly removed his arm and drew away from her to take up his cup and saucer. At that moment Henry Garfield Stanton was not offering the affection Lara needed. Often when she looked to him for emotional support he would pull away. Yet, at other times, he could be effusive in his expressions of affection. His pride in
his younger daughter could be blatant. Recently Lara had noted that his reticence always occurred when her mother was in the room with them. It was almost as if he could love no one more than his wife.

‘Baby, you had it, you were almost there, dammit. What ever made you cut sail? There was plenty of time to go in all standing and still not crash into the dock. What made you chicken out?’ John’s questions were clouded with disappointment.

David shot him a glance of disapproval, but said nothing. Max offered, ‘Not to worry, La. You’ll take that cup next year. But I sure hope you’ve learned from your mistakes.’

It was the critical tone more than their words that hurt Lara. She remained silent but seething. When Steven said, ‘Horses are my sport, and I’ve learned in flat racing from getting pipped at the post. A yacht, a horse … it’s all the same. You have to see losing as just another lesson in how to win next time. Maybe you were just too cocksure of that cup. A touch of complacency or something like that? That’s a sure way to lose in anything. You always gotta remember, “It’s never over till the fat lady sings”, slim.’

Everyone laughed and Lara fled from the room saying, ‘Very funny. Class humour, Steven. Right now I don’t need you to remind me how inadequate I am, less than the best of you Stantons. Thanks a lot, Steve.’

David and Max were the first to arrive in her room, ostensibly to tease her into a better mood. They found her much as they had expected, angry with them and silent. ‘OK, why are you so mad with us?’ Max’s question deserved ignoring. She went to the armoire and took out a dress and shoes. She pushed past Steven who blocked her way, insisting on an answer.

‘Because I criticised you? Teased you? La, you’re being
too silly for words.’ David placed a hand on her arm. She pulled away.

She wheeled around to face David and Max, who were now sitting on the four-poster. David was casually flipping through one of her glossy magazines, Max untying the ribbon on a box of marrons glacés, a peace offering, her favourite candy. He liked to think he was always spoiling her with them.

‘No, it’s because you treat me one day like a child, and the next day expect me to be Wonderwoman. Because you desert me when I need your support and make me feel unloved and a failure. And I don’t need you to tell me how not to be a loser. And
don’t
call me La any more, or Baby. I need you to love me – Lara Victoria Stanton – for
me
. Win, draw or lose. As of today I want to be treated with respect, like a woman, even though I happen to be your younger sister.’

‘Done. You have our word on it.’ That was Steven who had been standing in the doorway during her tirade. He walked up to her and swept her off her feet and into his arms. Swinging her slowly around in a circle he added: ‘Forgive me, and all of us. It’s just that your blooming has rather crept up on us. You have to know that we love you. Ever since you were born we’ve been toting you around because we love you. I know no other sister who has been so loved and spoiled by her brothers as you have, La. Whoops, I mean Lara.’

He gave her his dazzling smile. ‘Not laughing at you, sweetheart, just getting used to seeing you as a young lady. I can’t ever remember one of us shunting you off to nanny if it was possible to include you. Remember the tour of France in Max’s little Bugatti? Your weeks in the Mali desert with David and me? When we took you, all of us, on the Nile cruise. And how many girlfriends have all of us dumped because we had you in tow and loved
you infinitely more than them? And Elizabeth, she hasn’t been an unloving sister. Seems to me it’s quite possible we have spoiled you with love.
Now say you love us
.’

Steven would not let her down until she confessed that she did. The family love-bond was in place again. Left alone, Lara thought about her day and the coming evening. All the family was assembled in the Manhattan house: Steven from his anthropological expedition in the Solomon Islands; she and her mother and father from the Long Island house, Cannonberry Chase; Elizabeth and Jeremy from London and her other brothers, Max and John, who divided their time between their corporate and foundation work and the Manhattan and Long Island residences; and David, who air-taxied himself between Manhattan and Long Island when not pursuing his political ambitions or women.

The family were all together. These were the times when Lara was happiest. Dullness was banished. The house filled with guests, friends dashing in and out. Her mother in her element, playing hostess and matriarch. Her father coolly carrying on with his own affairs and sliding everyone and everything into place to suit him.

Suddenly, because something had radically changed in Lara, she saw the events of the coming evening differently. They loomed more important than they had before. A private tour of the Met and dinner, where her family were the honoured guests; where she too, Lara Victoria Stanton, was being fêted. A gesture of thanks from the trustees of the museum for the wing to house contemporary art newly donated by the Henry Garfield Stanton family.

Emily Dean Stanton did not waste love on her daughter, Lara. It wasn’t so much that she didn’t love her, more that the child had always been difficult, demanding, too
much trouble. She had come late in Emily’s life. Had been a mistake, and an embarrassment, born to her in middle age. A difficult pregnancy, a long and painful birth, and a colicky baby, adored by Henry and her other children – no, Lara had done nothing to endear herself to her mother. From the time she had become aware of her condition, Emily had made up her mind that Lara would not disrupt her life. So the child had not been allowed to. Emily saw to that with a marvellous nanny and well-trained staff. And the family had removed much of the burden of mother-love by sharing it with her. In fact, she liked Lara, even if she didn’t love her. Lara was extremely beautiful, and intelligent, and rarely interfered with Emily’s busy schedule. Her demands, her needs, were usually answered by someone else in the family. How could a mother not like such a child?

Though child no longer, she thought, as she sat at her dressing table clasping a wide Van Cleef & Arpels diamond and emerald bracelet around her wrist. She walked to the wall-safe behind a Sargent painting of her grandmother, slid the painting aside and opened the safe. She found what she was looking for in a grey velvet box. She went to see Lara.

The door was ajar. Emily pushed it open and stood in the doorway. Her daughter was looking in the full-length mirror. ‘A penny for your thoughts? May I come in?’

‘Oh, you do look elegant, Mother.’ It was said by Lara in genuine admiration. She went to Emily and, taking her hand, led her into her room and offered her a chair. ‘You will, as always, be the most attractive woman there this evening.’

‘Thank you, dear. I do like you in that dress, white suits you. It never did me. You look suddenly very grown-up. And to think, when Elizabeth and I chose that dress
for you at Saks, we said you might be too young for it.’