No rent. No car. No entertaining. Without that, a fancy suit became affordable, even on mediocre money.
Lira thought harder. OK, let’s work this out, she told herself, trying to stay calm. Rupert’s .job, before he was fired, would have given him a good salary, because firms didn’t give employees sensational corporate apartments if they weren’t getting paid at top level. So where had Rupert’s money gone? He had next to no expenses.
Lawyers, said the little voice in her head relentlessly.
That was why Rupert had gone to England. He had that thing he called a ‘little legal problem’. Something about a house. And maybe the case had not gone as well as he had hoped - lasted longer, and taken more money. Otherwise why would he have come to her for cash for the new business? Which, she remembered, she had been pretty unimpressed by. But Rupert had reassured her, becatse he’d managed
to poach all those clients from Benson Bailey.
Well, he said he had.
Lita shivered in her warm robe. She shook her head to clear all the bad thoughts. Yes, this was a mess, but she’d o back to her parents’ tomorrow, call her bank and figure it out.
She ordered room service. Roast duck, new potatoes, string beans and halfa bottle of red wine. What she really needed to do was to talk to Rupert and sort out the whole mess. The wine relaxed her, and Lita climbed into her soft, warm bed and drifted off to sleep.
But her last thought was that she had no way to track Rupert down.
Lita woke early, checked out and took a cab out to Queens. Her father
was home; he told her Mama was out shopping for dinner.
‘He left you, baby?’
Lita nodded. ‘I think it’s some kind of mistake, Pappy.’
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‘It ain’t. He wasn’t our kind of people, Lita. I knew he was a bum when I first saw him.’
Lita smiled. ‘Whatever else he was, he wasn’t a bum.’
‘He sure was,’ her father said stoutly. ‘The kind of guy that skips out on the fare. Seen his kind a thousand times.’
The smile vanished. ‘Pappy, I need to use the phone.’
‘Use it all you want. You paid for it,’ her father said.
Lira put her cases in the hall and dialled her bank manager.
‘How nice to hear from you again, Miss Morales,’ Paul Wilson said. He had acquired a great respect for his young client’s financial acumen over the past eighteen months. And who wouldn’t enjoy having a foxy young model as a client? All his colleagues were totally jealous of him.
‘Good morning, Mr Wilson. I have a question about my balances.’
‘Yes. We had noticed the unusual activity on the account. We’re
hoping to get a lot of your business back shortly.’
Lita felt the perspiration dew across her brow.
‘Exactly how much do I have left in the accounts with you?’
‘Let me see now.’ She heard him rustling through some papers. ‘I make it seven thousand.’
‘Seven thousand dollars?’ Lita repeated blankly.
He heard the dismay in her voice. ‘There’s nothing irregular, is there? We have been transferring the money to the company account as per your written instructions.”
‘No, that’s quite correct.’ Lita’s pride came rushing back to save her. She was half in shock. ‘However, I do want to cancel that order now. I think we’ve transferred enough across.’
‘I’d say so. Almost three hunttred thousand dollars.’
‘Right,’ Lita said faintly.
She steadied herself against the wall.
‘Is there anything else we can help you with today? That standing order is cancelled.’
‘No, thank you. Have a good day.’
Lita hung up. She wanted to rush to the bathroom and throw up. Her
father came and stood in front of her.
‘Is something wrong, querida?’
‘Nothing, Pappy. I’m getting the flu maybe.’ It was a lie and she
knew he wasn’t buying it. ‘Everything’s gonna be fine.’
‘If you say so, Lira.’
Lita hugged her mother when she came back and fended off her excited questions about P, upert. She washed and chopped vegetables for the salad and helped Mama fix chicken cutlets for dinner. Chico wasn’t around, a small blessing.
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‘How long are you staying for, honey?’
‘Just a few days. I have to take a business trip to England. I wanted to leave my stuff here if that’s OK.’
‘Why don’t you leave it with the lord?’
Lita sighed, looking at her mother’s bright, expectant face. Getting out of the garment store had peeled back some of the years that no money and no hope had added to her skin. She hated the thought of disappointing this woman.
‘Mama, me and Rupert are having some troubles right now. I can’t leave my things with him.’
Her mother looked horrified. ‘Lita, honey. You aren’t leaving him, are you? That wouldn’t be right.’
‘No, I’m not leaving him,’ Lita said, grateful to be telling the truth for once. ‘I’ll let you know what happens, OK?’
‘OK,’ Maria said suspiciously, glancing at Lita’s left hand to check that her engagement ring was still glittering there.
Lita ate her mother’s tough chicken with every appearance of enjoyment, but she was restless. She slept fitfully in the guest bedroom and didn’t bother to unpack. She could take her clothes with her to England.
Rupert had better have a good explanation for this.
Lita’s father insisted on driving her to the airport.
‘Of course you’re not gonna call a cab. What am I? I didn’t forget
how to drive in one year.’ ‘ ‘I know you didn’t, Pappy.’ ‘So, what time’s your flight?’
‘Twelve o’clock,’ Lita lied. She didn’t have the money to blow on a first-class seat. She was gonna need to wait at the standby desk for as long as it took.
He dropped her off at the kerb with a dark look. ‘Lita, don’t believe
anything that boy tells you till you seen the proof. Promise?’
‘I promise.’
‘Sometimes parents aren’t as dumb as they look to teenagers,’ Pappy said sternly, then drove off.
Lita thought about that as she walked up to the standby desks to see what her chances were. A teenager. She was one; she had almost forgotten it, with the pressure of her career, and the relationship, and moving out. But she was a teenager,’ and she had fallen for a pretty face just like any young girl with a crush on a rock star.
She refused to let herself believe it could be that simple. How could lupert have spent her three hundred thousand? He had invested it in
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the business, and she owned part of that business. So if the worst came to the worst, she could get it back. Just like she could get him back. He said it wasn’t working out between them, but what did that mean, really? She could make it work. She knew she could.
The Pan Am ticket seller smiled politely at her and told her he had one seat available. It was in the centre of a row, and it was for the redeye overnight. She would be cramped and blocked in and exhausted. Lita took it. She had no choice.
When she landed in London, there was a small booth with a list of hotels. She booked one of the cheapest ones she could find. It took two and a half hours to get through the morning traffic into town. It was Lita’s first time in Europe, but she was so shattered she didn’t even look around her. The hotel was in Lancaster Gate, and it was depressing cramped little rooms with ugly patterned wallpaper and a shared bathroom at the end of the hall. She didn’t even bother taking a shower, just tugged the thin curtains closed, crawled into bed and fell into a sluggish twilight sleep. The tooting horus and rush of cars outside might have kept her awake, but Lita was from the Bronx. She was used to it.
She woke up at three p.m., and the sun was already setting outside. It was chilly even inside her room. Lita took the small, scratchy towel the hotel provided, padded down the hall and took a long bath, washing her hair and body, making herself clean. She had no idea where to start looking for Rupert, but if she found him, she wanted to look good. She got changed into her black leather pants and cashmere poloneck, blasted her hair dry, made herself up liffhtly and went downstairs.
The clerk at reception blinked. This chick was nothing like the girl who had checked in. Without the dirty hair and the bags under her eyes, she was a stunner.
‘Yes, miss?’ he said hopefully.
Lita gave him one of her most melting smiles. ‘I need some help, but I’m not sure exactly what to ask for.’
Good. Maybe she would stay at his desk a little longer. Look at that rack, he thought. Was she a hooker? Naw, couldn’t be … too rich looking. And not hopeless enough, although there was a slight desperation about her.
Pity. He might have stumped up the fee for a pie:e of that. ‘Why don’t you tell me and I’ll see if I can ‘elp.’
‘I need to track somebody down, but I don’t know where they live.’
‘Phone directory,’ he said brightly. Yanks - didn’t know they’re born, did they?
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She shook her head. Her shiny hair bounced around like in a shampoo commercial.
‘lie’s got quite a common name. Lancaster. But he’s a lord. A baron, I guess. Lord Lancaster. And I don’t know that he’d have a number listed anyway.’
‘You could try the House of Lords. But I don’t rink they let people in. No … wait. There’s a book that lists all the dukes and that. Lords, tOO. ‘
‘What’s it called?’
‘I can’t remember. But you should go to the local library,’ he said with a rare burst of inspiration. ‘They’ll be able to help you. I’ll write down the address for you.’
‘Hey, thanks.’ Her American accent was like melted butter. He basked in the warmth of it. Maybe she’d like to stop looking for that
lord and go out with a regular bloke. Maybe he should ask her. But she was already out the door.
‘Oh, yes, madam.’ The librarian was a small woman with mousy hair and a neat navy skirt. ‘That’s Debrett’s. And you may also find him listed in Who’s Who. Let me show you. Will you be wanting to borrow the books?’
Lita shook her head. ‘I’ll just be taking notes.’
She was set up at a small reading desk with an overhead lamp. The silence was so thick it was oppressive; the flipping of the wafer-thin pages seemed very loud in there. It made Lita nervous.
She looked tupert up. And there he was, with a huge coat of arms topped by a coronet and supported by two bears with chains around their necks. Rupert, an only child, Baron Lancaster. Educated at Eton, blah, blah, blah … no university, she noticed … Family seat … That was it, right, the house? Fairfield Court, Shropshire. Where was that? She could look it up. Lita wrote it down. London clubs … the Shooter’s … that was worth trying, too. And a flat in Eaton Square.
Lira copied it all down carefully and got out oŁthe gloomy building as fast as she could manage. On the street outside, it had started to snow. She ducked into the nearest restaurant and ordered a steak. She had to fight the impulse to rush right over to his club in a cab and demand to see him. That wasn’t the way to go.
She ate the red meat when it came and felt the energy rush back into her. OK. Take a train to Fairfield Court? But what if he was in London? She could hardly go to his townhotise and wait for him to show up. It was too cold to do that.
She looked at her own reflection in the mirror. Yeah, she looked good, but she also looked hip. This was not the way to storm the citadel.
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She knew Rupert’s friends.., stiff-assedjerks, all of them. And this was his world.
Back at the hotel, Lira examined her case carefully. She had packed everything between sheets of tissue paper so that it didn’t crease, and that effort paid off for her now. She had a beautiful, below-the-knee pink tweed Chanel suit, the string of pearls he’d picked up for her at Cartier and her fur. She paired them with low heels from Dior in pink
leather with little gold buckles, and swept up her hair into a severe bun. Perfect.
Lira waited until the clock hit eight, then took a cab down to the West End. The club was exactly what she had expected - discreet, with a small brass plaque outside and a door with ornate cast-iron bars carved into lions’ heads. Lita waited for the liveried doorman to open the door to admit her, politely touching his cap. She swept in without even looking at him.
‘Yes, madam?’ asked the man at reception.
There was no challenge in his tone. Lira congratulated herselt she looked like she belonged.
‘My name is …’ Quick, think of something rich and anglo. ‘Elizabeth—’ well, it was good enough for the Queen, wasn’t it? ‘ Astor. I’m meeting Lord Lancaster for dinner.’
‘Certainly, Miss Astor.’ He riffled through his little book. ‘Ah - I don’t see your name …’
Lita sighed. ‘Good Lord. R.upert’s so forgetful. He is here at least, isn’t he?’
He consulted another book. ‘I’m awfully sorry, madam, but I don’t think so.’
Lira pouted.
He was only huInan. ‘You could probably find him at Miss Lancaster’s residence in the country if you called, madam. Fairfield Court. I believe he mentioned last week that he was going up there for a birthday ball.’
Lita snapped her fingers. ‘Silly boy. And not even a phone call. Well, thank you, you’ve been most kind.’
‘My pleasure, madam,’ the man said, signalling to the doorman to show her out.
That Rupert Lancaster is one lucky bastard, he thought enviously. Lira waited while the doorman flagged her down a taxi,’then tipped him. She waited until the door had closed behind her before letting herself start to grin.
Tomorrow she would go back to the library, find this Fairfield Court
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and get the train there. And then she’d speak to Rupert, and it would all be sorted out.
She had to believe that.
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Becky woke early and smiled.
Despite the warmth of the goose-down comforter on her bed and the cold of her room, she jumped out of the sheets. Her cousins had given her a cashmere robe to take to England, and she wrapped herself in it and walked to her bay window. The lead-panelled glass looked out over the terraced lawn going down to the large lily pond. It was just as though there had been no party. The marquee had been cleared away, the candles and torches were gone from the terrace. In strike-ridden Britain, she’d got exceptional service by simply paying the workers more money.