Fast Friends (44 page)

‘
You’re terrifying the
money out of their pockets,’ said
Camilla with affection. "They’re
all scared to death of you.’

‘
Good,’ said Loulou, shaking her bucket once more. ‘That
means more
money. Have you seen Roz yet?’

‘
Is she here?’ Camilla
knew that Loulou had invited her and
the
news had made her edgy, but she was determined not to
allow it to spoil her enjoyment of the evening.
There was, after
all, no longer anything Roz could do to hurt her.

‘I haven’t seen her,’ replied Loulou, deftly sorting chips
into even piles, ‘but she told me she would definitely be coming. It’s
the first time she’s been out since Nicolette died,
so we’ll have
to look after her.’

‘Mmm,’ said Camilla non-committally. Writing to Roz to
express her sympathies had been one thing; somehow
she
couldn’t imagine herself looking after her. That was a different
matter entirely.

‘
Lena,’ Loulou called
out, waving a slender arm in the air,
‘can you come and take over? I’m
going to mingle and help everyone lose all their money. Where’s Mac?’

‘
Helping everyone lose
all their money,’ said Lena, sliding
into Loulou’s seat. ‘And a girl
called Poppy’s just come in. She wondered where you were.’

‘Poppy!’ Loulou exclaimed, clapping her hands. "That’s
great. But how could she possibly have missed me – aren’t I the fattest woman
in here?’

‘
The second fattest,’
observed Matt, appearing at Camilla’s
side
and helping Loulou through the gap between her seat
and the table. "There’s an enormous opera
singer playing blackjack. I swear she’s sitting on three chairs pushed to
gether.’

‘Thank you, Matt,’ said Loulou gravely. ‘In fact I only
invited her because she makes me feel positively sylphlike.’

* * *

‘
Bloody hell,’
declared Poppy, when Loulou found her at the
bar with Jamie, the boyfriend who had
unwittingly caused so
much trouble at the Easter Ball. ‘A lot can certainly happen to
a girl in nine months, darling.’

‘More than you think,’ said Loulou as she leant forward
and
kissed her. ‘It’s lovely to see you
again. I didn’t even know if
you’d remember who I was.’

‘It was a memorable night,’ Poppy laughed. ‘Jamie and I
are married now, and I’ve already spotted your gorgeous man here. Have you two
tied the knot?’

‘Still unravelling the old one,’ whispered Loulou. ‘It’s
all a bit
complicated, but I’m very happy and
that’s what matters at
the moment. I’ve
got to say hello to a few people but I’ll join
you in a minute. We’ll have a good gossip, and this time it
won’t
be in the ladies’ loo.’

Camilla, having bet cautiously at the
roulette table and lost
whilst Matt consistently piled chips on single numbers and
won, paused to take a drink and saw
Roz arrive. The chilled
wine froze
in her throat as she realized who was with her.

Jack.

And Roz certainly didn’t appear as if
she needed looking
after.
Her short dark hair was spikily elegant, her gypsyish
eyes heavy with make-up. Impossibly slender in a plunging,
emerald green satin dress that shimmered with
a life of its
own, she sauntered on Jack’s arm through the mass of
people,
flashing her crimson and white smile
at faces she recognized
and graciously
acknowledging their greetings as she passed
them. The news of Nicolette’s tragic death had been well publicized in
the Press and Roz had received the public’s
sympathy. Exonerated for her
‘sins’ of just a few months ago
she had been
forgiven and welcomed back to the charmed
celebrity fold. And since she was no longer a single mother
her job had been returned to her and her new TV
series,
Camilla had read, was about to go into production.

Well, she thought with a trace of
bitterness, Roz certainly didn’t look like a grieving mother tonight. And she
was back
with Jack. It was like
a cruel, double betrayal.

Jack, she had to admit, was also looking good. Following
the
break-up of their marriage he had put on
a fair amount of
weight which hadn’t suited him. She had seen him from
time to time since then, of course, when she was picking up the children or
when he dropped them off to her but now, dressed in a well-
tailored dinner-jacket and with his light brown
hair combed
severely back from his face she realized that he had
improved a
lot in the last few months. The
extra weight was gone and he
had a
good tan. And he certainly looked happy enough to be
here with Roz
tonight.

Selfish lover, unfaithful husband,
deceitful man, she told
herself, deciding that she didn’t want to speak to him tonight
and reaching for the reassuring
contact of Matt’s hand. He
turned and
winked at her. Jack bothered him not at all.

‘We’re doing pretty well, sweetheart. Fancy a holiday in
Barbados?’

‘
Lovely,’ said Camilla,
relaxing and squeezing his warm
hand,
the realization of how little either Jack or Roz now
mattered to her
flooding through her like a drug. ‘But whoever would I choose to take with me?’

’Who on earth is that?’ she whispered
to Loulou half an hour
later, as a man standing a few feet away turned and stared
coldly at them for several seconds without smiling. Then,
with
slow deliberation, he turned away once
more, resuming his
scrutiny of the
roulette table at which Matt was still amassing
vast quantities of
chips.

‘
Laszlo de Lazzari,’
said Loulou loudly and with mild
contempt.
‘He’s a mean bastard, but loaded. I’m amazed he
even turned up.’

‘Sinister,’ observed Camilla with a shiver. The man was
tall,
fortyish, elegantly constructed and
immaculately dressed, but
his face was decidedly piratical. A black
eye-patch covered his
right eye. His thick
black hair was shot through with silver and
his cheekbones were twin scimitars, incredibly prominent and
as
sharply defined as the hard, uncurving line of his mouth. His large nose was
Roman in design and when he lifted his glass to
drink, Camilla saw that he was wearing the largest diamond
ring
she had ever seen.

‘Italian?’ she asked, wondering why such an openly hostile
stare had been directed towards them. Loulou shrugged. ‘God knows, but it’s a
dangerous mixture. If you value your virginity, keep away from him. I wish Nico
could have been here tonight,’ she said, changing the subject. ‘I hope he gets
back from Italy
before I drop the lump. Did I
tell you that he’s going to be
godfather?’

Camilla
smiled. ‘He’ll spoil it to pieces.’

‘
That’s why I need a sensible godmother to make sure my
child doesn’t
end up a complete brat. Did I tell you, by the way,
who I wanted to be godmother?’ Wincing slightly, she placed
her
hand over her stomach as the baby kicked out.

‘
No.’ Camilla had assumed she would choose Roz.
‘You. If you’d like to be, of course.’

‘
Oh Lou . . .’ So overwhelmed by the compliment that
she
could hardly speak, Camilla embraced her friend. ‘I’d love to.’

* * *

 
Laszlo de Lazzari was definitely a man to be wary of,
Camilla
decided as she watched him at the
roulette table. During the
course of
the evening she had caught him favouring Loulou
with several more of those intimidatingly icy stares. Now he
was
betting heavily, and winning.

His one visible eye, she realized,
was of the shade which
under any
other circumstances she would have described as
baby-blue. Instead she shivered inwardly at the unblinking
intensity of that steadfast gaze and could only
liken it to the
deadly eye of a cobra.

Matt, seated opposite him, roared with laughter whenever
he lost a bet, but de Lazzari remained virtually silent throughout,
ignoring the spinning wheel, moving only to place
and replace
his chips after each game.

By eleven fifty-five they had roughly equal numbers of
chips and everyone who had long ago lost theirs was crowding around the table
to watch the game.

Finally,
Laszlo de Lazzari spoke.

‘
You are
clearly a gambling man of good fortune and good
humour,’ he announced, addressing Matt. ‘Would it not be
interesting to settle the game on a single spin of
the wheel?
Rouge or noir. You may choose your colour, sir.’

Camilla, standing behind Matt,
watched her fingers dig into
the
shoulder of his dinner-jacket and heard him drawl with lazy amusement, ‘Sure.
Why not?’ as if the man had offered nothing more than a cigarette.

The atmosphere grew tense. Camilla
held her breath. With
an economical gesture de Lazzari indicated that Matt should
make his choice of colour and Matt in turn twisted round
in his seat to smile at Camilla and lightly run his finger over the crimson
silk taffeta of her dress. Across the room she was aware
of Jack’s eyes upon her and determinedly didn’t
look back at
him.

‘My lady is wearing red,’ said Matt, slipping his aim
around
her waist and drawing her against
him, ‘so I guess that’s what
I’ll go for. Will you spin the wheel, Lou?’

‘With pleasure. Good luck, Matt,’ she said, flashing a
look of disdain in de Lazzari’s direction. ‘Here we go.’

Two hundred and fifty people held their breath as the
winner
of the evening’s prize was decided by
a small, spinning,
clattering silver ball racing around inside a wheel.
Loulou stared
at it, utterly mesmerized.
Camilla closed her eyes. Matt winked
at one of the journalists balancing
precariously on a chair at the
back of the
room and said, ‘Bernie, are you
sure
you want to be
a tightrope
walker when you grow up?’

De Lazzari, for the first time that
evening, watched the
wheel turn.

The ball slowed, skipped, jumped and
finally settled.
Everyone
in the room exhaled in unison. Camilla opened her
eyes.

‘
I guess you should
have worn your black dress tonight,
honey,’
said Matt, giving her waist a squeeze. ‘Never mind.
Maybe we can afford
a weekend in Yorkshire instead.’

‘My game, I believe,’ commented de Lazzari, his
inscrutable blue eye fixing upon Loulou and ignoring Matt totally. ‘But I would
be happy to play another, Miss Marks. With you.’

‘
You don’t say,’ she
replied shortly. ‘I know you’re new to
this country, Mr de Lazzari, but
you really should know that we don’t play those sort of games over here.’

‘Not even for your beloved charity?’ he questioned, his
voice dry with irony. ‘Come, come, my dear. I wonder how concerned
you really are beneath your charmingly benevolent
facade.
Double or nothing, that is my proposal. For two wealthy people
such as ourselves the risk is hardly –’

‘OK,’ blurted out Loulou, her fists clenched at her sides,
her
breasts rising and falling with each
breath. ‘OK, we’ll play.
Double or nothing. That’s ten grand.’

‘She must be mad,’ muttered Mac, appearing beside Camilla
and Matt. ‘Lou’s the worst gambler in the world.
Every horse
she’s ever laid a bet on in her life has run backwards.’

Matt grinned, attempting to lighten
the atmosphere. ‘Well,
she’s
playing with a dark horse now, that’s for sure.’