Master of the House (30 page)

‘Oh, Lu.’ He put down his drink and gathered me closer, his chin on the top of my head. ‘Whatever I did to deserve you, I wish I could remember it. Did I save the planet and then have my memory cells wiped?’

‘You’re all right, Joss. We’ll be all right.’

I sat up and looked into his eyes, dark lamps of fear and love. I put my hand to his cheek.

‘If this is our last night alive …’ I whispered.

We came together in a grateful, hectic flurry of limbs and lips, clinging to each other for dear life, and it really felt like that. Dear life, a thing neither of us would take for granted tonight.

The leather and the rubber were too difficult to remove entirely, so we came to a bunched-up, tugged-down arrangement that left us bare in the essentials, if hotly, stickily clothed elsewhere. We squeaked and creaked together, desperate for the holy communion of skin on skin that our lips and tongues mimicked. Nobody ordered and nobody obeyed – this was a joint imperative. We had to have each other, then and there and without any barrier.

When I straddled him and got him inside me, it was enough and not enough. I had to have more of him, all of him, even more than he could ever possibly give.

I rode him into my soul.

Nothing less than his soul would be equal exchange. I think I had it. What I saw in his eyes when he came made me think I had it, and he must have known that he had mine. We had pounded and clawed at each other until we were messy pulp, merging into one flesh.

‘Whatever happens,’ I said, lying on his chest with my cheek on his shoulder, ‘this is more important than any of it. Us.’

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Milton put it best –’

But I cut the poetic sentiment off at its source, putting a finger to his lips. I looked down at his gleaming cheeks, his stunned eyes, his kissed-out mouth.

‘Never mind how Milton puts it. How do you put it?’

He took my finger away, kissed it, and said, ‘I love you.’

‘You put it best,’ I told him.

The DNA test results were, predictably, positive.

We were in Joss’s office, going through receipts, when Voronov called, in advance of the clinic.

‘Lethbridge, is my daughter there? Her mobile phone is switched off’ was how he chose to give the news.

‘As a matter of fact she is. I take it you’ve had the test results?’

‘Put Lucy on.’

He hit speakerphone and passed the receiver to me.

‘Why have you switched your phone off?’ A tender father-daughter moment. This seemed like the shape of things to come, I thought.

I could hardly tell him the real reason, which was that Joss and I had been shagging and I’d forgotten to switch it back on.

‘Battery’s flat,’ I lied. ‘You got the test results?’

‘Yes, positive. I am your father.’

‘Right.’

What did one say? ‘I told you so’ didn’t seem calculated to further our relationship.

‘I’m on my way to Willingham now. Tell Lethbridge to expect me. I’ll be there in half an hour.’

‘Half an hour? From London?’

‘I’m bringing the helicopter.’

‘Oh, er …’

But he’d hung up already.

I looked at Joss.

‘He’s coming here,’ I said redundantly.

‘I know. Perhaps I should make myself scarce, leave you two to it.’

‘No,’ I said, reaching for his hand. ‘I need you with me.’

Voronov was as good as his word. Half an hour later an ungodly racket swept over the Willingham rooftops, bringing with it a stiff breeze, and we ran to the morning room to watch him land the ’copter in one of the fields beyond the gardens.

Minutes later, Voronov emerged in his trademark sharp suit, waving a hand at the pilot, who was apparently to wait for him.

‘A flying visit,’ I remarked. ‘Literally.’

We stepped out of the French doors as he approached, and crossed the rose garden to meet him in the middle. It was in full bloom and intoxicating scents surrounded us. It didn’t seem right. We should be in some stuffy boardroom. Nothing bad or worrying could happen in a rose garden, could it?

‘Hello,’ I said, once he was within earshot.

‘Do you want to come in for a drink?’ offered Joss.

‘No, here will do. Bring something out to us.’

Joss, unused to being ordered about, blinked several times but turned and disappeared into the house without a murmur.

What was he going to do? I glanced nervously between him and Joss’s retreating figure. What if he spread wide his arms and expected me to run into them or something? I just couldn’t.

Luckily, this was not the tack he chose to take.

‘You must know. What’s this place worth?’ he asked, looking around him at the glorious, if slightly crumbling, façade of the Hall.

‘It was last valued, with land and other related assets, at twenty million,’ I said. ‘But it costs a fortune to run and Joss is in debt up to his eyeballs. His parents left him nothing.’

‘I’m not surprised, knowing them,’ said Voronov with a terse nod. He gazed into the middle distance for another minute or so, then switched his attention to me. ‘I’ll buy it,’ he said.

‘What?’

‘For you. For you to live in. Your house.’

‘But … it’s Joss’s.’

‘He can’t afford it. You can. Now, you can.’

‘With respect, Mr Voronov –’

‘Call me Arkady. I suppose Papa would be a little strange in the circumstances.’

‘Yes, it would,’ I said warmly. ‘With respect, Arkady, throwing money and property at me isn’t the way to make up for twenty-seven years of neglect.’

‘It’s a start, though, no? You and Karen can live here, no financial worries, everything paid for, for the rest of your lives. You don’t need to work if you don’t want to. She neither.’

‘Well, she certainly deserves a break, but I like my work, actually.’

All the same, my brain was ticking over at double speed. Wouldn’t this solve all Joss’s problems at a stroke? He could keep the house – it would just be my name on the deeds.

‘You don’t want this house, then?’

‘It’s up to Joss. It’s his.’

‘I can take care of him.’

I didn’t like the sound of that.

‘Look,’ I said. ‘Supposing I say yes …’

‘You are saying yes?’

‘I might.’

‘Say yes. It will be good, Lucy. I can visit you and Karen whenever I am in the UK, and, when I am not, I know that you are provided for. And we will restore the place. It needs a lot of work and money put into it – I can do that.’

Voronov, it was clear, was the sort of man who thought love could be bought. But why not use that to our advantage, if he was willing?

‘OK,’ I said slowly. ‘That sounds like an interesting plan.’

‘Good, good.’ He clapped his hands together. ‘I ask only one thing of you.’

‘Oh?’

‘You have no more to do with Lethbridge.’

Ah. There it was, then. No deal.

‘But why?’

‘I don’t like him. I don’t want him for you. You can do better than that. You are my daughter.’

‘You don’t like the idea of me marrying into the English aristocracy?’

‘He won’t marry you. And he isn’t real aristocracy. His family might have the title and the land but they are losers, Lucy. Serious losers. Believe me.’

I heard the clink of glasses on a tray. Joss was coming back.

‘I won’t. You can’t ask me. I love him.’

‘You can love whoever you put your mind to.’

‘No, you can’t. It’s him or nobody, for me. If that’s your offer, go back to your helicopter and leave us.’

Joss rounded the corner of a red rosebush, pausing to snap one off at the stem and lay it on the tray, along with the iced water jug, the whisky bottle and the glasses. He put them down on the bench and stood looking from one of us to the other, trying to gauge the mood. He must have recognised that it was not good, because he busied himself mixing drinks.

‘Should I have brought champagne?’ he asked, without glancing at either of us. ‘There’s some in the cellar, if anyone –’

‘No champagne,’ said Voronov, then, after a pause, ‘Lucy tells me this place is worth twenty million.’

Joss looked up.

‘About that. Are you going to make me an offer?’ he said, handing a glass to Voronov. He was trying to sound jokey, but it didn’t come off.

‘Yes, I am,’ said Voronov. ‘I will offer you double that.’

‘What?’ Joss put his own glass down. ‘Forty million?’

‘It could set you up nicely, I think.’

‘But this house,’ said Joss, looking back at it. ‘It’s been in my family since the fourteen-hundreds. I’ve said it before, I can’t be the one to end a six-hundred-year relationship. I just –’

‘You just need the money,’ said Voronov. ‘You can’t afford this place. You’ll be forced to sell within three years, and I’ll buy it for the market value, or less, if it goes at auction. Which, as we know, is possible. Or I could just find out who you owe money to, buy the debts off them and take your house in payment. What do you think of that? I like that idea, in fact.’

Joss’s jaw dropped. He cast wild eyes in my direction.

‘Take the money,’ I advised him. ‘Take the money and then we don’t need to have anything more to do with him.’

‘No, no,’ said Voronov. ‘If I give you my money, you stay away from my daughter. That will be in the contract.’

‘Oh, no,’ said Joss. ‘Losing this place
and
Lucy? That’s no bargain, however much you give me.’

‘Then keep the house. I don’t care. Keep it and I’ll pay off your debts. Just leave her alone.’

So many offers, falling like rain, and all of them unacceptable. We were all wasting our time and I couldn’t bear to listen to any more.

‘I won’t leave Joss,’ I said. ‘There is no price high enough. None.’

‘Not for you, perhaps,’ he said, still focused intently on Joss. ‘Come on, Lethbridge. You don’t want to lose your heritage. You can still be the lord, still have the house, find another woman, make her your Lady Lethbridge, have a dozen little lords and ladies of your own. Wouldn’t that be nice? A nice, comfortable life, no money worries?’

The silence almost killed me. I could feel my heart, jabbed, punctured, shrivelling. How could I compete with that?

‘Sir,’ said Joss quietly, and he managed to say the word without making it sound deferential, yet neither was it aggressive. ‘Some years ago, my father made me a very similar offer. Almost identical, in fact. Let Lucy go, and keep my inheritance. That time, I took it. I was afraid to do otherwise, to be honest. I was a worm. And I regretted my decision every single day that followed. I had no opinion of myself. I fell into a pit of self-loathing and alcohol and debt that only the chance of getting Lucy back saved me from. Do you really –
really
– think I’ll do the same thing again?’

His voice, low and tightly controlled, threatened to break. I flew to his side, took his hand and pressed it with mine until my nails dug in.

‘You’ll have to kill us to split us up,’ I vowed. ‘And, judging from what I’ve heard about you, perhaps you will. But what kind of satisfaction would that give you? You would still lose.’

Voronov gave every appearance of being baffled. Perhaps nobody had ever resisted the easy passage of his will before.

‘You are my daughter,’ he said, and it sounded stupid, a non sequitur.

‘A collection of genes,’ I said. ‘Karen is my parent. She’s the one who brought me up. We’ve never had a relationship, so I won’t miss it, will I?’

‘I wanted to help her, bring her out of poverty,’ he said. ‘But now …’

‘Oh, don’t you dare. Don’t you dare try to find my weak spot and exploit it. You’ve done your worst. Give up.’

He shrugged, emptied the remainder of his whisky into the rose bush and walked away.

Joss, after an enormously long kerfuffle about the lease, involving lawyers and courts, put the house on the market within six months. It was bought by a chain of blue-chip hotels.

With the little that was left over after payment of his debts, he bought the caravan park off Mrs Wragg, who was planning to retire to a ‘Senior Living Complex’ in Benidorm.

Mum quit her flat in Tylney and came back to live in her old caravan. She kept on her market stall, though, and spends her days making friendship bracelets and painted glass gewgaws to sell there. She met a man who hired a caravan for a week’s angling holiday and never left. He’s called Bernie and they’re blissful.

I kept my job at the
Voice
, became chief reporter, then got a gig at the BBC in Birmingham as their local correspondent. I love it and it’s pretty flexible, which means I can take care of the kids when Joss isn’t around at the park, although he mostly is.

Yeah, we have three. Another one on the way. Another bloody generation of the Lethbridge dynasty, but this time brought up on Vimto and love. One day, Joss says, they’ll club together and get Willingham Hall back.

And I say, ‘Yes, Joss, one day.’ But it will mean getting rid of the little blacked-out van at the most obscure end of the park, which we’ve had fitted out as our secret playroom. And really, why would we want to do that?

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