Sleeping Cruelty (20 page)

‘Services?’ William was appalled.

‘She’ll charge a lot more than those Mayfair whores you got hammered for screwing. Laura isn’t a cheap hooker, she’s a courtesan. If you get Matlock, he’ll bring his wife and his son. If you leave them alone with Laura she’ll have each one of them.’

‘Really?’ William said flatly. He was sure now that Justin was joking, but refused to join in with his sick humour.

Justin smiled to himself. He’d never met a man who hadn’t wanted to protect Laura on first meeting. Tonight William would witness the other side of Laura – the temptress or maybe the seductress. She had numerous different personalities and Justin loved every one of them. He admonished himself, though, for his reckless conversation: sometimes he forgot that his strait-laced friend did not think as he did. He must not do anything that might make William scuttle away from the trap, which was now in place.

When they got back from the afternoon’s waterskiing, William rested until almost nine. He was so tired he hardly felt like dressing for dinner. As he sat morosely by his dressing-table, Justin came in, wearing a white suit and a black T-shirt.

‘Every bone aches. I’m not hungry, I am totally exhausted,’ William said.

‘Just get dressed. I’ve a little something to give you a boost.’

William went to his wardrobe, selected a cream linen suit, then saw that Justin had chopped out four lines of cocaine on a small hand mirror. ‘I don’t do drugs,’ he barked.

‘Just this once,’ cooed Justin. ‘It’ll give you some energy. We don’t want you falling asleep half-way through dinner. Go on, everyone should try it once.’

William hummed and hawed, then accepted the rolled bank -note and snorted. His eyes watered and he coughed, but Justin pointed to the next line. ‘That’s enough,’ William said.

‘Do the other line and stop stalling.’

‘Justin, I have never used drugs. I abhor them,’ he said, but he bent his head to do the other line as he spoke. ‘I really don’t approve of this,’ he justified himself, blinking back tears. ‘And I don’t feel anything but a runny nose,’ he said, sniffing.

‘Believe me, you’ll be needing this tonight. Let’s go down,’ Justin said.

William sniffed again. He wondered why Justin thought he’d be needing the cocaine. As he started down the staircase, it hit him like a thunderbolt. His head cleared and his body felt weightless. He felt incredibly fit and alert, almost jumping down the last few stairs. ‘You know, I bet any money if I went back on the skis tomorrow I’d be able to stay up. We can do it first thing before breakfast.’ William crouched on the stairs with his hands held out in front of him, as if he was waterskiing.

Justin turned and looked at him, then gave that wonderful, slow smile. ‘You should trust your friend. He’s always going to take care of you. Now we’ll have a little caviar, some iced champagne, and party.’

‘Fine by me,’ William said, with an inane grin.

What William had not been expecting downstairs, though, was dinner guests. ‘What the hell are they doing here?’ he muttered.

‘Don’t fret, old boy, this is all part of the plan. I’ve arranged a small
soirée
so that you can drop the news that it’s
your
island everyone’s been getting excited about.’

‘We never discussed this.’ William was anxious.

‘Trust me. Now is the right time. That Sylvina thing has made you look all squeaky clean. Go ahead, give it a go. You’ll enjoy it.’

Before he could argue, one of the guests, in the shape of the blowsy Meryl Delaware, almost threw him sideways. She was aiming for Justin, but he sidestepped her and she stumbled into William.

‘Miss Delaware,’ he said, thankful for the wall behind him.

‘Oh, good evening. Sir William Benedict, isn’t it?’

‘Generally speaking,’ he said, and she looked almost puzzled.

‘You look very different. Is it your hair?’

‘Maybe the lack of it,’ he said, with a charming smile, as she backed away and bumped into Terence Hampton.

William looked around. Rent-a-crowd, he thought. He helped himself to a glass of champagne, and drank it down as if it was water. He had such a thirst! He wasn’t in the least bit self-conscious or worried that no one was approaching him. Instead, he was enjoying surveying the room, and quickly realized that Laura was absent. Marta was moving quietly around, collecting used glasses and half-empty dishes of caviar, the remnants swimming in melting ice. As she passed William he asked if Laura was joining them.

‘I believe so, Sir William,’ she answered, and reached out to catch a glass that Princess Constantina had inadvertently knocked off a bookcase.

‘I was so sorry to hear about your break-up with Countess Lubrinsky.’ Meryl had had to resort to talking to William.

‘I’m still broken-hearted,’ he said, smiling. ‘As you can see. Inconsolable.’ He dipped into some caviar. He was enjoying himself and decided that this was the right moment. ‘Actually, I’ve been recovering on my island in the Caribbean.’

‘The Caribbean?’ Meryl’s mind was whirring.

‘Yes, I think you wrote an article about it. “Billionaire’s Paradise Island Home”,’ he quoted.

He laughed inwardly when her jaw dropped.

‘Tragic about Lord Bellingham’s son, wasn’t it?’

Meryl blinked her mascara-caked eyelashes and nodded. Rivulets of lipstick gathered in the crevices around her mouth, giving it the appearance of a tight pink arse-hole. ‘I was in the Caribbean when it happened,’ she said, adopting a sorrowful expression.

‘So was I,’ said William. ‘My island is next door to theirs.’

‘
Really?
’

‘I noticed you at the party, too.’

‘Party?’ she said guardedly.

‘I’d say it was one of the most decadent evenings of my entire life.’

Her hands were trembling. ‘My dear,’ she whispered, ‘a little word of advice. Don’t discuss that evening. It’s best forgotten. I left early. I had a dreadful migraine.’

‘I remember you being there well,’ he persisted. ‘Life and soul of the party as I recall.’

Meryl pursed her lips. ‘I suggest you forget it.’ She glared over his shoulder and caught Terence Hampton’s eye. ‘Ah, Terence, dahling! Are you my chauffeur for this evening?’ She rolled her eyes towards William. He did not miss it. ‘We should really be thinking about leaving.’

‘I only just got here,’ he moaned, but Meryl grabbed him and bundled him away.

William strolled out on to the balcony. Princess Constantina stood with her back to the open doors, having a heated discussion with Count Capri. ‘Well, it was drugs as well,’ she was saying, ‘but he’d been abused and tied up. That’s what I was told. You know Lord B, he’d never let that out. It was bad enough that the boy was always in a drugged stupor.’

William was eavesdropping and didn’t care if he was caught. Tonight he didn’t hover or hide his new slimline figure, but leaned confidently against the balcony viewing the Eurotrash. He would have happily remained so, if Laura hadn’t appeared. She was wearing a long gold satin gown that draped her breasts, while the skirt was cut on the bias and swung around her body as she walked. Her pale skin shimmered and her hair had been drawn back tightly against her head, one long plait hanging down the centre of her back. She wore no jewellery at her ears or throat, but a gold bracelet hung low on her slender wrist. ‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ she announced, ‘I do apologize but we are expected at dinner, so if you will excuse us . . .’ She stood poised in the doorway. Frederick Capri gaped. ‘Who’s
that
?’ he squawked.

In the drive below the cars started revving up to take the guests to dinner. A Rolls and a large open SL Mercedes were preparing to leave. The room emptied fast, leaving William and Marta alone.

‘Well, that was all very . . .’ He tailed off and shrugged as the cars disappeared up the drive.

‘Typical Justin,’ Marta said. ‘He bumps into someone and the next minute he has that wretched group here. Laura hates it. She won’t have any part of it. He’s such a bad boy. Dinner has been ready for over an hour.’

William made his way to the south veranda, where dinner was being served. As he approached, he heard a loud crash.

‘That was a stupid thing to do,’ Justin shouted.

‘No.
You
are stupid. Why did you let those wretched people in here? They are freeloaders, gossips. I hate the
filthy bastards
!’

There was another crash and the ominous sound of tinkling glass. ‘That’s seven years’ bad luck, you soft cow.’

‘I don’t care. You have those people in here and you’ll have more than bad luck. They are trash, Justin, and that fat bitch Delaware is the worst of them all. You could see her scrawling her filthy little articles in her head as she talked to you.’

‘Well, you’ll be all right – you hardly showed your face,’ Justin snapped.

‘You know why? If we go through with this, the fewer people see me the better.’

William coughed and stepped into view. Broken glass and china littered the long table, which had been so elegantly laid.

Justin waved at William. ‘She’s throwing a tantrum. Are you hungry? If you can find a space between the broken crockery we’ll get Marta to dish up. I’m starving.’

Suddenly Laura seemed to calm down, and took a seat opposite William. ‘Careful you don’t cut yourself. Justin’ll clear up.’ She picked up a napkin. ‘So, William, did you enjoy these ghastly clingers-on?’ She pronounced the word ‘ghastly’ with a wonderfully accented lilt.

‘No,’ he said. ‘I loathe them. Especially Meryl Delaware.’

‘William, we all loathe them,’ said Justin. ‘They would turn up at a public lavatory if they thought there was a free drink in it.’ He gathered the broken crockery into a napkin. ‘But Meryl is very useful. How do you think we’ve had such a terrific press about the island? You could feed her dog-shit and, with the right price tag, she’d make it smell like roses.’ He walked into the house.

William had almost reverted to his usual self-conscious self. The cocaine had worn off, his nose was running and his head ached. Laura poured him some wine. ‘Justin has told me what those horrible people did to you. I am so sorry. But we’ll get back at them. It’ll be fun . . . Well, it will be for you.
They
won’t think so,’ she said, and crumbled a bread roll. ‘If you would like me to help, I am available. But I don’t want to be paid in cash.’

William said nothing, watching her. She was one of the most perfect creatures he had ever met and in the glow of the flickering candles she seemed like an exotic bird. A long finger traced the rim of a glass, and William watched as she dipped her forefinger into the wine, lifted it, and caught the drop on her tongue. ‘According to Justin, you are going to hire me. But I need to hear it from you. If you do want me to help you, then I must make arrangements.’ He leaned forward and she moved her hand across the table to touch his lips. ‘Don’t interrupt.’

‘I’m sorry.’ She was like a different woman: colder, more sophisticated, as if the childlike quality he had found so appealing had been a figment of his imagination. There was no trace of any French accent. She was speaking like a well-educated upper-class débutante.

‘Justin suggested that I should be your woman, but not in the ridiculous way you were engaged to Sylvina. It’s public knowledge in Europe that she prefers women. Ours should be a more loving match. It’s usual, is it not, for British men to like younger
girls? Perhaps it is that they fall in love with what they could not acquire before they had amassed a fortune.’

William smiled. It was so true. As a young man he could never have hoped to date a woman as beautiful as Laura. Not even with his fortune had he ever attracted a woman like her.

‘What about this? We met in Paris, and you fell in love with me. You are desperate to propose. Would you find that acceptable?’

Had Justin arranged the candles so they formed that Madonna halo?

‘Falling in love with you would be any man’s reaction. You look so beautiful, Laura, you take my breath away. I doubt if anyone would ever believe that I could be fortunate enough.’

She giggled seductively. ‘But you do have a fortune, William, and I mean to please you. But tell me, what do you think about what I’ve just said? Do you think it’s a good idea? Or do you have another plan?’

‘I’m not sure how much Justin has told you. To be perfectly honest, I don’t know all the details myself,’ he said, pouring more wine. Truth was, he didn’t want to get into the sordid ‘hidden’ cameras, the plan to catch his enemies engaged in compromising sexual activities. And Laura frightened the life out of him.

Laura continued, staring into space, ‘Justin has explained the details.’ It was as if she was reading his mind and he flushed. ‘Justin suggested that I compromise each of your guests. I am to have a sexual relationship with all of them . . . or use whatever or whoever is necessary.’

William was sweating. It sounded so unlikely that he wanted to say it had been some kind of fantasy.

Laura moved closer to him. She lifted his arms away from the chair and sat on his lap. Taking his right hand, she wrapped it around her waist. Resting against him, her face close to his, she was silent. She lowered her hand and began to rub him lightly. Her body heat warmed him and he felt his loins stirring. He
could hardly breathe. She held his face between her hands and kissed his lips, so softly. ‘I don’t want money,’ she said, and now her lips brushed his ear.

She stopped stroking him and eased away to perch on the edge of the table.

‘I will play your game.’ She laughed. ‘I think the men will be easy. The women will be more difficult to seduce, especially if they have never had a lesbian relationship.’

‘Women?’ he said, flushing deep red.

‘Yes, of course. The wives and sons will be there, and I think one of your guests has a daughter, does he not – Lord Cedric?’

‘Yes, but—’

She cupped his face in her hands and kissed him, her gown sliding aside to reveal that she was naked beneath it. ‘I don’t want any money,’ she repeated, and slid away, returning to her seat, with the grace of a dancer. Languidly she picked up a champagne glass and sipped, then ran her tongue round her lips. ‘Payment will be . . .’ she paused, teasing ‘. . . a diamond for each conquest.’