Those Wicked Pleasures (12 page)

‘And now?’ Julia asked.

‘And now,’ Lara answered, ‘we are the same as we have always been. The love is great, the security of that love even greater. The sex has always been very good, maybe even a little more than very good, the best, even – with the exception of one other. And I am not in love with anyone else. We are happy, and in love and free. We like it that way, and the parents have accepted that’s the way it’s going to be until we marry.’

‘Then you are sure about marrying him?’

‘I’m not sure of anything, except I can’t imagine marrying anyone else.’

Lara felt uneasy talking about marriage. She quickly changed the subject from herself and Sam to Julia and David. And so the girls had had their heart-to-heart.

One advantage that Julia had was that all the Stantons loved her. She had had her girlhood crushes on each of the boys, but only Max had given her a tumble. He gave her her first kiss, had been the first man to see her naked, to kiss her breasts. Then he went away somewhere, and her crush on him eventually petered out. Julia’s being back in the Stanton fold reminded them how much they had missed seeing her around. They showered attention on her, none more so than Emily and Henry.

Emily had always found a softer spot in her heart for Julia than she ever had for Lara. Lara had rarely minded in the past, and she certainly didn’t mind now. If anything, she was grateful. So it was no surprise when, at the fashion show, she consulted more with Elizabeth and Julia about Lara’s new wardrobe than she did with Lara herself. Lara felt more than ever like one of Emily’s causes.

The women sat together in comfortable, sixteenth-century French chairs. Their concentration was sustained with refreshments served from a table. Emily allowed them breaks between the end of one designer’s show and the start of another. They were in the Cannonberry Chase ballroom, supposedly one of the prettiest of such rooms in the country, renowned not only for its dances but the private concerts and operas Emily sponsored for her friends. The Stantons’ private Tanglewood, their very own Glyndebourne.

The room was dazzling: a huge rectangle with a vaulted ceiling. One of the wings of the manor house, it tucked into the architecture of the building and the landscape of the gardens with a grace and elegance that muted obvious grandeur. One entered the ballroom either from an oval reception room in the house, a yellow, ochre and white music-room of which the family made great use, or from any of the French windows, of which there were
twelve on each side of the thirty-foot-high walls. The windows were fifteen feet high and curved at the top; in effect, pairs of glass-paned doors that opened on to lawns and marble fountains and lily ponds. They had over-doors and side panels of sixteenth-century tapestries. A framework of mauves and peach, ochre, plum, lime and rusty rose, stitched into garlands of flowers and fruit framing the shades of green: the grass and enchanting topiary that one saw through the glass panes.

The inlaid floor, a masterpiece of parquetry, shone like a mirror, reflecting the five crystal chandeliers. These were still used, not with electricity but slender, hand-made, ivory candles. The ceiling was of the palest sky blue, with subtly soft white clouds behind which bursts of faint pink and shimmering pallid yellow broke out, just as Whistler might have painted.

At the far end of the ballroom pairs of doors led into a rectangular room of glass, the official reception room. Here the buffet-suppers were set up; the champagne tables of crystal flutes and vintage Krug in huge silver coolers set among the palm trees. Today, instead, the designers prepared their shows here for the four women waiting in the centre of the ballroom.

Lara had expected to be bored in the first half hour, but not so. Mr Cassini joined them to charm and amuse while the pretty models strutted their stuff. They minced and used their shoulders, swung their hips and struck poses. And there were dresses for every occasion: daywear and sports-wear, evening-wear and even tea-wear, if you had time to wear it. Oleg Cassini charmed and kissed hands and flattered and charmed again. In its own tinselly way, it had been fun.

The hopping in and out of the clothes was sheer hard work, only lightened by the dressers and Cassini’s over-the-top flattery. Then, when Lara did her own little
imaginary cat-walk, and she saw Emily trying hard not to laugh, she realised the occasion had its own dotty uniqueness. She decided to relax into it and have a good time. It was after all a new experience, this whole sartorial fanfare just for her. By the end of the day she had enjoyed herself. Still, she hoped that it didn’t happen too often in the life of a Number One Deb-type.

If Oleg Cassini dripped charm, Elizabeth Arden’s top vendeuse and her staff oozed the importance of being earnest about clothes and hair and nails. They displayed a refined, if not grande-dameish style. Whereas Cassini made Lara feel the greatest beauty of all time, and the only woman in the world who was still able to up his heart-beat, the ladies from the red door on Fifth Avenue left her to fall apart unless she gave herself body and soul to Elizabeth Arden at least twice weekly throughout the Season. Once past their potted face-cream and beauty pitch, she found their clothes very pretty and wearable and, if not fun, lovely and feminine.

Lara remained easy-going about Emily and Elizabeth and their selection of clothes for her. It was not difficult: they chose nothing she really disliked. She managed to win through on one or two things they disapproved of, but only when Julia stepped in for her. The two women then seemed quite resigned to her right to choose her own things at least as much as they did.

When Mary McFadden arrived with her models and clothes, everything changed for Lara. She became an instant clothes hanger. There was not a gown that she didn’t want, not a jacket, nor a pair of trousers. The fabrics were luscious – the only word for them – hand painted and printed or accordion pleated, or embroidered. They were modern and not modern, ethnic and not ethnic. They were pretty and inspired. Lara listened not to Emily nor anyone else, and bought almost
all of the collection. So inspired was she by them that it became infectious. The other women conceded that Lara, as Emily put it, had ‘come a long way in her ability to chose well’.

Lara answered, ‘That’s such high praise, Mother. I am so flattered and exhausted from all this I give you Bergdorf’s. I will wear anything you choose.’ And choose was exactly what Emily and Elizabeth now did. They mulled over all the day’s purchases and filled in the gaps of the wardrobe Lara was certain would last her a lifetime. She’d be unable to justify entering a shop ever again.

But nature asserts itself: shopping would soon become part of her new life-style, being chic a priority in her life.

Chapter 8

It was during a particularly amusing dinner party of family and many guests that evening that a phone call came through for Lara. A friend from Smith, one of the girls she had gone on several protest marches with.

‘Sorry if I took you from dinner, Lara, but I need as many supporters as I can get. We have got to do something fast. I have just heard that in three days’ time the Santos Dupuis Chemical Company is going to close a secret deal to build a huge plant on that tract of magnificent rain forest – the one we’ve been trying to get the government to buy and turn into a national park. Hawaii will end up nothing but concrete and chemicals.’

Lara listened and suddenly, after four years of supporting Marcy Gialombo in her many environmental causes, she felt as if she hardly knew her old Smith College room-mate. She felt so removed from Marcy and her protests that it embarrassed her. Though she still supported the causes in theory they had not achieved very much. She felt disloyal, here in luxury, so remote from Marcy’s despair.

‘Marcy, it sounds too late for a protest.’

‘You sound as if you are not interested in a march.’

Lara took her courage in hand. ‘I don’t think I can be interested. I have other commitments.’

‘I never thought you would let me down.’

‘I won’t. I will do what I can to help. Just tell me what
you know about the sale and I will call you back in the morning.’

‘You won’t call back. I can tell. It’s in your voice.’

‘Marcy, I won’t let you down. You have to let me try it my way. If you don’t believe I will call, then you call me at noon tomorrow.’

Marcy gave the information she had, and hung up.

Lara returned to the dinner table, no less troubled about Marcy than Marcy was about her. How Marcy would have loathed the day Lara had just spent having a binge on clothes. Such a short time back at Cannonberry Chase and into the Stanton world, and yet her perspective of Marcy and her causes had shifted radically. She looked at the paper crunched in her hand. She must make an effort to help Marcy in some way – but how? Lara knew that she could do better than another march. She looked at the faces around the table. Marcy would have loathed those faces too. If Marcy were to see Lara sitting at that table she would be furious, she would hang a label on Lara that would read ‘Right-wing liberal with a socialist’s heart’. God, she thought, how I hate labels.

As the guests filed out of the dining-room Emily caught her attention. ‘Something wrong, Lara?

‘A friend in need.’

‘Then you must of course help, dear.’

‘Yes.’

‘David, I think. If you need to talk about it to someone. He’s always so good when people have problems.’

Lara’s estimation of her mother rose. She suddenly became aware of the positive side of Emily Dean Stanton, which she usually had trouble seeing. She reached for her mother’s hand and squeezed it, ‘Of course. David. Thanks, Mother.’ Emily slid her hand from her daughter’s and looked embarrassed as she joined her other guests to go through to the drawing-room.

Lara tried for several minutes to get David’s attention. In vain.

‘Settle for me?’ A smiling Jamal.

‘Now what am I supposed to say to that?’

‘Anything that’s flattering will do. How are you? I’ve missed you, and I’m really pleased to be here for your party.’

He was his usual handsome and charming self. As always in public, he behaved as if there had never been a sexual liaison between them. Ever grateful for that, she smiled at him, and tried to calm her twinge of attraction to him. A look passed between them, nothing that anyone in the room could recognise as intimate. But they both knew how very intimate it was. She watched Jamal swing into action. He never merely spoke to women, he always seduced. He raised Emily’s hand to give the perfect continental kiss, and asked, ‘Madam Stanton, will you grant me permission to take Lara away for a few minutes? I have a gift I would like to give her. Something to mark the occasion.’ He bent close to Emily and whispered in her ear. She gave him a thin smile and a nod of consent.

He placed an arm around Lara’s shoulder. They were scarce halfway across the room when Lara, who was feeling nervous about being alone with Jamal, stopped.

He saw the fear in her eyes. He knew her so well. She wanted him, she needed him, but this was neither the time nor the place. He took his arm from round her. ‘Rest easy. Have I ever put us in an embarrassing situation?’

‘No.’

‘And I never will. I have always told you we have two relationships. And this one never intrudes on the sexual one.’

She visibly relaxed, kissed him on the cheek and whispered, ‘Thank you.’

In the hall, she asked, ‘Jamal, have you ever heard of
a company …’ she unfolded the crinkled paper still in her hand, ‘the Santos Dupuis Chemical Company?’

‘It’s actually Santos Dupuis Chemical International. Yes, I have. The second largest company of its kind in the world. But never mind that now.’ He opened the front door.

His name was Azziz. A black Arab steed as high-spirited as Biscuit. A magnificent beast whose mane had been plaited with narrow silver and gold ribbons that shimmered against his silky dark beauty. Lara thought him the finest horse she had ever seen. He reared up once when she approached him, but his groom, Nick, a blond curly-headed young man, settled him down. The second time she patted his neck, caressed his flanks, he remained calm. She ran her hands down his legs, walked around him and spoke to him, caressed his head, toyed with the streamers hanging from the braided mane. When she turned to tell Jamal how much she liked him, she was greeted by the entire house party walking down the stairs to have a look at her gift.

Jamal climbed into the saddle. David clasped Lara by the waist and gave her a lift. She sat side-saddle, and Jamal held her by one arm, the reins in his free hand, while everyone milled around admiring the horse. Lara bent forward to grab one of the horse’s ears and give it an affectionate tug. The necklace sparkled, a slim platinum band of square-cut diamonds. It hung over Azziz’s ear. She slid it up off the horse’s ear and held it towards the light of the cast iron lanterns on the terrace.

‘For me?’ She was quite overwhelmed by his generosity.

‘Well, it’s no use to Azziz.’

Everyone began to laugh, including Lara. Everyone except Sam. He looked quite put-out. Jamal handed the reins to Lara, unclasped the choker and encircled her neck with it. She was wearing one of the Mary McFadden evening dresses. An aubergine-coloured long skirt of crepe
de Chine and a figure-hugging off-the-shoulder blouse of silver lamé that showed off the ripe beauty of her breasts. They were even more emphasised by the contrast of the huge puffed sleeves of the blouse in the same fabric but accordion-pleated. With her silvery-blonde hair crimped and worn long and loose, she provided the perfect setting for the slim band now clasped snugly around her long slim neck.

Such extravagant gifts from Jamal were not unusual, but no one criticised him tonight: they had all been too charmed by Azziz. Jamal strutted the horse before them, back and forth several times. They were horse-loving people, yet had seen few animals more proud and noble than Azziz. Lara walked him to the stables with his groom, Jamal, David and Julia, and then the foursome turned to go back to the house.

The manor, aglow with light, looked impressive, every bit the rural American palace. The night was one of those perfect end-of-summer evenings, still very warm, a slight breeze coming off the ocean, a sky of black velvet perforated with stars, and an almost-full moon. A marvellous day, a marvellous night. It all seemed so extravagant and glamorous to Lara, and fun. She could see what a good time her mother’s life-style delivered, and was beginning to wonder why she had rejected for so long the idea of coming out into their social whirl.

Jamal handed her the crumpled piece of paper she had given him to hold when she had mounted Azziz. ‘Here, you had better take this now. I might forget to give it to you.’

The Marcy details she had hastily scribbled out on the paper now in her hand spoiled her mood and she tugged at Jamal’s arm. ‘Jamal, tell me about the Santos Dupuis Chemical Company …?’

‘Chemical International,’ he corrected.

She ignored that. ‘They are going to buy a piece of land that I’d rather they didn’t.’

‘Then stop them. Much the best solution.’ They were close to the fountain in the courtyard now. The light from the terrace fell across her face. Jamal tapped the tip of her nose with his index finger.

The gesture irritated her. It felt as if he was merely tapping in a full stop to the end of a final sentence. ‘Easier said than done,’ she snapped.

‘Not for you.’

‘And why not for me? You make it sound like all I have to do is raise my magic wand, and, hey presto, the land is mine.’

‘That is just about the way it is. Only, you
are
the magic wand.’

‘Oh, I don’t know what you are talking about. I have three days to stop the sale of that land. This is important to me, and all you do is make cryptic remarks. Unless you have anything really constructive to say about my problem, then forget it.’

He pulled her away from the others and rushed her up the stairs on to the terrace. ‘I hate it when you pout. It always makes me want to beat you. You have two options. One is to buy the land yourself. The other is to tell Santos Dupuis you don’t want them to buy it.’

‘How can I buy it? It will cost millions.’

‘Talk to Harland Brent. He can handle the whole thing for you. He is your trustee, isn’t he?’

‘Jamal, you are crazy. I haven’t that kind of money.’

Jamal began to laugh. He hoisted her by the waist to sit her on the balustrade that encircled the terrace.

‘Nor the clout to stop a company purchase,’ she added.

‘You do, you know. Maybe not all the corporations in the world, but certainly Santos Dupuis.’

‘I do?’

‘Ask David.’

‘Ask David what?’ chimed David, joining them.

It was beginning to dawn on Lara. She felt her adrenalin pump, an excitement that hadn’t been there only seconds before. ‘David, who owns Santos Dupuis Chemical International?’

‘We do. Now don’t tell me you didn’t know that?’

The look of surprise on Lara’s face spoke for itself. ‘Don’t you even look at your dividend sheets?’

‘No, but I will from now on. David, am I very wealthy? I mean, do I have enough money to buy something that costs millions?’

‘Lara, you should be asking Harland these questions, not me. I have no idea what you are worth. And what’s this all about, anyway?’

Lara finally told them, then showed them the information she had on the paper. ‘Well?’ she asked.

David began to laugh. ‘La, beside the dances and partying this year, I think you should get acquainted with your assets. If you want to stop the sale of that land to Santos Dupuis, talk to Harland. He can register your objection to the purchase with the board. I have never known the board to go against the wishes of a member, and you are a member, proxied by Harland. Santos Dupuis will be furious. They will have to find an alternative piece of land for expansion. That will cost them, and leave them disappointed.’

‘That only half solves the problem. If Santos Dupuis doesn’t buy it, someone else may. Then where are we?’ asked Lara.

The men remained silent, eyes on Lara. Lara tapped her head, a quick, sharp gesture. ‘Of course, how stupid of me. I will get Harland to buy it for me.’

‘Right,’ the three agreed in one voice.

‘The correct terminology to win your trustees round to
agreeing the purchase would be, “I want to buy this property as a long-term investment for my portfolio”. They’ll never say no to that. They will know that, if Santos Dupuis wanted it, it’s valuable and has potential. It’s in the bag,’ suggested David.

‘Right, I’m going to see Harland right now. Wow, today has been some eye-opener. If I add the purchase of Hawaiahoo to the day’s events, this will have to go down as a major turning-point in my life.’

Harland had not been easy to convince. He had irritated her when he suggested that she call him at nine o’clock the following morning, if she still felt she wanted him to try to purchase the land. Harland was a man in his mid fifties and it embarrassed her to have to tell him off. It did not, however, impede her. They were both shocked by her tone of authority.

Now it was a few minutes to noon on the following day, and she had heard nothing from Harland. He knew that it was essential that she have from him a progress report on the matter before noon. The clock in the hall chimed twelve, the telephone remained mute. No Marcy, no Harland.

The call came at twelve-twenty. The land was hers. Papers were being drawn up. It would be finalised in three days’ time. But the land was indisputably hers. The money, nine million dollars, was already in escrow in the seller’s bank. She had only to put a name to the holding company. She was too overwhelmed to think of a name, and left it to Harland.

Lara dialled Marcy’s number. She did not complete the call. What was she to say to Marcy? She could hardly boast, ‘I bought it’. Marcy would hate that, no matter how relieved she might be that the land was safe from a chemical plant. How do you tell a lefty liberal you have just raised nine million dollars to save a piece of the earth
in one breath, and that your family owns the chemical plant that wanted to pollute a piece of paradise in the next?

Lara went to see David. He was with Max and her father in the latter’s study. She told them her dilemma. It was Henry who suggested, ‘You must begin right now to learn how to handle your wealth and your position, Lara. Harland was going to brief you on these matters some time in the near future, when he acquainted you with your holdings, but you rather jumped the gun. You talk with him. He’s your financial adviser, the man who you should listen to. But I am always here for you, ready to listen, and if possible to suggest on any problem you might have.

‘In this instance, you have a classic problem with Marcy. We have all had it in one form or another. Discretion must be your guide. Rule number one: never deal direct in financial transactions or deals. Not when you can get your advisers to do it. Get yourself out of the firing line. It’s our job to direct our affairs from behind closed doors.