Читать книгу Power Play - Пенни Джордан, PENNY JORDAN - Страница 8

On Monday morning Pepper overslept and was late. She could feel the tension building inside her as a traffic jam in Knightsbridge delayed her still further.

Up ahead of her she could see people milling in and out of Harrods, Knightsbridge, the Brompton Road, Sloane Square; all of them had become a shopping paradise for those with money to spend.

Elegant women in Sloaneish Caroline Charles outfits, wearing Jourdan shoes, paused outside shop windows. It was here in Harvey Nichols that the Princess of Wales had shopped prior to her marriage to the heir to the throne, and in nearly every department in the exclusive store were girls whose sharply cut British upper-class accents mirrored hers. American and Japanese tourists gathered outside Harrods’ main entrance. Pepper noticed absently that Arab women were much less in evidence now than they once had been.

She glanced impatiently at the clock on the car’s dashboard. She had no morning appointments, but she hated being late for anything because it implied that she was not in full control of her life. Even so, she fought down her impatience; impatience made people careless and led to mistakes. Mistakes—unless they were other people’s—had no place in her life.

It was so unusual for her to be late that the receptionist had already commented on it when Miranda went down to collect the post.

“Perhaps she’s had a heavy weekend?” Helena murmured suggestively as she handed over the envelopes.

Miranda was as curious as the other girl about Pepper’s sex life, but she was too well trained to show it. Gossiping about one’s boss had been the downfall of many a good personal secretary, and there wasn’t much that slipped Pepper’s attention.

“I wonder if she’ll ever marry?” Helena mused, obviously reluctant to let the subject go.

“A lot of successful business women do combine careers and marriage,” Miranda pointed out.

“Um…I saw a photograph of her in one of the papers with Carl Viner. He’s terrifically sexy, isn’t he?”

Miranda raised her eyebrows and said drily, “So’s she.”

Out of the corner of her eye she saw Pepper come into the building. There was no mistaking that distinctive, deceptively languid walk, a lazy flowing movement of hips and legs.

“Morning, Miranda—Helena.”

Pepper acknowledged both young women and walked past them towards her office, leaving her secretary to follow her.

“Miranda, I’m expecting four gentlemen at three o’clock this afternoon. I’ll see all of them together. Here are their names.” She passed a piece of typed paper to her secretary.

“Right…would you like coffee now?”

“Yes, please. Oh, and Miranda, you might alert the security guard to make sure he’s on the premises while they’re here, please.”

Although she was far too well trained to betray any surprise, Miranda tried and failed to remember a single other occasion when Pepper had made such a request. Curiously she glanced at the names, recognising only two of them. An MP and an entrepreneur. Mmm. She shrugged her curiosity aside, knowing it would be satisfied when Pepper dictated to her her notes from the meeting. Pepper was meticulous about keeping records of all her conversations, both with her clients and with potential sponsors.

Putting the piece of paper down on her desk, Miranda walked into the small kitchen hidden away behind her office. A staff room opened off it—an airy, attractively decorated room with bookshelves and comfortable seating. Minesse Management did not provide their staff with canteen facilities; the small number of employees did not merit it, although there was a formal dining room adjacent to Pepper’s office, where she sometimes lunched clients and sponsors. The food for these lunches was provided by a small firm that specialised in doing lunches and dinners for executive functions. It was often Miranda’s task on these occasions to check out their guests’ religions and preferences, and once Pepper had these facts to hand she would call in the caterers to discuss with them the type of meal she wanted them to serve.

In this as in everything else Pepper always displayed an insight and authority that was almost intuitive. If Miranda had ever expressed this view to Pepper, Pepper would have told her that she had long ago learned that attention to even the smallest detail was important when you were gambling for high stakes.

In the small kitchen Miranda made fresh coffee and poured it into a coffee pot. She set an elegant silver tray with the pot, a matching cup and saucer, and a tiny jug of cream. The china was part of the dinner service used in the clients’ dining room, white with a dense blue band and edged in gold. It was both very rich and severely restrained—rather like Pepper herself in many ways.

When Miranda took in the coffee Pepper put down the papers she was working on to say,

“If any of the men on that list telephone, Miranda, I don’t want to speak to them. If any of them cancel their appointments please let me know.”

She didn’t say anything more and Miranda didn’t ask her any questions. Pepper didn’t delegate. The success or failure of Minesse Management lay in her hands and hers alone.

She drank her coffee while she studied the newspaper clippings from the weekend’s newspapers. It was part of Miranda’s job to go through the papers and clip out any mention of their clients or sponsors.

At quarter to twelve she cleared her desk and rang through to her secretary.

“I have an appointment with John Fletcher at twelve, Miranda. I should be back around two, if anyone wants me.”

John Fletcher was an up-and-coming designer. Pepper had seen some of his clothes in a Vogue feature on new designers, and she had commissioned him to make two outfits for her. As yet he was not very well known, but Pepper planned to change all that. She had on her books a young model who was being tipped to go far, and it was in her mind to link model and designer in a way that could promote and draw attention to them both.

Louise Faber had introduced herself to Pepper at a cocktail party. She was eighteen years old, and knew exactly what she wanted to do with her life. Her mother had been a model, and so through her Louise already had the looks and the contacts to get into the business. Several of her mother’s contemporaries had grown from modelling into other more powerful areas of fashion, and Rena Faber had been able to call on old loyalties to give her daughter a good start. But Louise was no ordinary dewy-eyed eighteen-year-old whose ambition was to get her face on the front cover of American Vogue.

Louise had her own ambitions. She wanted to own and run a Michelin-star restaurant, but for that she needed money, and training. Without money and influence she would have very little chance of being taken on at the kind of restaurant where she could get the training to fulfil her ambitions. Women were not chefs, they were cooks, but Louise aimed to prove that that was wrong.

Her parents had divorced while she was quite young, and from what she had told Pepper there was not enough money in the family anyway to finance either the training or the sort of restaurant she would eventually want to own. A chance remark by one of her mother’s friends, that she would make a good model, had led to her deciding that modelling would be an excellent way of earning the money she needed. Once having made that decision she was determined that if she was to model, then she wanted to be the best.

She needed an image, she had confided to Pepper, something that made her stand out from the other pretty, ambitious girls, and remembering John Fletcher, it had occurred to Pepper that designer and model could well have something to offer one another. If in her off-duty hours Louise wore only John Fletcher models, both of them would benefit from the publicity. Pepper had the contacts to make sure the press picked up on the story. She had already discussed it with John, and today he was going to give her his decision.

Initially she would make very little from the deal; but this was her forte, to spot original and new talent, whether in sport or any other field, and to nurture it towards success, and then to reap financial benefit.

No sponsor would ever risk his money on an un-proven outsider, but only let one of her outsiders start winning and Pepper was then in a position to make her own terms. That was how she had started off—spotting a potential winner before anyone else.

John Fletcher had premises just off Beauchamp Place, an enclave of designer and upmarket shops off the Brompton Road. Because of the lunch-time traffic, Pepper hadn’t used the Aston Martin, and her taxi dropped her off several doors away from her destination. Two model-thin girls emerging from Bruce Old-field’s premises turned to look at her. Neither of them was a day over nineteen.

“Wow!” one exclaimed to the other. “Now that was real class!”

There was no one in the foyer as Pepper walked up the stairs to John Fletcher’s showrooms. She knocked briefly before walking in.

Two men were standing by the window, studying a bolt of scarlet fabric.

“Pepper!” John Fletcher handed the silk to his assistant and came to greet her. “I see you’re wearing the black.”

Pepper smiled at him. She had chosen to wear the black suit he had designed for her quite deliberately. Wasn’t it a black skull cap that judges used to wear when pronouncing the death sentence? Miles French should appreciate the finesse of her gesture, even if the others didn’t, but somehow she was sure that they would.

The skirt of her suit had been cut in the new short, curvy shape that clung to her hips and waist. She allowed John’s assistant to help her off with the jacket. He was one of the most beautiful young men she had ever seen, sleekly-muscled, golden-skinned and golden-haired. A covert look passed between the boy and John which the latter acknowledged with a brief shake of his head.

Pepper intercepted it, but waited until she and the designer were alone before saying lightly,

“Very wise, John. I’d be extremely mortified if you were to offer me the services of your tame stud.”

“He hasn’t been with me very long, and I’m afraid he’s still a bit gauche,” John apologised.

“Do you get many clients asking for that sort of service?” Her voice was slightly muffled as she stepped into a cubicle and stripped down to her underwear.

“Enough. But how did you know? Most people walking in here take one look at him and assume…”

“That you’re gay?” Pepper stepped out of the cubicle and flashed him a mocking smile. “I know when a man likes women and when he doesn’t, John, but I should have thought you were making enough profit from your clients without that sort of sideline.”

“Oh, I don’t provide it. Any arrangement my clients come to with Lloyd is their affair entirely.”

Pepper’s mouth twitched. “But word gets round, doesn’t it, and there are plenty of bored rich women who’ll patronise a designer who can do more for their bodies than simply clothe them.”

John shrugged. “I have to make a living.”

“Mmm. Speaking of which…”

As he worked, Pepper discussed with him her plans that Louise Faber should exclusively model his clothes.

“I like it.” He stood up and studied the dress he was pinning on her.

“Do you think you’ll be able to get the tie-in with Vogue?” she asked.

“I should think so. I’ve got several contacts there. There should be a number of their fashion editors at the charity do you and I are going to tonight. We could talk with them and if it looks good, then Louise and I can get together to thrash out the details.”

Pepper left half an hour afterwards, picking up a cruising taxi that deposited her outside her favourite restaurant. The head waiter recognised her instantly, and escorted her to a table that made her the focal point of all other diners.

The restaurant had originally been a decaying three-storey building in a row just off Sloane Square. Pepper had bought it when she first suspected that the rich were transferring their loyalty along with their cheque books and credit cards, from Bond Street to Knightsbridge. All three floors were let out at extremely good but not extortionate rents. She had provided the finance for the restaurant, and she had also been the one who had tipped off the chef manager that Nouvelle Cuisine was on the way out and something a little more substantial on the way in.

There wasn’t a day of the week when every table in the place wasn’t taken. A subtle PR campaign had made it the “in” place to go. Coveys of elegant well bred women sat round the tables, nibbling at food they had no intention of eating—their size ten figures were far too important. Anyway, they hadn’t come here to eat; they’d come to see and be seen.

An artist who was another of Pepper’s clients had transformed the drab interior of the building with outrageously erotic trompe l’oeil, and if one was sufficiently in the know it was possible to discern in the features of the frolicking nymphs and satyrs the facial characteristics of many prominent personalities. When a person faded from the limelight, their faces were painted out and someone else’s, someone who was new and newsworthy, painted in. It wasn’t entirely unknown for actresses and even politicians to discreetly suggest to Antoine that their faces would look good on his walls.

Pepper’s involvement in the restaurant was a well kept secret; her face did not appear on any of the gambolling nymphs, but as she followed the head waiter across the smooth dark grey carpet, every pair of eyes in the place marked her indolent walk.

She sat down and gave her order, without reference to the menu, her forehead creased in a slight frown. Most of the women lunching together were in their early twenties or late forties, young wives or bored divorcees. The other women, those with careers, those with money, spent their lunch hour dining clients or extending their range of contacts; the sort of business that their male equivalents carried out in their clubs.

Soon these women would need the cachet of the same exclusivity. As yet there were very few clubs catering for the new breed of career women; somewhere they could entertain their clients, have lunch and even stay overnight if necessary.

If Pepper’s clients had provided the bulk of her cash flow, then it was her own careful investment of those funds that had given her the very secure capital base underpinning her business. Pepper was always in the market for a good investment. She smiled to herself, her mind sliding easily into overdrive, exhilarated by the challenge of her thoughts.

Although she knew people were watching her, she ignored their covert looks, mentally weaving the threads which could form the pattern of a new business venture, at the same time thoroughly enjoying her fresh salmon and its accompanying vegetables. Pepper had gone short of food too often as a child not to appreciate it now. She was fully aware of how many of the women toying with their plates of salad were secretly gnashing their teeth over both her appetite and her apparent disregard for the effects of what she was eating on her figure.

What they didn’t know was that tonight she would eat a very meagre meal indeed, and then before she got ready to go out she would also have half an hour of tennis coaching on the indoor courts belonging to the private sports complex attached to her home. Dieting in public drew attention to a possible weakness, and Pepper had learned long ago never to let anyone see that she could be vulnerable.

She arrived back at the office at five minutes past two. Miranda followed her in to tell her that she had received phone calls from all four of the gentlemen on the list. Three of the four had asked to speak to Pepper personally, but on being told that she wasn’t available had settled for confirming their appointments.

“And the fourth?”

Miranda consulted her list.

“Miles French? Oh, he simply confirmed that he would be here.”

She thought as she left Pepper standing beside her desk that her boss was looking rather abstracted, but she knew better than to ask questions.

At two-thirty, Miranda prepared a trolley ready for the tea she would be asked to serve later in the afternoon. The fine china was Royal Doulton and like the coffee cups had been specially designed to Pepper’s specification.

All four of the men arrived within ten minutes of one another. The receptionist showed them into the waiting room, then rang through to Miranda to tell her that they had arrived. She glanced at her watch. Five to three.

Inside her office Pepper refused to give in to the temptation to glance through her files one final time. She had already checked her make-up and clothes, and she fought against a nervous impulse to check once more. At five to three her internal telephone rang, and her stomach lurched. She picked up the receiver and acknowledged Miranda’s advice that the four men had arrived.

Taking a deep breath, she said calmly, “Please show them in Miranda, then bring us some tea.”

Across the hallway in the comfortably furnished waiting room the four men waited. They had recognised one another, of course, each a little surprised to see the others, but acknowledging the acquaintanceship. Their lives touched only rarely these days. Only Miles French seemed totally relaxed. What was he doing here? Simon Herries wondered, frowning slightly as he studied him. Was he somehow connected with Minesse? Retained by them to handle their legal affairs, perhaps?

The door opened and an attractive brunette stepped inside. “Ms Minesse will see you now, if you would just come this way, please.”

When they were shown in Pepper was standing with her back to the door, pretending to study the view outside her window. She waited until Miranda had brought in the tea things and closed the door behind her before turning around.

All four men reacted to her, but she could only see recognition in the eyes of one of them.

Miles French. Pepper deliberately let her expression go blank, hiding from him her fury and loathing.

Across the desk Miles studied her with curiosity and amusement. He had recognised her face immediately, but it had taken him a few seconds to place her. He looked at his companions and realised that none of them had; his senses, honed by his legal training, picked up on her tension. She had come a long way since Oxford, a long, long way.

Simon Herries was the first to speak. Pepper let him shake her hand and give her his practised smile, a judicious blend of male appreciation, sincerity and seriousness. He had filled out since she had last seen him, and it suited him. He looked what he was—a prosperous and successful man. The others followed suit. Miles French was the only one to look directly into her eyes, trying to put her at a disadvantage, she acknowledged, her heart thumping unpleasantly fast as she met the recognition in his smile.

That was something she hadn’t anticipated. None of the others had recognised her, and that he should have done so threw her slightly off guard.

“I’m sure you’re all wondering why I asked you to come here.” Her smile was professional and tempting, promising that none of them would be disappointed in their anticipation. She had already unlocked the drawer that held their files, and now she reached down with one smooth practised movement and removed them.

“I suggest that it might facilitate things if you were all to read these.” The files held only copies, of course. Duplicates of them were safely deposited with her bank. Pepper had no intention of seeing almost ten years of work torn up in front of her eyes.

While she poured the tea she waited to see how long it took for the secure, self-satisfied smiles to disappear.

Richard Howell’s went first. She saw his eyes narrow and then leave the papers he was studying to stare at her.

“Milk, Mr Howell?” she asked him sweetly.

Each of those files held a secret that if made public could destroy their professional lives for ever. Each of them had thought that secret so deeply buried that it would never be uncovered. Each of them had been wrong!

Richard Howell was now a highly respected and respectable merchant banker; but once he had simply been a younger and much poorer relative in the banking empire run by his uncle David.

It had taken a lot of digging to discover how he had got the money that enabled him to secretly buy up enough shares to challenge and eventually overthrow his uncle’s control of the family business. It had taken Pepper months of painstaking work to discover that he had first started buying up shares while he was working in the safe deposit department of the bank.

For many people their safety deposit boxes are simply a place where they leave their valuables to prevent them from being stolen. There are, however, those who find that safety deposit boxes are excellent places to conceal funds—or other items—gained by other and often illegal means: tax evasion, fraud and sometimes outright theft.

It had been Richard Howell’s good fortune during the time he was in charge of the safe deposit department to come across a man who fell into this last category. In addition, since it was a rule of the bank that they should hold duplicate keys for their safety deposit boxes, he was able, by carefully choosing his moment, to unlock it and discover for himself exactly what was inside—but that had only come later, following the death from a heart attack of the man who called himself William Law.

“William Law” had had his heart attack in the street, half a mile away from the bank’s premises. The evening papers had carried his photograph and a small paragraph on his death, only his name hadn’t been William Law but Frank Prentiss, and he had at one time been a member of a gang who had been suspected of carrying out several wages snatches involving hundreds of thousands of pounds. The police had never been able to get enough evidence to convict Frank Prentiss and the other members of the gang, and when three months went by without either the police or the bank connecting Frank Prentiss with William Law, Richard Howell went painstakingly through the records, and then when he was sure that no one would ever know, he removed from William Law’s safety deposit box everything but a couple of hundred pounds.

He had no fears about the money being traced back to him—a man as clever as Frank Prentiss must surely have had the stolen notes laundered, and if the police did make the connection between William Law and Frank Prentiss, and find the safety deposit box, then they would just assume that Frank had spent the money.

There was now two hundred and forty-five thousand pounds in Richard Howell’s private account with Lloyds Bank, and by the time his uncle decided to query where on earth the money had come from it was already too late—Richard was the new majority shareholder of Howell’s bank, having used that original £245,000 as the basis of a fund which through clever and informed dealing on the Stock Exchange he very quickly managed to turn into a very large sum indeed.

Pepper smiled gently at him as she handed him the cup of tea. It amused and exhilarated her to see the panic in his eyes. No doubt he had thought himself safe and invincible—now he knew better.

And what of Simon Herries, the up-and-coming politician; the upholder of decency and family life; the closet homosexual who got his real sex thrills with young boys—the younger the better! When he was at Oxford he had been the ringleader of a select group, all bound to secrecy, who had dabbled in black magic among other things.

Pepper smiled dulcetly into the furious blue eyes that glittered dangerously across the width of her desk.

Alex Barnett had also been a member of that select group—if only briefly. Still, it was long enough to prevent any adoption agency from ever allowing him on their books. Pepper knew all about Julia Barnett’s desperate need to have a child, and she also knew how much Alex loved his wife.

And so, on to Miles French. He had disappointed her. It was true that he had a highly active sex life, but he was very selective when it came to choosing his partners and faithful to them while the relationship lasted. Pepper had waited a long time to get something sufficiently damning on Miles, but at last her patience had been satisfied.

Three months ago, the eighteen-year-old daughter of a friend had been smuggling cocaine into the country. She should have been caught. Pepper’s information was that she had got on a plane in Rio de Janeiro, carrying the illicit drug disguised some way in her back pack. But somehow when she arrived at Heathrow the cocaine had gone.

Her flight had put down briefly in Paris. Miles French had also been in Paris at the time, and the pair of them had returned to London together. Somehow Miles had managed to persuade the girl to give him the cocaine, Pepper was convinced of it, even though as yet she had no conclusive proof. Even without proof, though, there was enough on her file to irrevocably destroy both his career and his reputation. A potential High Court judge involved in a drugs scandal—he would be de-barred at the very least.

She waited until they had all finished reading. Only Miles French was still smiling. He had far more control than the others, she acknowledged, but she wasn’t deceived.

Simon Herries spoke first, flinging down the file and demanding savagely, “Just what the hell is all this about?”

Pepper didn’t allow herself to be affected by his rage.

“All of you will now have read your files, so all of you will, I’m sure, realise the precarious position you’re in. In those files is information which if it became public could adversely affect your reputation and careers.”

“So that’s it!” Simon Herries sneered. “Blackmail!”

Pepper froze him with an icy look.

“No, not blackmail,” she told him softly, “retribution.”

She had their attention now. All of them were staring at her, watching her without comprehension—all of them apart from Miles French, whose mouth was twisted in a very knowing smile indeed.

“Retribution—what the hell for?” demanded Alex Barnett acidly.

Pepper smiled and got up.

“For rape, gentlemen. Eleven years ago all of you, in one way or another, contributed to the fact that I was raped.” She paused as she saw their faces change, and offered mockingly, “Ah, I see you do remember after all!”

“Why have you sent for us…what are you going to do?”

It was Alex Barnett who spoke, struggling against his growing feeling of disbelief. He remembered the incident, of course. He had never forgotten it, but he had thought he had successfully buried it along with his guilt, and all the other unpleasant aspects of his past that he preferred to forget.

He looked at Pepper and saw the expensive groomed elegance of her, wondering at the transformation. The girl he remembered had been bone-thin, wearing shabby clothes, her accent thick and hard to understand. She had fought them like a wild animal, lashing out at their faces with her nails…He shuddered deeply, closing his eyes.

“What are you going to do?” he muttered.

Amazingly she was still smiling at them. “Nothing. Unless of course you force me to.”

Behind her calm smile she was alert, with adrenalin-based energy, watching and assessing.

Rape. To her it was the most vile four-letter word in existence, especially when it applied to the sort of rape that had been inflicted on her. The terror of that night was something she would never forget. She wouldn’t let herself; it had been her single motivating force for too long. It had brought her from poverty and deprivation to where she was today.

“You took from me something that was irreplaceable, and I’ve decided that it’s only just that each of you in turn should lose something of similar value.

“You, Mr Herries,” she told him, watching him with her mouth curved into a smile and her eyes as hard as metal, “will resign from the Conservative Party. I hear you’re tipped as being a possible candidate for their future leader. However, I’m sure they wouldn’t think you such a drastic loss if they knew the contents of that file, do you?”

Her smile assessed his rage and then dismissed him as she turned to Richard Howell.

“The bank means an awful lot to you, doesn’t it, Mr Howell? But I’m afraid you’re going to have to give it up.”

“Resign?” He stared at her in disbelief.

Her smile was gentle but implacable. “I’m afraid so. I’m sure your uncle will be only too delighted to step into your shoes.”

Alex Barnett waited, anticipating the blow falling, knowing what she was going to tell him. He had fought ever since leaving Oxford to establish his business; he had put everything he owned into it, all his energy, nearly all his time, and he felt a sudden savage desire to take that smooth white throat between his hands and squeeze until those full lips were silenced for ever.

One look at his face told Pepper he had already anticipated her ultimatum, so she passed on to Miles French.

“I know,” he told her drily, “but you’ve forgotten something, Pepper…” She frowned at him, disliking his use of her Christian name. Unlike the others, he seemed more amused than appalled.

“Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord,” he mocked softly. “You’re treading a very dangerous path, you know.”

Pepper turned away from him.

“You all have one month to consider my…suggestions. If at the end of that time I have not heard from you, the contents of these files will be revealed to the press. Of course, I need hardly tell you that they’re only copies.”

“And that you’ve left a letter with your bank and your solicitor to be opened in the event of your disappearance or death,” Miles mocked.

It irritated Pepper that he should continue to pretend that he was merely amused by her. He had as much to lose as the others. She met his eyes and shuddered, remembering. It had been his room she had woken up in that morning, his shirt had been wrapped around her bruised body; he had been standing looking down at her.

“You can’t get away with this, you know…” Richard Howell blustered.

Miles touched him on the arm and shook his head.

“A month, you say?” He looked thoughtfully at Pepper and then said to his companions. “A month isn’t a long time, gentlemen, so I suggest we don’t waste a moment of it.”

Pepper didn’t watch them go. She rang through to Miranda and asked her to come in and show them out.

“You may keep your files,” she told them mockingly, then she turned her back on them and walked over to the window.

It was over, and somehow she felt curiously empty…drained, and yet unsatisfied in a way she hadn’t expected.

She heard her office door open and knew they were leaving. Miranda came back five minutes later to remove the undrunk tea, but although her secretary waited for the rest of the afternoon Pepper did not call her in to dictate to her any notes on the meeting.

Outside in the street four men eyed one another.

“Something will have to be done.”

“Yes,” Miles agreed. “We need somewhere private where we can talk.”

“Where that bitch can’t overhear us,” Simon Herries swore savagely. “She must have had us followed…”

“I suggest we go back to my place and talk the whole thing over.” Miles flicked back a white cuff and glanced at his watch. “It’s half past four now. I have an engagement this evening. Is there anyone who can’t make it?”

They all shook their heads. They were each in their own individual ways very powerful and authoritative men, but now they were reacting almost like bewildered and dependent children. As he looked at them Miles suspected that none of them had really yet accepted what had happened to them. For him it was different; he had recognised her when they had not, and in recognising the tremendous leap she had made from what she had been to what she was, he had already been half way to acknowledging her power.

“I just can’t believe it!” Alex Barnett shook his head like a man coming up for air, confirming Miles’s private thoughts. “All these years she’s been waiting…” His face changed, shock giving way to reality.

God, what on earth was he going to say to Julia? To withdraw their application for adoption now would destroy her.

“She’s got to be stopped.”

Numbly he heard Simon Herries speaking, without monitoring the words, until he heard Miles saying coolly,

“What do you have in mind, Herries? Not murder, I hope.”

“Murder?”

“No way.” That was Richard Howell.

“She has to be stopped.” Simon Herries glared at the others. Inwardly his heart was thumping furiously. That bitch of a woman—she had enjoyed bringing them down, having them within her power. He could kill her for that alone, never mind the rest of it.

“If you are in agreement I suggest that we talk the whole thing over in private. Since I live alone my place would seem to be the best venue.”

God, how could French remain so calm! He seemed almost amused by the whole thing. Staring at him, Simon remembered how little he had trusted him in the old days, and how much pleasure it had given him to…

He realised abruptly that Miles was watching him, and quickly veiled the hostility and resentment in his eyes. For now it suited him to play along with everyone else.

It was Miles who found a cruising taxi and flagged it down, giving his address in a crisp, contained voice. As a barrister he had trained himself long ago to step outside his own emotions and reactions and study things logically, and he did so now. Viewed from Pepper Minesse’s—where on earth had she got that name from?—standpoint it was perhaps quite natural that she should want to punish them all for what they had done to her, but it took a remarkable strength of will to wait so patiently, and build so carefully.

He could feel the tension from his companions; Simon Herries was the worst, tense to the point of violence; he had always been a dangerous, volatile man. At Oxford he had been very much the gilded youth and very sought after, but beneath that gilding had lain something malevolent, cancerous even.

And the other two? Alex Barnett still looked blank and shocked. Richard Howell was sitting on the edge of his seat, hyped up with nervous tension.

None of them wasted any energy speaking until they were inside Miles’s study. “Drink, anyone?” he invited. All of them nodded.

Although they had seen each other casually over the years, they had not kept up the relationship they had had at Oxford, and each of them registered the changes in the others, as they waited for someone to speak first.

“She isn’t going to get away with this!” Simon Herries downed his whisky in one gulp and slammed down the glass. “I’m damned if I’m going to be told what to do by some upstart bitch of a gypsy brat!”

“I’m sure your female admirers would be very interested to hear that speech, Simon,” Miles remarked coolly, “but you seem to be forgetting that we aren’t dealing with an uneducated seventeen-year-old this time. Ms Minesse is an extremely successful and powerful woman.”

“She wants to destroy us!” Alex Barnett’s hand shook as he put his glass down. “We’ve got to stop her…”

“For God’s sake, we all know that. How the devil are we going to do it?” Richard asked impatiently.

Miles pursed his lips and offered mildly, “I have a suggestion.” They all looked at him. “As I see it, we need to be able to put Ms Minesse in a position where she will not only be willing to hand over those files to us, but where she will also refrain from attempting to gain…er…retribution again.”

“Threaten her in some way, you mean?” Alex Barnett looked uncomfortable. Miles ignored him.

“It seems to me that the success of Minesse Management rests entirely in the hands of its founder. If Ms Minesse were to disappear for a while, it follows that without her Minesse Management would slowly start to collapse.”

“If you’re talking about kidnapping her, it won’t work,” Richard interrupted flatly. “You heard what she said about that.”

“Yes, I did, and I agree. She can’t disappear. However, she could go away with her lover—and then stay away long enough for her clients to start losing faith in the company. Superstars have super-egos which need constant attention. Without Ms Minesse to provide that attention…” Miles lifted one eyebrow and waited for their reaction.

“Great idea!” Simon Herries sneered. “How the hell do you propose to make sure that her lover keeps her out of sight, or that she’d even agree to go with him?”

“Why, by making sure that her lover is one of us,” Miles told them silkily.

Stunned silence followed his words.

Richard Howell spoke first, turning restlessly in his seat. “For God’s sake, Miles, this isn’t the time to start making jokes! You know she’d never accept one of us as her lover…”

“She doesn’t need to accept it.”

They all stared at him.

“Of course she wouldn’t agree to going away with one of us—or with anyone else, if it meant leaving her business unattended, I suspect. But if we can convince her staff, and everyone else close to her, that she has gone away willingly with her lover, then her absence would not be considered a disappearance and consequently the instructions she has left with her solicitor and her bank would not be activated. And of course, once having abducted her, we would both have ample time and opportunity to persuade her to withdraw today’s ultimatums.”

“There’s only one problem,” Richard Howell interrupted sardonically. “Which one of us is going to play the part of the supposed ‘lover’?”

Miles raised his eyebrows.

“I thought I’d take on the role myself.” He smiled at them. “I’m single; I can take as much leave from my chambers as I wish without causing anyone to question my absence.” He smiled again and raised his eyebrows. “Of course, if one of you would prefer…” They were silent as he looked at each of them in turn, and then Simon Herries spoke.

“Very noble, but why should you do that for the rest of us?” he demanded suspiciously.

“I’m not,” Miles told him calmly. “I’m doing it for myself, and to be honest, I’d prefer to rely on myself rather than anyone else. However, if one of you has a better idea…”

“Short of murder I can’t think of a single thing,” Richard admitted bitterly. “God, she’s got us all by the short and curlies, and she knows it.”

No one disputed his comment.

“So, then it’s agreed.” Miles stood up. “I would suggest that from now on until her disappearance has been accomplished we don’t get in touch with one another. She’s obviously had all of us watched, at one time or another, and could still be doing so, if she thinks we plan to move against her.”

“Surely she can’t expect that we’d just accept her ultimatums?” Alex Barnett still looked bewildered, but now he was getting angry. The reality of what was happening had brought a thin sheen of sweat to his skin. He thought he had put all that business with Herries behind him long ago—God, what a fool he had been, but he had been flattered by Herries’ friendship—way, way out of his depth.

Richard Howell was engrossed in his own thoughts. How on earth had Pepper found out about that safe deposit box? He couldn’t give up control of the bank. He had fought too hard for it, but would French’s plan work? At the end of the day what they were talking about was abduction and kidnap, and if French couldn’t keep the girl hidden, if his plan didn’t work…He swallowed nervously. But what the hell alternative was there?

Simon Herries watched Miles. He didn’t trust him—he never had; he didn’t like him very much either. At Oxford French hadn’t been one of his court. That cunning bitch! Could French pull it off? He hoped so, he had fought too long and hard to give everything up now. There had to be another way, but until he found it he had to play along with French.

“Well, gentlemen, what do you say—do we go ahead with my plan, or not?” He looked at them all in turn, waiting for their responses.

“I don’t see that we have any alternative.” Alex Barnett looked almost ill, haunted in fact.

“I hope to God it will work.” Richard paced tensely. “Yes…Yes…All right, I agree.”

“And you, Herries?” Miles looked across at him.

“I agree.” But I don’t trust you, French, I don’t trust you one little bit, he thought silently, and I’m going to be watching you.

“Right. We have one month’s grace, and I intend to use that time to our advantage.” Miles shot back a white shirt cuff and glanced at his watch. “I’m sorry to be inhospitable, gentlemen, but I have an engagement for this evening.”

His engagement was with Rosemary. He would have to tell her that their affair was over. He wondered a little wryly how she would react. It was a pity that Pepper had managed to learn about Sophie, he had thought he had covered both their tracks rather neatly.

Pepper Minesse…Where on earth had she got that name? he wondered ironically again after the others had left. In their Oxford days he had known her simply as “Gypsy.” Everyone had called her that.

When and how had “Gypsy” become the founder of Minesse Management? Miles reached for the phone and then put it down. Tomorrow would be time enough to start uncovering the mystery of Pepper Minesse; tonight he would have to concentrate on disengaging himself from his affair with Rosemary. It saddened him that he was able to contemplate doing so with so very little regret. Hadn’t he always chosen the women in his life with a view to his ability for distancing himself from them?

Pepper Minesse…He remembered how she had looked that morning, huddled in a corner of his locked room. She had been a virgin; he remembered having to destroy his sheets. He closed his eyes and swore suddenly.

Pepper lay supine in her bath, letting the warm water soothe away her tension. She didn’t want to go to tonight’s party, but she had promised Louise.

Half of her couldn’t believe that it was over; that she had actually done it. Behind her closed eyelids images writhed and danced. She saw Alex Barnett’s shocked face; Miles French’s impassive one. Simon had been furious, and Richard disbelieving. What were they doing now? Probably trying to think of a way to stop her, but that was something they wouldn’t be able to do. She had had ten years to plan; they only had a month, and she had protected herself. If anything happened to her…But nothing was going to happen. She had the upper hand now. She wasn’t a semi-literate nobody now, of so little importance that she could be kicked about like a stray dog. Did they really think that she had forgotten; that they could get away with it?

She moved restlessly in the cooling water, wondering why she wasn’t feeling more euphoric. Beside the bath was the bottle of champagne she had taken out of the fridge. She had put it there this morning to chill so that she could celebrate, but now she didn’t want it. It irked her that she was able to take so little pleasure in her achievement. What was the matter with her? She had wanted to enjoy her triumph. Perhaps she would have enjoyed it had she had someone to share it with. The thought startled her and she examined it suspiciously, pushing it away from her as she got out of the bath.

The charity do was being held at the Grosvenor, in the ballroom. As her partner Pepper was taking one of her oldest friends. Geoffrey Pitt had been her financial adviser for several years.

She had met him just when Minesse Management was starting to grow from a small concern to a very much larger one, and it had been Geoffrey Pitt who had guided her first tentative steps when she started to expand. It had also been Geoffrey who had advised her to buy her premises rather than rent, who had helped her to invest her profits so that they too could make money for her.

These days she knew almost as much about the world of high finance as he did himself, but officially she still retained him as her financial adviser.

When Pepper first met him he had just been getting over a traumatic divorce. It had been inevitable that they should become very close, although Geoffrey, like those men who had come both before and after him in her life, had found that she had a trick of withholding from him the most essential part of herself. Most people thought she was frigid. But how could she give herself to any man after what had happened to her? It had left her with an acute and deeply rooted distrust of the entire male sex. Her fear of them she had managed to conquer, just—and only she knew what an effort of will it had been, but to allow one to be intimate with her; to even think about permitting for a second time the humiliation and degradation she had already suffered, made her flesh turn to ice.

She was not a fool; she knew that perhaps with counselling, with care, she could possibly overcome her fear, but Pepper didn’t want to overcome it. As an observer she had seen what their relationships with the men in their lives did for other women, and she didn’t want that kind of bondage for herself. All her life in so many ways she had been alone, and she had come to relish that aloneness—to see it in fact as the only way for her to live. And so cleverly, discreetly she had learned how to keep the whole sex at bay.

With Geoffrey it had been almost too easy, and now they had the sort of comfortable friendship that exists only between two people who both know and like each other and have no curiosity about one another sexually. There were still times when Geoffrey looked at her and ached to take her to bed, but he knew that Pepper did not feel a corresponding desire for him. And besides, since Nick Howarth had come into her life…

He grimaced slightly to himself. If Howarth hadn’t been abroad on business Geoffrey doubted that he would have been invited to accompany Pepper tonight.

He picked her up promptly at eight o’clock.

Geoffrey was the type of upper-class Englishman who looked his best in evening clothes, Pepper reflected as he helped her into his Rolls. He was tall, with mid-brown hair and kind hazel eyes, the sort of man mothers thought would make their daughters a good husband.

As they drove down Park Lane they joined the tail end of a convoy of cars, all disgorging their passengers outside the entrance to the Grosvenor’s Ballroom. The charity ball was for mentally handicapped children. Its patroness was the Princess of Wales, and she and the Prince were expected to be present.

As Geoffrey followed Pepper into the ballroom he couldn’t help speculating about her relationship with Nick Howarth. He knew that Howarth was one of her major clients. There was a discreet rumour among those in the know that they were also lovers, and it was certainly true that they partnered one another at a variety of social functions—functions often associated with the sport that Howarth sponsored.

Were they lovers? Geoffrey felt the old familiar jealousy at the thought of someone sharing Pepper’s bed, and then valiantly dismissed it. At heart he was a kind, rather gentle man; the kind of man who, he told himself wryly, could never hope to hold the attention of a woman like Pepper—a woman who was so intensely and vibrantly female that no man, surely, could remain immune to her.

Pepper would not have been surprised if she could have read his thoughts. Geoffrey wasn’t the only person who speculated about her relationship with Nick Howarth. They had known one another for several years now, and although both of them were regularly seen with other partners, it was generally accepted among their circle of friends that they were lovers.

Nick wasn’t like Geoffrey. Not so very long ago he had given her an ultimatum. He wasn’t the first man to do so; and he wouldn’t be the last.

He was away at the moment, but soon he would be coming back, and when he did…When he did she would find some way of dealing with him, Pepper promised herself. At the moment she had more important things on her mind.

A tense spiral of excitement began to wind inside her. In four weeks, but no, she mustn’t think about that now. There would be time enough when…She had long ago learned to control her thoughts and impulses, and so, dismissing everything else from her mind, she started to concentrate on her surroundings.

As she stepped inside the ballroom she saw that it was awash with Emanuel creations in tulle and chiffon. Her own ballgown had been designed by Bellville Sassoon. The rich blue raw silk skirt floated round her as she moved, the tightly fitting bodice just revealing the upper curves of her breasts. The off-the-shoulder sleeves and the hem of her skirt were trimmed with antique lace that had cost almost as much as the dress itself. She was wearing her hair drawn softly back off her face and caught back with a matching silk flower. Among the soft pinks and peaches of the other women her gown stood out dramatically.

The Duchess of York had made red hair fashionable, but that was not why so many of the other guests stopped to look discreetly at her as she walked into the room.

John Fletcher and Louise Faber were already seated at the table when Pepper reached it. She introduced Geoffrey to them and accepted the glass of champagne offered to her.

They all made small talk for several minutes while the tables around them filled up. A tiny frisson of excitement ran through the room when the Prince and Princess of Wales were announced. Chairs scraped back over the floor as everyone stood up.

“She’s lovely, isn’t she?” Louise whispered to Pepper as they listened to the chairwoman’s welcoming speech.

John, who had been studying the Princess’s dress, announced, “She’s wearing a Bruce Oldfield. It must be a new one, I recognise his latest line.”

Over supper they discussed business. John had had time to consider Pepper’s suggestion and he liked it. He already had in mind the sort of wardrobe he would design for Louise.

“I spoke to Vogue after I left you today,” Pepper told him. “One of their assistant editors is here tonight, apparently—Rosemary Bennett—do you know her?”

“Yes, I do. In fact I’ve seen her somewhere.” John turned round and searched among the tables. “Over there—look, Pepper. The woman in the Giorgio Armani—the white satin. Do you want me to introduce you?”

“No…not here, I’ll go and see her at Vogue later in the week.” Pepper looked away from the table, and her body froze as she saw the man making his way through the tables. For one moment she thought he was heading for her, and her face lost all its colour, her body tense with shock.

“Pepper, what’s wrong?”

Somehow she managed to drag her attention away.

“Are you feeling all right?”

John’s forehead was creased in an anxious frown, his eyes dark with concern. God, what was the matter with her? She had everything under control, but just one unexpected glimpse of Miles French had thrown her so completely off guard that she was still fighting the shock.

This afternoon must have been more of a strain than she had realised. Miles French hadn’t reacted like the others. He had been far more cool, far more in control of himself, and he had also recognised her. That was something she hadn’t expected him to do. She had changed so much from the girl she had been that she had thought there was nothing of that girl left.

Miles French had shown her otherwise, and she had found the experience disquieting.

On the other side of the room Rosemary Bennett reached out and scored her long nails delicately over Miles’s wrist.

“You’re looking very pensive, darling, is something wrong?”

Miles gave her a perfunctory smile.

“Not specifically.”

There was something different about him tonight, Rosemary recognised; something distancing. She was far too experienced and knowledgeable about men not to recognise the signs. Miles was bored.

It was time to end their affair. She didn’t really want to lose him. As a lover, physically she doubted that she had ever met his equal, but emotionally there was always a part of him that he withheld, that remained aloof and unobtainable. Rosemary veiled her eyes and studied him. Miles was not the sort of man who could live without a woman for very long, which probably meant that he had already chosen her successor.

She wondered without rancour who the woman was. Whoever she was, she hoped she had the good sense not to fall in love with him. Miles turned his head and looked at her.

“I thought tonight we might leave early.”

Trust Miles to deliver the coup de grace with style! she thought wryly, and wondered if he intended to tell her before or after he had taken her to bed. Knowing Miles, it would probably be beforehand, then he would make love to her as a way of saying goodbye.

Once she had seen Miles, Pepper couldn’t relax. Sensing her tension but at a loss to understand the reason for it, Geoffrey asked her if she would like to leave once they had finished their supper.

She got up gratefully, making her excuses to John and Louise. “I’m afraid I have a rather bad headache,” she lied, letting Geoffrey take her arm and lead her away.

“You stay here. I’ll get your coat for you,” he instructed once they were in the foyer.

Pepper sat down on one of the small gilt chairs and stared abstractedly into space. Another couple walked into the room, the woman’s voice cool and faintly metallic, the man’s deeper, almost laconic and somehow familiar.

She tensed and looked at them.

“Pepper, what an unexpected pleasure!”

She saw Miles coming towards her and was conscious of a tight aching tension constricting her throat. She struggled to stand up, catching the heel of her shoe in the hem of her skirt, overbalancing slightly. Miles reached out to steady her, and she flinched beneath the unexpected warm pressure of his hands on her bare arms.

Five feet away Rosemary saw the way Miles was looking at the other woman and knew that she had seen the lady who was going to take her place in his bed. She smiled bitterly to herself. At least he had taste. Pepper Minesse was no pretty fluffy doll.

They had gone by the time Geoffrey returned with her coat, but as he helped her into it Pepper was still struggling to obliterate the small scene from her senses.