Читать книгу Power Games - Пенни Джордан, PENNY JORDAN - Страница 7

In London Bram was going out for the evening—not à deux with an ex-lover, but rather more formally at the invitation of the Foreign Secretary, who was hosting a small reception.

Bram knew, or was acquainted with, many of the other guests. There had been a suggestion the previous year that he might be nominated for an honour in the New Year’s Honours list until he had very firmly let it be known that, gratified though he was, he did not wish to be considered. He did not believe that, in the present economic climate, the amassing of a large personal fortune merited such a nomination—no matter how honestly earned or through how much hard work and even taking into consideration the concurrent input into the exchequer via the Inland Revenue.

‘You give as much to charity, and probably more, than most of the others being nominated, and you can be sure they won’t be turning their honours down,’ Jay had pointed out cynically.

‘I give a small percentage of my income, but I do nothing,’ had been Bram’s response.

Worldly ambition, wealth had never really motivated him. He had simply been in the right place at the right time and with the right kind of skills. His business success had, to his mind, been founded on chance and luck. The small empire which had developed from it, the people he employed who were dependent upon it, they were his responsibility and he took that responsibility seriously, as he had tried to explain to Jay. He suspected that Jay had not understood his desire to protect their employees and preferred, instead, to believe that his father was deliberately thwarting him.

It had perhaps been unwise, Bram acknowledged, to remind Jay of Plum’s forthcoming birthday. Jay was so hostile towards her. Because he couldn’t see the similarities between the childhood traumas which had led to the adult emotional problems of them both, or because he could?

Did Jay recognise that the roots of Plum’s promiscuity, her intense need for male love and approval, lay just as surely in her childhood as the roots of Jay’s need for total control over everything and everyone did in his?

He must do. He was far too intelligent not to recognise this, Bram decided. Was there any modern parent who did not grieve for all the ways in which they had failed their child? Helena might mask her feelings of guilt by distancing herself from Plum and claiming in public that she was too much her father’s child, but no doubt there were times when she, like him, wondered in despair how it was possible to love a child so much and yet still fail them so badly.

When Jay returned from New York he would have to talk to him again about his reasons for turning down his expansion plans.

It had never been Bram’s desire to become so successful. In the early days all he had wanted to do was to earn a decent living. Not even to his closest friends could he confide how much life had begun to pall, how heavy he sometimes found the burden of his success. It seemed so ungrateful not to take more pleasure in what he had achieved.

And what was he doing to Jay by condemning him to the role of heir in waiting? Jay’s business acumen was far sharper than his own. He was more than qualified to take control of the business, and under his guardianship its profits would undoubtedly grow. But what about its people—would they, too, thrive under Jay’s management?

Jay—had there been a week, a day, an hour even, in the years that he had taken full responsibility for his son that Jay had not dominated his thoughts and in many ways his actions as well?

But it was not Jay he was thinking of later in the evening as he joined the other guests at the Foreign Secretary’s reception.

It was Taylor.

And not just because Sir Anthony and his wife were among the guests.

It was the kind of occasion at which the British excelled, Bram reflected as he refused a champagne cocktail and studied the other guests. It might not have the stiff formality which hallmarked similar occasions at the embassies in Paris, nor the expensive trappings and attention to detail which glittered through even the lowliest Washington dinner party; but the slightly shabby elegance of the rooms, the relaxed mood of the guests, that indefinable and inimitable air of ease and permanence, of tradition, which is so very British, overlay the whole proceedings like the fine patina on a piece of richly polished antique furniture. The signs of age and familiarity of usage deceived only ignorant eyes.

‘Bram, how are you?’

Bram turned, smiling warmly as he heard the familiar voice of another guest.

‘Have you seen Helena recently?’ she asked him. ‘I really must get in touch with her.’

Olivia Carstairs and Helena had been at Roedean together. They had kept in touch over the years and it was through Helena that Bram knew Olivia.

‘We received an invitation to Plum’s eighteenth, but unfortunately Gerald is due to go to Russia the day before. It’s such a pity about Plum. I really feel for poor Helena. But then teenage girls can be so difficult.’

Her voice held the confidence of being the mother of four sons, Bram noticed wryly.

‘And of course, the problem is,’ Olivia continued, ‘by the time she does come to her senses, the poor girl will have gained such a dreadful reputation. I remember when I was at—’ She broke off, apologising. ‘Oh dear, I’d better go. Gerald looks as though he’s in trouble. The problem with these affairs is that one never has the time to talk to the people one really wishes to converse with. You will give Helena my love?’

‘I shall,’ Bram assured her.

Her comments about his goddaughter hadn’t been motivated by malice but, even so, they made him frown. In other circumstances he would have been tempted to talk to Plum himself, to try gently to help her understand that she could not and would not find the emotional security she was seeking by trying to purchase it with sex. However, he was acutely aware that Plum considered herself to be in love with him—how could he not be when she had earnestly and forthrightly told him so on more than one occasion?

Two years ago, when she was still not quite sixteen, he had let himself into his apartment one night to find her waiting in his bed for him. His fortieth-birthday present.

The combination of her too adult sexuality and her too youthful body and face had filled him with a mixture of despair and distaste. How could he explain to her that his love for her was that of an adult for a child, and that to him the thought of knowingly being sexually stirred by any fifteen-year-old girl was acutely repugnant. Her straight coltish limbs, her high small breasts, which she was displaying to him with such terrifying insouciance, were those of a child, not a woman.

In the end he had had to leave her in possession of his bed and spend the night in a hotel. Since then she might not have gone so far as invading his bed, but she certainly still insisted that she loved him.

On the other side of the room Anthony was talking to the aide of one of the charity’s royal patrons. Bram made his way over to join them.

‘Ah, Bram.’ Anthony welcomed him with a smile, introducing him to his companion. ‘I was just telling Charles here about you. I’m sorry I had to break our appointment this afternoon, by the way, but no doubt Taylor was able to help you.’

‘Very much so,’ Bram agreed, as the royal aide turned away to speak to someone else. ‘But…’

‘But?’ Anthony repeated, frowning as he picked up on the hesitation in Bram’s voice. ‘Was there a problem?’

‘Not with your archivist,’ Bram assured him. ‘Far from it. But I have to admit I just wasn’t prepared for the amount of material she gave me. I haven’t had time to look at it properly yet, but I doubt that I’m going to be able to extract the statistics I need without some very knowledgeable assistance.’

‘Well, that needn’t be a problem,’ his friend assured him. ‘In fact, the person in the best position to help you is Taylor herself. She’s been with the charity for a long time and the new information-collating system we put in last year was very much her baby.’

‘Well, if you’re sure she can spare the time,’ Bram responded reluctantly. ‘I must admit she would seem to be the ideal choice, especially if, as you say, she’s familiar with your own computer system.’

While Anthony was assuring him that some satisfactory arrangement could be reached, Bram was inwardly marvelling at his own hitherto unsuspected capacity for duplicity and manipulation. He had never before in his life imagined, or needed to imagine, employing the kind of deceitful sleight of hand he was using now. He had simply never had the need…or the desire.

He had a gut-deep feeling that working alongside Taylor was not going to be a good idea—either for his libido or his emotions. But the attractive proposition of another chance to get close to Taylor far outweighed any possible doubts.

‘I imagine she must have come to you straight from university,’ he heard himself saying to Anthony further compounding his deceit.

‘No. She did actually go to university, but she left without taking her degree. I’m not sure why.’ He started to frown. ‘She’s an extremely private person who doesn’t encourage personal questions, although I do know that she eventually obtained her degree via the Open University system. She’s got a first-rate brain. And a good sense of humour, too, when she allows it to surface. Sometimes, though, it’s almost as though she’s afraid of laughing, as though she’s afraid of…’

‘Living,’ Bram suggested quietly.

‘How high do you rate your chances of being able to come up with something for us?’ Anthony asked.

‘It’s hard to say,’ Bram responded honestly. ‘Especially since I need to break down all the reference material and collate it properly.

‘What I’m hoping to do is to establish some common ground between the different degrees of communication problems and to use that as the base for a general program which can then, hopefully, be adapted to meet the needs of the individual user. But as yet we’re a long, long way from that stage.’

‘Well, having Taylor seconded to you should help.’

‘Oh, it will,’ Bram told him truthfully. ‘It will.’

‘I’ll speak to her first thing in the morning. It shouldn’t be too much of a problem. She was complaining only the other week that since we’ve put in this new computer system, she’s finding she has time on her hands.

‘I was discussing this project with our patron this afternoon,’ Anthony continued. ‘He was very enthusiastic about it. It’s going to make one hell of a difference if you can pull it off. Commercially for you as well as for us.’

‘Potentially, yes.’ Bram agreed cautiously, aware that he was now voicing the same doubts which Jay had expressed earlier—but from a very different standpoint.

It was almost one o’clock when he eventually left the reception and made his way back home.

He did not, however, retire straight to bed. Instead, he went into his study, a square room to the rear of the house, with windows which overlooked a surprisingly large garden. With the heavy antique damask curtains closed, shutting out the sounds of the city, it was almost possible for him to imagine he was back on the fens.

Almost… A wry smile curled his mouth as he contrasted the expensive elegance of his present surroundings with the small, shabby cottage he had rented there. The two places, the two lifestyles, were worlds apart, but he was still the same man.

No, not the same, he acknowledged. He had changed the moment he had walked into Taylor’s office. She intrigued him, interested him, aroused his curiosity, his compassion—and his desire! And if he did desire her, was that so very wrong? Not wrong, perhaps, but certainly foolhardy—surely he had learned enough about life to realise the stupidity of wanting a woman who did not want him?

He picked up the file. He hadn’t lied when he told Anthony he was going to need help collating the information she had given him… Well, not totally, although he suspected she would take convincing of that fact.

And if she chose not to be convinced, if she refused to work with him? To work with him—was that all he wanted? Would he be able to stop at merely working with her? He was more than forty, he reminded himself, well capable of controlling whatever inappropriate physical or emotional desire Taylor aroused in him. As he had done the first time they met? His body tensed a little uncomfortably as he looked down and saw what he had doodled on the edge of the file. A small and extraordinarily feisty-looking little mouse.