hand on her shoulder. Venetia flinched at his touch, turning away to disguise her discomfort. ‘So you’ve finally decided to make it,’ he said tartly.
‘Sorry we’re late,’ she said, pushing her hair behind her ears. ‘Jonathon didn’t finish till six. Then we had to pick Cate up from home. The traffic was terrible.’
‘It would have helped if she hadn’t almost crashed the car on the way over,’ muttered Jonathon.
Oswald immediately sided with his son-in-law. ‘Yes, Jonathon, that can’t have helped, can it?’
The chilling disapproval of a childhood scolding flashed before Venetia.
‘And what’s wrong with Catherine?’ Oswald said tartly, pointing to his other daughter who was taking the bags out of the car boot. ‘Face as long as a racehorse’s. Tell her to perk up, can’t you? I need her to entertain Jennifer Watchorn and her ghastly sister with some London tittle-tattle. Perhaps that magazine job of hers is actually good for something.’
‘Oh actually, Daddy,’ Venetia said quickly, ‘Cate has had a rather horrid day at work today, so if you could keep away from shop talk …?’ She caught a whiff of his breath and immediately regretted her words. Her father was obviously in a belligerent mood and whisky always roused the devil on his shoulder. She certainly didn’t want to give him any more ammunition. She was just about to turn back to her father when her attention was caught by a shimmering blonde coming down the stairs. ‘Camilla!’ cried Venetia and Cate together as they both ran up the stairs to hug her.
Oswald stood watching them, his anger building. Saviours of the Balcon legacy indeed! He snorted into his whisky. Look at them! Venetia: airhead, a silly puppy desperate for attention. Cate, uptight and unsmiling, always on that bloody mobile phone of hers, as if women’s bloody magazines were high finance or some such, while Camilla was defiant, truculent …
With the exception of Serena – whose beauty and A-list celebrity secretly delighted him – he was increasingly disappointed in his girls. Every time they came down it was the same: clinging together like monkeys, gossiping and giggling in the corner without a thought for their father who had raised them with pain and sacrifice. Oswald took another pull of his whisky and looked across the room to where Jonathon and Nat were greeting the final guests, Oswald’s old friends Nicholas and Portia Charlesworth. At least Venetia and Camilla had had some success in attracting the right partner, conceded Oswald. Montague was from an established family – new money, of course, but he seemed solid enough – and Jonathon – von Bismarck, well, he was definitely cut from the right cloth. Of course he had recognized the ruthless City player as a scoundrel from the first. He had heard wild rumours about Jonathon: his exotic sexual preferences, the endless stream of discreet and not-so-discreet affairs. But Jonathon came from a long line of Austrian aristocracy, and that made him a useful addition to the Balcon line – whatever his extra-curricular activities.
Collins the butler clanged a gong and dinner was served in the Red Drawing Room. Rich scarlet curtains framed high French windows, the walls, hung with a rose-pink damask, blushed apricot in the candlelight, while the enormous marble mantelpiece was lined with photos of Oswald posing with various dignitaries: Thatcher, Reagan, Amin. A sharp observer might have noticed the lack of family portraits beyond the dark, disapproving faces of Balcon ancestors staring down from the gilt-framed portraits high on the walls.
Oswald took his place at the head of the table and surveyed the room, while animated conversations about politics, parties and business bounced around.
What was Watchorn going on about now? thought Oswald, catching the end of a story. Philip was telling Nicholas about his recent stay at Chequers. Although he nodded and feigned interest – Chequers! How marvellous! – Oswald was silently bristling at his friend’s growing proximity to the Cabinet. It wasn’t so long ago that Oswald had been the one with the high-flying political connections and tales of the corridors of power. As a proud peer of the realm, Oswald had taken his Lords’ duties very seriously, making the journey to London to sit three times a week in the upper chamber. But that was before New bloody Labour culled over eighty per cent of Britain’s hereditary peers in Parliament in one fell swoop. It was the end of the twentieth century and the end of Oswald’s life as he knew it. Now Oswald’s days were empty, occasionally dropping by the Balcon Galleries in Mayfair, which had been thriving for years with very little input from him. He had also written a well-received book about the Viceroy George Curzon and his time in India. But that wasn’t real work.
‘Been over to St Bart’s today,’ said Philip, turning to face Oswald.
‘Fabulous!’ gushed Venetia. ‘We wanted to go there for New Year, didn’t we Jonathon? The hotels get terribly booked up, though.’
Philip raised an eyebrow. ‘The hospital,’ he said.
Oswald looked over. ‘Trouble?’
‘No, no. Not me. Haven’t you heard about Jimmy?’
‘Jimmy Jameson?’ He shook his head. Although Jimmy had been part of the crowd in the sixties and seventies when a big group of them would frequent Annabel’s and various other Mayfair watering holes, Oswald had been deliberately poor at maintaining the friendship. He frankly did not want to get his nose too dirty. Jameson had been the business partner of Alistair Craigdale, another friend of the group, who had sensationally disappeared in the seventies after shooting his wife’s lover dead. ‘The Craigdale Killer Case’ was how the tabloids had luridly referred to it. Oswald had taken the scandal as a prompt to leave that life of gambling and carousing behind – in public at least – and while Philip, Nicholas and a handful of other useful friends had remained in his circle, the likes of Jimmy Jameson had been axed from his life.
‘It’s awful,’ said Jennifer, her voice slurring slightly from an enthusiastic intake of wine. ‘Cancer,’ she whispered.
‘Bloody broke my heart to see him,’ said Philip, wiping his mouth with a crested napkin. ‘You know what a big lad he was, Oswald? Mustn’t be more than nine stone now. Doctors say visitors are keeping his spirits up. Apparently a lot of the old crowd have popped down this week. I’m sure he’d love to see you.’
‘Of course, of course,’ replied Oswald, having absolutely no intention of making the trip to London. ‘Anything for an old friend.’
Across the table, Cate was dying a slow death of her own. Why am I here? she asked herself as she answered another mindless demand for celebrity gossip from Jennifer and Elizabeth. The truth was, Cate had been so desperate to see a friendly face after her confrontation with William Walton that the threat of her father’s disapproval had seemed a small price to pay. Now, as she looked at his frowning face, she wasn’t so sure.
At the best of times, Cate had a real love-hate relationship with Huntsford. Her earliest memories were fond: her mother reading them stories, the smell of a warm apple crumble, Camilla on a tricycle being chased by their nanny through the hall. But those later memories – well … Cate was well practised in sweeping them under the carpet. But they had a nasty way of tripping you up.
‘So, Catherine, what’s this fracas at work that Venetia’s been telling me about?’ said Oswald, cutting through Cate’s thoughts. ‘Horrid was the word, I believe.’ He rolled the word off his tongue mockingly.
Cate shot Venetia a look. She had hoped to get to Huntsford early in order to tell her father about her dismissal, but now there was nothing for it but a public announcement of her unemployment. She took a deep breath and stared at her plate.
‘Actually
