Laszlo de Lazzari, after a discussion
with Christo, offered
her a
managerial position at Vampires, in the hope that working
again would cheer her up. Loulou refused to even
consider it.
She needed time, she
said, to think things through and sort
herself out.
Roz invited her down to Gloucestershire and dragged her out
to parties every night. People who had longed for years to meet
the glamorous, effervescent Loulou Marks did so
and were
sorely disappointed. After five days Loulou escaped back to
London, feeling like a hedgehog in search of somewhere to hibernate.
But Camilla wouldn’t allow her to hibernate. With
relentless determination she phoned Loulou, visited her at the flat and
whenever possible dragged her and Lili back with
her to the
new house in Belgravia.
Lifting an ivory chiffon cocktail
dress from the suitcase on
the bed and slipping it on to a hanger, she decided to call
Loulou as soon as the unpacking was
finished and persuade her
to come and
stay for a few more days, at least. It had taken all
Matt’s efforts to persuade Camilla to go with him to southern
Spain
for the golf tournament in which he was competing. She
had enjoyed herself enormously, but she was also glad to be
back.
Loulou needed her, having confessed that at least with Camilla she didn’t feel
she always had to put on a front. Camilla only wished that there was more she
could do to help. Gin and sympathy sometimes simply weren’t enough.
‘Where’s my wife?’ demanded Matt loudly and Camilla met
him halfway up the staircase, where he kissed her so thoroughly
that they both ended up leaning against the
elegantly curved
banister rail.
‘Hmm, not bad,’ he remarked when they had regained their
balance. ‘For a newlywed, anyway.’
‘Maybe I need a little more practice,’ suggested Camilla,
squirming with pleasure as he gently nuzzled her neck.
‘
Fifty or sixty years should do it. Shall we
start now?’
He was easing her back up the stairs. Laughing, she ducked
away.
‘You’re due at the television studios in less than an
hour,’ she
reminded him, and Matt groaned in
protest. Having missed
several of the
international tournaments during the relatively
quiet season of the golfing calendar in order to spend more
time
with Camilla, he had agreed to allow his agent to step up
the
personality promotions. Public and TV appearances were
lucrative and relatively hassle-free, and together with several
new
advertising deals they ensured that as Matt became more familiar to the public
his popularity increased. His tousled good
looks,
easy-going personality and occasionally outrageous remarks endeared him to the
general population and in the
space of four months his fanmail had
tripled.
This afternoon he was taking part in a
light-hearted sports quiz show for the third time and the only drawback, as far
as
Matt was concerned, was having to wear
television make-up.
‘No time for a quickie?’ he wheedled, trailing a finger up
the outside of Camilla’s tanned thigh.
‘
Absolutely not,’ she
replied firmly, although it was an
exciting thought. ‘Go and get ready.
I’m going to phone Loulou, see if I can persuade her to come over.’
Matt headed towards the bathroom, pulling his black
sweatshirt over his head as he went. "Tell her that if she does,’ he said,
his voice muffled by the folds of material, ‘she can have my autograph.’
Still smiling to herself, thinking
how lucky she was that
Matt didn’t mind Loulou’s frequent visits – particularly when
she was so often in low spirits –
Camilla descended the stairs
and made
her way slowly across the hall to the sitting-room.
Pausing in the doorway, she admired the sun-filled
L-shaped
room, temporarily free from the
clutter of the children’s toys
and games. It was really coming together
now, all her hard work had paid off. The scent of roses, from two enormous
bowls of creamy white blooms, one on each windowsill, filled the room.
Picking up the phone and punching out Loulou’s number,
Camilla wandered over to the mantelpiece and gazed
with
affection at the painting hanging above it. Matt, like so many
Americans,
was obsessed with the history of England. Having developed a love affair with
antique shops, he regularly returned home with hopelessly woodwormy cabinets,
bookcases and curly-legged tables, exclaiming over their age and history. This
painting, not woodwormy at all, displayed another aspect of his
heritage; commissioned by him a week after their
wedding,
Toby and Charlotte had almost disowned him as a result.
‘
We’re a
family,’ he had informed them, so bursting with enthusiasm that he failed to
comprehend their lack of it. ‘We’ve
got to
have a family portrait. It’s an heirloom, you ignorant
bunch of heathens. In a hundred years’ time we’ll
all be gone
but our painting will live on.’
Camilla had cringed at the time. Really, Matt did have the
oddest ideas. And Toby and Charlotte had wriggled and com
plained for hours each time they had been
press-ganged into
sitting for the young, rather intense artist. Marty,
refusing to be left out, had adored every moment, his endless singing almost
driving them insane. But Matt had kept them going, encouraging
them and adopting an enormous variety of suitably
paternal
poses.
And of course he was right; the
family portrait was a
miraculous
success. Now even Charlotte could be persuaded to admit that it was perfect.
Camilla had fallen in love with it.
There were Toby and
Charlotte curled up on
the settee, mischievous childlike smiles
captured
forever, with Marty grinning up from his beanbag on
the floor between them. Camilla, perched on one
arm of the settee, was smiling down at the children, and Matt, standing
behind them all, was linking fingers with her as if
it were a
secret gesture, his own expression one of quite magical joy
and pride.
It was a wonderful family portrait and now that Camilla
had overcome her initial reluctance at the idea, she adored it.
‘
So you
are
there,’
she exclaimed happily when Loulou at
last picked up the phone. ‘Are you
coming over here for dinner
this evening or
do Matt and I have to wade through an entire
side of beef on our own?’
‘
Sounds great,’ said
Loulou with more enthusiasm than
Camilla
had heard from her for a long time. Then she added
shyly, ‘OK if I bring
a friend?’
Simon Mortimer was without doubt one of the most
unsuitable
men Loulou could possibly have
chosen to help her back on to
her feet emotionally, thought Camilla,
trying very hard to find something likeable about him and realizing as she
caught Matt’s eye across the dinner table that he felt exactly the same.
Loulou, in her fragile state, had
reverted to her old ways,
finding the one man most likely to kick her while she was
down. Attractive in a languid,
Sebastian Flyte kind of way,
Simon clearly found it amusing to slide obliquely snide
comments into almost every sentence. Camilla couldn’t
believe
that Loulou let him get away with
it. When Simon ran a hand
over her
knee with a possessive gesture then remarked that it
was about time she
shaved her legs – which was patently untrue
she
merely sat there and smiled. Camilla could remember a
time in the not-too-distant past when Loulou would
have
brandished a knife at the offender’s throat, and listened appalled
as Simon ran down her dress sense, her laugh and her choice of scent which he
declared made her smell like a whore’s handbag.
Unable to help herself, she lied sweetly, ‘I gave Loulou
that scent for Christmas,’ and waited for Simon to show some small sign of
remorse.
Instead, he winked at Matt and said, ‘Oh well, anyone can
make a
mistake.’
It was one of those very rare
occasions when Matt was lost
for words.
The evening dragged on interminably.
When dinner was over,
they moved from the dining-room to the sitting-room and
Camilla held her breath as Simon
lazily approached Matt’s
treasured
family portrait. If he said one word . . . just one condescending word . . .
And it seemed as if he was able to
detect the tension in
the rose-scented air, or maybe he caught a glimpse of the
expression in Matt’s eye, for he turned and nodded at him.
‘It’s a
good painting. Pick the right artist
and you can make damn
good investments these days. Ever thought of going
into wine, Matt?’
It was the nicest thing he had said all evening. Matt
grinned and replied, ‘Almost every night, before dinner.’
Luckily, Simon had to be up at five
the following morning;
at midnight he left, alone, leaving Loulou – and Lili, asleep
upstairs – to spend the night with Matt and Camilla.
Kissing
Loulou’s forehead and affectionately
patting her cheek, he said
his
goodbyes and disappeared into the night in his turbo-powered
Porsche.
‘
I bet you hated him,’
said Loulou with a teenager’s defiance
as she tucked her legs beneath
her on the settee and accepted a
small
Sambucca from Matt. ‘But he’s very kind. He looks after
me. And at least
I know he isn’t after my money.’
‘
I’m sure he’s very
nice,’ said Camilla, casting helplessly around for something tactful to say.
Sensing her hesitation,
Loulou went
on eagerly, ‘He treats me like a lady. He hasn’t
even tried to get me
into bed yet.’
‘Probably as gay as a daisy,’ muttered Matt under his
breath.
Aloud, he said, ‘Lou, he treats you
like shit. You can do a
million times better than that.’
Camilla winced; Matt’s normally endearing bluntness was
sometimes downright alarming, although luckily if anyone could take it, it was
Loulou.
‘Maybe I can,’ she replied with a spirited toss of her
blonde mane, ‘but right now, he’s what I need. Look at Mac — everyone
likes him, but he still dumped me. And I paid out
two million
for that pleasure. At least Simon accepts me for what I am.’
‘He’s still a shit,’ said Matt, calmer now but wishing
Loulou wouldn’t simply accept her fate as if she had no control over it. Some
women, he thought with frustration, he would never understand.
‘And that’s my trademark,’ Loulou explained, draining her
Sambucca and watching the coffee beans slide
lazily down to
the bottom of her
liqueur glass. ‘I always fall for the bastards.
I’m too old to change my
ways now.’
‘How did the TV thing go this afternoon?’ said Camilla, to
change the subject. By the time Matt had got
back from the
studios it had been a
rush to get ready for dinner and she had
had no time to ask him about
it.
‘
Fine. Jerry’s leaving
and they want me to be team captain
for the next series. Guess who I saw
in the canteen there?’
He glanced across from Loulou to
Camilla and with a dull
thud of
premonition Camilla said, ‘Roz.’
‘
Right,’ said Matt, visibly impressed.
‘Did she
say anything?’
‘
She looked like she was in a hurry. All she did was smile
and ask me
if I was still married.’
‘
Bitch,’ hissed Loulou, far more upset by Roz’s
behaviour
than by Matt’s criticism of Simon.
‘She’s been really good to
me, too.
What on earth makes her act like a cow wherever
Camilla’s concerned?’
Simple,
thought Camilla, averting her eyes. Nico.