To Be the Best

  ‘He’s not interested in me, though,’ Amanda asserted.

  ‘We’ll see about that.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Michael’s spent a great deal of time with you lately, but always on business, dealing with their takeover of Lady Hamilton Clothes. Now he ought to see you in a different light, in social situations, with other men flocking around you… which they generally do, so don’t shake your head in that way. Whilst you’re both in New York, Shane and I are going to be giving a few dinners and cocktail parties… I want to make certain Michael gets to know you even better. And in a more personal way.’

  ‘Oh,’ was the only thing Amanda could think of to say.

  ‘Trust me. Your future looks very bright you know, from my vantage point.’

  ‘And so does yours,’ Amanda was swift to say. ‘I feel certain you’re going to get the Larson chain.’

  ‘I sincerely hope you’re right,’ Paula said, and crossed her fingers.

  ***

  As the British Airways Concorde flight took off for New York, a Qantas flight from Hong Kong was simultaneously landing at Heathrow.

  Within an hour the passengers had disembarked, the luggage had come down on the carousel, and Jonathan Ainsley, looking like the prosperous business tycoon he was, walked through customs and out into the arrival hall.

  His eyes scanned those people waiting near the barrier, and he raised his hand in greeting when he saw the flaming red hair and beaming face of his smartly-dressed cousin, Sarah Lowther Pascal.

  Sarah waved back, and a moment later they were embracing affectionately.

  ‘Welcome home, Jonny,’ Sarah said as they drew apart, looked each other over appraisingly and with mutual approval.

  ‘It’s nice to be back. It’s been ages.’ He grinned at her, motioned to the porter to follow with his luggage, and grabbing Sarah’s arm, led her out to the car park.

  ‘I am glad your trip to London coincided with mine,’ Jonathan was saying some ten minutes later as they rolled comfortably towards London in the large chauffeur-driven limousine Sarah had hired to meet him.

  ‘So am I,’ she said. ‘Yves wanted me to come to see the gallery that represents him here, and I had some business of my own to attend to this week. So it was perfect timing, Jonny.’

  ‘And how is Yves?’ Jonathan asked.

  ‘Extremely well,’ Sarah answered, her voice full of enthusiasm. ‘Painting with great brilliance at the moment.’

  ‘And selling very well too,’ Jonathan murmured, and glanced across at her. ‘Not stinting you, I see, if the jewellery is anything to go by… and that is a Givenchy suit, isn’t it?’

  Sarah nodded, smiled with pleasure at his compliments. ‘He’s very generous, but my own investments have been paying good dividends…’ She gave Jonathan a sidelong glance. ‘And how is Arabella?’

  ‘Wonderful!’ Jonathan’s face instantly lit up, and he began to talk about Arabella and their life in Hong Kong in great detail, hardly drawing breath.

  Sarah wished she had never brought up the woman’s name. She hated her cousin’s wife.

  Settling back against the butter-soft, wine-coloured leather of the car, she appeared to give her attention to Jonathan, nodding from time to time, looking as if she was absorbing every word he uttered, but, in point of fact, she was not listening to one single thing he was saying.

  She’s innocence, all innocence, Sarah thought, her mind focused on Arabella. But I spotted her type the minute I met her. She’s clever and crafty and out for the main chance. And she’s got a past, that one. I’m sure of it. I just wish I could warn him about her, but I daren’t. She found it hard to believe that Jonathan had been taken in by Arabella Sutton. Even Yves, usually uninterested in other women, had appeared to be bewitched by her when Jonathan had brought her to stay at Mougins earlier in the year. Of course, she was charming. And beautiful. All that silver hair, the sloe eyes, the sensational figure. A sexpot, I bet, Sarah thought disparagingly, loathing her, irrationally. What did it matter to her whom her cousin married. Except that she cared about Jonny, cared about his well being.

  She had her own family now, an adoring husband, an angelic and gifted child. But Jonathan represented her past, her ties in England. Her parents were alive and so were Jonny’s, her Aunt Valerie and Uncle Robin. But somehow Jonathan was the one she loved the most, even though he was mostly responsible for her estrangement from their other cousins, and aunts and uncles. The rift in the Harte family had so distressed her. Although she harboured dislike for some of them, she nonetheless felt the sting of banishment, minded that she was no longer a member of that distinguished clan.

  Arabella fascinated Jonny, that was quite obvious. Sarah hated competing for his attention. She had had to do that when Sebastian Cross was alive. Bosom chums they had been, Jonathan and Sebastian, from their days at Eton. And they had stayed close. She used to wonder why. Sebastian had not been very nice. Sleazy, in her opinion. And he had had such a strange fixation about Jonny. If she had not known otherwise, she would have sworn Sebastian was gay. But his reputation as a womanizer had preceded him. Now she wondered if that had actually meant anything. Sebastian had been such an odd bird. He had died of an accidental overdose of cocaine. He had had nothing but bad luck after Jonathan left England, had made nothing but disastrous business deals. She had heard that he died flat broke.

  Jonathan touched her arm, exclaimed crossly, ‘You seem far away, Sarah, haven’t you been listening to me?’ He peered into her face, his pale eyes narrowing shrewdly.

  ‘Yes, yes, of course I have,’ she protested, now truly giving him her fullest attention, not wishing to displease him. Jonny had quite a temper, was easily provoked.

  ‘Is something bothering you?’ Jonathan pressed, as usual attuned to her, as if he could read her mind. He had always managed to unnerve Sarah because of this ability.

  ‘Actually, I was just thinking about Sebastian Cross,’ Sarah admitted. ‘It was odd the way he died, wasn’t it?’

  Jonathan was quiet for a fraction of a second.

  ‘Yes,’ he said at last. ‘Very odd indeed.’ There was another pause, before he volunteered quietly, ‘He was bi-sexual. I didn’t know, of course.’ He looked Sarah fully in the face, confided, ‘He only admitted that to me when he flew out to Hong Kong to see me, the first year I was there… he confessed that I was… er… er… well, the object of his passion, shall we say?’

  ‘Oh dear,’ Sarah said, not particularly surprised by this sudden revelation. ‘How frightful for you.’

  Jonathan smiled narrowly. ‘In all truth, it was, Sarah. But he took my rejection of him very well indeed. Or so I believed at the time.’

  Sarah said not a word, watched him acutely.

  He asked eventually, ‘Do you think that’s why he died, Sarah? Do you think that the overdose was intentional… you know, an accident on purpose?’

  ‘It has occurred to me from time to time.’

  ‘Sad really.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘How rude of me, darling, I forgot to ask after that adorable child of yours. How is little Chloe?’ Jonathan abruptly changed the subject, not wishing to dwell on Sebastian Cross, to rake over the past. He was only interested in the future, which he had been looking at very closely of late.

  ‘Chloe is simply wonderful,’ Sarah said, glowing as she launched into a recital about her daughter, one of her two favourite subjects, the other being her husband. ‘She fell in love with her Uncle Jonny… and before I left France earlier this week she made me promise I’d bring you back to Mougins for the weekend. You will come, won’t you?’

  ‘I’ll certainly try.’

  ‘Good,’ Sarah half turned in her seat, gave him a long and searching look. ‘What did you mean when you phoned me from Hong Kong and said our day would come, that we’d soon get our own back on Paula?’

  Jonathan leaned closer. A wicked and knowing smirk spread across his bland face. ‘I believe that no one
is infallible, that even the smartest tycoons can make flawed judgement calls at times. And I have always known, deep down, that Paula O’Neill would make a mistake one day. I’ve been waiting… and watching… and my gut instinct tells me she’s about to do something foolish. The odds are there, you see, she’s had too good and too long a run for her money. And when she makes her fatal error I shall be there. Ready to pounce.’

  Sarah gave him a penetrating stare, her green eyes quickening. ‘What do you mean? How do you know? Tell me, Jonny, tell me more!’

  ‘Later,’ he said, squeezing her arm in the very intimate way he had with her. ‘Let’s wait until we’re in the privacy of my suite at Claridge’s… and then I shall explain how I aim to destroy Paula O’Neill.’

  Sarah shivered with pleasure and anticipation at the thought of Paula’s downfall. ‘I can’t wait to hear your plan. I’m sure it’s brilliant… and how I’ve longed to get my revenge on that cold, frigid, thieving bitch. She stole Shane from me, quite aside from everything else.’

  ‘Of course she did,’ Jonathan concurred, fanning Sarah’s festering hatred of Paula, as he had for years, needing an ally in his scheming, if only for moral support.

  He put his hand in his jacket pocket, and his fingers curled around the pebble of mutton-fat jade. His talisman. It had brought him great good luck in the past. He had no reason to doubt that it would do so again.

  PART THREE

  Winners & Losers

  Unnatural deeds do breed unnatural troubles.

  Macbeth: WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

  One must therefore be a fox to recognize traps, and a lion to frighten wolves.

  The Prince: MACHIAVELLI

  All or nothing.

  Brand: HENRIK IBSEN

  Chapter 33

  ‘You really are the best thing that ever happened to Philip,’ Daisy said, filled with love and respect for the young American woman who was her daughter-in-law.

  Madelana’s face lit up, and she laughed lightly as she settled herself more comfortably on the sofa. ‘Thank you. That’s a lovely thing to know.’

  They were sitting in the drawing room of the house at Point Piper in Sydney, which Philip had owned for a number of years, and where he and Maddy now lived for most of the week when they were not at Dunoon. It was August and a lovely afternoon, even though it was still the winter season in Australia, and earlier Madelana had opened the French doors leading out to the terrace and the garden beyond. A soft breeze drifted in, made the silk draperies flutter and whisper, carried with it the mixed scents of honeysuckle and eucalyptus and the salt tang of the sea.

  After a moment, Madelana smiled at her mother-in-law and added, ‘Anyway, I have to say the same thing about your son, Daisy. He’s made me a whole person again, chased all my sorrow and gloom away, and given me so much love that there are times when I think I might just burst with happiness.’

  Daisy nodded, understanding exactly what she meant. It had always pleased her that Maddy was so open, without guile, and readily able to articulate her feelings. Also, it was gratifying to know that her son was such a good husband, had adjusted to being a married man after years of playing around, and that he and Maddy were so blissfully happy.

  ‘When a marriage truly works there’s nothing else like it in the world, nothing that can take its place,’ Daisy said with great feeling. ‘And it’s pure joy to have a relationship with a man who gives so much of himself… as both Philip and Jason do.’

  Daisy paused, quickly glanced to her left, stared at the various photographs of David, her late husband, taken with Philip, Paula and her twins, Lorne and Tessa, and with she herself. Happy, loving family pictures which Philip kept grouped on a small side table near the fireplace. She was thoughtful for a moment, remembering her life with David, and when she swung her head and smiled across at Maddy it was with a certain ruefulness.

  ‘When David was killed in the avalanche I thought the world had come to an end for me. And of course it had in so many ways,’ Daisy confided, speaking to Maddy about her first husband in a more intimate way than she ever had before.

  ‘You see, Maddy, I’d shared a perfect marriage with my darling David… ever since I’d married him at eighteen. I believed it could never be repeated or recaptured with another man, and it couldn’t. For the simple reason that no two men are the same, no two women either, for that matter, and every relationship is different, has its own strengths and weaknesses. Leaving England, coming out here, helped me to start over again, and my charity work for sick and needy children especially helped to give me a purpose. But it was Jason who made me come alive again as a woman. He made me whole, Maddy.’

  ‘He’s a very special man,’ Maddy acknowledged in all sincerity, thinking of the gruff Australian’s many kindnesses and loving gestures to her over the past few months. ‘We both lucked out, finding ourselves a couple of genuine forty-carat dudes.’

  ‘I’ll say we did!’ Daisy exclaimed, laughing, as usual highly amused by Madelana’s quaint expressions. She couldn’t wait to tell Jason of Maddy’s assessment of him, which, she decided, was absolutely spot on. Daisy leaned forward, picked up her cup of tea, took a sip of it.

  A compatible silence fell between these two women who sprang from such different echelons of society, from such different worlds, yet who had grown to care deeply for each other in the year they had known each other. Their great common bond was the love they both felt for Philip and Paula, and Maddy’s obsessional admiration of Emma Harte. Daisy was devoted to the memory of her mother, and she enjoyed answering Maddy’s never-ending questions, speaking about Emma, recounting anecdotes about the legendary tycoon; she had a rapt and enthralled listener in her daughter-in-law. And finally there was the bond created by the child Madelana was carrying. Philip’s child… and the heir to the McGill empire Daisy had longed for.

  Daisy thought of the baby now as she sipped her tea and quietly studied Madelana. She wished the baby would arrive. It was nearly two weeks late, and everyone was growing more impatient by the day: except for Maddy, who was tranquil and healthy… and somewhat amused by their constant fussing.

  ‘I’m glad you didn’t have the amniocentesis test after all,’ Daisy said, breaking the silence, ‘even though I can’t wait to know whether I have a grandson or a granddaughter inside that tummy of yours.’

  Madelana grinned. ‘I don’t think I’ve ever wanted to know… I prefer to be surprised.’ She placed her hands over her stomach, feeling the baby, the gesture protective, and then she started to laugh. ‘However, I have a peculiar feeling that she’s a girl, Daisy.’

  ‘Do you really?’

  Maddy nodded, leaned forward, announced, ‘And if it’s a girl we’re going to call her Fiona Daisy Harte McGill. Rather a long name, isn’t it? But we did want to name her after my mother and you, and include the surnames of her great-grandparents.’

  ‘I’m touched and honoured—and terribly flattered,’ Daisy responded, pleasure lighting up her vividly blue McGill eyes, which were so like her father’s.

  Madelana shifted her weight on the sofa, pushed herself into the pile of cushions, seeking a more comfortable position. She felt awkward and ungainly, slightly cramped all of a sudden.

  ‘Are you all right?’ Daisy asked, noticing Maddy’s grimacing, her pained expression.

  ‘I’m fine, just a bit stiff today. But to tell you the truth, I, too, wish the baby would come now. I feel like a giant-sized, over-ripe watermelon that’s about to go plop! And I’m lumbering around after Philip as if I’m a fish out of water… a huge beached whale, or something of the sort!’

  Daisy burst out laughing. ‘You do have the most colourful expressions, darling. And what if you have a boy? Have you chosen a name yet?’

  ‘Paul McGill. After your father.’

  ‘Oh, Maddy, how lovely of you and Philip. I’m delighted.’

  Daisy got to her feet, walked across to the console where she had left her handbag when she had arrived earlier in the af
ternoon. She opened it, took out a small leather box, brought it over to Madelana. Handing it to her, she said, ‘This is for you.’

  Madelana looked up at her mother-in-law in surprise, then brought her eyes down to the jewel box in her hands. The leather was worn and scratched, the gilt-embossed edge faded by time. She lifted the lid and caught her breath when she saw the emerald bow lying on the black velvet.

  ‘Why, Daisy, it’s simply beautiful. Gorgeous. Thank you, thank you so much. It’s old, isn’t it?’

  Daisy, who had seated herself next to Madelana on the sofa, nodded. ‘It dates back to the 1920s. I’ve wanted to give you something very special for the longest time, and I finally—’

  ‘But you have!’ Madelana interrupted. ‘I’ve had so many extraordinary gifts from you and Jason, as well as from Philip. You all spoil me.’

  ‘We love you, Maddy. But as I was saying, I wanted to give you something that would be truly meaningful to you at this particular time… and so I picked the emerald bow from my collection. Not only because it’s exquisite and will suit you admirably, but also because it belonged to my mother. I felt you’d appreciate that, appreciate the sentimental value attached to the brooch more than anything else.’

  ‘I do. But I can’t take it after all, Daisy… why, it’s a family heirloom.’

  ‘And what are you, if not family? Darling, you’re Philip’s wife,’ Daisy said softly but emphatically. She took the brooch out of the box and together they looked at it, admiring the exquisite workmanship, the beauty of the design, the lustre and depth of colour of the emeralds.

  Presently, Daisy said, ‘There’s a lovely story about this piece of jewellery… would you like to hear it?’

  ‘Oh yes, I would.’

  Daisy smiled to herself as she laid the brooch in the velvet-padded box, and settled back on the sofa. She was thinking of her mother, seeing her as a little girl at the turn of the century, as she had so frequently done in the past, forever marvelling at her extraordinary character.