Power Play

“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.