Scandals

‘Tom.’

As she saw Tom coming towards her, Katie stopped dead, blocking the way of a group of determined middle-aged county Sloanes up in London to make the most of the final days of Peter Jones’ January sale. With a great deal of tutting, the group reformed with the skill and expertise of campaign-hardened bargain hunters, leaving Katie and Tom to exchange smiles and then swift hugs.

‘I missed you in Klosters.’

‘I wanted to be there.’

‘I told Zoë’ to tell you how sorry I was about your arm.’

‘I expect she forgot. You know what she’s like.’

It was what they were not saying, rather than what they were, that mattered, Katie knew.

‘I was going to get in touch but Zoë said that you were staying with your grandparents.’

‘I was. I only got back yesterday.’

‘You’ll be going back to Oxford soon,’ Tom guessed. ‘Zoë planned to go straight there from visiting her godmother in Cheltenham.’

‘I’m going back this weekend,’ Katie confirmed.

‘Have you got something else on right now, or would you like to have lunch with me?’

‘Yes. I mean, no, I haven’t got anything else to do and I’d love to have lunch with you,’ Katie told him immediately.

‘Good.’ Tom looked so handsome and grown up in his dark suit, crisp striped shirt and, of course, his essential banker’s red tie, Katie thought admiringly.

‘Will San Lorenzo be OK?’ he asked her, mentioning the very upmarket restaurant in Beauchamp Place, which was one of Princess Diana’s favourites.

Glad that for once she had given in to her mother’s chivvying and worn ‘something decent’ – the ‘something decent’ being a neat-fitting dark plum Armani dress with a dropped waist, under a toning dark plum and grey tweed jacket, worn with plum leather boots, the outfit a Christmas gift from her mother, who had said that she was tired of seeing her daughter looking scruffy – Katie nodded her head and tried not to look too impressed.

Half an hour later they were being shown to a table in San Lorenzo’s airy cream-painted restaurant, thanks, Katie suspected, to the fifty-pound note she had seen Tom discreetly slip the head waiter.

‘Just as well it’s January and the jet set are still either in the Caribbean or on the ski slopes,’ Tom told Katie ruefully, ‘otherwise we’d never have got a table.’

Katie felt a bit like Cinderella, she decided, plucked from the mundane and everyday into a magical world, with Tom, of course, playing Prince Charming.

Over Bellinis Tom studied the menu whilst Katie studied their fellow diners, unable to stop herself from leaning over to whisper excitedly, ‘Don’t look now but over there, just being shown to the window table, I’m sure that’s Jerry Hall and Marie Helvin.’

‘And Michael and Shakira Caine are sitting just behind you,’ Tom informed her back.

‘Tell me about Klosters,’ Katie begged him, once they had ordered and been served. She loved Italian food and had decided to go for the special house cannelloni, whilst Tom had ordered the liver.

‘Well, there was, you know, lots of snow, and mountains,’ Tom teased her.

‘I was so disappointed that I couldn’t go.’

‘I was disappointed that you weren’t there,’ Tom answered.

They exchanged looks, pleased but slightly selfconscious on Katie’s part, and meaningful and very male on Tom’s.

‘This is such a treat for me,’ Katie told him. She felt flushed and happy, and just a little bit out of her depth.

‘And for me,’ Tom told her, in such a deliciously sexy dark voice that Katie curled her toes into the soles of her boots and thought that she’d never ever be able to so much as walk through Beauchamp Place again without thinking about Tom and remembering today.

‘Zoë’s told me about meeting her Earl of Rochester,’ Katie laughed. ‘I’m dying to hear more about him.’

Immediately the smile died from Tom’s eyes.

‘What is it?’ Katie asked him.

‘There was a bit of an upset over that. Axel Von Thruber – I’m assuming that’s who you mean – isn’t someone my parents would ever approve of Zoë’ befriending. You know Zoë – of course she kicked up a fuss when the parents initially said that she wasn’t to have anything to do with him.’

Katie nodded, well able to imagine the ‘fuss’ her friend would have made. Zoë hated any kind of restrictions being put on her, and in fact they were something like a red rag to a bull to her.

‘I have to say, though, that I agree with them, which, as you can imagine, hasn’t made me very popular with Zoë. The fact is that Von Thruber has the very worst kind of reputation.’

‘You mean he’s very sex, drugs and rock ’n’ roll?’

‘If only that were all he is,’ Tom answered grimly. ‘The drugs he favours aren’t just the odd reefer, and as for the sex, well, let’s just say louche doesn’t even begin to describe his lifestyle. He’s well known on the Eurotrash young jet set scene, or maybe I should say that he’s notorious. The trouble is, I suppose, he’s had too much of everything far too young. He inherited millions on his twenty-first birthday and he’s due to inherit millions more on his twenty-fifth. It doesn’t help, of course, that he is very good-looking,’ Tom admitted wryly. ‘And I suppose that Zoë, being Zoë, was inevitably drawn to him like the proverbial moth to a flame. Fortunately, though, now she’s come to her senses and seen him for what he is. Zoë can be very naïve. Initially I suspect she saw his decadence as glamorous, and of course the fact that everyone was warning her against him, and our parents so obviously disapproved of him, only added to his allure.’