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Alex Barnett waited, anticipating the blow falling, knowing what she was going to tell him. He had fought ever since leaving Oxford to establish his business; he had put everything he owned into it, all his energy, nearly all his time, and he felt a sudden savage desire to take that smooth white throat between his hands and squeeze until those full lips were silenced for ever.
One look at his face told Pepper he had already anticipated her ultimatum, so she passed on to Miles French.
“I know,” he told her drily, “but you’ve forgotten something, Pepper…” She frowned at him, disliking his use of her Christian name. Unlike the others, he seemed more amused than appalled.
“Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord,” he mocked softly. “You’re treading a very dangerous path, you know.”
Pepper turned away from him.
“You all have one month to consider my…suggestions. If at the end of that time I have not heard from you, the contents of these files will be revealed to the press. Of course, I need hardly tell you that they’re only copies.”
“And that you’ve left a letter with your bank and your solicitor to be opened in the event of your disappearance or death,” Miles mocked.
It irritated Pepper that he should continue to pretend that he was merely amused by her. He had as much to lose as the others. She met his eyes and shuddered, remembering. It had been his room she had woken up in that morning, his shirt had been wrapped around her bruised body; he had been standing looking down at her.
“You can’t get away with this, you know…” Richard Howell blustered.
Miles touched him on the arm and shook his head.
“A month, you say?” He looked thoughtfully at Pepper and then said to his companions. “A month isn’t a long time, gentlemen, so I suggest we don’t waste a moment of it.”
Pepper didn’t watch them go. She rang through to Miranda and asked her to come in and show them out.
“You may keep your files,” she told them mockingly, then she turned her back on them and walked over to the window.
It was over, and somehow she felt curiously empty…drained, and yet unsatisfied in a way she hadn’t expected.
She heard her office door open and knew they were leaving. Miranda came back five minutes later to remove the undrunk tea, but although her secretary waited for the rest of the afternoon Pepper did not call her in to dictate to her any notes on the meeting.
Outside in the street four men eyed one another.
“Something will have to be done.”
“Yes,” Miles agreed. “We need somewhere private where we can talk.”
“Where that bitch can’t overhear us,” Simon Herries swore savagely. “She must have had us followed…”
“I suggest we go back to my place and talk the whole thing over.” Miles flicked back a white cuff and glanced at his watch. “It’s half past four now. I have an engagement this evening. Is there anyone who can’t make it?”
They all shook their heads. They were each in their own individual ways very powerful and authoritative men, but now they were reacting almost like bewildered and dependent children. As he looked at them Miles suspected that none of them had really yet accepted what had happened to them. For him it was different; he had recognised her when they had not, and in recognising the tremendous leap she had made from what she had been to what she was, he had already been half way to acknowledging her power.
“I just can’t believe it!” Alex Barnett shook his head like a man coming up for air, confirming Miles’s private thoughts. “All these years she’s been waiting…” His face changed, shock giving way to reality.
God, what on earth was he going to say to Julia? To withdraw their application for adoption now would destroy her.
“She’s got to be stopped.”
Numbly he heard Simon Herries speaking, without monitoring the words, until he heard Miles saying coolly,
“What do you have in mind, Herries? Not murder, I hope.”
“Murder?”
“No way.” That was Richard Howell.
“She has to be stopped.” Simon Herries glared at the others. Inwardly his heart was thumping furiously. That bitch of a woman—she had enjoyed bringing them down, having them within her power. He could kill her for that alone, never mind the rest of it.
“If you are in agreement I suggest that we talk the whole thing over in private. Since I live alone my place would seem to be the best venue.”
God, how could French remain so calm! He seemed almost amused by the whole thing. Staring at him, Simon remembered how little he had trusted him in the old days, and how much pleasure it had given him to…
He realised abruptly that Miles was watching him, and quickly veiled the hostility and resentment in his eyes. For now it suited him to play along with everyone else.
It was Miles who found a cruising taxi and flagged it down, giving his address in a crisp, contained voice. As a barrister he had trained himself long ago to step outside his own emotions and reactions and study things logically, and he did so now. Viewed from Pepper Minesse’s—where on earth had she got that name from?—standpoint it was perhaps quite natural that she should want to punish them all for what they had done to her, but it took a remarkable strength of will to wait so patiently, and build so carefully.
He could feel the tension from his companions; Simon Herries was the worst, tense to the point of violence; he had always been a dangerous, volatile man. At Oxford he had been very much the gilded youth and very sought after, but beneath that gilding had lain something malevolent, cancerous even.
And the other two? Alex Barnett still looked blank and shocked. Richard Howell was sitting on the edge of his seat, hyped up with nervous tension.
None of them wasted any energy speaking until they were inside Miles’s study. “Drink, anyone?” he invited. All of them nodded.
Although they had seen each other casually over the years, they had not kept up the relationship they had had at Oxford, and each of them registered the changes in the others, as they waited for someone to speak first.
“She isn’t going to get away with this!” Simon Herries downed his whisky in one gulp and slammed down the glass. “I’m damned if I’m going to be told what to do by some upstart bitch of a gypsy brat!”
“I’m sure your female admirers would be very interested to hear that speech, Simon,” Miles remarked coolly, “but you seem to be forgetting that we aren’t dealing with an uneducated seventeen-year-old this time. Ms Minesse is an extremely successful and powerful woman.”
“She wants to destroy us!” Alex Barnett’s hand shook as he put his glass down. “We’ve got to stop her…”
“For God’s sake, we all know that. How the devil are we going to do it?” Richard asked impatiently.
Miles pursed his lips and offered mildly, “I have a suggestion.” They all looked at him. “As I see it, we need to be able to put Ms Minesse in a position where she will not only be willing to hand over those files to us, but where she will also refrain from attempting to gain…er…retribution again.”
“Threaten her in some way, you mean?” Alex Barnett looked uncomfortable. Miles ignored him.
“It seems to me that the success of Minesse Management rests entirely in the hands of its founder. If Ms Minesse were to disappear for a while, it follows that without her Minesse Management would slowly start to collapse.”
“If you’re talking about kidnapping her, it won’t work,” Richard interrupted flatly. “You heard what she said about that.”
“Yes, I did, and I agree. She can’t disappear. However, she could go away with her lover—and then stay away long enough for her clients to start losing faith in the company. Superstars have super-egos which need constant attention. Without Ms Minesse to provide that attention…” Miles lifted one eyebrow and waited for their reaction.
“Great idea!” Simon Herries sneered. “How the hell do you propose to make sure that her lover keeps her out of sight, or that she’d even agree to go with him?”
“Why, by making sure that her lover is one of us,” Miles told them silkily.
Stunned silence followed his words.
Richard Howell spoke first, turning restlessly in his seat. “For God’s sake, Miles, this isn’t the time to start making jokes! You know she’d never accept one of us as her lover…”
“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.
