A Kept Woman (34 page)

Another shrug. ‘To get it right - and if it’s Goldman they will - a few months, for sure. Maybe four.’

‘Interesting.’ Ernie stubbed out his cigar, stood and offered Chester Bradfield a weak handshake. ‘Thanks for lunch, OK? Talk to you again.’

He raced down the oak-panelled stairs of the narrow, nineteenth-century building and out past the bowing doorman. His driver was waiting for him. Lucky the limo had two Ianks of phones and an in-car fax. Inspiration had struck Ernie Foxton, and he wasn’t going to wait to get back to the office to get to work.

‘So what do you think?’ Michael asked Diana.

It was the end of the day. The staff had gone home, at least most of them. The phones were stilled, and they were going through the figures with cartons of Chinese food and a pair of biros.

It was hard for Diana to be near him, but she gave no sign of it. Both preserved cold body language. Each waited for the other to make a move. But as neither did,

they just got on with the job.

‘I think we should do it.’

‘We’ll need to go to a bank in the interim for a credit line.’

‘I know,’ Diana agreed. ‘But if we can tell them confidentially about the IPO, they’ll be happy to give us a credit line.’

‘More than happy,’ Michael said, cynically. They would love to because then there would be collateral.

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And once it was public, the possibility remained that he could lose control. He glanced over at Diana. She was gathering up her papers. She looked so good in that pale golden suit. But what a goddamn prima donna she was. Diana Verity? Please. Not only had she dumped him,

now she thought she was Gloria Steinem.

‘Going somewhere?’

‘I have plans,’ Diana said, sweetly.

‘That was fast.’

She arched an eyebrow. ‘This may surprise you, Michael, but my world didn’t crumble into dust just because we split up. I’ll see you tomorrow.’

She gathered her things and was gone in a cloud of perfume.

Bitch, Michael thought. Ball-breaking goddamn frozen

English bitch. He would say frigid if he didn’t know

better.

Well, two could play at that game. There was a 7 p.m.

start at Yankee Stadium. He would call his friend Joe and see a little night ball. Beer and a ballgame. Better than a woman any day of the week. Especially that one.

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The ballroom glittered like Aladdin’s cave. It was technically only a cocktail party, but you would never know it. Swaths of delicate white tulle covered with minute crystal beads hung from the ceiling like giant spiders’ webs covered in dewdrops. Gigantic white pillar candles, scented with iris and lavender, burned at strategic places around the room, casting a warm glow on the go[den tables festooned with clouds of creamy lilies and, frothing baby’s breath, glittering crystal and sparkling Cristal. A twenty-four-piece orchestra, clad all in white, played softly as the beautiful people mingled. And what a sight they were. Instead of the usual command to dress in black or white, the invitation had said simply: ‘Wear red’. Guests moved across the expensive white cocoon it had taken Mrs Merriman’s decorators a day of flat-out work to create like poppies scattering across a field of snow.

Even the men wore red. Diana thought of the extravagance of it; these wer publishers, record executives, television people; corporate Titans and their womenfolk. None of them would own a red suit. They must all have had one especially dyed just for tonight. And the rubies the women were sporting were something else.

‘Impressive,’ she said to Claire Bryant, her date for the evening. Claire was always inviting her out to society evenings, and now Michael was gone from her life, Diana had decided to accept. It was about time she got back into the flow of things. She had some money again; not

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was tired of hiding away.

‘Isn’t it? Elspeth Merriman throws the most wonderful bashes.’ Claire leaned in towards Diana and touched her flute bubbling with a champagne and pressed strawberry juice cocktail. ‘This one’s to celebrate her fiftieth wedding anniversary. As she gets older, she gets more dramatic.’

‘She’s got wonderful style,’ Diana agreed. Her blue

eyes sought out their hostess, a wizened dwarf of a woman who had defied her own rules and come in black. She was wrinkled, like a toe after a long soak in the bath and, from what Diana could see, dressed extremely chicly.

‘You can talk,’ Claire said, gesturing at Diana’s gown.

It was a brilliant cherry-red, with a vee that just covered her full breasts then plunged straight down to the breastbone. The Skirt was straight and heavy, and the sleeves long and narrow. She looked like a medieval princess, Eleanor of Aquitaine, ready to command armies and steal the heart of a king.

‘ft’s Ralph Lauren,’ Diana said simply. She didn’t have

the ropes of rubies or the strings of pearl-set garnets that the others were wearing, but she knew she didn’t need them. With a truly dramatic dress, less was always more.

‘You have a terrific eye.’ Claire loved Diana’s irrever

ence; she was wearing a comfortable pair of rope-spun sandals under her couture gown. It was the same eye that had decorated her place so tastefully and, Claire was sure, on a budget. ‘Maybe you should come and work for

me.

‘Anything would be better than the boss I have now,’

Diana said, flashing her friend a rueful smile.

Claire took her arm. ‘Come on, let’s mingle. If you’re

sure you can handle Madame Merriman, that is. I do

have to warn you, she doesn’t pull her punches.’

Diana took a sip of her champagne and smiled slightly.

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‘Right now,’ she said, ‘neither do I.’

Elspeth Merriman inspected the young woman being presented to her by the Bryant girl with evident satisfaction. She was exactly the right kind of stranger to meet at a party. Rarely, in a world full of new money where taste and cash were possessed by the Manhattan elite in inverse proportions, had she seen somebody so well put together. The dress, for example, was so exactly right. It fit perfectly, it was daring without being cheap. And the girl had picked just the right tones for her skin. She was thirty or thereabouts, at the peak of her beauty, with an English accent and soft brown hair she had not seen the need to colour. Elspeth approved.. There were so many bottle blondes in this town, it was almost like living in Sweden. D,angerous curves on her, too. It was a good job Elspeth’s husband had passed the philandering stage long ago. Thank God they had not invented Viagra earlier. It would have caused her such problems.

‘Do tell me about yourself, my dear,’ she said.

Diana nodded. ‘My name is Diana Verity. I work in computer software.’

‘Diana is a director of her company,’ Claire chimed in. ‘She’s English. She used to be’

The claw-like hands clapped almost girlishly. ‘Diana Foxton. Ernest ..Foxton of Blakely’s. The Chinese hooker. Am I right?’

‘Elspeth!’ Claire protested, but Diana waved the protest aside.

‘Absolutely right,’ she said. ‘Luckily I found out quickly enough to get out.’

‘But you didn’t even take him for every cent,’ Elspeth said. She had to hand it to the English girl, she wasn’t running off, snivelling, like young women normally did.

‘At least that’s what I heard.’

‘Right again.’

‘How independent of you.’ Elspeth Merriman beamed,

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displaying new false teeth, white and marvellously realistic, that the discreet little man in Switzerland had done such an excellent job on. ‘And you used to give the most wonderful parties.’

Diana waved at the scarlet splash of society drifting across the gorgeous cream of the room.. ‘Not, I’m afraid, as wonderful as yours.’

Claire Bryant smiled into her drink and suppressed a cheer. Diana really could handle the old bat, huh? Elspeth was the absolute queen of New York society at the moment. She chaired every party that really mattered, she knew all the right charity boards, and best of all, she was old enough to enjoy trouble. Elspeth, in her rich, pampered, jet-set way, simply didn’t give a fuck. Which was why Claire’s grandfather had once romanced her, and why his descendant liked her now. Claire had heard Diana’s whole story, and what her friend hadn’t spilled, she’d filled in for herself. It was quite easy to join up the dots.

Diana needed a husband. With Elspeth Merriman’s help, she could snag a spectacular one.

Claire had never liked Jodie Goodfriend or Natasha Zuckerman. The Wall Street wives liked to think they owned this city. Certainly Diana’s fall had entertained the town for a few weeks. But Claire was a New Yorker born and bred. She liked survivors. And clearly the English rose in the silk gown qualified in spades.

Claire glanced to her right and her blond eyebrow arched. Speak of the devil, as the old saying went, and his horns appear. Or even her horns.

‘Darling Elspeth.’ Brushing Claire aside, Jodie Good friend, skeleton-thin with glossy hair the colour of straw, had arrived in a wave of Joy perfume and the standard set of dazzling rubies. She wore a costly cheongsam the shade of spilled blood that showed off her bony hips and non-existent ass. Typical Jodie. She hadn’t even looked to

see who else Elspeth might betalking to. She just charged in and expected everyone to give way.

Claire noticed Diana was not flinching. She waited ]or the penny to drop.

‘Hello, Jodie,’ Elspeth said in her sweetest tone, ‘you know Diana Verity, I believe?’

Jodie turned to her left and jumped a little. What was Diana doing here? Wasn’t she dead and buried? How many calls from her had Jodie refused to take before the stupid little limey had finally got the message that divorced girls weren’t welcome in the club?

‘We have met,’ Jodie said after a little pause. Her tone was cutting. One party does not a comeback make, sweetie, her pursed lips seemed to say. ‘Before Ernie divorced you, Diana, I think?’

‘You think right.’ Diana found she was slightly amused. “You came to six of my dinner parties and ate Out with me twice a week.’

Jodie waved one hand in the air to indicate how unimportant that was in the scheme of things. ‘Oh yes, I recall. So many dinners … so many luncheons … it’s hard to keep them all straight in one’s head.’

‘It must be, with your busy schedule of shopping,’ Diana replied.

Jodie froze. Rather than begging and pleading to be admitted back into the fold - as dear Felicity had done - Diana was actually daring to be rude to her, Jodie Goodfriend, wife of the chairman of Croesus Bank!

People had stopped talking and. were looking their way. Enjoying the spat. Well, now was the time to put the little upstart in her place.

‘I like to shop. It’s important to keep oneself looking nice for one’s husband. Part of what it takes to make a marriage work,’ she said, cuttingly. ‘Perhaps you wouldn’t know too much about that. I dare say you have

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other interests. Shopping for roach-infested apartments in Alphabet City.’

She laughed lightly.

Diana smiled back. The adrenaline was crackling through her blood. So the bitch in front of her had read that article in the tabloid? Of course she had. How can I ever have liked this woman? Diana wondered.

‘That was difficult,’ she acknowledged. ‘Of course I moved out of there long ago. I have a little duplex in the Brompton Building now.’

Jodie stiffened. The Brompton Building was the latest fashionable place for rich young things to live. Not in the league of her Bronxville country house, of course, but definitely respectable.

‘Seeing a new man? What quick work,’ she shot back. Diana gave her that aggravatingly superior smile. ‘Not exactly. I have a business. I am a director of Imperial Games. I find talent, talk to banks, organise personnel and office space, and oversee marketing.’

‘Ah. A career girl. I find many women turn to that if

they find the social scene a little hard to handle,’ Jodie said, after a pause. Director? Of a company? Everybody knew the only thing Diana Foxton could direct was her cook.

‘Really,’ Diana said, coolly. ‘I thought it was the other

way around.’

The aggravating, wretched Bryant girl was actually sniggering! Jodie saw the amused faces of that old witch Elspeth’s friends smiling as though the most amusing thing had just happened. She racked her brain for a comeback, but there was none to be found. Jodie flushed as red as her tight little dress, and flounced off. She would dig out her mobile and call Natasha and Felicity. Diana would pay for this.

‘You made an enemy there,’ Claire said once Jodie was

out of sight. ‘Jodie has influence. You want to be careful.’

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‘Bullshit,’ Diana said. ‘If anybody needs to be careful, it’s her. You can say one thing for hitting rock bottom. You find out who your friends are. Or in my case, aren’t.’

‘A wonderful performance, my dear.’ Elspeth cackled, squeezing Diana’s arm. She hadn’t enjoyed herself so much for thirty years. ‘I’m having a little party, a dinner really, far more fun than this tiresome zoo. My house on East Seventy-fifth, next Friday. Do come. I have a few people I’d love to introduce you to.’

‘I’d like that,’ Diana said, ‘Elspeth.’

She smiled graciously at her hostess. Next .to her, she saw Claire itching to get her home so they could gossip and plan a strategy. How divine if she could get revenge on Felicity, Natasha and Jodie, all the people who snubbed her so viciously on her way out of the’ safely married.circles. The thought occurred to her that Michael would probably call this shallow and stupid, but who cared what he thought?

Diana glanced round the opulent ballroom at the guests who were nodding their appreciation of her verbal spar. These were movers and shakers, the kind she had longed to sit round her own table when she had been married to Ernie. She met everyone’s gaze and prepared to do some serious mingling. Claire had taken one of her arms, and Elspeth Merriman the other.