A Season of Secrets (31 page)

Thea helped herself to a scone and rose to her feet. ‘No more gossip about the Prince of Wales until I get back. Understood?’

‘How can there be?’ Olivia said reasonably. ‘You’re the only one who knows any gossip worth having, where Edward is concerned.’

Not denying it, Thea took a bite of her scone and, with long, almost masculine strides, headed back to the house.

‘Barty?’ she said minutes later. ‘It’s me. Thea. Rozalind isn’t around at the moment. Can I take a message?’

‘Yes, you bloody can!’ he thundered down the phone. ‘You can tell her I ran into Max Bradley at the Cafe de Paris an hour ago. And you can tell Roz he told me the two of them
were seeing each other again, and that he didn’t want me hanging around her. If it’s true – and if she’s been so reckless as to involve herself with a married man old enough
to be her father – then you can tell her that Bradley need have no fears about me hanging around her, because I sure as dammit won’t be!’

When Thea hung up the phone, her hand was trembling. Though she didn’t want to, she believed every word of what Barty had said to her. Roz might seem full of common
sense, but she hadn’t shown any when she’d fibbed her way into Max’s bed within days of meeting him, and she quite clearly wasn’t showing any common sense now. With rising
alarm, Thea accepted what she had once thought unbelievable. Violet wasn’t the only person in the family who was dangerously reckless and heedless. In her own way – and where Max was
concerned – Rozalind was just as bad.

When she walked back out onto the lawn all she said in answer to Rozalind’s raised eyebrow was, ‘Barty just wanted to make sure you’d arrived here safely.’

What she said when, at the first opportunity, she got Rozalind on her own was far different.

‘Max has told Barty the two of you are an item again!’ she said explosively, rounding on her. ‘And it’s true, isn’t it? I can see by the expression on your face
that it’s true!’

They were in the bedroom Rozalind always stayed in when visiting Gorton. Olivia and Dieter were in their own room at the far end of the corridor. Where Violet was, Thea neither knew nor cared.
All that mattered was that she wasn’t within earshot – and that neither was her father, who was in another part of Gorton entirely, playing host to his weekend guests.

‘Yes, it’s true. I’ve been waiting for the right moment to tell you.’

She was so completely unperturbed that Thea gaped in disbelief. ‘He married another woman little more than a year ago,’ she said finally, as if speaking to someone mentally retarded.
‘He could have married you, and he didn’t. He married someone else.’

‘I know.’ Rozalind sat down on the edge of the bed and slipped her feet out of her shoes. ‘He’s explained why.’

‘Dear Lord, Roz! What possible explanation could there be? He may have had a longtime understanding with the woman he married in preference to you, but according to you they weren’t
formally engaged. And what explanation is there for his being unfaithful almost before his honeymoon was over? If he was already bored with his wife, why didn’t he follow time-honoured
fashion and embark on an affair with a married woman? Society understands that. A married woman’s reputation is protected simply by the fact that she
is
married. Your reputation will
be shot to pieces – is probably
already
shot to pieces!’

Rozalind reached for her cigarette-case and lighter, saying, ‘For heaven’s sake Thea, stop pacing the carpet like a lion in a cage and shooting questions at me without waiting for
answers.’ She took out a cigarette and lit it. ‘First of all,’ she said, ‘Max has known Myrtle all his life. She’s a second cousin. She comes from a political family,
as he does. The two of them had an on–off affair throughout most of the years of Myrtle’s marriage. When she was widowed two years ago, it was expected – but unspoken – that
after a suitable period of mourning they would marry. Myrtle’s husband was in government. They lived in Washington. She understands all the stresses, strains and complexities that go with
being the wife of a politician. Socially, and in every other way, she was a huge asset to Oscar.’

‘Her late husband?’

Rozalind blew smoke into the air and nodded.

Thea prayed for strength. ‘Let me get this right, Roz. What you are saying is that when it came to making a choice as to which of the two of you he should marry, Max chose Myrtle purely
because he thought she would be the most help to him in his career?’

‘That’s right.’

‘And, knowing this, you find his action
acceptable
?’

‘I never said I found it acceptable, but I do find it understandable.’

‘Then it’s more than I do!’ Thea, who rarely smoked, snatched Roz’s cigarette-case and lighter from her.

Rozalind, anticipating what would be coming next, remained silent.

Thea lit a cigarette, inhaled deeply and, with her left arm pressed hard against her body, her hand cupping her right elbow, said, ‘And do you also find it acceptable that, after a brief
year of marriage, he should be renewing his affair with you?’

‘Actually yes, I do. They both married for reasons other than being crazily in love with each other. I’ve told you Max’s reasons. Myrtle’s weren’t so different.
She’d enjoyed being the wife of a respected politician and she wanted to be one again. It’s what she’s good at.’

‘And you’re the one who is good at sex? Is that where this is going?’

Rozalind jumped to her feet and crossed the room. Angrily stubbing her cigarette out, she said with barely controlled patience, ‘Why are you being so nasty about this, Thea? Myrtle is a
natural-born Washington queen bee. I have no desire to be one – and, even if I had, I wouldn’t make a very good one. How could I, when my photography is so important to me? I thought
you, of all people, would understand.’

‘All I understand is that I think you’re being taken advantage of! Even worse is that Max doesn’t seem to have any regard at all for your reputation. Why would he tell Barty
that the two of you had got together again? Why would he tell anyone?’

‘I don’t know. I imagine it was Barty who made the approach, not Max. He’s been badgering me to marry him for months, and it would be typical of him to gloat to Max that we
were on the verge of announcing our engagement. Max was simply putting him straight. And though Barty told you, he only did so out of rage and frustration – and he probably also hoped
you’d react exactly as you have done, and that you’d try and get me to break things off with Max.’

‘Which you are not going to do?’

‘Which I am not going to do.’

They stared at each other, at an impasse.

‘He’s what I want, Thea.’ Rozalind took both of Thea’s hands in hers. ‘I love him. Any way I can get him, I want him in my life.’

‘And Myrtle?’

‘Myrtle has got what she wants. There won’t be a divorce – and neither will I be sitting at home waiting for Max to spend a few stolen hours with me. I’ve got a contract
with Pullman’s, a New York press agency. I’ve been a semi-professional photographer for years. Now, thanks to Pullman’s, I’m a fully professional one. I have family wealth
behind me. I can go where I want, when I want. Best of all, when it comes to having love in my life, the man I love with all my heart loves me in exactly the same way. You may doubt this, Thea, but
I don’t. Not for a second.’

Thea took a deep, steadying breath, finally accepting what she so clearly couldn’t change.

At last she said: ‘Will you tell Olivia?’

‘I’ll tell Olivia, and I’ll tell Violet. Where my family are concerned, I’ve no intention of keeping Max in a cupboard. My life is going to be permanently intertwined
with his. It may not be a situation anybody wants, but it is a situation I want accepted by the people I love.’

‘And Carrie?’

‘Of course Carrie!’ Rozalind was indignant. ‘I said family – and, for me, that includes Carrie. We’re seeing her tonight, aren’t we? At Charlie and
Hermione’s?’

‘Yes. It’s going to be a nice little party. You. Me. Olivia and Dieter. Violet. Jim. Miss Calvert. Hermione and Charlie.’

‘But no Kyle, and no Hal?’

‘Kyle would have travelled up for the weekend if I’d invited him.’

‘And you didn’t invite him because . . . ?’

Thea flushed. ‘Because Carrie wrote to Hal about the get-together. His driving up for it is a long shot, but still . . .’

‘But still you were hoping?’

Thea nodded, not trusting herself to put her hopes, where Hal was concerned, into words.

On marrying Charlie, Hermione had never moved into the tied cottage that had been Charlie’s home since the day Blanche had first met him and offered him work. Instead,
with legacies left her by her parents, she had bought an attractive double-fronted terraced house that faced Outhwaite’s village green and war memorial. Compared to other local houses it was
comfortably spacious. Carrie thought it positively grand. Thea, Olivia and Violet, all of whom had grown up regularly visiting much smaller houses – houses such as Miss Calvert’s
pin-neat terraced home and Carrie’s granny’s tied cottage – piled into it without giving it another thought. Dieter, who had never socialized in any private home smaller than, in
Germany, a little palace and, in England, Gorton Hall, looked and felt dazedly bemused.

‘So nice to meet you, Count von Starhemberg,’ Hermione said, her long nose twitching, her pince-nez hanging from a mulberry-coloured ribbon the exact same shade as her silk dress.
‘
Möchten Sie lieber sprechen Englisch oder Deutsch?
’

‘Thank you for your courtesy in asking, Mrs Hardwick. In England, and out of deference to my English family, I prefer to speak in English.’ Dieter clicked his heels, bowed formally
and kissed the back of her hand.

Hermione flushed with pleasure.

Olivia’s eyes sparkled. She knew her Hermione, and she knew Hermione had only asked the question in order to be able to show off her German.

‘So that is why your German is so good,’ Dieter whispered to her as Violet enveloped Hermione in a giant bear-hug. ‘I always thought you began learning it in Berlin, at
finishing school. I didn’t know you had been taught it as a child.’

‘Actually, I wasn’t. When I was of an age to begin a language, it was the Great War – and the aftermath went on a long time. Hermione might have been capable of teaching
German, but even Papa wouldn’t have thought it a patriotic choice. She taught us French instead.’

‘
Lieber Gott!
’

For a second Olivia thought Dieter was giving vent to an unnecessarily harsh reaction to French having being the preferred choice, and then she saw that Jim had entered the room. Scrubbed up,
his curly hair brilliantined halfway into submission and in his Sunday best – a shiny suit and a collarless shirt worn with a remarkably clean red-spotted neckerchief – he
couldn’t have been mistaken for anything other than a common workman, albeit a rather good-looking one.

Aghast, Dieter said weakly, ‘Please tell me I am not expected to rub shoulders with this person also?’

His shock and horror were so deep that Olivia giggled. ‘Yes, you are, darling. Jim is one of the best friends Thea and I have.’ She frowned, suddenly serious. ‘And think how
difficult it is for him, stepping into the same room as you – a German.’

‘He fought in the war?’

‘No. Jim was born lame and the army wouldn’t accept him. He and Charlie are as close as brothers, though – and you’ve seen what German shell-fire did to
Charlie.’

Dieter had. One of the first things Gilbert Fenton had done after their arrival at Gorton had been to introduce him to Charlie. ‘Best to get it out of the way,’ Gilbert had said to
him. ‘Though, knowing Charlie, there won’t be a problem.’

Incredibly to Dieter, on Charlie’s part there hadn’t been – and Dieter had envied him. Though he’d hid it with the ease of a professional diplomat, he had been the one
who’d had a problem – and his problem had been threefold.

Though Dieter had been too young at the time of the Great War to have fought in it, he knew that if he had, and if he’d suffered injuries as grievous as the ones Charlie had suffered, he
would never have forgiven any member of the nation responsible, let alone seemed genuinely pleased to meet one of them.

He’d also found looking at Charlie’s destroyed face far more difficult than he’d anticipated. When he’d admitted this later to Olivia, she’d said it was a good job
he hadn’t seen Charlie prior to all the years of structural surgeries he had undergone at St Mary’s, and that compared to how he’d looked then, he was a living miracle now.

Lastly, he found the way the Fentons socialized without thought with people who had worked for them, such as Hermione, with people who still worked for them, such as Jim and Charlie, and with
other people not of their class, such as Miss Calvert and Carrie – whom he had yet to meet – mind-bogglingly difficult to comprehend. Even more difficult for him was that they expected
him to act in the same way.

The head-on collision between English eccentricity and Prussian formality was one he had so far survived, but being asked to socialize with Gorton estate’s odd-job man was, he felt,
extreme to the point of insanity.