When She Was Bad... (22 page)

She glanced at Rupert’s sleeping form, the sheets crumpled round him in the bed beside her. He had rescued her, that was a fact. And I’m grateful, Becky thought, of course I am. Rupert was so well known in London society. He had introduced her to all the best and most important people. At the Royal Ballet she had even got to meet the very beautiful and chic Lady Tooley, the Director-General’s wife, and sit in the Royal Box. But Patsy Tooley, though very kind and polite to Becky, had been a bit cold toward Rupert. That seemed to happen a lot. Becky guessed that people were just jealous of him.

Rupert had taken the job of getting her some friends very seriously. She had two Smythson’s address books now filled with bright young things. Becky had wondered about Rupert squiring her round town day and night … time that he probably needed for his business. He had a position at some public relations firm, where he was a senior vice president. But Rupert didn’t seem to mind. He’d told Becky that he wanted to help her.

‘Somebody needs to get that old bag offyour back,’ he said casually. Becky giggled. ‘lKupert, you can’t talk about her like that.’

‘I most certainly can. And her husband isn’t much better. He pretends

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to be henpecked and ineffectual, but he knows enough about business,

and he doesn’t want to tell you anything.’

‘He sent over all that information.’

‘Not enough. Why don’t you let me look over the companies with my lawyer? I can get to the bottom of Lancaster for you, get you what you need.’

‘You’d do that for me?’

He caught up her hand and kissed it passionately. ‘Silly goose. I’d do anything for you. Don’t you know that by now?’

That had been back at the end of January. Rupert had told her all last month that Lancaster was a mess, and his lawyer was sorting it out with Henry. They were back up at Fairfield now, partly to enjoy the fresh air and partly so he could show her all the results. Becky pushed her hair back from her eyes, and the diamond band she never took off flashed in the morning sunlight. Channel-set diamonds glittering in gold from Asprey’s - the most beautiful Valentine’s Day gift she’d ever had. Rupert had also taken her out to supper at Wilton’s, the fish restaurant in St James’s, and to Becky’s embarrassment, they had run into Aunt Victoria and Uncle Henry. She had exchanged pleasantries with them, kissing the air on the side of their cheeks, and watched her aunt’s face tighten up. Rupert had made it perfectly obvious they were on a date. Becky felt a small, cruel sense of triumph, of revenge.

What would they do if Rupert proposed? Sharon was teasing her about it unmercifully, and for the first time in her life Becky had imagined herself married. Up at Fairfield, ocdasional trips to London, life in this wonderful, glittering whirl that. Rupert had snatched her into, uniting the family… Romeo and Juliet with a happy ending. Running her own companies while Rupert became a big PR whiz. Raising clever children and sending them to Oxford or Cambridge, and maybe getting a dog or two …

Rupert shifted in the bed and the linen sheets fell back, exposing his slender torso. He had the kind of lean, hungry body that looked well in clothes but which, if she was honest, she didn’t enjoy all that much naked. Shades of Richard, in fact. There was nothing wrong, as such, with sex with him, but Becky was starting to feel uncomfortable with it. Just slightly, of course. Maybe because she wanted Rupert to think of her as marriage material … the double standard, sure, but it was true, even if she hated the idea of it. And then there was the boniness of him. She’d like to feed him up, get him a couple of weights. Becky couldn’t see Rupert doing anything physical and she didn’t know how to suggest it. Maybe she could install a gym in one of the rooms in Fairfield, and then Rupert would just join her when she started working out.

She wasn’t sure how expensive that would be. Rupert had arranged, in short order, for his lawyer to get her a decent allowance from the businesses, but Becky needed to know exactly what kind of money she had to play with.

It was bound to be a lot. Lancaster owned shipyards, tin mines in Cornwall, even a small hotel operation in the Scilly Isles. The reports and accounting made it hard for her to understand how much it was all worth, but Rupert had been on the case for her. He and his lawyer could explain it all to her in plain English. Today was the day. Becky was glad. Despite all her new friends, she had started to mope with nothing to do.

Rupert was fast asleep. Becky slipped out of bed and grabbed her satin nightgown, putting it on before he could wake up. She wondered idly if she’d ever feel comfortable parading around nude in front of him.

‘You look very … businesslike, darling.’

lupert walked through the door of the conservatory, where Mrs Morecambe was serving Becky breakfast - a boiled egg, English Breakfast tea, and some toast with Marmite, which, as far as Becky was concerned, was England’s only triumph in the food arena. She was reading a copy of The Times over a small vase of late-blooming crocuses and wore a neat suit, pinstriped, figure-hugging, finishing neatly just on the knee, together with a white silk shirt. It was chilly outside, but not too bad; the winters here were a picnic compared to New York, anyway.

Rupert was wearing slacks and a matching shirt and jacket. His dark eyes glanced over her, head to” toe.

‘Well, it is a business meeting, darling.’

He grinned. ‘You Americans take everything so seriously.’

‘It is serious. I’m going to start running the companies today. They’ve put me off all this time.’

‘I know.’ He turned to Mrs Morecambe. ‘Bacon and eggs, please. Thanks. Look, Becky, all I’m saying is you don’t need to impress these

people. They work for you. They’re coming here.’

‘I thought we were going into town.’

‘Why should you go anywhere? Lancaster belongs to you. I told Mr Trout to come here, with his team.’

Becky smiled at her boyfriend. He understood her so well. Rupert was helping her to retake control of things, and she adored him for it.

Quentin Trout, QC, and his team - Marcus Rigby, Keith Jennings and Tristam Masters - arrived at eleven, wearing suits and carrying thick

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boxes bound in dark green leather. They were all about fifty, lean and formidable. They shook hands with Rupert and then Becky.

‘A beautiful house, Miss Lancaster,’ Trout said. ‘Do you have a room we could go to review this data?’

‘The library is this way.’ Becky showed them in. Rupert had hefted a walnut table in from a sitting room for all the documents, and had helped her set out all the extra chairs and pads of paper with fountain pens laid neatly alongside. He teased her about being ‘efficient’, but he helped her out. Henry had just told her not to bother her pretty little head about it. With Rupert helping me, there’s nothing I can’t do, Becky thought.

‘I have prepared some statements for you, Miss Lancaster,’ Trout said, when his party had declined an offer of tea, ‘summarizing the position at Lancaster, with its diversified interests across several industries. As you know, many industrial sectors in the United Kingdom have been hard

hit by the recent waves of workforce unrest—’

‘Strikes, you mean.’

‘Exactly, Miss Lancaster. Strikes.’

‘Try and speak plain English, Mr Trout,’ Rupert interrupted, winking at Becky. ‘We’re here to make head or tail of this mess for Miss Lancaster.’

‘Certainly, Lord Lancaster,’ Trout said, bowing slightly to him. ‘Plain English.’ He seemed to struggle with this instruction. ‘Er - due to the, strikes, as you put it, and the electricity shortages, Lancaster Holdings

has suffered some losses. Shipyards are losing orders to the Americans’Let me see.’

Becky lifted her papers and flicked right to the profit-and-loss columns.

Her heart did a small, slow flip in her chest.

‘There’s a lot of red ink here,’ she said.

‘Yes. Operating profits are down dramatically, and the Labour Party’s taxation rates have meant that Lancaster Shipping has got into slight… hot water, let me say.’

‘I’ve taken the opportunity to read through everything, Becky,’ tupert said. ‘If you want, I could summarize, and then maybe the lawyers could take you through it afterwards.’

Becky pushed back in her chair. Despite the chill morning, she had broken out in a light sweat under her suit. This scenario had not been

part of her planned golden life.

‘I wish you would.’

‘I think the shipping operations should be disposed of, leaving you to concentrate on mining, and we should lose the hotel business too. Right

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now we need something to counter these heavy losses. The stock price has been slipping despite your father’s executors periodically buying back the stock.’

Becky breathed in sharply. ‘In the States we hear about British strikes all the time. The place is full of strikes.’

‘Well, the unions want a three-day week.’

‘And I want to leap tall buildings with a single bound, but it’s not happening any time soon.’

Rupert shrugged. ‘The board has had a policy of negotiations to try and avoid strikes, and that’s meant our workers get paid well over the going rate.’

‘Our workers?’

lupert coughed. ‘Your workers, I mean. I’ve been working on this so long I started to think of myself as being involved.’

‘But of course you’re involved. You’re helping me.’

‘I’d like to help you,’ he said, looking at her softly.

‘Miss Lancaster.’ Jennings shuffled his papers. ‘It seems to us that Lancaster, because of its union policy, has such high operating costs and low productivity that they haven’t been able to turn a profit for about three years now.’

‘Then we must change the union policy. Stop over-paying. How is productivity?’

‘Low. Look, Becky, you don’t really understand industrial relations in England.’

‘I understand when I’m being held to ransom,’ Becky said, annoyed.

‘You’ll go through all the figures, but it may be a little late. If you’d got here three years ago—’

‘I hadn’t got any rights three years ago.’

‘Mr Trout,’ Rupert said, ‘why don’t you and the team take Miss Lancaster through everything, and then she can ask you whatever

questions she has?’

He stood up.

‘Where are you going?’ Becky asked.

‘I don’t want to stay. I think it’s your company, and I think you’ve had enough interference. You need to go through all the figures yourself.’

He gave her another wink and walked out.

Wow, Becky thought. He really respects me. What a dfference. She turned to the lawyers, who were all watching him leave.

‘I think Lord Lancaster’s right. Gentlemen, take me through it. Let’s start at the shipyards,’ Becky said.

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They left Fairfield after three p.m. Becky went out to the kitchen to get

a lunch tray and found Rupert sitting on a stool, sipping a hot chocolate.

‘Come back in. I need you,’ she said.

‘Here.’ He passed her a tray of thinly cut ham sandwiches. ‘I’ve made

myself as useful as I can.’

Rupert was also waiting for her when she finally ushered the suits out

at ten. ‘I sent Mrs morecambe to bed. I thought you might want to be

alone.’

‘Yeah.’ She tried not to let her feelings show, but she had tears prickling in her eyes. ‘How could it be such a fucking mess? How could they let my father’s company get mined like that? I’m going to sue them.’

‘There’s no point in that. They probably did their best. They tried to

buy Lancaster off you, after all.’

‘I guess.’ Becky flopped on to a chair. ‘Rupert, I’m going to have to

sell part of the company. I don’t have time to turn it around. I feel sick, I

just feel sick.’

‘Maybe I—’ He stopped himself. ‘No, no, forget it.’

‘Maybe you what?’

‘You wouldn’t like it, and I don’t blame you.’

‘Tell me,’ she begged. Rupert looked thoughtful, like he was mulling something over. He’s so reticent, Becky thought, he doesn’t want to interfere. He respects me that much.

‘I think I could help. I’d have to quit’my job, but I do have something of a name in Britain. I could come in and do some PR, raise financing, work with you to dispose of small parts of Lancaster, nothing major. I think I could save the company. But only if you’d let me, of course. It’s your firm.’

‘You think you could do that?’

‘I think so. I could make a horse-race of it, at least. And with you

taking over the daily operations, we’d make a great team.’ Rupert sighed, rather theatrically. ‘I just hate the idea of the family company being dismantled.’

‘Oh, so do I. Rupert … you’d really give up your job for me?’ ‘Of course, if you wanted me to.’ He held up his palms. ‘Only if you’d like to give it a shot, though, Becky. If you’d rather just pack it up and sell off the company, I understand perfectly. I don’t want to force you into anything.’

‘No! I’d love it. I’d love you to help,’ Becky said. ‘I can’t thank you

enough. I don’t know what to say.’

‘Don’t say anything.’ He drew her to him with a smile. ‘Just kiss me.’

Becky gazed out of her window at the winding streets of Oxford and tried to work out why she wasn’t blissfully happy. Spring had finally arrived; it was May, and there were flowers everywhere, and she was in love. She was also sitting here in the Oxford offices of Lancaster Holdings, with everybody in the building reporting to her. Rupert had turned the perception of the company around. He seemed to be in his element, wining and dining half the newspaper editors in England, taking business trips to Europe and getting the message out there that Lancaster was still a force to be reckoned with, as he put it.

Orders were up, too. Rupert had shown her the new sheets for work to be done at the Yorkshire shipyards. So all his hard work, and the nice little write-ups in the gossip columns of the Financial Times and the Telegraph, must be paying off.

Rupert told her that shipping was deadly dull and also well in hand. He had suggested Becky turn to the hotel part of the business.