When She Was Bad... (35 page)

The press. She was just a businesswoman, she was used to a short paragraph in the financial section, the odd inky photograph on the back pages. Not the hailstorm of nasty publicity that had descended upon her. The tabloids had been sold a ‘human angle’, as her recently fired head of publicity had put it so helplessly. She was suddenly being written about in gossip columns, in Sunday supplements, in features sections, and none

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of it was good. They portrayed her as a brash American playgirl, a foreigner who had swanned in, put her boyfriend in charge of the company, let him spend millions, then tried to make it up by firing people. Husbands and fathers. They wrote up sob stories about dock workers she’d sacked because they were on the take, except in print they looked like the Tolpuddle Martyrs, and ran them next to lurid accounts of the dance she’d thrown at Fairfield. Somehow they’d found a few pictures of her in her white pantsuit, looking like Jerry Hall, and another couple of her with her arm through Rupert’s, holding a glass of bubbly. Great. She wasn’t sure if his face, or the stoW underneath it, made her sicker. And whatever Lancaster sent out, the press wasn’t interested. They had a nice angle, and they weren’t going to let it go.

Reading it, Becky hated the person they were describing, too. The fact that it wasn’t her didn’t seem to matter.

‘I don’t think there is,’ Ken Stone said quietly, ‘Miss Lancaster.’ There hadn’t been any selling, of course. The stock price had risen. But only because of the ever-present shadow of a takeover looming over them.

Stockholders were wavering. More than that. P,.ebecca’s secretary had had to take on two assistants to deal with all the hate mail, and some of it came from shareholders. One of them wrote that he had ‘forgotten what a dividend looked like’.

In other circumstances she might have found that quite funny. Stone and his team had rallied to her side. They had told her to forget about the press and concentrate on selling the stockholders their plan. His sober, matter-of-fact financial figures and projections told a story of solid recovery and possible future growth. They had mailed them out en masse and for a short while it looked as though the Lancaster

stockholders might just hold steady.

And now this.

‘But they can’t prove that there’s any safety violations.’

Becky thumped the files of letters down on her desk furiously. They came from the Health and Safety Council of Truro, Cornwall. Residents of the villages near her tin mines had suddenly claimed they were getting sick. They alleged the mines were poisoning the water supply. The Council was going to hold a full investigation.

‘They don’t have to. That’s what’s so beautiful about it, from Wilson’s point of view. The investigation will take at least a year, and nobody’s going to buy the mines for the price we need with liability hanging over their heads.’ ‘Fuck.’ Becky swore, uncharacteristically. ‘Shit. I’m sorry, Ken.’

‘I feel exactly the same way, Miss Lancaster,’ he said solemnly.

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She flopped into her chair. It was hard to breathe. ‘Goddamn bastard. I guess the bank has been calling?’

‘Incessantly. They want us to come in for a meeting.’

‘They can wait.’ She pressed her hands to her head. ‘Ken, is there any chance we can find a white knight? Someone else, a partner instead of a takeover merchant?’

‘There’s always a chance,’ he said doubtfully, ‘but our investment barkers have already looked everywhere. With the mines and the interest on the loan …’

‘I know. We’ll default. We could beggar our stockholders.’ Becky stood up, tears in her eyes. She blinked them back. ‘There are some people out there who have their whole net worth in Lancaster stock. I can’t be responsible for ruining them.’

‘What are you going to do?’ Stone asked.

‘I’m going to meet with Jocelyn Wilson,’ Becky said softly. ‘Set it up, Ken, would you?’

Wilson set the terms, and Becky knew she had to put up with them. He asked her to lunch at the Dorchester, and selected the most visible table. She had expected that. Wilson had taken on his biggest target, and his victory was almost assured. Becky had slept in London the night before, backing off her austerity policy to take a suite at the 1Kitz. There was no point in austerity any more. But there was a point to looking her best. She picked a light-hearted outfit, a sunny dress in layers of lemon chiffon that showed off her tan and her long blonde hair, together with kitten heels and light, natural make-up. She didn’t have to try and pass for forty any more. She went early to the Dorchester, and was sipping a champagne cocktail when he arrived at her table, middle-aged, respectable-looking, exactly what she had expected.

She stood and shook hands with him, giving him a beaming smile. She was pleased to see that this seemed to surprise him a little.

Wilson was shocked. The girl looked positively radiant. He breathed in a delicious waft of L’Arpge. What could she have to be so happy about? He had destroyed her. He sat, exchanged pleasantries with her and ordered their starters. Once the waiter hadbrought over a bottle of

Pouilly Fuisse, he decided to broach the obvious.

‘You asked for this meeting, Miss Lancaster?’

‘I did, Mr Wilson.’ He saw she wasn’t going to ask hifn to call her 1Kebecca. ‘I have a proposition for you.’

‘Nothing you propose will alter my purpose to take your company over, Miss Lancaster.’

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‘Indeed. But I can still affect the price at which you obtain it. I can save you almost two pounds a share.’

Now he was very interested, the goddamn vulture. Becky looked him right in the eye.

‘The backing of the board for your bid will make it a slam-dunk. The longer we delay and fight, the more debt you’ll be saddled with when you eventually take us over. Money is important to you; Lancaster is important to me. I don’t want the name being traded out of my control. If you will assign the name to me, and the hotel division, I will assign the assets to you.’

‘The hotel division? I thought you only had one.’

‘We do.’ She grinned at him disarmingly. ‘But maybe I can turn it into something real. At any rate, I will have the opportunity, and

nothing with my father’s name on it will do something I disapprove of.’ He thought about it for a couple of moments. ‘Done,’ Wilson said, and shook her hand.

She wanted to cry, but she kept the smile fixed tightly to her face. ‘You know, Mr Wilson, Kenneth Stone is my CFO. He did a wonderful job, almost rescuing us from the hole we had dug ourselves into. You might want to consider hiring him.’

Wilson dabbed at his mouth. ‘Was, Miss Lancaster, was your CFO. I will certainly think about it but, please be aware, I neither want nor expect any advice from you on how to run my company. You can take the name and the hotel, but that is all. Your ties to the rest of it will be completely severed. Once a target is mine, ‘I never allow the slightest interference from anyone else.’

Becky swallowed hard. It was as bitter as hell to have to sit here and

take this. But she had no choice.

‘Very well, sir,’ she said.

I’m coming back from this, she thought, as she turned her attention to the delicious food that tasted like ashes in her mouth. This is not going to be the end of the stoW. I swear it.

She lifted her glass of wine and offered Wilson a toast.

‘To the future,’ she said.

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She decided to retire and lick her wounds.

Wilson wasn’t sentimental. Nor had she really expected him to be. Becky had spent the next two weeks being humiliated - trotted out to mouth platitudes about how good for Lancaster’s shareholders Wilson’s bid would be, forced to endure photo opportunities shaking his hand, like she was the young kid handing over management to the adults. In exchange for this, she was deeded, in ‘compensation’, the name of Lancaster Holdings and the single hotel in the Scilly Isles. She was also granted six months’ salary. As Becky had never drawn much of a salary, ploughing everything back into Lancaster, this amounted to less than twenty thousand pounds. She also, of course, received Wilson’s price for

her personal stock. That was when she got her real financial shock. Her holdings were worth less than a hundred thousand pounds. Ken Stone confirmed her worst fears. ‘I thought you knew. Lord Lancaster sold off some.., well, most.., of your personal holdings, his and yours, in order to reduce the debts of his marketing programme. That held off speculation for several months, as I recall. He had papers with your signature on them. The authority was perfectly legal, or I would never have authorized …’

‘No, that’s quite OK.’ Becky calmed him. It wasn’t his fault. It was 1Kupert’s. And hers, for letting him do it. That was the last time she would surrender any control. It was still coming back to haunt her, all these years later. She thought of the bills at Fairfield, and what would happen to the house if it weren’t heated through the winter. There was no question of selling paintings. Her lack of money terrified her.

Heiress. What a joke. She had lost almost everything in one generation.

She put her Yorkshire flat on the market at once. Someone from Wilson Shipping bought it, and Becky couldn’t even-refuse to sell it to

them. She was told that it was ‘very convenient for the head office’. Well, Becky thought, that’s why she had bought it.

But they were prepared to pay full price, and she couldn’t afford pride. That sale netted her another ten thousand in profits, once the fees

were paid off. She went to a branch of her bank in Yorkshire, and deposited every last penny.

The sum total of her estate - one hundred and twenty-seven thousand pounds, a small hotel and a country mansion. Not a bad haul for most people, as she tried to remind herself. But for Lord Lancaster’s only child, it was a hell of a comedown.

She shook hands with her team, and saved the goodbyes to Ken for last.

‘You don’t seem too cut up, Ken,’ Becky observed, shaking his hand. ‘I’m not. I’ve had plenty of offers.’

She was a little hurt. ‘Oh. Well. That’s excellent.’

‘Don’t worry,’ he said, smiling warmly at her. ‘I’ll be working for you again in the future. I know it.’

Becky bit down hard on her lip. She had avoided crying throughout the whole process, but having one person left that actually believed in her might put her over the edge.

‘Goodbye, Ken,’ she blurted, and rushed from the room.

Now she was in a train heading south. First class, of course. Not because she wanted to waste money, but because she had to. She didn’t know how long she could keep this act up, and she didn’t want any of the press watching her dissolve.

‘Welcome home, miss,’ Mrs Morecambe said when the taxi deposited her at the front door of Fairfield. ‘I just put the kettle on. The van with your stuff came yesterday, and it’s all unpacked.’

‘Hey, thanks, Mrs M.’ Becky kissed her on the cheek. ‘I’d love a cup of tea.’

Mrs Morecambe brightened. ‘That’s what I like to hear. You need fattening up.’

Becky looked at her flushed face and knew she wanted to say something. ‘About the papers—’ ‘It’s murder, that is.’ The words burst out of her. ‘Them - them…’ ‘I know. But sticks and stones, right? We won’t worry about them.’ ‘Then everything’s OK, miss? My salary?’

‘Your salary will always be paid here, Mrs M.’ God knows how, Becky thought. She could hardly afford six grand a year for a bloody housekeeper. But this woman had worked for her family since she was a little girl. She’d have to find a waE to keep her on.

Mrs Morecambe looked as though she might say something emotional, but she settled for, ‘I’ll just get you that cup of tea, miss.’

‘Thanks.’ Becky followed her into the kitchen. ‘Then I think I’ll take a bath.’

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She suddenly wanted one, urgently. Longed to wash the dirt of her disappointment and fear right off her skin, to cleanse herself. The older woman filled a bone china mug with fragrant Lapsang Souchong, her favourite, and she retreated back upstairs. Becky went into her room, shut the door and peeled off her clothes. It was already twilight out there, the pale blue sky of a late summer evening, and there was a slight chill in the air. She ran herselfa piping hot bath with masses of Badedas. No more Floris for her. Waitrose sold cheap bubble baths, and that was what she would be using. Becky took her time, soaping her long, lean legs, rinsing the grit of the journey from them, looking out of her bathroom window, which she had opened to let out the steam, over her garden.

Her garden. It had been what, almost a month since she was here last, and her place was totally transformed. The orchard had been halved, and there was a glorious, dark green, thick-branched little yew maze, maybe an acre, with curving, tricky paths, mossy statues hidden inside it and a small stone bench with wild roses climbing in the gazebo on top of it. Half thrilled, half panicked, Becky looked to the west. No, the croquet lawn was still intact. She could see tape measures and flags laid out over it in some kind of pattern. Well, at least she could save some money there. Logan would probably be back in the morning. She could get his bill then, and that would be that. She repressed a pang of regret. She wasn’t a millionaire any more.

‘I did promise you a rose garden,’ she muttered to herself, ‘but you can’t have one.’

Becky finished her bath, slipped into her Janet Reger pyjamas in pale coffee-coloured satin and tied he} matching silk robe around her. She washed off her make-up and tied her hair back in a ponytail, then selected a pair of embroidered black silk slippers with gold detail. Maybe there was something good for supper. She could have a nice meal and a mug of hot chocolate and then go to bed with a trashy novel. There would be time enough for figuring out her next move in the morning.

She padded downstairs and went into the kitchen.

‘Mrs Morecambe, I—’

She stopped dead. Will Logan was sitting in .her kitchen, drinking a mug of tea. He was wearing dirty boots and had bits of yew hedge in his hair, and his once white T-shirt was sticking to his chest with sweat. She could see all his muscles defined under it. His dark eyeg, with their ring of thick lashes, regarded her, his gaze sweeping up and down over her clinging satin outfit approvingly. Becky instantly blushed scarlet. She felt as good as nude.