A Place of Hiding

If it was Adrian whose disappointment she was hoping to postpone, there was definitely going to be hell to pay. She’d drag her sister-in-law to court and shake out every piece of dirty laundry there was if Guy had disinherited his only son. Oh, she knew there’d be excuses aplenty coming from Ruth if that’s what Adrian’s father had done. But let them just try to accuse her of undermining the relationship between father and son, let them just make a single attempt to depict her as the responsible party for Adrian’s loss...There’d be a real season in hell coming when she trotted out all the reasons she’d kept them apart. They each had a name and a title, those reasons, although not quite the kind of title that redeems one’s transgressions in the eyes of the public: Danielle the Air Hostess, Stephanie the Pole Dancer, MaryAnn the Dog Groomer, Lucy the Hotel Maid. They were the reason that Margaret had kept the son from the father. What sort of example was the boy to see? she could easily demand of anyone who asked her. What sort of role model did she have a duty to provide an impressionable lad of eight, or ten, or fifteen? If his father lived a life that made lengthy visits from his son unsuitable, was it the son’s fault? And should he now be deprived of what he was owed by blood because his father’s daisy chain of mistresses throughout the years had gone unbroken?

No. She had been within her rights to keep them well apart, doomed to quick or interrupted visits only. After all, Adrian was a sensitive child. She owed him the protection of a mother’s love, not exposure to a father’s excess.

She watched her son now as he lurked at the edge of the stone hall, where most of the post-burial reception was being conducted in the warmth of two fires that burned at either end of the room. He was trying to edge his way to the door, either to escape altogether or to duck along to the dining room where an enormous buffet spread across the fine mahogany table. Margaret frowned. This would not do. He should have been mingling. Rather than creeping along the wall like an insect, he should have been doing something to act like the scion of the wealthiest man the Channel Islands had ever seen. How could he expect his life to be anything more than it already was—confined and described by his mother’s house in St. Albans—if he didn’t put himself out, for God’s sake?

Margaret wove her way through the remaining guests and intercepted her son at the door to the passage that led to the dining room. She put her arm through his and ignored his effort to pull away, saying with a smile,

“Here you are, darling. I knew there was someone who could point out the people I’ve still to meet. One can’t hope to know them all, of course. But surely there are important individuals I ought to meet for future reference?”

“What future?” Adrian put his hand on hers to disengage her, but she caught his fingers, squeezed them, and continued smiling as if he weren’t trying to escape.

“Yours, of course. We must set about making certain it’s secure.”

“Must we, Mother? How d’you propose to do that?”

“A word here, a word there,” she said airily. “It’s amazing the kind of influence one can have once one knows the proper person to talk to. That glowering gentleman over there, for instance? Who is he?”

Instead of replying, Adrian started to move away from his mother. But she had the advantage of height over him—of weight as well—and she held him where he was. “Darling?” she asked him brightly. “The gentleman?

The one with the patches on his elbows? Attractive in an overnourishedHeathcliff sort of way?”

Adrian gave the man a cursory glance. “One of Dad’s artists. The place is crawling with them. They’re all here to grease the way with Ruth on the chance she’s been left most of the bundle.”

“When they should be greasing the way with you? How very strange,”

Margaret said.

He gave her a look that she didn’t like to interpret. “Believe me. No one’s that stupid.”

“About what?”

“About where Dad left his money. They know he wouldn’t have—”

“Darling, that makes no difference at all. Where he may have wanted his money to go and where it shall end up might very well be two different places. Wise is the man who realises that and acts accordingly.”

“Wise is the woman as well, Mother?”

He sounded hateful. Margaret couldn’t understand what she had done to deserve that sort of tone from him. She said, “If we’re speaking of your father’s latest dalliance with this Mrs. Abbott, I think I can safely say that—”

“You know damn well we’re not.”

“—your father’s bent for younger women being what it was—”

“Yeah. That’s just bloody it, Mother. Would you God damn listen to yourself for once?”

Margaret stopped, confused. She tracked back through their last exchange. “What I was saying? About what?”

“About Dad. About Dad’s women. About his younger women. Just think, all right? I’m sure you can put the pieces together.”

“Darling, what pieces? I honestly don’t know—”

“ ‘Take her to meet your father so she sees, my darling,’ ” her son recited tersely. “ ‘No woman will walk away from that.’ Because she’d started to have second thoughts about me and you saw that clear enough, didn’t you? God knows you probably even expected it. You thought if she knew just how much money was on the horizon if she played her cards right, she’d decide to stay with me. As if I’d bloody want her then. As if I bloody want her now.”