Daddy’s Girls

Oswald took a sip of wine, and smiled smugly at his daughter.

‘After you mentioned the possibility of a musical evening at Huntsford, I took the liberty of phoning Miss Dante.’ He looked over at her like an antiques dealer sizing up his latest sideboard. ‘We were surprised that we had so many friends in common, weren’t we, Maria?’

The singer giggled girlishly. ‘Oh, too many people.’

Venetia smiled weakly. She had set up the lunch as a business meeting to introduce them, in the hope that Maria might charm Oswald into holding the event at Huntsford. Now she felt as if she were gate-crashing a first date.

‘Let’s cut to the chase so we can get on with a civilized lunch,’ said Oswald, swilling his wine around the glass. ‘I’m up for the event in principle. But if we are going to stage it at Huntsford, I want it done properly. Something on a grand scale. Something elegant. Something spectacular. I mean, bloody hell! anybody with access to the bloody Internet goes down to Glyndebourne these days. I’m not having that. Don’t want it to be like a ruddy singsong in someone’s back garden. The Balcon family have a reputation to protect.’

He paused to rub his stomach, which hung over the waistband of his trousers.

‘I completely agree that it should be exclusive,’ interrupted Venetia, ‘which is why I think we should be looking at two hundred and fifty pounds a ticket. That way at least fifty per cent of the ticket price can go to charity.’

Oswald put his glass down and sighed.

‘I thought I made it clear about charity,’ said Oswald, correcting the hard tone of his voice when he saw the startled expression on Maria’s face.

‘You should be the first one to know how much everything costs these days,’ he said to Venetia. ‘God only knows, you spend enough of Jonathon’s money.’

She bridled.

‘Anyway, we have Maria’s fee to take into consideration,’ he continued, glugging more Pinot.

‘Fee?’ said Venetia, shifting in her chair. ‘I thought …’ She tried unsuccessfully to catch Maria’s gaze. ‘But what about the charity?’

‘My daughter.’ He began talking to Maria as if Venetia wasn’t present. ‘She always wants to help everyone. She wants to save the world!’

He laughed, then turned back to Venetia. ‘Darling, the commercial reality is that these things are expensive. Don’t you think all these so-called charity concerts are lining somebody’s pocket? What’s the point on skimping on our evening of music just so we can send some loose change to some cripples? I for one won’t pretend it’s some grand humanitarian effort. It’s hypocritical nonsense.’

Venetia was surprised to see that Maria was nodding as Oswald spoke, since the singer had been quite excited about the proceeds going to the National Children’s Home when they had spoken about it the previous week.

‘Now Maria.’ He placed a hand on Maria’s knee that she allowed to linger. ‘It all begins with you, my darling. What dates did you come up with?’

She burrowed for her diary, not bothering to look at Venetia. ‘I have a couple of shows in Verona in the second week of July. I was rather looking at the first week of June.’

‘Splendid!’ said Oswald, reaching for the bottle of wine. ‘Now then, Venetia, do you think Serena would compere it? You do know my daughter Serena Balcon?’ boasted Oswald to Maria. ‘Such a beautiful girl.’

Venetia rolled her eyes. The way he paraded his preferences for his youngest daughter never failed to rile the other sisters.

‘And couldn’t we get Camilla to rustle up all those legal bores she knows?’ he continued. ‘There’s huge corporate possibilities with all this,’ he added in a stage whisper to Maria.

Oswald was clearly on a roll now, enjoying being centre stage. ‘Charlesworth’s quite connected in the classical world. And bloody Watchorn can put his money where his mouth is and drum up some of his Cabinet friends he’s always banging on about. I wonder if the PM would be around about then?’

He carried on with his plans happily, draining his glass and clicking his fingers irritably for service, but Venetia sat silently, with her hands in her lap, feeling totally wretched, realizing that her brilliant plans for a glorious evening at Huntsford had been well and truly hijacked.

12 (#ulink_91df3061-4abf-5bbe-8993-b849a57b9642)

It was 9.30 p.m. and Nick Douglas had still not arrived. The Flask pub on the edge of Highgate’s tiny green had been cranked up to full Sunday-night volume, the air full of loud laughter, weekend gossip and the smell of beer and cigarettes. Cate had been lucky to find a seat in the corner where she sipped a glass of white wine and pretended to read a leaflet advertising yoga classes. She glanced at the Cartier Tank watch on her wrist and considered going home. She usually gave up waiting for people at half an hour, and if any of her other publishing contacts had shown the slightest interest in joining her fledgling company she’d have given up long ago and slunk back to her flat to watch Midsomer Murders. As it was, Cate was feeling very alone. The three publishers that she had approached had told her that they were unhappy in their jobs. The thing was, none of them were that unhappy that they wanted to take a risk with Cate. Even Cecil Bradley, while supportive of Cate’s ambition, had declined to come out of retirement. There was frankly only one person left: Nick Douglas. And even he couldn’t be bothered to turn up.

‘Cate Balcon?’

She looked up to see a tall, slim man wearing jeans and a long, grey wool coat. His light brown hair was cropped, his hazel eyes were intense and his wide, full-lipped mouth was unsmiling. Nick Douglas had the sort of broody handsomeness and the lean skier’s build that usually made Cate drool. But without a word of apology or even a smile, Nick Douglas looked like the typical arrogant public schoolboy nightmare of her teenage years.

‘Nick? I was just about to go.’ She couldn’t stop the words coming out spitefully.

‘We said half past nine.’

‘It was nine, actually,’ said Cate, her smile thin and fixed. She took a deep breath. She didn’t want this to get off to a bad start. Nick certainly didn’t look particularly enamoured by his first impressions either.

‘Can I get you a drink?’ she said, trying to thaw the atmosphere.

‘No, no, I’ll get them,’ said Nick. ‘They know me here. White wine, is it?’

‘No more wine,’ said Cate, shaking her head, aware that she was feeling a little light-headed after drinking two large glasses of Chardonnay in quick succession. ‘Just a Diet Coke, please. Ice and lemon.’

‘A Diet Coke girl.’ He smiled and swaggered off. Cate felt her dislike of Nick Douglas increase. As he headed to the bar, Cate noticed that he had instantly attracted the attention of a pretty blonde barmaid. Maybe she had agreed to the meeting too hastily. He might be a friend of Tom’s, but Cate didn’t know Nick Douglas from Adam and now, here she was, half drunk in a London pub, about to show this cocky upstart her precious magazine dummy. How did she know that this Nick Douglas wasn’t going to steal all her ideas and then drop her like a hot potato?

By the time she had drained the remnants of her wine, Nick had brought the drinks, pulled his coat off and squeezed into the tiny space beside her, the warm leg of his jeans pressing against hers.

‘This is a bit odd, isn’t it?’ he smiled for the first time.

‘How do you mean?’

‘Feels like a blind date.’

Cate laughed nervously. ‘Well, it certainly felt as if I’d been stood up.’

He took a sip of his Guinness, leaving a frothy white-foam moustache on his top lip. ‘Sorry about that. I did know it was nine o’clock.’ He grinned. ‘I was just watching, well, the end of Midsomer Murders, actually.’

Cate snorted quietly, clinking her glass of Coke against his dark pint glass sarcastically. ‘Thank you. Glad to see you just couldn’t wait to meet me.’

Nick bristled. He knew he’d been out of order arriving late, but he was the one doing her the favour, wasn’t he? He was only here because Tom had asked him to be. He was sure that Cate was going to be the career-bitch twin of her sister Serena, all blonde highlights and blue-blooded attitude. He’d witnessed his old schoolmate Tom being henpecked by Serena for years. He had no intention of falling into a similar pattern, but without any of the bedtime benefits.

‘Tom says you’ve been in America. Why did you leave?’ asked Cate.

Nick looked at her. He could see no reason to try and impress this over-privileged princess, so he just shrugged and told her the truth. ‘Same reason as most people who leave a ridiculously well-paid job in New York for unemployment in London.’

Cate smiled at him. ‘Fired?’

‘Got it in one.’

‘Well, you and me both,’ she smiled with a hint of embarrassment.

Nick softened, looking at her wide smiling mouth. Her trying-to-hide-it nervousness was actually quite endearing, he thought. Shame she was such a pompous cow.

Nick took a big gulp of Guinness and continued. ‘The funny thing is, it’s terrible being fired and all that, but I’m sort of glad. I was bored shitless, but I could have carried on for another ten years, with my nice West Village apartment and summer weekends in the Hamptons. It was nice. Really nice. But when things are too nice, you don’t take any chances.’ When he grinned at Cate, faint little creases crinkled around the corners of his eyes.

‘So, how far have you got with your publishing company?’ asked Cate, feeling as if she was interviewing him.