Scandals. PENNY JORDAN
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Название: Scandals
Автор: PENNY JORDAN
Издательство: HarperCollins
Жанр: Современная зарубежная литература
isbn: 9780007371686
isbn:
She had already had the best Christmas present ever, she decided blissfully, as her train rumbled south towards London, cold air, not warm, predictably coming out of the heating vents, making her glad of the thick tights she was wearing under her miniskirt, as she huddled into the warmth of her black peacoat.
Beyond the carriage window rolled the disappointing green of the Oxfordshire countryside. Christmas should be white, not green and wet. But there would be snow in Klosters, of course. Katie’s tummy fluttered with excitement and anticipation.
She was looking forward to being with the family of course she was – especially Granny and Gramps, who were such darlings. She hoped everyone would like the presents she’d got them – books this year; she liked to have a theme. The book she’d bought for Zoë was a beautifully bound copy of the Earl of Rochester’s poems that she had found in an antiquarian bookshop in Falmouth during the summer.
Normally after Christmas Katie’s parents took Katie, her elder sister, Emma, and her younger brother, Jamie, skiing, but this year her parents and Jamie were flying out to Australia instead, where her father had business interests, whilst Emma went to Italy to spend a term studying fabric design at Angelli’s.
Silk was the lifeblood of their family, although that might not be immediately obvious to outsiders. Her own ambition, once she had finished university, was to set up an archive library-cum-museum documenting all the patterns Denby Mill had produced, along with their provenance. Her grandmother, Amber, would be an invaluable help. And how much Katie was now looking forward to seeing her. Christmas at Denham Place, even without snow, would be utter bliss.
Through the plate-glass window wall of his penthouse apartment, sitting in the Eames lounge chair with his feet on its footstool, Robert stared out across the London rooftops. The chair was positioned exactly so that its occupant could see both out of the room and into it. Robert knew that he had a perfect panoramic view of the city, but the images inside his head weren’t of St Paul’s, the Thames and the distant horizon, but of the classically elegant buildings of cream stone and the cobbled square they dominated and surrounded: the royal palace and the offices of state of the Principality of Lauranto. What a project it would be to bring those Palladian buildings back to their original glory, to restore the dingy, shabby harbour below the ancient walled capital city back to the charmingly picturesque place it had once been. It would take money, of course – investment, investors. Olivia’s parents were the principal trustees of a very large charitable trust, and responsible for finding suitable causes for it to invest in and support. Oh, yes, Olivia would definitely be the ideal wife for him.
She had grown into an elegant, intelligent, socially adroit and confident young woman, with that aura of polished gloss that New York women possessed; a woman that it wouldn’t be hard for him to marry. In fact, it would be extremely easy for him to marry Olivia, Robert recognised. Extremely easy and very suitable.
‘Darlings, how lovely!’
‘I’m sorry we’re later than I said we’d be, Mummy,’ Emerald told Amber, ‘but the traffic was simply awful. Is Robert here, only he’s got all the presents? We simply didn’t have room, what with everything that Emma is insisting on taking to Italy with her.’ ‘Yes, he’s here.’
‘And the others? Have they arrived yet?’
‘Yes, everyone’s here apart from Olivia, and Robert has gone to the airport to collect her.’
Detaching herself from her mother’s embrace, Emerald asked, ‘I take it that we’re all in our usual rooms?’
‘Yes, of course, darling.’
‘Drogo, can you take everything up? There’s something I want to have a word with Cathy about before I forget. Where is she, Mummy?’
‘In the kitchen with Janey, I think.’
As their mother headed in the direction of the kitchen, Jamie told Katie, ‘Granny and Gramps have got the tree ready for decorating.’
‘Yes, and it’s my turn to put the fairy on top this year,’ Katie answered
It was a family tradition, started when they had all been small, that the children took it in turns to place the fairy on top of the tree.
The front door opened, as she spoke, to admit a surge of cold air, and Harry and David, Janey and John’s sons.
‘Made it after all, have you?’ Harry joked. ‘We were going to give you another half an hour and then start the tree without you.’
‘It’s lovely to be here, Granny.’ Katie hugged Amber, firmly ignoring her stepcousin’s teasing.
Amber hugged her granddaughter back, their contact making her aware of the physical differences between youth and age. Whereas her own thinness represented a withering away, Katie’s slenderness was due to an abundance of youthful energy. Katie’s flesh felt firm against strong young bones, whereas Amber’s now hung slack and soft against bones that were thin and fragile. Katie even smelled of youth and freshness, Amber thought fondly.
‘It’s lovely to have you here,’ she responded. It didn’t do to have favourites amongst one’s grandchildren but Katie had an extra special place in her heart, perhaps because she shared Amber’s own passionate love for the history of the family silk business.
Katie was dressed in what Amber assumed was the current uniform of youth: black tights encasing her long slender legs, a short skirt, a skinny-looking jacket, which looked like something a seaman might wear, and thick, heavy-looking boots. Gold hoop earrings swung from her ears – Amber well remembered the fuss there had been when Katie had gone behind her mother’s back to have her ears pierced after being told she must not – her long thick nut-brown hair swinging on her shoulders.
Katie released her grandmother to turn and eye the bare branches of the Christmas tree.
‘It’s no use you looking at it like that,’ Emma reproved her sister, coming over to join them. ‘We can’t start decorating it until Robert comes back with Olivia. It wouldn’t be fair.’
It was typical of her sister to claim the moral high ground, Katie thought. ‘I wasn’t going to, Emma. I was just telling Harry that it’s my turn to put the fairy on the top.’
‘We can’t start but we can get organised for when Robert and Olivia get here,’ Harry pointed out. ‘We’ll need a couple of pairs of tall stepladders. Where did you put them after you’d put those curtains back up for Granny?’ he asked his younger brother.
‘Outside in the garage.’
‘Right, we’d better go and fetch them.’
‘Let’s go and sit down in the drawing room and you can both bring me up to date with all your news,’ Amber suggested to her granddaughters.
The kitchen at Denham was a big comfortable room with a table in the middle large enough СКАЧАТЬ