Indiscretions - Elizabeth Adler [138]
It was four-thirty when they got back home. They were sitting on Rory’s sofa. Bob was into his second wind and Rory had crashed, plummeted from some lofty peak to white-faced misery. He sat, head in hands, staring at the pattern on the marble table.
“Something’s really bugging you, Rory,” said Bob, rolling a joint. “I mean, I can tell. It’s like you’ve got something bottled up inside you, something that really worries you.”
Rory lifted his head and stared at Bob.
“You’re right,” he said.
“It’s no good, you know,” Bob went on, dragging at the joint, “keeping things locked away inside you like that. You’ll end up doing ten years on a psychiatrist’s couch … cost you a fortune, and at the end what have you got? Nothing you couldn’t get talking to a friend.”
Rory put his head back in his hands, staring at the table again, wishing he didn’t feel so down. He had everything going for him, he was the hottest success in a town where only this year’s success counted. He was coining money—more than he’d ever dreamed of making. He didn’t need Jenny’s money now. There she was again! Always at the back of his mind, ready to sneak up on him when he was feeling low. Always there, her blue eyes wide and accusing. And frightened. The way they had looked that night….
“You’re right,” he said slowly. “Bob, I need someone to talk to, and you’re my closest friend. But it’s not all the way it sounds. I mean, I was a young guy trying to get on in a tough world. You understand what I mean, don’t you, Bob?”
Bob switched on the micro-tape recorder in the pocket of his Ralph Lauren denim jacket.
“Sure,” he agreed, “I understand.”
22
The Fiesta was the gayest, most social yacht on the Mediterranean that season, cruising lazily along the coast, from Monte Carlo to St. Tropez, and across to Porto Cervo in Sardinia, anchoring occasionally at tiny Calvi in Corsica, or, for a change of pace, drifting westward to Puerto Banus at Marbella. With a constant flow of guests spilling from every cabin, Venetia found herself thrown in suddenly at the deep end. In a way it was good; it left her little time to brood, and even with the help of the two girls whom she had found it necessary to recruit from London to help her she was usually too tired at night to crave anything but sleep.
In the first month Fitz McBain had been aboard twice—each time for one night only, bringing with him a party of guests who were to enjoy his hospitality, though not his presence, for the next couple of weeks. Venetia had not seen him alone; in fact, she had seen him only once to speak to, and that was at the dinner table when the guests, merry on champagne, had called for their chef to compliment her on her dinner. Venetia had had to stand there, blushing, dressed in old shorts and her huge striped apron, feeling hot and illkempt compared with the elegant, leisured guests in their summery, floating silks. Fitz had smiled at her as their glances met, but she had only wanted to escape. Afterward she’d watched from her position outside her galley on the upper deck, feeling like a pantomime Cinderella left behind when the others went to the Prince’s ball, as they trooped laughingly ashore, heading for some party at the Hotel Cervo.
Often the guests would choose to eat in a harborside cafe in Calvi or a smart restaurant in St. Tropez and then they’d dance the night away at a party or some wild disco. It would all have been such fun if only she’d been sensible enough to fall in love with Morgan—but how could any daughter of Jenny’s be expected to behave sensibly? There was no doubt that Morgan was hurt, but his bitterness was against her, not his father. “I might have guessed,” he’d said cryptically, when she’d told him about her feelings for Fitz, “but I would have thought it would be the other way around—he’s always loved you.”
She’d gazed at him, puzzled, wondering if he’d misunderstood her, but she’d forgotten his remark in