Lassie was barking again. There was a knock on the door. It was Miss Bates with her normally bold grey eyes cast down.
‘Dr Benson to see you, Mrs Rannaldini.’
Before Rannaldini could stop him, James had swept in.
‘Natasha,’ he said kissing her on both cheeks, ‘I haven’t seen you for years. You’ve grown even more lovely than your mother.’
‘Why, thanks. This is my boyfriend, Ferdie Fitzgerald,’ said Natasha proudly.
‘Lucky guy.’ James shook Ferdie’s hand, then glancing from this glowing buxom child to her desperately pale, red-eyed stepmother. ‘Aren’t you pleased about the new addition to the family?’
Natasha looked blank.
‘He’s talking about Lassie,’ cut in Rannaldini. ‘Now buzz off you two and have a drink in the morning room.’
‘I wasn’t talking about Lassie,’ said James Benson smoothly. ‘Hasn’t your father told you that your stepmother’s expecting a baby?’
‘She can’t be,’ whispered Natasha, utterly aghast. Then, fielding a laser-beam of warning from Rannaldini, ‘I mean, that’s great. How very exciting,’ she added in a strange high voice.
‘We’re not telling anyone,’ said Rannaldini grimly, ‘not until the New York job’s in the bag. Now bugger off you two. James wants to look at Kitty. He hasn’t got all day.’
Natasha seemed so shattered that she walked out without even saying goodbye.
‘Look after yourself,’ said Ferdie, hugging Kitty. Seriously worried, he hated leaving her.
Natasha can’t bear my having her father’s child, thought Kitty hopelessly. Oh God, another dreadful complication.
Rannaldini jumped up and rushed out as the telephone rang. He had been unbelievably edgy all morning. A long time talking, he met James Benson on his way out.
‘Not very happy about Kitty,’ James told him. ‘Not responding at all well, almost clinically depressed. I’ve put her on anti-depressants and some iron and vitamins to boost her up. But I cannot recommend TLC too strongly, Rannaldini. She needs a proper holiday.’
‘She has one,’ said Rannaldini, who was quite incapable of controlling his orgasmic elation. ‘That call confirm the New World Phil job. It is all I have dreamt of and worked for.’
‘Well done, great,’ said James, ‘brilliant, but that’s hardly a holiday for Kitty.’
‘It’ll be a change of scenery.’ Most uncharacteristically, Rannaldini kissed his doctor on both cheeks. ‘If you’ll forgeeve me, James, I must break the news to Kitty. That will be the best tonic.’
What a victory! He wanted to shout to the rooftops as he bounded upstairs. How dare that little Russian upstart challenge his throne. The best man had won — even if he had had to fax The Scorpion piece on Boris and Chloe anonymously to Graydon Gluckstein the moment it came off the press.
‘It’ll be a new ’eaven and a new earth, my kitten,’ he told her joyfully.
The early afternoon sun flooding his face made him look young and extraordinarily handsome.
‘We will leave our problems behind and start our marriage again. You will adore New York. It pulsates like an animal.’
Cecilia lives in New York, thought Kitty bleakly, and once she’s dumped this latest boyfriend she’ll want Rannaldini back and me as a dogsbody. And if I go to the States and want to come back Lassie will have to go into quarantine for six months. And Hermione will come and stay for ages and little Cosmo will break the place up. At least in England they live in their own house.
‘They are so delighted to ’ave me,’ Rannaldini was saying, ‘they ’ave already release the news worldwide. Next week we can fly over and look at ’ouses. Oh, sheet,’ as his mobile rang again. ‘Why can’t people leave us alone? ’Allo, ’allo.’
His face went utterly still, so instantly drained of colour and joy that for a second Kitty thought the job had been withdrawn. For a couple of minutes he listened, just interjecting the occasional ‘sí’. Then he said: ‘It was good of you to let me know. We’ll talk later, ciao.’ He switched off the telephone.
Only then did the rage erupt, as he launched into a stream of Latin expletives.
‘What’s the matter?’ Kitty clung to a cringing Lassie.
‘The stupid, stupid beetch,’ screamed Rannaldini, ‘driving over a fucking cliff and we’ve only recorded the first two movements of the Emperor.’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘Rachel. She kill herself driving off the road.’
Kitty gave a moan. ‘Oh my God! Poor Rachel. ’Ow terrible. What ’appened? Did the brakes fail? It couldn’t have been suicide.’
Rannaldini shrugged. ‘She was found clutching a copy of The Scorpion. They’d run a piece about Boris going back to Chloe.’
‘Oh no, I can’t bear it. Oh, the poor li-el kids.’
‘Rachel left them with Gretel. Stupid, selfish beetch.’
‘Oh, poor Boris. Does he know?’
‘Ees in Eesrael,’ said Rannaldini contemptuously. ‘That was Bob. He’s trying to trace him.’
‘Oh, my God.’ Kitty’s face crumpled up with tears. ‘She was probably just distracted by the ’orrible article and drove off the road.’ Groping in her pocket for a handkerchief, she nearly pulled out Lysander’s letter. ‘She dropped me a line only this week sayin’ ’ow ’appy she and Boris was.’
Again the telephone went. The Telegraph, having been tipped off, was ringing to congratulate Rannaldini about New York and wanting a comment on Rachel’s death.
‘One of the most tragic losses to the music world,’ Kitty could hear him saying as he walked back to his study, ‘Rachel Grant had an individual talent which I personally…’
Guessing he would be tied up for some time, frantically brushing away the tears, Kitty took the note out of her cardigan pocket. It was full of crossings out. A demented Lysander had clearly struggled over it himself without any help from Ferdie or Rupert.
Darling kitty,
I wonnted to proove i cud do sumthing, well arthur and i allmost did. I havent got a big howse or a jetset life but i give you my hart wych feals as if its been trarnsplarnted withowt any annisetik. please wring i am dieing of missery. your luvving Lysander.
Kitty felt as though the jagged teeth of a steel trap had closed into her leg, holding her back. Darling sweet Lysander. How could she ever even respect, let alone love Rannaldini, after he’d been so monstrously insensitive about Rachel?
‘Mrs Rannaldini?’
Whatever was wrong with Miss Bates? She’d been so bossy and uppity yesterday, now she couldn’t meet Kitty’s eyes, as she handed her the second cordless telephone.
‘Mr Rannaldini’s still on the other line, it’s Natasha. She says it’s desperately urgent.’
‘’Allo,’ said Kitty, steeling herself for abuse.
‘Are you alone? Promise you won’t leave Papa.’ Natasha’s Italian-American accent was coming in gasps. ‘Wolfie won’t come back to Valhalla because Dad took Flora off him and I’m living with Ferdie now. Papa’ll be so lonely living on his own. I shouldn’t be telling you this — Papa’ll kill me. Promise you won’t tell him.’
‘I promise,’ said Kitty fearfully, ‘but be quick, he’ll be back in a second.’
‘Your baby isn’t Papa’s. It’s Lysander’s.’
‘How d’you know?’ whispered Kitty. ‘I slept with your dad the night before Lysander came out to France and the night I got back.’ She shuddered as she remembered Rannaldini’s ice-cold anger as he practically raped her. ‘I only slept wiv Lysander twice.’
‘Papa has had a vasectomy.’
‘He what? When?’