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Venice got out of the car, almost running into the house. Nick was seated at the table in the breakfast-room dressed in a towelling robe, glowering moodily into a cup of coffee.
‘Where the hell have you been?’ he demanded as she walked in. ‘And where are my car keys?’
‘I don’t know… have you lost them?’ She gave him a wide-eyed look of innocence. The car keys were safely locked away in her bureau, and the key was on her keyring. There had been no way she had been going to allow him to leave until she had seen Fern.
‘I’ve seen Fern. She accepts that we have to put the baby first and she’s agreed not to contest the divorce. I had to promise her the house, of course, and a small allowance, but it will be better that way. People will soon stop feeling sorry for her and blaming you once they see how generous we’ve been.
‘I want to arrange a dinner party. Just ourselves, the local agent and another couple. It won’t do any harm to put things in motion… register your interest and, of course, let people see us as a couple. I’ll have to ring my solicitor and get him working on the divorce. Oh, and by the way, Nick, I’ve had the most marvellous idea. It was while I was waiting for Fern to pack up your things. I saw this article on Broughton House. Did you know the gardens had been designed by Gertrude Jekyll?’
‘So what?’
‘So, my precious, wonderful darling, now you can kill two birds with one stone. Stop dear Adam from getting his planning permission and become recognised, not just locally but hopefully nationally, as an alert environmentalist, ready to protect Britain’s heritage…
‘The gardens, Nick,’ she told him when he scowled sulkily at her. ‘If we can prove they were designed by Jekyll, and according to Fern there are actually plans in existence, then we can mount a campaign… get a preservation order on them. Don’t you see… it will be the perfect cause for you? It’s local, environmental… just the kind of thing that has mass sentimental appeal. You’ll become known as someone who cares… someone who gets things done. Look at how it’s worked for Adam; but he’s only got limited local appeal, whereas this…
‘It will need careful handling, of course, and the right kind of publicity… the right kind of team behind you. We don’t want anyone else taking over and getting the glory.’
Nick thought quickly. When he had woken up alone in Venice’s bed this morning and remembered what had happened the previous night, his first thought had been to tell her that he had changed his mind, but now, subtly, she was drawing him back under the spell she had cast the previous night once again, reminding him of the glittering future she had drawn for him.
Greed had momentarily pushed Adam and his destructive resentment of him into second place… Gloatingly he reflected on how he would make Adam squirm when he was MP… on how he would humiliate and punish him. He would be the one that everyone looked up to then, not Adam.
Venice was right, he did need a cause. Broughton House…
‘What would happen if the house had already been sold before we could do anything?’ he asked Venice.
She looked at him. ‘Nothing. Whoever bought it would probably lose their money, because one thing’s for certain, there’s no way the heritage people would allow them to destroy those gardens, much less give planning permission on them…’
As she watched the satisfied smile hardening his eyes, Venice congratulated herself. He was so easy to read, so vainly oblivious to his own vulnerability, so perfect for the role she intended him to play.
From the first moment she had realised the power over certain men her sexuality gave her, Venice had decided to hone and use it. That had been when she was fourteen, and she had seen the way her stepfather was watching her.
For the two years until she was sixteen she had skilfully kept him at bay, alternating between subtle promises and fierce rejection, taking the increased pocket money he gave her, the clothes, the treats and then holding him off with virtuous indignation and feigned innocence whenever he tried to demand payment.
Venice had quickly learned that weak men, sexually hungry men were the easiest to manipulate and control. Her own father had been a successful businessman, but when he’d left her mother to marry his secretary and father a second family there had been an abrupt decrease in Venice and her mother’s standard of living, and a change of school from the small private school Venice had previousl
y attended to a large inner-city comprehensive.
She had seen then the difference that money, wealth could make, and she had determined that one day she would possess the kind of wealth that no one could ever take away from her. And, being Venice, she had also very quickly decided that the easiest and quickest way for her to get it was via her sexuality.
There had been a couple of discreet liaisons with wealthy, married men before she had met Bill, but once she had met him she had quickly discarded her then lover, recognising that in Bill she would have not merely access to his bank account in the form of expensive presents, and ‘rewards’ for the use of her body, but control over it in the form of marriage.
Bill had been a very lonely man, a man who had worked hard all his life for very little personal happiness. Venice had promised that she would change all that, but, as she had quickly discovered once she was Bill’s wife, wealth was one thing, but there were other forms of power, even more of an aphrodisiac, and her hunger for power, complete, absolute and total, was a hunger that had not ceased growing with marriage to Bill—far from it.
Bill had had no social or political ambitions and Venice had quickly recognised that it was pointless trying to urge him towards them.
With his death, though, things had changed. Venice was astute enough to recognise that the very sexuality within her which had enabled her to achieve her original ambitions would be counter-effective with her new ones. Those who guarded the social barriers she longed to penetrate would recognise what she was at one glance and debar her, and as for the political ones… Her mouth curled in a cynical smile. Perhaps if her sex had never been given the vote she might have stood a chance…
As it was… She glanced at Nick. He would serve her purpose admirably. He was neither rich enough nor well-connected enough ever to be able to defy or ditch her; she would always have absolute and complete control over him.
She glanced complacently down at her body. She would go to Valentino for the dress she would wear for the ball they would give to celebrate Nick’s acceptance as MP. It was a pity Lord Stanton was still alive; the hall was bound to go for a knock-down price once he had died, and the ballroom there would be a perfect venue for such an event.
She would have to make sure that things were timed so that Nick didn’t formally take over from Jennifer Bowers until after she had had the baby.
It would be a boy, of course. She wasn’t going to have daughters who would one day grow up to compete with her!
Yes, everything was working out exactly the way she had planned.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
