Daddy’s Girls

‘On what grounds? That my DNA is wrong?’

Walton didn’t seem to hear. His attention had already wandered to something on his computer screen.

‘Fine,’ said Cate in a quiet, controlled voice, rising unsteadily and moving towards the door with dignity. ‘You will, of course, be hearing from my solicitors.’

William Walton glanced up and took one last look at the long legs exiting his office. ‘Get them to call my secretary.’

3

Karnak was spectacular. Even though Tom had wanted a siesta after the enormous lunch and huge amounts of booze he’d had on La Mamounia, he was glad he’d made the effort to join the very small group of guests visiting the temple complex on the outskirts of Luxor. He wandered through the huge sandstone pillars, the long shadows dancing between the tall shapes stretching into a cornflower blue sky. He smiled to himself. Celebrity had a habit of making you feel so tall, so special, but here he felt like an inconsequential speck. He could stay here all afternoon, he thought. The last thing he wanted was to get back to Serena, even though it had irked him over lunch to see her talking to that slimy Yanky letch.

Serena. The first two years of their relationship had been wonderful. Tom had thought her cranky, dramatic ways were perversely adorable. Having had little contact with the upper classes before he’d met her, he assumed that’s how they were: self-obsessed and spoilt. He’d never once considered it might just be Serena’s personality. But now he was convinced that she had ice water running through her veins. While he understood it – the Balcon family were clearly seriously dysfunctional, irritation rather than affection was the overwhelming emotion he felt for her. He had even started fancying the barmaid at the Pig & Piper back in the Cotswolds village where he kept a house. He liked her wonky teeth, her fleshy breasts and the pink blushing cheeks when she served him his pint. Above all, he liked her warmth.

Then the Sheffield lad in Tom caught himself. Was he mad? He lived with Serena Balcon! One of People magazine’s Fifty Most Beautiful People, or so he had read at the airport newsagent. They were right, of course: she was stunning. From the moment he’d seen her on her trailer step reading a script, her feet bare on the ground, her fair hair blowing gently in the breeze, he had thought she was the most fabulous-looking creature he had ever seen. He would never tire of looking at Serena, but he was sick to death of listening to her – those plummy tones, the inane babble. Tom had struggled through a tough comprehensive, to university, to RADA, clawing his way up, desperate to improve himself, so he couldn’t quite believe he was living with a woman whose idea of current affairs were the party pages in Vanity Fair.

He flicked at a fly buzzing around his face. So why couldn’t he leave her?

The thought had crossed his mind a hundred times. But when he really imagined life without her, he was caught between a sense of sheer relief and horrible insecurity. What would happen to Tom without Serena? They were as inseparable as Siamese twins. He shuddered despite the heat.

‘Tom Archer! Come and join the group, you naughty thing.’

Jolene Schwartz was a brazen, heavily tanned fifty-something Texan who had married well and divorced better. She came sashaying towards him, twirling a frilly white parasol above her like a deep-fried Dolly Parton.

‘Just coming,’ called Tom, getting to his feet. ‘Are we leaving?’

‘We were supposed to meet at the Great Hall twenty minutes ago to head back to the boat.’ She wagged her finger at him at the same time as fixing him with a flirtatious smile. ‘I’m going to have to put you over my knee.’

Unconsciously, Tom found himself looking at Jolene’s legs and her unnaturally smooth knees – an obvious product of the latest surgery craze that was sweeping New York. He tore his gaze away and gave a weak, cracked smile.

‘I’d better get a move on then, hadn’t I?’

They walked as quickly as the hot sun would allow to the entrance, where a black Range Rover was waiting for them. Tom wedged himself into the cream leather back seat between Jolene and Roman’s boyfriend, Patric, a handsome, grey-haired, softly spoken architect from Provence.

‘So, who are you going to introduce me to on the boat?’ said Jolene playfully to Patric as the car began to weave through traffic towards the docks. ‘I haven’t worked out who’s single yet.’

‘What about Frédéric?’ suggested Patric playfully.

She spluttered, ‘But he’s queer!’ She looked at Patric’s mock-crushed expression and quickly corrected herself. ‘Sorry, sorry. I love gay men. I just don’t want to date one.’

‘What about Michael Sarkis?’ asked Tom. ‘I’m sure he’s not gay.’

Jolene looked at him and giggled. ‘Now honey, that’s where I draw the line. In New York they call him the cat burglar. Always after other people’s pussy,’ she giggled with a smoker’s rasp. ‘I don’t know anyone he hasn’t screwed.’

Patric shifted uncomfortably in his chair as Jolene smiled at him.

‘No, what I want is someone like this one,’ she said, squeezing the top of Tom’s knee.

Catching Tom’s frozen expression, Patric tried to change the subject. ‘Did you enjoy Karnak, Tom?’ he asked. ‘It’s sometimes good to get away from that boat, yes?’

‘Yes, the Mamounia was getting a little busy,’ said Tom diplomatically.

‘I know,’ replied Patric sympathetically, ‘I’m the less social one in our partnership, too. Roman, he loves to throw parties even when he should be working. But me …’ He trailed off.

‘Sounds a lot like our household,’ smiled Tom, trying to edge away from Jolene’s thigh.

‘How is life with you and Lady Serena?’ chimed in Jolene, keen not to be left out of the conversation.

‘She’s not a lady.’

‘So I’ve heard.’

Tom smiled thinly. ‘No, I mean that in England a baron’s daughter has the title “The Honourable”. A lady is like a duke or earl’s daughter or something.’

‘Lady or not, she’s so beautiful,’ said Patric approvingly. ‘I know Roman can’t stop giving her clothes. She wears everything so incredibly. I think she may be becoming the ambassador for the line this year.’

‘More clothes,’ laughed Tom, looking out of the window at the chaotic traffic. ‘Our house can’t stand any more clothes! I mean, did you know she has nearly a thousand pairs of shoes! They have their own room where they sit on these little carousels. Why does anyone need shoe carousels?’

‘If you were a woman, you’d know,’ laughed Jolene, touching his arm lightly.

‘This is life with the beautiful,’ shrugged Patric. ‘Wonderful, but high-maintenance.’

Tom laughed to himself. Patric didn’t know the half of it. Serena was broke and it was he who was supporting her jet-set lifestyle. She had got though a small trust fund left to her by her mother years ago and there was little obvious income from the Balcon family trust. Old money? No money was more like it, if you listened to the rumours about Oswald’s financial difficulties. And while Serena still earned something in the region of two million pounds a year in advertising contracts and film roles, her expenditure was enormous: the Cheyne Walk townhouse, the six-thousand-pound-a-year John Frieda highlights, the agent and publicist’s fees, the Dior couture clothes, the weekly manicures, pedicures and facials – the list was endless and her tastes were expensive. ‘Keeping up with the Jemimas,’ she called it. So it was left to Tom to mop up the bills for the Necker Island holidays, the Hermès bags, the San Lorenzo suppers and the brand new Aston Martin. Having been brought up in a house where everyone knew the price of a loaf of bread, and not knowing whether his movie career would last another three or thirty years, the level of spending was making him nervous. It was a high-maintenance lifestyle indeed – for both of them.

As they arrived at the dock, the sun was much lower in the sky, smudging the blue with purple and apricot, and crisscrossing the walnut decking of La Mamounia with long grey shadows. As Tom walked up the gangplank into the bowels of the boat, he could immediately see Serena through the crowd. For a moment he stopped to watch her. Her head tipped back laughing, the blonde hair spilling down her back, one strap of her sundress falling off her shoulder leaving it round and bare like a scoop of ice cream. He began to smile, then noticed that Serena’s hand was on Michael’s shoulder, while the playboy’s fingers were reaching like a predator’s to touch her arm. Tom’s stomach tightened. The mixed feelings he’d been having all afternoon – regret, pity, sadness – all crystallized into one clear emotion. He grabbed a large gin from a passing steward and drank it in one gulp, striding over to where Serena and Michael stood laughing.

As Tom approached, Michael walked away towards the bar.

‘Where’ve you been?’ demanded Serena immediately.

‘I’ve been to Karnak with Patric and Jolene. Not that you would have noticed since you’ve been glued to that playboy since I left.’

‘Oh, was it fascinating in the desert, professor?’ taunted Serena sarcastically, her words slightly slurred. ‘You must tell me all about it.’ Her eyes looked glassy and her voice had the edge of aggression that came with cocaine.

‘Let’s go to the cabin,’ he said, struggling to control his voice, ‘I need to change.’

‘And why would I want to come and watch that?’ said Serena mockingly. ‘Anyway, I’m talking to Michael, and he’s getting us drinks.’ They both looked over to the bar where Michael was collecting two flutes of kir royale.

‘Come on, we’re going,’ said Tom, grabbing her arm to pull her away. The drink and heat had hit him and his touch was a little too heavy.

‘Get off me,’ Serena yelped, pulling her arm away and rubbing her bare skin. ‘I’m talking to Michael. He’s invited us to stay at his boutique hotel in the Valley of the Kings after the cruise. At least he has some manners.’

Tom brought his face close to hers. ‘We’re not going to any more sodding hotels,’ he hissed, ‘particularly not his. You know I’ve got a meeting in London on Wednesday. I’m not missing it on account of him.’

Serena’s eyes blazed defiantly. ‘Well, I want to go.’

Tom laughed cruelly. ‘Oh, I bet you do.’

‘What do you mean by that?’

‘You want to fuck him, don’t you?’

‘What did you say?’ spat Serena incredulously.

‘You. Want. To. Fuck. Him,’ said Tom, his voice turned hard and emotionless.

Serena gasped, her face contorting into disgust. ‘You are revolting,’ she said quietly, her voice a malevolent whisper. ‘You can take the boy out of the gutter …’

Tom felt his heart pound so fiercely he thought it would explode. Never before had she seemed so snobbish, so shallow, so ugly.

At that moment Michael appeared by her side, sipping the kir. ‘Have you told Tom about coming to my hotel?’ he asked, as if it was a little secret between them.

Tom looked him up and down, taking in the white shirt with the black tufts of hair creeping over the collar, the sweating narrow face, the veins bulbously protruding from the side of his forehead. What can she see in him? he thought for a moment, then became angered by the very notion.

‘OK, let’s go,’ said Tom, taking Serena’s arm again. Serena was outraged now and shrugged him off, edging closer to Michael. Tom bridled as he watched Michael’s fingertips brush against the side of her thigh.

‘So you’ll both come for a couple of days?’ said Michael, misunderstanding. ‘It’ll be fun.’

‘I wasn’t talking to you,’ said Tom, his head now spinning.

Michael placed a hand on Tom’s shoulder in a placatory gesture. ‘Come on, it’s a very beautiful place, and I know you will love the Presidential Suite.’

‘Get off me. We’re going to our cabin,’ snapped Tom, reaching for Serena’s arm again.

Michael stood back as Tom and Serena’s eyes locked. ‘Fine,’ said Tom finally, dropping his hand, ‘you go where you want.’

‘I think she wants to stay here,’ said Michael, interrupting the moment between them.

‘I don’t give a fuck what you think,’ said Tom, turning towards Michael, his voice full of anger.

‘I think you’d better come with me,’ said Michael, turning to lead Serena away to the bar.

Before he knew what he was doing, Tom turned and landed a stinging punch on the side of Michael’s face.

Michael stumbled back onto the deck, his glass smashing. Serena screamed. Instantly, a crowd gathered around them, mouths agape. The band had stopped playing and an embarrassed mutter rang around the crowd. Roman LeFey pushed his way through the crowd and crouched down to help Michael from the deck. He turned to look at Tom, his eyes full of disappointment.

‘I’m sorry,’ whispered Tom, rubbing his sore knuckles. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘I think you’d better go,’ said Roman softly.

Tom looked at Serena desperately, but she refused to meet his gaze.

Feeling more alone than he had ever felt in his life, he turned and walked to the back of the boat. Grasping the rail and hoisting himself up, he looked back for Serena once more. Then he jumped into the waters of the Nile.

4

Camilla Balcon felt the enormous rush of orgasm wash over her and bit her lip to muffle her moans of desire. Even so, the sound of sexual climax still filled the room as Nat Montague thrust deep inside her one last time, shouting out with pleasure as he collapsed onto his girlfriend’s naked breast.

‘Will you please be quiet,’ hissed Camilla, pushing him away until his cock slid gently from inside her. She had felt a real illicit thrill when Nat had grabbed her on the four-poster bed as she had shown him around her old room in the east wing of Huntsford Castle, but now Camilla was annoyed that she’d allowed him to seduce her. It was the only time she ever lost her poise. Nat wasn’t to be so easily brushed off, however, lowering his head to seek out her hard, round, raisin-like nipple with his tongue.

‘Scared someone will hear us?’ he teased, kissing his way down her long slender body.

Nathaniel Montague, one of London’s most eligible bachelors, had bedded half the models and society girls in the capital, but Camilla Balcon was something else. Her honey-blonde hair, usually held up in a prim ballerina bun, was now spread wantonly across the pillow, surrounding an angular but striking face still flushed from her pleasure. He loved her contradictions, the way Camilla was outwardly a severe, upright career woman but in bed was bold, hungry and passionate. Many times he had met her after work in Lincoln’s Inn, just to seduce her in the close confines of her legal chambers, tearing off her starched suit and taking her across her wide desk, papers and files flying. He felt his groin stir at the thought and reached for Camilla again, a sly grin on his face, but Camilla slapped his hand away.

‘No, Nat. We’re supposed to be downstairs for dinner in ten minutes and I want to take a bath,’ she said, her lily-white buttocks perched on the end of the bed, ready to leave. ‘Do you want to use the shower room next door?’

Nat wrapped his chunky rugby player’s arm around her waist and pulled her back. ‘Why don’t we just go down reeking of sex?’ he whispered into her ear. She pulled away and threw a white fluffy robe at his head.

‘Go down smelling of sex?’ She laughed harshly at the suggestion. ‘Daddy would just love that!’

‘I thought you didn’t care what he thought,’ said Nat, his ardour finally cooled.

‘I don’t, but you know how the slightest thing can set him off.’

Sighing, Nat bounced off the bed, pulled on the robe and made for the door, rubbing himself against Camilla’s naked body as he passed her. ‘You’ll be begging me for it later, baby, you know you will,’ he smirked.

As Nat’s footsteps faded away down the polished wood of the hallway, Camilla walked over to the claw-foot bath and slid one leg into the water that had now gone cool. The bathroom was dark, lit only by two candles that sent an eerie shadow of her naked body dancing up the rich red paintwork.

I thought you didn’t care what he thought?

She sunk down into the tepid water and soaped her skin vigorously, irritated by Nat’s observation. If Nat was so right about her ambivalent feelings towards her father, why was she here? She was almost thirty, a strong, intelligent, independent woman, old and wise enough to recognize that she despised her father’s company. Unlike her sisters Venetia and Cate, who seemed to feel obliged to visit Huntsford no matter how bad Daddy’s behaviour became, Camilla Balcon was ambitious, ruthless, tough – that’s how she’d been described in a recent Legal Week article – and, as one of the most feared young barristers in London, the word ‘sentimental’ didn’t even enter into her vocabulary. As far as Camilla was concerned, the only positive thing her father had given her was a desire to get away from his crumbling castle and the drive to succeed in spite of what he had done to her – to all the girls – when they’d lived under this godforsaken roof.

So what did bring her back? And why was she feeling so on edge? Of course, deep down, Camilla knew the reason; she had spent years suppressing it, pushing it down into a corner of her mind where it couldn’t do her any harm. But here, where the memories were still so fresh … Suddenly a rush of dark images filled Camilla’s head and she squeezed her eyes tight, not allowing herself to think of the one thing that pulled her back to Huntsford. She rubbed soap into her face, blew the bubbles from her nose and submerged her head under the water before she could think about it any further.

Downstairs in Huntsford’s Great Hall, Lord Oswald Balcon, tenth baron of Huntsford, paced around irritably, glancing at his watch in the vain hope that there might be time to take one of the classic cars parked outside the house for a quick spin. Driving hell-for-leather through his Sussex estate, hood down on the car, the precision engine muffled by the wind in his ears was the only time he really felt happy these days. Certainly bombing through the grounds at top speed was far preferable to the pointless socializing he was about to subject himself to that evening.

For years Oswald had been the Great Entertainer, throwing open his doors for huge Christmas balls or shooting weekends – kings, dukes and celebrities had all visited Huntsford during those glittering decades. But of late playing host had been far more inconvenient than enjoyable for Oswald, not to mention expensive. His friend Philip Watchorn in particular had impeccable and gluttonous taste in wine, and Oswald knew that by Sunday his reserves of Dom Pérignon, Châteauneuf du Pape ′58 and vintage Rothschild would be gone.

He caught sight of himself in the long looking glass above the fire and allowed himself a smile. He was sixty-five but looked fifty. Still a handsome man, he thought, adjusting the collar of his Ede and Ravenscroft dinner shirt. His tall frame was still strong and wiry from years of competitive polo, his eyebrows were thick and grey but distinguished, framing bright blue eyes that, in his glory days, had frozen enemies and melted admirers.

Thoughts of the old days reminded Oswald of the profile piece the Telegraph had run on him last month and he frowned, swilling his Scotch around in its tumbler. What Oswald had thought was going to be a glowing piece about his life in politics had turned into a hatchet job describing him as ‘the robber baron who frittered away the family fortune on harebrained schemes, gluttony and excess.’ He had briefly considered legal action before he realized he really didn’t want certain details of his life being dredged up in court. But what had annoyed him more was the way the piece had dwelt so much on his daughters. He could still remember one particularly galling sentence: ‘Queens of the scene, the Balcon Girls are Huntsford’s crown jewels and saviours of the Balcon legacy.’

It was a raw nerve for Oswald. He still hadn’t pinpointed the exact moment when his daughters had become a national obsession. There had always been some interest in the Balcon family, of course. His wife Margaret had been a beautiful model and a sixties’ icon – an aristocratic foil to Twiggy’s East End quirks. Wealthier than Jean Shrimpton and David Bailey, better-looking than John Paul and Talitha Getty, Oswald and Maggie Balcon had been society’s power couple. But Maggie’s death, shortly after Serena’s birth, had dulled some of the Balcon glamour. It wasn’t until Serena’s career took off that the media began to take an interest again, especially when they realized that Serena was one of four beautiful, successful sisters.

As if those ungrateful wenches had done anything except spend his money.

The whoop of a helicopter’s blades snapped Oswald from his thoughts and he peered out through the long windows to see Philip Watchorn’s ink-black helicopter settling on the lawns. Typical of Watchorn to arrive in such a vulgar fashion, he thought. He’d better not scratch my cars with his damn rotors. Flash bloody Jew.

‘Philip. Jennifer. So glad you could make it.’ Oswald embraced Watchorn at the door and gave Philip’s wife the benefit of his broadest smile. A fellow homme du monde during the sixties and seventies, Oswald had met Philip Watchorn on their first day at work at a city stockbroker’s. The two men had been close friends throughout those heady years, cutting a swathe through the miniskirts of the ‘swinging’ nightclub scene before Oswald inherited his title and Philip disappeared to become one of the most formidable corporate raiders of the eighties.

‘We’ve brought Elizabeth with us for the evening, hope you don’t mind,’ said Philip as a short redhead in a velvet suit bustled through the door. Oswald groaned inwardly. The Watchorns had a terrible habit of bringing Jennifer’s younger sister with them to social occasions, apparently under some deluded matchmaking pretext. It wasn’t that he resented the sentiment; after Margaret had passed away, he had been more than open to the possibility of marrying again, but in his mind there were two types of women that circled in the top flight of society – beautiful, well-off girls of one’s own station whom one could marry and who might well be useful in terms of money or land. And then there were the cheap, gold-digging sluts who wanted to marry you and take you for every penny. Elizabeth was very much in the latter category. Just like Philip’s wife, Jennifer, in fact: a former air-hostess turned society wife. Cheap whores, the pair of them.

‘Dear Elizabeth, how wonderful to see you again,’ gushed Oswald, taking the woman’s brown leather suitcase and handing it to Collins the butler.

‘You ladies go and settle in. Collins will show you where you’re sleeping and I’ll see you for a drink in a minute.’

Philip put an arm around Oswald’s shoulders and led him towards the drawing room. ‘So, tell me. Who’s up this weekend?’

‘Charlesworth, Portia, Venetia, Jonathon. Camilla and her chap Nathaniel Montague. I think you know his father? Eleven, including myself and Catherine,’ said Oswald, as Collins appeared at their side with a silver tray bearing two generous Scotches.

‘Eleven? Not like you, Oz. What happened to “the more the merrier”?’

The more the merrier! Did Watchorn think he was made of money? Besides, Oswald was keen to keep numbers down after the Telegraph piece. He didn’t want people accepting his hospitality and sniggering at him behind their dessert spoons.

‘Just a select group tonight, old boy,’ said Oswald, slapping Philip on the back a little too hard. ‘Speaking of which, where the bloody hell are my children …?’

Venetia Balcon pulled up outside Huntsford Castle in her BMW four-by-four. She was in a very bad mood. Her husband Jonathon hadn’t said one word since she’d scraped the car’s wing mirror against a stationary truck twenty miles back, and she knew better than to force conversation when he was in this frame of mind. Cate had been no help either, sitting sullenly in the back seat for the entire ninety-mile journey. And they were late. Venetia hated being late for anything, especially one of her father’s soirées – she knew she’d get blamed for their tardiness, even though she’d sacrificed having an eyebrow wax and an Alpha Beta peel to be early.