Scandalous Behavior

22

During the week Susan had her meeting with Bill Eggers, Julian Whately, and half a dozen other people from Woodman & Weld. She came home aglow.

“That was a real eye-opener for me,” she said.

“What did they recommend?”

“They want me to expand at every level of my business — to hire a publicist to ‘heat up’ my name, as they put it, to hire four people over the next year to supervise projects and report to me. They want me to buy the building in Wandsworth where my upholsterers are based and turn another floor into a draperies and fabrics workshop, and they’ll arrange financing. They’ve suggested that I design my own line of upholstered furniture and develop a line of slipcovers that fit the pieces. They want me to hire a team of people to go around England and France, buying antique furniture and objets d’art and use another floor of the building to warehouse them. They reckon I can get quadruple what I pay for them, if I buy judiciously. And once this is all working, they want me to do a deal with a chain of high-end shops, who would carry my fabrics, towels, and bathroom accessories. The mind boggles!”

“May I make a suggestion?”

“Of course.”

“Hire somebody really good to be your chief operating officer, so you can spend your time designing, instead of managing.”

“What a good idea! I’m going to be a very busy woman!”

Stone winced. Had he created a monster? She certainly wasn’t going to have much time for him.

“They also think that being the production designer on Peter’s film would be a wonderful showcase, and I’ve already done the perfect house for the project — yours!”

She left him to go and make phone calls to London.

Very early on Friday morning, Fred collected Viv Bacchetti from her apartment, then came for Stone and Susan. They were at Teterboro before rush hour, and were soon taxiing to the runway. Pat Frank’s people had already done his flight planning and were predicting winds that would take him to Windward Hall nonstop, after St. John’s.

The two women sat in the rear of the airplane and chatted, until Susan had to make satphone calls to her office. They refueled at St. John’s, Newfoundland, then set off for England. Once Stone was at flight level 410, he picked up the predicted 100-knot tailwinds, and the range ring showed Windward well within its boundaries. Settled en route, Stone read the Times, then opened a book of New York Times Sunday crosswords, the perfect long-distance flying companion: look at a clue, write down the answer, do an instrument scan. He got into a rhythm.

They flew across the Atlantic, and ATC vectored him to the GPS instrument approach. They touched down at dusk, ready to stretch their legs.

Stan met them, towing a trailer for their luggage behind the Land Rover, and drove them to the house. They joined the kids and the Barnetts in the library for before-dinner drinks, then adjourned for Stone’s first dinner in his new dining room.

Peter and Susan sat next to each other and talked animatedly about his upcoming film. He had completed a first draft of the script and was having the office make a copy for her to study and come up with ideas.

They were back in the dining room for brandy and coffee when Stone’s cell phone vibrated on his belt. He checked the caller ID and found it blocked. “Hello?”

“It’s your neighbor across the river,” Felicity said.

“Hang on.” Stone excused himself from the conversation, went to a corner of the room, and sank into a chair. “How are you? I was sorry not to see you at Charles’s big party.”

“And I was sorry to miss it, but the Muddle East claimed that whole weekend. I understand he’s returning from his honeymoon early next week.”

“I hope they had a good time,” Stone said.

“I expect so.”

Stone thought he detected something troubled in her voice. “Is there something you want to tell me, Felicity?”

She took a deep breath. “Well, yes, there is. It appears that you’re going to have some less-than-desirable neighbors, unless we can do something about it.”

“Neighbors where?”

“Apparently, Sir Richard Curtis’s widow, next door to you, has been approached by estate agents and is considering selling the property. She had thought to sell it to an institutional buyer, like a school or perhaps even a nunnery.”

“Of those choices I think I would prefer a nunnery for a neighbor,” Stone said. “At least they would live quietly.”

“At the moment, that seems the most unlikely buyer,” Felicity said. “As it turned out, the estate agents she consulted had had a request in hand for several weeks from a different kind of organization, which now seems, to the agents, an ideal buyer.”

“What kind of organization?”

“A cult, I believe.”

Stone sat up straight. “What is its name?”

“The Chosen Few.”