aula stood in front of the fireplace in her office at Harte’s in Knightsbridge, below the portrait of Emma. It was three-fifteen on Tuesday afternoon, and she was waiting for Jonathan Ainsley.

Generally she wore black to work. Today she had chosen a bright red wool dress, simply tailored with long sleeves. She thought the colour was appropriate. It was strong, defiant, bold, and it echoed the way she felt.

She had turned disadvantage to advantage. She had the upper hand. She was about to demolish her enemy.

But when Jonathan appeared a few minutes later, she realized that he misguidedly believed she was going to capitulate to him. Everything about him indicated this. He sauntered in, his step jaunty, his demeanour arrogant, his smile superior.

He halted in the middle of the floor.

Adversaries, they did not greet each other.

He said, ‘You sent a message. I’m here. You have something to say to me?’

‘You’ve lost!’

He laughed in her face. ‘I never lose!’

‘Then this is a first for you.’ She lifted her head slightly, the gesture one of confidence and pride. ‘I’ve acquired additional Harte stock…’ She paused for effect. ‘I now hold fifty-two per cent.’

This information threw him. He recovered himself. Displaying no emotion whatsoever, he sneered, ‘So what. I have forty-six per cent. I’m the second largest stockholder, and entirely within my rights in demanding a seat on the board. I shall do so formally today. Through my solicitors. I also fully intend to proceed with my takeover bid.’ His eyes swept over her coldly. ‘This will be my office in the not too distant future.’

‘I doubt it!’ she shot back. ‘Furthermore, you don’t have forty-six per cent. Only twenty-six.’

‘Have you forgotten that I control the shares held in trust by Arthur Jackson for the Weston children?’

‘I forget nothing. And I am absolutely certain Arthur Jackson will not be doing business with you after today.’

‘Don’t be so ridiculous!’ His expression turned smug. ‘I have an agreement with him, with the law firm. A written agreement.’

Paula took a step forward, reached for a manila envelope on the coffee table, stood holding it in her hands. She tapped it with a bright red fingernail. ‘When Arthur Jackson finishes reading this report, which was delivered to him an hour ago, I feel quite confident he will be shredding the agreement.’

‘What report is that?’ he asked, his expression now one of disdain.

‘An investigation into your life in Hong Kong.’

He threw her a look of contempt, said with scorn, ‘You have nothing on me. I’m clean.’

Paula studied him thoughtfully. ‘Funnily enough,’ she said after a short pause, ‘I’m inclined to believe you. But nobody else will.’

‘What are you implying?’

Ignoring this question, she continued, ‘You have a partner in Hong Kong, a silent partner, one Tony Chiu, son of Wan Chin Chiu, who died last year. The man was your mentor, your adviser, and your silent partner from the moment you arrived in the Crown Colony. Pity the son’s not as honourable, reliable and honest as the father.’

‘My life and my business in Hong Kong have nothing to do with you!’ he spluttered. He was irate, trying to hold himself in check.

‘Oh yes it does. It has a great deal to do with me when you are trying to take over Harte’s.’ ‘And I will take it over!’

‘No, you won’t!’ Her eyes narrowed, and she proceeded in a soft but deadly voice, ‘It was very interesting to discover that Tony Chiu has a sideline. A very profitable sideline. Drugs. He’s alleged to be the biggest dealer of opium in the Golden Triangle, with a huge network spreading through Laos and Thailand. Convenient, isn’t it, that he can apparently launder the drug money through Janus and Janus Holdings without anyone being the wiser about what he’s up to. What a wonderful front for him. But I wonder how the Hong Kong Government and the Hong Kong police would react, what they would do about it – if they knew the real facts.’

He gaped at her. ‘You’re lying!’ he screamed. ‘That report you’re clinging onto for dear life is a pack of lies! Tony Chiu is not a drug dealer, he’s a respectable, and respected banker. And he certainly has not been using my company to launder drug money. I would know about it. He could not do a thing like that and hide it from me.’

She smiled sardonically. ‘Don’t be naive. You have Chinese employees who are his men, placed there by him even when his father was alive. He hand picked them in readiness for the future, for the time he would take over his father’s banking concerns. And those men are his spies in your organization.’

‘Bullshit!’

‘Your wife, Arabella, knows all about it. She is his business partner, has been for years. And he’s financed many of her businesses at various times, including the antique shop she now owns in Hong Kong. She, too, is his spy. That’s why she married you. To spy on you.’

Jonathan was livid with rage, unable to speak coherently. He wanted to hit Paula O’Neill in the face for saying such unspeakable things about Arabella. He took several deep breaths, gasped angrily, ‘Someone with a vivid imagination has written a piece of fiction for you. Its’s all lies, lies, lies!’ His breathing was ragged as he finished, ‘He is my silent partner, we are never seen together. My wife does not even know Tony Chiu.’

‘Why don’t you ask her?’

His lip curled and his pale eyes filled with hatred for her. He shifted his gaze to the portrait of Emma Harte above her head, and his loathing for the two of them intensified. ‘You bloody bitch!’ he hissed. ‘You’re just like that old cow used to be! I piss on her grave. I piss on yours!’ he cursed.

His words denigrating her grandmother incensed Paula. She went in for the kill. With meticulous care, she said, ‘The beautiful Arabella Sutton, doctor’s daughter from Hampshire, is not quite what she seems to be. No doubt you are aware she lived in Paris for years. But did you know she was a “Claude girl”?’ Paula laughed coldly, taunted, ‘Don’t tell me a sophisticated man like you doesn’t know all about Madame Claude. She ran the most successful, indeed the finest, sex operation ever known in Paris. And until 1977.’

Jonathan gaped at her. He was dumbfounded.

‘Arabella Sutton, your wife, was one of Madame Claude’s call girls. She went by the name Francine.’

‘I do not believe you,’ he shouted. ‘Arabella is –’

‘Believe it,’ she shouted back. She flung the envelope at him. It landed at his feet. ‘The report and copies of certain official documents attached to it will make interesting reading for you.’

Jonathan saw it out of the corner of his eye but he made no move to pick it up.

Paula said in an icy voice, ‘Instead of trying to knock my house down, go and put your own in order.’

He opened his mouth to say something, then closed it. He glanced at the envelope at his feet. He longed to show her what he thought about her report by walking away from it. But he could not. His overriding desire, his consuming need, to see the official documents she had just alluded to got the better of him. He bent down, picked it up, swung around and strode to the door.

‘I’ve won!’ Paula called after him. ‘And don’t you ever forget it!’

He halted, looked back at her. ‘We’ll see about that,’ he said.

Paula walked back to her desk. She sat thinking for a while. There was one more thing she had to do to ensure complete success, but it required her to be utterly ruthless, more ruthless than Emma Harte had ever been. She was still balking at the idea. She glanced over at the portrait of her grandmother, then brought her eyes back to the photograph in the silver frame on her desk. It was of Shane and the children. They, too, were Emma’s heirs. She had to protect Harte’s for them, no matter what it took.

Without any further hesitation, she reached for her private phone, dialled Sir Ronald on his direct line.

He picked up the phone after two rings. ‘Kallinski here.’

‘Uncle Ronnie, it’s me again. Sorry to keep bothering you today.’

‘You’re not, my dear.’ There was a slight pause. ‘Has he left?’

‘Yes. Shaken, but not conceding anything. In fact, he was obviously determined to keep on fighting me. And so I will dispose of him in the way we discussed. A copy of the report will go to the authorities in Hong Kong. But honestly, Uncle Ronnie, I –’

‘No regrets, I hope, Paula.’

‘It’s such a ruthless thing to do. It makes me far more ruthless than Grandy ever was.’ ‘That’s not true, my dear. Emma could be extremely ruthless, too, when there was something for her to be ruthless about…such as Harte’s, the business empire she built from nothing, and those she loved.’ ‘Perhaps you’re right.’

‘I know I am,’ Sir Ronald murmured, speaking in a softer voice. ‘I told you last night that Jonathan Ainsley will never leave you alone, never be off your back. He’ll always keep trying to get the stores. That’s the nature of the man.’

When she remained silent at the other end of the phone, Sir Ronald added, ‘You have no option but to stop him now. To protect yourself.’

‘Yes, I realize that, Uncle Ronnie.’

He sat in the corner of Claridge’s foyer, where afternoon tea was being served. But he scarcely heard the rattle of tea cups, the violins, or the varied background noises. He was reading far too intently to notice anything.

Jonathan had read the report twice.

At first he had wanted to dismiss it as pure invention, a vindictive interpretation of the facts on someone else’s part, and especially the sections about Tony Chiu. But now he was finding this difficult to do. There was too much genuine information included to dismiss the entire thing as bogus. He had been amazed to read a whole page about his affair with Lady Susan Sorrell. That had been such a clandestine relationship he could hardly believe his eyes when he had come across her name. He was convinced Susan would not have talked about their sexual relationship when it was in progress. Or after it finished. She was terrified of gossip and of invoking her husband’s wrath. Divorce from her rich banker was the last thing she wanted.

He came out as clean as he had insisted he was to Paula O’Neill, despite the information about Tony, which disturbed and alarmed him. If it was actually true, then he could be implicated in something he knew nothing about. Janus and Janus could be in jeopardy, as he might be himself. It could turn out to be serious. He would have to fly back to Hong Kong as soon as possible, start his own investigation there.

The thing which truly distressed him, however, was the detailed account of Arabella’s past. This was backed up with photostats of documents relating to her years in Paris. Her whole life in France had been tracked and meticulously recorded in these pages of typescript. There was no longer any question in his mind that she had used the name Francine, and that she had been one of Madame Claude’s girls. Quite aside from the documentation, there were so many other things which made him give credence to the report. There was her sexual expertise and knowledge, her overall attitude towards a man, which smacked of the courtesan’s trade, her sophistication, her worldliness, her elegance…Madame Claude’s girls had all been like her.

Carefully sliding the papers back into the envelope, he got to his feet, hurried out to the lift. There was nothing productive he could do about Hong Kong at this moment, but he could go upstairs and confront the woman he was married to.

As he rode up in the lift to the tenth floor, his suppressed anger bubbled up in him, spiralled into a terrible fury. He was ashen faced and shaking inside when he entered the suite. He went in quietly, but she heard him and came out into the foyer, smiling.

‘Jonathan darling, how did it go?’ she asked, coming over to him, kissing him on the cheek.

Jonathan was devastated by what he had just read about his wife, and he could hardly bear her to touch him. He had to hold himself rigid in order not to react to her kiss, or strike her.

He had loved her, had considered her to be his most perfect possession. She was imperfect now, soiled, damaged, worthless.

Again she said, ‘How did the meeting go at Harte’s?’

‘So-so,’ he muttered noncommittally, controlling himself even though the rage boiled inside him.

Arabella looked at him oddly, detecting a sudden coldness in him, then she immediately dismissed this as irritation with Paula O’Neill, his bête noire.

Turning, she walked back into the sitting room where she had been reading, settled herself on the sofa. Her knitting bag was next to her, and she opened it, took out the baby’s jacket she was making, began to ply the needles.

Jonathan walked in after her, put the envelope down on an end table, went over to the bar, where he poured himself a neat vodka.

He stood sipping it, regarding her, thinking how heavy with child she looked this afternoon. The baby was due any moment, and as much as he wanted to confront Arabella head on, he knew he must restrain himself. He did not want her any more, and he would divorce her as quickly as possible, but he certainly wanted his child…his son and heir.

He said, conversationally, ‘Did you ever know a man in Hong Kong called Tony Chiu?’

If Arabella was startled by this question, she did not show it. ‘No, why do you ask?’ she murmured, all calm contentment.

‘No special reason. His name happened to come up at lunch with my solicitors today. I thought you might have run across him in your travels, know something about him.’

‘I’m afraid I don’t, darling.’

He finished the vodka, reached for the envelope and crossed the room. Taking the chair facing her, he said, ‘You lived in Paris for years…but you never want to go there. Why is that?’

‘It’s never been my favourite place,’ she said, lifting her eyes from the knitting, smiling at him lovingly.

‘Then why did you live there for almost eight years?’

‘My work was there. You know I was a model. And why all these questions about Paris, Jonny darling?’

He said slowly, ‘Are you afraid to go to Paris?’

‘Of course not. And why are you being so strange? I don’t understand you.’

‘Are you afraid you’ll run into some of your old…paramours, is that what it’s all about, Francine?’

Arabella gazed at him. Her pitch-black eyes were full of innocence. ‘I don’t know what you’re getting at, or why you’re calling me Francine.’ She laughed lightly, shook her head.

‘Because that’s the name you used when you were a call girl.’

‘What on earth are you saying?’ she cried.

‘Don’t deny it! The documentation is all here, courtesy of Paula O’Neill. You can read it for yourself,’ he said, pinning her with his eyes. ‘It’s an investigation into my life, and they’ve done quite a number on yours, too.’

Arabella had no alternative but to take the documents he was thrusting at her.

‘Read them.’

She was suddenly terrified. She saw the dark gleam in his eyes, the cold implacability on his face. He could be cruel, dangerous when crossed, she knew that, knew all about his temper. She did as he said, scanning the pages swiftly, not wanting to read, knowing the papers were damning. But words jumped out at her; she took in the general contents, and her heart tightened in her chest.

She handed them back to him. Her face was the colour of chalk. Tears glittered in her eyes. ‘Darling, please, you don’t understand. Let me explain. Please. My past has nothing to do with today, with now, with you, with us. It happened so long ago. I was very young. Only a child, really. Only nineteen. I left that life behind me long ago, Jonny darling.’

‘I’m going to ask you one more time,’ he said. ‘Do you know Tony Chiu?’

‘Yes,’ she whispered.

‘Did he back your antique jade business in Hong Kong?’

‘Yes.’

‘Why?’

‘We’ve been in business before at different times. He’s a bit of an entrepreneur.’

‘And he put you on to me, didn’t he? Set me up as a target for you. He wanted you to ensnare me, to marry me so you could keep an eye on me. For him.’

‘No, no, that’s not true. Oh Jonny, I fell in love with you! I did! You know I did.’

‘Admit you set me up. I know everything,’ he railed at her.

She began to shake. Floundering, she cried, ‘Yes, I did try to ensnare you, that night at Susan Sorrell’s, when we first met. But very soon after that I became involved with you. I didn’t want to do anything but love you. Truly. You must know that from our time at Mougins, from our extraordinary intimacy there, the way we became almost one person.’

‘I can’t believe anything you say,’ he exclaimed, going to pour another drink.

She watched him go, return to the chair. Once he was seated again, she said, ‘I told Tony I couldn’t give him any information about you. That I wouldn’t. And that decision was reinforced more strongly than ever when I became pregnant with our child…I love you,’ she repeated, meaning this, her eyes riveted to his face.

‘And are you involved in the drugs with him?’

‘I don’t know what you mean,’ she cried, truly baffled.

‘For God’s sake, don’t keep denying things,’ he shouted. Something in him snapped. He jumped up, took hold of her shoulders, shook her violently. ‘Whore,’ he yelled at her, ‘tart, putain. I loved you, no, adored you. I thought you were the most perfect thing, the most beautiful woman in the world, without blemish. But you’re nothing…dirt.’

Arabella began to weep uncontrollably. ‘You’ve got to believe me, Jonny. I love you with all my heart, and I’ve told him nothing –’

‘Liar!’ he screamed at her.

She reached out to him, grabbed his coat sleeve.

He shook her hands off him, his face filling with contempt and hatred. ‘Don’t touch me.’

Suddenly Arabella’s face twisted and she brought her hands to her stomach. ‘The baby! I think the baby’s coming. I’m having a contraction. Oh please help me…help me, Jonny. Get me to the hospital. Please,’ she begged.

Arabella was in labour by the time he got her to the London Clinic. She was taken to the delivery room immediately.

Jonathan went to wait in the lounge reserved for expectant fathers in the famous private clinic. An hour and a half later his son was born. A nurse came to inform him of this, explaining that he could see his wife and child shortly.

He did not care about his wife. His only interest was in his son. The heir he had always wanted. He would take the child away from her as soon as he could. Women like Arabella – whores – were not interested in children. The boy would be brought up as an English gentleman. Suddenly his mind turned to schools. He would send the boy to Eton, where he had gone, and then to Cambridge.

Settling into his thoughts, he sat quietly, waiting patiently to see his child. He realized he was excited, that he looked forward to holding the baby in his arms. His father and mother would be happy. This was their first grandchild. Perhaps he would call the boy Robin. After the christening, the reception would be held at the House of Commons. As a leading politician and Member of Parliament, his father could easily arrange that.

He switched gears, contemplated Paula O’Neill, considered the problem of the Harte stores. More than ever he was determined to go through with his plans to wrest control of the chain from her. He must. There was his son and heir to consider now.

A nurse came to fetch him sooner than he expected. He followed her down the corridor to the private suite he had booked for Arabella a month ago. The nurse showed him in, disappeared, murmuring she was going to get the baby.

Arabella was in bed, propped up against the pillows. She looked pale, exhausted.

‘Jonny,’ she began, reaching out her hand to him. Her eyes were imploring. ‘Please don’t be like this with me. Give me another chance, for the sake of our child. I’ve never done anything to hurt you. Never. I love you, darling.’

‘I don’t want to talk to you,’ he snapped.

‘But Jonny –’ She broke off as the door opened. The same nurse walked in, this time carrying the baby wrapped in blankets and a lacy cashmere shawl.

He hurried over to the bed as the nurse placed the baby in Arabella’s outstretched arms. They looked down at their child together.

Jonathan stiffened. The first thing he saw was the epicanthic fold of the eye, that little bit of skin covering the inner corner that was unmistakably Oriental.

The shock on his face mirrored the stunned expression on hers. Arabella looked up at him speechlessly.

‘This is not my child!’ Jonathan shouted, his rage exploding. ‘It’s Tony Chiu’s! Or some other Chinaman’s, you bloody whore!’

He pushed past the incredulous nurse, half stumbled, half ran out of the suite, wanting to put as much distance between himself and Arabella as he could.

The uniformed chauffeur turned on the ignition and the stately, silver-grey Rolls-Royce pulled noiselessly away from Claridge’s, rolled off on its way to London airport.

Jonathan leaned back, sank into the glove-soft leather of the seat. His rage was monumental, would not abate. He could not get over the shock of Arabella’s past, her duplicity, her treachery, and the knowledge that she had been sleeping with another man whilst married to him. An Oriental man. There was no way she could ever deny that. The baby was living proof. Tony Chiu, Jonathan thought for the umpteenth time. Her old friend and benefactor was the most likely candidate.

He glanced at his briefcase next to him on the back seat, and his mind zeroed in yet again on the report. He was not sure how much truth there was in the information it contained about Tony Chiu’s activities. But if the man was laundering money through Janus and Janus, he was going to put a stop to it. Immediately. And somehow he would find a way to even the score with his Chinese partner.

Jonathan could not wait to get back to Hong Kong. He glanced at his watch, saw that it was only nine-thirty. He had plenty of time to catch the midnight flight that would take him to the British Crown Colony.

Slipping his hand into his pocket, he automatically curled his fingers around the pebble of mutton-fat jade. He brought it out, stared at it in the dim light of the car. His eyes narrowed thoughtfully. It no longer looked the same. Somehow it had lost its luminosity, its lustre. But it was his talisman. He laughed hollowly to himself. Some talisman. It had brought him no luck recently. Only bad joss. Very bad joss.

Rolling down the window, Jonathan flung the pebble out into the street, watched it roll away into the gutter.

The car sped on. He sat back, smiled to himself. He was glad to be rid of the jade piece. Now, perhaps, his luck would change.