Into Temptation - Couverture souple

Table of Contents

Title Page

Copyright Page

Dedication

Acknowledgements

Part One

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 6

CHAPTER 7

CHAPTER 8

CHAPTER 9

CHAPTER 10

CHAPTER 11

CHAPTER 12

CHAPTER 13

CHAPTER 14

Part Two

CHAPTER 15

CHAPTER 16

CHAPTER 17

CHAPTER 18

CHAPTER 19

CHAPTER 20

CHAPTER 21

CHAPTER 22

CHAPTER 23

CHAPTER 24

CHAPTER 25

CHAPTER 26

CHAPTER 27

CHAPTER 28

CHAPTER 29

CHAPTER 30

CHAPTER 31

CHAPTER 32

CHAPTER 33

CHAPTER 34

CHAPTER 35

CHAPTER 36

CHAPTER 37

CHAPTER 38

CHAPTER 39

CHAPTER 40

Part Three

CHAPTER 41

CHAPTER 42

CHAPTER 43

CHAPTER 44

CHAPTER 45

CHAPTER 46

CHAPTER 47

CHAPTER 48

CHAPTER 49

ALSO BY PENNY VINCENZI

ALSO BY PENNY VINCENZI

No Angel

Something Dangerous

Almost a Crime

The Dilemma

An Outrageous Affair

Sheer Abandon

An Absolute Scandal

Forbidden Places

This edition first published in the United States in 2005 by
The Overlook Press, Peter Mayer Publishers, Inc.

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Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available from the Library of Congress

ISBN: 9781590208007

For Emily and Claudia,
who really did get me through.
With much love.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The roll-call of thank yous seems to get longer and longer with each book; but this one must be headed once again by my agent Desmond Elliott, who is living breathing archive of the publishing industry; not only in England but New York as well. Other gurus of the New York publishing scene coloured up the book beautifully: Larry Ashmead of HarperCollins and Alun Davies of Simon & Schuster were most generous with both their time and their wonderful anecdotes (not to mention lunches) and I would like to thank Patrick Janson-Smith for leading me to them, and for some stories of his own. Also in New York, enormous thanks to Edna McNabney who spent a whole day showing me a very special New York and of course to wonderful Mike Berkowitz, who collected me from the Algonquin at dawn (literally) and drove me for hours around the Village and Chelsea, taking us both into bars long before they were open, and filling up three sides of tape with marvellous stories. A book in himself, Mike is; he should write one.While I am still (notionally) in America, lots of thanks to dear Betty Prashker, for a new set of stories, and to Caroline Upcher, who entertained me so royally in the Hamptons while I explored. And huge gratitude also to John Dadakis, who gave so generously of his time and legal expertise to steer me through the complexities of inheritance law, USA version.

Back in England, also on the legal front, Natalie Bryant gave me a crash course in both inheritance and company law, English version; her knowledge and her patience were limitless. Alan Martin was the most wonderful source of information on the subject of company finance; Mark Stephens on injunctions; and Sue Stapely continued to amaze me by knowing something about everything I asked her.

Thank you too, once again, to Ursula Lloyd for information on all things gynaecological in the far off days of the 1950s, and Roger Freeman for psychiatric detail in the same era.

More crash courses, one on vintage wine, came from Nicholas Fraser; and another on company investment from Victor Sandelson. And thank you to Felicity Green and Ian Hessenberg, for knowledge of and research Several wonderful books have helped me too: Another Life by Michael Korda, From Rationing to Rock by Stuart Hylton, Elizabeth’s Britain by Philip Ziegler and perhaps most of all In Vogue by Georgina Howell.

Once again, enormous thanks to Rosie de Courcy, whose brilliance and sparky inventiveness as an editor are only exceeded by her patience and tact as deadlines come and go. Also for reading so fast, so I don ’t have to wait in agony for her judgement, and for crying in all the right places in the book. Very important.

Thank you Emma Draude of Midas for so efficiently telling the whole world about it, and for getting as excited as I do over pieces of good news and reviews.

Thank you to Susan Lamb, who masterminded it, and finishing with Dallas Manderson and Jo Carpenter who saw it into the shops with their usual skill and determination. And in between Juliet Ewers for seeing the whole thing through with immense efficiency and patience, Richard Hussey for not being defeated by the tightest deadline yet, and Malcolm Edwards, for all manner of clever contributions and suggestions, and not least saying how much he liked it.

And finally, all the friends who are so supportive and listened so patiently to my endless wails that it would never be finished; and most of all, and as always, my family, my husband Paul and my four daughters, Polly, Sophie, Emily and Claudia, who have had to live with me through three years of The Spoils of Time. I suspect they may be glad we are now leaving the Lyttons behind; I shall miss them, especially Celia, most dreadfully.

—PENNY VINCENZI

The Main Characters

LONDON

Lady Celia Lytton, senior editor at Lyttons publishing house

Lord Arden, her new husband

Giles, twins Venetia and Adele, and Kit, her children

Jay Lytton, their cousin

Boy Warwick, Venetia’s husband

Elspeth Warwick, their daughter

Keir Brown, Elspeth’s boyfriend

Geordie MacColl, Adele’s husband

Clio, their daughter

Noni and Lucas, Adele’s children by Luc Lieberman, deceased

Sebastian Brooke, bestselling author published by Lyttons

Clementine Hartley, another Lyttons author

COUNTRY

Billy Miller, brother of Barty

Joan, his wife, and their sons Joe and Michael

NEW YORK

Barty Miller, head of Lyttons New York

Jenna Elliott, her daughter by Laurence Elliott,deceased

Cathy Patterson, a schoolfriend of Jenna’s

Charlie Patterson, her father

Jamie Elliott, brother of Laurence and Jenna’s trustee

Kyle Brewer, a literary agent and Jenna’s trustee

Marcus Forrest, editorial director of Lyttons New York

Isabella (Izzie)Brooke, Sebastian’s daughter

Mike Parker and Nick Neill, copywriters, Izzie’s employers

Part One

‘Rich with the spoils of time . . .’
Thomas Gray
Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard

CHAPTER 1

Lady Celia Lytton had been close to death several times in her long life. Not always literally – although there had been occasions, a cycle ride through a Blitz-torn London night, a long jolting car ride while enduring a miscarriage, when the Grim Reaper had appeared to have her very clearly in his sights – but also by repute. And there was no more outstanding example of the latter than the spring day in 1953, Coronation year, when she announced not only her engagement to her old flame, Lord Arden, but her retirement from the House of Lytton. Most of literary London promptly concluded that she was (at very best) in the early stages of a terminal illness. They then raised their lunchtime glasses of gin and tonic, or Martini, or champagne, to her dazzling memory, expressed their huge regret at the ending of a life that had so enriched the literary and social scene for almost five decades, and settled down to speculate over what the death certificate might eventually say, and who exactly might step into her always elegant shoes.

They were hardly surprising of course, those reports. For as long as anyone could remember, Celia Lytton had declared firmly and publicly that only death would separate her from the publishing house of Lytton, truly the greatest love of her life. This was in addition to another of her favourite maxims: that for her, at any rate, no man could possibly replace work as a source of happiness.

Indeed she was Lyttons to most people; she embodied it, with her brilliant innovative mind, her flawless editorial judgement, her unique style, her perfect taste. It had always been so, since she had joined the company almost fifty years earlier as a very young girl; but since the death of Oliver Lytton, her husband, a year earlier, she had become more than a figurehead, more than an inspiration, she was its life force. The younger generation might hold shares in it, care passionately about it, bring skill and talent and a great deal of hard work to it, but they trailed behind her in authority. No major book was acquired or published, no editorial innovation considered, no financial investment made, no senior member of staff hired, without her agreement.

Not even the theoretical requirement to gain the approval of Lyttons New York for all major developments had dented her glassy supremacy; ‘I know what they – or rather she – will feel about it,’ she would say whenever anyone raised the matter, and of course she was perfectly right. There were, as was well known, very good personal as well as professional reasons . . .

Lady Celia herself, who would have greatly enjoyed the furore had she been able to witness it, was sitting on a chaise-longue set in the window of her sitting room in her house in Cheyne Walk, looking, as always, perfectly groomed and extraordinarily beautiful, surrounded by her large family, some of them more visibly distressed than others, with the manuscript of her youngest son’s new book (delivered two months late the previous evening, to her deep displeasure) on the table beside her.

It was Venetia Warwick, one of her twin daughters, who spoke first.

‘Mummy, are you really sure about this?’

‘To what exactly are you referring, Venetia? My engagement or my retirement?’

‘Well – both. But more especially, I suppose, the retirement.’

‘Absolutely.’ Lady Celia’s voice was brisk. ‘Where could there be any doubt? You’ve been working for Lyttons, Venetia, for – what? Fifteen years. With considerable success, I would add. You must agree it’s time I moved over. Even I can see that. Heavens above, you’ve told me so in more ways than one over the past few years. In your position I would feel relief, if not a keen sense of anticipation. Which I am quite sure is what you, Giles, must be feeling. And don’t waste time denying it, because we shall both know you’re lying. Now then, you must all excuse me, I’m going to meet Lord Arden for luncheon. I think I deserve a little fun after the rather dreary morning I’ve had. But I want you all to dine here tonight, so that we can discuss everything more fully.’

It was only when she walked into the dining room of the Ritz, on the arm of her newly affianced, known to his intimates as Bunny, accepting congratulations on her engagement here, expressions of regret at her retirement there, that people began to realise, with a sense of considerable disbelief, it was just possible that not only was she in very good health, but she had actually meant what she said. She was simply going to retire.

The sense of disbelief, both within and without the house of Lytton was hardly surprising. Her office, on the first floor of the new Lytton House, in Grosvenor Square, was still the heart of the company; Giles Lytton, her eldest son, might be Managing Director, Venetia Warwick might be in charge of sales and development and of that strange new science—or was it an art?—marketing, Jay Lytton might be Editorial Director, but it was to Celia they all deferred, with varying degrees of grace. And Giles might grumble and resent that deference, and Jay might kick against it at times, and Venetia might question the need for it in her particular area, but none of them seriously considered setting it aside.

And now here she was, announcing that she was giving it all up, was walking away, not just from Lyttons, but from the thing which had mattered most to her for the whole of her life: her work. And this in order to marry—only a year after the death of her husband and the ending of their legendary, almost fifty-year marriage—to become the Countess of Arden (though she declared she would not entirely relinquish the name of Lytton), to take up residence in Lord Arden’s dazzling vast eighteenth-century house in Scotland. Dazzling it might be, said everyone, as this fresh shock reached the ears of literary society, but it was a very long way from London. Of course Lord Arden had a house, and a very fine one, in Belgrave Square, but he spent a lot of time at Glennings, as Glenworth Castle was more familiarly known.

Indeed, since the death of his first wife, with her well-known penchant for stable lads, he spent far more time there than in London. He was a countryman. He liked to ride and hunt and shoot and fish, and although he enjoyed the opera, had a box at Glyndebourne and would even visit La Scala and the Paris Opera to hear the divine Maria Callas sing, he was never actually happier than when standing up to his waist in the freezing water of his own river, in pursuit of salmon, or taking the hideously dangerous fences of his own estate in pursuit of Scotland’s foxes. What on earth was she going to do up there, everyone wondered, the pampered, perfectly dressed and coiffed Lady Celia, that most urban of creatures as she seemed to be—forgetting that she had grown up a country girl herself, on her own father’s estate, and, indeed, had first met Lord Arden when she was quite a young girl, not in the hothouse atmosphere of a London nightclub but at a house party in Shropshire where she had gone out with the guns in the driving rain and bagged more birds than he had.

Of course there had been other chapters in their saga, which had taken place in extremely sophisticated and indeed infamous surroundings; but in her late sixties and her new, raw loneliness, Lady Celia Lytton suddenly found herself possessed by a profound longing to return to her roots. And Peter Arden was miraculously able to lead her to them.

‘Want ...

Power, politics and closely guarded secrets abound in INTO TEMPTATION, the third and final novel of Sunday Times bestselling author Penny Vincenzi's Spoils of Time trilogy. 'Like an illicit lover, I have been sloping off all week to snatch another hour's pleasure with ... Penny Vincenzi's terrific new novel' Jilly Cooper. For any reader of Elizabeth Buchan, Santa Montefiore or Harriet Evans, and for any fan of epics such as Downton Abbey.

The Lytton family past is full of secrets, and only Lady Celia knows them all. There's her daughter Adele's difficult, dark past; the dreadful cruelty of a truth her son Kit had to confront; even the shadows of Celia's own life, and that of Barty Miller, the child she rescued from the slums in babyhood who now owns more than half of the Lytton publishing house. Some secrets are more dangerous than others, some shared with Celia's family, some entirely her own. And all absolutely safe in her keeping. Until something threatens to reveal them all...