Another Woman by Penny Vincenzi

Author:Penny Vincenzi [VINCENZI, PENNY]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: FIC027020, FIC008000, FIC027000
ISBN: 9781468300178
Publisher: Overlook
Published: 2011-12-20T05:00:00+00:00

He was back in reception carrying his bag when he remembered that he had no car. Well, that was all right. He could call a minicab. It was a pity, it meant a delay, but there was no real problem. On the other hand he didn’t want to be hanging around the hotel waiting, quite possibly having to see his father again. Maybe he should get over to Oxford, take the train. He’d get Brian to take him to the station. Mungo was about to have Brian paged when he realized he was already doing exactly what his father had thought he would: calling on the apparently infinite resources that had been available to him all his life. Right, no Brian. He’d have to get a cab then. He picked up his bag and was about to walk out when he remembered the hotel bill. There was no way he was going to afford his father the satisfaction of picking up that one. He went over to reception, asked them to make out his share of the bill.

‘Certainly, Mr Buchan.’ The girl was wearing a tailored red suit and a striped shirt, the crisp neatness at odds with her wildly crinkly hair and heavily made-up face. She addressed herself to her computer with great self-importance; there was the usual delay, the endless whirring and spewing of paper out of the machine. As Mungo stood there, trying to look calm, still shaking with emotion, with rage and something worse now, with grief, hurt, a call came in to the switchboard.

‘Royal Hotel, Woodstock, how may I help you?’ said the girl, passing up the bill to Mungo with a smile. (Three hundred and eighty pounds. Shit, couldn’t be right, not for twenty-four hours.) ‘I think he’s in the grounds somewhere. I’ll see if I can have him paged. What name shall I say?’

She looked up at Mungo again, said, ‘Your father is still outside, isn’t he, Mr Buchan?’

‘Yes, I think so,’ said Mungo shortly, ‘by the tennis courts.’

‘Miss Forrest, if you could just hold on a moment, I’ll –’

‘Hey, I’ll take that,’ said Mungo, his heart lifting at the thought of Harriet’s slightly tough clear-sightedness. ‘Tell her I’ll take it. I need to talk to her anyway.’

‘Well – Miss Forrest, Mr Buchan junior is here. Can he help you at all? Oh I see. Right. Well, then, if you’ll hold, as I said I’ll have him paged.’ She looked up at Mungo, her face carefully, politely blank. ‘I’m sorry, Mr Buchan, she said it was specifically your father she wished to speak to.’

‘Oh,’ said Mungo. ‘Oh all right.’ He felt disproportionately put out. ‘Er – this bill. I don’t quite see why it’s so high –’

‘Ah, well, let me just go through it for you,’ said the girl, sweetly deadpan. ‘There’s the room, of course, that’s a hundred and eighty. Your luncheon yesterday, for yourself and your friend, seventy pounds, that was mostly the wines of course, then the bar last night

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