Best Kept Secret (The Clifton Chronicles, #3)(10)

The driver leapt out and opened the boot as a hotel porter walked across to the car. Natalie led Harry into the hotel and across the lobby to the reception desk, where all he had to do was show his passport and sign the registration form. Natalie appeared to have prepared the way of the Lord.

‘Welcome to the Pierre, Mr Clifton,’ said the desk clerk as he handed him a large key.

‘I’ll see you back here in the lobby –’ Natalie checked her watch – ‘in an hour. Then the limo will take you to the Harvard Club for your lunch with Mr Guinzburg.’

‘Thank you,’ said Harry, and watched as she walked back across the lobby and disappeared through the revolving doors and out on to the street. He couldn’t help noticing that he wasn’t the only man whose eyes never left her.

A porter accompanied him to the eleventh floor, showed him into his suite and explained how everything worked. Harry had never stayed in a hotel that had a bath and a shower. He decided to make notes so he could tell his mother all about it when he returned to Bristol. He thanked the porter, and parted with the only dollar he had.

The first thing Harry did, even before unpacking, was to pick up the phone by the bed and place a person-to-person call to Emma.

‘I’ll call you back in around fifteen minutes, sir,’ said the overseas operator.

Harry stayed too long in the shower, and once he had dried himself on the largest towel he’d ever seen, he had only just started to unpack when the phone rang.

‘Your overseas call is on the line, sir,’ said the operator. The next voice he heard was Emma’s.

‘Is that you, darling? Can you hear me?’

‘Sure can, honey,’ said Harry, smiling.

‘You sound like an American already. I can’t imagine what you’ll be like after three weeks.’

‘Ready to come back to Bristol would be my bet, especially if the book doesn’t get on to the bestseller list.’

‘And if it doesn’t?’

‘I may be coming home early.’

‘That sounds good to me. So where are you calling from?’

‘The Pierre, and they’ve put me in the biggest hotel room I’ve ever seen. The bed could sleep four.’

‘Just make sure it only sleeps one.’

‘It’s got air-conditioning, and a radio in the bathroom. Mind you, I still haven’t worked out how to turn everything on. Or off.’

‘You should have taken Seb with you. He would have mastered it by now.’

‘Or taken it apart and left me to put it back together again. But how is the boy?’

‘He’s fine. In fact he seems more settled without a nanny.’

‘That’s a relief. And how’s your search for Miss J. Smith coming along?’

‘Slowly, but I’ve been asked to go for an interview at Dr Barnardo’s tomorrow afternoon.’

‘That sounds promising.’

‘I’m meeting Mr Mitchell in the morning, so I know what to say and, perhaps more important, what not to say.’

‘You’ll be fine, Emma. Just remember it’s their responsibility to place children in good homes. My only worry is how Seb will react when he finds out what you’re up to.’

‘He already knows. I raised the subject with him last night just before he went to bed, and to my surprise he seemed to love the idea. But once you involve Seb, a separate problem always arises.’

‘What is it this time?’

‘He expects to have a say when it comes to who we pick. The good news is that he wants a sister.’

‘That could still be tricky if he takes against Miss J. Smith and sets his heart on someone else.’

‘I don’t know what we’ll do if that happens.’

‘We’ll just have to convince him somehow that Jessica was his choice.’

‘And how do you propose we do that?’

‘I’ll think about it.’

‘Just remember not to underestimate him. If we do, it could easily backfire.’

‘Let’s talk about it when I get back,’ said Harry. ‘Must rush, darling, I have a lunch appointment with Harold Guinzburg.’

‘Give him my love, and remember, he’s another man you can’t afford to underestimate. And while you’re at it, don’t forget to ask him what happened to—’

‘I haven’t forgotten.’

‘Good luck, darling,’ said Emma, ‘and just make sure you get yourself on to that bestseller list!’

‘You’re worse than Natalie.’

‘Who’s Natalie?’

‘A ravishing blonde who can’t keep her hands off me.’

‘You’re such a storyteller, Harry Clifton.’



Emma was among the first to arrive at the university’s lecture theatre that evening to hear Professor Cyrus Feldman lecture on the topic, Having won the War, has Britain lost the peace?

She slipped into a place at the end of a row of raked seats about halfway back. Long before the appointed hour the room was so packed that latecomers had to sit on the gangway steps, with one or two even perched on windowsills.

The audience burst into applause the moment the double Pulitzer Prize-winner entered the auditorium, accompanied by the university’s vice chancellor. Once everyone had resumed their places, Sir Philip Morris introduced his guest, giving a potted history of Feldman’s distinguished career, from his student days at Princeton, to being appointed the youngest professor at Stanford, to the second Pulitzer Prize he’d been awarded the previous year. This was followed by another prolonged round of applause. Professor Feldman rose from his place and made his way to the podium.