And right at the heart of all her thoughts was Princess Charlotte who she would now forever think of as Charlie. Tamsin recalled the story, the one she still hadn't told Angus or Andrea, the story of Jocasta and why Charlie so hated the press. In a few more days Charlie was going to have yet more reasons for her hatred and the fact that it would be her hand on the knife that was about to be plunged into Charlie's back filled Tamsin with self loathing.
Tamsin thought back to twenty four hours earlier, Sunday morning, waking up with Charlie and Roberta and the air of embarrassment that had filled the bedroom. Roberta, suffering from a monumental hangover, had only partial memories of the previous evening and couldn't stop apologising for, as she put it, her outrageous behaviour. Charlie and Tamsin worked hard to reassure her that it was all OK but Roberta was hard to console.
Meanwhile, despite, or was that because of, their previous intimacy, Charlie and Tamsin were both more than a trifle awkward with each other. Charlie was struggling with her guilt as she laboured under the impression that, even when allowances were made for club nights, she had spent the previous night making love to a married woman. It wasn't the physical acts that, in retrospect, seemed so wrong; they were part and parcel of the games they played. Rather it was the emotional closeness, the evident feeling of attraction between them, that seemed to stray far too far into forbidden territory. Tamsin's guilt, on the other hand, had been all about the lies, the pretence, the falsehoods and she was already feeling remorse for the blow she had yet to strike.
So, although all three of them tried their very hardest to put the best face on things, they had not wanted to drag things out any further than necessary and, leaving Charlie to reassure Roberta that no one was thinking any the less of her, Tamsin had made her way back to her bedroom.
When she got there, of course, she had found Andrea still fast asleep with Frances and Maggie lying either side of her. She had slipped through to the en-suite and put on the dressing gown she discovered hanging on the back of the door. However, when she had emerged, she had found that, quiet as she had been, she had indeed woken the sleepers. By comparison, here it had all been giggles about how much fun they had all had and expressed hopes that, maybe next year, tables might be turned.
"I'm sure you two will want a cuddle before breakfast," Maggie had said as an excuse to leave. She and Frances slipped out from under the covers and, after some fond farewells, returned to their rooms. The door had hardly closed before Andrea had started gloating. Her mood a stark and vivid contrast to Tamsin's.
But, if thinking back brought with it far too much raw emotion, far too much that was unresolved, far too much that probably never would be resolved, that didn't stop Tamsin from endlessly playing it all back in her mind, searching for meanings, searching for a way out.
"Tamsin! Tamsin! For fuck's sake, pay attention. Now, this is far too big for the Daily Sleaze, we're going make this the front page of the Sleaze On Sunday, as big a splash as possible, well take up practically all of it except the sports pages. This means we're going to need plenty of copy, not just the juicy stuff, plenty of background. You tell me that this all dates back to when they were in school together. Imply much more, make it up if you have to. 'Sources close to the princess' sort of thing. With the photos we've got we can get away with practically anything.
"In the meantime, do not forget, this is still top, top secret. You're to tell no one, no one at all, not your best friend, not your lover, not your lover's best friend, no one. The only people who are to know that this story even exists are the three of us in this room and Tim Ewing from the legal department.
"Because of this I don't want you floating around the office where any Tom, Dick or Harry might catch a glimpse of what you're working on. You're to go back to the Mayfair flat and do everything from there. I'll drop by from time to time and see how you're getting on. For starters you can give me five thousand words by the end of play today. I'll go through the pictures and decide which ones we can use for publishing and which we keep in the bank, so to speak and, when I come over this evening, we'll see how we can tie them together. Talking about the pictures, I want notes on each and every one of them listing where and when it was taken and exactly who is in them. Make sure there are no mistakes. We may be able to get away with sly innuendo in the text but we can't afford to put a foot wrong on the photos. Now, are there any questions? Good, off you go then and I'll drop by around six or seven this evening."
They headed off for the Mayfair flat and, when they got there, set up their laptops on the kitchen table. It was agreed between them that Andrea would write the story while Tamsin would go through the pictures identifying who was in each one.
And that, in itself, was a painful task. Tamsin carefully studied each and every photo, listing the participants along with where and when it was taken. But the people in the photos weren't just participants, they were people, real people, that, to some extent, she had got to know and who had become, in some small way, her friends. There, for example was Felicity Ambrose all dressed up in pony gear from the session down at Patience Armitage's stables. She still saw Felicity as a feckless airhead, a hooray Henrietta, the very epitome of everything she had despised so much about the upper classes. However, in real life, Felicity had never been anything other than completely friendly and there wasn't an ounce of harm in her. Similarly, Barbara Abercrombie, Felicity's friend, companion, and probably lover, was, again, as shallow as a puddle but, still fundamentally harmless and never less than welcoming.
Similarly it was all too easy to write off Lady Mary as a bossy cow, the sort who endlessly wanted to run everybody's lives but, in the end, wasn't she just lonely? Wasn't she just wishing to hang on to her school days, still trying to be head girl, trying to gee the team up, trying to recapture the camaraderie that was fast fading? For all that some of her attitudes came out of the Ark they came from ignorance, not malice.
And there was Roberta Frogmorton, whose air of bossy competence had come crashing down, who had revealed this as a thin and fragile mask that had completely failed to hide the very real pain within. Alongside her was Georgina McDonald, who had clearly married for money, not love and, as a result, ended up as laird of large chunks of Scotland, properly addressed as the Lady Luid. However, if there was a villain in that particular story then surely that role went to her husband who had defrauded thousands of pensioners and run away to Venezuela with their savings. In contrast, Tamsin's lasting memory of Georgina would be the gentle way she had helped Roberta, diplomatically ensuring the minimum of hurt or fuss to all concerned. She was a good woman in a crisis, the sort anyone would want as a friend.
And there, from the pony club afternoon, were pictures of Patience Armitage and Sally McIntosh, looking just so with Sally in full pony gear and Patience at the reins. Angus had rejected this one outright commenting that "Daily Sleaze readers would only want pictures of pretty girls, not an ugly lump of lard like that. Why, she hasn't even got decent tits". Tamsin, who had got to know Sally quite well, thought she looked rather sweet. Moreover, however unconventional their relationship, there was a real love and partnership between them. They showed a level of respect and understanding missing from many more conventional couples and, if their relationship was a shade unusual, it was none the worse for it. What is more, while, for the others, the D/s aspects of their games, the whole goddess and handmaiden thing, was a hangover from dorm games at school, for Patience and Sally it was a serious and central part of their relationship. They weren't playing at it, they were living it.
But all these thoughts were all a mere bagatelle besides her confused emotions over Charlie. Charlie was, of course, the main focus of the story and the bulk of the pictures featured her. There she was, time and time again, looking so... looking so everything.
The photos fell into two groups. On the one hand there were the pictures from Bedfordshire, from the puppy show where Charlie had looked so prim, so proper, and so much the perfect puppy mistress. There was nothing much they could use here. Andrea had still been learning the art of concealed photography so many of the shots were clumsy and ill framed. Moreover, there were no shots featuring Charlie in an overtly sexual context. Tamsin, on the other hand, felt that some of these showed Charlie at her best. There was one in particular that was so perfect that Tamsin, despite Angus's strict rules on the matter, just had to copy it to her personal thumbdrive.
In stark contrast there were the pictures from Scotland. There was Charlie during lunch in the garden completely naked but looking calm and relaxed. Another showed Charlie corralled with the others in the sheep pen, again, relaxed and enjoying herself. And then, although the lighting was worse as Andrea obviously hadn't been able to use flash, there was Charlie and herself, making out on the hearth rug.
But there was one shot, one taken while they were applying the sunscreen, which showed Charlie and herself standing, face to face and there was something in their eyes, something that... It would never be used for the story. It wasn't particularly sexy; they still had their panties on and it was just two semi naked women looking at each other but, it too was surreptitiously copied.
By the end of Wednesday they were all but ready to go to print. They sent the story off to Tim for his final approval and, in the meanwhile, all they could do was wait. They had had a phone call from Lady Mary wondering if they would be available that weekend but Andrea had fobbed her off with some excuse about looking at prospective kennels out in Gloucestershire. They finished off the day with yet another conference with Angus who reluctantly agreed that, with their work done, they could take themselves home. Although they were to keep their phones with them at all times, Thursday and Friday would be well earned days of rest before the bombshell dropped at the weekend.
CRASH!!!
