It was hard bargaining, and it was one in the morning when Royan
admitted her exhaustion. 'I can't think straight any more. Can we start
again tomorrow morning?' They still had not reached an agreement.
'It's tomorrow morning already,' he told her. 'But you are right.
Thoughtless of me. You can sleep here. After all, we do have
twenty-seven bedrooms here.'
'No, thanks.' She stood up. 'I'll go on home.'
'The road will be icy,' he warned her. Then he saw her determined
expression and held up his hands in capitulation. 'All right, I won't
insist. What time tomorrow? I have a meeting with my lawyers at ten, but
we should be finished by noon. Why don't you and I have a working lunch
here? I was supposed to be shooting at Ganton in the afternoon, but I
will cancel that. That way I will have the afternoon and evening clear
for you.'
Nicholas's meeting with the lawyers took place the next morning in the
library of Quenton Park. It was not an easy nor a pleasant session, but
then he never expected it to be. This had been the year in which his
world began to fall to pieces around his head. He gritted his teeth as
he remembered how the year had opened with that fatal moment of fatigue
and inattention at midnight on the icy motorway, and the blinding
headlights of the truck bearing down on them.
He had not recovered from that before the next brutal blow had fallen.
This was the financial report of the Lloyd's insurance syndicate on
which Nicholas, like his father and grandfather before him, was a
'Name'. For half a century the family had enjoyed a regular and
substantial income from their share of the syndicate profits. Of
course,'Nicholas had been aware that liability for his share of any
losses that the syndicate suffered was unlimited. The enormity of that
responsibility had weighed lightly; for there had never been serious
losses to account for, not for fifty years, not until this year.
With the California earthquake and environmental pollution claims
awarded against one of the multinational chemical companies, the
syndicate's losses had amounted to over twenty-six million pounds
sterling. Nicholas's share of that loss was two and a half million
pounds - some of which had been settled, but the rest was due for
payment in a little over eight months' time - together with whatever
nasty surprises next year might hold.
Almost immediately after that the Quenton Park estate's crop of sugar
beet, almost a thousand acres in total, had been hit by rhizomania, the
mad root disease. They had lost the lot.
'We will need to find at least two and a half million,' said one of the
lawyers. 'That should be no problem - the Hall is filled with valuable
items, and what about the museum? What could we reasonably expect from
the sale of some of the exhibits?'
Nicholas winced at the thought of selling the Ramesses statue, the
bronzes, the Hammurabi frieze or any item of his cherished collection at
the Hall or the museum. He acknowledged that their sale would cover his
debts, but he doubted that he could live without them. Almost anything
was preferable to parting with them.
'Hell, no,' Nicholas cut in, and the lawyer looked across at him coldly.
