Read Online Daughters by Elizabeth Buchan - Free Book Online Page B

doubt, in earth and dampened canvas and cherished on the voyage home. Or set in glass planters (to shield them from the salt) and tended on the long, rolling sea passage. It was known as the Epiphany Tree because it was supposed to be at its very best at the time when the Magi had found the Christ child – the one at Membury had bloomed early – its yellow flowers symbolizing the gold they had brought, its scent (nature’s way of attracting the few pollinators around at this time of year) the frankincense, and its bitter bark the myrrh (which belonged to death).
    Her hands tightened over her head.

Chapter Five
    The name on the phone fascia read ‘Saunderson’ and her pulse quickened with annoyance. She flicked it on. ‘Jasmine here.’
    The voice at the other end – loud, male and angry – blared into her ear. Rowan Saunderson was livid about the piece in the evening paper. ‘How dare it suggest there’s no difference between Vegetalès’
new logo and, to quote, “any other common-or-garden one”?’ He ran out of breath and was forced to a halt. ‘The reason we hired the Branding Company was precisely to avoid this sort of situation. So get out there, earn your vast fee and sort it out.’
    It was past nine o’clock. Jasmine was still in the office. Her head ached, her stomach rumbled. She anticipated a shower, the moment of stepping into it and the exquisite sensation of hot water pounding at her neck and shoulders.
    But here was the thing. This situation was nothing new. Discomfort was axiomatic to her working life, and a daily discipline. Everyone she knew, and rated, endured the same. Rowan talked and talked, and she flicked up the Vegetalès account, rechecked the huge amount of money they owed the Branding Company and encouraged him to let it all out.
    After a few more minutes of heavy-duty abuse, she realized she would have to deploy treachery. Notsomething she enjoyed. She cast her eye over the adjacent office. David, her assistant, had gone home and could not, therefore, be witness to his own crucifixion.
    ‘As it was so early in the game, we allowed my assistant to brief the journalist. She assured him she was on side. Obviously, she changed her mind.’ She gave Rowan a moment to absorb this. ‘It does happen. But once we get going, and the creative team are still working on it, there will be dozens of favourable articles.’
    ‘Pay a journalist to bad-mouth the opposition.’
    ‘No.’
    ‘Oh, for God’s sake. Don’t tell me it doesn’t happen all the time.’
    ‘It doesn’t work, Rowan.’
    ‘Take that idiot off my account, then. Results, Jasmine, results.’
    As if she didn’t know. ‘Bad feedback is part of the story. We discussed it, if you remember. The creative team are working night and day on the package.’
    That set him off again.
    He really was very old-fashioned. ‘Jasmine, are you listening?’
    ‘Absolutely, Rowan.’
    But she wasn’t.
    Over the years, she had developed skills. Top of the list was manipulating cranky men, ‘The ones who are congenitally bad-tempered and demanding, plus the ones born with an assumption that the world is arranged to suit them,’ she explained to Duncan, when he was wooing her.
    ‘And women aren’t like that?’
    ‘Can’t tell. Not enough of them around in top positions.’
    ‘You are.’
    She smiled at him over the table in the
luxe
restaurant to which he had taken her. ‘It’s a mystery how these people get up in the morning.’
    He smiled, revealing beautiful teeth. ‘I’ll tell you how,’ he said, ‘When we’re alone.’
    Clever Jasmine
, Duncan often said – because he was generous with praise and proud of her achievements. He had, like her, a quicksilver understanding of what it took to rise from a modest background into a pole position (in his case) at the bank. From time to time, they discussed meritocracy and questioned if they had benefited from it. Jasmine was inclined to a romantic view of how society helped