Sins (28 page)

The butler, Chivers, opened the door to her, informing her, ‘Mrs de la Salles telephoned, Your Highness. She wanted to remind you that you are engaged to join her supper party this evening at the Paraqueet Club.’

Emerald’s heart sank and she fought off an unfamiliar feeling of panic. She had completely forgotten that she had accepted Jeannie de la Salles’ invitation. The de la Salles were an extremely wealthy young couple, whose slightly louche social life had raised a few eyebrows and
garnered them several inches of gossip column comment, detailing their love of nightclubs and dancing.

Emerald found them fun, especially Peter. They were on the fringe of Princess Margaret’s set, some of whom were considered rather fast.

Jeannie had promised to find Emerald a partner when Emerald had told her that Alessandro would not be available. Emerald could well imagine how the de la Salles and their set would relish the gossip the end of her marriage would cause. She was tempted to have Chivers telephone Jeannie and tell her that she couldn’t join them, but a voice inside her head, a strong and cool one, warned her that since the situation would inevitably become public knowledge she would be better off getting her own ‘story’ in first and making a bid for public sympathy and credibility. As a woman her social reputation was her most valuable asset. Lose that and she would lose everything she valued. Victorian or not, restricting or not, her mother-in-law’s values were for the most part society’s laws–at least where her own sex was concerned, Emerald knew.

Dougie knew that if it hadn’t been for having Emerald living at Lenchester House, constantly reminding him of how unfit he was to fill her late father’s shoes, he might be getting used to this new world.

So far he’d attended summer balls and country house parties, been proposed and accepted for Emerald’s late father’s clubs, spent enjoyable and informative weekends with Jay, both at Denham and more latterly at his own estate, using the confidence Jay had been instilling in
him to arrange meetings with the estate manager Mr Melrose had appointed to run the estate after Robert’s death–his own estate manager now.

He’d learned, and he felt that he’d grown too. He could acknowledge now that he was beginning to feel far more comfortable with the responsibilities of the dukedom than he had ever imagined he could do when he had first realised he had inherited it. He and it were growing together to know one another, this business of being a duke and him, and when he looked back now over the last few weeks, he recognised that he no longer felt like an imposter.

There were some down sides to his new life, though, Dougie acknowledged as he looked across the table in the thankfully relatively quiet and shadowy corner of the Paraqueet Club at his current dinner companion.

Initially it had suited him to suggest that Emerald, her godmother and the other two girls remained living in the Eaton Square house, but that had meant that he had been obliged to accept the ‘friendship’ of Gwendolyn’s father, Henry, Lord Levington, who had become a regular visitor at the house, ostensibly calling to see his ‘favourite daughter’ but somehow or other always managing to attach himself to Dougie with the offer of showing him how things were done and introducing him to people ‘he ought to meet’.

Dougie had gone along with this good-naturedly enough, but when Henry had insisted on taking him to a private gambling club where the stakes were eye-wateringly high, Dougie had felt suspicious enough to seek Jay’s advice.

Jay’s response had confirmed his own judgement–which was that Henry was a thoroughly unpleasant, and probably untrustworthy, person who Dougie would do well to avoid. However, Henry was persistent and, irritatingly, refused to be shaken off, and Dougie had been trapped into agreeing to go out with him tonight.

The evening was turning out to be every bit as bad as Dougie had feared. They had begun the evening at John Aspinall’s private gaming club where Gwendolyn’s father had lost several thousand pounds that Dougie suspected he didn’t have. His face had looked green and sweaty in the shaded light hanging over the gaming table.

Now, despite Dougie’s suggestion that they called it a night, they were here in this exclusive nightclub, where the air was thick and blue-grey with expensive cigar smoke.

Working as a teenager on the family sheep station, Dougie had never imagined that his life would bring him somewhere like this. The shearing gangs could remove a fleece at a speed that had held him spellbound. The owners of London’s private clubs fleeced those who patronised them with similar speed and dexterity, Dougie thought ruefully, as he listened to the cut-crystal voices coming from the other tables.

The sound of female laughter ringing out from one of the other tables had Dougie turning discreetly, a small frown furrowing his forehead when he saw Emerald at a table right next to the dance floor with a group of people.

She was obviously the focus of attention at the table,
but especially of the men, Dougie recognised, his frown deepening as he remembered that Alessandro had returned to his own country on business.

Emerald’s laughter and the manner in which she was so obviously enjoying herself certainly didn’t suggest that she was missing her husband in the way that one might expect from someone so newly married. Dougie hoped that the attentive smooth-looking older man seated to Emerald’s right would keep her attention so fully occupied that she didn’t notice him. He could do without her giving him a hard time this evening.

Meanwhile, Emerald smiled brilliantly at Tod Newton, her dinner companion and a well-known ladies’ man, a Second World War fighter pilot veteran and a gambler who had both won fortunes and lost them.

A practised flirt, Tod had been attentive to her all evening, and now, as he lit her cigarette for her, having already insisted on ordering her another White Lady, he told her provocatively, ‘I must say that your husband is a braver man than I, for I certainly would not want to leave such a beautiful and, dare I say, desirable young wife on her own.’

‘Oh, Alessandro is neither brave nor very much of a man,’ Emerald told him, buoyed up by the cocktails and wine she had already consumed this evening. ‘In fact, he’s a mummy’s boy, for he thinks far more of doing what his mother tells him to do than pleasing his wife.’

For once, Emerald was too full of alcohol and self-pity to notice the gleam of satisfaction that darkened her companion’s assessing gaze as it swept her from head to foot.

Her dark hair was newly done in a flick-up style, her off-the-shoulder low-necked sleeveless dress showed off her figure and her pale skin, whilst the diamonds she was wearing at her throat and on her wrists proclaimed her wealth and status.

‘Poor Princess,’ Tod murmured sympathetically.

‘Don’t call me Princess,’ Emerald commanded him, stopping just in time to prevent herself from blurting out that soon she would not be entitled to the name.

‘No? Then what am I to call you? Enchantress, who has blinded me with her beauty and ensnared me with my own desire for her?’

‘Just…just call me Emerald,’ she told him, stumbling slightly over the words.

He’d had his eye on Emerald since she and Alessandro had first joined the de la Salles set. Tod had enjoyed many beautiful women over the years but in Emerald he could see all the things he liked the most: beauty, spirit and, best of all, a certain arrogance that would make her oh so vulnerable to him. Tod mentally calculated how much he was likely to be able to get from her to keep his silence over her ‘little moment of foolishness’–tens of thousands certainly, maybe even a hundred thousand, given that she was married to royalty.

He summoned a waiter, and, as though by magic, within seconds another cocktail was being handed to Emerald.

In actual fact Emerald was beginning to feel rather light-headed, but of course it didn’t do to start acting like some silly little
ingénue
when one was in such sophisticated company. Had Alessandro’s mother told
him yet that their marriage was over? There was a feeling inside Emerald that she didn’t want to be there. It hurt her pride and something else as well to know that the hold she had believed she had over Alessandro hadn’t been strong enough to make him defy his mother, that someone else had mattered more to him than she did. Just as someone else had mattered more to her mother than she had. Immediately Emerald flinched from the edge of the crevasse that opened up inside her mind, not wanting to look down into its depths for fear of what she might see there waiting to destroy her.

Alessandro was a spineless fool, she assured herself. There were other men for her to bend to her will, other men–like Tod Newton–for her to display as her trophies, and as a once-married woman she was no longer bound by the rules that tied unmarried girls to their virginity. She could be and would be the temptress, the woman of the world whom no man could resist.

These and other alcohol-induced thoughts swirled inside Emerald’s head. Although she didn’t want to admit it, she was missing the attention Alessandro had given her, and the satisfaction of knowing that she only had to smile at him in a certain way to get him to do anything she had wanted. Emerald had enjoyed the sense of power that had given her. She had delighted in knowing that allowing Alessandro possession of her body had meant that she had total control over him. And would still have had total control over him if it hadn’t been for his mother. She wanted more of that power. She would prove to those other women–outwardly meek, good women like her own mother, and openly controlling women like
Alessandro’s mother–that her own particular brand of sexual power was stronger than anything they possessed. She would be the woman that no man could resist and, because of that, all women feared.

‘You see, the thing is, old chap,’ Henry was saying confidingly to Dougie as he leaned across the table, ‘I was rather hoping that you might be able to help me out of a bit of a hole. After all, we’re almost family, what with my sister and my favourite daughter living under your roof. I can tell you that the whole family is pretty glad to see you inherit. There was always something fishy about poor old Robert’s marriage to Amber Pickford–said so at the time and I wasn’t the only one. Pretty little thing, of course, but hardly out of the top drawer. Never does to mix blue blood with non-blue. Glad that boy of hers didn’t live to inherit, and as for the girl…Look at her over there now. Newton will have her in his bed before she knows what’s happening to her, and then that husband of hers will have to pay him a fortune to keep her name out of the gossip columns. Either that or divorce her…Now, Dougie, old chap, as I was saying, the thing is that I’m in a bit of a tight spot and could do with a small loan, a couple of thousand, well, let’s say five thousand.’

Dougie, who had stiffened the minute that Gwendolyn’s father had started to verbally attack Amber, whom Dougie both liked and admired, now hardened his heart completely against the other man. Sitting back in his chair and shaking his head, he said firmly, ‘I’m sorry but I don’t have access to that kind of cash.’

It was a lie but Dougie was damned if he was going to fund the other man’s gambling debts. He felt sorry for his family, very sorry, in fact, but some instinct told him that if he’d bailed Henry out now, the requests for help would never stop coming.

Dougie’s refusal had caused the genial smile to slip from Henry’s face, revealing the same contempt with which he had just spoken of Amber.

‘Bastard,’ he swore bitterly, before getting up from the table and storming out of the club, leaving Dougie sitting alone.

Getting up himself, Dougie asked for the bill and then made his way to the small front desk. He was just waiting for the coat-check girl to reappear when he saw Emerald swaying towards the desk, no doubt heading for the ladies’ cloakroom, which was on the upper floor. She was very unsteady on her feet, and was plainly the worse for drink, although, of course, being Emerald, the brilliance the alcohol had brought to her eyes and the flush it gave to her cheeks only enhanced her beauty.

She had taken off her wedding ring, Dougie noticed grimly. Her poor parents would be horrified by her behaviour. He was himself.

‘Oh, it’s you.’ She greeted him unceremoniously and with obvious dislike, the effect rather spoiled by the small hiccup she was too late to smother.

‘Alessandro isn’t with you?’

‘No. I’m here with some friends, one very special friend, in fact, and he’s going to take me somewhere that he says will be a lot more fun than this place. ’Scuse me. I must go and powder my nose.’

Every word Emerald had spoken and the manner in which she had said them, carefully spacing them out in that way that those who had had too much to drink always did, had increased Dougie’s concern.

He watched Emerald walk carefully up the stairs, clinging to the banister as she did so, Henry’s words reverberating inside his head. Emerald was old enough to look after herself and she certainly wouldn’t thank him for interfering. On the other hand, she was a member of the ancient and proud family of which he was now the head, the daughter of someone who had shown him great kindness, and most of all she was the girl he loved. He realised that now. Hate had somehow grown into love, impossible though that should have been. By the time Emerald had come back downstairs again Dougie knew what he had to do.

He was waiting for her, out of sight of her companions and holding her coat.

‘What’s this?’ Emerald demanded in a slurred voice. ‘What are you doing with my coat?’

‘I’m going to take you home so put this on because it’s cold outside.’

‘Go home?’ Emerald stared at him, but Dougie had already taken possession of her arm and was holding her in a determined grip whilst urging her towards the exit. The last thing he wanted was for her attentive dinner partner to come over and an argument to develop.

‘Don’t wanna go home. Going dancing with Tod. Tod likes me. He think I’m extraor…he says I’m beautiful.’

They were outside on the street now and Dougie’s Bentley was parked less than five yards away.

As he guided her towards it, Emerald stopped and demanded, ‘Do you think I am beautiful, Dougie?’