Spare Brides
Authors: Adele Parks
Copyright © 2014 Adele Parks
The right of Adele Parks to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
First published in this ebook edition in 2014 by Headline Review
An imprint of HEADLINE PUBLISHING GROUP
Apart from any use permitted under UK copyright law, this publication may only be reproduced, stored, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means, with prior permission in writing of the publishers or, in the case of reprographic production, in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency.
All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Cataloguing in Publication Data is available from the British Library
eISBN 978 1 4722 0540 7
Cover art © Ilina Simeonova/Trevillion Images
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Table of Contents
© Jim Parks.
Adele Parks worked in advertising until she published her first novel in 2000; she has since published thirteen novels, all of which have been top ten bestsellers, and her work has been translated into twenty-six different languages.
Adele spent her adult life in Italy, Botswana and London until 2005 when she moved to Guildford, where she now lives with her husband and son. Adele believes reading is a basic human right, so she works closely with The Reading Agency as an Ambassador of the Six Book Challenge, a programme designed to encourage adult literacy.
‘A wonderful book about a group of women struggling to deal with life after World War One. Bright young things and disappointed hopes, it is a heady cocktail of love, class and beaded frocks. Her most accomplished novel yet’ Daisy Goodwin
‘A beautifully written, thoughtful exploration of love and loss … This is Parks at the top of her consistently excellent game and is one of those rare books you won’t stop thinking about until long after you turn the final page’
Daily Mail
‘Simply unforgettable’ Lisa Jewell
‘Will captivate you from the first page’
Closer
‘A wonderful exploration of love’ Katie Fforde
‘She is a particularly acute observer of relationship ups and downs, and her stories are always as insightful as they are entertaining’
Daily Mirror
‘We can’t think of many authors who create more flawed and lovable characters’
Glamour
‘Parks writes with wit and a keen eye for detail’
Guardian
Playing Away
Game Over
Larger Than Life
The Other Woman’s Shoes
Still Thinking Of You
Husbands
Young Wives’ Tales
Happy Families (Quick Read)
Tell Me Something
Love Lies
Men I’ve Loved Before
About Last Night
Whatever It Takes
The State We’re In
Spare Brides
New Year’s Eve, 1920. The Great War is over and it’s a new decade of glamorous promise. But a generation of men and women who survived the extreme trauma and tragedy will never be the same.
With countless men lost, it seems that only wealth and beauty will secure a husband from the few who returned, but lonely Beatrice has neither attribute. Ava has both, although she sees marriage as a restrictive cage after the freedom war allowed. Sarah paid the war’s ultimate price: her husband’s life. Lydia should be grateful that her own husband’s desk job kept him safe, but she sees only his cowardice.
A chance encounter for one of these women with a striking yet haunted officer changes everything. In a world altered beyond recognition, where not all scars are visible, this damaged and beautiful group must grasp any happiness they can find – whatever the cost.
To Alex Mahon
Thank you to my wonderful, supportive and brilliant editor, Jane Morpeth, and to the entire team at Headline. I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again, they are a lovely lot. Georgina Moore, Vicky Palmer, Barbara Ronan and Kate Byrne deserve particular acknowledgements; they work ferociously on my behalf and are a formidable, incredible team. I also owe a huge thank you to the marvellous Jamie Hodder-Williams.
Thank you, Jonny Geller. I will never forget your reaction on first reading
Spare Brides
; the memory is one of the highlights of my career. I possibly shouldn’t care quite so much about impressing you – but I do. Thanks to all at Curtis Brown for your continued support of my work, home and abroad.
Thank you to my family and friends, my fellow authors, book sellers, book festival organisers, reviewers, magazine editors, TV producers and presenters, The Reading Agency and librarians who continue to generously champion my work. Once again I’d like to thank my readers; I hope you love reading this one as much as I loved writing it.
As ever, thank you, Jimmy and Conrad, for providing inspiration, meaning, encouragement and love. It’s all about the two of you. Always.
1
L
ADY CHATFIELD – WIFE
of Lord Chatfield, daughter-in-law to the Earl of Clarendale, daughter of Sir Harold Hemingford, Lydia to her friends – allowed her silk robe to drop to her feet. She enjoyed the feel of the fabric shimmying down her body, like breath. Now naked, she stood in her dressing room and wondered, as she often did at six thirty in the evening, what her maid, Dickenson, had picked out for her to wear this evening. She tried to guess, through a process of elimination, as her dress was probably in the maid’s care now. A stain might be being dabbed into oblivion, lace might be being steamed so it would stand proud like a fence, or a hem might be being subjected to a last-minute stitch or two so that the correct amount of calf was on show. Dickenson was thorough; her most-often-used phrase was ‘just to be sure’. She treated Lydia’s garments like newborns: pampered, worshipped.
Lydia inhaled the dust and silence of the old house – resting after the bustle of tea, reprieved as there was to be no formal dinner here this evening – and scanned the padded silk hangers. She spotted her tangerine organdie and silk frock, the one with crystal beading shaped like teardrops, plus the teal moire taffeta silk that she liked to wear with a jaunty sash belt; in addition, she carefully counted numerous gowns in chiffon: saffron, scarlet, cobalt and emerald, all decorated with tulle or organza and delicate pearl beading. None of these colourful dresses would do. She examined the white and cream gowns. What was missing?
It was all a little frustrating really. If she’d had the energy, she might have been quite cross about the entire debacle, but she rarely allowed herself to become properly vexed nowadays; she considered doing so such poor taste. Taking everything into account, she had little to moan about. Yet she had expected a new gown from Callot Soeurs fashion house. She’d ordered an oyster silk treasure with lashings of diamanté beads spilling from the neckline down her breasts and shoulder blades. With painful clarity she’d been able to visualise the effect she would have made on entrance to the Duchess of Pembrokeshire’s New Year’s Eve ball. The dress had a darling plush fox-fur trim around the hem and cuffs and she’d planned to wear it with her purple velvet shoes, the ones with the elegant heel and glass beading. Purple with oyster and fur was the sort of combination that was bound to make the papers. The dress ought to have arrived before Christmas. It hadn’t. It was difficult to complain; no one actually expected really decent service any more, not since the war. And the French – well, the French especially were horribly unreliable, a law unto themselves. That was why the English – beaten down by rules and queues – found them so fascinating and irresistible.
Lydia sighed. Her breath and mood clouded the cold air. Where was the housemaid? She ought to have poked the fire in the bedroom; a girl could freeze to death in her dressing room if the servants were slow. Lydia bit down on her irritation. It was misdirected and unfair. Still, it was hard that she didn’t have anything new for tonight; she was sure that every other woman in the British Empire would have a clear idea what to wear as she watched 1920 melt away, as she sighed a relieved welcome at 1921. One year further on. One step further away. Making the whole ghastly business more past, less present.