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Silk
Silk
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Silk

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Silk

‘I suppose you think you’re something special now just because Beth has taken up with you,’ Louise challenged Amber later when they had returned to Cadogan Place. ‘Well, you aren’t. You’re still just a Macclesfield mill girl. What was Julia Smethington-Blythe saying to you about me? And don’t say she wasn’t because I know she was. I could tell from the way she was whispering to you.’

‘She mentioned that her brother had met you at a house party, that’s all,’ Amber answered diplomatically.

‘Oh, him. He was a complete drip. He couldn’t even dance, and his teeth stick out.’

Louise scowled. She hated Amber almost as much as she hated the life that being poor imposed on her. Louise craved luxury and excitement; she wanted to sweep into the most fashionable places wearing the most expensive clothes and jewels, on the arm of a handsome man and looking so wonderful that people turned to stare at her.

Louise had never known a time when money hadn’t dominated her life. Her mother rarely spoke of anything other than their lack of it. Louise had only been able to attend the exclusive girls’ school she had because a relative had paid the fees.

Mummy was always irritatingly vague about the exact relationship between her and ‘cousin Hugh’. So much so, in fact, that Louise was beginning to wonder if they were lovers.

Louise was extremely interested in people’s sexual relationships, and all the more so if they were illicit. In fact, Louise found the whole idea of sex very exciting. It must be rather fun to be the mistress of a very rich man; a man who was prepared to indulge one’s every whim and shower one with clothes and jewels. First, of course, she would have to be married: a rich husband and then a rich lover. She hated being only seventeen and treated like a child. She couldn’t wait to be grown up and free to do whatever she wanted.

The invitations were mounting up on the mantelpiece in the drawing room of the house in Cadogan Place, and all the more so, Amber suspected, since Beth’s mother had kind-heartedly taken Amber under her wing.

Some mothers might be having to cut corners, but of course, thanks to Amber’s grandmother, there was no question of economising for the ball Lady Rutland was giving for Louise and Amber, after their formal presentation.

Lord Cadogan had given permission for the private gardens to be used, and a marquee was to be erected there, whilst decorators had been set to work refurbishing the reception rooms.

Some families were hosting private dinners before their balls but Lady Rutland had eschewed this idea, much to Amber’s relief.

Along with everything else she had managed to organise during her week’s stay in London, Amber’s grandmother had chosen both the flowers for the ball and the supper menu – a copy of one chosen by the Duke of Westminster for a ball at Eaton Hall he had given for Royalty – even though she herself was not going to be present.

Amongst the invitations arriving at Cadogan Place was one from the Hon. Mrs Guinness to attend a ball at 10 Buckingham Street, which had caused Amber a pang of anxious guilt, and worry that Lady Rutland might wonder how Diana Guinness had come to be sending them an invitation, or even worse, that somehow or other it might come out that she had met Amber at the Ritz, until Lady Rutland had remarked that there was a family connection between her own late mother and Diana’s family, the Mitfords.

‘We have been invited as well,’ Beth had informed Amber, when Amber had told her about the invitation. ‘My mother’s family are connected to the Guinnesses, although Mummy is a bit concerned about me going.’ Beth had pulled a small face. ‘I don’t think Mummy approves of the fact that Diana is so very modern, but I think she is such fun. My mother’s godson is part of that set and he says that she gives the most wonderful parties.’ Beth giggled. ‘To be honest I don’t think that Mummy always approves of Teddy either, but of course she can’t say so, and since he has insisted on accompanying us she can hardly refuse. I’m looking forward to it.’

‘So am I,’ Amber had agreed fervently.

It was nearly a week since she’d last seen Lord Robert, and she missed him dreadfully, although he had warned her that he was having to go away for a few days.

She may have told Beth that she was looking forward to the Guinness party, but right now, as she stood in front of her bedroom mirror whilst Renton finished fastening the buttons of her kid gloves, prior to Amber leaving for the ball, Amber acknowledged ruefully that what she was actually feeling came closer to nervousness.

Amber’s Norman Hartnell gown was a soft eau-de-Nil. The bodice was trimmed with rows of tiny crystal drops that shone in the light, and was modestly high-necked, but the skirt was rather dashingly cut on the bias.

Over it Amber would be wearing a matching draped satin bolero jacket several shades darker than her dress, but lined in exactly the same eau-de-Nil satin.

Her hair had been dressed in soft curls, the pins securing it decorated with small individual crystals to complement those on the bodice of her dress.

Her matching satin purse was just the right size to hold a dance card, a handkerchief and a small bottle of scent. Lady Rutland did not approve of makeup, although Amber knew that Louise ignored her mother’s disapproval and wore lipstick.

‘Are you sure I look all right, Renton?’ Amber asked her maid anxiously. She had found the maid a little stern and formidable at first, but she had quickly come to value her judgement and her good taste, and had soon found that she was turning to Renton for the answers to her questions on matters of etiquette in high society with which she was unfamiliar, rather than Lady Rutland. Renton, Amber had learned, had grown up on the estate of the Earl of Rads-bury in Norfolk and had gone into service with the countess at fourteen, determinedly working her way up through the household hierarchy until a vacancy as a lady’s maid to one of the countess’s friends had brought her to London, and then to Cadogan Place when her previous mistress had died.

Renton had told Amber that she had been on the point of returning to Norfolk to share a cottage with her sister, who was now retired, when she had been interviewed by Amber’s grandmother.

‘I could see straight away that Mrs Pickford knew what was what,’ Renton had told Amber, surprising her with the approval she could hear in her voice, ‘and that she knew how to treat a person properly.’

Amber acknowledged that she was glad that her grandmother had chosen Renton to be her maid.

‘You look just as you should,’ Renton told her now, giving Amber one of her very rare smiles. Amber felt that, in her own way, Renton was every bit as formidable as her grandmother.

The road outside the Guinnesses’ house was filled with chauffeur-driven cars conveying guests to the party, but whilst Louise was anxious to get out of the car and impatient at the delay, Amber was content to gaze wide-eyed at people whom she recognised from the newspapers and the society magazines; people like Emerald Cunard, who was wearing what Amber knew immediately must be a Schiaparelli gown, white satin with a black satin cape. Eventually their car was close enough to the entrance to the house for them to get out, Lady Rutland’s gown of puce satin rustling stiffly as they climbed the front steps.

Once inside, a smiling maid offered to relieve them of their wraps.

Amber’s eyes widened when she saw how low-cut Louise’s rose-pink gown was, surely much lower than when they had had their fittings.

The elegant reception room on the first floor was filled with so many people that the sheer volume of their conversation made it impossible to hear the music from the quartet playing in the antechamber.

A waiter carrying a tray of glasses came towards them.

‘Cocktail, madam?’

Amber looked uncertainly at the bright green liquid, but Louise was already reaching for a glass whilst her mother, who was engaged in conversation with another chaperone, had her back to her. She had finished her drink and picked up a second by the time Lady Rutland joined them.

Amber was relieved to see Beth, but her relief turned to amazement and delight when she saw who was standing at the countess’s side.

Lord Robert!

Confusingly, though, the countess was asking Lady Rutland if she might introduce ‘her godson’ and Amber had no idea what to say when the familiar hand, white-gloved tonight, of course, took her own.

‘Amber, my dear, please allow me to introduce to you my godson, Lord Robert Devenish, the Earl of Montclare. Teddy, Miss Amber Vrontsky.’

Amber held her breath, praying that Lady Rutland would not recognise in Lord Robert Devenish the professor who had been attending Cadogan Place, whilst her own head spun dizzily with the shock of discovering that ‘her’ Lord Robert was also Beth’s ‘Teddy’.

Lord Robert was smiling at her. ‘Miss Vrontsky, I do hope I can look forward to the pleasure of dancing with you later?’

He had that mischievous look in his eyes that Amber now knew so well. Her heart was beating giddily fast.

Before she could answer him, though, the countess said firmly, ‘You may dance with Amber, Teddy, but you are not to introduce her to those rackety friends of yours.’

‘Cecil would be most hurt if he heard you describing him as merely rackety, Aunt Phoebe. He likes to think of himself as positively dissipated,’ replied Robert, laughing.

The countess gave him a reproving look. ‘Well, I dare say that your grandfather would agree with him.’

Immediately his expression changed, the amusement dying out of his eyes, to be replaced by a hard blankness that made his handsome features look as though they had been carved from stone. Amber was shocked. She had never seen him look so formidable and withdrawn.

‘Louise’s gown is fearfully low-cut, isn’t it?’ Beth whispered to Amber under cover of her mother’s conversation with ‘Teddy’. ‘I’m surprised her mother allowed it.’

‘It wasn’t like that when we went for our last fittings,’ Amber whispered back.

‘It makes her look very fast. No wonder George Ponsonby’s made a beeline for her.’

Amber looked over to where Louise was standing talking to a dark-haired man of medium height. As it had done before, something in Louise’s manner made Amber feel uncomfortable.

‘Just look at how close to him she’s standing.’ Beth looked scandalised. ‘Mummy was talking about George Ponsonby last week. She says that he’s a fortune-hunter and an adventurer, and not to be trusted. There was a terrible scandal a couple of years ago when this poor girl had told all her friends that they were going to be engaged, and then he just dropped her. Her family had to send her abroad. There was talk of … you know …’

‘What?’ Amber demanded, puzzled.

Beth leaned closer to her. ‘People were saying that she was going to have a baby and that was why she had to go abroad.’

They both looked at Louise, who was now dancing with George Ponsonby. He might be handsome, but he was one of those men who somehow looked too smooth and polished, his smile too ready, and his hair too brilliantined. He was holding Louise very tightly but, far from looking uncomfortable, she seemed to be revelling in his attention.

‘Mummy said earlier that Louise’s manner is far too forward and that it’s already causing comment,’ Beth added.

* * *

Louise was dancing with George Ponsonby again when Lord Robert guided Amber out onto the dance floor a little later.

‘Why does Beth’s mother call you Teddy?’ she asked him.

‘It was my mother’s nickname for me when I was a baby. She died when I was two, and since Aunt Phoebe was her best friend she still uses it.’

Amber gave him a sympathetic look. ‘It must have been horrid for you having to grow up without her.’

‘Yes, it was rather.’

His voice was clipped and Amber guessed he wanted her to change the subject.

‘I was so relieved that Lady Rutland didn’t recognise you.’

‘Lady Rutland is the kind of person who only sees what she wants to see.’

He was an excellent dancer. Amber felt quite light-headed with the ease with which he swung her round as they glided across the floor.

As he whirled her round, Lord Robert told her, ‘Cecil’s over there with Diana, and Ralph Seaforde. I shall be in fearful trouble with Aunt Phoebe, though, if I take you over to join them.’

Amber looked in the direction he was indicating. Ralph Seaforde was tall and willowy, with dark hair and slightly olive skin. He turned to look at them, and for some reason Amber felt herself recoil, which was silly because he wasn’t even looking at her. He was looking – staring, really – at Lord Robert …

The ball was over and they were on their way home. Amber was so tired she could barely keep her eyes open and her feet positively hurt from all the dancing she had done.

Although the ball had been very exciting, and she had danced with Lord Robert, somehow the evening had left her feeling confused and not as happy as she felt she ought to be, although she couldn’t explain to herself just why she felt the way she did, except that it had something to do with Lord Robert and the way he had seemed different somehow, distant almost at times, and not the kind teasing Lord Robert she knew and liked so much, she acknowledged. Not for the world did she want to admit that the evening – and Lord Robert – had left her feeling slightly forlorn and deflated.

Louise, on the other hand, wasn’t tired at all. She was positively fizzing with excitement and energy, her face flushed and her eyes sparkling. George Ponsonby was exactly the kind of man she liked: wickedly handsome and dangerous, and with that look about him that said that he could introduce her to the most interesting and exciting things. Just thinking about him brought Louise a sharp thrill of excitement. She had had her fill of kissing inexperienced boys in broom cupboards, and watching the effect she had on them when she teased them with promises she had no intention of keeping. That was schoolgirl stuff, and she wasn’t a schoolgirl any more. She was a woman.

Chapter Nine

‘Do you ever wonder what our futures really will be, Amber?’

They were at a tea party at the Savoy and it was the day after a luncheon at which they had all been entertained and scared by a fortune-teller hired by their hostess to keep her guests entertained and amused.

Louise predictably had been the first in the queue to step into the small brightly coloured tent, erected in the drawing room, inside which the fortune-teller had been seated.

‘No,’ Amber answered Beth, teasing her, ‘because I already know what yours will be. You will be engaged before the end of the season to a very suitable and delightful young man with a title and a fortune. He will have a large estate in the country and a handsome town house in London, and once you are married you will have lots of deliciously pretty little girls and handsome little boys.’

‘And I know what yours will be,’ Beth countered. ‘You will meet a wonderfully handsome and wickedly dangerous artist, who will fall passionately in love with you, and you with him. He will offer you his heart and his hand. You will refuse him at first, but then once he has proved himself to you, you will accept him and then together you will design the most wonderful silks. I wonder what the fortune-teller told Louise – she was in there for ever.’

‘I don’t know,’ said Amber, ‘but whatever it was it must have pleased her because she has been looking very secretive and smug ever since.’

‘I’m getting really nervous about our court presentation and I’ll be glad when it’s over. I’m so pleased that we’ll be at the early courts instead of having to wait until June, aren’t you?’

They were to be presented the following day, and Amber agreed, swallowing back her own fear.

‘Lady Rotherford, my godmdother, has accepted Mummy’s invitation to my ball.’ Beth flushed slightly. ‘Her son, Alistair, will be escorting her. I haven’t seen him for ages, but he used to be such fun, but of course we’ve got your ball first. Did I tell you that Teddy has insisted on escorting Mummy?’ Beth gave her a teasing look. ‘Do you know what I think? I think that Teddy could be falling in love with you. He’ll be a duke when his grandfather dies, you know, and he’s fearfully rich.’

Amber laughed. ‘Of course he isn’t,’ she denied.

The truth was that she rather thought she might be falling in love with him, Amber admitted. Not that she was going to say that to Beth, just as she hadn’t admitted that she had already known Lord Robert before Beth’s mother had introduced them. It was her secret alone, and one that gave her a warm glow every time she thought of him.

‘We’ve had fun together, haven’t we?’

Amber nodded.

They were in the rooftop café in Selfridges, Lord Robert in his disguise.

‘I hadn’t realised that you and Beth were such good friends.’

Suddenly Amber felt anxious. ‘It doesn’t make any difference, does it?’

‘Of course not. You’re so busy now that you won’t have time for your old professor soon.’

Amber was about to protest when Lord Robert continued, ‘Which is just as well. I suspect that we would be found out if we continued with our little game much longer, and whilst it has been both delightful and innocent, the last thing I want is for your reputation to be called into question.’

Amber’s hand trembled as she put down her china cup.

‘Yes, yes, of course. You are right. I know that.’

She did. Amber had learned a very great deal about life during the short time she had been in London. If Beth had been shocked and disapproving about Louise dancing with George Ponsonby, then how much more so would she be if she knew that Amber had been out on her own with Lord Robert? London society loved to gossip, and that gossip could be cruel. A young unmarried girl’s reputation must not be tarnished by any trace of scandal.

The loving gentleness of her parents and their marriage seemed a world away from the things Amber saw around her now. People spoke openly of the Prince of Wales’s mistress, a married woman, of course. There were so many different rules to be learned and codes to be understood. She had been shocked when she had learned that Diana Guinness, whom Amber had been inclined to hero-worship, talked openly about Evelyn Waugh’s devotion to her and had allowed the author virtually to move in with her and Bryan whilst he recovered from his divorce.

In society, once a woman was married and had given her husband an heir, it was, Amber had learned, deemed perfectly acceptable for her to take a lover. Even Beth, who was so prim and proper, spoke openly of relationships between couples who were not married.

A man who was a member of the aristocracy could and did expect his mistress to be invited to the social events he might be attending and as his partner, provided her pedigree made her socially acceptable to his hostess. They could even be invited to house parties together, but must always be given separate, but conveniently close, rooms. The Prince of Wales when conducting an affair always chose to surround his mistress with a handful of his close friends, sometimes including her husband.

Then there was the other kind of mistress, the ones that men set up in discreet expensive houses in St John’s Wood where they visited them. These mistresses were often show-girls of one sort or another. They could accompany their aristocratic lovers to Cannes or Monte Carlo; attend the Grand Prix, and louche parties with them, but they could not accompany their lovers to the kind of formal society events to which a man could take his aristocratic mistress.

There were aristocratic wives who had originally been on the stage, but they were few and far between.

One thing that was non-negotiable, though, was that a young woman who was not married had to preserve her reputation at all costs.

Amber was very close to tears and she was terribly afraid of disgracing herself. She mustn’t embarrass Lord Robert by creating a silly scene. She’d miss him so much – he had been so very kind to her – but she was just a young inexperienced girl and he was worldly and so handsome that he could have any girl his heart desired. She couldn’t possibly expect him to fall for her, she thought miserably as the dusk started to gather over Oxford Street. That would be the stuff of fairy tales, and she was far too sensible to allow herself to believe in those.

Louise shivered as she waited in the doorway of Harvey Nichols, as much with excitement as impatience. They had chosen this rendezvous because, as George had said, if anyone was to see them Louise could simply claim that she had been shopping and that they had bumped into one another.

She had known from the minute he had looked at her in that meaningful way at the Guinness ball that she would have to see him again. If he hadn’t suggested it himself then she would somehow have found a way to make sure that their paths had crossed again.

Louise shivered once more, this time only with excitement. It had made her feel so important when George had singled her out for attention. She knew all about his reputation, of course, but that had only made him seem all the more attractive.

He thought that he could seduce her, but instead she intended to make him fall in love with her. Louise had discovered at a young age how easy it was to manipulate men, and how exciting. There was something in her that craved excitement.

Louise longed for the day when she would be one of those fêted beautiful women whose lives were spent in luxury, their every whim indulged. The life Louise longed for wasn’t the one her mother planned for her: a dull boring life of wifely duty to some equally dull and boring man of equal social status to her own to whom she would be expected to be grateful for marrying her, despite the fact that she did not have a dowry. No, what excited Louise was the kind of life she had seen lived by the beautiful young women escorted and indulged by their rich, often much older, lovers; a life that would allow her to dress in beautiful clothes and jewellery and to be part of the fast set that spent their lives in a social whirl of pleasurable activity, that took them from the casinos of the French coast to the louche nightclubs of London, travelling in fast cars and sleek yachts, sleeping in the most luxurious hotel beds, eating the most delicious food and always being on show so that she could be admired; desired by men and envied by her own sex, but always the sparkling glittering centre of the ‘in’ crowd.

Her lover would adore her and lavish her with gifts – a racehorse or two; jewellery, of course; a pretty town house, and a villa in the South of France. Nothing would be too much, her every wish would be granted. And of course there would be other men, young, deliciously handsome men who would also lust after her and adore her.

She wanted it all. She would have it all, Louise promised herself fiercely.

Her relationship with George Ponsonby was simply the place where she would start.

She couldn’t marry George, of course. She didn’t want to. He wasn’t rich enough, for one thing, but it would be a triumph to be able to claim him as her conquest, especially when he had such a bad reputation. She’d be hailed as the woman who’d finally tamed him.

A taxi was pulling up; George got out and smiled at her. Louise didn’t smile back.

‘You’re late,’ she told him petulantly. ‘I was just about to go home.’

His mocking ‘Liar’ brought a flash of temper to Louise’s eyes.

‘You and I, my dear, are two of a kind. We know what we want and we don’t let it go when we’ve found it. Now, do you really want to go into Harvey Nichols or shall we find somewhere more private? There’s a club I know not very far away where they make the most wicked cocktails.’

‘That’s silly,’ Louise told him, refusing to give in to the intoxicating sensation she could feel inside herself. This was so very exciting, because it was so very dangerous. She was playing with fire and she knew it.

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