Sins (11 page)

‘Lady Emerald Devenish is tipped to be
the
débutante of the season. Her ball will be held in her late father’s London house in Eaton Square, and HRH The Duke of Kent will be attending along with his mother, Princess Marina.’

The invitations had already gone out, and Emerald knew exactly what kind of speculation that wording beneath her photograph would give rise to. In the language
of gossip columns it was tantamount to a pre-engagement declaration, but of course if anyone were to accuse her of exaggerating the situation she would simply pretend not to know what they meant.

The photographer was disappointingly short for a man who featured so often in the gossip columns as a man about town and a flirt, but Emerald had no more interest in him as a man than she did in the uncouth Australian. He was simply a means to an end.

‘Indeed not.’

Lew had been furious when his lunch date–a pretty young wife whose husband hated town and preferred to remain on their estate in the country–had refused to play ball, pretending that she hadn’t realised why he had suggested they had lunch together or what he had had in mind for the rest of the afternoon. But now the clouds that had darkened his temper had lifted. This girl was, if anything, even prettier than Louise, and unless he was wrong, far more sensual. One could always tell. They had a certain look about them that had nothing to do with experience. It shone from them like a special luminosity on the skin or like a definite scent on the air that surrounded them. This girl, a typical virginal deb on the outside, would on the inside be a positive volcano of passion. Teaching her to enjoy her sexuality would be like eating hot chocolate sauce on cold ice cream.

‘You’d better come up to my studio,’ he told Emerald. Without taking his gaze from her face, he added to Dougie, ‘Please see to it that I’m not disturbed for the rest of the afternoon.’

Dougie’s heart sank.

Well, why should he want to stop him? If she wanted to make a fool of herself and lose her reputation with a man who was known to be lethal, then why should he care?

Because if he was this duke, then she was family, that was why, and it was his duty to do what he could to keep his family and its name safe. Girls like this one married men to whom the virginity of their bride was almost as important as their lineage and their wealth, and all because of that important first-born son–and it had to be a son. Once the line was secured they didn’t seem to mind who their wives slept with, or so it seemed to him. He was not saying that he agreed with such practice; he didn’t really agree with hereditary titles either, if he were honest, but that didn’t mean that they didn’t exist. He was proof of that. One day an ordinary farmer back in Oz, the next a duke!

But perhaps he should go and see this Mr Melrose before he went round acting like some kind of saviour of the family name and reputation.

Lew loved his work every bit as much as he loved sex, and so taking photographs of Emerald before he seduced her was no hardship. In fact, photographing girls was the best part of his seduction technique, one that excited and aroused him as he watched them becoming excited and aroused at the thought of the lens of his camera capturing their beauty and freezing it for eternity. And then, of course, there were all those little touches as he showed them how he wanted them to pose for him, directing them, rearranging their limbs, caressing them with theatrical compliments and
teasing little kisses. No wonder by the time he eventually took them to bed they were so eager for him.

He put on a smoochy Frank Sinatra record to help set the mood, whilst Emerald looked round the studio incuriously. She was well aware now just how Lew expected the photography session to end, but he was going to be disappointed. She was certainly not going to throw away her virginity on him, but since she wanted him to take her photograph she knew that she would have to string him along. Telling him that she had got her period should keep him at bay for today and when she called round to see the proofs she’d make sure that she had Lyddy with her. A call to
Tatler
pretending to be her mother should ensure that the magazine got on to Lew for the photographs and she could make sure that they added the wording she wanted at the same time.

A quick check through his camera lens assured Lew that Emerald was as photogenic as he had guessed she would be.

He removed his leather jacket and threw it over a chair, then pushed back the sleeves of his black jumper, telling her easily, ‘The twinset will have to go. There’s a screen there you can pop behind to change. There should be a robe there as well.’

Since the photograph that had brought her here had shown the bare shoulders of the deb he had photographed, Emerald wasn’t too alarmed by this suggestion. Once she was behind the screen and removing her twinset, though, his casual, ‘Oh, and you’d better take off your bra as well,’ caused her to tense for a moment. The robe he’d mentioned was a flimsy piece of silk
through which it would be perfectly easy to see her bare breasts, but Emerald suspected that if she objected he would simply refuse to take her photograph. It wasn’t that she was particularly bothered about him seeing her breasts–in different circumstances she acknowledged that she might have enjoyed teasing him–but she had her reputation to consider and her planned future as HRH The Duchess of Kent. It would not do at all for her to have allowed any man, never mind a mere photographer, to have seen her naked to her waist. ‘What’s wrong? Do you need some help?’ Lew’s sudden appearance round the back of the screen, holding a glass and a bottle of whisky just as she was about to unfasten her bra, had Emerald whisking the wrap around herself and saying coquettishly, ‘No peeking.’ His response was to laugh and then say, ‘I dare say you are far too young and innocent for me to offer you a glass of whisky?’

Emerald made a small
moue
of distaste. ‘I’d have preferred a Martini.’

She had the most wonderful figure, Lew decided, firm pert breasts, and a tiny waist that together made her look almost voluptuous. He glanced at the pearls she had put with her twinset. Compared with the modest single or double row of pearls worn by most débutantes these were almost rococo in appearance, and glowing with colour.

‘Nice pearls,’ he commented,

‘They belonged to my great-grandmother.’

An idea had suddenly come to him. Reaching for them he told Emerald, ‘What I want you to do is to take off
the wrap, put these on and then I want you to pose like so…’ Putting down his glass, he went over to the corner of the studio and picked up a dark green length of silk from his collection of ‘props’, which he threw on the floor and then lay down on it on his stomach, lifting his torso and propping his chin up with his hands.

Emerald frowned. The pose was an enticing one, a very promising one, in fact, for a girl who wanted to make her mark and stand out from the crowd, and it was one that appealed to her ego. Normally she would have jumped at the chance to show off, but the pose was also a very provocative one–far too provocative for the future wife of the Duke of Kent.

‘I think it would be far better if you simply photographed me sitting down and from the neck upwards,’ she told Lew firmly, as he got to his feet.

He looked at her in astonishment. ‘My dear girl,
I
am the photographer.’

‘And I am the client, and it is my mother who will pay your bill,’ Emerald pointed out sweetly.

Downstairs Dougie pushed back his chair and stood up. He’d agonised long enough. It was no good. He had to do something.

Upstairs, Lew’s mood changed swiftly from amusement to angry irritation.

‘Either I photograph you as I wish or not at all.’

Emerald glared at him. She was used to people giving in to her, not giving her ultimatums. She had desperately wanted him to take her photograph but not in a pose that would make it obvious that she had been half nude when he had done so.

Without bothering to answer him Emerald went back behind the screen and started to dress, only realising once she had her bra on that her twinset had fallen down the other side of the screen.

Dougie knocked loudly on the door and then pushed it open, without waiting for a response. They wouldn’t be in bed yet. Lew always worked up to bed via a photographic session.

Just as Dougie walked in Emerald emerged from behind the screen in the diaphanous wrap to retrieve her clothes, and almost bumped into him. They each came to an abrupt halt and stared at one another.

Lew scowled when he saw Dougie. ‘What do you want?’

‘You said you wanted me to remind you that you’re having dinner with Lady Pamela later to discuss the arrangements for the photographs for the christening.’

‘You came up here to tell me that? It’s only three o’clock in the afternoon.’

Quickly grabbing her clothes, Emerald retreated back behind the screen and hurriedly got dressed. Damn, damn, damn. Why had that wretched Australian had to come in and see her like that?

‘Well, since you are here you can show Lady Emerald out, since she’s had second thoughts and is leaving. So silly of you to panic like that, darling,’ Lew told Emerald with spiky malice. ‘You were quite safe. I never shag girls who wear pink twinsets, and even if I did, shagging virginal débutantes simply isn’t my style, far too unrewarding. Oh, and a bit of advice for you: don’t wear pink, it doesn’t suit you. Makes you look sallow.’ The acid tone in which the comments were delivered left Emerald
in no doubt as to what Lew thought of her. And of course the Australian had overheard it all and would be enjoying her humiliation. Emerald’s scalded pride burned her cheeks bright pink.

So Lady Emerald was leaving of her own accord and he needn’t have come up here risking his employer’s displeasure after all? Dougie cursed under his breath.

‘It seems Lady Emerald got the wrong photographer,’ Lew was telling him disdainfully.

‘Next time try Cecil Beaton, sweetheart. He does a lovely soft focus pearls-and-twinset look that’s just right for prudish little virgins,’ he added unkindly to Emerald.

Glaring at Dougie, Emerald shot past him. She knew she had made a fool of herself and she could imagine how they would laugh about her once she’d left.

‘I’ll see you out,’ Dougie told her, catching up with her outside the door.

‘Don’t bother,’ Emerald snapped.

The dreadful Australian might be keeping a straight face but she just knew that inside he was laughing at her. She hated them both, but she hated the horrid Australian the most.

As for her photograph…She’d just have to make do with Cecil Beaton’s original photograph of her now, and that had already appeared in
Tatler
. Well, she’d think of some other way of publicly linking her name with the duke’s. Perhaps she could manipulate things so that they were photographed together at one of the deb balls? If only her father had still been alive she could have persuaded him to invite the duke to stay at
Osterby. There was no point in even thinking about inviting him to Denham. He was a royal duke, after all, and hardly likely to accept an invitation to a millowner’s house.

Rose hoped that she wasn’t going to be late as she hurried through the Saturday crowd thronging the King’s Road, on her way to the salon. She felt guilty about putting Janey off instead of having coffee with her as they’d originally planned, but thankfully Janey had understood when she’d explained that she’d had a last-minute telephone call from Josh, wanting her to meet up with him at the salon because he’d arranged a meeting with his photographer friend who was going to bring some shots he had done for
Vogue
so that Rose could look through them and pick some out for the stair wall.

Time seemed to be rushing by so fast; the days longer and the air warmer with spring flowers in bloom. Even her job wasn’t making her as miserable as it had done, although she knew she would never be totally happy at Ivor Hammond’s, not with the way she was treated.

At least she’d soon be getting a break from work with the Easter holiday coming up.

Easter. Easter meant going home to Denham and, if
she was very lucky and fortune smiled on her, seeing John.

She was still smiling, lost in her own private daydreams, as she opened the door to the salon using the key that Josh had insisted on giving her, and ran quickly up the stairs.

The friend Josh had found was typical of the kind of working-class young men with East End accents and wicked teasing smiles that Josh seemed to know. Despite their bold manners, they treated Rose with deference, instantly ceasing to pepper their conversation with swear words when she was in earshot. A couple of them had plastered the stair wall after Rose’s attempts to remove the old paint had resulted in half the rotten plaster coming away too, and had done an excellent job. So too had the painter whom Josh had insisted on hiring, looking horrified when Rose had told him that she planned to paint the high wall herself.

‘Over my dead body you are,’ Josh had told her. ‘I’m not having my designer breaking her neck falling off a pair of ladders, not when she hasn’t come up with a design for my salon yet.’

‘I’ve told you, I think we should stick to the black and white theme but spice it up with touches of shocking pink.’

‘Shocking pink…’ Josh had groaned. ‘Take a look at me, will you, and then tell me, do I look like a bloke who does poncy shocking pink?’

Rose had giggled, despite her attempt to remain professional.

‘There’s nothing poncy about shocking pink,’ she’d
told him firmly. ‘And besides, girls like it. Your stylists could wear black and shocking-pink turbans and headbands, and uniforms in black with shocking-pink scissors and hairdryers appliquéd onto them. What are you going to call the salon?’

‘I haven’t decided yet, why?’

‘Well, we could appliqué the name onto the uniforms as well.’

‘Fine, but what if these juniors and stylists you seem to think I’m going to be taking on aren’t all girls? What if some of them are male?’

‘Then they can wear black trousers and a black shirt with the appliqués on it, and perhaps a shocking-pink tie.’