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‘Poor Jean-Philippe. I have let him down so badly. These are all that is left of him. What are we to do about Emerald, Jay?’
Understanding all that she could not say, Jay took Amber in his arms and held her whilst she wept.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
‘So it’s agreed then?’ Emerald’s mother-in-law demanded.
They were in the sitting room of Alessandro’s mother’s suite at the Savoy.
‘With immediate effect your marriage to my son is over, and will be annulled. Poor Alessandro, I’m afraid I have already had to prepare him for your defection.’
She was dressed in her customary black, just like the horrid old crow that she was, Emerald thought bitterly.
‘Alessandro was shocked, of course, to learn that you had confessed to me that your marriage to him had been a mistake, undertaken by you on the rebound from another lover,’ she continued.
Fury spiked in Emerald’s eyes. ‘Alessandro would never believe that. He knows perfectly well that there was no one else before him.’
‘Does he? I shall have to warn him that girls can be very clever about pretending to be what they are not, shan’t I?’ Her mother-in-law’s smile was malevolent. ‘I think it best if you and I don’t see one another again after today, Emerald.’
Come back here, to this dreary suite with its heavy Victorian furniture, its stuffy atmosphere, and Alessandro’s mother waiting in it, like a spider at the centre of a web waiting to pounce? Emerald looked round the oppressive room, its heavy dark curtains shutting out the light and trapping her where she didn’t want to be, just as the princess’s Victorian values were shutting her out of Alessandro’s life and trapping her in their rigid respectability.
‘Oh, and a word of warning. Should there be any consequences, shall we say, of your relationship with my son then I must point out to you that any such child will naturally be considered illegitimate–rather like you, Emerald. Maybe you should follow your mother’s example and look for a man willing to give you the protection
of his name?’
Emerald didn’t say anything. Anger burned inside her, savage and corrosive, but she couldn’t allow it to escape. Not without risking further humiliation. Unceremoniously and ignominiously she had been stripped of her marital status and the title that went with it, and her humiliation was going to be made public. She was consumed with a burning hatred for Alessandro’s mother. She renewed her vow to turn the tables on her and make her pay.
‘It is not so very bad, Emerald,’ Alessandro’s mother mocked her. ‘As I have already told you, publicly we shall say that the marriage was a mistake entered into by two young people who didn’t realise the significance of the protocols of Alessandro’s position and the laws of our country and our religion. Think how much worse it could have been for you had I had to go public about your conception and your real father. Of course, you have my word that no one will know anything of that, just so long as you continue to abide by our agreement. There, I think we have said everything that needs to be said, don’t you?’
Her mother-in-law’s smile was calmly triumphant as she rose from the high-backed chair she had deliberately taken as her seat, leaving Emerald obliged to take a much lower chair, or remain standing in her presence as though she were a servant.
Watching the princess walk towards the door, Emerald had never felt so much hostility towards anyone before. Her mother-in-law had outwitted her because she had been too clever for her, too Machiavellian. As Alessandro’s mother waved in the direction of the door, signalling both that the ‘interview’ was over and that she was far too socially above Emerald to open the door for her, Emerald made herself a promise that never again would anyone be allowed to humiliate her as Alessandro’s mother had done.
Emerald was still fuming as she sat in the cab taking her back to Lenchester House.
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.
