NATASHA OAKLEY – Ordinary Girl, Society Groom (страница 2)

Cassie followed the line of her gaze. ‘Gorgeous, isn’t he? All that muscle’s been honed by hours on horseback. And that suit is fabulous. Look at his bum in those trousers. The man’s sexy…very sexy.’

‘And doesn’t he just know it?’ Eloise returned dryly, watching the way he glinted down at Sophia Westbrooke.

‘Can’t blame the man for knowing the effect he has on women, darling. Looks. Money. Connections. Pretty lethal combination, I’d say.’

Eloise forced a smile. ‘I thought he didn’t like London.’

‘He doesn’t. He stays down in Sussex on his stepfather’s estate. Makes tables, chairs, that kind of thing.’

‘Fine cabinetry. Yes, I know.’ Eloise sipped her own champagne. ‘I read something about that.’

‘You need a second mortgage to buy the leg of a footstool,’ Cassie agreed. ‘Sophia’s dress too, I imagine. Do you know who made it?’

‘Yusef Atta. Up-and-coming designer. Specialising in embroidery on chiffon,’ Eloise answered automatically. ‘Very romantic silhouettes. That kind of thing.’

‘Worth a feature?’

‘Perhaps,’ Eloise agreed, watching the way the teenager gazed up adoringly. Sophia Westbrooke couldn’t be older than nineteen. Could she? Whereas Jeremy was thirty-four. Thirty-five, perhaps—she couldn’t quite remember from the Internet article she’d read two nights ago.

Cassie seemed in tune with her thoughts. ‘Just back from Switzerland. Not a day over nineteen. And with a man like Jem Norland. Lucky cow.’

‘There’s no luck about it. It’s all part of the in-breeding programme. Like marries like, don’t you know?’ she said in her best parody of an up-market accent.

Cassie gave a delighted chuckle, her acrylic-tipped nails clinking against her champagne flute. ‘Wicked child. Now circulate, darling. Get me the gossip and no more ogling the natives. They bite.’

How true. It was a pity no one had mentioned that to her mother twenty-eight years ago when she’d first started work at Coldwaltham Abbey, not much older than Sophia Westbrooke—but Eloise would lay money on their fates being completely different.

Eloise watched her boss network her way back through the crowded room. Cassie didn’t fit in any more than she did, but you’d never know it from her demeanour. She just owned the space, dared anyone to reject her.

Eloise had used to be like that, ambitious to the core—but things had changed in the past fourteen weeks. Fourteen weeks and three days, to be precise. The day she’d brought home those two crates. Who would ever have thought such a short space of time could make such an incalculable difference? Her eyes flicked back to Jeremy Norland, universally known as Jem.

He was the epitome of upper class living. His suit was fabulous. Hand-stitched, no doubt. Criminally expensive.

Money and opportunity had been poured on him from the hour of his birth. He’d the bone-deep confidence of a man who’d been to the best schools and who knew the old boy network would support him in comfort till the day he died.

And she resented him with a vehemence that surprised even her.

He reached across to kiss the cheek of the effervescent Sophia, who giggled appreciatively. He was so arrogant—it shone from the top of his dark expensively cut hair right down to his handmade Italian leather shoes. He knew exactly what he was doing—and the effect he was having on his youthful companion. Eloise just longed for her to rear up and tell him to get lost.

It didn’t happen, though. Sophia smiled coquettishly and rested a hand on his shoulder. Eloise couldn’t honestly blame her. She wasn’t to know. It was years of sitting in a ringside seat seeing someone else’s unhappiness that meant she would never be so stupid as to fall for a man like Jem Norland.

Anger and hatred had been building up inside her ever since she’d re-read her mother’s letter and now she couldn’t bear to be near these self-absorbed people who’d destroyed her mother’s life so completely.

Her life.

With their grand houses, their horses and their public school accents. She hated them all.

A few short weeks ago she’d been fascinated by them. A detached and slightly amused observer. But now…

Now she had nothing but contempt for them.

For Jem Norland. The privileged stepson of the man she really loathed—Laurence Alexander Milton, Viscount Pulborough.

Her father.

Father!

That was a joke. He’d been no more than the sperm donor.

Six years ago, when she’d first read that letter, she’d been too numbed by shock to really take it all in. The sudden loss of her mum had been trauma enough and she almost hadn’t had the emotional space to register what she now knew to be the identity of the man whose gene pool she shared.

Viscount Pulborough wasn’t part of her life. He’d meant less than nothing to her. It was her mum missing her graduation ceremony that had filled her mind and twisted the screw of pain a little tighter.

So she’d packed all her mum’s things away and scarcely thought about it…for six years.

Six years. Time had passed so fast. Life had been busy. There’d been so much to do—building her career, saving for her deposit, trying to pretend she didn’t feel so incredibly alone in a big, frightening world.

There’d always been plenty of excuses as to why her mum’s belongings should stay safely locked away. She’d had a small bedsit…She’d be moving on soon, so what was the point…?

The excuses stopped when she’d bought her flat. Her own home. It was time to finally sort out the last of her mum’s possessions. All those things she’d put in box files and refused to think about.

The letter.

It had always been there. A time bomb ticking away—only she hadn’t realised it.

Re-reading her mum’s words six years later, she had found her emotions were different. She had a new, fresh perspective and, as she read, her antipathy had turned to anger.

It had been so easy to imagine what had happened that summer. Young, naïve, desperately in love, her mother had been swept up into a beautiful fairy tale—except for the fact that her prince had turned out to be married. More frog than prince. There’d even been a castle…of a kind. A brief spell of happiness and…what?

The rest of her short life alone. Struggling to bring up her daughter by herself. Crying over bills and juggling two badly paid jobs to make ends meet. A few hours’ pleasure in exchange for a lifetime of pain and responsibility.

And did the esteemed Viscount ever think of that when he strolled about his great estate in Sussex? Did he?

All of a sudden she’d had to know. It had still taken weeks of soul-searching before she’d finally built up the courage to confront the man who had so bitterly betrayed her mum. And her.

And for what?

Nothing.

Eloise turned swiftly on her borrowed designer heels and walked over to stand by the open window. The buzz of traffic in the distance competed with the elegant strains of Beethoven.

A faint pulsing had started in her right temple and was shooting arrows of pain around her eye socket. She wanted to cry out at the injustice of it all. The total unfairness.

Jem Norland watched her, his eyes distracted by the flash of purple silk.

‘Jem, are you listening to me?’ Sophia asked, pulling on his arm. ‘I’m going with Andrew to find somewhere to sit down.’

‘Who’s the blonde?’ Jem cut straight to the question that interested him most.

Lord Andrew Harlington squinted across the room. ‘In the purple? With the legs?’

‘That’s it.’

He concentrated. ‘No idea,’ he said, wrapping an arm around Sophia’s waist. ‘How about you, Sophy? Recognise her?’

‘That’s Eloise…’ his girlfriend searched the deepest recesses of her mind ‘…you know, that woman off the television. Eloise…Leyton. No, Lawton. That’s it. Eloise Lawton. The woman who does the clothes thing.’

Jem stilled. ‘What?’

‘She does that programme about style,’ Sophia volunteered. ‘Colours and so forth. Blue tones and red tones. It makes a difference to how great you look. She’s really good at it. Writes for Image as well.’

‘I’d heard that,’ Jem said dryly, looking more closely at the woman who’d just pitched a missile into the midst of his family.

A blonde? Somehow he hadn’t expected a blonde. Eloise Lawton—astringent, witty commentator on the fashion foibles of her contemporaries. This he knew. His mother and stepsister had told him.

But he hadn’t expected the kind of cool, classy-looking blonde who might have stepped straight out of an Alfred Hitchcock movie.

‘Champagne, sir.’

Jem pulled his gaze away. ‘Thank you,’ he said, reaching out and accepting a flute. He knew his mother would have counselled caution, but the opportunity was irresistible.

What he really wanted to know was why. Why now? Why Laurence? His stepfather was the gentlest of men. A deeply religious man, honourable and good. It was unthinkable…

‘She is pretty, isn’t she?’ Sophia said at his elbow. ‘Not your type, though.’

Jem looked down at her impish face. ‘What?’

‘Eloise Lawton. Very pretty.’