Her eyes narrowed once more.
‘And
that
’s a point,’ she said. ‘You put this Milly thing next to my Brianna Jade and she’ll blow her right out of the water. BJ photographs like a dream.
That tiny little thing’ll look dull as ditchwater next to her.’
Lady Margaret and Veronica nodded in agreement with that statement. Tamra adored her daughter, but she wasn’t doting in any way; she was perfectly clear-sighted about Brianna Jade’s
strengths and weaknesses.
‘That’s why I was thinking a bridal shower,’ Tamra said glumly. ‘We could’ve invited her and a lot of other girls who aren’t very pretty and posed them so BJ
just pops out of every photo. That’d show
Style
who they ought to pick.’
‘Darling,’ Lady Margaret drawled, ‘I have two words for you: engagement party! Throw it at Stanclere, invite Tark and Milly and a ton of others. Lots of press, lots of photos.
Edmund won’t like it much, but he’ll quite understand that it’s part of the deal, as you say.’
Veronica nodded. ‘Things are really changing with the aristocratic world. It’s the younger generation. Posh people who wouldn’t have dreamt of having their weddings in
Hello!
are seeing their children on the covers now. Lady Natasha Rufus Isaacs – she’s the daughter of the Marquess of Reading,’ she added for Tamra’s benefit,
‘had a ten-page spread in it when she got married last year. Royalty attended, it was very high-level. She even namechecked Boodles the jewellers in the piece – they lent her a diamond
parure – and she got publicity for her ethical clothing line. Of course, she snagged a nice donation from the mag for the line, blah blah, but you know, the social rule about only wanting to
appear in the papers when you’re born, marry and die is totally gone now.’
‘Hatched, matched, dispatched,’ Lady Margaret mumbled through a mouthful of blini. ‘How we used to put it.’
‘I love it! An engagement party!’ Tamra’s eyes sparkled so brightly that they might have been made from the backlit black glass of the fountain wall. She clapped her hands, her
cuff bracelets jangling. ‘Over a weekend, right? We’ll plan it like a military operation for the photo opportunities and make sure that Milly and Tarquin can come.’
‘He might have tour dates we’ll have to build around?’ Veronica mentioned.
‘I was at school with his mama,’ Lady Margaret said cheerfully. ‘Head prefect when she was a weedy little fourth-former. Put the fear of God in her on multiple occasions.
I’ll ring her up and tell her to get me some dates from her son, pronto. Don’t worry, they’ll be there.’
‘Milly’s an actress, she may have commitments,’ Veronica warned.
Tamra rounded on Veronica, but Lady Margaret was there first.
‘Please – all actors are absolute tarts for publicity,’ she said, taking another blini. ‘You tell her she’ll be photographed for a glossy magazine. She’ll be
there, even if she has to fly in for the night.’
‘
Exactly!
’ Tamra said. ‘Veronica, you’re bringing me problems and Margaret’s bringing me solutions!’
Veronica quailed under her employer’s stare.
‘I’m not paying for negatives,’ Tamra continued to the hapless publicist. ‘What I want is non-negotiable! I’m damn well going to see my daughter on the cover of
Style Bride
with a tiara on her head and the words
Style Bride of the Year
plastered across her skirt in gold lettering! You get that, right? Believe me, there’ll be a nice
bonus for you
when
you pull it off – not
if
, but
when
! Because you’re going to do it. Ever heard the expression “going Indiana on your ass”? I
swear to God, Veronica, you’d better give this everything you’ve got or I’ll open a can of whoop-ass on you like you’ve never even
imagined
!’
Veronica’s mouth was open, her eyes wide and frightened. Tamra’s voice was loud enough that as it rose, a squirrel which had managed, somehow, to scale the glass wall and was
crossing the circular lawn, jumped, looked around in panic and shot up one of the cloud-pruned japonica trees as fast as its tiny feet could scamper.
‘I simply
love
it when she shouts,’ Lady Margaret observed, polishing off the blinis. ‘You’d better do what she says, you know. I have no idea what a can of
whoop-ass is, but I doubt very much that you want to find out.’
The private members’ drinking club in a basement beneath a side street tucked away behind Old Street roundabout was as plush, dimly lit and richly upholstered as
Tamra’s Chelsea garden was shiny and bright. It was impossible to imagine daylight here, let alone visualize Tamra, Veronica and Lady Margaret sitting in the sunshine, glittering in thousands
of tiny sparkles from the leaves of the huge glass tree spreading above them. The club was called the Den, though its décor was den-like only if you imagined its inhabitants as the most
pampered and sleek of Burmese cats, strolling on silky paws over the thick carpets, jumping up with easy springs to the burgundy velvet love seats and curling up there, staring with cold green eyes
at the waiters bringing them Martinis to lap, their fur glowing softly in the flickering light of the candles set into recessed iron wall sconces.
Ludo, a founding member, was certainly as sleek as any Burmese with his slicked-back blond hair, pale blue Savile Row-tailored shirt, Ralph Lauren linen suit and Dunhill cobalt silk knit tie: as
always, his entire appearance was as polished as his Burberry silver cufflinks. His companion was much more soberly dressed, in head-to-toe black with a flash of white at the neck, but his handsome
face was creased with amusement as he watched Ludo wave his hands around theatrically, describing the meeting he had had with Milly and Eva earlier that day.
‘Lily of the valley!’ Ludo was saying impatiently with a very telling roll of his blue eyes. ‘
So
expensive,
so
delicate, barely
grows
in Italy, where
they want to have the wedding – we’ll have to fly it over and
honestly,
it costs so much that I can’t make much of a mark-up on it, which is the worst of all!’
‘Ludo,
really
,’ his companion remonstrated.
‘This whole thing is so
cutesy
,’ Ludo said in disgust. ‘Peonies, stock, veronica,
sweet peas
in vintage teapots – you won’t believe this, but
Milly actually had the idea of arranging flowers in old jars from sweet shops.’
‘Oh, I rather like that,’ murmured his friend, picking up his stemmed glass and sipping at the pale orange liquid inside. The cocktail was called a Wildcat, a blend of
cachaça, pisco, mezcal, blood orange, kumquat and lime juices, with a touch of gooseberry jam and Tokay wine: it had been garnished with a physalis, whose tiny bright orange fruit with its
crisp, wing-like dried leaves was the perfect visual counterpoint to the drink. The Den prided itself on its avant-garde cocktails and considered each new creation a feast for the eyes as well as
the taste buds. Given the eye-watering proportions of mixed alcohol in the glass, however, sipping was definitely the way to go.
‘Oh
please,
’ Ludo said. ‘Can you really see me sourcing vintage sweet jars?’
‘Dear, I can see you commissioning them from a factory with faux-vintage labels if there was enough profit in it for you,’ his companion said with great amusement.
Ludo burst out laughing and clinked his own drink to the Wildcat: his was a Tango No. 2, a mixture of rum anejo, amber vermouth, absinthe, Benedictine, mandarin and grapefruit juices with a
champagne float, served in a deep champagne coupe, and decorated for some reason rather cheesily with a little yellow and white gingham napkin round the stem, which Ludo had promptly discarded with
a muttered: ‘
No
. Just
no.
’
‘I absolutely banned the sweet jars,’ Ludo said now, taking an equally judicious sip of his drink. ‘We’re walking a delicate line here pitching for the
Style
Bride
cover, you see. I somehow have to pull off a blend of the rather saccharine, wild-flowers-in-antiqued-birdcages, running-through-the-meadows-hand-in-hand wedding that Milly wants, and
something chic enough for
Style
to snap it up. It’s by no means impossible, and if anyone can manage it, it’s me.’
‘Always blowing your own trumpet,’ his friend commented.
‘Oh, I
wish
!’ Ludo said naughtily. ‘But I’ve had a little word with Jodie Raeburn, the editor – we bumped into each other at a do at the Langham the other
night. She says that she’s very keen on fresh and modern, and this whole faux-simple, Keira Knightley eloping-with-the-daisy-chain-and-Chanel-and-Renault thing
does
feel very fresh.
So there’s that. Ooh! News!
And
she told me who Milly’s competition is – that American heiress who’s marrying Edmund St Aubyn! You know, the stunning blonde, all
teeth, hair and tits? God, I
love
her. I’d
so
much rather be doing her wedding than Milly’s. Her mother will just
throw
money at it,
millions
probably, and it’ll be old-fashioned classic glamour, which is
so
much more me than wretched scrawny little Milly and her pissing lily of the valley and fresh herb displays in
vintage china. God, I
loathe
that word “vintage”. It’s just a way of selling barely recycled old tat to idiots! It’s almost as bad as “shabby chic”,
which, you know,
ditto
.’
Ludo’s friend settled back in the embrace of his red velvet armchair, plucking up the trouser fabric over one knee with long pale fingers so that he could cross that leg smoothly over the
other, a flash of black silk sock showing between the trouser hem and the suede Gucci loafers.
Ludo took a sip of his Tango No. 2.
‘I’d
really
prefer to be planning the glamorous wedding, not the eco-chic one,’ he sighed. ‘And the Yank girl is absolutely perfect for
Style
. I’m
sure Victoria Glossop will be signing off on the final decision, and she just loves that all-American,
Sports Illustrated
swimsuit issue look. I mean, who doesn’t?’
‘But Milly’s marrying a pop star,’ his friend said comfortingly, resting his hands on the wide padded arms of the chair. ‘They’re famous, and they’re young.
Everyone loves youth. It’s the terrible curse of our age, this tendency to set youth up as a cult and worship at its shrine, when it knows nothing of the real challenges that humans face with
the ravages of age and time.’
‘Oh, please, Father, take off the dog collar,’ Ludo said pettishly. ‘I’m not in the mood for a sermon.’
Father Liam Wiles, Ludo’s close friend and officiator of all the Catholic blessings at the weddings planned by Ludo, smiled gently, not a whit offended.
‘I was attempting, perhaps rather clumsily, to console you, Ludo,’ he observed. ‘
Style
, like almost all glossy magazines, literally idolizes youth and inexperience,
and I was pointing out that you may well be advantaged by having the younger clients.’
Ludo sniffed, muttering, ‘Tarquin strikes me as a little inexperienced, but
Milly’s
been stretched out on the casting couch more often than young Piers over
there.’
He nodded at the passing waiter, a slim and handsome would-be actor, who flashed him a swift smile and wink as he skimmed by their table with a tray borne high. Ludo warmed to his theme.
‘I hear Milly’s wedged her ankles by her ears for producers more times than a novice in a nunnery waiting for Mother Superior to come in with a big altar candle and—’
‘Ludo,
please
!’ Father Liam ran a finger impatiently under his stiff white dog collar.
‘Oh come
on
,’ Ludo pouted. ‘You know what all those nuns are like. Why did they go into it in the first place? They’re worse than female prison guards, and
they’re
all utter and complete lesbians.’
‘Well, I can assure you that I did not enter the priesthood for that reason,’ Father Liam said coldly.
‘No,’ Ludo said irrepressibly, ‘but the new intake of fresh young Jesuit meat every year at your lovely Mayfair training centre is a
delicious
little extra bonus for
some of your colleagues, isn’t it?’
‘
Ludo
, I’m shocked by the sacrilege of your conversation sometimes!’ Father Liam uncrossed his legs, planting the soles of his loafers on the carpet, his handsome
brows lowering.
‘I’m sorry.’ Ludo reached out to touch Father Liam’s knee. ‘Father, forgive me, I’m such an awful sinner . . . my wicked tongue just runs away with me
sometimes.’
‘It seems that it could be
much
better occupied than satirizing men and women of the Church, who’ve taken very serious vows of poverty, chastity and obedience,’ Father
Liam said with immense severity, reaching for the cocktail that would cost £18, plus service, when the time came to sign the bill, and taking another sip. ‘I can’t imagine you
having the dedication or sense of vocation to make such sacrifices for a spiritual calling, Ludo.’
Ludo hung his head theatrically as he listened to this lecture.
‘Make penance, Ludo,’ Father Liam said, setting his Wildcat on the table, sitting back in his armchair. ‘Atone for your irreverence by putting that wicked tongue of yours to
good use, and silence your unholy mouth in an act of reverence . . .’
Ludo was already tucking the end of his tie into a gap between shirt buttons, easing the beaten-bronze table to one side, careful not to spill the expensive concoctions upon them, then kneeling
down eagerly in front of Father Liam, who sighed in anticipation as Ludo unzipped the fly of his trousers, pushed up the black clerical shirt, eased Father Liam’s already hard cock out of the
slit in his peacock-print silk boxers – the only touch of colour he allowed himself – worked up the juices in his mouth and then lowered his lips to the tip.
With the exemplary self-control that befitted a man of the cloth, not a sound escaped Father Liam’s lips as Ludo began to work his mouth up and down the curving cock, dancing his tongue,
as instructed, up and down the bulging vein. The priest’s hands clamped on the arms of the chair, the veins on their backs standing out too in relief against his pale Irish skin, blue and
prominent. He was maintaining silence for himself, not because he and Ludo felt the need to conceal what they were doing for other members of the club; Ludo was partially hidden by the big bronze
table, but anyone giving Father Liam more than the most fleeting of glances would have seen immediately from his wide-legged stance and expression of imminent ecstasy that this was a man in the
process of getting his cock thoroughly sucked.