Sins

He was laughing to show that he was only joking, so Rose smiled too.

‘Me and Vidal both worked for Raymond, Mr Teasy Weasy,’ he explained to Rose. ‘You’ll have heard of him?’

Rose nodded. Raymond was one of London’s best known society hairdressers.

‘Tell me all about him…’ she said.

Ella was longing for the evening to be over. Not because of the smoke-filled air that was stinging her eyes, or because she was tired, but because for the last five minutes Janey had been sitting in a dark corner of the room with a decidedly louche-looking dishevelled type, whom she was snogging for all she was worth, and who right now had his hand on her mohair-covered breast.

Ella was filled with anxiety and misery. She wanted desperately to go over and put an end to what was going on but at the same time she didn’t want to do anything that would draw attention to her sister’s reckless behaviour.

Meanwhile, Janey felt bitterly disappointed. She’d waited and waited for Dan to arrive, but he hadn’t done, and then she’d heard one of the girls from a theatrical school in Markham Square saying that Dan and some of the others from their crowd had gone to Soho to a new jazz club instead of coming to the party. And then Larry had pounced on her and she was trapped with him now, because she hadn’t had the heart to say ‘no’ when he had looked so pleased to see her. She’d been so excited about the party but it was turning out to be anything but enjoyable. Larry’s breath smelled of beer, and being kissed by him wasn’t a bit like being kissed by Dan, and she wished she hadn’t got involved with him.

Dougie didn’t quite know what to do. He knew what he wanted to do, of course. The pretty little actress hadn’t shown–not that Dougie was too disappointed; there were plenty of other equally pretty girls here, after all–and, more importantly, they were here: the three girls who could tell him so much that he didn’t yet know about the dukedom, and the duchess’s feelings about someone taking what should have been her own son’s place.

Although Dougie understood all about the law of primogeniture, he still felt uncomfortable about stepping into shoes that should belong to someone else, especially when he was pretty sure that they weren’t going to fit him or be his style. There was a big difference between the dusty boots worn by outback stockmen and the laced-up brogues and polished leather shoes of the British aristocrat.

The three girls could give him an insight into how things were that he could never get from anyone else. It was a golden opportunity and he’d be a fool to let it go to waste.

He looked round for Janey. She’d been the friendliest of the three, but the only member of the trio he could see was Ella. She was standing on her own.

He hesitated and then plunged through the crowd towards her before he could change his mind.

‘Cigarette?’ he said, quickly wiping his now damp palm against his pocket as he offered her the pack, and then apologised, red-faced with embarrassment when it nearly slipped out of his hand.

His obvious gaucheness had the effect of both disarming Ella and arousing her sympathy. He was so big that it was no wonder he was clumsy. Although normally she would have refused the offered cigarette, she accepted it instead, giving him a smile that, although she didn’t know it, filled Dougie with relief. He’d been half expecting that she’d cold-shoulder him.

‘I still haven’t got the hang of doing this,’ he admitted ruefully when he had finally managed to tap out a cigarette for her. His awkwardness helped Ella to relax and drop her guard.

‘Didn’t you smoke before you came to England?’ she asked.

‘Oh, yes, but not these. We rolled our own, on the sheep station. It’s cheaper.’

Ella’s sympathy for him grew. He might be good-looking but he was as out of place at the party as she was. His obvious discomfort brought out her ‘big sister’ protective instinct. She suspected he felt a bit out of his depth in London.

‘You must miss Australia,’ she guessed.

Dougie felt some of his tension ease. She was more sympathetic than he had expected.

‘It’s different here, and sometimes that does make me feel a bit out of things,’ he admitted truthfully. Another couple of minutes and she’d have smoked her cigarette and he’d have lost the opportunity he had created. Dare he ask her what he wanted to ask her? And if he did, would she walk off in disgust? There was only one way to find out. He took a deep breath.

‘You looked a bit put out earlier when I mentioned Em—Lady Emerald, but she’s your sister, right? I get a bit confused with your English setup with titles.’

‘Stepsister,’ Ella corrected him. ‘Emerald’s mother is married to my and Janey’s father. They were each married before, our father to our mother, and Emerald’s mother to the duke, which is how Emerald gets her title.’

‘So that makes Emerald’s mother a duchess, and in time that will mean that your stepsister will be a duchess as well?’ Of course Dougie knew that was not the case, but there was something he was desperate to know.

Normally people simply did not ask that kind of question, but Ella couldn’t help but take pity on the young Australian. There was something engaging about him, something friendly and, well, safe. He reminded Ella in an odd sort of way of a large, well-meaning but clumsy dog. It wasn’t his fault that he didn’t know any better. He was from overseas after all, and allowances had to be made.

Taking a deep breath she corrected him firmly, ‘No, Emerald can never be a duchess, unless of course she married a duke. The title descends through the male line, you see.’

‘I get it,’ Dougie answered truthfully, fighting the superstitious temptation to cross his fingers as he asked his all-important question as casually as he could. ‘So who is the duke then?’

‘We don’t know. You see, both Emerald’s father and her brother were killed in the same accident, and Lord Robert, Emerald’s father, was an only child. The family solicitor thinks that he’s traced someone who might be the heir, but he’s still waiting to hear back from him–that’s if he is the right man, and he’s still alive.’

Circumspect as always, Ella didn’t want to say too much to Dougie, although of course she knew that the family solicitor was desperately trying to make contact with the new heir.

‘I dare say your stepmother isn’t too keen on having some stranger take what should have been her son’s place,’ Dougie suggested, trying not to feel too guilty about his deceit.

‘No, that’s not the case at all,’ Ella defended her stepmother vehemently. ‘Quite the opposite. Mama just isn’t like that. She desperately wants there to be an heir, because otherwise the title will die out and the estate will be broken up, and she says that Lord Robert would have hated that. It was so awful what happened, Lord Robert and Luc being killed in a car accident.’

‘You knew them?’

‘Yes. They used to come and visit Mama’s grandmother. My father was her estate manager. I was only young, of course, but I can remember them. Mama says that only when the dukedom has been passed on to a new heir will she be able to feel that Lord Robert is finally at peace.’

‘So you reckon, then, that this heir, whoever he is, would be welcomed by the duchess?’

‘I’m sure of it,’ Ella confirmed, adding, ‘I’m not so sure that Emerald would welcome him, though. She’s planning to have her coming-out ball at the house in Eaton Square, which really belongs to the duke. Mama didn’t want her to but Emerald always manages to get her own way.’

‘I dare say the estate is pretty run down, there not being an heir?’ Dougie probed further.

‘Oh, no,’ Ella assured him firmly. ‘Mama is a trustee, along with Mr Melrose, the family solicitor, and although Osterby–that’s the main house in the country–is shut up and not used, there’s a skeleton staff there to keep everything in order and there’s an estate manager to take care of the land.’

‘Strewth, that must be costing someone a bob or two,’ Dougie commented.

‘Well, the money comes out of the estate itself. The duke was very rich, and Mama says that everything must be kept in order whilst there’s the slightest hope of finding the heir so that it can be handed over to him as Robert would have wanted it to be.’

‘Emerald will feel her nose has been put out of joint then, won’t she, if some heir arrives and then she gets nothing?’

‘Emerald couldn’t have inherited the estate–it’s entailed–and besides, her father set up a very generous trust fund for her.’

‘So she’s a rich heiress then, is she?’

‘I expect she will be one day.’

‘And you don’t mind?’

‘No. Not at all.’

Ella might understand that Australians did not know any better than to ask the kind of questions that were normally taboo but she drew the line at informing Dougie that her stepmother was independently wealthy, and that none of them had any need to feel envious of Emerald, in any way.

Ella knew that she should not have said as much as she already had, but the truth was that talking about Emerald helped to keep her mind off her anxiety over Janey, who was still locked in an embrace in the corner. Now when Ella looked she could see that the dishevelled one’s hand had disappeared up inside Janey’s jumper. She opened her mouth in shock and the small anxious sound she made had Dougie looking in the same direction.

‘Looks like someone is enjoying the party,’ he chuckled, offering Ella another cigarette.

‘I’m sorry. Please excuse me.’

Ella was obviously flustered. Her set expression and pale face indicated how alarmed she was by her sister’s behaviour, and Dougie wasn’t really surprised by her obvious desire to do something about it.

How awful of her to be so rude, but she had to stop what was going on, Ella comforted herself as she hurried over to her sister. She came to a halt, standing determinedly in front of Janey.

‘It’s time for us to go, Janey.’

Janey, who had been struggling to stop Larry’s hands from roving far more intimately over her body than she welcomed, greeted her sister’s arrival with relief–not that she intended to let Ella know that–and extracted herself from his embrace.

‘Where’s Rose?’ she asked Ella.

The honest answer was that Ella didn’t know, but she could hardly say that unless she wanted to risk Janey accusing her of pretending she wanted to leave. The last thing she wanted was a row with Janey, which would result in her impetuous sister going straight back to the man Ella had just prised her away from.

To her relief Janey announced, ‘Oh, there she is, over there.’

‘Look, I meant what I said about wanting you to come and take a look at my salon,’ Josh was saying to Rose.

There was more space around them now and she had been able to step back from him. She started to shake her head, but he stopped her, reaching into his pocket and producing a business card with a theatrical flourish.

‘Here’s my card. Think about it.’

Rose could see Ella beckoning her urgently, Janey beside her, so she took the card and slipped it into her handbag.

‘I must go,’ she stammered hurriedly, before making her way to Ella’s side.

‘Look, leave it out, will you, Ollie? I know what I’m doing.’

The stubborn look on his cousin’s face as he pulled his arm free of Oliver’s restraining hand told Oliver all he needed to know about Willie’s frame of mind.

They were in their local East End pub, the Royal Crown, standing at the bar with their beers.

‘I thought like you meself once, Willie. In fact I was all for making meself a career in the boxing ring, but then I got to thinking—’

‘You mean that your ma got to thinking for you,’ Willie interrupted him. ‘Well, I’m not being told what to do by you, Ollie. Harry Malcolms reckons I’ve got a good future ahead of me, and that there’s bin talk of either the Richardsons or the Krays tekkin’ an interest.’

The mention of two of the East End’s most notorious gangs made Oliver frown.

‘If you go down that route you’ll be expected to throw matches as well as win them, Willie,’ he warned.

His cousin gave a dismissive shrug. ‘It’s only them lads that aren’t good enough that get told to lose, and that ain’t going to happen to me. Reggie came down to watch me sparring the other night, and he wouldn’t do that if he didn’t fink he wanted me on board.’

Willie might think he had what it took to make the big time but Oliver had asked around and the word on the street was that he was more boxing ring fodder than a future champion, and would end up merely as a sparring partner for more skilled boxers, working for a pittance in a boxing club rather than earning big money in prize fights.

The trouble with Willie was that he was easily led and just as easily deceived.

‘You’re a fool, Willie,’ Oliver complained, beginning to lose patience. ‘Throw in your lot with them and my bet is that you’ll end up with your brains turned to jelly, or working as one of their enforcers.’

‘You’re just jealous,’ Willie accused him, his cheeks flushed. ‘You know what your problem is, don’t you? It’s that mother of yours. My dad reckons—’ He broke off suddenly, looking self-conscious and scuffing his shoe on the ground.

Oliver froze. This wasn’t the first time there’d been dark hints thrown out about his mother.

‘Go on, Willie. Your dad reckons what exactly?’ he challenged, his voice hard.

‘Oh, leave it out, will you, Ollie? I didn’t mean nothing. It’s just that your ma always carries on like nothing’s good enough for her. Me ma reckons that it’s rich, her coming on the way she does when she works as a ruddy cleaner, but me dad—’

He broke off again, his face reddening whilst Oliver’s mouth compressed into a thin line of fury.

He should be used to it by now. After all, he’d pretty much grown up shrugging off the whispers and sly looks that people exchanged when they talked about his mother. The gossips whispered that the rich widower for whom she cleaned was responsible for her good figure and her smart appearance.

Oliver scowled. He was no stranger to the pleasure of sex–far from it–but the thought of his mother tarting herself up for her wealthy boss wasn’t one that sat comfortably with him, and all the more so because of the benefits that had come his way over the years, courtesy of Herbert Sawyer.

He bunched his fist and then slowly and deliberately relaxed it. He hadn’t come here to get involved in a fight with his younger cousin–or anyone else, for that matter. He’d left all that business behind long ago.

‘Please yourself,’ he told his cousin, putting down his beer glass, ‘but don’t come crying to me when you’re standing in the dock about to be sent down because you’ve used them fists of yours on someone you shouldn’t on Reggie Kray’s orders.’

‘Give over, Ollie. Come on, let’s have another drink,’ Willie tried to appease him.

Oliver looked round the bar. He wasn’t really in the mood for the kind of drinking session that Willie no doubt had in mind.

Before he could reply, the door from the street opened and a group of men came in, Reggie Kray in their midst. He was dressed in the dapper fashion he favoured, a cigarette dangling from his lips.

Automatically Willie stepped back–no one stood in the way of the Krays–lowering his head, almost as though in obeisance.

Reggie stopped, causing the enforcers behind him to trip over their own crepe-soled brothel creepers in their efforts not to bump into ‘the boss’. It wasn’t Willie Reggie stopped in front of, though, but Oliver.

‘Saw that photograph you took of me and Ronnie,’ he announced, drawing deeply on his cigarette and then exhaling before adding, ‘Smart piece of work. Me and Ronnie liked it. Next time, though, make sure you get some bits of smart upper-crust skirt in as well, not them old dames.’

Without taking his gaze from Oliver he called out to the barman, ‘Alf, give my friend here a drink.’ Then he continued, ‘Mind you, there’s to be no photograph taking in here, mate, understand?’

Oliver certainly did. The pub was a seedy dive where the Krays came to talk business, not flash their East End smartness for public view. Like rats coming up from the sewers, those with whom the Krays did business often preferred to conduct that business under the cover of darkness.

Chapter Six

Paris

Emerald arched her foot, the better to admire the elegance of her new Italian leather shoes, and the slenderness of her legs in their Dior silk stockings. This time next week she would be back in London, and she couldn’t wait. The Dior dress she had been coveting, and which she suspected her mother would not have permitted her to have, on the grounds that it was too grown up, was safely packed ready to be taken back with her. By the time her mother got the bill it would be too late for her to do anything about it. She certainly couldn’t send it back as the couture gown had been made especially for her.

Emerald had known she had to have it the minute she had seen it at the autumn season’s show. She would wear it for the formal official photographs that would celebrate the announcement of her engagement to the Duke of Kent. His mother, Princess Marina, was well known for being stylish and elegant. Emerald intended to make it plain that, in future, as the new Duchess of Kent, she would be the most stylish and elegant member of the extended Royal Family. Emerald intended to be a very popular duchess.

With her future all mapped out and waiting for her, Emerald was impatient to put her plans into action. She planned to make sure that she encouraged the duke to fall in love with her from the minute they were introduced. The official purpose of being finished might be to equip girls with good social skills, but Emerald had been using her time in Paris to hone skills that she felt would be far more use to her than conversational French.

Today she was going to polish those skills a little more, having managed to escape from under Madame la Comtesse’s eagle eye. She smiled triumphantly to herself, but then frowned.

Trust nosy Gwendolyn to insist on coming with her, and dragging Lydia along as well. It served them right that they were looking so uncomfortable. Emerald was enjoying herself, though, basking in the admiration of the four young men seated at the table with them in the artistic quarter of Montmartre. But it was the solitary older man sitting close by, reading his newspaper, in whom Emerald was more interested, and for whose benefit she had just been admiring her silk-stocking-clad legs. Narrow-faced, with his dark hair just beginning to grey, there was something about him that sent a shiver of anticipation and expectation through her. Instinctively Emerald knew that he was the kind who knew a very great deal about her sex, the kind of man any woman would be proud to have as a conquest, the kind of man it would be a challenge to turn into a devoted admirer, unlike the four boys, who were making it plain that they were ready to adore her. Emerald liked older men, or rather a certain kind of older man–not ones like Gwendolyn’s revolting father. It excited her when they flirted with her, hinting deliciously about improper pleasures.

Emerald hadn’t had a lover yet–she couldn’t risk the scandal. And she would certainly never be tempted to let boys take liberties or go too far. She was far too well aware of her value as an ‘unspoiled’ virgin to do that. But if she did take a lover, it would have to be one who knew what he was doing, not some silly boy. That couldn’t happen until after she was married to the duke, of course. Some girls thought it was old-fashioned to hang on to their virginity but Emerald didn’t agree; they were the kind of girls who would probably be happy with any kind of husband, whereas she only wanted the best.

The young men they were with were students at the Sorbonne, or so they had said when, earlier in the week, she had dropped her purse in the Bois de Boulogne and one of them had picked it up for her.

She had agreed to meet them on impulse. After all, she had no intentions of doing anything that might render her unfit to become the wife of the Duke of Kent, but it amused her to see Gwennie looking all bug-eyed and mutinous, as though the act of enjoying a cup of coffee in a café was something akin to taking up residence in a brothel. Emerald liked knowing that Gwennie felt uncomfortable. How silly she was. Did she really think that any man would look at her whilst she, Emerald, was there?

‘I really don’t think you should have brought us here, Emerald,’ Gwendolyn was muttering.

‘I didn’t bring you, you insisted on coming with me,’ Emerald pointed out, opening her gold cigarette case, with its inlaid semi-precious stones the exact colour of her eyes–another new purchase from a jewellers on the Faubourg St-Honoré, and removing one of the prettily coloured Sobranie cigarettes.

Immediately all four young men produced cigarette lighters. Really, it was almost like one of those advertisements one saw in Vogue, Emerald thought. How silly and immature Lydia and Gwendolyn looked, both of them plain and lumpen. Emerald smoothed down the hem of her black wool frock, allowing her fingertips to rest deliberately on her sheer-stocking-clad legs. She would hate to be as plain as Gwennie. She would rather be dead.

She allowed the best-looking of the four boys to light her cigarette, and laughed when he caught hold of her free hand and brought it to his lips. French boys were such flirts and so charming. Charming, but not, of course, dukes.

Emerald removed her hand, and announced with insincere regret, ‘We really must go.’

‘I’m going to have to tell the comtesse what you’ve done,’ Gwendolyn announced self-righteously as they made their way back.

‘I haven’t done anything,’ Emerald denied.

‘Yes, you have. You met those boys and you let one of them kiss you. You do know, don’t you, that something like that could ruin your reputation, and bring shame on your whole family?’

Emerald stopped dead in the middle of the pavement, causing the other two girls to stop as well.

‘I wouldn’t be quite so keen to talk about tale-telling, people’s reputations being ruined, and shame being brought on their family, if I were you, Gwendolyn. Not in your shoes.’

The words, spoken with such a quiet, almost a deadly conviction, caused Lydia to look anxious, whilst Gwendolyn declared primly, ‘What do you mean, in my shoes? I haven’t done anything wrong.’

‘You may not have done.’ Emerald paused. ‘Your father is very fond of pretty girls, isn’t he, Gwendolyn?’

Gwendolyn’s face began to burn a miserable bright red.

‘Did I tell you that I saw him coming out of a shop in the Faubourg St-Honoré with a very pretty girl on his arm? No, I don’t think I did, did I? But then you see, Gwendolyn, I am not a nasty little sneak, like some people I could name. I wonder what would happen to your reputation if people knew that your father has a common little showgirl for a mistress?’

‘That’s not true,’ Gwendolyn shouted, panic-stricken and almost in tears. Lydia gave Emerald an anguished look that implored her to stop, but Emerald ignored it. Gwendolyn, with her holier-than-thou attitude and her determination to get Emerald into trouble, deserved to be put in her place.

‘Yes it is. Your father is an adulterer, Gwendolyn. He has broken his marriage vows to your mother.’

‘No.’ Gwendolyn’s mouth was trembling, her face screwed up like a pig’s, Emerald thought unkindly, as she gulped and snivelled, ‘You’re lying. And I won’t let you say things like that.’

Emerald smiled mockingly. ‘Am I? Then I’m lying too about your father trying to put his hand up my skirt and kiss me as well, am I?’

Lydia piped up naïvely, ‘Oh, I’m sure Uncle Henry didn’t mean anything by it, Emerald. He kissed me the last time I saw him.’

Gwendolyn’s face went from scarlet to a blotchy red and white.