Sins

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.

Chapter Nine

April 1957

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.’

She had seen that Josh was impressed but that he didn’t want to say so, so she went on lightly, ‘You’re going to have to come up with a name soon. I really like the way Vidal has called his salon simply Vidal Sassoon.’

‘Well, I suppose I could call mine Josh Simons,’ Josh had suggested.

From the sound of male voices now coming from the upstairs salon, it appeared that Josh and his photographer friend had already arrived. The salon, its walls also newly plastered, was still a bare empty space, apart from a folding card table and a pair of bentwood chairs so battered that Rose was inclined to believe Josh when he’d claimed to have rescued them from a skip.

She was so much happier working here than she was in the expensive Bond Street premises of her employer, Rose acknowledged. She loved the challenges that working within such a tight budget, and more importantly, creating something useful rather than merely decorative, were giving her. The contrast between working here and in the Bond Street showroom was making her increasingly aware of where her real ambitions lay and how unhappy she was. Given free choice, Rose suspected that she would have willingly switched now from studying interior design for the home to studying interior design for commercial premises, but there were at least two good reasons why she could not do that. The first and most important was that she knew that her aunt was looking to her to take over her business, and the second was that as far as Rose knew, there was no recognised ‘apprenticeship’ for someone wanting to specialise in commercial premises. It was true that some interior designers took on such projects–Oliver Messel, for instance–but they did not work exclusively in that area.

Working on Josh’s salon had opened her eyes to so much that she now wanted to learn more about. Commercial interior design wasn’t just about wallpaper, fabrics and the placement of furniture and art; there were important practicalities to be taken into consideration, such as the supplies of electricity and water, and the fact that often premises were leased and the landlord’s permission for any changes needed to be obtained, change of use approved, and so much more.

It was necessary for someone to be in charge of the various tradesmen Josh had found to work on the salon, and Rose had seen what an opportunity there was for someone to offer a service that oversaw everything from the initial design right through to its eventual completion. The thought of such a challenge made her feel dizzy with excitement, but she had a duty to her aunt, who had done so much for her and who she loved so much.

Earlier in the week Josh and Vidal had been engaged in an earnest discussion about the benefits of installing wash basins that enabled the clients to tilt their heads backwards into the basin instead of leaning forward.

‘Much easier for the juniors when they shampoo, and better for the clients, who won’t get their makeup smudged as well,’ Vidal had insisted, and Rose had been inclined to agree. ‘And don’t forget to make sure that you get a decent sound system installed and some cool music playing,’ Vidal had added.

Josh had already found ‘a friend’ who was looking around for four of these basins–at the right price, of course.

‘Here she is, Ollie,’ she heard Josh announcing as she walked into the salon. ‘Come and meet my interior designer. Rose, this is Ollie.’

The photographer was protectively nursing a Rolleiflex camera in one large hand, a bag slung over his shoulder, no doubt containing his tripod and other equipment. He was good-looking, if you liked the unkempt bad-boy type, Rose acknowledged as he reached out to shake her hand. He was also oddly familiar.

‘Haven’t we met somewhere before?’ he asked.

‘Yes,’ she agreed, ‘but I can’t remember where.’

‘I’ve got it.’ He snapped his fingers. ‘I hitched a ride in your taxi a few weeks back. You were with two other girls.’

‘Oh, yes, of course,’ Rose smiled. ‘Ella and Janey. We were on our way to the party where I met you, Josh.’

‘London’s a small world,’ Josh agreed. ‘Come and have a look at these photographs Ollie’s brought.’

Half an hour later, kneeling back on her heels as she crouched on the floor surrounded by the excellent photographs Oliver had produced for their inspection, Rose watched as Josh threw up his hands in despair.

‘No. They won’t do. No offence, Ollie, the photos are great, but the hair…’

They all looked at the assortment of stiff regulated hairstyles–beehives and backcombed, flicked ends all heavily lacquered.

‘What I want to do here in my salon is to follow Vidal’s example and work with hair in a new way, one that allows the hair to move and breathe and to look natural.’

When they both looked dubiously at him he told them, ‘Look, I’ll show you what I mean.’ He took hold of Rose’s hand, hauling her to her feet. ‘It’s time for me to cut that hair of yours, Rose. It’s been driving me mad with temptation to get to work on it.’

‘No, I don’t want it cut,’ Rose protested, her free hand going protectively to her neat French pleat.

‘Why not? What’s the point in keeping it long when it’s always screwed up in that pleat? I’m going to cut it, and that’s that. Come and sit here.’

He meant it, Rose realised weakly. He had been threatening to cut her hair ever since they’d met.

As Josh sat her down and swiftly removed the pins from her hair, letting it fall in a silky black sheet down her back, Rose was vaguely conscious of Ollie setting up his camera, but she was more concerned about her hair. She had never worn it loose, not since Amber’s great-grandmother had compared it to Emerald’s luxurious head of dark curls and had said how ugly it was, and now automatically she tensed as though half expecting a verbal blow, wanting to cover her hair from sight and yet unable to do so because Josh was brushing it and giving both her and Ollie a running commentary on what he was planning to do.

‘Just look at it, it’s like finding gold,’ he crooned.

‘Then why cut it off?’ Ollie asked as the shutter clicked and he moved round on the periphery of Rose’s vision.

‘Because gold is nothing in its raw state. It needs the eye and the hand of an expert to make it into something of beauty, which is exactly what I intend to do with Rose’s hair. The length of it makes it so heavy that it takes away all its natural movement and rhythm. It’s like trying to play jazz with a traditional orchestra: too much weight and tradition weighing down the magic of the music.’

Rose saw the light from the window flashing on the scissors Josh always carried with him.

‘No,’ she protested, but it was too late. Long black snakes of hair were covering the floor as she sat at Josh’s command with her head bent forward, her panic soothed in some odd way by the almost rhythmic sounds of the scissors and the camera, punctuated by the staccato bursts of questions and explanations exchanged by the two men.

‘Look at this,’ Josh was saying. ‘Look at how I’m freeing up the hair to move and swing. See how it comes to life.’

‘Are you sure you aren’t cutting it too short?’ was Ollie’s response as he moved the tripod round the back of her.

Rose wished she was in a traditional salon with a mirror in front of her so that she could see what was going on, instead of sitting here in this empty room, terrified about the end result of Josh’s endeavours.

‘Vogue are sending my boss to Venice to cover the high-society nightlife there, and she’s told me that she’s taking me with her.’

Ella didn’t try to keep the pride out of her voice as she relayed this information to her stepmother, who had arrived unexpectedly at the Chelsea house. As one of such a large family, Ella rarely got opportunity to have her stepmother to herself, and as the eldest child she always felt it her duty to step back and let the others claim Amber’s attention, especially the younger ones.

Now, though, with both Rose and Janey out, she didn’t attempt to hide her pleasure at having Amber’s undivided attention.

‘So you’re happy, then, at Vogue?’ Amber asked her proudly.

‘Yes, but I do wish now that I’d taken a course in proper journalism. I’d love to progress to writing articles about important things, not just new lipstick colours,’ she told Amber with a rueful look. ‘There’s so much happening now, and things are changing so much. Women aren’t just daughters or wives or mothers any more, they are real people doing real things.’

She looked and sounded so earnest that Amber was determined not to smile. She could imagine, though, what her grandmother, who had single-handedly run her own business and managed her own fortune for years, would have had to say to Ella’s naïve declaration.

What Ella had said was true in one sense, though. Modern young women were certainly taking for themselves far greater personal freedoms than her generation had ever had. Most observers put that down to the war and the fact that during those terrible years women had had to become far more independent, for the sake of the country.

‘Well, you certainly seem happy,’ Amber told Ella. ‘I’ve never known you be such a chatterbox. Working at Vogue suits you, Ella. It’s bringing you out of yourself.’

Ella smiled, but the real truth was that it was her diet pills that were making her more vivacious, as well as curbing her appetite. She had noticed how, within a short time of taking one, she was more inclined to start chattering. When she’d said as much to Libby, the other girl had told her that it was yet another benefit of Dr Williamson’s marvellous little pills that they gave a person so much extra energy. No one had noticed her weight loss yet, but then Ella didn’t particularly want them to. She was losing weight to prove that she could to herself. The last thing she wanted was Oliver Charters noticing and thinking totally the wrong thing, like she was doing it because she wanted to impress him. Because she wasn’t.

Amber’s real purpose in coming to London had been to discuss the final arrangements for Emerald’s ball with Beth, and to meet with Mr Melrose on Monday. The lawyer had telephoned her in an excited and agitated state late on Friday evening to tell her that he had had a telephone call from a young man who claimed to be the lost heir to the dukedom. This young man was meeting with Mr Melrose on Monday and he had asked Amber if she would be kind enough to be there.

‘But I know nothing of Robert’s Australian family,’ she had protested.

However, the lawyer had begged her to attend, saying that he would appreciate her views on the young man and adding that he felt that if he was the duke then it would ease his passage in society if he could have some support from her as Robert’s widow.

Since Jay wasn’t going to be at home, having agreed to go and look at a combine harvester the estate manager wanted him to buy, Amber had decided that she might as well spend the weekend in London catching up with her family, and checking that Emerald was not abusing her friend Beth’s somewhat indolent chaperonage. Beth was a wonderfully kind godmother to Emerald but Amber was sure she let her get away with murder.

Her first port of call on her arrival in London had been Eaton Square, where she had left her case and learned from the housekeeper that Beth and the girls were out, so she had then taken a cab to Chelsea, to find that only her eldest stepdaughter was at home.

‘And Janey and Rose are well and happy?’ Amber asked with concern.