PENNY JORDAN - Silk

‘But she must have known? I mean, everyone knows that Barrant de Vries is obscenely proud.’

‘Well, yes, I don’t doubt she did, but she was a great beauty, of course, and Great-grandfather was pretty well-to-do. I’d wager she convinced herself that she would land him. She was accepted socially by the county set, from what I’ve been told, and that must have made her think that she stood a good chance of becoming Barrant’s wife.’

‘The county set?’ Amber queried. ‘Like the Fitton Leghs and the Bromley Davenports?’

‘Well, the Bromley Davenports, certainly; I’m not so sure about the Fitton Leghs, seeing as Barrant de Vries eventually married a Fitton Legh.’

‘But Grandmother socialises with the Dowager Marchioness of Cholmondeley now. They are on the same charitable committees, and—’

‘There is a vast difference, my dear Amber, between socialising with a person and allowing them to marry into one’s family,’ Greg told Amber in such a good imitation of their grandmother’s voice and manner that Amber couldn’t help but smile.

‘One day Grandmother will hear you doing that and then you’ll be in trouble.’

‘You’ll be the one in trouble if you go downstairs talking about art school.’

‘But I still can’t see what Barrant de Vries not wanting to marry Grandmother has to do with her wanting me to be presented, Greg.’

‘Well, you should. She’s not the kind to forget a slight or an insult, is she?’

Amber shook her head. What Greg was saying was true. Their grandmother could be ruthless when it suited her. She had certainly never forgiven Amber’s own mother for marrying Amber’s father against her wishes.

Amber gave a small shiver.

‘Knowing what I do now, it’s my belief that Grandmother only bought this estate because it’s right next to the de Vrieses’ lands, and to let Barrant de Vries know that she owns more land and a bigger house than he does,’ Greg went on. ‘She’s even employing his grandson as her estate manager. It’s her way of humiliating Barrant for humiliating her . Everyone knows that Barrant de Vries lost virtually everything after the war, including his only son – who died without producing an heir. But that’s not enough for Grandmother, Amber. She wants us to get for her what she could not get for herself. Especially you. I cannot, after all, marry a title, but you can. The war has beggared any number of aristocratic families. You only have to think of how many of them are marrying off their sons to the daughters of American millionaires to know that.’

Amber did know it. After all, their neighbour, Lord Fitton Legh, had married an American heiress the previous year, and it was widely accepted that the marriage had been brokered to provide him with money and the bride with a title.

As though he had read her mind Greg teased her, ‘You should think yourself lucky that Grandmother obviously didn’t think the Fitton Legh title good enough. But then, of course she’ll want one that outranks the de Vries title, you can bet on that, and that’s why she’ll want you to be presented at court.’

Before Amber could say anything Greg went on, ‘Grandmother may have the money to buy a title for you, but it ain’t that easy. What I mean is, you’ll need to be mixing with the right people, and you can’t do that unless you’ve got the right credentials, and for a girl that means a court presentation. What Grandmother wants is a granddaughter who will have a title far, far better than the one that Barrant de Vries denied her, and that she can flaunt in front of everyone who laughed at her behind her back when Barrant rejected her.’

It was almost too much for Amber to take in.

‘Greg, please don’t say things like that. It isn’t nice,’ she begged her cousin. ‘I know you like to play jokes on me but—’

‘Amber, I’m not joking.’

‘Has Grandmother told you that this is the case?’

‘No.’

‘So you’re just guessing, Greg. I’m sure you’re wrong. For one thing—’

‘I’m not wrong, Amber. If you must have the truth I happened to be outside her study when she was talking to Jay Fulshawe about it. Something to do with making a payment to some Lady somebody or other to bring you out.’

‘ Jay knows?’ It seemed like a double betrayal. She liked Jay, and had even felt sorry for him, obliged to work so very hard for her grandmother, whilst Greg, who had been at Eton with him, enjoyed a life of leisure.

Amber had to sit down, she was trembling so much. It couldn’t be true. It mustn’t be true.

‘I don’t want a titled husband. I don’t want to get married yet and when I do—’

‘It’s what Grandmother wants that counts. Not what we want.’

Greg wasn’t joking now. In fact he looked more serious than Amber could ever remember seeing him before.

‘There’s no doubt about that,’ he warned her. ‘She always gets what she wants.’ He looked at her and smiled wryly. ‘Remember the way she got this house and the estate. Lord Talbot’s trustees didn’t really want to sell Denham Place to her, but in the end they had no choice, not with the death duties the estate had to pay after Lord Talbot died without an heir.’

Greg’s mention of Denham Place momentarily diverted Amber. She loved the beautiful Vanbrugh-designed house, with its classical lines and its famously elegant row of rooms on the first floor. Not that Denham would ever be hers.

‘Denham is beautiful, Greg,’ she told her cousin dreamily. ‘It’s supposed to be among Vanbrugh’s own favourites, even though it’s one of the smallest houses he designed.’

Greg shrugged. He wasn’t in the least bit interested in architecture or design.

The clock struck three. ‘Grandmother will be waiting for you.’

And Greg had an appointment to keep, although the truth of the matter was that he was not so sure that he really wanted to keep it. What had begun as exciting had recently started to become burdensome. Greg didn’t particularly care for intense emotions, and he certainly did not like tearful scenes, but the devil of it was that he was now in a situation from which he was finding it damnably difficult to extricate himself.

Given half a chance he would have leaped at the opportunity to go to London, with its private supper clubs and the louche living available to those of privilege. Drinking, gambling, flirting with pretty women who knew the rules of the game – these were far more to his taste than dull meetings with members of the local Conservative Party committee.

Maybe his grandmother could be persuaded that, as a loving older cousin, he would dutifully pay the occasional visit to London to keep a protective eye on Amber.

Chapter Two

Blanche Pickford surveyed her granddaughter critically. At seventeen Amber was showing the promise of great beauty. She was only of medium height, but she was slender and fine-boned, with an elegant neck and porcelain skin. Her face, once it lost the last roundness of girlhood, would be perfectly heart-shaped, with her eyes widely spaced and thickly lashed.

Blanche had not been pleased when her daughter – no doubt influenced by her husband – had announced that her child was to be named Amber, which Blanche had thought far too exotic. It was a tradition of the family that its daughters were given names that reflected the colours of silks. But there was no denying the fact that the girl’s eyes were indeed the honey-gold colour of that precious resin.

Amber’s straight nose and the curve of her lips, like her blonde curls, almost exactly mirrored Blanche’s own looks at Amber’s age, but as yet there was no sign in her granddaughter of the smouldering sensuality that she herself had possessed at seventeen – nor any sense of the power of such a gift. By temperament Amber was kind and gentle; weak , where she had always been so very strong, thought Blanche critically. There was no fire to her, no passion, but that didn’t matter. It wasn’t passion or sensuality on which the kind of marriage she wanted for her granddaughter was brokered. Quite the opposite.