I have a feeling I’m not going to enjoy this engagement party. For one thing, the bride hates me, and for another, I can barely breathe in these Spanx. They’re so clingy. But they also help me feel good in this ridiculously expensive dress that I bought earlier today. Lady Meade had emailed me with the details of the engagement party, apologizing for the lack of a formal paper invitation: it was at 7:00 P.M. in the Grand Ballroom of the five-star luxury hotel the Rosewood, London, dress code black tie.
I’ve attended black-tie events before, including black-tie weddings, so I had options in my wardrobe, but I felt that for this occasion I had to go all out. As soon as I’d got through all my emails this morning, I called Cara and asked her to come shopping with me on her lunch break.
“So, why exactly do you need to buy a new dress for this engagement party?” she asked, waiting for me in the changing room of a gorgeous, much-too-expensive boutique she had suggested. “You’ve been to a hundred before.”
“Not like this one,” I replied, stepping into a sparkly sequin dress and fiddling with the zipper. “The client is going big.”
I wish I could tell Cara that the client is Lady Cordelia Swann, but I’ve signed the NDA. Cara would go crazy if she found out—when she was sixteen, she tried to copy Cordelia and Lady Annabel, who were photographed together at Ascot with matching newly dyed bright red hair. Cara bought a cheap bottle of dye and turned her hair a bizarre neon orange. “It said ‘red’ on the bottle!” she wailed.
“It also cost ninety-five pence,” her mum pointed out.
I smile to myself, thinking back on that, and how Cara would react if I told her that I have now met Lady Cordelia Swann and I can confirm that she is the absolute worst and last person in the world anyone should copy.
“What do you think?” I asked, stepping out in the dress.
Cara jumped. “Bloody hell. You almost blinded me.”
“With my beauty?”
“With the fuckload of sequins. Get that thing off before my retinas are burned beyond repair. Put on the black one I picked out, the one with the high neck,” she instructed.
“I suppose it’s a bit too attention-grabbing,” I agreed, ducking back behind the curtain.
“You’d blind the guests and your new client would sue.”
A few minutes later, I emerged in Cara’s pick and her face lit up. We both agreed it was perfect. Classy, elegant, and simple enough to blend in. I paired it with heels I already owned (the dress was floor-length, so they couldn’t really be seen anyway), a black and gold clutch bag, and the gold dangling earrings Nisha had given me. I booked a last-minute blow-dry and spent about an hour getting my eyeliner just right.
Just as I’d been about to leave, my phone started ringing.
“Hi, Mum,” I said, looking at the back of my dress in the mirror to double-check that the Spanx line—so high it was just below my boobs—wasn’t visible.
“Hi, darling, just checking in! How are you?”
“I’m heading out the door to a party. Can I call tomorrow?”
“Oh, wonderful! A party! I’m glad you’re keeping busy. You deserve some fun!”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I said, picking up my clutch.
“You know, after Daniel’s wedding invitation.”
“Oh. That.” I glanced into my office (cupboard) and saw it on the desk, still unanswered. “Yeah, I’m fine.”
“Your dad is furious. He says it was cruel of him to invite you and that you’re much better off without him.”
“Tell Dad thanks. Anyway, I think my taxi’s here, so I’d better go.”
“Have fun!” she trilled. “You never know who you’ll meet!”
As the taxi pulls up to the Rosewood, I check my dress and take some deep breaths, glancing out of the window at the beautiful hotel ahead. That’s when I see them: a horde of reporters clambering over one another to get closer to the iron gates of the archway entrance to the hotel courtyard. Word must have got out about the party.
“Wait!” I cry to the taxi driver as he gets closer. “Don’t stop, you need to go round the back or something. Keep going.”
I absolutely cannot have my picture taken in the lead-up to this wedding. If I was photographed with Lady Cordelia or going into her party and that was online somewhere, there was a chance that someone who knows me might spot it and be a tad confused when I was captioned as Emily Taylor.
“Round the back?” He frowns into the rearview mirror.
“Yes.”
“But the entrance to the hotel is here.”
“I can’t be seen by those photographers, so I’ll have to find another way in.”
He raises his eyebrows as we drive past the hotel and turn left to go round it. “Are you famous or something?”
“No! I’m nobody.”
“Sure.” He taps his nose. “Don’t worry, love, you can trust me. Are you that actress from the film with the dog?”
“No,” I reply, distracted by trying to spot another door into the hotel.
“I know! It’s the one set on the farm with What’s-his-name!” His eyes widen in excitement. “Hey, your accent was really good.”
“Thank you. I’ll hop out here,” I say, noticing an open loading-bay door with a van pulling into it.
“Sorry your marriage to that old guy didn’t work out,” the taxi driver says, as I attempt to slide out as elegantly as possible in my dress. “Next time, eh?”
I smile graciously at him and shut the door, making a note to check out all films set on a farm tomorrow to work out who the hell he thought I was, before I totter down the pavement toward the loading bay, holding up my dress carefully.
“Good evening! Don’t mind me!” I say cheerily, waving my clutch, when I receive a strange look from the man waiting to unload crates from the van. “Ah, hold the door!”
A hotel porter pushing a large trolley comes barreling through and looks startled at my cry, before he moves the trolley aside to open the door for me. I dodge the random bits of litter and lettuce leaves scattered across the sloped concrete and reach him without falling flat on my face.
“You know there’s a main entrance round the other side, right?” he says, after I thank him.
“Is there? Oh, well, I’m here now! Thanks again.”
I hear him chuckling as the door closes behind me and I make my way along the corridor. It’s dimly lit by strip lights and has several doors leading off it to what I assume must be mostly storage and laundry rooms. I reach the end and have the option of branching off to the left or the right, or through a set of double doors straight ahead. I stand and deliberate for a moment, then decide to go straight.
“Watch yourself!”
I slam myself back against the doors I’ve just come through, narrowly dodging someone carrying a tray of full gravy boats. I’ve walked into the kitchen.
I put a hand against my heart and exhale, imagining what might have been. Showing up to Lady Cordelia Swann’s engagement party covered with gravy stains wouldn’t have been a good look.
“Excuse me, are you lost?”
A young chef chopping herbs is watching me in amusement. I smile apologetically at her.
“Yes! I’m supposed to be upstairs in the hotel.”
“Yeah, you haven’t exactly dressed for the kitchen.” She nods to a door on the other side of the room, wiping her hands on her apron. “Come on, I’ll show you the way.”
“Thank you!”
“Which waiter brought you down for the tour and left you?”
“Excuse me?”
“The waiter who, after your meal, invited you to see the kitchen. They shouldn’t abandon you here. Who was it? I’ll have a word.”
“Oh, it was no one. I came here myself,” I say, trying not to get distracted by the goings-on in the kitchen. It takes all of my willpower to follow her and not the pastry chef, who marches by with a tray full of freshly baked custard tarts.
She glances back at me over her shoulder. “If you say so. I hope you enjoy the rest of your evening. Through these doors and straight up those stairs. You’ll find yourself back in the dining room.”
I thank her and head to the top of the stairs, the atmosphere shifting as I go from the loud, stressful, busy kitchen to the calm, serene dining area, piano keys tinkling in the background. I walk round the tables and along the bar, trying to look as though I know where I’m going. If I don’t find my way to the Grand Ballroom sharpish, I’m going to be late. Lady Meade asked me specifically to be on time.
With a fresh sense of urgency, I burst out of the restaurant and run straight into the back of someone, sending him stumbling forward.
“I’m so sorry!” I gasp, before he turns round to see who barged into him and almost knocked the champagne glass out of his hand. He does a double take.
“Emily?”
“Lord Dashwell! Oh, my God, hi!”
Of course I had to knock into him. It had to be the hot brother, who is heir to half the country or whatever. It couldn’t have been a random stranger staying in the hotel whom I’d never see again.
“I’m so sorry,” I say, my cheeks burning. “Are you OK?”
“I’ll survive,” he replies. “Please don’t call me Lord Dashwell—it makes me sound two hundred years old. It’s Tom.”
“Right, sorry. Tom.”
“It’s nice to see you again. You look great.”
“Thanks. You too!”
Which, of course, he does. His hair is still tousled, but in a styled way this time, and every man looks good in a tux.
(Actually, apart from that guy, Kem, in my sixth form, who wore a tux that was much too small for him to our prom. One of the buttons of his shirt popped off on the dance floor midway through “Summer Lovin’” and hit a girl in the eye.)
“Did you eat here before the party?” he asks, looking over my shoulder and into the restaurant. “Or come here for a drink at the bar before it all begins? The calm before the storm, as it were.”
“A drink,” I reply hurriedly, thanking him for a perfect answer. “I had some work stuff to tie up, and I didn’t want to be on my phone in the party.”
He laughs. “Right. I suppose you know about the time Cordelia threw that guy’s phone out the window when he wasn’t listening. She’s lucky it missed that goose. Would have taken it out.”
“Oh, yeah.” I’m laughing along. “That is a hilarious story. She’s so funny!”
Must keep phone hidden at all times. Cordelia is a PSYCHO.
“Anyway, we should probably get to the party. Do you know where the Grand Ballroom is by any chance?” I ask. “Or were you waiting here for someone?”
“I was just trying to phone a friend of mine to see where she was,” he explains, holding up his phone. “She likes to be fashionably late.”
“Oh, right.” I smile, leaving him to it. “I’ll see you in there.”
“I can come with you and show you the way,” he says, putting his phone away and falling into step with me.
“No, please don’t worry! You should wait here for your date. I’m sure I can find it myself.”
“It’s all right.” He shrugs, opening a set of doors as we turn the corner onto another corridor. “I don’t want Cordelia to think I’ve gone missing from her party. And she’s not my date. By the way, how’s your loo situation?”
“Excuse me?” I reply, horrified.
“The portaloo disaster.” He laughs. “Remember? You were on the phone outside my parents’ house and there was a toilet disaster.”
“Oh, right!” I say, blushing. “I think my friend’s sorted it now.”
This is half true. I haven’t confirmed with the new company, as I want to see the loos before I let Rosemary make any commitment, but it’s a strong lead.
“I’m pleased to hear it. Ah, here we are. The Grand Ballroom.”
A tall woman with a neat bob and bright red lipstick, wearing a smart black trouser suit and a headphone set, is standing at the door with two hotel porters and security officers. She acknowledges Tom, then asks my name, checking it against the list on her iPad screen before offering me a warm smile. “Welcome, Miss Taylor, do go on through.”
The doors are opened and the first person I see is Lady Cordelia, standing just inside with Jonathan, waiting to greet her guests as they enter.
“Look who I found, Cordelia,” Tom says, taking a glass of champagne offered by a waiter and handing it to me, oblivious to her thunderous expression. “Now you might enjoy your party, considering there’s someone here that you actually like.”
As her eyes narrow to slits, I smile at her before taking a large gulp from my glass.
I don’t normally drink on the job, but I think I’m going to need it.