Lady Bridget was not amused. Some buffoon had spilled a glass of beer all over her new cream Burberry summer coat. It wasn’t even in the shops yet and she’d pulled every string to get one. Daddy had paid. And now this cretin, with a bulging belly and red face that screamed high blood pressure, had ruined it. She was so angry she had no control over a shrill shriek escaping her thin, scarlet-painted lips.
‘You idiot. You absolute imbecile.’
Lady Bridget’s raised tones had attracted the attention of several guests gathered in the Royal Enclosure. But not the one she wanted.
‘You,’ she spat as she thumped the unsuspecting man on his left shoulder. ‘Do you know what you’ve done? Do you know who I am? Do you know how much this cost?’
The bewildered man turned to see a woman staring down at him, pointing at a wet mark on her coat.
Focusing his beer-goggled eyes on her angular ivory face framed with a jet-black bob he stuttered an apology.
For the first time Bridget became aware she was causing a scene. People had stopped to listen. That wouldn’t do, she chided herself. Some diary writer would hear of it and dub her a diva in their newspaper.
‘Oh look at me, what a frightful bore. Who cares about a silly coat?’
Bridget smiled down at the man’s balding head, touching him lightly on his shoulder.
‘Do forgive me,’ she cooed.
‘Oh OK, sorry,’ said the man, not sure if he’d imagined the hostility he’d just witnessed.
‘Oh come, please, not a word of it.’
Mission accomplished, thought Bridget. I turned the situation round to look thoroughly ladylike, which I am.
The coat was gorgeous, knee length and pure cream silk, with a matching belt in velvet tied tightly, showing off her twenty-four-inch waist. Obviously it didn’t have a trace of that awful checked pattern turned into a badge of honour for wannabes and chavs.
It probably cost more than the cretin beer-spiller earned in a month… no, two months. God, they’d let anyone in the Royal Enclosure these days.
Bridget turned to ask a girlfriend to get her a glass of champagne, but an unfamiliar face was in her way.
Clarissa managed to look surprised at bumping into Lady Bridget.
‘Oh hello. Lady Bridget, is it not? My name is Clarissa Appleton-Smythe. Pleased to meet you.’
The name rang a bell with the socialite, who was not in the mood to make friends but offered her hand anyway. It wouldn’t do to be rude to someone who was often mentioned by her set, especially someone who might prove to be useful to her.
‘A pleasure.’ She smiled thinly.
‘Allow me to introduce my friend, Lucy Summers,’ Clarissa gushed triumphantly, turning to her beautiful new friend. Bridget’s cold green eyes shifted immediately to the blonde girl beside this plump thing in pink.
This was the tart who was dating Hartley? Her handsome Hartley. The man she had been so sure she would marry. The love of her life.
‘Delighted, I’m sure,’ Bridget purred, holding out a bony white hand.
Lady Bridget Beames was as blue-blooded as Hartley. She had skied with the royals since she was a child and was no stranger to showing Tatler round the Mayfair townhouse Daddy had given her for her twenty-first.
Daddy provided a generous monthly allowance. And there was the interest from her great-aunt and grandmother’s estates. There really was no need to work. A lot of time went into looking the way she did, lunching in the right places with the right people and so on. It was like a full-time job. And anyway, helping to organize a charity ball or two a year for free was more than enough to keep her busy.
So busy, she had been known to cancel a lunch here, a shopping spree there with a girlfriend. All in the name of work. She hoped people appreciated her help; attaching her name to a ball attracted the right people.
‘Lovely to meet you too.’ Lucy met Bridget’s gaze and was chilled by its coldness. More than that: its venom.
Bridget drew herself up. Lucy was tall but found herself looking up into Hartley’s ex’s stony face. Her complexion was perfect but almost white, made all the starker by her painted lips.
‘Ah! So you are Hartley’s latest conquest.’ Lady Bridget pronounced each word as though Lucy might be hard of hearing and had to lip read, or was it so her crowd of friends could hear?
To her side was a strawberry blonde, freckled girl who looked so fragile and timid she would blow away if her Ice Queen friend blew on her. And beside her, a robust brunette with rosy cheeks and eyes that drank Lucy in, who had the smug look of someone who’d eaten an entire cream cake and blamed it on someone else. Both girls were well groomed but it struck Lucy that their clothes, expensive but unimaginative ill-fitting suits, were made for women twenty years older.
Behind Bridget, a delicate-looking, thin-faced man in a charcoal-grey suit and lemon cravat was bobbing up and down, craning to see what was going on over her shoulder.
Lucy was taken aback but more than a little amused by the hostility that was so obviously on show. She opened her mouth but no sound came out.
Bridget kept her gaze as she unfastened her beer-stained coat, slipping it carefully off her ivory shoulders to reveal a high-necked, emerald-green-satin Stella McCartney sleeveless blouse and matching knee-length skirt, which clung to her long thin thighs. She handed her coat dismissively to the strawberry blonde.
So this was the little tramp. The ‘beauty’ the Independent and Daily Telegraph reported had stolen Hartley’s heart. She could see why her darling Hartley’s head had been turned. This ‘Lucy’ was undoubtedly pretty, if you went for that kind of bland look. And her dress was this season’s Chanel. Perhaps her family was wealthy. But she was still a commoner. Was she an equal to Hartley? Did she have a title? No.
Just six months ago, all of Bridget’s friends had assured her Hartley would propose soon. They had been to Paris for a wonderful weekend and had agreed they were of an age when they should be thinking of settling down. Well, she had told Hartley this, but he seemed to feel the same way.
At last she would have the man she had wanted to propose for the twelve months and ten days they had been dating. Her social standing would rise even further and they would have children straight away. At thirty-six, Bridget was painfully aware that her biological clock was ticking.
Then, just two days after they had returned, Hartley had taken her to the ever-fashionable Wolseley for supper. Over lemon Dover sole and Sancerre he had finished it, explaining he needed some time alone, leaving her an utter wreck.
After months of going over and over what could have gone wrong, she decided that her darling Hartley merely needed time to sow his oats, get it all out of his system, before he came back. She was the only woman for him and she would get him back at any cost.
‘Ah yes. I can see what Hartley might see in you… in the short term.’
A cruel smile spread across her face, making her look like a cross between the Joker and Cruella De Vil.
Lucy’s bright blue eyes widened as she took in Lady Bridget’s words, spoken in her cutting upper-class tone. The girls by her side were clearly amused, biting their lips and looking at the ground. How clever they must think their important friend was.
‘I hear you write for a magazine. How lucky. When Hartley and I get back together I’ll be sure to come to you first with the photo shoot. Don’t you think we’d look wonderful on your front cover?’
Lucy was shell-shocked. How could anyone be so vile and yet have friends who were hanging off her every word? She felt Clarissa’s cushioned hand clasp her own.
‘Let’s get back to our friends,’ Clarissa said, with the emphasis on ‘friends’.
Lucy was touched by Clarissa’s loyalty in putting her friend’s feelings before befriending the famous socialite who outranked Lucy’s status a thousand-fold.
‘Well?’ Bridget’s shrill voice was tinged with victory and impatience as it cut through Lucy’s thoughts. ‘Don’t you think we’d look wonderful?’
Lucy calmly looked out towards the racecourse, smiled, then met Bridget’s stare once more.
‘Oh yes, perhaps a few years ago. You were very attractive. But my, haven’t you let yourself go?’