Dominic’s gaze went to her like a heat-seeking missile and he whistled slowly. Luckily, the angle of the camera made it seem as if his tribute was for the four younger women.
‘I swear to God,’ he drawled to Lance as the camera turned away from him, ‘I’m bagging that cougar tonight. I bet she fucks like a runaway train.’
‘She bloody terrifies me,’ Lance admitted frankly.
‘I tell you, Lance,’ Dominic said, ‘you’d go in there a boy and come out a man. Fucking that woman’ll be like going to war. Death or glory. I simply can’t wait.’
He caught Tamra’s eye as she glanced out onto the terrace to see if she and Jodie could come out, and flashed a deep suggestive wink at her; he was rewarded with a full flirtatious smile that rocked him back on his heels.
‘I’m in like Flynn,’ he said complacently. ‘I’d better bloody eat my greens today – I’ll need all my strength for tonight, I can tell you.’
Jodie and her two stylists were bustling out now, shepherding the group down the steps in the direction of the bridge. Dominic lingered, hoping for a word with Tamra, but Minty linked her arm through his and dragged him off firmly, whispering in his ear. Milly had decided that the perfect tactical moment to drop the juicy nugget of gossip about Brianna Jade being carried home drunk by the pig farmer was just before the shoot, in order to destabilize her as much as possible, and there was no one better than Dominic for spreading gossip. This information was juicy enough to temporarily drive all lubricious fantasies about Tamra from Dominic’s mind: his dark eyes widened, his jaw dropped and he beckoned Lance over to share the dirt.
This was exactly how the upper classes worked; they all had the love of gossip as part of their DNA. They moved in small, near-incestuous social circles, where fidelity was by no means a prerequisite for marriage, very much still in the tradition of the Edwardian country-house parties where a good hostess would always place the husband in a room as far from the wife as possible, so that it would be easy for them to conduct their affairs. The wives were ideally expected to ensure that at least the first two children were her husband’s, but after that a blind eye was turned, and the parentage of many aristocratic offspring was an open secret, shared as much as possible.
‘I say, the pig farmer?’ Lance blurted out. ‘You must be joking, Minters!’
‘No, Milly actually saw them,’ Minty insisted. ‘She was drunk and giggling and he had to carry her back!’
‘I say,’ Lance breathed almost in respect for this incredibly rich piece of information.
‘She didn’t look drunk at dinner,’ Dominic said dubiously.
‘Oh look, if you don’t believe me, I’ll prove it.’
Minty flitted lightly up to Brianna Jade, who was a couple of steps ahead of them, chattering happily to Sophie.
‘Brianna Jade, isn’t this the way to the pig farm?’ she asked in the classic high, carrying posh voice. ‘I hear you absolutely love visiting it – Edmund was telling me you adore it there.’
Brianna Jade froze for a moment in mid-stride as Minty shot a triumphant glance back at Lance and Dominic.
‘Uh, yeah,’ Brianna Jade said carefully, continuing to walk along. ‘It’s been really nice to visit them. I go for a run most days and stop there to say hi to the pigs and do my stretches.’
‘You are virtuous!’ Sophie sighed.
‘Most days?’ Milly chimed in with perfect timing. ‘Gosh, I thought I saw you coming back from there yesterday evening! Didn’t you pop to see them later on? I could have sworn you did . . .’
Only Brianna Jade’s long experience with pageant bitchery enabled her to keep her legs underneath her and moving, to hold her head up and plaster some sort of smile onto her face.
‘I do – I did,’ she managed, but was temporarily saved by Edmund, who, having no idea what was going on, dropped back to take his fiancée’s hand.
‘She absolutely adores those pigs,’ he said happily. ‘I’m so pleased – she’s taken to the farming life like a duck to water. She’s always telling me how the Empress of Stanclere’s doing.’
‘The pigs?’ Milly muttered with perfect, actress-skilled pitch, tailored to reach Brianna Jade’s ears but not Edmund’s. ‘Oh, it’s the pigs she adores?’
‘Who looks after them?’ Minty asked, emboldened by the fact that Brianna Jade had gone as white as a sheet. ‘Is there some sort of rustic pig man or something? A horny-handed son of toil?’
‘Ssst!’ Milly hissed, a signal that Minty was over-egging the cake.
‘Well, of course,’ Edmund said, quite oblivious to any undercurrents, let alone the fact that his bride-to-be’s clasp on his hand had loosened and that she was staring ahead of her as blankly as a newly made zombie. ‘Abel Wellbeloved. The family’s looked after our pigs for generations. He’s a really good chap, solid as a rock.’
‘Wellbeloved?’ Milly purred, unable to resist this perfect opportunity. ‘How very apt!’
‘I’m not quite sure what . . .’ Edmund began, his brow furrowing in confusion, but they were at the base of the bridge now, and the stylists were already calling them up, arranging them in a carefully chosen formation as Jodie and the photographic team set up on the lake’s edge, calling out directions. Brianna Jade and Edmund were placed in the middle, of course, Edmund beaming at her and Brianna Jade sketching a ghastly bright smile that had Jodie and the photographer, even before a single shot was taken, exchanging worried glances. On Edmund’s other side was, of course, Sophie, out of respect for her status, Minty beside her, her smile as complacent as Brianna Jade’s was panicked.
Looking from Edmund to Brianna Jade, Dominic wondered for a moment whether Edmund should be informed of what Milly had apparently seen. But he dismissed the thought almost immediately. Edmund and Brianna Jade’s marriage was a mutually beneficial arrangement, and Lord knew what details they had worked out between themselves to keep the wheels running smoothly. Edmund certainly wouldn’t thank Dominic, or anyone else, for putting a spoke in one of those wheels. Besides, Dominic didn’t want anything getting in the way of his seducing Tamra that evening. What if Edmund got angry enough with his friend for spreading gossip that he insisted Dominic leave the Hall? Dominic was certainly not going to risk his chance of sizzling cougar sex. Turning to Minty, he smiled with her for the cameras. Discretion was definitely the better part of valour, he thought.
Meanwhile, now that she had pulled the rug out from under her rival, Milly was making sure that she and Tarquin presented the image of the perfect couple, his arm around her waist, her hand on his shoulder – the stylists had dressed all the men in Jermyn Street tweeds, and it was bliss for Milly to embrace her fiancé in a suit that didn’t smell of ancient dog. She smiled up at him so sweetly that, enchanted, he bent to kiss her, their blonde curls mingling, an image so lovely that Jodie instantly clicked her fingers at the photographer, jerking her head, signalling him to take some shots. The videographer was already zooming in.
Eva, who had tailed the group down from the house, had to avert her eyes from the sight of Milly and Tarquin embracing so fondly. She had been asked to be in the shoot; her Jane-Birkin-meets-Françoise-Sagan look was very current, and Eva was slim enough to meet Style’s criteria. Although Jodie, with her own weight issues, was trying to literally broaden out the idea that a model needed to be reed-thin to work, it was a struggle getting designers to make samples larger than a size four. But Eva didn’t like the limelight, and she had been firm in her refusal to participate. This way, also, she could walk away if Milly and Tarquin canoodling for the cameras became too much for her.
Tarquin lifted his head, his angelic blue eyes starry with love, and the photographer muttered: ‘Jesus, that guy is unreal.’
‘I know. He reminds me of a Raphael painting of a saint,’ Jodie said. She might be a Luton girl with no university education, but she had educated herself very thoroughly since, especially in art history: it was crucial for a stylist to have a wide range of images on which to
draw. ‘Oh, that’s given me a great idea: what about a shoot with the two of them as Pre-Raphaelites? We could recreate some of the most famous paintings. They’ve got just the right looks for that, and it feels really current. There’s a big Pre-Raphaelite exhibition coming up at the V&A next summer.’
‘I love it,’ the photographer breathed. ‘Definitely.’
Eva turned and walked away, unable to stay to watch this. As arranged with Style before the shoot, Milly was wearing Milly and Me jewellery, and the leaf earrings in forest-green quartzite chimed perfectly with her outfit. There was nothing else Eva needed to do here professionally, and personally it was becoming harder and harder for her to see Milly with Tarquin. Milly had let slip some of the details of her rather unorthodox audition at the Charlotte Street Hotel, and Eva knew that Tarquin was absolutely unaware of the lengths to which Milly would go to further her acting career. Sometimes she was horribly tempted to spill the beans, but her loyalty was to Milly, and it wasn’t her business to say anything.
And besides, it wouldn’t get her what she wanted. Telling Tarquin Milly would cheat on him with a barn animal if it got her a part in a Hollywood film wouldn’t make him fall into Eva’s arms, wouldn’t do anything but make him never want to look at Eva again. Miserably, she wandered off, wishing that she had never come to Stanclere Hall this weekend and wondering if she could somehow plead a family emergency and escape from what was just one source of pain after another.
No one noticed her go; they wouldn’t have in any case, but they were all much too distracted by the pressing problem of the bride-to-be’s frozen stare to pay attention to anything else.
‘What’s up with the bloody fiancée all of a sudden?’ the photographer asked, wincing. ‘Death warmed up doesn’t begin to cover it!’
Jodie took in the scene on the bridge. From a distance, it was visually stunning. The pale grey stone was an architectural curve over the soft ripples of the darker grey water, and behind the lake, the rich autumn colours of the foliage rose up the slope beyond; it was already a beautiful image even without the eight young and handsome people clustered at the apex of the bridge, the girls’ hair lifted by the autumn breeze, the young men dashing in their tweed suits, velvet waistcoats and contrasting slub silk ties. Sophie, Minty and Milly were all entrancing, the cream of young British aristocracy, blonde, slender, fine-featured, beautiful; Tarquin, with his wide blue eyes and tossing blond curls, could only be described as beautiful too, and Dominic, dark and dashing, his waistcoat deep red to set off his colouring, was a perfect foil. Edmund, in comparison, was merely good-looking, but his features were regular and his figure lean and muscled, and Lance’s reddish beard, much as Jodie hated it, gave the whole picture a modern twist.
‘What’s up with her?’ Jodie said, finally coming to the centrepiece, the point of this whole photo story: the blushing bride-to-be, ex-pageant queen, Miss America come to England to conquer an Earl. It was impossible for Brianna Jade to look anything less than stunning, but right now she looked like her own death mask. She might have been carved from stone, her eyes as blank as if they were painted on.
‘Tamra?’ Jodie looked round for Brianna Jade’s mother. ‘What’s up with Brianna Jade?’
‘Jesus, I don’t know!’ Tamra grimaced. ‘She was fine a little while ago. Did anyone say anything to her?’
‘Milly was talking about pigs, I think,’ one of the stylists volunteered. ‘Something about Brianna Jade liking to go and see them?’
Tamra’s full lips tightened together in a way that boded very ill for Milly.
‘That little bitch,’ she muttered to herself. ‘I should have known she was planning something.’
‘Why don’t we try a few shots and then we can mix ’em up a bit,’ the photographer suggested. ‘And if she doesn’t unfreeze, someone could go and have a word with her?’
Tamra nodded grimly, seeing the glory that was this photo-and videoshoot slipping from her grasp. The whole point had been to put her daughter front and centre, to showcase Brianna Jade’s dazzling beauty and make the point to Jodie Raeburn that surely Brianna Jade could be the only possible Style Bride of the Year. Look at her incredible social connections! Princess Sophie, third in line to the British throne, was visiting for the weekend and taking part in the shoot! Tamra had been sure that would clinch the deal. Look at Sophie right now, leaning on the parapet of the bridge, chatting to Brianna Jade, just as if they’d been friends for years!
It was Tamra’s moment of triumph. She was at the peak of her achievement, symbolized by her daughter’s placement at the crest of the bridge, higher even than the royal princess. But, staring in horror at the ghastly fake smile on her daughter’s face, she could feel this whole triumph flipping inexorably into disaster . . .
However, Tamra was always brutally honest with herself. After she had pulled her daughter aside during the next set-up and barely managed to elicit a word from the seemingly mentally paralysed Brianna Jade, Tamra had to acknowledge to herself that this crisis was unsaveable. She had tried everything she could think of: compliments, encouragement, exhortations to ignore Milly’s nasty jealous words, to pull herself together and suck it up.
But nothing got through to Brianna Jade, nothing at all. It was way worse than any pageant disaster, any sabotage some rival contestant had tried to pull. Whatever Milly had said – and Brianna Jade wouldn’t or couldn’t tell her mother why the words had had the effect they did – had hit its mark with absolute accuracy, the dart landing right in the bull’s eye. In the end, Jodie and the photographer had conferred frantically and posed poor Brianna Jade in profile, where the strained fake grimace was much less obvious: thank goodness, at least, Brianna Jade didn’t have a bad angle to her face, and both her profiles were equally good.
Still, with the bride-to-be as frozen and stone-faced as the statues in the gazebo, the process became much more work, and the last thing an editor wanted was extra work. Tamra was in pieces when they finally wrapped, though no one would have known that by her beaming smile, the way she congratulated the Style team and announced that there was chilled champagne along with a delicious light lunch waiting for everyone back at the Hall.
‘What happened?’ she hissed to her daughter as they all trooped back. But Brianna Jade could only shake her head, her features still set tightly.
‘Is it about the pig thing? We grew up in pig country – everyone knows that! We haven’t made a secret of it!’ Tamra whispered, at her wits’ end.
But this just turned a knife in the wound, reminded Brianna Jade not just that she had been seen, drunk on cider, being carried back to Stanclere Hall by Abel in what could clearly have appeared to be a very compromising situation, but that she was also being blackmailed by Barb Norkus, and all she could manage by way of response was a terrible gulping gasp. She felt as if she were being squeezed in a vice. What if both stories came out? Not just the tacky photos of her as the Pork Queen, but a scandal about her and the Stanclere Hall pig farmer? How would she and Tamra ever survive the humiliation?
Her mother, realizing that her daughter was on the verge of tears, very sensibly backed off and focused her energies into charming the living daylights out of Jodie Raeburn as best she could, though she had a horrible sinking feeling that only half of Jodie’s attention was on her; the other half was on the delightful vision of Milly up ahead. Adorable in her tweed shorts and dancing ringlets, hanging on the arm of her equally adorable fiancé, prattling away to him charmingly, Milly was doing everything she could to present herself as the obvious choice for Style Bride of the Year, a model who not only wouldn’t freeze under pressure but whose fiancé was, miraculously, just as eye-wateringly photogenic as she was herself.
‘That Pre-Raphaelite shoot’s going to be very exciting, Jodie,’ one of the stylists said deferentially to her editor.
‘Yes, isn’t it? Start researching that right now,’ Jodie said, shifting her attention to the young man. ‘Pull a ton of photos and have them on my des
k by Monday afternoon. I want a whole lookbook to choose from. This’ll be a lot of work to set up so the clothes look right – we need to get started on this straight away.’
She grinned. ‘Victoria’s going to scream her head off at me when I tell her I’m doing a shoot where Milly and Tarquin are lying down, draped over things! That’s what all the people in those paintings are like – languid and stoned-looking. You know how Victoria is – everything has to be bodies in motion.’
The young man shivered. ‘Oh yes,’ he murmured. ‘I worked on the trampoline shoot she did over here for the Olympics issue. That’s the only time I’ve felt sorry for models in my entire life.’
‘Well, don’t make a habit of it!’ Jodie said, almost as crisply as her mentor, Victoria, would have done.
‘Oh no, Jodie, of course not.’
Tamra’s steps slowed down, the heels of her shiny polished leather boots tapping a slower pace on the path as the exquisitely painfully realization dawned on her, that not only had this shoot been a complete failure in sealing the deal with Jodie to make Brianna Jade Style Bride of the Year, but that it had possibly even handed that accolade to her daughter’s rival. Already, Milly had been such a hit with Jodie that she was planning a shoot with Milly and Tarquin at the centre! That should have been Brianna Jade and Edmund! Jodie should have come away from this pivotal day impressed beyond measure with how beautiful and photogenic Brianna Jade was, how well connected; she should have been inspired to put her on a Style cover, not just as the Bride of the Year but Style magazine proper.
Bad Brides Page 26