“Yes, the Duke of Burlingham we presume, we represent the legal department. The bank has notified both your adviser and your solicitor several times that a timely repayment of your overdraft is required. Have you been informed?”
“Yes, we discussed the matter,” I reply vaguely to avoid alarming them too much.
“Then you must be aware of the fact that, since we didn’t receive any response as regards your repayment plan, we were forced into being more proactive. Please.” The tallest of the two hands me the document.
I look at it without reading it properly because panic has just attacked me and I don’t get what I see.
The officer doesn’t wait for a reply before announcing the inevitable: “This is the last notification to inform you that the bank intends to take legal action. You won’t be notified any further. If the Royal & Treasures Bank don’t receive a reply, we will be forced to start the procedure for debt collection, which will be concluded by an enforceable judgement.”
“Debt collection? You mean…” I say, but my throat tightens up before I can complete the sentence.
“Foreclosure.”
“What? No, you can’t do that!” I don’t know how to object.
“You will be allowed to express your objections to the judge when you’re summoned. However, my advice is to seize this opportunity to repay your debts. Foreclosure certainly wouldn’t benefit your image.”
“Listen to me, gentlemen. I know that since my father died, the situation has deteriorated. My intention was to come to the bank this morning and discuss it. Let’s sit around a table and find a solution. I am the Duke of Burlingham, I’m sure that among my properties…”
“Which, according to the Royal & Treasures Bank are quite at risk, at this time…” says the tall thin man, with the enthusiasm of a gravedigger.
At the end of the driveway, I can see dust rising under the wheels of my mother’s car.
My mother is here, while the bank officials are talking about foreclosure.
“All right. Just give me forty-eight hours and I’ll get your money and the interest back. Please, stop the procedure. I give you my word on this, you’ll have every single penny back.”
“Is forty-eight hours enough, considering the total amount under discussion?”
Think, Ashford, think quickly. “I’m getting married soon,” I let slip. “My wife-to-be is a very rich woman. I can guarantee that I’ll do what I said.”
The two men look at each other, raising their eyebrows pretty eloquently.
“The bank is very serious about this, you should think carefully about what we told you. The situation is critical. None of the subjects involved wants media exposure. Certainly not you, I suppose.”
While the two gravediggers take their leave, my mother arrives and she looks pretty dazed. “Ashford, would you please tell me who these people are?”
I take her aside so that the officials don’t hear.
“I have called a security team for an inspection. Denby Hall may need surveillance for that visit,” I say, emphasising the word ‘visit’ as much as possible.
“The royal visit,” she specifies with a twinkle in her eye, as if saying it made it more tangible and real.
“That’s right, the two gentlemen in suits with briefcases are from a security service; I showed them around so that they can assess and implement security.”
“Oh, Ashford, what a splendid idea! And I thought you didn’t care!”
“I was joking, Mother. You never understand my jokes.” Thank God she doesn’t, I’d say.
My mother withdraws to the conservatory while, in a mix of relief and terror, I watch the officials’ car leave Denby.
With a light footed leap, Lance joins me. “Her Grace the duchess will never have to know, is that correct?”
“You’ll take that to your grave, Lance.”
“I thought so.”
Both surprised and angry at myself, I take my mobile to call Derek.
7
Jemma’s Version
There’s a reverent silence in Derek’s office. Ashford and I sit opposite one another; Derek is at one end of the long, shiny wooden table and the secretary is at the other end.
“Following her marriage to Mr Ashford Parker, the twelfth Duke of Burlingham, Jemma Pears accesses her right to inherit the land and personal property bequeathed to her by her grandmother Catriona. The inheritance consists of: an estate…”
I’m struggling to pay attention, but I just can’t. Derek is reading the entries on the inventory one by one, but it’s an eighty-nine page file packed with numbers and words such as Manor Park, House, Monet, yacht, bonds, stocks… this is blowing my mind.
Even more, when he shows me the bank statements which are full of tiny little numbers.
As soon as Derek notices that I’m staring at the bunch of documents with a glazed look, he grabs a piece of paper and scribbles one big number on it, then he gives it to me.
“All right, Jemma, I can see that you’re not following what I’m saying, so this is all you need to know: the total amount of the account which will be in your name from tomorrow.”
I look at him wide eyed: I have never seen such a huge number in my whole life. It’s as long as an international telephone number! Both Ashford and I lean forward in disbelief.
When I see his amazed expression, I grab the note and hold it against my chest.
“Hands off, this stuff is mine! You’ll touch my money when and if I say so,” I threaten him, possessively.
“If it weren’t for me, you would keep dreaming about that money.”
Derek snatches the piece of paper out of my hands, balls it up and tosses it away, annoyed. “Let’s go on. Following his marriage to Ms Jemma Pears, Ashford Parker, Duke of Burlingham, takes possession of the agreed amount of money needed to clear the most pressing debts owed to various banks, so as to regain full control of his assets.”
Derek looks at us alternately, to make sure everything is clear.
“There’s one last point to clarify,” says Ashford with his arrogant attitude. “Marital life. There are four people at this table, four people who know that it’s a marriage of convenience. For this reason, I suggest that, after we sign the register at the Register Office, we go back to our lives the way we have led them to this day.”
“I agree. There’s no need to tell anyone,” I echo.
Derek coughs nervously. “Well, Ashford, maybe you’ll have to tell Portia, won’t you?”
“What does Portia have to do with it?”
“Who is Portia?” I ask curiously.
“Can we leave Portia out of this? She doesn’t need to know anything about it!”
“All right,” says Derek, raising his hands in surrender. “I just assumed…”
“You assumed wrong, as you often do, lately.” Ashford remarks.
“Anyway, I’m perfectly okay with pretending this never happened. What if my parents knew that I got married for money? It would kill them!”
“Well, can you imagine my mother? If she saw Jemma, she would have herself deported to the colonies!”
“We no longer own colonies,” points out Derek.
“We do, according to her.”
Derek points out the silver lining of the situation. “Cheer up, my friends! All your problems will be gone by tomorrow. Jemma, you will no longer have to worry about looking for a job in cheap theatres. And you, Ashford, you will retain your place in high society with no one any the wiser.”
Ashford looks right into my eyes. “And I’m confident that I will never see you again, after tomorrow.”
My eyes express just as much rancour. “You bet.”
*
How do you get dressed for a fake marriage? I mean, the marriage is real, but the reasons behind it aren’t: I don’t love Ashford, and we have no intention whatsoever of living together.
Ashford, Derek, the registrar and I will be alone in a featureless room, and the whole thing will last no
longer than fifteen minutes, so my look should be plain, nothing special at all, nothing to shout out ‘just married’.
When I get there, Ashford is walking up and down the stairs of the Register Office with a bored expression, while Derek is inside on the phone.
“You took your time, didn’t you,” Ashford welcomes me with his usual friendliness.
“I had to wait for my parents to leave the house, to avoid explanations.”
“It’s not my problem, I don’t care why, I just wanted to point it out.”
His words make me furious and I decide to answer in kind. “Anyway, it makes no difference if I’m on time or late, because, you know, I changed my mind. Perhaps I’ll have to work like a dog in the worst theatres of London and make do with sharing pizza with Latin-American dancers in my basement, but I’ve always been poor, I’m so used to it, that it doesn’t scare me at all. I thought about it last night and realised that I want a love match. You’ll have to find somebody else to give you the money. As for me, I’ll pretend that my grandmother’s inheritance never existed.”
Ashford’s expression goes from arrogance to sheer terror.
He stutters in the attempt to reply but he’s struggling. God, thank you for this priceless scene. For the first time, this pompous, snobby aristocrat is left speechless.
“See, Ashford? I’ve just shown you that you can’t always have the last word. Since I will never see you again, I wanted to have the satisfaction. And, by the way, I’m still gonna marry you, so let’s go do it and cheerio forever.”
Ashford grabs my arm and drags me towards the entrance. “You know what you are? You’re the start of a nervous breakdown!”
“Be gentle, dear, we’re about to get married!” I mock him. “My sweet love!”
“Don’t say that ever again, it gives me the creeps.”
We hand in the copies of our IDs and all the necessary documents and, as we deal with the marriage paperwork, the clerk looks at us with her eyes wide open. We must look quite weird as newly-weds: frowning long faces, aloof attitude, and we snatch the pen out of each other’s hands like primary school children.
“Are you getting married?” The clerk asks.
“What do you think?” Ashford replies morosely.
“I just wanted to make sure…”
Ashford gives her the signed documents with a sharp movement.
“You’re sure now.”
“Jemma Pears and Ashford Parker, Duke of Burlingham! Blimey, no less! Miss, you found your Prince Charming!”
“Yeah. As charming as a cod,” I reply.
The clerk stops asking questions, visibly confused, and she gives us a number. “Take your place in the queue. The registrar will call you when it’s your turn.”
The queue is pretty long and we take our place in silence.
“Queuing up as though I were at immigration. How the mighty have fallen,” mumbles Ashford beside me.
“That’s for sure, in your case. As for me, I’ve always been at the bottom of the social ladder, so there’s no difference, apart from your irritating presence.”
Ashford turns the other way with a snort of annoyance.
We’ve been standing here for over an hour as there are no available seats, a torture for me because of my high heels. What’s more, Ashford hasn’t said a word the whole time. Derek sneaked into an office, and I have nobody to chat with to kill time. I leave Ashford’s side and begin to play with the toy cars of a four year old whose mother is in front of us in the queue. She’s more than happy to leave her child with me for a while, so I take my shoes off and start playing with him. I’m the garage owner and he parks the cars. The problem arises when Kelib decides that one of Ashford’s shiny shoes is a hump that all his cars must overcome.
The first transit makes Ashford leap.
“What’s the matter with you! It’s a toy car, not a chainsaw!”
“Leave me out of your infantile regression.”
“You should ask yourself some questions if I prefer the company of a four year old to yours after an hour together,” I remark.
He shrugs, holding back a laugh. “I won’t, actually. I perfectly comprehend why you’re at ease with a four year old.”
Kelib’s mum picks the child up and they disappear in a room; just then, a robotic voice announces it’s our turn.
While I’m standing up, Ashford has already gone into the room, so I follow him still barefoot, and arrive in front of the officer who will record the wedding. I had not noticed how tall Ashford is. I’m still barefoot, but he’s really tall. I feel inexplicably intimidated for a second as I cannot see over his shoulder.
Derek hands in a folder which contains all our documents.
“Where’s the other witness?” Asks the registrar, without raising his eyes from the folder.
Derek rolls his eyes and gives an exasperated snort.
“One is not enough, there must be two witnesses,” the man insists.
Derek tries to buy some time. “I know, my assistant is late, but she should be here any minute…”
“I can’t wait all day!” He says, noticeably irritated.
“There’s Claire, the clerk. It happens quite often that the couples fail to read the requirements in our guidelines. In those cases, sometimes the clerks are involved.”
Derek runs to the offices and comes back with Claire, the clerk we first saw.
The whole thing takes about fifteen minutes: the registrar reads out our rights, he asks Ashford if he’s free to lawfully to marry me (Ashford isn’t exactly enthusiastic as he replies ‘I am’) and then he asks the same of me (for a second, I consider shocking my husband-to-be by saying ‘I’m not’), we sign the register, we are declared husband and wife and we are sent outside.
It’s over. I’m married.
And I’m rich!
8
Ashford’s Version
I’m not petty enough to not feel slightly ashamed for having accepted money from someone else. While Jemma was signing all those cheques, I wished I could dig a hole in the floor of the bank and jump into it. However, if we rationalise the whole situation, we will find that, technically, it was a simple transaction. We can say that I lent my title to her so that she could receive her inheritance; therefore, I consider that money a reward.
This is what I thought until yesterday, when I went back home with a light heart, finally at peace with myself and with the banks. This morning I’m even euphoric. First of all, I assured my mother that the royal visit will be announced with a week’s notice, so she can feel free to go to Bath as she had planned. Therefore, in less than four hours, there will be a hundred miles between me and her.
Moreover, I realised something extraordinary that puts me in a position of absolute predominance.
Before this whole story, I was a fish to be caught by any debutante in Hertfordshire. Whether I liked it or not, one of them would have married me, eventually – even with the help of chloroform, if necessary – and my life would have been very similar to that of my parents.
But that’s no longer the case. I’m already legally married, but, de facto, I’m free, and nobody will ever impose on me again.
I never thought I’d say this, but this marriage has made a free man out of me.
My mother does have a difficult personality, but that’s nothing compared to a wife who’s also a duchess. If there’s something I don’t want, it’s having a pest in a Chanel dress who tells me where to go, what to do and how to do it, all day long, every single day.
I’m not exaggerating: duchesses, countesses and baronesses are all the same. Fairy tale princesses who sing while picking flowers do not exist. What do exist are an awful lot of nagging shrews who are always ready to compete with other nagging shrews: who’s most elegant, whose gala was more successful, who’s the best dancer, who’s thinner, and so on.
I’m so full of energy that I got up at dawn to go for a ride around the estate on Agincourt and, on my way back, I’m really loo
king forward to the hearty banquet I had the servants make for breakfast. However, while entering through the front door, I hear the desperate sound of a wailing woman.
My mother.
At best, she’s discovered that we’ve finished the bottles of 1986 Château Lafite and that is unacceptable with an upcoming royal visit.
At worst… well, there’s no limit to catastrophe.
I find her surrounded by her corgis in the study with Margaret, in a state of utmost anxiety.
She’s marching up and down with a tissue in one hand and the newspaper in the other.
In the name of God, let’s hope she hasn’t found out that one of her long standing rivals will receive a royal visit to her estate!
“This will ruin my reputation forever! Such things should be planned and thoroughly thought out, not rushed like this! What will people think of me? And of our family? We know nothing about it!” She utters in despair.
Margaret is trying to signal to me to leave while my mother is looking away, but then she sees me. “You, degenerate son! How could you do this to me! You dishonoured the good name of our family!”
I look at her in amazement, as I don’t have a clue what she means. “Mother, what are you talking about? I don’t understand.”
“You don’t, do you? I didn’t understand this morning, when Lord Fairfax and Lady Westbridge phoned to congratulate me! Then I opened the newspaper,” she says, giving me the shred of a page. “And this is what I see!”
After reading the first lines, I blanch. There’s an article proclaiming that, yesterday, Ashford Parker, the twelfth Duke of Burlingham, married the mysterious and unknown Jemma Pears.
“My son, the bearer of a centuries old title, secretly married in a civil ceremony! To a Miss Nobody, some Jemma Plum.”
“It’s Pears, Your Grace,” Margaret corrects her.
“It’s all fruit!” My mother is out of her mind. “I can’t believe it? You sneaked out like a thief! You went to London, you married a stranger, and you didn’t say a word. I just wonder when you would have informed me if I hadn’t discovered it in the newspaper?”
“I…” The answer is easy: never.
How (Not) to Marry a Duke Page 5