“Neither have I.”
“I’ll let you visit him sometimes, if you want,” I say, softened by that tender sight.
“Are you serious?” He looks shaken.
“It’s quite a lot already, considering that I didn’t want you to know.”
“Jemma, I don’t want to see our son sometimes. I want to raise him, and I want to do it with you. We’re not perfect and we’ll never be, but all I know is that you’re the only one I want to spend my life with. Normal people usually fall in love, get married, have a child, and, in the worst cases, they start hating each other and get divorced. You and I did everything upside down: we hated each other, we got married, we fell in love, we got divorced and, now, we have a son. We’ve never been normal. What would be the point in following the rules now?”
“In love?” I ask.
“Yes, in love. Or at least, I’m in love with you.”
“When did you realise it?”
Ashford smiles. “I think it all started at the charity fashion show, when you came out on that catwalk half naked, in front of the entire high society. That’s when I realised that there’s no other woman like you.”
I bite my lower lip, trying to hold back a spontaneous smile.
“Hey, I can see you’re smiling.” He lifts my face with a hand to make me look into his eyes. “When did you realise?”
I gulp, then start confessing, embarrassed. “Perhaps it was on the very first evening, at the restaurant, when you thought I was the waitress.”
“I was an arsehole,” he admits.
“Yes, you were.” I say, and then I can’t help but ask him that question. “What about Portia?”
“Portia was a misunderstanding, and I’m sure you know I don’t want her, you just don’t want to admit it. You can’t accept that, for once in your life, someone might choose you. You’re afraid of being hurt, and you don’t want to delude yourself by thinking that everything will be okay. Let me tell you something: these months during which I knew nothing of you and I spent my days looking for your ghost all over Denby, well, they tore my heart in two and bled me out.”
“Don’t you think that I suffered as well?”
“Then why should we leave each other?”
I shake my head, lacking conviction. “Trusting someone else is always a free fall.”
Ashford takes my hand. “But I’m jumping with you.”
The door bursts open with a violent thud, and Delphina enters the room, shouting: “An heir!”
90
Delphina’s Version
If it were not for me, this house would fall apart. I hope that God will grant me many more years to live, because nobody can keep control over the situation like I do.
Today is crucial.
And everything must be carried out with meticulous precision.
A wedding and a baptism to be celebrated together, on the same day, with the eyes of the entire aristocracy on me, and I have planned every single detail of it with the help of Margaret.
My son is getting remarried. With Jemma, again. There’s no getting rid of her. If nothing else, her appearance has improved a lot. Not her manners, but, with her mouth shut, she’s no longer that embarrassing.
To be kind, I’d define her parents as colourful, but Jemma, Carly and Vance are a single unit, so it’s either take them or leave them.
I wonder how such savages can have friends like Sheik Al Thanyan. For him, I reserved all the apartments on the second floor of the west wing which have a panoramic view. I hope it’s enough, since he arrived with an entourage of fifty-six people.
“We’ll have three hundred guests at Denby Hall, today. Margaret, do we have everything under control?”
“Yes, Lady Delphina,” she says promptly.
“Are the security staff active already?”
“At the gates, at the entrance, in the park and in the chapel.”
“Are the kitchens operational?”
“They’re finishing the desserts.”
“The defibrillator for Lord Neville?”
“It’s within reach in case of a heart attack.”
“He’s already had a double bypass, let’s keep him monitored. God forbid that a member of the aristocracy passes away in our house. The bromide for Harring? That satyr will cause us to be reported for indecent conduct.”
“I’ve already found him and Lady Loxley in the conservatory. Twice.”
“Find something for Loxley to do and keep her away from that sex maniac. Go check out Jemma. I’m going to take the little Frederick Brandon Ashford Philip to the parlour, so that everyone can see that my grandson is more handsome than any other baby in the world. He takes so much after my Ashford, with those pink cheeks and big eyes!” He doesn’t look like Jemma at all!
“I’ve never seen a lovelier child, Lady Delphina.”
“You had him wear the family baptism gown, right? The Flanders lace one with the Burlingham crest embroidered?” I ask, threateningly.
“Yes, Lady Delphina.”
“Excellent, you can go,” I say, to dismiss her.
*
The ceremony was delightful. Jemma managed to walk down the whole aisle of the family chapel without dropping the diadem, which is a success.
We later celebrated the baptism, and little Frederick Brandon Ashford Philip did not utter a single wail when the priest poured holy water over his forehead. What composure, you can see that he was born to be a duke!
“The two of you will kill me,” I say to Jemma and Ashford.
“That’s the original plan,” my son replies.
“It’s not funny,” I object, emptying yet another glass of champagne. I’m very stressed out, so I deserve all the alcohol that flows on this table.
“Let’s not underestimate her, Ashford. We haven’t succeeded so far.”
“Jemma,” I say, taking away her glass of wine. “You are breast feeding, you shouldn’t drink alcohol.”
“And should you, Mother? With all the anxiolytics you take?”
“Oh well, I’ve been taking them for so many years that a hydrogen bomb would have no effect whatsoever on me. Is there a slice of Carly’s delicious cake left?” I ask.
“Please Delphina, help yourself.” Carly offers me a plate with a big slice on it.
Carly has only one quality: she makes a heavenly cake. Every bite makes you feel more weightless. It’s really true that there are foods that nourish the mind.
“Um, Delphina, that’s already the third slice… we would like to avoid what happened at that dinner at my parent’s house…” Jemma tells me.
“How?”
Ashford coughs, embarrassed. “Mick Jagger… Paris… the Rolling Stones.”
Such good times… “Oh, Paris! If I remember correctly, Led Zeppelin were there too, that weekend. Robert Plant was as handsome as a demigod! I don’t remember whether I met him before or after the night I spent with Lou Reed. Or was it Rod Stewart? Vance, would you happen to have one of his records? Would you please play Do You Think I’m Sexy?”
Jemma leans over the table towards me. “Take the cake away from her!”
The music stops abruptly and I stand up, really annoyed. “Didn’t we run a test on the audio system yesterday evening? It hasn’t just short-circuited, has it, Margaret?”
She looks at me, frightened. “Lady Delphina—”
“God save the Queen! God save the Queen! God save the Queen!” The guests exclaim in unison as they stand up as one.
“Oh, sit down!” I beckon them. “Let’s get the system fixed, now! The best man and the maid of honour will soon make their speeches.”
In answer, I hear a voice behind me: “If I’m not mistaken, I’m the one who is supposed to grant permission to sit down, but I’m not surprised. I had heard that the manners of the Parker family were not what they were lately. However, I did not imagine the extent of it.”
I turn round to reply, and I see her, in her unmistakable pastel coloured tailored suit and
matching hat, with white gloves and a handbag on her arm.
While every single person in the room is taking a bow, I can’t say anything but: “Margaret! My smelling salts!”
91
Epilogue
Not everyone lived happily ever after. Delphina has never recovered from the shock of the royal visit, so she self-exiled in the isolated Parker estate in Yorkshire, to the endless joy of Ashford and Jemma, who are no longer annoyed by her presence.
Jemma can go to the stadium now, and Ashford is becoming a fan of Arsenal.
Vance has turned a large portion of Denby Hall’s park into a vegetable garden where he grows organic vegetables.
The little Frederick Brandon Ashford Philip has never had a nanny, and is being raised by his mum and dad, who, however, haven’t been sleeping for months.
Harring still hasn’t admitted to himself that the relationship with Cécile is serious, even though he erased all the numbers of the New York Fashion Week models from his phone. He keeps visiting his tailor every Wednesday morning.
Cécile has reduced the number of her therapists from three to one, and she no longer wears just black, but also dark blue.
Carly has stopped making peyote cakes.
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Acknowledgements
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Acknowledgements
First of all, I want to thank you, the reader, for dedicating your time to the pages I wrote and trusting my work.
If you liked it, I’m glad I was able to give you a few hours of fun and distraction; if you didn’t, due to some fault of my own, I apologise for boring you, in all humility.
I thank Jane Austen, the mother of all the romance writers, by whom I was inspired, without the pretentiousness of trying to imitate her.
I thank Elisa, for being my friend, but also for her support as a psychologist. In fact, I hope she doesn’t read this part, or she could start sending me her bills.
Thanks to Silvia, because everyone should have a wonderful person like her in their life.
I’m so very grateful to Katia, for the patience with which she dedicated her time to my sos emails, replying promptly rather than filtering them to the spam box.
I thank my parents, for supporting me in everything I do.
And then, last but not least, there are all the people who have made this possible, giving a new life to Marriage of Convenience: all the bloggers who, after I self-published the novel for the first time, gave a chance to the work of an unknown person; Newton Compton Editori, Martina Donati and Alessandra Penna in particular, who patiently helped me reorganise the pages of Marriage of Convenience and look at it from another perspective.
Playlist
Dear reader, music is part of my life as much as reading, writing and painting, so my mp3 player accompanied me throughout the writing of this novel.
I want to share with you a number of the tracks that inspired me and suggested some of the pages you’ve just read.
All You Need Is Love, The Beatles
Sharp Dressed Man, ZZ Top
Just A Gigolo, Louis Prima
All The Right Moves, One Republic
Romeo & Juliet, Dire Straits
Bang A Gong (Get It On), T. Rex
That Don’t Impress Me Much, Shania Twain
A Whiter Shade Of Pale, Procol Harum
Can’t Pretend, Tom Odell
Crazy For This Girl, Evan and Jaron
What Would Happen If We Kissed, Meredith Brooks
I Want Your Bite, Chris Crocker
Delilah, Florence & The Machine
Cupid’s Chokehold, Urban Strangers
Speaking Of Truth, Laleh
Stolen, Dashboard Confessional
About Felicia Kingsley
FELICIA KINGSLEY was born in 1987. She lives in a small town near Modena and works as an architect. Her debut novel How (Not) to Marry a Duke was the second most read e-book in Italy in 2017.
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Addictive Fiction
First published in Italy in 2018 by Newton Compton
First published in the United Kingdom in 2018 by Aria, an imprint of Head of Zeus Ltd
Copyright © Felicia Kingsley, 2018
Translation © Alessandra Rotilio / Librofficina, 2018
The moral right of Felicia Kingsley to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988.
The moral right of Alessandra Rotilio / Librofficinato be identified as the translator of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
This is a work of fiction. All characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
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A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN (E) 9781788548427
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