Beautiful Creatures

by Lulu Taylor

  ‘As you can probably guess, I’m completely ignorant about business. I’ll need you to explain everything,’ Octavia said, sitting down again and crossing her legs. ‘If I wanted to buy Noble’s, what would I do?’

  Ethan looked at her smooth, bronzed limbs and took another mouthful of his drink. ‘Well, it’s lucky for you that the structure of Noble’s is fairly simple. It’s been in the Radcliffe family for years, and they haven’t ever streamlined their affairs – which is probably why they’re in the trouble that they are.’ He looked happier now he was back on familiar territory and seemed to have absorbed Octavia’s bombshell. ‘They’re a public company, they have shareholders, but to be honest they haven’t paid out a dividend for a long time. In fact, they’re more likely to make a rights issue, the way they’re going.’

  ‘Rights issue?’

  ‘Ask their shareholders for money to prop up the company. They are in debt big time and haven’t made an operating profit for years. Sooner or later they’re going to have to do something drastic.’ Ethan rolled his glass so that the amber liquid swirled around the crystal. ‘If you’re serious about buying in, then I would suggest that you form a company and set about buying a managing stake in Noble’s. You’d be surprised how little you need to own into order to have control. But the family and shareholders will have to let you do that.’

  ‘Form a company?’ Octavia frowned. ‘That all sounds very businesslike. Are you sure?’

  ‘If you want to get into business, then you are going to have to be businesslike.’ Ethan grinned at her. ‘But you don’t have to do it alone. I’m happy to take on all the boring aspects and look after them for you.’

  ‘You mean …’ Octavia leant forward, aware that she was giving him a seductive view of her breasts as they emerged from her dress, ‘… we could start a company together?’

  He raised an eyebrow at her. ‘I’d say that’s a very good idea. I know how all this works but I don’t have the kind of capital at your disposal. You’ve got the capital but you’re lost in the corporate world. I think we’d make an excellent partnership.’

  ‘Practically perfect,’ murmured Octavia. She took a sip of her vodka and soda. It prickled pleasingly across her tongue. She stood up and went to the fireplace, looking at her reflection in the mirror above it. She put down her glass, then ran her fingers through her hair, piling it up on top of her head before letting it fall down in a golden waterfall. She heard Ethan get up and the next moment he appeared behind her in the mirror.

  ‘You are a very sexy girl,’ he said, looking at her appreciatively.

  ‘Did you always think so? Or is it since you learnt about my money?’ she said.

  ‘I thought you were gorgeous the moment I laid eyes on you. How could I not?’ he said, and the devastatingly attractive lopsided smile curved his lips. ‘But you know what they say about money being an aphrodisiac … Maybe it makes you even more high-octane. If that’s possible.’

  Octavia licked her lips and looked up at his reflection from under her lashes. Her belly was burning with desire and she could feel dampness between her legs. No one had ever had an effect like this on her. ‘Is it wise, us going into business together?’

  He stood closer to her, so that their bodies were almost touching. ‘I don’t think we’re going to be able to stop ourselves,’ he replied. She felt his hand touch her waist, very lightly. The next moment she’d spun round and was lost in a hot, passionate kiss as he pulled her tightly into his arms.

  ‘Oh, Ferdy darling, it’s so sweet of you to call me, but I don’t think I can come with you today.’ Octavia lay in bed, naked, enjoying the sensation of the sheets against her skin. Her body seemed to have come alive in an electric way since Ethan had kissed her the previous night. Imagine how I’m going to feel when he makes love to me, she thought with a kind of wonderment.

  ‘Really?’ Ferdy sounded disappointed. ‘I thought you were on for it.’

  ‘I was, but …’ Octavia took a deep breath and said, ‘Actually, I think we should just be friends from now on. Not boyfriend and girlfriend any more. Okay?’

  There was a pause and then Ferdy said in a surprised voice, ‘We’re breaking up?’

  Octavia rolled on to her stomach, making an agonised face and wishing this conversation was over. ‘Well, in a way. I mean, we can still be friends. But I don’t think we should see each other like that any more.’

  ‘But why?’

  ‘Just because … oh, please, Ferdy, don’t make it difficult for me. You’re a lovely bloke but … I don’t think it’s meant to be forever that’s all. We had great fun together, but now … I have to move on. I’ll see you soon, darling. ’Bye!’

  She clicked the phone off, feeling guilty on the one hand but relieved on the other. Just one kiss with Ethan had been more unbearably erotic than her whole adventure with Ferdy. Why should that be? After all, Ferdy was attractive, good in bed, well endowed … why should there be this burning magic with Ethan when there was so little with Ferdy? It was a mystery, but Octavia had no interest in finding out the answer. All she felt was an extraordinary sense of excitement: the whole world, her future, seemed bright and thrilling, now that she was going to be sharing them with Ethan. She rubbed a hand luxuriously over her naked skin, wishing that he were there to kiss her, touch her, suck on her breasts and delve with those long, cool fingers … She shivered.

  There wasn’t long to wait.

  42

  It was Octavia’s idea to get Roddy to design Flora’s wedding dress.

  ‘He’s absolutely amazing,’ she said breathlessly, bouncing on her sister’s bed with enthusiasm. ‘And no one else will be able to make something in the time.’

  ‘We haven’t got a firm date yet,’ Flora said, massaging Crème de la Mer into her face. She was fresh from the shower in a white cotton bathrobe with her damp hair up in a towel turban. ‘Otto’s back the day after tomorrow. Then we’ll settle the actual day.’

  ‘Yes, but you want to do it as soon as possible. A designer dress takes months and months usually! If you don’t go with Roddy, you’ll never get anything.’

  ‘Oh, I’d be happy with something off the peg. It doesn’t have to be fancy. Won’t Harrods have something?’

  ‘Well, I expect they will, but it won’t have half the cachet of a properly designed dress! And we can get some publicity for Roddy too.’ Octavia seemed very pleased with herself.

  Flora put down her pot of face cream, looking dubious. ‘I’m not sure about that … Otto doesn’t want any fuss around the wedding. He’d be cross if he thought we’d turned it into some kind of publicity circus.’

  ‘Don’t be silly, of course we won’t. We’ll just release some pictures after the event, for the odd paper or fashion magazine that will be interested, that’s all.’ Octavia gave her sister a pleading look. ‘Won’t you consider it? For me?’

  Flora thought for a moment and then said, ‘He can show me some designs if he wants, but I have to like it, and he has to be able to make it in the time left. I can’t be without a dress.’

  ‘Yay! Thanks, Flo-flo!’ Octavia jumped up and danced around. ‘I can’t wait to tell him! And if it goes pear-shaped, we’ll just get something else. How hard can it be to find a wedding dress?’

  Octavia arranged a meeting for the very next day. They gathered in the Blue Bar at the Berkeley, with Iseult along for general style advice. Both Iseult and Roddy were noticeably struck upon seeing the sisters together.

  ‘You really are identical!’ said Iseult, her eyebrows disappearing into her red fringe. ‘How extraordinary. You’re like something from classical mythology – beautiful stars turned into women or something like that.’

  Flora looked a little embarrassed but Octavia was used to Iseult’s hyperbole and simply laughed.

  ‘The next show, I want you both to model for me,’ Roddy said, grinning. ‘I can think of a few surprises we could pull off. It’d be fun.

  ‘I don’t think we’d be up for
that,’ Octavia said swiftly, seeing Flora’s horrified face. ‘But do you think you could make a wedding dress in double-quick time?’

  ‘How soon?’ he asked.

  ‘Let’s say … three weeks.’

  Roddy sat back in his chair, fiddling like mad with a pencil although it was hard to tell if he was desperate to draw with it or yearning for a cigarette. At last he said, ‘It’s utterly crazy. We’d have to sew day and night. You’d have to be prepared to come in for fittings whenever I call for you – no matter what you’re doing.’

  Flora nodded.

  Octavia took a sip of her coffee and then said, ‘What about the time it takes to design something?’

  Roddy shrugged. ‘That’s not the problem. I could do that now, if you liked. I can design an entire collection in an afternoon if I feel like it.’

  Iseult leant forward and patted his arm. She was looking as stunning as usual in an acid-green wrap dress with strings of huge purple beads round her neck. The black high heels she wore seemed to have small pairs of wings attached to the back of them. ‘Roddy’s only problem is not getting bored. He’ll do you something amazing, I’m sure of it.’

  ‘I can do it right now.’ He picked up a linen napkin and looked over at Flora. ‘What kind of dress do you want?’

  ‘Oh!’ she gasped, hunching her shoulders and pushing her hands together, frightened at being put on the spot. ‘I don’t really know … I was just going to look in the shops and see what there was …’

  ‘Don’t worry, dear,’ Iseult said kindly. ‘Do you have a colour scheme? A theme?’

  ‘We should have brought Vicky,’ Flora said helplessly to Octavia.

  ‘Don’t be silly, we can manage perfectly well without her.’ She turned to the others. ‘There’s no particular theme. Flora wants white or cream, don’t you? And we’re thinking of having the reception at the Savile Club.’

  ‘They have a very pretty ballroom,’ murmured Iseult to Roddy. ‘Think the ball scene in My Fair Lady.’

  He nodded, instantly understanding. ‘All right … then we could go for a Cecil Beaton look, if you like.’ With a few quick lines of his pencil, he created a gauzy fifties-style gown, with a tight pleated bodice and layers of netting for the crinoline skirt. ‘À la Princess Margaret in those pastel portraits Beaton took …’

  ‘It’s b-b-beautiful,’ Flora said, not wanting to criticise something so lovely, ‘but …’

  ‘Not quite you?’ He turned the napkin round so that he had another blank canvas. ‘Okay, something straighter, maybe? A column dress …’ He sketched out an empire-line dress, cut low across the shoulders and with long sleeves. It flared out a little at the bottom into a small train.

  ‘Oooh, that’s nice,’ Octavia said, leaning forward so that she could see.

  ‘Um …’ Flora said. She felt bewildered. There were so many possibilities. How was she supposed to choose? Surely it would be easier if she could just look at some actual dresses.

  ‘You don’t have to decide right now, don’t worry,’ Roddy said. ‘I’ll draw up a whole load of ideas and bring them round.’ He looked over at Flora as though seeing her properly for the first time, and frowned as he studied her. ‘Wait a minute … You know what? Iseult was right. I’m going to think about you as a classical goddess, a star made into a woman. Let’s see …’ He began to sketch again, a little more slowly this time. The dress started to take shape under his pencil point, a few long lines creating a fluid form. ‘But we don’t want you to look like you’re straight out of a movie about the fall of Troy,’ he muttered to himself. ‘Nothing faux-Grecian for you.’ He cocked his head to one side as he drew. The others waited and then he put down the napkin with a satisfied, ‘There.’

  They all looked. The dress, as far as they could see from the hurried sketch, was stunning – form-fitting but elegant, tight at the waist and belted with twisted chiffon before flowing down into a long skirt. There were sleeves but they seemed to be of gauze or chiffon, long ribbons of it that wrapped around each arm and ended in a trailing piece of veil.

  ‘Wow!’ breathed Octavia.

  ‘Another masterpiece,’ Iseult said proudly, and beamed at Roddy.

  ‘S-s-s-stunning,’ said Flora in a small voice. As soon as she saw it, she knew it was perfect for her. The dress of her dreams. ‘Could you really make me this?’

  ‘I think so,’ he said, pleased by their reactions. ‘It is quite bloody good, isn’t it? We’ll have to begin this afternoon. Come back to my studio and I’ll start measuring you. Then I’ll have to go hunting for fabric. Lucky for you I’ve got lots of contacts and a few favours to call in.’

  They had called for champagne after that, and toasted the new design, which they called, of course, ‘Flora’.

  It’s really happening, she thought with delight. I’m really going to be married! And tomorrow Otto’s coming back. I can’t wait.

  Octavia went round to see Iseult at her flat, a crazily eccentric space in a house in a rather down-at-heel area of Bayswater, so that they could arrange between them what Roddy would be paid for the dress. It wasn’t simply a question of the fabric or labour or even his talent, but of the superhuman effort of making a designer dress, with all attention to detail and perfection that entailed, within such a short space of time. The price agreed was more than generous, and would give Roddy’s business a much-needed financial boost. Even though the fashion show had brought a lot of interest in him and his designs, that had yet to be translated into real money.

  ‘We’ll get publicity for this dress,’ Iseult said to Octavia. She was wearing one of Roddy’s Turkish dressing-gown robes, and lying on a sofa covered in an antique tigerskin. ‘That sort of exposure is invaluable.’

  Octavia was puzzled. ‘Why hasn’t he got a shop?’

  ‘Well, my dear … in a word, money. He needs money for premises and kitting it out. A designer like he is has to have a prime retail spot, or his market won’t value him. I’m talking about New Bond Street or Sloane Street. Anywhere else is hardly worth the candle. He’ll need half a million at least to fit a shop out. Then there’s the cost of production – translating a pencil sketch into a real piece of clothing takes incredible skill, if you want atelier-style quality. You can’t charge designer prices for high-street production values. It’s not possible.’ Iseult shook her head, and reached for her packet of cigarettes. The whole flat was drenched in the smell of stale tobacco. ‘Open the French window for me, there’s a love.’

  Octavia opened the window on to a minuscule terrace that overlooked a busy road. Buses crawled past, the upper-deck passengers gazing almost into Iseult’s sitting room. The panes of glass were grimy with the accumulation of exhaust smoke and dirt.

  ‘No point in cleaning them,’ Iseult said cheerfully when she saw where Octavia was looking. ‘They get filthy again in moments.’ There was a spark as she lit her cigarette and then, exhaling, said, ‘Roddy would never accept second-rate anyway. He’s got to be the best. And he will be, I just know it. This dress will help. I’ll get little featurettes in Vogue and the society mags. My pal has just taken over a magazine, she’s desperate for features. Perhaps you and Flora could do an interview …’

  ‘But, Iseult.’ Octavia came back into the room and sat down on a green velvet chaise-longue opposite her friend. ‘If it’s just money, well …’ She smiled. ‘Why don’t I invest in Roddy?’

  Iseult stared at her for a while, her yellow-green eyes blinking thoughtfully. Then she took another drag, pursed her lips and expelled a long thin stream of smoke. ‘I can’t say that the idea hasn’t crossed my mind. But Roddy’s frightfully proud, sweetheart. He’d rather go to the bank than let anyone think he’s just the plaything of a rich girl – but the banks won’t touch him, not yet, not for the money he needs. I know, I know,’ she said quickly, seeing Octavia’s expression. ‘Of course he wouldn’t be your plaything. It would be a sound business investment. But it’s a question of perception, isn’t it?’ Iseult ground out h
er cigarette and said, ‘Let’s have a White Lady. It’s nearly noon, after all.’

  She collected a silver cocktail shaker from an Art Deco drinks cabinet in the corner and started assembling the drinks. She looked over her shoulder at Octavia while she worked. ‘How did it go with that financier you’ve been meeting? Did you tell him our scheme?’

  Octavia flushed scarlet. ‘Yes,’ she said, as coolly as she could manage.

  ‘Oh. So that’s the way the wind blows, is it?’ Iseult said as she shook the cocktail shaker. ‘I wondered why we hadn’t seen Ferdy lately. Nursing a broken heart, I suppose. Is he very gorgeous?’

  ‘Nothing’s happened. Well, just a kiss …’

  ‘A kiss is bliss. And sex is next.’ Iseult poured the pale liquid into martini glasses. ‘There. Get that down you, darling, and we’ll talk some more about how you might be able to make Roddy’s dreams come true – without bruising that pride of his. And about Noble’s.’

  Octavia nodded. ‘I’m meeting Ethan tomorrow, as it happens. I’ll speak to him about it.’

  Iseult laughed. ‘I’m sure you will. Just be careful, young lady. He’s very likely to be a grown-up, you know. Not like us. So watch out.’

  43

  Flora flew down the stairs and into Otto’s arms. She covered him with kisses, thrilled to see him again.

  ‘Hello, my love,’ he said tenderly, embracing her.

  ‘I’m so happy you’re here.’ She looked at him with shining eyes. ‘This is so exciting. You’re going to stay with us, here in the house for the first time!’

  ‘Yes.’ He gazed around him at the hallway. ‘Already I prefer it to my usual hotel.’

  She laughed and led him through to the drawing room. ‘Would you like a drink? Something to eat? I’ll order whatever you like.’

  He wandered about the room, looking at books and photographs. ‘No, no. I will wait. How are you?’

  ‘I’m fine, fine. We’ve been very busy, organising the wedding. All we need now is to decide the date.’