* * *
Sadie folded the last of her sweaters on the top of her grandmother’s old valise and closed it. She felt droopy and it made perfect sense to sit next to her luggage on her old bed at the Richmond Inn. Two feet away, her sister closed the trunk at the end of the bed. Sadie was thrilled to have reunited with her sister, even if Les had stayed away.
“Empty,” Alecia said, pushing a fallen pin back into the thick blond coil at the nape of her neck. “I think you are packed. The people here seemed nice.”
“Yes, Mrs. Curtis seemed genuinely happy that I’d run away to be married.” Her London coworkers were so much more sophisticated.
“Even if it didn’t exactly happen that way,” Alecia said ruefully.
“It’s a better story. Besides, my husband behaved honorably at the first moment he could. A special license.” The phrase “my husband” still felt exceedingly odd on Sadie’s tongue. She had expected to wake this morning feeling much more married after the intimacies they’d shared the night before, but she hadn’t after the way he’d left her.
“Very posh,” Alecia said. “I’m glad your Les did the right thing.”
“I wasn’t ashamed to face Grandfather today,” Sadie agreed.
“I thought you were less conventional than me,” Alecia said with a smile.
Sadie had thought the same, but London wasn’t Bagshot. “Is it usual not to sleep in the same room as one’s husband?”
“If you have a great deal of money, I think that is usual,” Alecia said. “My former employers, the Marvins, didn’t share a bedroom.”
“Have they been married long?”
“Close to twenty years.”
“I don’t share my husband’s bedroom. Of course, he’s been injured and we don’t have exactly the same schedule.”
Alecia frowned and sat beside her. “Do you have a bedroom of your own?”
“Yes. The guest room. It has a small bed.”
Alecia lowered her voice. “Do you want to share a room?”
“Not if it damages his recovery.” Sadie winced. “Sometimes Les still seems unwell, but I don’t know.”
“He had a head injury,” Alecia said. “He might still have periods of dizziness or even nausea.”
“He was in bed for many days. I’m sure he doesn’t feel back to normal. He was so vital when I met him. Positively bursting with vigor.”
Alecia nodded. “What else?”
Sadie took her sister’s hand, feeling her eyes fill up with tears. “I think I’m still a virgin. I shouldn’t speak of this, and he did, well, do things with me last night, but we’ve been married for days and this isn’t normal.”
“You don’t know that,” Alecia said, putting her other hand on top of her sister’s hand and squeezing it. “One never speaks of one’s wedding night, or of sleeping arrangements, or anything, really.”
“I suppose you are right. It just seemed the natural order of things.”
“I expect, if you are having some intimacies, that your marriage is going to be fine.”
Sadie knew her sister well enough to see the concern in her eyes, though. “What?”
“I don’t want to hurt your feelings, and Mr. Rake was injured,” Alecia said.
“But—” Sadie said impatiently. “Out with it.”
“It’s just that Ivan and I.” Alecia paused, her pretty face going red. “We can’t keep our hands off each other, not when we are alone. We have succumbed to our, well, our mutual needs.”
Sadie gasped. “You’ve become lovers?”
Alecia nodded. “I’m sorry, Sadie. But everyone is different. I’m sure as we have more married friends we’ll learn more about what is normal, but for now we only have the two of us.”
“We need friends with experience.”
Alecia nodded. “I’ll take you to Emmeline Plash. She’s no virgin. She’s Peter Eyre’s mistress. Who better to speak about sexual matters?”
Chapter Eleven
Alecia lived in a boarding house on Montagu Square, in a three-room suite with Edith Plash and her thirty-four-year-old daughter, Emmeline. Sadie’s supervisor at the Grand Russe, Olga, lived in the house as well.
“When I first moved into the Grand Russe with my former employers,” Alecia said as they climbed the steps to the boarding house’s front door, “the Plashes lived there as well. But Mrs. Plash is a very confused elderly person and she’d leave their suite and hide and do strange things. Eventually Mr. Eyre had enough and sent them here.”
“Did he dismiss Emmeline as his mistress?”
“I’m not really sure,” Alecia said in a low voice. “They have known each other since childhood. Their relationship has a very long story behind it.”
“Why didn’t he marry her?”
Alecia opened the door. “She’s a fair amount older and she was in love with Mr. Eyre’s brother.”
Sadie followed her into the front hallway. “Did he die in the war?”
“No, but he was badly injured.” Alecia waved at an elderly man sitting next to a gramophone in the parlor. He nodded his head cheerfully, then went back to tapping his hand on his armrest to the beat of a foxtrot.
“That’s sad. He was too injured to marry?”
Alecia led her up the stairs. “I don’t really know. They are secretive people. I take care of Mrs. Plash as best as I can. Emmeline can be very friendly and charming or utterly aloof. I never know what to expect.”
She pulled out a key and unlocked the first door on the right. They entered a sitting room both larger and more nicely furnished than Sadie would have expected from a boarding house.
“This is lovely,” Sadie said.
“Yes.”
A brassy blonde of middling height walked into the sitting room. She was dressed for dinner and dancing in a black fringed frock and black sequined headband. In one hand, she held a long cigarette holder with an unlit cigarette. Her face was heavily made-up, making her look closer to forty than thirty.
She extended a thin arm to Sadie. “Who is this darling child? Not your sister, Alecia?”
“Yes, this is Sadie. We were finally able to see one another. Sadie, Miss Emmeline Plash.”
“How lovely,” Emmeline cooed. “Alecia, Mother is having one of her spells. You’ll need to stay with her every minute tonight or she’s likely to wander.”
Alecia nodded. “Is she awake?”
“Yes, and asking for tea.”
Alecia nodded. “I’m sorry, Sadie, but I’ll have to dash.”
Sadie gave her sister a hug. “Thank you so much for helping me to pack. I’ll see you next Sunday?”
“Yes, I hope so.” Her sister smiled.
Sadie noticed that even her sister’s walk was more confident as she went down the passageway. Her truly gorgeous pink T-strap shoes didn’t hurt either, giving her normally dowdy sister some modern appeal, though her handmade dress was an old one Sadie recognized.
“Do you have anything to wear for dinner?” Emmeline inquired. “I might be dining alone otherwise.”
“Nothing that would be acceptable outside of a vicarage,” Sadie said, then frowned, surprised by the invitation. “Oh, I do have the dress I wore on my birthday.” She opened her valise, with the remnants of her Richmond Inn life, and rummaged through it, then held up the dress.
Emmeline rolled her eyes dramatically. “Child, you cannot wear that at the Grand Russe. No, let’s find you something. I think we’re the same size.”
Sadie followed her, bemused. While they were the same height, only the looseness of today’s fashion would allow them to fit in the same dress. For one thing, she had a bosom.
Emmeline had no such concerns, however. She went to her closet and pulled out a fuchsia-colored sleeveless velvet dress with a two-tiered skirt. “I can’t wear this one. It makes my skin look ghastly.”
Sadie wondered if Emmeline’s makeup was heavy in order to hide damage, pocks, or something else. She lifted the upper tier of skirt and held it again
st her wrist. “I think it will be fine on me. Are you sure you want me to borrow it?”
“Oh yes, then I don’t have to go alone. My cousins are often there, but there is no guarantee. When I lived at the Grand Russe, I’d just go back to my room and order in from the Restaurant, but now that I’m in exile, that doesn’t work.”
“You do realize I’m a chambermaid at the Grand Russe?” Sadie said tentatively.
“Of course, but your sister was a mere secretary, and Peter had no problem with her being in the Coffee Room. As long as you’re pretty enough it’s fine.” Emmeline thrust the dress at her.
Sadie changed her dress quickly and borrowed a minimum of cosmetics, but refused the cigarette holder Emmeline offered. Her grandfather had forbid them cigarettes long ago, saying smoking mothers led to unhealthy babies, and she’d noticed Les didn’t smoke either.
Emmeline didn’t even let her say goodbye to Alecia. In a wink, they were downstairs getting into a taxicab, leaving Sadie’s things, even though the hotel was less than a mile away. Sadie didn’t think Emmeline stayed thin by exercising.
Johnnie Miles, the Grand Russe doorman, opened the taxicab door for them when they arrived. Sadie saw him pay the driver. Emmeline didn’t appear to notice. Johnnie did a comical double take when she stepped out from the cab as well.
He flashed his brilliant white teeth at her and tapped his fingers against his red cap. “Why, Miss Loudon. I didn’t see you there. Your sister inside too?”
“No, Johnnie, but didn’t you hear? I’m Mrs. Rake now.”
“You done got yourself married? Well, who’d have thought? Congratulations!” His mouth curved into a smile, but Sadie noticed it didn’t reach his eyes.
“Sadie,” Emmeline said impatiently.
Sadie nodded at Johnnie and followed Emmeline into the Grand Russe. She hadn’t been in the Grand Hall too often and this was the first time she’d entered without being focused on obtaining a position. The sheer opulence of the green-and-red Russian décor struck her. She wondered how Olga felt, coming to work in a place that must look like the Russian palaces of her childhood. A page boy darted past her in a gold coat and ruby red trousers. Three flappers who would have been right at home on a movie set sat on a banquette next to a table holding a magnificent floral display. Fashionable couples queued around the Restaurant, having their names taken for the next seating. The air smelled like cigarette smoke and perfume.
“Come,” Emmeline said, gesturing impatiently with her cigarette. Sadie followed her to the double height entryway of the Coffee Room. Some said it was the most decadent room in the hotel. Utterly modern, the walls were papered in a stunning geometric white-and-blue pattern that ought to have clashed with the beautiful parquet floor but didn’t. Along the walls were silver-painted sideboards with metal urns of coffee and tea, and appetizers. A bar with an attendant was in one corner. A four-piece band was in the other.
Sadie knew the room was filled with tables in the morning, but at this time of day, half the tables were cleared away so there could be dancing before Maystone’s, the nightclub on the alley-side of the hotel, was in full swing.
Sadie’s stomach rumbled. She could see stuffed mushrooms on a tray on the sideboard against the wall. Other trays held some kind of olive spread on toast, as well as deviled eggs. She wanted to devour every cucumber sandwich left on a half-picked over tray and thrust her fingers into the bowl of salted nuts. All of it looked delicious, but Emmeline tugged her toward the bar instead of the sideboards.
She ordered champagne in an exaggeratedly high voice, looking at everyone in the room from the corners of her heavily blackened eyelashes. “My cousins are here,” she said in Sadie’s ear.
“Where?” Sadie glanced around, wondering what the male version of Emmeline would be.
“They are just about your age. Gerald and Harold. Very boring brown hair that they are each doing their best to drown in a slick of oil? It’s too sick-making, the family hair, you see.”
Sadie saw two young men in evening dress approaching them. They both had heavy-lidded eyes. She realized Emmeline probably had the same eyes, and that was part of why she looked so much older than her real age with all the makeup and the naturally sleepy expression.
“What ho, Emmy?” One of them asked. His eyes were pale blue, but that seemed to be all that distinguished him from his brown-eyed brother.
Emmeline handed Sadie a champagne flute and, thirsty from a long day, she drained the slim glass without thinking. The blue-eyed boy smiled at her. “Drink up, what? I’ll get you another.”
Sadie blinked at her empty glass. Oh, her face would be puffy in the morning. “I should eat.”
Emmeline emptied her own glass and handed it to her cousin, who returned to the bar. “No, you should dance. Gerald, dance with my friend.”
The brown-eyed youth smirked lazily and held out his hand. Sadie recognized the distinctive opening notes of “Royal Garden Blues” and grinned at him. This was exactly what she needed to take her mind off her troubles.
After the song ended, she drank the glass of bubbly that Gerald gave her, then popped a stuffed mushroom into her mouth before he moved her back onto the dance floor. They danced three songs in a row, and on the last song, she saw Emmeline enter the floor with Peter Eyre. He put the boys, with their expensive clothing and carefully styled hair, to shame. Eyre was more exotic than they, more polished. Sadie could tell every aspect of his wardrobe was top-of-the-line and he had a certain something, some kind of inner glow that brought attention to him in any room.
Her husband had the opposite quality. While Eyre would always stand apart, Les seemed to coax people to him. It was an entirely different form of charisma. With Eyre, she’d be too nervous to even dance with him, for fear she’d trip and make a fool of herself. Les made her bold.
Was Eyre actually bad for Emmeline? Maybe he was partly responsible for her frantic quality. He was perfection and she had the look of someone falling apart, even in the expensive clothes. Her fingers were stained from her cigarettes and her shoes hadn’t been polished expertly.
Distracted by her thoughts, she drank the glass of champagne Gerald brought her without thinking.
“You’d better sit down. Your face is getting red.”
Sadie put her hands to her cheeks, and felt the heat. “Oh, I become so blotchy when I drink. I shouldn’t.”
A girl of eighteen or so dashed out of a group of similarly finely dressed friends, all in the latest French fashions and fur coats. “Gerald,” she shrieked. “You cake-eater!”
“You biscuit!” he called back. “Come give us a dance.”
He left Sadie standing on the edge of the dance floor. She supposed her wedding ring made her uninteresting, even in an expensive dress. But she’d wanted a husband. It would be nicer if he was actually by her side, though, instead of who knew where.
After that, not wanting to think about her troubled marriage, she threw caution to the wind. When one of the friends of the fashionable “biscuit” asked her to dance, she danced twice with him, then had champagne. Then Gerald was at her side. More champagne. Another hour later, she found herself dashing out of the hotel, a part of the group, and going into Maystone’s, where a full band was playing, including a brilliant piano player. Sadie was entranced by the music, the dresses, the Bright Young Things, people she’d read about but never seen before. Film people, like Honor Page and Tallulah Bankhead, were holding court at small tables. She saw someone that Gerald said was a famous theatrical producer with a scantily dressed girl in her mid-teens.
Around midnight, in full courage, she danced with Peter Eyre.
“Do you like music as much as your sister does?” he asked.
Sadie shook her head. The room spun. Or maybe Eyre had spun her. “I like all kinds of fun.”
He cocked his eyebrows and tightened his grip on her. “Where is your husband?”
“Husband.” The word seemed thick on Sadie’s tongue. “Some husband.” She
put her head against Eyre’s shoulder, deciding she liked him.
Her head felt good and floaty, and the fabric of his coat cooled her heated cheeks. She lifted her nose and nuzzled his cheek. “You smell good,” she whispered. “What is that?”
“Sandalwood, Sadie.” He took one of her hands back into his own. It seemed to have wrapped around his neck.
She giggled and nuzzled him, then set her lips against his jaw.
“Sadie!” Emmeline appeared out of nowhere, and started rubbing Eyre’s face. “You’re getting lipstick all over Peter.”
Sadie blinked. “What’s wrong?”
“We need to get her home,” Eyre said. “She’s half cut.”
Sadie pulled her hand from his grasp and wrapped it around his neck again. “You don’t mind a little lipstick, do you?”
“Hey, now,” Emmeline said sharply. “Stop that.” She tugged Sadie’s arm off of Eyre’s neck.
Sadie let go of Eyre completely and stumbled back, bumping into another dancing couple. A cornet solo began, bleating out what Emmeline said next. But there was no mistaking the kiss Emmeline planted on Eyre’s mouth.
She was marking her territory. Sadie realized she’d been terribly forward. She brought her hands to her face and saw her wedding ring. Glory. Drinking was always a mistake.
“Dearie me, we have a sitter,” someone said in an arch aristocratic voice. Hands inserted themselves under her arms and she was hauled off the dance floor.
“Do you know where she lives?”
“Primrose Hill, her sister said.”
Sadie blinked blearily, saw two Peter Eyres. She wagged her finger. “One of you is quite enough, thank you.”
“What?” he said. “I can’t understand her.”
She decided she wanted to sit.
“Dearie me, not again,” said that arch voice.
Peter Eyre picked her up. Sadie could see the irritation in Emmeline’s eyes, and wanted to warn Eyre of her jealousy, but he smelled so good, and she felt secure. She passed out.
* * *
I Wanna Be Loved by You Page 15