‘I think we should launch a lifestyle brand!’ George announced triumphantly.
Henry’s frown deepened. ‘What? You mean something like Goop? Rich, spoiled women giving tips on overpriced cashmere scarves to poor, ordinary women?’
‘It’s a huge business,’ said George, ‘and it’s one of the fastest-growing sectors in e-commerce. Plus, there are no barriers to entry and its super-low cost to get started. We can use our existing customer base at Gigtix. I thought we could operate out of Hanborough – what could be more aspirational than living in a castle, after all? You and Ikea can promote it, swanning around the battlements looking glamorous.’
‘Absolutely not,’ said Henry.
‘And if the castle wins this design award,’ George rattled on, ignoring him, ‘just think of the merchandising opportunities. We could sell homeware, silverware, gifts, jewellery. People would want Hanborough-style rugs and lamps – you name it. Of course, we’d need to work out the logistics. Distribution’s the obvious problem, but—’
‘George!’ Henry cut her off. ‘I said no.’
George’s eyes narrowed. Her lips pursed into a tight, angry bow.
‘You always say no,’ she shot back. ‘But guess what, Henry? This isn’t just up to you. I’m not prepared to sit back and watch Gigtix.com go under because you’re too scared to take the next step.’
Rolling out of bed, she began pulling on her clothes angrily.
‘I’ve invited Graydon James to lunch up at the castle to discuss it further,’ she told Henry defiantly.
‘You’ve what? For fuck’s sake, Georgina, it’s my house.’
‘Not if Gigtix goes under it isn’t,’ George reminded him bitterly. ‘As partners, we both agreed to unlimited liability, remember? That means all our assets are at risk, Henry, your precious castle included.’
Pulling on her high-heeled Jimmy Choo boots, she yanked up the zips loudly.
‘Graydon James is one of the top design brands in the world. If he’d be prepared to come in with us, to lend his name, that would be huge. Especially if he gets this big award for Hanborough. People would come to associate Gigtix with Hanborough with Graydon James. That’s three brands for the price of one.’
Henry hesitated. He loathed the idea of using Hanborough as a prop to flog cheap carpets and silverware online. On the other hand, he had to admit George had a point. Most firms would pay a fortune to triple their brand recognition. What George was suggesting might do that for their business for free.
‘Flora Fitzwilliam did most of the design work for Hanborough,’ he said eventually. ‘If we do this, I want Flora involved.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous, darling,’ said George, not bothering to look up as she hunted on the floor for a missing earring. ‘No one’s heard of Flora. We want the organ grinder, not the monkey.’
‘I mean it,’ said Henry.
‘Ah, there it is!’ said George, spying the earring and screwing it into her left lobe.
‘She’s a damn good designer and she has an incredible eye for this stuff,’ Henry went on. ‘If we do this, I want Flora in.’
George looked at him now. Lying in bed, his head propped up on two huge hotel pillows, he radiated entitlement like a king. She hated herself for wanting him so much. For letting him use her, screw her and discard her, like some cheap prostitute, to go running back to his boring Swedish girlfriend. But to have to sit here and listen to him demand that Flora Fitzwilliam, of all people, be involved in their business? George’s business? That was beyond the pale.
‘My God,’ she muttered scathingly. ‘You’ve got the hots for her, haven’t you?’
‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ said Henry.
‘What’s ridiculous is you trying to jimmy some unknown underling into a perfectly good business plan, just because she gives you a hard-on.’
‘That’s enough!’ Henry shouted.
‘Have you slept with her already?’ George demanded. When Henry didn’t answer she added nastily, ‘You know what her nickname was at school, don’t you? Easy to Spread. Get it? Flora? I daresay she hasn’t changed much.’
Henry looked at her with utter loathing, but for once George was too angry to care.
‘I’ll see you for lunch on Saturday,’ she said, picking up her Chanel purse and swinging it over her shoulder. ‘With Graydon. Wear something nice. And try not to be too bloody miserable, would you? It gets dreadfully boring after a while.’
Before Henry could think of a comeback she left, slamming the door behind her.
Flora scuttled nervously along Marylebone High Street, looking over her shoulder every few minutes as if worried she might be being followed.
I’d make a terrible spy, she thought, ducking left into a winding, cobbled mews street before taking a sharp right into a wider, tree-lined avenue. I wouldn’t be great as an unfaithful wife, either. I don’t know how people can stand the tension.
The street she was on now was full of large, grand Victorian homes. Classic London, white stucco affairs, with pillared porticos and balconies outside the upper-floor windows that no one ever used. Flora quickly identified number forty-four, with its neatly trimmed hedge and new paintwork, its gleaming windows and window boxes overflowing with gypsophila and tiny blue pansies.
Smoothing down her hair and tightening the belt on her new mackintosh coat, she steadied her nerves and rang the bell.
An older man opened the front door. Handsome in a very English way, he wore a perfectly pressed chocolate brown cashmere sweater over a checked, Thomas Pink shirt, and corduroy trousers in a lighter shade of brown. He smelled of light, lemony aftershave and soap and he had a wonderful, utterly genuine smile that dissolved Flora’s nerves like an Alka-Seltzer in water.
‘You must be Flora. Come in, my dear. Come in.’
The older man introduced himself as George Wilkes, Jason Cranley’s husband. It was Jason Cranley, only son of Brett Cranley, and erstwhile Fittlescombe resident, who had rung Flora yesterday out of the blue and convinced her to make the trip down to town today.
‘Penny tells me you’re a miracle worker,’ Jason had told Flora. ‘A design genius, she said.’
Flora had laughed. ‘I’m afraid she may have stretched the truth a little there.’
‘I wouldn’t ask if we weren’t desperate,’ Jason had gone on. ‘George just fired our third designer in a row. The new adoption people are coming in two weeks and we need the place to look like a family home before then. Please? Just take a look.’
The house was glorious, already finished to a very high standard, at least in Flora’s opinion. Admittedly it didn’t scream ‘family home’. Although they already had one delightful, very placid little girl, the stark white walls and abstract sculptures, erotic sketches and chinoiserie-themed master suite in various shades of dark lacquer and murder-red were definitely more gay-art-dealer chic than Play-Doh friendly. Flora wasn’t sure what the problem with the adoption agency was, though, if they already had one child?
‘That’s the thing,’ Jason explained, arriving home late from a rehearsal – Brett Cranley’s only son was a gifted jazz pianist. ‘New agency, new regulations … basically, it needs to look more relaxed. Less perfect.’
‘You mean a bit less gay?’ George chipped in, apparently amused by the whole thing.
‘Honestly, he’s got no idea what these adoption harridans are like. Yes, it needs to be less gay. And less white, and less male and less rich. We need to look like—’
‘Mixed-race heterosexuals from the wrong end of Fulham who can’t pay their mortgage and love nothing more than having all their furniture scrawled on by sticky-handed rug-rats?’ George winked at Jason, obligingly finishing for him.
‘Exactly,’ said Jason. Turning back to Flora he asked, ‘Can you do that?’
‘Easy-peasy.’ Flora grinned. She already loved Jason and George, just as Penny had told her she would. ‘The problem is, I’m not officially allowed to work on my own projects. I’m under contract
to Graydon James.’
‘Graydon? He did my dad’s beach house in the Hamptons,’ said Jason.
‘I know. I think your father was the one who recommended him to Henry Saxton Brae. That’s how I ended up doing the Hanborough restoration and meeting Penny …’
‘… who introduced you to us. How perfect.’ Jason smiled.
‘Well, yes and no,’ said Flora. ‘Like I say, officially—’
‘We’ll employ you unofficially,’ said Jason, waving a hand in easy dismissal of Flora’s contractual problems. ‘Two weeks’ work, on the side, cash in hand, no questions asked.’
‘You sound like Del Boy.’ George laughed.
‘Please?’ said Jason.
‘Well, I—’
‘A hundred thousand,’ said Jason.
Flora’s jaw dropped. A hundred grand? In pounds? For two weeks’ moonlighting? Just how rich are these guys?
‘OK, a hundred and fifty,’ said Jason, misinterpreting her silence as some sort of negotiating technique. ‘Graydon will never know, I promise. Mum’s the word.’
‘Shouldn’t the word be Dad?’ quipped George, who still wasn’t taking this seriously.
‘OK,’ Flora blurted. What the hell. I’ll be able to buy the world’s most beautiful wedding dress, and even have some savings left over for once in my life.
Of course, it did mean that whatever small chance she’d had of flying back to see Mason had now evaporated completely. She would literally have to work through the night on Jason and George’s project to get it done in time without compromising her work up at the castle. When he sees my dress, he’ll understand, Flora told herself.
‘OK, you’ll do it?’ Jason grabbed both of her hands and looked up at her hopefully.
‘I’ll do it,’ said Flora, grinning. ‘You’ve got yourself a designer.’
Graydon James walked morosely around the moat at Hanborough Castle. He’d jetted into Heathrow with high hopes, but so far his trip had been one disappointment after another. First, Cedric Brun, Graydon’s old friend and most influential ally on the committee for the International Designer of the Year award, had announced he was stepping down from this year’s judging panel due to ‘health pressures’. As Graydon knew for a fact that this was code for Cedric slipping off to Argentina for yet another face-lift (no doubt to fix the last one, which had made him look like a baboon’s arse shot with extremely unflattering light), he was less than sympathetic during their lunch at Scalini.
‘Nominations are two months away,’ Graydon pleaded. ‘Surely you can hang on until then?’
‘I can, darling,’ Cedric simpered. ‘But my stomach’s another matter. I’ve been a martyr to it for years now, as you know, but it’s reached a point where I simply can’t focus on my work. It wouldn’t be fair for me to stay on. Not when all the entrants have put their hearts and souls into their projects. It’s time for a younger man to take my seat.’
Graydon didn’t give a fuck about the other entrants. He needed a major feather in his cap now, a significant PR victory, if he didn’t want a younger man – or woman, for that matter – to take his seat as global tastemaker extraordinaire. He’d been around long enough to know that one was only ever as good as one’s last big project, one’s last prestigious award or multi-page glossy magazine spread. If he played his cards right, Hanborough Castle would be Graydon’s ticket to another decade at the top of the pile. It didn’t help that his ace in the pack, Cedric, was busy throwing himself on the fire.
His schmoozing meetings at Condé Nast hadn’t gone much better either. Vogue Interiors had just hired a new editor, a preposterously young lesbian named Jane Tee. Ms Tee looked at Graydon as if he were some sort of curiosity from the prehistoric era, and could barely restrain her laughter at his suggestion that she might like to devote a few pages on next month’s issue to his career highlights.
‘We don’t do those sort of puff pieces any more, I’m afraid, Mr James,’ Jane Tee said bluntly. Lesbians, in Graydon’s opinion, said everything bluntly, and were a tiresome addition to their already tiresome sex. ‘I’d be happy to look at any genuinely new work you’re doing. Or perhaps showcase some of your younger designers? I hear you have quite the reputation for fostering new talent.’
‘You’re too kind,’ said Graydon, through teeth so gritted he was in danger of losing a veneer.
Then, finally, he’d driven all the way out to Hanborough Castle for a lunch meeting with Georgina Savile, to discuss terms for some sort of collaboration on an online lifestyle business, only to be forced to sit through an embarrassing meal, during which it became apparent that Henry Saxton Brae, George’s partner, was by no means on board with the idea.
‘What is it you feel you can offer us at Gigtix?’ Henry had had the nerve to ask him. As if he, Graydon James, had approached them cap in hand, and not the other way around!
‘Don’t be silly, Henry,’ George answered for him, in the face of Graydon’s own horrified silence. ‘Graydon James is a globally recognized brand with decades of experience. As you well know.’
‘And as you well know, GJD made a loss in the last three consecutive quarters,’ Henry hit the ball back to her.
Graydon had sat and watched miserably, like a dog at a tennis match, while the two young partners fired increasingly aggressive shots at one another. At last, mercifully, the plates were cleared, Henry made his excuses, and George suggested that the two of them take a stroll around the grounds.
There was little outside to lift Graydon’s spirits. A grey, freezing, early February mist hung over the castle like a shadow on an old man’s lung. Flora had achieved a huge amount in the months since Graydon had last been here. But a quarter of the building was still covered in scaffolding and in the thin, shadowy half-light of winter, the new party barn looked stark, ugly and out of place.
‘I thought you said you’d discussed our collaboration with Henry.’ Graydon looked accusingly at George.
‘We did discuss it.’
‘Well, he’s obviously not interested,’ Graydon snapped.
‘Oh, that’s just Henry being Henry,’ George said soothingly. ‘He knows we need to break new ground as a business. It’s just that, when it comes to Hanborough, he takes everything so personally.’
Graydon made a noncommittal grunting noise, designed to express his lack of interest in Henry’s emotional attachment to his new home.
‘And then, you know … there’s Flora,’ George added, making a scrunched-up face.
Graydon stopped walking. ‘What about Flora?’
George hesitated, biting her lower lip. ‘Oh, nothing. I don’t really like to say.’
‘Has something happened?’ Graydon pressed her.
‘No, no. Nothing. Well, nothing concrete,’ George corrected herself.
Graydon gave her an out with it look.
‘The thing is, I’m rather afraid that Henry has the hots for her.’
‘Is that a problem?’ Graydon looked perplexed.
‘It might be,’ said George. ‘When I floated the idea of launching a lifestyle brand, the first thing Henry did was start insisting that Flora be involved. According to Henry, Flora’s done all the design work at the castle single-handedly. He made it sound as if you’d had nothing to do with it at all.’ She fluttered her eyelashes at Graydon disingenuously.
‘That’s nonsense,’ said Graydon. ‘Is that what Flora’s been saying?’
George shrugged. ‘I don’t know. But I do know she’s worked very hard to get both Henry and Eva wrapped around her little finger. According to Henry, Flora’s the creative genius at Graydon James.’
‘That’s ridiculous!’ Graydon exploded.
‘I know. That’s what I told him,’ said George. ‘But Henry’s under the impression that you’re – now, how did he put it again?’ She furrowed her brow, as if trying to remember. ‘“The numbers guy.” That’s it. That’s what he called you.’
Graydon felt the bile rise up into his throat. So that’s what
Flora had been doing these past few months. Undermining him with the clients. After everything he’d done for that girl!
‘He even said that if Hanborough did win this award you’ve been talking about, it really ought to go to Flora.’ George twisted the knife. ‘I don’t know what Flora’s been saying exactly. But I don’t think Henry would have come up with an idea like that on his own. Do you?’
No, thought Graydon, walking on in a moody silence. I don’t.
‘I’m probably speaking out of turn,’ said George, delighted by the effect her comments were having on Graydon but doing her best to hide it. ‘But I’ve also heard that she’s been taking on private commissions in London.’
‘She can’t!’ Graydon was suitably appalled. ‘She works for me. She’s under contract.’
‘Well, quite,’ said George. ‘But when the cat’s away, and all that. Now, obviously, these are just rumours,’ she demurred. ‘I don’t know any of this for a fact. But if you want me to get Henry on board with our collaboration, I think you might need to rein Flora in a bit.’
Rein her in? thought Graydon furiously. I’ll fucking strangle her.
‘And in the meantime,’ George slipped her arm through Graydon’s, ‘I have another idea I wanted to run past you. This is nothing to do with Henry or Gigtix. It’s something I thought perhaps the two of us might work on together. Under the radar, as it were.’ She simpered.
‘Shoot,’ said Graydon.
George made her pitch. It was interesting, actually, but Graydon was only half listening.
Flora Fitzwilliam was stabbing him in the back, was she? Trying to cut him out of his own damn business? Wrecking what Graydon had spend a lifetime creating, like an ungrateful, greedy cuckoo in his nest?
Well, two could play at that game.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
It was a Sunday night at the beginning of March and Flora was in her pyjamas on the sofa in Peony Cottage when her cell phone rang.
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