Nicola Cornick Collection

by Nicola Cornick

  ‘As long as you support the right of women to have the vote, then I am sure there shall be no problem,’ Sally said, smiling.

  ‘I try,’ Greg said, ‘but then I think of your sister Connie having the right of suffrage …’

  ‘Well,’ Sally said, ‘if it comes to that, I need only think of the likes of Bertie deciding the future of the country …’

  ‘A fair point,’ Greg conceded. ‘You have my support. Were they unbearable after I left?’

  ‘Intolerable,’ Sally agreed. ‘But Lady Ottoline gave Connie a piece of her mind and they retired to the Randolph and left us alone.’

  ‘You do not seem too concerned,’ Greg observed. ‘Not long ago you would have blamed yourself for the entire episode.’

  Sally fidgeted with her pen. ‘I suppose so. But Jack made me see that Connie and Nell are not my responsibility any longer.’

  ‘I’ve been telling you that for years,’ Greg said drily.

  ‘I know.’ Sally avoided his eyes. ‘I am sorry, Greg.’ She smiled. ‘But if you came for my permission and blessing for you and Nell, then you have it anyway. Dear Greg. I am happy for you.’

  Greg smiled slightly too, but the smile faded from his eyes quickly. ‘I wish I could say the same for you,’ he said. ‘I understand from Charley that you do intend to go through with it?’

  Sally sighed. ‘Greg, we have had this conversation already.’

  ‘You are going to marry a man who cannot love you.’ Greg said. He shook his head. ‘You deserve better than that, Sal.’

  ‘I have not given Jack my final decision—’ Sally started to say, but Greg stopped her with a look.

  ‘You have decided, Sal. You know you have. You have made the first reckless and ill-considered decision of your life.’

  ‘The second one,’ Sally said, thinking back to her first night with Jack.

  Greg did not smile. ‘There is something I haven’t told you. I wondered whether I should interfere or not …’ He cleared his throat. ‘Damn it, Sal …’

  ‘If it is something to do with Jack’s past,’ Sally said feelingly, ‘then I do not want to know. I have no desire to spend my married life with people coming up to me and whispering maliciously in my ear that there’s something I should know about my husband. There is always going to be someone talking scandal.’

  ‘It’s not that,’ Greg said.

  Sally raised her brows. ‘Then what is it?’

  ‘You must accept that I am telling you this for your own good—’ Greg began, but Sally shook her head sharply.

  ‘All you are doing is making me nervous. Well?’

  ‘Whilst we were at Dauntsey,’ Greg said, ‘my agent had an approach from someone acting on behalf of an anonymous buyer. They wanted to buy my stake in the Blue Parrot, Sal.’

  Sally felt a chill tiptoe down her neck.

  ‘Why would anyone want a stake in the club?’ she asked.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Greg said, ‘but they wanted it badly. They offered twice the value of my investment. I told Montgomery that I would not sell under any circumstances and I asked him to try to discover the identity of the mystery buyer, but all he could find was that the agent was Churchward, who acts on behalf of the Kestrel family, and that he had approached all the other investors as well. They all sold, Sal. I am sorry.’

  The chill in Sally’s blood intensified. She toyed with a pen, trying to concentrate and succeeding only in getting ink stains all over her fingers.

  ‘Not everyone is as loyal as you are, Greg,’ she said lightly. ‘So you think that Mr Churchward’s mysterious buyer is intent on controlling the Blue Parrot?’ She put the pen down. ‘And indeed if he has already bought up all my other investors, he owns the club now, for your share and mine come only to forty percent.’

  Greg nodded. ‘Churchward represents many other clients in addition to Jack Kestrel, of course.’

  ‘Of course,’ Sally echoed. She looked up and met Greg’s eyes. ‘But I think we both know that it must be Jack who is behind this. Who else would be interested in buying the Blue Parrot?’

  Greg shook his head. ‘I do not know. But why would Jack seek control of the Club, unless …?’

  Unless …

  Sally thought back to the very first night that she had met Jack. It was only a week ago, but it felt like an age. So much had happened. Despite the shortness of their acquaintance she had even fooled herself into thinking she knew him, understood him. But what did she really know of Jack Kestrel, the man she had fallen helplessly in love with, but who could not love her in return?

  She had been careless when they first met, she acknowledged, telling him that her business situation was precarious and dependent on the investors in the club. Such information would be crucial for a man looking to buy a stake … Or looking for revenge …

  ‘Montgomery said that the offer arrived whilst we were at Dauntsey?’ she asked carefully.

  ‘On the Friday,’ Greg confirmed.

  The Friday. That had been two days after she and Jack had met. The very day that Jack had come to the Blue Parrot to accuse her of conspiring with Connie to fleece his family.

  ‘And Churchward’s client was still interested when you came back to London yesterday?’ Sally questioned.

  Greg nodded sombrely. ‘He pressed me for an answer immediately even though it was a Sunday,’ he said. ‘Montgomery said that Churchward was most insistent. I am sorry, Sal.’

  ‘I will see you tonight,’ Jack had said, when he had put her on the train at Oxford and given her a brief, hard kiss in parting. Tonight, with the King present and the unveiling of the Crimson Salon, Jack Kestrel would walk in not only as her fiancé, but also as the man with a controlling share in the Blue Parrot. If Greg had sold, he would have owned almost everything. Everything that Sally had worked for, everything that she had struggled to achieve over the last seven years, belonged to Jack. He had taken her body and he had taken her heart and now he had almost succeeded in taking her business. She was ruined. It was the perfect revenge.

  Yet some stubborn instinct in her told her that Jack would never do that to her. Even while the doubts whispered in her mind, reminding her that Jack was ruthless and she barely knew him at all, an obstinate loyalty and the deep conviction she had that she did know him, made her cling tenaciously to the idea that he would never hurt her like that.

  ‘I don’t believe it,’ she whispered.

  Greg was looking at her with pity. She knew he thought she was denying the truth because she could not face the idea of Jack’s betrayal.

  ‘Don’t say you are sorry again,’ Sally said, as Greg opened his mouth to speak. He shrugged, but kept silent.

  ‘Jack would not do that,’ Sally said, but she wondered if she was trying to convince herself.

  ‘Whatever happens tonight,’ Greg said, standing up, ‘I shall be there for you, Sal.’

  He went out. Sally heard him say goodbye to Mary, heard the sound of the door closing behind him, and then she sat in silence, she did not know for how long, with the thoughts and fears, dreams and nightmares jostling in her head, until she finally admitted to herself that she did not know what to believe.

  ‘Matty! Matty!’ Sally tumbled through the door of her bedroom to find Mrs Matson knitting placidly in the chair beside the fireplace.

  ‘Here’s a to-do!’ Mrs Matson said, laying her work aside and getting stiffly to her feet. ‘Wondered what had happened to you, Miss Sally. Isn’t the King due in an hour and a half?’

  Sally threw a harassed look at the clock. ‘He is! Why did no one come to find me?’

  ‘Didn’t want to disturb you,’ Mrs Matson said, pursing her lips. ‘Remember what happened last time I walked in—?’ She stopped, peering. ‘You’ve been crying, pet. You never cry. What’s the matter?’

  ‘Nothing,’ Sally said. ‘Everything.’ She dashed the back of her hand across her cheeks. ‘Oh, Matty, someone has bought up the Blue Parrot and I think it is Mr Kestrel and I can’t help
but worry he has done it for revenge! He will take everything, Matty, everything I have worked for, and I can’t bear it!’

  ‘Can’t bear for him to take it or can’t bear that he might have betrayed you?’ Mrs Matson asked shrewdly.

  ‘Both!’ Sally gulped. ‘How could I have been so stupid to have fallen in love with him, Matty? I barely know him! And it hurts so much to think he might have done this.’

  Mrs Matson caught Sally’s cold hands in hers. ‘Wait, wait! You don’t know what he has done. You won’t know until you ask him.’

  ‘No,’ Sally said, ‘but I cannot speak to him when the King is here and all my guests … Oh!’ She ran a hand through her hair, dislodging the pins. ‘How monstrously stupid I have been!’

  ‘Can’t help who you fall in love with,’ Mrs Matson said comfortably, going over to the wardrobe and taking out a glittering silver gown that tumbled like a waterfall over her arm. ‘Knew the moment I saw Matson that he was the man for me.’

  ‘Did you?’ Sally said, staring. She had never known that.

  ‘Didn’t marry him for nine years, mind,’ Matty said. ‘We had to save up.’ She looked at Sally. ‘One week, nine years … Sometimes it doesn’t make any difference to how you feel. I’ll draw you a bath, Miss Sally. You’ll feel better after that.’

  An hour later, dressed in the beautiful Worth silver gown, with her hair in diamond pins and all traces of tears removed from her face, Sally hurried down the stairs at the Blue Parrot.

  Dan met her as soon as she reached the bottom step.

  ‘There’s trouble,’ he said.

  Sally shot him a look. Her nerves, already fluttering as tight as butterflies in her stomach, tightened further.

  ‘The King is here,’ Dan said.

  ‘Already?’ Sally was horrified. She checked the marble clock in the hall. ‘He is not due for another half-hour and he is always late! Why did you not come to tell me?’

  ‘I was on my way,’ Dan said plaintively. ‘He only arrived five minutes ago—with Mr Kestrel.’

  Sally felt a flash of panic. So Jack had arrived, too—and he had not come to find her. All the fears and doubts she had tried so hard to suppress came rushing back. Was he going to use this night, of all nights, to announce that he now owned the Blue Parrot and had ruined her business and her reputation? She pushed the terrifying thought out of her mind and tried to concentrate.

  ‘Where are they now?’ she enquired.

  ‘In the Crimson Salon. They thought they would be the first to use the new gaming tables for a game of chemin de fer.’

  Sally swore softly. ‘Very well.’ She might have known that Jack Kestrel and King Edward between them would create havoc with her carefully planned evening. First she was supposed to greet the King and make a little speech welcoming her guests, then she was going to declare the new Salon open and send around the champagne … But of course Jack and King Edward had had to arrive early and ruin all her plans. The guests were streaming in now, the ladies elegant in rainbow silks, the gentlemen stark in black-and-white evening dress. All looked horrified when they heard the whisper that the King was already there. Sally hurried towards the Crimson Salon, her heels snapping over the marble floor.

  Dan threw open the door and Sally paused on the threshold. For a moment it felt as though time had unrolled and she was standing there on the night a week before when Jack had almost broken the bank. Tonight he had observed the dress code and was looked devastatingly handsome in black and pristine white. In other ways the picture was the same as it had been the previous time; Jack was sprawled in his chair, a lock of dark hair falling across his forehead, his cards held in one careless hand. He had discarded his jacket and the pure whiteness of his shirt looked stark against the darkness of his tanned skin. He looked arrogant and dangerous and so shockingly attractive that Sally’s heart beat violently against her ribs before she took a deep breath and schooled herself to calm.

  Jack looked up as Sally started to walk towards the chemin de fer table. His gaze, intense and black, seemed to devour her. His concentration was on her alone. Sally was vaguely aware of all her guests hurrying into the Salon behind her, whispering and jostling. They could feel the tension in the air. They knew something unexpected was going to happen.

  As Sally approached the table, both King Edward and Jack Kestrel rose to their feet.

  ‘Your Majesty.’ By sheer force of will, Sally kept her gaze from Jack and smiled demurely at the King as she dropped her curtsy. The light from the diamond chandelier was dazzling. The King, already wreathed in cigar smoke and with a champagne glass at his elbow, smiled expansively.

  ‘Evening, Sal.’ Edward planted a gallant kiss on the back of Sally’s hand. He did not apologise for arriving early and throwing all her plans into confusion. He knew he could do as he liked. ‘You look stunning tonight, my dear,’ he said, ‘does she not, Kestrel?’

  ‘Exquisite,’ Jack said, and the look in his eyes made Sally burn inside.

  ‘I am sorry,’ she said, ‘that I kept you waiting, your Majesty.’

  ‘No matter.’ Edward beamed broadly. ‘Jack here thought to keep me entertained with a game of chemin de fer. I fear he is already winning though, my dear. Five hundred up against the house.’

  Sally grimaced. ‘Mr Kestrel has the devil’s own luck, sir, as you have observed yourself.’

  Jack laughed. There was a wicked spark in his eyes. ‘I’ll wager all my winnings tonight against one night with you, Miss Bowes,’ he said, as he had once before.

  There was a ripple of scandalous shock around the room.

  Sally took a deep breath. ‘Mr Kestrel,’ she said, meeting the challenge in his gaze, ‘for all your prowess at the gaming tables, you are a slow learner. I told you once before that the Blue Parrot is not that sort of establishment and I am not that sort of woman.’ She raised her brows. ‘Besides, you are playing against your own bank now, are you not, Mr Kestrel? Now that you own a controlling stake in the Blue Parrot?’

  Jack’s eyes narrowed. He masked his surprise well, Sally thought. It was no wonder that he was so successful at cards. But she could also tell that he had not known she was aware of his plans. In that one respect she held the upper hand. His gaze was fixed on hers and for the briefest second Sally saw uncertainty in his eyes, vulnerability even. He hesitated. Sally had never thought to see vulnerability in Jack Kestrel. It caught at her heart and it puzzled her as well.

  Suddenly there was a silence in the room so acute that Sally could hear her own breathing.

  ‘What’s this?’ King Edward spoke sharply and both Sally and Jack jumped. Sally had forgotten he was even there. ‘You have bought up the Blue Parrot, Kestrel?’

  ‘I … Yes.’ Jack cleared his throat. ‘It was intended to be a surprise for Miss Bowes.’

  ‘It certainly was that,’ Sally said.

  The King was looking from one to the other. ‘To what end?’

  Jack was silent. The King was frowning. The crowd shifted and shimmered under the dazzling white lights of the chandeliers as everyone strained to hear what was going on. Even the waiters, busy dispensing champagne, had frozen where they stood.

  ‘I think I can answer that question, your Majesty,’ Sally said. She did not take her gaze from Jack for a single second. She could feel that she was shaking. She was about to take a huge risk, to let go of her doubts and show publicly all the love she had for Jack and the faith she had in him. And if he chose to use that to humiliate her then she would be finished.

  ‘I think Mr Kestrel bought the Blue Parrot for me as an engagement present,’ she said. ‘I think he intended to give the deeds to me tonight.’

  Something shifted in Jack’s expression and suddenly she saw all the love and fear and doubt in him that was a mirror image for her own anxieties, and then she saw it swamped by a blazing joy as he grabbed her in his arms and kissed her so fiercely she lost her breath. Her heart leapt and she gave a gasp of mingled disbelief and elation.

 
; ‘Sally Bowes,’ Jack said, against her lips, ‘you are the sweetest and most generous and loving of women and I do not deserve you, but I love you so much …’

  The King, as an amused onlooker, started to applaud. He had a wide smile on his face. After a shocked second everyone else in the Crimson Salon joined in.

  ‘Well,’ Sally said, emerging ruffled and breathless from Jack’s embrace, ‘that was neither the speech nor the spectacle I was planning, but I think it has got the evening off to a fine start.’

  Everyone was coming up to congratulate them now. Gregory Holt shouldered his way through the crowd and offered Jack his hand.

  ‘You could have had my stake as well if you had only told me what it was for, old fellow,’ he said. He smiled at Sally. ‘I will make my shares over to you tomorrow, Sal.’

  Jack looked rueful. ‘I am sorry,’ he said. ‘I have a bad habit of secrecy. But I am sure Sally will cure me of it.’

  Some enterprising musician struck up a celebratory dance and Jack caught Sally’s hand.

  ‘If you will permit, your Majesty?’ he said.

  ‘Of course.’ Edward kissed Sally soundly. ‘Spirit your fiancée away with my blessing, Kestrel. I shall come to the wedding of course,’ he added, much to Sally’s secret horror. ‘But for now, more cards—and more champagne!’

  All those who had been present at the Blue Parrot that night later agreed that it was the event of the Season. The King won at chemin de fer, the champagne flowed like a river, the dancing continued until morning and that most unobtainable bachelor, Jack Kestrel, was so besotted with his fiancée that he refused to leave her side for a second, a sight which many people had thought never to live to see.

  ‘You were right, of course,’ Jack said. Dawn was breaking and he and Sally were sitting alone in the rose arbour in the garden of the Blue Parrot. The morning scent of dew on the grass filled the air and the birds were starting to sing. Jack held Sally’s hand as though it was a lifeline. He could still not quite believe that she was truly, publicly his. He still could not believe he could love her so much.