The Rise and Fall of Becky Sharp

by Sarra Manning

  ‘You’ve never been poor, so how the hell would you know?’ Becky asked sweetly and George was about to tell her about some of the utter horror shows that came to his ghastly monthly constituency surgeries, but she was already looking past him. ‘Jos! You haven’t even said hello to me. How rude! Tell me, how are your balls?’

  Jos immediately tipped his decaff soy latte down his immaculately white T-shirt. ‘Beg pardon?’ he spluttered.

  ‘Your protein balls,’ Becky clarified as Rawdon laughed because he always found it funny when his wife had someone in her sights, especially if it wasn’t him. ‘What other balls would I be talking about? So, are you now the number-one seller of protein balls on the West Coast?’

  ‘You remembered?’ Jos said as he ineffectually mopped at the coffee stain.

  ‘Becky never forgets anything,’ Rawdon said. ‘Frailty, thy name is woman.’

  Behind her shades, Becky’s eyes narrowed because she didn’t like it when Rawdon was perceptive. Not that it happened very often. And he was a fine one to accuse her of being weak when he was completely spineless. Not that Becky had any intention of letting the assembled company know that there was trouble in paradise.

  ‘I do love it when you quote Shakespeare. Sends shivers down my spine.’ And she wriggled very slightly where she sat so that Jos immediately squirmed in his chair and ran a stubby finger around the collar of his T-shirt and Rawdon smiled at the thought of what Becky might let him do to her if they went back to the yacht instead of trying to find the real fishermen of the real Cannes. Even George Wylie had to put his copy of that day’s Times on his lap. What with the wonderful things that delightful shudder had done to her breasts and the way Becky Sharp’s foot had been caressing his leg for the last half an hour, he was quite undone.

  *

  Despite the dangerous undercurrents at brunch, the five of them were nevertheless reunited the following evening at a benefit gala at Le Mirage. The fashion company who were sponsoring the event had sent Becky a delicate tight tulle sheath almost the same colour as her skin, so she’d have looked quite naked if the dress hadn’t been scattered with crystals that matched the mischievous glint in her eyes.

  The proceeds of the silent auction, the climax of the gala, would be going to the anti-bullying charity that Becky represented, though even she was unaware that most of the money would be siphoned off by the husband and wife who’d founded the charity as a way of increasing their tax exemptions.

  Being involved in charitable causes – the right kind of charitable causes – was such a good way of meeting the right kind of people. Climbing up that greasy pole so that Becky was practically A-list by association. Only the other month, she’d been at a charity lunch and had been seated two tables away from an HRH.

  But there was no point in being practically A-list if there was no one present to witness how far Becky Sharp had come. People who had once treated her like she was some kind of charity case herself, and then grown tired of her. People like Amelia Sedley, for instance, or her brother, Jos, who’d thought that he and his protein balls were too good for the likes of her. Becky hated to give him even faint praise but at least George Wylie had never pitied her.

  ‘That’s about the only point in his favour,’ she remarked to Rawdon once she’d sent one of the designer deckhands off with three handwritten invitations to the benefit to be delivered to the hotel where George and the Sedleys were staying. It wasn’t even that nice a hotel because at this time of year, bona fide movie stars and Hollywood executives trumped the Member of Parliament for Squashmore, even if he was heir to a baronetcy. Not like the luxurious guest suite of the super-yacht, where Rawdon was currently sprawled on the bed recovering from the night before. ‘I still hate him though.’

  ‘Poor Wylie. He did seem quite smitten with you at breakfast the other morning,’ Rawdon noted lazily, relieved that it was someone else’s turn to be the target of her wrath. ‘Couldn’t take his eyes off your tits.’

  ‘These old things,’ Becky said mockingly, lightly touching the articles in question. As she’d learnt from their wedding night, few things stoked Rawdon’s ardour like the thought of other men wanting to fuck his wife (even though lately his ardour had been impeded by the substances that he smoked or snorted). She imagined that it was something to do with having gone to public school. ‘I might have to get your initials tattooed on them. Just so George knows who they belong to.’

  Rawdon pricked up his ears, as well as other parts. ‘You’d do that?’

  ‘Maybe.’ Becky would never do any such thing but she might consent to having a small R on her wrist or something. It was her own initial, after all. ‘We’re getting sidetracked here, Rawdy. Now, do you promise that you’ll behave yourself tonight?’

  His lazy good mood instantly evaporated. ‘I’m not a child,’ he snapped. ‘And you’re not a nanny any more.’

  ‘I might just as well be,’ Becky reminded him. ‘All five of the bratty little Crawleys were better behaved than you. Even Thisbe.’

  Rawdon scrabbled for his shades and put them on so he wouldn’t have to look her in the eye. Then he lounged back on the bed, the effort to appear nonchalant testing every single skill that he’d been taught at RADA. ‘You knew I was a hellraiser when you married me,’ he drawled, having conveniently forgotten that he’d vowed on his dead mother’s grave to go straight before Becky would even let him kiss her.

  ‘But you don’t raise hell, Rawdy. That might be quite exciting,’ Becky said with a sniff. ‘You just get coked up, talk bollocks for hours and what money you haven’t spent on drugs, you manage to lose at the casino. Why do you gamble when you’re terrible at it? At least my father knew how to count the cards.’

  ‘You know what they say? Unlucky at cards, lucky in love.’

  ‘I’m certainly not lucky in love,’ Becky said so savagely that Rawdon quaked behind his dark glasses. ‘If you really loved me, you’d have done more than tell me not to make a scene when that brute tried to shove a champagne bottle up me.’

  ‘You were the one who said I should hustle more, network more, schmooze more. That’s what I was trying to do with him in the hot tub before you arrived,’ Rawdon protested in a very whiny voice, which always made Becky want to slap him.

  ‘Oh, really? Because it looked to me like you were just hoovering up huge lines of coke …’

  ‘Everyone does coke and anyway, Becks, he said it was an accident and that he just slipped, so there was no need to stab his hand with a lobster fork,’ Rawdon said sulkily.

  ‘I slipped. What I did was an accident,’ Becky parroted Rawdon’s own words back at him, then she turned away as she couldn’t bear to look at his ridiculous adolescent pout. The super-yacht was being rented from a Russian oligarch and their guest suite was decorated in black marble with gold trim and mirrors everywhere, so it looked a lot like the loos of a fancy suburban nightclub in the late eighties. Becky stared at her own reflection, which was usually so pleasing to her. But not today, when she had an unattractive furrow between her eyebrows, a petulant droop to her mouth, so that she could see exactly what she’d look like five years down the line if she and Rawdon were still together. Which, at this moment, seemed highly unlikely unless Matilda softened and he became a much more … attractive proposition than he was currently.

  She closed her eyes so she wouldn’t have to see Rawdon in the mirror, still spread-eagled on the bed with his mouth hanging open.

  ‘Baby, I’m sorry.’ She heard him get up and pad towards her. Then he was nuzzling the back of her neck. ‘Don’t be cross with your Rawdy. I promise to be a good boy.’

  Both the nuzzling and the baby talk reminded her of Sir Pitt and she shuddered, though Rawdon seemed to think it was a shiver of anticipation because he doubled down on the nuzzling.

  ‘Only if you promise not to do any more drugs,’ Becky said in a vaguely conciliatory tone. And when Rawdon caught her gaze in the mirror, she even managed a smile. ‘You’ve seen what I can
do with a lobster fork.’

  He stopped nuzzling and – Becky wanted to throw her head back and scream – he was pouting again.

  ‘No drugs, no gambling, no fun.’ He touched the side of his head in a mocking salute. ‘Got it!’

  It was going to be a very long, very dreary night if Rawdon was in a sulk. Becky summoned up a naughty, conspiratorial smile that would have made Rawdon’s eyes gleam if he didn’t still have his bloody shades on.

  ‘I said no drugs but we can still have fun,’ she purred, reaching up to pat his cheek. ‘We can even do a little bit of gambling, if you fancy it?’

  ‘At one of the casinos?’ Rawdon asked hopefully.

  ‘Ha! Nice try. We’re broke after your last visit to Les Princes,’ Becky scoffed, patting his cheek again. ‘But that doesn’t mean we can’t have a little wager between us.’

  ‘A bet?’ Rawdon couldn’t hide his interest. Not even Frank Sharp had been such an inveterate gambler – he knew to quit when he was ahead, whereas Rawdon would never fold; not even when the odds were stacked against him. ‘What are we betting on?’

  ‘We’re betting on how well you know your old friend George Wylie,’ Becky said and suddenly the night ahead, the gala, was no longer going to be dreary. Not with what she had planned. ‘When faced with unbearable temptation.’

  ‘It’s not much of a bet. Wylie likes to keep his nose clean,’ Rawdon said, not even acknowledging the irony that his own nasal passages were constantly sullied by the finest Peruvian marching powder. ‘Always has.’

  ‘What was that you said before about him staring at my breasts?’ Becky asked idly, her gaze dropping to her cleavage. ‘You don’t even want to know what he was doing under the table.’

  ‘What was he doing?’ Rawdon tried to sound angry, territorial even, but he couldn’t hide the lust in his voice at the thought of his old school adversary, superior, supercilious George Wylie, trying it on with Becky, when she was his. ‘Was he trying to feel you up? He wouldn’t dare!’

  ‘Wouldn’t he?’ Becky took her breasts in her hands as if she was offering them up to the gods. ‘Care to make a bet on it?’

  Both breasts and bet were an offer that Rawdon couldn’t refuse.

  ‘I’m in. I’m all in.’

  Chapter 24

  Amelia Sedley was wearing her nicest dress. The grey chiffon number, studded with little sparkly stones, that she once hadn’t been able to get into and now fitted like a glove, though it was still a little tight under the armpits. It was also the dress that she’d lent Becky Sharp two years before to wear on that fateful night when Jos had got terribly drunk and ended up kissing Becky and tearing the dress, but Amelia had painstakingly mended all the rips and it was almost impossible to see that the dress had ever been damaged.

  And now George Wylie had the delicate chiffon in a death grip as he pumped into Amelia, bending her over the sink in the tiny en suite of the worst room in the not-great hotel that was all they’d been able to book.

  George had taken one look at her when she’d stepped out of the bathroom in the dress and his eyes had darkened, causing Amelia to feel that delicious ache start deep in her belly.

  ‘Emmy, that dress … you look absolutely fuckable,’ he’d said in that precise voice of his. A voice that Emmy had always dreamed would one day murmur sweet nothings into her ear. ‘Knickers off, there’s a good girl.’

  ‘B-b-b-but we’ll be late for the benefit,’ Amelia said uncertainly even as she reached under her dress to slide off her M&S white cotton briefs.

  ‘Well, that will be all your fault for making me want you,’ George had said and he hadn’t even kissed her, just marched her into the bathroom and told her to bend over.

  He’d been absolutely insatiable for the last two days and Amelia couldn’t think what had got into him, though she was really very pleased with what had got into her.

  They were late down to the lobby to meet Jos and lovely Dobbin, who’d worked as an advisor on a documentary about post-Taliban Afghanistan and had flown in to be on a post-screening panel.

  Dobbin, dashing in a black evening suit, stepped forward as Amelia tripped out of the lift.

  ‘You look lovely, Emmy,’ he said gravely. ‘Quite glowing.’

  She was glowing and still slightly sore down there, and George, Gorgeous George, shot her a naughty, knowing look, so all she could do was giggle.

  They piled into a taxi, Amelia sandwiched between Dobbin and George. ‘A rose between two thorns,’ Dobbin said and George cuffed the back of his head and told him not to be so clichéd, but Amelia wouldn’t let anything prick her happiness tonight. Not when George’s thigh was pressed against hers, his hand beneath her dress, under the cover of darkness.

  It was so different to how things had been in London. Snatched dates in out-of-the way restaurants whenever George could find space in his very busy schedule. He’d kissed her a few times but they’d seemed like polite, perfunctory kisses and she wondered if he was just being polite and perfunctory in taking her out.

  Then she’d remember how he’d rescued Pianoforte from being bought by a cruel-faced lottery winner, which surely was something that a man would only do if he had proper feelings for a girl.

  It had all been very confusing until that night when they’d had dinner at a small Italian restaurant in Stanmore and Amelia had mentioned that Becky Sharp was in Hello! In fact, she still had the magazine in her bag.

  She’d pulled it out so that George could see her dear, though quite absent, friend on the cover in a white-and-gold bikini. ‘It Girl, Becky Sharp, talks about her charity work and life as Mrs Rawdon Crawley while modelling her exclusive swimwear range for ASOS.’

  ‘She’s made very little go a long, long way,’ George had noted with an odd look on his face, which Amelia had put down to the flickering candle stuck in a wax-encrusted chianti bottle. Then he’d put his hand over hers where it rested on the table. ‘You know, Emmy, you’re looking very pretty tonight. Very pretty indeed.’

  Amelia was sun-kissed, her hair lightened by all the hours spent outdoors. And yes, she’d lost weight, which was due to a combination of grief for her old life and her days spent doing manual labour. But she wasn’t sure that she looked pretty without the eyelash extensions and the carefully applied fake tan, the manicures and pedicures, and the huge amount of products she used to apply to her face. These days, Amelia’s look was rather too homely for her liking.

  ‘I’m sure I just look weather-beaten and straw-haired,’ she’d mumbled but hoped the appreciative gleam in George’s eyes was all for her and wasn’t just another trick of the flickering candlelight.

  ‘All that time you spend riding,’ he’d mused.

  ‘Oh George, I wouldn’t spend so much time riding if you hadn’t rescued Pianoforte,’ Amelia had said, as she did at least once every time she and George met.

  And as ever, George had frowned and pretended that he didn’t know what she was talking about. Amelia was sure that she was the only person who ever got to see this modest, unassuming side to George Wylie.

  ‘No need to mention it, I’d rather talk about all the things you can do with your thighs after sitting on a horse all day. I bet you’ve got muscles that I haven’t even dreamed about.’ Then, unbelievably, he’d taken Amelia’s hand and dragged it down, under the table, to rest in his lap. ‘Feel that? I’m hard just thinking about it. Thinking about you.’

  It had all been so sudden, so unexpected. Of course, Amelia had dreamed that one day George would think of her with even a fraction of the affection she had for him, and now here he was, telling her that he was dying to be inside her.

  They couldn’t go back to Burnt Oak – not with her parents living there and besides, George could no sooner go to Burnt Oak than he could fly to the moon. His pied-à-terre in Victoria was miles away too, so their first time, Amelia’s first time, was in a motel called The Spider’s Web on the A41 Watford Bypass, though it had been no less romantic for that.

&nbs
p; Since then, they’d done it half a dozen times and since they’d been in Cannes, they’d done it loads and loads. Amelia was pretty sure that the cranberry juice she guzzled with every meal wasn’t going to be enough to stave off a UTI, but she didn’t care.

  What she cared about was that when she walked into the ballroom of Le Mirage, and felt the nerves kick her in the stomach like Trixie, the most skittish of the riding school’s ponies, she was on George’s arm. When you were with a man as commanding and as capable as George Wylie, there was no need to be nervous.

  Jos, predictably, had wedged himself into a white dinner jacket, which meant within five minutes of arriving, three people had mistaken him for a waiter and had asked him for more champagne. He never learned his lesson about the perils of wearing a white tuxedo. ‘Everyone wears a white DJ in LA,’ he kept muttering under his breath and even Dobbin, who had faced down the Taliban, Al Qaeda and ISIS, was sweating and discomfited.

  ‘Champagne for my lovely lady,’ George said suavely, lifting two glasses from a passing waiter’s tray and presenting Amelia with one.

  Once Amelia felt the champagne bubbles fizzing on her tongue, the nerves mellowed out and she could take in her surroundings. The elegant ballroom had been designed in the art nouveau style, and its decorative flourishes could be seen in the fretwork of the sweeping staircase, the delicate pillars and the painted friezes on the balconies that overlooked the scene.

  And the scene consisted of four hundred mostly beautiful people. Amelia stared at women poured into dresses she’d seen in the windows of the exclusive boutiques that lined the Croisette. Their faces were as expensive as their clothes; skin stretched tight over preternaturally smooth foreheads, lips and cheeks plumped with the very latest in-fillers, framed by hair as glossy as liquid silk.