The Rise and Fall of Becky Sharp. Sarra Manning

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      It was left to Amelia to take up the slack and help Dobbin to support the considerable weight of her brother, to the delight of the smudges. Two posh boys weren’t worth the effort but a Big Brother winner might do for a page-seven lead.

      Then the drunk young Hooray lurched around towards the pretty redhead who’d come second in Big Brother, trailing a few steps behind as if she had nothing to do with the unfortunate trio in front of her, and he broke free of his captors so he could take her in a very enthusiastic embrace. This could be a front-page story after all.

      NEW BALLS PLEASE!

      Big Brother Becky Caught In Clinch With Protein-Ball Millionaire!

       Friends say he wants to put a ring on it!

      She might have only come second in this year’s Big Brother, but beautiful Becky Sharp, 20, looked like a winner last night as she was caught canoodling with Jos Sedley, 33, brother of Amelia Sedley, who snatched the title from her best friend.

      Jos, the brains behind a health-and-fitness lifestyle brand which makes a successful range of protein balls, divides his time between London and LA. But judging by the way he locked lips with Becky, to the delight of the crowd, he’s thinking of making London his permanent base.

      ‘It’s been a whirlwind romance,’ a close friend of the couple reports. ‘They might only have known each other a few weeks but they’re already talking about marriage.’

      Three people who would be delighted to hear wedding bells are Big Brother winner Amelia, 22, who regards Becky as a sister, and her parents Charles and Caroline Sedley, who invited Becky to live with them in their Chelsea townhouse worth £15 million, and have apparently given the young couple their blessing.

      ‘They adore Becky as if she was their own daughter,’ said a source close to the Sedleys. ‘Caroline is already planning the engagement party.’

      It will be quite the rags-to-riches story for Becky. She entered the Big Brother house a penniless orphan who’d been working as a care assistant and may now be walking down the aisle with Jos, who is a millionaire in his own right and also inherited millions from his maternal grandfather.

      Who said fairy tales never come true?

       Chapter 8

      ‘This is bad. This is very, very bad.’ Jos Sedley groaned the next morning from his horizontal position on the sofa in Dobbin’s Ladbroke Grove flat. ‘It’s the worst.’

      Dobbin and George didn’t know if he was talking about his hangover (he’d spent most of the night throwing up and now his face was the colour and texture of elephant hide) or the front page of the Sun. Though the front pages of the Daily Mirror, the Daily Star, the Daily Mail and the Daily Express had all gone with similar stories.

      ‘It’s not so bad, Jos,’ Dobbin said stoutly, because while his patience was infinite he couldn’t stand malingerers. Especially when the malingering was self-inflicted. ‘You’ll feel much better with a pot of tea and some toast inside you.’

      ‘No caffeine. No carbs!’

      ‘It’s a pity you didn’t stick to no alcohol last night,’ George said cheerfully. He threw a copy of the Daily Mirror at Jos’s head. ‘What a gigantic idiot you are! I have absolutely no sympathy for you.’

      ‘Steady on,’ Dobbin murmured, but George was not to be swayed.

      ‘I saw you last night,’ he reminded Jos, tapping the other man’s pounding head with the now rolled-up newspaper. ‘Even caught some of the tender things you were murmuring at each other. No wonder she went to the papers and told them that your intentions were honourable!’

      ‘Rebecca would never go to the papers,’ Dobbin said because surely no friend of dear, sweet Emmy would act in such an underhand way. It simply wasn’t how things were done.

      ‘I’d bet money on it,’ George insisted. ‘Girls like that, you don’t need to promise them marriage to get their knickers off, Sedley. You just buy them a bottle of something bubbly, shag them, then put them in an Uber and send them on their way.’

      Later, as George and Dobbin strolled through Holland Park on their way to Kensington, Dobbin wondered aloud if George hadn’t been too harsh on their friend.

      ‘Not harsh enough,’ George said without a shred of pity. ‘I did him a huge favour. He spends far too much time pumping iron and guzzling protein shakes, not that it’s made him any more attractive to the opposite sex. If it had, then he might have a bit more experience, might know when he’s being taken for a ride by some jumped-up little tart with ideas far above her station.’

      Dobbin didn’t reply at first and they walked through the sun-dappled paths of the park in silence. It was a glorious September morning, the sky impossibly blue, the leaves fluttering in a slight breeze as dogs chased each other round and round in circles, barking joyfully. Mothers, but mostly nannies, clutched hold of toddlers intent on feeding the ducks and not waiting their turn for the swings. On the lush, green grass couples lounged and a group of taut young men and women contorted themselves on yoga mats.

      Surely, if Becky Sharp had gone to the papers in order to force a shy young millionaire’s hand, she’d have asked them to photograph she and Jos as they exercised together? When they’d both looked their best in flattering black workout clothes, the photos playful and flirty. Not when they were falling out of a nightclub, Becky in a torn dress, Jos lumbering and drunk.

      It was almost as if the photos of last night were the work of someone who’d disappeared at a crucial point during the night. Someone well versed in the art of spin, working, as they did, in politics. But why would someone be so invested in tearing apart two young souls who each believed they’d found their match?

      Captain Dobbin certainly wouldn’t have ever imagined that George Wylie, his friend since they were tiny boys starting prep school together in knee-length shorts, red blazers and adorable little caps, might act in such an underhand, cavalier fashion.

      True, George had been a member of the infamous Rakehell drinking club at Oxford, which Dobbin had never been invited to join, but George had always kept his hands and nose clean. He was more likely to be trouble-adjacent than in the thick of it.

      ‘But why should you care?’ Dobbin asked, then cursed under his breath as two small dogs came barrelling through his legs and almost upended him. ‘If she makes Jos happy, then that’s a good thing, isn’t it?’

      ‘You know why I care, you fool. I’m going to marry Amelia,’ George stated calmly. The shock was so great that Dobbin stumbled over his own size-fourteen feet and had to grab hold of a lamppost to stop himself falling to his knees.

      ‘I didn’t actually,’ Dobbin managed to say, gasping out the words though his throat had closed up, his heart had stopped beating, his world suddenly turned ashen and grey. ‘I thought you were seeing that little blonde researcher, Polly Somebody.’

      ‘Well, obviously, I’m not going to marry Amelia any time soon,’ George said with an impatient edge. ‘At the moment, she СКАЧАТЬ