Chelsea Wives. Anna-Lou Weatherley

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ Cal, thanks.’ Imogen was touched by her friend’s rare display of fashion altruism.

      ‘I’ll be there as quick as I can.’

      Imogen threw her phone into her open Zagliani python bag in the well of the passenger seat. It was bad form to be late, especially since Calvary had been good enough to ask her to take part in the shoot in the first place.

      ‘Chelsea Wives,’ she had squealed with excitement down the phone to Imogen just a few days earlier, eschewing her usual cool composure. ‘ESL magazine want to do an insightful lifestyle piece on women who live in Chelsea. Fabulous women, darling, like us! Say you’ll do it.’

      Imogen hadn’t needed asking twice. Even after all these years she still missed the buzz of being in front of the lens. Her phone rang again and she snatched it up.

      ‘What now?’ She rolled her eyes.

      ‘Now that’s no way to talk to an old friend, is it?’ The gravelly female voice sounded familiar but she couldn’t immediately place it.

      ‘Who is this?’ Imogen asked tentatively.

      ‘Oh darling, it hasn’t been that long … surely you remember?’ the voice said, full of mock offence. There was a pause. ‘The bench at Hersham station? You were wearing the most ghastly stone wash denim jacket I’d ever seen in my life and you had a home perm, but even then I could see you had something special.’

      Imogen gasped.

      ‘Cressida? Good God, Cressie Lucas. Is that you?’

      ‘The very same, darls. The very same,’ she said, snorting with laughter.

      Cressida Lucas, MD and scout for Models à la Mode and one-time queen of the London party scene, was a small, fierce redhead with killer dress sense and an unrivalled sixth sense when it came to spotting the Next Big Thing in modelling.

      The day Imogen had been ‘spotted’ by the infamous fashionista would be imprinted on her mind forever. It had been the final week of what had been an uneventful summer holiday and a then sixteen-year-old Imogen had been on her way to visit a friend. She had been quite oblivious to the short, voluptuous woman, glamorously dressed in a bright canary yellow power suit, blowing cigarette smoke into the air above her. Suddenly she was next to her, her neon manicured hand outstretched in greeting.

      ‘The name’s Lucas. Cressida Lucas, and I run a modelling agency in London called Models à la Mode. Have you heard of it?’ She did not give Imogen time to answer. ‘I see you like fashion?’ she nodded approvingly at the well-thumbed copy of Just Seventeen Imogen had been reading.

      ‘Yeah, I s’pose,’ Imogen had replied a little shyly, catching the intoxicating scent of the stranger’s perfume, which she would later come to recognise as Calvin Klein’s ‘Obsession’. Even to this day she could not smell it without thinking of her.

      ‘I would absolutely love to see what the camera would make of you,’ Cressida had said, tucking Imogen’s hair behind her ear and inspecting her as if she were a rare piece of art. ‘Tell me, what are you doing now?’

      As Cressida’s unfailing eye had predicted, Imogen was sensational in front of the camera and within a year her name became the new buzzword on every UK fashion editor’s lips. Elbows sharpened as designers scrambled to book the doe-eyed, quirky-cool brunette for their latest campaigns. A breath of fresh air from the highly polished glamazonians who had dominated the early 80s, her waif-like, unconventional beauty meant she would be a perfect figurehead for the rising grunge movement. Cressida could smell change in the air. Yuppie culture and Thatcherism was dying. Ever ahead of the zeitgeist, she had sensed it was time for something new.

      By the time Imogen had reached her eighteenth birthday she had become the youngest UK Vogue cover girl and had walked for most of the major designers of the day, including Lacroix, Armani, Katherine Hamnett, Pam Hogg and Vivienne Westwood. She had flown first class to shoots in Rio, Paris, New York, the Bahamas … partied on millionaire’s yachts with fellow supermodels, A-list celebrities, even royalty. Imogen ‘Immie’ Lennard was the new face of British fashion and on the verge of global success. Cressida Lucas had hit the jackpot and Imogen was happier than she’d ever been; she was young, beautiful and successful. But above all, she was in love …

      ‘It’s been ages, Cress,’ Imogen said, suddenly feeling a flash of guilt that she had not kept in touch with a woman to whom she had once owed so much. ‘How have you been?’

      ‘Gorgeous, sweets. Bloody marvellous. Had a facelift last year. Taken ten bloody years off me, I swear. Wish I’d done it five years ago. Bagged myself a little toy boy too, darling. Twenty-six. Hung like a horse. Not a bad cook either. But enough about me. How the fuck are you?’

      Imogen smiled. By the sounds of things, her old friend hadn’t changed a bit.

      ‘Well, I … ’

      ‘No, don’t tell me now,’ Cressida interrupted. ‘I want to hear everything over lunch. Daphne’s. Monday. 1:00 p.m. It’s all booked,’ she said in her matter-of-fact manner which Imogen had always found equally endearing and annoying. ‘Try and make it, poppet. It’s terribly important I see you.’

      Imogen felt a flutter of concern and intrigue.

      ‘Has something happened?’ she asked.

      ‘It could be about to,’ Cressida replied cryptically. ‘1:00 p.m. Don’t be late, darling. I have a meeting with Kate Moss at 2:30 sharp and don’t want to keep the old love waiting.’

      Call waiting angrily flashed up on Imogen’s phone. It was Calvary. Shit.

      ‘Sorry, hang on, Cress. I just need to take this …’ She switched calls. ‘Cal, I am five minutes away … promise, promise … OK, bye.’ She pressed call retrieve. ‘Sorry about that, Cress. Where were we … Cressida … Cress?’ But she had gone. Shit. Imogen checked ‘calls received’ but the number came up as ‘unknown’. Shit. Shit. Shit. She threw her iPhone down into her bag in annoyance. What could possibly warrant a call from Cressida Lucas after all this time?

      CHAPTER 2

      ‘Ah, so you’ve finally decided to grace us with your presence then I see,’ Calvary Rothschild remarked sarcastically as she ushered Imogen through the vast front door of her stucco-fronted Chelsea town house.

      ‘I’m so sorry,’ Imogen apologised, the tip of her nose lightly brushing her friend’s cheek as she went in for an air kiss. ‘Traffic was horrendous and then, well, you’re never going to guess …’

      ‘Later, darling,’ Calvary said dismissively as she made off down the hallway. Imogen trotted after her apologetically, the clack-clack sound of her new Louboutin Roger Vivier pumps amplified by the antique polished wooden floors.

      Calvary had certainly accrued some rather impressive new pieces since her last visit, Imogen thought, glancing up at an imposing 12-light, rococo style chandelier that hung like a vast jewel from the ornate ceiling rose.

      ‘Antique French cut-glass crystal, darling,’ Calvary smiled without turning round. ‘Cost an absolute bloody fortune from Sotheby’s. And before you ask, yes, it was a present from Douglas,’ she added dryly.

СКАЧАТЬ