The Duke's Proposal. Sophie Weston

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СКАЧАТЬ Abby handed her a folder.

      ‘Do you want the good news or the bad news first?’ asked Molly di Perretti. Not being family, even remotely, she didn’t have to mince her words.

      Jemima put the folder on the table and sipped sparking water from a crystal glass. ‘Good. I’m an optimist.’

      Molly tapped the folder. ‘Column inches up again. You were the model most talked about in the international press last month.’

      ‘Great.’

      ‘The bad news,’ pursued Molly hardily, ‘is what they’re saying.’

      Jemima raised her eyebrows.

      ‘You work less, demand more. You’re an arrogant cow and everyone hates you.’ Molly’s tone was forensic.

      Jemima did not blink. ‘I see.’

      Lady Abigail, who was going to have to walk side by side down the aisle with Jemima behind Izzy Dare one day in autumn, and was not looking forward to it, tried a softer approach.

      ‘It’s so easy to get a bad name in this business. You’re just going to have to be a bit more careful.’

      Molly said nothing. Loudly.

      Jemima looked at her sardonically. ‘Go on, Molly. Spit it out. I can take it.’

      Molly clearly agreed. ‘Abby’s too easy on you. You’re getting a name for being a spoilt brat because you’re behaving like a spoilt brat.’

      Abby groaned.

      The other two ignored her.

      ‘Your demands are getting out of control. It’s not just the other models who think you’ve lost the plot.’ Molly started to tick a list off on her fingers. ‘You’ve got to have a limousine you’ve travelled in before. Drivers you happen to fancy. Private planes instead of scheduled flights. Then refusing to stay in the best hotel in New York because you wanted to be alone, and that meant a private apartment at vast cost…’ She glared. ‘I’ve got news for you, Jemima. You’re not Greta Garbo. Wake up and smell the coffee.’

      Jemima looked stunned.

      Abby and Molly looked at each other, relieved. At least they had got through this time.

      ‘Drivers I happen to fancy?’ said Jemima, outraged.

      Or not. Abby dropped her head in her hands.

      Molly’s eyes narrowed to slits. ‘Fine. Don’t take our advice. See where you end up.’

      Jemima said coolly, ‘I pay your company a whole lot of money to run my PR and analyse the results. I didn’t take you on as a life coach.’

      Molly put down her margarita so hard that some of it slopped onto the highly polished table. Abby mopped at it with one of the paper cocktail napkins. Neither Jemima nor Molly took any notice.

      ‘Okay, I’ll tell you the truth—since nobody else will,’ said Molly with heat. ‘Your agent is too scared you’ll dump her, like you did the one before her. And your sister treats you with kid gloves. God knows why.’

      Jemima’s famously melting golden-brown eyes flickered.

      ‘When Belinda went looking for their new face, they told everyone they wanted someone the professional girl about town could relate to. No more elegant skeletons. No more untouchable celebrities. They wanted a girl who had a family and friends and did normal things. I put some cuttings in your folder,’ she added with bite.

      ‘Thank you.’ No one could describe Jemima’s eyes as melting at the moment. They glittered.

      ‘I thought it would help to remind you. When you got the job, you fulfilled the job description. Now you don’t. I’m just betting the people at Belinda are beginning to notice.’

      Did she know that Madame was sitting in the Dorchester like a black widow, waiting to crunch her bones?

      Jemima’s jaw was rigid. But she said nothing.

      ‘Oh, please yourself,’ said Molly in disgust.

      Her eyes met Abby’s. The message was clear, even to Jemima: I give up! She stood up. ‘Abby, you’d better finish up here. I’ve got real work to do back in the office.’

      She stamped off.

      Left behind, Abby said apologetically, ‘Molly gets very passionate about her work.’

      Jemima swallowed. ‘Doesn’t she just?’ But her light tone sounded strained.

      Just for a moment Abby thought the beautiful mask might crack. Just for a moment it seemed as if Jemima would come off her pedestal. Abby didn’t care what she did—laugh, cry, swear at Molly, throw things…. Just as long as she stopped looking poised and bored and totally, totally indifferent.

      But she didn’t.

      Instead she leaned back in her deep chair, pinned on the famous smile and drawled, ‘So, tell me about my family. The last time I spoke to Izzy she said they couldn’t finalise the date until Dominic had sorted out his training schedule.’

      Abby gave up too.

      Over lunch Jemima was barbed and witty, and as defensive as a killer crab. She was charming to the waiters, indifferent to the covert stares of several of their fellow diners. But when one of them got up and came over to their table she tensed visibly, Abby saw.

      He turned out to be a lively barrister, with a copy of Elegance Magazine in his briefcase and a niece who wanted to be a model. Jemima gave him the slow up-and-under smile that had made her famous, signed the cover of the magazine as he asked, and told him to tell his niece to finish her exams before she tried out for any of the respectable model agencies. Delighted, he gave her his business card and went back to his table.

      ‘Someone who doesn’t think you’re a spoiled brat?’ asked Abby shrewdly.

      Jemima was cool. ‘Yup.’ She tore his card into tiny pieces and dropped them onto the pristine tablecloth. Abby saw that her fingers were shaking.

      Suddenly Abby was concerned. ‘Are you okay?’

      ‘Of course.’ But the golden eyes looked blind, almost as if she were afraid.

      Abby leaned forward. ‘Are you sure? You looked like a ghost when he came over.’

      The beautiful shoulders gave that arrogant shrug. ‘I—thought he might be someone I knew.’

      ‘But he wasn’t?’

      The blind look went out of Jemima’s eyes. For a moment she looked rueful, almost the friendly girl Belinda Cosmetics had thought they were getting for their campaign.

      ‘No, he was a complete stranger.’ She added almost under her breath, ‘Thank God.’

      More and more worried, Abby said, ‘Jemima, what’s wrong? СКАЧАТЬ