The Duke's Proposal. Sophie Weston
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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? Have you been overdoing it again?’
She knew that Jemima had worked herself into exhaustion six months ago. In fact, if it hadn’t been for Jemima diving out of sight for a couple of weeks and Izzy stepping into her shoes Izzy and Dom would never have met.
Jemima looked away, her face expressionless.
‘I wish Izzy was around,’ said Abby worriedly. Izzy was with Dom in Norway, and wouldn’t be back for two weeks. But at least she had got a reaction at last. Jemima bristled.
‘I don’t need my big sister to take care of me. I can look after myself. As Molly has just been pointing out, I only have to pick up the phone and somebody jumps. It’s great.’
Abby sank back in her seat, disapproving and trying to hide it.
She moved the subject firmly away from the professional. Fortunately they had family to get them through the next course.
They agreed that it was a bore that Izzy and Dom wouldn’t confirm the date for their wedding. Yes, it was great to see how happy they were.
And then Abby snapped her fingers, relaxing again. ‘That reminds me. I’ve got the Christmas photographs to show you.’
She fished in her bag and brought out an untidy handful. She sorted through them rapidly, extracted a couple, then handed the rest across with a reminiscent smile.
‘I’ll get you copies of anything you want.’
Jemima did not figure in any of the cheerful pictures. She had managed Christmas Day with the family, but she had been off on a big shoot in the Seychelles on Boxing Day. She flipped through them with the speed of one who spent much of her professional life looking at sheets of photographs.
‘All matching pairs,’ she said.
‘What?’
Jemima fanned out four and turned them to face Abby. There was Abby herself, dancing with her tall, elegant husband, Izzy and Dom, tumbling on the floor under the Christmas tree and laughing madly, and Jemima’s cousin Pepper leaning dreamily against her Steven’s shoulder.
‘Even my parents are holding hands.’ Jemima pointed at the fourth.
They were too.
‘I see what you mean,’ admitted Abby.
‘Just as well I’d moved on. I would have unbalanced the party.’
‘Oh, come on. You’d have been the star.’
Jemima said in an odd voice, ‘Same thing. Stars don’t come in matching pairs.’
Abby looked up, instantly alert. ‘Still no man in your life, then?’
There was the tiniest pause.
Then, ‘Not one I’d take home to Mother.’
The irony was very nicely done. It said, You and I are women of the world; we know that I’m beautiful and sophisticated and my relationships are very, very modern. Much too modern for my hand-holding parents to get their heads around.
But Abby was not quite convinced. ‘Are you telling me you’re one for the wild men?’ she said doubtfully.
Jemima narrowed her eyes at her. ‘That’s not what I meant.’
‘Then what?’
Jemima hesitated. At last she said, ‘Put it this way—I’m not looking for a man to follow me round the world.’
‘Ah. Yes, I see. It’s not easy keeping a relationship on the rails when your work makes you travel,’ allowed Abby. Her husband had business ventures in four continents. Even so, he did not travel as much as a top international model. She looked at Jemima curiously. ‘Is it lonely?’
Jemima snorted. ‘Who has time to get lonely?’ It seemed to burst out of her. ‘So far this year I’ve done Madrid, Milan, Barcelona, Paris, London. Now I’m off to New York and Milan again. Then back to New York.’
It sounded grim to Abby. ‘You could still be lonely,’ she pointed out. ‘Do you ever want to do something else with your life?’
But Jemima was flicking through the pictures again and did not seem to hear.
‘Hello—what’s this one? Been away?’
Diverted, Abby held out her hand for the photograph. Unlike the others, it was a commercial postcard: a standard view of tropical palms with wild surf beyond. She turned it over and smiled as she read the message on the back.
‘Oh, that. It’s just a postcard from a friend.’ She gave it back. ‘He stays out of England, but every so often he sends me a postcard to show me what I’m missing.’ Her smile was warmly reminiscent. ‘Those palm trees look good on a wet Friday in London, don’t they?’
Jemima looked at those foaming waves and shook her head. ‘Bit energetic for me,’ she said dryly, and turned the card over to look at the legend. ‘“Pentecost Island”,’ she read. ‘Where’s that? South Seas?’
Abby shook her head. ‘Who knows? Could be. He gets around.’