The Duke's Proposal. Sophie Weston
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at him.
He went.
Madame was talking before the door closed behind him. ‘Okay. Cards on the table. We have a problem.’
Jemima raised perfect eyebrows.
‘Oh, sit down,’ said Madame irritably. ‘It is like talking to a lamp post. Why are models so damned tall these days? When I was a girl in Paris, they were human-sized.’
In spite of herself, Jemima gave a choke of laughter. And sat.
‘That’s better.’
Madame leaned forward and propped her chin on her steepled fingers. The rings glittered but Jemima hardly noticed. The eyes were not a lizard’s any more. They were dark and expressive—and shrewd.
‘The press…’
‘Have decided I’m a spoiled brat,’ supplied Jemima. ‘I’ve just had lunch with my PR advisers. They’ve given me the rundown.’
Madame shook her head. ‘They’re wrong. The press enjoys spoiled brats. Our problem is that they are forgetting you.’
She picked up a handful of magazines and flung them across the coffee table. Jemima saw European titles mixed with North American celebrity titles.
‘Take a look,’ said Madame in a hard, level voice. ‘Show me your name. They’ve got film stars, baseball stars. Even some damned aristocrat who’s been missing for fifteen years. How far off today’s news is that? But no Jemima Dare. And, more important, no face of Belinda.’
Jemima frowned. But she was fair. She went through the magazines rapidly. Madame was right.
Tom and Sandy: will they split? Eugenio takes us into his lovely Florida home. Where is the Duke? The hunt is on…
She pushed the magazines away. ‘Okay. No Belinda. No me. I’ll give you that. So?’
‘Time to do something about it.’
Jemima’s eyes narrowed. ‘This is the One Last Chance chat, isn’t it?’ she said suddenly.
Madame President’s eyes flickered. ‘Yes,’ she said baldly. ‘Have you had lots of them?’
Jemima laughed. ‘My cousin Pepper is an entrepreneur. We share an apartment. I listen to her work problems,’ she said coolly. ‘I know the signs.’
Madame looked annoyed. ‘Then deal with it.’
Jemima smiled. ‘I’d say there was an unless coming. You’ll cancel my contract unless I—what? Dye my hair? Write a celebrity novel? Sing? What?’
Madame laughed unexpectedly. It sounded rusty. ‘I like you, Jemima. You’re gutsy.’
I need to be, with sharks like you signing my pay cheque.
She did not say it, of course. She gave her a demure smile. ‘Thank you. So spit it out. What do you want me to do? Short of dating Francis, that is.’
Madame was temporarily side-tracked. ‘Why not Francis? He’s very talented. He’ll go far.’
Jemima leaned back and crossed her legs. ‘And he’s a complete prune. He asked me out over the head of another girl while I was dressed in nothing but a pair of knickers and a lot of sticky tape.’
Madame was startled enough to allow herself to be sidetracked again. ‘Sticky tape?’
‘He’s into deep, deep plunge this collection.’
They exchanged a look of total understanding. In her time Madame President had been a model too. She nodded.
‘Ah.’
‘What’s more,’ said Jemima, watching Madame from under her lashes, ‘when I said I’d take a rain-check he looked as if he’d been let out of prison.’
There was a small silence. Madame’s lips tightened.
‘How on earth did you sign him up?’ Jemima was genuinely curious.
Madame looked like a lizard about to spit. But she was a good tactician. After a brief struggle with herself, she said curtly, ‘Offered him a joint promotion next Christmas.’
‘Well, he tried,’ said Jemima fairly. ‘So, want to tell me why?’
Madame examined her rings absorbedly. ‘When we were looking for the new face of Belinda, we had a very specific brief in mind,’ she said at last slowly. ‘A woman of today—a woman who made her own decisions, a woman with a career, sure, but a woman to whom other things were important too—friends, things of the mind, love, children.’
Jemima regarded her with an unblinking gaze. Then, ‘If you want me to have a baby, forget it.’ Her voice was hard. ‘That’s not a decision I’d take because a cosmetic company told me to. Or any other employer, for that matter.’
To her surprise, Madame looked delighted. Triumphant even. ‘Exactly. That’s the tone I want.’
Jemima flung up her hands. ‘I give up.’
‘Look,’ said Madame, suddenly a lot less dramatic, ‘you were my personal choice for the face of Belinda. I liked the way you presented yourself. You didn’t crave the celebrity circuit. You didn’t worry that laughing too much would crack your make-up. You thought about things and you weren’t afraid to have an opinion. I liked that.’
Jemima was taken aback. ‘Thank you.’
‘Silvio said you weren’t glamorous enough.’
Weasel, thought Jemima. That isn’t what he said to me when he was wining and dining me. Aloud, she said, ‘Really?’
‘But I said that it didn’t matter. This is the twenty-first century, I said. It is time for a change. She lives with her sister and her cousin like a regular person. Besides, they are all three go-getters.’
Jemima grinned. ‘Oh, yes, we’re that all right.’ She thought of Pepper the businesswoman and Izzy the adventure freak. ‘By the bucketful.’
Madame grinned back. She was very charming when she grinned, thought Jemima. For a shark.
‘So I thought—there’s my twenty-first-century woman. Gorgeous redhead who doesn’t spend her life worrying about the size of her bum. Girl with a life. And a future.’
Jemima was touched. ‘Thank you,’ she said again.
‘So how did all go so wrong? What happened to that lovely girl with her feet on the ground?’
Jemima winced.
There was a brief knock and the Vice-President appeared at the door, ushering in a waiter with a huge tray. The waiter poured coffee and glasses of mineral water and left. The Vice-President hovered. Madame waved him to sit. He sank into an armchair with a distinct sigh of relief.
Frowning, she said, ‘When that stupid manager started turning you into a professional partygoer, I told Silvio, “Call him up. Tell him to back off.” Didn’t I, Silvio?’
He nodded enthusiastically. ‘You did, Madame.’
‘But then you fired him. And I thought, Great. The girl has good instincts. We’re back on track.’
Jemima had gone rigid. ‘I didn’t fire Basil.’
Madame ignored that. ‘Only now you don’t go out at all.’
‘I didn’t fire Basil.’
Jemima was starting to shiver, she realised. To hide it, she looked around for her shoulder-bag and fussed through it.
Madame seemed disappointed. ‘That’s not what I heard.’
The shivers down her spine were turning into a positive cascade. ‘I left his management by mutual agreement.’
Madame looked sceptical.