The Sugared Game - K.J. Charles Page 0,69
sick of the sight of books.
They usually had the papers, but he was late enough that all the copies were taken. He picked up a stray copy of London Life instead. It was all pictures of Bright Young Wankers, men in tuxedos photographed mid-bray, women in drapes and dresses sitting improbably on furniture. There was plenty of puffery about clothes and couturiers, including a piece on Molyneux’s salon in Paris. Maybe Maisie would be in these pages one day. Maybe he should drop in on Molyneux when he visited her, try out what it would be like with a man who wasn’t a bloody liar.
He flicked through for anything readable. There was an entire page of guff about parties people were going to. Did ordinary people really pay money to read about events they’d never be invited to?
He forked pie into his mouth as he scanned the page, and an image caught his eye.
Miss Phoebe Stephens-Prince with Edward Molyneux, Adela Moran, Johnnie Cheveley, and rising designer Marguerite Zie, at the Criterion for a dinner given by Lord Arthur Secretan. Inset: Miss Stephens-Prince and Gloria Glade at Lord Waring’s Hertfordshire residence, Etchil.
He’d seen the photographers at the party, not that any of them had wanted to photograph him. Phoebe doubtless had a press-agent who fed this guff to the papers. It was what people did in her world, the Lord Arthur world. He hated it.
He hoped Maisie didn’t hate it. He hoped she was a success, and that Phoebe would launch her into a new and exciting life. He wasn’t the kind of arsehole who’d be bitter about his friend’s happiness just because his own brush with high life had brought him nothing but misery, hurt, and legal peril. He told himself that very strongly indeed.
The next page held a piece entitled ‘What’s Next For The Cloche Hat?’ Will couldn’t imagine. He finished his meal without enthusiasm and went back to the bookshop.
He needed to go back to his own sort, that was what it came down to. He had plenty of casual friends down the pub but he needed to put more effort in. Join a football team, perhaps. Spend time with people like himself, not starlight people. Maisie might be turning into one of them but Will’s feet would always be clay, and nothing but misery came of mixing with those who, in the end, didn’t see you as their equal.
Maybe he should get stuck into politics. Labour’s stint in government had had a shaky start: they probably needed more support on the ground. He didn’t have much appetite for the Communists after what he’d heard from Kim, but then again if they weren’t worth Kim’s time and nor was he, maybe he should take that as a hint. Obviously he should be with people who wanted to bring down barriers of class and privilege, rather than sitting in whatever Phoebe’s ancestral home was called again, surrounded by bloody toffs.
Homes with names. He resented that to an irrational degree. Numbers were good enough for most people, or descriptive names like Bluebell Cottage or what-have-you, but of course the posh lot needed houses with their own identity, ones so big they were marked on maps. Wankers.
Maisie had sounded so thrilled at her visit. She’d be able to swank now, like those people Kim had mentioned: Oh, I took a bolt down to Etchil for the grouse shooting, la di da. Will tried to imagine himself visiting whatever Kim’s family estate was called. The idea was laughable.
The Kelly’s Blue Book on his desk had a list of the aristocracy. He turned the pages in a scab-picking sort of way, and found Kim’s family right there. The Marquess of Flitby, family name Secretan, heir Earl of Chingford, London address Belgrave Square, family seat Holmclere. All those names and places, belonging to just one man. But then, their sort had to own everything.
Phoebe’s father was in there too. The Viscount Waring, family name Stephens-Prince, family seat Etchil, pronounced Eye-shull because obviously it was. No name for an heir since there was no son.
Will slammed the book shut. He was not going to sit here any longer, brooding over things he couldn’t have like an idiot. He’d pursue things he could have instead, starting with a cup of tea.
He got up, went to the back room, and was half way through putting the kettle on when the penny dropped.
He didn’t drop the kettle along with it, though he might have. He stood still, holding