choked out, because all he had thought about was how Amelia Sedley – beautiful, sweet, kind little Emmy – was perfect in every way. Far too perfect for the likes of him and, for as long as Dobbin had known Amelia, she’d fancied herself in love with George … ‘So, you’re not seeing that Polly Somebody, then?’
‘I haven’t taken a vow of chastity until Amelia acquires some backbone and a little sophistication,’ George snapped.
Being friends with George wasn’t always easy and at this particular moment, it was especially hard because Dobbin wished that he was in uniform and fully kitted out so he could Taser the living daylights out of his dear friend.
‘These girls,’ continued George, ‘the junior researchers and the likes, the Pollies and Bellas, they’re all gagging for it but they’re fabulously discreet so as not to jeopardise their own careers, so it’s win/win really.’
Dobbin glanced over at George. The dark curls framing that exquisitely patrician face, the beautifully cut grey suit, which clung to his lean frame. On this sunny day, there was something of the night about him.
‘I still don’t see what any of this has to do with Jos Sedley and Amelia’s friend,’ he said and George came to a halt, all the better to roll his eyes.
‘Must I spell it out? I’m going to marry Amelia, I’m really quite fond of her and she should shape up quite nicely, but the family’s not exactly top drawer.’
‘Then again, they’re not exactly bottom of the ladder,’ Dobbin pointed out, because he liked to think that he was egalitarian in his outlook. Though he himself came from a distinguished military family, his father was only the third son of an earl, so he’d pretty much had to make his own way in life.
‘Dobbin, I’m the heir to a baronetcy,’ George said, even though everyone knew that the Wylies had bought the baronetcy. ‘The Sedleys might be rich but they come from very humble stock and there is absolutely no way that I can have a sister-in-law who’s a nothing. A nobody. The sooner she scuttles back to whatever hole she crawled out of, the better. Like I said to Sedley, it’s just as well she was holding out for marriage because otherwise, she’s the sort to either make an incriminating sex tape or get knocked up – either way, she’d have had his balls in a vice and his millions in her bank account.’
‘I suppose you know best,’ Dobbin said dubiously. ‘Though do you always have to see the worst in people?’
George grinned, though Dobbin hadn’t meant it as a compliment. ‘I’m sure Miss Sharp will need some consoling. She might even let you go where Jos didn’t manage to break ground. Why don’t you come with me as I give her the bad news?’
Dobbin declined: the bad news that George was about to deliver so gleefully was sure to make Amelia cry, and to see Amelia cry would break his heart. Though it wasn’t true that she cried all the time. Whenever he saw Amelia, she always looked delighted; a smile on her face that had to be the reason that the sun came up and flowers grew and birds tweeted.
The Sedley house was in an uproar that morning. Mrs Sedley had cast one look at the Daily Mail and her heart had started to beat so furiously that she thought she might be having a stroke. She wasn’t but she’d had to take to her bed with one of her heads, hissing to Amelia as she went, ‘I want that girl out of the house by the end of the day, Emmy.’
Becky was already packing or, rather, she’d told Amelia that she was packing. ‘I can’t stay here,’ she said to Amelia after Mrs Sedley had been tucked up with two Valium and a hot-water bottle. ‘What must your poor parents think of me? What must Jos think of me? You do know that it wasn’t me who went to the papers?’
‘Of course I do,’ Amelia gasped, because her sweet young mind wasn’t capable of such a calculated thought. ‘I’m sure it’s not that bad. You’ll feel much better after you’ve had some breakfast.’
‘I can’t eat. Food would choke me,’ Becky declared, a trembling hand to her throat as if she was already finding it hard to breathe. She stood at her bedroom door, her body barring Amelia from the room, not just for full dramatic effect but because there were a few items that had found their way into Becky’s possession that she hadn’t had a chance to squirrel away yet. ‘I’m going to pack. I’ll be gone in a few hours.’
But Becky wasn’t packing at all. She was leaning out of the window of the second-floor guest room as she waited for the first sight of Jos lumbering into the square. He’d have a terrible hangover, which was his own fault, as nobody had forced him to drink all that champagne, and he’d be sweating profusely. Becky would let him stammer and stutter his way through a series of abject apologies for humiliating her.
After a tense two minutes – no, make it three – she’d forgive Jos, which would make him feel even worse, even more ashamed. Then with some gentle nudging, and that thing she did with her eyes, he’d admit that he’d wanted to kiss her ever since he first saw her. He’d then go on to confess that the kiss in front of the paparazzi, despite its sordid circumstances, had been the happiest moment of his life.
‘We could have more happy moments like that, Jos,’ she’d say, her voice catching, then she’d look away. Though sometimes, actually all the time, it was hard work trying to tunnel through Jos’s thick skull, so perhaps she’d have to be a lot less subtle. ‘Our whole life would be a series of happy moments. Of kisses …’
Of course, Jos would ask her to come back to LA with him. Once they were in LA, away from the annoying presence of his mother and father, and the bad influence of George Wylie, then Becky wouldn’t let Jos do anything more than kiss her and paw her over her clothes, and a proposal would be inevitable.
So, all was not lost. Far from it. Though Becky hadn’t gone to the papers (and no one could prove it either way), there was no reason why this had to end in tragedy.
Becky leaned out a little further, just in time to see George Wylie come striding around the corner. She beat a frantic retreat, banging her head so hard on the sash window that it brought tears to her eyes, especially as it had all been in vain because that smug little fucker waved cheerfully up at her.
‘Ha! Caught you!’ he cried.
Still, Becky’s tears were no match for the flood of eye-water and snot that Amelia had been producing ever since Becky had shut the bedroom door in her face. She cried even harder as George described, with particular relish, what a sorry state he’d left Jos in.
‘Been chundering for six hours straight. I left him prostrate on Dobbin’s sofa. And it’s just as well we did take him to Dobbin’s last night, as he’s the only man in London whose dressing gown would fit round your brother. Pity that he puked down it,’ George finished with an appreciative chuckle. The whole episode reminded him of similar japes at Oxford.
Also, the fact that they’d taken Sedley to Dobbin’s and not to George’s own flat in Victoria, had made him quite light-headed with relief.
‘I never thought you could be so mean,’ Amelia sobbed.
‘Then you haven’t been paying attention,’ Becky said from the doorway, because staying upstairs and sulking would achieve absolutely nothing. Not when there was no sign of a suitably contrite Jos and in his place was George Wylie, who might just explode from sheer malicious delight. Here’s
