Liz Fielding - The Secret Life Of Lady Gabriella

www.millsandboon.co.uk

This book is dedicated to every woman

who ever picked up a duster or fell off a stepladder.

Especially if she fell on the man of her dreams.

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

COMING NEXT MONTH

‘LADY MARCH?’

Ellie’s tongue was glued to the roof of her mouth. This was such a mistake. She wasn’t a ‘lady’. She shouldn’t be here. She should own up right now…

‘I apologise for keeping you waiting,’ Jennifer Cochrane continued, ‘but there was a crisis at the printers I had to deal with.’

Unable to speak, Ellie attempted an answering smile. Even in her borrowed clothes, hair swirled up in a sophisticated style and wearing more make-up than she’d normally wear in a month, she’d been expecting someone to point a finger at her, shout ‘impostor’ the moment she’d stepped within the hushed portals of the offices of Milady magazine.

She’d never meant to take it this far.

Never expected to get this far.

Wouldn’t be here if the idea of her contributing saleable copy to a magazine aimed directly at ladies who, in between chauffeuring their offspring about in top-of-the-range 4x4s, lunched, gossiped and shopped hadn’t produced such howls of mirth at her writers’ group.

She’d set out to show them—show herself, maybe—that while she might miss the magazine’s target audience by a mile, she was professional enough to write whatever was required.

And she’d done it.

She’d read a dozen or so back copies of the magazine, looked for a gap that she could fill, and ‘Lady Gabriella’s Journal’ had been the result.

Written in the crisp, upper-class style of the magazine, she’d offered the jottings of the ‘perfect’ reader. Highlights in the life of a woman with three children, several well-bred and perfectly behaved dogs, and all the time in the world to devote to interior design, her garden, entertaining and sitting on worthy committees. ‘Lady Gabriella’ was, of course, married to a man with the means to pay for it all.

She’d actually enjoyed writing it, vicariously living a completely different life if only on paper. Having no trouble at all imagining herself the ‘lady of the house’ rather than simply caretaking the place during the owner’s absence.

Then, since she’d done the work, she’d submitted it to the magazine, enclosing some of her doodly drawings as an afterthought—an impression of the gothic turret that adorned one end of the house, the cat sitting in the deep embrasure of an arched window, a toddler (Lady G’s youngest)—expecting a swift thanks-but-no-thanks return in the self-addressed envelope provided for the purpose. She’d had enough of them to know the form. But if you didn’t try, if you didn’t pursue a dream, hunt it down until there was no breath left in your body, let chances slip by, then what was the point?

The letter, addressed to Lady Gabriella March, inviting her for a ‘chat’, should have been enough. She would show it to the writers’ group and take a bow, point proved. Except it wasn’t.

This was a never-to-be-repeated chance to talk to the editor of a famous, if fading, magazine—which was why she was here, in the office of Jennifer Cochrane, a woman of advanced years but formidable character, who had the style, diction and classic wardrobe—including the mandatory double row of pearls—of one of the minor royals. One of the seriously scary ones.

Transformed by her disapproving sister, Stacey, into Lady Gabriella March for the day, it took all her concentration to put down the cup she was holding without spilling the contents over the designer suit that Stacey—another formidable woman—had lent her for the occasion. To then stand up and cross the inches-deep carpet in precariously high heels—also her sister’s—without falling flat on her face.

Having left it too late to cut and run, she had no choice but follow through. Breathe…Concentrate, she told herself. One foot in front of the other, the walk functional rather than flirty. Sedate duchess rather than saucy domestic…

Having managed to negotiate the coffee cup and carpet without disaster, she offered her hand and said, ‘How d’you do, Mrs Cochrane?’

She was convinced she looked, and sounded, exactly like Eliza Doolittle at Ascot—just before she let slip the expletive…

Mrs Cochrane, however, appeared to notice nothing amiss in this performance, and offered her an unexpectedly warm smile, waving her away from the desk towards the more informal sofa.

‘We’re both busy women, Lady March, so I’m not going to waste time. I enjoyed the diary pieces you sent me. And the drawings you used to illustrate them.’

‘Really?’Oh, that wasn’t cool. But she’d never been face to face with an editor before, let alone had a ‘chat’ with one. She tried to restrain the idiotic grin, slow the heart-rate to something more stately. ‘Thank you.’

‘The drawings have a delightful spontaneity, as if you’d just doodled your thoughts.’

‘Oh, I did,’ she exclaimed, then inwardly groaned as Mrs Cochrane smiled. This was definitely not the way to do it…Then, in an effort to recover the situation, ‘I did plan to go to art school…’

Which was true. But common sense ran like a seam of iron ore through her family genes, and she’d seen the value of a good solid degree and a teaching qualification. Something practical that she could use all her life. Would fit around married life, children.

She shrugged—then wondered if a ‘Lady’, one with a capital L, would shrug—and left Mrs Cochrane to draw her own conclusions.

‘Clearly you chose marriage and children instead,’ Mrs Cochrane filled in for her, nodding and smiling with obvious approval. ‘Most young women seem to be leaving it so late these days.’

Fortunately she was looking at the drawings, spread across the low table in front of them, giving Ellie a moment to recover.

She picked one that was no more than a few lines suggesting the upraised bottom, the chubby legs of an infant almost ready to stand up and take her first steps.

‘This is Chloe? Your youngest child?’

Ellie looked at the picture. It was the daughter of one of the women she worked for in her ‘day’ job, drawn from memory without a thought.

How could she have done that?

‘Charming,’ Mrs Cochrane said, without waiting for an answer. Then, ‘I’m going to be frank with you, Lady March—’

‘Gabriella, please.’

‘Gabriella. I’ve been looking for someone who can write a regular lifestyle column for some time. It has been extraordinarily difficult to find a writer capable of finding just the tone our readers appreciate.’

Ellie was not entirely surprised to hear that; no one born since 1950 wrote that way.

‘There was always just a suggestion of the pastiche. A lack of sincerity.’ She smiled. ‘Sincerity is essential.’

‘Absolutely,’ she managed, wishing the floor would open up and swallow her. Right now.

‘Of course I’m not interested in the rather dated diary format.’

Which was the sole reason she’d chosen it. And, from a point where she had been praying to whatever saint was supposed to be looking after the interests of neophyte writers to get on with sorting out that hole for her to disappear into, she was suddenly indignant. Why bring her all the way up to London for a ‘chat’ about her work, then tell her that it wasn’t what was wanted?

‘I’m looking for something less formal—something that will appeal to the younger generation of women we need to attract. Your writing has a lively freshness, a touch of irreverence that is quite striking.’

All the things she’d done her absolute best to suppress…‘What I’d like to suggest to you is a regular contribution based on your own experiences of entertaining, household management, the small oddities of family life. Not a diary as such, more a conversation with the reader. A chat over coffee, or lunch with a friend.’

Everything about that sounded perfect—if she ignored the fact that she didn’t have a partner, let alone a husband and the charmingly precocious children she’d invented were an amalgam of those she’d encountered in her ‘day’ job—or at least their mothers’ sadly mistaken assessment of them. As for entertaining, the only effort she put into that was to call out for a pizza.

And what the heck was ‘household management’ when it was at home?

‘My proposal is this. An initial contract for six months at our usual rate, and then, if the readers respond as favourably as I anticipate, we’ll talk again. Does that interest you?’

This, Ellie decided, was about as close to her worst nightmare as it was possible to get. She’d finally got her first breakthrough, her first real recognition as a writer, and it was all based on lies.

She couldn’t do it.

‘I expect you’d like a little time to consider it?’ Mrs Cochrane said, when she didn’t immediately answer.

Could she?

‘Maybe you’d like to talk it over with your husband?’ she pressed.

‘My husband?’To hear the words, spoken so casually, left her momentarily floundering. ‘No,’ she finally managed. ‘That won’t be necessary.’

Sean, wherever he was, would be grinning like an idiot, cheering her on, saying, ‘You show them, Ellie. Take the balloon ride…’

Mrs Cochrane really liked what she’d written. She’d be doing the woman a favour if she said yes. And she’d be getting paid for writing on a regular basis—proof for her parents, her sister, that she wasn’t just chasing some will-o’-the-wisp daydream. She’d have something to show an agent, too. And she’d only be writing under a pseudonym of sorts, after all. People did that all the time.

Actually, maybe she wouldn’t even have to do that…

‘Perhaps,’ she suggested, ‘younger readers would be put off by the title? Maybe I should just write as Gabriella March?’

Please, please, please…

The other woman considered her suggestion for all of ten seconds before she shook her head. ‘Lady Gabriella has a touch of class.’ Then, ‘Is it your husband’s title, or a courtesy one?’

‘A courtesy one,’ she said, seizing on this. If it was just a courtesy title, it wouldn’t mean anything. Except that Mrs Cochrane was looking at her as if she expected more, and Ellie suddenly had the feeling that she’d just made a huge mistake, somehow given the wrong answer. But it was too late now, and having made the mental leap from ‘no way can I do this’ to ‘what’s the problem?’ she tuned out the voice of sanity.

Chances like this were once-in-a-lifetime opportunities, and no one knew better than she did that they had to be grabbed with both hands.

She’d worry about the children and the household management later. There were books. The internet…

As for her ‘husband’…

For a moment Ellie was assailed by such an ache of loneliness, loss. How could she do this…? Pretend…

‘Well, to business,’ Mrs Cochrane said, when it was clear she wasn’t going to add anything on the subject of her ‘title’, and by the time she’d explained the technicalities of a monthly column, the needs of word count, copy dates, etc, Ellie had recovered.

‘We’d like you to send two or three illustrations with each month’s column. Can you manage that?’