Page 31 of The Gathering Storm

‘What I meant to say was that your choice this evening is perfect.’

Emma was wearing a bias-cut silk Vionnet gown in broad black-and-white diagonal stripes, calf-length with a little flare at the hem. She wore modest diamond earrings and two small diamond clips in her dark hair. ‘But the King being there makes it a sort of royal occasion, and one doesn’t want to look underdressed,’ she fretted.

‘You know my view. Better under than over.’

‘I suppose Wally will be hung about with jewels like a Christmas tree.’

‘Now, darling, don’t be unkind. You are so very beautiful, you don’t understand that lesser women have to decorate themselves more to compete with you.’

‘She does dress very well, and I must say her style is good. She got shoals of new dresses in Paris. And David gives her a jewel every time she tells him off for something. She got sapphire clips after scolding him for leaving a wine-glass ring on some official paper.’

They reached the hall, where the servants were waiting with their outdoor clothes, and at the sight the dogs came to a halt and sat down on their tails and looked mournful. Kit took Emma’s fur from Spencer and hung it round her shoulders. ‘Alec Hardinge is in despair about the red boxes,’ he said. ‘HM reads them in the drawing-room or wherever he happens to be, and leaves confidential papers lying about where anyone could read them.’

‘“Anyone”, in this case, being Wally, I suppose,’ Emma said. ‘Alec hates her so much, he’s hardly rational about it. He must know HM shows her everything anyway – otherwise how could she advise him?’

Kit took his scarf and gloves from Ponsford and they walked towards the door. ‘I rather think that begs the question,’ he said. ‘She shouldn’t be advising him. He has an entire government for that.’

‘Ah, but they don’t tell him what he wants to hear,’ said Emma, passing before him down the steps into Manchester Square. It was a clear, starry night, and sharply cold. Each streetlamp wore a halo of mist. They hurried into the waiting car, and were glad to have the rug tucked around their legs. As Osmond closed the door, Kit sought her hand under the rug and held it. It was one of his fond gestures that made her feel very fortunate in her marriage.

‘What is the situation between the Simpsons, anyway?’ Emma asked him, when they were moving. ‘I thought Ernest was going to arrange for a divorce, but I haven’t heard anything more. Has he changed his mind?’

‘Oh, I have news on that front. I met Wally in Selfridge’s this afternoon and took her for a cocktail—’

‘What were you doing in Selfridges?’

‘Looking at some Van Cleef cufflinks. Please concentrate on the important point.’

‘Did you buy them?’

‘The cufflinks? No. So I took Wally for a cocktail—’

‘Why didn’t you tell me you’d seen her?’

‘You only got home just in time to dress. I’m telling you now. May I continue?’

‘About the divorce?’

‘Yes. It’s in abeyance at the moment. HM is consulting a new lawyer, one Walter Monckton, who’s supposed to be as clever as a barrel of monkeys, and he’s suggested a way out – because, you know, as it stands, the King can’t marry a divorcée.’

‘Wally told you all this? She certainly confides in you more than in me.’

‘Of course she does. Everyone does. I’m the sort of person people love telling things.’

‘That’s true. So what’s the new idea?’

‘Monckton’s suggested instead of a divorce Wally seeks an annulment.’

Emma considered. ‘But even if there were some legal problem with her marriage to Ernest, she would still be a divorcée from her first marriage.’

‘An annulment of both marriages.’

‘That sounds a little improbable. Legal hitches in both cases?’

‘No. Non-consummation,’ said Kit, watching her face for her reaction. He was enjoying himself.

‘Really? She told you all this?’

‘After the second martini she let down her hair. She told me she had never had sexual relations with either of her husbands. She said she would never allow a man to touch her below the Mason-Dixon line.’