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  CENTS AND SENSIBILITY

  Praise for Pants on Fire:

  ‘Alderson shows a gift for slicing through the daffy bravado of women’s mags’ real-life Pats ’n’ Edinas and makes a highly entertaining meal of one woman’s search for an Aussie fit for a Pom. Highly entertaining’ Heat

  ‘A glitzy whirlwind of Tim Tams, tantrums and handsome love-interests’ Marie Claire

  ‘It’s fun, funny, feather-light and once you’ve started, like a box of chocolate bikkies, can’t be put down until you’re full and it’s finished’ Sydney Morning Herald

  ‘Witty, upbeat, modern romance’ Daily Express

  ‘A witty modern romance… much more than a Bridget Jones’s Diary’ Australian Vogue

  ‘Wickedly funny and realistic… the perfect read for any girl who’s ever wondered if the grass might be greener on the other side of the world’ OK!

  ‘A funny, light-hearted read’ Glamour

  ‘Entertaining and upbeat’ She

  Praise for Mad About the Boy:

  ‘A bubbly concoction of bitchiness, humour, glamour and eccentricity written with great verve and enthusiasm’ Sunday Mirror

  ‘Sassy stuff’ Daily Mirror

  Praise for Handbags and Gladrags:

  ‘Heaven for sex-and-shopping fans’ Daily Mail

  ‘A wicked read – funny, sexy and stylish’ Best

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Maggie Alderson was born in London, brought up in Staffordshire and educated at the University of St Andrews. She has worked on nine magazines – editing four of them – and two newspapers. Her previous novels are Pants on Fire, Mad About the Boy and Handbags and Gladrags. She has also published two collections of fashion journalism, Shoe Money and Handbag Heaven, and was a co-editor of the charity anthologies Big Night Out and Ladies Night, in aid of War Child. She is married with one daughter.

  Cents and Sensibility

  MAGGIE ALDERSON

  PENGUIN BOOKS

  PENGUIN BOOKS

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA

  Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4P 2Y3

  (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)

  Penguin Ireland, 25 St Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd)

  Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell,

  Victoria 3124, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd)

  Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi – 110 017, India

  Penguin Group (NZ), cnr Airborne and Rosedale Roads, Albany, Auckland 1310,

  New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd)

  Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa

  Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  www.penguin.com

  First published 2006

  5

  Copyright © Maggie Alderson, 2006

  All rights reserved

  The moral right of the author has been asserted

  Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser

  ISBN: 9780141910291

  For Josephine Fairley

  Acknowledgements

  Thank you to:

  My wonderful publishers – Julie Gibbs in Australia and Mari Evans in the UK. Thanks also to the entire teams in both locations. Penguin rules OK.

  To my adored agent, Jonathan Lloyd, and all at Curtis Brown in London, particularly Camilla Goslet and Alice Lutyens. To Fiona Inglis, Pippa Masson and the gang at Curtis Brown in Sydney. And Christy Fletcher in New York.

  Always to my treasured novelist gal pals, for advice, support and emails: Jessica Adams, Kathy Lette and Karen Moline.

  To Stephanie Donaldson for help with what blooms where and when, Mark Connolly for his New York insider eye, and Chris Durlacher for Côte d’Azur savoir faire. Rose and Grace Eastell for their sage advice on pop music. Chris, Iain and Johnnie Alderson for the same on death metal.

  To all the people who lent me havens to write in: Glenn and Kath Veness for Windy Corner; Jean Howell for Oxford Terrace; Lionel Copley for Trafalgar Cottages; Jane Scruton for Garden Cottage; Hilary Robertson and Alastair McCowan for the Old Brewery; Roland Shiers for the Old Printworks.

  And always, always to Popi – for hiding books from me, among many other services – and to my darling Peggy, for being the light of my life and knowing The Gruffalo by heart.

  HENRY ALEXANDER MONTECOURT-FAIN, THE LORD MONTECOURT OF CLIFFE

  1

  There’s only one thing worse than having a boyfriend with no money – and that’s having an incredibly rich one. But I didn’t understand that until I had known Jay for quite a while.

  I’d had no idea just how rich he was when I first met him, or perhaps I would have been more wary. I mean, I knew right away he wasn’t exactly short of cash, because of where we met, at the Grand-Hotel du Cap Mimosa, on the Côte d’Azur. It’s a seriously jet-set sort of place. You can’t get a room there for less than £300 a night and I knew that he was there just for the hell of it, paying his own way – and in the middle of the week, too – whereas I was there strictly for work.

  I was on a press freebie, to do an interview for the newspaper I worked for with the ‘legendary international megastar’ Jericho (that was her publicist’s description, by the way; I would have said more ‘singer-turned-actress-turned-nightmare’), about her new line of diamond jewellery.

  She was launching the range there because ‘the sparkling light and laughter of the South of France was a major inspiration for the Collection’. Or, at least, that’s what it said in the press pack the PR had given us in the Business Class lounge at Heathrow, where we were waiting for our midday flight to Cannes.

  ‘Listen to this bit,’ I said to my friend Amy, the editor-at-large of society magazine Pratler, and my favourite partner in crime on such trips.

  ‘ “I have always loved Diamonds…” ’ I read out. ‘ “To me, the spark of light in Diamonds is like the celestial flash of Brilliance that inspires my Work. Diamonds are nature’s Music.’”

  We snorted with laughter.

  ‘And what’s with all those capital letters?’ said Amy, looking at her own copy.

  ‘Rampant ego?’ I suggested. ‘Extreme pretentiousness? Bullshit overload?’

  ‘All of that,’ said Amy, slamming the press pack shut, with a shudder. ‘Reckon this could go one of two ways, don’t you?’ she continued, in confidential tones, as Tara – the PR who was organizing the trip – walked past us. ‘Could be totally divine – spa treatments, poolside drinks, minimal shite about the product; or it could be two days of illustrated lectures in darkened rooms and a four-hour wait for a group interview with Miss Jericho, as they call her. What do you reckon?’

  ‘No darkened rooms,’ I said. ‘I checked it out with Tara before I agreed to come.’

  Amy laughed.

  ‘You’re hilarious,’ she said.

  ‘Just bitterly experienced,’ I said. ‘But there’ll be no avoiding the wait. We all know how famously late Miss Jericho is. And it is a stupid group interview, you’re right. Then they expect us each to writ
e an original piece…’

  Amy rolled her eyes. ‘Oh well, at least we’ll have each other – and we’ll need some good company, look who’s just walked in.’

  She nodded towards the entrance, where Tara was effusively greeting a woman with a severe bob haircut and heavy-rimmed statement spectacles. It was Laura Birch-wood. My equivalent from a rival broadsheet newspaper.

  ‘Now that is annoying,’ I said to Amy.

  ‘Yes,’ she agreed. ‘She’s so over-focused, that girl, I find it exhausting. She takes work much too seriously. Sense of humour: nul points.’

  I agreed with Amy about all that, Laura was infuriatingly competitive, but I was annoyed for another reason: I’d made Tara tell me who else was going on the launch before I’d agreed to cover it and Laura’s name had definitely not been mentioned – while the words ‘British newspaper exclusive’ definitely had been.

  But with the prospect of two nights in my favourite hotel on the French Riviera and further larks with Amy, I decided to put such irritations aside and just enjoy myself, exclusive story or not.

  The Cap Mimosa was certainly as gorgeous as I remembered it, when I was shown to my room later that afternoon. The white lawn curtains were blowing gently in the breeze, and when I stepped out on to the balcony, the Mediterranean was intensely blue and sparkling, just the way it’s supposed to be – although even Jericho couldn’t have arranged that in advance. Not even by yelling at it, as she was famous for doing to her personal assistants. Rumour had it, she’d had to pay one of them off, after attacking her with a Christian Louboutin stiletto heel.

  Back in the room there was a huge vase of heady tuberoses, and six mini-bottles of Pommery ‘Pop’ in an ice bucket on the table, with a welcome note apparently signed by Jericho herself, although on close inspection I could see it was printed.

  A few more little touches laid on to put us in the right frame of mind for her latest ‘oeuvre’ – as it said in that dreadful press release – included a large floppy hat (from her accessories line) and a pair of large black sunglasses (likewise), in a charming local basket. A particularly nice touch, I thought, the basket, a little low-key accent to counterpoint all the luxury.

  And luxury was something I knew plenty about. I was a senior feature writer on the Daily Journal – which was considered London’s most prestigious broadsheet newspaper – and luxury was my special area of expertise.

  While my colleagues specialized in the Middle East, or crime, or parliament – for me it was crocodile-skin handbags, inlaid backgammon sets, bespoke shoes and couture fragrances. All those little areas that add up to the modern ideal of the luxury lifestyle.

  And the Cap Mimosa pretty much summed that lifestyle up, I thought, as I looked around the exquisitely elegant cream and gold room. Then, after checking the schedule in the press pack, I saw I had time to enjoy a bit more of it, before the first official event, a welcome dinner for all the journalists, with Tara and the rest of Jericho’s global publicity machine.

  Eager to make the most of my stay, I headed straight down to the hotel’s heavenly swimming pool to do some laps. There was only one other person in there, powering up and down, while I took it a little more gently, pausing each time I reached the end to gaze out over the Med, and the huge white boats bobbing in the hotel’s private marina.

  When I felt I’d swum enough, I sat at the top of the pool’s elegant curving stone steps, with my feet in the water, just breathing in the garden-scented air and enjoying the feeling of sun on my skin.

  The other swimmer stopped for a moment at the other end, to let the water out of his goggles, giving me a tantalizing glimpse of well-muscled brown shoulders. Then he resumed swimming and I stood up to leave the pool.

  I headed off towards the steam room at the hotel spa, but before I got there I ran into Amy, who was en route to her idea of a rejuvenating Riviera afternoon: the outdoor bar.

  The prospect of Amy’s company was irresistible so, with my healthy intentions immediately abandoned, we were soon installed on the rattan sofas set among orange trees in pots, the wisteria in glorious full bloom along the loggia next to us, drinking champagne and roaring with laughter. That was where she introduced me to Jay.

  I noticed him immediately when he walked on to the terrace. He was startlingly tanned in a white linen shirt, which was flapping open, a towel around his waist, his black hair wet and elegantly slicked back. He had very brown bare feet.

  It was the guy from the pool, I realized. Class Euro-trash, I thought to myself, now I had a chance to look at him properly, and I saw his eyes – strikingly dark blue – rest on me for a moment as he walked over to the bar.

  He didn’t notice Amy immediately, as she had her back to him, and it wasn’t until she shrieked with laughter – at a story I was telling her about my last, disastrous press trip to a Bavarian schloss for the launch of a solid silver pencil sharpener range – that he came over.

  ‘Amy?’ he said, standing behind her, but looking at me, making me suddenly aware of the wet T-shirt competition effect of my wet bikini through the kaftan’s semi-sheer fabric.

  She turned round and then jumped up to hug him, with her customary enthusiasm.

  ‘Jay!’ she squealed. ‘Darling one, what a heavenly surprise, but of course you’re here. This is your natural territory. Are you with anyone? Come and join us. This is my gorgeous friend, Stella Montecourt-Fain. She works for the Journal. She’s terribly clever.’

  So he did join us and, fuelled by more champagne which he insisted on buying, the chemistry between us was instant and vivid. Amy chatted on in her infectious way, telling long involved stories that somehow never got boring, with Jay and I interjecting the odd one-liner, our eyes meeting with increasing frequency.

  I was just trying to stop mine sliding down to his chest and stomach, as he slowly did his shirt buttons up, with elegant fingers. I’d never seen anyone look so sexy putting their clothes on.

  ‘So, Jay,’ said Amy, having come to the end of a hilarious anecdote about a trip to the Arctic Circle, when she had been bounced out of a reindeer sleigh at high speed and no one had noticed for five minutes. ‘We’re here for a riveting jewellery launch with international megastar, Jericho. Are you here for any particular reason, or just because it’s rather nice?’

  ‘Well, I’m here for the launch too, actually,’ he said in his strange accent, a weird mixture of Posh London Mockney and Cape Cod American. ‘I ran into Jerry in Aspen and she said I should come hang out for the launch.’

  Amy’s eyebrows shot up.

  ‘Jerry, is it?’ she said, archly.

  ‘That’s just what people call her, Amy. Nothing more than that. She’s kinda fun, so I thought I’d come and see what happens at these things.’

  ‘Maybe you should launch a range of jewellery too, Jay,’ said Amy and he pretended he was going to throw his drink over her.

  ‘What do you do?’ I asked innocently, having no idea that was the very worst question I could have asked a money bunny like him.

  I knew I’d made a mistake, when I saw Amy’s face freeze, but Jay kept his cool, in a way which would have amazed me when I knew him better.

  ‘I’m an investment manager,’ he said smoothly, shooting Amy a look which I didn’t understand at the time. ‘But mostly, I like to have a good time. Would you girls like to come out dancing with me tonight?’

  ‘Not if you’re driving,’ said Amy, prompting another near miss from Jay’s drink. And then she added, glancing quickly at me, ‘And only if you’ve got a friend for me to play with.’

  ‘Spotter?’ said Jay.

  ‘Oh, brilliant,’ said Amy, delightedly, beaming at me, although I hadn’t a clue what they were talking about.

  ‘Who or what is Spotter?’ I asked her, when Jay had gone back into the hotel, after arranging to meet us in the lobby at ten.

  ‘Oh, he’s really great,’ said Amy. ‘Such a funny guy. Great friend of Jay’s, ex-army boy, you’ll love him. Shall we go in and
change? We can bolt down the welcome dinner and then plead exhaustion and sneak out to meet Jay. Plan?’

  ‘Plan,’ I said, nodding.

  ‘Er, Stells,’ said Amy, with an unusually serious tone in her voice, as we stood up to leave the bar. She touched my arm gently. ‘Wear something pretty tonight. We’ll be going somewhere nice with Jay.’

  She looked at me intently, and nodded quickly a couple of times, as though she was giving me some kind of coded message. I wished she would just come out and say it, whatever it was, but I sensed she wouldn’t be comfortable to spell it out, so I just smiled and nodded back.

  Fortunately, I did have something really pretty to wear. My years of press trips had taught me always to pack one killer dress, because you never knew where you might end up going.

  And I knew I could go anywhere in the blue silk Lanvin number I had just slipped over my head. With my favourite gold Prada wedges and a nice tan left over from my January holiday in Goa, I was pretty happy with the way I looked.

  When I stepped out of the lift into the hotel foyer, after a quick trip back up to my room to check my make-up after the hurried dinner, I could see that Jay was too.

  His face broke into one of those spontaneous smiles that signals a man is relieved to find that you are no less attractive than he remembered. And I’m very good at reading men in that way – because with a father like mine, I’d had expert tuition.

  So far my dad has had six wives. And his name is Henry, which is pretty funny. Unlike his royal namesake, though, he has no problem producing heirs. I think it was seven, the last time I totted us all up.

  What makes it really confusing is that some of his wives already had children of their own when they arrived in his life, or have had more subsequently with new husbands. So as well as all my half-brothers and sisters, I have swathes of stepsiblings and semi-steps, which is what I call the ex-wives’ subsequent children.