More Than You Know by Penny Vincenzi Read Free Book Online Page A

doing well.”
    “Oh, really? Well, good for him.”
    “Typical Matt, he was delivering letters by hand, seemed embarrassed about it. I told him not to be so bloody silly. He’s got a bit of a chip on his shoulder, but I do like him a lot. We thought we’d try to track down a couple of the others, have a real reunion.”
    “Yes, why don’t you?” Eliza sounded distracted suddenly. “Charles, I was talking to Mummy last weekend. She’s desperately worried. Summercourt needs a lot of money spent on it—not just painting and general refurbishment; they might need a new roof as well. They had it patched up a couple of years ago, but now it’s getting really bad. And they haven’t got a bean; she’s even talking about selling a bit more land.”
    “They can’t do that! Anyway, the trustees won’t let them. What does Pa say?”
    “Not a lot, as far as I can make out. Reading between the lines, his head’s firmly in the sand. Just denies there’s a real problem. I can’t think what we can do to help, but at least we must show her some support. When are you going down next?”
    “Well, I could pop down tomorrow. Could you come too?”
    “I could, actually. OK, let’s do that. It would cheer her up, if nothing else. She’s really worried, can’t sleep.”
    “Poor Mummy. Yes, let’s go and see her. I’m sure we can come up with something. Now, how’s the job? I want to hear all about it.”

    Eliza was even less inclined towards marriage than usual that summer; gearing up for the autumn opening of Woolfe’s Young Generation was consuming all her energy.
    Jan Jacobson, the brilliant young buyer hired to work exclusively for Young Generation, had brought in some beautiful clothes; comparativelyestablished designers like John Bates (of Jean Varon) and Sally Tuffin and Marion Foale would hang on rails alongside entirely new talent. He had discovered Mark Derrick, who designed apparently shapeless little shift dresses that still flattered girls’ bodies: the bodies that had seemed almost overnight to have been transformed from the shapely curves of the late fifties to something almost boyish, with neat, small breasts and flat, hipless torsos; and Eliza herself had discovered Maddy Brown, who had reinvented the sweater so that it continued downwards from the waist to somewhere above the knee.
    Eliza liked Maddy; she was fun, with a sweet and deceptively gentle manner. Beneath it was an ambition as steely as Eliza’s own. She was the child of working-class parents, had won a scholarship to a grammar school and then to art school; she was small with long fair hair and huge green eyes, and she still lived at home and used her tiny bedroom as a studio workshop.
    Slightly unwillingly, Jan had agreed to see Maddy, fell in love with the clothes, and persuaded Bernard Woolfe she was worth the risk. Maddy and her one knitter, also working from home, found a couple more girls who met her exacting standards; all four of them now were installed in the unfortunate Mr. and Mrs. Brown’s front room.

    One night that summer, she and Charles went with a party of friends to Brads, the newest of the new nightspots. Soon after midnight Eliza, lying back temporarily exhausted after an energetic bossa nova, heard someone shouting above the din.
    “Charles, old chap! Lovely to see you.” And into view, smiling and waving just slightly drunkenly in their direction, came the most glorious-looking man.
    “Jeremy!” said Charles. “Come and join us. Eliza, I don’t think you’ve met Jeremy. Jeremy Northcott. We were out in Hong Kong together. Jeremy, this is my sister, Eliza.”
    “Hallo,” said Eliza, smiling just a little coolly while digesting this Adonis: tall, blond, absurdly good-looking, the patrician nose and chiselled jaw saved from cliché by a slightly lopsided grin, showing, of course, perfect teeth.
    “Hallo to you,” said Jeremy, and sat down abruptly next to her. “Ithink we met a couple of times at Eton,