“Twenty-five thousand,” says Portia, addressing me more than Lady Valéry.
I stand up and I shout out: “Fifty thousand pounds.” Then, before she can utter a word, I raise my own offer: “Sixty.”
I feel her ice cold look on me. I approach her and, once I’m in front of her, as if I were at the stadium facing the leader of the opposition’s supporters, I snatch the paddle out of her hands and hiss: “A hundred thousand pounds.”
Yes, a hundred thousand. I am super rich, and I want to use my money to win over this arrogant bitch and teach her a lesson.
“I’m afraid I did not understand the offer,” says Lady Venetia.
“A hundred fucking thousand pounds,” I repeat, articulating the words slowly.
“No other offer?”
I turn round but Portia has vanished.
“Going, going and… gone. Lady Jemma has just won… well, her husband.”
I was hoping to catch him by surprise, but Ashford is shaking his head and smiling. Yes, one of those beautiful smiles that light up his face, just like when you open a big window in a dark room while the sun is rising on the sea… wait, what am I saying?
He keeps smiling, walks off the stage, comes back to me and…stop it! Oh my God, I have to stop staring at him.
52
Ashford’s Version
I should hate Jemma for that gentlemen’s auction, but I can’t.
I know I’d have every right to make an angry outburst but for some reason, I don’t feel the need to ‘open fire’. Anger: not reported. Resentment: not available. Irritation: at an all time low.
As is customary between Jemma and me, high society events end with an argument, but tonight, I have no pretext to start one. Regardless of our truce, traditions should be respected.
The thing that amazes me is that I’m trying hard to find an excuse, as if I didn’t want to accept that I’m not mad at her for the very first time.
And I have something else to confess, something I have tried to ignore so far: after Jemma bought me for ‘a hundred fucking thousand pounds’, and I went off stage to join her, I didn’t give her any hateful looks. On the contrary, I felt a rather strange force urging me to go and hug her, and I had to use all my self-control to deny it.
The hug that my subconscious was picturing was not that of a friend, though. Not at all.
She stood there with a victorious expression on her face and her hands on her hips, all wrapped up in that long grey satin dress that envelopes her buttocks in a way that would drive any man crazy.
Enough!
I shake my head to banish that image from my mind and try to focus on the road.
Jemma sits next to me with her legs crossed and is looking out of the car window.
In the darkness of the night, the glass acts as a mirror and I can see that she’s still got that smile on her face.
“Your chequebook war with Portia will be the main topic of conversation for months.”
“Someone had to put her in her place. I don’t care if it cost me a hundred grand.”
“Was that the whole point, then? Winning against Portia?”
“Yup.”
What’s this thing I feel in my chest? I hope it’s not disappointment. Why would I be disappointed, anyway?
“Apart from Portia, I would say that many other ladies understood that the Duchess of Burlingham is not to be messed with.”
