CAROLYN: Oh, my God. I’m welling up. You’re going to be thebest Chewbacca ever! I’m so happy!
ME: Me too, Carolyn. Me too.
CHAPTER SEVEN
The London town house belonging to the Marquess and Marchioness of Meade looks exactly like the house inMary Poppins.Walking along Grosvenor Crescent, I half expect Mary herself to emerge from one of the shiny doors with the Banks children in tow, wearing boaters and singing something jolly about flying kites.
“Bloody hell,” I whisper, gulping as I look up at the white columns framing the doorway.
I’d already had to give myself a pep talk when I was in the shower, telling myself that, in case I had forgotten, this wasthemost important moment of my career. With the Swann family endorsement, I would surely gain a huge list of future clients with stratospheric budgets. I have to win over Lady Cordelia and make this whole process a success. I spent last night poring over every article I could find about the Swanns, making sure I’d be as prepared as possible.
The problem is, there’s not much out there recently about Lady Cordelia Swann. I know all about her teenage lifestyle, but people can change a lot in their twenties, and the last articles that said anything interesting about her were from at least seven or eight years ago. Since then she’d cropped up at a few parties or been photographed at exclusive events, but it would seem that she’d withdrawn from the public eye a while ago. She has a successful jewelry business, Swann & Co., that was launcheda few years back when anything she put her name to sold out in minutes. It’s still a bestselling line and, from the little information I could find on the company’s website about its founder, she remains in charge of the business side of things as well as the collection designs.
There’s even less online about Jonathan Farlow, her fiancé. He only became of interest to the press on their engagement, but if tabloid reporters were hoping for something juicy, they must have been gravely disappointed. Jonathan grew up in the Norfolk countryside and works in finance. He’s not on social media and there’s barely any information about him online, only one article of interest, one of those “out and about” society columns written by a journalist describing an art gallery opening at which Lady Cordelia and he were present:
I spent a large part of the evening speaking to a cheerful, modest man named Freddie. We got chatting after I stepped on his foot and he apologized to me. It was only later, after I’d left, that I realized the very kind gentleman in question had in fact been Jonathan Farlow, the fiancé of Lady Cordelia Swann. I now understand why he’d been blushing so much during our conversation—nothing to do with my charm and wit as I’d first suspected, but the fact I’d been calling him Freddie all evening! He’d been much too courteous to correct me.
Jonathan didn’t sound like Lady Cordelia’s type at all. She had always been linked to trendy musicians or actors who looked like they hadn’t washed in a while. At one point, she dated an up-and-coming artist, but the relationship ended a couple of weeks later when he was arrested for fraud. Jonathan, on the other hand, sounds normal.
Just as I’m about to press the doorbell, my phone starts vibrating. I check the caller. It’s a portaloo company I was trying toreach all day yesterday and for the majority of this morning. I’m a few minutes early, so I go back down the front steps and take the call on the pavement.
“Hi, Russell, thanks for calling,” I say, trying not to stare as a Maserati casually drives past and parks up the road. “What’s going on? You left a message saying it was urgent.”
“We’ve got a big problem, Sophie. We’re double-booked for next weekend.”
“What do you mean?”
“We can’t do the Delgado wedding.”
“You’re kidding.”
“I’m not. My twit of an employee got the weekends mixed up. We’re providing the loos for a big corporate event next weekend, but we had it down for this weekend. The thing is, we can’t miss out on this business as they’re taking the whole lot of our luxury cubicles.”
“Russell, please tell me this is a joke. The Delgado wedding is under two weeks away!” I exclaim, panicking.
Normally I’m quite calm about last-minute wedding complications, but toilets are absolutely essential and the right sort of portaloos that match the vibe of a wedding can be hard to find. Rosemary Delgado is an extremely elegant, sophisticated, high-maintenance bride, and her wedding reflects that. As did the luxury portaloos we’d booked.
“You know this never happens, Sophie,” Russell says nervously. “I really am sorry.”
“I promised them you were a family-run business with the best luxury portaloos in Essex! Now what are we going to do?”
“I’ll help you to find another company—”
“What luxury-loo company is going to have availability next weekend?” I practically yell into the phone.
“It might be OK, being October! I promise I’ll do all I can to help and we’ll of course pay back the deposit.”
“I can’t believe this is happening.”
“I’m so sorry. I really am. I hope you can sort something out and it won’t be too tricky tracking down some other toilets.”
“Too tricky? This is a total disaster, Russell!” I throw my free hand up in the air. “A total toilet disaster!”
Just as I yell into the phone, the door of the Meades’ house swings open and a man steps out, jumping slightly at my outburst. I recognize him immediately. It’s Lady Cordelia’s brother, Thomas, or to give him his full courtesy title, Viscount Dashwell. A lot of last night’s research went into working out the various peerage titles of this family.
It is VERY confusing.
He stops on the steps, a bemused expression on his face.
