The Jane Austen Marriage Manual (13 page)

“I love your dress,” I said simply. Orietta had said that Fawn was a southern belle and her accent confirmed it, which probably went a long way to explain why she was friendly and helpful to a total stranger—southern hospitality. I wanted to prove that I was worth knowing, too. Summoning my inner aristocrat I introduced myself: “My name is Kate Shaw.”

“Fawn Chamberlain,” she said and held out her hand without taking her eyes off the road. “Are you Lady Kate? Orietta’s new friend?”

Word spread fast in Palm Beach.

“Yes, but please just call me Kate,” I said quietly and took the opportunity to examine Fawn as she drove. She definitely had had work done, but it was good work. The acting beauty editor inside me wanted to ask her which doctor she’d seen, but thought better of it; women like Fawn didn’t reveal beauty secrets.

“Orietta mentioned that she’d met you on the flight from New York,” Fawn continued. She kept glancing over at me as she spoke although I couldn’t help wonder if she weren’t sizing me up, trying to determine if I was a fake. “Your accent isn’t European,” she added suspiciously.

“I’m American, from New York. I inherited some land in Scotland,” I answered confidently; telling my new story was getting easier all the time. “I own Highland cattle, but wanted to escape the cold for a week or two.”

“A Yankee? That explains it. But with cattle, now I am impressed,” she said with a grin. “My pappy had Herefords on his farm. I love cows and their big eyes, don’t you?”

Yikes. Of all the things for us to have in common: cows. “Yes, especially during calf season,” I said, then quickly changed the subject. “Are you going to Orietta’s dinner party tonight?”

“Of course.” She grinned. “I never miss one of her dinners when I’m in town. Someone is bound to get drunk and make a fool of him- or herself. And by that I mean ending up in bed with another guest’s spouse during the cheese course.”

“Really?”

“Happens all the time.” She laughed. “It’s a buffet so it’s easy to slip away. Although people have been known to wait until coffee.”

I nodded and smiled. I wondered who else would be at the party. As I fondled the hem of my dress my mind went back to Scott and Tatiana.

“Do you know Scott Madewell?” I asked nonchalantly.

“Scott!” she practically shrieked. “Scott and I go way back. He was
a business partner of my second husband. And my first, come to think of it. He’s single now. Handsome, isn’t he?”

“I met him and this young girl today.” I tried to sound vague, but truth was I couldn’t bring myself to utter her name.

“Tatiana?” Fawn said it for me. “That little gold digger has got her talons sunk into him. I’m determined to rescue him from her.”

“She didn’t seem his type,” I said, as if I knew what his type was. “She’s a sexy young girl. She’s everyman’s type,” she retorted. “My first husband married me when I was Tatiana’s age. A girl can get a lot of mileage out of her youth. Mileage and millions, I always say.” She smiled and winked.

When we stopped at a red light, Fawn turned to me and smiled but didn’t look away.

“Are
you
looking for a husband?”

I never knew that southern belles could be so blunt. “Of course not!” I said forcefully and stared out the window as my hands grasped the skirt of my dress and twisted it.

“It’s all right if you are,” she continued. “In this economy, women have to be creative. But I suppose with you having a title and an estate to go with it, you don’t need to think of those things.”

I kept silent, unsure how to answer. “Even a girl with a title needs a man,” I said, attempting humor. “It’s cold in Scotland.”

To my relief Fawn laughed very hard. “And you’ve set your sights on Scott Madewell?” she stated matter-of-factly.

“Not at all,” I protested but to no avail. She immediately let out another of her pool hall laughs.

“He’s a catch, all right, worth billions, enough to keep you warm for life! He’s a whiz in the market, or so people say,” she went on. “We don’t have any of our money with him, but tons of people around here do. He handles billions of dollars in investment portfolios. But he’s just one man. There are plenty of others like him, depending on what you want out of it,” she said slyly.

“What do you mean?” I asked, my curiosity piqued. Who knew there were options?

“If you’re content for a high-end affair with some travel and
trinkets, there are loads of men who will do,” she explained with the same tone one would have when giving out the recipe for apple pie. “If you want a permanent arrangement, if what you want is to be married, well, then you have two ways.”

I sat up straighter, the article was writing itself! And who better to get advice from than a woman who has had three rich husbands?

“You get the man to fall in love with you and become his mistress and pray he leaves his wife, but that rarely happens. But it was the case with my first husband,” she added with a wink. “Or you find a single, newly divorced man—like Scott—and fight tooth and nail for him. How old are you?”

I recoiled. Fawn noticed my reaction and grinned. “You look like early thirties, but from your reaction I’d say older?”

“I just turned forty,” I confessed.

She pursed her lips as though my age were some problem that could be solved.

“No matter, you’re still a gorgeous girl. But getting pregnant to snag a husband isn’t so easy for you,” she said flatly. I was amazed how she could broach the topic so coolly.

“Does that even work nowadays?” I snapped dismissively. It seemed so 1960.

“Not as much as when I did it,” she said breezily. “Husband number two.” She held up two fingers for emphasis. “But a baby would at least guarantee child support payments, and a child of a billionaire has to live in the lifestyle into which he or she was born.”

I was speechless. And depressed. Maybe I was too old to marry for money. Maybe I would end up like Miss Bates in
Emma
, an aged spinster living with her mother for the rest of her life, only minus the sunny disposition. For a brief moment it occurred to me that while it may be too late to marry for money, I could still fall in love. Be less mercenary. Be happier. But with my track record, who was I kidding? I had to stay the course.

“There’s no shame in marrying for comfort and security,” she continued with the first note of seriousness I’d heard from her. “Especially at our age. You’re forty. I’ll be fifty-six next month. If you haven’t got it all saved up by now, what are you supposed to do? Live on the street?
Tough it out in some tiny rental? No thanks. While we still have our looks, faded or not, we have to use them to earn our way. My mother always said, ‘That’s how a beautiful girl uses her head.’ ” Fawn poked her forehead with her index finger. “Have you ever had a job?”

I wasn’t sure how to answer, but I needed some semblance of truth in case she asked for details.

“I dabble in writing,” I explained. “I’ve worked as a beauty editor, just for fun. I love makeup.”

“What name do you write under?”

“My own, Katharine Shaw,” I said. “I don’t use my title in my byline, seemed too pompous, and I’m not.”

“Of course you aren’t!” she agreed wholeheartedly. “I adore fashion magazines! I read a ton of them. Which one did you work at?”

“
Haute
.”

“Oh, I love it!” she exclaimed excitedly. “The photography is just divine! And of course the writing is too, dear.”

She seemed very pleased with this new piece of information and she dropped the inquisition for the remainder of the drive. When at last we pulled up to the front entrance she turned to me.

“I’ll see you tonight. Don’t you worry, Scott will be there, too.” She beamed. “I’m going to try and find you on Google.”

I smiled back. To be honest, it wasn’t that unusual for women who didn’t work at fashion magazines to be overly impressed by women who did. The job did reek of glamour, even if the truth was a disappointment. But my revelation seemed to make us instant best friends, which was fine by me; I needed one, and if my girl crush on Fawn was reciprocated, even better. Traveling alone makes for strange bedfellows, so why not a journalist working undercover as a fake aristocrat and a three-times divorced southern belle?

“See you tonight,” she said and drove away.

A long shower soon put to rest my disastrous first go at mingling with the rich. It was abundantly clear that polo season and I didn’t mix but Orietta’s dinner party was an entirely different matter. I excelled at this type of event. And I had just the dress.

I
t doesn’t work like that,” Emma chided me over the phone from London. “Referring to yourself as ‘
Lady
Kate’ all the time is a dead giveaway you aren’t one.”

Emma should know, being English and all that. But the real reason I called her was to discuss Griff. I quickly ran through the ordeal of the day. She listened carefully, clucking in disapproval at his behavior.

“He’s very snobby,” I observed. “And then the next minute he’s trying to be my friend. I don’t get him.”

“I’m sorry he did that to you,” she apologized. “Clive insists he’s a good person. He is painfully shy apparently.”

“He showed no sign of shyness with the young babe he was chatting up,” I reminded her. “Strange he’s in Florida, don’t you think?”

“I think he travels a lot during the winter and does a sort of marketing campaign for the estate,” she explained. “He’s run ragged.”

“Yes, tough life, Palm Beach,” I joked. “There are tons of rich men here. Throw a stick and you hit ten.”

“Kate,” Emma began in a tone that implied a warning was coming. “Be careful. You’re not like those people. I don’t want some rich man eating you alive and tossing you in the rubbish bin.”

“I’m a grown-up, forty, remember? I can take care of myself,” I answered breezily.

We hung up and I immediately felt better despite her concerns. I was ready to put on my game face and meet my new social circle.

“What a lovely dress!” Orietta called out when I arrived, her words felt like déjà vu from my doomed polo outfit. “Is it vintage?”

“1991,” I said with a nod and stroked my Chanel dress. “It’s almost twenty years old.”

“Just a year younger than me,” came Tatiana’s purr as she slunk out from behind a bamboo screen and with a smile disappeared into the house.

“Such a child,” Orietta said sweetly as though Tatiana were a precocious five-year-old instead of a slinky twenty-one-year-old. It wasn’t fair. Austen never had to contend with sluts! But I wasn’t about to give up hope. I’d find a way of outshining her. Orietta grabbed my arm and led me in the direction that she had gone.

“As a special treat,” Orietta told me. “I’ve managed to dig up one of your kind.”

I was taken aback. “Another New Yorker?”

“No, silly,” she said with a sweet smile. “I invited Colonel Stuart MacKay to dinner. He’s a Scotsman like you’ve never seen! He even wore his kilt in honor of you.”

“What?” I stopped dead.

“I told him all about you. I mean how else to get him here?”

“Orietta, you shouldn’t have,” I said, horrified. A real Scotsman would see through my act in minutes, I was sure of it. I had to think fast.

“It’s nothing, dear,” she answered and continued to lead the way. I tried to regain my composure and formulate a plan. But as we walked through the house I was distracted by its decor. I had never seen anything quite like Orietta’s mansion. The foyer was pink marble complete with statues of nudes that looked authentic, as in ancient, not cheap copies like you see at garden centers. From there we entered a long hallway that was like a museum gallery with African masks, sculptures, and spears lining both sides of the wall, then we descended a small flight of slate steps and came to a sliding screen door.

“Your home is breathtaking,” I gushed.

“Oh, thank you,” she muttered. “This is the garden. My favorite place in the world.” With that she slid open the door and we stepped
into a lush tropical forest of palms, ferns, and all sorts of frothy greenery that framed hundreds of exotic flowers. Tiki torches illuminated the slate pathway that led us through the forest and into a clearing where a giant fire pit roared and what looked like fifty people milled about sipping cocktails.

I suddenly felt very nervous. There was Scott sucking on another cigar and Tatiana gazing at him as if no one else could smoke a cigar like he could. Too bad he didn’t know he was supposed to be falling for me right about now.

Then I saw Colonel MacKay. He was round and short with red hair, a beard, and yes, a blue-and-green tartan kilt. I swallowed. Fortunately, I also noticed Bernardo, the gorgeous, sexy Brazilian stable boy, leaning against a trellis. He smiled at me. I felt my face go red.

“Everyone, I’d like you to welcome my new friend, Lady Katharine Billington Shaw,” Orietta announced solemnly.

I waved to the room and felt idiotic doing so; after all, I wasn’t the queen. But what else should I do? Curtsy? “Just call me Kate,” I said and smiled.

Colonel MacKay took the opportunity to introduce himself to me.

“So you’re the famous Lady Katharine?” he said with a thick burr. “A pleasure to meet you.”

“And you,” I said with a sweet smile plastered across my face. I felt my blood pressure rise as Scott and Tatiana joined us. Just what I needed, an audience to witness my act, and what an audience!

“Kate, a pleasure to see you again.” Scott smiled and kissed my cheek, his lips resting longer than a casual greeting should entail.
Ding, ding
, and more
ding
. I swallowed. Tatiana and I air-kissed like two boxers touching gloves before a match.

“So nice to see you again. Was your dress ruined?” Tatiana asked with forced grace. Faker. As if she was happy to see me.

“So, what part of Scotland are you from?” MacKay interrupted. Fair question, but one I was loath to answer.

“North,” I said simply. I saw MacKay flinch.

“She has cattle,” Scott interjected. “And peacocks.”