She was missing jewellery, but Auntie Eva assured her that her bare shoulders would ‘work their own magic’. Joan hadn’t been convinced by this, but looking at Hector’s jaw, which still hadn’t fully closed, she began to wonder. Even so, he was frowning, and his voice was gruff.
‘Who will your escort be?’
She shook her head at him. ‘No one, exactly. There’s a party of us. Jeremy said his brother will look after me, not that I need it.’
‘Tony?’
‘Is that his name?’
Hector shut his jaw. Now he seemed to prickle. ‘He’s a very rich man. I’m sure he’ll look after you very well.’
‘I don’t know what money has to do with it,’ Joan shot back at him.
‘He’s married. You do know that?’
Joan didn’t. She tossed her head as if she didn’t care. She was feeling out of her depth and determined not to let it show.
‘So you know him?’ she asked.
‘Of course. That’s how I—’
The doorbell rang. Hector went to answer it while Joan ran to her room to get the black satin opera coat that Auntie Eva had made to go with the dress.
It was Tony Radnor-Milne, not Jeremy, who stood in the hallway. Joan instantly saw the likeness, but Tony was much taller, clearly the older of the two. He was clean-shaven, with the same long face and wavy hair as Jeremy, although his was flecked with grey. His fur-collared coat suggested a very expensive tailor and there was a swagger about him, as if he was usually the most powerful person in the room. Hector stood stiffly in his shadow. Tony caught sight of Joan and his face lit up.
‘Miss McGraw, I presume. My goodness, my brother certainly didn’t do you justice.’ He glanced behind him. ‘Major Ross, what fabulous company you keep.’ Then he held out his hand to her. ‘The others are waiting. Shall we go?’
Hector watched with arms folded as she swept past him. He reminded her at that moment of her father.
Chapter 22
The evening started well. Tony Radnor-Milne had ensured they had the best table in the Ritz’s dining room, surrounded by gilt and mirrors and under crystal chandeliers – much as Joan imagined the Palace of Versailles. Other diners turned to look at their party, which consisted of the two brothers, Jeremy’s sweet but rather mousy wife, Patricia, two foreign business friends of Tony’s and their glamorous female companions.
The conversation round the table was easy and entertaining. Joan noticed that the men did most of the talking. One of the glamorous companions was French and spoke little English. The other didn’t seem to have much to say – but didn’t need to, because like the Frenchwoman, she had the lips, cheeks, height and hair of a society queen or a top model. Joan said an inner prayer of thanks for Auntie Eva’s dress. She couldn’t hope to compete on the looks front, but at least her outfit was on a par with theirs.
There was something she needed to address with Tony early on, and she did so as politely as she could.
‘I’m sorry your wife couldn’t join us.’
‘Oh, don’t worry about Topsy. She’s happily at home at the Abbey.’ He lowered his voice. ‘She doesn’t enjoy company as colourful as this, shall we say.’
‘Oh.’ Joan had expected to feel sorry for poor, absent Topsy, but suddenly didn’t.
Tony’s business friends were from Hong Kong and Singapore. Both had been educated at British public schools, but their appearance attracted covert stares from among their fellow diners. Joan was sympathetic. When her father had first come to London, he had encountered signs in bed-and-breakfast windows saying, ‘No Blacks, no Irish, no Dogs’. The thought of those signs kept a little fire of fury glowing inside her.
‘Did you say the Abbey?’ she asked Tony, to take her mind off it.
He planted his fork in a buttered spear of asparagus. ‘Yes. Wroxham Abbey. Our country place. Goes back to the twelfth century but it’s only been in the family since the sixteenth. You should come and see it. Do you ride? There are some excellent hacks in the park.’
‘No, I don’t ride,’ Joan admitted.
‘Shoot?’
‘Yes. That I can do.’
‘Excellent. We must have you down for the weekend. I’m sure Topsy would love to meet you.’
Courses came and went, along with a series of different wines. Joan could at least make sense of their French descriptions, but had never encountered them before. She noticed that the glamorous companions picked at their food, but seemed at home in the general surroundings. If anything, they looked bored. To her surprise, Tony didn’t mind her own lack of familiarity with the complicated silverware. In fact, he was kind at explaining which of the vast array of knives and forks to use when. He asked who’d designed her ‘delectable’ dress, and gave her his full attention when she told him about Auntie Eva.
‘Lucky you,’ he said. ‘We’re going to have to take you out more often so we can see what else she can do.’
After the third course, his attention turned to the man sitting on Joan’s left, and the chance of trade opening up with China. Joan had come across various Government background papers on the subject in the course of her work, and was at least as well informed on the latest developments as they were, but it was clear her opinion wasn’t wanted. She caught mousy Patricia Radnor-Milne’s eye, and shared a brief moment of solidarity. Both were used to being ignored when conversation moved to ‘serious’ things.
Joan didn’t really mind. It gave her time to study the two beauties at the table. One wasn’t speaking at all, but staring at her plate as if trying to memorise it for an exam. The other was laughing a little too loudly at her date’s jokes and occasionally just about stifling a yawn. By the fifth course, Joan had worked out that she had only very recently met her partner, whose name she mispronounced. It took until the sixth course for her to realise what they were, and why they were there. Oh my God, she thought. I’m dining with courtesans.
She instinctively caught Patricia’s eye again. The other woman’s quiet resignation seemed to make sense. Joan wondered if this was something she was going to have to adjust to if she wanted to dine in high society. Did men do this on a regular basis? Did they do it so openly? Were such gorgeous women readily available? Joan had always assumed there was something grubby about a tart. Those she knew from Bow were poor and plump and ‘obvious’, as Auntie Eva would have put it. These two could easily hold their own at a royal reception, as long as they weren’t asked to speak.
Tony turned to her and said, ‘I’m so sorry, my dear, we were talking shop. Are you having a good time?’
‘It’s . . . educational,’ she said.
‘Oh Lord! I never want to be educational! Tell me a bit more about you.’
He was full of questions about her job, and what Her Majesty was like when alone with another woman. ‘Does she kick her shoes off? I’ve always pictured her that way. Does she share tips on hair and lipstick?’ Joan sensed the Queen probably did such things with her ladies-in-waiting, but certainly not with her. And she wouldn’t have talked about it anyway. She was surprised he even asked.
Leaning back in his chair, Tony was approached by a couple of other diners, keen to press his hand with promises of meetings soon. His younger brother, by contrast, attracted only brief, distant nods, despite his key palace role. Joan realised that if the Radnor-Milnes were responsible for anything going on there, Tony, not Jeremy, would be the instigator of it. She would need to find an excuse to see him again, and soon.
Dessert came, and then coffee. Both the escorts looked bored out of their minds by now. Had life been like this for the dead woman in diamonds? Joan wondered. There was a ripple round the table and she realised that Jeremy was signalling to his wife, who nodded. He stood up and so did she.