The Debutante

The Debutante
Kathleen Tessaro

Can the secrets of one woman’s past change another woman’s future?Endsleigh House stands, crumbling and gracious, on the south-west coast of England, its rooms shut up and dusty. But what secrets do they hold?Cate, an exile from New York, is sent to help value the contents of the once-grand Georgian house. Cataloguing its' contents with Jack - a man with his own dark past, she comes across a hidden shoebox containing an exquisite pair of dancing shoes from the 1930s, along with a mysterious collection of objects: a photograph, a dance card and a Tiffany bracelet.Returning to London, rather than face the questions lingering in her own life, Cate immerses herself in piecing together the clues contained in the box to uncover a story, that of Irene Blythe and her sister Diana - two of the most famous debutantes of their generation.The tale that unfolds is one of dark, addictive love, and leads Cate to face up to secrets of her own. Can the secrets of Baby Blythe's past change Cate's own ability to live and love again?

The

Debutante

Kathleen Tessaro

Copyright (#ulink_949b8ddd-82fc-504c-98b0-6c9b7aec8dea)

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd. 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk)

Published by HarperCollinsPublishers 2010

Copyright © Kathleen Tessaro 2010

Kathleen Tessaro asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins ebooks

HarperCollinsPublishers has made every reasonable effort to ensure that any picture content and written content in this ebook has been included or removed in accordance with the contractual and technological constraints in operation at the time of publication

Source ISBN: 9780007215393

Ebook Edition © APRIL 2010 ISBN: 9780007366019

Version: 2016-10-26

For Annabel

There is a dangerous silence in that hour A stillness, which leaves room for the full soul To open all itself, without the power Of calling wholly back its self-control: The silver light which, hallowing tree and tower, Sheds beauty and deep softness o’er the whole, Breathes also to the heart, and o’er it throws A loving languor, which is not repose.

LORD BYRON, Don Juan

Contents

Cover Page (#u76408018-5f10-5157-9be9-fbb391a62654)

Title Page (#u58863893-ff84-5f87-bf54-75a31f09fc68)

Copyright (#u4b0f317a-a597-5406-8884-f4afe4858698)

Dedication (#u1d210aed-79d4-54a6-97e7-85f2e9702dbe)

Epigraph (#u671de5cb-bb25-59c6-9882-22c0a1a2ddf0)

Part One (#uaca4e041-a281-5cc4-9c05-66d75573c002)

In the heart of the City of London (#u98a76664-91b1-5107-9bab-ad3c43ef7a8c)

Part Two (#litres_trial_promo)

5 St James’s Square (#litres_trial_promo)

5 St James’s Square (continue) (#litres_trial_promo)

Part Three (#litres_trial_promo)

Endsleigh Devon (#litres_trial_promo)

Read an extract of The Perfume Collector by Kathleen Tessaro (#litres_trial_promo)

Keep Reading – The Perfume Collector (#litres_trial_promo)

Keep Reading – Rare Objects (#litres_trial_promo)

Author’s Note (#litres_trial_promo)

Acknowledgements (#litres_trial_promo)

Also by Kathleen Tessaro (#litres_trial_promo)

About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)

Part One (#ulink_42c920a8-e4fa-598e-8459-16feefd2cb91)

In the heart of the City of London (#ulink_0d84571f-443a-5686-92a5-6523bc370072), tucked into one of the winding streets behind Gray’s Inn Square and Holborn Station, there’s a narrow passage known as Jockey’s Fields. It’s a meandering, uneven thread of a street that’s been there, largely unchanged, since the Great Fire. Regency carriages gave way to Victorian hackney cabs and now courier bikes speed down its sloping, cobbled way, diving between pedestrians.

It was early May; unseasonably hot – only nine in the morning and already seventy-six degrees. A cloudless blue sky set off the white dome of St Paul’s Cathedral in the distance. The pavement swelled with armies of workers, streaming from the nearby Tube station; girls in sorbet-coloured summer dresses, men in shirtsleeves, jackets over their arms, carrying strong coffee and newspapers, the rhythm of their heels a constant tattoo on the pavement.

Number 13 Jockey’s Fields was a lopsided, double-fronted Georgian building, painted black many years previously, and in need of a fresh coat, sandwiched between a betting office and a law practice. The door of Deveraux and Diplock, Valuers and Auctioneers of Quality, was propped open by a Chinese ebony figure of a small pug dog, most likely eighteenth century but in very bad repair, in the hopes of encouraging a gust of fresh morning air into the premises. Golden shafts of sunlight filtered in through the leaded glass windows, dust floating, suspended in its beams, settling in thick layers on the once illustrious, now slightly shabby interior of one of London’s lesser known auction houses. The oriental carpet, a fine specimen of the silk hand-knotted variety of Northern Pakistan during the last century, was threadbare. The delft china planters which graced the mantelpiece, brimming with richly scented white hyacinth, were just that bit too chipped to be sold at any real profit; and the seats of the 1930s leather club chairs by the fireplace sagged almost to the floor, their springs poking through the horse-hair backing. Reproduction Canalettos hung next to the

better watercolour dabblings of long-dead country-house hostesses; studies of landscapes, flowers and fond attempts at children’s portraits. For Deveraux and Diplock was the natural choice of those once aristocratic families whose fortunes had lost pace with their breeding and who wished to have their heirlooms sold quickly and discreetly, rather than in the very public catalogues of Sotheby’s and Christie’s. They were known by word of mouth and reputation, having traded with the same European and American antique dealers for decades. Theirs was a dying art for a dying class; a kind of undertakers for antiquities, presided over by Rachel Deveraux, whose late husband Paul had inherited the business when they were first married thirty-six years ago.

Rachel, smoking a cigarette in a long, mother-of-pearl holder which she’d acquired clearing the estate of an impoverished 1920s film star, sat contemplating the mountain of paperwork on her huge, roll-top desk. At sixty-seven, she was still striking, with large brown eyes and a knowing, disarming smile. Her style was unorthodox; flowing layers of modern, asymmetrical Japanese-inspired tailoring. And she had a weakness for red shoes that had become a personal trademark over the years – today’s pair were vintage Ferragamo pumps circa 1989. Pushing her thick silver hair away from her face, she looked up at the tall, well-dressed man prowling the floor in front of her.

‘It will be fun, Jack.’ She exhaled; a long, thin stream of smoke rising like a spectre, floating round her head.

‘Think of her as a companion, someone to talk to.’

‘I don’t need help. I’m perfectly capable of doing it on my own.’