silk purses | isa & ephram, gangster au
He’d taken her to London for this. You didn’t get too many charity garden parties taking place in Soapham where guests of honour included MPs and decorated soldiers rubbing well-tailored shoulders with the film stars and moneyed businessmen whose donations couldn’t be turned away.
And Ephram Kingfisher, the head of his family’s profitable shipping company, was not only allowed in but welcomed by virtue of his ever-deepening pockets and his fingers enmeshed in government contracts -- even if they were quick fingers, known to pinch some dollarpounds here and pull tight a garotte there.
He flicked his knuckles along the lapel of the incredibly slim-fitting, elegant suit that Freddie’d knocked up for him and stood at the podium behind the ugly movie star and the viscountess on his arm while the two were announced, the majordomo’s voice ringing through the entrance of the thrown-open ballroom. You could see straight through to the vast picture garden behind, where the garden party proper was taking place, people in all manner of expensive clothing and jewelry strolling about and surreptitiously gauging each other.
“Don’t fidget,” Ephram said to Isa as he tugged her slightly closer to him, as if she might get a mind to rabbit at any moment and run off with the (faintly inappropriate) beaded gown she was wearing, perhaps more importantly with the emerald earrings and peacock feather fascinator trimmed in gold. “Are you superstitious?” Ephram had asked when he’d given her the feather. Not that her answer mattered, much, since she’d been required to wear it. And it suited her, in that dark glossy hair, its deep jewel tones.
They stepped up to the podium, their turn to be announced, and the man behind it glanced at the card before saying, “Sergeant Major Ephram Pettaline, MM, DCM--” the medals he’d earned in the war but declined to wear, “--and Doña Isabel Morena Peña de la Vega, daughter of Juan Núñez III de Lara, of the Castillian House of Lara.”
“Your father His Lordship regrets that he’s been estranged from his daughter all these many years,” Ephram remarked in a low voice as they moved into the wide ballroom, his hand firm on Isa’s elbow, “but Kingfisher money was enough for him to welcome you back into the bosom of the family. Don’t worry, the two of you will never meet, no need to scrape up the wherewithal to fake it for your brand-new Daddy.” He smiled at two doyennes dripping in pearls who sailed by, as the women made no effort to hide their assessment of him and Isa. “I took some liberties with your name, hope you don’t mind. Seeing as I don’t actually know it.”