Free The Decision by Penny Vincenzi Page A

knee, and who also made ribbon-edged, gilt-buttoned mohair jackets in multi-coloured wool, which owed more than a nod in the direction of Chanel in shape, but were nonetheless totally original.
    Eliza liked Maddy, she was fun, with a sweet and deceptively gentle manner; beneath it was an ambition as steely as Eliza’s own. She was the child of working-class parents, had won a scholarship to a grammar school and then to art school; she was small with long fair hair and huge green eyes, and she still lived at home and used her tiny bedroom as a studio workshop. Selling her range into Younger Generation was her greatest success yet. Eliza had spotted one of her jackets in a journalists’ office one day and had brought her into the Woolfe fold.
    ‘It was truly lovely,’ she had told Jan Jacobson, ‘and the girl at the magazine was so sorry they couldn’t use it, but she doesn’t have any stockists you see. I think you should see them.’
    This was a familiar story; new designers, young and forward-thinking, making clothes for the new young market, had very little in the way of resources; stores liked the clothes, but didn’t want to risk unreliability of supply.
    Slightly unwillingly, Jan agreed to see Maddy Brown, fell in love with the clothes and persuaded Bernard Woolfe she was worth the risk. Maddy and her one knitter, also working from home, found a couple more girls who met her exacting standards; all four of them were now installed in the unfortunate Mr and Mrs Brown’s front room.
    The department was due to open at the very beginning of September. It was late to launch autumn and winter merchandise, but they had to make a huge splash with the press and by September everyone would be back from holiday and thinking winter, as Lindy put it. It was all incredibly exciting and Eliza could hardly believe she was going to be part of it.
    One night that summer, she and Charles went with a party of friends to Brads, the newest of the new nightspots. It was wonderfully unstuffy, the dress code dizzily informal, the food fun – hamburgers and hot bacon sandwiches – and the music loud, it was as far removed from the polite formality of the traditional nightclub as jeans and open-neck shirts were from dinner jackets. It was soon after midnight when Eliza, lying back temporarily exhausted after an energetic bossa nova, heard someone shouting above the din.
    ‘Charles, old chap! Lovely to see you,’ and into view, smiling and waving just slightly drunkenly in their direction, came the most glorious-looking man.
    ‘Jeremy!’ said Charles. ‘Come and join us. Eliza, I don’t think you’ve met Jeremy. Jeremy Northcott. We were out in Hong Kong together. Jeremy, this is my sister, Eliza.’
    ‘Hello,’ said Eliza, smiling just a little coolly while digesting this Adonis: tall, blond, absurdly good-looking, the patrician nose and chiselled jaw saved from cliché by a slightly lopsided grin, showing, of course, perfect teeth.
    ‘Hello to you,’ said Jeremy and sat down abruptly next to her, clinging to his glass of red wine with some difficulty. ‘I think we met a couple of times at Eton, Fourth of June and so on.’
    ‘Really?’
    She was sure she would have remembered him, he was so extraordinarily good looking, but then you did get a bit dazzled there, the standard was pretty high.
    ‘Yes, think so. And I was at the Harlot’s Ball the year you came out, but I didn’t manage to dance with you, too much competition.’
    Eliza giggled.
    ‘Well, maybe we could put it right some other time,’ she said.
    ‘That’d be marvellous.’
    He smiled at her again; he really was knee-shakingly attractive.
    ‘Well, what have you been doing with yourself, you old bugger?’ asked Charles. ‘Where are you living now?’
    ‘In a flat I kind of inherited in Sloane Street,’ said Jeremy.
    ‘Lucky you,’ said Charles. ‘That’s the sort of inheritance I’d like.’
    ‘Yes, it’s quite jolly there. What are you doing