Free Honeycote by Veronica Henry

wealthy husband. She was unashamedly materialistic and saw nothing wrong with wanting nice things. Of course, the message being preached these days was that a girl could get whatever she wanted for herself. And Kay was bright: her careers adviser was pushing her towards university. Yet she had not a shred of personal ambition in her body. She’d read about fifteen-hour working days, seven-day working weeks, office politics, sexual harassment – all the things that successful women seemed to suffer in order to get on. But Kay couldn’t see the point of slogging your guts out to get what you wanted when you could marry and have it on a plate in return for having supper on the table. Surely that was one of the benefits of being a female? Why did the magazines waste ink persuading you otherwise?
    Initially, however, she would have to work whether she liked it or not. She needed money and contacts to put her plan into action, as a suitable husband was unlikely to find himself wandering up the dull, tree-lined street on the outskirts of Slough where she lived with her parents. Her father had his own butchery business, successful enough to have moved his family from the flat over the shop into a nice three-bedroomed semi, and he was proud of his pretty daughter, even her over-sharp tongue, which he put down to her cleverness. Kay had always had him wrapped around her finger, and at sixteen she wangled fees out of him for a smart London secretarial college and left school, ignoring her teachers’ wails of protest. Her mother once dared to point out mildly that they did office skills at the local tech; Kay didn’t think that even merited a response.
    She got up at half past five every morning to get a complicated timetable of buses into Kensington. By careful observation of the other students, she had soon assumed an utterly convincing county mantle. She pushed her shoulder-length blonde hair back into an Alice band, bought the best imitation pearls she could find and trawled charity shops for navy cashmere. When all twinges of Slough had been eradicated from her accent, the transformation was complete. By studious application, she also emerged with breathtaking shorthand and typing speeds and so it was not surprising when she very quickly landed herself a job as a receptionist at an upmarket estate agent in Windsor.
    Her skill at assessing clients’ needs was soon apparent, and before six months were up she was made a junior negotiator. Kay was delighted – not to find herself up a rung on the career ladder, but because there could be no better way to trap a wealthy husband than to show him around desirable residences, of which they had many on their books.
    Now she had a salary, albeit a fairly basic one, Kay was able to embellish her image as the potentially perfect wife. Aided and abetted by the several pounds of glossy magazines that landed on her doormat each month, she assessed the right amount of highlights (just enough blonde to look natural, rigorously maintained every four weeks to avoid any hint of root), learned the power of artfully combining a few basic designer items with classic M&S and signed up for lessons in cookery, riding and driving, at which she was diabolical, fearless and lethal respectively. After passing her test first time, she bought herself a little convertible Golf GTI. She would have preferred a BMW, but the Golf provided maximum effect for minimum expenditure. It was classic and classy, and – if the James Bond movies were to be believed – there was no greater turn-on for a man than a leather-gloved blonde expertly handling a sports car. She perfected turning up at appointments just in the nick of time, screeching to a halt and sending fountains of gravel flying, then coolly emerging, one hand outstretched, the other clutching her second most expensive investment, a Mulberry briefcase.
    She had several false starts in the great husband hunt. One already married candidate strung her along for