The It Girls by Karen Harper

Author:Karen Harper
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2017-09-13T04:00:00+00:00

Elsie de Wolfe exuded confidence and cleverness. The one time Cosmo had met her in London, he’d said she reminded him of a “house on fire.” Today she was taking Lucile in a hired hackney to see a building on fashionable West Thirty-Sixth Street that Elsie was sure would do for a New York Lucile’s.

“But the key to self-advertisement here will be not the name Maison Lucile or New York Lucile’s, but Lady Duff-Gordon,” Elsie insisted. “Please trust me on this. Americans are simply mad for English titles. It will pull them right in. It would be worth the money to hire a local publicist, too, instead of thinking everything up yourself. You are in a different world here, you know.”

“So Elinor says. But if you send your friends, the shop will prosper under any name,” Lucile told her with a smile.

My, the traffic is busy here, she thought. They might as well have been near Hyde Park, but things got calmer when they turned off Park Avenue onto a more residential street. Now was as good a time as any to ask her friend the big question. “Would you like to invest in my New York shop, Elsie?”

“Believe it or not, I’m living a bit on the edge. Despite family money, I’m hardly being frugal to have my daily open-door tea times and to help keep up the Washington Square home. I was paid a pretty penny to decorate the Colony Club here—it’s the first women’s club in the city. I’ll take you there another day. But I just cannot tie up too much capital right now. However, Lady Duff-Gordon,” she said with a little laugh that showed her large, uneven teeth, “I can find you several investors, I promise.”

“Of course, Cosmo and I will put money in, but I would be ever so grateful if you could. I’ll make it up to you with some new frocks.”

“Speaking of that, will you be able to design enough frocks to open a shop here soon? If you take a lease out on this place—there,” she said, pointing at what she’d described earlier as a gothic brownstone town house. “You’ll need to get it decorated, staffed, and inventoried soon to make it more than pay for itself in this fashionable district, of course.”

“Oh, it’s lovely. Reminds me of my second shop in London. Today, New York, and soon—Paris! I can’t wait to see the inside.”

But suddenly, she recalled that long-ago day that dear Cosmo had taken her into her first shop she could let. She supposed that neither Elinor, with her disappointment in Clayton, nor Elise, with her disdain for men, cared to hear one word about her love for Cosmo, but, indeed absence was making her heart grow fonder. How she wished he were here to assess the possibilities—and the finances. As they disembarked with the driver’s help, the horse stamped and nodded as if he knew this was the right place too.

“Once I look inside, I’ll have to consult my husband,” she told Elsie.

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