Page 1 of Pride and Privilege

Prologue

“I wouldn’t,” Aubrey advisedRoscoe, but though he realised he was staring, Roscoe couldn’t drag his eyes from the redhead across the bar in the sofa booth. Surely he had seen her before?

But he wouldn’t have forgotten. She had an old-fashioned sort of beauty. Porcelain skin and tumbling, flowing red hair. One of those pre-Raphaelites, a Rossetti, all harps and flowers. Ophelia in the water. Or—

That’swhy she looked familiar. The painted ceiling of the entrance hall at Conyers House, his family’s country seat. There was a red-haired muse, and she looked exactly like this girl.

Someone shouldered past him. It was Friday night, and the bar was packed with the usual after work crowd. The motion jolted him from his thoughts. Faintly embarrassed, he turned to the man standing next to him. “Why not?”

Aubrey Ford, around eight years older than Roscoe, was technically his boss. Tall, dark, and ironic, he was also Roscoe’sclosest friend at work. He laughed slightly. “Spoke to her in the lift once. Strangest five minutes of my life.”

“Oh?”

With the hand that wasn’t holding his drink, Aubrey sketched a line through the air as though conjuring a vast horizon. “Imagine the glorious sight of me turning on the charm. Smiles. Smoulder. Compliments. She asked me if I thought quantitative portfolio management was going to put me out of a job one day.”

Roscoe laughed. But his attention returned to the girl. It had never really left. She was sitting with a few other women who looked vaguely familiar. “But she does work for us? Why have I never seen her before?”

“Probably because she has regular human features instead of a fund analysis for a head. The only time you’re not working is when you’re in this bar. And she, as far as I know, has never actually come out for after work drinks before.”

“What is she? Research? Compliance? Risk?”

Aubrey shrugged. “Business support? Or the girls she’s with are. That’s your father’s EA, isn’t it?” He nodded to an older woman sitting near the redhead.

“Liz,” confirmed Roscoe. He smiled at Aubrey. “It’d only be polite for me to go over and say hello, don’t you think?”

But as Roscoe slid into the booth next to the redhead after some inconsequential words to Liz, he took one look at her bleary smile and reevaluated his plans for the evening. She was drunk. Far too drunk to try and take home. That really wasn’t his style. Shouldn’t be anyone’s style. The redhead gave a laugh while Roscoe subtly tried to get the attention of a passing bartender for some water.

“I feel like I should ask for your autograph,” she said.

Roscoe looked back at her, reevaluating again. She had a strong East End accent—what he would call Cockney—and she was quite clearly laughing at him. He didn’t mind the accent. Itjust took him by surprise, not being one he often heard in the day-to-day course of his life. But, together with the way she was slurring her words, it made her hard to understand.

He leant closer, watching her lips as she said, “Goldy, Goldy, the famous RB Goldy. Is that how you’d sign it, Goldy Golden Boy of BlacktonGold?”

He had no trouble deciphering that last part. The nickname was irritatingly familiar. He smiled amiably despite his growing reservations. “I’d probably sign it Roscoe. As that’s my name.”

She leant towards him and poked him painfully in the shoulder. “RoscoeBlackton.”

“Yes,” he said, smile somewhat fixed. “I’m aware.”

“Your dad owns the whole company.”

He just smiled again and looked around rather desperately for that bartender, spotting her heading back to the bar with a tray of empties. He waved her over. “Some water for this table. Please.”

The bartender nodded, eyes slipping to the redhead in understanding. She was oblivious to the exchange, ruby lips clamped around a small black straw, noisily attempting to suck the last vestiges of whatever cocktail she’d had from the crushed ice at the bottom of her glass. She poked the straw around with a moue of disappointment then giggled to herself and whispered, “Hit and missed. Brahms and Liszt. Elephant’s trunk, drunk.”

Roscoe smiled at that, because despite the apparent disdain for his familial connections, she was still exceptionally pretty. And, more to the point, he was beginning to suspect she was slightly weird. He had a soft spot for eccentrics. Was probably one himself, though he hid it well.

She put her glass clumsily down on the table then looked up at him, eyes widening. “Oh my God.”

“What?”

“Roscoe Blackton.”

“Erm. Yes?”

Just how drunk was she? He looked past her to Liz—or rather, where Liz had been sitting. They were now alone at the table.

“You were an agenda item at today’s big hush-hush board meeting.” She laughed again. “I spent an hour last night photocopying things with your name on.”

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