Zelda’s Cut. Philippa Gregory

was a pale honey-coloured mink, with a wide collar in contrasting dark mink which could be folded up to make a warm ruff around the neck. Isobel looked at the vision of her blonde hair cascading over the dark collar and the matching honey fur in the mirror.

      ‘How much is it?’ she asked.

      The assistant glanced at Troy before answering. Troy inclined his head towards her ear. Isobel caught a whisper. It sounded very much like £40,000.

      ‘Doesn’t matter,’ Troy said grandly. ‘Working capital. We’ll have it.’ He gave his gold credit card to the assistant and they left her wrapping it while they went back to Harrods.

      ‘How are you paying for this?’ Isobel asked anxiously.

      ‘Credit,’ Troy said grandly. ‘I’m making you an advance on your earnings.’

      ‘Advance from where?’ Isobel asked. ‘Who’s paying? The publishers?’

      ‘My bank manager,’ Troy said with a grimace. ‘What can we do? You have to have the clothes.’

      ‘I don’t have to have a forty-thousand-pound coat,’ Isobel said, as they strolled back to Harrods and went up in the lift to the designer dress department.

      ‘Yes, you do,’ Troy said. ‘Come on.’

      They walked into the room as if it were their own. One of the assistants recognised them and came forward with a smile.

      A few more dresses,’ Troy said grandly. ‘Winter cocktail dresses, and some kind of matching jacket or stole thing.’

      They agreed on a shift dress in electric blue with a matching boxy jacket, a white and gold cocktail dress with matching coat, and a beaded blue evening dress. Then they went to the shoe department and chose shoes to match, then to the lingerie department and bought several sets of new underwear.

      ‘This is gorgeous, gorgeous stuff,’ Troy said, looking at the detailed embroidery on the lingerie. ‘It feels like silk, it feels better than silk, it feels like water. God, if I was a woman I’d never spend money on anything but underwear. This is so lovely.’

      Isobel leaned over to look at it with him and her blonde hair brushed against his cheek.

      ‘What would be better?’ she asked very low. ‘To see it worn, or to wear it oneself?’

      He was silent, the challenge went so close to his desire that he could not answer her. She turned without saying more, and headed back to the dress floor. Troy followed.

      ‘You want more?’ he asked.

      The look she turned on him gave him a jolt of sexuality, as powerfully as if he had touched a live wire.

      ‘What is it?’ he asked.

      ‘They had that blue dress with the jacket in a 16,’ she said.

      ‘So?’

      She met his eyes shamelessly. He recognised at once Zelda’s greed for sensual experience and Isobel’s practical determination. It was a powerful combination of the two women.

      ‘I want us to buy it for you,’ she said.

      He stood stock-still, the bags in his hands creating an obstacle for other shoppers to push around. He did not even know they were there.

      ‘You want to buy a dress for me?’

      She turned and confronted him. ‘I want us to match,’ she said. ‘Like we did this morning. You liked that, didn’t you?’

      The swimming in his head was the lunchtime champagne, but also the dizzy sense that Isobel Latimer, the dull, worthy, academic, middle-aged woman from the country had somehow penetrated to secrets that he did not know he had. She had cut with a stiletto to the very core of him.

      ‘Yes,’ he whispered. ‘I did like it.’

      ‘Well, why not?’ she demanded fiercely. ‘Why not, Troy? In for a penny? We’re doing everything else, aren’t we? We’re lying to the publishers and lying to my husband and pretty soon I’m going to go on television and on the radio and in the newspapers and lie and lie to the whole nation. Why shouldn’t we be truthful amongst ourselves? Why should we pretend to each other? Why shouldn’t we see how we feel? Dress how we want? See who we are when we are not stuck with being Troy Cartwright and Isobel Latimer? We’ve done something here, haven’t we? We didn’t mean to do it, it wasn’t our intention, but something has happened. We’re set free. We’ve got some choices. I want to take them.’

      Troy closed his eyes briefly as if he would hide from her the sudden snap in his mind as she named his desire and gave him permission. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘Let’s buy it.’

      ‘And everything else,’ she said with fierce greed. ‘The underwear, the tights, the shoes, everything. We’re going to be rich, aren’t we? We can have everything?’

      They said nothing in the limousine on the drive back to Troy’s flat. The driver helped them carry the shopping bags up the steps and left them inside the hall. Troy gave him a tip and closed the door. They were alone in the silent building.

      ‘I should pop down to the office and check for messages,’ Troy said.

      ‘Don’t,’ she said simply.

      He glanced at her, but said nothing. He picked up the shopping and followed her up the stairs, along the corridor into the spare bedroom. She tossed her bags on to the bed and pulled his blue dress out of the tissue paper. ‘Do,’ she said, her voice gentle. ‘Do try it, Troy.’

      He held it at arm’s length as if he had never seen a dress before. He felt the lightness of the fabric, saw the fine working of the seams.

      ‘It won’t fit,’ he said. ‘I’ve got no bust. Even if it goes up over the shoulders.’

      ‘Take your suit off,’ she whispered. ‘We can make it fit. We can pad it out a bit or something. Come on, try it.’

      He slipped his jacket from his shoulders and pulled his shirt from the waistband of his trousers. He was conscious of her gaze, taking in his nakedness. He heeled off his shoes and peeled off his socks and dropped his trousers.

      ‘Go on,’ she said gently. ‘You’ve seen me all but naked.’

      He pulled down his silk boxer shorts and stood before her. Isobel gave a little sigh, a little breath of a sigh.

      ‘These,’ she said monosyllabically, and pulled the tissue-wrapped underwear and a pair of hold-up stockings in palest coffee from the distinctive bag.

      Troy smoothed on the stockings, feeling the strange adhesion of the hold-ups on his naked thighs. Then he pulled on the French knickers, felt the whisper of silk around his penis, the stroke of the slight seam against his deepest crotch, the weight of the embroidery, pale blue silk on pale blue silk.

      ‘I want the wig on before the dress,’ he said. ‘I’ll feel a fool wearing a dress without her hair and face.’

      Isobel brought the wig from the stand and held it for him as he pulled it on. ‘Let me do your makeup,’ she begged. ‘You did mine.’

      Troy sat, half-naked as he was, on the dressing-table stool and felt the cool silk of the French knickers against his buttocks, the erotic silkiness of the stockings on his legs. Isobel stood behind him and pattered his face with her fingers, cleansing with the perfumed cleanser, dabbing him clean with the toner, and then sweeping over his skin with the moisturiser. Then he felt the sensual strokes of the foundation, the slick line of the eyeliner, the feathery dabs of eyeshadow, and the butterfly kiss of the mascara wand.

      ‘Keep your eyes shut,’ Isobel breathed. When she leaned over him he could feel her blonde hair tickle his bare shoulders and mingle with his own, he could feel her thighs and her belly pressed against his bare back. He felt himself becoming aroused by her touch, but he kept his eyes shut and his face serene.

      The