Look to Your Wife. Paula Byrne

despite making her giving up hers. She looked down the row of figures. Every month, there was a payment for a few hundred pounds, marked ‘Dividend’. It took a while for her to work it out. But there could be no question. He had some sort of family trust fund that he’d never told her about. The sums weren’t huge, but that wasn’t the point. It was the principle. She took the statement and found her own hiding place for it.

      She said nothing to Pete that night, though she did refuse to make love to him – on the grounds that he had come in late from drinking with his cricketing mates. The folded statement was her get-out-of-jail-free card.

      Edward knew all this. They had talked over the circumstances of their respective divorces a thousand times. When they married, he insisted that she should keep her own name and her own bank account, and that he had no interest in how she spent her teacher’s salary and any other earnings. ‘You won’t find me snooping around your private account for Ladies’ Nice Things,’ he assured her.

      ‘Listen, though,’ he now said, ‘you’ve got your magazine column, and that could be the beginning of a career as a proper freelance fashion writer. One thing leads to another. That’s what I’ve found with my articles about education policy. Soon you’ll be getting all sorts of commissions – but that’ll only happen if you’re near enough to London to go to parties and openings, and to start meeting the editors. It’s such a trek from Cheshire. Blagsford has a really fast link to Marylebone on the Chiltern Line. Most reliable network in the country.’ With all his London meetings, Edward had become a bit of a railway timetable nerd.

      This was the clincher. Lisa had always rather regretted how she had scuttled home after her MA and fallen into teaching textiles. She should have gone back to London and tried to make it in the fashion world. She had hoped that publication of Lipstick and Lies would lead to other opportunities, but it hadn’t happened, mainly because she was stuck in Liverpool. Now she’d just had her first real break.

      A friend from her Manchester Art School days had become features editor at City & County, an upmarket monthly glossy magazine. She’d asked Lisa to start writing a regular column answering readers’ requests for fashion tips, with a spin that offered nuggets of information from fashion history. It was a neat idea, and Lisa’s first couple of columns – for which they’d made up the readers’ questions – had gone down well. Edward was right – working out of Blagsford would give her many more opportunities to go to London and build on this success.

      * * *

      Jane (by EMAIL) to The Fashion Mistress: I am getting married this summer in a marquee in the country. I have my wedding dress, but am struggling to find something for a breakfast party we are hosting the following day. I want a more relaxed look that’s still a bit bridal, which I can wear again. I am 25, 5’ 6’’ and a size 12. I have good arms. My budget is £350.

      A touch of lace will help to carry through a romantic wedding theme into the day after. As it’s a summer wedding, you can pep things up with a pop of colour. Mango has a lace, sleeveless dress in acid yellow, or for something slightly more ‘fash’ and floaty, you could go for a two-piece silver set from Hobbs. Tuck the cute cami into the culottes’ grosgrain waistband, and keep heels fuss-free – or wear with white brogues.

      What kind of lace? Duchess point (Point Duchesse) is the term for a Belgian lace that does not have a réseau. It was named after the Duchess of Brabant, Marie-Henriette of Austria, who was a supporter of lace production. It is made entirely on the pillow, with a pattern where the leaves and flowers naturally join, so there is rarely a bar thrown across to connect them. As there is no réseau, the designs are more continuous. It’s that elegance which makes it my favourite lace.