CHAPTER TEN

28 CLUNY PARK ROAD, SINGAPORE

Kitty was floating on an inflatable lounger in the middle of her pool in an alluring one-shoulder cutout Araks swimsuit when she heard the car returning to the house. She had been waiting impatiently for the past hour, after sending a maid to the bookstore to buy a whole stack of the new issue of Tattle, which had just been released this morning.

Kitty paddled her lounger over to the edge of the pool as the maid came rushing down the stone steps with a stack of magazines in her arms, followed by the driver, who was also carrying a big stack. “What took you so long?” Kitty asked.

“I’m sorry, ma’am. We got there before the bookstore opened, but they had to unpack the magazines from the boxes and scan them into the computer first. But here, we bought all forty copies,” she said, handing Kitty the top copy from her stack.

It was wrapped in plastic, with a big gold panel over the cover and words that screamed: “OUR WILDEST ISSUE EVER!” Kitty felt her heart race as she tried to tear into the plastic, desperate to get to the magazine. She couldn’t wait to see her photo on the cover under the headline “Princess Kitty.” The lounger wobbled, and her wet fingers kept slipping against the plastic.

“Here, let me help you!” the maid said, sensing her mistress’s excitement. She ripped through the plastic, slipped the glossy magazine out of its sleeve, and handed it to Kitty.

Kitty stared at the cover, her face changing from anticipation to absolute horror. Staring back at her on the cover of Tattle was a photograph of Colette and her husband, Lucien, seated at a breakfast table with a huge orangutan.

“Aaaahhh! What is this? This is the wrong issue!” Kitty screamed from her reclining position.

“No ma’am, this is the new issue. Brand-new. I saw them take it out of the boxes.”

Kitty scrutinized the cover, where the headline read: LORDS OF THE JUNGLE: THE EARL AND COUNTESS OF PALLISER.

“No! No! No! This can’t be real,” Kitty sat up on the lounger, tearing through the magazine maniacally and getting the pages wet as she searched for her story. What happened to her beautiful photo shoot with Nigel Barker? The photos of Harvard kissing her? They were nowhere to be found. Instead, the feature article was a ten-page spread dedicated to pictures of Colette and Lucien’s visit to a conservation center in Indonesia. There were photos of Colette hosting a tea party for a family of orangutans at a wrought-iron table by the edge of a river, Colette trekking through the rain forest with a group of primatologists, and Colette cradling a baby orangutan.

By this point, Kitty’s lounger had drifted to the middle of the pool, and she screeched at the maid, “Get me my phone!”

Kitty jabbed at her phone angrily, calling Oliver T’sien. It rang a few times before he picked up.

“Ollie’s Psychic Hotline,” he answered jokingly.

“Have you seen the latest Tattle yet?” Kitty said, her voice shaking with fury.

“No. Did it come out today? I’m in Hong Kong this week, so I haven’t seen it yet. Congratulations! How does it look?”

“Congratulations? Go look at the magazine and tell me how I fucking look on the cover!” Kitty screamed, before hanging up.

God, what now? Oliver thought to himself. Did they end up going with a photo that was slightly less flattering to her surgically sculpted nose? There was no way he would find a copy of the magazine in Hong Kong, but maybe the issue was already online. He went to his browser and logged on to Tattle.com.sg. Within seconds, the page loaded, and the cover of Tattle popped up.

“Oh for fuck’s sake!” Oliver cursed, as he began to scan through the story.

ECO WARRIOR PRINCESS: AN EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW WITH COLETTE, THE COUNTESS OF PALLISER

The Countess of Palliser enters the garden of the British embassy in Singapore with no pomp or circumstance, no personal assistant or PR handler in sight. She shakes my hand and immediately starts fretting that I’m seated in the sun. Am I too hot? Would I like to swap seats? Has no one brought me a drink?

This was not the woman I was expecting to meet. The former Colette Bing, once China’s most influential fashion blogger—with over 55 million followers—is today sitting before me in a simple yet lovely floral dress with not a dab of makeup on her face or any jewelry except for a simple wedding band of Welsh gold. I ask her who designed her dress and she laughs. “This is a Laura Ashley dress that I got out of a bin at an Oxfam thrift shop in the village near where I live.”

It’s the first hint that as ordinary as the Countess’s life seems to be, things are not all that ordinary. The village she is referring to is Barchester, perhaps one of the most charming in all of England, and home for the Countess and her husband, Lucien Montagu-Scott, the Earl of Palliser, is a charming old vicarage with 10 bedrooms tucked away at Gatherum Castle, the 35,000-acre Barsetshire estate of her father-in-law, the Duke of Glencora.

I’ve heard rumors that the interior designer Henrietta Spencer-Churchill, of the Blenheim Palace Spencer-Churchills, has been busy transforming the cottage into an elysian paradise, but when I try to ask the Countess about it, she simply says that the house is being refurbished and redirects me to the matter at hand. “My life is not that interesting. Let’s talk about Indonesia,” she says with an effervescent smile.

Indonesia is the reason the Earl and Countess have been spending so much time in these parts of late. The Earl, a renowned environmental activist, and the Countess actually met there. “I was a bit adrift, traveling to various spa resorts on my own for a few months,” the Countess admits. “By chance I met Lucien in Bali, and he told me that he was on the way to a remote part of North Sumatra. I decided on a whim to follow him.”

It was a decision that changed her life forever. “Lucien brought me to an orangutan rescue center, and it was my first exposure to the terrible environmental tragedy that’s been unfolding here. Sumatran orangutans are classified as ‘critically endangered,’ and the population is being decimated, along with scores of other species, because of deforestation and illegal poaching. Infant orangutans are being sold to the pet trade, and the way they do this is by killing the mother first. For every baby orangutan sold, it’s estimated that six to eight adult orangutans die in the process of capturing them. Can you imagine?” the Countess says, her normally pearl-white complexion flushed with fury.

What she witnessed those first weeks in Sumatra has given the Countess a singular mission in life: to spread awareness of this environmental tragedy and to advocate for change. “People talk about the Amazon, but it’s horrific what’s being done in this part of Southeast Asia. The main culprit is the palm oil industry. Everyone should stop consuming products that contain palm oil! In the quest for more land to create more palm oil plantations, ancient forests are being burned down, destroyed completely, and we are losing so many species that will never be seen again. Orangutans, one of our planet’s most precious animals, could be extinct in the wild within 25 years,” the Countess says with tears in her eyes.

“And beyond this, look at what the massive bushfires and deforestation have done environmentally to the region—look what it’s doing to the air quality right here in Singapore. You can feel the effects of these forest fires right now if you just take a deep breath!”

At this point in the interview, the Countess’s husband walks out onto the terrace to join us. He is a tall, blindingly handsome blond fellow who immediately reminds me of Westley from The Princess Bride. I’m surprised by how down-to-earth the Earl is, and when he talks about his new wife, his face lights up like a lovestruck teen. “Colette’s dedication to the orangutan babies—how she handled them, how she wasn’t afraid to get her hands dirty and really just give her all to the cause—really surprised me. It one hundred percent made me fall in love with her. I knew I had found my eco-warrior princess, and after our time together at the camp, I never wanted to let her go.”

“Our mission is just beginning. There’s just so much to do, and that’s why we’ve decided to move to Singapore for the next few years,” the Countess reveals. “This will be an excellent base for our work all over the region,” the Earl chimes in.

Are the Earl and Countess going to commandeer one of Singapore’s toniest properties? “I don’t know if we’ll actually be here all that much, so I think we’ll just lease a little flat someplace very central,” the Countess says. In case you are misled into thinking that the Pallisers have completely hidden away their ermine robes and tiaras in favor of cargo pants and Tevas, Colette reveals that she is in the midst of organizing an event that will no doubt send every reader of this article scrambling for their best jewels.

“I’m going to host a fund-raising ball in aid of orangutan rescue with my friends the Duchess of Oxbridge and Cornelia Guest. Both of them are dedicated conservationists doing such amazing rescue work with animals—Alice with endangered sea turtles, and Cornelia with miniature horses. Hopefully we’ll have friends from all over the world jetting in for a ball that will be inspired by Marie-Hélène de Rothschild’s legendary Proust Ball at Château Ferrières.”

If history is to be repeated again, the enchanted evening promises to be the most highly anticipated gala of the spring charity season, and hopefully, it’s the start of many good things to come from this gorgeous, aristocratic, and conscious couple.

When he was done reading, Oliver immediately called Violet Poon at Tattle. “Can you please explain why there’s a fucking monkey on the cover of your magazine this month instead of Kitty Bing?”

“Oh Oliver, I was going to call you! It was a last-minute mandate that came from my boss. They’re running this cover story on every edition of Tattle around the world this month. It’s such an important story.”

“So what happens to Kitty’s important story?”

“Well, since Colette was on the cover this month, we felt like a little, ahem, diplomacy was in order. Of course we couldn’t put Kitty’s story in the same issue. I mean, she is her stepmother. We wouldn’t want to offend either of them. But you know I adore Kitty’s cover! Those Nigel pictures are just beyond! We’re going to save it for later in the year. It’ll actually be much better in the fall, don’t you think? Wouldn’t it be a fabulous cover for the September issue?”

Oliver went silent for a moment, trying to figure out how he was going to explain all this to Kitty.

“I hope Kitty won’t be upset about this? We will give her the star treatment, I promise. We’ll throw a cover launch party at some boutique.”

“Upset? Violet, I don’t think you have any clue what you’ve done. You’ve just started World War III.”

“Oh dear…”

“I have to go. I need to see if I can disarm the nuclear warhead now.”

Oliver hung up with Violet, took a deep breath, and called Kitty’s number. He found her eerily composed when he explained the whole situation to her. “I actually think this is going to be much better for you, Kitty. Landing a fall cover is more prestigious. Think of the September issue of Vogue. That’s always the biggest issue of the year. You’ll get so much more exposure. Far less people will see the March issue of Tattle, and to be honest, it’s a ghastly cover. Look at that mother orangutan and her saggy brown nipples.”

“Did you read the article?” Kitty said quietly.

“I did.”

“So you know that Colette is moving to Singapore with her husband. The royal couple!”

“Kitty, they aren’t royal.”

“Oh yeah? So tell me why they were getting the royal treatment at your great-aunt’s funeral? Don’t try to deny it, I saw the pictures of Colette with the Dowager Sultana of Perawak on the official royal Instagram! You lied to me! You promised me she wouldn’t be there!”

“Kitty, I had no clue that her husband’s family knew my great-uncle Alfred’s family. This isn’t some conspiracy.”

“It’s not? Then why does it feel like she’s doing everything she can to outshine me? She gets invited to the funeral of the century, she steals my Tattle cover, and now she’s throwing this big charity ball in Singapore to raise money for her damn monkeys!”

“Those orangutans need all the help they can get, Kitty.”

“That’s not the point. Colette is hosting this huge ball so that all of Singapore society can come out and curtsy at her feet, like she’s the Queen of fucking Sheba! You know she’s doing all this as revenge, don’t you? She’s just trying to insult me over and over again!”

Oliver sighed in exasperation. “Kitty, don’t you think you’re blowing this out of proportion? You haven’t even met Colette. You have no idea what’s going through her mind! I really don’t think this girl has any interest in insulting you.”

“Of course she’s insulted me, and she’s insulted my husband. Did you notice that she didn’t mention Jack once? Who do you think is funding all her monkey business?”

“Kitty, you’re just building all this up in your head and sending yourself into a tailspin.”

“No, I’m sending you into a tailspin. I want you to get me a title. I want a proper royal title that’s higher-ranking than Colette’s.”

Oliver sighed. “Kitty, getting you any sort of title is going to take time. Living in Singapore, you could aim for an honorific from one of the Malay royal families. But you’d have to do an obscene amount of sucking up. Best-case scenario if you play your cards right, you may be able to receive a title within a few years.”

“No, I’m not waiting that long. I don’t care what you have to do, how much you have to spend. I want a title and I want it before Colette’s stupid monkey ball.”

“That’s just not realistic, Kitty. I mean, I do know a few bisexual Italian princes that might be willing—in exchange for certain financial incentives—to marry you, but you’ll have to divorce Jack.”

Kitty scoffed. “What are you talking about? I’m not divorcing my husband!”

“Then I’m afraid there’s really no way to get you a royal title within a month.”

“Well then, you’re out of a job! I’m not going to pay your retainer anymore. In fact, I’m stopping payment on everything right now. The Nigel Barker photo-shoot fees, all the money you’ve spent decorating my house, everything.”

“Kitty, stop being unreasonable. That’s close to a hundred million dollars. You know I’ll be on the hook for all those bills if you don’t pay them,” Oliver sputtered in alarm.

“Exactly. So get me that title! What’s higher-ranking than a countess? A duchess? A princess? An empress? I don’t care if you need to bribe Prince Bibimbap of Korea, I just want Colette to have to curtsy to me the next time I encounter her. I want to wipe the floor with her face!” Kitty screamed.

“Kitty, please calm down. Kitty?” Oliver realized she had hung up on him. A wave of fear suddenly passed through his body. Kitty was one client he could not risk losing. His monthly retainer from her was the one thing that kept the wolves at bay.

Unbeknownst to the Youngs, the Shangs, or the rest of the world, Oliver’s family had fallen on hard times, ever since Barings went bust in 1995. Most of the T’sien portfolio had been invested with the storied investment firm in London that were bankers to Britain’s most aristocratic families, including the queen. But after the firm went bankrupt—ironically due to a rogue trader based in Singapore—the T’siens along with every Barings investor had been wiped out.

What remained in the other T’sien accounts was a pittance, about ten million, and all that went into maintaining his grandmother Rosemary’s lifestyle. It was her money rightfully, and she was entitled to live out her last years in comfort, but it meant that there would be barely anything left for her five children. The T’siens had been one of Singapore’s largest landowners in the 1900s, but there was only one property left now—his grandmother’s sprawling bungalow on Dalvey Road that was maybe worth thirty-five million, forty if the market ever recovered. Split five ways between her children, that meant his father would only inherit six or seven million at the most if the house was ever sold. Far, far less than what his parents were now in debt for.

For years, they had taken out loan after loan, and Oliver had spent his youth living the life of a rich man’s son, sent abroad to the best schools money could buy—from Le Rosey to Oxford. But after the Barings crash, he found himself in the unthinkable position of having to work for a living. Oliver had always existed among the world’s point-one percent crowd, and very few people understood the special hell of having to live in a world where every single person around you was staggeringly rich but you were not.

No one knew the degrees of subterfuge he took to keep up appearances for the sake of his family and career. There were the ballooning interest payments on all their bank loans. There were ten credit cards that he had to play Russian roulette with month after month. There were the mortgages on his parents’ hutong in Beijing, his flat in London, and the condo in Singapore. Last year had been the worst, when his mother had been forced to sell off the legendary T’sien jade brooch along with other family heirlooms in order to pay for unexpected medical expenses. The bills kept coming, and they were endless. And now Kitty was threatening to renege on her gargantuan decorating bills—bills he had signed off on. If he couldn’t work a miracle and get Kitty her title, he knew his whole life, his family, his career, his reputation—all would come crashing down.