Many of the guests celebrating the publication of Vicky Ward‘s “The Devil’s Casino,” about the fall of Lehman Brothers, wondered why the author’s handsome husband, Matthew Doull, wasn’t in the Grill Room at the Four Seasons Wednesday night.
Others looked at the left hand of the glamorous Vanity Fair writer, who was swathed in a stunning Marchesa gown, and noticed she wasn’t wearing her wedding ring.
But Ward’s closest friends knew what had happened — after 15 years of marriage and twin 7-year-old boys, the couple has split up. Doull moved a few weeks ago into the vacant apartment of Ward’s friend Plum Sykes.
Doull, stepnephew of imprisoned Canadian press lord Conrad Black, then went on a trip to Brazil with a pretty 5-foot-10, 22-year-old woman. Sources say Ward, 40, learned of Doull’s new love when he posted photos of their tropical idyll on Facebook.
“That wasn’t the smoothest move,” a friend of Ward’s told Page Six yesterday.
Doull — a principal in E5 Global Media, which just bought Billboard, the Hollywood Reporter and several other titles — quickly took down the photographs.
“We are still friends,” Ward said. “We remain committed to caring for our amazing children.”
“The Devil’s Casino,” hailed by Don Imus as “an intellectual Jackie Collins novel” although it’s nonfiction, is already a bestseller. The Four Seasons bash drew Steve Rattner (who got his Wall Street start at Lehman), Ronald Perelman, Graydon Carter, Cyrus Vance Jr., Chloe Crespi, Boykin Curry, Jeffrey Leeds, Arianna Huffington, Euan Rellie, Lucy Sykes (Plum’s sister) and Deputy Mayor Ed Skyler, who’s leaving City Hall for Citibank.
Ward kept a stiff upper lip as she graciously schmoozed with all her guests but was later heard telling a friend, “This is very difficult. I feel like I’m in a very bad movie.”