and persuade her that they ought to change their minds and their plans. What had seemed a reasonable plan last night, this morning seemed more like a totally implausible, not to say highly dangerous thing to do. For one thing, it went totally against all her own principles and, for another, how on earth was she supposed to give Julian Cox the impression that she found him attractive and desirable enough to want to break up his relationship with someone else when the truth was that she found him loathsome, reptilian and repulsive?
Yes, physically he was an attractive enough looking man, if you went for his boyish brand of fair-haired good looks, but looks alone had never been enough to attract Kelly, and there had been something about him, something about his attitude not just towards Beth but towards her as well, which had set alarm bells ringing in Kelly’s head virtually from the first moment she had seen him. She had made a point of keeping out of the way whenever he was around and when they had had to meet she had kept a very cool and formal distance from him.
So how on earth was she supposed to convince him now that she suddenly found him the epitome of male sexiness?
She couldn’t. She wasn’t going to try. She had been a fool even to think of agreeing to Dee’s outrageous plan, but she had agreed and something warned her that it wasn’t going to be easy to convince Dee that she wanted to change her mind.
And if she backed out and Anna didn’t, how was it going to look? She was, after all, Beth’s best friend and, indeed, perhaps the best way of convincing Dee that her plan wouldn’t work would be for her, Kelly, to show her how impossible it was going to be, by going to tonight’s ball. She would be safe enough. There was no way that Julian Cox was going to repeat his attempt to come on to her, not after the way she had put him down the first time. And once she had failed to re-attract his notice Dee would surely accept that she had done her best and allow the subject to drop.
Yes, far better to do things that way than to risk offending Dee, who was, after all, only acting out of kindness and affection for Beth.
Where on earth were those wretched headache tablets? She had pulled everything out of their small medicine cabinet without finding them, and she knew she had bought some. And then she remembered she had given them to Beth, after the terrible crying jags she had had after her break-up with Julian had left her with a splitting headache. Glumly Kelly made her way to their small kitchen and filled the kettle.
The flat above the shop was on two floors; on the upper storey were hers and Beth’s bedrooms and their shared bathroom, and on the lower floor was their comfortably sized living room, a small dining room and an equally small kitchen.
Outside at the rear of the property was a pretty little garden, and at the bottom of it was the workshop which Kelly had made her own territory. That was where she worked on her new designs and painted the china she had accepted as private commissions. Painting pretty porcelain pieces and enamel boxes was her speciality.
Before joining forces with Beth, Kelly had worked as a freelance from her parents’ home in Scotland, supplying her pretty hand-decorated enamel boxes to an exclusive London store.
At three o’clock, with the shop still busy with both browsers and buyers, Kelly acknowledged that she was not going to be able to make time to snatch so much as a quick sandwich lunch, never mind drive over to Dee’s.
Ironically this Sunday had been one of their busiest since they had opened the shop, and she had not only sold several of her more expensive pieces, she had also taken orders for seven special commissions from a Japanese visitor who had particularly liked her enamel-ware boxes.
At four o’clock, when she was gently showing the last browser out of the shop so that she could lock up, she was beginning to panic, not just about the fact that it was becoming increasingly obvious that she was going to have to go through with Dee’s plans for the evening but, femalely, because she knew that she simply did not have in her wardrobe a dress suitable for such an occasion. She and Beth had ploughed every spare bit of cash they had into their business—both of them had been helped with additional loans from their bank, their parents and Beth’s grandfather. Anna, too, had insisted on making them a cash gift, to, as she’d put it, ‘cover any extras’. They were beginning to show a small profit, but they certainly weren’t making anything like enough to warrant the purchase of expensive evening dresses.
Ordinarily, knowing she was attending such an occasion, Kelly would have done as she had done for her graduation ball and trawled the antiques shops and markets to find something she could adapt, but on this occasion there simply wasn’t time, and the smartest thing she had in her wardrobe right now was the elegant dress and coat she had originally bought for her brother’s wedding and which, though smart, was hardly the kind of outfit she could wear to a charity ball.
After she’d checked that she had securely locked the shop and that the alarm was switched on she made her way up to the flat. She was still finding it hard to understand what on earth had possessed her to agree to Dee’s outrageous scheme last night. She was normally so careful and cautious, so in control of her life. Beth was the gentle, easily manipulated one of the two of them; she was far more stubborn and self-assured. Too stubborn, her brother often affectionately told her.
Certainly she knew her own mind; she was, after all, a woman of twenty-four, adult, mature, educated and motivated, a woman who, whilst she would ultimately want to have a loving partner and children, was certainly in no rush to commit herself to a relationship. The man with whom she eventually settled down would have to accept and understand that she would expect to be treated as an equal partner in their relationship, that she would expect in him the same qualities she looked for in a best friend: loyalty, honesty, a good sense of fun, someone who would share her interests and her enthusiasms, someone who would enhance her life and not, as she had seen so often happen in so many other relationships, make the kind of demands on her that would prevent her from living her life as she really wanted to live it.
‘But what happens if you fall in love with someone who isn’t like that?’ Beth had once questioned when they had been discussing men and relationships.
‘I won’t,’ Kelly had responded promptly.
Poor Beth. What was she doing right now? How was she feeling …? Kelly had never seen her looking so wretched or unhappy … Beth had really believed that Julian Cox loved her.
Since their break-up Kelly had heard rumours that Beth wasn’t the first woman he had treated badly. No, Beth was better off without him, Kelly decided as she went into their kitchen and filled the kettle. She gave a small shudder as she remembered the night she had returned early from a weekend visit to her parents to discover Beth almost unconscious on her bed. Taking too many sleeping tablets had been an accident, an oversight, Beth had assured her, and had pleaded with her not to tell anyone else what she had done as Kelly sat beside her hospital bed. Unwillingly, Kelly had agreed. Luckily she had found Beth in time … luckily …
Remembering that incident, Kelly slowly sipped her hot coffee. Was Dee really asking so much of her? No. She didn’t relish the role she was being called upon to play—what modern woman would?—but it was only a means to an entirely justifiable and worthwhile end.
But that still didn’t solve the problem of what she was going to wear. She and Beth were approximately the same size although Beth was fair-skinned and blonde, with soft, pretty grey eyes, whereas she was brunette, her skin tone much warmer, her eyes a dark purplish brown, damson—the colour of lilac wine, one besotted admirer had once called them.
The ball had been the subject of a great deal of excitement and speculation in town. It was to be the highlight of the town’s social year. The de Varsey family, who owned the elegant Georgian mansion where the event
