not fair.’
‘Vowing to be eternal best friends on our first day of school gives me the right to be unfair. Ever since your father died you’ve buried yourself up on your hill like Rumpelstiltskin.’
‘You’ve got the wrong fairy tale. I don’t ask riddles and threaten to kidnap babies. And I certainly don’t spin straw into gold.’ Which would have been immensely useful these past three years.
Liz, being Liz, didn’t accept her unspoken capitulation, but insisted on dotting ‘i’s. ‘You held my hand through a couple of broken hearts and assorted childhood traumas—won’t you at least let me do this?’
‘That’s two hundred per cent not fair!’
‘But you’re going to give in to emotional blackmail, aren’t you?’
Natalia unclenched her fingers from the telephone. ‘How much are the tickets?’
‘I’m not going to tell you.’ Real exasperation snapped through Liz’s tone. ‘If you’re determined to be sticky about it, consider yours a birthday present.’ She laughed. ‘Come on, Nat—stay the night, and we’ll get ready together and giggle and pretend we’re seventeen instead of twenty-three, and that I’m not heading off to Oxford to bury myself in mediaeval English texts, and you’re not stuck in Bowden working your heart out because of some quixotic belief that you’re responsible for your father’s debts. For one night we’ll pretend that our lives are going to be the way we wanted them to be when we planned them at high school. Do you remember—I was going to marry Jason Wilson and have his children? And you were going to be a botanist and paint exquisite pictures of native plants. That, of course, was before you fell in love with Simon Forsythe in the seventh form!’
Natalia had to force a laugh. ‘All right, all right, I’ll come,’ she said, ‘but only because I want to see Mr Stephens from the garage in a mask. And I’ll get dressed at your place. I won’t be able to stay, though, because I’ve got to catch the early transport to the markets.’
‘I knew you’d do it,’ Liz said warmly. ‘You need some fun, and we’ll have it, I promise. And don’t worry about a mask, either—I’ve got the perfect one for you!’
Sequinned and frivolous, the exact green of her eyes, the perfect mask flaunted exotic feathers that winged out against Natalia’s black curls. It matched Liz’s discarded silk dress, the most glamorous thing Natalia had ever worn. Demure of neckline in the front, the back swooped down past her shoulder blades towards a nipped-in waist, below which the skirts frou-froued, stopping short enough to reveal a lot of Natalia’s legs.
‘Stop jittering!’ Liz commanded. ‘No, you can’t wear a bra with it, but you look great without one, and, yes, it’s short, but you’ve got truly excellent legs. It’s very, very sexy—I knew it would suit you.’ Without chagrin, Liz smoothed her own slinky black dress before adjusting her black and white mask. ‘But then, everything does. It’s those fine, aristocratic features. They fool everyone into thinking you’re a sweetly pretty girl—until they get a load of those wicked, come-hither eyes.’
‘Come-hither! In other words, I’ve got heavy eyelids. You’ve been reading Regency books again,’ Natalia accused, laughing. ‘I’ll bet your supervisor didn’t know you devoured popular fiction when she steered you into firstclass honours with your MA.’
‘I like Regencies,’ Liz told her unrepentantly. ‘I have this thing for tall, dark, handsome, very rich aristocrats.’
‘You might find one in England.’
Liz sighed. ‘I don’t think they breed them any more.’
As they walked into the splendid ballroom in the district’s biggest homestead, Natalia said, ‘How mysterious and interesting we look. Perhaps we should go around in masks all the time!’
The rest of their party trooped in after them in a cloud of laughter and conversation. ‘Hmm, yes, very mysterious—and ultra-sexy. Even Greg,’ Liz added, casting a quick glance at her brother.
‘He’s a very handsome man,’ Natalia said lightly.
‘But not for you.’ Liz had made no attempt to hide her wish that her favourite brother and her best friend might one day fall in love.
‘No.’
‘Ah, well, perhaps you’ll meet some gorgeous hunk tonight.’ Liz gazed openly around, waving to friends, smiling. ‘I can’t see one,’ she murmured, ‘but there’s Mr Stephens with the Barkers, Nat—and he looks pretty good in a mask!’
Halfway through the evening Natalia admitted that Liz had been right to nag her to come. She’d had a great time, dancing with old friends and flirting lightly with several newcomers, talking to people she hadn’t seen for months.
Waiting until her latest partner had set off to rejoin his wife, Liz hissed, ‘He’s here!’
‘Who?’ Natalia lifted her glass of iced water.
‘The hunk we ordered. Sidle a look towards the door. You can’t miss him.’
More to humour her than anything, Natalia set her glass down and turned her head.
The stranger was definitely unmissable, partly because he was a head above most of the other men. At least six foot three, Natalia estimated, with shoulders in proportion and an air of cool command that dominated the room.
Severe black and white evening clothes contrasted magnificently with golden skin. Light gleamed on wavy black hair, highlighted an autocratic, hawk-nosed face with a square, slightly cleft chin and a wide mouth. Long-legged, narrow-hipped, a conventional black mask emphasising those strong features, the stranger could have walked out of one of Liz’s Regency novels—or an X-rated myth.
He was talking to a woman Natalia didn’t know, a well-rounded creature whose scarlet mask—scattered with tiny chips of mirror glass—couldn’t conceal her look of desperate anticipation, as though she’d just found water in the Sahara.
Natalia didn’t blame her. The stranger’s height and archetypal, dangerous good looks made him stand out, but what compelled attention was his air of vibrant, vital sexuality, a coiled, dynamically masculine magnetism. He had the invisible aura of a man who knew he was attractive to the opposite sex—an inbuilt confidence that set her teeth on edge.
Fanning herself with vigour, Liz made a noise like a vocal leer. ‘I need a cold shower,’ she growled. ‘Do you know him?’
‘Never seen him before.’
Liz grinned. ‘He’s looking at you.’
‘Hope he likes my profile, then,’ Natalia said, turning to smile ironically at her friend. ‘Yes, he’s gorgeous, but men like that have wives, or very glamorous girlfriends who work in television. Guaranteed. Perhaps the woman with him?’
‘A cynical little statement, but you could be right, alas.’ Liz sighed. ‘However, if he asks me to dance I’m not going to let any possible girlfriend concern me. I don’t think he looks married.’
‘Neither did the last hunk I met at a party,’ Natalia said softly, icily.
Liz sighed. ‘Sorry, love,
