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 was to be held, had been local landowners for the last three hundred years and, despite their cost, tickets had been snapped up and the event sold out within a week of them going on sale, which made it even more extraordinary that Dee should have been able to produce a pair at such short notice.
Kelly could remember how thrilled and excited Beth had been when Julian had told her that he had bought tickets for the event.
‘I’ll have to hire something really special. This isn’t just a social event for Julian, it’s a very important business opportunity as well,’ she had told Kelly breathlessly.
Kelly had never properly discovered just exactly what line of business it was that Julian was in. He had talked very grandly about his own financial acumen and the hugely profitable deals he had pulled off, and he certainly had spent a lot of time talking into the mobile phone he took everywhere with him. He drove a very large and very fast BMW, but lived in a surprisingly small service flat in a new and not particularly attractive apartment block on the outskirts of town.
Kelly hadn’t been at all pleased when she had learned that he had suggested to Beth that she allow him to have some of his business mail addressed to their flat, but she had refrained from making too much fuss, not wanting to upset her friend.
Beth had been thrilled at the prospect of attending such a prestigious social event with him—as his fiancée; now another woman would be going there with him in Beth’s place.
‘Remember she could be just as much a victim of his ruthlessness as Beth was,’ Dee had reminded her and Anna last night when Kelly had commented that she didn’t know how any woman could date a man who she knew was supposedly committed to someone else.
If that was the case, Julian Cox deserved to be revealed as the unpleasant and untrustworthy creep that he was, for her sake as much as Beth’s, Kelly acknowledged, frowning as she heard her doorbell ring.
She wasn’t expecting any visitors. Although she and Beth had made several new acquaintances since moving to the town, as yet they hadn’t progressed to the stage of many close friendships. Getting up, she went downstairs to open the door that faced onto the main street.
A man was standing outside, a large box at his feet, a delivery van parked on the roadside behind him.
‘Kelly Harris?’ he asked her, producing a form for her to sign. ‘Just sign here, please …’
‘What is it?’ Kelly asked him uncertainly, automatically signing the form, but he was already picking up the box and handing it over to her.
Fortunately, despite its awkward shape, the box was very light. Mystified, Kelly carried it up to the flat and then, placing it on the sitting-room floor, sat down beside it to open it.
The outer layer of strong brown paper, once removed, revealed an elegant, glossy white box. There was a letter attached to it. Opening it, Kelly quickly read it.
Dear Kelly, you’ll need this to wear this evening.
Good hunting! Dee.
Intrigued, Kelly opened the box and then folded back the tissue paper inside it to reveal a dress that made her catch her breath in delight.
Two layers of material, one in conker-brown, the other a toning deep, dark damson, in the sheerest silk chiffon, floated through her fingers. Picking up the dress, she hurried into the bedroom and held it against herself, studying her reflection in the full-length mirror.
In both colour and design it might have been made with her in mind, the toning shades of chiffon so perfect with her colouring that they immediately drew attention to her eyes and made them look even more dramatically pansy-dark than usual. And as for the style—the current vogue for Jane Austen-type high-waisted, floating, revealing evening dresses was one that could, in the wrong hands, look insipid and totally unflattering to anyone over the age of seventeen, but Kelly knew instinctively that this dress was far from insipid, and that its deceptively sensuous cut could never be worn by a woman who was anything less than totally at ease with herself and her sexuality. In other words, Dee couldn’t have chosen a dress which would suit her more, and Kelly had no need to look at the immediately recognisable designer label attached to it to know that it must have been horrendously expensive.
Wonderingly she touched the fine chiffon. Although the dress was fully lined, the flesh colour of the lining meant that in a dimly lit room it could easily look as though she was wearing a dress that was virtually transparent.
Dee had even managed to get the size exactly right, Kelly acknowledged ruefully. Placing the dress reverently on her bed, she went back to the sitting room.
Inside the box beneath another layer of tissue paper lay a pretty matching chiffon stole and a pair of high-heeled satin sandals with a matching satin evening bag.
Dee had thought of everything, she admitted as she sat back on her heels.
Fortunately she already had some flesh-coloured underwear she could wear underneath the dress—a birthday present from her sister-in-law—and the pearls which had originally been her grandmother’s and which her parents had given her on her twenty-first birthday would be perfect.
It was a dream of a dress, she acknowledged ten minutes later as she carefully hung it on a padded hanger. A dream of a dress for what could well turn out to be a nightmare of an evening.
There was no way that Julian Cox wasn’t going to notice her wearing it. Although it was far too elegant and well designed ever to be described as sexy, Kelly knew even before she put it on that those soft layers of chiffon would have instant male appeal and be about as irresistible as home-made apple pie—although to a very different male appetite.
She glanced at her watch. If Dee’s cousin was going to pick her up at seven-thirty she ought to think about starting to get ready. Her hair would need washing and styling if she was going to do full justice to that dress. Fortunately its length meant that it was very adaptable and easy to put up. Equally fortunately it possessed enough curl to mean that she could attempt a very similar if somewhat simpler style to that adopted by Jane Austen’s heroines.
On the other side of town, someone else was also getting ready for the ball. Like Kelly, Brough Frobisher was attending it under protest. His sister had persuaded him to go, reluctantly wringing his agreement from him.
‘Julian especially wants you to be there,’ she had pleaded with him anxiously when he had started to refuse, adding slightly breathlessly, ‘I think … that is, he’s said … there’s something he wants to ask you …’
Brough’s
