by Penny Jordan
CHAPTER SEVEN
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Two days before the ball they had snow. Christy was in a fever of panic when she woke up and saw the ominous colour of the sky, and the white blanket already lying inches deep outside.
'Don't worry,' her mother consoled her when she confided to her her dread that the ball would be poorly attended because of the weather. 'Folks around here are tough. They won't let a little thing like a snowfall put them off.'
Although she was normally a good patient, over the last few days her mother had been extremely restless. The locum who had called to see her in Dominic's stead had pronounced that this was a good sign which showed that she was recovering well, but he had still counselled plenty of rest and no excitement.
'It's not fair,' she grumbled lightly now. 'I'm missing out on all the fun.'
The 'fun' to her mother meant the organisation, Christy recognised, suppressing a small smile, inwardly sympathising with her parent even while outwardly she remained obdurate about allowing her to do anything.
Already a brainwave of her mother's earlier in the week had resulted in Christy haring off to Newcastle with her father to buy as many heart-shaped tins and moulds as she could get her hands on. Members of the WI had been exhorted to search through their cupboards for these receptacles, so that a variety of heart-shaped desserts could be provided in tune with the theme of the evening.
Lady Anthony had very generously made the enormous kitchens at the Manor available to those members of the local community who were responsible for preparing the buffet, and Christy knew that her mother positively ached to be down there among them.
The colour scheme for the evening was pink and silver against a background of white. An inspired and totally unexpected, not to say generous, gift of a hundred metallic silver heart-shaped balloons had arrived by post from Meryl earlier in the week—she had spotted them in one of the Knightsbridge gift shops, she had informed Christy over the telephone, and had promptly bought their entire stock.
Meryl sounded so happy and bubbling over with self-confidence that Christy felt it was safe to ask her how things were.
'Fantastic,' she had told her promptly. 'The news that he's to be a father once more has stunned David. He's thrilled, of course, but he insists on treating me like fragile crystal.'
'And you're complaining?'
'Not really. Which reminds me, when junior does arrive, I shall require you to be godmama.'
Luckily the snow stopped falling just before lunch.
'I'm supposed to be meeting the florist at the Manor this afternoon,' Christy told her mother as they shared the soup she had made. 'I don't know whether to cancel it.'
'Just as long as you aren't contemplating driving yourself there you should be all right Why don't you give the florist's a ring, and if they're still keen to go, order a taxi.'
Christy took her mother's advice. The woman who owned and ran the local flower shop confirmed that she was prepared to drive out to the Manor, and as they arranged that morning Christy's father arrived home to sit with the invalid.
'Honestly, you don't need to do this now,' Sarah Marsden protested. 'Nothing's going to happen to me.'
'No, it isn't,' Christy agreed firmly, 'because we won't let it. Dad and I both know what would happen if we left you alone. You'd be out of bed and down in the kitchen in no time at all.'
Because the snow was fresh the taxi had no difficulty in getting through to the Manor. Christy got out and paid the driver, tensing as she saw Dominic's car draw up and park.
She had to wait for change, and she saw Dominic get out, his dark head bare, his hair ruffled by the chill breeze. He looked at her without smiling, his expression almost brooding in intensity. She longed to go up to him and touch him… just touch him, nothing else. Who are you kidding? she asked herself bitterly; nothing but knowing that he loved her with the same direct intensity with which she loved him would ever be enough to satisfy the ache inside her.
'You look pale. Are you feeling all right?'
She hadn't seen him move, and she swung round, feeling vulnerable and shaky, her fear of revealing her vulnerability to him making her sound terse and remote.
'I'm fine.'
'You don't look it. It must be the strain of loving a man who is committed to someone else.'
She was too shocked to conceal her expression from him. Her face went white, her eyes enormous pools of agonised pain.
'Christy, I…' He spoke almost roughly, his own eyes darkening, his voice harsh as he demanded thickly, 'Is it really worth it? Why don't you give him up? Let his wife…'
She almost sagged with relief as she realised what he meant. For one dreadful moment there she had thought he had guessed… that he had known how she felt about him.
A small van was bumping down the lane towards them, and she pulled away, just as the front door of the Manor opened and Amanda came out.
She was wearing a silk dress that emphasised the slimness of her legs and the full curves of her breasts. Mentally comparing her elegant appearance with her own cord and jumper-clad body, Christy only just managed to suppress a faint sigh. No wonder Dominic was hurrying towards the other woman. She wondered if he realised yet that Amanda wanted more than the same sort of casual affair he had offered her. Or perhaps where Amanda was concerned he was prepared to offer more.
'Sorry if I'm late…'
Wrenching her attention away from the couple walking ahead of them into the house, Christy turned to greet the woman hurrying to join her.
The front door had been firmly closed behind Amanda and Dominic, and Christy wondered if Amanda had simply not realised that they were there or was deliberately trying to be rude.
Lady Anthony herself showed them up to the ballroom, rather to Christy's surprise. She moved a little awkwardly, no doubt because of her arthritis, but it was still possible to see traces of the girl she must once have been.
Louise Fisher from the flower shop nodded her approval when she saw the room. She and Christy had already discussed what she intended to do, and Christy had shown her the balloons that Meryl had sent.
'You know, it's a real challenge to do something like this… And what a beautiful room.'
She went on to discuss how she intended to decorate it while Christy and Lady Anthony listened.
The last ball held here was for my husband's twenty-first,' Lady Anthony told them. For a moment a sad expression haunted her eyes. 'He was killed at the beginning of the war.'
'Yes, so the Major told me,' Christy responded.
Almost instantly Lady Anthony withdrew into herself, her expression hardening. 'My father told him he was never to set foot in this house again.'
Christy and Louise exchanged surprised looks.
'Had he and your father had a quarrel, then, Lady Anthony?' Christy asked gently, not sure whether or not she would be rebuffed.
'In a way… However, you haven't come here to talk about the past.'
Taking her hint that the subject was not one she wanted to pursue, Christy stood to one side while Louise studied the room. They were just discussing the mass of banked plants and flowers Louise intended to place in front of the raised stage which would hold the small band when Amanda walked in, her arm tucked proprietorially through Dominic's.
'Ah, there you are, my dear. We were just discussing the flowers.'
Amanda managed to look both bored and supercilious at the same time. 'Mummy always uses Moyses Stevens. She says that no one else can possibly compare with them.'
Christy, who knew the top people's florist's quite well through David, who always used them to supply flowers for his parties, flushed a little uncomfortably at Amanda's lack of tact, but Louise seemed perfectly calm and at ease.
'Yes, they are good, aren't they,' she agreed pleasantly. 'I was lucky enough to go on one of their courses a couple of years ago, and I certainly learned a lot.'
Christy nearly cheered at the pleasant way that Louise had put the other woman
in her place, especially when Louise didn't linger over her victory but instead went on quietly to explain to them all just what she had in mind.
'Fresh flowers are very expensive at this time of year, so I'm hoping to get away with plenty of greenery and only the minimal amount of flowers. Pink and white, of course, to tone in with everything else.'
There were several rather tarnished mirrors hanging on the wall, and Louise explained how she hoped to provide floral frames for them. Even Amanda looked reluctantly impressed.
It was going dark before Louise was finished. Christy glanced at her watch and asked Lady Anthony if she could possibly use her phone to ring for a taxi.
'There's no need for that,' Dominic told her in a clipped, almost strained voice. 'I'll run you back.'
'Oh, but darling, I wanted you to stay for supper. It's your first evening off this week… and…'
'I'm sorry, Amanda, but I've promised to have dinner with the Major. He gets rather lonely, you know.'
Dominic seemed to be looking at Lady Anthony as he spoke, and an incredibly far-fetched and surely impossible suspicion suddenly crossed Christy's mind. Could the Major and Lady Anthony possibly have been romantically involved at one time?
It seemed impossible, and yet… Telling herself that she was letting her imagination get the better of her, Christy tried to refuse Dominic's offer of a lift, but he wouldn't let her.
A cold east wind was blowing when they got outside. Christy huddled deeper into her padded jacket. She hadn't worn her fur since that last occasion, but now she wished that she had put it on. It made no difference her knowing that Meryl had chosen it for her; Dominic's remarks still hurt.
'Get in.'
Dominic unlocked the door and opened it for her. The inside of his car smelled of leather and some indefinable masculine odour that her body recognised as being part of Dominic himself.
It was shaming how readily her body responded to such minimal stimulation, and if she hadn't known herself better she might almost have described her reaction as wanton. It was hard not to give in to the temptation to remember what it had felt like to be held in his arms, to be kissed…
She tensed as Dominic settled himself beside her and started the engine. As he backed the car round skilfully she looked through the side window.
They were half-way down the lane before he spoke, his terse, 'I haven't thanked you yet for all the hard work you've put in for this ball, Christy,' making her say equally curtly.
'There's nothing to thank me for; after all, I'm not doing it for you personally, am I?'
After that he made no further attempts to engage her in conversation, and she told herself that she was glad.
As he stopped the car for her to get out, she made one more attempt to dissuade him from driving her to the ball, but to her consternation, instead of agreeing with her that his giving her a lift wasn't necessary, he said savagely, 'Oh, for God's sake, Christy! What are you trying to do? Make everyone else as aware as I am how much you loathe me? You know quite well that your parents will worry about you if…'
'Oh, all right.' She slammed his car door childishly as she walked away from him, giving vent to her temper. He was right, of course : her parents would worry, and her father wouldn't understand her insistence on getting a taxi when Dominic had volunteered to take her.
'Come and let me have a look at you when you're ready.'
If she ever managed to get ready, Christy thought fatalistically. It seemed as though the phone hadn't stopped ringing all day long with one query or another. She wasn't even sure that she could summon the energy to go to the ball. No, it wasn't that that was making her so reluctant to get ready, she acknowledged. It was the knowledge that she would have to watch Dominic with Amanda… watch them dancing together… watch them…
Stop it… stop it… she urged herself, clenching her hands into fists. She was deliberately tormenting herself.
No more snow had fallen, and she had managed to get in to Setondale at lunchtime to have her hair done. Privately she wasn't sure what she thought of the wild mane of curls that the stylist had teased from her locks.
The stylist, a pretty young girl, had assured her that she looked absolutely fantastic, and the torrent of wild curls was certainly in keeping with her gown.
She daren't risk a shower in case it flattened her hair, but fortunately she had had the forethought to have one before going out, and as she stripped off her clothes she caught the faint, lingering traces of her scented body lotion. As she smoothed more of it into her skin she wondered why on earth she was bothering. Women scented their bodies for the enjoyment of their lovers. Her hands stilled, her nails digging into the smooth firmness of her thigh as she tried not to imagine what it would be like to have Dominic as her lover.
That last summer she had gone swimming with him one day and had been both shocked and fascinated by the male structure of his body. In her mind's eye she could recapture the memory of the dark shadowing of hair covering his chest and disappearing beneath the top of his swimming shorts. That had been just before she had realised the true nature of her feelings for him, and she could still recall the squirming embarrassment-cum-excitement curling through her body as he stripped off.
'What's the matter?' he had teased her, tugging her hair with gentle fingers.
The smell of the summer grass and the scent of his skin were impressed on her senses for all time, and she could still recall the heart-thumping, dizzying realisation of how she felt about him.
'Dominic'
She wasn't even aware of saying his name. Tears filled her eyes and she shook them away, despising herself for being so vulnerable.
She put on clean underwear: brief satin panties and a matching suspender belt in a pretty soft cream that had been a Christmas present from her parents. She couldn't wear a bra under her dress. She avoided her reflection in the mirror as she slid on silk stockings, and then pulled on her old dressing-gown before starting on her make-up.
The gauche, uncertain girl she had been when she first went to London no longer existed, and she applied skilled touches of colour to her eyes and skin with the expertise she had learned during her years as David's assistant.
Downstairs the grandfather clock sounded the hour. Soon Dominic would be here. Christy shivered slightly as she stood up and checked her evening bag. She was ready. All she had to do was put on her dress.
She stepped into it, swearing mildly under her breath as she fought with the mass of petticoats. It zipped up more easily than she remembered, but then her mother had already commented that she seemed to have lost weight.
The dress had been designed for a play where every historical detail had to be exact, but it still came as a shock to realise how much of the upper curves of her breasts the lace-trimmed neckline revealed. And surely her curves had never been quite as provocative and luscious as they appeared to be now? The fabric moulded and held her breasts into a rounded fullness that made her frown and chew a little on her bottom lip.
Ridiculously, when she tried on her mask and looked at herself in the mirror she felt slightly better about the neckline of the dress, as though somehow hiding behind her mask gave her some sort or protection from her own awareness of her body.
She held her breath slightly when she went in to show her mother, but she needn't have worried. She made no comment at all about her neckline, instead marvelling at the beauty of her gown. When Christy drew her attention to her exposed breasts, her mother laughed and said robustly, 'I suppose it is rather provocative, but only in the nicest possible way.'
Even so, Christy was glad of the velvet cloak that Meryl had suggested that she hire, and she was very careful to keep it carefully closed when she heard the sound of Dominic's car, and her father opening the door to him.
'I'd better go,' she told her mother. 'Dominic will want to be there early.'
'Yes. He told me that most of the committee are sitting together on the same table.'
They were, but Chri
sty wasn't sure whether Dominic intended to join them. She suspected that Amanda would have plans of her own for the evening which wouldn't include sharing Dominic with the rest of them.
From the top of the stairs she looked down yearningly at where Dominic stood chatting to her father, knowing that she was shielded from him and that he couldn't see how avidly and needingly she looked at him. He was wearing a dinner suit, and a giant fist seemed to close round her heart as she looked down at him, tanned and dark-haired, and completely at ease in his no doubt expensive evening suit. He wore it with a familiarity that said that he felt completely at home in its tailored smoothness.
Perhaps that was what she needed. Christy thought sadly: to be reminded of the vast gulf in experience that now lay between them. He wouldn't have lived the life of a monk while he was in America, she was sure of that. He wouldn't have held himself aloof from sexual experimentation because his heart and mind was full of her image.
She saw him glance at his watch, light bouncing off the thin gold strap, and she started to walk downstairs.
'Ah, there you are,' her father beamed at her. 'Aren't we going to get a preview of the outfit?' He turned to Dominic before she could speak. 'I remember her first grown-up party dress, don't you, Dominic? She couldn't wait to show it off to you.'
They all laughed, but her father was the only one whose laughter was natural. There was simply no way she could remove her cloak and twirl round for her father's inspection with Dominic standing there watching her, and so she shook her head and said in a voice made husky with tension, 'I'm sorry, Dad, we'll have to go. We can't be late…'
She could feel the tension emanating from Dominic as he escorted her to his car, but it wasn't until she was sitting beside him as he drove down the lane that he spoke to her.
'What's the matter?' he demanded harshly. 'Were you afraid that your father would recognise it as a dress bought by a man for his lover? Is that why you wouldn't show it to him?'
For a moment she was too shocked to speak. Did Dominic honestly think that? She remembered how he had looked at the box when they were on the train and opened her mouth to contradict him, but the words died unsaid. What was the point of saying anything? Let him think what he wanted. Surely it was easier to endure his contempt and animosity than to have to battle against his physical desire, especially when she was so aware of her own weakness and how very vulnerable she was to him?