Game Of Love

It was the kind of dress it took an Emma to carry off with aplomb and certainly not the kind of dress Natasha herself would ever dream of wearing. She was just about to tell Emma as much when her bedroom door opened and her mother walked in. Like Emma, she adored clothes, and they adored her, Natasha acknowledged as she studied her mother’s appearance admiringly. Tall and still very slim, her mother was wearing pale grey silk, the simplest of styles and one which Natasha suspected had had a far from simple price-tag. Diamonds glinted discreetly in her ears, her hair and makeup were immaculate; she looked the epitome of the elegant and understated wife of a rich and indulgent man.

She frowned when she saw them, exclaiming, ‘Emma, here you are! Darling, you ought to be ready. You’ll want to make an entrance. I’ll keep everyone in the hall when they arrive and then you’ll come downstairs—’ She broke off when she saw that Emma was crying. ‘What is it?’

‘It’s Tasha. I wanted her to wear this dress, but she won’t. She says she’s going to come down to dinner in that awful beige thing she’s had for years. You know how we planned everything so that we’d all be in white, grey and black so that the table would look just right with the Meissen dinner service, and now Tasha’s going to spoil it all.’

‘Really, Tasha,’ her mother disapproved. ‘You are being difficult. You can’t possibly wear that dreadful beige.’

‘Neither can I wear this,’ Natasha told her mother through gritted teeth. Emma was an arch manipulator when she chose. She’d deal with her later, though. ‘Remember it—the discreet little number Emma wore for her own engagement party, the dress that virtually gave the archdeacon apoplexy every time Emma leaned forward.’

‘Oh, that dress—’

‘Tasha’s exaggerating,’ Emma interrupted. ‘It wasn’t that bad. I only want her to wear it because I want her to look her best. She never makes the most of herself—you’ve said so yourself. With her hair done like mine instead of screwed up at the back of her head, and this dress…It’s time people saw how attractive she really is. Do you know, I heard Mrs T actually telling Sara that she needn’t worry about how she looked in her bridesmaid’s dress because Tasha was bound to look worse, and, while Sara is still young enough to improve, Tasha is virtually on the shelf.’

Natasha closed her eyes and mentally cursed her cousin. If her mother had one fault, it was an almost obsessive antipathy towards Mrs Templecombe, coupled with a desire to upstage her on each and every opportunity—a discreet and very ladylike desire, of course, but nevertheless…

‘Oh, did she?’she declared grimly now. ‘Emma is right, darling. That dress would look wonderful on you. You’re tall enough to carry it off.’

‘Am I? And what do you propose I should do about this?’ she demanded grittily, picking up the dress and holding it in front of her by the shoulders so that her mother could see the full effect of its plunging neckline.

‘It’s perfectly decent,’ Emma interposed quickly. ‘It only looks as though—’

‘It’s about to fall off,’ Natasha finished acidly for her. ‘I am not wearing this dress.’

‘Oh, dear, I’m afraid you’re going to have to,’ Emma told her, managing to look both guilty and triumphant at the same time. ‘You see, I went through your wardrobe when I arrived and…’

Natasha rushed past her and threw open her wardrobe doors, staring at the empty space where her clothes should have been. She always kept a few things here—her formal evening clothes, her gardening wear and one or two other outfits.

As she closed the door she was more angry with Emma than she had ever been in her life. ‘I am not wearing that dress, Emma,’ she told her icily. ‘Even it if means staying up here all night,’ she added fiercely.

‘Oh, darling, you can’t do that. Think how it would look. Imagine what Richard’s mother would say. No, I’m afraid you’re going to have to do as Emma says and wear the dress. I’m sure it will look stunning on you.’

‘Yes, it will,’ Emma agreed eagerly. ‘And we’ve just got time to do your hair.’

‘Thank you, Emma, I’m quite capable of doing my own hair,’ Natasha told her grimly.

She was trapped and she knew it, but she could cheerfully have murdered her cousin when Emma paused by her bedroom door to remind her dulcetly, ‘Remember your promise…If Luke…’

Just for a moment, Natasha was tempted to tell her she had changed her mind, but she didn’t. She knew quite well that if Luke Freres did try to make trouble between Emma and her fiancé, she would have to stop him. Emma, for all her flightiness, her giddiness, genuinely did love Richard, and really had toned down her wild behaviour as she tried to conform to the standards expected by Richard’s family.

Privately Natasha thought that, the sooner Richard and Emma were free of the constraint of Richard’s family, the more chance of success their marriage would have. It was fortunate indeed that Richard’s first parish was so very far away in Northumberland, where there would be no risk of criticism and interference from his mother. Given the chance, Natasha suspected, Emma would make a very good, if somewhat unorthodox vicar’s wife. She genuinely cared about people and understood them, which was more than anyone could ever say for Mrs Templecombe, who expected everyone to live up to the same impossibly high standards as herself.

Twenty minutes later, as the first guests arrived, Natasha stood despairingly in front of her bedroom mirror wondering if she was out of her mind.

She had washed her hair, and blown it into the same stylish bob in which Emma wore hers, although minus the raffish spiky fringe which Emma adopted. With her hair worn in this style she acknowledged that there was a fleeting resemblance between Emma and herself, if one discounted the disparity in their heights.

Yes, the hair was all right, but as for the dress…

On, it looked even worse than she had expected. The hem finished at least a couple of inches above her knees, the deep décolleté Vs at the front and back of her bodice somewhere that fell just short of her waist. Cleverly sewn into the front of the dress were two pieces of soft shaping which allowed the observer to entertain himself while imagining that the slightest movement of her torso was likely to expose far more of her obviously naked breasts than merely the cleavage between them, yet ensuring that such a sartorial disaster was simply not possible, so that she could not claim as she had intended that she could not wear the thing for fear of disgracing them all by baring her chest to the entire assembled Templecombe clan—something her mother, whose taste was very sharp-edged, would never have allowed.

‘Oh, you’re ready, then.’

Natasha swung round, her appearance forgotten as she stared at her cousin. Emma was wearing something that looked as though it had been designed for a prim little puritan; grey silk with a huge white collar and cuffs and a delicate bell-shaped skirt that made her look fragile and delicate.

‘I’ve brought you these,’ Emma told her. ‘Black, silk stockings and satin shoes. I know you don’t have any.’

Gritting her teeth, Natasha threatened, ‘I don’t know why I’m letting you get away with this, Emma. You had it all planned, didn’t you? I look like the original scarlet woman, a fitting contrast to my demure little cousin.’

‘No, you don’t. You look stunning,’ Emma told her flatly, and a little wistfully. Her cousin would much rather be wearing the black dress than the grey, Natasha recognised, humour coming to her rescue, while she would have felt much more at home in Emma’s puritan outfit.

‘Your mother chose this for me. She said it was bound to create a good impression.’

‘Oh, it will,’ Natasha agreed humorously. ‘Pity she got her faiths mixed up, though. As I recall there never was much love lost between the aficionados of the high church and the Plymouth brethren.’

She saw that she had lost her cousin and sighed a little. ‘All right, I’ll wear your dress, Emma, but only…only because you haven’t given me any option, and only because I realise how important it is to you that Richard’s family accept you, although you know I suspect that Mrs T would respect you far more readily if you stood out against her and were your own person. Richard loves you for yourself, you know. If he’d wanted a carbon copy of his mother he’d have chosen—’

‘Louise Grey. Yes, I know that, but his mother doesn’t. She’s still convinced that a miracle is going to happen between now and the wedding day, and that Richard is going to open his eyes and realise that it’s Louise he loves and not me. And with that beast Luke to help her…If you’d been at the engagement party and seen the way he looked at me…’

‘In this? Come on, Emma, be your age. Any man—’

‘No, not that kind of way,’ Emma interrupted her irritably. ‘He looked at me…as though…as though I were a bad smell under his nose. Horrid man. You weren’t there…you don’t know.’

Natasha had missed the engagement party because she had been away on business, persuading a very difficult and jealous Italian manufacturer to allow her father to reproduce some of his designs for the English market.

‘Look, I’ll have to go down in a minute. I am grateful to you, Tasha. I don’t know what I’d have done if you hadn’t offered to help.’

‘Offered?’ Natasha protested indignantly, but Emma was already closing the door behind her.

CHAPTER TWO

SHE had never liked wearing stockings, Natasha reflected crossly—a fact which Emma had obviously remembered, since she had supplied her with a suspender belt as well as the impossibly fine black silk hosiery she was now wearing. And as for the height of these heels…She felt as though she were perched on stilts, towering above all the other women present.

Was it just her own self-conscious awareness of how very much more provocative the dress was than anything she would personally have chosen to wear that made her feel as though she were the cynosure of all eyes, or was it just because she was taller than Emma that she felt that the dress, startling enough when Emma had worn it, on her was not so much teasingly sensual as a direct and flamboyant statement of availability?

She had never in the space of one short half-hour collected so many admiring male glances nor so many disapproving female ones, nor was it an experience she would want to repeat, she decided irritably after she had fended off the fourth attempt of one of Richard’s ancient uncles to detach her from the rest of the guests.

‘I see Uncle Rufus has been making a play for you,’ Emma commented teasingly as she came up to her.

‘At his age, he ought to know better,’ Natasha retaliated acidly, and then added, ‘And don’t think I haven’t realised exactly why you blackmailed me into wearing this…this garment, Emma. With you dressed as though butter wouldn’t melt in your mouth and me looking like the original scarlet harlot—’

‘In black,’ Emma interposed dulcetly and then giggled. ‘I can’t wait to see Richard’s face when he arrives and sees us. He’s been delayed and he won’t be here until after dinner. He’ll be bringing Luke with him.’ She twisted her engagement ring nervously with her fingers. ‘You won’t let me down, will you, Tasha? I couldn’t bear to lose Ricky—not now. I never thought I’d ever feel like this. I never imagined I could ever become so emotionally dependent on anyone. It frightens me a little bit.’

Natasha’s stern expression softened. ‘I’m sure Luke Freres doesn’t have any intention of trying to come between you, but I won’t go back on my word, Emma. Even though I positively hate you for making me wear this appalling outfit. Stockings as well, and you know how much I loathe them.’

‘Really?’ Emma giggled again, giving her a coy look. ‘Men adore them. Richard said—’ She broke off and groaned. ‘Oh, no, here’s Mrs T bearing down on us, I’m off.’

‘Coward,’ Natasha whispered after her, as Emma adroitly whisked herself out of the way, leaving Natasha to face Richard’s mother alone.

‘Well, Natasha, this is a surprise,’ Mrs Templecombe said critically as she frowned at her. ‘We don’t expect to see you wearing that kind of outfit.’