first stylist, ‘let’s go for the gown!’
Resigned, Ellen got to her feet, as requested, shedding the cotton robe she’d been inserted into after bathing, standing there in underwear that consisted of a low-cut underwired bra that hoicked up her breasts, plus lacy panties and black stockings—a universe away from her usual plain and serviceable underwear. As for the gown that had been selected for her, she had no idea and didn’t care. It wouldn’t be on for long anyway—just long enough for her to tell Max to hand over the cheque for ten thousand pounds.
But as she watched one of the trio fetch the gown out of the wardrobe she gasped. ‘What is that?’ she breathed.
‘Isn’t it fabulous?’ came the answer.
‘But it’s...it’s...’
‘Edwardian,’ said one of the others confidently. ‘You know—like Victorian, but later. But not flappers like the roaring twenties.’ She looked at Ellen. ‘Didn’t you know it was a costume ball?’
No, Ellen had not known. Had not known anything of the sort.
And right now, as the trio started to help her step into the stiffly draped dark red skirts and draw up the whalebone bodice so that it fitted tightly over her bust, pulling narrow straps over her shoulders to flare outwards in a spray of black feathers, her only conscious thought was that it was going to be hellish getting herself out of the dress again when she changed back into her own clothes. There must be a zillion hooks to undo.
MAX GAVE HIS bow tie a final twitch. Thank heavens Edwardian male evening dress was not a million miles from modern formal wear. It was very different for women. An anticipatory gleam lit his eye. Oh, he was looking forward to this. He was really, really looking forward to it. It would cost him fifteen thousand pounds, but it would be money well spent, he was sure—and not just for the sake of the charity!
Checking his cuffs, he strolled to the drinks cabinet, extracting a chilled bottle of vintage champagne and setting it down by two flutes. The noise at the bedroom door made him turn. It was not the stylists—they’d already gone in a flurry of chatter and on their phones already. Ellen was emerging.
His eyes narrowed. And then—
Yes! He wanted to punch the air in triumph. Yes, yes, yes!
He watched her walk into the room in a trail of long skirts. She halted abruptly when she saw him. He saw her face tighten.
‘OK,’ she said, ‘where’s this cheque you promised me?’
She spoke brusquely, because Max’s eyes were like a hawk’s on her, and it made her feel acutely, agonisingly uncomfortable. Even though she hadn’t looked at her own reflection yet—she couldn’t bear to!—she knew exactly what he was seeing. A big, hulking woman in a ridiculously tightly laced preposterous costume dress, with a tottering hairstyle and a face full of make-up that did absolutely nothing for her—because she had a face for which absolutely nothing could be done and that was all there was to it.
Yet again in her head she heard the peal of Chloe’s derisive laughter mocking her...mocking the pathetic attempt to make Elephant Ellen look glamorous.
Well, she didn’t care—wouldn’t care. She only wanted the cheque that Max Vasilikos had promised her, then she was getting out of this ridiculous get-up—zillion hooks or not—and hightailing it to the station and home.
Max smiled his urbane, social smile and reached inside his breast pocket. ‘Here you go,’ he said, and held the cheque he’d promised out to her.
Awkwardly, Ellen walked over and took it. Then her expression altered and her gaze snapped back to him. ‘This is for fifteen thousand,’ she objected.
‘Of course it is,’ he agreed affably. ‘Because of course you’re coming to the ball with me. We’re both kitted up—let’s have a look at ourselves. See if we look the part.’
He helped himself to her arm with a white-gloved hand—he was wearing evening dress of the same Edwardian era, she realised, but on a man it was a lot less immediately obvious—and turned her towards a huge framed mirror hung above a sideboard.
‘Take a look, Ellen,’ he instructed softly.
Ellen looked.
And made no response. Could have made no response even if someone had shouted Fire! Could only do what she was doing—which was staring. Staring, frozen, at the couple reflected in the mirror. At the tall, superbly elegant and dashing figure of Max Vasilikos—and the tall, superbly elegant and stunning woman at his side.
The dark ruby-red silk gown was wasp-waisted and moulded over her hips to flow in a waterfall of colour the full length of her legs and out into a sweeping train, the body-hugging boned bodice revealed a generous décolletage, and the spray of feathers at each sculpted shoulder matched the similar spray in the aigrette curving around the huge swirled pompadour of her hair.
Curling tendrils played around her face—a face whose eyes were huge beneath winged, arched brows...rich tawny eyes that were thickly lashed and fathoms deep—a face whose cheeks were sculpted as if from marble, whose mouth was as lush and richly hued as damsons.
‘Didn’t I tell you?’ Max said softly to her, because he could see from the expression on her face that something profoundly important and significant was happening to her. She was seeing, for the first time in her life, someone she had never seen before—the strikingly, dramatically beautiful woman that was looking back at her from the glass. ‘A goddess,’ he murmured. ‘Didn’t I tell you? In figure and in face...like Artemis the huntress goddess...strong and lithe and so, so beautiful.’
He let his gaze work over her reflection, drinking in face and figure, her beauty fully and finally revealed to him. A frown flickered in his eyes. ‘Have you put in contact lenses?’ he heard himself ask. What had happened to those wretched unflattering spectacles of hers?
She gave a slight shake of her head, feeling the soft tendrils curling down from her extravagant hairdo wafting softly and sensuously at her jaw.
‘I only really need glasses for driving,’ she answered. ‘But I wear them because—’ She stopped, swallowed.
Max said nothing—but he knew. Oh, he knew now why she wore them.
Ellen’s eyes slid away. Her voice was heavy, and halting. ‘I wear them to tell the world that I know perfectly well how awful I look, and that I accept it and I’m not going to make a pathetic fool of myself trying to look better, not going to try to—’
She broke off. Max finished the painful, self-condemning sentence for her.
‘Not going to try to compete with your stepsister,’ he said, his voice low.
Ellen nodded. ‘Pathetic, I know. But—’
He caught her other arm, turning her to face him. ‘No! Don’t think like that!’ His expression was vehement, even fierce, as she stared at him. ‘Ellen, whatever you’ve come to think in your head about yourself it’s wrong!’ He took a breath. ‘Don’t you realise you don’t have to compete with Chloe? Leave her to enjoy her fashionable thinness! You...’ His voice changed. ‘Ah, you have a quite, quite different beauty.’ He lifted a hand to gesture to her reflection. ‘How can you possibly deny that now?’
Ellen gazed, her mind still trying to keep on denying what Max was saying to her—what the reflection in the mirror was telling her. That a stunningly beautiful woman was gazing back at her. A woman who was...her...
But that was impossible! It had to be impossible. It was Chloe who was lovely—Chloe who possessed the looks that defined beauty.
And if it was Chloe who was lovely, then she, Ellen, who was everything that Chloe was not—not petite, not blonde, not thin, not with a heart-shaped face, not blue-eyed, not