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In the hall the grandfather clock chimed. Eight o’clock. Where had the time gone?
In the kitchen all was in order, but the heat from the oven brought a flush to her creamy skin. Her fine brown hair had escaped from its confining knot and was curling wildly round her face. She knew from experience that her nose would be shiny and that her soft hazel eyes weren’t as large or as lustrous as the magnificent dark blue orbs inherited by the rest of the family. A throwback, her mother had once laughingly called her. At the time it had hurt, but she had learned to smile and be grateful for what she did have. After all, it was scarcely her parents’ fault that she wasn’t like them… that she wasn’t a beautiful Bellaire.
She heard a car and then another, and wiped her hands before walking into the hall.
‘Ah, there you are…’
Tall and impossibly beautiful, Lucilla was glittering with malice as she swept in, her friends at her heels. Beatrice felt her heart sink. She knew Lucilla in these wild, almost dangerous moods.
Tonight her sister was dressed in dark pink silk, a perfect foil for her colouring and a clever choice. It made the other women in the party, both brunettes, fade into insignificance.
Lucilla had her arm draped through that of her companion, and Beatrice’s heart sank even further as she recognised the TV producer and the challenge in Lucilla’s eyes.
‘Elliott darling, where are you with that wine?’ she called over her shoulder.
Elliott brought up the rear of the party. Like the other men he was wearing a dinner-suit, but as always he seemed to dwarf the others with his presence. Without moving a muscle he somehow managed to convey an adult forbearance of the antics of other, lesser mortals.
It was that air of insufferable superiority about him that always infuriated her so much, Beatrice decided as Lucilla passed her the wine with one hand and waved the other to her friends, indicating that they should hand her their coats.
‘Still playing the Martha, are we, Beatrice?’ Elliott murmured to her as he handed her his. ‘You really ought to go for another role, my dear. This one’s getting rather wearing, although I must admit at times it becomes you.’
Beatrice could feel hot blood scorching her skin as she fought against her anger. Stiff-backed, she took the coats into the cloakroom.
Lucilla hadn’t introduced her to her friends, but then she never did. More than any of the others, Lucilla enjoyed being a Bellaire. She had even changed her surname from Chalmers to Bellaire. Beatrice risked a glance at Elliott and wondered sardonically how he had liked that. Although he had never expressed it, she sensed it was his opinion that a Chalmers was superior to a Bellaire any day of the week.
Yes, of all of them, Lucilla was the one who clung the most to their parents’ memory and reputation. She enjoyed being described as her mother’s daughter, and there were even times when Beatrice didn’t wonder if she would have preferred to be their only child, she was so fiercely possessive of her status.
By the time Beatrice had served the main course, her headache had worsened to such a degree that she could barely see. She took in the sweet, intending to tell Lucilla that she would have to attend to her guests’ coffee herself, when one of the brunettes piped up gratingly,
‘Lucilla my dear, you’re so lucky to have such excellent staff.’ She had a transatlantic accent which no doubt accounted for her lack of knowledge about Lucilla’s family background, but Beatrice stiffened with misery and resentment as she saw the amused smiles touch other more knowing mouths.
As though he was a magnet, she found her gaze drawn to Elliott. He was regarding her impassively, drinking the last of his wine, his eyes taunting her over the rim of his glass.
‘Oh, Beatrice isn’t the help, Angela,’ he drawled mockingly, looking at her. ‘She’s Lucilla’s sister.’
The brunette’s mouth fell open in shock.
‘Oh, but she can’t be…’ she began, and the TV producer smiled dazzlingly into Lucilla’s eyes and said with both relish and amusement, ‘Oh, but she is. The runt of the litter, isn’t that what you call her, darling?’
Later, Beatrice couldn’t remember anything about how she got out of the room. Somehow she found herself back in the kitchen, its familiar surroundings swaying horribly as the pain in her head reached crescendo proportions.
It was no use pretending that their laughter hadn’t hurt. It had.
Almost blinded by the pain in her head, she leaned her face against the cool wall tiles.
She supposed she ought to have expected something like this. Lucilla had been furious with her last night, and her friend’s ignorance had given her an ideal opportunity to get her own back.
‘It’s your own fault, you know. You should learn to say “No” and mean it!’ The coolly amused voice somewhere in the region of her left ear was the last straw. Elliott had followed her into the kitchen! Oh, he would… he would! It was either scream, Beatrice thought bitterly, or burst into tears, and she didn’t think she had the energy for the former.
To her chagrin, he turned her round. Elliott took one look at her tear-blotched face and burst out laughing.
‘Now I’ve seen everything,’ he told her unkindly. ‘A Bellaire who doesn’t cry beautifully. My poor Beatrice! You really are the cuckoo in the nest, aren’t you?’
It was too much. To be reminded of her lack of looks, now, when she was feeling at her most vulnerable, and by this man of all men! She wanted to scream and rage. She wanted to pick up something heavy and throw it at him. She wanted… She gritted her teeth and looked into his eyes.
Her own widened, and she stared at him blinking. He was looking at her with a mixture of encouragement and amusement as though… as though he wanted her to lose control. But why?
It was the final, but the final straw.
She launched herself at him like a small spitting cat, and would have raked her nails down his face if he hadn’t stopped her by gripping hold of her wrists.
‘Hallelujah!’ she heard him exclaim softly and inexplicably. ‘But you know, my dear Beatrice, I can’t let you get away with it—it wouldn’t be good for you. A classic production, none the less, and that being the case…’
He moved, shifting his weight somehow, so that she fell heavily against him. His arms tightened round her, and she could feel the steady drum of his heart.
She looked at him in bewilderment. Her head was still pounding. She wasn’t sure how she came to be in his arms or, more important, why.
He bent his head, his eyes silver grey and quite brilliant; her own widened as she realised that he intended to kiss her. She moved jerkily, but not quickly enough.
His mouth felt warm and surprisingly soft against her own. She could taste the wine he had been drinking. She felt dizzy… shaky and dangerously vulnerable. The sensation of his tongue-tip moving against her lips completely unnerved her. She was still trying to decide whether that was because she didn’t like it or because she did, when the kitchen door opened and Lucilla walked in.
‘Where’s the coffee?’ she began peremptorily, stopping abruptly as she saw Elliott holding Beatrice in his arms.
‘Oh, my God, now I’ve seen everything! Elliott, what on earth are you doing? You must be hard up for a woman if you’re having to resort to Beatrice! Honestly, she wouldn’t know what to do with a real man—you should see the wet specimens she brings back here.’
With a tormented sound, Beatrice tore free of Elliott and raced past Lucilla, not caring any longer what anyone might think of her odd behaviour. She was past caring about that. She had never felt so humiliated, or so… so disturbed in all her life.
In the sanctuary of her bedroom she sank down into a chair. Her whole body was trembling.
Elliott had kissed her!! Elliott, who she well knew disliked and despised her; Elliott whom she loathed and detested; Elliott, who had made her forget, however briefly, that she was plain, and remember only that she was a woman!
She couldn’t believe it… she didn’t want to believe it.
She would not believe it!
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