A Little Revenge Omnibus Read Online Free PDF

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.
    * * *
    O N 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 heart had sunk as he’d listened to her. Initially when she had begged him to go with them to the ball he had assumed it was because her new boyfriend was looking for a backer for the new business venture he had already insisted on discussing with Brough; that had been bad enough, but now that Eve was dropping hints about Julian Cox proposing to her Brough was beginning to feel seriously alarmed.
    At twenty-one Eve certainly didn’t need either his approval or his authorization to get married, and at thirty-four he was mature enough to recognise that any man who married the sister whom he had been so close to