Desire in the Sun Read Online Free PDF Page A

Lilah took a deep breath, the action as automatic as washing her face. She’d been wearing stays for years, and she’d grown accustomed to their strict confinement. Still, it was nice to breathe freely when she could. Next Betsy loosened the ribbons on her petticoat, and lifted the chemise over her bead. In minutes Lilah was as naked as a babe, andBetsy was dressing her again from the skin out. The silver faille dress would be left until last, after Betsy had done her hair, so that it wouldn’t wrinkle.
    “I bet he’s handsome,” Betsy observed as she pulled the pins from Lilah’s hair. Lilah, seated in front of her dressing table, leaned toward the mirror to examine the scratch on her cheek as the silver-blonde strands fell in a shining mass around her face. Her hair reached down past her hips, and although it had to be coaxed to curl with curl papers it was wonderfully thick and shiny.
    “I don’t want to talk about him, Betsy! Do you think I’ll have a scar?”
    Betsy shook her head as she brushed out the shining strands. “From that little scratch? I can cover that right up with a little rice powder. No one will hardly know it’s there.”
    Lilah watched in the mirror as Betsy twisted her hair up into an elegant coil at the back of her head. The little curls that had framed her face so charmingly earlier that evening were irredeemably lost for the night. Her hair was as naturally straight as a poker. But the effect of this more severe hairstyle was just as pleasing, she decided, surveying her reflection from first one angle and then another. The cool upsweep of silvery hair enhanced! the high-cheekboned beauty of her face, showing off her shell-like ears and the delicate lines of her features. Except for the angles created by her cheekbones and a certain pointiness to her chin, her face was a perfect oval. Her eyes were large with the faintest tilt at the corners, their soft gray-blue enhanced by the thick black sweep of her lashes (which, if the truth were told, Betsy usually darkened with the end of a burned stick). Her nose was straight and finely shaped, and her lips were full and soft yet delicately made. All in all she was quite happy with the face looking back at her—except for the scratch She hoped Betsy was right about the rice powder.
    The silver faille dress was similar in style to the oneshe had discarded. Lilah stood before the mirror as Betsy pulled the dress over her head, then buttoned up the back. The long satin sash that passed just beneath her breasts to tie in a bow in the back was of a silver just a shade paler than the dress. The gown was styled in the fashion of the French empire that was so popular, with short puffed sleeves, scooped-out neck and high waist. The skirt was slim and devoid of ornamentation of any kind. It was a simple yet stylish costume that depended for its impact on the beauty of its wearer’s figure. On Lilah, with her slender waist and hips and high, full breasts, it was breathtaking. Betsy smiled as she surveyed her mistress in the mirror.
    “He’s gonna think he died and gone to heaven,” she said with satisfaction, reaching for the box of rice powder.
    “I told you …” Lilah began severely, only to be interrupted by the hare’s foot whisking over her face and returning to pass more carefully over her cheek.
    “I know what you tole me. I also know what I know.”
    There was no point in arguing with Betsy, Lilah knew. The maid was exactly as subservient as she wanted to be, and no more. Lilah took one last look at herself in the mirror as Betsy clasped a single strand of pearls around her neck, and then she was ready.
    “Oh, Betsy,” she said, as butterflies suddenly started to do cartwheels in the pit of her stomach. “I—I think I’m nervous.”
    “It takes us all like that sometimes, Miss Lilah. You’re just later getting to it than most.”
    “I am, aren’t I? Well, I must go.” Taking a deep breath, amazed at the quivering anticipation that