A Savage Adoration

Within an hour she was being shown an abundance of ballgowns that would even have silenced Amanda.

'How about this one?' the woman in charge suggested, lifting a glowing off-white satin number with the colour and sheen of mother-of-pearl off its protective hanger. 'It was designed for Kate in the Shrew—perfect for a redhead with your creamy skin.'

Enviously Christy stroked the supple fabric, wondering how on earth the designers had managed to achieve that unearthly opalescent effect. The low-cut bodice was encrusted with pearls, the bodice dipping to a sharp V at the front, from which the full skirts frothed out in true Elizabethan grandeur.

'Try it on,' Meryl urged.

Christy needed the help of the assistant to get the dress fastened up the back. The bodice clung to her like a second skin, the whaleboning causing her breasts to swell against the tight fabric. When she remarked on this the assistant shook her head. 'That's the way it's meant to be. It's a perfect fit on you, and the length is right as well.'

At Meryl's behest she went outside to show her.

'It's fabulous, Christy, you must have it.'

'I'll need a mask,' Christy warned her, allowing herself to be tempted. Hire of the gown would be expensive, but nothing like as expensive as buying a new one.

'A mask—I've got the very thing,' the assistant told her. 'This gown was designed for a ball scene as it happens—a little addition the producer of this particular version of the Shrew wanted, and there just happens to be a mask to go with it.'

There you are,' Meryl exclaimed with a grin. 'It was quite obviously meant to be.'

The mask was in the same satin as the dress and trimmed lavishly with pearls. It gave Christy's face a curiously fey and unreal dimension, somehow making her mouth look fuller and exaggerating the oval slant of her eyes.

'It's perfect,' Meryl told her, adding to the assistant, 'we'll take it'

While the gown was being packed up Christy had a peep at some of the others hanging in the same closet. There were ballgowns from every era imaginable: brief wisps of Regency chiffon, crystal-beaded twenties shimmies, elegant belle époque bustles.

'You could spend a lifetime here, couldn't you?' asked Meryl, drooling over a Fortuny pleated hank of silk chiffon.

David's car was parked in the drive when they got back, and instantly Christy was aware of the change in Meryl. She seemed to close up and withdraw into herself, and Christy's heart ached for her friend.

'There you are, Meryl; where the devil have you been? You know we're due to attend tonight's performance.' David's irritable voice broke off as he saw Christy standing at his wife's side. In the shadows of the hallway, Christy saw him flush slightly as though he was suddenly aware of how unpleasant he was being to Meryl.

'Christy, my love… what are you doing here?' He made no attempt to embrace her.

'I asked Christy to come down to help me look for your manuscript,' Meryl told him.

Christy watched as he shifted uncomfortably from one foot to the other. 'We found it filed between "G" and "H",' she told him drily. He had the grace to look faintly shamefaced.

'I suppose I've been a bit of a bear lately… it's all this business about going to the States.'

'Oh, really? I thought it was something else you had on your mind.'

Christy wasn't sure which of them was the more surprised. David was watching his wife's retreating back with his mouth agape. It was so unusual for Meryl to say anything even slightly contentious to her husband that none of them seemed to know quite what to say.

It was only when she had disappeared into the kitchen that David relaxed a little, expelling his breath and swearing slightly. 'I don't know what the devil's got into Meryl recently.'

'Don't you?' Christy asked him pointedly, looking at him.

'What the hell does that mean?' He was frowning and blustering as he always did when he knew himself to be in the wrong, and there was certainly nothing even remotely lover-like in the way he gripped her arm and almost dragged her into his study.

'Just what's going on around here?' he demanded, growling at her. 'Meryl's been unliveable-with these last few weeks. Not her normal self at all.'

'Perhaps she's just getting tired of a husband who's consistently unfaithful to her,' Christy suggested tartly, and then instantly wished her hasty words unsaid. It was no business of hers, and Meryl would probably not thank her for interfering.

'You mean she knows? She's told you?'

For an intelligent man he could be exceedingly dense. Christy gave him an ironic look.

'She's always known, David,' she told him. 'It's just that in the past she's chosen to turn a blind eye. Why do you think I wouldn't have an affair with you?' she mocked him gently. 'Not because I wasn't tempted.' She could almost have laughed at the way he preened himself. 'You're a very attractive and dangerously persuasive man when you want to be, but Meryl is my friend. I care for her too much to hurt her for what would have at best been only a very brief physical fling.'