One look at him and Chelsea felt her heart sink. Ann had been quite right; this man had sensuality written all over him—it was imprinted into his skin, drawn tautly over high cheekbones, olive-tinted as though he spent a considerable amount of his time in climates far warmer than Melchester’s.
As he bent his head to Kirsty’s Chelsea was forced to acknowledge the fascination he would undoubtedly have for a girl her niece’s age—and for many considerably older.
The way he moved, his smile, the lean fitness of his body, all bespoke a maleness that would attract the majority of women.
But not her, Chelsea thought contemptuously, wishing she could forget the adoration in her niece’s eyes as she looked up at him. They had now safely crossed the street and were walking past Melchester’s one and only fashionable boutique when an elegant blonde emerged, the smile she gave Kirsty’s escort a very clear invitation.
Chelsea didn’t miss the way Slade Ashford’s eyes admired the blonde’s slender curves, and her fears that she wouldn’t be able to free Kirsty vanished on another wave of contempt. Even when he was with her niece the creature couldn’t keep his eyes off other women! What could he possibly want with Kirsty, a man of his undoubted experience? Was her very innocence the challenge which his jaded appetite demanded? Would he simply seduce her and then leave her? Not if she had anything to do with it, Chelsea vowed grimly.
She telephoned her sister when she returned home, and ascertained that Kirsty was indeed spending the afternoon with Slade Ashford.
‘I didn’t want to let her go,’ Ann admitted, ‘but what could I do? If I’d refused she’d only have arranged another meeting behind my back. I don’t want to force her into lying to us.’
‘Don’t worry too much,’ Chelsea comforted her. ‘Kirsty might be blinded by adoration, but he’s far from being similarly afflicted.’ She told her sister briefly about the blonde. ‘You know the type—skin-tight jeans, brief tee-shirt and a very come hither smile.’
‘Poor Kirsty!’
‘I expect he finds her refreshingly different,’ Chelsea said bitterly, remembering Darren using those words about her in what now seemed another life. ‘But at least it means that he shouldn’t be too difficult to detach from her, and perhaps the humiliation of it being done so publicly at your party will be enough for her to refuse to see him again.’
‘It ought to be,’ Ann agreed. ‘She shares your pride.’
‘I don’t think it would be a good idea to introduce me to him as your sister,’ Chelsea warned Ann. ‘He just might smell a rat. In fact, it might be as well if I engineered my own introduction. I suspect Kirsty will try to stick to his side like glue, so we’ll have to find some means of detaching her for long enough for me to introduce myself. I only hope I haven’t forgotten all my old drama training, although playing femmes fatales wasn’t high on the list of our studies.’
‘Perhaps not, but you’re an excellent mimic,’ Ann reminded her sister, ‘and travelling as you do, you must have had ample opportunity to study the breed in its natural habitat.’
Chelsea grinned. If it wasn’t for her concern for poor Kirsty, she might almost enjoy cutting Slade Ashford down to size. He and men like him had preyed on her sex for too long. Picturing Slade Ashford’s expression when she had seen him with Kirsty, Chelsea doubted that a woman had ever said ‘no’ to him in his life. All the bitterness she had experienced over Darren welled up inside her. Now, she realised, she had a chance to even the score.
Like any good actress she laid her plans carefully, including a visit to London to find a suitable outfit. Something definitely provocative and sexy, she decided, as she sat in the train; something to appeal to the experienced male predator; not too blatant though…
She found it after several hours’ search in a small boutique tucked away off Bond Street. It was part of their new Christmas stock, the salesgirl told Chelsea as she admired it. It was also criminally expensive, but nevertheless she agreed to try it on.
Normally the rich blue taffeta dress with its tight moulded bodice wouldn’t have appealed to her at all, but as she emerged from the changing cubicle to study herself full-length in the pier glass she had to admit that it suited her. The tight bodice clung seductively to her breasts, her shoulders and throat glowing softly pale against the rich fabric. The rustling skirts billowed gently from the narrow waist in piquant contrast to the sophistication of the bodice, and the salesgirl produced a matching band of velvet ribbon adorned with silk roses sewn with pearls and diamante which she fastened round Chelsea’s throat.
‘If you wore your hair up very simply and just decorated with the same flowers, you’d look absolutely stunning,’ she told Chelsea, scooping up her long hair to reveal the pure length of her slim throat.
The effect was a bewitching one, Chelsea admitted, and although the dress was outrageously expensive, she found herself weakly agreeing with the girl that it might have been made for her.
As indeed it might, she admitted a little later as she stepped out of the boutique, clutching a black and gold embossed box and a piece of paper on which the girl had scribbled an address where Chelsea could have a pair of shoes made up to match the dress. The boutique had also been able to provide the silk flowers to decorate her hair, and on a sudden impulse, as she was walking past the store, Chelsea hurried into Harrods and headed for the cosmetics department.
Two hours later she emerged exhausted but delighted with the new make-up she had bought in colours far stronger than those she had normally used. The salesgirls had been more than willing to show her the latest winter styles, and Chelsea had been pleased and a little startled to discover her stage training came flooding back as she memorised and elaborated in her mind, adapting what they had shown her to suit not her own personality but the image she intended to project in order to lure Slade Ashford.
The weekend before the party, Chelsea was surprised to hear someone knocking on her door and to discover Kirsty standing shivering outside in the cold east wind which was blowing.
‘Come on in,’ she invited her niece. ‘Do you fancy a cup of tea?’
She had already noticed the storm signals flashing in Kirsty’s blue eyes, and the stubborn set of her mouth, and her heart sank as Kirsty shook her head and flung herself into a chair.
‘It’s impossible at home,’ she announced bitterly. ‘Anyone would think I was seven, not seventeen!’
‘Do you know,’ Chelsea remarked conversationally, ‘I’ve often noticed that people have a tendency to treat us the way we behave.
There was a pregnant pause. She looked up and smiled guilelessly at Kirsty, adding sympathetically, ‘What’s wrong? Arguments over the curfew?’
‘You mean Mum hasn’t told you?’ Kirsty asked suspiciously.
‘Told me what?’ Chelsea frowned. ‘The last time I saw her she was full of preparations for the party.’
‘I want to go to drama school,’ Kirsty told her aggressively, ‘but they won’t let me.’
‘You’ve still got a year to do at school,’ Chelsea reminded her, her heart sinking a little. She and Kirsty had always been able to talk to one another, but here was her niece masking her involvement with Slade Ashford by pretending her quarrel with her parents was about her desire to go to drama school.
‘Yes, and then I’ll be eighteen; able to do exactly what I want.’
Fear shafted through Chelsea.
‘The acting profession is a very gruelling and often heartbreaking one,’ she warned her niece. ‘You know I went to drama school?’
‘Yes, but you left.’
‘Not just because I realised that the stage wasn’t for me,’ Chelsea admitted. ‘I got involved with someone I met there—an older man.’ Beneath her lashes she studied Kirsty’s set face. ‘He was married, of course,’ she continued carelessly, ‘but I was far too naïve to realise that he was just using me—until it was too late. I’d hate that to happen to you, Kirsty.’
‘Things are different nowadays.’
Kirsty tossed her head and eyed her thoughtfully. ‘I never knew you were involved with a married man.’
Chelsea winced at her choice of words.