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Almost unable to believe her eyes, Christy watched the Major reach out and bring Lady Anthony gently to her feet, just as the musicians started to play a waltz. Lady Anthony was smiling at him, as shy as a young girl.
Just as Christy had mentally prophesied, there was no sign of Dominic making any attempt to join the rest of their table when it came to the time for supper. She could see him sitting halfway across the room with Amanda, and she had to fight down the hot, smouldering jealousy corroding through her body.
She didn’t eat very much, and excused herself as soon as possible, going down to the ladies’ cloakroom to check on her appearance. Her face looked too pale, and her hands trembled as she applied more blusher and fresh lipstick.
She didn’t touch her hair, studying herself only briefly as she slipped her mask back on. It transformed her face, giving it an odd, fey quality that was hard to define. Behind it her eyes flashed and glowed, the light playing on the rounded smoothness of her breasts. She still felt uncomfortable with the neckline of her gown, but there was nothing she could do about it, and in reality her outfit was far less revealing than the gauzy creation being worn by Amanda.
She must have stayed in the cloakroom longer than she intended because when she got back people were just beginning to drift on to the dimly lit floor, and as she stood watching them she heard the compère saying, ‘Come on, ladies and gentlemen, in five minutes it will be midnight. Gentlemen, remember that if your partner refuses to unmask for you, you can demand a forfeit…’
She had to get away from here, Christy realised stubbornly, trying to control the pain savaging her. She simply didn’t have the strength to stand and watch Dominic dance past her, holding Amanda in his arms.
She turned to leave the room, and stiffened as she felt a constraining hand on her arm.
‘Our dance, I believe,’ a familiar voice grated in her ear, and she turned in stunned surprise to look directly into the darkness of Dominic’s eyes.
He took full advantage of her momentary shock to steer her in the direction of the dance floor, his fingers biting deep into her skin as he refused to let her pull away.
‘What are you talking about, Dominic?’ she protested as he stopped and swung her round to face him, his arms closing round her. ‘We had no arrangements to dance together.’
‘Didn’t we? I thought it was implicit in the mere fact that I brought you here. Look around you, Christy. I’ll bet there aren’t many women here now who aren’t dancing with the man who brought them.’
What he said was unarguably true, but that didn’t lessen her own sense of shock.
She struggled against his constraining arms, protesting, ‘You should be dancing with Amanda, not me.’
Her struggles brought her into closer contact with his body, her breast swelling tightly against his dinner-jacketed chest as she fought for breath.
All around them couples were swaying together in sensual closeness. Dominic bent his head and she felt the faint rasp of his jaw against her skin just below her mask. As she caught the familiar scent of his cologne all the fight drained out of her and she felt her body go limp against his. Instantly his arm tightened.
‘We’ve always moved well together, you and I, Christy,’ he murmured in her ear. ‘Remember when I taught you to dance?’
‘I’ve danced with a lot of other men since then, Dominic.’
She winced beneath the harsh bite of his fingers into her waist, and wondered what on earth it was that drove her to challenge him in this way. Why couldn’t she just accept what the gods were prepared to give her without wanting more?
Her full skirts padded the sensation of Dominic’s body moving against her own, but she was still aware of it, aware of him, and aware of the fact that beneath her stiffened bodice her breasts felt swollen and tender. Tears clogged her throat, and when the music stopped and Dominic made to remove her mask she checked him instinctively, not wanting him to see her weakness.
Too late she realised her mistake, as she heard him murmur sardonically, ‘No? People are watching us, Christy, so I’ll just have to take the forfeit instead.’
Lost in her own misery, she hadn’t realised why Dominic had been attempting to remove her mask, and now, with several amused dancers watching them, it wasn’t possible for her to protest that it was all a mistake. Even the compère had seen them, and around them people laughed as he called out, ‘Well now, it seems as if we have at least one reluctant maiden in our midst. Tell me, sir, what do you intend to claim as your forfeit?’
Dominic seemed totally unfazed by all the amused attention and simply gave their audience a wholly deceptive and, to Christy at least, heart-stopping smile as he drawled laconically, ‘What do you think?’ And then he was tipping her head back against his arm and kissing her in full view of their delighted audience. Christy thought she had never been so embarrassed in her life, but she sensed that to say or do anything as the musicians struck up the opening bars of a deliberately provocative love song could only make matters worse.
Amanda was the first one to reach them as they left the dance floor, her eyes spitting venom at Christy as she slid her arm through Dominic’s. She was wise enough to say nothing there and then, but Christy had no doubt that the other woman was far from pleased, for all the teasingly pouting looks she gave Dominic.
Christy excused herself, saying that she had promised to help the WI ladies clear away after supper, although in point of fact all she really wanted to do was to escape from the amused and, it seemed to her in her highly sensitive state, very knowing eyes that observed her hurried progress from the dance floor into the supper room.
After that she kept well away from the ballroom, parrying all the teasing remarks that came her way.
‘My goodness, it was almost as good as watching Gone With The Wind,’ one plump matron teased her, eyeing Christy with the sort of speculation that made her heart sink. She had little doubt that in no time at all she and Dominic would be the talk of the village, and how long would it be after that before pe
ople started remembering her old teenage crush on him—if they had ever forgotten it?
She was carrying plates out to someone’s car when she realised how cold it had gone. The sky was brilliantly starry, the air so crisply fresh that it almost hurt to drag it into her lungs.
‘We’ll have more snow soon, you mark my words,’ someone commented lugubriously. ‘I can smell it in the air.’
So could she, Christy acknowledged, shivering as she hurried back inside.
People were starting to leave, and she would have given anything to avoid accepting Dominic’s lift home, but it was too late now to order a taxi.
She went reluctantly to the ballroom, surprised but pleased to see that Lady Anthony and the Major were sitting together, apparently deep in conversation. The Major smiled at her as she walked past. ‘Excellent affair, my dear.’
‘Yes, it quite took me back to my girlhood,’ Lady Anthony agreed.
Several other members of the committee added their praise as they started to drift away, and although Christy searched the ballroom twice, there was no sign of Dominic.
Fear and something else clutched at her heart. Perhaps she would have to organise that taxi after all, or beg a lift from someone else.
There was no sign of Amanda anywhere either, she noticed jealously.
She was just beginning to think she genuinely would have to make her way home alone when Dominic walked into the ballroom.
Amanda wasn’t with him, but Christy could see quite distinctly the smudge of dark red lipstick staining his mouth. Amanda’s lipstick.
Her whole body seemed to seize in one vast, agonising surge of pain so intense that it rooted her to the spot, unable to drag her eyes away from Dominic’s face and that tell-tale scarlet brand.
‘I think it’s time we made a move.’
‘I’ll go and get my coat and meet you downstairs.’
She moved away from him like an automaton, passing Amanda on the stairs. Triumph gleamed febrilely in the older woman’s eyes, and Christy knew that that smear of lipstick was both a deliberate declaration and a warning.
