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“I hope you’re satisfied,” she said, her voice sharper than planned.
She was too aware of...too much. The sultry Spanish night, flowing around her like the kind of caress she did not wish to think about in this man’s presence. The scent of so many flowers, dancing on the evening breeze. The last of the sunset itself, a pageant of deep pinks, burnt oranges, and deep indigos that she would have watched like its own movie under any other circumstances.
But there was no looking away from Lionel.
Just as there was no pretending that there was some other reason for the sudden breathlessness she felt while she did.
“Satisfiedis not the word I would choose,” he said, the low heat of his voice a counterpoint to that dark blaze in his eyes. They looked less like the color of dark coffee in the evening light, with so many candles flickering everywhere, and more like something significantly less prosaic. Very old whiskey, for example. Smoky and dangerous.
Geraldine remembered, then, that she had stopped dead in her tracks.
It was harder than it should have been to force herself to walk toward him, when it felt so much like walking to the edge of a very steep cliff and hoping against hope that she could balance there.
She became suddenly and shockingly aware of the clothes she was wearing. It was as if she hadn’t been present in that room as all those people had swirled around her, dressing and undressing her as if she really was nothing more than a canvas. She’d sighed when they’d let this particular dress float over her shoulders, then had sewn her into it. And it had been the particular fit of the garment that caught her eye first when she’d actually seen her reflection.
That had been bad enough.
But this was worse. Much worse.
Because she understood with every step that Lionel’s reaction was catastrophic.
He was not looking at her the way he had before, as if she was a very faintly amusing novelty that he could use to his own ends. He was not looking at her in that pitying way, the way she was sure he had been when she’d found herself in his arms. He was not looking at her with that scowl that had demanded, before he’d said a word, that she think better of her own temerity in laughing at his misfortune.
The look on his face now was something else altogether.
And she hated that it had nothing to do with her, and everything to do with her appearance. An appearance that had required an entire team to create.
“I do not understand.” And there was a hoarse note in Lionel’s voice as she came to stand before him, there where a small table had been set, with crystal glassware reflecting the candlelight. “That hideous garment you wore today makes no sense. I do not understand what would make you do such a thing. When you could look like this.”
Geraldine glared at him. “Because that hideous garment is comfortable.” She waved a hand down the length of her body, too aware of the way his gaze tracked the movement. “Does it look to you as if this is comfortable?”
The dress was a column of vibrant color that clung to her figure. And Geraldine had no illusions about herself or her charms. She had grown up with Seanna. She knew only too well that her own form was not fashionable in the least. Her proportions were much too generous. She had accepted that long ago. Happily enough.
But she was fully aware that on any occasion she mistakenly wore something that presented her figure so all could see, there were...reactions.
Too many reactions.
And she knew what followed on from such reactions. Her cousin’s entire life was a cautionary tale.
Besides, Geraldine had never wanted to shine like that. She’d wanted to be smart and capable, thank you, and back in the horror of adolescence it had seemed very clear to her that she had to choose. One or the other.
So she had.
It didn’t help that tonight they had done whatever they’d done to her hair, so that it seemed glossier and softer. It swirled around her shoulders, making her look as sultry as the Spanish night all around them, when she would far prefer to forget about it and twist it up and out of her way. It was irritating when it heated against the back of her neck.
Nor did it help that they had taken care of all the little details she found too annoying to ever do herself. The manicure that made her hands look somehow less capable than before. The pedicure that had made her feet feel overly soft and fragile. The high-heeled sandals with delicate straps that were suitable for walking extremely short distances, if that.
There was nothing practical about a single thing she was wearing. Including the necklace they’d clasped around her neck with a single diamond solitaire set to sparkle just there, above the place where the dress ended, so that it was impossible not to look at the thrust of her breasts and the hollow between them. Not to mention her entirely bare shoulders, which someone had dusted with a powder that had made her gleam in that hallway, and likely made her outright sparkle here in the candlelight.
She knew, too, that they had taken shocking liberties with her face. Left to her own devices, Geraldine did not wear color on her lips. It only called attention to them, making them seem plumper and glossier than they ought to have been. She had never been one to take such care with her eyes, elongating her lashes, rubbing on creams and shadows, and adding layers of mystery and shadow so that her green eyes were far more inviting than necessary. When they were alreadygreen, for God’s sake.
There’s no way around it. This was a disaster.
If he was looking at her like this, if this was all he saw, how could she force him to face what he’d done? That required fortitude, not fashion. She was sure of it.
“Comfortable,”Lionel was saying, echoing the word she’d used as if he had never heard it before. He said it again, managing to sound even more baffled. “Surely you realize that comfort is for those who could not achieve what you have naturally, yes? It is a trap at best.”
“It is a necessity if a person lives through winters in Minnesota,” Geraldine retorted. “I can assure you that I have very little call to go prancing around dressed like this when the weather is below zero, my car won’t start unless it’s hooked to a heating block, and layers upon layers of cold-weather gear are required to step outside.”
