Never Too Late (24 page)

towards Olivia.

‘Nobody could put you in anything insipid,’ Evie said

sharply, wishing Olivia would stand up for herself. ‘It’d be

like putting the Queen in Sleeping Beauty in pastel pink

instead of black.’

‘We are in a right mood today,’ Sybil said happily. She

loved a fight. ‘Your betrothed having second thoughts, eh?

I hope not. Whatever I’m buying today is what I’m

wearing for your bash. When is it anyway? August? I hope

you’re not sticking on a white dress at your age. Mutton

dressed as lamb is what we called it in my day.’

Evie gritted her teeth. Exactly how she got through the

next hour she never knew. Enlivened thanks to the shot of

whiskey, Sybil was in fine fettle, laughing coquettishly and

making smart remarks.

But at least she was in a better mood for shopping and

when Evie caught her swigging from a second miniature

bottle of whiskey in the changing room, the younger

woman said nothing, just passed her an extra strong mint

after a moment.

Predictably, a tipsy Sybil liked the post-second-drink

outfit the best. The colour of a just-ripened peach, the soft

wool braided jacket and skirt actually looked marvellous

on her and watching how the subtle hue lit up her worn

face, Evie realised what a beauty Sybil de Were must have

been in her day. Her pre-bottle-of-gin-a-day day.

As if she was thinking the same thing, Olivia hugged her

mother suddenly, something she rarely did.

‘You look great, Mum,’ she said, eyes wet with emotion.

‘Who’s paying for this?’ demanded Sybil truculently,

oblivious to the Kodak moment. ‘You, I hope?’

‘What did you get, Mum?’ asked Rosie that evening,

warming her back against the fire in the sitting room while

her mother and Olivia lay like exhausted bookends on

armchairs in front of her.

Evie grimaced. The sort of thing I was determined not

to buy,’ she answered. ‘A pale blue suit. It’s a bit mother of the bride,’ she added glumly.

Actually, it was very mother-of-the-bride and she was

quite sure that as Vida would look stunningly elegant in

whatever little designer number she chose to wear, Evie

would look like Heap of the Week by comparison. She

could just imagine Vida’s glamorous guests contrasting the

two women and wondering what Vida would do to make

over her frumpy stepdaughter. A total body transplant and

about twenty thousand quids’ worth of facial surgery, she

reckoned.

‘It’s not mother-of-the -bride at all,’ said Olivia

staunchly. ‘It’s lovely, a pale blue with a duck egg blue

stripe running through it, with a knee-length skirt and a

high collar.’

Rosie, her head angled to one side as she tried to picture

the outfit, thought of how pale blue did absolutely nothing for her mother’s colouring and how high collars were on

the ‘avoid’ list for women with big busts. Women like her

mother, in fact.

‘Sounds fab,’ she said enthusiastically. ‘Put it on and give

us a fashion show.’

Because she half-hoped that the outfit might be miraculously

improved by the addition of flesh-coloured tights

instead of the black ones she’d been wearing when she

tried it on in the shop, Evie ran upstairs to change. The

right shoes, she told herself, and those suck-it-all-in knickers would make it look OK, she decided with renewed

optimism.

‘What did you get, Olivia?’ asked Rosie, plopping down

on the floor beside the fire and stretching out like a big

cat.

‘I didn’t buy anything new. We spent so much time

with my mother, we barely had time to shop. I’m going

to wear something from my best wardrobe,’ said Olivia,

whose ‘best’ wardrobe resembled the Designer Room in

Harrods.

‘You could wear that grey knitted dress you got last year

in the Design Centre,’ Rosie suggested.

Olivia thought of the elegantly clinging gun metal grey

knitted sheath with matching cardigan by Lyn Mar. Fashioned

from sinuous silk, the dress flowed and clung around

her body in all the right places and she was tall enough to

carry off its matching ankle-length cardigan. But Stephen

didn’t really like it.

‘Too tight,’ he’d said disapprovingly when she came

home with it, buoyed up after an adventurous shopping

expedition with Evie and Rosie. ‘Tight clothes do nothing

for you, Olivia, I’ve told you that time and time again.’

He’d hate it if she wore that to the wedding. The day

would be ruined before it would have started.

‘I don’t think it’s the right sort of outfit for your

grandfather’s wedding,’ she said hesitantly.

Rosie shrugged. ‘I think it’d be very nice but …’ She

tailed off as Evie walked in, a study in blue.

The right tights and the right shoes hadn’t, unfortunately,

had a magical effect on the suit. It was still an

unforgivingly icy hue which drained the colour from her

face, while the skirt, probably a thing of beauty on a

willowy creature with legs to her armpits, didn’t do a lot to

flatter Evie’s short ones.

Rosie and Olivia, who both loved her dearly, didn’t point

any of this out. Loyally, they told her she looked beautiful

while Olivia mentally vowed to lend Evie some expensive

cream calfskin shoes that would give her some more

height, and Rosie quietly vowed to encourage her mum to

apply some fake tan the night before to give her pale skin a

little colour.

‘I’m not sure …’ Evie twisted around to see herself

from behind. ‘My legs look horrible in pale tights.’

‘They don’t,’ chorused the other two.

‘Maybe I should wear my red suit after all,’ she debated.

Olivia’s mouth formed a little oval before she snapped it

shut. She didn’t want to hurt Evie by saying that the red

suit would be much, much nicer than the pale outfit she’d

chosen. Diplomacy was very difficult.

‘No, that’s very nice, Evie,’ she said instead.

Looking at Evie’s pretty face with her large, expressive

eyes, upturned little nose and soft, rounded contours,

Olivia knew exactly what her friend should do - stop

wearing her hair in that severely sleek plait and get it cut

differently. Then dump her safe, conservative clothes, all

the blacks and the navys, and wear the rich jewel shades

that really became her. Amethysts, crimsons, bronzes,

Prussian blue.

They’d seen the most stunning outfit when they were

shopping: a rich imperial purple trouser suit with a jacket

with a nipped-in waist that would show off Evie’s hourglass

figure to perfection. But she, as usual, had gone for

the restrained safety of the blue, saying she couldn’t

possibly wear a trouser suit to a wedding.

‘Well, it’s new and nobody can say I haven’t made an

effort,’ Evie said, gazing at the bit of herself she could see

in the mantelpiece mirror. ‘I needed a going away outfit for

my wedding. Simon will be pleased, he loves blue.’

She went back upstairs to change. Was the red suit

better? she wondered glumly. What was she thinking of?

Nothing was better. She looked a mess and despite all her

plans for a cellulite-free bum in time for her honeymoon,

had found it almost impossible to return to her caffeine

and sugar-free diet since Christmas. And she still carried

those extra five pounds she’d put on comfort eating during

the holidays. Evie stripped off her suit and thought miserably

of the way she wanted to look: exotic and beautiful.

Mysterious, maybe.

Heroines in novels were always mysterious, always able

to bewitch the hero with their enigmatic gazes and their

captivating beauty. Like Vanessa in Passionate Fury. A

French TV journalist, she was secretly a Russian princess

but had hidden it from everybody for years.

Her background gave her an air of mystery which

couldn’t be breached - until tough war reporter Dirk came

on the scene. Hard-bitten, battle-scarred and wickedly

handsome, he’d fallen in love with the intriguing Vanessa.

Evie sat at her dressing table wearing her unbuttoned

black cardigan and tried to imagine what it would be like

to be a mysterious and enigmatic Russian princess disguised

as a French journalist. She wrapped the cardigan

around her so that it left her shoulders and neck bare,

pulled the hand from her plait and shook her head so her

hair cascaded around her shoulders and entered her dream

world …

‘Why won’t you tell me everything?’ Dirk said hoarsely,

drinking in Evie’s beauty as she stood before him, half-clad in the delicate nightgown that outlined her slim shape against the room’s many soft lights. ‘You’re keeping it a secret from me

and I must know. I must know everything.’

She stifled a sob, one hand touching her beautiful face,

instinctively hiding the faded scar that ran from one arched

eyebrow into her ebony hairline.

I can’t, Dirk. You’ve got to understand - I buried the past

in Russia, I can’t drag it up again. I’ve tried so hard to forget.’

‘Dammit, don’t block me out,’ he growled, losing patience.

In one long stride he was beside her, pulling her against his

strong, muscular body. He was taut, like a coiled spring ready

to unwind in one fierce movement.

His face was beside hers, those fierce blue eyes burning into

her hazel ones with a passion she’d never seen before.

I lis skin was warm and Evie remembered how it had felt to

feel his arms roaming over her naked body, bringing her to

pleasures she’d never dreamed about. But still she couldn’t tell him. He’d kill those men for what they’d done to her if he

knew. He’d find them and kill them and she loved him too

much to let him even try. It was better that she left his life, crept away silently in the night as if she’d never been there,

never loved him.

‘Tell me,’ he breathed, ‘tell me …’

She weakened with his arms around her. ‘Oh, Dirk, I want

to explain but it’s not easy,’ she faltered, breathing in the male scent of him because she knew that after tonight she’d never

see him again.

Then she looked up at him, looked into his eyes, lost herself

in their azure depths. ‘Make love to me, Dirk,’ she said simply.

She let the nightgown slip from her shoulders and felt his

mouth fasten on hers, almost brutal in his eagerness to kiss

her …

‘Mum, Olivia’s going.’ Rosie’s clear voice called up the

stairs and penetrated Evie’s fantasy world.

‘I’m coming,’ she called hack. A pale-faced woman with

her hair a straggly mess stared back at her from the mirror.

Boring, conservative Evie, not the enigmatic woman who

could make tough Dirk throb with passion at her very

touch.

The boring Evie buttoned up her cardigan, scraped her

hair back into a ponytail with unnecessary viciousness and

went downstairs.

Olivia - anxious to get home because after an entire

six hours minding Sasha, Stephen would be looking at his

watch impatiently - was standing in the hall with her

coat on.

Rosie was telling Olivia about the jacket she had her eye

on in Miss Selfridge. ‘It’s fantastic A fake pony skin long

jacket in chocolate brown. My friend Charlotte has these

brown PVC trousers I can borrow and I’ve got a taupe

chiffon top for underneath.’

‘For the wedding?’ asked Evie, not sure if she liked the

idea of fake pony skin and fake leather as a wedding

ensemble.

‘Relax, Mum, it’ll be cool,’ Rosie said blithely. ‘Cara’s

seen the jacket and she thinks it’s delicious.’

‘Your aunt’s taste leaves a lot to be desired,’ Evie said, a

bite to her voice. ‘Lord knows what she’s going to wear.’

She was still angry with her sister over what Cara had

said about the wedding. Angry and terribly hurt. Even if

Evie had shamefacedly to admit it was true, that didn’t

mean she wanted to be told she was spoilt and jealous.

After three days of suspended hostilities over Christmas,

Cara had finally lost her temper the afternoon before she

was due to return home and had vented her anger on Evie.

‘You haven’t said two words to Dad today,’ she’d

snapped, flinging dishes into the washing-up water with

blatant disregard for breakages. ‘And as for poor Vida …

If you weren’t going to talk to her at lunch, you should

have just driven home to Dublin and left us to it. It was

so rude to sit like that in silence, like a bloody spectre at

the feast!’

‘Be quiet!’ hissed a startled Evie, nearly dropping the

drying up towel. ‘They’ll hear us.’ Her father, Vida and two

neighbours who’d been invited in for lunch, had retreated

to the cosy living room with Rosie circling and doling out

the second pot of coffee.

Cara aimed a wooden spoon at the sink and fired it in,

suds going everywhere. ‘Who cares if they hear us? They’d

want to have been blind and deaf not to have noticed you

sitting in icy silence during lunch. Would you like some gravy, Erne? No. Got all your plans made for your big day, Evie? Yes. Talk about Ms Chatty! I don’t know why you don’t get flash cards made so you don’t have to actually