At the bar, she asked for a white wine spritzer, and was just about to take her first sip when someone touched her shoulder.
She started violently, sending half the contents of her glass sloshing over the hated silver dress, and turned, half in hope, half in dread.
‘Cory?’ It was Shelley Bennet, an old schoolfriend, who now worked full time for the charity. ‘I’ve been looking all over the place for you. I’d begun to think you’d chickened out.’
Cory sighed, mopping at herself with a minute lace hanky. ‘No such luck. Gramps was adamant.’
‘But surely you haven’t come on your own?’ Shelley’s frown was concerned.
‘My partner’s over there, taking a well-deserved break,’ Cory said drily. ‘I may have broken his toe.’ She hesitated. ‘Shelley, when you were in the ballroom just now, did you notice a man?’
‘Dozens,’ Shelley said promptly. ‘They tended to be dancing with women in long frocks. Strange behaviour at a ball, don’t you think?’
‘Well, this one seemed to be on his own. And he didn’t look as if dancing was a major priority.’
Ravishment, maybe, she thought, and looting, with a spot of pillage thrown in.
Shelley’s eyes glinted. ‘You interest me strangely. Where did you see him?’
‘He was up on the balcony.’ Cory gave a slight frown. ‘Usually you know exactly who’s going to be at this kind of occasion, yet he was a total stranger. I’ve never seen him before.’
‘Well, he seems to have made quite an impression,’ Shelley said with affectionate amusement. ‘You look marginally human for a change, my lamb, rather than as if you’d been carved out of stone.’
‘Don’t be silly,’ Cory said with dignity.
Shelley’s eyes danced. ‘How much to look down the guest list and supply you with a name, if not a phone number?’
‘It’s not like that,’ Cory protested. ‘It’s just such a novelty to see a new face at these things.’
‘I can’t argue with that.’ Shelley gave her a shrewd look. ‘Was it a nice new face?’
‘No, I can’t say that. Not nice, precisely.’ Cory shook her head. Not ‘nice’ at all. ‘But—interesting.’
‘In that case I shall definitely be reviewing the guest list.’ Shelley slipped an arm through her friend’s. ‘Come on, love. Point him out to me.’
But the tall stranger had vanished. And, but for the empty champagne glass on the balustrade in front of where he’d been standing, Cory would have decided he was simply a figment of her imagination.
‘Snapped up by some predatory woman, I expect,’ Shelley said with a sigh. ‘Unless he took a good look at the evening’s entertainment potential and decided that charity begins at home.’
Actually, he was taking a good look at me, Cory thought, rather forlornly. And probably writing me off as some sad, needy reject.
Aloud, she said briskly, ‘Not a bad idea, either.’
She hailed a lurking waiter, and wrote a brief note of excuse to Philip on his order pad. ‘Would you see that Mr Hamilton gets this, please? He’s at the corner table in the cocktail bar.’
Shelley regarded her darkly. ‘Are you running out on me, too—friend?’
‘’Fraid so,’ Cory told her cheerfully. ‘I’ve put in an appearance, so my duty’s done and Gramps will be mollified.’
‘Until the next time,’ Shelley added drily. She paused. ‘And what about your escort?’
‘He’s done his duty, too.’ Cory smiled reassuringly. ‘And I’d hate to have to fight off a token pass on the way home.’
‘Maybe it wouldn’t be token,’ said Shelley. She was silent for a moment. ‘Love, you aren’t still tied up over that prat Rob, are you? You haven’t let him ruin things for anyone else you might meet?’
‘I never give him a thought,’ Cory said, resisting an impulse to cross her fingers. ‘And even if I believed in Mr Right, I can tell you now that Philip doesn’t measure up.’
Shelley’s eyes gleamed. ‘Then why not opt for some good, unclean fun with Mr Wrong?’
For a brief moment Cory remembered a raised glass, and a slanting smile, and felt her heart thump all over again.
She said lightly, ‘Not really my scene. The single life is safer.’
Shelley sighed. ‘If not positively dull. Well, go home, if you must. I’ll ring you tomorrow and we’ll fix up supper and a movie. The new Nicolas Cage looks good.’
‘I had no real objection to the old Nicholas Cage,’ said Cory. She gave Shelley a brief kiss on the cheek, and went.
The cab driver was the uncommunicative sort, which suited Cory perfectly.
She sat in the corner of the seat, feeling the tensions of the evening slowly seeping away.
She needed to be much firmer with Gramps, she told herself. Stop him arranging these dates from hell for her. Because she’d laughed off Philip’s bad manners, and ducked the situation, that didn’t mean she hadn’t found the whole thing hurtful.
He’d left her standing around looking stupid, and vulnerable to patronage by some stranger who thought he was Mr Charm.
A hanging offence in more enlightened times, she told herself, as she paid off the cab and went into her building.
One disadvantage of living alone was having no one to discuss the evening with, she thought wryly, as she hung her coat in the wardrobe.
She could always telephone her mother, currently pursuing merry widowhood in Miami, but she’d probably find Sonia absorbed in her daily bridge game. And Gramps would only want to hear that she’d had a good time, so she’d have to fabricate something before she saw him next.
Maybe I’ll get a cat, she thought. The final affirmation of spinsterhood. Which at twenty-three was ridiculous.
Perhaps I should change my name to Tina, she thought. There Is No Alternative.
She carefully removed the silver dress, and placed it over a chair. She’d have it cleaned, she decided, and send it to tonight’s charity’s second-hand shop. It would do more good there than it had while she’d been wearing it. Or had it really been wearing her?
Moot point, she thought, reaching for her moss-green velvet robe. And paused…
She rarely looked at herself in the mirror, except when she washed her face or brushed her hair, but now she found she was subjecting herself to a prolonged and critical scrutiny.
The silver-grey silk and lace undies she wore concealed very little from her searching gaze, so no false comfort there.
Her breasts were high and firm, but too small, she thought disparagingly. Everywhere else she was as flat as a board. At least her legs were long, but there were deep hollows at the base of her neck, and her shoulderblades could slice bread.
No wonder her blonde, glamorous mother, whose finely honed figure was unashamedly female, had tended to view her as if she’d given birth to a giraffe.
I’m just like Dad and Gramps, she acknowledged with a sigh. And if I’d only been a boy I’d have been glad of it.
She put on her robe and zipped it up, welcoming its warm embrace.
She dabbed cleanser on to her face, and tissued away the small amount of make-up which was all she ever wore. A touch of shadow on her lids, a glow of pink or coral on her soft mouth, and a coat of brown mascara to emphasise the curling length of the