Some Sort Of Spell

The telephone rang just as she finished putting away her shopping. She picked it up wearily, tensing as she heard Elliott’s clipped tones.

‘Are you due out anywhere this afternoon?’ he demanded crisply.

‘No.’ Cursing herself for telling him the truth, she asked warily, ‘Why?’

‘I’ve arranged for someone to come round. She used to be my nanny before your mother married my father. She’s been living in semi-retirement for some time, but she’s agreed to see you.’

‘She’s agreed to come round and see me?’ Beatrice was both ragingly angry and baffled. How dare Elliott make these sort of high-handed arrangements without discussing them with her first! What was he playing at?

‘Thank you, Elliott,’ she responded with a crispness that nearly rivalled his own, ‘but unfortunately I have no need of a nanny right now!’

‘Unfortunately?’ She heard him chuckle. ‘If that’s really what you think, the situation could soon be remedied, Bea.’

The laughter threading through the words, the picture immediately conjured up by his mocking comment momentarily stunned her as she fought against the refined cruelty of his words. Surely a man like Elliott, a connoisseur of women if all she heard about him was true, must see how remote was the possibility of her ever having her own child or children. He might not know in all its detail the paucity of her love life, but she suspected he had a pretty good idea. She might not actually be the only twenty-seven-year-old virgin in the western hemisphere, but there were times when it felt suspiciously like it.

And it wasn’t even by choice, she thought indignantly. She’d like to have seen him trying to conduct a passionate affair surrounded by four inquisitive and highly interested younger siblings!

‘Come on, Bea, the thought of being a mother can’t be that shocking, although to be honest with you that wasn’t exactly what I had in mind.’

No, she could just imagine it wasn’t, Beatrice thought bitterly.

‘Then perhaps you’d be kind enough to explain exactly why this… this person is coming to see me,’ she demanded in frigid accents.

He laughed again, the disembodied sound making her shiver disturbingly.

‘Now, Bea,’ he chided, ‘don’t go all Sarah Siddons on me, it doesn’t suit you. I approached Henrietta to see if she’d be prepared to take over the post vacated by Mrs Meadows.’

‘Thank you, Elliott,’ Beatrice responded again with awful calm, once she had recovered from her shock, ‘but I think I’m perfectly capable of finding my own housekeeper.’

‘Oh, any number of them,’ Elliott agreed affably. ‘But finding them isn’t the problem, is it? And besides,’ he continued after allowing a telling pause for his comment to sink in, ‘I don’t think it’s a housekeeper so much that you need. Someone more along the lines of a warden from one of Her Majesty’s prisons would be more like it,’ he continued reflectively, ‘or perhaps an ex-public-school matron…’

As she slammed the phone down on him, she was sure she could hear him laughing.

Odious… horrible… detestable, interfering man! she raged, scrubbing the kitchen table with a sudden upsurge of vigour; and if he thought for one moment that she would seriously entertain employing his ex-nanny…

An hour later, feeling rather bemused, Beatrice had the suspicion that the boot was rather on the other foot.

Henrietta, as her visitor firmly informed her she wished to be addressed, appeared to be a martinet of the old school, who, as she told a dazed Beatrice, was very particular about those for whom she worked.

‘Of course, when Master Elliott asked me to consider coming to work for you…’ She paused, but the expression on her face was a revelation to Beatrice. ‘Such a delightful little boy he was! But you have rather a large household here,’ she continued briskly.

‘Yes… but… Well, what we need is a housekeeper rather than a nanny,’ Beatrice told her as gently as she could. Against her will she had found herself drawn to this small upright woman with her plain face and forthright views.

‘Oh yes, I know that, but when I was first a nursery maid they taught us properly, housework included, although I’m only a plain cook. To be honest with you, looking after small children is too much for me these days; I get a touch of rheumatism in the winter and I can’t run after them the way I once could.

‘Three brothers and a sister you’ve got, so Master Elliott said…’

Her decision had nothing to do with Elliott at all, Beatrice told herself defensively later; it was the appeal in those words, the faint wistfulness in the other woman’s smile, and her own imagination as she compared the empty lonely life that had unwittingly been described to her with the hustle and bustle of her own.

It was perhaps just as well that she didn’t see the light in her new employee’s eyes as she walked briskly down the road.

If there was one thing she liked, Henrietta Parker reflected happily as she went home, it was a challenge. That dear boy Elliott had been quite right. She was far too young and active to retire. The Bellaire clan was exactly what she needed.

Totally unaware of what she was unleashing on her family, Beatrice started her preparations for their supper.

Mirry’s dress, washed and ironed, hung upstairs in her room. All the bathrooms had been cleaned and supplied with fresh towels. The discarded clothes she had found in every room but Elliott’s had been washed and put back in their rightful places.

She had noticed that Lucilla’s clothes were still in her room, so presumably she had not yet made up her mind about leaving. If Elliott must meddle in their affairs, why couldn’t he confine his meddling to where it was most needed? Beatrice thought waspishly. In other words, why couldn’t he confine it to his own half-sister?

Mirry was the first to arrive home, lifting an eyebrow when she saw her elder sister’s untidy state.

‘You’re going to have to get your skates on if you’re going to be ready for Elliott.’

Turning away so that Mirry wouldn’t see the slow burn of anger reddening her skin, Beatrice said as calmly as she could, ‘Oh, that’s all off now.’

‘I suppose he only wanted to talk to you about paying you rent or some such thing while he’s living here. On the way to town this morning he asked me how much we pay,’ she added, munching an apple she had picked out of the fruit bowl, her eyebrows lifting expressively. ‘Honestly, as if we pay anything!’

Beatrice refrained from pointing out that although she only had her grant both Benedict and Sebastian were now earning reasonable amounts of money, certainly enough to buy themselves new and definitely sporty-looking cars, and in Benedict’s case a wardrobe full of new clothes.

Was that why Elliott wanted to take her out? Until that moment she had not got round to thinking much about any possible motive, being too incensed over his high-handed announcement of his intention.

That being the case, and knowing that the last thing she wanted to do was to spend an evening with him, she couldn’t understand the small stab of disappointment deep inside her.

She was still in the kitchen preparing vegetables for the evening meal when Elliott came in.

‘Well, Cinders, not ready yet?’ he commented as he walked into the kitchen and put down his briefcase.

As always whenever she was with him Beatrice immediately became aware of a prickly defensiveness coupled with an intense awareness of him.

‘I’m not going out with you, Elliott,’ she told him angrily.

‘Oh yes, you are.’ She could see him looking at her stubborn closed face, and her working clothes.

‘You know,’ he said softly, ‘I’m quite prepared to take you dressed like that. It won’t be quite what the other female guests are wearing, but if you’re not worried about that, then I’m certainly not. You’ll definitely stand out—but then isn’t that what a Bellaire likes?’

Too many thoughts crowded into her brain at once, and she could only stare furiously at him.

‘Temper, temper!’ he chided her gently, tapping her cheek with one long forefinger, and then casually picking up a piece of carrot and chewing it.

Anger exploded inside her, filling her with heat, enveloping her like a dark red mist, the force of it making her tremble.

‘I am not going out with you, Elliott.’

‘Oh yes, you are.’ All at once his easy calmness dropped away, revealing a grim determination powerful enough to alarm her. He placed his hands either side of her on the table, imprisoning her against him, standing so close to her that she could almost feel his body heat. ‘You’re coming out with me tonight, whatever it takes to get you there, and that includes taking you upstairs and physically stripping and re-dressing you myself. I might enjoy that experience, but I doubt that you would. How many men have seen you naked, Beatrice?’ he demanded softly, watching the betraying tremble of her mouth with pitiless eyes.

What was more frightening than his threat was the ease with which her brain conjured up a mental picture of what he had threatened. She trembled, her eyes darkening in a bewilderment that he registered as she sought to suppress the shockingly intimate picture of herself like that in his arms…

‘I…’

‘What’s the matter?’ he goaded softly. ‘Does the thought of being with a man frighten you so much that it renders you speechless? Or is it the fact that it’s never happened at all?’ he probed cruelly.

All at once her control broke. ‘Stop it!’ she moaned frantically, covering her face with her hands. ‘I…’

‘I mean what I’m saying, Beatrice,’ he told her warningly. ‘Either you go upstairs now and get ready to come out with me, or I do it for you.’

She let her hands drop and looked into his eyes and knew that he meant every single word he said.

As he stepped away from her she felt so shaky that she could barely stand up. She had to do what he said; she had no alternative. Her bruised mind had trouble in accepting the awful reality of it.

Somehow she made it to her room. She was standing in front of her wardrobe, surveying its contents in dazed shock, when the door opened.

For a moment she thought it was Elliott come to enforce his threat and she froze, but when she turned round she saw that it was only Mirry, who now stood just inside the door, surveying her with a frowningly critical intensity.

‘Elliott sent me up to help you find something to wear.’

Almost defensively Beatrice was already reaching for her black velvet, but Mirry whipped it from her, frowning horribly.

‘No, not that. It makes you look like a middle-aged spinster, if such a thing still exists.’

‘But it’s all I’ve got.’

‘Mm…’ Still frowning, Mirry said, ‘Hang on, I won’t be a minute.’

She was back in less than five carrying a clear perspex box; inside it was something in brilliant jade-green satin.

‘I filched this from Lucilla’s room. Don’t worry,’ she chided as she saw Beatrice’s worried expression. ‘She won’t even notice it’s gone. It’s one of her mistakes, but it’ll look great on you. Look…’

Beatrice felt her eyes rounding in appalled despair as Mirry shook out the rich fabric.

It was a blouse, only a blouse like none that she would ever dream of wearing. It had a demure collar and three-quarter dolman sleeves, but its sole fastening was two long ties at the front that apparently knotted in a large bow. Beatrice stared at it with horrified and fascinated eyes, wondering how Mirry ever thought she would be able to wear an article like that that quite plainly needed to be worn without a bra.

‘I can’t wear that,’ she said wildly at last. ‘It’s… it’s… It would be indecent!’

‘Rubbish, you’d look stunning in it,’ Mirry corrected firmly. ‘It looked ridiculous on Lucilla; she’s far too flat-chested.’

‘I can’t wear it. It would mean going without a bra…’

‘So?’ countered Mirry, eyeing her judiciously. ‘Come on, Bea, you’ve got exactly the right sort of figure for it. Catch me hiding away my main assets, if I had a figure like yours!’ she added teasingly, watching the flush of colour come and go in Beatrice’s pale face. ‘Look, it isn’t that shocking once it’s on,’ she told her, taking pity on her. ‘Just try it and see.’

‘I haven’t got anything I could wear with it.’ For which she was eternally grateful, Beatrice thought fervently, recognising the light of determination in her sister’s eyes.

‘Of course you have,’ said Mirry. ‘There’s that black silk skirt.’

Beatrice frowned and then remembered. The skirt belonged to a two-piece she had bought on impulse in the sales, and then discarded, feeling that the vivid cerise and black top really did nothing for her.

The skirt in question was short and fitted her perfectly… too perfectly, she thought despairingly now, knowing that once Mirry got the bit between her teeth, so to speak, she would not let go. One look at her sister’s determined, vivid face told her that as far as Mirry was concerned her elder sister’s transformation into someone fit to be taken out by a man of Elliott’s discrimination was becoming a cross between a challenge and a vocation.

‘Trust me,’ Mirry pleaded now, confirming her thoughts. ‘After all, it is my job, and you can’t possibly go out with Elliott wearing that ghastly velvet rag.’

Somehow or other, mainly due to the threat of Elliott being called upstairs to give his view on Mirry’s chosen outfit, Beatrice allowed herself to be bullied into ‘just trying it on’.

This took some time longer than envisaged, due to the fact that Mirry insisted on running back to her own room to find a pair of sheer black tights, essential with the silk skirt, so she assured Beatrice. Beatrice had never worn black tights in her life; she always stuck to brown.

Rather grudgingly, Mirry agreed that she could wear her faithful black satin pumps, and somehow Beatrice found that she had allowed herself to be chivvied into her sister’s chosen outfit.

Mirry wouldn’t let her look at herself in the mirror until she had everything on. She grinned when Beatrice rather blushingly agreed to remove her bra.

‘Honestly, Bea,’ she teased, ‘I’m your sister, not some rampant male intent on having his wicked way with you! Don’t worry so much. It’s not as though Elliott has designs on you either, but we want him to be proud of you, don’t we? You’re not doing this for yourself,’ she added with mock gravity. ‘Think instead that you’re doing it for the family.’ She assumed a soulful expression, and then spoiled the whole effect by giggling.

‘You know, you do have a really sizzling figure. You shouldn’t cover it up so much with those awful bulky sweatshirts and things.’

She tied the satin blouse in the requisite bow as she finished speaking and then gently turned Bea to face the mirror.

‘There,’ she said softly. ‘Now you can look.’

Bea didn’t know if she dared, but at last she plucked up her courage and studied her reflection.

Her legs in their black tights looked unfamiliarly slender, her ankles almost fragilely narrow. The skirt, rather too faithfully for her taste, followed the curvy outline of her hips, narrowing into her waist. The blouse… She could feel heat scorching her skin as she saw what the blouse did to her body.

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