Marriage Without Love & More Than a Convenient Marriage(44)

Kieron hadn’t looked at Briony, and she had been astounded when as they were getting in the car, he had pulled her back against him, feathering a lazily explorative kiss along the curve of her throat, before turning her into his arms and kissing her properly. But then she had remembered that Marian was watching them and guessed that the embrace was for her benefit. Unless—and she shivered to think about it—he had already begun his hunt for the woman he claimed she was concealing.

‘What do you think of that bikini?’ Marian asked, drawing Briony’s attention to a brief bandeau top of emerald green silk and minute briefs that tied in bows over the hips.

‘It’s outrageous,’ Briony said frankly. ‘And so is the price.’ Marian laughed. ‘It’ll suit you. Let’s go in and we can see how it looks on.’

It was useless for Briony to protest; Marian intended to have her own way. The bikini was purchased, despite Briony’s scandalised protests, and so were a pair of skimpy matching shorts and a soft green and white striped toning tee-shirt.

‘Have you brought anything special with you for evening?’ Marian asked her later. ‘Kieron is bound to take you to one of the casinos and although anything goes during the daytime, in the evening, especially in the casinos, high fashion is very much the order of things.’

Briony had packed a couple of cotton dresses, her swimwear, jeans, tee-shirts and one thin jacket for chilly evenings, but there had been no time to think further than that. However, she had no intention of allowing Marian to spend any more money on her and said so quite firmly.

The older woman’s eyebrows rose.

‘My dear, I’d love to spend some money on you—I have far too much of the stuff—but your husband seems to share your views and I have strict instructions that all the bills are to be handed to him and that you’re not to be allowed to count the cost. His own words. I’m so happy for him, Briony,’ she went on. ‘There was a time when I thought I’d never see him smile again. You know, you aren’t a bit as I imagined,’ she added, going off at a tangent. ‘Let him spend his money on you if it gives him pleasure. You’re lucky, you know, so many husbands won’t.’

Having elicited the information that Briony didn’t have anything dressy with her, she took her to a small boutique in a shady courtyard filled with pots of geraniums tumbling over the grey stone in scarlet-orange splendour.

Madame was elegantly and chicly dressed in black. Marian said something to her in French and she clicked her tongue, assessing Briony with snapping black eyes.

‘Well, madame,’ she said at last in heavily accented English, ‘do you wish to be une grande madame; une coquette, or une fille bien élevée—with such hair and eyes all are possible.’

‘What she wants,’ Marian interrupted, ‘is a dress très romantique, for a husband from whom she has been parted for three years.’

Briony was just about to correct these misconceptions when the vendeuse rolled her eyes and said dryly,

‘Ma foi, what you ask for is impossible! You wish to be all three!’

Marian laughed. ‘And you will have the dress to enable her to do so, am I not right?’

The black eyes twinkled. ‘Perhaps. Sit down, madame,’ she instructed a bemused Briony, ‘and I shall see what I can find.’

She was gone fifteen minutes, during which time Briony tried several times to question Marian about what she had said to her, but each time her nerve failed. And then, when they heard her footsteps returning to the salon, Marian said quietly, ‘We shall talk later if you wish, Briony. I told myself before you arrived that I would accept you, for Kieron’s sake, but I find already that I’m beginning to love you for your own, and I’m sure.…’

She broke off as the door opened, Briony’s eyes widening appreciatively at the dress the vendeuse carried over her arm. In black paper taffeta, the full skirt billowed out over net petticoats and the top was little more than a brief backless shell, moulding her breasts.

‘Try it on,’ Marian urged her, watching her face.

The taffeta rustled pleasantly against her skin, the stark colour emphasising her pale, creamy skin and the vivid intensity of her hair.

When she stepped rather hesitantly out of changing cubicle to show Marian, the older woman caught her breath in delight.

‘Oh, my dear!’ she exclaimed softly, ‘you look quite ravishing!’

‘If I may suggest an ebony comb studded with diamanté, to catch Madame’s hair back so,’ interposed the vendeuse, pulling back Briony’s hair deftly. ‘Or even satin flowers…?’