Sweet Enchantress by Barbara Cartland

Author:Barbara Cartland
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781782136545
Publisher: Barbara Cartland Ebooks Ltd
Published: 2015-02-27T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER FOUR

It was two hours later when Madame Bertin flung open the door of the Saloon where the rest of the party were waiting for dinner. They were drinking, as they had been the whole evening.

The men had the inevitable Scotch at their elbows and Kate had a glass of champagne in her hand. She raised it now with a little glance to Chuck who was sitting on the arm of her chair.

“Now we shall see what we shall see,” she said with a little giggle. “May the best girl win.”

It was obvious that she had no doubts as to the outcome of the contest. It was hard for anyone looking at her to think that she could be eclipsed.

She wore a long skin-tight gown of silver sequins that made her look like a voluptuous mermaid. Every line and curve of her body was revealed and the dress was cut down to the waist at the back and was so low in the front that one could see the narrow valley between Kate’s pointed breasts.

Round her neck she wore diamonds and the same stones flashed in her ears. Her fair silvery hair fell in a big burnished wave onto her naked shoulders and her red pouting mouth matched her long fingernails.

She was lovely, sophisticated and a complete product of the modern age when every artifice is used to make a woman not only beautiful but a synthetic product of beauty.

“You are all here?” Madame Bertin asked from the doorway unnecessarily.

“You can see we are,” Kate replied.

“Come on, bring her in. We’re all waiting,” Victor said unsteadily.

“Allons y!” Madame Bertin cried. “Voila la beauté de Bertin.”

Zaria stood for a moment quite still, as Madame Bertin had instructed her to do. Although she was shy and frightened, she could not help hearing the sudden gasp, the indrawing of breath which to any woman means more than applause.

“Good God!”

It was Edie who spoke first and Zaria hardly heard him.

She was gazing across the room at Chuck, watching him rise slowly and almost incredulously to his feet and seeing the expression on his face.

Suddenly she felt wildly ecstatically happy.

“I wouldn’t have believed it! I wouldn’t have believed it!” Edie exclaimed, while it was left to Mr. Virdon to say in his quiet rather serious way,

“You’re a genius, Lulu. If I was never sure of it before, I am now.”

“Give me a drink, I deserve it,” Madame Bertin called out.

She held out her hand to Chuck, but he did not see her. He was handing a glass of champagne to Zaria.

She took it from him almost blindly and felt the colour coming into her cheeks.

She felt a tingling excitement go through her, a sudden knowledge that she was young and attractive and that Chuck was gazing at her.

“I think there is no need to drink your health,” he said softly. “Instead I shall drink to your future.”

“That is a surprisingly pretty speech,” Madame Bertin interrupted before Zaria could answer,

“Come along all of you, drink to Zaria’s future – the future to which I have shown her the right way.

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