Picture Perfect by Lilac Lacey Read Free Book Online Page A

declined I should report to her immediately.’ Apparently and correctly assuming that Annabel wouldn’t gainsay her mother, Laura took the cover off a lightly boiled egg which Annabel hadn’t noticed before and smartly
    sliced the top off it. No, Annabel thought, Laura’s true place wasn’t in the ballroom. With such orderly precision to her actions she belonged in the military.
    Soon the egg and toast and tea were all consumed and Annabel inwardly conceded that her mother was right; supper wouldn’t be served until very late so it was only common sense to face the long evening ahead with something inside her, and now she felt more than ready for her first foray into society.
    ‘ Will you be wearing your yellow silk dress?’ Laura enquired. After much consideration that morning, Annabel had finally decided which dress she should wear to her inaugural ball and had correspondingly despatched Mary to the market to buy jonquils for her hair, but suddenly she wondered, would vivid yellow silk, trimmed with bronze ribbons around the high waist and at the cuffs of the short, puffed sleeves be too bold for her first appearance? Then she thought of Madeline. Madeline, she knew, for her elder cousin had outlined in great detail on the carriage ride home yesterday what she would be wearing the following evening, would be dressed in a dark pink under dress, topped by an overdress of crimson gauze. She would present a vivid picture and Annabel would be presented right alongside her. This was no time to be discreet. She wanted to be noticed at her very first ball, not dismissed as one of many shy, new debutantes. Her yellow dress was bright enough to compete with Madeline’s pink and crimson, and the bronze ribbons would define it nicely, yet it was in a simpler style than Madeline’s attire and as such would accentuate the differences in their ages in her favour.
    She beamed at her maid. ‘Yes, Laura, the yellow dress, definitely.’
    Mrs Black did not believe in being fashionably late. Consequently dusk had just fallen when the two Black family carriages drew up outside Lockton House. ‘You’re looking splendid, m’dear,’ Colonel Black said as he handed his wife down from the carriage. Annabel thought she had never heard her father give her mother any other compliment, but the very familiarity of it helped calm her rapidly beating heart, and she gave her hand to Henry and leapt lightly down beside him, too
    impatient to descend with any more decorum. Beside them Uncle James assisted his wife and daughters down from their carriage and the Black party made their way inside.
    Although Madeline was not a newcomer to society, Colonel Black was senior to his brother and as such Annabel’s family was announced first. ‘Colonel Thomas Black, Mrs Judith Black and Miss Annabel Black.’ The footman’s voice rang out across the ballroom and Annabel felt a little shiver of anticipation run down her spine. She was here, at last, literally stepping over the brink into society. It was the moment she had been preparing for all her life, and finally it was here! She raised her head proudly and smiled in delight. Everything was just as she had dreamed it would be, the debutantes in their beautiful dresses, all the colours of flowers in the spring, the orchestra already playing softly at the far end of the room, and the gentlemen, young and handsome in their tailcoats or dress uniforms and looking ready to whirl the night away with her in their arms. Henry’s name was already pencilled in on the first slot on her dance card, but she was sure she would soon be dancing with far more exciting people than her own brother.
     
    For reasons of his own Jack Denham had arrived uncharacteristically early at the Lockton House ball. He had made a quick perusal of the gaming rooms, where he had resisted the entreaties of former comrades to join them at cards. He had glanced into the retiring rooms, still vacant at such and early hour and he had