On her way up the stairs, Anastasia deliberately stopped to stare at her mother’s image. It was bravado. A challenge.
“I’m not going to feel guilty any more, Mom,” she whispered. “Thanks to David, I’ve lost the fight to not be like you. I might as well enjoy it now. At least until he’s out of my life.”
Slowly she moved down the gallery. The first door on the right was a large double one, closed against entry as always. Her father’s room. Her parents’ room, she amended.
And for the first time in her life she opened the door uninvited and stepped inside. Without pausing, she crossed the large Bokhara rugs, their faded jewel colors glowing in the late afternoon sun, to the wall of mirrors. They were actually a bank of sliding doors that disguised the entrance to the en suite, dressing room and huge walk-in wardrobe.
The wardrobe had been custom designed to her mother’s specifications and still housed all Katherine’s many evening gowns and exotic dresses. Another testament to her father’s inability to release his bitterness, Anastasia thought, sliding aside the door that led into the wardrobe.
Knowing that, unconsciously, it was what she had intended to do all along, Anastasia crossed to the racks of dresses and slowly, lovingly, begun to go through them all. Despite their age, the dresses were in pristine condition. They had remained virtually in stasis since her mother’s death and their exotic, flamboyant designs were so far outside fashionable dictates that they were timeless and undated, even twenty years later.
She came across the black lace ball gown almost immediately and her fingers paused on the coat hanger. A Spanish flamenco dress, with black lace and layers of flounces and frills that trailed down from the top of the calf to a train that stretched eighteen inches across the floor. It was lined in a deep dark red like the color of the rose called “Black velvet”, so each step taken caught the eye with a flash of color. There was even a beautiful lace mantilla to match. Her heart began to beat a little harder at the sight of it.
Carmencita.
She shoved the dress back on the rack and hurriedly pushed more dresses across to examine. She would not dare wear a dress that made so obvious a statement. David would misconstrue it entirely.
But even as she continued her inspection of the other wonderful creations, her mind was circling back to the flamenco dress, drawn like a magnet to the perfect statement it made and the beauty of the dress itself.
Reluctantly she went back to the place where she had rehung the dress, pulled it out and studied it.
The dress would cling to waist and hip and down the length of her thigh. The low neck was edged in fragile lace scallops, which softened the décolletage. The back plunged. She guessed it would reach past her waist. The curve echoed the shape of the train and over the small of the back, just beneath the plunging back line, were lace and silk roses, black and the same dark burgundy red as the lining. The long tight sleeves came to a point over the back of the hand and they were sheer, with no modest lining.
Why not? Anastasia thought. Carmen loved and walked away from that love. And David had called her Carmencita—that first night, on the bridge.
But…to actually wear her mother’s dress?
Finally, Anastasia did what she had been doing all day. She listened to her heart.
The dress fitted perfectly.
Anastasia looked at herself in the cheval glass in her room, two hours later, frightened at her own daring. The fact that the dress fitted her so accurately was one more mute testimony to the resemblance between mother and daughter.
She swivelled on her stilettos, turning so she could see her back. The train turned with her, wrapping around her in an elegant sweep. She touched the woven chignon at the back of her head, unaccustomed to the weight of her hair being centered so low. This time she had followed the style of the dress through. She had accentuated her eyes with kohl and mascara, although she could do nothing about the color of her eyes. They were blue-green tonight and nothing could turn them a proper Spanish black. Her lips were red to match the red in the dress, full and glossy, making her teeth very white in contrast.
With the chignon and the deep red roses she had picked from the greenhouse an hour earlier pushed into her hair, the style would be complete.
Benitta had found her when she had been cutting the full-blown roses. “Hugh is on the phone. He’s worried about you.”
“I left a message with my secretary,” she said over her shoulder, concentrating on reaching the last rose she wanted and not scraping her hands on any thorns.
“He got it. He’s still worried.”
She straightened. “Tell him not to worry. I’m all right. I’ll see him at the ball.”
“You could tell him that yourself,” Benitta said.
She shook her head. “I don’t want to talk to him right now.”
Benitta had studied her for a minute, then walked away.
She had tapped on Anastasia’s door a little later, just as she had picked up the gown in trembling fingers, preparing to slide into it.
“We’re sorting out transport for the night, Anna. Are you planning on coming into town with us?” Benitta asked through the door.
“I don’t know what my plans are, Benitta. I’ll take my own car.”
There had been no answering response.
Now, staring at herself in the mirror, Anastasia tried to scrape together the courage to go downstairs. It was time to leave. But the image in the mirror kept her immobile for a moment longer. It was her she could see there but the differences were subtle. Her image seemed more focused, clearer. More precise. And the dress made her feel the delicious abandonment she had been straining to capture all afternoon. The freedom to fly.
The red lips in the mirror curved into a smile. “Enjoy,” they told her.
Benitta was standing in the entrance hall as Anastasia walked down the stairs. Her aunt was ready and waiting to leave, a heavy overcoat over her elegant velvet ball gown. At the sound of Anastasia’s heels on the marble staircase, she turned around to watch her descend.
Benitta’s face underwent a shocking transformation. From pleasant expectation it shifted through surprise, to horror, to outright fear and anguish.
The reaction made Anastasia falter a little. Then she remembered her decision. For tonight at least, she was giving in to whatever impulses drove her.
Benitta spoke, in a low, hoarse whisper. “Mother of God, Anastasia! Are you mad?” She moved forward a pace, in a jerky fashion and shot a glance at the door that led to the drawing room. “He’s coming right now. Get it off. Now. Go. Before he sees you.”
She shook her head. “No, Auntie. Not tonight.”
Benitta actually began to wring her hands and the panicky motion fascinated Anastasia. “Please,” she moaned under her breath. “I know you must talk to each other. But not this way. Not this way…”
Anastasia caught a motion out of the corner of her eye and looked up. Her father stood at the doorway, staring at her. She gently squeezed Benitta’s hands, making them still. “Too late,” she said. With a deep breath, she stepped around Benitta and walked toward her father. “I’m leaving now. I’ll see you there, of course.”
“Where did you get that dress?”
She stopped in front of him and looked up. His face had drained of color, leaving a whey complexion and the startling murky blue eyes that glinted with the beginnings of anger. It was the first time Anastasia had recognized who she had inherited her chameleon eye coloring from. She had always read her father’s mood from the color of his eyes. Blue meant anger.
“You know where it came from, Dad.” She tried to still the trembling that had begun in her stomach and was rapidly spreading out to all her limbs.
His lips thinned into colorless, tight flesh. “How dare you…” he began and trailed off, apparently unable to find an appropriate description for her or her actions.
She swallowed. “I dare, because it’s time someone did. It’s way past time.” Her voice trembled too, despite her fight for control.
“Anastasia, no,” Benitta cried in a horrified whisper.
Her father’s throat worked convulsively. “You will go and change. Now.”
She shook her head. “No. I’m going to the ball. And I’m going in this dress. Mom’s memory should be loved and cherished. Not preserved in formaldehyde along with all the bitterness, like some sort of specimen, or object lesson to be held up before me every time I dare to let my self-discipline slacken.”
“You look like a whore,” he snapped, his voice a whiplash.
“Christopher!” Benitta moaned.
Anastasia tried to let the insult slide over her. “No, I don’t, Daddy. You’re angry at me and that’s why you say that.”
His nostrils flared as he breathed heavily, bringing his anger back under control. “You’re just like your mother.” His voice was toneless.
Anastasia nodded. “Yes, I am. And I’m tired of apologizing for it.” She turned away and picked up the black wool cape she had laid on the hall chair earlier and her car keys. “I’ll see you at the ball.”
She spared a glance at Benitta. Her aunt’s face was as colorless as her father’s. This was not the sort of confrontation she’d had in mind. Anastasia smiled at her, trying to reassure her, but Benitta’s expression didn’t change.
She slipped out of the door and crossed the gravel, heading for the garage. She held her train in one hand. She didn’t want it to drag just yet. The time for elegance to have priority was at the ball. She wanted to arrive in spotless, immaculate condition, so that her first appearance was unsullied. She knew David would be waiting for her.