Proper English

by K.J. Charles

Jimmy was with them, looking as if he’d been squeezed into his evening dress, and on his arm was the loveliest girl Pat had ever seen. Miss Fenella Carruth was irresistible. She had brown hair that the candlelight picked out in glints of copper, bronze, and gold, and big sparkling pansy-brown eyes in a heart-shaped face made for laughter. She wore a gown that even Pat could tell was desperately fashionable and which had obviously been tailored to display a delightfully plump figure to its best advantage without squeezing her into a wasp waist, a task to which no whalebone could have been equal. The gown, of a soft pink, was adorned with a profusion of bows and lace that would have looked absurd on Pat and suited Miss Carruth to perfection. She had plenty of bosom on display, and plenty of jewellery on it, a three-stringed necklace of rose-coloured stones that glittered over her fair skin. Her hair was beautifully dressed in artful ringlets, her rounded arms were adorned by bracelets; she looked like the kind of woman that angular, plain Pat could never have been, and had never particularly wanted to be. She’d never aspired to turn heads; she truly didn’t think she was jealous of those who did.