from the same stretchy material as the shorts, and they just hold the breasts in place, they don’t cut off lung capacity. You’re smallish, so I think we can dispense with a bra. How does it feel?’
Liv looked down her body. The gown was not so different to what she had been wearing, it was drawn in under the breast and fell to below her knees in flattering folds. Although incredibly thin, the fabric was not transparent, so her modesty was retained. And, if she puckered the fabric just so across her chest, the outline of her nipples was hidden.
‘Now for your hair. Sit.’ Jane could be quite bossy Liv had noticed. But she did as she was told, wordlessly. In moments, Jane had her hair free, and she had gone to the bathroom for a brush. She ran the brush through her waist long curls and smiled.
‘This is so pretty. You’re a real honey blonde. Pity the curls will have to go when you start getting out. Fashion dictates that your hair must be straight. You can braid it down your back, if you like, but mostly women wear it loose. Mine is curly like yours, and Julio hates me straightening it. He likes to wind the tendrils around his fingers in bed.’
This was more information than Liv needed, and she blushed at the image of the golden princess before her, and the dark prince she had seen on her arrival, lying together, him playing with a piece of that bright, coppery hair. It was too intimate an image, and she turned her thoughts away.
‘Slip off those slippers. We go barefoot inside and wear sandals, again unisex – ummm males and females wear the same sandals – outside. If you get cold, there’s a stola of a slightly thicker weave you can throw around your shoulders. But I’ve never used one in the three years I’ve been here.’
Liv stood up, and looked down at herself. It felt indecent to have her ankles and calves on display in this manner. And to go bare foot seemed even worse. But she couldn’t deny the pleasure walking on the soft rug with her bare feet gave her. She wriggled her toes into the deep pile.
‘Come look,’ Jane ordered, leading her to the door that led to the bathroom. Once inside, the light illuminated the mirrored image of her. She looked beautiful! Not as beautiful as the young woman at her side, but far more beautiful than she had looked in her morning dress of pale blue water-silk, her hair worked tightly into ringlets in an attempt to soften the lines of her long face.
The glossy waves of hair, which now covered her shoulders, looked lovely, and seemed to frame her face perfectly, without artifice. She looked soft and feminine, in a way she could not remember ever looking before.
‘Rene is going to be gaga when he sees you. Julio will finally get what I’ve been trying to tell him in the last few months.’
‘What is that?’
‘That Rene has eyes for nobody but you.’
CHAPTER TEN
When the women entered the living room, Julio and Rene both looked up. Rene felt a queer shudder in his chest, and the quick glance Julio sent his way, alerted him to the fact that he had uttered a soft gasp. He didn’t care. Just looking at the vision coming towards him was all that mattered.
He had known she was pretty. He’d called her beautiful when he saw her again that morning at Foxmoor Manor. But that was not true beauty: hair bound and tortured into unnatural ringlets, body covered and bound by yards of thick fabric that hid ever line and curve of its lush shape.
No, this was beauty – white gown revealing the outline of her body, thick mantle of honey-gold hair surrounding her lovely face with natural curls, cheeks flushed pink, big brown eyes shining. She took his breath away.
‘Querida, have you been playing Pygmalion? Who is this vision of loveliness?’ Julio said with a smug grin, looking backward and forward between Rene and Liv.
‘All I did was make it possible for her to breathe. The rest is courtesy of New Atlantis and nature.’
Rene walked across the room, and took Liv’s hands. He had changed into a tunic himself, and felt better for it. He’d even clippered his hair short, leaving the shock of hair at the front long, so that it could fall forward over his forehead. He and Julio had the same raven black