Darcy's head came up like a wolf scenting sheep. 'More?'
'Yes, um, lighter-weight clothes and a couple of cocktail things I brought along in case-'
'Be right back.'
'Now you've done it.' Brenna spoke in dire tones as Darcy dashed out of the room. 'You'll never be rid of her now.' Setting her wine aside, she flipped open the buttons of her shirt. As a delighted squeal was emitted from the next room, Brenna rolled her eyes and tugged the sweater over her head.
'Oh, this is lovely.' Surprised by the pleasure the soft wool brought to her skin, Brenna got up to take a look in the mirror. 'The way it fits, it almost looks as if I have tits.'
'You have a wonderful figure.'
Though she'd never be accused of vanity, Brenna twisted and turned in the mirror. 'Be nice to have breasts, though. My sister Maureen got mine, I think. I should have had the breasts, by right as the oldest.'
'You need a decent bra,' Darcy claimed as she came back in a black cocktail dress and carrying a heap of clothes. 'Make use of what God gave you instead of letting it flop about. Jude, this dress is brilliant, but you really need to whack an inch or two off the hem.'
'I'm taller than you.'
'Hardly a bit. Here, put it on and let's have a look.'
'Well, I-' But Darcy was already wriggling out of it. Faced with a woman holding out a little black number while dressed in bra and panties, Jude took the dress. She took a deep gulp to swallow her modesty and stripped.
'I knew you had good legs,' Darcy said with a nod of approval. 'Why are you after hiding them in a dress like this? Needs a good inch off, don't you think, Brenna?' Still half naked, Darcy knelt down and folded up the hem, pursing her lips as she studied the result. 'Inch and a half, and you wear it with those spiky black shoes with the open toes. You'll be a killer.'
She nodded, then got up to try on a pair of gray pipestem trousers. 'Just put the dress over there, and I'll hem it for you.'
'Oh, really, you don't have to-'
'As payment,' Darcy said with a wicked gleam, 'for you letting me borrow your clothes.'
'Darcy's a fine hand with a needle,' Brenna assured her. 'You don't have to worry.' Getting into the spirit, she found a charcoal blazer and topped the sweater with it.
'Try this vest to jazz it up,' Jude suggested and dug out one with tiny checks in green and burgundy.
'You've a good eye.' Darcy beamed approval and added to it by giving Jude a quick one-armed hug. 'Now, Brenna, you finish that with a really short excuse for a skirt and men'll be falling all over you.'
'I don't want them falling all over me. You just have to boot them out of the way again.'
'When enough of them fall, you just climb over their prone bodies and go on to the next.' Darcy found a suit in slate blue and wiggled into the skirt. 'You are going to give Aidan a tumble, aren't you, Jude?'
'A tumble?'
'Skirt needs to be lifted here, too. A tumble,' she continued. 'You haven't slept with him yet, have you?'
'I-' She stepped back to pick up her wine again. 'No. No, I haven't.'
'Didn't think so.' Darcy swiveled to check the line of the jacket from the back. 'Figured you'd have more a gleam in your eye if you'd wrestled with him.' Experimenting, she scooped her hair up, turning this way and that, and imagined borrowing those pretty silver dangles she'd seen Jude wear on her ears. 'You're going to sleep with him, aren't you?'
'Darcy, you twit, you're embarrassing her.'
'Why?'' Darcy let her hair fall so she could choose from two pairs of bone-colored heels. 'We're all of us female and none of us virgins. Nothing wrong with sex, is there, Jude?'
Don't blush, Jude ordered herself. You will not blush. 'No, of course not.'
'Aidan's supposed to be damn good at it, too.' She laughed when Jude gulped down more wine. 'So, when you do the deed with him, Brenna and I would appreciate some of the details as, at the moment, neither of us has a particular man we're after tumbling with ourselves.'
'Talking about sex is the next best thing to having it.' Brenna spotted a striped shirt in the armoir and pulled it out. 'Of the three of us, you look most likely to be having it in the foreseeable future. The closest I've come in nearly a year is when I had to punch Jack Brennan for copping a feel last New Year's Eve-and I'm still not sure he wasn't just reaching for another pint as he claimed to be.'
Discarding the shirt, she sat down in her underwear and poured more wine.
'I, for one, know when a man's reaching for me or for his beer.' Darcy cocked her head in the mirror. She looked rather elegant, she thought. Like a lady who had lovely places to go and wonderful things to do. 'What do you wear a suit like this for, Jude?'
'Oh, for meetings, lectures, luncheons.'
'Luncheons.' Darcy sighed and did a slow turn. 'In some fancy restaurant or ballroom, with waiters in white jackets.'
'And this week's miserable chicken surprise,' Jude answered with a smile. 'Along with the most tedious luncheon speaker the committee could dig up.'
'That's just because you're used to them.'
'So used to them, I'd live happily with the knowledge I never have to attend another. I was a poor academic.'
'Were you now?' Brenna topped off Jude's wine before reclaiming her own sweater.
'Terrible. I hated planning courses, having to know the answers, and judging papers. On top of that, the politics and the protocol.'
'Then why did you do it?'
Distracted, Jude glanced back at Darcy. The woman was so confident, Jude thought, so completely comfortable with herself even as she stood there in a cotton bra and another woman's skirt. How could anyone so sure of who and what she was understand what it was not to know. Just not to know.
'It was expected,' Jude said at length.
'And did you always do what was expected?'
Jude let out a long breath and picked up her wine again. 'I'm afraid so.'
'Well, now.' Swept along by affection, Darcy grabbed Jude's face in her hand and kissed her. 'We'll fix that.'
By the time the second bottle of wine was emptied, the bedroom was a disaster. Brenna had the wit to start a fire, then to hunt up cheese and biscuits. She sat on the floor, vaguely disappointed that Jude's shoes were too big for her. Not that she had any place to wear them, but they were awfully smart.
Jude lay sprawled on the bed, her head propped on her fists as she watched Darcy try on endless variations of outfits. The goofy expression on her own face made Jude wonder if she were drunk or just soft in the head.
Every now and then she gave a quiet hiccough.
'The first time,' Darcy was saying, 'was with Declan O'Malley and we swore we would love each other ever and a day. We were sixteen and fumbling at it. We did it on a blanket on the beach one night when we both snuck out of the house. And let me tell you, there's nothing a bit romantic about rolling around on the sand, even when you are sixteen and stupid as a turnip.'
'I think it's sweet,' Jude said dreamily, imagining the moonlight and the crash of waves and two young bodies gleaming with love and discovery. 'What happened to Declan O'Malley?'
'Well, forever and a day lasted about three months for the pair of us, and we went on to other things. Two years back he got Jenny Duffy in trouble, so they married and have a second daughter to go with the first. And seem happy enough.'
'I'd like to have children.' Jude rolled over to find her wine. It had begun to taste like ambrosia. 'When William and I discussed it-'
'Discussed it, did you?' Brenna put in, and as guardian of the bottle, took Jude's glass to refill it.
'Oh, yes, in a very logical, practical, and civilized manner. William was always civilized.'
'I think William needed a boot in the arse.' Brenna handed the glass back, ducking so the wine that slopped as Jude laughed missed splashing on her hair.
'His students call him Dour Powers. That's his name, William Powers. Of course, being a modern professional woman, I kept my own name, so I didn't have all that fuss with the divorce. Anyway- what was I saying?'
