Author’s note: I might turn this into a bigger story later, but for now, enjoy!
“Paul Metcalfe, what cheek!” Despite her mock annoyance, Dianne couldn’t help the blush as Paul rather ostensibly lingered on making sure the sheathed knife he’d insisted on giving her was properly secured and wouldn’t show under the deep blue silk of her dress, his hand moving much lower than was required to linger on the small of her back. “Only you would try to seduce a woman while hiding a knife in her dress,” she chastised with a smile, finally pulling away to sit at her mirror and put the final touches to her hair - an elaborate coiffure involving many bobby pins to hold curls and ringlets in place to pile atop her head and cascade down her right shoulder.
“Can you blame me?” he told her with an answering grin, stepping back to sit on the couch and watch her finish her preparations. “That shade of blue is perfect on you.”
“Thank you.” She demurely looked at him over her shoulder, then went back to securing her hair. “But why hide the knife on my back?” she asked, reaching to touch the spot between her shoulder blades, where the slim carbon ceramic knife was concealed. It was small enough that the loose swags of fabric that made up the cowled back of the gown were just enough to hide it. Combined with the shawl she planned to wear tonight, she doubted anyone else would know it existed.
“Because everyone expects a woman to hide a weapon in a thigh or ankle holster,” Paul told her simply. “I know your heels aren’t quite factory standard, but I thought a knife wouldn’t go amiss, just in case.”
“Thank you.” Dianne smiled at him, then turned back to her mirror to apply her makeup - a little heavier on the eyeliner than her normal style, but the Grecian look of her dark gown with its high waist, vertical pleats and straight skirt needed dark and dramatic eyes.
Paul caught her amused smile to herself in the mirror as she applied her mascara and eyeshadow. “What is it?” he asked curiously.
“Oh, just that the classical look of this gown reminded me of my classics teacher, Mr Duxfield, a stuffy and conservative type,” Dianne explained, pausing a moment to dust a little blusher on her cheeks. “He was very fond of expounding on the old tales where a valiant warrior would arm for battle with the aid of a beautiful woman and take a token of her favour into the fray. It occurred to me that this is somewhat the reverse of that.” She smiled at his reflection in her mirror and selected an appropriate lipstick, dabbing it on carefully. Perfume came next, a subtle scent of exotic spices. “He’d probably faint if he saw me now.”
“A valiant woman arming for battle with the aid of a handsome man? Taking a knife as a token rather than a bit of cloth? I like that,” Paul remarked, rather chuffed with the comparison. He stood and fetched the jeweller’s box that contained the last items for her outfit. The House of Verdain had set the world of fashion abuzz with the statement jewellery piece of the season - an ear cuff, embellished and bejewelled - but this piece, and the set it came with, had come from Verdain’s secret workroom. “In that case, may I assist you further, my lady?” He asked formally, an amused glint in his eye as he opened the purple velvet box. The ear cuff he took out had a crescent shaped fan of golden leaves, not unlike an Olympic victor’s wreath, which explained the style of gown.
“Yes, you may.” Dianne returned both the formal tone and amused look as she tilted her head to let him place the cuff behind her left ear. “I’ll never understand how they got the bone conduction technology small enough to hide it in an ear cuff,” she remarked as Paul retrieved the broad hammered gold bracelet and put it on her left wrist.
“Nor I.” Scarlet nodded as he next handed her the pendant leaf earring for her right ear. “Imagine if we could get all our communications gear miniaturised down to a bone conduction speaker and a concealed microphone. It’s a shame they can’t get the power source small enough for it to work long range. With the number of times I’ve lost my cap on a mission, something I could hook behind my ear would be much easier to keep track of.”
“Don’t you mean the number of times you’ve lost your cap on the base?” she teased.
“I’m not that bad, surely?” Paul asked with a smile, as he offered her the last item in the case - a ring set with a large synthetic sapphire that matched her dress. She accepted it and placed it on her right hand, admiring the way the table-cut stone caught the light. Preparations almost complete, she stood, examined herself in the mirror and was pleased with what she saw.
“Do you think they’ll let you keep the dress?” Paul asked curiously as he put away the case and placed her high heels within easy reach. There was absolutely no way she’d be able to keep the jewellery; the ear cuff speaker and earring microphone were controlled by the bracelet while the ring, in addition to its other functions, was based on a poison ring, but its secret compartment held something far more benign. All up, she was wearing tens of thousands of dollars worth of top secret technology- and that was before taking into account the value of the gold and gemstones and the workmanship that had gone into it, which would easily bump it up into the hundreds. Verdain had a reputation to uphold after all, both personal and professional, and if his workmanship was to grace one of the Angels there was no chance of it being anything but his best.
“I rather hope so, this dress is beautiful,” Dianne remarked as she sat down to buckle on her high heels. The dress had also come from Verdain’s secret workroom. The outer layer was silk, but the thin inner layer was stab-resistant fabric - the latest generation of Kevlar. The shoes, as Paul had noticed, were also from the same workroom. Slightly heavier than normal, the sole was reinforced with a thin layer of titanium alloy and the heel concealed an inner spike of the same. As a result, she could walk on a bed of nails in them and if she popped the sole off the heel, she could kick a hole in bullet-proof glass.
Paul retrieved the dark red jacket that completed his outfit for tonight from where he’d hung it over the back of a chair. He was going to tonight’s event as a waiter, Adam was the chauffeur and Brad the stone-faced bodyguard to Dianne’s socialite. Karen and Pat were already in place, holed up in an apartment with direct line of sight to the hotel banquet hall. They’d be running the comms and directing the operation. “I just hope I remember enough to not blow my cover,” Paul grumbled as he slipped the jacket on, thinking of all the military balls and official dinners he and the other cadets at West Point had been press-ganged into staffing.
“You’ll do just fine,” Dianne reassured him as she came over to straighten his bow tie and smooth down the lapels of his jacket, careful to avoid activating the microphone in his right lapel. “Should we do a comms check now?” she asked.
“No, we’d better wait for the others,” Paul replied, opening the case with the more traditional earbud he’d be using and putting the small device in his ear.
“S.I.G.,” Dianne acknowledged, picking up a beaded gold clutch from her dresser and filling it with lipstick, a miniature bottle of perfume and other necessities for touching up during the night, tissues, an emergency button beacon and the non-metallic knuckle duster she’d been given when she was one of Lady Penelope’s acolytes. It never hurt to be prepared after all. She wrapped a matching gold chiffon shawl about her shoulders, took one last look in the mirror to make sure she hadn’t missed anything, then offered her arm to Scarlet. “Shall we?”
“We shall, my lady.” Scarlet gallantly took her arm with a smile and escorted her out.