As if this were not enough, Lady Ulma had had a fan made with real peacock eyes set in an emerald jade handle, with a tassel of softly clinking jade, citrine, and emerald charms at the bottom.
Around Bonnie's throat was a matching necklace of jade, inlaid with emerald, sapphire, and lapis lazuli. And around each of her wrists were several emerald jade bracelets that clicked together whenever she moved, the symbol of her slavery.
But Bonnie's eyes could hardly linger on them, and she couldn't summon up a proper hatred of the bracelets. She was thinking of how a special hairdresser had come to "slick back" Bonnie's strawberry-colored curls until, darkened into true red, they were plastered flat against her skull and held in place with jade and emerald clips. Her heart-shaped face had never looked so mature, so sophisticated. To emerald eyelids and kohl-darkened eyes, Lady Ulma had added a vivid red lipstick and had for once broken her rule and cleverly, wielding the brush herself, had added touches here and there of blusher so that Bonnie's translucent skin looked as if she were constantly coloring at some compliment. Delicately carved jade earrings with golden bells inside completed the ensemble, and Bonnie felt as if she were some Princess of the Ancient Orient.
"It's really some kind of miracle. Usually, I look like a pixie trying to dress up as a cheerleader or a flower girl," she confided, kissing Lady Ulma again and again, delighted to find that the lipstick stayed on her lips instead of transferring to her benefactress's cheeks. "But tonight I look like a young woman."
She would have kept on babbling, helpless to stop herself even though Lady Ulma already was trying to discreetly dab tears away from her eyes, except that at that moment Elena came in and she gasped.
Elena's dress had already been finished by the afternoon and so all Bonnie had seen of it was the sketch. But somehow that had failed to convey just what this dress would do for Elena.
Bonnie had secretly wondered if Lady Ulma were leaving too much to Elena's own natural beauty, and was hoping that Elena would be as excited about her own dress as everyone seemed to be about Bonnie's and Meredith's.
Now Bonnie understood.
"It is a called a goddess dress," Lady Ulma explained to the stunned silence in the room, as Elena walked in, and Bonnie dizzily thought that if goddesses had ever lived up on Mount Olympus, they would certainly have wanted to dress this way.
The trick of the dress lay in its very simplicity. It was made of milk-white silk, with a delicately pleated waist (Lady Ulma called the irregular tight pleating "ruching") which held two simple bodice panels that formed a V-neckline, showing off Elena's peach-blossom skin between them and behind them. These panels in turn were held at the shoulders by two carved clasps - gold inlaid with mother-of-pearl and diamonds. From the waist, the skirt fell straight in graceful, silken folds all the way to Elena's delicate sandals - again designed in gold, mother-of-pearl and diamonds. In the back, the two panels that clasped at the shoulder became straps and crossed over to once again meet at the pleated waist.
Such a simple dress, but so magnificent on the right girl.
At Elena's throat, an exquisitely designed golden and mother-of-pearl necklace in the stylized shape of a butterfly was inset with so many diamonds that it seemed to blaze with multicolored fire each time she moved and they caught the light. She wore this over the lapis and diamond pendant Stefan had given her, since she had flatly refused to take the pendant off. It didn't matter. The butterfly covered the pendant completely.
On each wrist Elena wore a wide bracelet of gold and mother-of-pearl inset with diamonds, creations that they had found in the secret jewel room, obviously made to go with the necklace.
And that was all. Elena's hair had been brushed and brushed and brushed until it formed a silky golden tumble of waves that hung below her shoulders in back, and she was wearing a touch of rose-colored lipstick. But her face, with its thick black eyelashes and lighter arched brows - and just now its look of excitement that parted her rose-colored lips and brought brilliant color to her cheeks - had been left entirely alone. Earrings that were just cascades of diamonds peeped through her gold tresses.
She's going to drive them crazy tonight, Bonnie thought, eyeing the daring dress with envy, but not with jealousy, instead rather reveling in the thought of the sensation Elena would make. She's wearing the simplest gown of any of us, but she still completely puts Meredith and me in the shade.
Yet Bonnie had never seen Meredith look better - or more exotic. She'd also never known what a stunning figure Meredith had, despite her friend's wide assortment of designer clothes.
Meredith shrugged when Bonnie told her this. She had a fan, too, black lacquer, that folded. Now she opened it and folded it shut again, tapping her chin thoughtfully.
"We're in the hands of a genius," she said simply. "But we can't forget what we're really here for."
Chapter 26
"We have to keep our minds on saving Stefan," Elena was saying in the room Damon had taken over for his own, the old library in Lady Ulma's mansion.
"Where else would my mind be?" Damon said, never taking his eyes off her neck with its ornaments of mother-of-pearl and diamonds. Somehow the milk-white dress served to emphasize the slim soft column of Elena's throat, and Elena knew it.
She sighed.
"If we thought you really meant it, then we could all just relax."
"You mean be as relaxed as you are?"
Elena gave herself an inner shake. Damon might seem to be completely absorbed with one thing and one thing only, but his sense of self-preservation made sure that he was constantly on guard, and seeing not just what he wanted to see but everything that was around him.