I have nothing to do after I finished Silk on Netflix but write about it and rant about the ending, so have some fluff. I think this will be three parts but not sure (I've almost finished writing the whole thing, I think). Enjoy!
"Marth, do you by any chance not have a date for the Bar Council dinner thing?" Clive asked, looking up from his desk at her as she was working her way through a stack of papers for a robbery case she really hadn't wanted. She looked up, eyebrows raised as though she was expecting him to repeat what he'd said.
"I was hoping to avoid going, to be honest," she admitted, looking back down and highlighting something somewhat aggressively, "But I'll go with you if you want. When is it?"
"Next Friday," he answered, still looking over at her, "Free bar." That captured her attention spectacularly well, and she suddenly seemed rather interested in the whole idea now she knew that there was free alcohol on offer if she went.
"How fancy is it?"
"Oh, very. Ball gown fancy; the works." He replied, thinking to himself about the events they'd been to together in the past, and the raucous antics after too many glasses of champagne; running through the streets of London like they were still pupils who didn't have any particular need to be home or face death by hangover.
She groaned - he knew she hated what she thought of as pretentious dressing up for no apparent reason, but she'd promised now; she had to come with him now. Whilst she claimed she hated it, though, he loved it when she went to events like that with him, dressed to the nines though she usually complained about it for most of the journey, when they walked into the room arm in arm and he knew everyone's eyes were on Martha, he'd never been able to help the feeling of immense pride at having her with him.
She wondered why he was asking her, not Harriet or any of the younger women who would bend over backwards for Clive Reader to take them to the local Costa, let alone the Bar Council dinner, but didn't dwell on it - he probably wanted to get recklessly drunk with her as they used to do as pupils, though those occasions had been fewer and further between lately. So she returned to the stack of papers, highlighting and underlining in earnest as she wondered what on earth she was going to wear next Friday.
—
Friday arrived, a sunny yet cold day where she won a court case in the morning and took the afternoon off, and found herself panicking over what the bloody hell she was going to wear to this stupidly showy dinner, muttering about pompous lawyers under her breath as she searched store upon store for the right dress. She'd have said it was subconscious, but she knew exactly what she was doing, having caught a glimpse of a photograph of what Harriet was going to be wearing, however it was that she'd managed to get an invitation to the dinner, and was absolutely resolute in her determination to outdo the younger woman. Not, of course, that she was jealous.
It took two hours and the arrival of Bethany after an agitated phone call for her to find the dress. Why she'd left it to the last minute, she didn't know, but Bethany had picked out the black dress from the corner of a boutique in Kensington (possibly the only one in central London that hadn't been searched entirely) and thrust it at Martha insistently, telling her that she had to try it - if only to give Bethany the chance to sit down for five minutes after being dragged around under the pretence that Martha didn't know what she wanted, when the junior clerk knew very well that she wanted to know what the most show stopping outfit possible was to outdo Harriet.
Martha huffed and muttered something about solving world hunger when she saw the price tag, but relented and took it to the changing rooms, an immaculately presented assistant offering her a pair of high heels to try it on with. She was almost tempted to give up and wear one of the gowns she'd bought fifteen years ago for events like that, but her mind soon changed as the assistant helped her to zip up the back of the dress and she turned to look at herself in the illuminated mirror, her suit and shirt strewn on the wooden floor beneath her.
The dress was strapless, black and floor length, with gold brocade all over it, and black glass beads on the bustier - the sweeping skirt just brushed the floor when she wore the heels. Martha found herself somewhat surprised by how she looked; having tried to avoid dressing up like this if she could, she'd forgotten what it was like to look at herself in the mirror in a gown - she found herself wondering, until she quashed the whole premise, what Clive would think when he saw her. Things had been strange since his silk party, not that going to the Bar Council dinner with him would make them any less so, but she wanted to know if he still felt the same way about her.
"Bethany?" she asked, turning and taking a few steps out to where the junior clerk was sat on a dove grey sofa in the middle of the shop, asking silently for her approval as she turned around to give the younger woman a view of the whole dress.
"Perfect, Miss," the younger woman said, beaming up at her, "Mr. Reader won't know what's hit him." she continued with a smirk, which was returned by Martha, both knowing that there was no point in pretending that Bethany didn't know how Martha felt, and that it was the reason that they were here.