Mistress on His Terms

by Catherine Spencer

  “And that’s all you found?”

  “No. There was a copy of an early birth certificate of mine, naming Hugo Preston as my father, also my mother and Neil’s marriage certificate, dated when I was eleven months old, and last, adoption papers making Neil Talbot my legal father.”

  She faced Natalie again. “And that was it. So you see why I came here looking for more information. I know all the ‘whats,’ but none of the ‘whys.’”

  “I can’t help you,” Natalie said. “I wish I could. For a start, I don’t have the complete picture, only bits and pieces I’ve picked up at one time or another. I’m afraid that if Dad won’t tell you what you want to know, the only other person you can turn to is Sebastian. He knows the whole story.”

  “And flatly refuses to discuss it with me.” She slumped into a chair at the table. “I don’t know where else to turn.”

  Natalie took a seat across from her. “What if I were to ask Sebastian to talk to you?”

  “I doubt he’d listen,” she said miserably.

  “He might. It’s worth a try.” Natalie nibbled thoughtfully on her lip for a moment, then slapped the flat of her hand on the tabletop. “I’m going to do it! This afternoon!”

  “You’ll never pull it off.”

  “Watch me! Sebastian’s basically a very fair man, and I think I can convince him you deserve to know your own history. You’re going to have to strike while the iron’s hot, though, before he’s had time to change his mind, and that means finding some reason to pry him loose from Penny at the party, and getting him by himself, because you know this isn’t something he’ll discuss in front of a crowd. Oh, yes, and one more thing, Lily.” She leaned forward and cupped her mouth close to Lily’s ear. “Try buttering him up a bit between now and then, if you get the chance, instead of baiting him all the time. It might make my end of the job that much easier to pull off.”

  A figure moved out of the shadows on the terrace and into the sunlight flooding through the open French doors. “What’s all the whispering about?” Sebastian wanted to know. “I thought the pair of you were supposed to be working on the flowers for tonight?”

  A guilty flush swept over Natalie’s face. “Oh, we were just…talking.”

  He eyed her suspiciously, then swung his attention to Lily. “Were you badgering my sister? Is that why she’s twitching like a nervous cat?”

  Natalie, bless her heart, sprang to Lily’s defense. “Stop picking on her, Sebastian! I’m her sister, too, and she wasn’t badgering me at all. She was telling me how sweet you were to her the night the road was washed out and you ended up in that awful motel.”

  Briefly he seemed at a loss for words—a remarkable occurrence, in Lily’s experience of the man—but not entirely surprising. She was pretty taken aback herself, given that she’d said almost nothing to anyone about that particular evening. But then she caught the meaningful butter-him-up stare Natalie directed at her behind Sebastian’s back, and tried to pick up her cue. “Yes,” she said brightly. “Exactly.”

  If anything, he looked more dubious than ever, but before he could pursue the subject, the swish of tires on gravel alerted them to Hugo and Cynthia’s return from their early-morning round of golf. A moment later, their voices could be heard as they came around the side of the house.

  “Never mind that rubbish. Let’s get this job done and out of the way before the caterers arrive.” Reasserting control, Sebastian swept up an urn containing a massive arrangement of white gladioli. “Lily, tell me where to put this.”

  Oh, don’t tempt me, Sebastian Caine! she thought. You wouldn’t like my answer!

  He bathed her in a Machiavellian smile. “I just read your thoughts, honey, and they weren’t pretty.”

  She was ready to kick him where it would hurt the most. To tell him that he was the most arrogant, controlling creature ever to cross her path and that she hated him. Hated him! Except it wasn’t true. And pretending otherwise wasn’t helping her cause any.

  Taking a deep breath, she made a sincere effort to banish the antagonism that kept coming between them. “Please let’s stop this senseless sparring, Sebastian, and at least try to get along.”

  “Why?”

  “For Hugo, and your mother, if nothing else. I think they’d like us to be friends.”

  “So what you’re suggesting is just for their sakes and has nothing to do with your personal agenda?”

  “What are you implying?” She attempted a laugh that came out sounding more like a nervous whinny. “That I harbor a secret fondness for you?”

  He looked at her long and searchingly. “Do you?”

  Confronted so directly, she hardly knew where to look or how to answer. That he’d detected something she thought she’d kept well hidden left her feeling slightly queasy. “Put the gladioli on the piano,” she mumbled, “and don’t ask silly questions.”

  If giving the party a miss had been an option, he’d have taken it. So, once the birthday toasts were over and the dancing heated up, Sebastian put himself at a safe distance on the fringes of the crowd scattered over the lower lawn.

  Nursing a glass of champagne, he chatted with Forbes Maynard, the other retired senior partner of the law firm along with Hugo, and tried to keep his attention away from the woman who seemed bent on creating nothing but havoc in everyone’s lives.

  Even if Forbes hadn’t been teetering on the brink of senility, though, she’d have been difficult to ignore. The transformation from working woman in shorts and a T-shirt, with a smudge of dirt on her cheek and her hair tied back in an elastic band, to sought-after belle of the ball, was, to put it bluntly, nothing short of breathtaking.

  She wore purple—the kind associated with violets or pansies. Deep and rich and sensual. The neckline fell from narrow shoulder straps to a low vee in front and just about to her waist in the back. The hem swept her ankles. The parts in between were…awe-inspiring.

  A pendant on a gold chain nestled just below her throat, with matching earrings suspended from her ears. Though no gemologist, Sebastian knew enough to appreciate the fine quality of the cabochon amethysts pavéd with diamonds, and the hunk of gold on her wrist. Somebody had invested a lot of money in her trinkets. A lover, perhaps? Or was she her own biggest fan?

  His thoughts veered to the preliminary report he’d received on her just the day before. Born to Genevieve and Hugo Preston, August 5. Name changed by adoption to Talbot, July 27. Never married, no known relationships of any significance. Holds annual lease on penthouse in small, older apartment building in West End of Vancouver. Has resided at present address for six years. Drives three-year-old minivan registered to Lily’s Flower Nook.

  It had not read like the résumé of a big spender, nor did it give the impression there was a rich boyfriend waiting in the wings. The last surprised him, given the amount of attention she was attracting tonight. When she wasn’t charming the women or wowing the old men, she was dancing with younger guys, too many of whom his mother had found to keep her entertained and who were clustered around her as eagerly as flies around a honey jar.

  The sight was enough to sour his champagne to vinegar. But even though they held her in their arms and their eyes damn near popped out of their heads as they tried to get a look down the front of her dress, they didn’t know what he knew: that the skin around her waist was taut and satin smooth; or that he’d made her tremble when he’d kissed her, and her eyes had turned huge and dark.

  “You were saying, Sebastian?” Forbes was regarding him expectantly.

  “Huh?” Feeling as dazed as if he’d walked into a brick wall, Sebastian turned to his companion and struggled to recapture the thread of the conversation.

  He’d have had more luck finding a blade of grass in a desert and Forbes seemed to realize it, too. Looking over his shoulder, he followed Sebastian’s gaze which, like a magnet attracted to true north, had again fastened on Lily. “Ah, yes,” he murmured. “She does tend to make everything else forgettable, doesn’t s
he? I take it she’s the long-lost daughter?”

  “Uh-huh.” He sounded as if he was choking, which he damn near was! Where the devil did she find that dress? And who sewed her into it? Or had it been sprayed on?

  “Fine-looking woman, wouldn’t you say?”

  “I guess.”

  “Looks to me as if she’s headed this way.” As though sensing he was ready to bolt, Forbes clamped an age-spotted hand over his arm. “Introduce me, Sebastian. I’d like to meet her.”

  Meet her, my ass! You want to ogle her, you lecherous old goat!

  She swayed down the terrace steps and across the lawn, the stuff her dress was made of shimmying over her body like a live thing. The skirt had a mile-high slit up the front, which bared a good three inches of thigh with each step she took. By itself, that was enough to send the fittest man into cardiac arrest and Forbes, who didn’t get nearly enough exercise, began panting asthmatically.

  A waiter offered her a glass of champagne. Hugo way-laid her and made some remark that had her tipping her head back in laughter. She moved among the guests, looking thoroughly at ease, as if she’d been born to the high life and hadn’t a care in the world.

  Eventually—unavoidably—she came to where he waited with Forbes hyperventilating at his side. “Hello, Sebastian,” she burbled, all smiling, deceptive sweetness. “I don’t see any sign of Penny. What happened? Did she stand you up?”

  “She had to work.”

  “Even today?” She fluttered her ridiculous eyelashes in patent disbelief.

  “Penny’s a nurse, remember?” he said. “Unlike you, she doesn’t have the luxury of keeping shop girls’ hours. Forbes, this is Lily Talbot, Hugo’s daughter from a former marriage.”

  “Nothing wrong with shop girls,” Forbes wheezed, his handshake straying until he was mauling her wrist like a mangy old lion gone too long without a decent meal. “I’m the Maynard in Preston, Maynard, Hearst and Caine, my dear. Too old to be of much value around the office these days, I’m afraid, but not so far gone that I don’t appreciate a pretty face.”

  Extracting herself from his clutches, she bathed him in a smile that left him drooling. “So nice to meet you, Mr. Maynard, and I’d love to chat some time, but right now,” she cooed, latching onto Sebastian and maneuvering him toward the terrace, “this man owes me a dance. Remember you promised me, Sebastian?”

  “I did no such thing,” he growled, but there was no real bite behind his answer. His senses were too clouded by her nearness. How was it that she was fooling everyone but him, yet he was the one falling deepest under her spell?

  Her hand felt tiny and fragile wrapped in his. Her hair, piled in gleaming curls on top of her head, brushed his chin. Her perfume teased his nostrils.

  Turning into the circle of his arm and fitting her steps perfectly to his, she lifted her face up to his. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think you’ve been avoiding me.”

  “Given the amount of attention you’ve been lapping up from just about every other man present, I’m surprised you’ve had time to notice anything but the success of your debut into local society.”

  She smiled delightedly at him from under heavy lashes. “Why, Sebastian, you almost sound jealous.”

  “Surprised, perhaps, that you’re causing such a stir, but jealous? Don’t be ridiculous!”

  In fact, he wasn’t surprised at all. When he’d first met her, he’d thought her pretty enough in an ordinary sort of way, but not exactly the kind to stop traffic. Maybe the sensible denim skirt and plain white blouse she’d been wearing had fooled him because the truth was, she had a surreptitious glamour that crept up on a man and blind-sided him when he least expected it.

  What other reason could there be for him to find himself repeatedly drawn to her when every neuron he possessed warned him to steer clear? How come he could dance the night away with Penny and manage to control his libido until they were alone, but he couldn’t hold Lily Talbot’s hand for five seconds without getting steamed up?

  Good thing the evening had faded to night and shadows as purple as her dress swirled around them. If he couldn’t help making a public fool of himself, at least she was the only one who had to know about it.

  Driven to test the waters even further despite himself, he inched her a little closer, half expecting she’d kick him in the shin for his nerve. Instead she slid her hand up the lapel of his jacket until her fingers were touching the back of his neck.

  “Sebastian?” she murmured, tilting her head so that her lips almost brushed his throat and her breath sifted over him as sweetly as a magnolia-scented breeze. “I guess you know why I dragged you away from Mr. Forbes?”

  He heard invitation, sweet and simple, in the way she uttered his name. Thoroughly fired up, he folded her hand against his chest and seized the moment. “Because you wanted to be alone with me?”

  “Exactly.”

  ‘Then what say we slip away and continue this someplace else?”

  She tilted one shoulder provocatively. “I was hoping you’d say that. Where do you suggest we go?”

  His better judgment blown to smithereens, he allowed his hand to wander past the low back of her dress and caress the silk-clad curve of her hip. Her mouth, he decided fuzzily, had the texture of a rose; soft, beautiful, easily bruised. “My apartment?” he croaked, barely able to hear himself speak over the drumming of his blood.

  “If you like. But a quiet corner of the garden will do just as well.” She pulled away slightly, just enough to captivate him with a dark, alluring gaze from beneath the sweep of her lashes. “Anywhere, as long as we aren’t disturbed.”

  He looked over to where Hugo and his mother circulated among their friends, with Natalie, looking somewhat trapped, in tow. “You’re not concerned you might be missed?”

  “It won’t take long.” She squeezed his fingers persuasively. “We’ll be back before anyone realizes we’re gone.”

  He swallowed. The women he knew were usually more bashful and he wasn’t quite sure how to handle such a bold approach. But she was Genevieve Talbot’s daughter, after all. Still, “You’re sure about this, Lily?” he asked.

  She subjected him to another slow, seductive blink. “Absolutely.”

  “No regrets when it’s too late to change things?”

  She shook her head. “Not a chance.”

  Her reassurances notwithstanding, a better man might have had the gumption to decline so willing an invitation. But the simmering attraction between them had risen to the point that he was prepared to postpone dealing with his shortcomings until another time. “Then come with me.”

  Grasping her hand more securely, he pulled her to the edge of the terrace and around the side of the house to the shortcut that led to his apartment. She might be anticipating nothing more than a quick roll in the hay, but he prided himself on knowing how to prolong a woman’s pleasure.

  Lily Talbot was in for the surprise of her life.

  CHAPTER SIX

  FOR a man who had shown marked reluctance every other time she’d broached the subject of her birth, Sebastian was in a tearing hurry to talk to her about it all of a sudden. “Could we slow down, do you think?” she panted, almost tripping as one of her high heels caught between the paving stones.

  He turned a glance on her which, even by moonlight, seemed to smolder. “Changing your mind already, Lily?”

  “I’ve never been more sure of anything in my life.” She shook her head decisively and glanced around. They’d passed through the rose garden and the shrubbery separating the stables from the main house, and were now so completely beyond the perimeter of the party that even the music was barely audible. “But we’re safe enough here, surely? No one’s going to overhear us.”

  A tiny frown creased his forehead. “I should hope not! But to be on the safe side, I’d prefer the privacy of my apartment.”

  “All right.” She shrugged. “Just bear in mind I’m not wearing running shoes, though, will you?”

 
“Sorry. I wasn’t thinking.” To her surprise, he clasped her hand warmly, and led her the rest of the way as carefully as if she were made of glass. “Better?”

  It was better than better! She liked this more chivalrous side of him; liked having him touch her, just as, when they were dancing, she’d liked the strength of his arm at her back and the almost intimate way he’d held her. Under different circumstances, she’d have savored such a rare occurrence and even have thought he was not unmoved, either, because, once or twice, when his hips had accidentally brushed against hers, she’d thought he was…well, physically affected….

  But no! Given his manifest dislike of her, she had to have been mistaken. The only possible reason he’d held her close had been to avoid having other people bump into them.

  Placing his hand in the small of her back now, he guided her inside the stables, through a door and up a winding staircase to his apartment, a spacious, charming area of vaulted whitewashed ceilings supported by dark cross beams, plain white walls displaying a few very good watercolors, and pegged oak floors scattered with jewel-toned Oriental rugs. The living-room sofas were of black leather, deep and luxurious, the tables, desk and tall armoire antique English cherrywood.

  A wall sconce on the landing lent a subdued glow to one end of the long room, but most of the radiance came from the opposite side where bands of moonlight speared a wall of open windows bare of any kind of drapery or blinds. “I had no idea you enjoyed such a splendid view of the river,” she said, leaning over the broad sill and inhaling the mingled scents of summer. “You’re much closer to the water here than we are in the main house.”

  “And far enough away from the main house to ensure total privacy.”