By Marriage Divided

by Lindsay Armstrong

  There were wall sconces dispensing soft light and candles on the tables. The napery was white damask, the cutlery heavy silver, the glasses crystal and between their alcove and the next stood a tall porcelain vase filled with arum lilies and lilies of the valley that were delicately scenting the air.

  It was, Domenica knew, one of the most expensive restaurants in town. Also the hardest to get into without booking way in advance. Which caused her to wonder if Angus Keir had been that sure of her or whether, because of his wealth and frequent patronage, he was always welcome.

  Then he looked at her thoughtfully across the candle. ‘Did you really have your washing and ironing on your mind when you knocked me back the first time?’

  Domenica had ordered mineral water and closed her hands around the frosted glass. ‘To be honest, no. I…’ She hesitated then shrugged. ‘There are times when you make me nervous.’

  ‘And what do you think I should do about that?’

  ‘Don’t rush me, Mr Keir,’ she advised, then bit her lip. ‘Look, all I’m trying to do is make amends for my mother.’

  ‘Domenica—’ a little glint of amusement lit his eyes ‘—believe me, I’m not that thin-skinned. It really doesn’t bother me to be thought of as “self-made” or new money.’

  She frowned. ‘I think it would bother me. And whether you like to admit it or not, I think there was an instinctive reaction.’

  His lips twisted. ‘You think right,’ he confessed, ‘but it was very fleeting.’

  ‘I also,’ she ploughed on, ‘well, some of the things you’ve said to me plus my sister’s assurance that I can be a lot like my mother, or at least unwittingly look and sound like her, have made me feel uncomfortable and as if I was bunging on “side”. I really didn’t mean to.’

  He sat back. ‘Thank you for all this—’ he looked at her gravely ‘—but if you’re picturing me as having an enormous chip on my shoulder about old money and new money, rightly or wrongly, I don’t. I’m thirty-six,’ he added wryly. ‘I’ve come a long way from the back of Tibooburra—so, yes, sometimes the odd little pinprick touches a nerve, but for the rest I couldn’t give a damn. Take me or leave me in other words, but you don’t have to go on apologizing.’

  Their entrée was served at this point.

  Domenica had chosen calamari and it was delicious. She ate most of it while she thought out a response. ‘What if I still decide—’ she wiped her fingers, ‘to—er—leave you, as you put it?’ she queried.

  ‘Do you mean what would I think of you?’

  ‘Mmm.’ She touched her napkin to her lips.

  ‘I think I’d put it down to a truer kind of elitism than your mother is capable of,’ he said.

  Her eyes widened. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘That you must think you’re too good for me, Domenica, to want to completely ignore the kind of simultaneous attraction we felt from the moment we laid eyes on each other.’

  Instead of firing up—perhaps the food and the soothing perfection of the restaurant were having a beneficial effect, she theorized to herself—she sat back and looked around until the next course arrived.

  Nor did he attempt to enlarge on his statement or elicit a response but he was completely at ease, she could see, as he lounged back against the leather, watching her.

  She’d ordered a fillet steak but she only stared at it for a long moment after it arrived. Then she raised her eyes to Angus Keir. ‘How do you know there isn’t a man in my life? Wouldn’t that be reason enough to ignore you?’

  ‘Certainly,’ he conceded. ‘Although it would be a bit of a worry to feel like that about someone else if you had a serious man in your life, don’t you think?’

  She looked at him darkly.

  It didn’t make any impression because he continued smoothly, ‘But there is no man in your life, Domenica.’

  ‘How do you know that—for heaven’s sake? Don’t tell me your homework extended to spying on my personal life!’ she protested.

  ‘Your mother was happy to fill me in without me even asking, as it happens. We had quite a long conversation. I know that Christy is bookish and a lot like her father. I know there have been other men in your life but none too serious. Your mother attributes it to the fact that you have a mind of your own over and above what might be good for a girl.’

  Domenica attacked her steak rather savagely.

  ‘You don’t agree with that assessment?’ he asked.

  ‘From someone who has a mind of her own over and above what might be good for anyone, no!’

  ‘I take it you and your mother clash at times?’

  ‘Yes. Don’t tell me you and your mother didn’t have the odd disagreement—’ She stopped abruptly and closed her eyes. ‘I’m so sorry, I just wasn’t thinking.’

  ‘It appears you’ve been doing some homework, Domenica,’ he said with a faint undercurrent of sarcasm.

  She coloured faintly. ‘I didn’t set out to do it. Christy is a research assistant to a writer who’s doing a book on “new money”. You’re to be in it.’

  ‘Ah. What else did she dig up about me?’

  Domenica shrugged. ‘That you were extremely bright. Have you…’ she paused ‘…never found your mother?’

  ‘Yes, but only after her death.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said with genuine compassion.

  ‘She did abandon me.’

  Domenica scanned his expression but he displayed no emotion. ‘All the same, she may have had her reasons.’

  ‘I’m sure she did. My father was a hard man although a lot harder after she left. But, anyway, let’s concentrate on your mother. Would you like a glass of this excellent wine, by the way?’

  Domenica studied the bottle of red that had come with their main course, and chuckled softly. ‘Do I look as if I need it? On account of my mother? Perhaps I do, thank you.’

  He poured the wine and they ate in silence for a while.

  Then Domenica said slowly, ‘There are times when she drives me mad. She knows as well as I do that she’s not out of the woods financially yet, but I’d hate to think what today cost her. A new dress, French champagne, et cetera. But if you could see her working with disabled children—she’s very musical and she arranges concerts for them—if you could have seen her devotion to my father and if you knew how she worries about Christy and me—more me,’ she said ruefully, ‘you would have to admire and love her. I—’

  ‘It’s OK. I get the picture,’ he said, not quite smiling. ‘You two would go to the ends of the earth for each other but in close confines things can get a little hair-raising.’

  Domenica picked up her glass, sat back and felt herself relaxing. ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well,’ he murmured, ‘now we’ve sorted that out perhaps we could talk about us?’

  She eyed him over the rim of her glass. ‘What would you like to say?’

  ‘Would you come dancing with me after dinner?’

  She opened her mouth but he broke in humorously, ‘No, don’t say the first thing that springs to mind, Miss Harris, which no doubt would be a refusal. At least give it a little thought.’

  This was an accurate enough assessment of what she’d been about to do to cause her to curse herself inwardly for being so transparent but, not only that, to wonder whether she was being stuck-up again. But dancing with a man was not the same thing as having dinner with him, and surely you were entitled to refuse without being considered a snob?

  ‘I…’ She stopped awkwardly. ‘Where?’

  ‘Here. They open a disco at eleven o’clock.’

  She looked at her watch and was amazed to discover it was nearly eleven now. ‘All right,’ she said abruptly. ‘It’s good exercise if nothing else. And I’ll have…’ She broke off frustratedly.

  ‘Completely atoned for your mother?’ he suggested.

  She shrugged but was unprepared for the way his eyes danced and his teeth gleamed as he said, ‘I’ll try not to make it a too degrading experience for y
ou, Domenica.’

  ‘I didn’t mean that—I—’

  ‘Of course not,’ he interposed seriously. ‘Especially when you’re pulling out all stops to prove to me you don’t consider yourself above me in any way.’

  She set her teeth. Then she put her head to one side and regarded him coolly. ‘I just hope you’re a good dancer, Mr Keir.’

  ‘We shall see, Miss Harris,’ he replied formally, but his smoky-grey eyes were still laughing at her.

  At eleven o’clock a set of wooden doors was rolled apart to reveal an Aladdin’s cave.

  Domenica blinked because she’d eaten at this restaurant before but never been to the disco. So the grotto-like interior with its pinprick, jewel-bright swinging lights and polished floor came as something of a surprise. Then the music started, more as background music at first, and she and Angus finished their coffee leisurely.

  It wasn’t until there were several other couples on the floor that he raised an eyebrow at her. ‘Should we get it over and done with?’

  A little glint in her blue eyes told him she resented, possibly irrationally, his implication that she was about to perform a penance, but she murmured, ‘By all means.’

  Ten minutes later, she knew without doubt that she’d thrown down the wrong gauntlet. Angus Keir was a very good dancer. So good, it was impossible, especially if you loved dancing yourself, to be stiff, and unresponsive in his arms. Not that she’d planned to be stiff, precisely. But she certainly hadn’t planned on throwing aside all caution and giving herself over to the music—and to him. Yet the two were inseparable. And it occurred to her that, if she wanted to continue to hold herself aloof from him and the attraction between them, she’d made a tactical error.

  On the other hand, all her senses were stirring as they moved together with their bodies touching. She felt light, slim and shapely in his arms—his hands on her waist seemed to emphasize its slenderness and her skin felt like velvet beneath his fingers. And the contact with his hard, honed body did strange things to her breathing and caused tremors of delicious anticipation to run through her.

  Nor did the sensuous rhythm they were dancing to help matters. It stirred her blood and it came naturally to move with a fluid grace that was both provocative and a celebration of her lithe, tall figure in the revealing little black dress that emphasized the pale, smooth glossiness of her skin. But most of all, even above the sureness of the way he led her and how they moved together in complete unity, the way he watched her was the most worrying.

  Because it told her that the provocation she was unable to help herself offering was being noted and could be held against her at some time in the future. But those smoky-grey eyes also blazed a trail almost as tangible as if his fingers or lips were exploring the satiny skin of her throat, the valley between her breasts and elsewhere.

  Then the disco changed beat and, with a sheer effort of will, she grasped the opportunity to release herself from the mesmerizing power of Angus Keir and the music. ‘I…think I’d like to sit down.’

  He didn’t release her immediately and she stood in the circle of his arms for a long moment, wondering if she was mad, because it felt so good, to want to rationalize this powerful force between them.

  It was the sudden glint of irony in his eyes that told her she should but, not only that, she should take all possible precautions against falling under the spell of a man she barely knew who was also wielding another kind of power over her—her mother’s future.

  But for a shocking little instant what she really wanted to do, she discovered, was kick her shoes off, wind her arms round his neck and really let her hair down as they moved to the soft but insistent beat of the music. It even crossed her mind that it would be perfect if they were somewhere quite private…

  She swallowed and looked away from his quizzically raised eyebrows—as if he could sense everything that was going through her mind. And she stepped backwards, pressing against his arms. For a moment they tightened about her and his hands moved on her hips, for a moment his grey eyes glinted in an intimate understanding of her dilemma, then he let her go.

  By the time she got back to their table, her breathing had steadied, her tingling senses had calmed down a bit, but she was grateful for the liqueur brandies he ordered, as well as another pot of coffee.

  But when he said, cradling his balloon glass in one hand and looking down at it reflectively, ‘This should be interesting, Domenica,’ her hackles rose immediately.

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

  He raised his eyes and looked her over in silence before he said, ‘Something went amiss otherwise we’d still be out there but I just wondered where you were going to lay the blame before it did. The music?’

  She lowered her lashes and contemplated her options. Make excuses for herself? No way, she decided grimly. So she tossed her hair and looked at him ingenuously. ‘I think I’ll leave that for you to work out, Mr Keir. But I’d be grateful, when we’ve finished these…’ she waved a slim hand over her brandy and coffee ‘…if you could drop me home. I am a working girl, if not to say an overworked girl at the moment. Unless you’d like me to order a taxi?’

  ‘Unless you like to play hard to get, Domenica?’ he parodied.

  She held onto her temper by the narrowest of margins and forced herself to meet his look of scathing insolence, unflinchingly. ‘I don’t like to repeat myself, Angus, but—don’t rush me. This is only the second time we’ve met but, not only that, it’s a little hard to distance myself from the feeling that I could be ransomed into supplying a sort of goods and services tax.’

  ‘I gave you Blacktown free, gratis and for nothing, Domenica,’ he replied harshly. ‘And you’re welcome to take the profits to any investment advisor in town. I have no hold over you if that’s what you’re trying to say.’

  ‘Only that my mother now regards you as her saviour,’ she murmured. ‘Only gratitude.’

  ‘Your mother got in touch with me, not the other way around.’

  ‘So you had no intention of contacting me yourself?’ she asked.

  ‘On the contrary, I had every intention of contacting you—I’ve been overseas for most of the last three weeks,’ he drawled.

  She hesitated briefly, then, ‘And what kind of a proposition had you in mind before my mother got to you?’

  His grey gaze played over her leisurely—if she’d angered him earlier, it was gone now, she thought, and wondered why that worried her.

  ‘A date—dinner? A movie? A picnic on the beach?’ he suggested with sheer derision in his eyes. ‘Not—mannered enough for you, Domenica?’

  ‘Not at all.’ A faint smile touched her mouth. ‘A picnic on the beach, though? A bit of a change from—’ she looked around ‘—this kind of sophistication and being able to walk in here off the street and command a table.’

  ‘I was seventeen before I saw the sea,’ he countered. ‘For some reason I got tears in my eyes. It was the start of a love affair and I still picnic on the beach when I can find the time—and a deserted beach.’

  Domenica’s lips parted as her smile faded. And her voice was husky when she spoke at last. ‘I seem to have put my foot in my mouth more than once this evening.’

  He said nothing.

  She blinked a couple of times. ‘I grew up beside the sea and never realized how lucky I was. I’d…like to take you up on the picnic.’

  ‘I’m taking the day off, tomorrow, Nat,’ Domenica said the next morning.

  Natalie blinked at her.

  ‘I know I can’t really spare the time…’ Domenica looked a little helplessly at the pile of dresses awaiting a final inspection then pressing and packaging, not to mention the pile of paperwork on her desk ‘…but I got myself into something I just can’t back out of, unfortunately.’

  ‘Social?’

  ‘Uh-huh.’

  ‘Not the man on the white charger, by any chance?’ Natalie enquired innocently.

  ‘Yes—but how on earth could
you guess that?’ Domenica frowned at her partner.

  Natalie smiled a little smugly. ‘You’ve been a bit vague all morning. Just like you were the day you came back from having lunch with him.’

  Domenica ground her teeth.

  ‘So what are you doing tomorrow?’

  ‘Going to the beach but it may pour again.’ Domenica looked hopefully out of the rain-lashed windows.

  ‘Not what the weather bureau is predicting,’ Natalie said cheerfully and added, ‘Don’t worry, I’ll fix all this.’ She waved a hand towards the pile. ‘So you don’t need to feel guilty or anything; you can go with a clear conscience, in other words.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Domenica said, but a little grimly.

  The next morning, she opened her eyes to bright sunshine washing the veranda of her apartment, and sighed as she pulled a pillow into her arms.

  Because the thought of spending a whole day with Angus Keir was nerve-racking enough, but a day at the beach was more so. Yet she’d been genuinely moved by his confession of what the sea had done to him, and genuinely aware that there was a stubborn, irrational quality to her desire to resist him. Especially after she’d danced with him.

  None of it meant that she thought she was too good for him, however. So what did it mean? she pondered. That Christy was right?

  She sat up abruptly and rested her chin on her knees. Or that she herself had a sixth sense about Angus Keir? A sense of something indefinable that nevertheless told her to be wary of him. Could it even be a sense that when the high and mighty fall, they fall all the harder? she asked herself with a tinge of rather uneasy humour.

  Then she shrugged and decided all she could do was take the day as it came—and she got up to shower and dress.

  At ten o’clock she was waiting for him in the foyer of her building wearing white shorts and an iris-blue blouse that matched her eyes and was unbuttoned to reveal a matching costume beneath it. She also wore navy canvas shoes, gold hoop earrings and her hair was tied back beneath a racy white peaked cap.