By Marriage Divided

by Lindsay Armstrong

  They’d been seen out and about at the races, at concerts, at restaurants, at other social events. They’d been photographed together several times, at an art gallery exhibition, crewing on a yacht on the harbour and at a fund-raising walkathon for disabled children. They’d even laughed together at one caption that had read, ‘Is this boy-from-the-bush Angus Keir’s uptown girl?’ What they hadn’t been able to do at times was hide the electricity that ran between them.

  Nor had the passion they experienced when they were together and alone diminished. It had grown, if anything.

  And both Barbara and Christy Harris were delighted for her, she had no doubt, although her mother was starting to make remarks along the lines of when would the wedding bells be chiming?

  Causing her, Domenica reflected as she swung into her mother’s street, to laugh and dismiss these comments with a shrug, and not even think twice about them, but now…

  She clicked her teeth in genuine frustration because the dark green Range Rover was already parked in the drive. There was no room for her car in the drive. It was still raining, although not as heavily but she hadn’t brought an umbrella. So she did the only thing possible: she wrapped herself in the pashmina, covering her hair as well, and made a dash for the front door.

  It was just about to close as she got there—on her mother and Angus—but it swung open again revealing her, flushed and breathless with raindrops shimmering on the pashmina.

  Her mother was delighted and kissed her warmly, wishing her happy birthday. But Angus didn’t turn to follow her mother in for a long moment. His gaze drifted over Domenica instead and in a way that stilled her hands as she went to unwrap herself.

  Then he said quietly, ‘You look like a mysterious but exquisite Indian princess, Domenica. Happy birthday, my dear.’

  ‘Thank you.’ She unwound the wrap with unsteady hands. ‘And thank you very much for the thought, Angus, but I can’t accept the car.’ She handed him the heavy gold keyring.

  He had no choice but to take it as Christy descended on them and flung her arms around Domenica. And as the strains of ‘Happy Birthday’ struck up as Christy led Domenica into the lounge and thirty or so people raised their champagne glasses and sang to her, he merely slipped the keys into his jacket pocket.

  Nor was there much he could do while she moved around the room and greeted everyone, mostly old friends of the family who not only embraced her, but showered her with gifts. In fact he stayed with Christy, who always found plenty to talk to him about and had even persuaded him to give her some insights into his life for her boss’s book.

  But when things settled down, he and Domenica played a cat-and-mouse game for the rest of the evening.

  When they happened to be together at the buffet table, he said barely audibly, ‘I gather I’ve offended you, Domenica?’

  She shrugged as she piled savoury rice and butterfly prawns in a crisp golden batter onto her plate. ‘I’d have been happier with a bunch of flowers, Angus.’

  ‘But less mobile,’ he suggested dryly.

  She glinted him a proud blue look from beneath her lashes. ‘That’s my business.’ And she drifted away.

  They came together again over dessert. It was impossible to ignore him without causing comment and without worrying her mother, who was absolutely radiant in sapphire-blue silk but still capable of discerning signs of discord in her elder daughter. Especially on this night that she’d planned, as she told everybody in a toast to Domenica, not only as a birthday celebration, but as a mark of gratitude for all both her daughters, Domenica and Christabel, had done for her after Walter Harris’s death.

  So Domenica made room for Angus at a small round table and greeted him with a smile as he sat down. She even conducted a lively conversation with him and the two other people sharing the table, until they both left to acquire some more of the fabulous desserts on offer.

  ‘I could have given you diamonds or pearls,’ he murmured, as if nothing had happened to interrupt their earlier words. ‘What would have been the difference?’ He raised his gaze to hers and studied her with a faint smile, but a decided glint of irony in his eyes.

  ‘Nothing.’ She ate some lemon meringue and dabbed a napkin to her lips. ‘I would have returned them as well.’

  ‘So what am I allowed to give you?’

  ‘Flowers—I told you about those—books, music…’ she waved a hand ‘…maybe another elephant since I happen to collect them. I wouldn’t have minded a small painting of an elephant, say, or—’

  ‘Is this a lesson in good taste for the boy from the bush from his uptown girl, by any chance, Domenica?’ he broke in, still smiling at her but like a tiger roused from somnolence by a form of prey in its sights.

  ‘No, Angus.’ She said it steadily despite regretting certain things, and forced herself to go on. ‘It’s a lesson in how not to make a woman feel “kept”. That’s all.’

  ‘So it’s OK to buy a mistress or a wife a car?’ he suggested. ‘But not OK to devise a way to help a lover out of an awkward situation in the most practical way possible? Although I did get it gift-wrapped.’

  She closed her eyes briefly. ‘It was lovely, the way it was wrapped, it was…’ She stopped helplessly. ‘And it was thoughtful too,’ she went on presently, ‘but…it also represents close to thirty thousand dollars. Don’t you see?’

  ‘I see your mother approaching,’ he said, and stood up. ‘Can I get you some more dessert, Domenica? Mrs Harris, please take my chair. I’m off to appease my sweet tooth again. Can I get you anything? And may I compliment you on a wonderful celebration of Domenica’s birthday?’

  Barbara declined but sank down beside her daughter looking supremely gratified. ‘He’s so nice,’ she said enthusiastically. ‘And you two are so right for each other! I must admit I was wondering whether he’d give you an engagement ring for your birthday.’ She looked at Domenica questioningly.

  It struck Domenica like a blow as she sought for the words to answer her mother, that beneath all her objections was this one root cause of her unhappiness. That she too, in some secret recess of her heart, had been hoping for an engagement ring to celebrate her birthday and their love.

  She swallowed something non-existent in her throat and said with an effort at gaiety, ‘Mum, it’s only been three months!’

  ‘Well, I know that…’ Barbara spread her hands and looked about to deliver herself of a lecture on the subject, then apparently changed her mind as she said, ‘But he must have given you something! Don’t keep me in suspense, darling.’

  ‘I…he…gave me a new car,’ Domenica said helplessly. ‘Delivered to work all wrapped up in pink ribbons and silver balloons. I…’ But she couldn’t go on.

  Barbara blinked several times. Then she said in awestruck tones, ‘He didn’t!’

  ‘Believe me, he did,’ her daughter replied, ‘but I’m—’

  ‘But that’s wonderful! It’s exactly what you need and how romantic to wrap it up in pink ribbons and silver balloons. You’re a very lucky girl, Domenica.’

  Unbeknownst to Barbara, Angus had come back and was standing behind her as she said this, so he not only heard it, he saw Domenica’s look of pure frustration at, he guessed, not receiving support from the one direction she might have felt she could rely on it.

  Nor had she seen him either when she said to Barbara, ‘But…but it’s such a lot of money, I mean—’

  ‘That’s all relative, darling,’ Barbara objected. ‘He’s got an awful lot of money! What did you expect? A bunch of flowers? I hardly think he’d do that when he’s obviously infatuated.’

  ‘You and Nat are of the same mind,’ Domenica said darkly, then looked up at last to see him.

  He said nothing, did nothing, but he might as well have shouted I rest my case, she thought dismally as their gazes clashed.

  But she played out her part until midnight, her part of a dutiful, delighted daughter, that was, although she thanked her lucky stars that dancing was not on th
e agenda. She also got a surprise. Christy introduced her to a young man with curly brown hair and a shy smile who had arrived late, a young man who had difficulty tearing his eyes from her little sister who was quietly glowing in an off-the-shoulder aqua gown that was richer and more revealing that her normal style.

  But before Domenica had a chance to find out more, at a quarter to midnight coffee and champagne were served and a birthday cake with twenty-six candles was carried aloft into the darkened room. Once again everyone sang to her, but as she blew out the candles and cut the cake Angus was by her side, and he was the one to make a speech this time.

  ‘I’d like to propose a toast to Domenica, who brightens most people’s lives, I suspect,’ he said to the room at large, and then, pinning her beneath his smoky-grey gaze, added quietly although quite audibly, ‘but especially mine.’

  ‘Hear, hear!’ everyone chorused enthusiastically, but not only that—with the special sort of twinkle and fondness people bestowed on a couple in love.

  ‘You’re taking something for granted, aren’t you?’ Domenica said tautly, about half an hour later, seated beside him in the Range Rover.

  ‘You wanted to stay on?’ he queried with an undercurrent of irony. ‘Everyone else was leaving.’

  She refused to look at him. Not only had everyone else been leaving but he had extricated her smoothly and arranged with Christy to drive the new car in off the street, when there was room to get it into the garage. ‘I didn’t mean that,’ she said.

  ‘You better tell me what you did mean,’ he said briefly.

  ‘Don’t be so sure that I aim to brighten up your life at the moment, Angus,’ she recommended crisply. ‘Where are we going?’

  ‘My place,’ he replied. ‘The walls are thicker should you feel inclined to indulge in a—in our first domestic, Domenica.’

  She set her teeth, tempted to scream and shout at him for not even trying to understand her feelings, when he pulled something out of his pocket and dropped it into her lap.

  ‘I wanted to give you this in private,’ he said coolly.

  It was a small gift box and when she untied the gold string and lifted the lid it was to see a tiny, exquisitely wrought gold filigree brooch, an elephant—with sapphire-blue eyes. She stared down at it in the palm of her hand, then turned her head to stare out of the window so that he couldn’t see the tears running down her cheeks. And they drove the short distance to his penthouse in silence as she grappled with the turmoil of her emotions.

  She knew his penthouse well now—it was almost like a second home.

  It was spacious and luxurious as well as professionally decorated. And the room they used most, apart from the main bedroom, was the den with its dark green walls and matching leather couches, its coppery-pink wall-to-wall carpet and collection of art. It was where they played chess, or listened to music. It was where they often ate meals on trays, watching television or reading. It was where, sometimes, they made love.

  It was where he ushered her after their mostly silent drive back from her birthday party. Where he pulled off his jacket and slung it across the back of a chair, and asked her if she’d like anything.

  ‘No, thank you.’ Her voice was uneven and strained as she watched him undo his tie and consign it to the chair where his jacket lay.

  ‘I gather I’ve now offended you,’ she added, ‘and I feel awful, especially in light of this.’ She held up the gift box with the elephant in it. ‘But I don’t want a car from you, Angus, because—it just doesn’t feel right.’

  ‘No one else seems to share your opinion.’

  ‘It’s no one else’s business but mine,’ she said, then closed her eyes frustratedly. ‘How can I make you understand? I don’t want to have to be grateful to you for anything other than you yourself, and what we mean to each other.’ Her lashes lifted and she stared at him.

  There were about two feet of coppery-pink carpet between them but it might as well have been a mile. She could see it in the hard set of his mouth, and hear it when he drawled, ‘You don’t think it might mean something to me to know you’re worried about having to afford a new car?’

  ‘I’m not that worried—yes, it’s a capital expenditure I didn’t particularly want to have to make at the moment,’ she conceded, ‘what with extra wages to pay, new machines and before the profits start to roll in on the new line, if they do, but I’d have worked something out. I’m not destitute.’

  ‘Is that how I’ve made you feel?’

  She sighed and sat down. ‘I just feel…’ She stopped.

  ‘Beholden,’ he supplied and sat down beside her. ‘What if I were to offer you the car on a lease basis? You could write off part of the payments as a legitimate expense since you also use it as a delivery vehicle.’

  Her eyes widened. ‘Would you?’

  ‘I’ve got the feeling I might have to,’ he said dryly.

  ‘I…would…feel happier about that,’ she said awkwardly. ‘It was a possibility that had crossed my mind, anyway—I mean, to lease a vehicle in the interim.’

  He watched her steadily.

  ‘But I’m sorry if I’ve hurt your feelings,’ she went on.

  He said nothing for an age, then a corner of his mouth twitched. ‘There’s a way they could be restored.’

  ‘Please tell me what it is?’ She looked at him innocently.

  His eyes narrowed, then he got up, dimmed the lights and put a CD on. When he came back, he held a hand down to her and said gravely, ‘May I have this dance, ma’am?’

  She rose and went into his arms.

  ‘I was wondering whether your mother would arrange some dancing tonight,’ he said into her hair as they swayed to the music.

  ‘I was thanking heaven she hadn’t,’ Domenica replied.

  He lifted his head and looked down at her amusedly. ‘Why?’

  ‘Because it’s impossible to maintain a proper sense of grievance towards you, Mr Keir, when I’m dancing with you.’

  ‘I see.’ He ran his fingers through her hair and pulled out the pins. ‘Are you telling me that if I’d waited until this moment you would have accepted the car?’

  ‘No. But it would have been a whole lot harder not to.’

  ‘What about this—moment?’ He slid his hands around her back and felt for the zip of her bustier. ‘It occurred to me during the course of the evening that this garment was in fact two garments. And that you might not be wearing anything beneath the top part.’ He pulled down the zip and the bustier came away from her body in his hands. ‘I was right.’ He let it flutter to the floor.

  ‘I’m not sure that it was right and proper to be having those kind of thoughts during the evening and in my mother’s living room,’ she said a little raggedly as his palms came up to cover her breasts.

  ‘I have those kind of thoughts about you, Domenica, morning, noon and night. I have them whether you’re there or not. Would you have been able to say no in these circumstances?’ He withdrew his hands to her waist, and they danced, but his heavy-lidded gaze was on the way her breasts moved and the way the velvety tips had opened beneath his hands.

  Domenica stilled slowly. To be half naked in his arms like this was interfering with her breathing and causing a riot of sensation to course through her. But it was also a challenge, she knew.

  ‘Yes, I would have,’ she murmured huskily with her head back so she could look straight into his eyes, ‘although it would have been even harder. But now I’m free to tell you that I love dancing with you like this. It crossed my mind the first time I ever did dance with you, in fact, that it might be very special if we were somewhere quite private.’ And she smoothed her hands up his arms, cupped his face, then leant forward to kiss him lightly before she closed her eyes and started to sway to the music again.

  ‘How did this happen?’

  It was Angus who posed the question with his head propped on a hand as he lay beside her in a vast rumpled bed beneath a pale grey-and-white-striped percale sheet.


  Sunlight was streaming into the room, warming the grey-limned woodwork and glinting on the silver lamp stands and ornaments. The bed itself was on a dais surrounded by a sea of velvety pewter carpet, the windows were framed with grey-and-white patterned silk curtains, and Mrs Bush maintained several pots of magnificent, real madonna lilies around the room.

  Domenica had drawn a stunned breath when she’d first seen this bedroom but Angus had laughingly denied any responsibility for it. It had been like this when he’d bought the penthouse, he’d said. It was like a royal apartment in a palace, she’d responded, and added that she’d never slept in a bed on a dais that looked fit for a princess. To which he’d replied that he was just as comfortable sleeping on the ground so it was all a bit lost on him, but he was only too happy if it made her feel like a princess.

  That was the first time it had crossed Domenica’s mind to wonder about the other women there must have been in his life, and to acknowledge that she didn’t know a great deal about Angus Keir…

  But on this morning, as he posed a question to her, those kind of thoughts were far from her mind.

  ‘How did it happen? If you mean that we’ve woken at the crack of dawn after a very late night—could it be that, under the weight of certain other things we had on our minds, we neglected to close the curtains?’ she suggested gravely.

  He eyed her. His dark hair was hanging in his eyes and there were blue shadows on his jaw. Then he drew the sheet away and traced his fingers down between her breasts. ‘How did we achieve that state of mind—quite contrary, incidentally, to the way we arrived here last night—is what I meant, Miss Harris?’

  ‘Ah!’ Domenica wrinkled her nose. ‘You very wisely gave into the force of my arguments, Mr Keir—could that have been how it happened?’

  ‘I don’t know about wise…’ his fingers strayed to her nipples ‘…but I have to accept that I gave into the force of something.’

  ‘If you…keep doing that,’ she said with a catch in her voice, ‘I will be the one giving in. May I make a suggestion?’