by Miranda Lee
She wondered if Elliot’s friends would be like that.
Such thoughts began to make her even more agitated about the coming afternoon. Looking physically better had not turned her overnight into a social animal, and one successful dinner party with people she knew was not the same as having to converse with perfect strangers. She had the awful feeling she could easily revert to her former shy, tongue-tied adolescent-like self when confronted by strangers.
‘Elliot,’ she blurted out at last.
‘Mmmm?’
He seemed distracted, his attention on getting his car safely through the busy car park. An attendant was directing the line of vehicles into various places, though they weren’t all being obedient. The car in front of them actually started reversing. Audrey sucked in a panicky breath. Elliot gave an impatient growl, wrenching the wheel sideways and shooting into a neat spot between a dark blue Mercedes and a silver Rolls. Though she was relieved to be safely stopped, the sight of the stylishly dressed people spilling from these cars only increased Audrey’s nerves.
‘Elliot,’ she repeated.
‘Yes?’ He turned off the engine and retrieved the keys before he turned towards her.
‘You haven’t told me anything about these people whose private box we’ll be in. Who are they?’
‘Co-owners of the horse. Nice people. You’ve no need to worry.’
‘But I am worried,’ she said tautly. ‘I’d at least like to know their names and a little bit about them. I mean...’ She shrugged helplessly.
He twisted round to pick up his form guide and binoculars from the back seat. ‘Mr and Mrs Nigel Evans will be our hosts. They’re the only ones I know really well. Nigel was Moira’s publisher. His wife’s name is Yvonne. The others are a Mr and Mrs Bill Dayton. Wife, Joyce. He owns a printing firm. And another couple named Gregson. Mike’s the husband but I forget his wife’s name. Helen, I think. Actually, they’re more Moira’s friends than mine,’ he said. ‘Little Pink Girl was hers. Horses, you see, were one of her many passions.’
Audrey tried to ignore Elliot’s wife having ‘passions’, and taking a deep breath, found herself giving him a firm look. ‘No, I don’t see. How could I? I know nothing about Moira. Or your marriage. I’ve been wondering when you intend enlightening me. Before or after we’ve been to bed?’
Audrey was astonished how proud of herself she felt now that she had spoken up, even though her hands were shaking underneath her hat.
‘Neither,’ Elliot said curtly.
‘Why not?’
He spun round to lance her with irritated eyes. ‘For God’s sake, Audrey, I don’t see what my marriage to Moira has to do with us. It’s dead and gone. Just leave it that way, will you? Hell, it’s taken me a year to get over my guilt where Moira’s concerned as it is!’
‘G...guilt?’ she stammered. ‘Guilt over what?’ The possibilities were endless...
‘Over her death,’ he explained tersely, and Audrey felt sick with relief. ‘I always blamed myself for being away for so long. I knew she hadn’t been well and I shouldn’t have gone.’
‘Gone where? Where did you go?’
‘Overseas. To Europe. I’d been asked to help plan the courses for the following year’s world skiing championships. The downhill and slalom runs.’
Audrey gaped at him. He noted her expression with a rueful reaction. ‘I did say I ski’d. Fact is, I used to do it professionally. I’m quite well known in international skiing circles.’
‘Oh...I...I didn’t know.’
‘Why should you? Skiing doesn’t get much publicity in Australia and my competitive days were a few years back now.’
‘But I should have asked you about yourself before now,’ she said, frowning.
‘Yes...perhaps you should have.’ He darted her a close look. ‘Are you asking now?’
Her heart quavered but she held his eyes reasonably steadily. ‘Yes...’
‘Right now?’
‘Yes.’
His sigh was drily amused. ‘You do pick your moments, Audrey, my love.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘I suppose I could spare you enough time for a brief résumé. Let’s see... I’m an only child. My father deserted my mother when I was only a baby. My mother died just after I graduated high school. I won a scholarship to university, and ski’d during the holidays. Became a lawyer, worked and saved, took two years off when I was twenty-seven to ski full-time. At twenty-nine I smashed my right knee and had to give up racing. I came back to Australia, returned to work, met Moira at a party. We started living together pretty quickly, eventually married. You know the rest.’
‘You...left out all the other women,’ Audrey said, holding her breath. ‘The ones you said you had till you were twenty-nine.’
He gave a dry laugh. ‘My dear sweet Audrey, if I enumerated all my past conquests, we could be here forever.’
When she looked shocked he gave her a sardonic glance. ‘I did warn you. And I make no apologies. None of the women I bedded were sorry afterwards. Why should I be? Have I shocked you?’ He laughed again. ‘It seems I have. Good. You do have a bad habit, sweet thing, of looking at me with rose-coloured spectacles. Believe me when I say my one claim to virtue where women are concerned is my behaviour so far with you.’
She stared at him. Did that mean he had married Moira for her money? Or that he’d been unfaithful to her?
‘If it’s in danger of slipping,’ he growled, eyes raking over her, ‘then you can blame yourself. You shouldn’t be looking so gorgeous and sexy today...’
Audrey thought she was ready for his kiss this time, thought she would be able to hold down her responses. But her pulse had already quickened before his lips actually made contact, her insides tightening in readiness for the sweep of sensation that would inexorably claim them.
She moaned beneath the harsh pressure of his lips, the invasion of his tongue. Her heart pounded. Her mind whirled. This was love at its worst. Compulsive, obsessive, crazy. It didn’t want to listen to reason. Or warnings. Even when those warnings were being uttered by the very object of that love.
Elliot was the one to pull away. ‘I think we’d better be heading inside the track,’ he said with a dry laugh, ‘or we might not get there at all!’
CHAPTER EIGHT
AUDREY got through the next half-hour far better than she’d thought she would, given the circumstances. Not only did she have to contend with social nerves, but a hefty dose of sexual agitation. Elliot helped with the first, she supposed, plying her with a couple of glasses of white wine as soon as they made it into the private box with its well-stocked bar across the back. But he kept the latter at fever pitch by remaining glued to her side, one of his hands always either on her waist or curved over her hip as introductions were made.
Still, he was right about one thing. Moira’s friends were nice. They weren’t at all snobbish or affected as some wealthy people were, and accepted her quite naturally as Elliot’s new girlfriend, something that surprised her. She would have expected them to resent her seemingly taking Moira’s place so soon after her death. The publisher, Nigel Evans, and his wife, Yvonne, both in their late forties, were particularly pleasant to her, the other two couples keeping mainly to their own company.
When Elliot departed with Nigel shortly before the first race to place a few bets, leaving the two women together, Yvonne turned to Audrey with a ready smile.
‘It’s wonderful to see Elliot getting out and about again after Moira’s death,’ she said. ‘And with someone so nice and young. Nigel and I have been terribly worried about him. I suppose you know he took his wife’s death very hard.’
Audrey said she did, but her mind was still puzzling over the woman’s emphasis on the word young.
Yvonne distracted her with a friendly hand on her wrist. ‘Would you think me rude if I asked if you and Elliot were serious about each other?’
‘Good heavens, no!’ Audrey exclaimed automatically. ‘We...we’ve only known each other a couple of weeks.’
; The other woman nodded. ‘I see. Well, that is early days yet. Still, I know Moira would have been pleased if you were.’ She gave a small laugh. ‘Don’t look so surprised, my dear. Moira was not a possessive woman. She would have wanted Elliot to marry again, not go back to his earlier lifestyle. He certainly was one for the ladies before he married Moira.’
‘Yes, so I’ve heard,’ Audrey agreed.
‘Have you? Who told you?’
‘Elliot did.’
‘That’s not like him. He’s usually so closed-mouthed about himself. Truly, if Moira hadn’t been a close friend my curiosity about him would never have been satisfied. He must think a lot of you to tell you about himself.’
Audrey’s heart sank. She didn’t know so very much.
‘Have I said something wrong?’ Yvonne asked, frowning.
‘No, no,’ Audrey hastened to soothe. ‘It’s just that I would like to know a little more about Elliot. But one doesn’t like to pry.’
‘Nonsense! We women should stick together. I’ll tell you anything you want to know. Just fire away!’
How could she resist? ‘Was...was Elliot’s and Moira’s marriage a love-match?’
Yvonne frowned. ‘Now that’s a hard one. It certainly was on Moira’s part. She was mad about him. As for Elliot? Mmmm... Naturally there was a lot of speculation about his having married Moira for her fame and money. But I never did go along with that. Elliot had a top job as a lawyer with a big company. And he’d had plenty of fame himself with his skiing successes. Besides, he did seem to care for her. Though I would hesitate to call his affection real love.’ She sighed. ‘Moira always said he was loath to trust a woman with his complete heart after what his mother did to him.’
Audrey blinked. ‘Pardon?’
‘You don’t know about that? Tell me, my dear, what has Elliot told you about his growing up years?’
Audrey’s whole insides contracted. ‘Not much. I know his father deserted the family when he was just a baby and that his mother died soon after he graduated.’
‘That’s a rather skeletal version. His father did desert him. But so did his mother, when he was eight.’
Audrey must have looked shocked.
‘She was an alcoholic,’ Yvonne explained. ‘Elliot was made a ward of the state and put into various foster homes, but he grew into an antisocial teenager and ended up in a boy’s home. One of those charities which specialise in providing holidays to underprivileged children took him down to the snow when he was fifteen and he was discovered to have a rare talent for skiing. You do know about his skiing, don’t you?’
‘A little...’
‘He was a freak at it, apparently. Not to mention quite a budding genius at his schoolwork. The patrons of this particular charity provided a scholarship for him to go to university to study law, and be taught skiing in his spare time. Their investments were rewarded by Elliot’s topping his university at law and becoming a world-class skier at the same time.’
‘Goodness!’ Audrey exclaimed, truly astonished.
‘It’s said he could have been the world champion downhill racer if he’d lived in Europe and not here in Australia with its limited facilities and competition. As it was, he was doing quite well, always finishing in the top ten. That and his looks won him a lucrative royalty contract with a European ski clothes company.
‘Not that Elliot told Moira all this personally,’ Yvonne went on with a sigh. ‘She’d gleaned most of it over the years from other sources long before they met. Because Moira, you see, was one of his patrons.’
Audrey was speechless.
Yvonne was unlikely to ever be similarly indisposed. ‘She told me that the night she first met him down at an end-of-season skiing party at Perisher Valley he was heartlessly turning the head of every woman he was introduced to in the room. He had quite a reputation as a stud, especially with the type of older woman who only wanted sex from a relationship. Divorcees... Widows... Career women... Unhappy wives...’
Audrey felt a chill ripple through her.
‘But then, life on the international skiing circuit is scandalously fast,’ Yvonne tossed off blithely. ‘Moira found his Don Juan behaviour drily amusing from a distance but when he started trying to cynically charm her, with her sitting there in a wheelchair, she saw red.’
Yvonne gave a light, remembering laugh while Audrey was trying to come to terms not only with the image of Elliot as a hardened rake, but the even more startling image of Elliot’s wife in a wheelchair.
‘Believe me when I say Moira looked a serene lady,’ Yvonne continued. ‘But she wasn’t. She told me she tore strips off him, dressed him down in no uncertain terms in public, then froze him out for the rest of the night. Apparently, he was intrigued. And possibly challenged. Moira was no lightweight in the brain department. He rang her the next night and their relationship began...’
‘Was...was Moira always in a wheelchair?’
‘No. She had her good times and bad times. MS is like that, it seems. She used to spend a lot of time down the snow because cold apparently lessens the symptoms. Whatever the reason, shortly after meeting Elliot she went into remission for a couple of years. But a few weeks before she died it flared up again. Still, she was always very brave, very strong. She didn’t let anything beat her. But you know... I often think it’s as well she passed away when she did...’
‘Why do you say that? Was...was Elliot being unfaithful to her?’
Yvonne shrugged. ‘I have no evidence of it, but it’s hard to see him resisting all the women who kept throwing themselves at him. Oh-oh, here he comes with Nigel,’ she warned. ‘Don’t say I told you any of this, for pity’s sake. Elliot would be furious, and so would Nigel. He says I talk too much.’
‘I won’t breathe a word,’ Audrey said tautly, her mind reeling.
‘You two look as thick as thieves,’ Elliot smiled, curving a possessive arm around Audrey’s waist. She stiffened. But when he smiled back down at her, eyes warm and full of desire, any worries about Elliot’s character seemed to vanish. All she could think of was right here and now. And, right here and now, she wanted him like crazy. Nothing else mattered. Besides, it wasn’t as though he’d ever tried to deceive her with his intentions. Or lack of them!
‘We were discussing the chances for the coming race,’ Yvonne said smoothly.
‘And what do you fancy, Audrey?’ Elliot asked.
Her eyes flashed you at him, before she could stop them.
He raised an eyebrow and leant close to her ear. ‘Minx,’ he whispered. ‘We’re here to watch Little Girl Pink race. Nothing more!’
‘What...what race is she in?’ she asked, heart thudding away.
‘Race three. It goes off at one thirty-five.’
‘And do you think she’ll win?’
He shrugged. ‘The trainer doesn’t think so, but Nigel tells me he’s a cautious man. Here’s my form guide. Read it and make up your own mind. Far be it from me to influence you,’ he added, a teasing gleam in his eyes.
With cheeks colouring, Audrey fell to studying the various information, happy to get her mind off what Elliot could do to her body without even trying.
‘From what I can gather,’ she said after a minute or two, ‘Little Girl Pink’s being ridden by an underrated though competent jockey. They say here that with her light weight and excellent barrier position she has a better chance than a lot of the others.’
‘Spoken like a true gambler!’ Nigel joked.
‘Not only that,’ she grinned, ‘the jockey’s wearing cream and black. My colours.’
‘Oh, well, in that case,’ Elliot mocked in dry amusement, ‘I shall follow your expert advice and to hell with the trainer!’
Audrey thought he was only jesting so she was startled when later he lashed out with a thousand dollars each way at twenty-five to one on the filly. It made her ten-dollar fun bet look paltry by comparison. The one soothing aspect was that it squashed any theory about Elliot needing money.
Audrey was surprised by the excited tension that seized her when the horses started coming out on to the track. She spied the number eleven on the saddle cloth of a pretty chestnut with a white blaze down her face. ‘I see her!’ she squealed, and almost choked Elliot when she grabbed his binoculars to watch the filly going round to the barrier stalls.
‘Oh, she’s beautiful,’ she bubbled. ‘And very toey.’
Elliot took the glasses from her, rubbing his neck ruefully where the strap had been. ‘Toey? That’s a very horsy phrase for a girl who claims not to know one end of them from the other.’
Audrey looked sheepish. ‘I heard Nigel say that about his selection in the first race.’
Everyone laughed.
‘Let’s hope our filly does better than that particular nag,’ Nigel said drily. ‘I think it’s still running.’
‘I hope so too,’ Audrey agreed, eyeing the betting tickets in Elliot’s breast pocket with growing agitation.
Little Girl Pink didn’t win. But she did run third, to everyone’s delight. There was a lot of hugging all round. Elliot’s place ticket returned him over five thousand dollars on the Tote, whereupon he gave Audrey a thousand dollars. ‘To replace your loss,’ he said.
‘Oh, but I can’t accept!’ she exclaimed, face still flushed with excitement. ‘I only lost ten dollars.’
‘Go on,’ he insisted. ‘Take it. Be corrupted. I might make you earn it later,’ he added in a hoarse whisper.
Audrey’s cheeks scorched. She felt both aroused and shocked at the same time. Perhaps he was only joking but she wasn’t used to this type of sophisticated banter. When he saw her embarrassment, he gave her a quick hug. ‘You’re delightful, do you know that? So delightful,’ he said, nuzzling her ear, ‘that I find I cannot wait after all.’
‘I’m sorry, folks,’ he directed aloud to the rest of the group, ‘but Audrey and I have to leave. I’m taking her down to the snow for the rest of the weekend.’
Audrey just caught her startled gasp in time. For a second all she felt was excitement, but then a not so pleasant realisation took hold of her, a realisation of what Elliot had just done. She bit her bottom lip, her newly emerging self-esteem telling her that this wasn’t right, that Elliot shouldn’t be allowed to make up his mind for both of them off the cuff like this, without consulting her, without so much as a by-your-leave. Much as she wanted him, she really couldn’t meekly accept such behaviour. She had to make a stand over this, or all the personal gains she had made over the last week would be wasted.
