Passionate Scandal

It was Dominic’s own private sitting-room—more a den than anything else. It contained nothing fancy, only the creature comforts a man liked to have around him when he relaxed. And Dominic often relaxed here when pressure of work meant it wasn’t worth him making the trip back to Lambourn in the evening. There was a desk, of course, untidily scattered with papers, two huge and chunky red velvet sofas, a comprehensively stocked drinks bar, a television set and expensive hi-fi stack, and the ever-present computer link with the bank.

Other than that, it contained all Dominic’s personal bits and pieces, like the books on the shelves and the magazines scattered about. It wasn’t a tidy room, but then Dominic never let anyone in here to ‘mess’ with it, and she had always liked coming here with him—mainly because it was one of the only places they had ever managed to be alone in comfort.

‘That wasn’t here the last time I came,’ she observed, covering her nervousness at being here again by remarking on a gold-framed painting she’d spied hanging on the wall opposite.

Dominic sent her a hooded look as he walked over to the drinks bar. ‘No,’ he murmured. ‘It’s a recent addition.’

Madeline walked over to take a closer look at it. It reminded her or something…

Unaware of Dominic’s stillness as he watched her, she ran her eyes over the rather grand-looking black and white manor house standing within its own beautifully laid out grounds. Its grey-slated roof was shining as if a recent shower of rain had just washed it clean, the tiny diamond-leaded windows glinting in the new sunlight.

It reminded her of the old Courtney place that stood about halfway between her own home and the Stantons’. But where the years had been very kind and loving to the house in the painting, the Courtney place had been allowed to deteriorate badly over the years, its beauty lost.

A small sigh whispered from her lips. She had always shared a sad kind of sympathy with Courtney Manor. And seeing this lovely house looking as Courtney Manor should look brought those feelings back to her now.

‘Who does it belong to?’

/> ‘What, the house or the painting?’ Dominic quizzed, coming over to stand beside her and handing her a glass. ‘The painting is mine,’ he said. ‘I just happened to come across it one day covered in the filth of centuries and looking nothing like it does now…it was the frame which initially caught my attention.’

‘A junk shop?’ Madeline could remember how Dominic couldn’t resist rummaging around old junk shops. He had a passion for the old and unusual—not necessarily the valuable either, but things, objects which captured his interest—an addiction inherited from his mother, the family liked to tease. The Stanton house was filled with old curiosities, not all of them collected by his mother.

‘You could say that,’ he smiled rather cryptically. ‘Once I got a closer look at the canvas, I decided it might be worth renovating—and as you see…’ he indicated with his glass to the picture ‘…it was.’

‘Can I buy it from you?’ she asked impulsively, turning hopeful eyes on him. ‘I’ll pay you the full market price for it,’ she added quickly when she saw the way he suddenly closed her out.

‘Why do you want it?’ He wasn’t looking at her, but at the painting. But Madeline detected a tension in him that hadn’t been there a few minutes ago.

‘It—it reminds me of the Courtney place,’ she admitted, shrugging because she was uncomfortably aware that she was revealing more than she liked of her inner feelings. Dominic knew all about her attraction to the Courtney place.

He said nothing though, narrowing his eyes on the picture as if trying to catch the resemblance himself. And they both stood in silent contemplation for a while.

‘How serious is it between you and Linburgh?’ he asked suddenly, and she jerked her head around to stare at him in surprise.

‘What has that got to do with the painting?’ she wanted to know.

He didn’t reply, his gaze still fixed on the painting, a brooding quality about his stillness. Madeline frowned at him, wondering what was going on in that complicated mind of his.

After another long pause, he turned to look at her, his grey eyes dark and intent. ‘You can have what’s in the frame the day you can come and tell me that you’ve given Linburgh up for good.’

Her eyes widened in bewilderment. ‘Why should you want me to do that?’ she asked.

His crooked smile gave her her answer, and Madeline dropped her gaze from his, a sudden ball tightening the muscles in her stomach. Dominic still wanted her. He had just told her so.

CHAPTER SEVEN

SHAKEN, Madeline moved away from Dominic, going to sit down on one of the chunky sofas, struggling to hide what that revelation did to her.

It had taken four years to get over her last encounter with this man, and in just three short meetings she was sweeping those four years away as if they had never been!

She took a sip at her drink, eyes lowered because she was aware that he was watching her, waiting for her to say something, acknowledge what he had just so casually announced.

Over in one corner, the soft steady tick of one of Dominic’s junk shop buys began winding up to chime the quarter. And automatically, Madeline checked the time on her own slender gold wrist watch. Ten-thirty, she saw just as the warm resonant sound of a Westminster chime began filling the room.

She glanced up at him, and their eyes caught and held, an old remembered heat washing right through her. He had undone his bow-tie, and it was hanging loose at his throat. The top few buttons of his shirt were open, too, allowing her a glimpse of his strong tanned throat. Her mouth went dry, and she swallowed some more of her drink, but the light white wine only agitated the commotion already going on inside her.

She took in a controlled breath, feeling her heart pumping heavily against her ribs. ‘My relationship with Perry is none of your business,’ she managed to say eventually.

‘Perhaps not,’ he conceded. ‘But I would be obliged if you would tell me anyway.’