Public Scandal, Private Mistress

eting with a couple of bankers this morning. I do know the principle of dressing to intimidate—’

‘You mean, you haven’t come all this way just to intimidate me.’ She was beginning to recover her shattered composure, and more…she was beginning to see things from a perspective she had never before considered, put a different interpretation on his behaviour.

Now it was his turn to sound slightly defensive. ‘I had to fill the time until you were due to arrive somehow.’ He stood up. ‘You’re still looking a little pale—maybe you should have a glass of water.’

She had put him into retreat. She quickly scrambled off the couch in a panic. ‘No, don’t go—I’m fine. See!’

Her shoe brushed her handbag and it toppled over, the little terracotta shepherd-boy bounced out of the side pocket onto the carpet. They both bent to pick it up simultaneously, but Luc got there first.

He fingered it with startling tenderness as he straightened and looked at her, his eyes for the first time totally unguarded.

‘You damned little fool!’ he said roughly, the words encompassing everything that she had done…and not done.

She was shaken by the painful intensity in his voice and put her hand over his, needing the contact to get the words out: ‘I’m sorry. I never meant to hurt you. I didn’t realise I could—’

‘How could you not know? God, even Gran could see I was crazy about you.’ He raised their joined hands to his mouth. ‘I thought I showed you how I felt—’

‘A girl likes to be told,’ she chided him, her smoky eyes shimmering with hope that her mistrust hadn’t shattered his fundamental belief in her.

‘So does a boy,’ he said thickly. His fingers entwined with hers. ‘I thought that when I put that ring on your finger in Avignon, that you might want to keep it there.’

For the second time that day her legs turned to jelly and this time he was ready. The tension lines on his face dissolved in a soft laugh as he sat with her on the couch and stood the shepherd-boy facing them on the coffee-table.

‘A girl likes to be asked,’ she said shyly.

‘I thought it might frighten you off,’ he said simply. ‘For all the way we met, you’re a cautious woman. I wanted to put my mark on you, but I didn’t think you trusted me enough at that stage to say yes.’

And subsequent events had proved him right. She had never thought he lacked confidence, but in this one area he seemed as vulnerable as she had been—no wonder their tangle of emotions had become a snarl.

‘I did wonder if you might want to keep it for Elise,’ she confessed, and when his eyes flickered his distaste, she continued bravely, ‘Well, you must admit, it was a very suspicious situation, and you never made any secret of the fact there was a lot more to the tale than you were telling.’

‘Because it wasn’t my tale to tell. I’d promised Elise absolute discretion, and I make a point of honouring my promises, even it they aren’t easy to keep…all my promises,’ he said quietly, with a look that made her warm all over. Suddenly she didn’t want to talk—not about other people, anyway.

‘Luc, I—’

‘No, let’s get this out of the way. Elise and Foster have got what they want, at the expense of a lot of pain to other people, so they at least owe you the truth.’

His gaze remained steady as he made no attempt to paint his actions in a heroic light, merely as a series of escalating complications—an honourable man trapped in a less than honourable situation.

‘I wasn’t having a meal with Elise the night of the fight, I was actually out at a formal dinner. She called me from Foster’s hotel room in a panic. She said there was a photographer outside and Foster was drunk as well as high on something and threatening to make a scene, and she needed someone she could trust to help calm him down. Elise and I were better platonic friends than we were ever lovers, and I think she saw me as the only person whose discretion she could totally rely on—most of her other male friends were Andrew’s political buddies or dependants. And I was already involved, although I didn’t know it. Elise told me that night that the times Foster had stayed at my place in Derbyshire, she’d gone down there to be with him—they’d used me as a cover for their affair without having the courtesy to tell me about it.’

Veronica winced. No wonder he was touchy about personal loyalty. ‘You still helped her, though—’

‘Call me an old romantic,’ he said wryly, ‘but she was my first lover. She was also a politically helpful friend for many years. And I felt sorry for her—she’d got herself into a hell of a mess with someone whom I personally think is a walking disaster.

‘Elise came downstairs at the hotel to meet me, but Foster followed her down and accused me of trying to break them up and that’s when he attacked me. As soon as Elise realised someone had taken a photo of the fight, she knew they were in even worse trouble. If Foster’s name was linked with hers, the press would be instantly all over them like a rash, whereas if it was my name it wouldn’t attract so much attention and she still had true deniability: anyone digging for dirt about my relationship with her since her marriage was going to come up with zilch, because there was nothing to find. So we went to the restaurant to make it look like we were all having a sociable night out, and to try to talk some sense into Macho Man, and eventually we managed to convince him to go into rehab the next day, after which I was able to pour him back into his room. We were actually lucky the photos weren’t used in the right order—it put a different spin on the story: a fight between two blokes over a social insult. Elise was in tears because Foster was accusing her of using him as a baby-factory. I advised her to tell Andrew straight away, before it hit the papers, and either ask for a divorce or ask him to accept the child as their own.’

‘She could have pretended it was his baby…’

He gave her a dour look. ‘Andrew’s sterile.’

‘Oh—’

‘At that stage she still wasn’t sure if she wanted to take the risk with Foster—she knows he’s not a very stable personality, but I guess she must have decided he loves her enough to give up all his carousing for her and the baby. I let her stay in one of my company apartments after she moved out on Andrew, to lay low the press, but that was when she started thinking that she might be making a huge mistake. My mistake was letting her know I was going to be at St Romain with the family. I guess she just took it for granted that I would play the role of counsellor again when she burnt her boats and asked for the divorce. She nearly went back to London when she found old Max drunk as a skunk in Avignon, but he bounced back like an old pro the next day and claimed it was only because he’d been missing her and worrying she was having second thoughts. He can act, I’ll give him that!’

‘You certainly have some interesting friends,’ murmured Veronica. She could almost feel sorry for Elise Malcolm.

‘Who can go to the devil! At the moment I’m only interested in one, very particular friend,’ he said, curving his hand under her chin and tilting up her face to slant his mouth over hers.