A Scandal Made At Midnight

‘All these questions.’ She laughed lightly as she moved away from him with a whisper of fabric over skin, her plain, pale blue cotton sundress swishing about her slender legs. ‘My father was a minor diplomat. He was posted to New York.’ She turned back to him, a teasing glint entering her eyes although there was still something sombre about her manner. ‘Apparently he was a great friend of your father’s.’

‘Was he?’ Alessandro asked, his tone decidedly neutral. The friendship was not, he thought, anything to recommend the man to him. His father had been for his whole life a reckless, thoughtless and louche dilettante, embarking on one affair after another, never caring whom he hurt in the process.

‘Well, that is perhaps a matter of some debate,’ Liane conceded. ‘But it was how we were invited to your ball. My father lent yours a hundred francs at the baccarat table in Monte Carlo. Apparently he never forgot it. He put my family on the invitation list for several occasions over the years, although this is the first one we have been able to attend.’

‘Ah.’ He couldn’t keep his lips from twisting cynically and Liane nodded slowly in understanding, or perhaps admission.

‘My father was a gambler,’ she stated quietly. ‘He lost all his money at those tables and we moved to Paris and then New York to escape the disgrace. He died soon after.’

He heard the throb of pain in her voice and found it touched him, more than he wanted it to. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘So am I. If he hadn’t lost all his money, he might not have drunk himself to death and then died of liver failure just a year later.’ She let out a little sigh, the sound no more than a breath, as she looked away.

‘I’m sorry for that as well.’ He paused. ‘I’m afraid my father shares many of your father’s traits. He’s still alive, though, living what he sees as the high life in Ibiza, but he has behaved in a similarly feckless manner all his life.’

She turned back to regard him seriously, her eyes wide and unblinking. ‘You’re not like him.’

‘I thank God for that.’

‘That was a deliberate choice you made? To be different?’

Her insight, appreciated only a few moments ago, now caused him a frisson of unease. ‘Yes, it was.’ He would never be led, the way his father had been, by his lust, or like his mother had been, by her emotions. One had caused his father’s dissipation, the other his mother’s death. He preferred to remain apart.

‘The tabloids are so curious about you, you know.’ A smile flirted with her mouth and lightened her eyes to lavender. ‘You seem to be something of a recluse, which makes this whirlwind of parties all the more surprising.’

He took a step towards her. ‘You’ve been reading up on me?’

A blush pinked her cheeks as she held his gaze. ‘It would be rather remiss of me not to, considering my sister and I are travelling with you for the week.’

‘True enough. Well, don’t believe all you read in the tabloids.’

Her eyebrows arched. ‘So you’re not a recluse?’

‘Recluse might be too strong a word. I like my own company, certainly, and I often find others’ tedious.’

‘Then these parties really will be torture for you,’ she teased with a small smile.

Right now he was experiencing an entirely different kind of torture, breathing in her scent, watching her eyes turn different shades of twilight, the way her chest rose and fell with each breath. Why was he so affected by her? It was both alarming and annoying, to feel such an instant and overwhelming attraction for someone he barely knew. Even now his palms itched with the desire to reach for her, draw her to him slowly, so slowly...

‘I only intend to stay long enough at each one to generate the publicity needed,’ he stated, banishing the provocative images from his mind.

‘You do sound like a cynic.’

‘That’s because I am one.’ His voice came out rougher than he expected and she blinked, startled. Alessandro was not sorry. As entertaining as it could be to chat and to flirt, he wanted Liane to have no misapprehensions about who he was. What he was. Like she claimed—although he didn’t know whether to take her at her word—he didn’t believe in the fairy tale. At all. And he refused to give her or anyone else a moment’s hope about it, no matter what attraction was springing to life between them.

She held his gaze a moment longer, as if weighing the truth of his words, and then she moved away from him, towards the door that led to the adjoining room. ‘What’s in here?’

Alessandro came to stand behind her as she opened the door. ‘The bedroom,’ he said and she shivered slightly, as if she’d felt his breath ripple over her skin. She stood there for a moment, surveying the wide double bed piled high with pillows in varying shades of gold and cream silk. Alessandro stood behind her, close enough that if he bent his head he could have brushed a kiss to the nape of her neck. He eased back.

‘What a lovely room,’ she remarked after a moment, her voice low and husky, and he wondered if she too were imagining the scene that could be so pleasurably played out there. She started to close the door.

Alessandro caught it with his hand, his fingers brushing hers so she stilled, her body tense, practically vibrating. For a second Alessandro remained with his hand touching hers, the air seeming hushed, expectant. It would be so easy to turn and take her in his arms...

But, no. He was mad to think this way. He didn’t think this way. He never let himself be led by his emotions or desires. Restraint was his watch word. He couldn’t let Liane Blanchard change who he was.

‘You should see the bathroom,’ he told her, drawing his hand back from hers. ‘It’s even more luxurious.’

‘Oh?’ She glanced back at him, her expression veiled, and he enjoyed the way her eyes both widened and darkened, the slight parting of her lush lips—he noticed every reaction, no matter how tiny, and felt the answering flare of both need and desire in himself. Did she feel it too? He thought she must, but her face was as blank and lovely as a marble Madonna’s. What was she hiding—and how much?

‘Come and see,’ he murmured and placed his palm near the small of her back, letting it hover questioningly for a moment, which she answered as she moved forward, slow enough that he was able to keep his hand there, and he was almost fiercely glad. He felt the warmth of her skin through the thin cotton of her sundress, burning his palm, firing his senses. Surely she felt the same pull of attraction. He wanted her to, even though he knew he wouldn’t act on it. But this couldn’t be in his own mind, his own body. She felt it as well, no matter how carefully veiled her expression.

Slowly, savouring every moment, he guided her towards the bathroom and with an unsteady hand she opened the door.

‘Oh, my.’ Her voice came out in a breathy rush as she surveyed the room—the sunken whirlpool tub for two, the gilded mirrors on the wall, the pillar candles, the crystal chandelier winking above. ‘How...decadent.’

‘Isn’t it, though.’

He hadn’t meant to sound sour, but she noted it and it clearly broke the mood as she stepped away from his hand with a questioning look. Just as well, he told himself.

‘Did you not design it yourself?’

‘No, this jet belonged to my father. I usually prefer to travel by regular aeroplane but, considering the nature of our travels, it seemed both more sensible and ecological to use a private jet on this one occasion.’

‘Your father was a man of decadent tastes?’ Her gaze swept slowly over him, seeking, finding.

‘You could say that.’

‘Another way you’re not like him then, I think.’

‘I’ll thank you for the compliment, although I’m not sure how you’ve discerned so much.’

‘Everything about you is restrained.’ He blinked, startled and a bit unnerved by her assessment. ‘As if you’re always keeping yourself in check. As if you have to, as a matter of principle.’

He managed a laugh, although he was shaken by her perceptiveness. That was exactly how he felt. Never give in to the yearning he sometimes felt because it was weakness. Never let himself be used. ‘I’m not sure that’s a compliment.’

‘I admire a certain amount of restraint.’ She paused. ‘My father certainly didn’t have it, more was the pity for him.’

‘And you’re not like your father either, are you?’ he returned.

‘Well, I’m not a gambler.’ She let out a small, sad laugh. ‘But to be honest I wouldn’t mind being like him in other ways—a bit more fun and carefree, able to enjoy life. People loved being around him. I did.’ She paused. ‘He was a bit like Ella, and she’s not even related to him.’

Alessandro didn’t reply for a moment; he knew he didn’t fully understand the grief she felt for a man who had clearly wasted so much of his life. He refused to feel such emotion for either of his parents. ‘So Ella was the daughter of your mother’s second husband?’ he surmised.

‘Yes, Robert Ash. They married when my sister Manon and I were in our early teens.’

‘Ella mentioned she doesn’t get along with your mother.’

‘That would be putting it mildly.’ Liane looked away. ‘That’s not Ella’s fault, though.’

‘Then is it your mother’s?’ he asked, curious as to what was making her look so sorrowfully pensive.

‘She can be a difficult, prickly sort of person.’ She turned back to face him. ‘What about your mother?’

Briefly he thought of the woman he’d called mother for a handful of years; his blurry memories were of her drunk or passed out, shrieking or weeping or causing a scene, certainly nothing to dwell on—or to miss. And yet, shamefully, he had. He thought of the last time he’d seen her...throwing clothes into a suitcase, barely looking at him. He’d been eight years old, tearful, begging... Please, Mamma, please...

‘She left when I was eight,’ he told Liane in a clipped voice. ‘I don’t remember much about her.’

‘Left?’ Pity flickered in her eyes and he tensed, hating that he was its object. Why had he said as much as he had? It was an odd sharing of confidences they were having, secrets drawn from them almost reluctantly, as if they were compelled to share their souls with each other. Now he really was being fanciful. He had no idea why he was talking like this with Liane Blanchard. Why she affected him so much, both physically and emotionally. It was alarming. It was intoxicating. It needed to stop.

‘Yes,’ he confirmed dismissively, deciding it was time to put an end to the conversation. ‘And then she died when I was eleven.’

‘I’m so sorry.’