Now, despite Dougie’s suggestion that they called it a night, they were here in this exclusive nightclub, where the air was thick and blue-grey with expensive cigar smoke.
Working as a teenager on the family sheep station, Dougie had never imagined that his life would bring him somewhere like this. The shearing gangs could remove a fleece at a speed that had held him spellbound. The owners of London’s private clubs fleeced those who patronised them with similar speed and dexterity, Dougie thought ruefully, as he listened to the cut-crystal voices coming from the other tables.
The sound of female laughter ringing out from one of the other tables had Dougie turning discreetly, a small frown furrowing his forehead when he saw Emerald at a table right next to the dance floor with a group of people.
She was obviously the focus of attention at the table, but especially of the men, Dougie recognised, his frown deepening as he remembered that Alessandro had returned to his own country on business.
Emerald’s laughter and the manner in which she was so obviously enjoying herself certainly didn’t suggest that she was missing her husband in the way that one might expect from someone so newly married. Dougie hoped that the attentive smooth-looking older man seated to Emerald’s right would keep her attention so fully occupied that she didn’t notice him. He could do without her giving him a hard time this evening.
Meanwhile, Emerald smiled brilliantly at Tod Newton, her dinner companion and a well-known ladies’ man, a Second World War fighter pilot veteran and a gambler who had both won fortunes and lost them.
A practised flirt, Tod had been attentive to her all evening, and now, as he lit her cigarette for her, having already insisted on ordering her another White Lady, he told her provocatively, ‘I must say that your husband is a braver man than I, for I certainly would not want to leave such a beautiful and, dare I say, desirable young wife on her own.’
‘Oh, Alessandro is neither brave nor very much of a man,’ Emerald told him, buoyed up by the cocktails and wine she had already consumed this evening. ‘In fact, he’s a mummy’s boy, for he thinks far more of doing what his mother tells him to do than pleasing his wife.’
For once, Emerald was too full of alcohol and self-pity to notice the gleam of satisfaction that darkened her companion’s assessing gaze as it swept her from head to foot.
Her dark hair was newly done in a flick-up style, her off-the-shoulder low-necked sleeveless dress showed off her figure and her pale skin, whilst the diamonds she was wearing at her throat and on her wrists proclaimed her wealth and status.
‘Poor Princess,’ Tod murmured sympathetically.
‘Don’t call me Princess,’ Emerald commanded him, stopping just in time to prevent herself from blurting out that soon she would not be entitled to the name.
‘No? Then what am I to call you? Enchantress, who has blinded me with her beauty and ensnared me with my own desire for her?’
‘Just…just call me Emerald,’ she told him, stumbling slightly over the words.
He’d had his eye on Emerald since she and Alessandro had first joined the de la Salles set. Tod had enjoyed many beautiful women over the years but in Emerald he could see all the things he liked the most: beauty, spirit and, best of all, a certain arrogance that would make her oh so vulnerable to him. Tod mentally calculated how much he was likely to be able to get from her to keep his silence over her ‘little moment of foolishness’–tens of thousands certainly, maybe even a hundred thousand, given that she was married to royalty.
He summoned a waiter, and, as though by magic, within seconds another cocktail was being handed to Emerald.
In actual fact Emerald was beginning to feel rather light-headed, but of course it didn’t do to start acting like some silly little ingénue when one was in such sophisticated company. Had Alessandro’s mother told him yet that their marriage was over? There was a feeling inside
Emerald that she didn’t want to be there. It hurt her pride and something else as well to know that the hold she had believed she had over Alessandro hadn’t been strong enough to make him defy his mother, that someone else had mattered more to him than she did. Just as someone else had mattered more to her mother than she had. Immediately Emerald flinched from the edge of the crevasse that opened up inside her mind, not wanting to look down into its depths for fear of what she might see there waiting to destroy her.
Alessandro was a spineless fool, she assured herself. There were other men for her to bend to her will, other men–like Tod Newton–for her to display as her trophies, and as a once-married woman she was no longer bound by the rules that tied unmarried girls to their virginity. She could be and would be the temptress, the woman of the world whom no man could resist.
These and other alcohol-induced thoughts swirled inside Emerald’s head. Although she didn’t want to admit it, she was missing the attention Alessandro had given her, and the satisfaction of knowing that she only had to smile at him in a certain way to get him to do anything she had wanted. Emerald had enjoyed the sense of power that had given her. She had delighted in knowing that allowing Alessandro possession of her body had meant that she had total control over him. And would still have had total control over him if it hadn’t been for his mother. She wanted more of that power. She would prove to those other women–outwardly meek, good women like her own mother, and openly controlling women like Alessandro’s mother–that her own particular brand of sexual power was stronger than anything they possessed. She would be the woman that no man could resist and, because of that, all women feared.
‘You see, the thing is, old chap,’ Henry was saying confidingly to Dougie as he leaned across the table, ‘I was rather hoping that you might be able to help me out of a bit of a hole. After all, we’re almost family, what with my sister and my favourite daughter living under your roof. I can tell you that the whole family is pretty glad to see you inherit. There was always something fishy about poor old Robert’s marriage to Amber Pickford–said so at the time and I wasn’t the only one. Pretty little thing, of course, but hardly out of the top drawer. Never does to mix blue blood with non-blue. Glad that boy of hers didn’t live to inherit, and as for the girl…Look at her over there now. Newton will have her in his bed before she knows what’s happening to her, and then that husband of hers will have to pay him a fortune to keep her name out of the gossip columns. Either that or divorce her…Now, Dougie, old chap, as I was saying, the thing is that I’m in a bit of a tight spot and could do with a small loan, a couple of thousand, well, let’s say five thousand.’
Dougie, who had stiffened the minute that Gwendolyn’s father had started to verbally attack Amber, whom Dougie both liked and admired, now hardened his heart completely against the other man. Sitting back in his chair and shaking his head, he said firmly, ‘I’m sorry but I don’t have access to that kind of cash.’
It was a lie but Dougie was damned if he was going to fund the other man’s gambling debts. He felt sorry for his family, very sorry, in fact, but some instinct told him that if he’d bailed Henry out now, the requests for help would never stop coming.
Dougie’s refusal had caused the genial smile to slip from Henry’s face, revealing the same contempt with which he had just spoken of Amber.
‘Bastard,’ he swore bitterly, before getting up from the table and storming out of the club, leaving Dougie sitting alone.
Getting up himself, Dougie asked for the bill and then made his way to the small front desk. He was just waiting for the coat-check girl to reappear when he saw Emerald swaying towards the desk, no doubt heading for the ladies’ cloakroom, which was on the upper floor. She was very unsteady on her feet, and was plainly the worse for drink, although, of course, being Emerald, the brilliance the alcohol had brought to her eyes and the flush it gave to her cheeks only enhanced her beauty.
She had taken off her wedding ring, Dougie noticed grimly. Her poor parents would be horrified by her behaviour. He was himself.
‘Oh, it’s you.’ She greeted him unceremoniously and with obvious dislike, the effect rather spoiled by the small hiccup she was too late to smother.
‘Alessandro isn’t with you?’
‘No. I’m here with some friends, one very special friend, in fact, and he’s going to take me somewhere that he says will be a lot more fun than this place. ’Scuse me. I must go and powder my nose.’