abruptly. She was in her late twenties, early thirties, Tattie judged. She was also several inches taller than Tattie, but none of that prevented Tattie from eyeing her severely and imperiously.
A tinge of colour ran beneath Leonie’s honey-gold skin, then she shrugged. ‘Curiosity, I suppose. Why would I be invited in the first place? Also—’
‘I can tell you that,’ Tattie interposed swiftly, ‘Irina organised this party. Alex was unaware until today that you had been invited. So was I. And Irina was definitely unaware of who you were, otherwise she wouldn’t have touched you with a bargepole.’
‘I see.’ Leonie looked fleetingly amused then oddly bitter. ‘Well, there’s no reason I shouldn’t be here, as it happens. I got my marching orders some time ago. And marching orders they were too—Any fuss, Leonie, and Constantin will cease to do business with you. I’m sure I don’t have to tell you how deadly Alex can be when he sets his mind to it. But when his brief infatuation with you ceases, Mrs Constantin,’ Leonie added silkily, ‘I’ll get him back.’ And she turned on her heel and walked away.
‘What was all that about?’
Tattie jumped and found her husband standing beside her. ‘Probably an age-old ritual between mistress and wife, Alex,’ she said coolly, then her lips trembled and she laughed softly. ‘But how bizarre that you should use me to extricate yourself from her.’
‘What do you mean?’ he said rather grimly.
Tattie opened her mouth then caught sight out of the corner of her eye of his mother, radiant in pink silk that didn’t suit her at all but didn’t manage to dim her personality either, approaching them with a slight limp. She sighed inwardly and said, ‘Don’t worry about it, Alex, but I think you should dance with me in a very husbandly way now, if for no other reason than to let your mother think her party is a real success!’ And she melted into his arms.
Surprise kept him rigid for a moment. And he said barely audibly, ‘You’re going to have to explain later, you know, Tatiana.’ Then he drew her into his arms and, despite the implicit threat in the use of her proper name that always told her he was in a dangerous mood, kissed her lightly before swinging her round to the music.
‘I think I’ll go to bed now, Alex,’ Tattie said at two-thirty in the morning, after a swift silent ride home at the end of the party.
She had preceded him into the lounge, a lovely room she had created in their apartment—the apartment he had bought and presented to her as a wedding present in accordance with the contracts he and her mother had agreed upon—with a view through the wide windows to the terrace. The view was dark now, of course, but the oil rig anchored in Darwin Harbour for maintenance was lit up like a Christmas tree.
‘Oh, no, you don’t, Tattie.’
She stopped in the middle of the lounge and turned to look at him. She had her shoes in one hand, her pearls in the other and her face was shadowed with weariness.
‘Alex, this is no time—’
‘Sit down, Tattie,’ he ordered, and came across to her with two tall glasses in his hands.
‘What’s this?’ she queried as he handed her one.
‘Something long, cool and delicious for someone who has partied as vigorously as you have. Don’t worry, I’m not planning to make you drunk and seduce you.’ He looked down at her wide eyes and slightly apprehensive expression.
Tattie took the glass from him, drank deeply as if she was very thirsty, then in a stiff little voice recounted her conversation with his mistress. And she sat down abruptly.
Alex lounged against a pillar and merely twisted his glass in his hands. ‘What she told you is not an accurate representation of the events.’
Tattie went to wave her hand and realised she was still clutching her pearls. She put them down carefully. ‘It doesn’t matter one way or the other to me, Alex.’
‘I would have thought it might in the light of how we go on, Tattie. You did say you wanted to discuss that with me.’
‘Well. Yes. But…’ She trailed off, looking almost ashen with weariness and strain now. ‘I can’t think straight.’
He took his time. He sipped his drink then he said quietly, ‘My suggestion is that we stop fooling around and get this marriage off the ground.’
Tattie’s mouth fell open as she sorted through this. ‘Fooling…?’ she said incredulously, picking on perhaps the least startling aspect of his advice.
‘Or whatever you like to call it.’ He looked briefly quizzical.
‘You know what I like to call it, Alex.’
He lifted an eyebrow at her. ‘You also gave me to understand that you knew what you were getting into, Tattie. But, for what it’s worth, your suggestion of a year’s grace was a good one. At least we know now that we can get along pretty well.’ His mouth quirked. ‘We don’t appear to have any habits that drive each other up the wall.’ He looked at her with a question in his eyes.
‘That’s…assuming we were brother and sister, Alex. Lovers could be a different matter.’
He put his glass down on a beautiful, inlaid pedestal table and came over to her. She stared up at him wide-eyed as he removed her glass from her fingers then drew her to her feet.
‘My dear Tattie,’ he murmured with his hands resting lightly on her shoulders and his gaze summing her up from head to toe, ‘I feel quite sure that it could only enhance our relationship to become lovers. Trust me.’
His fingers slipped from her shoulder to trace the line where his pearls would have lain and, despite her tiredness and confusion, she couldn’t help the reaction that came to her again, that trembling sensation any close contact with him brought to the surface.
‘But sleep on it,’ he suggested.
‘I…’ She bit her lip.
‘I’m off on a tour of the pearl farms early tomorrow,’ he continued. ‘I’ll be away for a few days. So you’ll be able to do more than sleep on it.’ He kissed her lightly on the top of her head. ‘I thought, after that, we could spend a little while at Beaufort. I have some ideas for it.’
Sheer blackmail!
Tattie sat up, saw it was nine o’clock in the morning and clutched her head as the blackmail thought raced through her mind.
Tired as she’d been, sleep had been difficult, and when she’d achieved it weird dreams populated by Leonie Falconer resembling some sort of smug sun goddess had plagued her. So why had she woken up with blackmail on her mind?
Because apart from her mother only Alex knew how close to her heart Beaufort especially was. How could he not? True, she’d been fascinated by the cultured-pearl side of his business—she would have loved to be visiting the farms with him—but it was his cattle stations and how he handled them that she had attempted to absorb like blotting paper. All for the purpose of applying that knowledge to Beaufort and Carnarvon should she ever have to run them on her own.
But, more than that, perhaps only Alex guessed that twelve months had
