She began to rhythmically smooth his back with her hands.
“She’s extremely beautiful.” He felt a stab of alarm. He was very fond of Marcus. Protective as well. Whatever he had expected of Marcus’s shock lady friend, it wasn’t this, though his great-aunt had warned him.
“She’s quite a remarkable young lady and, without question, well bred. Cool old-style beauty, if you know what I mean. Very Mittel Europa. Not a modern look at all. That would appeal to Marcus. There’s a story there, mark my words!”
“I hope you noticed the hair?” A bridling Paula jolted him out of his thoughts again.
“You’re not going to tell me you were born with copper hair?”
Paula’s eyes flashed with resentment. “Just a few foils,” she lied. “Hers can’t be real! Where do you get that white blonde except from a bottle?”
“Scandinavia, maybe?” he suggested. “Her surname is Erickson, I believe. Sonya Erickson. Bit of a clue. Norwegian background perhaps? Norway the Land of the Midnight Sun, birthplace of Ibsen, Grieg, Edvard Munch, Sigrid Undset, and, as I recall, the infamous Quisling.”
Paula frowned. She didn’t know half those people. She’d seen Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler at the Sydney Theatre Company and thought it a dead bore, even if Cate Blanchett was as always brilliant. So far as she was concerned the play had little or no relevance to modern life. And what sort of a solution was suicide? “I never thought Marcus could be such a fool,” she said with surprising bitterness. “Neither did Mummy.”
“Ah, Mummy!” The terrible Mummy who had a Chihuahua called Mitzi that greeted male visitors in full Rottweiler mode. Marilyn Rowlands, who had been brought up to believe if a girl wasn’t married by twenty-four she was doomed to live and die alone. Marilyn was therefore desperate to marry off her twenty-eight-year-old daughter.
To him.
Even if Paula were the last woman left in the world, he feared he would remain a bachelor.
“You were at the dinner party Mummy arranged to get Marcus and Susan Hampstead together, remember?” Paula took condemnatory eyes off Ms Ericksen to shoot him a glance. “They’d both lost their partners.”
His reply was terse to the point of curtness. “Susan Hampstead. Three marriages? Three divorces? Marcus lost his dearly loved wife.” There was a world of difference between the late Lucy Wainwright and Susan Hampstead, a living, breathing, career courtesan, and he wasn’t going to let Paula forget it.
“Yes, yes, I know.” Paula resumed rubbing his back in a conciliatory and, it had to be said, irritatingly proprietary fashion. He couldn’t embarrass her in public by shrugging her off. He had to stand there and take it. They weren’t an Item. He had been up front about it all. No commitment, but try as he did he couldn’t stop Paula and her mother thinking there was or there would very soon be.
His mood turned pensive. “Marcus has been a very sad man for a long time. It’s good to see him out and about.” Only the last thing the Wainwright clan would want for Marcus was to make a dreadful and inevitably painful mistake. The girl was too young. Too beautiful. Too everything. She mightn’t have Susan Hampstead’s cobralike attack, but in real terms she could prove far more dangerous.
“Marcus obviously footed the bill for her dress.” Paula glanced down at her own stunning designer gown, which suddenly appeared to her less stunning. “I can imagine just how much that evening dress cost. No florist could possibly afford it. It’s couture. Vintage Chanel, I’d say. The jewellery too. Surely I’ve seen the pendant before?”
Mummy certainly would have, he thought, but he didn’t enlighten Paula. The pendant necklace, an exquisite Colombian emerald surrounded by a sunburst of diamonds, that hung around the girl’s white swan neck had belonged to Lucy. So too had the chandelier-style diamond earrings. The set had been Marcus’s wedding gift to his beautiful green-eyed wife. They hadn’t been seen for the best part of six years, which was roughly the time lovely little Lucy had taken to die of bone cancer.
“Ah, well, mistresses never go out of date.” His own surge of resentment towards the newcomer shocked him. Lucy’s emeralds, God! Would Lucy mind? Would she turn over in her grave? No, Lucy had been a beautiful person. Shouldn’t he at least give this young woman a chance? But his male intuition had gone into overdrive. She was one of those life altering women. Needless to say she would be very clever. Manipulative, as a matter of course. He noted she had matched her gown, not only to the jewel, but to her beautiful emerald eyes. They were set at a fascinating slant. Her eyes rivalled the precious gemstone. It dipped into the perfectly arched upper swells of her breasts. Her skin was flawless, lily white. One rarely saw such porcelain skin outside Europe. Her beautiful, thick, white-blonde hair, which he was prepared to bet a million dollars was natural with that white skin, was arranged in an elegant chignon interwoven with silver and gold threads that stood out like a glittering sunburst. It was incredibly effective. They could have had a young goddess on the scene.
Rowena as usual was spot on. A young woman who owned and worked in a florist shop looked like Old World aristocracy, so regal was her demeanour. She didn’t appear in the least overawed by her lavish surroundings, the fashionable crowd, the seriously rich, the celebrities and socialites, or troubled by the full-on battery of stares. She moved with confidence showing no sign she was aware of the effect she was having on the room full of guests. Royalty couldn’t have pulled it off better.
“And she’s got inches on Marcus,” Paula pointed out, as though it were absolutely verboten for a woman to be taller than her escort.
“Very likely her high heels.” She was certainly above average height for a woman. As a couple, they were a study in contrasts. Marcus, medium height, worryingly thin, dark, grey-flecked hair, grey eyes, an austere scholarly face, and a knife sharp brain. He looked more like a university don than a captain of industry. His companion was ultra slender, but not in that borderline anorexic way Holt so disliked. She was willowy. She moved beautifully with the grace of a trained dancer. Lovely arms, neck and small high breasts. Her legs, hidden by the full-length silk gown, would no doubt be just as spectacular.
That as may be, she couldn’t be the defunct European aristocrat she appeared. More likely a hard-nosed gold-digger lurking beneath the surface. A woman as beautiful as that could have any man she wanted. Obviously topping her list of requirements for potential suitors was considerable wealth. That would decimate the numbers. Though Marcus was by no means the richest member of the Wainwright family—that was the family patriarch, Julius—Marcus had at least a hundred and forty million dollars. A fortune that size assured any man up to ninety years of age blue-chip eligibility. A hundred and forty million dollars should just about cover any girl-on-the-make’s lifetime expenses.
Paula got another steely grip on his arm.
“Hey, Paula, those sessions at the gym are really paying off.”
“Sorry.” She relaxed the pressure. “You’re not usually so testy. But I guess you’re upset for poor Marcus. She’s obviously an adventuress.”
“A lot of women have that streak.”
Paula gave a nervous laugh. At least she was an heiress. That let her off the hook. “Look out,” she warned, clearly perturbed. “They’re coming our way,”
He gave her a sardonic
