By Marriage Divided. Lindsay Armstrong
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socialize with him until I, well, work a few things out.’
‘OK,’ Christy agreed. ‘If she mentions him again I’ll tell her he was a boundary rider’s son who didn’t get to finish high school.’
They smiled ruefully at each other, then Domenica said slowly, ‘Not that you would know it—he looks and sounds anything but! Although—’ her mind roamed back ‘—perhaps he does have a slight chip on his shoulder. Do I often sound upper crust and la-di-da?’ she asked.
Christy laughed. ‘Darling Dom, in fact you’re light years from being it, but there are times when you can look down your nose just like Mum!’
Three weeks passed, during which Domenica forwarded a cheque to Angus Keir for the repairs to her car and investigated the Blacktown scenario. The cheque came back to her torn up but with no note.
This annoyed her considerably but she decided not to pursue the matter. And, quite irrationally, it annoyed her even more to discover that his summing up of the Blacktown estate had been quite accurate. Through another real estate agent, she found out that the warehouse was, indeed, suddenly a much more valuable property.
She tried to persuade herself that this would have become apparent to her anyway, through offers made for it, but she couldn’t persuade herself that she’d have known how much to ask for it.
Then her mother rang one afternoon to tell her that she’d invited a few friends round for a cocktail party early that evening and would she please come.
‘Why such late notice?’ Domenica asked down the phone, with her mind elsewhere.
‘You know me, darling, I’m so scatterbrained, I was quite sure I’d told you about it, then I thought I better check, just in case! I was right.’
‘Who’s coming?’
Her mother ran through a list of names, and added that she was dressing up.
‘All right, thanks, Mum, but I’m so busy, I might be a bit late. See you!’ Domenica put the phone down and shook her head. A couple of hours later, she remembered the party and had to shower and change on the run because she was already late.
Damn, she thought as she wriggled into her favourite black dress and did a contortionist act to zip herself up. It was short and fitted, with narrow shoestring straps that crossed over her back, and she embellished it with a single strand of pearls, another bequest from her Lidcombe grandmother. Deciding she didn’t have time to fight with tights and it was too hot for them anyway, she slipped her feet into a pair of closed-toed black patent sandals with little heels, and applied some lipstick and eye shadow.
But she hated rushing, she hated being late although she was not a great fan of her mother’s cocktail parties, so it wasn’t in the best of moods that she let herself into the Rose Bay house, convinced she looked less than her best and feeling quite breathless.
Nor did it improve her mood at all to discover that she’d been right about Angus Keir—he did stand out from a crowd because he was the first person she noticed amongst the throng in her mother’s living room.
CHAPTER TWO
DOMENICA stopped dead and looked around wildly, catching Christy’s eye in the process. She delicately pointed towards Angus Keir but all Christy could do in return was shrug helplessly in a way that told Domenica she’d also been caught off guard.
And as she looked back in Angus Keir’s direction it was to see that he had turned, and, from the mocking look in his eyes as they rested on her, had probably witnessed the little mime between sisters.
Then Barbara was surging towards Domenica, slim, petite and chic in a beautiful blue chiffon cocktail dress spangled with gold swirls that was also brand-new. Not only that, her mother’s hair was cut differently and exquisitely styled, her make-up was perfect and her nails freshly manicured, leaving her elder daughter in no doubt that she’d spent hours in a beauty parlour some time today.
But Barbara Harris was obviously happy and excited and as always, managing to infect everyone with her special brand of joie de vivre. It was a laughing, light-hearted throng in the room. And even Domenica, who had a very good idea of how much her mother would have splurged one way and another, felt her ire diminishing, although she would have loved to be able to hold on to it as Barbara kissed her and whispered that she was not to be cross because Angus Keir was quite delightful!
Then she took Domenica’s hand and towed her across the room to Angus’s side, saying gaily, ‘Here she is at last, Mr Keir! I knew she wouldn’t let me down. Stay put, Dom, I’ll get you some champers.’
Domenica took a deep breath and rubbed her nose to make sure it behaved itself. ‘Hi.’ She contrived to smile whimsically. ‘How are you? This is a bit of a surprise.’
‘So I gathered but I’m very well, thank you, Domenica,’ he returned, looking down at her quizzically. ‘Would I be right in assuming you warned your mother off me?’
‘Yes, as a matter of fact you would,’ she answered ruefully, although still managing to project good humour and taking the glass her mother put into her hand. ‘But if I’d known you were here, I would have worn high heels.’ She took a sip of champagne and wondered what had possessed her to say this.
Because Angus Keir allowed his grey gaze to wander down her figure in the short black dress to her shoes, then he let it drift upwards again, to linger on the bare skin of her shoulders and the curve of her breasts beneath the fine black material before he looked into her eyes wryly. ‘Why?’
‘Dom always has trouble finding men tall enough for her, Mr Keir,’ Barbara explained. ‘I expect that’s what she means, don’t you, dear?’
‘I do!’ Domenica confirmed, feeling like a clown but unable to help herself. ‘Thank you very much for paying for my car, by the way, but I wish you hadn’t.’
‘What’s this?’ Barbara pricked up her ears but was fortunately waylaid by a couple who had to leave early.
And she moved away leaving Angus and her daughter in a pool of silence. He was wearing a dark suit this evening with a white shirt and a plain maroon tie. And there was something about him that made Domenica feel suddenly tongue-tied and oddly helpless, and very much reminded of the three uncomfortable weeks that had passed since she’d last seen him. Because while she mightn’t have seen him, she’d been unable to rid her mind of him.
So she stared down at the glass in her hand stupidly until he said quietly, ‘You look sensational.’
She raised her eyes to his in some confusion and put a hand to her head. ‘I was sure I looked a mess! It was such a rush I hardly had time to brush my hair.’
A faint smile touched his mouth. ‘I guess it’s the kind of hair that would look gorgeous in any circumstances.’ His gaze rested on the glory of her dark hair, then he focused on her eyes. ‘Even straight out of bed.’
‘It is…’ she cleared her throat ‘…easy hair, probably because it’s thick and has a mind of its own.’ Then she closed her eyes briefly at the inference of what he’d said, and added barely audibly, ‘Don’t.’
He raised an eyebrow. ‘Speculate?’
She nodded, concentrating on her glass again.
‘I’ve been unable to stop myself from speculating about us for three weeks, Domenica.’
Her lashes lifted and their gazes locked. And her mother’s lovely lounge at Rose Bay and all the party-goers in it receded even further as they exchanged a long, straight, telling look. Telling because she couldn’t cut the contact much as she might have wished to and, for whatever reason, neither did he. It was also an unspoken admission that, at that moment, there might as well have been just the two of them in the room.
Because all her senses were receiving signals, she thought dazedly. It wasn’t only visual, it was much more. It was as if a slow tide of recognition