The Constantin Marriage. Lindsay Armstrong
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saw the rush of colour that came to her cheeks and the momentary look of vulnerability that came to her eyes. Because she’d been caught conducting an imaginary orchestra, he pondered, or because of him?
‘Alex! How long have you been there?’ she asked laughingly, almost immediately recovered.
‘Long enough to be impressed by your conducting skills.’
‘Oh, that’s not fair!’ she protested. ‘I had no idea you were home.’
He straightened. ‘Don’t be embarrassed, Tattie. I have the urge to do the same sometimes. How was Perth?’
‘Lovely.’ She sighed. ‘Lovely and cool! I had great fun getting out all my winter clothes and sitting in front of a fire. What have you been up to?’
‘The same.’ He shrugged. ‘By the way, happy anniversary!’ And he put the gift box into her hand.
She sobered and looked up into his dark eyes. ‘I…Alex, you didn’t have to get me a present.’
‘No,’ he agreed.
‘Then…why?’
‘I’m quite sure your mother and my parents will be dying to know what I bought you. And I’m quite sure they believe you merit a present for being such a good little wife to me, and you have—for the most part.’
Tattie swallowed visibly. ‘You’re angry,’ she said quietly.
‘Not angry,’ he denied. ‘Puzzled. And wondering what is in store for the second year of our marriage or—if there is to be one?’ He looked down at her with a thoughtfully raised eyebrow.
Tattie looked away and turned the box over in her hands. ‘The thing is, I…haven’t made up my mind…yet.’
He smiled satanically. ‘Are you asking for another year, Tattie?’
‘No.’ She squared her shoulders and looked up at him.
‘But I would like to discuss it with you and I don’t think now is the right time. For one thing we’ll be late.’ A smile touched her mouth. ‘Think how anxious that would make your mother!’
‘Very well,’ he said after a long, searching moment, and took the gift box out of her hands. ‘In the meantime, allow me to do this.’ He drew the necklace out of the box and she gasped much as Paula had done as the river of stunning pearls ran through his fingers and the intricate white and pink Argyle diamond clasp caught the overhead light and reflected it radiantly. ‘Turn around.’
‘Alex,’ she breathed, ‘it’s beautiful, but I don’t—’
‘Tattie, just do as you’re told,’ he commanded.
‘But I’ll feel a fraud, Alex,’ she protested.
‘You are a fraud, Mrs Constantin,’ he reminded her, and grinned wickedly as she opened her mouth to accuse him of the same thing. ‘No, don’t say it. You shouldn’t have agreed to this party in the first place if that’s how you feel.’
She subsided, then looked frustrated. ‘You may be able to twist your mother around your little finger but I can’t. She…she just flatly insisted on a party.’
‘My dear, if I could twist my mother around my little finger, not to mention your mother, neither of us would be in this mess. Since we are, however, I intend to put a good face on it and so should you. Turn around, Tattie.’
She stared at him with her lips parted and confusion in her eyes for a long moment, then did as she was bid.
‘There,’ he said, and felt her tremble as his fingers touched the skin of her neck. ‘Mmm.’ He turned her back. ‘Perfect,’ he murmured. ‘Have I told you about strand synergy, Tattie?’
He traced the lie of the pearls down her skin and across the top of her breasts beneath the blue material of her dress and back up to her neck, and he saw her take an unexpected breath.
Then she began to recite, as if it was a lesson she’d learned, ‘The art of choosing the right pearls to put together and drilling and knotting them so the strand drapes like a piece of silk rather than dangling around the wearer’s neck.’
‘You’ve done your homework,’ he said humorously, and turned her again, this time in the direction of her dressing-table mirror. ‘What do you think?’
Tattie took another breath as she studied the pearls in the mirror, but he thought that the whole picture was absorbing her more than the pearls themselves, the two of them close together in the mirror.
She closed her eyes suddenly and said, ‘Yes, quite perfect. Thank you so much.’
But, as her lashes fluttered up, their gazes caught in the mirror. And he saw the surprise in her eyes as he said softly, ‘You’re quite perfect too, Mrs Constantin, and your skin is a perfect background for these pearls, it has its own beautiful lustre.’
This time he traced the outline of her oval face and looked down her figure in the lovely dress and thought that she really was exquisite in her own way. Like a delicate figurine, smooth and softly curved but at the same time full of life and laughter.
‘Give me ten minutes to shower and change,’ he said then, wresting his mind from his wife’s physical perfections, and went to turn away but paused. ‘Tattie, there’s one other unfortunate aspect to tonight’s party.’
She was standing quite still, as he’d left her, and she blinked a couple of times as if she was having trouble redirecting her attention. ‘There is?’ she asked a little blankly.
He grimaced. ‘I only saw the guest list today when my mother dropped it into the office. Leonie Falconer is on it.’
He stopped and studied her narrowly but perceived no reaction—at first. Then a dawning look of comprehension came to Tatiana.
‘You mean…you mean your mistress?’ she stammered.
‘My ex-mistress,’ he replied harshly. ‘How that bit of information escaped my mother I’ll never know, but—’
‘Perhaps she took it for granted that you had reformed since you married me?’
‘Quick thinking, Tattie,’ he parried swiftly, ‘but you yourself gave me to understand you didn’t expect me to live like a monk while you made up your mind about this marriage.’
Tatiana flushed and closed her mouth.
‘Even so,’ Alex went on, after a tense little moment, ‘whatever else I am—’ he looked fleetingly amused ‘—parading my mistresses in front of my wife is not one of my vices. But Leonie has chosen to make herself unavailable today—she’s not at her office, she’s not home and she’s not answering her mobile phone—so I felt…honour bound to warn you that I haven’t been able to warn her off.’
Tatiana drew herself up to her full five feet two. ‘How kind of you, Alex,’ she said with all the famed Beaufort hauteur she was capable of but hadn’t allowed him to see until after she’d married him, ‘but Ms Falconer is welcome to do her damnedest!’
He raised a wry eyebrow. ‘Bravo, Tattie! See you in ten minutes.’
CHAPTER TWO
DARWIN, the northernmost city in Australia and named after Charles Darwin, had only two seasons—the wet and the dry. The wet season coincided with spring and summer on the rest of the continent and the dry with autumn and winter, but, since the temperature rarely fell below thirty degrees Celsius during the day, winter was an inappropriate term.
It was early in the dry season as Tatiana Constantin rode beside her husband to her first wedding-anniversary party, reflecting as she sat in the plush cream leather comfort of his blue Jaguar that things could have been worse. It could have been the height of the wet season when the humidity was legendary, flooding and violent storms were common and cyclones often a threat.