Mistresses: Bound with Gold / Bought with Emeralds. Sandra Marton
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look that Hazel had exchanged with Sir Frank when she’d mentioned Christopher Wade and then hurriedly changed the subject—thwarting any further casual enquiry about male visitors. Was the fiancé’s brother considered some kind of problem? Could he be her Adam?
If so, she didn’t run into him when the stoic Alice Beatson finally winkled her out of her room for a nervewracking tour of the house. The room in which she had seen him proved to be a blessedly empty library, and dinner turned out to be a straightforward foursome with the Harrimans. Carolyn, whom she’d never met before, seemed perfectly pleasant when introduced, but rather disconcertingly edgy when she learned the purpose for Regan’s visit. Beneath the superficial gloss of sophistication often provided by inherited wealth she seemed rather young for her twenty-two years, and Regan had misgivings about the wilful curve to her lovely mouth and the highly-strung quality to her darting conversation. She had a beautiful figure and long, natural blonde hair which she kept twitching over her shoulder, and there was a hectic glitter in her golden-brown eyes as she bubbled excitedly about Joshua, whom she called her Darling Jay, and the people Regan was likely to meet later that night.
A good percentage of them were male, and as Regan ventured down later to join the party she was deeply fatalistic, determined that whatever happened she would brazen things out. Now that she had calmed down she had reasoned that a confrontation with Adam might be highly embarrassing but it wasn’t the end of the world. Plenty of women had to endure the social awkwardness of running into inconvenient ex-lovers. And Adam was a sophisticated man, unlikely to want a public fuss any more than she did.
The ‘little’ impromptu party had the house bulging at the seams already, and after Hazel had introduced her without incident to several bunches of friendly, relaxed people Regan felt confident enough to grab a glass of non-alcoholic punch and wing it on her own. In her black flip skirt and plain white silk camisole she knew she looked more subdued than most of the younger women present, and that suited her perfectly.
‘Hi, sweetie—you’re definitely a new face around here.’ As she moved away from the punch bowl she was accosted by a handsome, dark-haired young man with a cocky smile and to-die-for blue eyes who fell into step beside her. ‘Now, you can’t be a friend of Caro’s or we would have met before—are you part of the local gentry?’
‘I’m Regan Frances. I’m a house-guest here.’ That was the unfussy label Hazel had used in her introductions.
‘Are you indeed? Lucky thing! My name is Chris.’
She stopped by the French doors to the glass conservatory. ‘Christopher Wade?’
He leaned his hand on the doorframe above her head and raised his eyebrows in a wicked leer. ‘Ah, I see my fame has preceded me. What have you heard? How brilliant I am? How witty and good-looking? It’s all true, I tell you!’
She laughed. ‘I can see that.’
‘A woman of exquisite discernment.’ He grinned, and for the next few minutes elicited a string of giggles with his nonsense.
Regan was so busy enjoying the performance that she wasn’t aware of her danger until a masculine arm suddenly shot into her line of vision, holding out another full glass of beverage.
‘You appear to have run out of punch, Mrs Frances— why don’t you take mine? It seems my brother is too intent on flirting to do his duty as a gentleman.’
Regan stared, not at the glass in the manicured hand, but at the stud securing the French cuff of the dazzling white sleeve—a solid gold cufflink inset with New Zealand jade. Her gaze slowly travelled up the length of the white arm to collide with a pair of murderous steel-grey eyes.
‘Y-your brother?’ she stuttered, not noticing the young man had stiffened at her side.
He knew her name. He must have asked about her. The cat was well and truly out of the bag.
His smile was lethally unamused. Her eyes shifted to Carolyn, clinging to his other elbow, and to the huge diamond flashing on her finger. Shock punched her in the stomach as her brain clicked back into gear and worked through all the clues she’d stupidly missed.
Owns a corporation—therefore must be quite a bit older than Carolyn; well-respected in financial circles—meaning millionaire; corporate-apartment-type rich; ‘Darling Jay…’
Jay…JA…Joshua Adam.
Joshua Adam Wade.
Oh, God—she had slept with her employer’s grandniece’s fiancé! The passionate fantasy lover who had told her he despised people who cheated on their partners was the very man whose wedding she was here to help arrange!
Chapter Six
‘HOW long have you been engaged?’ Regan croaked, sipping on her fresh glass of punch.
‘Nearly two months,’ preened Carolyn, looking adoringly up at the man at her side. In a pink taffeta shift overlaid with a black satin and lace Empire-line dress she looked the perfect accessory to her fiancé’s monochrome white shirt and black trousers. As a woman who had never had to work—and probably never would—she had plenty of time to devote to her appearance. ‘We got engaged in the second week of February, didn’t we, Jay Darling? Up here—on St Valentine’s Day!’
Regan choked, spluttering liquid back into her glass. That was only two days after her own encounter with ‘Adam’!
‘Sorry, a piece of fruit pulp must have gone down the wrong way,’ she said, as Chris gave her a light tap on the back.
At least Joshua hadn’t been engaged when he had ‘engaged’ himself to be entertained by one of Derek’s ‘friends’!
But he hadn’t just decided he wanted to get married and hunted out a wife within the space of two days. And if he had already been involved with Carolyn why hadn’t he looked to her to satisfy his libido instead of seeking casual sex with a stranger…or did he come from that chauvinistic school which divided the whole of womankind into only two types: those you slept with and those you married?
But, no—looking at the golden-blonde’s flushed cheeks, and the way she was leaning her breasts into Joshua’s side, her eyes avidly darting between the two males, Regan got the strong impression that in spite of her dewy, debutante looks Carolyn was no innocent virgin. And, anyway—Joshua was surely too intelligent to subscribe to such an outrageous double standard!
When she dared look at his face she found that he was staring down at her with a blistering contempt that caught her on the raw. She squared her shoulders and lifted her chin, proudly rejecting his disdain. Did he think she had come here expecting to run into him? Her eyes were violet pools of reflective scorn as she glared back at him. As a betrayed wife herself, she hated that he had forced her into a position where she felt like the iniquitous ‘other woman’.
‘OK now?’ asked Chris, solicitously rubbing her rigid spine.
Joshua’s nostrils flared at the sight of his brother’s petting hand.
‘Do you usually allow yourself to be pawed by men you’ve only just met, Mrs Frances?’ he drawled, his joking smile undercut by the venomous tone which suggested that she was in the habit of allowing liberties a great deal more obscene.
Regan’s drink trembled in her hand, and even Carolyn stopped preening long enough to look startled at his smiling ferocity.
Chris bristled, his hand dropping to clench by his side, as if he was contemplating planting it in Joshua’s cynical face. ‘Her name is Regan.’
‘I know what she calls herself.’ The drawl was even more mocking. ‘Mrs Frances and I are old acquaintances.’
Now old enemies, it seemed! Regan compressed her lips, bewildered by the depth of his anger.
‘That’s right,’ she agreed, smiling with sweet falsity, ‘but in spite of what he seems to want you to infer, Chris, as an “old acquaintance” Mr Wade knows full