Diana Palmer - Eye of the Tiger

“Oh, I expect to.”

“And say hello to Keegan for me,” he added with a twinkle in his eyes. “Didn’t you know he was invited, too?”

She glared at the knowing look in his eyes, then turned as she heard a car pull into the driveway. “Well, I’m off. I’ll see you when I get back. Don’t be up too late, now.”

He made a face at her and she closed the door on it.

The Blakes lived in a house just a little less palatial than Flintlock. It was redbrick, very old, and stood on the banks of a private lake overlooking one of the most beautiful plains near Lexington. There was rolling farmland around it, and Thoroughbreds pranced jauntily in the confines of white fences.

“Nice little place, isn’t it?” Wade asked as they stopped in the driveway where a liveried chauffeur waited to drive them from the parking spaces up to the house.

“Little,” she scoffed, getting into the back of the Rolls-Royce limousine. She tried to memorize every inch of the leather luxury so that she could tell her father and Darcy. It was a little like being Cinderella.

“Little compared to some,” Wade replied with a laugh. Riding around in Rolls-Royces was probably nothing unusual for him. He leaned back, scanning Eleanor’s ensemble. “I like your dress, darling. Silk wears well, doesn’t it?”

“Uh, yes, it does,” she returned. Odd that he could recognize silk; he probably wore silk shirts. Most rich men did. She remembered that Keegan had worn a white silk shirt that night….

“I like the new haircut, too,” he said. “You pay for dressing, Eleanor. I like the way you look.”

“I’m glad.”

“Nervous?” he asked as the driver pulled up in front of the house, which was blazing with light. Exquisitely gowned women and men in black evening wear strode elegantly along the cobblestone walkway, and Eleanor did feel uneasy.

“Just a bit,” she confessed.

“Just stick with me, kid, I’ll take care of you,” he said with a wink.

She glanced at him. Was he afraid she might slurp her soup and try to butter her bread with her spoon? She frowned. Was it a dinner party?

She asked him. “No, darling,” he replied, guiding her to the front door. “It’s a champagne buffet.”

“With different kinds of champagne?”

“Not quite,” he chuckled, pressing her hand closer. Tall, dark, good-looking, he attracted attention, even with his slightly overweight frame. And Eleanor seemed to be doing that as well. And not because she was out of place. “Champagne and hors d’oeuvres,” he whispered. “Conversation and dancing. There’s even a pool, if you fancy swimming.”

“Well, not in my gown,” she murmured demurely.

“They keep bathing suits on hand,” he said, laughing. “Sometimes, they actually fit.”

“I’ll pass, thank you,” she said with a smile.

She was introduced to her host and hostess. Mr. Blake was sixtyish, heavyset and pleasant. His wife— his third wife—was barely forty, vivacious and dripping diamonds. Their daughter was in her early twenties but already married. Her husband, an executive type, was beside her, helping to receive guests.

Fortunately no one asked if Eleanor was related to the Cape Cod Whitmans or the Palm Beach Whitmans, and she didn’t have to confess that her father was a carpenter on the Taber farm. That would have humiliated her beyond bearing. She hated being an outsider. But these people and their elegant furnishings graphically reminded her of what she would be going home to. They pointed up the difference between living and surviving. And she wondered if she hadn’t been better off not knowing that some people could afford trinkets like original oil paintings and velvet sofas and leather chairs and Oriental carpets and crystal chandeliers.

She had only one glass of champagne, standing rigid beside Wade while he discussed money matters with acquaintances. Conversation seemed to center around good stocks, municipal bonds, money markets, income taxes and new investment opportunities. The only investments Eleanor knew about were the ones she made on her car and groceries. She smiled into her champagne and nibbled on a delicate little puff pastry filled with chicken.

“Well, look who’s arrived,” murmured the older man beside Wade, glancing toward the door.

Eleanor followed his amused stare and found Keegan, in a black tuxedo, just entering the house with an elegant little black-clad brunette on his arm.

Eleanor’s heart skipped a beat just looking at him. He was devastating in evening clothes, his red hair neatly combed, his patrician features alarmingly handsome. Lucky, lucky girl who had his whole attention, she thought miserably, then chided herself for the thought. After all, she was long over him.

“Isn’t that the O’Clancy girl, the one who’s visiting them from Ireland?”

“Yes, I think it is. Lovely, isn’t she? She and her parents are hoping to work a deal with Taber, or so we hear, on a Thoroughbred of theirs,” Wade murmured with a smile. “Trust Taber to come up with an escort like that. But what’s he doing here?”

“He’s after that new colt of Blake’s—the Arabian out of Dane’s Grace by Treadway. Probably Blake decided they could discuss business here as well as at the golf course.” He chuckled.

Watching Keegan with the brunette, Eleanor couldn’t help but wonder how many women he’d gone through since the night he’d seduced her. The thought made her go hot all over.

“Why the long face?” Wade teased, whispering in her ear.

“I don’t like him,” she blurted out.

His eyebrows arched. “Why not?” he exclaimed.

“He has freckles,” she muttered, glowering at the redheaded man, who seemed to feel her cold scrutiny and turned abruptly. He caught her eyes across the room, and she stood there dying of old wounds, feeling the floor lurch under her feet. Her body ached; it took her last ounce of willpower to jerk her gaze back to Wade and calm her wildly beating heart. “Don’t you think freckles are just horribly blatant?” she asked matter-of-factly. “I can’t think why anyone would want to have them.”

He laughed helplessly. “I don’t suppose he can get rid of them, darling,” he said.

“A likely story,” she returned.

He laughed even harder and pulled her close against his side. “You bubbly little thing. I’d rather have you around than a magnum of champagne.”

She knew. Oh, how she knew. She smiled up at him just as Keegan looked her way, intercepting her smile. He seemed to grow two feet and his eyes were suddenly darker, possessive. He let his gaze rove over her from head to toe, and even at a distance the look was powerfully narcotic. She avoided it this time, in self-defense.

“Shall we dance?” Wade asked. He put their glasses aside and moved her into the ballroom, where a small orchestra was playing Strauss waltzes. She moved across the floor with him like thistledown, and he grinned.

“You dance gloriously!” he said.

“Not what you expected of a nurse?” she teased. “Actually, I took dancing for three years. Ballroom dancing was part of the course. I do love a waltz.”

“Then let’s show them how a waltz should be performed,” he murmured, and drew her around and around in the center of the floor.

Soon people were standing back to watch, because they moved as one person. He was an excellent dancer, and she followed him without a single missed step. She laughed up into his face, loving the music, feeling young again, full of life. It had been a long, bleak year, and now she was coming to life again. She closed her eyes and drifted, giving herself up to the joyous, seductive rhythm. It would have been perfect, she thought dreamily, if the arms holding her were wiry and strong, if the body against hers were lithe and lean and hard-muscled. And if the face above hers were surrounded by red hair, and if there were horrible freckles all over it….