CATHY WILLIAMS - In Want of a Wife?

Lizzy tried not to grimace. Gracie Sharp had always aspired to financial security. She had been the driving hand behind their father’s work ethic, always pushing him to go a little further, do a little better and aim a little higher, and Lizzy could understand that. In fact, she could feel a grudging empathy, because her mother had grown up in a series of foster homes, relying on her looks to pull her through in the absence of any real education. She had duly chosen to launch herself into the world of acting, but it had been a struggle, and one she had from all accounts abandoned the day she had met their father. The legacy of poverty had lived on, however, so was it any wonder that she was now thrilled with Nicholas? At least one of her daughters was achieving what she had supposedly been born to achieve.

‘All mothers can’t help but think about their kids, um, finding happiness …’ She wished he would move back a little, so that there was some chance their conversation would be interrupted. But his stance repelled anyone who might want to join them, broad back to the room, and she wondered whether it was deliberate.

‘Really? She didn’t seem all that bothered by the fact that there’s no guy in your life.’

‘You asked her about me? You were prying into my life behind my back?’ Her eyes glittered with outrage and she clenched her fists as he returned her angry gaze calmly.

‘There was no real need to pry,’ Louis said with an elegant shrug. ‘Your mother seems very forthcoming. I’ve heard all about your younger sisters and their hectic social lives, and Vivian and her causes, and Rose, who is apparently as close to perfection as any human being could reasonably aspire to be. And your mother just wishes that they would settle down with the right men. And then there’s you—clever, ambitious—and there was no hint that finding the right man was on your mother’s wish-list. Why do you think that was?’

Having watched and listened, Louis had reached certain conclusions, and conclusion number one was that he had been one-hundred percent correct in his assumption that the Sharps were fortune hunters. Everything backed him up, from Mrs Sharp’s obvious delight in her daughter’s so-called match, to Rose herself, who was the picture of gentle innocence, but who was also seemingly lacking in the sort of passion he would have expected to see in a woman in love.

He had made his way over to Lizzy because he had intended on pinning her to the wall. Inexplicably, he now found himself distracted and, even more inexplicably, enjoying his moment of distraction.

‘I don’t see that my private life is any of your business,’ Lizzy muttered, on the back foot and hating him for it.

‘So how come you’re not involved with anyone?’ He swirled his drink and then tossed his head back to finish the wine in his glass. Just in case she got any ideas about going anywhere, he reached out and planted his hand firmly on the wall so that she was locked in.

Lizzy wondered how soon she could escape so that she could strangle her overbearing mother.

‘Repeat—none of your business.’

‘A little tip—men don’t like women who show their claws the way you do.’

‘I show my claws because I happen to loathe you!’

Louis laughed. He wondered if anyone had ever had the audacity to tell him that they loathed him. Nope; he couldn’t think of a single instance.

‘And,’ Lizzy continued, fuming, ‘I don’t ask you about your private life!’

‘Ask on. What do you want to know?’ He straightened, but when he shifted it was only to further block any exit routes.

‘I’m actually not at all interested. And anyway,’ she couldn’t resist adding, ‘I don’t need to ask, because I can guess what sort of private life you have.’

‘Oh? Tell me. I’m all ears.’

‘Lots of women,’ she threw at him. ‘Glamour models and airheads who smile sweetly and do whatever you ask them to do. You have so much money that you can pick and choose, and rich men only ever pick stunning women. But my guess is that, when and if you ever do decide to tie the knot, it’ll be with someone from your own class. That’s why you don’t like the thought of Nicholas with my sister. He comes from lots of money and therefore he should stick to his own kind.’

‘You’re flirting dangerously with my boundaries. And my patience.’

‘You have been flirting dangerously with mine as well.’ She looked at him and something wild and dangerous shifted inside her. Just as quickly she glanced away, but her pulses were racing and her heart was thumping so hard that she felt as though she might faint.

Behind him, she could hear the first strains of music as the small jazz band—two members of which she had gone to school with—began tuning their instruments.

‘Care to dance?’

‘You’re kidding!’

Louis laughed again. He had intended to be brutal on this fact-finding mission, but he found that he was enjoying the way she scratched and bristled. It was novel. She had been dead-on target when she had said that the women he dated were beautiful airheads. Airheads didn’t interrupt his work life, and his work life ate up a considerable amount of his time. She had also been dead on target when she had said that the woman he eventually chose would be someone of equal standing—no one who could possibly be interested in his vast wealth, which would mean that her connections would have to be similarly impeccable; no argument there. Neither type of woman would resemble the one currently nursing her empty wine glass and glaring up at him. A girl who got her kicks riding motorcycles and whose mother despaired of her settling down. Even in her finery, she still managed to have a slightly untamed air about her.

‘Don’t you dance?’ he asked.

‘I choose my dance partners with discretion.’

Louis made a show of looking around him. ‘And anyone here take your fancy? Or do you go back too far with all of them? My guess is that familiarity can breed contempt in a place as small as this. Is that the reason you legged it down to London while your sisters stayed up here?’

‘Rose is the only one who lives here. Leigh and Maisie are at university and Vivian is abroad.’

‘Doing good works. Like I said, I already have the potted family history.’

‘Isn’t there anything my mother didn’t tell you? Couldn’t you just have chatted to her about the weather, like any normal person would have?’ Lizzy blurted out in frustration and Louis grinned.

It was such a breathtaking ceasefire after hostilities that she felt her breath get trapped somewhere in her throat. The man was beyond good-looking, she thought in confusion. He was wickedly, sinfully devastating.

‘I should mingle.’ Her voice emerged a little unsteady and she cleared her throat. ‘People are going to start wondering why we’re closeted here on our own.’

‘We’re in full view of one and all. I doubt even the most imaginative could jump to any wrong conclusions.’

Which had the effect of immediately making her think of exactly what ‘wrong conclusions’ anyone might have in mind: which wasn’t a comfortable thought.

‘I can see Rose looking for me,’ she mumbled, which wasn’t a complete lie. ‘And besides …’ She sidled to one side and was relieved when he stood back, clearing a space for her, obviously as glad to see the back of her as she was to see the back of him.

‘Besides … what?’ His keen eyes took in the heightened colour in her cheeks and the stray strands of her chestnut-brown hair that were already disobeying orders and tangling about her face; she impatiently tucked them behind her ears.

‘Besides.’ Lizzy shot him a look from under her lashes. ‘Nicholas’s sister is beginning to get a little impatient. She’s been glowering in this direction for the past fifteen minutes. I think she’s waiting for you to wind up this conversation so that you can go and pay her some attention.’ The leggy blonde had not moved from where she had been standing an hour before. Maybe she was just too deadly bored to move.