She licked her lips and everything about Alex she loved came back to her, which was incredibly unfair in the light of his recent behaviour, but none the less all the times he’d made love to her came back beneath the impact of his tall, electrifying presence…
And the words seemed to tumble out of their own accord.
‘I swore I would not stay married to you, Alex—’ she swallowed painfully ‘—unless I knew you were madly in love with me.’
‘Why not?’ His words seemed to echo.
But at the very last moment she couldn’t do it. Her throat worked and she blinked away incipient tears. ‘The thing is, I understand now.’
‘Understand what, Tattie?’ He asked it very quietly.
She could see the line on his forehead where his hat had rested, she could breathe in the dust on his clothes and the sweat of an energetic ride, all of it purely masculine and terribly fascinating—but not for her.
‘Why you could never fall madly in love with me.’ She shrugged in what she hoped was a wry little gesture.
‘I’ve seen Flora Simpson, so—’
‘When?’ he asked dangerously.
Her lips parted and Oscar sat up, growled low in his throat and then looked embarrassed, and bunted them both on the legs to show that he didn’t think he’d meant it but he’d be much happier if he didn’t have to take sides.
Tattie laughed nervously and patted him. ‘It’s OK.’
All Alex did was continue to look the question at her.
She sighed. ‘Not in the flesh. I saw a…some pictures of her, that’s all.’
‘How come?’
‘I’d rather not tell you that, Alex; it’s a bit embarrassing.’
‘Let me get this straight. You claimed earlier you’d been falling all over my ex-mistresses but now it appears it wasn’t Flora—not in the flesh at least. I don’t get it,’ he said flatly.
Tattie squared her shoulders. ‘I ran into Leonie the day you left town. She…she told me amongst other things that Flora was back in town. So I…’ She closed her eyes frustratedly. ‘You have to remember your own father filled me in on how Flora had affected your life, Alex.’ Her lashes lifted. ‘So I decided I was sick and tired of having this…person hanging over my head.’ And she told him how she’d got the pictures of Flora.
‘Oh, Tattie.’ He said it barely audibly.
‘Which is how I came to understand why you could never be madly in love with me. She’s…even in a picture she’s just special.’ Some of her Beaufort hauteur came back to Tattie. ‘Although if the reason you wanted to keep me in Darwin was part of some tit-for-tat game you’re playing with her, that I cannot admire, Alex,’ she said severely.
His lips twisted. ‘When did you work that out?’
Tattie looked surprised. ‘It’s just hit me, actually,’ she said uneasily. ‘I can’t think of any other reason for it.’
‘Can’t you?’ He rested a hand on the curved embrasure above her head. ‘I can. All this.’ He looked into the distance then his dark eyes came back to her. ‘Beaufort, in other words. And Carnarvon. Let’s not forget Carnarvon. It has become an abiding nightmare for me.’
‘What has?’ she whispered, her eyes wide.
‘How much more they mean to you than I do. And I’m sorry to have to disillusion you, Tatiana Beaufort…’ He paused.
If her eyes were wide before they were now stunned and incredibly confused.
‘But I have actually fallen madly in love with you,’ he continued. ‘I apologise if it’s been a slightly protracted process. If you doubt the authenticity of it, though, I even went to the extreme lengths of virtually locking you up so that you couldn’t come here on your own and forget about me while you got all caught up in being here, being a Beaufort and all the rest.’
‘Alex…’ It was a mere breath of sound.
‘Furthermore…’ He took his hand away from the embrasure to touch her hair fleetingly, and a nerve flickered in his jaw. ‘I had no idea Flora Simpson was back in town but, yes, thanks to her, I didn’t really want to fall in love again. It took a girl with so much spirit, so much life, so much about her that brings me joy to change my mind. You, Tattie.’
‘But I thought you were so cross with me!’
He shook his head. ‘I was so relieved to see you I didn’t quite know how I was going to handle myself. I didn’t know what was in your heart.’
She gazed at him.
‘When Paula rang me two nights ago it was the worst moment of my life.’
‘Why?’
He smiled, but not amusedly. ‘I thought you might have run away from me for good.’
‘Is this…is this all true?’ Tattie gasped.
‘Tattie,’ he said abruptly, ‘it only took five days after you first slept with me for you to want to come back here. If I’m a mass of insecurities, can you blame me?’
‘A mass of insecurities,’ she repeated. ‘Alex, if only you knew.’
‘You could tell me,’ he suggested. ‘You mentioned something about requirements earlier.’
‘Oh. Yes. Yes, well, one of those requirements, as I told you, was that I needed you to be madly in love with me.’
‘Why?’ he said simply.
‘Because I’ve been madly in love with you for a long time, Alex, and—’
But she said no more, because he’d pulled her into his arms and she could hear the way his heart was beating, fast and furiously.
‘I thought I was never going to get you to say the words,’ he said unevenly into her hair. ‘It was driving me crazy. Oh, Tattie, I love you, sweetheart.’
‘What are we going to do?’ Tattie said.
They were sitting side by side on a bench with their arms around each other. Tattie had been gloriously and repeatedly kissed, and had done not a little of her fair share of participating in it.
‘About life in general or our particular circumstances of the moment?’ he queried.
She moved against him and laid her cheek on his shoulder. ‘You know, Alex, one of the reasons Beaufort meant so much to me was because I didn’t think I could have you. So long as I can keep coming back here, I’ll be happy, but now I’ve got you—’ she glinted a mischievous little look at him ‘—I won’t need to live all my life here.’
‘Do you want to keep the tourist enterprise going?’
She thought for a moment. ‘Yes. For several reasons. I rather like sharing it with the world. I think beauty in whatever form—music, art, literature, nature—may just help people to understand and cope with life better. But I’d also like to keep it going for Polly and my mother and Doug, and Marie and the blacksmith’s wife, who all seem to have a richer life because of this venture. I do have one ulterior motive, though.’
‘Let me guess,’ he drawled, ‘you’d still like to drag Carnarvon out of the red by your own efforts?’
‘How did you know?’ She gazed at him innocently.
‘You forget—one of the things I love about you is your fighting spirit.’ He kissed her lightly.
She sighed with satisfaction. ‘I didn’t really think you were going to be the kind of husband who laid down the law. That’s why it came as such a shock, I suppose.’
‘Well, I hope this doesn’t come as too much of a shock but I’m about to lay down the law right now.’
She sat up and eyed him suspiciously.
He looked around at the lengthening shadows, and then at his watch. ‘Dinner is not that far away. I don’t see how we can get out of it, but there’s nothing to prevent us from retiring early after it. So if you have any plans to be the perfect hostess this evening, Tattie—’
‘Oh, I have plans, Alex,’ she interrupted. ‘To be the perfect something. But you’ll just have to wait and see what that is.’
He raised an eyebrow. ‘On the other hand, I may not be able to wait that long.’ He looked at her narrowly. ‘You’re not about to become a law-laying-down kind of wife?’
‘Wait and see,’ she teased, the
n sobered suddenly.
‘What?’ he asked.
‘I still can’t believe it.’ Tears suddenly glistened on her lashes.
He took her face in his hands and kissed them away. ‘You will,’ he promised. ‘You will.’
Dinner was both a triumph and an ordeal.
They dressed up, Tattie in a long cream sheath with a Chinese collar, Alex in dark trousers and a pale grey shirt.
Polly and Marie produced a splendid meal and all their guests were more than delighted, not only with the meal and the elegance but also with Tattie and Alex.
In fact, Tattie wondered if there was some visible aura around them. Then she knew there was, from the way Alex’s dark eyes rested on her from time to time, and the way everything receded and all she was conscious of was him.
If she had any doubts, Polly dispelled them completely. ‘Don’t worry about staying around for the coffee,’ she said to Tattie in a whispered aside, and impulsively threw her arms around her. ‘I’ve never seen you looking so beautiful.’
Alex was waiting for her in the main bedroom. He had a silver tray, two glasses and a decanter of liqueur brandy, and he poured them a tot each and toasted her. Then he put the lights out and they stood side by side, holding hands, watching the moon rise over Beaufort before he turned to her.
‘You had something you wanted to show me, Mrs Constantin?’
‘Yes, this,’ she said simply. She put her glass down.
‘Although I may need some help.’
She turned around, and after a moment he began to release all the tiny buttons down the back of her dress. His fingers were cool on the skin of her back but he made no other attempt to touch her.
When the last button was released she stepped out of the dress and turned back to face him. ‘And this,’ she said softly. She took off her bra and stepped out of briefs then her shoes, and shivered slightly.
He put his arms around her. ‘The perfect wife,’ he said huskily. ‘Tattie, if only you knew how much I love you.’
And there was so much emotion in his eyes, something that was so hard held within him, at last full belief came to her.
‘It’s all right,’ she said shakily, ‘I know now.’
And he took her to bed.
It was around midnight when they stirred and Tattie sat up, disorientated, still on cloud nine over the events that had passed between them—the way Alex had made love to her so that not only their bodies but also their souls had been united.
‘What is it?’ she whispered.
He sat up and pushed his hair out of his eyes—and the sound came again. A scratch on the door… ‘Oh,’ he said, and at the same time she said.
‘It’s Oscar! But I thought Polly had trained him to sleep in the boot room?’
Alex grimaced and fingered his jaw. ‘She had. I…liberated him last night.’
‘You brought him in to sleep with you!’
‘I did, I’m afraid,’ Alex confessed.
‘So much for your disapproval of my dog-training techniques,’ Tattie said gravely. ‘You realise he’s probably chewed his way out of the boot room?’
‘I was lonely and miserable.’
‘I don’t know why,’ Tattie said severely, then fell back into his arms, laughing softly, ‘but I love the sound of it!’
‘You’re a sadist, Tatiana.’
‘No. It also makes me feel…really married to you!’
He took her chin in his hands and kissed her. ‘Then it was worth it. What shall we do?’
‘Let him in?’ she suggested. ‘Who knows what kind of havoc he could create out there.’
‘But I have you now,’ he pointed out, and ran his hands over her breasts.
‘Alex, he’s probably lonely and miserable out there. And you were the one who gave him to me.’
‘For my sins,’ he commented, and they both stopped as Oscar whined piteously. ‘You know he’s an awful fraud, don’t you? He can turn his emotions on and off like a tap.’
‘I won’t be able to sleep if I know he’s out there feeling sad.’ Tattie looked sad herself. ‘Besides which, he deserves to know all is well.’
‘I see. You are going to be one of those law-laying-down kind of wives.’
‘Only over this!’
‘Promise?’ He reached over and switched on the bedside light.
‘Well—’
‘I thought so. So we’ll need to think of a system of compensation.’ His words were sober but his eyes were completely wicked.
Tattie took a breath. ‘Oh, I get it. This is bribery and corruption.’
‘It may be all that’s left to me.’
‘If you let Oscar in I’ll…really rethink my stance on red-hot sex in the future.’
‘Done,’ he said promptly, and got out of bed to open the door.
Oscar raced into the room, leapt onto the bottom of the bed and snuggled down as if he’d come home.
And Tattie and Alex couldn’t stop laughing, before they fell asleep in each other’s arms.
ISBN: 978-1-4268-7292-1
THE CONSTANTIN MARRIAGE
First North American Publication 2004.
Copyright © 2002 by Lindsay Armstrong.
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