By Marriage Divided

by Lindsay Armstrong

  ‘Well, there’s a certain area of this Domenica that tells her she should, if she had any sense at all…’ she paused and arranged her expression to severity ‘…put a halter on you and drag you to the nearest altar, Mr Keir.’

  There was dead silence, then he started to laugh softly. ‘There’s a certain area of this man,’ he responded finally, ‘who will always love you for saying that.’ He pulled her close and kissed her.

  After that, all the constraint she’d felt disappeared and she was able to eat her supper as they sat side by side, talking desultorily. But it was warm, and wonderful in its own way, and this night, she was later to realize, typified their relationship. The natural, humorous togetherness that was so warming but such a contrast to the sheer fireworks of their physical passion for each other.

  ‘I have to go,’ he said at last, looking at his watch. ‘And you should go back to bed.’ He stood up and helped her to her feet, then drew her into his arms again.

  ‘Mmm, I will,’ she murmured as she clasped her hands behind his head, and rested her mouth on the corner of his. ‘Go safely, Mr Keir.’

  ‘You too, Miss Harris.’ He stroked her hair, then drew his hands down her body intimately beneath the tissue-fine vanilla silk, so that she breathed erratically and buried her head in his shoulder, almost dizzy with the memories of what he’d done to her and how she’d reciprocated. Then, simultaneously, they drew apart—and smiled wryly at each other.

  ‘Don’t think this is easy,’ he said.

  ‘I’m trying not to think at all.’ Her hands, hanging at her sides, were clenched into fists. ‘But it might be an idea not to touch me.’

  ‘I have to.’ He reached for her hands and uncurled them, raising each palm to his lips for a fleeting moment, then he put them at her sides again, looked into her eyes and said barely audibly, ‘I’ll be back, Domenica. Nothing could keep me away.’ And this time he did go.

  She went back to bed and fell asleep almost at once. Nor did she wake until about ten o’clock and only then because someone was ringing her doorbell.

  It turned out to be a florist delivery person, she discovered as she opened it, clutching her robe around her and trying to gather back her hair—bearing a huge bunch of roses although no card. But the most amazing thing about them, apart from their perfume and the cool, velvety perfection of their petals, was their colours—pink, white and raspberry—as if they had been chosen to match a room, her bedroom.

  A coincidence? she wondered as she drifted back to that room with the flowers in her arms. Or a deliberate choice to celebrate what had happened here?

  ‘I think so,’ she said aloud and buried her face amongst the petals. ‘I also think I can’t remember being so happy, before. You might have made a new woman of me, Angus Keir.’ She lifted her face and smiled ruefully. ‘To think how antagonistic I was! Oh, well, thank heavens I saw the light.’

  And she took her roses away to find them a vase, then she showered again and went to work with an extra spring in her step, and not the slightest intimation that one single rosebud would one day bring her the kind of pain she could never remember before.

  Over the next weeks they spent all their free time together.

  And she discovered lots of little things about Angus Keir. That he might have thought he was doing something else with his life apart from making money, but he still spent an enormous amount of time either travelling or working, being one of them.

  But it was the insights she gained into his background that she found fascinating. Such as, despite having a scanty schooling, he had a degree in economics. Such as, despite his millions, being unable to see any food go to waste and being an absolute whiz at fixing just about anything…

  ‘You must have managed to teach yourself a lot,’ she said to him once. It was a Sunday morning, they’d slept in at her apartment after a late night dining and dancing, and were having a late, lazy breakfast while they read the papers. It was the speed with which he read that prompted her comment.

  He looked up. He wore shorts and no shirt, was barefoot. ‘I did. I was lucky, my father was a great reader—it was about his only indulgence. He ordered books by the sackful, fiction and non-fiction on all sorts of subjects and I read every one of them. He was quite cultured and he had a very enquiring mind.’

  ‘Which he passed on to you, I gather.’

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘What about music?’ she asked. ‘Where did that love come from?’

  ‘I didn’t see it in my father so I guess it came from my mother. But the owner of the property used to love music and he also, well—’ Angus paused ‘—he and my father fell out frequently on the subject of how I should be brought up. He even offered to send me away to school. And he found a second-hand but full set of encyclopedias for one of my birthdays.’

  Domenica stared at him with an image in her mind’s eye of a little boy thirsting for knowledge and reading everything he could lay his hands on.

  ‘So, not only self-made,’ he interrupted her reverie with a wry little grin, ‘but self-taught.’

  ‘Very seriously bright, however,’ she commented.

  ‘I don’t know about that but very seriously…something at this moment,’ he murmured, casting the paper aside and feasting his gaze on her. All she wore was a wine-coloured short silk nightgown with shoestring straps. And he held out his hand to her.

  She joined him on the settee, to find that shortly thereafter she was wearing nothing at all, and he said with soft satire, ‘That’s the word I was looking for—very seriously deprived, Miss Domenica Harris.’

  ‘It’s only been six hours at the most,’ she pointed out.

  ‘Are you telling me it’s too soon for you?’ he queried and ran his hands down her legs.

  ‘It could be. I’m a once-a-night kind of girl, I suspect, or once in a certain set of hours, if you know what I mean, but if things are that serious for you, I’d be happy to, well—’ She paused.

  ‘Accommodate me?’ he suggested.

  She saw the sheer devilry dancing in his eyes, and grimaced. ‘Why do I get the feeling I’m going to be made to eat those words?’

  ‘I have no idea,’ he replied and moved his hands to her upper body.

  ‘Oh, yes, you do, Angus Keir,’ she accused. ‘If for no other reason than that, as well as being seriously bright, I get the feeling you can never resist a challenge.’

  ‘Ah…’ he looked thoughtful ‘—you could be right.’ And proceeded to demonstrate that she was.

  So that, on finding herself far from being accommodating but quite the opposite, which was quivering with desire in his arms, she asked him breathlessly just how he’d done it.

  ‘It’s all in the preparation, ma’am,’ he replied seriously.

  ‘Did…did you read up about this kind of expertise, Angus?’

  His eyes danced for a moment. ‘That’s classified, ma’am.’

  One evening he came to her apartment for dinner—she’d invited Natalie and her boyfriend as well—to find her almost tearing her hair out.

  ‘What?’ he said as soon as she opened the door to him.

  ‘My waste-disposal unit is blocked,’ she answered tragically. ‘My sink is almost overflowing; it’s impossible to prepare a meal without a usable sink; no one seems to know if I need a plumber or an electrician and I can’t get anyone until tomorrow anyway!’

  ‘Domenica, calm down,’ he said laughingly. ‘You look quite wild.’

  She looked down at herself. She hadn’t changed out of the cream jeans and taupe blouse she’d worn to work, but somehow, in her exertions, her blouse had come adrift at the waist and unbuttoned lower than was seemly, her feet were bare and her hair was riotous. ‘I feel wild,’ she said bitterly. ‘I feel helpless and useless and that really annoys me.’

  He put his arms around her, and said, with his lips twisting wryly, ‘And here I was thinking that nothing could shake you out of your almost regal composure, Domenica—well, almost nothing.’ He
glinted a meaningful little look down at her.

  She moved restlessly and a little surge of colour entered her cheeks. ‘That’s the last thing I need to be reminded of at the moment, Angus,’ she told him a little bitterly, however.

  ‘Very well,’ he murmured. ‘But may I expect a reward for fixing your waste-disposal unit?’

  ‘A…what kind of reward? And you don’t know that you can fix it!’

  ‘I’d be prepared to bet on it, though,’ he drawled.

  She hesitated, staring up at him half frowning, half calculatingly. ‘So, I ought not to sign my life away in the matter of a reward, in other words?’

  He laughed softly. ‘That’s rather perceptive of you.’

  ‘OK—’ she pretended to consider ‘—how about—? Ah! I think I’d like to surprise you. It is getting late,’ she added.

  ‘And with that I’ll have to be content, no doubt,’ he said ruefully.

  ‘Um…maybe this will…lighten your labours.’ She stood on tiptoe and kissed him lingeringly.

  ‘I’ll look upon it as a down payment,’ he offered. Then he hugged her and recommended she go and have a shower and get changed.

  Ten minutes later he brought her a glass of champagne and the news that the disposal unit was fixed. After Natalie and her boyfriend had left, much later in the evening, she offered him his reward, in the form of demonstrating just how a pashmina could be worn with nothing else, which, predictably, led to a mutually rewarding encounter.

  As she lay in his arms afterwards, drowsily, she did say that it could have been a piece of luck that had seen him fix the disposer so easily.

  ‘Don’t you believe it,’ he responded, and over the following weeks proved it when he fixed her clothes dryer, which had mysteriously ceased to operate, for her, and then her answering machine and her video recorder. Not that the video recorder had required fixing, just the understanding of how to operate it, as he had pointed out.

  ‘Glory be, do I ever need a man like you in my life!’ she’d enthused.

  ‘I have to agree…’ he’d looked devastatingly amused ‘…because I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone who can get into quite such a state over or have as little understanding of mechanics or electronics as you do.’

  ‘Just concentrate on the things I do well, then,’ she’d recommended.

  They’d been having this conversation on the way to a party but they never did get to it, because he’d turned the Range Rover round and driven them straight back to his penthouse.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  THREE months after Domenica and Angus had first slept together, Natalie said, ‘Domenica, it is your birthday today, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yep! Twenty-six today,’ Domenica sang, then paused to lift her head from the keyboard she was working on and eye her friend and partner suspiciously. ‘Am I going mad or did you not give me this card—’ she picked up a birthday card ‘—and this gorgeous pair of embroidered evening gloves just this morning and for my birthday, Nat?’

  ‘I did. However they might pale…but before I go into that—’ Natalie didn’t turn from the window she was looking out of ‘—have you heard from Angus today?’

  ‘No, but I will,’ Domenica said happily. ‘He’s due back from Malaysia this morning.’

  ‘He sure gets about,’ Natalie commented. ‘But, Dom, is it or is it not a fact that your car has broken down again and quite seriously this time?’

  Domenica nodded, her happiness changing to rueful gloom. ‘I really think it’s had it and I should get a new one but how to afford it is another matter…oh, well, I’ll wait until I get a quote for the repairs.’

  ‘I don’t think you’ll need to bother,’ Natalie remarked.

  Something alerted Domenica at last. ‘What do you mean?’ she asked slowly

  ‘Unless someone else in the building is having a birthday today, your car problems could be at an end.’

  Domenica got up and walked over to the window. ‘I still don’t know what you’re talking but…’ She stopped on an indrawn breath, for down in the street directly below the studio stood a brand-new silver hatchback car, gift-wrapped in pink ribbon with a huge multi-loop bow on the roof, plus silver heart-shaped balloons printed with the words ‘Happy Birthday’.

  And although the full glory of the bow and balloons was better seen from directly above, there was a little crowd gathered around the car.

  ‘I don’t believe it,’ she whispered. ‘He wouldn’t—it must be someone else’s.’

  ‘I doubt it—I do believe it,’ Natalie said, breaking into spontaneous laughter at last, and she hugged Domenica impulsively. ‘Kiddo,’ she added, ‘have you got this guy in! Not that it surprises me. And if you were stunning before, you’re sensational now so I’d say it’s fairly mutual.’

  Domenica put her hands to her hot cheeks and her eyes were horrified. ‘But he can’t do this. You don’t give people cars for their birthdays, not unless they’re…you just don’t!’ she protested.

  ‘Pet, listen to me,’ Natalie advised wisely, ‘there’s a whole world of girls out there who would kill to have a man make that kind of a statement just once in their lives, me included. And I’ve seen you walking on air for the last months, I’ve seen you get off the phone after talking to him with your head in the clouds, I’ve seen the two of you together—don’t knock it. He’s dynamite, so are you, and it’s his way of expressing it. Besides, what could be more practical? And it’s not as if he can’t afford it! I’ll give you a hand to unwrap it before it creates a traffic jam.’

  ‘No, look, I better check first,’ Domenica protested, and reached for the phone, only to put it down in frustration because he wouldn’t be in his office yet. But at that moment a package was delivered by hand. Inside was a set of car keys on a gold keyring with the letters D and H beautifully engraved on it.

  ‘I rest my case,’ Natalie said as she stared at it in Domenica’s hands.

  ‘I wish you hadn’t said that!’

  Natalie raised an eyebrow at her.

  ‘Angus said the same thing to me once,’ she explained, but as Natalie looked mystified she shrugged. ‘It doesn’t matter. How many people are there down there now?’

  ‘About fifty, all laughing and joking. And there are several cars stopped.’

  ‘Nat, would you…? I—’

  ‘There’s a traffic warden stopping now, two actually.’

  Domenica swore beneath her breath. ‘All right! I’ll come.’

  Her mother was giving a formal party in honour of Domenica’s birthday that night. The Rose Bay home had not been sold yet but there were several people interested in it and Barbara had pleaded with her daughter to be allowed to give what might be the last grand party in what had been her home for so long.

  Domenica had succumbed, not because she wanted a grand party but because her mother was still a changed, much happier person who nevertheless adored grand parties and deserved at least one last one in her grand home. But she’d insisted that Barbara hire a firm of caterers for the thirty people invited for cocktails and a buffet supper.

  And when she got home to her apartment after work, having driven herself there in the new car although in a state of suspended unreality, there was a message on her answering machine from Angus via his secretary. To say that, with much regret, he’d been unavoidably delayed and could he meet her at Rose Bay instead of collecting her from the apartment as had been previously arranged?

  Domenica sat down on her bed and felt a prickle of annoyance. She was quite used to receiving messages from his secretary on her answering machine, for he was quite frequently ‘unavoidably delayed’ but she’d taken it in her stride until now. The same thing sometimes happened to her.

  Now, though, it not only pricked her, it actually incensed her, she discovered, that he couldn’t pick up the phone himself to leave a message. But not only that. She had really wanted to be able to give him back his car and make him understand why she was doing it before they went to her
birthday party.

  Then it crossed her mind to wonder whether this unavoidable delay had been manufactured so she couldn’t do just that. She ground her teeth but time was running away from her and she reluctantly started to dress, but thought as she did so—I’ll take a taxi!

  Half an hour later, showered, perfumed, moisturized and beautifully groomed, she stared at her reflection in the cheval-mirror and was pleased.

  Her outfit was two-piece, a strapless bustier in a coppery apricot, and it came down to a point at the waist. The long skirt in the same Thai silk fitted superbly to her knees, then flared slightly towards the floor. It was an elegant creation and she wore an antique rose gold chain with a ruby pendant around her neck, and high-heeled bronze sandals.

  But instead of leaving her hair loose as she’d taken to doing for the last two months, she brushed its rich darkness back severely and rolled it into a pleat. Which made her look regal, composed and slightly older, exactly what she’d been aiming for. So, Angus Keir, she said to her reflection, no mermaids or wild gypsy girls tonight. Be warned, mate!

  But a shower of rain on her bedroom window alerted her to the fact that it had started to pour and she suddenly remembered her decision to take a taxi, but knew from long experience that nothing put a premium on taxis more than heavy rain, especially at this time of the day, especially on a Friday evening. She tried all the same but the taxi company warned it would be at least half an hour.

  Make that an hour, she mused, and sighed, because there was no help for it but to drive the birthday present car—she was already running late. She picked up the heavy keyring, her purse and her pashmina, hesitated for a last moment and let herself out.

  It was a difficult drive in the heavy rain and more so because of her preoccupation that ran along the lines of—how could three months of bliss with Angus Keir suddenly produce this situation that was a little like running into a brick wall? It had been bliss, Natalie was right. Nor had she made any attempt to hide it from her family or her world. She and Angus were an item, there was no doubt.