Marriage on Command

by Lindsay Armstrong

  Lee had chosen seafood: delicious prawns, smoked salmon and salad.

  ‘Don’t you ever eat any meat?’ Damien enquired.

  ‘No. I don’t eat a lot of meat—and you shouldn’t ask those kinds of questions in public. It could spoil the effect.’

  He looked around. ‘I stand corrected.’ He ordered a bottle of wine from ‘Thurston Howell the Third.’

  ‘Tell me something.’ Lee gazed across at Ella, sitting nearby surrounded by people. ‘Is there a Mr Patroni?’

  ‘Yes. He goes by the name of Hank and he’ll be here somewhere. He’s not as flamboyant as Ella.’

  ‘Concentrates on making the money while Ella concentrates on spending it?’

  ‘Something like that,’ Damien agreed wryly. ‘By the way, I’ve had a thought. I assume you intend to spend the night here?’ He glanced at her.

  Lee toyed with a prawn. This was something else she hadn’t given the proper amount of thought to, but unless she cared to embark on a three-hour drive in the middle of the night what was her alternative? ‘I might,’ she said carefully.

  He lowered his voice and said with irony, ‘You’re welcome to the spare bedroom.’

  ‘How kind of you,’ she replied sotto voce, although what she would have liked to ask was—did he have any idea how his spare bedroom reinforced just what a farce all this was?

  ‘Good,’ he commented. ‘Then, as tomorrow is a Saturday, I can take you to meet my mother.’

  Lee dropped her fork. He courteously retrieved it, handed it over to the Skipper, and requested a clean one.

  Anything she wanted to say on the subject of meeting his mother was forestalled as a man came up to them and introduced himself as Hank Patroni. He also had a plate in his hand and he sat down with them.

  An hour later the music struck up again, reinforced by a disco this time. During the hour Lee had not only made the acquaintance of Hank Patroni, but several more of Damien’s closer friends. People who might rightfully be consumed by a burning curiosity on the subject of Damien’s forthcoming marriage but were too polite to probe directly. All the same their curiosity was palpable, and for Lee it was like walking on eggshells.

  She had no idea, for example, that her future husband was a scratch golfer and held a helicopter pilot’s licence. She was unaware that he had a sister, Melinda. She didn’t know that his mother was a Family Court judge, although on discovering this she swore to herself to avoid the woman at all costs. And she nearly fell off her chair to find out that Damien part-owned the horse that had won the last Melbourne Cup.

  In fact, it was under the weight of all this new knowledge, and the strain of pretending to be abreast of it, that she took herself off to the powder room to regroup as best she could.

  Ella personally showed her into her own bedroom and the en-suite bathroom. ‘Take your time, pet,’ she advised. ‘I’m sure this has been a big night for you!’

  No flies on Ella Patroni, Lee mused, as she was left alone. She stared at herself in the mirror, in a sea of black marble tiling and gold fittings, and laid her small evening purse on the vanity stand. Even she could see the slightly stunned look in her green eyes.

  She looked around and discovered that this bathroom had what appeared to be a foot bath set into the floor, with a low, elegant gold chair placed beside it. Ella seemed to live a pampered lifestyle. It made sense that she liked to bathe her feet from time to time. It occurred to Lee she would like nothing better than to bathe her own feet—although it didn’t seem a particularly guest-like pursuit. She hesitated, then sat down, pulled her new shoes off and ran cold water over her feet into the bath. At the press of a button the bath became a miniature spa. She sat back with a sigh of sheer pleasure.

  She would never be unkind about Ella’s extravagance again, she decided. This woman knew how to live, and because of her she, Lee Westwood, might just be able to go back to the party and cope.

  She should have known, though, she reflected, that there was an awful lot of substance behind Damien Moore. She’d ridden in the Porsche he drove; she’d seen his apartment; she’d had to fight tooth and nail to get an appointment with him in the first place. And she’d only fought for that appointment, she recalled, because her research into law firms and their successes had led her to believe he was the one man who might be able to take Cyril Delaney on. Why then, she pondered, should it surprise her that everything else he touched turned to gold?

  ‘I’ll tell you what is really surprising, Lee,’ she said to herself—and didn’t give a damn that she had actually reached the stage where she was talking to herself out loud. ‘It doesn’t make sense that this prince among men should marry you when he barely knows you just because of a bequest in a will that is probably very small potatoes to him anyway!’

  ‘OK?’

  ‘Fine, thank you,’ Lee replied brightly to her fiancé.

  He took in her freshly applied make-up, the sheen of her lips, her tidied hair, her generally cool appearance and fragrant perfume—and the certain glint in her eye which caused him to narrow his own. He knew that look. It generally meant Lee was on her mettle. ‘You took so long I was beginning to wonder if you’d done a bunk.’

  ‘I was bathing my feet.’

  His eyebrows shot up.

  ‘I know,’ she agreed with a grin, ‘but Ella has this dinky little foot bath of which I availed myself at the same time as I regrouped.’

  He looked down at her feet, then up into her eyes. ‘Let’s see if I’ve got this right—you needed to bathe your feet in order to regroup?’

  ‘You should try it, Damien, it’s delicious!’

  ‘Why, may I enquire, did you need to regroup?’

  She shrugged. ‘It’s an exhausting let alone dicey game we’re playing—more so for me, of course. There’s not much you don’t know about me. There’s not an awful lot to know about me, come to that,’ she added candidly. ‘Although—’ she cocked her ear to the beat of the disco ‘—there is one thing.’

  ‘I’ve got the feeling I’m going to regret this, but what is that?’

  She favoured him with a sparkling look of mischief. ‘I may not have been much fun to push around the dance floor earlier, but this could be another matter.’

  ‘Show me,’ he said slowly.

  ‘All right. No hands, though,’ she warned. ‘I like to do my own thing to this beat.’

  ‘I knew I was going to regret this,’ he replied humorously, ‘but if that’s what you want, no hands.’

  It wasn’t until nearly an hour later that he broke his word. But Lee took no exception to it. She collapsed into his arms, having danced herself to a standstill. In fact they’d become the cynosure of all eyes, because if she was an innovative and spirited disco dancer, so was he. There was even applause when they stopped.

  ‘What did you put into that foot bath?’ he asked wryly.

  ‘Whatever it was, it’s worn off,’ she responded breathlessly. ‘Take me home, please.’

  ‘With pleasure,’ he replied, hugging her and kissing her lightly—to more enthusiastic applause. As they left the floor ‘Gilligan’ played the traditional bridal farewell, the guests formed a guard of honour with Ella and Hank at the head of it—and that was how they left the party.

  ‘I’ve never been to a party like that!’

  Lee stood in the middle of Damien’s lounge and slipped off her shoes. Damien put a glass of champagne into her hand. She looked at the bubbles inside the frosted glass, then sipped—it was delicious.

  ‘You were inspired,’ he murmured. ‘You made your statement loud and clear.’

  ‘Only because something you said stuck with me,’ she said slowly, before the realisation that she might have made more of a statement than she’d intended to hit her.

  He looked at her enquiringly.

  ‘If you’re going to do something you might as well do it properly.’

  He considered this, eyeing her slim figure in the lovely dress, the damp tendrils of her hair clingi
ng to her skin, the vulnerability of that slender neck. ‘On the other hand, I got the impression something put you on your mettle.’

  She looked up at him, startled. ‘How?’

  His lips twisted. ‘I’ve had a bit of experience of you on your mettle, Lee.’

  She shrugged and sipped some more champagne. ‘I…did feel a bit like Cinderella at one stage,’ she conceded gruffly. ‘I mean, I could see people wondering what I had that would measure up to…all the things you are.’

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘Damien, surely I don’t have to tell you that there is not a lot of substance to me. I don’t play golf, I don’t drive a Porsche, I don’t own Melbourne Cup winners, my mother is not a Family Court judge—and incidentally, on the subject of visiting your mother tomorrow, my answer is no.’

  ‘Leaving that aside for the moment,’ he said ruefully, ‘most of my friends wouldn’t give a damn about your substance, or lack of it, in those areas. Your personality and whether we’re in love would be the criteria they’d apply.’

  She sank down suddenly into an arm chair. ‘But we’re not.’

  He was silent for a long moment. ‘Have you ever been in love?’

  She finished her champagne. ‘I don’t think so. Been through the motions a couple of times, but my considered opinion is there’s an awful lot of peer pressure, as well as advertising pressure et cetera—’ she tipped her hand ‘—and that is responsible for flawing one’s judgement in these matters.’

  He smiled faintly. ‘You sound as if you could be a lawyer yourself. And you have a point.’

  ‘Thanks. What about you?’

  ‘I’ve…also been through the motions a few times.’ He looked amused. ‘To date, nothing has come to fruition.’

  She glanced at him through her lashes and bit her tongue on the question she longed to ask. Where was the dark-haired beauty he was going through the motions with at the moment?

  ‘As for visiting my mother tomorrow,’ he said, ‘I—’

  She stood up and broke in determinedly. ‘Damien, I’m exhausted. Would you mind if I crashed on your couch in the den?’

  He looked her over impassively. ‘What’s wrong with the spare room?’

  ‘I…I…I’d be happier in the den—’

  ‘Lee, there is no chance of me taking advantage of you in the spare room. Come to that it would be just as easy to do it in the den, were I so minded.’

  She stuck her chin out. ‘It’s not that. I may be exhausted, but sometimes I suffer from insomnia—I could watch television, very quietly so as not to disturb you, of course, if that happens tonight.’

  He studied her narrowly.

  ‘You see,’ she ploughed on, ‘for quite a few years, I lived in a bedsit—the couch was a convertible bed, if you know what I mean—so I…got used to sleeping in front of the television.’

  ‘Why are you babbling, Lee?’

  She blushed. ‘I’m really tired. And I don’t want to go and see your mother tomorrow!’

  ‘All right, we’ll talk about that in the morning. And you may sleep where you like. I’ll get you a blanket and a pillow if it’s to be the couch. Do you have anything to sleep in?’

  ‘Uh, well, no…’

  ‘Stay here. I’ll get you something.’

  She flinched inwardly, but what he brought was a plain white T-shirt of his—not the coffee silk negligée—as well as a blanket and a pillow.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said humbly. ‘I’m sorry to be so much trouble.’

  He put the T-shirt into her hands and tilted her chin. ‘You’re a strange girl,’ he commented. ‘I’d sometimes give quids to know what goes on behind those stunning eyes of yours.’

  Her lips parted and she stared up at him, caught and drowning in a sudden attack of the mesmerising power Damien Moore could wield over her when he chose. Until today, she thought dazedly, it had happened to her with no physical contact between them. Until today she’d been able to hide the effect it had on her. Tonight, though, physical proximity had made it much more potent.

  She’d seen another side of him. A charming, playful side of him that had made his company almost—irresistible. And now, tired and wrung out, she could think of nothing nicer than to melt into his arms and be taken to bed to enjoy anything he might like to institute between them…

  She closed her eyes and felt his long fingers drift to the nape of her neck, to stroke it beneath the tendrils of hair that had come down. The effect was unique. Soothing but at the same time arousing, causing her to wonder how you could feel tired but very sexy at the same time. Because there was no doubt she was feeling sexy. There was no doubt something as simple and in no way exceptionally intimate as his fingers on her neck was causing a flurry of activity within.

  Delicious tremors were running through her—tremors of anticipation that were directly linked to the thought of being more intimate with Damien Moore. The anticipation of the feel of his hands on her breasts, for example; the anticipation of being held hard against that superbly streamlined body; the anticipation of being made love to by a man she found fascinating even if she was one in a long line of women to do so.

  Her lashes lifted to see an unmistakable question in his dark eyes. For a moment she was truly tempted to say, Yes, do whatever you want, Damien. Make love to me, make me laugh, cry a little, even sing, because I know in my bones that’s exactly how you would do it…

  She swallowed and sighed. Talk about the path to destruction! ‘I’ll go to bed now,’ was what she said.

  His lips twisted and something—could it have been a brief glint of admiration?—lit his eyes. It was gone before she could be sure.

  ‘All right, Cinderella,’ he said wickedly, and kissed her lips. ‘Sleep tight.’

  Predictably, she didn’t sleep well, although she did fall into a deep slumber as the sun rose.

  Less predictably, at ten o’clock that Saturday morning she was to be found seated beside him in the Porsche, mutely mutinous, as they drove to his mother’s house.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  ‘SULKING doesn’t become you, Lee.’

  Damien flicked the gear lever and they powered off from a traffic light in his metallic blue Porsche.

  She said, not turning her head, ‘Being a bully doesn’t become you, Damien.’

  He glanced at her, noted that her profile was carved in stone, and smiled absently.

  It was also a delicate profile, he found himself thinking, and—possibly because she was still pale with anger—her freckles were more noticeable this morning. Her hair was loose, and it occurred to him that she took less trouble with her hair than any woman he knew. Sometimes she pulled it back into a ponytail, sometimes she pinned it up; mostly she left it to its own devices. She never appeared to be at all frustrated by it.

  Could that be because—as she’d demonstrated this morning, when he’d finally woken her—even as she sat up like a sleepy owl her hair looked wonderful? he mused.

  She was also wearing her new dress and shoes—another cause of dissent between them.

  Then she turned to him abruptly, obviously unable to contain her emotions a second longer. ‘What will we tell her?’ she asked intensely.

  ‘The truth,’ he replied mildly. ‘What else?’

  ‘Oh, yes?’ She eyed him dangerously. ‘She’s going to love that! What mum would? Besides which she’s sure to think I…conned you into it, somehow.’

  He turned into a leafy street in Ascot, a hilly suburb of Brisbane with views of the Brisbane river and some wonderful old houses. ‘You never know with my mother. She’s not easy to shock.’

  ‘That’s why she’s a judge, I presume!’ Lee rather savagely retorted.

  ‘Could be.’ He turned into a driveway and stopped the car.

  His fiancée scanned the house before them, and groaned.

  He put his arm along the back of her seat and raised an eyebrow at her. ‘What now?’

  ‘I might have known! Look, this is just too much! First of
all you appropriate my car keys while I’m asleep—which is pretty much like kidnapping me and holding me to ransom so I’m forced to fall in with your wishes—’

  ‘I thought it would save time and argument, that’s all,’ he said smoothly.

  She favoured him with her darkest expression. ‘And now,’ she continued, ‘I’m expected to beard a lady judge who lives in one of Brisbane’s National Heritage treasures, by the look of it, and who is quite likely to flip when she discovers I’m her prospective daughter-in-law!’

  ‘It is not a National Heritage treasure, although it is quite old,’ he responded.

  ‘Huh!’ Lee stared through the windscreen at the elegant two-storeyed redbrick house, with its impressive chimneys and lattice windows, and the spacious grounds that surrounded it.

  ‘As a matter of fact, it was some settler’s dream of recreating a little bit of England in the antipodes. It was quite impractical for the subtropics until we put in air-conditioning,’ he added. ‘And if you find it impressive, at least you’re dressed for the occasion.’

  ‘I am not dressed for the occasion,’ she denied, running her hands down her dress. ‘I’m dressed for a party! She’ll think I’m crazy, arriving for morning tea looking like this.’ She tugged at the heart-shaped neck.

  ‘She might have thought I was crazy if you’d come in your jeans and boots complete with your string bag,’ he pointed out. ‘And I did offer you one of my shirts to wear over your dress if it concerned you to that extent.’

  ‘Straight out of Pretty Woman,’ Lee commented with irony. ‘That’s why I refused. You probably didn’t see the movie, but she was a prostitute.’

  ‘I see.’

  Lee was silent for a time, examining the twisted logic of her refusal to wear his shirt over her dress because it made her think of a prostitute. Without it she probably looked like one at this time of day.

  She shook her head frustratedly, then said with a frown, ‘Does she know about Cyril’s will?’

  ‘No. She’s been overseas for the last six months on extended leave.’

  ‘Is this the first time you’ve seen her since she got back?’