Lindsay Armstrong – A Question Of Marriage (страница 4)

Tall with brushed-back dark hair, he had a wide brow, smooth skin, high cheekbones and slight hollows beneath those good bones as his face tapered to a hard mouth and a jaw-line that indicated this was not a man to trifle with. He also had dark, brooding eyes and he was leaning negligently against the baby grand looking cool, slightly bored and capable of a rather damning kind of arrogance if he chose.

From what she could see, he wore indigo designer jeans, a midnight-blue shirt beneath a faultlessly tailored navy jacket and a shot-silk amethyst tie. He also had a glass of something in his hands which he twirled now and then before putting it to his lips, draining it and setting it down decisively. As he straightened and his dark gaze roamed around the crowded room briefly, she saw that he was even taller than she’d suspected with wide shoulders.

Well, well, Aurora found herself thinking as that indifferent gaze failed to be impressed by anything it saw and he turned away—what have we here? A hawk amongst the sparrows? A real man amongst us? I wonder what he does for a living? Could he be a corsair in disguise, a better-looking, more dangerous James Bond than any of them, a modern-day Mr Darcy?

This time an outward smile twisted her lips because it was just that typical flight of fantasy that made it so difficult for her to allow anyone to read her diaries…

Over the next two hours, the party got noisier and merrier. She also got separated from Neil, who still hadn’t got around to introducing her to Luke Kirwan for the simple reason that as soon as he and his ex-girlfriend laid eyes on each other, they were drawn together like a pin to a magnet and determined, it appeared, to have things out with each other despite being in the middle of a party.

‘Look,’ Neil said awkwardly to Aurora as his ex-girlfriend glowered at her over her shoulder, ‘I’m sorry about this but—’

‘Forget about me, Neil.’ Aurora chuckled. ‘If looks could kill I should be six feet under by now, which tells me she’s still very interested in you, so go for it! I can take care of myself.’

Neil looked both grateful and exasperated at the same time, but, five minutes later, neither of them were to be sighted.

Aurora shrugged, still amused but also aware that she was a free agent now, which simplified things considerably. She could put her plan—of wandering upstairs in search of a powder room but nipping into her old bedroom to get her diaries—into action, and she could leave the party whenever it suited her without anyone being the wiser.

Before she got to implement any of it, though, she’d wandered outside onto the terrace to drink in the view she knew so well and loved—the Manly Boat Harbour by night with its millions of dollars’ worth of yachts and all kinds of small crafts tied up to the jetties—when a disco struck up on the terrace and couples drifted out to dance.

And she was actually thinking that this was a livelier kind of party than one would expect of an absent-minded professor when a deep voice behind her drawled, ‘May I have this dance, señorita?’

For some reason the hairs on the nape of her neck stood up as she turned slowly, then she knew why—it was the man who’d been standing beside the professor at the piano.

She took an unexpected breath to be on the receiving end of that dark, worldly gaze, but said lightly, ‘Oh, it’s you.’

He raised an eyebrow. ‘You were expecting me?’

‘Not at all, señor.’ She smiled faintly. ‘I got the rather strong impression not much about this party was of any interest to you.’

A glint of something like mockery entered his dark eyes. ‘When did you get that impression?’

She shook out her hair and opted for honesty against confusion at being caught in having ‘sized him up’, so to speak. ‘When you were leaning against the piano looking bored,’ she said with a glimmer of mischief curving her lips.

‘That must have been before I caught sight of you,’ he countered, then frowned slightly. ‘Are you—unaccompanied?’

‘I am now, although I didn’t start out that way.’ She looked wry. ‘My escort met his ex-girlfriend and they’ve disappeared. I’m not sure if they’re making up or tearing each other to bits, but something intensely dramatic was going on between them so I decided to withdraw rather than get my eyes scratched out.’

‘Then he wasn’t the love of your life?’

‘No way. I was only filling in because they’d split up!’

‘I think he needs his head read,’ the man remarked thoughtfully. ‘Do you dance, señorita? It would be a pity not to do that gorgeous outfit justice.’ His gaze roamed up and down her figure.

‘That’s what I always think when I’m wearing it,’ Aurora replied simply, although conscious of a tremor running through her, sparked by that heavy-lidded dark gaze on her body. And she knew instinctively that her sensuous pleasure in herself, brought on by this outfit, had communicated itself to this stranger—in other words it had been a mistake to wear it. But how was she to have known she would bump into the one man who would sense that, where others mightn’t?

She also caught herself thinking that this stranger was dynamite, and she should possibly exercise due caution or she might find herself willingly led down the garden path…

That was nonsense, she immediately corrected the thought, another flight of sheer fantasy! All the same, it wouldn’t go astray to take care.

She said, whimsically, ‘I won’t treat you to a full flamenco, though.’

‘Could you?’

‘I took lessons in Spain a few months ago. They called me the pocket señorita.’

He studied her upturned face until she moved restlessly beneath the way his gaze took in her eyes, then rested squarely on her mouth before he said pensively, ‘Why do I get the feeling you could be a pocket dynamo all round, Miss…?’

But Aurora, who found her heart beating abnormally and her senses all at sixes and sevens beneath not only the way this man was looking at her but everything about him, clutched a straw of sanity. ‘I’d rather remain anonymous at the moment,’ she said with a delicious look of fun in her eyes. ‘If you don’t tread on my toes or have sweaty palms I might reconsider, but I’m not promising anything.’

He didn’t reply, only inclined his head, took her in his arms and swung her into the beat of the music. Then he stopped and frowned down at her again, but only for a moment before he rather absently steered her through the dancers.

As for Aurora, she also found herself dancing mechanically for several reasons. A determination not to be overly impressed by this man on such short notice, but also because of a prickling sense of déjà vu. Why, though? she wondered. She was quite sure she’d never met him before—he was not the kind of man you forgot—so it had to be because she was back on the terrace of her old home, only—that didn’t seem to fit.

‘Have I offended some other, unnamed principle of yours, Miss Anonymous? Body odour or bad breath?’ he drawled, breaking her out of her frowning reverie.

Her eyes widened. ‘Uh…no, sorry, nothing like that at all! You smell quite nice in a manly way.’ She inhaled delicately. ‘I’m not partial to overpowering aftershave or cologne on men.’

‘Neither am I,’ he said abruptly. ‘You, on the other hand, use a particularly delicate, floral perfume.’

‘Thank you! It is rather nice, isn’t it? I have it specially made up for me by a friend who is into that kind of thing.’

‘So it’s—uniquely yours?’ There was a rather intent little gleam in his eyes as he asked the question.

‘Yes. Do you have a problem with that?’ she asked curiously.

‘No. Why should I?’

‘I don’t know. You just looked a bit—’ she shrugged ‘—censorious about my perfume.’

He smiled faintly. ‘I think it all goes towards making you rather special.’ He held her away and looked down at her consideringly before raising his eyes to hers. ‘Do you have anyone in your life—when you’re not helping hapless men friends out?’

Aurora, once more clasped in his arms, began to dance again. ‘I don’t think we know each other well enough to go into that. Unless you’d like to set the ball rolling by telling me about your love life?’ She raised an eyebrow delicately at him.

‘In point of fact I happen to be—unattached at the moment,’ he responded gravely.

‘And on the prowl,’ Aurora suggested with an undercurrent of irony.

‘What makes you think that?’

‘Could be that my antennae are picking up those vibes about you,’ she replied ingenuously. ‘In fact, I warned myself to be on guard against being led down the garden path not long after we started to dance.’

He laughed, and there was something curiously breathtaking about it despite Aurora’s wish to be unimpressed by him. Because it revealed a vitality that made you want to laugh too, and made you want to get to know this man, who could be so damningly bored at times then respond so fascinatingly to something you’d said—so that you felt absolutely fascinated yourself.

‘I have yet to resort to leading a girl down the garden path,’ he denied, ‘although the opposite may not be true.’

Aurora blinked and wrinkled her brow. ‘You have a problem with girls leading you down the garden path?’