of mind she was experiencing at the moment? With the kind of weather that, in the few short steps from an air-conditioned car to air-conditioned premises, left you bathed in sweat with your make-up melted and your hair limp?
She glanced at Alex through her lashes. Unlike her, he had been born and bred in Darwin and the ravages of the wet season never seemed to bother him. But men, she reminded herself, didn’t have to worry about looking limp and bedraggled. Indeed, men, she added bitterly to herself, had more powers than were altogether good for them. Such as being able to command a mistress to do this or that.
Mind you, always assuming the mistress hadn’t gone to ground, she reminded herself with a touch of black humour!
Tattie had never met Leonie Falconer, design jeweller with her own business who did quite a bit of work for Constantin, although she’d had her pointed out a couple of times. There had to be an element of luck in this, Tattie had reasoned, because, although she didn’t think Alex would parade his mistresses in front of her, Darwin was not a big city.
And, although she couldn’t think favourably of his mistress, a small part of her applauded the woman’s bravado. She had obviously accepted the invitation, then put herself out of Alex’s reach at least on this the last day that he might have been able to ‘warn her off’. But why accept it in the first place? Tattie was forced to ponder. And why would Alex’s mother invite her? Not to mention—how lately had Leonie become an ex-mistress?
So many imponderables, she thought wistfully, but the greatest of them all was sitting right beside her, driving his beautiful car with such ease and flair towards his parents’ Fannie Bay mansion.
Of course he had always been a huge imponderable, if not to say the biggest challenge of her admittedly young life. And she’d cautioned herself from the moment she’d known what was going on to keep her wits about her. Right up until about half an hour ago she’d thought she’d succeeded in this ambition.
A pearl necklace, the feel of his fingers on her skin and her breasts and the shocking discovery that the mere mention of the word mistress, ex or otherwise, had caused all her careful strategies to come tumbling down. To the extent that she wasn’t sure whether she loved Alex Constantin to distraction or hated him exceedingly.
She clenched her fists in her lap and wondered how much she’d given away this evening. Twelve months of such self-control, she marvelled, quite possibly lost in a matter of minutes. She visualised again the picture they’d made in the mirror, he with his dark head bent towards her, she still stunned beneath the impact of his personality, and all that usually leashed masculinity in his tall frame flowing through to her.
Had it been her imagination, she mused a little painfully, or wishful thinking? Because he normally kept that side of him very much leashed in all his dealings with her but she had the feeling tonight had been different. If only, she went on to think, the subject of his mistress had not come up in almost the same breath she would have been more sure…
But really—she glanced at him covertly again—there was only so much of the masculine impact of Alex Constantin he could leash from her. Just to be sitting beside him in his austere dark suit and blue shirt, watching him drive his car, was a bit like a body blow.
Not especially good-looking, he was nevertheless vitally attractive. He was tall, fit and athletic, he could be wickedly amused and amusing, he could be quite kind yet devastatingly scornful when the mood was on him. Above all, he could be the quintessential enigma, so that the reason he’d agreed to an arranged marriage with her when he could have had any woman he chose remained a mystery to her.
Unless, his reason had been her reason—two vast cattle stations that went by the name of Beaufort and Carnarvon…
‘We’re here, Tattie.’
She came back to the present with a little jump, to see that her husband had made his statement with false gravity.
‘So I see,’ she commented, looking at the house blazing with lights and the stream of cars parked in the street.
‘Oh, well, what do they say? “Onward, Christian soldiers”! “Fight the good fight”—or, something along those lines.’
He laughed and put his fist beneath the point of her chin. ‘You are a character, Tattie,’ he said affectionately, and added, ‘If it’s at all possible, just be yourself and have a good time.’
With your mistress in attendance, your mother, who never fails to drop delicate little hints and tips about how to fall pregnant, and my mother there, and you treating me like a kid you pat on the head—of course!
She didn’t say it, but only by the narrowest of margins. She couldn’t prevent the serious irony of her fronded blue gaze as it rested on him fleetingly, however. But before he got the chance to remark on it she opened her door and slipped out of the car.
‘That is quite a statement, Tatiana,’ Natalie Beaufort said to her daughter when they found themselves alone in the powder room together after the fabulous seafood buffet.
Tattie squinted down at her pearls. ‘It is lovely, isn’t it?’
‘It is, but I was thinking more along the lines of the comment it makes on the success of your marriage.’
Tattie observed her mother and spoke without thinking. ‘How do you know it’s not conscience money?’
Natalie’s sculptured eyebrows shot upwards. ‘Is it?’
‘I could be the last to know—aren’t wives supposed to be?’
‘You don’t seriously believe Alex is being unfaithful to you so early on?’ Natalie asked with a frown.
Tattie thought of pointing out that, although she was behaving herself beautifully, Leonie Falconer was amongst the guests tonight. Leonie, who had been reliably revealed to her as Alex’s mistress before he’d married her—and she’d had no reason to believe, until tonight, that things had changed.
But although Natalie was her mother—or perhaps because of it—Tattie knew only too well that her mind moved in mysterious ways sometimes. Such as the number of times Natalie had brought her to Darwin over a year ago, ostensibly to catch up with her old friend Irina Constantin but really to position her daughter firmly in Alex Constantin’s sights.
Such as Natalie’s decision to move to Darwin herself after Tattie’s marriage, like some sort of guardian angel, even though she basically considered the place a far-flung outpost of civilisation. And she decided to hold her peace.
‘Just kidding,’ she said mischievously, and was relieved to see her mother subside. She couldn’t keep herself from thinking that there was irony everywhere she turned these days, though. It was her mother who had advised her before her marriage that there were times when men would be men and it was often wiser to ignore the odd fling they might have…
And she found herself watching her now, curiously, as Natalie expertly touched up her make-up. Whereas Alex’s mother was dumpy and not greatly into fashion, but with such a warm personality you couldn’t help loving her, Natalie was very slim and very trendy. She was also artistic and played the piano beautifully and adored what she called ‘café society’.
Whereas George and Irina Constantin rarely left each other’s side, Natalie had frequently sought the solace of their Perth home, away from the lifestyle of Beaufort and Carnarvon and Austin Beaufort, taking Tattie with her.
To be honest, Austin Beaufort had not been an easy man to live with, and Tattie could clearly remember asking her mother passionately once how she coped with him.
Natalie had smiled ruefully and replied that there was an art to coping with men, as she would no doubt discover for herself one day, but walking away from them was something they disliked intensely, and it generally brought them round.
And her mother was undeniably quirky, if not to say downright eccentric at times. She was one of the few people who always used Tattie’s full name, but when Tattie had asked her if she’d been named after a Russian