Dirty Aristocrat (13 page)

What was wrong with me?

How could I be aware of his innate sexiness and his primal virility when we were slap bang in the middle of a slanging match? 

He took another step away as if I was something that was dangerous to him, his eyes were hooded and guarded.

‘I came home early because my ever resourceful secretary managed to reduce the twenty-eight days of notice necessary at the Registry Office to six days. She made us an appointment for three days’ time. We’re getting married at 2.00 p.m. this coming Monday, and I was going to take you to dinner tonight to celebrate,’ he said softly.

A strange silence crept in between us.

He just stood there, his eyes steady on me. It was like we were at two ends of a bridge. We could see each other but we could not touch. Two much bad stuff lay between us. I felt the pressure to say something. Anything. I had to make it right. I had been a bitch. The rusty wheels in my brain turned round and round.
Anything at all would be good, Tawny
.

‘So take me out then,’ I said, my voice barely a whisper.

‘Do you like Japanese food?’ He said the words slowly.

‘Not to celebrate our wedding,’ I said.

He smiled crookedly. ‘French?’

‘Nearly there.’

He smiled. ‘Italian?’

‘You have one last try.’

He cocked an eyebrow. ‘English?’

I smiled. ‘I can live with that.’

‘Pick you up at your door at half-eight?’

‘Sounds like a fine plan to me.’

He broke eye contact, nodded, and turning away disappeared into his study.

I stood there looking at the empty doorway. What the hell just happened between us?

It looked very much as if I was throwing away my best laid plans and going out on a date with Lord Ivan de Greystoke.

Tawny Maxwell

I
washed my hair, dried it, and painstakingly put corkscrew curls in it. Then I painted my nails ice cream yellow, colored my eyes smoky and moody, glossed my lips, and got into the new black dress I bought at Liberty.

Mama always said, it is better to be late than arrive ugly, but I was standing in front of my mirror by seven-thirty sharp, and nobody could have guessed I once ran barefoot and tangle-haired to the creek to swim naked.

Ivan knocked on my door and I saw my eyes light up like a Christmas tree in the mirror. Girl, that’s a bad sign right there. Taking a deep breath, I walked over to the door and opened it.

Oh my!

Darkly urbane, radiating a wild, feverish excitement, he stood, dressed all in black except for a fabulously cut cream jacket. His blazing eyes lusted for me. It made my knees go weak but I smiled all sultry and sexy-like, and didn’t let on that I thought he was prettier than a glob of butter melting on a stack of pancakes.

‘Can I keep you?’ he teased.

‘Only if you keep me in a jar and give me lots of treats!’ I replied.

He laughed. ‘Don’t worry there’ll be all kinds of lovely things in there for a good little girl like you to suck and swallow.’

‘‘You’d charm the dew right off the honeysuckle,’ I said sarcastically.

‘I settle for charming the dew right off you,’ he leered.

‘I’ll be darned. You managed to turn that old saying into something dirty.’

‘It’s a talent,’ he said with a filthy snigger.

I batted my eyelashes the way that was more parody than sexy. ‘Do you think they’ll let me into The Dirty Aristocrat like this?’

‘The Dirty Aristocrat is a sex club,’ he said, his lips twisting upwards so sexily, and darn it to hell, but I wanted to lick that dirty smile right off his face. Men like him should be kept locked up in special places to be used purely for copulation purposes.

‘I know what it is,’ I said coolly. ‘I asked if they will let me in dressed like this.’

His jaw twitched. ‘Baby, there isn’t a bouncer born who’s going to turn you away from anywhere.’

‘Good,’ I said calmly and walking to my bed, collected my coat from it. ‘Because we’re going there later.’

His eyes glittered. ‘We are?’

‘Aren’t we?’ I asked innocently.

‘They don’t play country music there,’ he said, helping me into my coat.

I tilted my head to one side as if I was processing the information. ‘They don’t?’

I turned around and he shook his head gravely.

I put on my best I’m-so-country-sticks-fall-out-every-time-I-open–my-mouth’ expression. ‘You mean to say nobody in England ever thought to have sex to Dolly Parton’s songs?’

He kept his face straight. ‘Afraid not.’

‘It seems to me the English are missing out.’

‘It would seem so,’ said the slick weasel, hiding a smile. ‘Nevermind, you wouldn’t have liked it, anyway.’

I looked up at him through my eyelashes. ‘Why honey, you’re so full of shit it’s surprising your eyes ain’t brown.’

He grinned. ‘You’ll get on well with my mother.’

‘Good, it’s all settled then. The Dirty Aristocrat it is,’ I said.

‘This should be an interesting night,’ he said, a twinkle in his eye.

I buttoned up my coat.

‘Shall we?’ he murmured.

We went out into the street. It was only a little cold. I lifted my collar against the wind and snuggled down into the warmth of my coat. His car was parked down the road and we strolled down to it. He walked close enough for people to realize that we were together, and I immediately appreciated the fact that I loved being with Ivan. Every woman we passed looked at him with hungry eyes first, then at me with wishful envy.

He drove us to a very exclusive restaurant. Stopping the car at the entrance he turned to me. ‘Here we are?’

‘Very fancy,’ I commented.

‘Like you wouldn’t believe,’ he replied and hit the button that worked the car’s wing doors.

I swung my legs out and put them on the pavement, then someone held a gloved hand, palm up, so I could put my hand into it. As soon as I did, he gently and expertly tugged me so I floated upwards as if we were part of an immaculately choreographed dance.

I thanked his impassively polite face and saw that Ivan was already waiting for me. I linked arms with him and we went up the stairs into a grand, green, marble foyer. Staff came to help us with our coats, and show us into a high ceilinged room. It was all white with recessed mirrors on the ceiling and eggplant leather seats. It was all very civilized. People in fine clothes and that deliberately languid air of very fat cats were seated at the white tables sipping at their drinks. It seemed as if some of them knew Ivan. There were waves and nods in our direction. The women reminded me of different versions of Chloe. Ugh.

‘Would you like a drink at the bar?’ Ivan asked me.

‘No, I’d like to go straight to the table, please,’ I said.

‘Of course, Madam,’ the courteous man hovering at our elbows said.

He took us through a vibrantly emerald corridor hung with extraordinarily complicated and clever light-staircase chandeliers made out of bronze plumbing pipes.

The corridor opened out to a truly unique and marvelous dining area. A rectangular room sculptured out of a variety of materials to give you the impression that you had entered a glass box. It was decked out with hoop-shaped lights suspended from the ceiling, pink leather banquettes, and futuristic looking diagonal brushed steel panels with lighted butterflies on them. 

The waiter showed us to our table. I remembered reading that every restaurant had golden tables, ones that were kept for their best customers, their most famous, or their best-looking. Well, we were being seated at their golden table. It was actually elevated as if we were on a stage holding court.

I looked at Ivan.

‘Is this table OK with you?’ he asked.

‘Sure,’ I said, and let the waiter pull a chair out and carefully push it back as I bent my knees so I was perfectly seated without having to pull my chair towards the table.

They brought us menus, we made our selections, and they bowed, smiled, approved of our choices, and respectfully withdrew. There was no music in the place, only the subtle murmur of polite conversation. I looked up at Ivan and he was watching intently.

‘Do you come here often?’ I asked.

He leaned back and put his wonderfully shaped hands on the table. ‘Sometimes. The food is generally superb.’

A sommelier appeared with a bottle of wine. After the usual fluffing around that they inevitably do in fancy restaurants, he poured it out into our glasses.

‘To our wedding,’ Ivan said, holding his glass aloft.

‘To our wedding,’ I echoed and took a sip. It was dry with subtle tones that I was too nervous to note.

Another waiter came to the table. He placed a plate with a selection of canapés in the middle of the table and started to explain what they were, but his accent was so thick I only picked up random words, tomato, snow crab puree, caramelized onion …’

Satisfied that he had done his job, he bowed from the neck and made himself scarce.

I leaned forward, my hand accidentally pushed one of the knives: it clattered onto the glass-like floor. Without music the noise of its landing was exaggerated and heads turned in our direction. I felt myself flush.

‘Sorry,’ I apologized awkwardly, and I was about to bend and pick up the knife when he leaned forward and caught my hand.

‘For what?’ he asked, a frown making his eyebrows come together in a straight line. A waiter was already picking the knife up.

‘For being so clumsy,’ I said, winching inwardly.

‘Social etiquette is how the moronic silence the intelligent. What does it matter if you drop your knife, or eat with the wrong fork? Don’t ever apologize for such things again.’

I stared at him. How wonderful to be born in a class where you don’t have to emulate anyone. Anything you do is seen as wonderful simply because of your bloodline.

As if he had read my mind he said, ‘I was very rebellious when I was growing up and I hated being a Lord. My heroes were all anti-establishment figures. To my mother’s horror I put up a massive poster of Gandhi in my room. She thought he was a ridiculous, half-naked fakir, but I admired him because he refused to allow anyone to make him feel he was less because of his color, descent, or traditions. I loved that he came to England to meet his colonial masters dressed in rags.’

He flashed a cheeky smile. ‘I can imagine how infuriating it must have been for them.’

‘You said you hated it when you were young. So you don’t hate it anymore.’

‘Well, I acted up a lot when I was a kid. I did the most outrageous things, but no matter what I did, I was always forgiven because of who I was. And in the end I thought if people were going to be stupid enough to put me on a pedestal simply because of an unearned title, who was I to pull myself off it? I milked it for all it was worth.’

I laughed.

‘What’s funny?’ he asked.

‘It’s funny how you and I are from the exact opposite ends of the spectrum. When I first came to this country I tried, without much success, to fit into the very society that you tried without much success to escape from.’

He looked at me. ‘Don’t let anyone change you, Tawny. You were always beautiful. There was not one thing about you that needed to be changed.’

I looked carefully at him to see if he was taking the piss out of me, but he was sincere.

‘I thought you didn’t like country bumpkins,’ I said lightly.

He grinned. ‘What are you talking about? I adore country bumpkins. I secretly even like that twangy American accent that you arrived with.’

‘I can still talk like that,’ I said, returning to my old way of talking and letting go of everything Robert had taught me. It felt good to talk like that again. When I first came I didn’t want to be the one with the funny accent. I wanted to belong so I tried to change to suit my environment, but maybe I didn’t need anybody’s approval anymore.

I could talk like them, I just didn’t want to anymore.

‘That’s more like the glorious Tawny I first met,’ he said and grinned at me. An open boyish grin that took my breath away. Wow! It hit me then, that despite all my efforts to keep him at arms length, I was crazy about this guy. I always had been. From the first moment I laid eyes on him I wanted him, but he had always looked at me with such cold, disapproving eyes. I was forced to hide my feelings even from myself. I did not hate him. Far from it.

His eyes narrowed. ‘What?’

I shook my head and reached for my wine glass. ‘Nothing.’

‘Sure?’

‘Yes,’ I said. No way was I telling him that he was my man crush. I leaned forward. ‘What would happen if we left now?’

‘We’d be still hungry?’ he said, one eyebrow raised.

‘No, I mean if we left this place and went and got a juicy cheeseburger instead.’

He leaned back in his chair. ‘You want a cheeseburger?’

‘With fries.’

He clasped his hands and stared at me. ‘With fries,’ he echoed.

‘And two strips of bacon.’

He shook his head. ‘Right now?’

‘Yeah. I haven’t had one in ages. Robert could never eat burgers, what with his diet being so restricted, so I never did either.’

He lifted his hand. A waiter came. ‘Bill please,’ he said, not taking his eyes off me.

‘Is something wrong, Sir?’ the waiter asked worriedly.

‘Nothing’s wrong. We have to be somewhere else.’

He hurried away. The manager came. His brow was creased and he seemed extremely concerned. ‘Is something amiss, Lord Greystoke?’

Ivan did not even spare him a glance. ‘Not at all. We just remembered that we have to be elsewhere. If you would be kind enough to bring the bill.’

‘No, no, Lord Greystoke! We couldn’t possibly charge you. You haven’t had a bite to eat. The wine will be compliments of the house.’

God! Rich people sure got away with murder.

Ivan dropped a wad of fifty-pound notes on the pristine tablecloth and escorted me out of that august establishment.