Mistress For Hire

‘Oh, so you really do have some claim to be a genuine artist, do you?’ asked Matt in a surprised voice. ‘I thought…no, never mind.’

Lisa gave him a puzzled frown and then shook her head regretfully.

‘No, I don’t think I can really claim to be a genuine artist,’ she said flatly.

‘But you just said you went to art school.’

‘That doesn’t make me an artist,’ she retorted. ‘Not by my reckoning, at any rate. I have an art school diploma and I’ve sold maybe a dozen reasonably important paintings over the last three years, but only at very moderate prices. I couldn’t possibly live on what I earn from my art, and that’s my definition of an artist. One of these days I will be a genuine artist, if hard work has anything to do with it. In the meantime I support myself in whatever way I can, but I won’t claim to be something I’m not.’

Matt gazed at her thoughtfully and took a sip of his champagne.

‘That’s interesting,’ he said, half to himself. ‘You strike me as being a very ambitious young woman.’

She shrugged. ‘I suppose you could say that.’

‘How old are you now?’ he asked.

‘Twenty-five,’ replied Lisa ruefully. ‘So I’ve been at it long enough to know that it isn’t easy to make a name for yourself as a painter. But one of these days I’ll do it, whatever sacrifices I have to make.’

‘Aren’t you afraid that marriage and children will cramp your style?’ asked Matt.

Since Lisa wasn’t at all sure that she ever wanted to marry, that question didn’t faze her.

‘I have no intention of letting marriage and children cramp my style!’ she replied with a toss of her head.

‘I see,’ said Matt grimly as he speared a piece of lobster with his fork. ‘You’re one of these liberated women, are you?’

There was so much distaste in his tone that Lisa had to hide a grin.

‘Have I said something funny?’ demanded Matt.

‘No. It’s more the way you said it, as if you were asking, “Oh, you’re one of those poisonous snakes, are you? Or one of those deadly spiders? Or one of those white pointer sharks?”’

‘Any of those would be preferable in my view to a liberated woman,’ said Matt disdainfully, picking up his champagne glass again.

Lisa choked. ‘You take my breath away,’ she said.

‘I’m astonished that any man should have the power to do that. You strike me as the sort of woman who would be glib and fluent in any situation whatsoever.’

‘Thank you,’ purred Lisa. ‘I assume that’s a compliment.’

‘It isn’t,’ replied Matt evenly. ‘But we’ll let it pass for the moment. Tell me, have you known Tim long?’

There was something in the way he asked the question that made Lisa feel as if she was in a fencing ring, circling around a far more experienced, agile and deadly opponent. An odd, simmering sense of excitement began to tingle through her as she braced herself for the impending clash of swords. Then she told herself not to be melodramatic. After all, wasn’t this what they had come out for? To discuss Tim’s future like two calm, rational adults? She shrugged and gave Matt a faint smile.

‘About six months,’ she replied. ‘I’ve been living with him for three months of that time.’

A muscle twitched in Matt’s cheek at this revelation, but he continued methodically eating his lobster for a moment before glancing across at her with appraising blue eyes.

‘And what do you think of him?’ he demanded.

Lisa hesitated. There was a lot she wanted to say, but Tim had strictly forbidden her to say most of it. He was morbidly afraid of the sort of angry scene he believed would ensue if his mother and uncle discovered that he was still pursuing his passion for art against their wishes. Left to herself, Lisa would have been perfectly frank with Matt. She would have told him that his nephew showed extraordinary promise as a painter and begged him to let the youth give up his half-hearted study of economics and go to art school full time. Yet Tim had sworn her to secrecy and she did not feel that she could betray his trust. Her misgivings showed in her face.

‘There’s no need to be tactful,’ urged Matt irritably. ‘I want the truth from you. What are your impressions of my nephew’s character?’

Tim’s character! Well, it was easier to be truthful about that than about his ambitions. Tim had never sworn her to secrecy about his character.

‘He’s basically a nice boy,’ she replied in the measured tone of a headmistress giving a character reference. ‘Although he is rather spoilt and he seems to think he can have whatever he wants simply by demanding it.’

‘That’s Sonia’s influence,’ said Matt in an exasperated voice. ‘She’s a very silly woman and she gave in to him too much when he was a child. Still, I suppose it’s not surprising that she spoiled the boy after his father died.’

‘How did his father die?’ asked Lisa hesitantly. ‘Tim has never told me.’

A shadow crossed Matt’s features.

‘He was piloting a light aircraft, which crashed. Tim was only two years old at the time.’

Something in the grim lines of Matt’s face told her that long-ago grief still haunted him. She thought about how she would feel if her own adored brother, Brian, had met with such a disaster and instinctively flinched.

‘I suppose he was your older brother, wasn’t he?’ she said huskily. ‘I’m so sorry.’

Matt’s gaze darted swiftly across the table to meet hers, as if he was startled by the sympathy in her voice. Then he shrugged.

‘Thank you,’ he replied. ‘But it was a long time ago. I seldom think of it now.’

‘You can’t have been very old when it happened.’

‘I was eighteen. There was a ten-year age gap between my brother and myself.’

‘Only eighteen?’ she exclaimed. ‘And yet he made you trustee for the whole estate?’

Matt’s mouth hardened. ‘Yes. He thought I was the tough one in the family and he knew I was shrewd at handling money even then. I bought my first portfolio of shares when I was sixteen. You’d do well to remember that, Lisa.’

Lisa gave him a baffled look. Why would she do well to remember it? What did it have to do with her? Although perhaps this was the opening she had been waiting for, to turn the conversation round to Tim’s interests again. If she could persuade Matt to give Tim more financial freedom, perhaps she need not even mention the delicate subject of art.

‘Can I ask you something?’ she said. ‘If you wanted to, could you wind up the trust and leave Tim in control of his money?’

‘Yes,’ said Matt in a clipped tone.

Lisa let out a long sigh.

‘I really think you ought to do that,’ she urged.

‘Why should I?’ demanded Matt suspiciously. ‘He’ll come into his inheritance at the age of twenty-five in any case, and all his expenses are paid for him at the moment. He doesn’t go short of anything.’

‘No, he doesn’t go short of anything,’ agreed Lisa passionately. ‘But he doesn’t have control of anything, either, and that really infuriates him. I’m sure he wouldn’t get involved in so many silly stunts at the university if he didn’t feel so hemmed in by you and his mother. In my opinion, half the reason he’s so silly and disruptive is that he feels as if he’s treated like a child.’

‘Does he now?’ said Matt dryly. ‘Well, he’ll simply have to put up with it until I’m convinced that it’s in his best interests to change my approach. And I’m not convinced of that yet. Tell me, are you in love with Tim?’