A Heartless Marriage

‘I’m Vivien.’ The six-foot model stuck out a slender hand for Raoul to shake as she wriggled an invitation no man could ignore.

‘Of course you are.’ Raoul was a few inches taller than the beautiful blonde, his long lean body and big broad shoulders giving an impression of even greater height, and Leigh noticed, with a stab of apprehension, that his handshake was cursory and his smile tight. She knew the signs. He suffered fools badly.

‘Well, I do suspect Leigh has been holding out on us,’ Vivien gushed prettily. ‘They say the quiet ones are the worse, don’t they?’ She laughed throatily, totally sure of herself and of the beauty that had taken her monthly salary into six figures in the last two years. ‘Don’t tell me you’re an old friend?’ She pouted provocatively as she touched Raoul’s arm.

‘I wouldn’t dream of it,’ Raoul said quietly, his eyes cold.

‘No?’ Vivien’s predatory eyes gleamed, dismissing Leigh’s presence with regal indifference as she edged forward, almost elbowing the other woman out of the way. ‘What, then?’

‘Leigh’s husband, as it happens.’ There was a positively diabolical glint of satisfaction in those cold blue eyes as they noted the stunned surprise on the carefully made-up face, the mouth an O of bewilderment.

‘You’re joking.’ Vivien stared at Raoul, her eyes flicking over the tall lean body and film-star good looks before moving on to Leigh’s medium height, slightly plump frame which housed a pretty but totally unpretentious face, the straight brown hair and large brown eyes ordinary by anyone’s standards. ‘I don’t believe you. You can’t be married to her!’

Her meaning was clear and as Leigh flushed painfully Raoul’s face darkened. When he next spoke his voice was cutting, the accent as sharp as glass. ‘Then that is your problem, yes?’ He had taken Leigh’s arm as he spoke, his attitude both protective and proprietorial, moving her away from the other woman into a quiet corner of the crowded room.

‘Let go of me.’ As she shook off his hand the urge to lash out was paramount, but she took a long, deep breath before facing him again, the anger that was coursing through her body giving her the courage to look deep into the piercing eyes without flinching. ‘Why did you tell her that? And why are you here? I don’t want you in my life.’

‘I’m aware of that.’ He was standing quite still now, the total lack of movement disquieting. ‘Nevertheless, it is the truth. You are my wife, Leigh.’ Her skin prickled helplessly as he turned her to face him with her back to the room so that her face was shielded from curious eyes. ‘And don’t look like that. I’m not going to hurt you.’

‘You aren’t going to.?’ Her voice trailed away in a tight bitter laugh that turned his face into stone. ‘What could you do to me that you haven’t already done, Raoul? I loathe you, I detest you. If you were halfway decent you would have given me a divorce as soon as I left you.’

‘I didn’t want to.’ His arrogance made her blink. ‘Why didn’t you file for one later?’

‘Why?’ She stared at him. ‘You really want to know? Because I wanted to shut even the slightest thought of you out of my mind. I wanted to pretend that you didn’t exist, that our marriage had never happened.’ It wasn’t the whole truth. A divorce had been almost unimportant compared to the excruciating step she had taken in leaving him in the first place. She had known she would never marry again. He was too hard an act to follow. ‘I expected you to contact me anyway.’ She raised her chin slightly. ‘Is that why you are here now? To ask for a divorce? This meeting isn’t by accident, is it?’

‘No, it is not.’ His eyes were slicing into her.

‘What’s her name?’ she asked coldly. ‘Surely Marion isn’t still around?’ She forced herself to say the hated name.

‘I don’t intend to discuss our private affairs here,’ Raoul said tightly, ‘but suffice it to say I am not here to ask for a divorce. How soon can you leave?’

‘How soon can I.?’ For the second time in as many minutes she was speechless. ‘You don’t seriously think I’m going anywhere with you, do you? For all you know, I’m with someone.’ She waved distractedly at the crowded room.

‘Are you?’ The glittering eyes challenged her, his mouth twisting in a faint smile as she tossed her head without replying. ‘I thought not. Jeff Capstone is in Scotland, isn’t he?’ It was a cool statement of fact and delivered with icy disdain. ‘You see, I know more about you than you think.’ His eyes never left her face for an instant.

She stared at him in amazement as seething resentment turned her brown eyes black. ‘How dare you?’ Her voice, though low, was full of scathing contempt. ‘Just who do you think you are?’ She couldn’t believe the pretentious insolence.

‘I thought we had established that.’ He smiled coldly. ‘I am your husband.’

‘In name only,’ Leigh lashed back quickly as her heartbeat raced.

‘I’m quite prepared to rectify that if you’d care to oblige?’ His eyes were mocking. ‘I seem to remember we were good together once.’ The blue eyes were insultingly familiar.

‘We were?’ Her mouth curled scornfully. ‘Are you sure it was us you are thinking of? There have been so many women in your life, Raoul, I’m surprised you can remember any one liaison.’

At last she had hit him on the raw. She saw it in the arctic frost that turned the vivid blue eyes rapiersharp and the way his big body froze into stillness. ‘You were not a “liaison”, Leigh,’ he said furiously. ‘You were, you are, my wife!’

‘It was a pity you didn’t remember that when it counted,’ she said simply. ‘Goodbye, Raoul.’

She had turned and left him before he realised what was happening and as she crossed the room she half expected to feel a restraining hand on her shoulder but nothing happened. She wanted to run away, to find a safe little hidey-hole where she could lick the wounds that she’d thought had healed but which were as raw as the day he had gouged them into her heart-but she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction. How had he found her? Why was he here? More to the point, why was she here?

She looked through the high, beautifully worked arched doorway into the next massive room full of London’s elite-high society at its best, with the odd bearded aesthete to keep Nigel’s precious balance right-and groaned inwardly. When she had first begun to be noticed, two years ago, she had decided then that the power game was not for her. She would succeed or fail on her paintings, not on her connections, but when the prized invitation had dropped through her letterbox she had been unable to resist. The urge to see first-hand one of Nigel’s famous soirees had been too tempting. Curiosity! Well, now she was paying for her weakness in a way she had never anticipated in her darkest nightmares.

‘Everything all right, sweetie?’ As Nigel drifted by without waiting for an answer, his long sequinned smock in outrageous contrast to the tight bright red trousers, she bit her lip hard. She had been here two hours. She had been seen by the right people and now she couldn’t stand it another minute. A careful glance backwards told her Raoul was nowhere to be seen, now was the moment to escape. She had to get away, break free.

‘Off already, darling?’ She was just slipping into her jacket, incongruous against the mass of furs and silk shawls that filled the rest of the ladies’ cloakroom, when Vivien’s smooth white hand touched her arm imperiously. ‘Bigger fish to fry?’

‘I beg your pardon?’ Leigh had never liked Vivien, having had the misfortune to work with her on more than one occasion in her early days in London when she was working part-time as a photographer’s assistant in order to be able to eat while she followed her dream to paint, and now she turned to face the taller woman with frank distaste on her heart-shaped face. ‘I don’t understand.’

‘I just bet you don’t.’ Vivien’s hard slanted eyes were poisonous. ‘What’s your little game, then? I’ve made a few enquiries and that’s Raoul de Chevnair you were talking to, isn’t it? You don’t seriously expect me to believe that a multimillionaire playboy like Raoul de Chevnair would ever notice a little nobody like you, let alone marry her!’ She laughed spitefully, her face mocking.

‘I don’t expect you to believe anything, Vivien,’ Leigh said coldly, her shoulders straight and her face mirroring her opinion of the beautiful blonde more effectively than words ever could have done. ‘Now would you mind moving out of the way? I’m going home.’ Her voice was glacial.

‘Yes, I would mind, actually,’ Vivien drawled slowly, her mouth pulled into a thin red line and her eyes shooting daggers. ‘You haven’t answered my question, Miss Leigh Wilson! Doesn’t sound much like Mrs de Chevnair to me!’

‘Then, as my husband said a few minutes ago, that’s your problem.’ Leigh pushed past the willowy figure, taking her completely by surprise. ‘Goodnight, Vivien.’

Once outside the cloakroom in the large woodpanelled hall, she leant against the wall for a moment and took a deep breath. Already! Raoul had only been back in her life five minutes and already the women were gathering like bees round a honeypot. But he wasn’t back in her life! She seized on the thought and repeated it to herself firmly. She wouldn’t let him be.

When she had crawled from his presence, crushed and broken, all those years ago, she had felt that life was a deep black abyss that would never hold a spark of joy or contentment again. And it hadn’t at first. She had fled back to London, hiding herself in the careless anonymity of the big metropolis, unable to think or eat or sleep for weeks-and then one spring morning a ray of sunshine had caught a spider’s web on the window of her grubby little bedsit and the urge to paint had resurfaced. And with it she had gradually clawed back her selfrespect, making a new life for herself, taking charge of her affairs, growing into a person whom, if she didn’t actually like, she could live with. And over the years she had settled into the new woman who had been reborn out of the scorching devastation, content with her light sunny little flat with its bird’seye view of London and her peaceful solitary life. A tranquil life in the cool valley after the cruel heat of the mountaintop. And now he was back! Her heart pounded so violently for a moment that she felt faint. Why-after all this time? She had made it clear to him when she’d left that everything between them had been burnt to ashes, that there was nothing left. So why now, just when everything was beginning to happen for her?

She levered herself carefully off the wall and walked sedately to the heavily carved oak front door, opening it quietly and slipping through quickly with a sigh of relief that she had got away so easily. She felt shell-shocked, bruised.

The warm summer air was filled with the city perfume of petrol fumes and dirt but she didn’t care; she had got used to London in all its moods now, appreciating the obscurity of town life, the nameless oblivion, hugging it to her like a hard-won prize. She was just Leigh Wilson, budding artist; that was all.

The night was black without a shred of moonlight to lighten the darkness, and the old-fashioned wrought-iron street lamps gave a discreetly small circle of light into the elegant, quiet, expensive avenue. As she stepped down the narrow circular steps into the empty street she clucked disapprovingly to herself. She should have called for a taxi before she left. She wasn’t thinking straight, but then it was hardly surprising!

‘Leigh?’ As one of the tall shadows across the dimly lit expanse detached itself she gave a little start of surprise, swiftly concealed, and then she was staring into Raoul’s dark face again and he wasn’t smiling. ‘Can I give you a lift?’ He indicated a long, low, sleek white monster on wheels a few yards away. ‘Please?’

Please? This wasn’t the Raoul she knew. The Raoul she had lived with for eighteen glorious, mind-boggling months had never said please to anyone in his life. ‘I don’t think so.’ She stared at him nervously. ‘I don’t want to be difficult, but—’

‘Then don’t be.’ As he cut into her words the arrogant forcefulness curled the muscles in her stomach. This was the Raoul she knew, riding roughshod over everyone else, cutting through any small talk, intent only on getting his own way. The veneer was just that-a light covering to hide a mind of steel. ‘I intend to talk to you, Leigh, so you might as well get it over and done with now.’ He smiled coldly. ‘You never were one for putting off unpleasant duties, were you?’

There was something of the satyr about him, she thought painfully; there always had been. Perhaps that was what had attracted her once, but not any more! Now she could see him for exactly what he was and it disgusted her.

‘Is it really necessary?’ She still didn’t move from the last step. ‘Can’t our solicitors sort it out?’

‘No, they damn well can’t!’ He took a long deep breath and spoke more quietly. ‘I don’t want solicitors meddling in my affairs. Now be a good girl and come and talk to me for a few minutes while I take you home. Kingston Gardens, isn’t it?’

She looked at him in surprise and took a step forwards in spite of herself. ‘How do you know where I live?’

‘I told you, I know more about you than you think,’ he said smoothly, his deep rich voice and faint accent giving the words a sensual overtone that brought the blood rushing into her cheeks. ‘First it was a bedsit in Baron Place, then a shared flat with a Miss.’ the dark brows wrinkled ‘…ah, yes, a Miss Angela Hardwick, and for the last two years a flat of your own in Kingston Gardens.’ He folded muscled arms.

‘Have you been spying on me?’ she asked weakly. ‘I don’t believe this.’ A flood of burning anger replaced the stunned amazement his words had caused. ‘How dare you? How dare you, Raoul? I—’

‘Shut up and get in the car,’ he said brusquely, the patience for which he was not renowned running out suddenly. As he took hold of her arm a shiver of apprehension trembled down her spine-or was it excitement? She bit on her lower lip till it hurt. She mustn’t let him see how he affected her. She hated and loathed him but he might mistake it for something else. She would listen to what he said, coolly and calmly, and then that would be that. And he was right. She might as well get it over and done with now.

The interior of the car was as magnificent as the outside, soft white leather seats and thick grey carpet, a sexual experience on wheels, she thought balefully. How in keeping. How very in keeping!