In Want of a Wife?

‘Don’t be silly. Why would he do that? Have you met Nicholas’s sisters, though?’ She glanced quickly to the left and Lizzy followed her sister’s eyes to where two tall blonde girls were looking around them with undisguised contempt. Whilst everyone had dressed up, they were in jeans and thick sweaters and were making no attempt to mingle.

‘Have you spoken to them?’ Lizzy asked anxiously, and she could see tears begin to gather in the corner of her sister’s eyes.

‘They hate me. I can tell from the way they spoke to me. Oh, they were very polite, but I just got the impression that they didn’t think that I was good enough for their brother.’

‘Nicholas is lucky to have you,’ Lizzy said stoutly. She wondered whether Louis had infected them with his scepticism or whether they were all in a similar conspiracy of hunting down the worst-case scenario on Nicholas’s behalf.

‘Maybe. Or maybe he feels the same. Deep down.’

Out of the corner of her eye, Lizzy could see Louis looking around him. In a heartbeat of a second, their eyes tangled and then he was bearing down on them, cutting a swathe through the crowds, drink in hand.

‘Speaking of Nicholas, why don’t you go and see if you can find him …?’ Lizzy murmured. ‘Louis is coming towards us and I want to have a word with him.’

‘What about? You won’t say anything, will you?’

‘Don’t panic, Rose. You know how tactful I am.’

Now that she was looking at him approach, she found that she couldn’t tear her eyes away. He, at least, had made an effort with his clothes: a dark suit which fitted so perfectly that it could only have been made to measure, and a white shirt, on which he had undone the top two buttons. It might be freezing outside but the place was warm, warm enough for everyone to have disposed of their coats, jackets, cardigans and scarves.

He was spectacularly good-looking, she reluctantly registered to herself, and he moved with the easy grace of an athlete. As he walked by, heads swung in his direction and a fair few of them lingered. Of course, he would know the effect he had on people. It was probably just one of the things that contributed to his arrogance. She rallied her fighting spirit at the thought of that and took a swig of her drink, white wine which had become tepid over the course of the hour.

‘Are you having a good time?’ She greeted him coolly when he was finally standing in front of her, affording her the sort of undiluted attention that made her pulses race.

Louis took his time answering. ‘It’s always illuminating to watch and observe.’

‘Watch and observe? You mean in the way a scientist watches and observes bacteria on a Petri dish?’

‘You’re very different from your sisters.’

Lizzy’s eyes narrowed. ‘How so?’

‘Well, your two younger ones are obviously party animals without a care in the world, and Rose …’

‘What about Rose?’

‘Very sweet-tempered, or at least that’s the image she’s trying to project.’

Lizzy bristled, but before she could jump in with a suitable retort he was talking again, his voice a low, lazy drawl, his incredibly dark eyes roving over her flushed, angry face.

‘And your mother seems delighted with the fact that she’s going out with Nicholas. In fact, I think she can hear wedding bells in the air … True or false?’

Lizzy tried not to grimace. Gracie Sharp had always aspired to financial security. She had been the driving hand behind their father’s work ethic, always pushing him to go a little further, do a little better and aim a little higher, and Lizzy could understand that. In fact, she could feel a grudging empathy, because her mother had grown up in a series of foster homes, relying on her looks to pull her through in the absence of any real education. She had duly chosen to launch herself into the world of acting, but it had been a struggle, and one she had from all accounts abandoned the day she had met their father. The legacy of poverty had lived on, however, so was it any wonder that she was now thrilled with Nicholas? At least one of her daughters was achieving what she had supposedly been born to achieve.

‘All mothers can’t help but think about their kids, um, finding happiness …’ She wished he would move back a little, so that there was some chance their conversation would be interrupted. But his stance repelled anyone who might want to join them, broad back to the room, and she wondered whether it was deliberate.

‘Really? She didn’t seem all that bothered by the fact that there’s no guy in your life.’

‘You asked her about me? You were prying into my life behind my back?’ Her eyes glittered with outrage and she clenched her fists as he returned her angry gaze calmly.

‘There was no real need to pry,’ Louis said with an elegant shrug. ‘Your mother seems very forthcoming. I’ve heard all about your younger sisters and their hectic social lives, and Vivian and her causes, and Rose, who is apparently as close to perfection as any human being could reasonably aspire to be. And your mother just wishes that they would settle down with the right men. And then there’s you—clever, ambitious—and there was no hint that finding the right man was on your mother’s wish-list. Why do you think that was?’

Having watched and listened, Louis had reached certain conclusions, and conclusion number one was that he had been one-hundred percent correct in his assumption that the Sharps were fortune hunters. Everything backed him up, from Mrs Sharp’s obvious delight in her daughter’s so-called match, to Rose herself, who was the picture of gentle innocence, but who was also seemingly lacking in the sort of passion he would have expected to see in a woman in love.

He had made his way over to Lizzy because he had intended on pinning her to the wall. Inexplicably, he now found himself distracted and, even more inexplicably, enjoying his moment of distraction.

‘I don’t see that my private life is any of your business,’ Lizzy muttered, on the back foot and hating him for it.

‘So how come you’re not involved with anyone?’ He swirled his drink and then tossed his head back to finish the wine in his glass. Just in case she got any ideas about going anywhere, he reached out and planted his hand firmly on the wall so that she was locked in.

Lizzy wondered how soon she could escape so that she could strangle her overbearing mother.

‘Repeat—none of your business.’

‘A little tip—men don’t like women who show their claws the way you do.’

‘I show my claws because I happen to loathe you!’

Louis laughed. He wondered if anyone had ever had the audacity to tell him that they loathed him. Nope; he couldn’t think of a single instance.

‘And,’ Lizzy continued, fuming, ‘I don’t ask you about your private life!’

‘Ask on. What do you want to know?’ He straightened, but when he shifted it was only to further block any exit routes.

‘I’m actually not at all interested. And anyway,’ she couldn’t resist adding, ‘I don’t need to ask, because I can guess what sort of private life you have.’

‘Oh? Tell me. I’m all ears.’

‘Lots of women,’ she threw at him. ‘Glamour models and airheads who smile sweetly and do whatever you ask them to do. You have so much money that you can pick and choose, and rich men only ever pick stunning women. But my guess is that, when and if you ever do decide to tie the knot, it’ll be with someone from your own class. That’s why you don’t like the thought of Nicholas with my sister. He comes from lots of money and therefore he should stick to his own kind.’

‘You’re flirting dangerously with my boundaries. And my patience.’

‘You have been flirting dangerously with mine as well.’ She looked at him and something wild and dangerous shifted inside her. Just as quickly she glanced away, but her pulses were racing and her heart was thumping so hard that she felt as though she might faint.

Behind him, she could hear the first strains of music as the small jazz band—two members of which she had gone to school with—began tuning their instruments.

‘Care to dance?’

‘You’re kidding!’

Louis laughed again. He had intended to be brutal on this fact-finding mission, but he found that he was enjoying the way she scratched and bristled. It was novel. She had been dead-on target when she had said that the women he dated were beautiful airheads. Airheads didn’t interrupt his work life, and his work life ate up a considerable amount of his time. She had also been dead on target when she had said that the woman he eventually chose would be someone of equal standing—no one who could possibly be interested in his vast wealth, which would mean that her connections would have to be similarly impeccable; no argument there. Neither type of woman would resemble the one currently nursing her empty wine glass and glaring up at him. A girl who got her kicks riding motorcycles and whose mother despaired of her settling down. Even in her finery, she still managed to have a slightly untamed air about her.

‘Don’t you dance?’ he asked.

‘I choose my dance partners with discretion.’

Louis made a show of looking around him. ‘And anyone here take your fancy? Or do you go back too far with all of them? My guess is that familiarity can breed contempt in a place as small as this. Is that the reason you legged it down to London while your sisters stayed up here?’

‘Rose is the only one who lives here. Leigh and Maisie are at university and Vivian is abroad.’