Master of her Virtue

‘Lord, no!’ A shiver rippled down her spine as she quaffed back a deep swallow of champagne.

His instant smile was wide and warm. ‘A girl after my own heart. Come on then, Snow White. It’s off to the fireworks we go we go,’ he sang in a clever parody of the song the seven dwarves had sung in the Walt Disney movie.

Violet gulped some more bubbly before scurrying after his rapidly departing figure. Not that he got far, his hands being full and all the sliding glass doors being closed.

‘You’ll have to help me, Snow White,’ Leo told her, at which she hurried forward and slid open one of the doors, careful not to spill her drink at the same time.

‘Which table do you advise?’ he asked once they were both outside.

There were five outdoor settings in all, spread along the very long balcony. The tables at each end were square and had four chairs around them; the other three were smaller and circular and had only two chairs positioned on each side. Violet chose to sit at the glass-topped table right in the middle, a decision which seemed to please Leo.

‘An excellent choice,’ he said as he deposited the ice bucket in the centre of the table and sat down opposite her. ‘Just look at that view!’

In truth, the view was spectacular from anywhere along the balcony, as well as from inside. Violet had been impressed on the two occasions she’d been here before. But she’d never seen it at night, with the lights of the city as backdrop to the already beautiful harbour, not to mention the lights on the bridge, the Opera House and all the boats on the water, many more boats than was usually the case.

‘I can’t wait to see what it looks like when the fireworks go off,’ Leo said, glancing at his watch. ‘Only nine minutes to go. Now, does your champagne need a top-up yet? Yes, it certainly does.’

Violet was surprised to see that she’d already half-emptied her glass. Nerves, she supposed. Plus it was delicious. Very easy to drink.

‘Henry tells me you’ve never been to one of his New Year’s Eve parties before?’ Leo asked once both their glasses were refilled.

‘Well, no … no, I haven’t.’

‘Why’s that?’

What to say? Hardly the truth. ‘I guess I’m not much of a party person.’

Leo nodded. ‘I’m getting that way myself. I used to love a good bash but that was before I turned the big four-O last year.’

‘You’re only forty?’ Violet blurted out before she could stop herself.

Leo laughed. ‘Dear me, do I look that ancient and dissipated? And there I was, imagining that I was aging rather well.’

‘But you are!’ Violet exclaimed, flustered and flushed with embarrassment. ‘I was just thinking a moment ago that you didn’t look a day over thirty-five. But then I remembered you had a twenty-year-old son and I assumed that … that…’

‘That a man of my supposed intelligence would not have fathered a child before becoming an adult myself?’ he finished for her with a surprisingly bitter edge in his voice. ‘Unfortunately, no amount of brains can control the hormones of a twenty-year-old male, a reality of life which I have been drumming into my own twenty-year-old son. Still, things are a little different these days. Get a girl pregnant and you don’t necessarily have to get married.’

‘I wouldn’t have thought you had to get married twenty years ago either,’ she ventured, somewhat boldly for her. The effect of the champagne, perhaps?

‘You’re right, of course. I didn’t have to get married. Another hormonal error on my part. I thought I was in love. The marriage was doomed from the start, but not a total disaster. I have a wonderful son whom I love dearly.’

He took a deep swallow from his glass, then glanced over at Violet, his expression puzzled. ‘What on earth am I doing, boring you with my life story?’

‘I’m not bored,’ she said, her eyes meeting his. ‘Not one little bit.’

He smiled and she thought again how very handsome he was.

‘That’s sweet of you to say so, but I’d much rather we talked about you.’

‘Now, that would be really boring,’ she said, and took another sip of champagne.

‘I beg to differ. Henry has told me quite a bit about you already and none of that was boring.’

‘Nothing bad, I hope.’

‘Hardly. He’s full of compliments. He did mention, however, that you don’t have a boyfriend, something which I find very hard to believe. Yet here you are tonight all alone. So what’s going on, Violet? Why don’t you have some young man in your life? What’s the real reason?’

Her eyes dropped from his, her embarrassment acute.

Leo reached across the small table and touched her on her wrist. It was the lightest of touches but it sent an electric charge racing up her arm and down through her body, zapping her nipples to attention and tightening her belly. Violet stiffened at the alien sensations, yet she recognised them instantly for what they were. For this was what Lady Gwendaline had felt when her pirate had touched her.

‘I’m sorry, Violet,’ she dimly heard him say. ‘It was wrong of me to ask you such a personal question. I apologise.’

Even when his hand dropped away, there was no peace for her body. It felt like it was on fire. As her eyes lifted slowly back to his, she hoped he wouldn’t be able to see the heat in them. And the hunger.

‘There’s no need to apologise,’ she said, surprised at how calm she sounded. Thank God for the champagne. Joy was right about it giving her Dutch courage. ‘I don’t have a boyfriend because of something which happened to me in the past.’

Leo nodded knowingly. ‘As soon as I saw you tonight, I wondered if such was the case. It’s not as though you would be short of admirers. Do you want to tell me about it? Or is it too painful a memory?’

Violet realised then just what Leo was thinking—that she’d had some nasty sexual experience or she’d had her heart broken at some stage. A week ago she might have let him keep on believing that, because it was better than revealing the ugly truth. But a lot of water had gone under the bridge during the past few days. She didn’t want to lie to him. Lying was what she used to do, to herself and to others.

The fact that she was wildly attracted to the man might have changed her mind about telling him the truth if he’d been Australian. But he wasn’t. Leo was going home to England in a few days. In reality, he was the ideal person to practise opening up to. On top of that, he was, as she’d already discovered, surprisingly easy to talk to.

‘No, no,’ she said. ‘It’s not what you’re thinking. It’s nothing to do with any bad experience I’ve had with the opposite sex.’

‘What, then?’

Violet pulled a face. Where to start? ‘It’s a long story.’ She sighed a frustrated sigh. As she’d discovered earlier tonight on the way here, deciding to turn over a new leaf was very different from doing it.

‘We have all night,’ Leo pointed out kindly.

Not quite, Violet thought, knowing that any minute Henry would surely come looking for his son.

But it wasn’t Henry who brought an abrupt end to their private conversation. It was the nine o’clock fireworks, shattering their relatively quiet surrounds with loud bursts of noise whilst setting the night sky alight with a kaleidoscope of sparkling colour.

Immediately, all the guests who’d arrived by then rushed out onto the balcony, oohing and aahing as the spectacular display went on and on. Violet knew it was a small event compared to what would happen at midnight, but it was still pretty impressive. Impossible to talk during the ten-minute display, however. Impossible to do anything but watch. Then, once it was over, the inevitable happened. Henry found Leo and insisted he come with him to meet everyone.

Violet’s heart sank when Leo stood up, but lifted again when he reached down to take her hand. ‘Come along, Snow White. I need you by my side to protect me from the pack.’

Violet soon saw what he meant. Practically every woman there—even the married ones—flirted outrageously with Leo. It was an education just being by his side and watching them in action. No compliment was too over the top as Henry the Eighth’s wife and Josephine fought for his attention, followed by Marilyn Monroe and Audrey Hepburn.

Even the men were doing their fair share of none-too-subtle brown-nosing, possibly because quite a lot of the guests were from the Australian movie industry: producers, directors, screen writers and actors. Henry had gone to a lot of trouble to invite people whose company he thought Leo would enjoy.

Now that she’d met Henry’s son, Violet suspected he would have preferred to be anonymous, but he remained polite, at the same time not staying with one group for too long. His social skills were obvious as he mingled, spending just the right amount of time with each group before returning to the balcony and the people gathered there. Henry joined them occasionally, but not often, seemingly content to let his guests enjoy Leo’s company without his interference, which was probably wise of him. Henry had a tendency to dominate conversations, in Violet’s opinion.