Dangerous Deceiver

“Don’t play games with me, Martha.” About the Author Title Page CHAPTER ONE CHAPTER TWO CHAPTER THREE CHAPTER FOUR CHAPTER FIVE CHAPTER SIX CHAPTER SEVEN CHAPTER EIGHT CHAPTER NINE Copyright

“Don’t play games with me, Martha.”

Simon stepped toward her.

“If you think you’re going to force anything out of me, Simon—” She stopped as he loomed over her.

“Force it out of you—no,” he said almost gently. “But we might put something to the test.”

“Simon,” she whispered as he drew her into his arms, “that’s not fair....”

“Isn’t it? Don’t you know what they say about love and war?”

LINDSAY ARMSTRONG

was born in South Africa but now lives in Australia with her New Zealand-born husband and their five children. They have lived in nearly every state of Australia and tried their hand at some unusual, for them, occupations, such as farming and horse training—all grist to the mill for a writer! Lindsay started writing romance fiction when their youngest child began school and Lindsay was left feeling at a loose end. She is still doing it and loving it.

Dangerous Deceiver

Lindsay Armstrong

www.millsandboon.co.uk

CHAPTER ONE

‘HE WAS——’

Martha Winters paused for two reasons: because she’d been about to describe Simon Macquarie as beautiful and because she was about to confide things she’d never told anyone before. But as she glanced at her friend Jane’s woeful, tear-drenched face she sighed inwardly, and continued, although on a slightly different tack. ‘He was extremely arrogant as a matter of fact. We didn’t like each other much at all. Well...’ She shrugged her slim shoulders and reflected that it was almost impossible to explain what had happened between her and Simon Macquarie, and that if Jane hadn’t just been painfully ditched by her boyfriend she wouldn’t even be trying to, in an effort to offer some consolation.

To make matters worse, Martha and Jane had shared a flat for two years and had become really close, but Martha was leaving for London in the morning and Jane, who was as tender-hearted as she was often gullible, was in a bad way about that as well.

‘And he ditched you, Martha?’ Fresh tears slid down Jane’s face. ‘You poor thing.’

Martha smiled slightly. ‘It was three years ago, Jane. Do I look like a poor, abandoned thing?’

‘No,’ Jane replied consideringly. ‘You always look wonderful and I know you’ll be a sensation in London but I also happen to know there hasn’t been a serious man in your life for the last two years, which is a bit incredible for a girl like you. Do you still love him or have you sworn never to be taken for a ride by any man again?’ she asked dramatically.

Martha hesitated because despite stringent denials to herself over the years she still couldn’t be sure that there mightn’t be a grain of truth in both those propositions. So finally she said rather drily, ‘If it was love it was also highly uncomfortable and the kind of love you’re probably better off without; it was certainly one-sided and yes, you’re right, I’ve been a bit wary ever since. But that’s not to say,’ she added briskly, ‘that I’ve lost all faith in the right man coming along one day—and neither should you.’

Jane sniffed and blew her nose. ‘But that’s what I keep thinking. I was really sure about Stuart!’

Martha grimaced. She’d privately thought Stuart was painfully pompous and overbearing and that Jane was much better off without him, but all she said gently was, ‘Chin up, love. You will make some man a wonderful wife one day.’

Which set Jane into a fresh paroxysm of tears for several minutes and it was awfully hard to resist when she got over it bravely but said, ‘Tell me more about this man you can’t forget, Martha.’

Martha winced inwardly but her voice was quite normal, even casual as she said, ‘He was from the UK and out here on promotional tour. His family has produced a very famous liqueur—in France as a matter of fact—for centuries.’

‘So was he one of those frightfully upper-crust Englishmen? Or a French Don Juan?’

Martha laughed. ‘As a matter of fact he was a Scot, although you wouldn’t have known it from his accent. And he wasn’t frightfully posh, although...’ she paused ‘...well, you could tell straight away he was very upper crust but not because he talked loudly or sounded as if he had a plum in his mouth.’

‘I know what you mean,’ Jane agreed knowledgeably. ‘It’s more of an aura, isn’t it?’

‘Exactly.’ Martha glanced at her wryly.

‘So what did he look like? Was he wildly handsome? Was he Gallic? I presume if they’ve been making this stuff in France for centuries there has to be some French connection. Was he dark and dangerous or red-headed and given to wearing kilts?’

Martha laughed. ‘No. And yes, there is a lot of French blood in the family apparently but he wasn’t dark and dangerous to look at——’ She stopped a bit abruptly.

‘Well, then—fair but still dangerous?’ Jane ventured.

‘Not fair either,’ Martha said slowly. ‘Light brown hair, grey-green eyes, big and tall, thirty-two then——’ Again she stopped.

‘And devastatingly handsome.’ Jane grimaced.

‘No. It’s hard to pin-point it with some men, isn’t it?’ Martha mused. ‘Some of them seem to have it all without being devastatingly or pin-up handsome. It’s something to do with their eyes, I think, and their hands and what they say and how they say it. It’s to do with being grown-up and relaxed, yet in command when they need to be—all those things. But he was quite capable of being damning and dangerous.’ Yet his body was beautiful, she thought with an odd little wrench of her heart. Strong and fit, wide shoulders...

‘So, arrogant but nice in between times? Good-looking without being embarrassingly so? Wealthy and assured—definitely dangerous for a nineteen-year-old girl almost straight from the bush,’ Jane said softly with such a look of heartfelt concern in her eyes that Martha moved uncomfortably. ‘How far did it go and how did it start?’ Jane added.

Martha thought ruefully, I’m not going to get away without spilling most of the beans to Jane, having come this far...

‘How did it start?’ she said slowly—and it was suddenly like being transported back in time...

She could remember exactly how she’d felt the day it had started. How disenchanted with life, how bitter she’d felt about the way fate had provided a crippling drought that had seen her parents have to walk away from their sheep property with nothing. Had seen her suddenly transplanted to city life with no qualifications and being reduced to waitressing on a contract basis, at a plush Sydney hotel on that occasion, to promote a famous French liqueur—dressed up, as she thought of it, like a tart. She could feel, almost as if she were wearing it again, the discomfort of a too short skirt, the black and gold sash with the company name on it, the pinch of her obligatory stiletto-heeled shoes as well as her disapproval of black, fish-net stockings.

She could feel again the way men had devoured her with their eyes and how one short, balding man with a paunch had got bolder and touched her intimately. It was almost as if she had once more in her fingers the long-stemmed rose she’d plucked from a vase and had presented to this man, with what she’d hoped was a seductive wiggle, at the same time as she’d raised her foot with every intention of driving her stiletto heel into his shoe and thereby pulverising some of his toes.

She remembered so clearly the tall man who had materialised at her side before she could do it, and taken her arm and marched her out of the room...

‘Look here——’ She wrenched her arm free.

‘No, you look here,’ he said coolly and cuttingly. ‘Who ever gave you the impression that this job provided the opportunity to importune and proposition the guests misled you entirely.’

‘I...’ Martha closed her mouth and stared up into a pair of grey-green eyes beneath medium-brown hair and was conscious of a good physique beneath a beautifully tailored suit. She was also aware that the man was extremely well-spoken and English, not Australian, and finally that he was appraising her from head to toe with a sort of casual arrogance that was nevertheless quite damning—and it incensed her. ‘Is that so?’ she said before she stopped to think, and wiggled again. ‘Thought that’s why I was all dressed up like a tart—what a waste! Still and all——’ she realised she’d made her accent deliberately ocker ‘—I did get your attention. Are you the big boss?’

Those grey-green eyes hardened although he said gently enough, ‘May I make a suggestion—why don’t you try your services in a brothel?’ and walked away.

I don’t believe I did that, Martha was still saying to herself several days later, and going hot and cold with the embarrrassment of it all; but there was worse to come. A week to the day later she was doing the same kind of job, serving champagne and canapés at an art show this time, in an even more revealing outfit if anything, when who should she encounter but the same man.

What she hadn’t bargained for, however, was that the shock of laying eyes on him again would be rather like an electric shock. And making the discovery of how his hands, his clever eyes, his tall, easy carriage and air of assurance—that could so easily turn to such civilised yet doubly damning contempt—how all of those things had been just under the surface of her mind. How, although she hated him, there was something about him that was tormentingly attractive...

What broke the spell was the way he’d taken a glass of champagne, looked her over meditatively and in a way that had made her horribly conscious of her tight skirt and low-cut top, before he’d said only audibly to her, ‘Once a tart always a tart, I guess,’ and turned away.

Oh, no, you don’t! was Martha’s first coherent thought, and she deliberately twisted her heel, cannoned into him and, as he turned back, staggered and spilt six full glasses of champagne over him.

‘Dearie me—I’m so sorry,’ she said with utterly false contrition. ‘How could I be so clumsy? Here, let me clean you up!’ And she started to dab at him with the napkin she had over one arm.

But he took her wrist and restored her hand to her, murmuring, ‘Thank you but I’d rather you didn’t—it’s a bit public here for the kind of message you’re trying to get across, and anyway, perhaps we ought to have dinner first?’

‘Dinner?’ Martha stared at him. ‘First?’

‘Before we go to bed,’ he said patiently. ‘It might just give us the opportunity to exchange names—first,’ he added with a grave, totally mocking little smile.

‘I...’ Martha tossed her head, and her mother or father might have recognised the glint in her blue eyes. ‘OK, I’ll get my coat!’

‘Don’t you think you should finish up here before we——?’

‘No way! After last week and now this I’m bound to get the sack,’ she said prosaically. ‘Not that I mind,’ she hastened to assure him, and smiled dazzlingly up at him. ‘I’ve got the feeling I’m on to bigger and brighter things. Let’s go, mister!’

They went, Martha collecting the sack at the same time as she collected her coat, but she was too angry to care.

They went to a small Italian restaurant that was not, as she’d expected, cheap and nasty, but chic and tasteful. She hid her surprise and made a big thing of discarding her coat and smoothing the low-cut neck of her dress, refreshing her lipstick and combing her hair—things she would normally never have dreamt of doing at a dinnertable.

‘What is your name, then?’ she said brightly when she’d arranged herself to her satisfaction, and was confident that a number of other diners were looking at her with either amused curiosity or raised eyebrows.

‘Simon,’ he said.

‘Pleased to meet you, Simon. I’m Martha.’ She stood up and extended her hand. ‘You know, I’m not too sure if you’re a hotel executive or—well, whatever the hell you are is fine with me.’ And she sat down, having shaken his hand vigorously and made her comments audible to all.

‘You should be on the stage, Martha,’ he replied with a considering look that took in the golden glints in her long fair hair, her deep blue eyes, the curves of her figure—a purely male summing up of a member of the opposite sex that was at the same time quite relaxed.

‘Believe me, Simon——’ she sat forward with her elbows propped on the table, her cleavage more exposed than it had ever been in her life, and that tell-tale little glint in her eyes again ‘—I’m sure I could be. It’s only a matter of being noticed. But you haven’t told me what you are.’

He said nothing for a long moment and she just knew he was laughing at her, which incensed her all the more. So that when he did start to tell her she oohed and aahed, appeared suitably impressed, even quite dazzled. And she kept up a flow of bubbling, suggestive chatter throughout the meal until her teeth started to feel on edge.

Then the bill came and he said, ‘Well, Martha, would you like another cup of coffee or should we go somewhere more private?’

Whereupon she gazed at him narrowly, laughed harshly and said in a way that she hoped was both world-weary and incredibly common, ‘Oh, no, you don’t, mister. It takes a bit more than some pasta to get me to bed!’ And she stood up and folded herself into her coat with a flourish.

He made no move to rise; he appeared to be amused if anything and he said only, ‘How old are you, Martha?’

‘Nineteen—what’s that got to do with it?’

‘Nothing, necessarily,’ he drawled. ‘Goodnight, then.’

She glared at him and swung out of the restaurant.

Two days later she opened the door of the dingy bedsitter she rented to find him on the doorstep. And she didn’t have to simulate surprise and annoyance; she was in fact quite stunned, then furious, because two days had been ample time to discover how ashamed she felt of herself. Conversely, she was prepared to admit it to no one, least of all Simon Macquarie.

‘What are you doing here?’ she said rudely. ‘And how did you find me?’

His lips twisted. ‘It was quite simple. Don’t tell me it didn’t occur to you, Martha, that all I had to do was make enquiries from the catering company that used to employ you?’

That did it. ‘Hey!’ She rearranged her features into a cheeky smile. ‘You are a bright boy, Simon! Not that I really doubted it. It’s just that you’ve caught me with my hair down.’ She had in fact just washed her hair. ‘But never mind—come in. And you can tell me,’ she added, with a wink, ‘what you’ve thought up now to get me to sleep with you.’

He took his time answering. He looked around the depressing room and then looked her over thoroughly. She was wearing faded jeans and an unexceptional white cotton top and had a towel slung round her neck with which she’d been drying her hair. And at last he said, with a faint quizzical smile touching his lips, ‘Before we go into that, can I buy you lunch? I know, I know,’ he said wryly, coming to stand right in front her, ‘that the price of a meal is not going to do it—I think I might have learnt that lesson.’

‘Then what?’ she said before she could stop herself.

‘You might have to tell me that, Martha. In the meantime, it’s a nice day, there are some nice beaches on Sydney Harbour—why don’t you bring a swimming costume? We could have a dip before lunch.’

He drove her to Watson’s Bay and they did just that—had a swim before a fine seafood lunch at Doyles. And Martha worked conscientiously on her tart act, setting her teeth on edge again but aware that this man aroused two things in her—a troublesome attraction and a deep sense of hostility. But he didn’t attempt to touch her and he delivered her home without making any arrangements to see her again.

Suits me, she thought, and for the next few days applied herself diligently to getting another job. The trouble was, she couldn’t get Simon Macquarie out of her mind. She kept thinking of his tall body slicing through the water beside her, thinking of the fact that for an Englishman—well, a Scot in fact, as she now knew—he wasn’t all pink and lily-white but lightly tanned, and there was something quite beautiful about the strong, lean lines of him that tended to take her breath away. Thinking how adult he was, how obviously cultured and sophisticated, how it would be a pleasure to drop her act and just be herself, wondering what he’d make of her true nineteen-year-old self. But when he reappeared on her doorstep five days later she was furious with herself because of it.

‘Oh, it’s you again,’ she said flatly. It was a chill evening, her feet were sore from walking to half a dozen job interviews, none of which held out much hope, and what lay ahead was an evening alone, making herself toasted cheese. ‘Come up with anything new but lunch or dinner?’

‘Yes, this,’ he said quietly, and took the door-handle out of her hand, closed it and took her in his arms. ‘Let’s see how we enjoy kissing each other, Martha,’ he said, barely audibly and with soul-searing little glints of amusement in his grey-green eyes.

Shock held her suspended for a long moment. Shock and the feel of him against her body, the way it made her heart start to pound suddenly, how she shivered involuntarily at the feel of her breasts against the hard wall of his chest. Shock as she wondered whether she was not much better than the role she was trying to play anyway...

It was this thought that made her toss her head and say, ‘OK—let’s see what you can do, mister! But only a kiss, mind.’

‘Whatever you say, Martha,’ he murmured. And then, quite a few minutes later, ‘How did I do?’

She had to swallow as she stared up into his eyes, swallow and desperately try to compose herself. Because what she’d been determined should be a light-hearted, shallow, give-nothing-away experience had been anything but. Instead, the feel of his fingers on the skin of her throat and the curve of her cheek before his mouth met hers had produced a kind of rapture she’d not before experienced. And the feel of his arms around her had evoked a consciousness of her body that had been quite stunning. And the way she’d melted against him as he’d kissed her had been anything but shallow and light-hearted...

‘You did OK,’ she said with an effort. ‘But hey, I learnt a long time ago not to get too carried away doing this. Could you let me go? My feet are killing me and I’m as hungry as a hound!’

What she saw in his eyes, though, startled her because it appeared to her to be sheer, wicked enjoyment. And he said gravely, ‘Of course. I too learnt long ago not to get carried away doing this. Can I say just one thing before I do?’

Martha opened her mouth, closed it then said, ‘Fire away, mister, but I haven’t got all night.’

He lifted a wry eyebrow. ‘My apologies. I was merely going to say that you’re...beautiful.’

‘Thanks, mate!’ But she tore herself away from him before she added, ‘You’re not so bad yourself. Mind you, I generally go in for Latin types—don’t know why; there must be something about dark hair and eyes that turns me on. Care for some toasted cheese? It’s about all I’ve got.’

‘No, thank you, Martha. I have a dinner appointment shortly, but perhaps I can help out in the matter of toasted cheese.’ And he pulled a fifty-dollar note from his pocket and before she was aware of his intentions opened a gap between the buttons of her cardigan and tucked it into her bra. ‘For services rendered,’ he said gently, and left.

Martha took a deep, furious breath, plucked the note out and tore it up.

‘I don’t know why you keep popping up like this,’ she said coolly, the next time he called, a Saturday lunchtime.

‘Is that your way of saying, Make me an offer I can’t refuse or go away?’ he queried with a dry little smile.

‘Probably. Fifty bucks doesn’t go far,’ she retorted, and stuck her hands on her hips. ‘So what’s it to be today?’

He studied her rather pretty floral skirt, thin white jumper and the simple knot she’d tied her hair back in. ‘We could go to the races.’

Despite herself a spark of interest lit her eyes, something he obviously noted because he said, ‘Do you like the horses?’

‘They’re OK,’ she conceded. ‘But I’m not dressed to kill.’

‘As a matter of fact I prefer you when you’re not,’ he said wryly.

‘You’ve never seen me dressed up.’

‘Well, no, but I’ve seen you dressed down, which was what I thought you might have meant—my apologies.’

Martha cast him an angry look beneath her lashes, and went out of her way for the entire afternoon to be as common as she possibly could. But, far from being perturbed, he took her to dinner and took her home without attempting to lay a finger on her.

Which provoked her, although she could have killed herself, into saying, with her hand on the car door-handle, ‘I see you’re not flashing any fifty-dollar notes around tonight, mister.’

‘Would you like me to?’

‘Suit yourself.’ She shrugged. ‘’Night, then!’ And she slipped out of the car. He made no attempt to stop her.

But over the next few weeks it wasn’t always like that. In fact, over the next few weeks she reminded herself of a cat on hot bricks. She would wonder if she’d ever see him again and tell herself she didn’t care, but knew she did. She hated the way he could, simply by arriving on her doorstep, make her heart start to pound like a drum and all her nerves quiver. But if he left her without touching her she felt incredibly bereft, even while, when he did kiss her, she tried to go out of her way to let him know she didn’t give a damn. Which only amuses him, she reflected once, and had to amend that, Well, not always. Sometimes he gives me back more than I bargained for; sometimes he can be much cleverer and more cutting in what he says, as if there’s a darker side to him than he normally displays.

So this is really crazy, she told herself angrily. It’s as if I don’t know myself any more. Why am I continuing this farce? Because he believes it, an inner voice answered, and you can’t forgive him for that. And that’s even crazier, she thought miserably. But that very evening when he turned up out of the blue and she resolved to have done with Simon Macquarie he all but routed her completely.

‘It’s a beautiful night. Would you like to drive to South Head? We could watch the moon over the sea.’

‘No,’ Martha said ungraciously. ‘Look here, mister, don’t think you can turn up whenever it suits you and expect me to be all sweetness and light and availability.’ She had, in fact, just got home herself from the job she’d at last got—curiously with an opposition catering company and doing exactly what she’d been doing when they’d met. Although this time she wore a conservative black dress and a frilly voile apron.

‘I see,’ he drawled, leaning his broad shoulders against the wall and watching her lazily as she pulled the apron off and threw it over a chair. ‘Has one of your Latin lovers claimed you for the night? You know, Martha, there’s not a great deal of evidence of men splurging on you.’

‘There will be,’ she said flatly. ‘I just haven’t yet met the type who can afford to splurge. Barring you, of course. I don’t know why, but I’ve got the feeling you’re something of a miser, Mr Simon Macquarie. Either that or the world’s not drinking much cognac these days.’ She grimaced. ‘And don’t,’ she said curiously tautly as he moved his shoulders, ‘give me that old spiel about concentrating on my beautiful soul.’

‘No,’ he murmured. ‘I won’t. To be honest, I’m not sure what kind of a soul you have, Martha, but you do have an exquisite body: skin like smooth satin, lovely bone-structure beautiful eyes...Have you ever been in love?’

‘You’re joking,’ she said scornfully.