‘Just because she’s in a wheelchair it doesn’t mean that she’s invisible.’ The reprimand slipped out before she could stop it.
‘I’m sorry.’ One of the lads mouthed an apology and, looking shamefaced now, barged hastily through another group of people who were standing by a nearby table, with his three friends hot on his heels.
* * *
Andreas had been aware all evening of the growing rapport between Magenta and Mary-Louise. Now, observing them while conversing with PJ, he noticed the older woman close her weathered hand affectionately over Magenta’s and heard her say, ‘That was very sweet of you.’
With a sudden sharp kick of something in his loins he wished that he could be the one touching Magenta right then. The way she had stood up for his friend’s wife had impressed him immeasurably. He guessed that it sprang from her own first-hand experience of other people’s thoughtlessness at a time when she had been less than able-bodied herself.
He noticed, too, how easily the Ottermans, particularly Mary-Louise, had taken to her. People always had, he realised, despite her own claim to not forming many friendships. At nineteen she had had a warm and open spontaneity. He remembered how she had used it—effortlessly and unconsciously—to try and win over his grandmother. Maria Visconti, however, had refused to warm to her.
PJ and Mary-Louise were having no such reservations. With an unnecessary twinge of irritation Andreas caught their laughter at something Magenta had just said to them. She was sitting down again, and PJ had taken the seat he himself had been sitting in, his arm across the back of her chair.
She was wearing that glorious hair up, with soft tendrils fanning her face. He had a strong desire to delve his hands deeply into it, to hear the pleasured gasps from the dark burgundy of her tantalising mouth. The way that beautiful blue dress parted as she crossed her legs gave him an alluring glimpse of one silkily sheathed thigh. In fact the whole dress was driving him virtually insane with the need to feel her against him, and he knew he had to satisfy that need very soon or go mad.
‘If you’ll excuse us...?’ He cut across something PJ was saying and caught her hand. ‘Well?’ he said to her, his body so rigid from battling to contain his arousal that it was an effort to smile. ‘Are you going to show me what you can do?’
He sensed her recoil almost imperceptibly, as she had when she’d accidentally touched him earlier.
She smiled a little awkwardly. ‘I think I’d rather sit this one out.’
Her glance towards Mary-Louise suggested that she might not want to dance because the other woman couldn’t. He’d already heard Mary-Louise telling her when the music started how much she’d always loved to dance. Or maybe Magenta had another reason for refusing him, he thought. Maybe she just didn’t trust herself to be that close to him...
‘Nonsense, my dear.’ The woman gave Magenta’s hand a reassuring pat. ‘Don’t refuse on my account. You young people need a minute to yourselves.’
From the way she had been looking at himself and Magenta during the evening it was pretty obvious that she knew there was something more to their relationship than just business.
‘And I can assure you that I’ll be up there tripping the light fantastic before the next six months are up—although perhaps not to something with quite so much angst.’
* * *
Pretending to laugh with the others did nothing to relax Magenta as Andreas led her onto the dance floor.
‘It looks like you were out-voted, doesn’t it?’ he mocked softly above the fluid notes of a first-rate female ballad singer.
He looked quite smug. As well he might, Magenta decided, having no choice but to follow him into the midst of the swaying bodies.
‘I was just being considerate, that’s all,’ she bluffed as he turned her around and his arms came round her.
‘Very commendable.’ His smile was devastating. ‘Now be considerate towards me.’
A shocked little gasp escaped her as his body made contact with hers. Never had she felt so naked dancing with a man in public. His hard warmth was penetrating the fine silk of her dress as if she were wearing nothing, and the sensuous cloth of his dinner jacket made her want to press herself against him.
‘It feels good.’
He was referring to the dress, and Magenta felt his hand sliding down her spine before it stopped just short enough to observe the rules of decency, its heat searing through the blue fabric just above the gentle swell of her buttocks.
‘Isn’t that why you bought it?’
He gave a disapproving click of his tongue. ‘Would you believe me if I say I didn’t know there would be dancing here tonight? It wasn’t mentioned.’