Infamous Bargain. Daphne Clair

      CHAPTER ONE

      BRIAR slipped a pair of long silver and garnet earrings into place and rearranged a tendril of hair that had fallen against her cheek.

      The deceptively casual style suited her, and the ‘Sunset’ rinse she’d had last week added a touch of warmth to what she thought of as a rather insipid colour. In her teenage years the extreme fairness of childhood had given way to something between brown and blonde. The rinse wasn’t obvious. Her father had cast it a puzzled, cursory glance, and apparently dismissed the subtle change as a figment of his imagination.

      She could hear his voice, rich and a trace over-hearty, greeting the arriving guests. Already the doorbell had rung three or four times. Her stepmother would be in a flutter as usual, nervously checking impeccable place-settings, twitching unnecessarily at cushions, and darting out to the kitchen to ensure the caterers were coping, although they were from one of Auckland’s best and most experienced firms.

      Briar checked her make-up. The new ‘Tropic Dusk’ eyeshadow was a subtle shade, making eyes that were neither blue nor grey seem larger, darker and somehow mysterious. Better go down. Laura would need her calming presence, and her father would be getting impatient if she didn’t soon appear and start being polite and welcoming to the financiers and lawyers and business people exchanging small talk over glasses of imported whisky and gold-medal New Zealand wines.

      ‘And I want you to pay special attention to Kynan Roth,’ he’d instructed Briar. ‘Make sure he has a good time.’

      He hadn’t noticed the ironic glance that his daughter threw at him, and she’d bitten her tongue on the remark that hovered on the tip of it. Xavier Cunningham, despite his experience in business and his assiduous cultivation of the well-to-do and the financially useful, was probably totally unaware that his twenty-four-year-old daughter was capable of even slightly ribald thoughts. Briar knew very well that all he was asking of her was to act the poised, gracious hostess that his second wife had never learned to be.

      Briar slid a pair of high-heeled pumps over her gossamer-stockinged feet, and adjusted the thin straps of the sheer floating confection of champagne chiffon over silk that she’d bought for tonight. Her father had insisted on her having a new dress, and even provided a hefty cheque for it.

      She walked along the brass-edged carpet laid between gleaming kauri boards along the wide upstairs hall, and paused at the top of the curved staircase. The old, proudly preserved mansion, set in half an acre of mature garden in the long-established suburb of Remuera, was an estate agent’s dream. A Persian rug on the floor of the high-ceilinged lobby deadened the footsteps of the middle-aged couple her father was ushering into the big living-room from which a babble of voices floated. As the bell burred once more he inclined his handsome greying head and said to them, ‘I’ll be right with you. Here’s Laura—she’ll get you a drink,’ before turning to open the door again.

      Briar was halfway down the stairs by the time the newcomer had shaken hands with her father and exchanged some remarks about the imminence of summer. He had a deep, incisive voice, and curiosity made her glance up from her concentration on the stair carpet. At the same time he must have become aware of her moving down the stairs, and lifted his head, gazing past Xavier’s shoulder.

      Briar paused for an instant, surprised by a searching scrutiny from eyes the colour of old pewter, or a dawn sea. And—in spite of the unequivocal masculine reaction she discerned in them—as hard as metal and cold as a winter morning.

      He was somewhere in his early thirties, she judged, his thick, dark hair untouched by grey, but there was a world of experience in those eyes, and in the taut planes of his cheeks, the carved-from-granite mouth. Even his stance, on the surface casual, one hand thrust into the pocket of a suit expertly tailored to a frame more appropriate to an athlete than a businessman, gave the impression of an underlying tensile strength. Perhaps it was the way his feet in their polished black leather were planted slightly apart on the Persian pattern, and the knife-edge crease of his trousers failed to conceal the latent power in his long legs.

      He was taller than her father, who was well-built and not a small man, and she wondered if he lifted weights. Under the impeccable suit his shoulders were broad, his stomach flat. He looked superbly fit while not bulging with overdeveloped muscles.

      As Briar descended the remaining stairs, he returned her involuntary inspection with interest, and a faint, knowing smile fleetingly curved his mouth. She felt the fine hair on her nape prickle. Very sure of himself, this man. Sure of his effect on women, too.

      ‘There you are!’ her father said, smiling expansively as he turned to her. ‘Kynan, let me introduce you to my daughter. Briar, this is Kynan Roth. I told you about him.’ He directed a meaningful glance at her, and Briar noticed that the other man sent a quick, probing look at his host before he took her extended hand and closed strong fingers about it.

      His hand was warm and he held hers firmly before releasing it.

      ‘Come along in, Kynan,’ her father said, laying a hand on his guest’s shoulder. Briar thought the shoulder stiffened. He hung back, allowing her to precede him and her father into the lounge. It was a large room furnished with comfortable leather chairs and sofas, solid mahogany coffee-tables, and some good antique cabinets and occasional pieces. The bar in one corner had been carefully designed to blend into the décor.

      ‘I’ll leave Briar to look after you,’ her father said, giving the other man’s shoulder a pat, ‘if you don’t mind. Catch up with you later.’

      ‘I’m delighted.’ A gleam entered the cool eyes as Kynan Roth murmured the polite response.

      He didn’t look delighted, Briar thought. He looked like a wary predator, circling for the kill but with one ear pricked for trouble.

      She said, ‘What would you like to drink?’

      ‘What are you going to have?’

      ‘A Chardonnay.’ She didn’t usually drink anything more than dry ginger ale this early in the evening at her father’s parties, but something about this man was making her tense, and a glass of wine