Master of Her Virtue Read online

  That she’d found pleasure in having sex with her captor had come as a shock to Lady Gwendaline. It was blatantly obvious, though, that she had decided to go to bed with the pirate before she discovered what a great lover he was. There was nothing weak about Gwendaline. Nothing of the victim. She was a survivor because she was a decider. She didn’t just let things happen to her. She decided, then she acted. Sometimes foolishly, but always with spirit and courage.

  Violet smothered a sigh as she closed the book then slipped it back into her bag. She wished she had that type of courage. But she didn’t. She couldn’t even find the courage to go out on a date. God, she was pathetic!

  She was sitting there, castigating herself, when she became aware that the plane had stopped descending. It was, in fact, ascending—quite quickly. But why? Even before there was time for fear to take hold, the pilot’s voice came over the intercom.

  ‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ he said, ‘this is your captain speaking. We are experiencing a small technical problem with the undercarriage of the aircraft. You may have noticed that we have halted our descent. We will be returning to ten-thousand feet, where we will maintain a holding pattern till we have solved the problem. Please keep your phones and laptops turned off during this short delay. Be assured there is nothing to be alarmed about. I will keep you informed and trust we will soon be able to resume our descent.’

  Unfortunately, things didn’t work out as smoothly as that. Instead of shortly resuming their descent, they maintained a holding pattern for a tense twenty minutes, after which they flew out over the ocean where the captain dumped the rest of the fuel before finally coming in for an emergency landing. The passengers by then were armed with the disturbing knowledge that the undercarriage was probably not properly locked in. The wheels had come down but some light that should have come on hadn’t.

  Or maybe it should have gone off. Violet wasn’t sure which. Her normally sharp brain had gone into panic mode when the captain had been explaining the unfortunate situation. Either way, there was a very real possibility that once they hit the tarmac the undercarriage would totally collapse and all hell would break loose.

  There was a deathly silence in the cabin as they made their approach. None of the hundred-and-fifty-plus passengers were at all reassured by the captain’s cool, or the fact that their runway had already been covered in fire-retardant foam, with all emergency vehicles at the ready. The reality of the matter was that they were all facing the possibility that in a minute or so everyone in that plane might die.

  Violet wished, as she braced in the crash position, that she hadn’t watched so many of those air crash investigation shows. They didn’t inspire confidence in a positive outcome.

  Survivors of plane crashes often said afterwards that their lives flashed before them during their near-death experience. Violet could honestly say that didn’t quite happen to her. The only thing she could think of at that moment was that she was about to go to her grave a virgin. She had never experienced sex, or love, or passion, or anything even close.

  And it was all her own fault. It was then that she made a solemn vow to herself: if she got through this alive, she would change. From now on, she would say yes when asked out, no matter who asked her.

  She would make other changes too. She would stop going to an all-female gym. She would dress more fashionably; wear make-up; perfume; jewellery. She would believe what the mirror told her and not her warped mind. She would even buy a car under the positive assumption that she would definitely need one when she began socialising more. Not a boring car, either. A red two-door model!

  No more ‘shrinking Violet’ for her. The time had come to shrug off her stultifying past and embrace a very different future.

  If I have a future, came the awful thought.

  Her chest tightened as the plane touched down, a silent prayer forming on her lips. The wheels skidded a little on the foam but they held. Dear Lord in heaven, they held! Her head shot up at the same time as lots of other heads shot up. Everyone started laughing and clapping, hugging each other and even kissing. Violet had never felt so relieved, or so happy.

  She’d been given a second chance at life and, by God, she wasn’t going to waste it!

  CHAPTER TWO

  LEO WAS SITTING on the balcony of his father’s harbour-side apartment, sipping a glass of very nice red, when he heard a phone ring somewhere inside. Not his; he always kept his phone with him.

  ‘Henry, phone!’ he called out after the phone rang a few more times. Leo hadn’t called his father ‘Father’ since he’d gone to Oxford to study law over twenty years ago. They’d always been close, the result of Leo’s mother having died when Leo had been very young, and his father never having remarried.

  By the time Leo had gone to university they’d been more like best friends than father and son. Henry had suggested the change and Leo had happily gone along with the idea.

  He was about to get up and answer the darned phone himself when the ringing finally stopped, leaving Leo to relax with his wine and enjoy the view, which was second to none, especially on a warm summer’s afternoon. The water was bluer than blue, sparkling in the sunshine and decorated with all manner of craft, from small sailing boats to ferries to five-star cruisers. In the not-too-distant foreground stood Sydney’s iconic Harbour Bridge, along with the stunning-looking Opera House on its left.

  When Henry had announced eight years ago that he was retiring to the land down under, Leo had been sceptical of the move lasting. His father was a Londoner born and bred, like himself.

  A successful literary agent, Henry’s life had always been steeped in the arts. His parents had been professors of history; his only sibling—an older sister—a potter of some note. Henry’s wife had been a well-known sculptress till her untimely death—she’d been struck down with meningitis when she’d been only thirty.

  Whilst never remarrying, Henry’s name had been linked with many women over the years—all of them accomplished in the arts: opera singers. Ballet dancers. Painters. And, of course, writers. How could a man of his tastes possibly be happy living in Australia which, whilst not quite the cultural wasteland it had once been, was still hardly on a par with London?

  Leo had been sure his father would soon become bored. But he hadn’t. Of course, he hadn’t retired either. He’d set up shop in an apartment he’d bought in Sydney’s CBD, working from home, quickly acquiring a stable of up-and-coming Aussie writers via a clever website which he’d had designed by a professional. His agency didn’t have any partners, as he’d had in London, or even any staff at first. Henry had kept his client base small, concentrating on the thriller genre and sending most of the manuscripts out to paid readers.

  One of these readers had proved to be a little goldmine—a university student named Violet who had a real knack for recognising raw talent, as well as being able to suggest the kind of revisions which could turn a promising but unpublishable manuscript into a commercial winner. Henry had quickly learnt to take Violet’s opinions and advice very seriously indeed, the result of which was a succession of best-selling books whose authors now commanded top advances and royalties.

  Soon, the Wolfe Literary Agency had become the literary agency to belong to if you were a thriller writer. And, whilst Henry wasn’t interested in expanding his agency at his age, his father had had the nous to hire this Violet as his assistant once she’d graduated from university. He’d also had the nous to buy this apartment—fully furnished—when it had come on the somewhat depressed market just over two years ago.

  Leo had to admit that he was impressed with the place. He was impressed with Sydney, too. It was a glorious-looking city, with a superb climate and a wealth of things to see and do. Okay, so there weren’t as many theatres and museums as London boasted, but the restaurants were top class, the shopping perfectly adequate and the beaches to die for.

  Not to mention the harbour. He’d only been here a week but already he could see the attraction for people
from gloomy old England. There was something uplifting in seeing a clear blue sky in which the sun shone brightly.

  It had certainly uplifted him. Leo had been feeling a bit low of late, what with his last movie having been a box-office flop. Entirely his fault, of course. He should never have attempted to make a two-hour film out of a thousand-page novel which was character- rather than plot-based. Failure had been inevitable.

  Still, it had been a bitter pill to swallow after producing a string of hits over the past decade. One of the reasons he’d accepted his father’s invitation to spend Christmas and the New Year with him here in Sydney was to get away from the media—not to mention his so-called friends, the ones who seemed to enjoy saying that his Midas touch with movies might be on the wane. By the time he went back to England, he hoped the critics would have found someone else to slam with their poisonous reviews. For pity’s sake, the movie hadn’t been that bad!

  Leo was just finishing off his glass of Shiraz when the glass door to his immediate left slid back and his father stepped out onto the huge curving balcony which fronted the entire apartment. Leo was glad to see that he’d brought the bottle with him, as well as a glass for himself.

  ‘Well, that’s a turn-up for the books,’ Henry said enigmatically as he made his way past Leo’s outstretched legs, sat down and filled his own glass from the bottle.

  It was an irritating habit of Henry’s, starting a conversation with a statement like that, then offering no explanation till questioned further. He enjoyed piquing people’s curiosity. Henry called it his cliff-hanger tactic.

  ‘What is?’ Leo asked as he placed his own now-empty glass on the circular table which separated them.

  Henry refilled Leo’s glass before he lifted his eyes to his son. ‘That was Violet on the phone. You know? My assistant. You’ll never guess what—she’s actually coming to my New Year’s Eve party!’

  Leo appreciated Henry’s surprise. He knew quite a bit about his father’s assistant. He knew that Violet, whilst extremely intelligent, was also extremely antisocial. Henry said that, although not plain, she was a dreadful dresser with no sense of style and no confidence in herself as a woman. Which Henry considered a shame, since he said she had a lot to offer, if only she’d come out of her shell and make the most of herself. She didn’t mind going out to lunch or coffee with Henry alone, but she never, ever accompanied him to any of his client luncheons, or accepted any of Henry’s other invitations, which were many and varied.

  Henry had always been a social animal, loving opening nights and parties of any kind. When he’d lived in London, his New Year’s Eve parties had been legendary, the food and wine top draw, the guest lists full of fascinating people. He’d continued that tradition out here.

  Violet, however, had not attended even one of Henry’s New Year’s Eve parties, not even when he’d moved in to this apartment, despite it overlooking the harbour and the bridge where all the guests would have an uninterrupted view of the famous fireworks which went off over Sydney Harbour each New Year’s Eve at midnight. One would have thought she’d have made the effort to come just to see them. But apparently not.

  According to Henry, she boarded with an elderly widow and had never had a boyfriend. Or, she hadn’t since she’d started working full-time for Henry. Which didn’t mean she’d never had one, Leo conceded. Hell, she’d been to university, hadn’t she? Not even the plainest, dullest girls got through uni without being hit upon. And this Violet wasn’t plain or dull.

  Maybe she’d had a bad sexual experience at some stage which had made her anti-men.

  ‘Did you remind her that it was fancy dress?’ Leo asked. Henry had stipulated on his invitations that guests were to come dressed as a character from a movie.

  ‘Yes. And it didn’t seem to worry her.’

  ‘Even more surprising,’ was Leo’s comment. Shy people tended not to like fancy dress. Maybe Henry was wrong in his assessment of his assistant’s personality. Maybe she had a secret love life. A married man, perhaps?

  ‘I wonder what character your obviously-not-so-shrinking Violet will choose?’ he said, his curiosity piqued.

  Henry shrugged. ‘Lord knows. Something a little more imaginative than yours, I hope.’

  ‘Come now, Henry, you didn’t honestly expect me to ponce around all night in green tights and a feathered hat?’

  ‘But you’d make a fantastic Robin Hood, with your athletic body.’

  Leo did keep himself lean and fit, but he was forty now, not twenty-five. Time for a more grown-up costume. ‘I think the character I’ve chosen suits me better.’

  ‘Why?’ Henry said as he poured himself another glass of wine. ‘Because you’re a fellow womaniser?’

  Leo was taken aback by his father’s remark. He had never considered himself a womaniser. Possibly it looked like he was to people who didn’t really know him. He did have two marriages behind him and, yes, he was rarely without an attractive young actress to grace his arm when at the many public events he was obliged to attend these days.

  But what the media didn’t know was that he didn’t sleep with any of them. Well...not any more he didn’t. He’d learned by his mistakes. The only woman Leo had sex with these days was Mandy, a fortyish divorced workaholic who ran a casting agency in London and who was the soul of discretion about their strictly sexual relationship.

  Mandy liked Leo, and she liked sex. What she wouldn’t like was being featured in the gossip columns of London’s tabloids as Leo Wolfe’s latest squeeze. She had two teenage sons at boarding school whom she adored and an ex-husband whom she detested. She didn’t want to get married again. She just wanted some company in bed occasionally. They met at her Kensington town house once or twice a week when Leo was in town.

  ‘I’m not a womaniser,’ Leo denied, annoyed with his father for even thinking that he was.

  ‘Of course you are, Leo,’ Henry refuted coolly. ‘It’s in your blood. You’re just like me. I loved your mother dearly, but I sometimes think it was a blessing that she passed away when she did. I wouldn’t have stayed faithful to her. I would have made her miserable, the way you made Grace miserable,’ he pronounced as he swept the wine glass to his lips.

  ‘I was not unfaithful to Grace,’ Leo bit out through clenched teeth. ‘And I did not make her miserable.’ Not till after he had asked her for a divorce, that was. Till then, Grace had been totally unaware of the fact that he didn’t love her. And that he had never loved her—although Leo had thought he had when he had asked her to marry him. But he’d been only twenty, for pity’s sake, and she’d been pregnant with his child. Lust had tricked him into believing he was in love.

  The lust lasted till Liam had been born, which was when Leo had really fallen in love—with his son. He’d tried desperately to make the marriage work for the baby’s sake. He’d pretended and pretended till it had nearly driven him mad. In the end, just before their ninth wedding anniversary, he’d admitted defeat and asked Grace for a divorce. He’d just started getting interested in the movie-making business and had realised he wanted to change more than just his profession. He’d never enjoyed being a lawyer, and he could no longer stand making love to a woman whom he didn’t love.

  He was fortunate that Grace had been nice enough not to punish him for not loving her. She’d given him joint custody of Liam and they were still good friends today. She’d eventually found someone else to marry and seemed happy.

  But Leo had never forgotten the pain in her eyes when he’d told her that he’d fallen out of love with her. He hadn’t admitted that he’d never loved her, but she’d been shattered all the same. He’d vowed then and there to not ever hurt another person like that again. And he hadn’t, thank heavens. Not even when he’d got divorced for a second time a few years back.

  Henry returned his glass to the table before settling a sceptical gaze on his son. ‘Really, Leo?’ he said. ‘What was the problem, then? You never did fully explain the reasons behind your first divorce. I just pres
umed there was another woman. After all, you were mixing with a pretty racy crowd by then.’

  ‘There wasn’t any other woman. I just didn’t love Grace any more.’

  ‘I see. I’m sorry to have misjudged you. But you could have set me straight before this. Why didn’t you?’

  ‘I just didn’t like talking about it. I guess I was ashamed of myself.’

  ‘No need to feel ashamed for being honest. So you weren’t unfaithful; mmm, I am surprised. I presume the same doesn’t hold for your second marriage?’

  Leo couldn’t help laughing. But there was a slightly bitter edge to his amusement.

  ‘Unfaithfulness was certainly a large factor in that divorce,’ he admitted. ‘Just not mine.’

  Henry frowned over the rim of his wine glass which had frozen just before reaching his lips. ‘Are you saying Helene was unfaithful to you?’

  Again, Leo had to laugh. ‘Thank you for making it sound like that’s impossible.’

  Henry looked hard at his son and saw what he always saw: a very handsome, very successful, very charming man. Women had always found him irresistible, ever since he was a little boy.

  His Aunt Victoria had adored him, making sure he didn’t lack for feminine love and attention as he grew up. She’d taken responsibility for that part of his education which no father or school could provide, giving him a love of the things women loved, like movies and music.

  Each year, during Leo’s summer holidays from school, she’d taken him abroad, showing him the world’s wonders and teaching him all there was to know about different cultures. She’d also taught him another talent: how to listen. Which was why the female sex found him so appealing. There was nothing more seductive to a woman than a man who listened to them. Of course, it did help that he’d also been blessed with great genes. Good looks did run in the family.