Smith sensed someone approach from behind. He turned and looked down into the worried face of Alfred Alston, the gala's host. The man was a typical Social Register type, with a full head of prematurely white hair and the requisite horn rimmed glasses. Smith liked him. The guy had been easy to deal with.
"I’m terribly sorry to intrude, but have you seen my wife?"
There was a slight English cadence to his vowels, no doubt left over from when his family had crossed the Atlantic. Back in 1630.
Smith shook his head.
"She should have been here quite some time ago. She would hate to miss the ambassador's entrance." Alston's thin fingers came up and fiddled with his bow tie. "Although I'm sure she will turn up."
The strain around the man's eyes was more truthful than his words.
"You want me to send one of my men over to your place?" Because Alston had been such a good sport, Smith wouldn't have minded the extra effort. Besides, it wouldn't take long. His boys had a way of getting through traffic that made NYC taxi drivers look like they were from the Amish country.
Alston offered a worried smile. "Thank you, that's very kind, but I wouldn't want to trouble you."
"Let me know if you change your mind. The ambassador's on time, by the way."
"I'm glad you're here. Curt Thorndyke was right. You put a man's mind at ease."
Smith resumed looking around the room. In another twenty minutes, the ambassador would show up. There'd be the requisite photographs and genuflecting and then dinner would be—
Smith's eyes caught on something.
Or someone, rather.
He stared through the crowd at a blond woman who had just arrived. Dressed in a shimmering silver gown, she was standing in the elaborate entrance to the ballroom looking too damn radiant to be real.
He recognized her immediately. But who wouldn't?
The Countess von Sharone.
Conversation in the ballroom dropped to a hush as people registered her presence. The social status of the gala, already high, shot through the roof with her arrival, and the crowd's approval was palpable.
If these fancy types hadn't all been carrying drinks, they'd have burst out in applause, he thought dryly. As if she were the honoree, not the ambassador.
Still, he had to admit she was a looker. With her blond hair twisted up high on her head, she was a classic beauty with delicate features and dazzling green eyes. And that dress. Molded to her body, it moved like water as she stepped into the room.
Christ, she was beautiful, he thought. Assuming you liked that patrician, butter-wouldn’t-melt-in-my-mouth type.
Which he didn't.
Alston went up to her. She extended a hand and accepted air kisses on both cheeks from him, her expression warming.
Someone else approached her and then another, until she was carried into the room on a wave of ingratiation. Smith tracked her every movement.
She'd been in the papers recently, he recalled, although it wasn't like she was ever really out of them. Her clothes, her parties, that extravagant wedding she'd had, they were fodder for the tabloids and the real papers alike. What had he read about her lately, though? Her father had just died. That was it. And there'd been some spread about her and five other women in the Style section of the New York Times. He'd seen it lying face up on the front desk of the Plaza.
Talk about being born with a silver spoon in your mouth, he thought, eyeing the heavy pearls and diamonds that were around her throat and dangling from her ears. Her family's fortune was in the billions and that count she'd just married wasn't exactly pulling down minimum wage either.
As she came deeper into the room, she turned in his direction and met his gaze. Her brows lifted regally when he didn't look away.
Maybe she resented being stared at. Maybe she sensed he didn't belong even though he dressed the part.
Maybe some of the lust he was feeling had crept into his face.
He hid his reaction as she scanned him. He was surprised by the shrewd light in her eyes and the fact that she lingered on his left ear, the one with the piece in it. He wouldn't have expected her to be so observant. A first-rate clothes horse for haute couture, sure. The favorite arm candy of some wealthy man, yeah. But hiding half a brain under all that fancy window dressing? No way.
The countess continued into the room as Tiny's deep voice came through the earpiece. The ambassador was fifteen minutes away. Smith glanced down at his watch. When he looked up, she was standing in front of him, having broken away from her admirers.
"Do I know you?" Her voice was soft, a little low for a woman. Incredibly sexy.
The smile she offered him was gentle and welcoming, nothing like the aristocratic, chilly grimace he would have predicted.
His eyes flickered over her. Her breasts were concealed by the silver gown but they were perfectly formed and the waist below them was small. He imagined that her legs, which were also covered by the dress, looked every bit as good. He also noticed her perfume, something light and tangy that got into his nose and then his nervous system.