Count Toussaint's Pregnant Mistress

Abby made a face at her reflection in the mirror. She’d always hated that nickname, a name coined by the press that made her feel like a trained poodle, or perhaps something a bit more exotic, a bit more remote, as her father had always wanted.

Right now she had no desire to be remote. She wanted to be found, known. By him.

Ridiculous, her mind scoffed. It had been but a moment, a single look. She hadn’t dared look at him again; she’d been too afraid, fearful of both seeing and not seeing him again. Both possibilities seemed dangerous. Even so, the memory of those few shared seconds resonated through her body, every nerve twanging with remembered feeling.

She’d never felt that way before. She’d never felt so…alive. And she wanted to feel it again. Wanted to see him again.

Would he come?

A light, perfunctory knock sounded at the door and one of the Salle Pleyel’s staff poked her head through. ‘Mademoiselle Summers, recevez-vous des visiteurs?’

‘I…’ Abby’s mouth was dry, her mind spinning. Was she receiving visitors? The answer, of course, was no. It was always no. Send them a signed program, Abby, and be done with it. You can’t be just another girl. You need to be different.

‘Are there many?’ she finally asked, in flawless French, and the woman gave a little shrug.

‘A few…a dozen or so. They want your autograph, of course.’

Abby felt a sharp little stab of disappointment. Somehow she knew this man would not want her autograph. He wasn’t a fan. He was…what? Nothing, her mind insisted almost frantically, even as her heart longed for it to be otherwise. ‘I see.’ She swallowed, looked away. ‘All right. You may send them in.’

The concert-hall manager, Monsieur Dupres, appeared in the doorway, a look of disapproval on his dour face. ‘It was my understanding that Mademoiselle Summers did not accept visitors.’

A crony of her father, Abby thought with a cynical smile. He had them in every concert hall.

‘I believe I know whether I accept visitors or not,’ she replied coolly, although her palms were damp and her heart was thudding. She didn’t question staff and she didn’t make a fuss. That was her father’s job. Her job was simply to play. And that had been enough, until now. At least she’d always thought it had. Right now she was hungry, anxious, craving more than the safe, ordered, managed existence she’d been living for as long as she could remember. She met the man’s gaze directly. ‘Send them in.’

‘I don’t think—’

‘Send them in.’

His lips tightened and he gave a shrug before turning away. ‘Very well.’

Abby smoothed her hair back with her palms and checked her gown. In the mirror the black silk made her skin look pale, almost ghostly, her grey eyes huge and luminous.

Another knock sounded at the door and she turned, smiling even as her heart sank.

It wasn’t him.

None of them was, it was a cluster of middle-aged women and their sheepish husbands smiling and chattering as they thrust out their programs for her to sign.

What had she expected? Abby asked herself as she chatted back and gave the requisite signatures. That he would find her backstage, and come bearing a glass slipper? Did she think she lived in a fairy tale? Had she really expected him to find her at all?

Suddenly the whole notion seemed ridiculous, the moment when their eyes had met imagined and laughable. She’d probably made up the whole thing. The stage lights were usually so bright she couldn’t make out any faces in the audience. Was he even real?

Abby felt her face warm with private humiliation. The crowd of well-wishers trickled away, followed by a glowering Monsieur Dupres, and Abby was left alone.

Lonely.

The word popped into her mind, and she forced it away. She was not lonely. She had a busy, full life as one of the world’s most sought-after concert pianists. She spoke three languages fluently, had visited nearly every major city in the world, had legions of adoring fans—how could she possibly be lonely?

‘Yet I am,’ she said aloud, and winced at the sound of her forlorn voice in the empty dressing-room. She only had herself to talk to.

Slowly, reluctantly, she reached for her coat, a worn duffel that looked incongruous over her evening gown. She could hear the sound of the night-janitor starting to sweep the hallway outside, the concert-hall staff trickling away into the evening and their own lives.

What would she do? Take a taxi back to the hotel, perhaps have a glass of hot milk while she went over the evening’s events with her father, and then to bed like the good little girl she was. Her fingers fumbled on the buttons of her coat.

She didn’t want to play out the staid script her life had become, didn’t want the role her father had given her years ago. Seeing that man, whoever he was, had awakened in her a need to experience more, be and know more. To actually live life.

Even if just for a night.

She sighed, trying to dismiss the feelings, for what could she do? She was twenty-four years old, alone in Paris, the evening ahead of her, and she had no idea what to do, how to slake this thirst for life, for experience.

Monsieur Dupres knocked on her dressing-room door once more. ‘Shall I have the night porter summon a taxi?’

Abby opened her mouth to accept, then found herself shaking her head. ‘No, thank you, Monsieur Dupres. It’s a lovely evening out. I’ll walk.’

The manager’s heavy brows drew together in an ominous frown. ‘Mademoiselle, it is raining.’

Abby refused to back down. This was a tiny, insignificant act of defiance, yet it was hers. ‘Still.’ She smiled. ‘I’ll walk.’

With a shrug Monsieur Dupres turned away. With her fingers clenched around her handbag, Abby left the dressing room and the concert hall behind her, stepping out into the cool, damp night alone.

Alone; she was completely alone on the deserted Rue du Faubourg St Honoré. The pavement was slick with rain, the lights of the speeding taxis washing the road in pale yellow.

Abby looked around, wondering what to do. Her hotel, a modest little establishment, was half a mile away. She could walk, she supposed, as she’d told Monsieur Dupres she would do. A little stab of disappointment needled her. She wanted to experience life, so she was walking home alone in the rain—how ridiculous.

Her heels clicked on the pavement as she started down the street. A man in a trenchcoat hurried by, his collar turned up, and Abby glimpsed a pair of lovers entwined in the shelter of a doorway; the woman’s upturned face was misted and glowing with rain.

Abby walked, conscious more than ever of how alone she was. A woman dripping with furs and jewels stepped out of the bright lobby of an elegant hotel, her haughty, made-up face glowering with disdain at the world around her.

Abby slowed to a stop, the light from the lobby pooling, golden, around her feet. Through the ornate glass doors she could see a marble foyer and a huge crystal chandelier. As the door swooshed shut she caught the sound of clinking crystal, the trill of feminine laughter.

Without thinking about what she was doing—or why—Abby caught the closing door and thrust it open once more, even as the night porter leapt to attention a second too late. She dismissed him with a wave of her hand and slipped inside, the warmth and light of the hotel enveloping her with a strange new, electric excitement as she stood uncertainly in the doorway.

She’d been to hotels before all over the world. She was utterly familiar in foyers such as these, could issue commands to a bellboy or concierge in many different languages. Yet now as she stood there alone, uncertain, everything felt new. Different. For this time she was alone, no one knew who or where she was, and she could do as she pleased.

The question was, do what?

‘Mademoiselle…?’ A bellboy started forward, eyebrows raised in query. Abby lifted her chin.

‘I’m looking for the bar.’

The man nodded and gestured to a room off to the right panelled in dark wood. Abby nodded her thanks and started towards the long, mahogany bar, still with no idea what she was doing…or why.

She slid onto a leather stool, her hands clasped in front of her. The bartender, dressed in a tuxedo, was slowly polishing a tumbler. He glanced at her, taking in her worn coat and the diamanté straps of her evening gown visible from the open collar. Expressionless, he raised an eyebrow.

‘Would you like a drink?’

‘Yes.’ Abby swallowed. She’d ordered wine, she’d drunk champagne; on occasion she’d had a nameless cocktail at one function or another. Now she wanted something different.