Free Those Wicked Pleasures by Roberta Latow

experience.
    A note of annoyance in Elizabeth’s voice curtailed Lara’s musings. ‘We are terribly late. The car has been waiting for an hour. We must leave
now
. But you do look very pretty, my dear. And you are a lucky girl to have such a handsome man as Jamal to take you out this evening. But remember what Mother said – a little distance, a degree of aloofness, can be protective. Chantal Ben El-Raisuli is not one of us.’
    Her sister kissed her on the cheek and told her, ‘Everyone will wonder who you are. You will be the new fresh face, and that’s exciting. You must tell me all about it in the morning.’ And the two women were gone.
    Lara looked in the mirror. They were right, she looked very pretty and very grown-up, and much the young lady she was expected to look. And they had, after all, done their best for her. Whatever that was. It had certainly told her nothing about sex and love or how to behave in a predatory world. Her brothers had been doing that for her all her life. No wonder she loved them so much.
    It was five o’clock. Jamal wasn’t picking her up until seven. Ravenous, she went down to the kitchen. Cook thought she looked wonderful. While Cherry, the maid, laid a place at the table for her, and Cook prepared an omelette, she tied on one of Cook’s great white aprons loosely, so as not to crush her dress. The rest of the staff drifted into the kitchen to see Lara. She had grown up with these people. They had loved, cared for and spoiled her since she was a child. They were her second family, just as they had been for the other Stanton children. If nothing else, it was their whole-hearted recognition of how pretty and grown-up she looked that gave her the confidence she needed to go out with Jamal instead of her lover Sam.
    She hardly knew where to put herself. There must be no wrinkling of her gown, no messing the blush of make-up or the mass of blonde-blonde hair dressed by her mother’s clever maid, Whizzy. She had hardly given Jamal and the evening a thought. They had been reserved for herself and Sam, for being in love, and totally one with another human being. And musing on her bad luck that the day had not worked out for them as they had so carefully planned it the night before, and how the world had already intruded on their romance.
    Lara wandered through the reception rooms, turning on lights, and in the drawing room found a place for herself. She would give herself a concert. Like a magnificent diamond, there were many facets to this young girl’s character and accomplishments. She sparkled with potential. And, though young in years, she brought an innate maturity to what she pursued. Music had been a cherished pleasure for her since a child. Trained in the classics, she was undoubtedly capable of making a music career for herself. Popular music was to her easy and amusing, pure fun. Like Henry, she had only to hear a song once and she could entertain with it for the rest of her life. There were two Steinway concert-grand pianos, lying like two lovers in the curve of their cases, lids raised, where Henry and she, or David or Max, would play marvellous medleys for hours on end to amuse family and friends. She sat down and, with skirts duly arranged, began to play.
    Jamal stood for a considerable time at the entrance to the drawing room listening with Higgins, one of the butlers, to Gershwin, Cole Porter and Jerome Kern. He had heard her play like that dozens of times: it had always entertained and amused him. But tonight, watching her, listening to the songs in that grand and attractive drawing room, it was as if he was seeing her and hearing the music for the first time.
    And in a way it was. He had never been in that room, so famed for its beauty and its treasures, when it had not had other people in it. When it had not been filled with interesting conversation and powerful men of the world. Never had he been alone in it with Lara.
    A hundred feet long by fifty feet wide, two