Free Those Wicked Pleasures by Roberta Latow Page A

storeys high, with its vast Oriel window facing the garden, its four massive marble fireplaces alight, its priceless furniture, exquisite objets d’art, its Greco-Roman antiquities, Impressionist paintings – Gauguins, Renoirs, Monets, four select Van Goghs – it was awe-inspiring. The draperies blossomed in a fall of thirty feet from the ceiling – luscious red silk damask, trimmed in a wide band of egg yolk yellow, and lined in black and white silk taffeta stripes. They were elaborately festooned and tied back with huge silk tassels. The silk had a papery, lacklustre look to it, a certain elegant patina that comes with age – in this case, several hundred years. They were relics from France in the years when Madame de Pompadour reigned as the doyenne of chic in Louis’ court. Brought home in pieces by one of the Stantons, the Manhattan town house’s drawing room had been designed in the late-nineteenth century to accommodate them.
    The room was alluring. The grand salon of a New York palace? A country house? Softened by the intimate disposition of the furniture, the muted lamp-light filtering through ivory silk shades, the many bowls of tulips, daffodils, roses and bearded iris, all grown in the hothouses of Cannonberry Chase to keep the room always filled with spring flowers. The proliferation of pictures in silver frames supplied images of the family and those otherwise near-invisible power-brokers, rarely mentioned and scarcely seen outside their own elite circle.
    Jamal loved this room. He had grown up with David and David’s cousins here. He took it for granted as muchas the Stantons did. They called it the ‘big room’, and it embodied that severe case of parsimony that Emily was famous for and that added an even greater chic. It had a worn look, bordering on threadbare – notably the chairs and carpets. A look that would later be made famous by several English antique dealers-cum-decorators. Her parsimony had let in a patina inseparable from class in a section of society that doesn’t care to be new or extravagant, that eschews labels and glitz. Grand, worn, and used for their own pleasure, not show.
    Within the atmosphere of this room Lara was giving herself a concert while she waited for Jamal.
    He had heard her play like it in all the Stanton houses: here, at Cannonberry Chase, the villa in Cap d’Antibes, and Palm Beach. Those very private houses where the family lived discreetly, to which strangers yearned to be known to have been invited. The present enchantment lay in being there alone with Lara, the young heiress to this private world and fascinating kingdom.
    Slowly he made his way through the room. He stopped to take in the scent of a bowl of white roses, run his hands through a bowl of pot-pourri. At one point he seated himself on the arm of a sofa, and watched Lara. He had been a fool about her. She had been ripe for years. He should have plucked her from childhood long ago. Even as late as last evening. She looked up and saw him. He sighed and smiled at her and walked to the piano and leaned on it. ‘No, don’t stop.’
    Lara finished the Gershwin song. He lowered his head and, raising her hand, kissed it. She stood up. He had not let go of her hand. He stepped back, and with a slightly threatening charm, said, ‘I should have run off with you when you were thirteen, just as I promised you I would. Now you have grown up, and maybe you won’t have me. You look very beautiful.’

Chapter 4
    Coup de foudre
, a shattering blow, the thunderbolt of love at first sight. It was crazy, but that was all Lara could think about.
Coup de foudre
, and how her French teacher had given the definition and then added, ‘Young ladies, you will better understand the power of this expression when love strikes you.’ How right Mademoiselle had been. It was instant falling in love and being struck senseless at the same time. It happened for her when Jamal held her hand and they gazed into each other’s eyes