In his first few days back in London after seeing his children for Thanksgiving, Blake had been invited to a Rolling Stones concert. They were one of his favorite groups, and he and Mick Jagger were old friends. He had introduced Blake to a number of other players in the rock-star world, and several remarkable women. Blake's brief affair with one of the biggest female rock stars in the world had made headlines everywhere, until she spoiled everything and married someone else. That wasn't his game, and he was honest about it. He never pretended to anyone that he wanted to get married, or was even open to it. He had far too much money now. Marriage was much too dangerous for him, unless he married someone who had as much as he did, and those were never the women he went after. He liked them young, lively, and unencumbered. All he wanted to do was play. He didn't hurt anyone. And when it was over, they left with jewels, furs, cars, presents, and the best memories they ever had. And then he moved on to the next one, and started all over again. And when he got back to London, he was free at the moment. He had no one to take to the Rolling Stones concert, so he went by himself, and to a fabulous party at Kensington Palace afterward. Every royal, model, actress, socialite, aristocrat, and rock star was there. It was everything that Blake loved, and his world.

He had talked to half a dozen women that night, met some interesting men, and was thinking about leaving, when he ordered one last drink at the bar, and saw a pretty redhead smiling at him. She had a diamond in her nose, was wearing a ruby bindi and a sari, had spiky hair, and tattoos running down her arms, and she was staring unabashedly at him. She didn't look Indian, but the ruby bindi between her eyebrows confused him, and the sari she wore was the color of a summer sky, the same color as her eyes. He had never seen an Indian woman with tattoos before. Hers were flowers running up and down her arms, and there was another on her taut flat stomach, which the sari exposed. She was drinking champagne, and eating olives from a glass bowl on the bar.

“Hello,” he said simply, his dazzling blue eyes meeting hers, and her slow smile grew broader. She was the sexiest woman he had ever seen, and it was impossible to tell her age. She could have been anywhere from eighteen to thirty, and he didn't care how old she was. She was gorgeous. “Where are you from?” he asked her, expecting her to say Bombay or New Delhi, although the red hair was out of context too. She laughed at his question, showing perfect white teeth that went on forever. She was the most striking woman he'd ever seen.

“Knightsbridge,” she said, laughing at him. Her laughter was like bells in his ears, delicate and sweet.

“What about the bindi?”

“I just like them. I lived in Jaipur for two years. I loved the saris and the jewels.” Who didn't? And five minutes after he'd met her, Blake was crazy about her. “Have you been to India?” she asked him.

“Several times,” he said easily. “I went on an incredible safari, taking photographs of tigers last year, much better than anything I've seen in Kenya.” She raised an eyebrow then.

“I was born in Kenya. My family lived in Rhodesia before that. And then we came home. It's rather tedious here. I go back every chance I get.” She was British, and she had the accent and intonations of the upper classes, which made him wonder who she was, and who her parents were. It didn't usually interest him, but everything about this woman intrigued him, even her tattoos. “And you are?” she inquired. She was probably the only woman in the room who didn't know who he was, and he liked that about her too. It was refreshing. And he sensed correctly that they had been attracted to each other instantly. Powerfully so.

“Blake Williams.” He provided no further information, and she nodded and finished her champagne. He was drinking vodka, on the rocks. It was his drink of choice at events like this. Champagne gave him a headache the next day, vodka didn't.

“American,” she said matter-of-factly. “Married?” she asked with interest, which he found an odd question.

“No. Why?”

“I don't do married men. I don't even talk to them. I went out with a horrible Frenchman who was married and lied about it. Once burned, forever wise, or something like that. Americans are usually pretty good about that. The French aren't. They always have a wife and a mistress tucked away somewhere, and cheat on both. Do you cheat?” she asked him, as though it were a sport like golf or tennis, and he laughed.

“Not generally. No, actually, I don't think I ever have. I have no reason to, I'm not married, and if I want to sleep with someone else, I end it with the woman I'm with. That seems a lot simpler to me. I don't like drama or complications.”

“Neither do I. That's what I mean about Americans. They're very simple and straightforward. Europeans are far more complicated. They want everything to be difficult. My parents have been trying to get divorced for twelve years. They keep getting back together and splitting up again. It's very confusing for the rest of us. I've never been married myself, and don't want to be. It seems like a terrible mess to me.” She said it very simply, as though talking about the weather or a trip, and he was amused. She was a very funny young woman, very pretty, and what the Brits called “very fey.” She was like some sort of wood nymph or sprite in her sari and her bindi and tattoos. He noticed then that she was wearing an enormous emerald bracelet that got lost among her tattoos, and a huge ruby ring. Whoever she was, she had plenty of jewels.

“I'd have to agree with you about the mess people make. I'm actually very good friends with my ex-wife. We like each other even better than we did when we were married.” For him, it was true, and he was sure Maxine felt the same way about it too.

“Do you have kids?” she inquired, offering him some of her olives. He dropped two in his drink.

“Yes, I do, three. A girl and two boys. Thirteen, twelve, and six.”

“How sweet. I don't want children, but I think people are very brave to have them. It seems rather frightening to me. All that responsibility, they get sick, you have to make sure they're doing well in school, have good manners. It's even harder than training a horse or a dog, and I'm terrible at both. I had a dog once that did its business all over my house. I'm sure I'd be even worse with kids.” He laughed at the picture she painted, as Mick Jagger wandered by and said hello to her, as did several other people. Everyone seemed to know her except Blake, and he couldn't understand why he had never met her before. He spent a lot of time on the London scene.

He told her about the house in Marrakech then, visibly excited about it, and she agreed that it sounded like a fabulous project. She said that she had nearly studied architecture and decided not to, she could never do the math. She said she'd been terrible in school.

A number of his friends came up to him and said hello then, as did quite a few of hers, and the next thing he knew when he turned to look for her, she had disappeared. Blake was frustrated and disappointed. He had liked talking to her. She was eccentric, intelligent, outspoken, and different, and beautiful enough to catch his eye. He asked Mick Jagger about her later, and he laughed at Blake.

“You don't know her?” He seemed surprised. “That's Arabella. She's a viscountess. Her father is supposed to be the richest man in the House of Lords.”

“What does she do?” He assumed she did nothing, but he had gotten the sense from talking to her that she had some kind of job or career.

“She's a painter. She does portraits. She's very good. People pay her a fortune to do their portraits. She also does their horses and dogs. She's completely crazy, but she's actually very nice. She's sort of typically British eccentric. I think she was engaged to some very fancy Frenchman, a marquis or something. I don't know what happened, but she didn't marry him. She went out to India instead, had an affair with some very important Indian chap, and came home, with a hell of a lot of good-looking jewels. I can't believe you don't know her.

Maybe she was in India when you were around. She's a lot of fun,” he confirmed.

“Yes, she is,” Blake said, somewhat in awe of what Jagger had said about her. It all fit. “Do you know how I'd find her? I didn't get her number before she left.”

“Sure. Have your secretary call mine tomorrow. I've got her number. So does everyone else. Half of England has had their portrait done by her. You can always use that as an excuse.” Blake wasn't sure he needed one, but it was certainly a possibility. He left the party then, sorry she had left before him, and his secretary got him the number the next morning. It hadn't been difficult at all.

He sat looking at the piece of paper for a minute, and then called her himself. A woman answered, and he recognized the voice of the night before.

“Arabella?” he said, trying to sound confident, and feeling awkward for the first time in a long time. She was more like a whirlwind than a woman, and far more sophisticated than the girls he usually picked up.

“Yes, it is,” she said, in her clipped British way. And then she laughed before she even knew who it was. It was the same tinkling of fairy bells that he had heard the night before. She was magic.

“This is Blake Williams. I met you last night at the party at Kensington Palace, at the bar. You left before I had a chance to say goodbye.”

“You looked busy, so I slipped away. How nice of you to call.” She sounded sincere, and pleased to hear him.

“I actually wanted to say hello more than goodbye. Are you free for lunch?” He cut to the chase, and she laughed again.