Her head went back. ‘Dizzy James.’
‘Who are you really?’ he repeated in a hard voice.
She drew in a ragged breath. ‘A friend of Christi’s.’
‘That’s obvious,’ he bit out raspingly. ‘But it doesn’t answer my question.’
He was angry, angrier than her, and she couldn’t really blame him after the stupid, stupid game she and Christi had been playing at his expense.
She swallowed hard. ‘If I tell you my father’s name is—is Martin Ellington-James,’ she completed almost defiantly at his compelling glance, ‘maybe that will help you,’ she snapped.
Zach gave a puzzled frown. ‘I didn’t know he had remarried.’
‘He hasn’t,’ she scorned. ‘And no, I’m not illegitimate, either,’ she derided at the surprised rise of his eyebrows, her mouth twisting mockingly as she saw the truth dawn in those expressive eyes.
‘Your mother is Valerie Sherman?’ He spoke slowly, as if still uncertain of his facts.
‘That’s right, Professor.’ As usual, she was on the defensive when discussing either of her parents, the shield over her emotions, which she had allowed to slip while she searched her feelings for this man, firmly back in place. She had been a fool to believe they could ever care for each other!
‘Then Knollsley Hall was your home?’ he enunciated carefully, as if he still couldn’t believe what he was being told.
Knollsley Hall hadn’t been her home, it had been her prison! Oh, until her mother had left when she was four it had had the semblance of a home, but after that it had become somewhere to escape from. But very few people knew or understood that, and she wasn’t about to confide in Zach, now that they were suddenly so distant from each other. She should have known better than to allow her emotions to take over, even briefly!
‘It was my father’s home.’ She gave a cool inclination of her head.
‘Then you went to live with your mother after the divorce?’ Zach sounded puzzled.
Dizzy gave an impatient sigh. ‘I don’t think where I spent my childhood has any relevance to this conversation,’ she bit out dismissively.
‘Now that we’ve established that, far from having fallen on ill-fortune, and so leaving you to make your way in the world as best you can, your father is one of the richest MPs in the country—and that’s saying a lot!—and your mother is a very wealthy artist,’ Zach acknowledged disgustedly, ‘I don’t think your privileged background has any more relevance to the conversation, either!’ he bit out grimly.
Privileged background! Was it privileged to be ignored by her father until she was four and her mother ran away from him, when she then became the only thing he could vent his anger and frustration on without fear of retribution? Was it privileged when she was sent away to school at eight so that he didn’t have to see her marked resemblance to her mother as she got older? Was it privileged when he wouldn’t even have her back in the house for the holidays after that first year, because each time he saw her she reminded him of the woman who had walked out on both of them, so that she either had to remain at the school during holiday times or accept the open invitation she always had from Christi’s parents to stay with them? If that was privilege then she didn’t know what abuse was!
Tears glistened in her pained green eyes, tears she quickly blinked away as she met Zach’s gaze steadily. ‘I’m twenty-one now, my parents are no longer responsible for me, and as you can see I live my life the way I want to,’ she told him defiantly. ‘Who my parents are doesn’t change the fact that I live out of a backpack, stay with friends whenever I can. Whereas Christi—’
‘Christi has some explaining of her own to do,’ Zach cut in harshly, standing up. ‘Now that I know the truth, your presence here is no longer necessary, to give a false impression, or try to convince a rather staid professor of history that he’s the best thing you’ve seen since sliced bread—’
‘I hate sliced bread,’ Dizzy put in defensively. ‘And all of my responses to you have been real!’
His mouth twisted as he looked down at her. ‘A sham,’ he corrected bitterly. ‘But you have no further need to sacrifice yourself in the name of friendship—’
‘It was no sacrifice!’ Dizzy derided.
His mouth firmed angrily. ‘I’m sure Henry is just longing for you to return to his bed. Possibly he finds your act of innocence more to his liking than I did!’
They were hitting out at each other in angry defiance, each blow more cutting than the last, until in the end they would rip each other apart. Zach believed she was responsible for playing with his emotions because she was trying to help Christi, and he wasn’t about to forgive her for that.
Looking at this from his point of view, what choice did he have? She had lied to him; why shouldn’t he think her innocence was all a lie, too?
‘Possibly,’ she said heavily, standing up to brush the grass from her hands and denims. ‘I take it you want me to move out of the castle as soon as possible?’ All her anger had gone now, leaving her aching inside like never before.
‘If not sooner,’ Zach confirmed harshly.
She drew in a ragged breath. ‘I’ll make sure you don’t have to see me again before I leave.’
He nodded abruptly. ‘I would appreciate that,’ he bit out.
Dizzy bowed her head. ‘I thought you might.’
‘Now I have to go and find your partner in crime,’ he said grimly, a steely quality in his voice that she had never heard before. ‘But I’d like you to know you could have both saved yourselves all this trouble.’
Dizzy looked up at him dazedly. What did he mean by that?
He gave a bitter smile. ‘I invited Christi up here so that we could get to know each other a little better, perhaps cement a friendship, before I released my guardianship of her and we perhaps drifted apart. Which would have been a pity when we’re the only family each of us have.’ He returned Dizzy’s stunned gaze contemptuously. ‘I never had any intention of not releasing Christi’s inheritance once she’s twenty-one!’
CHAPTER NINE
‘COULD you put your hand a little to the left of Jim’s chest, please, Heather?’ Dizzy instructed distractedly, gazing in dissatisfaction at the couple across the room. ‘That’s perfect,’ she nodded, as the other woman complied.
A bitter smile curved Dizzy’s lips as she wondered what interpretation Zach would put on this situation if he were to walk in now.
Not that there was much chance of that. She had been back in London since yesterday, and she hadn’t heard a word from Zach or Christi.
Christi and Zach had already been in his study by the time she had followed him back to the castle, and so she had quietly packed her bags and left, knowing that Christi was in enough trouble without her adding to it by hanging around when she had bluntly been told to leave. She had no doubt that Christi would contact her once she got back to London herself.
But it hadn’t made the waiting any easier, and, after a night of lying awake thinking of Zach and the misunderstandings between them, she had decided that indulging in her other love in life was what she needed to take her mind off him. Heather and Jim had been only too pleased to come over when she called them.
Her father had never considered the artistic talent that she had inherited from her mother to be a foundation for a career, but had called the accurate drawings she would present to him as a child’s ‘scribblings’, until in the end she stopped sharing them with him.
The boarding-school had been even less thrilled by her talent, more interested in the academic than the arts. The teachers had not been at all impressed with the caricatures she often did of them to amuse her classmates, and more than once her drawing equipment had been confiscated.
But her talent for sketching and painting had been the one thing she was grateful to accept from her mother, and she knew by the time she was eighteen that, whatever career she chose, it had to involve sketching of some kind. With her mother already established as an accompl
ished artist, it had narrowed her field down somewhat unless she wanted to be constantly referred to as ‘Valerie Sherman’s daughter’. As that was the last thing she had ever wanted to be known as, she had steered very clear of that area of art.
Once again, it had been Christi who set her on the right track, introducing her to a family friend who also happened to own a publishing house, and who was always on the look-out for illustrators for the covers of his books. With her avid interest in history, and her artistic talent, Dizzy had been a natural at producing the glossy evocative covers that enticed a reader to pick up a book to read the back cover and see what the story was about.
Her year of working for Astro Publishing had been an experience she would always be grateful for, bringing her worldwide recognition for the DC James illustrations that firmly established her at the top of her field. The last two years on her own had been filled with hundreds of offers of work, both here and in North America, and she hadn’t refused any of them that looked interesting, enjoying the travelling almost as much as she did the work. There was just one professional dream she had left to fulfil, a dream that didn’t seem to stand much chance of becoming reality when Claudia Laurence, the one author she longed to illustrate for, didn’t seem to have heard of her or the provocative covers she had given to dozens of historical romances!
Her studio, and the place where she occasionally stayed for a few days between assignments, was at the top of an old warehouse that had later been converted to flats: a huge barn of a place that gave her the space and light she needed to work. It couldn’t exactly be called her home, but it was the closest she came to calling anywhere that.
She was working on a Regency cover right now, Heather wearing a delicate pink dress that was cut in the alarmingly low fashion of the day, Jim every inch the aristocratic duke as he looked down his haughty nose at the saucy young woman of spirit he would eventually marry. For some illustrators this could just have been another one of ‘those’ covers, but each piece of work Dizzy produced was special to her, and to the people who constantly wrote, praising her work. She never ceased to be thrilled herself when she knew she had done a good job.
Unfortunately, today wasn’t going to be one of those days! Try as she might to put all thought of Zach out of her mind, seeing how close the couple were she was supposed to be photographing only reminded her that hours ago she had been in Zach’s arms. That was before everything had all blown up in her face.
If Christi didn’t call her soon and tell her what was going on she was going to wring her friend’s neck when she did see her again!
Christi had to know how worried she was. Or perhaps her friend was so devastated by the obvious retribution her uncle could give for her scheme that she didn’t feel like talking to anyone just now!
Zach had been very angry yesterday, everything Dizzy had told him seeming only to convince him she had gone further than trying to help convince him of Christi’s maturity, that she had tried to use a relationship between the two of them to try and persuade him to release Christi’s money.
Money had never been important to her on an everyday basis; as long as she had enough to live on, she wasn’t interested in ‘putting money aside for a rainy day’. Life was too short and precarious for that. But she had been lucky, she was paid well for doing something that she loved, and so, despite all her feelings to the contrary, she had managed to amass a small fortune. Her father would be stunned if he knew how much his daughter was worth! She had decided from the first not to confide in him about her career, had deliberately chosen to illustrate under the name DC James because of that. No doubt knowing that she earned her living legitimately, after all, would give him a certain amount of relief, but knowing what that work was was sure to bring down his scorn on her. He had been scandalised that his wife could choose to be an artist, so God knew what he would make of the provocatively lovely covers she chose to illustrate to whet people’s appetite for the story between those covers! She certainly wasn’t in any hurry to find out!
Possibly Zach would view it the same way; it certainly wasn’t the type of thing a professor of history would like the woman in his life to be involved in!
Not that she was the woman in his life. They may have come close—Zach’s gentle lovemaking before he learnt the truth about her and Christi had certainly given her hope—but she had watched as that was slowly destroyed with each new thing she revealed about herself. Far from believing in the innocence he had guessed at as he made love to her, he now believed she was a better actress than Christi could ever be!
‘Dizzy, are you all right?’
She looked up at the couple across the room as Heather spoke concernedly, realising as she did so that she had been staring fixedly at the floor for the last five minutes. She gave a rueful smile, realising that the photographs she had intended taking, so that she could later do her preliminary sketching from them, weren’t even half done.
She straightened. ‘I’m afraid I’m not really in the mood for this today,’ she said apologetically. ‘Do you mind if we stop now?’
‘Not at all,’ Jim replied for both of them. The couple instantly relaxed their pose, both he and Heather were actors who modelled when they weren’t doing other work. ‘Are you sure you’re feeling all right? You don’t seem like yourself today.’
If only she were someone else! If only she could have listened to Zach’s accusations and then neatly turned around and told him she hadn’t been in his arms for any other reason than that she loved him. But love was too new to her, the feeling of vulnerability leaving her too raw to pain, for her to do anything else but back away from it. She was very much afraid she had had her one chance at love, and lost it.
‘I don’t think my short holiday did me any good.’ She gave a forced smile. ‘Could you both come back tomorrow?’ she said hopefully, very much aware that time was passing and that she had done little or nothing towards this cover.
‘Morning?’ Heather suggested with a frown. ‘I have a cover to do for Carla in the afternoon.’
Carla Fortune was an illustrator who worked mainly on mysteries, but both Heather and Jim were very much in demand by most illustrators, both of them having that elusive quality that allowed them to express the exact emotions required. It didn’t surprise Dizzy in the least that she was going to have to wait in line for them, in fact, she had been thrilled earlier when they had been able to come over for a few hours this morning. Probably Carla had Heather booked for this afternoon, too!
‘That’s fine,’ she nodded. ‘I—’ She broke off as the doorbell rang, her heart starting to pound as she hoped it was Christi. ‘Why don’t the two of you get changed while I answer the door?’ she suggested nervously. ‘I—you—I’ll see you both tomorrow,’ she added in a rush, before hurrying to the door.
Christi looked just the same as she usually did, beautiful and calm, striding past Dizzy into the studio, turning back to her chidingly after taking in the photographic equipment.
‘I should have known you would get straight back to work,’ she drawled, throwing off the linen jacket, that matched the blue sheath of a dress she wore, before dropping down tiredly on to one of the overstuffed cushions that served as Dizzy’s chairs. ‘I feel as if I haven’t stopped running the last twenty-four hours.’ She rested massaging fingertips against her aching temples.
Dizzy swallowed nervously, standing across the room from her friend. ‘From your uncle?’ she prompted, in a voice too casual to be genuine.
Christi looked up at her with accusing eyes. ‘Well, didn’t you?’
She sighed, moving to switch off the bright lights that had spotlighted Heather and Jim minutes earlier. ‘He told me to go,’ she muttered.
‘Well, of course he told you to go,’ Christi said disgustedly. ‘You gave him the impression you were some sort of trap we both wanted him to walk into, so that it made it easier asking him to release my money!’
Dizzy turned sharply, her eyes blazing. ‘I did no such
thing!’ she snapped fiercely. ‘That was the conclusion that he enjoyed jumping to,’ she scorned hardily.
‘And that you were too proud to refute,’ Christi rebuked.
‘That I didn’t get the chance to refute,’ she corrected firmly, her hands clenched at her sides. ‘He wasn’t prepared to listen to anything I had to say once he knew my parents were Martin Ellington-James and Valerie Sherman. He seemed to find my “privileged” background totally suited to the teasing little vamp who tried to make a fool out of him!’
‘Oh, Dizzy,’ Christi groaned apologetically.
‘For God’s sake, don’t pity me,’ she warned fiercely, holding on to her emotions with tremendous effort. ‘I’ll fall apart into a million pieces if you do that!’ she explained shakily.
Christi flinched, her eyes pained. ‘You’re in love with him.’
It wasn’t a question, just a statement of fact, a fact that had to be all too obvious to this woman who knew her so well. ‘A lot of good it’s done me,’ she dismissed brittly. ‘I always said love was a very overrated emotion.’ She tried to sound lightly unconcerned, but unfortunately her voice broke emotionally, and she only sounded as devastated as she was.
‘Oh, love, it isn’t—’ Christi broke off awkwardly as Heather and Jim came out of the room they had been using to change in. ‘Hi,’ she greeted brightly to cover Dizzy’s obvious distress if anyone looked at her too closely. ‘What were you today, Jim?’ she said familiarly. ‘A reformed outlaw or a rampaging Viking?’
He grinned, straightening his jacket. ‘A cynical duke,’ he drawled.
‘Oh, one of those!’ Christi nodded ruefully. ‘In that case, you must have been the Simpering Miss, Heather,’ she teased lightly.
Heather shook down her long red hair, obviously relieved to have it loose about her shoulders once more. ‘None of Dizzy’s heroines ever look simpering,’ she said, scandalised, her eyes glowing with laughter. ‘Even though the hero and heroine have all their clothes on—usually—Dizzy still manages to imply the sensuality boiling beneath the surface.’
One Chance at Love Page 12