by Penny Jordan
Christy looked at her in consternation. ‘Meryl…’
‘Oh, don’t take any notice of me. It must be this baby. Come on, help me to find this damned script. I’ll go and tell Helga to make us some coffee.’
Helga was the latest in a long line of au pairs and while Meryl went off to find her, Christy started to go through the files.
It took them two hours to find the missing script; jammed in between two files, it had slipped to the bottom of the drawer.
‘Between “G” and “H”,’ Meryl said in disgust. ‘What on earth was it doing there?’
‘God alone knows…or, more probably, David alone,’ Christy said ruefully, being perfectly acquainted with her late boss’s habit of pushing unwanted documents anywhere and everywhere simply to get them off the top of his desk.
‘Well, that’s that, then,’ Meryl flopped into a chair. ‘You must be cursing me for dragging you all this way simply to find this…’
‘No, it’s all right. I had to come to London anyway. I need a ballgown.’
More to distract Meryl than because she was actually worried about finding something to wear, Christy told her of Dominic’s plans to open the new health centre, and more particularly of her own involvement in it.
‘No, you mustn’t bother to go out and buy anything,’ Meryl told her. ‘What you ought to do is to hire something. Use one of the theatrical agencies. They have the most fabulous outfits.’
Meryl was right, Christy recognised. She gnawed anxiously at her bottom lip. ‘I thought you had to be a member of Equity at the very least to hire anything from one of those places.’
‘Being David’s wife has some advantages,’ Meryl told her darkly. ‘I know the very place. I hired an outfit from them for the Palfrys’ New Year do. It was fabulous. Come on, I’ll give them a ring and then we’ll go straight round.’
Sensing that Meryl needed to keep busy to keep her mind off her husband, Christy allowed herself to be persuaded.
Within an hour she was being shown an abundance of ballgowns that would even have silenced Amanda.
‘How about this one?’ the woman in charge suggested, lifting a glowing off-white satin number with the colour and sheen of mother-of-pearl off its protective hanger. ‘It was designed for Kate in the Shrew—perfect for a redhead with your creamy skin.’
Enviously Christy stroked the supple fabric, wondering how on earth the designers had managed to achieve that unearthly opalescent effect. The low-cut bodice was encrusted with pearls, the bodice dipping to a sharp V at the front, from which the full skirts frothed out in true Elizabethan grandeur.
‘Try it on,’ Meryl urged.
Christy needed the help of the assistant to get the dress fastened up the back. The bodice clung to her like a second skin, the whaleboning causing her breasts to swell against the tight fabric. When she remarked on this the assistant shook her head. ‘That’s the way it’s meant to be. It’s a perfect fit on you, and the length is right as well.’
At Meryl’s behest she went outside to show her.
‘It’s fabulous, Christy, you must have it.’
‘I’ll need a mask,’ Christy warned her, allowing herself to be tempted. Hire of the gown would be expensive, but nothing like as expensive as buying a new one.
‘A mask—I’ve got the very thing,’ the assistant told her. ‘This gown was designed for a ball scene as it happens—a little addition the producer of this particular version of the Shrew wanted, and there just happens to be a mask to go with it.’
‘There you are,’ Meryl exclaimed with a grin. ‘It was quite obviously meant to be.’
The mask was in the same satin as the dress and trimmed lavishly with pearls. It gave Christy’s face a curiously fey and unreal dimension, somehow making her mouth look fuller and exaggerating the oval slant of her eyes.
‘It’s perfect,’ Meryl told her, adding to the assistant, ‘we’ll take it.’
While the gown was being packed up Christy had a peep at some of the others hanging in the same closet. There were ballgowns from every era imaginable: brief wisps of Regency chiffon, crystal-beaded twenties shimmies, elegant belle epoque bustles.
‘You could spend a lifetime here, couldn’t you?’ asked Meryl, drooling over a Fortuny pleated hank of silk chiffon.
David’s car was parked in the drive when they got back, and instantly Christy was aware of the change in Meryl. She seemed to close up and withdraw into herself, and Christy’s heart ached for her friend.
‘There you are, Meryl; where the devil have you been? You know we’re due to attend tonight’s performance.’ David’s irritable voice broke off as he saw Christy standing at his wife’s side. In the shadows of the hallway, Christy saw him flush slightly as though he was suddenly aware of how unpleasant he was being to Meryl.
‘Christy, my love…what are you doing here?’ He made no attempt to embrace her.
‘I asked Christy to come down to help me look for your manuscript,’ Meryl told him.
Christy watched as he shifted uncomfortably from one foot to the other. ‘We found it filed between “G” and “H”,’ she told him drily. He had the grace to look faintly shamefaced.
‘I suppose I’ve been a bit of a bear lately…it’s all this business about going to the States.’
‘Oh, really? I thought it was something else you had on your mind.’
Christy wasn’t sure which of them was the more surprised. David was watching his wife’s retreating back with his mouth agape. It was so unusual for Meryl to say anything even slightly contentious to her husband that none of them seemed to know quite what to say.
It was only when she had disappeared into the kitchen that David relaxed a little, expelling his breath and swearing slightly. ‘I don’t know what the devil’s got into Meryl recently.’
‘Don’t you?’ Christy asked him pointedly, looking at him.
‘What the hell does that mean?’ He was frowning and blustering as he always did when he knew himself to be in the wrong, and there was certainly nothing even remotely lover-like in the way he gripped her arm and almost dragged her into his study.
‘Just what’s going on around here?’ he demanded, growling at her. ‘Meryl’s been unliveable-with these last few weeks. Not her normal self at all.’
‘Perhaps she’s just getting tired of a husband who’s consistently unfaithful to her,’ Christy suggested tartly, and then instantly wished her hasty words unsaid. It was no business of hers, and Meryl would probably not thank her for interfering.
‘You mean she knows? She’s told you?’
For an intelligent man he could be exceedingly dense. Christy gave him an ironic look.
‘She’s always known, David,’ she told him. ‘It’s just that in the past she’s chosen to turn a blind eye. Why do you think I wouldn’t have an affair with you?’ she mocked him gently. ‘Not because I wasn’t tempted.’ She could almost have laughed at the way he preened himself. ‘You’re a very attractive and dangerously persuasive man when you want to be, but Meryl is my friend. I care for her too much to hurt her for what would have at best been only a very brief physical fling.’
‘You do have a way of bringing a man down to earth, don’t you?’ David commented wryly, and she could tell that even though he was amused he was also a little shocked by her out-spokenness.
‘Oh, come on. What do you expect, David? I’ve worked for you for too long to have any illusions. A new face comes along, you convince yourself that you’ve fallen in love, but once the excitement of the chase is over, it’s back to reality and Meryl. Have you ever thought what would happen if she wasn’t there to go back to?’
It was plain to Christy that he hadn’t. He stood there frowning down at her, looking as hurt and puzzled as a small child.
‘But she’ll always be there. She’s…she’s part of me.’
‘Will she?’ Christy asked him wryly, and watched the doubts shimmer in his dark eyes.
‘She loves you, David,’ s
he told him softly, ‘but love doesn’t always last for ever.’
He swallowed and looked at her with shocked eyes.
‘Are you trying to tell me that Meryl’s found someone else?’ He seemed to look past her and stare into space. ‘She has been different lately. That would explain…’ He gave her a brooding look and Christy said hastily,
‘She hasn’t said that to me, but I do know that she’s unhappy.’
‘Meryl, unhappy?’
He looked so affronted that if it hadn’t been so serious Christy could almost have laughed.
She had interfered enough—perhaps even too much, she told herself as David turned away to glare through the window with brooding intensity. For herself, she didn’t doubt that he loved his wife—she had never doubted it—but Meryl needed and deserved more than David was giving her, and it would do him no harm to think that he might lose her.
Whatever the outcome of her interference, at least she knew one thing, and that was that David’s feelings for her were once again simply those of a friend. She hadn’t ever really feared that he would pursue her to the Borders; there were too many more easily accessible distractions in his life for that, but it was still a relief to know that his pursuit of her was over.
Later in the evening, she was a little surprised by the firmness with which Meryl refused to accompany David to the theatre.
‘It will do him good to be turned down once in a while. His lady love isn’t on stage tonight. Her understudy is taking the part, so he won’t have the consolation of watching her. I suspect that’s why he wanted me to go, but for once I decided I wasn’t prepared to play second fiddle.’ Her face changed all of a sudden, crumbling. ‘Oh God, Christy, I’m such a fool. Why on earth don’t I simply give up? I can’t go on competing…’
‘You don’t need to. He does love you, Meryl. I just think he needs to be reminded how much occasionally. He’ll never change. He’ll always be a terrible flirt, but if you could have seen his face this afternoon when I suggested to him that you might be tired of him.’
Meryl stared at her. ‘You said that…’
‘Umm…and David looked as shocked as a child being told that there isn’t any Father Christmas.’
‘Mmm. I never thought of trying to make him jealous.’
Christy grinned. ‘Well, I shouldn’t throw yourself too energetically into the part.’ She looked meaningfully at Meryl’s stomach. ‘With David’s vivid imagination…’
‘Oh God, yes. Well, maybe I’ll save that for next time. After junior has safely arrived. After all, we can’t give David too many shocks all at once!’
They both laughed, and Christy was pleased to see how much more cheerful Meryl looked. Both of them were surprised when David came home early, but Christy tactfully took herself off to bed, claiming that the unaccustomed pace of London life had exhausted her.
CHAPTER SIX
‘WELL, there you are, safely delivered, and on time.’ With cheerful disregard for the fact that he was occupying a space reserved for taxis, David slid his Ferrari into the kerb. Ahead of them a taxi was disgorging its passenger, and Christy felt her stomach jerk as though she had suddenly ascended ten floors in a high-speed lift, as she recognised Dominic’s dark head and lean body emerging from its interior.
As though by some alchemy that was beyond rational analysis, he turned his head and looked straight at her. She had no need to possess any mind-reading gift to interpret the hard contempt in his eyes as his glance raked from her to David.
While she was staring back at him in hypnotised agony David leaned across her, oblivious to what was happening, and kissed her full on the mouth. It wasn’t a lover’s kiss, merely the exuberant embrace of a man who enjoyed kissing women and who knew without conceit that they enjoyed it too, and Christy detached herself from it with ease, but when she looked towards the taxi, Dominic had gone.
Of course David insisted on going with her to the barrier, carrying the box with her dress in it, and kissing her again. This time on the cheek.
‘Have a safe journey back. You’ll have to fly out and see us when we’re in the States.’
As she hurried on to the train Christy searched the first class compartments hoping to avoid any sight of Dominic. And where was Amanda? By what malignant turn of fate had she chosen to come down to London at exactly the same time as they did? Her face burned suddenly as she thought of the construction Dominic might have put on her appearance, but then she relaxed as she remembered that he had also seen her with David, and there had been no doubt from his expression what interpretation he had put on that. No, he could hardly think she was following him after witnessing that kiss, thank goodness!
She settled herself comfortably in her seat, wishing she had had the forethought to get some magazines, but David had bustled her on to the train without giving her the chance to buy any. She turned her face towards the window as the train started to move. She hoped that things would work out for Meryl and David. She liked them both, but she had a special fondness and sympathy for Meryl.
Lost in thought, she was aware of someone subsiding into the seat next to hers.
Out of the corner of her eye she caught the brief glimpse of sun-tanned lean wrist and immaculate shirt cuff, and her stomach muscles suddenly clenched protestingly in immediate recognition.
‘Dominic!’ His name had left her lips before she could suppress it, and as she turned towards him, her suspicions confirmed, she saw the contemptuous way his mouth curled as he acknowledged her husky whisper.
‘Dreaming about your lover, were you?’
He didn’t wait for her to confirm or deny his allegation. ‘Odd, isn’t it, how easily we human beings deceive ourselves? There was a time when I would have said you were the last person to involve yourself in a relationship with someone who was committed to someone else.’
His open contempt hurt and made her want to lash out at him to ease her pain.
‘People change, Dominic,’ she told him.
‘So I’m beginning to realise.’ He looked up and saw the box containing her dress on the parcel shelf above them. A cynical glitter darkened his eyes, and he reached up and touched the box with his fingertips, asking her dulcetly, ‘What’s this, Christy? Payment for services rendered, like the fur coat?’
She ached to hit out at him, conscious of the way her face was burning with a mixture of rage and pain.
She stood up, trembling with the force of her emotion, reaching for the box, and at the same time trying to scramble past him as she said fiercely, ‘I don’t need paying to spend time with the man I love.’
She couldn’t get past him. His long legs were thrust out in front of him, and she couldn’t seem to move without coming into physical contact with him.
Her voice thick with frustration, she demanded huskily, ‘Dominic, please let me past.’
‘Why?’
She turned and stared at him. There was a deceptively calm amusement in his eyes. She sucked in air, her muscles tensing. He was enjoying baiting her like this, and he had no intention of letting her go.
‘Sit down, Christy,’ he told her softly. ‘You’re creating a scene.’ She looked round and saw that he was right—other travellers were beginning to stare at them. ‘I’ve got my car at Newcastle, and my first appointment when I get home is to see your mother. She’ll think it odd when she learns that we’ve travelled home on the same train without seeing one another.’
Christy knew that he was right, but there was no way she wanted to spend the journey fending off his acid comments.
‘Where’s Amanda?’ she asked him curtly, subsiding back into her seat.
‘Staying on in London with her mother for a few days.’
The look on his face prompted her into irrational retaliation for his cruel remarks to her. ‘I’m surprised she allowed you to return without her,’ she taunted, but instead of getting angry, he merely laughed, his eyes glittering with a strange intensity as he turned to her and whispered mockingly,
‘Why, Christy, anyone would think you were jealous.’
He might have forced her to remain sitting with him, but she didn’t have to talk to him, Christy told herself. Compressing her mouth, she turned away from him and stared out of the window. Already she could feel the tension invading her body. Her throat was dry and she ached for something to drink.
Quite how she managed to fall asleep she didn’t know, but somehow she must have done, and it was the sound of Dominic’s voice in her ear, and the pressure and heat of his torso pressed against hers as he leaned across to shake her, that finally made her wake up.
Totally disorientated, she stared mutely up at him, noticing for the first time that his eyes weren’t a flat hard grey after all, and that there was a band of darker almost blue-black colour round the iris.
Fascinated, she stared at it, until the sound of his voice brought her back to reality, and she became intensely aware of the heat emanating from his body, and the rebellious response of her own to his proximity. Beneath her jacket she could feel the prickling awareness swelling her breasts. Nervously her glance dropped from his, unintentionally lingering on the sculptured hardness of his mouth. She felt herself start to tremble. What would it be like to trace that hard outline with her fingertips; to feel his mouth on hers? Sick with need and fear, she tensed back from him. Was it her imagination, or was there something dangerous about the thick, tense silence that seemed to engulf them?
She couldn’t bring herself to look into Dominic’s eyes and read for herself that he was aware of her self-betrayal.
‘I’ve brought you a cup of coffee and a sandwich.’
The mundaneness of the words calmed her frantic imaginings, and she forced a polite smile to her lips—lips that suddenly seemed stiff and unwilling to move as ordered by her brain.