Gina hesitated. Despite her defiant words to Tod about her right to choose her own friends, she didn't really want to go out with Greg.
'All right,' she said hesitantly and then, aware that it was hardly a gracious acceptance, 'thank you. I'd like that,' and she allowed her face to relax into the dazzling smile that had floored many men before Greg Gibson.
Tod, putting his head into the breakfast room to see if she was there, witnessed the smile. Grim-faced, he told her that he was ready when she was and withdrew. Oh dear. Obviously Tod thought she'd been chatting Greg up.
'That's great!' Greg said, his own grin widening. 'Say!' he halted in the doorway, 'you were going to ask me something?'
'Oh! Oh yes, but it wasn't that important. It can wait till tonight now, when we've more time. I daren't be late for my riding lesson.' She smiled wryly, jerking her head in the direction Tod had taken.
'Oh yeah!' His tone was disbelieving. 'You're the first woman we've had here who didn't jump whenever Tod cracked the whip. But by all means leave it till tonight. See you!' His complacent expression as he departed told Gina that he believed she'd waylaid him for a purpose, that all she'd been after was a date with him.
She gritted her teeth. Maybe she'd been too hasty in her agreement.
'You mean we're actually going outside the "Berlin Wall"?'
The Rolls Royce had swept around the perimeter of the house and crunched down the long gravelled drive towards the massive gates.
'We need the facilities of an indoor arena!' Tod's manner was brusque and Gina prepared to lapse into silence for the remainder of the journey. But to her surprise, he continued to speak, still in the same abrupt manner, and she sensed his reluctance even while he imparted the information. 'I suppose I can't blame you for your curiosity. It must seem a strange set-up we have here.'
'It is rather like a prisoner-of-war camp,' she returned lightly, as the gates clanged to behind them, 'but I've no desire to pry, provided I'm not a prisoner here. I should like a day off sometime!'
'You're free to come and go as you wish. As I told you last night, these precautions are for Melanie's sake. As to days off, we'll see!'
'I suppose,' Gina said slowly, feeling her way, 'that there are bound to be risks involved in being a rich man's child, being kidnapped, held to ransom?'
'Yes,' he acknowledged. 'It is kidnapping I fear; not for the sake of money, though, but of vendetta.'
'"Vendetta".' She repeated the word incredulously. 'It sounds like something out of an Italian gangster movie, the Mafia, family feuds.'
'Maria, my wife, was Italian., I met her when I was making a circus documentary in La Spezia, Italy. She was a trapeze artiste, part of a family act, the "Flying Mantalinis". To cut the story short,' there was pain in Tod's voice as if the telling hurt still, 'I saw a lot of Maria. We fell in love, Her family weren't pleased, because it broke up the act. But we married, came back to this country and, a year later, Melanie was born.'
'Did . . . did Maria die in childbirth?' Gina asked gently.
'It might have been better if she had. At least that would have been one of life's natural hazards, an act of God. Then the Mantalinis might not have blamed me for her death.' They were travelling faster now, almost as if Tod sought to escape from the horrors of the past. 'Maria had been brought up to circus life. Danger was the breath of life to her. Without her family, she could no longer do trapeze work, so she pestered me to let her become one of my stuntwomen.'
'And did you let her?'
'Not at first. I wanted to keep her apart from my work. I wanted her to be my wife, Melanie's mother, to grace my home.'
His words held bitter memories for Gina, too, carrying as they did a recollection of Keith's feelings on the same subject.
'But performing was in her blood. She needed excitement, challenge. Finally I let her have her way, and lived to regret it. She was killed,' he concluded bluntly, 'performing aerobatics, as you might have been yesterday!'
Oh no! No wonder he had been so furious, so shaken. During her thoughtless stunting, he had been reliving his wife's death, expecting to see a re-enactment of the tragedy that had killed her. In his anger, in his relief, had it been Maria that he had taken in his arms? Had he wanted to make believe, just for a few moments, that it was his wife who had survived?
'But where do the Mantalinis come into this? Why the vendetta?'
'They blamed me, of course,' he said impatiently, 'for allowing Maria to fly.'
'But it was her idea!'
'In Italy,' Tod's tone was heavy, 'the women obey their fathers, their brothers and finally their husbands. Old Mantalini contends that I was no fit husband for his daughter and therefore no fit father for his granddaughter.'
'I think that's most unfair,' Gina said hotly. 'He let Maria risk her life on the trapeze.'
Tod shook his dark head sadly.
'There was little danger for Maria. Oh, some, I grant you. But surrounded by her father and six brothers, who wouldn't have seen one hair of her head harmed ...? But I, her husband, let her go up, alone, in an aeroplane. There's no safety net to catch you when you fall from the sky.'
'And Melanie? The bodyguards?' Horror widened Gina's beautiful eyes. 'Surely Mantalini wouldn't ...? Oh he couldn't? Not a child?'
'He doesn't plan to kill her. She's his grandchild, after all. No, he wants her with him. Twice he's very nearly succeeded in snatching her, hence the precautions.'
'And what about you?' Gina's voice rose a nervous octave. 'Would ... would he try to kill you?' How could Tod continue to move about the world as he did, knowing that at any moment he might be struck down by an assassin's knife, or by gunshot? It was in that moment of fear for him that Gina knew she loved Tod Fallon, and the shock of realisation was so great that it was only dimly she heard him say,
'No. Mantalini's no killer. His thugs only carry weapons to frighten. But he does want his revenge, and it would seem a fitting one to him to take away my daughter, as I deprived him of* his.'
'But you can't keep Melanie locked up forever!' Gina protested, as Tod braked, skilfully easing the large car into a narrow turning. 'What sort of life would that be for a little girl? And what about when she grows up?'
'Mantalini can't live for ever. He's an old man now, and I hope, when he goes, his sons will drop the vendetta. I don't think they have the same heart for it.'
The road had brought them to some riding stables, a long, pristinely white house, flanked by outbuildings and a larger building which Tod told Gina was the indoor arena. 'Theresa had it built so she can give riding lessons all year round.'
As they got out of the car, Gina reflected ruefully that she need not have accepted Greg's offer of a date since, unexpectedly, Tod had provided her with all the answers to her questions. Still, she couldn't back out now. But she must make it clear to Greg that it was only a friendly, social occasion, that she wanted no complications, no involvements.
Because of that moment in the car, a moment of mingled fear and revelation, she found herself looking at Tod with new eyes as he strode across the stableyard towards the owner's office. She could have described him in detail with her eyes closed, so familiar had that splendid physique become, topped by the dark hair with its distinguished scattering of grey. Even though his back was towards her, his features were indelibly printed on her inner eye, the heavy brows spanning dark eyes, the forthright nose and assertive chin; and this, she marvelled, was the man with whom she had fallen in love.
'Gina! Get a move on!' His impatient voice recalled her wandering wits to the present and to the lowering remembrance that he was not interested in her, other than as a commodity. The morning's discoveries had explained a lot. She had been right in fancying that another woman lay between her and Tod; but the woman was his dead wife. Tod was still in love with Maria.
Theresa, who owned the stables, was a petite, energetic blonde. Her admiration for Tod was patently obvious, his manner towards her companionably affectionate, and G
ina felt a stab of envy. How long had he known Theresa? The blonde girl had an advantage that Gina did not. She lived not too far away from Tod's home and it was obvious that their business arrangement brought them together quite often. Gina sighed. She had hoped that never again would she experience the jealousy syndrome. Now she knew she would resent any woman who came within Tod's orbit.
Twenty minutes later, elbows, knees, shoulders and hips heavily padded, she had something else to occupy her mind; she was finding out just what Tod had meant when he'd said that flying an aeroplane was nothing when it came to the risks and discomforts of horse stunting.
Over and over again she must practise falling to the sawdust of the indoor arena, learning just how to part company with the horse and turn in the air to get into the correct position. The aim was to fall backwards and sideways so that the first impact with the ground was with forearm and heel; thus she would finish in a face down position.
'You won't just be falling off willy-nilly, anywhere you like,' Tod explained, during a rest break. 'You'll be given a set spot and moment in which to do it. So you'll need to know the disposition of every camera, how much of the frame you and the horse are filling, the whereabouts of other actors and props.'
By the end of that morning's session, despite the heavy padding, Gina felt that every bone in her body was jarred, that every inch of flesh was bruised.
'Still want to be a stunt girl?' Tod asked, as Gina eased herself gingerly into his car.
She leant back against the silver grey upholstery, her answer, though positive, coming out on a weary sigh.
'Yes!'
'You see now why it requires a high standard of general fitness?'
'You can say that again!' It was a sardonic riposte, but Tod chose to take it seriously.
'I do say it again, and again. It's a subject in which your only tools are experience and more experience. The knowhow can only be handed down from a trained stuntman to the novice, either by word of mouth, or by demonstration.'
And Tod had used both methods, Gina thought, almost asleep with fatigue. He'd bellowed instructions at her from the side of the ring, making her repeat the actions over and over again, until she was bone weary and almost on the point of rebellion. But he had also proved that he was capable of practising what he preached. Several times he had taken over her patient mount and shown her, by example, what he wanted. Yet he seemed totally untroubled by the numerous aches and pains that beset her. He must be fantastically fit.
As the iron gates closed them in once more, Tod glanced at her, noting her drawn face and closed eyes.
'Straight into a hot bath, the moment you get in,' he advised. 'This afternoon, we'll have a session in the swimming-pool.'
As she climbed the stairs to her room, Gina emitted the groans she had not allowed to escape her in front of Tod. The man was superhuman, or inhuman as she'd told him yesterday. Did he honestly expect her to have the strength to go on working on top of this morning's gruelling session?
The bath however did a lot to alleviate her discomfort and she was in a reasonably philosophical mood as she went down to lunch. Maybe swimming wouldn't be such a bad idea after all. It might complete the loosening up process.
Like breakfast, lunch in Tod's home was an informal, staggered meal, everyone eating of the cold collation as and when they had the time or the inclination, so that Gina was not surprised to find the dining-room empty, except for one person.
Standing with her back to the room, looking out of the window, the tall girl looked familiar, with her long fall of red hair and her statuesque height, and when, at the sound of Gina's heels in the parquet floor, the other swung around, Gina gave a gasp of recognition. But the surprise was mutual.
'What the hell are you doing here, Gina?' Then, with shrill fury, 'The fool! The bloody fool! I told him not to ... But he just had to be right, as usual ... And of course you wouldn't take much talking into it. You wouldn't be able to resist...'
Now Gina was able to speak, voicing her own shocked, bewildered surprise.
'Marcha! Why are you here?'
CHAPTER SIX
After the break-up of Gina's marriage she'd thrown herself even more into her agency work, and through the agency had renewed her acquaintance with a distant cousin, whom she hadn't seen since childhood.
At that time, Marcha Durrant was a relative newcomer to the world of television, and a new programme had been conceived for her, a programme that would aim at gratifying people's private fantasies. Her producer had heard of the GD Agency and had suggested that she contact Gina, as the expert, for some ideas and advice.
'But I never dreamt it would be you!'
Marcha had wanted to talk about herself and her ambitions. It seemed that, as a relation, however distant, she expected Gina to help further her career. It was only some time later that Gina had been able to touch on her own life, to mention her marriage, its outcome, and that she had reverted to her maiden name. Even then Marcha's interest had been cursory, falsely sympathetic. Her manner implied that she, Marcha, would never have allowed her personal relationships to get into such a mess, nor would any man ever be permitted to thwart her will.
So, in the beginning, it had not been Gina who had worn the mask of Fantasy Woman, but Marcha. Despite the older girl's assiduous cultivation of her, Gina had not been deceived; she knew her cousin was working only towards her own ends and, as in childhood, she was unable to like or trust Marcha. Filled with a sense of her own importance at having a show of her own, Marcha displayed an unsympathetic, almost brusque manner towards her guests, especially when they failed abysmally at things they professed themselves eager to do; and while Gina, in the background, genuinely worried over the safety of others, Marcha had no reservations about the quite dangerous stunts ordinary people had, at first, been allowed to attempt.
'If the fools want to break their silly necks, why should I care?' was her standard retort, when, at planning meetings, Gina had essayed a protest. Gina had been right to fear that some day there would be a dreadful accident, but it was no consolation to her that the format of the show was moderated only after such an event had taken place.
When Marcha suddenly decided to abandon her television career for one in films, Gina had been startled, though flattered, when Jimmy Riley had offered her the vacant role.
'I've no experience of working in television.' Despite the irresistible temptation of a new challenge, she had felt impelled to be honest.
'All the better,' the producer had retorted, 'we can train you the way we want you to go. Besides, you've been adviser to the series for the past six months; you have some idea of what goes on; and you and Marcha are physically so alike that, with that mask on, no one will ever know there's been a change over.'
So, once more, she had put her advisory service into the capable hands of her deputy and, not without some trepidation, had assumed her new role. Despite the fatigue she often felt, she enjoyed the travelling to various locations, provided they were not abroad, revelled in the stir her arrival always caused.
Nevertheless, her strong streak of common sense had not allowed her coppery head to be turned. She knew that, like anyone in the public eye, she was constantly on trial, that she could not, for one instant, afford to relax from her public image; and she worked conscientiously at putting herself across, liking people, wanting them to like her. It wasn't vanity, but part of the job; and it was not vanity which told her that the production team preferred her to Marcha. Gina was friendly with everyone, unpretentious, grateful for help and advice. She never played the 'star'.
'You mean you didn't know I'd be here?' Marcha sounded haughtily disbelieving.
'I had no idea,' Gina admitted to her cousin; and, to herself, that if she had known, she might not have been so ready to agree to Tod's proposition. She wasn't sure she relished having to work with Marcha again, if that was why the other girl was here. She couldn't forget her cousin's callous indifference, when ...
'I can't
think why Tod didn't tell you.' Marcha's eyes narrowed speculatively. 'Since it was his idea that you should train as my double.'
'As ... as your double?' Gina's unease increased.
'Yes!' The other girl continued impatiently. 'What did you think this was in aid of? Some wretched secretary of his watches your programme every week, noticed this family likeness of ours. I needed a stand-in and she had to go and suggest you. I don't need to tell you I objected ... strongly.'
'Marcha! I haven't the least-idea what you're talking about.'
'You have, I presume, spent your time here training as a stuntwoman?' And, as Gina nodded, 'Filming is an expensive business. If a leading player falls ill, it holds up the work of hundreds of people, adds enormously to the cost. Illness can't be helped, but injury can, by employing a double to do the stuntwork.'
'I'm well aware of the function of doubles,' Gina returned. 'But just what are you trying to tell me?'
'That you're my stand-in, of course. Much as I would have loved to do everything myself…'
'You?' Gina said ironically. 'Pull the other one! You're the world's worst coward. It's like you to want a stand-in. You don't care just how much other people are injured do you, Marcha? Young, innocent people, like...'
'Shut up! Shut up!' her cousin shouted furiously. 'Don't you dare to mention that incident here. Tod knows nothing about it. I don't want you here, Gina, and I shall tell Tod so. He'll have to get rid of you if he wants to keep me.'
Dismay mingled with the growth of Gina's inward anger. Tod had never actually said anything—oh; he'd been too clever for that—but he had allowed her to gain the impression that she was to star in his film.
'Of course there are other reasons, besides monetary ones, why Tod wants to protect me,' Marcha broke in on her cousin's thoughts. 'He couldn't bear to have me hurt. His first wife was killed performing a stunt.'
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