by Anne Styles
Despite everything, they enjoyed the evening, merrily picking the production to pieces from three different angles before they went off to the bar at the end to meet Barry Harper. If Sarah was a little more subdued than normal, it only showed to Nick, who never took his eyes from her for a second, or his hand from-hers.
When James dropped them off at her flat she was patently nervous about going in, even with Nick's protective arm around her, and once they were in bed she gave way to shaking sobs. For the first time they slept without making love, since her body was aching and sore.
Nick found some painkillers for her and held her gently, reassuring her as best he could, knowing that if Peter went public on them, life would be very difficult. He was not happy about Charles taking her to New York, but in the circumstances he knew it had to be the best solution.
* * *
After being together every day, being apart from Nick was agony. Sarah suffered dreadfully from withdrawal symptoms during her few days in New York with Charles. Even if the City itself enthralled her, the nights were lonely and empty.
It was a huge relief to be able to phone him when Oscar called her in New York to tell her she had the commercial Nick had sent her to be auditioned for. At least it was a valid excuse to call him, and to her relief he seemed delighted to speak to her. The agency had acquiesced to his demands, and they often didn't.
'We'll get a few days in Portugal out of it anyway,' he told her. 'Even if half the agency come with us, plus I've booked us a few days after we finish here. There's a lovely hotel near Monte Carlo. We'll go straight down there after the shoot finishes. You'll love it, and I can introduce you to Seth Waterston - he'll be at his villa in Cap Ferrat.'
'You mean you can't let Charlie get away with taking me to New York!' she teased, thrilled at the idea of a holiday alone with him.
'Something like that!' He laughed. 'This could prove ruinous for us both!' Then his tone changed. Diana had obviously come in, for he became almost brusque.
* * *
For once Nick found life with Diana really difficult. Normally, after three months away, he would have been happy to see her, but it took days to adjust to her again as it never had before. Though they were far from close, they were friends, and they understood each other incredibly well, but their first night together was disastrous, and they ended up at the far sides of the bed, not speaking.
Diana found him cold and preoccupied, even more than was usual at the end of a long shoot. She tried to make allowances, but the more patient she was, the more annoyed with her he became. Finally they had a cataclysmic row about nothing in particular, until Nick's conscience got the better of him and he made an enormous and finally successful effort to repair the damage. He could never bear to hear Diana cry, and, knowing it, she employed her tears to great effect.
Late into the night he tossed around the bed and struggled wildly with his chaotic feelings. Oh, God! he thought to himself in despair, as dawn finally began to filter through the room. What on earth am I going to do?
CHAPTER 13
Sarah and Charles got back into London from New York at around seven in the evening, leaving Sarah with very little time to repack her suitcases for France, and to respond to her mail. A note from Peter was thrown in the bin after a quick scan. That was well and truly over, she told herself, still, at least he was apologizing, which was something. But a note from Oscar quickly had her on the phone to him in excitement.
'Great news!' Oscar exclaimed. 'I've got several offers for you, and that perfume commercial is going to be real big bucks with the repeats. I'll bike over some scripts to you, but I must have some answers quickly. You're in demand Miss Campbell! I think you'll be working every day till Christmas!'
'I'll read them in the car tomorrow on the way to Cambrai and ring you then,' she promised.
'The other thing is,' Oscar added, 'I had a call from the National. Barry Harper is asking about you.'
'So quickly! He's doing Romeo and Juliet. I met him a couple of weeks ago.'
'So I hear. Well, he's interested - though I'm not so sure it's a good idea to commit yourself to that just now.'
'Oscar, whatever else I do, I want to do Juliet. Don't you dare turn it down!' Sarah stormed at him. 'I don't care if the whole of Hollywood rings!'
'Lousy money,' he moaned. 'And what's with this ordering me around suddenly?'
'To hell with your commission. I'd do it for nothing and don't you forget it!'
'I'll never get my swimming pool paid for at this rate,' complained Oscar, laughing. 'OK Miss Actress, culture will win.'
'Cheer up, Oscar, Nick's taking me to see Seth Waterston in a couple of week's time.'
'Well, bully for Nicholas. He does a lot of work with Seth.'
'I promise to charm the pants off him, then. Goodnight, Oscar.' She had hoped that Nick would ring her, but instead Cress rang from London.
'Nick is babysitting James,' she laughed. 'I came over to get some extra costumes, and I'm coming back with you in the morning.' So much for reading scripts in the car, thought Sarah happily, and, finally finding a letter from Nick in the pile, she went off to bed hugging it to her.
She was thrilled to see Cress again, and fell back into the gossip of the film as the Mercedes sped towards Dover and the ferry. 'Nick's been really dreadful!' Cress confided. 'But you should hear him, Sarah. He yells in three languages: English to us, French to the extras and German to the new operator - and he swears in all of them. I'd forgotten how good his languages were.'
'What happened to Derek?'
'He fell off the crane the second day out and broke his leg.' Cress grinned. 'He'd got very pissed the night before. Lenny got someone in Paris to fill in and he turned out to speak French and German but very little English.'
'How was Diana?' Sarah asked, curiously.
'Hardly saw her,' Cress admitted. 'They were in a different hotel to us. Nick moved over to stay at ours on Thursday, after she went back. We're scattered all over the place, but there's only you and Nick and James and I at the Chateau Honore, and it's lovely!' With her usual forethought and efficiency. Cress had provided a picnic meal so that they didn't need to stop at a restaurant to eat. 'Takes too long to lunch in France,' she declared. 'And I, for one, am anxious to get back.'
'I wonder why?' Sarah teased, but she too was anxious to get to Cambrai. 'I think that means get your foot down, Bill,' she added to their driver.
He took them at their word and certainly moved faster after lunch. By four o'clock they were a few minutes from the hotel, and Cress phoned ahead to let them know, learning into the back to wake Sarah as she did so. Jet-lag had caught up with her. She was sound sleep with the scripts unread in her lap, knocked out by the heat.
Laughing and stretching, the two girls climbed out of the car as Nick, wearing shorts, came down the steps to great them. With a shriek of joy, Sarah threw herself at him, and Nick swooped her up with a kiss that, as Cress commented afterwards to James, made her almost need oxygen by the end of it. Their pleasure at being reunited was obvious, even to the cynical Bill, who was privy to a great many of Nick's secrets.
'I'll take these. Bill.' Nick picked up Sarah's bags. 'You look after Cressida.'
'Where's James?' Cress demanded as they went into the stone-floored hallway.
'Topping up his tan by the pool, I think.' Nick grinned. 'And being chatted up, no doubt!'
'What changes?' Cress sighed.
'I'll have you know, madam, that even with extreme provocation he stayed firmly on the straight and narrow last night - away from some very pretty ladies. Both Alex and I will back him on that! We all had hangovers to prove it this morning!'
'Well, I'd better go and give praise where it's due, see you later you two.'
'We'll try!' Nick led Sarah up to her room, having already collected her key.
It was a really pretty room. Sarah ran round it exploring, exclaiming at the sloping ceilings and antique furniture before turning back into Nick's arms to be kisse
d.
I've missed you so much,' he confessed. 'Even more than I thought I would.' Laughing as she hugged him, she tried to stop him unfastening her dress.
'Can't I have a shower first?' she asked. Tm really hot and sticky!'
'No! You'll be even hotter and stickier in a minute!' he told her, and tumbled her back onto the bed. 'I certainly can't wait for you to shower.' The memory of her own frustration during the last two weeks came back to her, and she undressed herself, displaying her body eagerly, wrapping herself round him in her need to be close to him.
He took her with a force that astonished her, holding her wrists above her head - then apologized afterwards.
'That was sheer lust, I'm afraid. I'm sorry,' he said softly, untangling her hair. 'I promise next time will be better.' She didn't care. It proved to her that he wanted her, and her own desperation was almost as strong.
They showered together eventually, and went down to meet James and Cress in the bar, their glowing faces betraying them completely. James teased Sarah as usual, but casually included Nick in the banter now.
Both he and Cress accepted Nick's open affection for Sarah, and they all forgot his true status in the newly relaxed atmosphere. The weather was scorching - well into the nineties every day and half the night. The crew worked clad only in shorts, and even Nick gave up wearing a shirt, and his skin turned an enviable mahogany as the days went by. Sarah suffered dreadfully in her heavy nurse's uniform, cursing Cress for insisting that she wore all the correct number of petticoats under it, and a corset. James too suffered, in his Army doctor's khaki, even though he looked unbelievably handsome in it. All the girls playing nurses were crazy about him, provoking endless jokes at their expense from his wicked tongue.
En masse they hated Sarah - for her often steamy scenes with him, and the now well gossiped about affair with their director. There was little privacy for some of the love scenes now, as James and Sarah were for the most part fully clothed, and no one saw any need to ban others from the set. They were well in tune with each other, and, despite the camera seeming always to be in tight close-up, they found the scenes relatively easy while they were working on them. It was the vicious remarks afterwards from the other actresses that were harder to bear from Sarah's point of view.
Bewildered, and unused to such treatment, she retreated more and more during the breaks to the Winnebago.
The much enlarged crew were too scattered around the massive chateau masquerading as a hospital to be much help to her, and Cress and Patti also had bigger teams to control, and were worked off their feet most of the time.
Patti had two cheerful special effects make-up artists to churn out endless disgusting-looking damaged limbs, and several other personnel. Joanna and Adam had been supplemented by a dozen or so other dressers - some English, some French. Cress battled, as Jenny did, in the two languages, they were both envious of Nick's fluency.
The old crew were scathing about his wife's visit, and delighted to have Sarah back with them. 'At least he's bearable when you're around!' Lenny told her a few days after she arrived.
'He's too knackered to yell much now,' Alex laughed. 'Keep him at it, Sarah!'
'You keep your grubby minds to yourselves!' retorted Sarah cheerfully. 'Anyway, he has a hell of a lot to cope with here - he's entitled to yell a bit.'
'Let's hope he stays calm when you and James are rolling around in that stable tonight, though,' Lenny rejoined wickedly. 'What a way to earn overtime!'
'We don't get overtime,' Sarah reminded him. 'And you should be paying us, you dirty old man!' Nick had decided to shoot their final short love scene at night, because of the heat, and he and Lenny were going to shoot it themselves and dispense with the rest of the crew except for a sound man, since the stable set was so small, and even the dim lighting would make it unbearably hot. Sarah was surprisingly easygoing about it, shrugging it off without a murmur.
'It won't take very long,' Nick had assured her. 'I shan't even bother to rehearse much. We'll just shoot as the script and cut it afterwards. I'm sure you two can turn up something convincing.'
James was amazed at the difference in Sarah that evening. She went willingly into the scene, and, since Cress stayed out of the set, she was totally uninhibited in her actions. This time it was Sarah who was gaily winding James up, and making Lenny sweat even more. 'Beats wearing that costume,' she giggled, pulling straw out of James's hair as they paused for a few minutes. 'Where are we eating tonight. Nick?' she asked. 'I'm starving.' The other three couldn't understand why Nick roared with laughter. 'Honestly, I'm just hungry!' she said wickedly.
'Then you'd better get your act together, James,' Nick told him.
'Talk about screw to order!' James grumbled, rolling Sarah over and making her squeal as her bare back hit the scratchy straw instead of the rug they were lying on.
Nick knew they were working well together, and so confident was he of his hold on Sarah that he found he didn't mind at all this time. He included Lenny and Dave in the invitation to dinner afterwards, and it was a fairly lively evening in a noisy restaurant. Inevitably the conversation turned to their next projects, since they had less than a week to go, and the next job was always foremost in any of their freelance lives.
James was going straight to Pinewood for a month, on a new spy thriller, and then into another costume drama.
'So I'll be able to keep milady in style for a bit - until the Inland Revenue catch up with me!' he commented, smiling at Cress.
She laughed. 'With all your expenses, I think I'll be safer working!' she retorted. 'Even if Tamzin is supposed to be getting married again!' Tamzin had been a drain on James's resources for some time, as Sarah had suspected.
'And I'm going to play a Barbara Bentley heroine!' grinned Sarah. 'Imagine, I get to keep all my clothes on!'
'And one chaste kiss at the end?' joked James. 'I bet Nick chose that script!' Lenny was booked for their Portuguese perfume commercial shoot, as was Ronnie. Nick always tried to use the same people, and rarely worked with new technicians if he could help it. NGA helped in that department, since he could always offer work in between films to his favourite staff. He would be editing and tied up with this film for weeks ahead, but his next project was well on in development too, hence the trip to Monte Carlo to see Seth Waterston.
With weeks ahead of being back with Nick, Sarah was content with life, only the animosity on the set spoiled things for her as the days passed. The other girls' taunts grew worse as the time passed, and she began to dread going to work. Protected in the past by the nature of her work, she was not used to that kind of treatment, and she took it to heart far more than others might have in her situation. James tried to protect her, but if anything he made it worse. Cress was furious, and took Sarah to task over it.
'Stick up for yourself,' she told her firmly. 'Give Helena a taste of her own medicine, or tell Nick.'
'Shut up, Cressida. It's nothing to do with him. Helena is sniping at me over James as much as Nick.'
'Then I will sort out Miss Stafford, never fear!' Cress retorted. 'But if you're too scared of Nick to tell him I'm surprised at you!'
'I'm not scared. I'm just not telling him.' Sarah was determined, and she stuck it out to the bitter end.
Her relief was obvious as Nick drove away from Cambrai, on their way south. Only then did she tell him.
He didn't seem at all surprised.
'It's a very thin line you're treading by sleeping with me,' he told her. 'You'll just have to get used to it, I'm afraid. I can help you, and I will, because I believe you're worth it, but there will always be those who'll hate you for it.' Privately, he knew that Helena would suffer in the cutting room, but he didn't tell Sarah that. He wanted to put the film behind them. They were both exhausted, and desperate for the five days ahead of them with nothing to do except please themselves. He had schemed very hard to get them.
'Have you been to this hotel before?' Sarah asked tentatively as they drove into Beaul
ieu the next day.
'La Reserve? Not with Diana, if that's what you mean.' He laughed. 'I came once, with my mother after my father died, and I sometimes come on my own after a film, or to work, so you're quite safe from my memories!' Beaulieu was a small, pretty town clustered around its harbour filled with expensive boats, their lines clacking against the metal masts in the breeze. The hotel, long and low above its rocky beach, was beautiful in the afternoon sun, with its flowers, and balconied towers overlooking a sea as blue as the cloudless sky.
She didn't notice how Nick had signed the register until the receptionist called her Madame Grey and she laughed with amusement - and not a little regret - as they followed the porter up to their room. Nick too was amused. 'But I hope the Unicorn are not camped out in the next room!' Sarah told him.
'At these prices!' Nick raised his eyebrows. 'Why do you think I chose this place?' Where the chateau had been crumbly and quaint. La Reserve was elegant and luxurious. Their balcony over- looked the sea, and the marble-floored room was beautifully furnished. Sarah was glad she had bought new clothes recently, even if Nick preferred her without them, she would need them here.
After two weeks together, night and day, they were very comfortable with each other, and to onlookers the attractive couple seemed obviously very much in love - even if they rarely spoke of it between themselves.
There was only one moment of dissent, when Sarah began putting on some emerald earrings Charles had given her in New York when they were dressing to go up to Cap Ferrat to visit Seth Waterston. At the time she had argued furiously with him, but had been obliged in the end to take them for the sake of peace.
'Those are pretty,' Nick commented idly. He was used to her wearing her mother's good jewellery, but this time he picked up one glittering piece and whistled in surprise. 'These aren't your mother's, are they? And they certainly aren't paste!'
'No,' Sarah shrugged and tried to sound casual. 'Charles gave them to me for my birthday.' 'That's not till next month.'
'It was an early present.' She took the earring from him and put it on. She could see he was annoyed and rather wished she had left them in her jewel case.