“Kate, whatever life did to you in the past, we all have to go on,” she heard Luke say quietly now. “Don’t waste your future by looking back on what can’t be changed.”
“You’re right,” she said in a muffled voice. And oh, it was so tempting at that moment to tell him everything, but he was too decent a man to hear the sordid details of her encounter with Walter Radcliffe, and she couldn’t bear to see the derision in his eyes. Besides which, there were some things she could never tell anyone. So the moment passed.
Since Kate was now officially hired by Luke for the week, she alternated in sitting for him, and having her first taste of acting as his receptionist for the elegant clients or the homely family groups who came to the studio. She preferred the latter, but people were all the same beneath the trappings, as she remembered Luke once telling her.
She was amazed to find how easily it all came to her and she was able to carry off this new role with admirable efficiency. There was no doubt that the clients, especially the more nervous and less wealthy ones, were reassured by her soft Somerset accent and manner.
“Kate, you’re the best asset ever to have come my way,” Luke declared on Thursday afternoon when the last clients of the week had gone. “My last receptionist was a bit of a dragon, and she frightened half the clients away before they even stepped into the studio. But you have the opposite effect, and I’d be a fool to lose you.”
“So what are you saying?” she asked, not too sure.
“I’m offering you the job, my sweet girl, and whatever aspirations you had in other directions, I’d be honoured and happy if you would accept.”
Kate gulped. “You mean you want me to always work here, giving customers cups of tea and chatting to them, and then I’d be able to watch the pictures coming to life in the darkroom – and all that?”
“And all that,” Luke said with a smile. “So what do you say? Your photographs in the showroom window would attract plenty of takers, and when they came in with their enquiries and saw this vision of loveliness inside, actually in the flesh, so to speak, we’d be well set up.”
“For pity’s sake, Luke, stop it!” Kate said, scarlet-faced. “You’re embarrassing me now.”
But she could also see that for all his flattery, he was being very much the astute businessman and that he considered she was going to do his business nothing but good. It reassured her, yet in a funny way it disappointed her too. She quickly turned her thoughts away from that, as he seized hold of her hands.
“So do we have a deal, babe?” he said, speaking in the pseudo-American twang he’d picked up from his army days, which always made her laugh.
“I’ll have to think about it,” she said slowly.
But although she hedged, her spirits were lifting by the second. He was setting her free in more ways than one. She wouldn’t have to work in another sweatshop under the gimlet eyes of some other supervisor in Jenkins’ mould. Skilled as she was with her needle, she could buy her own fabrics and sew her own garments to her heart’s content and in her own time. It was a heady feeling, and she owed it all to Luke, and the look of pleasure and gratitude she gave him then was enough to make his heart turn over.
“Come on, we’ve had enough for one day,” he said briskly. “It’s time I took you home.”
Her spirits lifted even more. Home was Jubilee Terrace now, and she was beginning to feel like a real city girl at last. As yet she hadn’t written to her family, but now that she was settled in a home and a job, she felt she could hold her head high as she did so.
Something else had been simmering in her mind for the last day or so. To be a real city girl, she really should have her hair cut, even though the thought of it made her quail a little. But Doris and Faye’s smart city bobs were so sophisticated, and as she wanted to be like them, just a little, Kate yearned to have the same look. She mentioned it in the car on the way back to Mrs Wood’s.
“I can understand it,” Luke said. “Though if ever a woman’s hair was her crowning glory, yours is, Kate. Don’t be too hasty in having it cropped. But why not compromise and pin it up for some shots tomorrow, and see how you like it?”
“That’s a wonderful idea,” she said, glowing. And Luke wished he could always make her glow like that, and not just for having had a sensible idea.
On Friday Kate carefully arranged folds of tissue paper over the lovely chiffon frock with the chic handkerchief points at the hem, then placed it in a carrying bag. She adored its shimmering hues of cream and gold, and she planned to wear it exactly as she had done on that first night in Bournemouth, with a gold bangle on her arm, and a wisp of chiffon tucked inside it.
Her heartbeats quickened, realising that she no longer thought about the special reason for making that frock, but only that it had made her special in Luke Halliday’s eyes. It had turned out not to be a honeymoon frock, but one that marked a turning point in her life, if only because it had given her the confidence she had so badly needed at that time. But she knew she was only fooling herself in thinking that was the only reason she loved it.
She had spent the morning absorbing the atmosphere in the busy local streets and enjoying the freedom, while Luke had been developing and printing some of the week’s work at the studio. As she slid inside his Bentley that afternoon, she wondered where all the honesty that she had valued so much in her life, had really gone. She gave an involuntary shiver, and Luke glanced at her.
“Let me guess. You’re having second thoughts about having your hair cropped in a new style. It’s not compulsory, Kate, and in many ways it would be a crying shame to cut off that lovely hair. Have you practised pinning it up to see the effect as I suggested?”
She stared at him blankly, her thoughts a million miles away from his at that moment. Then she shook her head.
“I’ll pin it up when the time comes. But I’d like to see a picture or two with it both ways, if that makes any sense,” she finished.
“I’ll take as many shots as you like,” he said with a smile. “Don’t you know by now that you’re my favourite model?”
The word sounded glamorous and slightly risqué, but she had complete faith in his professionalism. She was more relaxed in the poses he suggested for her, none of which could be construed as in the least suggestive.
“Put one hand behind your head, holding your hair away from your neck, Kate,” he instructed a while later. She did as she was bid, while he looked approvingly at the swan-like sweep of her throat that the gesture revealed.
He took several shots, and was re-adjusting his camera filters when they heard the persistent ring of the showroom doorbell. Luke uttered a small curse at being interrupted, but before Kate could move, he told her to hold the pose while he told the callers he was closed for the afternoon.
Kate shut her eyes, leaning back against the softness of the sofa for a moment, her hand still holding up her hair provocatively. For this particular pose, she was half-reclining on the sofa, and there was soft music playing in the background on the phonograph. If Luke took any time at all in turning away the callers, she thought she could quite easily have fallen asleep.
The next second she was suddenly, blisteringly awake, as the familiar sound of her father’s voice came roaring into the peaceful atmosphere of the studio. Her heart raced, but before she could move a muscle, Brogan had come storming through the bead curtains, followed by Donal, both of them glowering down at her, puce in the face.
“So this is what you’ve come to, is it, my girl?” her father bellowed. “Showing yourself off half-dressed for all and sundry to ogle you. As if it wasn’t enough to let yourself be taken in by that bastard Radcliffe—”
“Dada, please,” Kate said faintly, seeing the shock and fury on Luke’s face. He tried to remonstrate with her father, but was rudely brushed aside in a loutish manner. In seconds, Kate was utterly humiliated, all her fragile confidence gone.
Whatever must Luke think of her and her family now? Displaying such boorish behaviour
in this select part of town, with the two men looking so countrified and out of place in the city, in their ill-fitting clothes and boots. Kate was ashamed of herself for thinking that way, yet half of her shame was in their defence, knowing that their actions stemmed from misplaced love.
“Get yourself dressed decently, girl,” Brogan continued to roar. “You’re coming home with us this minute.”
“Do as he says, Kate,” Donal snapped. “We’ve not come all this way for nothing.”
Kate felt her hackles rise. Luke stood silently by with his arms folded tightly across his chest. She could see that he was seething, and she knew from the whiteness of his clenched hands that he’d dearly like to punch the pair of them. And so would she. Her temper flared.
“That’s exactly what you have done, then,” she snapped back. “I’m not coming back with you, not today and maybe not ever. I’ve made my choice and I’m staying here.”
“You young whippersnapper,” her father yelled. “Do you dare to defy me? Do you know what heartache you’ve caused your mother this past week? Get off that sofa and get yourself properly dressed, and do it now!”
Kate stood up swiftly, as tense as a spring. Whatever coolness she still possessed, simply vanished.
“Don’t try to blackmail me with worrying about my mother, Dada! She’s a woman, and she’ll understand my need to get away better than you ever will,” she screamed. “Don’t you dare talk to me about heartache! You should know how much of that I suffered when I discovered Walter already had a wife when he’d promised to marry me!”
The minute she had spoken, she clapped her hands over her mouth, and almost at once felt the sting of tears. She had ruined everything now. Luke would be aware of all her shame and the reason she had been at the Charlton Hotel, posing as a widow or however the genteel clientele there had seen her. And here she was, shouting like a fishwife at these two oafs who couldn’t help meddling in her business.
She felt someone’s arms around her, and she knew it wasn’t either of her menfolk. Dear Lord, but this would only be making things worse, she thought frantically, as she felt herself pressed against Luke’s comforting chest. Now they would surely believe she had come here to be this man’s lover.
“I think it’s time we all sat down and talked things over calmly,” Luke said, his educated voice taking command, and momentarily stopping the Sullivan men in their tracks.
“We ain’t come all this way to sit and talk over the teacups.” Brogan growled.
“I wasn’t actually offering tea, although if my receptionist and assistant would care to make us all some, I’m sure it would be very welcome,” Luke went on pointedly.
Kate nodded, moving out of his arms to go silently towards the tiny kitchen at the rear of the studio. She couldn’t bear to look at Luke as she went, but she was aware of the astonished faces of her father and brother, and knew they could never have expected to hear their Kate referred to in such terms.
She put the kettle on the gas with shaking hands and prepared the tray, praying that her father wouldn’t be tempted to stick out his little finger alongside the narrow porcelain teacup handle, or even worse, to slurp from the saucer.
She realised with a small shock that in so short a time she had moved on and moved away from them. It was sad and yet inevitable after Walter’s betrayal.
When the kettle boiled, she poured the water into the teapot with her hands still shaking, spilling it over her fingers and hardly noticing it. She could hear the raised voices from the studio more clearly now.
“The girl’s been brought up to be respectable,” Brogan was shouting. “I’ll not have a daughter of mine wandering the streets of London and doing God knows what—”
“She’s hardly wandering the streets, man,” Luke snapped. “She has respectable lodgings with an old friend of my family, and a job here for as long as she wants it. If you doubt my credentials, I’ll introduce you to Mrs Wood at Jubilee Terrace, which is where Kate lodges, or I can get a reference for you from the Charlton Hotel in Bournemouth, or from one of my titled clients, if you wish.”
There was no doubting the sarcasm in his voice now, and there was a brief silence from the Sullivans as this information sunk in. As if a man of Luke Halliday’s stature would need references for the likes of these two … but at the inference, Kate’s fierce family loyalty surged to the surface. She pushed through the bead curtain with the tea tray. They looked at her in some relief as she put the tray on a side table, not knowing how to deal with this situation.
“Can you all please stop arguing for the moment and drink your tea?” Kate said in a high-pitched voice. She looked directly at Luke. “I’ll change my clothes and then perhaps we can all go back to Mrs Wood’s. I’d like Dada – my father – and Donal to meet her.”
She glared at Brogan now, and for once he seemed uneasily subdued as this newly confident young woman poured out three cups of tea and handed them to the men. Then she swept out of the studio to the elegant changing room kept especially for Luke’s clientele. She avoided looking at herself in the mirror after the first glimpse of her white face and tortured eyes. Five minutes later, wearing her day frock, she folded the shimmering chiffon and put it away.
Mrs Wood was spending the afternoon baking. Her hands were immersed in flour up to the elbows as she joyously pummelled the dough. All her lodgers had their own keys, so she didn’t bother to look up as she heard the front door open and shut. But then the kitchen door opened, and Kate Sullivan’s pale face peered around it.
“Mercy me, but you gave me a fright, my duck. I thought you’d be gone for the rest of the day.”
She registered the pallor of Kate’s face properly and paused in her pummelling. “Has my Lukey been working you too hard already?”
“Mrs Wood, my father and brother are here to meet you,” Kate said in a strangled voice. “Luke’s here too, and if you could come into the sitting room for a minute or two—”
Normally, Mrs Wood would have told her the visitors could wait but the baking couldn’t, but this was different This looked serious. She nodded and wiped her floury hands and arms on a cloth before joining the foursome in the sitting room. And what a motley foursome they were, she thought.
There was Luke, decidedly grimmer than usual; Kate looking as if she was about to burst into tears at any minute; and two rough-looking men, as out of place as a plate of jellied eels at the Lord Mayor’s banquet.
“So these are your folks, are they, Kate?” said Mrs Wood, as nobody seemed inclined to speak first. “It’s nice to meet you both, I’m sure.”
Brogan growled beneath his breath, while Donal muttered a short greeting, and Kate could see that they had never expected something like this. The atmosphere was so homely, with the warm smells of baking tantalising their nostrils, and Mrs Wood like anybody’s mother. If they had half expected Kate to be living in a den of vice, this certainly wasn’t it.
Luke’s mouth curved into a semblance of a smile, seeing their discomfiture. He spoke boldly now.
“Kate’s folks were afraid she’d got herself into bad company in London, so we’re just assuring them that she hasn’t, and that she’s very comfortable here.”
Mrs Wood laughed in astonishment. “Well, for pity’s sake, I should think she is. I pride myself on my establishment, and I don’t allow no ruffians here. Then, of course, I’ve got my Lukey’s patronage, which counts for a lot – almost as good as royalty.”
“Don’t overdo it, my old dear,” he said cheekily. “But I’m sure you’d allow Kate to show her folks her room.”
It would give him time to talk with Mrs Wood, and try to come to terms with the revelations he’d heard all too briefly. Kate would have to tell him about the bigamist now – if she could bear to. His heart ached with love for her, imagining what she had gone through, but this wasn’t the time for speculation, and he saw her turn to the other men.
“Come upstairs with me, Dada and Donal.”
She almost fled ou
t of the sitting room, glad for the first time to be away from Luke’s curious eyes. She could no longer hide the fact of her jilting from him now. She would have to tell him, and the shame would come surging back again, just when she thought she had been dealing with it reasonably well.
She led the way upstairs, and stood silently while the men slowly looked around the room.
“Well? Does it pass?” she said stiffly. “Whatever you may have thought, I haven’t gone to the devil, Dada, and if it hadn’t been for Luke I doubt that I would survived as well as I have. Mrs Wood’s been like a mother hen to me ever since I’ve been here.”
She was suddenly choked, thinking of the kindness she had received in London.
Donal spoke roughly, “You’ve got to understand how we felt, our Kate, finding a note like that and thinking the worst. We didn’t know what kind of person you’d got mixed up with, did we?”
“Well, now you do know. Luke’s the kindest, most gentlemanly person in the world, and he’s done nothing wrong,” she said flatly. “And whatever you say, I intend to stay.”
Brogan flared up at once. “Now, we’ll have our say on that, Katherine!”
“No you won’t. I’m going to stay in London and make a new life for myself.”
It was the first time she’d ever really stood up to him and, although she was shaking inside, she stared him out. His face reddened angrily.
“You’ll do as you’re told, girl. You’re still a child—”
“No she’s not, Dada,” Donal said slowly. “She’s gone through more painful experiences than many young women her age, but she’s been brought up to be sensible. If she’s set on staying here, maybe we should let her, for a while, anyway.”
Kate looked at him with grateful eyes. He had no idea of just how painful were the experiences Walter Radcliffe had inflicted on her. The traumatic memory of the miscarriage would never be forgotten.
She thanked God nobody knew about that but Vi, and she would never tell. If her family had known, and the whole story had come out now, she couldn’t have borne the shame of seeing Luke’s reaction.
A Different Kind of Love Page 14