“Kate, I thought you’d never get here!”
The minute she went inside the showroom Luke grabbed hold of her and whirled her around in his arms before she could even catch her breath.
“What’s happened, for goodness’ sake? Have you come into a fortune or something?”
“Yes! Maybe. We both will, if things turn out the way I think they could.”
His excitement was as tangible as if it were a living thing. Her heart began to beat faster as she registered the familiar ambitious gleam in Luke’s eyes.
“Have you heard from one of the magazine agencies?”
It had to be that, she thought. Short of being commissioned to photograph royalty, she didn’t know what else could have got him so animated on a damp Monday morning.
“Look at this,” he said, releasing her from his embrace and pulling her towards the reception desk. All she could see was the usual stack of letters and accounts that she would be opening as soon as she had taken off her hat and coat. He hadn’t even given her time to do that yet.
“What am I looking at?” she said.
He picked up a postcard and held it under her nose. It wasn’t the usual country or seaside advertising scene with a slogan such as “Come to Weston-Super-Mare where the sun always shines”. It was the picture of a provocatively smiling girl, wearing a white fur stole over a slinky satin dress.
“Do you know her?” Kate said, wondering what this was all about, and feeling a stab of jealousy at the enthusiasm he was showing for the girl now.
“Not her, no. But the fellow who sent the postcard from New York is an old American army buddy. Knowing how keen I am on photography, he thought I’d be interested in what he calls this pin-up photo card. He tells me they’re becoming all the rage in America.”
“And I suppose you can see the potential for this over here! I don’t know about that. It’s rather daring, isn’t it?”
He seized both her hands in his, and the light in his eyes burned into hers.
“We could be on to something that’s never been done before on this side of the Atlantic. At least, not in the way Rob says it’s taken off over there. We already have some stunning photos of you, Kate, and we could take more. Dozens more, in all sorts of poses and outfits. We’d then submit them to various printing firms to see if they’d commission a set of postcards for a trial period. We could make a killing, Kate, and you’d be the nation’s postcard sweetheart.”
He took her breath away. He had a such a quick brain, seeing the potential in a situation in a split second. But she could see the potential in it, too, though she hardly thought these so-called pin-up photo cards could ever be as popular as the more regular landscape ones. But she wasn’t sure she’d want to be so blatantly portrayed as the girl on the American card. She was a platinum blonde, and her come-hither eyes were heavily made-up. Her mouth was very full and provocative, and she gave out a message that was undeniable.
“You wouldn’t make me look like that, would you, Luke?” she said uneasily.
“I couldn’t make you look like that if I tried,” he said, but she knew that he could. He was skilled enough to get any look he wanted from her.
“So what do you say? Are you with me, Kate?”
She couldn’t help but be swept along by his enthusiasm, but she felt cautious. There had been so many disappointments over the magazine work, and Luke had been so sure it would happen. She couldn’t bear it if this was destined to be another slap in the face for him.
“Kate?”
“I’ll have to think about it – but you know I’ll probably say yes in the end,” she said in a rush, realising that if she turned down the idea out of hand he would be upset.
“That’s my girl!” he said jubilantly, and before she knew what he was about, he swung her around in his arms, and held her close, planting a kiss on her lips. It began as a kiss of gratitude, but it quickly became more than that. Luke’s hands moved sensuously up and down her slim back as he pulled her close to him. The kiss became more passionate. It was a lover’s kiss, and Kate broke away from him with difficulty, her cheeks hot and her eyes bright.
“For pity’s sake, Luke, we’re in the showroom in full view of the window! What will people think to see the gentleman photographer and his assistant cavorting like that?”
He grinned. “Well, since there’s nobody about, who cares? And if there were, they’d just be thinking what a damn lucky fellow he is to have a girl like that in his arms.”
She wasn’t his girl. But Kate knew that anybody who saw them together, whether it was here in London or in Bournemouth, would naturally assume that she was his girl. He was so attentive and protective of her, and she was becoming more and more dependent on him. It scared her.
“Well, if you don’t let me get down to sorting through the rest of today’s post, they’d be more likely to think what a lazy assistant you’ve got,” she said smartly.
He let her go, his mind still buzzing with all the new possibilities for his work. Kate picked up the rest of the pile of letters and tried not to notice the way her heart was hammering in her chest.
“Just as long as you promise to keep that look on your face when I begin the new poses for the postcards,” he said.
“What look?” Kate asked, turning away from his scrutiny.
“That just-kissed look.”
He blew her another kiss and went through to his studio to make the preparations for his afternoon clients, whistling cheerfully. Kate put the letters down again and glanced at herself in the mirror on the showroom wall. What she saw were the glowing eyes, tinged red cheeks and dewy mouth of a woman who had definitely just been kissed, and what’s more, had enjoyed it very much. She touched her fingers to her mouth for a moment. She was beginning to enjoy everything about being with Luke, far too much for comfort. Despite all her resolutions, she was falling in love with him, and there was nothing she could do about it.
The showroom bell rang then, and she turned towards it thankfully, ready to answer the first enquiry of the day, and smiling reassuringly at the small family who wanted a portrait done for a special birthday. It took her mind off the fact that falling in love with Luke was a complication she didn’t want to have to think about too much.
Once Luke got an idea in his head, he acted on it as quickly as possible. It was something that had been drilled into him during his time in France. If you wasted too much time looking over your shoulder to see what your enemy was doing and weighing up all the pros and cons, it might be too late for you to do anything at all. There had been ditherers in his unit, and all of them had paid the price, they had either been killed or horribly maimed. He had seen it all. A soldier was trained to obey orders, even those that had turned out to be the most tragic and reckless ever given to men by their officers. He didn’t often think about those times any more, but the urgency to act when the time was right had been instilled into his mind.
He knew in his gut that this was right. The postcard from Rob was the trigger which set his imagination working, and once he’d got the commission from a suitable printer, and his own pin-up postcards went into production, Rob would be the first person to receive one. With unfailing optimism Luke never doubted that this time he was onto a winner. But for now, they were to let nobody know of their plans.
With Kate as the nation’s postcard sweetheart, how could they fail? They were in this together.
He smiled with satisfaction, knowing how sweetly insidious that sounded. With the buoyant optimism that allowed no thought of rejection in his mind, he knew the time would surely come when she accepted that they were meant for each other, and the ghost of the Radcliffe swine would be laid to rest for ever.
* * *
“You have a client due at two-thirty this afternoon, Luke, and I’ve arranged for the Dalgliesh family to come in tomorrow at the same time,” he heard her say behind him.
At his vague look, she put her head on one side, as quizzical as an exotic and beautiful bird.
“Where on earth were you just then? Away with the fairies in cloud-cuckoo-land, by the look of it,” she said, remembering one of her mother’s favourite scoldings.
“Not exactly. But you and I were riding just as high, my sweet, and more successfully than either of us dreamed of.”
She put her hand on his arm. “Luke, it’s fine to dream, but there’s a long way to go between dreaming of something, and making it happen.”
“I know that,” he said, refusing to be dampened by her hesitant words. “But we’ll make it this time, Kate, I know we will. Anyway, just as long as we’re in it together we can’t fail. But not a word outside these four walls, remember.”
“I’ll remember. But you’d better come down to earth and get yourself organised now, or you’ll find yourself losing the clients you’ve already got.”
In the few months before Christmas there was always a demand for family portraits as gifts. And just as if the thought of the new venture gave added impetus to his skills, he was inundated with work, and the postcard plans had to be postponed. Old and new clients were charmed by the excellent results and the enthusiasm of the photographer who showed endless patience with nervous parents and irritating children, and just as much by the soothing words of the lovely assistant who brought them cups of tea and lemon squash while they waited in the elegant surroundings.
“That’s your picture in the window, isn’t it, Miss?” Mrs Dalgliesh said when she and her family came to see the proofs of their family’s portraits.
“Yes, it is,” Kate said, smiling.
“You should be on the silver screen, that’s where you should be, my girl,” her husband put in. “You’re wasted here, and you can just tell that young feller-me-lad I said so.”
Kate laughed. “I’ll tell him, but I assure you I’m more than happy with the job I’m doing.”
She realised again how true it was. She was happier than she had ever been in her life before, and on their very next free afternoon, Luke was going to take the first batch of specially posed photographs aimed at the postcard market.
Luke had decided that most of his original photos, however good they were, didn’t do justice to the look he wanted to create. He hoped Kate wasn’t going to be difficult about it. He didn’t want to make her look like a vamp, but he definitely wanted the look in her eyes and the half-smile on her mouth that would appeal to men and women alike. You had to look at the commercial value of the market, and with the new Hollywood talkies all the rage now, the image of the pin-up girl had definitely come into its own.
He broached the subject to her delicately, and got the reaction he half expected.
“I’m not going to dress up like a tart for anybody,” she said at once.
“Do you think I’d ask you to do that? Do you think I’d want to see your picture plastered all over the place looking like that? It wouldn’t do either of us any good, would it?” he said tetchily.
“But you want me to wear figure-hugging frocks, and put a lot of make-up on my eyes, like the girl in the American postcard,” she accused him. “What does that make her look like, if not a tart?”
“It makes her look what she is. A beautiful woman in an artistic pose unafraid of her own sexuality,” he snapped.
She flinched at the word. Sometimes he riled her so much, and it was usually because something he said reminded her of Walter’s earthy brand of persuasion. You’re the sexiest thing on this earth, doll, and you can hardly expect any sane man to keep his hands off you when you look at him with those gorgeous come-to-bed eyes. He hadn’t been able to keep his mouth off her either, or his demanding, virile body … and it had been so thrilling to have this worldly man so mad about her that she would have given him everything. And she had.
“If I’ve offended you, I’m sorry,” she heard Luke say stiffly. “But we have to move with the times, Kate. If I’d wanted you to pose like Little Miss Muffet straight up from the country, I’d have said so.”
“But that’s what I am, isn’t it?” she flashed at him.
He took her hands in his, suddenly realising how upset she was becoming.
“You’ve come a long way since those days, my love, even if it ever applied to you, anyway.”
“Don’t tell me you never thought of me like that! I was gullible enough to fall for the wrong man, wasn’t I? That was straight up from the country in the way most people mean it.”
“God damn it, Kate, I didn’t mean anything of the sort. Don’t twist my words. And if you don’t want to pose for the postcards, I’ll get somebody else, so forget it.”
His words hit her like a punch in the stomach.
“You wouldn’t do that, would you?” she whispered.
But why wouldn’t he? There were plenty of beautiful girls in London, and he could take his pick from any of the magazine agencies. With his growing reputation, she was sure any girl would jump at the chance to work with Luke Halliday, and to share in the success he expected to come from the postcards.
“I would if I had to,” he retorted. “I intend to go ahead with my plans, with or without you. But that’s the last thing I want. I want you, Kate. I’ve always wanted you.”
The air was filled with a new tension, and she could see that his brief anger was forgotten. She couldn’t doubt his meaning, and in one tingling instant she knew how badly she wanted him too. She wanted him to make love to her, the way Walter had made love to her, and the scandalous, erotically wicked thought was in her head before she could stop it.
“Luke, you don’t have to look for anybody else for the photographs,” she said shakily, shocked by the force of her own feelings, and desperate not to show them. “It may sound selfish of me, but I don’t think I could bear to think of some other girl being part of it all instead of me.”
“That’s just what I hoped you’d say. So let’s stop wasting time and get down to work, shall we?”
Instead of warming to her then as she had half expected, he became brisk and businesslike, and she breathed a little easier, because if he’d taken her in his arms then, there was no way she could have resisted him. And knowing so well how wanton and abandoned the passion between two lovers could be, she knew she daren’t let down her guard for a moment.
At least now she was sure of one thing. She wasn’t frigid. Not if the warm and sensual sensations that flooded through her every time she secretly imagined what loving Luke would be like, were anything to go by. She had imagined lying in his arms far more often than she dared to admit, even to herself. No, she thought, I’m not frigid, I’m just afraid of letting another man see just how passionate a woman I can be. She had let go of all her inhibitions once, even though she had been brought up to know it wasn’t a woman’s place to be as loving and passionate as a man.
As the indoctrinated thought entered her head, Kate questioned it almost angrily. Why shouldn’t a woman have the same kind of needs as a man? They were both put on this earth to procreate, so what kind of a God would dictate that a man took all the pleasure and a woman get all the pain? Why shouldn’t she enjoy it without feeling guilty? Kate was fully aware that it was more than possible … she had enjoyed Walter at the time, she couldn’t deny it. It was only the stuffy convention of society that said you should just lie there like a log and let a man take his pleasure.
“I wish I could read your thoughts at this moment.” Luke’s voice penetrated her day-dreaming. “Wherever they are, and whoever they’re with, I envy him. And you once had the nerve to tell me I was away dreaming with the fairies, or some such crazy thing!”
She felt her face burn, because whatever her thoughts, her longing had been all for him, and no one else.
“Perhaps you should thank your lucky stars you’re not a thought-reader then,” she said pertly.
“That sounds ominous. Did I figure so badly in them?”
“Who said I was thinking about you?” Kate countered airily, and far more coolly than she felt.
Her hands were quite ta
cky. Keeping her feelings to herself was going to be even more difficult from now on, now that she knew she was falling in love with him.
With another burst of suppressed anger at herself, she wondered what the devil was wrong with her to be so resistant. It was what she wanted, wasn’t it? So why resist? She knew the answer only too well. Every man expected his bride to be a virgin on their wedding night. And she wasn’t. You could get away with most things, but not that, she thought bitterly. It was the inescapable, physical fact that damned a woman who had already been spoiled.
“All right, so let’s get going. We’ll start with the evening frocks you’ve brought, just so you can get the feel of it all. But we’ll go to the West End tomorrow and buy some ready-mades as well.”
“What’s wrong with my clothes? I’m a skilled needlewoman, and nobody ever accused me of wearing home-made frocks!” she said, bristling at once. “Besides, how can I possibly afford the kind of ready-mades in the West End shops? I don’t have that kind of money.”
“But I do.”
How shocked her mother would be if she could hear such an outrageous suggestion. Her father would call Luke a low-down pimp, and Donal would probably feel like killing him.
“I’m no kept woman, Luke Halliday! I’ve never let a man buy my clothes yet, and I don’t mean to start now.”
“You can sometimes be the most irritating woman on this earth, and that’s a fact. Nobody’s trying to make you a kept woman,” he snapped. “You don’t even have to keep the ready-mades if you don’t want to, or wear them ever again, as long as we produce something stunning for the sample photos we show to the printers. It’s just an investment, Kate, and I’m only providing the props. I do it here every day, don’t I?”
His words took the wind out of her sails for a moment, he was always so plausible. But men always were when they wanted something.
A Different Kind of Love Page 17