by Margaret Way
'Oh, shut up!' He put his arm around her and dropped a kiss on her mouth. 'Get back in the car, I'm in no mood to be ticked off. Not by a pint-sized little nun.'
A pint-sized little nun whose body shook with tremors all night.
CHAPTER SIX
There was mood music to help Lucie prepare for the camera, otherwise she thought she would have run away. Her make-up had been done over and over until Sarah and the photographer were satisfied it would be perfect for the brand new product, yet Lucie felt so heavily made up, she was frightened to smile in case the whole thing cracked.
'Exquisite!'
'I'm sorry?' Lucie only faintly heard the photographer's comment.
'Exquisite,' he said again. 'Don't worry, darling, it's not serious.'
Sarah, too, seemed to be delighted. 'Zara called an hour ago. She's coming over.'
'She doesn't usually sit in on a session.' Van, the photographer, was now put out. He was a very tall, very thin individual, dressed entirely in black, and his irritation was obvious.
'She won't bother you, Van,' Sarah promised.
'She will too.' Van's laconic tone bordered on petulance. 'You told me you were just bringing your model and yourself.'
'So Zara called,' Sarah replied. 'Don't let her frighten you, Van. She's really a very simple person.'
When Zara Blanchard entered the studio, Lucie thought they should have all fallen back. Zara was dressed in something of her own, very chic, and despite the smile, she was unarguably what some people might have called a battleaxe.
'Hmmm.' She looked long and hard at Lucie until she was satisfied, then suggested Van should adjust the lighting.
'It's all set up,' Van said shortly.
'You can't expect me to believe you can't improve on that!'
The contemptuous little gesture brought Van close to shrieking. 'Don't tell me my job, darling. I mean I didn't tell you how to dress her.' He pointed to Lucie, who was holding her breath.
'Just bring that light in further, that's all.'
'It could work,' Sarah broke in quickly. 'Why don't we try it, Van?'
'For pity's sake!'
'Do you mind if I sit down?' Lucie asked. It struck her that she had been standing for hours.
'What on earth for?' Zara Blanchard rounded on her. 'Ask any one of our top models if they would have liked this job!'
'Lucie isn't all that long out of hospital!' Sarah delivered her own broadside. 'Sit down by all means, Lucie. Until we get set up.'
'We are set up.'
The rudeness and the arguing went on for another ten minutes with Sarah directing reassuring little smiles every so often in Lucie's direction. Yet in the midst of all this, Lucie stayed calm. After all, nothing was normal in the theatre. She even started to amuse herself thinking how badly Zara would come off if ever her jaundiced comments were delivered to someone like Julian. She was simply too much for Van, who
had now subsided into a seething, resentful silence.
'Fine,' Zara called, when the lighting was finally set up her way, 'it's all yours.'
For nearly an hour and a half the pictures went on, with the ganjgly Van bent all over his camera calling for this expression and that.
'Oh, I love it, I love it!' he shouted.
The two women conferred and Sarah's assistant entered on the scene with tea.
'You can see she's a natural,' Sarah said.
'She is pretty,' Zara agreed flatly. Gifted, wealthy and famous, she was unable to come to terms with middle age. The best brains in the world were working on space travel when they should have been putting all their energies into halting the ageing process. Desirability in a woman was what it was all about, not experience and sound common sense. More's the pity.
'Great, sexy!' Van called. 'I couldn't take a bad shot of you if I tried.'
'What was it like?' Jessie asked, as she let Lucie in the front door.
'I'd never have the stamina.'
'You?' Jessie laughed. 'No one can take punishment like you can!'
They wandered into the kitchen where Jessie started to make the coffee. 'It will be all right really, I suppose,' Lucie said mildly. 'Sarah seemed very pleased and the photographer was enthusiastic, but I had the feeling La Blanchard didn't think I rated a second glance.'
'I expect she was partly jealous.' Jessie automatically hit the nail on the head. 'Anyway, the money must have come in handy.'
'That's why I did it, Jessie.' Lucie fixed the older woman with transparent violet eyes. 'I must pay Julian back somehow. If these pictures turn out, I could have a flourishing career.'
'They will.' Jessie pushed her glasses back up on her nose. 'The thing is, sweetie, is this what you want?'
'Beggars can't be choosers!' Lucie stifled all her utterly impossible hopes. 'I have to make a new life for myself, Jessie.'
'Just so,' Jessie nodded, 'but you can't simply leave off your classes with Julian. He won't let you, for one thing. For another, it's excellent therapy. I really didn't think you would respond so wonderfully after your injuries.'
'That was Julian,' Lucie pointed out abstractedly. 'He took me right over what we both considered the limit. Kill or cure.'
'Don't say that!' Jessie said quickly. 'He's really been terribly worried.'
'About what?' Lucie asked blankly.
'About working you so hard.' Jessie picked up the percolator and poured the coffee. 'Many the discussion we've had, and I advised him to stick to it. You're far, far fitter doing it Julian's way than doing it with me. When you looked at me with those big, heartbreaking eyes I got all protective and maternal. Julian is tougher.'
'I know.' Lucie smiled wryly. 'He didn't talk to me this morning when I went off. He didn't talk to me last night.'
'Don't take it to heart,' Jessie advised her amiably. 'Just don't try to cut classes.'
'Actually, Jessie, we have to move.' 'I know.' Jessie sat down and took several sips from her cup. 'Come to that, I can't even serve you any more.'
'Why don't we find a flat together?' Lucie asked.
'What an admirable idea!' Jessie was so pleased, she blushed. 'It's just that one gets lonely on one's own and a young presence is so cheering.'
'So it's settled?' Lucie asked swiftly. 'We get on so well together.'
'Very much,' Jessie responded smilingly. 'I can take on another job and still keep on eye on you.'
'Thank you, Jessie,' Lucie laughed. 'You might pass me a sliver of that appetising pie—I need building up. You might also mention the matter to Julian. I'm not game.'
'Aye, I'll tell him.'
'After all, I can please myself.'
'Sure you can.'
'So why are we so nervous?' Lucie questioned, turning her large eyes on the serious Jessie. 'After all, he's not my guardian.'
'He's done a magnificent job these past months,' Jessie pointed out. 'He's such a mixture, Julian—outwardly so self-sufficient, so definitely needing nobody, but inside so caring. I think he must have had a very unhappy childhood.'
'A lonely one,' Lucie nodded. 'He told me.'
'So now he thinks it's only sensible not to really love anyone.'
'You mean a woman?' Lucie hardly wanted to hear the answer.
'I think if your mother really hurts you, you don't easily recover.' Even Jessie breathed a grave sigh. 'On the surface Julian can be very charming and attentive to a woman, but I've a strong feeling he wouldn't trust a one of us with his heart. Even a tender, really good little thing like you.'
'I'm certain of it.' Lucie's small face was vulnerable and unguarded. 'In any case, he won't get away from Camilla. She has some hold on him, one even he can't deny.'
Sarah rang late afternoon to tell Lucie the photographic session had been a 'wild success'. She had been fairly certain of it, but not altogether banking on it. As Sarah had explained to Lucie, the camera had a very curious eye. Beautiful faces did not always project, and many a lovely-looking girl with high hopes of becoming a photographic model h
ad to go back to being a secretary. In Lucie's case, her bone structure and personality had projected in precisely the way Sarah had hoped.
'You're in, darling!' Sarah had enthused. 'Even Zara was pleased.'
The sad fact was, Julian wasn't.
'Be a model girl if you want,' he told her cruelly, 'you haven't got it in you to make a ballerina.'
'But my career was ruined!' Lucie grasped hold of his sleeve to detain him. 'You know I can never come back.'
'So you're always saying.' Anger flared in his brilliant black eyes. 'The fact is, Miss Gerard, you're a damned little coward. You've been making great headway.'
'Really, Julian. I want to dance!' she persisted.
'No, you don't. You want to cry.' He stared down into her shimmering eyes, so she dropped her head in anguish.
'Oh, why are you so cruel to me?'
'To you?' He caught her in a painful grasp. 'I've been here all these months when you didn't have the strength or the spirit to get out of bed. So I've driven you to exhaustion. So what? I thought the dance was all you really cared about?'
'It's unbearable that you won't face it!' Lucie shouted. 'I can't dance. I can't dance—I can’t!’
'Julian, Lucie!' Jessie came through to the living room to intervene and Julian stared at her formidably.
'I've told you before, Jessie, Lucie doesn't need a gentle hand.'
'But, dear boy, she's doing so well.'
'No, she isn't.' He almost threw Lucie away. 'Because some fool woman at a party tells her she has a pretty face she's certain she has to make it in another world. Lucienne Gerard, a model, when she's worked all her life to be a dancer, a ballerina?'
'But the poor child has been injured!' Jessie looked towards Lucie, who was now sobbing quietly on the sofa. 'You must force yourself, Julian, to look at this. It's the greatest cruelty to raise her hopes.'
'What hopes?' Julian was in a fine temper, white ridges standing up beside the handsome mouth. 'I know what she's suffered. It's absurd to suggest I don't. But don't you see, there's no such thing as recovering overnight. Lucie only needs more time. I'm almost certain she will regain full strength and control. Her doctors have admitted her rate of recovery has stunned them. Their ignorance is obvious. They don't know dancers.' His black brows drew together and he turned irritably on Lucie. 'Stop crying. I'm not so awful to you, you know.' 'Oh, you are!' Lucie lifted her head and went to spring up from the chair.
'There, look at you!' Julian cried. 'If I moved a step towards you, you'd take off like a gazelle. It's even possible I'd have to chase you a dozen times around the house. When you're not thinking about your disabilities you're eminently mobile.'
'So what is it you want of me?'
'My God,' he muttered. 'My God!'
'Julian?' It was Jessie who called to him as he swung away towards the front door.
He didn't answer, and both women stood helplessly as he let himself out and slammed the door violently.
'Jessie?' Lucie started to cry again. 'I'm really trying.'
'Of course you are.' Jessie stood there a little dazed.
'He despises me,' Lucie said miserably. 'You heard what he called me—a coward. Is it possible I am?'
'Dear child!' Jessie roused herself at the sight of Lucie's stricken face. 'We all know you want to dance again more than anything.'
'But I'm too frightened to hope. Is that it, Jessie? Is fear the key?'
'You must know how you feel yourself?' Wearily Jessie sank down in an armchair.
'I only know some days are agony.' Lucie stiffened her trembling body. The noise of the car engine had reached the house. 'He was terribly angry, wasn't he?'
'Angry-disappointed.' Jessie groaned a little. 'He's determined to win this battle. Determined and intent. He has a ferocious desire for you to succeed.'
'Which is what I can't understand.' Lucie turned and walked to the window. 'At my best he was brutal
to me. I could never do a thing right.'
'Maybe he doesn't give praise freely to the ones he really cares about. You told me yourself he created Black Iris for you.'
'Even now I don't believe it.' Lucie held her arms that were throbbing from Julian's grip. 'He was proud of me on the night.'
'He's very highly strung,' Jessie said.
'Violent.' Lucie held on to the curtain. 'How could he be anything else, with those black eyes? I couldn't count the number of times he's filled me with real terror.'
'Yet he can be so vivid, so charming. The only reason I came in was that I thought he was going to strangle you.'
Despite herself Lucie burst into a little laugh. 'He was tempted, but he really wouldn't. He's just so horribly one track.'
'I'm sure I don't know what's the answer,' Jessie sighed. 'I'm torn two ways, yet it's a fact you've made a splendid recovery, and for that we largely have Julian to thank.'
'Then we'll go on as before,' said Lucie. 'For as long as it takes him to admit he's wrong.'
'And what about this Blanchard campaign?' Jessie looked up to ask.
'If I can't fit it in outside classes then I'll have to give it up. If Julian wants me to continue as part of the Company in whatever capacity then he has to pay me until I've finally finished paying him off.' Lucie gave a desolate little laugh.
'In any case, you've got no worries.' Jessie stood up and fixed the cushions neatly. 'I can loqk after us both
for a good while, until you've proved yourself one way or the other. I know you can.'
Julian did not come home until well after midnight, but still Lucie was waiting for him.
'Dear, stupid little Lucie,' he said when he saw her.
'Please, Julian, may I speak to you?'
'No,' he glanced down at her briefly. 'Let me alone.'
'You've been drinking,' she uttered in a littlergirl voice.
'Dear, dear!' He made no attempt to repudiate the charge, his handsome face brilliantly alive and filled with a curious hostility.
'Shall I get you some coffee?' she asked.
'Please don't fuss, darling,' he said cuttingly.
'It's no bother.' Lucie went to turn away to the kitchen.
'So sweet, so obliging,' he said from behind her. 'I like that little peignoir. Did you make it up from a remnant?'
'Jessie bought it for me,' Lucie explained gently. 'To cheer me up.'
'It's very pretty. Especially on you.'
Something in his tone made her frown. 'If you sit down I'll bring it out to you.'
'No, darling. I'd like to watch you. You have to learn to be proficient in a kitchen now.'
'As a matter of fact my mother saw to that.'
'God bless her,' he said harshly.
She saw it was impossible to stay. 'I'm sorry, Julian, we'd better skip the coffee.'
'It was your idea.' He had backed her into a corner and she felt pathetically small.
'I didn't realise you were in such a grim mood,' she sighed.
'So now you're afraid.'
Her camellia skin flushed and she leaned back against the cupboard. 'Sometimes I am, and the funny thing is, you like it.'
'Maybe.' Julian put out his hand and clasped it around her nape. 'I've been to see Sarah.'
'I don't believe it.' Lucie looked up at him with huge violet eyes.
'You never do believe me, darling.' He dropped his hand. 'I've been to see Sarah and put my cards on the table. She wasn't anywhere near so surprised as you.'
'You really did go?' She tilted her head back and the weight of her black hair fell down her back.
'Yes, I truly did.' Julian gave her an unamused smile. 'You're mad if you think you're going to slip away from me just like that.'
'But I'm going nowhere—nowhere at all. Listen to me, Julian. Please listen. I'll continue all my classes if that's what you want.'
'But you don't really feel they'll take you anywhere?'
'They've been wonderful therapy. That's important.'
For some reason this made him
angry. 'And you're content to go on with them as therapy?'
'I can't believe I'll be whole again.' The poignancy broke through her earnest expression.
'So don't expect a miracle all at once.' He put one hand to her waist, then the other, then lifted her with incredible lithe grace so that for a moment she was lost in her old dreams. For a few seconds he held her straight above his head, then he brought her down so swiftly she immediately braced her legs around him and settled into a classical pose.
'Splendid,' he said ironically, taking her weight on his extended knee. 'It seems you can do a lot when you don't think about it.'
'Things that don't matter at all,' she said, and meant it, fresh colour suffusing her skin. 'Have you forgotten what you used to make me do?'
'No.' His face was quite still. 'You will do it again, Lucie. In the near future. I won't give up.'
'I wish to God I had your strength,' she sighed.
'Let me lend you some.' He pulled her back into his arms and she let out an audible sigh.
'Don't, Julian!'
'Then why is your body trembling with eagerness?'
'I can't help my body,' Lucie protested.
'The body doesn't lie.' He caught her long hair and held her head back.
'But it can be made to pay dearly. I think you could treat a woman abominably.'