Fire Under Snow (10 page)

“I should have told you. I can't dance,” she said defiantly.

“You were doing all right earlier on. Relax and follow my lead. I presume that's what Sir William said when you told him you couldn't dance.”

“It didn't occur to me to mention it to him,” she replied with startling truthfulness. “I knew he would guide me correctly.”

“Don't I merit the same kind of trust? Or is it that you can't abide to be in any situation that puts you under my dominance? In this kind of dancing, man sets the pace, woman submits to his will. Perhaps you would prefer it if we danced disco style – the ultimate free-for-all, where neither partner takes the lead and each does his or her own thing and hopes that it will be compatible.”

She must not let him draw her. “You don't think skill comes into disco dancing at all, then?”

“It's not skill that's lacking, but subtlety,” he responded.

In a less recalcitrant mood she would have found him easier to follow than Sir William. His steps were stronger, his guiding arm more forceful, the pressure of his fingers on her back giving gentle indications of what came next. It would have been no effort to follow his movements and glide naturally along to the slow, sweet beat of the music. It was more of an effort to hold herself aloof in anger at his taunting.

He announced abruptly, “For once I agree with you. You can't dance. You should not look at your feet, even if it does provide an excellent excuse for not looking at me.”

Everything she did or said seemed to be viewed in his eyes as a deliberate act of provocation. Earlier, when she had chosen to wait for him in his suite, he had assumed she was asking to be seduced. Now, as she pretended undue absorption with her feet so as to keep some distance between them, he took her action as an offense. It was as if he had to exert complete mastery over her by pulling her more firmly into his arms and increasing his hold on her. She felt her stomach muscles tauten as their bodies touched.

“You're too stiff,” he said. It was not a reprimand but a jeer, because he knew her reserve was caused by his nearness. His voice whispered insidiously in her ear, “Let your body go. Just sway to the rhythm. Allow your legs to move freely from the hips.”

“I didn't realize you were such an expert.”

“I'm not. I just hold the opinion that everything worth doing is worth doing well. Did you know that dancing was one of mankind's earliest forms of expression? Dancing is older than anything except eating and drinking and ... Can you guess what else has survived the years and will continue to do so as long as people exist?” He smiled when she didn't answer. “Of course, you know how primitive man gave his emotions an outlet when he banked up the fire and crawled under the animal skins onto his bed of twigs and dry grass next to his mate.”

She purposely ignored the allusion to love- making and said, “I didn't realize dancing dated back that far.”

“It came before speech. Language, as we know it, hadn't been thought of when our Stone Age counterpart was drawing, on the walls of his cave, not only the animals he hunted with his crude flint axes – bison, wild boar, deer and elk – but also scenes depicting the rhythmic outlet of his thoughts and emotions.”

She was mesmerized by the thought that people had been dancing before the Christian era and had danced down through the centuries ever since. It was not just a vogue; it was a form of expression intrinsic to life.

As her mind relaxed, the slow fascination of the rhythm took over her feet and she could even speak without stumbling. She was quite disappointed when he said it was time to take her home. She realized with surprise that they were the only couple on the floor.

“Thank you for the dancing lesson,” she said sincerely. “I enjoyed it.”

He looked down at her for a moment, his expression still. Then he smiled, and it was a smile of such rare charm, one she had never seen on his face until that moment, that she almost started back in amazement. “So did I,” he said. “We must do it again some time.”

This kinder mood lasted on the journey home. He parked the car just short of the pool of light cast by the street lamp outside her apartment building.

In the light available she could just see that his eyes were still benign as he said, “I wish I understood you, Lorraine. I might if I
knew.
I know you have a past – everyone has. I'm sure yours is as white as virgin snow compared with mine. The muddy patches in my past don't bother me. Yet this thing in your past obviously bothers you.”

It wasn't difficult to know what had brought this on. A piece of her past had walked in on her tonight in the form of Sir William.

“Yes, it bothers me,” she said guardedly.

“So far you've only given me the headlines – the bulletin announcements, as it were – but never the details.”

At the beginning she hadn't told him because it had seemed pointless to put herself through the ordeal, believing as she had that nothing could come of their friendship. But perhaps now the situation had altered. He hadn't grown tired of her and showed no signs of doing so. As things stood at present, she owed it to him to tell him.

If only she could know for sure his motive in wanting to know. If it was to even up the score with Sir William, because in his supreme conceit he couldn't bear to think that any man knew things about her that he didn't, then she owed him nothing.

What did it matter whether she owed it to him or not? Eventually she would have to tell him. Preferably before he found out, which he undoubtedly would when Jamie returned from the States.

It was going to be tricky. She must try not to discredit Jamie too much. She didn't want to cause bad feeling between the two men. And she must make him promise not to take up the battle for her. Not that she anticipated one. Jamie would be glad of his freedom now that he was a big star. She wondered why he hadn't sought her out to ask her to be released from their marriage before now. This wasn't a new thought. It was one she had puzzled over before. Perhaps Jamie had been too busy chasing success to take time off to put his private life in order.

Noel's voice broke into her thoughts. “Do you remember the first time I took you out? I called you on the telephone, at an unpardonably late hour, and we drove out to that transport café for a meal. You let your hair down that night.”

She knew he was speaking figuratively and that he was referring to the way she'd talked about her early life, about her parents and the very special love they'd had for each other. She had shared thoughts and feelings with him that had been kept guarded from everyone else. Just thinking about the way she had, to use his expression, “let her hair down” brought a lump to her throat. It still touched and surprised her that she'd known such instant rapport with a stranger.

To buy herself a few moments' time in which to compose herself, she pretended to take him literally. “I'd just washed it,” she said, brushing her fingers against her hair. “It was too soft to put in a chignon in the short time you gave me to get ready.”

His tone held gentle rebuke. “You know that's not what I meant. You told me a lot about your past that night. You even surprised yourself. Characteristically, you're a very self-contained, private sort of person. Yes?”

“Yes,” she agreed gruffly.

“You told me you had been in a fire. In consequence you lost your job because it was thought that the top-drawer customers you sold top- drawer-priced beauty aids to might object to your disfigured hands. Your hands are no longer disfigured. The surface scars have gone. I asked you about the inner scars. I asked if they had faded and you said you didn't want to talk about it. Do you feel like talking about it now?”

He was making it easy for her. Once she got over the difficult hurdle of the opening words, she would be all right.

He said, both perceptively and persuasively, “It's important to us that you tell me. Something that happened then, during the fire or in the circumstances surrounding it, is keeping us apart. Am I right?”

“Yes.” She nodded her head so fiercely that the key hairpins in her hair lost anchorage and proved inadequate to the task of supporting the weight of her chignon.

The silky, pale-gold rope slowly unwound and collapsed totally as he removed the remaining hairpins. “Oh, God, how much I've wanted to do that – how much I want you. I'm obsessed by you. It's beyond endurance. I've got a monomaniacal hunger for you that's burning me up. Your hair is so beautiful, as fine as spun gold,” he said, gathering it in his hands and caressing the strands. “I love it however you arrange it, but I like it this' way best. Ever since that first date when you ‘let your hair down' in more ways than one, I've dreamed of waking up and finding it straying across my pillow.”

The restless caress of his fingers combing through her hair stirred up a frenzy in her breast. She knew she should hold herself aloof, ignore the dangerous sensations he aroused in her. How could she control the thoughts in her head when his fingers were tormenting and delighting every part of her scalp?

“Promise me you'll never cut your hair. Always keep it long. If only I could climb up it, like the prince in the fairy tale, and storm your impenetrable tower. I've tried to be patient, but if you don't give in soon I think I'll go crazy.”

“Rapunzel,” the Grimms' poignant tale of bitter realism, had always been a particular favorite with Lorraine. But no smile of tender memory touched her lips, because suddenly she had come to her senses. If she'd had a pair of scissors in her hands at that moment she would have emulated the witch's actions in the fairy tale. With a snip, snap she would have cut off her tresses just to spite him. The prince had loved Rapunzel to distraction; he had asked her to be his wife. Noel had not owned to love, only lust. And he had not asked her to be his wife, only his bedmate.

She thanked God for her long hair, knowing that it had saved her from making a fool of herself. Seeing it gently uncoil had triggered off something in him. Until that moment he had moved so slowly, so cunningly and cautiously, inviting her confidence with his treacherous sweetness and kindness. He had fooled her so completely that she had been tripping over herself to tell him everything. Her lack of eloquence, her inability to conjure up the right words, had been a blessing for once, a timely hindrance.

His patience with her on the dance floor, his persuasive sympathy as he encouraged her to talk about the fire just now – they were deliberate ploys to soften her up. Thank goodness his sweet-talking trickery had come to light. He didn't care about what had happened to her; all he cared about was what he wanted to happen now. He didn't want to even the score with Sir William; he wanted to beat him. He wanted to get to her first.

She dragged her hair from his fingers, ignoring the searing pain in her head as he proved reluctant to relinquish his hold. “The next act has just been rewritten. The big seduction scene is out. My hair will never stray across your pillow,” she said with a vehemence that matched the raging fury of her thoughts. “I'll cut it off first.”

“What's brought this on?” For a split second her attack stunned him, delaying the angry retaliation. The bite was back in his voice as he said, “You reverse moods quicker than any female I know.”

“And you're an authority on females, aren't you? The expert. For all your skill and dexterity in handling them, you haven't had much luck this evening. First Toni Carr, then me.”

“What do you mean by that?” he demanded. “No doubt your friend, the manager of the Cabana, passed on your message inviting Miss Carr to join us for a meal. Your sultry songbird didn't join us, so obviously she turned down your invitation. Isn't that so?” She smirked sweetly.

“If you are suggesting that Miss Carr viewed the prospect of my company with distaste, then no, it is not so. She had another booking. It's not unusual for a relatively unknown singer, struggling to make a name for herself, to have a taxi waiting to whisk her to a second engagement. That was the predicament Toni Carr was in this evening. She asked for a rain check. I'm taking her out for a meal tomorrow.”

“Good. I hope the evening lives up to your expectations.”

“Who said anything about evening? She works then, remember? I'm taking her to lunch.”

“And then back to your apartment for a private audition?”

“Probably. Jealous?” he taunted. “You don't have to be. I'm taking you out tomorrow evening. So whether it lives up to my expectations rests entirely with you.”

Oh, no! She couldn't stand it. How much more could she take? She knew that he would work on her until she gave in. Each time they met she was finding it more difficult to resist.

If only she could get away somewhere, away from his devious charm and his disturbing influence. She must have time to herself. She owed it to herself not to be browbeaten into anything. If she could get away from him for a while she would have a chance to think, and she might also be able to build up some reserves of strength.

“I'll call for you at the usual time,” he said.

“No.” Even though she closed her eyes in despair, her no rang out emphatically.

“No?” he challenged.

“Did I forget to tell you? I won't be here. I'm –” Her brain was spinning wildly. “I'm going to Aunt Leonora's tomorrow. I'm finally paying her that overdue visit.”

“Is this the truth, Lorraine?”

Her brain might have spun an inventive lie in the first place, but she could make it the truth by going in to work tomorrow and making arrangements to take a week's holiday. She could leave for Kittiwake Bay on the evening train.

“Yes, it's the truth.”

Perhaps she had taken too long in replying. Frowning deeply, he said, “You wouldn't lie to me, would you? It isn't that you've arranged to go out with Sir William tomorrow?”