Her Leading Man (40 page)

And she still hated that Martin had pointed out
the discrepancies in
Gran’s behavior versus her espoused convictions. She also
took
his criticisms of
her grandmother as directed at
her.

“
Are we
ready here?” Lovejoy sounded tense.

Knowing she’d have to shelve her cogitations until
later, Christina
sighed deeply. “Yes. I think so
.
Sorry
for taking so long
to get ready, Mr. Lovejoy.”

“
That’s all right.” Lovejoy wasn’t even looking
at
her, but was frowning at Martin. “Well, Martin?”

Since she knew they were best friends, Christina
didn’t know whether
to be sorry about the note of
hostility in Lovejoy’s voice, or triumphant that
Martin
had
annoyed him, too. Actually, she did know. She
ought to be sorry to see any
friendship
strained on
account of anything she or her bullheaded, impolite
grandmother
did.
This,
too, pointed out a
distinct flaw
in
her character that
Christina was unhappy to have
discovered.

Blast it all. Until she met Martin Tafft, she’d
considered
herself a fairly decent, upright, and honorable
person.

Maybe it would be better if she ended their affair
before it got too
difficult to extract herself from it.
She flung her gold-edged, gauzy scarf over
her
body and
proceeded to drape it as the wardrobe mistress
had instructed her. Who was she
trying to kid?
She was already so deeply in love with Martin Tafft,
she didn’t think
she’d ever recover. It wouldn’t matter
if she ended their affair now or
waited until hell froze
over. She’d never get over him
.

And, on that cheerful note, Christina gave Phineas
Lovejoy a thumbs-up
signal, indicating her readiness
to begin shooting the scene.

Lovejoy smiled back, stepped out of camera range,
and sang
out, “Places!
And
. . .
action!”

The filming went smoothly. Pharaoh’s brother
made lewd advances
toward the timorous and terrified slave girl reclining on the couch
next to him.
The slave girl eyed him with loathing while his back
was turned to her
and the cameras cranked noisily
along. The slave bearing the tray of
goblets and the
pitcher mouthed secrets to her and gave her many
steamy glances from
under his handsome brow.

The whole thing
made Martin want to puke.

He didn’t, of course. He was known in the industry
as an unsurpassed
professional. He’d be damned if
he’d allow one misguided girl and her
crazy, rude,
and underhanded grandmother to cause him to do
anything to tarnish
his reputation. His career was important.
This—this—fling he was having
with
Christina was nothing compared to his career.

His heart gave such a fierce spasm, he almost
dropped his tray.
Because he was a professional and
a paragon and was supposed to be acting,
he didn’t.
Blast his heart, anyway. It knew, even when Martin
pretended he didn’t,
that
fling
came nowhere near to
describing what he wanted with
Christina.

But how in the name of mercy was he ever going
to make the wench
see reason? It was insane of her
to condone the behavior her grandmother
exhibited
every single day. Would she grow to be like the old
coot in time? The
notion made Martin shudder.

A loud instruction from Lovejoy broke his
concentration.
Thank God.

“
Good, Marty! Keep going. Now drop the
sleeping
powder into the goblet!”

Right. Martin’s character had to drug Pharaoh’s
brother in order to
make off with Christina. Facing
the camera, Martin shot over his shoulder
the best
apprehensive, sneaky glance he could summon. Good
old Paul was doing
exactly what he was supposed
to be doing, which was leering at a couple of
dancing
maidens who were performing for the banqueting
guests. God alone
knew what kinds of dances E
gyptian
maidens did three
thousand years ago, but Martin
had a shrewd notion the present example wasn’t
an
apt
representation.

Nevertheless, the distraction was supposed to
provide
him
time to do the nefarious deed, so he did
it. With his movements exaggerated
for the camera—Lovejoy didn’t believe the American public was
smart
enough
to draw conclusions from subtleties—Martin
withdrew a vial from a fold in his
tunic. Lovejoy
had wanted it to be a folded paper until Martin had
reminded him that
papyrus probably wasn’t a very
good medium for carrying sleeping potions
around
in,
being apt to crack when folded.

Moving with elaborate caution, he stole closer to
Christina and the
goblets. The two made eye contact,
and if Martin had been feeling more
cheerful, he
would have been amused by the utter brainlessness
of the expression on
Christina’s face. It would be a
cold day in hell before she ever behaved
like the powerless
slave of any man.

Of course, back in the good old days when Pharaohs
reigned, Martin
didn’t suppose she would have
been given any choice in the matter. That must
have
been a
fine time to be a man. Nowadays, women
were emasculating men every
day.

He told himself not to get sidetracked. Once he
stood beside
Christina, he said
distinctly—so that any
audience members who could read lips wouldn’t
be
disappointed—
“
I’m going to pour this drug into
the
monster’s
wine
. He’ll sleep then, and we can
steal
away
together.”

As she was supposed to do, she grabbed his sleeve,
being careful not to
jog his arm and make him spill
the contents of the vial. “Oh, no! Pray don’t
endanger
yourself!”

Turning his head so the camera couldn’t capture
his mouth, he
muttered, “God, who wrote this dialogue?”

“
I don’t know, but if you make me laugh,
Martin
Tafft, I’ll never forgive you.”

Paul, who was still leering at the dancing girls and
whose face was
hidden from the camera, laughed outright.
“Cut it out, you two. This scene is
silly enou
gh
without commentary.”

“
You won’t think it’s so silly in a minute, you
foul
fiend.” Martin made his voice go low and resonant,
as if he were a
villain in an old melodrama. “You’re
about to get slipped a knockout
potion.”

“
Heaven
forefend
!”

“
Stop it this minute,” Christina
commanded.
I
won’t be able to keep my face
straight if you two
keep it up.”

“
Right.” Martin drew the cork out of the
small
vial, using an exaggerated gesture so as not to
leave
the
audience in any doubt as to his intentions. “Okay.
Here
goes.”

As Christina watched in feigned horror, he poured
out the powder from
the vial. He was very glad the
wind wasn’t blowing today, because they’d had
to
practice
with dozens of angles in order to be sure
the camera would pick up the thin
trickle of powder
as it fell from the vial into the goblet. But
Peerless
was
careful about things of that nature. If there was
a poisoned powder in
use, they intended the public
to see it.

“
Great, Marty!” Lovejoy called through the
megaphone.
“You’re looking great!”

“
He’s
not doing it right!”

The comment had come from Orozco, and Martin
chose to ignore it,
knowing it sprang from wounded
pride
and pettishness. In
a way, he didn’t really blame
Pablo. He might be an ass, and it might be his
fault
his arm
had been broken, but it was probably sort
of scary to see someone else doing
your job as well
as you could do it yourself. Not that Martin wanted
Pablo’s job. He’d
sooner commit that Japanese form
of suicide—what was it? Hara-kiri?
Seppuku? Whatever—than act any more
often than he had to.

“
Oh, shut up, Pablo,” Christina called back to
him
“If you hadn’t fought with that nice camel driver,
you’d be here
instead of Martin.”

“
Don’t aggravate him, please, Christina. He’s
been
humiliated enough today.”

“
Fiddlesticks.” Evidently, Christina knew
M
artin
was referring to the cane incident.
“
He deserved it.”

“
Nobody deserves your grandmother.” He
could
have bitten his tongue as soon as the words left his
lips.

Christina gasped. When he glanced at her, he saw
pain in her eyes and
gave himself a mental kick in
the rear end. He muttered,
“
I’m
sorry.”

“
Think nothing of it.” Her voice was as frigid
and
pointy as icicles.

“
Children, children,” murmured Paul, who
was
now in the process of pawing one of the dancing
girls. “Let’s not
squabble.”

“
Right,” said Martin. He couldn’t talk
anymore
anyhow, since he had to carry the tray off the set.
Damn it, he wanted
to solve this thing with Christina.

Pointedly ignoring Martin, Christina picked up the
goblet. She stared
into the camera’s unrelenting eye
and gave a wonderful impression of a young
girl,
frightened, alone, and defenseless, as she lifted
the
goblet.
She glanced
down
, supposedly staring at the
tainted liquid it
contained. In truth, the goblet was
empty but for the powder Martin had just
poured into
it. After several seconds of staring
enough to give
the audience the
impression that she was both scared
to death and feeling a trace of guilt over
what she
was
about to do—she gave Paul’s arm a tentative pat.

That was Paul’s signal to unhand the dancing girl
and turn toward
Christina with lust. He did a damned
good job of it, too. Martin was impressed.
Looking
at
his burning eyes, you’d never know that Paul didn’t
generally care for
women. He’d be the next American
sex god, or Martin would be
surprised.
Which
was kind
of funny, actually.

“
And now for you, my beauty,” Paul said in a
high
-
pitched
simper that put the lie to his facial
expression.
Christina shrank back from him, holding the goblet
out in both hands as
if for protection. Which it was
supposed to be, although not in the way
her pose
and
expression suggested.

“
Aha, so you want to ply me with liquor
before
the big seduction, eh?” Paul snatched the goblet out
of her
hands.

For a mere second, he looked as if he might dash
the goblet to the
ground and get down to the seduction
immediately. Lovejoy and Martin both hoped
the
second
would be fully long enough for the American
public to suck in its collective
breath in terror for
Christina’s sweet character’s virtue.

S
he made a gesture at the goblet, as
if urging him
to drink, and said, “Drink the stupid stuff,
willya?”
in a
voice that might have come straight from Brooklyn.
There was scattered
laughter from the sidelines,
although Paul didn’t falter.