Prima Donna (16 page)

She leant against the worktop and watched him thoughtfully. There was no point banging on about forgiving Will tonight. It was better to give him some time. He’d see sense as soon as the
next lot of bills arrived.

‘Well . . . it appears we’re all working outside our job descriptions at the moment, then.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Silk’s hired me to work on his new girlfriend. She’s a dancer – got a broken foot.’

Tanner’s colour rose. ‘I hope you didn’t accept! We’re having nothing more to do with him,’ he ordered.

‘Of course I did. How was I supposed to know what was going on between the two of you in Switzerland? You didn’t call,’ she said pointedly.

‘It was hardly the time for chit-chats,’ he muttered.

‘Besides, he’s paying me double for the privilege.’

‘Double?’ he said, looking at her suspiciously.

‘Yes, that’s what I thought when he first approached me. “Why double?” Of course, now I’ve met her it’s clear why.’

‘What does that mean?’

‘It’s compensation. She’s a complete bitch and without question the rudest, most spoilt person I’ve ever met in my life. It’s actually quite staggering.’

‘It is, coming from you,’ he quipped. ‘I can’t imagine you putting up with that kind of behaviour.’

‘Oh I didn’t,’ Violet said, eyes narrowed, savouring the memory of Pia’s humiliation. ‘I put her firmly in her place. She won’t give me any more trouble from
now on, I can tell you. She knows who’s boss now.’

Pia had woken at six. It was still dark outside but a few lone thrushes and blackbirds were trying to get the day moving. She lay in the gloom listening to them, having
absolutely no idea what they were – she’d grown up listening to yellow-beetle parakeets and Guianan cock-of-the-rocks – and with every trill they reminded her how foreign she felt
here, injured and far from home, forced to accept help from strangers.

Pia felt the tension steal back into her. She’d slept badly all night, in spite of the luxurious mattress beneath her. Violet’s abandonment of her had been as humiliating an insult
as she could have hoped to deliver. If it hadn’t been for Mrs Bremar eventually coming to her rescue she’d have spent the night on the loo.

She felt the resentment surge up in her. Everyone else – Will, Violet, Sophie – was getting on with their life while she slowly rotted – no, what was it Violet had said?
Withered? – while she withered in this deluxe prison. Because that is what it was, no matter how beautifully it was decorated.

She looked at the clock: 7.20 a.m. Mrs Bremar had told her last night that Violet would be arriving in just over an hour.

She fidgeted roughly, tensing her leg muscles till they were like rocks. She couldn’t bear it. Couldn’t bear to see the smile that she’d be wearing when she came in, desperate
to find out how long Pia’d been stranded and who had come to her rescue.

Pia knew what was really going on here. She knew Violet hadn’t really been offended by her remarks on the steps. She could hardly have been surprised by Pia’s incredulity, after all
– there were precious few world-famous dancers with a career-threatening injury who would take being treated by an equine physio in a calm and understanding spirit. In fact, the thought of
what Ava’s reaction would have been made her laugh out loud! That really would have been something to see.

No, this was about ego and their clash would have happened even if Pia had been sweetness itself, because Violet was used to ruling the roost. She was a highly attractive woman operating in an
arena populated by men and Pia had known the second she’d seen her that she encouraged and manipulated their lust for her; she would like the feel of their eyes upon her – Pia wondered
briefly whether Will’s followed her – and the fact that she was intelligent and strong-willed made her a tempestuous and tantalizing proposition. Pia understood the package because it
was precisely why men lusted after her.

The difference was that Pia had millions in the bank and her arena was global. Violet may be Plumbridge’s queen bee, but compared to Pia she was a mere drone, and Pia already knew how this
was going to play out between them: a series of small petty victories in a war of attrition. Violet wasn’t the first – or the last – who would try to trump her.

Pia looked out of the window at the burnt-orange sky. She was used to it. She had been extraordinary for a long time now. Her beauty and talent had marked her out, but they hadn’t made her
any friends. Other women didn’t like it – they thought she had too much, that she was too lucky, that she’d been blessed in all departments. That just went to show how much they
knew, of course. She’d lost more than anyone else she’d ever met but she wasn’t going to play the victim about it. She had a responsibility to make her life count, to be
remarkable, and if that meant she didn’t have shoulders to cry on, so be it. There was always a willing head to share her pillow. That could be enough.

She watched the cold February sun inch upwards, and felt her customary loneliness lie upon her, like a dog resting its head on her lap. Day Six here. She was dreading it already, willing it to
be night-time again, when she wouldn’t have to endure people telling her what she should eat, when she should sleep, how she should move . . .

This situation was everything she had always tried to protect herself against. She had always made a point of making sure she was in charge of her destiny. She didn’t use an agent, a
manager, a nutritionist, a publicist, a stylist or . . . or an anything. Just Sophie to organize the admin and manage her schedule. But every decision that needed to be made was made by her and her
alone. She was the only one who knew what was best for her future because she was the only one who knew the worst of her past. She’d endured everything else alone. She’d survive
this.

A sudden bubble of indignation rushed up inside her, and throwing the covers off, she bottom-shuffled herself into the wheelchair beside the bed and went over to the wardrobe. Emma, Will’s
London PA, had shown typical initiative, ringing the wardrobe department at the ChiCi for Pia’s measurements and ordering an impressive collection of clothes that – while not to her
taste – fitted like a glove. She chose a navy polo neck and a khaki printed wrap dress that Emma had cleverly realized wouldn’t interfere with Pia’s leg, making dressing easy.

As quickly as she could, before anyone was around, she wheeled herself onto the galleried landing and looked down the oval John Soane staircase, which wound its way elliptically down to the
hall. Leaving the wheelchair by the top step, she bumped down the stairs on her bottom with her plastered leg up by her nose – a ballerina’s advantage in times like these. It
wasn’t elegant, but hell – it worked.

A second wheelchair, unused as yet, was parked by the bottom step. The staircase was far too long to be hoicking wheelchairs up and down it each day.

Pia settled down in it, resting her foot on the elevated support board in front of her. She closed her eyes for a moment, feeling weary already. It was the most exercise she’d had in
nearly a fortnight and her muscles felt drained.

The bustle and bangs coming from the other side of a door at the far end of the hall suggested Mrs Bremar was preparing breakfast in the kitchen. She couldn’t hang about, and yet . . .
she’d seen nothing of her jail.

Pia looked at all the doors leading off the hallway, and curiosity got the better of her. She wheeled silently to the room opposite and nudged open the double doors. It was the drawing room,
lined with oyster linen walls and black-framed contemporary art. Vast cream suede sofas bore down on a stone fireplace. Oversized burgundy glass lamps were positioned at either end of a console
table. A teal-coloured rug blanketed the floor. The room had a masculine, rich look and clearly no one under the age of twelve had ever set foot inside it.

Pivoting herself away, she wheeled slowly to the next room. The door was ajar and she rolled into the dining room. Midnight-blue silk-covered walls bracketed a triptych of floor-to-ceiling
windows; a modernist mahogany table on cubed steel legs, which could easily accommodate eighteen guests, ran across the middle of the room. She raised her eyes, unimpressed. She seriously doubted
anyone had ever danced or had sex on that table. It was a collector’s piece – for showing, not living.

Going back into the corridor, she tried the other side of the hall. There was a downstairs loo, then a cloakroom lined with welly racks and polo boots, tweed jackets, stalking caps, shooting
sticks and riding crops – everything brand new and unmuddied. At the far end, a locked glazed cabinet boasted a full arsenal of shotguns. Pia shivered at the sight of them. She’d always
despised guns, ever since childhood. They weren’t sport to her. Far from it.

Pia reversed out quickly. Only one other door remained. She rolled forward, but she could hear a low voice coming from behind it. She picked up the clipped tones and lack of deference. Will. She
already knew he was back. It had been his voice she’d heard yesterday, but he hadn’t been up to see her yet. Or, if he had, he’d waited until she was asleep. She bristled at his
arrogance in treating her presence here so dismissively.

She turned on her wheel and made for the front door. Sunshine was streaming through the sidelights and pooling in puddles on the stone floor. She felt eager to get out and feel fresh air on her
face.

Opening the door – with a great deal of forward-reverse manoeuvring to get the wheels out of the way – she eyed a ramp which had been put up to bypass the three steps alongside. To
her novice eye it looked steep, but then so would a speed bump right now.

Warily, she positioned herself at the top of the ramp and, gripping the wheels as tightly as she could, she prepared to lower herself down. For a moment, the wheels held, but the second she
released her grip to inch them forward they suddenly ran away with her, and she was shooting down the short drop as though she were on a rollercoaster, too shocked even to scream.

She came to a just-as-sudden halt as the wheels sank into the thick gravel, and the jolt knocked her so far forward on her seat that she had to grip the armrests to keep herself from falling out
altogether.

She sat there for a moment, her heart racing at the near-accident and what it could have meant for her recovery, before becoming aware of a searing heat in her hand. Wincing, she looked at her
left palm. The smooth tyre, skidding out of her grasp, had branded a red weal across it. She held it tenderly, like a flower fairy with a buttercup.

‘You all right, miss?’ enquired a man, running over. From the way he was dressed, she guessed he was a gardener, or groundsman. ‘You went down there fair
lickety-split.’

Pia had no idea what he was talking about. Her hand was throbbing.

The man knew who she was of course. Everybody did. Mr Silk’s new fancy woman. ‘Are you supposed to be up and about so early, miss? It’s pretty parky out here.’

‘I may need to be off my feet, but it doesn’t mean I have to lie about in bed all day,’ she muttered, looking around him. She could see a path that ran along the top of the
lawn towards the terrace at the side of the house. ‘Could you just wheel me over there?’ she said, remembering to add, ‘Please.’

‘Well . . . if you’re sure, miss,’ the man said, unconvinced.

With a resigned shrug of his shoulders, he turned the wheelchair around and, tipping Pia backwards, like a baby in a pushchair, managed to get the wheels out of the gravel trench they’d
created.

‘Thank you,’ Pia said as he positioned her on a compacted footpath. She watched him crunch back over the gravel.

A cool breeze pushed past her, and she shivered in her dress. The tempting sunshine had made her completely forget about wrapping up, and though the British winter was nowhere near as harsh as
Chicago’s it could still be only four or five degrees.

But she couldn’t go back in the house for a coat now. It was breakfast time and if Mrs Bremar caught her up she’d herd her straight back into bed. Violet would be arriving imminently
and she had absolutely no intention of being there.

Pia looked around her and noticed that the path she was sitting on crossed the lawn and led away from the house, towards a wooded area. She could hide herself away from them all in there, plus
she’d be protected from the wind. She headed straight for it.

There were still no buds on the trees but a bank of snowdrops nodded politely as she glided past, and a few early basking daffodils stretched in the sun. She found a rhythm along the smooth,
flat path, moving silently into the shadow of the copse, and covering some fair distance within it as her muscles rejoiced in movement again and her lungs grabbed at the clean air.

She rolled past collapsed heaps of bracken, yellow budding gorse bushes that scratched lightly at her legs, stray brave primroses and enormous badger setts in which she was sure she could set up
home herself. Her stealth approach startled a couple of still-sleepy rabbits and they darted back into their warrens. Occasionally, the wheels slowed in the stray leaf mounds that had been left to
mulch on the path, but nothing could stop her. She was free again. Her own agent.

She went deeper and deeper into the wood, the trees closing around her – though she could easily see the sky through their wintry nakedness – and the path began to meander and dip.
She had to stop often, for her muscles emptied of energy all too quickly, but after a few minutes of resting she was able to dig in again and bury herself further in the trees.

After a while, she came to a wooden bridge – beautifully crafted over a rocky stream. She stopped and stared at it, unsure for a moment after her scare on the ramp. But it was flattish,
not humped, and looked well maintained and stable. She crawled over it, keeping accomplished control of the chair as she rolled down the far side and continued along the path. Ahead of her, the
level began to run down but it was a gentle gradient, and being able to just glide for a while was easier on her arms.