The Spiral Path (47 page)

T
oday,
karmic justice would be visited on Rainey. It was almost time to play
the big love scene with Kenzie in front of a relentless camera. Restlessly
Rainey moved around her shabby studio dressing room, the long skirt of her
Victorian day dress picking up a dust bunny or two along the hem.

"In the interests of
distraction," Val said from her desk in the corner, "shall I
summarize some of your mail?"

"Anything exciting there?"

"Not really. Your paternity
investigator's weekly report says he may have a line on the studio executive
Clementine was involved with, and it appears to have been more than a casual
fling."

"A studio executive?" Rainey
wrinkled her nose. "The drug dealer is starting to look better. What else
have you got?"

"An e-mail note from your
grandfather. Apparently he's becoming an Internet addict on that get-well
computer you gave him." Val glanced at the printed-out note. "The
suggestions we made about where he might be able to link up with some of his
old Korean War buddies have borne fruit. He found some, and they chat back and
forth daily. Your grandparents have booked tickets to his outfit's reunion in
Florida next winter."

"That's very good news."
Gradually, at long distance, the relationship with her grandparents was
improving. It was an unexpected benefit of her grandfather's accident. She
actually looked forward to her next visit with them, after
The Centurion
finished
shooting, though she knew better than to expect too much. There could be
friendship and respect between her and them. For warmth, she would look
elsewhere, as she always had.

Deb, the makeup artist, entered the
dressing room. "Time to touch you up before this next scene."

Obediently Rainey sat in a straight
chair. With a third person present, Val put away the personal messages and
returned to transcribing Rainey's scrawled notes from the previous evening's
viewing of the dailies.

Rainey's thoughts returned obsessively
to the upcoming scene with Kenzie. Maybe it would have been worse to direct
Jane Stackpole in bed with him--but probably not. Being there in that bed
herself, with his familiar touch and the haunted eyes that were as much Kenzie
as John Randall--she shuddered at the prospect.

"Don't twitch," Deb said.

"Sorry." Rainey needed
cosmetic magic to make her over-thirty face look ten years younger. Mentally
she rehearsed her lines while Deb fine-tuned Sarah's dewy English complexion.

Then it could be avoided no longer. She
left her dressing room and picked her way across the vast, darkened sound
stage, avoiding cables and equipment. Kenzie was already on the brightly lit
bedroom set, fingers drumming on a tall, carved bedpost.

The scenes with Sharif had reduced him
to monosyllables and zero eye contact. She studied him critically, glad that
filming was almost over. Both of them were looking haggard and had lost weight.
Luckily, that suited the scenes they were shooting. The stress of moviemaking
coincided with the stress of their fictional characters.

This scene directly followed the one on
the cliff where Sarah had coaxed Randall back from suicidal despair. He'd
stammered out enough for her to understand why he was so profoundly wounded.
Though Sarah was uncertain of exactly what had been done to him, she had
recognized the depth of his emotional pain. Loving her husband, she was
determined not to allow his nightmares and shattered self-esteem to drive her
away.

The cliff scene had ended with their
returning to the house across the fields, Randall moving like an old man, his
arm around his wife's shoulders. This take would start with them, windblown
from the cliffs, entering his bedchamber. Rainey scanned the set, automatically
checking that the details were right before looking at Kenzie.
"Ready?"

He nodded and crossed to stand in the
doorway. She joined him, saying in a low tone, "You won't be able to do
this scene without looking at me a time or two."

Mouth tightening, he met her gaze, the
torments of the damned visible in his eyes. She swallowed hard, wishing she
could believe that he was merely in character, but sure that much of that
bleakness was Kenzie.

To match his intensity, she reached deep
inside to release sorrow from the well of pain at her core. The emotion
centered her in Sarah, who was frightened and out of her depth, but would not
give up. When tension shimmered between the two characters, Rainey gave the
signal to start.

The camera began to roll. Clinging to
each other, they entered the room. Then Randall pulled away, unsteady but
determined to stand on his own feet.

Rainey said, "Rest now, my dear.
You'll feel better then."

"You don't understand," he
said harshly. "A night's sleep won't cure the past. Nothing will."
When she reached for him, he caught her hand, keeping her away. "Which is
why you must leave me before it's too late."

His touch sizzled through her. Though a
virgin, Sarah knew there was a powerful attraction between them. "Then we
won't look to the past. Only now and the future."

"Sarah, we have no future." He
released her hand and stepped back. "Since we are not truly married, it
will be possible to separate legally. Perhaps an annulment, which will free you
in the eyes of society."

"You are the one who doesn't
understand, John." Her fear of losing him was laced with anger. "You
might not have meant the vows you took, but I did. Before God, you are my
husband. I will have no other while you live."

He looked at her as if she were a
distant, cherished memory. "You are so fine. So pure. I thought of you as
my bright angel when I was imprisoned."

Her anger erupted, making her reckless.
"I cannot live on the pedestal where you've placed me, John. Though I know
little of the world, I know enough to be your wife. Or is it impossible for you
to ... to desire me?"

The flick of his eyes down her body
betrayed him, though he said stiffly, "You should not speak of such
things."

He had made himself vulnerable by
revealing the shame that scarred his spirit. If they were to be husband and
wife, Sarah must make herself equally vulnerable, and the only way she could
imagine was by offering herself sexually. In passion, he would be stronger and
more experienced than she.

"Words are not helping. You have
always been a man of action. It is time for us to act. Together." Fingers
shaking, she began to unfasten the pearl buttons that ran down the front of her
bodice.

He caught his breath as the dress fell
open to reveal her lace-trimmed undergarment and pale, virginal skin.
"This ... this isn't fitting, Sarah."

"What could be more fitting than
intimacy between husband and wife?" Seeing his glance go to the door, she
turned the key in the lock, then dropped it into a vase of roses that stood on
his dresser.

He'd revealed that he desired her. Now
she must remind him of the vows they had taken. She began unfastening her
cuffs. "I, Sarah, take thee, John, to be my wedded husband, to have and to
hold, from this day forward. For better. For worse. For
always.
You
swore an oath to me, John. I shall not release you from it." She peeled
off her tucked and lacy blouse.

Gaze riveted, he whispered, "With
my body ... I thee worship."

The skirt tied back with a sash at her
waist. She tugged the bow loose, then pushed the skirt to the floor, leaving
her in lace-edged chemise and petticoats. Though almost every inch of her was
covered, the fact that she was in her undergarments charged the air with
eroticism. Voice husky, she said, "You must unlace me."

He swallowed hard as she turned,
presenting her back to him. As he unfastened her laces, she struggled to
control her fear of the unknown, for she knew in her bones that this was the
right course. She must put herself in his power to remind him that he possessed
power.

Reverently he caressed her, sending
liquid heat curling deep inside. The corset fell away, leaving her body unbound
and tingling with sensation. As she arched her back, he bent to kiss her neck,
his breath warm against her nape. She gasped, frightened now not only of what
he might do, but of herself, and the body that no longer seemed fully her own.
Rather desperately, she groped for her identity as Rainey. "Cut."

Behind her, Kenzie's breathing was rough
as her own. Not daring to look at him, she asked, "Did that look good,
Greg?"

Voice a little thick, the cameraman
said, "I thought the lens might melt, but it didn't, so I'd say this
should be printed."

Kenzie had retreated across the room and
was showing great interest in the ivory-backed toiletry articles on the
dresser. She hoped he found this as harrowing as she did.

Though she'd give a year's income not to
do this scene again, she couldn't risk going with a single take this close to
the end. "Okay. One more time for safety's sake."

The rest of the day was taken up with
the love scene and the impressionistic close-up images that would keep the
movie romantic and PG-13 rather than graphic and R-rated. It was one of the
strangest acting experiences of Rainey's life, a false intimacy with a man
where the intimacy once been real and profound.

They filmed silken garments sliding to
the floor with a luxurious whisper. Stroking hands, tentative when they
belonged to Sarah, taut with barely controlled desire for Randall. Her anxiety
spiked with pain, then dissolving into wonder, the awed tenderness as Randall
discovered the magic of his bride's unstinting love. She was the Maiden,
powerful in her conviction, while he was the wounded Warrior regaining his
strength as he remembered what it was that men fought to protect.

After they wrapped for the day, Rainey
went to her dressing room, sprawled on her sofa, and slept like the dead.