Unguarded Moment
Sara Craven

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Former journalist SARA CRAVEN published her first novel ‘Garden of Dreams’ for Mills & Boon in 1975. Apart from her writing (naturally!) her passions include reading, bridge, Italian cities, Greek islands, the French language and countryside, and her rescue Jack Russell/cross Button. She has appeared on several TV quiz shows and in 1997 became UK TV Mastermind champion. She lives near her family in Warwickshire – Shakespeare country.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

COVER

TITLE PAGE

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

ENDPAGE

COPYRIGHT

CHAPTER ONE

AS the taxi stopped, so did the rain, and Alix Coulter flung the sky an appreciative glance as she paid off the driver. Her three weeks in the sun had been a leisurely delight, but at the same time had spoilt her for the vagaries of the English climate in August. It had been a distinct let-down to descend on London through thick cloud and find a sullen, humid day waiting for her.

Driving through the glistening streets, she’d wondered half humorously, half apprehensively, whether the threatening weather was an indication of what was waiting for her. Bianca had been all smiles when she’d said ‘Au revoir’, but that was no guarantee that Alix would be equally warmly welcomed. Bianca’s moods were—mercurial, to find the kindest way of putting it, Alix supposed. Even the slightest obstacle in her primrose path could bring on a tantrum which might last for days. ‘Artistic temperament’, the directors and producers who worked with her on her films tactfully called it. ‘Sheer bloodymindedness’ was the more down-to-earth description from Lester Marchant, Bianca’s most recent husband, now licking his wounds and ruefully contemplating the divorce settlement in the United States.

Alix sighed a little, She had liked Lester, and was sorry when he finally declared enough was enough and moved out. But as she was the first to admit, it wasn’t easy being a member of Bianca’s entourage. She had worked for Bianca for three years now, and while it was undoubtedly exciting, it wasn’t always enjoyable.

Alix had often wondered, especially when Bianca was being more than usually imperious, why she stood it. She was a good secretary. She was calm, efficient and well organised. She wouldn’t have the slightest difficulty in finding another job—and an employer not nearly as trying and demanding as Bianca apparently took a delight in being. And yet she still stayed, restoring order to Bianca’s hectic social life, smoothing out her travel arrangements, taking her frequent changes of mind in her stride as equably as she did Bianca’s constant changes of clothes.

It must be family feeling, she told herself wryly.

She had been quite shattered to learn that Bianca Layton was her aunt, her own mother’s sister. She could never remember hearing it referred to even once during her childhood, although Bianca was already a name in films on both sides of the Atlantic, celebrated for her outrageous beauty and her love affairs which sometimes, but not always, ended in marriage.

It was incredible even to think of Bianca coming from the same staid background as her mother. All her life Margaret Coulter had stood up for all the virtues that Bianca seemed deliberately to flout. Alix often wondered whether her mother had been ashamed or envious of her amazingly glamorous sibling.

When Alix had at last discovered the truth, learned that Bianca Layton was her aunt and was coming to visit them, she had appealed to her mother, ‘But why did you never tell me? Why have you never said anything all these years?’

Margaret Coulter was a quiet woman, but now she was so silent that Alix was afraid she had offended her in some way.

At last she said, ‘There seemed no reason for you to know. Her world isn’t ours, and I never thought we would ever see her again.’

There was a note in her voice which told Alix quite unequivocally that it was Margaret herself who had desired the separation. She looked at her mother uncertainly, at the greying dark hair cut and waved neatly into the same style for the past ten years, at the figure, no longer youthfully slender but blurring into comfortable lines, and realised that Margaret was probably dreading the inevitable comparisons which would be made.

Margaret met her gaze and her smile was wintry. ‘No, we’re not alike,’ she said. ‘We never were. No one took us for sisters, even when we were at school. Sometimes I could hardly believe it myself.’

It had seemed even more unbelievable when Bianca finally arrived. She seemed to fill the house with her presence. Her perfume hung exotically in the air. She was charm, she glittered, and she never once by either word or deed gave any indication that she found her sister’s home and her sister’s family drearily suburban and middle class.

She was gracious in a remote way to Alix and to Debbie, her younger sister. She obviously wasn’t used to very young girls; all three of her marriages had been childless.

And when Bianca had departed as dramatically as she had come, and they were left with that inevitable feeling of anticlimax, Debbie had said, ‘But why did she come? What did she want?’

But no one had an answer to that—at least not then. Sometimes Alix found herself staring at the place at the neatly set table with its embroidered cloth and matching china where Bianca had sat and wondering dazedly whether it had all really happened, or whether they hadn’t been victims of some sort of mass hallucination, or one of those dreams where the Queen comes to tea as if she was an old friend.

It had been a fleeting visit, and yet it seemed to have had a profound effect. Margaret Coulter had never been the ebullient, extrovert type, but now she seemed to become more withdrawn than ever, and her family watched her with concern.

One night Alix, who couldn’t sleep, came downstairs for a drink of water and heard her father’s voice, almost coaxing.

‘Don’t worry, Meg. It’s over. It’s past.’

And her mother’s response, her tone throbbing with something like hatred, ‘Or it could be just beginning.’

Alix, unseen and unheard, went back to bed without her drink, instinct telling her that any sort of intrusion would be unwelcome.

What had her mother meant? she wondered as she tossed and turned restlessly. Aunt Bianca had said nothing about another visit. Was this what her mother was afraid of? Constant descents on them, like some goddess coming down from Olympus, with all the fuss and attendant publicity which would probably be inevitable? She could understand why quiet, conventional Margaret should find such an idea abhorrent. It was that unmistakable note of venom which disturbed her. Her mother was a good woman—everyone said so. She belonged to the Mothers’ Union and raised money for Oxfam and a string of other charities. She didn’t have an enemy in the world—or at least that was what Alix had always believed.

She could only surmise that at some time in the dim and distant past something had happened between the sisters which had driven them irrevocably apart. There had been a breach which Bianca’s unexpected visit had done nothing to heal. On the contrary, old wounds seemed to be open and bleeding.

Gradually, as the weeks lengthened into months, and nothing was heard from Bianca, although plenty was heard about her—more films, another marriage—things began to return to normal.

And two years had passed before Bianca came back into their lives again.

‘Cheer up, ducks. It may never happen.’ The taxi-driver’s cheerful voice cut across her reverie, and Alix started. He had unloaded her luggage, two cases in cream hide, on to the pavement beside her. ‘Very nice too.’ His gaze slid from the cases over Alix, and on tothe house they were standing outside, so she wasn’t altogether sure what he was referring to, and certainly not inclined to ask.

The tan she had acquired over the past few weeks suited her, she knew, and she was wearing her thick dark hair loose on her shoulders instead of in a neat chignon as she usually did. Although that, of course, was not entirely her own choice. It was just that Bianca preferred her to look neat and businesslike when she was working.

Well, perhaps not just that, Alix admitted to herself wryly. She remembered the first day she had come here, summoned by a telephone call not from Bianca herself but from Lester Marchant.

Would she come and see them, he had said, because he had a proposition to put to her. Alix had hesitated at first, her instinct telling her that her mother wouldn’t want her to go. But her curiosity proved too strong in the end.

She could remember the uncertainty she had felt, standing at the foot of the steps for the first time, looking up at the tall Georgian house and wondering if she had the courage to ring the doorbell.

At least she didn’t have to do that any more, she thought, as she fitted her key into the lock, and she was certainly a more confident and self-reliant person than she would have been if she’d gone on with her humdrum little job in a solicitor’s office.

The driver carried her cases in and she thanked him with a tip and a smile he would remember far longer. Then she closed the door and stood looking around her with the usual pang of delight which assailed her every time she entered the house. It was a beautiful hall, broad and spacious, with a broad imposing staircase, and the walls panelled in honey-coloured wood. Bianca had other houses, but this was where she spent most of her time.

‘In spite of everything, England is still the most civilised place to be,’ she was fond of saying in interviews. The only thing she didn’t find civilised was the weather, and as autumn dwindled into winter with rain and fog and frost, she was generally ready to be off to her home in California, or to accept any of the numerous invitations to friends’ villas in Marbella or the South of France.

Alix had seen a lot of the world in the past few years. She had expected to be taken on location when Bianca was filming, but she hadn’t been sure about the trips which were really frivolity. But Bianca had dismissed her misgivings with an impatient wave of her hand. When she travelled, she liked her entourage with her, and that included Alix as well as Edith Montgomery who had been with her all her life, it seemed, fulfilling a variety of roles—a kind of companion-maid-masseuse-dresser-housekeeper rolled into one.

Monty was coming downstairs now, neat in the dark skirt and white tailored shirt she usually wore, and she looked at Alix with her brows raised.

‘So you’re back,’ she observed grudgingly and unnecessarily.

Alix kept her face straight. When she had first come to work here, she had been unnerved by Monty’s inexplicable but thinly veiled hostility. Later, when she became more settled, she had been able to reason it out. Monty wasn’t a young woman. Her face was thin and lined, and she made no attempt to disguise the liberal streaks of grey in her hair. But she had a close relationship with Bianca, and perhaps she thought having her niece working as a secretary and actually living in the house might be a threat to that relationship. Alix had had to walk on eggshells for several months in an attempt to convince Monty that she had nothing to worry about, that although she had accepted the job she wasn’t trying to muscle in on anything else. She supposed she had succeeded up to a point. They had achieved a kind of armed truce, but she had stopped hoping that Monty would regard her with any real warmth or approval.

Now she smiled more widely than she felt inclined to do, and said, ‘Yes, I am. How are things? Any crises during my absence?’

‘We’ve had our ups and downs,’ Monty said drily. ‘But you’re just in time for the row of the year.’

‘Oh, hell!’ Alix was apprehensive. ‘It isn’t the film, surely? It hasn’t fallen through?’

‘No, that’s still very much on the cards. Veronese is coming over here shortly to talk to her about it.’ Monty paused heavily. ‘No, it’s this biography.’

‘Oh?’ Alix’s voice sharpened. This was something she hadn’t foreseen. Before she’d gone away, Bianca had been all for the suggestion that her life story should be written. She had even had boxes of ancient photographs brought down from the attic to look for suitable prints of herself as baby and small child for the inevitable illustrations. ‘What’s gone wrong?’

‘They don’t want her to write it.’ Monty gave a resigned shrug. ‘She thought it would simply be a matter of hiring someone to listen to her talk through her reminiscences, and then ghost them, but now it seems the publishers have commissioned someone—a Liam Brant. Have you heard of him?’

Alix thought she had, but couldn’t remember in what connection.

She said, ‘What has she got against him?’

‘He isn’t her idea. She wanted that girl—the one who did the article about her in Woman of Today. She thought she was simpatico.’

‘It was certainly a very flattering article,’ Alix said drily. ‘I doubt if the same note of unquestioning admiration could be sustained for a whole book. Has she met this Mr Brant? Perhaps he’s simpatico too.’

‘He’s coming here this morning.’ Monty sounded dour. ‘And she says she won’t see him. A nice start that is!’

A nice start indeed, Alix thought resignedly, bidding her holiday goodbye for ever. She was back in the thick of it, and no mistake.

She lifted the dark fall of hair wearily from her neck. ‘If he’s the publishers’ choice, then we may be stuck with him, unless she can come up with a better reason for turning him down than she’d rather it was someone else. And it won’t do to antagonise him. I’ll talk to her.’

‘I wish you would,’ said Monty, and that was an admission coming from her. She sounded tired, Alix thought. Perhaps the last three weeks had been more trying than usual, although after all these years Monty should be used to Bianca’s vagaries. ‘Leave your cases. I’ll get Harris to see to them.’

Harris and his wife occupied a small flat in the basement. They took care of the house when Bianca was away, and when she was in residence, Harris was a total manservant, doing most of the fetching and carrying around the household, but acting as butler when the occasion demanded, while Mrs Harris was a divine cook.

They had worked for Bianca for a long time too, and they seemed impervious to the storms which periodically rocked the household, or perhaps they stayed because the wages were good, and the perfect employer didn’t exist anyway, Alix sometimes thought, amused.

She ran upstairs and paused outside the door of Bianca’s first floor suite, wondering whether to knock. Bianca usually catnapped during the morning, and she hated being caught doing it. But even as Alix hesitated, she heard the unmistakable crash of shattering glass coming from behind the door. She smiled grimly, turned the handle and went into the room.

‘I do hope that wasn’t a mirror,’ she said lightly. ‘I don’t think we can do with seven years’ bad luck.’

It was a vase of flowers. Broken glass, water and sad-looking blooms were strewn across the carpet at Bianca’s feet. Alix thought detachedly that she looked magnificent, even if the flush in her cheeks was caused by temper rather than excitement or good health.

The huge emerald eyes, which had been staring straight ahead, focussed on Alix and sharpened.

Bianca said, ‘So it’s you. Where the hell have you been?’

Alix suppressed a sigh. ‘So nice to be needed,’ she said drily. ‘I’ve been on holiday, in case you’ve forgotten—to Rhodes. Didn’t you get my card?’

‘I may have done,’ Bianca gave an irritable shrug. ‘The girl they sent from the agency has been dealing with the mail. My God, what a mistake that was!’

‘Wasn’t she any good?’ Alix fetched a discarded newspaper from the table beside the chaise-longue and began to gather the broken glass and wilted flowers on to it.

‘Useless. It’s all her fault that this frightful man is coming here this morning. She made the appointment without consulting me. Well, you’ll just have to get rid of him, Alix. Telephone him. Tell him I’m ill—tell him anything. I won’t see him. I won’t!’ There was an hysterical note in Bianca’s voice and Alix glanced up at her, her brows drawing together in a faint frown.

She said equably, ‘Very well. But what shall I say when he asks for another appointment? And he surely will. This is a commission, and he won’t want to lose out.’

Bianca’s perfectly painted mouth twisted sullenly. ‘Oh God, you sound just like Seb! He won’t help at all. He says I’ve agreed that my life story should be written, and the best thing I can do is co-operate.’ She swore viciously. ‘Some public relations man he turned out to be!’

‘He’s one of the best,’ Alix said, faintly amused. ‘And his advice is probably good.’

Bianca gestured wildly. ‘But I don’t want his advice. I just want him to get rid of this terrible man—this Brant.’

Alix retrieved a sliver of glass from the carpet with a certain amount of care.

‘How do you know he’s so terrible? He might be charming. If you met him you might like him.’

‘I would not.’ Bianca made it sound like a solemn vow. ‘He writes the most awful things. He did the Kristen Wallace book last year, and he made her sound like a neurotic bitch.’

‘Well, isn’t she?’ In spite of her care, Alix had cut her finger on a splinter, and she sucked the blood reflectively.

‘Of course,’ Bianca said impatiently. ‘But he had no right to say so.’

Alix hadn’t read the book, but she could remember Bianca doing so with gurgles of enjoyment, and she knew now why the name seemed familiar. The Wallace biography had caused a sensation because it had exploded a myth once and for all. Kristen Wallace had acquired a reputation for playing serious roles in films which relied heavily on prolonged silences and heavy symbolism for their impact. In the book, Kristen had been encouraged to talk about her work, which she had done at length, revealing in the process that she hadn’t, in all probability, understood one word of the deeply significant lines she was called on to say. The real genius, it had been suggested, was Miss Wallace’s dialogue coach. Alix remembered one critic had called the book, ‘A devastating insight into a deeply trivial mind.’ One thing was certain: Kristen Wallace had been a laughing stock afterwards, and she hadn’t made a film since.

‘He’s a hatchet man—a real swine,’ Bianca railed. ‘I don’t want that kind of thing written about me.’

Alix began to smile. She said, ‘That’s hardly likely. You’re not a pretentious idiot like La Wallace.’

‘I don’t want anyone like that poking about in my private life,’ Bianca said with finality.

One answer to that was that there was no aspect of Bianca’s life which could be considered private, but Alix wasn’t brave enough to suggest it. Her affairs, her marriages, and her divorces had all been conducted in the full glare of the publicity spotlight. There could be few details about them that the great reading public didn’t already know, ad nauseam.

‘So you’ll telephone him now,’ Bianca persisted. ‘And when you’ve done that, you can phone Seb and tell him he’s fired.’

‘Just as you say,’ Alix agreed cheerfully. There was no problem about the last instruction. Seb had a fireproof contract, and he was used to Bianca’s tempers. He said they added further colour to life’s rich tapestry.

She disposed of the broken glass and flowers, and told Monty regretfully about the soaked carpet, then went off to the room she used as an office.

The agency girl might have roused Bianca’s ire, but she seemed to be a neat worker. The desk was immaculate, and the carbons of the correspondence she had dealt with were all clipped together by the typewriter so Alix could familiarise herself with everything that had happened while she was away.

The filing had all been done too, and she found Liam Brant’s letter without difficulty. It was a polite enough request for an interview, she thought, as she dialled his number, but the signature was a give-away—a slash of black ink, harsh and arrogant, across the creamy paper.

His line was engaged, so she re-dialled and spoke to Seb.

‘You’re fired.’

‘That’s the fourth time this year,’ Seb said mournfully. ‘One day I’ll take her at her word, and then where will she be? And how are you, my honey flower? Did you enjoy your happy hols?’

‘I wish I could remember,’ Alix sighed. ‘I’ve now got to gently but firmly get rid of Mr Brant.’

There was a startled sound, then Seb said, ‘I can tell you now that you won’t. I tried to indicate that to Bianca, but there was no reasoning with her. She put the phone down on me in a hell of a rage.’

‘And broke a vase,’ Alix said ruefully. ‘I’ve just been picking the pieces up.’

‘Well, my advice is still to co-operate with Mr Brant, or you may have more than the pieces of a vase to pick up,’ Seb assured her. ‘Have you come across any of his books?’

‘Only by hearsay. I gather Bianca’s been reading some of them—the Kristen Wallace biography in particular.’

‘Well, I suggest you read them too, so that you know what you’re up against.’

When she had replaced the receiver, Alix sat for a moment or two staring at the phone as if it might bite her. Then slowly and carefully she re-dialled Liam Brant’s number. She did not know whether to be sorry or relieved when it was still engaged.

She looked at the internal telephone on her desk, wondering if she should ring Bianca’s suite to warn her she had been unable to get through to Liam Brant as yet, or whether she should go up and tell her in person, passing on at the same time Seb’s rather terse advice.

She needed to go upstairs anyway. She had her unpacking to do, and she needed to change. Bianca had been too overwrought to notice her brief cream denim skirt and sleeveless black top, and her bare tanned legs culminating in flimsy leather sandals bought from a street market, but she would notice eventually, and not be pleased.

When Alix had first come to work there, she had been so dazzled to find herself the possessor of a salary which exceeded anything she could reasonably have hoped for that she had plunged into an orgy of buying. She didn’t want the way-out things displayed in so many of the boutiques, but it was fun to choose things which enhanced her young slenderness, clothes which whispered to her entranced image in fitting room mirrors that she could be more than merely attractive—that she might even have the promise of beauty.

She had entirely forgotten what had happened after her first visit to the house, when she had been brought into this very room to meet her predecessor, whose abrupt departure had provided the reason for her being offered the job.

The girl had been tight-lipped and hostile, and Alix had been unsure how to defuse the situation, wishing very much that Lester Marchant who had brought her here and introduced them had remained to ease the way for her. But of course he hadn’t, she thought, her mouth lifting in a smile of wry reminiscence. Lester had problems of his own, even then.

‘So you’re the new secretary.’ The other girl had surveyed her from head to toe. ‘I don’t think you’ll last long. You’re not bad looking and Bianca doesn’t brook any possible rivals, you know. That’s why I’m going. I could handle the job, but someone bothered to give me a word and a smile at one of her cocktail parties when he should have been devoting all his attention to her, and that’s fatal.’

Hot with embarrassment, Alix said, ‘Perhaps you ought to know that Miss Layton is my aunt.’

‘She is?’ The other girl sounded astonished, rather than abashed. ‘Well, that’s probably the last time you’ll ever be allowed to tell anyone that. And it won’t save you from the limitations Bianca likes to put on her staff. Niece or not, you’ll submit to the image she wants, or you’ll be out. Now, I suppose I’d better show you how the filing system works.’

Alix had been too dazed by the harshness of the words to pay much attention to the demonstration that followed. She was torn with doubts anyway, knowing how her mother would react to the news that she had accepted a post as Bianca’s secretary, however high-powered and well paid, and beyond the wildest dreams of anyone as relatively young and inexperienced as she was. Whatever the trouble was between Bianca and her mother, she had an uneasy feeling that her decision to work for Bianca, to live in her house, to devote her waking hours to her interests, would improve nothing between the sisters.

Now, it seemed, she would have problems at work as well as at home. She had known a momentary impulse to cut and run, but now an older, wiser Alix knew that she would have regretted it bitterly if she had done so.

Even a few weeks afterwards when Bianca, her smiling lips belying her narrowed eyes, had suggested charmingly that perhaps some of her new clothes were more suitable to her leisure hours rather than an office environment, she had learned to swallow her humiliation. Because by that time she knew that nothing—not Bianca’s moods, or Monty’s hostility, or the silences at home which disturbed her most of all—could persuade her to abandon the sheer stimulation of her new job. And if Bianca wanted her hair tied demurely back instead of flowing freely over her shoulders, and preferred her to dress in quiet drab styles, which were both businesslike and unobtrusive, then she would not argue. It might be weak-willed, but Bianca was paying the piper, and handsomely too, and Alix had no real objection to her calling the tune.

So she dressed and behaved with the utmost discretion, and she made no men friends where she might conceivably be accused of poaching on Bianca’s preserves.

She told herself that she didn’t really mind either that Bianca had fulfilled her predecessor’s prophecy by describing Alix airily as a young cousin, explaining later, ‘A niece sounds incredibly ageing, darling. Don’t you agree?’

Alix was realistic enough to know that even if she had objected violently, it would really have made no difference. Bianca spent a lot of her time pampering her face and body, keeping the march of time at bay. It would have been hard at any time to guess her age, and Bianca clearly intended to keep people guessing for many years yet.

She tried Liam Brant’s number once more for luck, and grimaced as the engaged signal came steadily to her ears.

‘Talkative devil, aren’t you?’ she addressed him as she put the phone down.

As she crossed the hall, the doorbell rang, and she hesitated, wondering if she should answer it, but she could already hear Harris’s footsteps as he came up the basement stairs, and besides, Bianca wouldn’t thank her for receiving guests in her holiday gear. So she went on towards the stairs, returning a smiling greeting to Harris’ hearty, ‘Good morning, miss. A pleasure to see you, if I may say so.’

Of course he could say so, she thought, as she put her hand on the curve of the banister rail. He was the only one who had said anything of the sort, and it was nice to be welcomed.

She was still smiling when she turned slightly to see who was at the door. He was tall, and his shadow fell across the watery sunlight which was making a brave attempt to straggle across the hall floor.

His voice was low-pitched, resonant and cool. ‘My name’s Brant. Miss Layton is expecting me.’

As he spoke, he glanced across the hall and his eyes fell on Alix, standing transfixed on the stairs.

She looked back at him blankly, registering his lean height, the darkness of his hair, the arrogant strength of nose, mouth and chin, and the cynically amused appreciation in his eyes as he surveyed her.

Her first thought was, ‘My God, it can’t be him! He’s on the phone. He can’t be here.’ Her second was, ‘Bianca will kill me!’

And she went on up the stairs, not looking back, but aware just the same that he was still watching her, and having hell’s own job not to break into a run and take Bianca’s elegant stairs two at a time.

She flew into her bedroom, nearly falling over her holiday cases which Harris had put there. Holiday gear was the last thing she wanted now, she thought, kicking off her sandals and shrugging the too-revealing black top over her head. She grabbed the nearest dress, a neat shirtwaister in beige cotton, and pulled it on, forcing the buttons through the holes, and knotting the tie belt hastily, before sliding her feet into matching low-heeled pumps. There was not time to fix her hair properly, she decided, gathering it firmly into a swirl at the back of her head, and anchoring it with a few well-placed hairpins.

And it was no use bothering Bianca at this stage. She would go downstairs and face the wretched man and see if she could persuade him to go away until she and Seb and Leon, Bianca’s agent, had had a chance to talk to her, to reason with her.

Harris was waiting at the foot of the stairs. ‘I’ve shown the gentleman into the drawing room, Miss Alix. Shall I bring coffee? And shall I tell Miss Layton he’s here.’

‘Not for the time being.’ Alix’s heart was thumping in a most uncharacteristic way, and the headlong rush to change into an approximation of what Bianca expected of her had made her breathless. ‘I—I’ll ring if I want anything.’

She paused at the drawing room door, took a deep steadying breath, then turned the handle and went in, pinning a small cool smile to her lips.

He was standing by the fireplace, glancing through one of the magazines, usually arranged neatly on the sofa table.

He looked at Alix, and his dark brows lifted. ‘So,’ he said. ‘The little niece.’

It was desperately important not to appear thrown, but she was. There had never been the slightest hint of her real relationship to Bianca in any of the hundreds of thousands of words which had been written about her aunt, so how in the world did he know?

‘Don’t bother to deny it,’ he added, his voice drawling as it invaded her appalled silence. ‘You’re rather like her—as she was when she was younger, anyway.’

Oh no, Alix thought. He mustn’t. He really must not meet Bianca ever, if this is a fair sample of the kind of thing he says.

She lifted her chin and gave him back stare for stare. ‘How kind of you to say so, Mr Brant.’ She allowed her own voice to drawl slightly. ‘And you’ve done your homework well.’

‘I’m paid to do so, Miss Coulter—or may I call you Alix, as we seem destined to spend a considerable amount of time in each other’s company over the next few months.’

‘Over my dead body,’ Alix said silently. She said coolly, ‘Miss Layton prefers a certain measure of formality in her business dealings, Mr Brant. As a matter of fact, I’ve been trying to telephone you for the past hour.’

‘My phone’s out of order.’ He gave her a level look. ‘I hope you weren’t trying to tell me that Miss Layton would be unable to keep our appointment because she’s been laid low by some virus.’

As this was exactly the excuse Alix had been desperately formulating, she had to grind her teeth.

‘Miss Layton is perfectly well,’ she said stiffly. ‘Nevertheless, it won’t be convenient for her to see you today. That was what I was trying to tell you. I’m very sorry.’

‘Now that I doubt.’ He tossed the magazine impatiently down on to the table again, and gave her a frowning look. ‘I never saw less evidence of regret in anybody. Let’s have the truth, Miss Coulter. Your aunt has developed cold feet over the whole project, hasn’t she, and she’s delegated you to break the bad news to me.’

Anger sparked in Alix. ‘You’re very astute, Mr Brant. Under the circumstances I don’t think there’s any need to extend this interview further.’ She turned away, but incredibly he was beside her, his hand on her arm, detaining her.

‘Then think again, secretary bird. I am a professional man, and I don’t like having my time deliberately wasted.’

‘Then you’d better send us a bill,’ Alix flared. ‘Is your profession paid by the hour, or the minute?’ She gave her watch a studied look. ‘Of which I calculate you’ve wasted approximately fifteen. Unless you walked here, of course.’

His smile held no amusement whatever. ‘Your sharp tongue doesn’t match your demure exterior, secretary bird. I’ve been commissioned to write this book about Bianca Layton, and I intend to do so, with her co-operation, or without it if I have to.’

‘Did Kristen Wallace co-operate?’ Alix asked. ‘It didn’t make a great deal of difference in the end. You still did a hatchet job on her.’

‘I didn’t have to, Miss Coulter. The lady was only too ready to rush headlong on her doom. All I had to do was make a truthful record of her idiocies.’

‘Oh, I’m sure you have a great concern with the truth,’ she said scornfully.

He lifted a shoulder almost wearily. ‘I’ve never found lying to be of any great benefit. Your aunt’s attitude puzzles me, I confess. Less than a week ago she was apparently full of enthusiasm about the book. Now she’s changed her mind, and it makes me wonder why.’

‘The waning of her enthusiasm dates from her discovery that you were involved.’ Alix was suddenly aware he was still holding her arm, and angrily shook herself free. ‘She’s entitled to deny you the right to invade her privacy.’

‘Privacy?’ He looked faintly amused. ‘Since when has Bianca Layton valued that commodity? She’s lived her life well and truly in the public eye. She knows what her public expects, and she doesn’t short-change them. I’d have said her life was—an open book already, wouldn’t you. And yet suddenly she’s wary. It makes me wonder. It really makes me wonder.’

‘Makes you wonder about what?’ Alix demanded sharply.

He smiled down into her flushed indignant face. ‘Just what she has to hide? What else? Now, as it’s clear you have no intention of letting me see her today, I’ll go, but I shall be back, and it would be better if next time she was prepared to see me.’

‘Threats, Mr Brant?’ Alix felt her voice quiver slightly.

‘Call it a friendly warning,’ he said pleasantly. ‘Au revoir, Miss Coulter. Oh, by the way—–’ his hand reached out, incredibly, and unfastened the top button on her dress, then moved down to the next, ‘in the interests of keeping our business relationship formal, perhaps you ought to take a little more care in the way you dress.’

‘How dare you!’ Her face burning, Alix stepped back. ‘There’s nothing the matter with my clothes.’

‘That’s open to debate. What I was actually trying to indicate was that somewhere along the way you’ve put a button through the wrong hole.’

Glancing down at the front of her dress, she was chagrined to see that he was correct.

‘Thank you,’ she said icily. ‘I can put it right for myself.’

‘As you please,’ he shrugged. ‘Don’t overreact, Miss Coulter. There’s no need to make like a frightened virgin. Buttoned or unbuttoned, you’re simply not my type, so you’re in no danger of imminent rape. I hope that reassures you.’

Reassures me? Alix wanted to scream. Nothing about you reassures me. I want you out of this house, and out of our lives.

Aloud, she said with emphasis, ‘Goodbye, Mr Brant.’

He shook his head. ‘No, Miss Coulter. Didn’t you hear me say I’d be back?’

He inclined his head to her with mocking courtesy, then reached past her to open the drawing-room door.

Alix watched him cross the hall to the front door. It wasn’t until it closed behind him that she realised she had been holding her breath.

Whatever happened, she told herself fiercely, no matter what Seb or anyone else said, she was going to keep that—character assassin with his insinuations and innuendoes away from Bianca. Whatever her faults, she didn’t deserve anyone like Liam Brant casting a spotlight on them. Bianca needed to be protected from him, and she, Alix, would see that it was done.

She swallowed, and her hand moved slowly and reluctantly to adjust the buttons on her dress. ‘You’re not my type,’ he’d told her cynically, and he certainly wasn’t hers, so why could she not dismiss the memory of that brief brush of his fingers against her breasts?

Alix bit her lip. She was going to protect Bianca—but the unanswerable question was—who was going to protect her?

CHAPTER TWO

BIANCA was dressing to go out to lunch, and she was less than pleased to hear what Alix had to tell her.

‘You seem to have handled it very badly,’ she remarked tartly. ‘I told you to get rid of him, not antagonise him.’

Alix groaned inwardly. ‘I’ve been trying to explain,’ she said. ‘I don’t think it’s possible to do one without the other. He’s absolutely determined to do the book, whether you agree or not.’

‘We’ll see about that.’ Bianca’s lips were tightly compressed.

Alix sighed. ‘Is it really so impossible? After all, forewarned is forearmed, and according to Seb it’s better to have him on your side.’

‘Oh, Seb,’ Bianca said with scorn. ‘A lot of good he’s been in all this. Why should I agree to this book? God knows I don’t need the publicity. I already have more scripts lined up than I’ll ever have time to do.’

She added some gloss to her lips.

‘There is nothing to stop anyone, any time, writing a book about you,’ Alix pointed out patiently. ‘It’s surprising really that no one’s thought of doing it before. As I see it, if you refuse to have anything to do with it, you’re deliberately forfeiting any control you might have over the content.’

Bianca swivelled round on her dressing stool. ‘You sound as if you’re on this man’s side!’

‘That’s the last thing I am,’ Alix muttered vehemently. ‘But he worries me.’

‘I can’t imagine why he should.’ Bianca was still watching her, her brows raised curiously. ‘I should be worried, if anyone is. Why should you be so concerned?’

Alix met her gaze steadily. ‘I hardly know. Perhaps it could have something to do with the fact that you’re a blood relation as well as my employer.’

‘How very touching!’ Bianca’s lip curled. ‘Well, don’t fret on my behalf, darling child. I can take care of myself.’

Alix felt a full flush creep into her face. There was a bite in Bianca’s tone which was bound to hurt. It was one of the things she had never been able to understand. She supposed Bianca had offered the job in the first place because she was her niece, and therefore she could expect more than usual loyalty from her, and yet her aunt had never treated her as if she was a relation. Alix could never say that she had received any kind of indulgence from Bianca, and not much affection either. Any tentative attempts by Alix to infuse some warmth into their relationship had always been resisted.

Alix had learned to come to terms with it, of course, mainly by telling herself that this should be regarded as just another job, and that Bianca should be regarded as just another employer. In other circumstances she would expect only to do what she was paid for and accept her salary. Yet at the same time she was realistic enough to know that Bianca made demands on her which no stranger would ever accede to.

She had tried once to explain this to her mother, but Margaret Coulter’s face had hardened.

‘Did you really expect anything different?’ she asked roughly. ‘Bianca always did want to eat her cake and have it at the same time. She was selfish and unfeeling from the day she was born. She expected everything and everyone to revolve round her like—like satellites around a moon. And now you’re caught too.’

Alix had been too shaken by the depth of feeling in her mother’s voice to do more than offer a token protest, but afterwards she had wondered whether what Margaret had said was true. Was she beguiled into acquiescence by the undoubted glamour of Bianca’s personality? She was guiltily aware that she had been tactless in the way she had talked about her job at home. She tried unobtrusively from then on to demonstrate to Margaret that she still came first in her affections, but she wasn’t altogether sure that she succeeded. In fact, the more she became absorbed in her job and its hectic demands, the farther she seemed to grow away from her family as a whole. Presumably they felt that someone who travelled the world in Bianca’s wake might find the ups and downs of their everyday life less than fascinating, she thought wryly.

The most hurtful thing of all had been a few months ago when she had returned from California to find that nineteen-year-old Debbie was engaged, and that the party to celebrate it had been held in her absence.

She’d tried to pretend it didn’t matter, to argue with herself that they couldn’t have waited for her erratic timetable to bring her back to London again, but the pain lingered.

She often felt as if she occupied a kind of limbo. Her family had learned to live without her, had apparently closed the circle against her, and her only value to Bianca lay in her general efficiency and usefulness.

‘I’ll talk to Leon over lunch,’ Bianca announced, scrutinising her flawless complexion through narrowed eyes. ‘He should be able to think of something to get me off the hook.’

‘I hope so,’ Alix said with a sigh. ‘Perhaps he’ll be able to convince Mr Brant that you haven’t anything to hide.’

‘What on earth do you mean?’ Bianca demanded sharply.

Alix met her eyes in the mirror. ‘Oh, it was just something that he implied—that you didn’t want him to write the book because there could be something you didn’t want him to find out about.’ She tried to smile rather uncertainly. ‘I tried to tell him he was wrong, but I’m not sure I was successful.’ She broke off, uneasily, staring at Bianca’s reflection, aware of a certain rigidity in her expression, and that the colour had faded in her face, emphasising the carefully applied blusher on her cheekbones.

Alix said sharply, ‘Is something wrong? Surely there’s nothing that he could find out …’

‘Of course there’s nothing,’ Bianca snapped. ‘I can’t understand what’s got into you, Alix. You’re usually so level-headed and sensible, but this man seems to have sent your wits begging. Either that or going on holiday makes you lose all sense of proportion. You’d better take the rest of the day off and get a grip on yourself. I’ll see you tomorrow.’

‘Thanks,’ Alix returned with a touch of irony. A small voice inside her head was saying that if Bianca retained her own sense of proportion about Liam Brant and the biography project, this whole situation would never have arisen, but of course she would never say so. ‘I think I’ll go home.’

‘That will be nice.’ Bianca turned away from the mirror, with a final look at her appearance. ‘Give them all my best, won’t you,’ she added indifferently.

From the window, Alix watched Bianca climb into the waiting taxi and speed off to her lunch engagement with her agent. She could imagine the scene as Bianca entered the restaurant, see the admiring glances, hear the murmurs of recognition as she made her way to her table. Even a simple action like that became a performance, executed with the utmost confidence and panache.

And yet, a few minutes earlier, she had seen the mask slip. For a moment Bianca had been caught off balance, and Alix found herself wondering why, that indefinable sense of unease deepening. It was impossible, of course, that anyone who had lived her life as fully, and often as scandalously, revelling in the publicity, as Bianca could really have any kind of secret to conceal. She could have sworn that all Bianca’s cupboards were open for inspection and lacking in skeletons of any kind.

At least I hope so, she thought as she turned away from the window.

Her first thought when she pushed open the back door and entered the kitchen was that her mother looked tired. But that could just be because she had been baking all morning for the local church’s charity cake stall, she told herself.

‘You’ve lost weight,’ she teased as she hugged her mother.

‘And not before time either,’ Margaret said with a grimace. ‘Just let me get this last batch out of the oven and I’ll make us some tea.’

‘That will be lovely.’ Alix settled herself beside the kitchen table and stole a jam tart from the baking tray. ‘No need to hurry. I have all day.’

‘Oh dear!’ Margaret looked at her quickly. ‘I wish you’d telephoned, dear. You see, we’re going out this evening to have a meal with Paul’s parents—to talk over wedding details. Mrs Frensham’s only expecting the three of us. I don’t really see …’

‘It doesn’t matter,’ Alix said quickly. ‘I wouldn’t dream of pushing in. I have loads of things to do, as it is—unpacking properly, for starters. And I wouldn’t mind an early night. When is the wedding, or haven’t they decided yet?’

‘I think that’s one of the things we’re going to thrash out tonight. Both sides feel that they’re rather young, but,’ Margaret smiled fondly, ‘I don’t suppose they’ll allow our opinions to carry too much weight. They’re very much in love.’

‘I’m glad for Debbie.’ Alix meant it. Debbie had always been her cherished younger sister. ‘I remember when we were children, she was always playing house. I was the one who was falling out of trees.’

‘No, she never had your love of adventure. I suppose I always hoped that she would find a nice boy and settle down, so I can’t really complain that she has done, even if it’s rather sooner than I expected.’

‘And what about me?’ Alix suddenly wanted to cry. ‘What did you hope for me? Have I fulfilled your expectations, or am I a disappointment?’

She should have been able to ask, but somehow it was impossible, so she helped herself to another jam tart, and began to talk about Rhodes, producing the presents she had brought back for them all, laughing and chattering as if there was no subdued ache in her heart at all. As if everything was fine, and she was the beloved elder daughter who had never been away.

Except of course it wasn’t like that, and never would be again. Alix supposed the invisible barrier which had grown up was of her own making. She had underestimated the depth of her mother’s hurt when she decided to go and work for Bianca. Underestimated it, because she didn’t understand it.

Things might have been better when Debbie came home at teatime, but oddly they weren’t. Debbie’s greeting was perfunctory, and although she thanked Alix for her gift, her heart wasn’t in it.

‘Three weeks on Rhodes.’ Her tone was frankly envious. ‘The most Paul and I can hope for is a few days in Bournemouth, or somewhere.’

Alix glanced at the pretty, discontented face and made up her mind.

‘Would you like a glamorous honeymoon as a wedding present?’ she asked.

‘No, thanks.’ The swiftness of Debbie’s response was almost insulting.

‘Why not?’ Alix enquired.

Debbie shrugged. ‘We’ll manage,’ she said. ‘I don’t want to start my married life on your charity.’

Alix felt as if she had been pierced to the heart, but she managed to say equably, ‘I’m sorry that you see it like that. I really didn’t intend …’

‘It doesn’t matter what you intended,’ Debbie cut across her rudely. ‘We’re quite all right as we are. We don’t need you playing Lady Bountiful.’

‘That’s quite enough, Debbie.’ Margaret, who had been out of the room, had returned in time to hear the last part of the exchange. She went on, ‘You’ll have to excuse her, Alix. She’s rather on edge these days.’

‘Perhaps I’d better go.’ Alix stood up, reaching for her bag. She was desperately afraid that she might burst into tears. Until she had left home, she and Debbie had shared a room, had confided in each other, giggled and occasionally quarrelled. Now they could be strangers.

‘I’ll see you out,’ said Debbie.

‘There’s really no need.’ Alix let a note of sarcasm enter her voice. ‘This is still my home, and I’ve no intention of stealing anything on my way through the hall.’

‘Alix!’ her mother protested, smiling nervously. ‘I’m sure Debbie didn’t mean that.’

Alix gave her a quick kiss, aware of the tightness in her throat. ‘Goodbye, love, and look after yourself. I—I’ll telephone first next time.’

She walked through the hall without looking back, and shut the front door behind her. Then, feeling dazed, she made her way down the path to the gate. She was sure that Debbie was watching her from the front room window, but pride forbade that she should turn and confirm her certainty. It was raining lightly again, and she turned up the collar of her cream trench coat, and pushed her hands into her pockets as she hurried along towards the station.

What a total disaster of a day this had been! The grey skies as she flew in that morning had been an omen.

‘I should have flown right out again,’ she told herself with mordant humour.

Walking along, her head bent, she didn’t see the figure approaching until she found herself in a mini-collision.

She said, ‘I’m so sorry …’ and broke off as a female voice exclaimed delightedly, ‘Alix—Alix Coulter! How marvellous! Don’t you remember me?’

Alix looked into the smiling face of Gemma Allan, an old school friend.

‘Gemma—you’re the last person I expected to see.’

‘I can’t think why. Didn’t your mother tell you that Dave and I had bought the house on the corner? Didn’t she give you my message?’

Alix shook her head bewilderedly. ‘She must have forgotten. And of course I’ve been away—abroad.’

‘That I can see.’ Gemma whistled appreciately. ‘Is that an all-over tan, may one enquire? I’m brown too, of course, but with me it’s rust.’

‘Oh, Gemma!’ To her horror, Alix heard her voice become choky. ‘It’s so great to see you.’ To see a friendly face, she almost said.

‘Hey,’ Gemma took her arm, peering at her with concern, ‘what’s the matter? You’re upset—what is it? Your mother?’

‘Not really,’ Alix shook her head, fighting back her tears. ‘Oh, God, this is awful. I can’t stand in the middle of the road bawling like a baby.’

‘Then come and bawl in our house,’ Gemma said soothingly. ‘Dave won’t be home for at least another hour.’

By the time they were settled in Gemma’s small sitting room, Alix had managed to regain control of herself.

‘I’m sorry to have behaved like an idiot,’ she began.

‘Think nothing of it,’ Gemma said largely. ‘Don’t forget I’m used to it, having been at school with you. What’s troubling you? You haven’t had the sack from the dream job of yours?’

Alix smiled drearily. ‘No, but I sometimes wonder whether I did the right thing in taking it in the first place.’

Gemma stared at her. ‘Well, it has to be better than a lifetime of “Now this conveyance witnesseth as follows”,’ she said drily. ‘Is it man trouble?’

‘It is a man, and he is trouble, but not in the way that you mean,’ Alix said ruefully. ‘Look, the simplest thing is if I give you a quick run-down on “My Day so Far”.’

Gemma sat and listened attentively, her sole comment being, ‘Little bitch,’ when Alix described Debbie’s reaction to her offer of a honeymoon.

‘She must be very unhappy,’ Alix said slowly.

‘She must be very jealous,’ Gemma retorted.

‘But she had no reason to be jealous of me,’ Alix protested. ‘She’s always done exactly what she wanted, and now she’s going to be married.’

Gemma looked at her pityingly. ‘Look, love, Debbie would envy a dead man his coffin. Haven’t you seen through her yet? She’s probably as mad as fire that she wasn’t offered your job.’

‘But she couldn’t have been. She hadn’t even left school …’

‘That’s the reasonable point of view. Debbie wouldn’t see it like that. She would see it as you getting a chance she’d been denied. Being married is the only other option open to her. I hope, for her fiancé’s sake, that it works. Now, about this other business, why do you suppose Bianca doesn’t want her biography written?’

Alix sighed. ‘I wish I knew. She was all for the idea originally, when she thought someone was going to ghost it for her.’

‘In other words a self-portrait by her greatest fan,’ Gemma’s voice was dry. ‘Well, Liam Brant is no one’s fan, so I suppose she can be allowed her misgivings.’

‘Do you know him?’ Alix stared at her.

‘No, but I’ve read some of his books. Dave bought me the Kristen Wallace biog for my birthday, and what an eye-opener that was. Since then I’ve been borrowing his other stuff from the library.’

‘Have you got any of them now?’

‘I’ve one—an early one about Clive Percy, the conductor. He doesn’t pull his punches, but he really gets inside the people he writes about. He makes you feel you know them.’

‘Or at least you know what he wants you to know about them,’ Alix said with some asperity. ‘You can’t really say he’s objective.’

Gemma shrugged. ‘Well, we won’t argue about it. Have you read any of them?’ And when Alix shook her head with a little grimace, ‘Well, take the Percy one. It doesn’t have to go back for a fortnight, and if you keep it longer than that, you pay the fine. Is it a deal?’

Alix laughed. ‘Yes, it’s a deal.’ She stood up. ‘Thank you for letting me talk it all out. I actually feel much better. Instead of an early night, I might just treat myself to dinner and a theatre.’

‘I was going to offer you egg and chips with us, but your plan has far more going for it,’ Gemma said cheerfully. ‘But you will come to supper soon, won’t you? Dave would love to meet you. I’ve mentioned you often. And now you’ve got my address and phone number, there’s really no excuse …’

Alix felt infinitely happier as she left Waterloo, and hailed a taxi to take her into the West End. It had been marvellous to bump into Gemma like that. They had been so close at school, but afterwards it was only too easy to lose touch. She was ashamed to think that she hadn’t even known that Gemma was married, let alone met her husband, and she couldn’t help wondering why the family hadn’t told her, because they must have known.

I could at least have sent a present, even if I couldn’t have gone to the wedding, she thought wistfully.

Gemma had referred to her life with Bianca as a ‘dream job’, but suddenly Alix wasn’t so sure. She’d begun to realise how totally and exclusively involved she was in her new life. Was it any wonder she was almost a stranger in her own home?

She would have to insist that Bianca gave her regular time off in future, so that she could set about rebuilding some of the relationships that had suffered in the past months—especially that with Debbie. She couldn’t wholly accept Gemma’s dismissal of Debbie’s attitude as resentment and jealousy. She herself must be to blame in some way, and she could only be thankful that she had the opportunity to put things right before they went too far and there was a complete estrangement.

Working for Bianca had been allowed to take her over. She lived, dressed, snatched her meals, even took her holidays at Bianca’s imperious behest. She smiled wryly as she recalled how Bianca had tossed the plane tickets and hotel reservation in Rhodes to her quite casually one day.

‘Here you are, darling. You’re looking pale and wan, and it depresses me.’

Alix could have protested—should have done, she told herself reflectively. She could afford holidays for herself. Heaven knew, she had enough money. Her living expenses were so few that she now had a healthy deposit account in the bank.

But she didn’t argue, partly because Bianca liked to have her generous impulses received with due appreciation, and partly because she wanted to get away for a while anyway.

If she looked pale and strained, Bianca might well be experiencing guilt rather than depression, she decided cynically. And it would undoubtedly be convenient for her employer to have her out of the way for a few weeks, while the affair she was having with Peter Barnet burned itself out.

It wasn’t the first time it had happened, of course. Peter was a journalist working for a show business column on one of the national dailies, and he had been invited to one of Bianca’s cocktail parties. He was young, blond and undeniably attractive, and Alix had been attracted. She had enjoyed talking to him, and not been altogether surprised when he telephoned her and asked her to have dinner with him. She had seen him several times when Bianca had suggested, almost idly, that she might like to invite him to make up the numbers at a small dinner party she was giving.

Alix’s impulse had been to refuse. She knew what would happen; she had seen it all before. It was as if Bianca could not bear to see any personable man paying attention to anyone other than herself. Other men who had dated Alix had either found themselves frozen out, or overwhelmed with a display of charm calculated to undermine any masculine defences.

Alix had not been in love with Peter, or with any of the others, but all the same it had not been pleasant to sit on one side of Bianca’s gleaming dining table and watch Peter succumb without a struggle. He and Alix had talked and laughed and enjoyed each other’s company, but he had never stared at her with that look of hot and glittering desire that he was turning on Bianca. Dinner ended, the other guests departed and Alix invented a headache to take her up to her room.

What happened after that was anyone’s guess. And Alix didn’t want to know. Nor, she found, did it help to tell herself that the ache in her heart was dented pride and no more. She was tired of having to face the fact of how easily Bianca could eclipse any charms she might have. It was hurtful to see someone she had liked apparently forget that she existed.

She knew the pattern, of course. Bianca’s little flings were unvarying. There would be flowers delivered, and long intimate phone calls, often while Alix was in the room, with Bianca lying on her chaise-longue, the receiver cradled against her cheek.

Alix couldn’t really be sorry that she was going to miss this particular episode in the long-running saga of Bianca’s love life.

And she thought, ‘I’d be frightened to let myself love someone in case she did the same thing to him. I might have loved Peter, for all she knew, but it made no difference. She still has to prove that she’s irresistible.’

As she queued at the box office of the theatre of her choice, Alix found herself wondering without too much curiosity what had happened to Peter. She could imagine, of course. One day, out of the blue, he would have found that Miss Layton was no longer accepting his calls. She wondered if he had accepted the situation with dignity, or made a scene. Not that it would have mattered. When it was over for Bianca, it was over, and there were no reprieves.

The disappointments of the day were still with her when she reached the box office window, to be told regretfully that all the seats had been sold, including the few returned tickets. And there was no prospect of any more cancellations.

Alix turned away ruefully. There were other theatres and other plays, of course, but this was the one she had set her heart on. She should have realised the necessity to book. She stood in the street outside the theatre, trying to decide what to do next. She would have dinner, of course, and then back to the house, she supposed, for an early night. Or she could always read the Clive Percy book, she thought with a glance at the parcel in her hand.

There was a small Italian restaurant just round the corner and she would eat there, she decided, deliberately removing from her mind the remembrance that Peter had taken her there.

Even though it was comparatively early in the evening, the restaurant was quite busy, its tables mostly occupied by couples. Alix was shown to a corner table, given a menu and offered an aperitif. She ordered a Cinzano and leaned back in her chair, a feeling of relaxation and contentment beginning to steal over her. Perhaps she wouldn’t have an early night after all. There was a musical she wouldn’t mind seeing—and there were cinemas. She would ask the cheerful proprietor if he had an evening paper and see what was on.

Aware that someone had stopped beside her table, she looked up with a smile, expecting that her drink had arrived.

Liam Brant said courteously, ‘Good evening, Miss Coulter. We meet again.’

Alix felt the smile freeze into something like a grimace. Without stopping to think, she said hotly, ‘You wouldn’t be following me, by any chance?’

His brows lifted. ‘You flatter yourself, secretary bird. As it happens, I often eat here. The food is good and the service is quick. I hope that reassures you.’

It wasn’t particularly reassuring to know that she’d just made a fool of herself, so Alix remained silent, staring down at the checked gingham tablecloth.

‘And what are you doing out of your gilded cage?’ the infuriating voice went on.

‘I was hoping to enjoy myself,’ Alix said coolly.

‘Until I showed up,’ he supplied.

She shrugged. ‘You said it—I didn’t.’

‘You didn’t have to. Has no one ever told you that your face is the mirror to your thoughts?’ To Alix’s annoyance, he drew out the chair opposite and sat down.

Stiffening, she said, ‘I don’t remember inviting you to join me.’

‘There’s nothing the matter with your memory—you didn’t,’ he returned. To the waiter who had just brought Alix’s Cinzano, he said, ‘A whisky and water, please. And we’ll both have lasagne.’

Alix’s fingers curled like claws round her glass. In a voice almost molten with rage, she said, ‘I did not intend to order lasagne.’

‘Then you should. It’s particularly good here. Or do you always play safe with steak or scampi wherever you happen to dine?’

‘Of course not,’ she began, then compressed her lips angrily. She was not going to be drawn into a discussion of her eating habits. ‘What I’m trying to say is that I’m perfectly capable of making my own choice from the menu, and I’d prefer to eat alone.’

‘Is it a preference you often indulge?’

She had expected him to leave, but he showed no signs of moving. And now the waiter was bringing his drink, a basket of freshly baked rolls, and a carafe of house wine. She could have screamed.

‘Well, why don’t you?’ he said.

‘Why don’t I what?’

‘Swear at me—throw your drink in my face—storm out. Whatever hostile fantasy you’re harbouring. I told you that you were transparent. Why don’t you follow the family tradition and go into films? You’d probably make your fortune.’

‘Because I’m quite content as I am, thanks.’ Alix made her face and voice impassive. Transparent, she thought, simmering inwardly.

‘That’s a dull thing to be at your age. And I don’t believe you.’ He lifted his glass. ‘Here’s to the other Alix Coulter, and may she soon stand up.’

‘There is no other.’ Alix did not respond to the toast, or drink from her own glass. She was afraid she might choke.

‘Oh?’ He gave her a long speculative look which covered the pinned-back hair, and the muted neutral colours of dress, trench coat and bag. ‘Then the girl I glimpsed on the stairs today was someone else—or a mirage, was she?’

Alix had forgotten the glimpse he had caught of her. She felt the colour rise in her face, and knew angrily that he had noticed it too and was faintly amused by it.

She said between her teeth, ‘Mr Brant, I came here for a quiet meal, not to be interviewed. I’m not interested in being copy for your next book any more than my—than Bianca is.’

He said softly, ‘I’ve no intention of writing a book about you, darling. Your cumulative experience of life could undoubtedly be covered in a short article, probably for a parish magazine. My questions are prompted by a normal male curiosity about why an attractive young woman insists on dragging about the place like a facsimile of Little Orphan Annie. I assume it is deliberate.’

‘I’m a working girl, Mr Brant, not some kind of starlet. Does that satisfy your curiosity?’

‘It doesn’t satisfy anything about me.’ His eyes never left her face. ‘You’re a walking intrigue, Miss Coulter. I shall look forward to solving your particular mystery over the next few weeks. What was that wrongly buttoned dress—a Freudian slip?’

‘I had to change in a hurry.’ Alix heard a sudden breathless note creep into her voice. He was right about there being nothing the matter with her memory—she could remember the details of that little incident only too well.

‘So did Cinderella when the clock struck midnight. Do you have some private timing device to tell you when the ball is over?’

‘I really don’t know what all the fuss is about,’ Alix said with a hint of desperation. ‘Just because I prefer to dress in a—in a businesslike way during working hours …’

‘Another of these famous preferences of yours—you prefer to dress badly—you prefer to eat alone. Or are either of those choices, in fact, yours?’

‘What do you mean?’ Alix was stung. ‘I don’t dress badly. How dare you!’

‘I dare quite easily. That dress you’re wearing, for example—the style doesn’t flatter your figure, and the colour does nothing for you at all.’

‘Are you an expert on women’s clothes as well as character assassination, Mr Brant?’

‘I have a certain amount of expertise in a number of things,’ he drawled with a sudden sideways grin, and she felt that betraying blush flood her cheeks again, as shaken as if his hand had brushed her skin, or his mouth touched hers …

The waiter bustled up with the dishes of lasagne, and she thought she had never been so glad to see anyone in her life. Not that she felt like eating. On the contrary, any appetite she had had was destroyed, although she had to admit that the smell of meat and spices emanating from the dish in front of her was a beguiling one.

‘You’re staring at it as if you think it might leap out of the dish and bite you instead.’ Liam Brant sounded amused. ‘I promise you it won’t. Nor does it contain a secret drug which will put you in my power. Here,’ he took the fork from her unresisting fingers, and scooped up a portion, offering it to her as if she had been a child, ‘try it and see.’

She didn’t want to take the food from him. She could see the couple at the next table exchanging indulgent glances.

She thought hysterically, ‘They must think we’re lovers. This is the sort of game lovers play—feeding each other with titbits at candlelit tables. I ought to tell them the truth—that I don’t trust him, that I could even hate him. And yet at the same time that it would be easy—so easy to be in his power. And it wouldn’t need secret drugs.’

She bent her head and ate the proffered forkful in silence.

‘That wasn’t so bad, was it?’ His voice was still amused.

‘No, you were right. The food here is delicious.’ She sounded cool and composed, and she was proud of herself. ‘Now, if I could have my fork, I did learn to feed myself as a child.’

‘Ah,’ he said. ‘But what else have you learned since?’

Alix took another gulp of wine. How nice it must be to have an answer for everything, she thought sourly. No doubt when she was in bed later, trying to sleep, she would think of a dozen coruscating remarks with which she could have put him down permanently.

Oh, please let me wake up tomorrow and find the past twenty-four hours has all been a bad dream, she appealed silently to whatever benevolent deity might be listening, but without a great deal of hope.

She tried to make herself relax and enjoy her food, because if she obeyed her instinct and pushed her plate away almost untouched, he would probably guess that he was disturbing her and be amused.

‘What did you eat the last time you came here?’ he asked.

She put down her fork and stared at him. ‘The last time?’

‘With Peter Barnet,’ he said. ‘It was you.’ A statement, not a question.

Alix moistened her lips with the tip of her tongue. ‘I—I forget.’

‘Clearly a memorable meal,’ he said softly. ‘Have you seen him lately?’

‘As you appear to know my every move,’ she said clearly, ‘you tell me.’

‘No, you haven’t.’ He leaned back in his chair, dark eyes watchful under hooded lids. ‘Tell me, does Bianca Layton choose your clothes and hairstyle?’

‘So that’s it!’ Alix gave a little artificial laugh. ‘Not very clever, Mr Brant. What exactly are you probing for—some evidence of discontent? You won’t find it. If you’re trying to goad me into saying something about Bianca which you can interpret as disloyalty, then you’re wasting your time. We have a very close relationship, and I’m grateful to her for all the opportunities I’ve had since I’ve been working for her. I’m sorry if my dress sense doesn’t meet with your approval, but you sought my company, remember. I didn’t seek yours.’

‘Quite a speech,’ he said drily. ‘Didn’t Shakespeare say something about protesting too much?’

‘He may well have done,’ she said. ‘But I can assure you it doesn’t apply in this case.’

He smiled lightly. ‘As you wish. Now eat your food.’

‘My appetite seems to have deserted me.’

‘You’re far too sensitive,’ he remarked. ‘Not a desirable attribute for anyone attached to the Layton ménage, I would have thought.’

‘If you disapprove of Bianca so strongly, why do you want to write about her? I thought biographers were supposed to be objective.’

‘Who told you that?’ he queried. ‘I want to write about her because she’s a great star, if not a great actress, and I’m interested in analysing the elements which come together to make such a being.’

‘As you did with Kristen Wallace?’

‘Right,’ he agreed.

‘Then you’ll understand why I won’t want you within a mile of Bianca.’ She met his gaze fully, her own eyes blazing.

‘The lamb leaps to protect the tigress,’ he mocked. ‘Calm down, Miss Coulter. There’s no need for all this defensiveness, unless you already know that your idol has feet of clay. My researches may well reveal that under that highly lacquered exterior beats a heart of pure gold. I could always ask Peter Barnet’s opinion.’

‘Ask who you damned well like,’ Alix said fiercely. ‘But I’m telling you now, you’ll get no co-operation from me, or from anyone else who works for Miss Layton. If you insist on writing this book, it will be an unauthorised biography, written without credibility, a rehash of everything that’s been said before, with an additional helping of your own scurrilous brand of speculation, I have no doubt. Just don’t expect any help.’

‘What would you say,’ he said softly, ‘if I told you that you’d already helped more than you knew? Your lasagne must be stone cold by now. Would you like something else? Coffee, perhaps, and a brandy. You look as if you need it.’

‘I don’t want anything from you,’ Alix said fiercely. She snatched up her handbag. ‘If you’ll tell me what my share of the bill is, I’ll be going.’

‘There’s no hurry.’ The dark face was smooth and enigmatic as he watched her. ‘The curtain doesn’t go up for at least half an hour.’

‘For once your Sherlock Holmes instinct has played you false,’ she said between her teeth. ‘I’m not going to the theatre. There are no seats left for the play I wanted to see.’

‘There are, if you’re talking about the show at the Galaxy. I was intending to go there myself tonight, but something’s come up, so if you want one of my tickets you can have it.’

Alix stiffened. ‘No, thank you.’

He smiled. ‘Don’t worry, I’m not trying to entrap you into spending the remainder of the evening with me.’ He produced a slip of yellow paper from his wallet and put it on the table between them. ‘It’s a ticket for a play you want to see, that’s all.’

‘I want nothing from you,’ snapped Alix on a little flare of temper.

‘As you wish.’ He shrugged slightly, then crumpled the ticket into a ball and tossed it into the empty ashtray. ‘Have a pleasant evening.’ He pushed back his chair and rose.

She said without looking at him, ‘Goodbye, Mr Brant.’ That was the second time she’d said that today, she thought wildly. Not that it had made any difference. And didn’t people say that everything came in threes?

It made her skin crawl to think that she had sat in this very restaurant with Peter, being watched. She had laughed and talked and given herself away a hundred times, and all the time Liam Brant had been there taking note. And he knew why she was no longer seeing Peter too. That was quite obvious.

She was aware that the waiter was at her side, exclaiming in concern about her half-filled plate, asking her anxiously if the meal had been all right. She tried to assure him that everything had been fine, and that she had just not been hungry, refusing his offers of a dessert and coffee.

‘If I could just have the bill, please.’

He looked mystified. ‘The bill, signorina? But it has already been paid.’ Mournfully he collected the plates and took them away, leaving Alix staring after him, her mouth set in fury.

Of course the bill had been paid, she thought angrily. Another barb in her flesh, a deliberate ploy to make her beholden to him even in a small way, like that damned theatre ticket.

How unfair it was that he should have a seat that he wasn’t going to use for the play that she was dying to see. He must have seen her leaving the box office, she thought broodingly. Seen her and drawn his own conclusions.

She looked longingly at the little crumpled ball in the ashtray. What an awful waste it seemed. And as far as Liam Brant was concerned, that was the end of the matter. As soon as the table was cleared, the ticket would be thrown away, or so he thought. And it was only crumpled, not torn. If she was to use it, no one would be any the wiser.

Despising herself, she reached for the small yellow ball and smoothed the ticket out with fingers that shook a little. There was a war going on in her head, one part of her mind arguing fiercely that if she used the ticket, he would never know, and the other warning her that she should tear the ticket into tiny fragments rather than accept the slightest favour at his hands.

But what was the alternative? A quiet evening at home, unpacking and inevitably thinking about the problems the day had thrown up at her. It all seemed curiously unappealing.

She looked down at the ticket and told herself silently, ‘He’ll never know.’

The critics and theatregoers had been right; the cast and production thoroughly deserved the superlatives that had been heaped upon them.

In fact the only thing to mar Alix’s contentment was the second empty seat beside her. She had spent most of the first act in agony waiting for him to join her, preparing herself for the barbed comment, wondering whether it wouldn’t be better to leave herself, before it happened.

But it didn’t happen. Even after the interval the seat remained unoccupied, and she was able to relax and give herself over to the untrammelled enjoyment of the evening.

All the same, she couldn’t help wondering exactly what had come up to prevent him seeing the play himself, and exactly who the second seat had been intended for. A woman undoubtedly, she thought, and attractive. His views on that were more than clear. An actress, maybe or a model, or perhaps a ‘media person’. Someone glamorous, so that other people would look and look again, approving his choice and envying him.

She had a sudden disturbing inner image of his face, the cool dark eyes under the hooded lids, the thin high-bridged nose, and the sensuous curve of his lower lip. A man to whom women would matter. A man who would demand physical beauty, a physical response, she thought, remembering with a shiver the frank appraisal in his eyes, and the unwelcome brush of his fingers against her flesh.

That was something, she told herself, that she did not need to remember. She had managed to blot Peter Barnet and his defection out of her mind successfully. He wasn’t even a dull ache any more, and she found it hard to recall anything about him except that he had been easy to talk to—but then he was a journalist, so he was probably professionally a good listener, she acknowledged wryly.

Yet she had never felt the same necessity to be on her guard with Peter as she did with Liam Brant.

When the final curtain call had been taken, and she rose and mingled with the laughing, chattering throng making their way towards the exits, Alix caught herself wondering whether she was the only person in the theatre to have watched the play alone. Everyone else around her seemed to be one of a couple, or part of a group, and she was aware of a lonely feeling deep inside.

Oh, come on, she addressed herself roughly, you’ve no need to feel sorry for yourself. You have a terrific life, and if this was the kind of outing you planned in advance, then you needn’t have been alone.

She didn’t usually feel so much like an outsider. It was the events of the day which had started her thoughts off in such a depressing train, she thought.

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