The Spiral Path

by Mary Jo Putney

  The camera panned to the second carriage, fixing on a door as it swung open and passengers began to emerge. An elderly lady, a young couple. Then Kenzie, his scarlet uniform loose and his face haggard from captivity. Damn, Kenzie was good.

  He stepped onto the platform, and a roar of voices greeted him. A brass band struck up as he looked around, shocked and confused. The crane began to smoothly rise and move backward, gradually revealing the massed people who'd come to welcome their hero home.

  As they lifted, Greg and his camera crew maintained their focus on Kenzie, whose attempt at retreat was blocked by passengers behind him. The crane stopped so near the ceiling that Rainey instinctively ducked. Below, Randall had almost vanished among the crowd of his admirers, a man being eaten alive by celebrity. His scarlet uniform coat blazed like a splash of blood in a sea of civilian black.

  Everything was just as Rainey had envisioned it years earlier when she'd first read the novel, and seen it in her mind as a movie. She felt a combination of exultation and terror. This was the essence of moviemaking--creating images that told a story. This was what she'd been born for. "Cut!"

  After they returned to ground level, she and Greg studied the video monitor replay. "It works for me, Greg. What do you think?" He gave a nod of approval, so she called, "Print."

  A second take just in case, then on to the next setup. Vignettes were shot--the brass band, a child waving a Union Jack, the prime minister welcoming the hero home because an election was coming and he wanted good press. Some things never changed.

  While the second camera crew shot crowd details at the other end of the barn, Greg filmed Randall woodenly meeting the prime minister. His father greeted him, beaming with pride and total insensitivity. After the official welcome, Randall began a painfully slow attempt to move through the crowd.

  Then it was Rainey's turn. While lights and camera were reset, the head makeup artist did a touch-up, muttering fretfully at the challenge of making a woman over thirty look ten years younger. Rainey was equally anxious, though she tried to conceal it. She'd never directed herself before.

  Despite knowing what she wanted on film, Rainey found it disorienting to sink into Sarah while at the same time having to remember to think like a director. She missed her marks on the first take, then blanked on the dialogue and blew the second take as well. "Steady, TLC. Just do it," Greg said quietly.

  Rainey swore at herself and tried again. This time she nailed the scene, a simple one that showed her watching Randall's arrival. At first she was exhilarated, but her expression changed. "Papa, something is wrong. Why won't they leave him alone?"

  Though Sarah had meant to stay at her father's side on the fringes of the crowd, once she saw Randall's face she plunged into the mass of people. As the chant, "Randall, Randall!" echoed through the vast station, she fought her way toward him, ignoring her father's calls to retreat.

  Some men smiled indulgently and squeezed aside, while others frowned at her boldness. She scarcely noticed, all her attention fixed on Randall. She was perhaps the only one in the vast train station who saw the panic in his eyes. He looked as if he were being flayed alive.

  Kenzie's frantic gaze touched hers, and she gasped. The horror in his face was so compelling that both Sarah and the director fell away, leaving Rainey, who feared for her husband. "John! John!"

  Staring at her as if she were an angel descending from on high, he reached out. Her gloved hand stretched toward him until they clasped fiercely across three men, her green sleeve bright against the black coats.

  For an instant the pressure of his hard fingers was crushing. Then his grip relaxed as his expression shifted to distress. Sensing that she was losing him in more ways than one, she tightened her grasp, refusing to let him escape.

  They clung like that for long moments, until Rainey called, "Cut!"

  She released Kenzie's hand, chest heaving in the tight costume after her struggle through the crowd, and joined Greg to watch the video. He'd done his job perfectly, zooming in until the clasping hands became an emblem of their relationship--the man in retreat, the woman determined to hold on no matter what dark forces tried to separate them. "Just what I wanted, Greg. Print."

  While the crew did the next setup, she returned to Kenzie, who had retreated to the shadow of the steam locomotive, arms folded across his chest and expression remote. The extras had moved away, leaving the star his privacy.

  Since he didn't seem to see her approach, she touched his arm lightly. "Kenzie, that was terrific."

  He jerked his arm away violently, as if she'd attacked. It took a moment for his eyes to focus on her.

  "Without a single word, you showed everything a viewer needs to know about Randall's state of mind," she said hesitantly. "A man returning from hell, and bringing it with him."

  He adjusted the sleeve of his military tunic. "It's what you wanted, wasn't it?" He pivoted and stalked away.

  She watched him go in dismay. She'd wanted him to stretch his acting to the limits. Be careful what you wish for...

  After the shoot finally wrapped for the day, Rainey found Kenzie dozing in the car waiting to transport her to the Dorchester. She almost fell over him when she climbed into the vehicle. "Sorry." As he moved across the seat to make room for her, she added, "I thought you'd have left by now."

  "I needed time to unwind." As the car pulled into the street, Kenzie wearily rubbed his eyes. "I'm sorry I snapped at you, Rainey. I'm afraid it's only going to get worse between now and the end of the shooting."

  "I think I'm the one who owes you an apology. I'm beginning to realize just what I talked you into."

  "Does this mean you wish you'd found yourself a different John Randall?"

  She bit her lip. "No. You're doing an amazing job with him. What I wish is that playing the role wasn't so upsetting for you."

  "That's my girl." There was humor in his voice. "It takes your kind of single-minded determination to make good movies. Moviemaking is like war, and there are bound to be a few casualties."

  "Now I really feel guilty."

  "I expect I'll be among the wounded, not the dead."

  "How very comforting," she said dryly. "By the way, Greg called me several initials I didn't quite catch, and I forgot to ask him about it. T-something. Is that some kind of director nickname that I haven't heard before?"

  He laughed. "Back in New Mexico, the crew started to call you 'TLC.'"

  "Tender Loving Care?"

  "No. Tough Little Chick."

  She flushed. "Any reason in particular, or general principles?"

  "You got the nickname after you fired the cable puller."

  "He deserved firing," she said defensively. "The last thing a struggling actor needs is someone being snide."

  "Undoubtedly true, which is why TLC is a compliment. The crew likes a director who's in control."

  Tough Little Chick. She supposed it could be worse. They might have called her BB for Bitch Boss.

  Kenzie's amusement vanished. "Did you see that photograph in the Inquirer?"

  Her stomach immediately knotted up. "Yes."

  "Jenny is strictly a friend. I dropped by to talk to her about Nigel Stone, and we went out to dinner."

  Rainey exhaled roughly. "Thanks for telling me. I know it's not my business, but it would be ... uncomfortable if you were carrying on an affair with someone else right under my nose."

  "I know." He reached through the darkness and touched her hand. "I promise--no affairs while we're shooting."

  Like Sarah, she had an almost overpowering desire to grab onto his hand to prevent him from slipping away.

  Being older, modern, and almost divorced, she didn't.

  * * *

  CHAPTER 18

  While waiting for shooting to begin, Kenzie paced back and forth along the west side of Morchard House. At times like this he almost wished he smoked. Maybe fiddling with a pipe would help him relax. The closer he came to Randall's disintegration, the tenser he became. He co
uld feel the character sliding under his skin, suffocating him from the inside out.

  At least the production had left London, which meant no paparazzi. Unfortunately, London newspapers were delivered locally so he wasn't free of Nigel Stone's crusade. Each day the reporter trumpeted some new piece of information about the lurid past of Kenzie Scott. So far, it hadn't been too bad. No one who knew Kenzie well had spoken up, and Stone hadn't found a shred of information from before the RADA years. Though the reporter presented every incident in the worst possible light, he hadn't printed any outright lies. Probably the man had a lawsuit-wary editor vetting his forgettable prose.

  Kenzie looked down to where Rainey was conferring with Greg Marmo about a complicated long shot that would require two cameras. Dressed in a flowing, virginal white gown, she looked like the ingenue, not the boss. Yet she'd taken to directing like a swan to water. Her grasp of her story and how she wanted to tell it was admirable, as was her respect for the expertise of her cast and crew. She never forgot that moviemaking was a collaborative process. Under different circumstances, he'd have really enjoyed being directed by her.

  His restless gaze moved to the voluptuous green hills of Devon. If the dailies were to be believed, this movie was going to be achingly beautiful, a nostalgic portrait of a vanished England that had sent her sons to build an empire, and accepted their pain and sacrifice as her due. The Masterpiece Theatre audience would love it. He wasn't up to watching the dailies, though. He couldn't bear seeing himself as Randall.

  Leaving the director of photography, Rainey drifted toward him, looking as young and innocent as this next scene required. "You're good, Kenzie--you even pace in the character of an uptight Victorian officer," she said cheerfully. "Do try to vary your path, though. If you wear holes in this lovely green turf, I'll have to pay the owner for restoration, and I suspect that pieces of lawn that have been pampered for five hundred years don't come cheap."

  Her teasing relaxed him into a smile. "I'll bear that in mind."

  "Let's walk around the house. By the time we get back, Greg should have the second camera set up to shoot the gazebo end of the scene." She took his arm. Feeling his tight muscles, she said quietly, "We're going to have to get used to touching each other on camera."

  Thinking that bluntness was in order, he asked, "Does the prospect of being cinematic lovers again bother you as much as it bothers me?"

  "I'd rather shoot a stark naked sex scene with anyone else." She grimaced. "Even if we both play this as pure acting, without a particle of personal emotion, viewers will look at these scenes and think they see you and me. I hate the thought of that."

  "So do I."

  They rounded a corner and began paralleling the north face of Morchard House. "Apart from you and me being as nervous as ants on a griddle, production is going so smoothly it makes me nervous," she said. "Morchard House, for example--who would have believed we could find a manor house with two facades so different that we could use one building for both of the major estates? It's a real money and time saver."

  The older section of the house was Jacobean in style, while a newer wing was Georgian. Careful camera placement would make them seem like two separate structures. Morchard also had several beautifully detailed interior rooms and extensive gardens with ponds, copses, follies, and other scenic settings. The estate was theirs for the next fortnight, since the owners had taken their immense rental fee and gone on holiday in France until the production left.

  Rainey shaded her eyes as she peered into the distance. "The location manager said there's a labyrinth at the far end of the garden. I'll have to look for it, if I ever have a moment to explore."

  "Do you mean a maze?"

  "No, mazes are formed by banks of shrubbery and designed to confuse. A labyrinth is a two-dimensional pattern with only one path through. By walking the pattern from one end to the other, you--well, the idea is to find yourself instead of becoming lost."

  The idea was to find oneself? He made a mental note to avoid the Morchard labyrinth at all costs. "How does it work?"

  "Concentrating on the path is very relaxing, almost a form of meditation. There's an outdoor labyrinth at Grace Cathedral, that big Episcopal church on Nob Hill in San Francisco. My friend Kate took me there one night after we had dinner, and to humor her, I walked the labyrinth. By the time I was halfway through, I was more relaxed than I'd been in days. I now walk labyrinths whenever possible."

  "Beware of finding a Minotaur in the center."

  She grinned. "Any monsters who got that far would probably be in a light trance and fairly harmless."

  They turned the last corner and saw the production crew ahead. "Looks like it's time for you to chase me through the gardens," she said. "I've been thinking of using this sequence to open the movie and as a backdrop for the credits. What do you think?"

  "Sounds plausible. This sets the tone for the movie, both the relationship and the idealized, picture perfect England that Randall is going to lose."

  "That's what I thought." As they neared the crew, she said pensively, "As much as possible, I've set up the shooting schedule to keep the scenes in the order they fall in the story. I wonder if that will make any difference in the continuity of the emotions."

  "It shouldn't. Any skilled actor should be able to nail his scenes no matter what order they're shot in."

  "But I want more than skill. I want inspiration."

  "Perspiration is more reliable than inspiration," he said dryly. Safer, too. The last thing he wanted to feel on this movie was inspiration, which would risk cracking the floodgates of memory. That way madness lay.

  Her expression bright with laughter, Sarah Masterson caught up her skirts and darted across the velvety green grass. A quick glance over her shoulder confirmed that she was being pursued by Captain Randall, his laughter matching hers.

  Their families had always been neighbors, but in the past he'd looked on her as a little sister. She'd grown since the last time they'd met, and he'd noticed. Oh, yes, he'd noticed. Since his return home on leave a fortnight earlier, he'd called on her daily. When they waltzed at a ball the night before, she'd come near to melting in his arms. Half the night she'd tossed and turned, wondering if she'd imagined that light in his eyes, but she hadn't. He really was interested in her, Sarah Masterson.

  Afraid to carry the thought too far, she raced up the hill toward the gazebo, driven by the primal instinct that made a doe flee a stag so the male must pursue and win his mate. When she reached the small Italianate structure, she stopped, panting as her lungs fought the constriction of her corsets.

  The captain joined her, his breathing hardly quickened. He could have caught her easily, she knew, but he'd also enjoyed the chase.

  His tall frame seemed to fill the space between the entrance columns. He was the handsomest man she'd ever seen, and the light in his eyes made her excited and nervous all at once.

  He took a step toward her. "Miss Masterson. May ... may I call you Sarah?"

  Absurd that he should feel shy of her. "You may," she said, blushing at the intimacy of allowing him the freedom of her Christian name. "You did when we were younger."

  He drew another step closer. "Sarah, this may seem sudden, and yet I feel as if I've been waiting for this day my whole life."

  He took her hands in his and looked at her with Kenzie's green eyes. Rainey blinked, disoriented, as her mind broke character. Hoping the camera outside the gazebo hadn't caught her lapse, she gazed at her suitor raptly, as Sarah would have.

  "You were the sweetest and prettiest of little girls, and now you've grown into the sweetest, loveliest young woman I've ever known." He raised her hands and kissed them. "The only woman I can imagine spending my life with. I love you, Sarah. Will you marry me?"

  She caught her breath, stunned by the words she'd dreamed of hearing. This magnificent man wanted her for his wife. Didn't he know that she would give him anything he asked, even the heart from her breast? "Yes, Captain Randall," she whi
spered. "I will gladly marry you."

  His expression turned from uncertainty to exhilaration. "What, no protestations that this is so sudden? No requests for time to consider the matter?"

  "I've never been surer of anything in my life."

  "Oh, Sarah, Sarah, that honesty is part of what I love about you." He drew her into an embrace. "You must call me John when we are in private."

  She turned her face up for his kiss, not certain what to expect. The warm, gentle pressure of his lips was deeply pleasing. As her eyes drifted shut, she became acutely aware of him through her other senses. The taste of his mouth, the warmth of his body, the roughness of his breathing, his provocative male scent. From this day on, she would know him from every other man in the world even with her eyes closed.

  The kiss lengthened, became joined by caresses that made her blood pump urgently through her body.

  Once more her concentration broke. She'd been a fool to think she could play this scene without personal emotions erupting. Sarah's innocence took Rainey back to the night Kenzie had asked her to marry him, and for a brief, mad moment she'd dared hope it would work.

  But it hadn't. The sorrow of that was so intense that even her actor's discipline couldn't keep tears from her eyes. When his hand brushed her breast, she lost Sarah entirely and stepped back with a gasp that wasn't in the script.

  Kenzie's expression showed that he was also having trouble separating himself from the role. Improvising dialogue, he drew her down beside him on the bench that circled the gazebo. "I'm a beast," he said with suppressed violence as he stroked the tears from her cheeks. "You're so pure, so innocent, and I have frightened you."

  "I'm not frightened," she assured him. "Just--overwhelmed by happiness."

  Moving back to the script, he said, "I wish we didn't have to wait to marry, but next week my regiment sets sail for North Africa."

  He would leave her so soon to go into battle? "How long will you be gone?"