Sacha gurgled on the other end of the line. 'Darling, I met this delightful Italian and decided to have a little holiday afterwards. There's a bit of post for you here, by the way, so why don't you come round and collect it and we'll have some girl talk.'
Grant was working in his study and she had put a cold meal ready, so she said, 'Half an hour?'
'Fine, sweetie. I'll tell you all about everything!'
Fran was still grinning when she went in to tell Grant where she was going, and he looked up and commented, 'That's a very anticipatory smile.'
'Sacha's back,' she explained. 'I'm just going round to hear all about the delights of Rome in the spring and one Italian in particular.'
'Take a taxi then. It's difficult to park round there, and I can pick you up when you're ready.'
'There's no need for you to come out for me,' she protested.
'It's no trouble. Just give me a ring when you want fetching.' He watched her for a moment longer, his expression enigmatic, then added, 'Enjoy yourself.'
She said, 'I will,' and went out feeling a little deflated, and wondering if she had imagined that he didn't want her to go. Perhaps he thought seeing Sacha would reawaken a yearning for her old life, she thought with a spurt of acid resentment. Strangely, he was sensitive about the difference in their ages, but while it was true that she was now mixing in an older age group than she had been used to, it didn't bother her and there was nothing in the past she wanted to go back to.
Sacha greeted her with enthusiasm. 'A drink, darling, then we talk,' she declared, and Fran agreed since she wasn't driving, absently picking up her letters as she went by and stuffing them into her bag. The flat was more chaotic than ever, she noticed. She must have had a leavening influence when she lived there.
Sacha was already seated cross-legged on a huge new floor cushion in the most garish shade of purple Fran had ever seen. She said, 'Your turn first, darling. How's married life and that tall, handsome, virile husband of yours?'
Fran shrugged and smiled. 'He's tall, handsome and virile, and married life is wonderful. Let's hear about your Italian.'
'My dear, you should have seen him,' Sacha returned, shuddering ecstatically. 'He had the most beautiful liquid brown eyes I have ever seen and he stripped off like a Roman god. He was mad to make me his countess, or whatever it is in Italy. Isn't that too marvellously flattering?'
Fran agreed, prompting her into further lyrical descriptions, and when Sacha finally ran dry, she enquired, 'So what was the hitch?'
'The usual one, darling—he'd hardly got a lira to his name. Every penny I earned would have gone into trying to keep up his grotty castello.' She sighed reminiscently. 'But until the plane landed at Heathrow this morning I was certain I was madly in love with him.'
'And what happened then?'
'I realised there was a great deal to be said for Richard and his Mercedes,' Sacha said candidly.
Fran laughed and Sacha re-filled her glass and went on coaxingly, 'Now come on and tell me everything that's been happening. Not the details that are sacred between husband and wife, of course, but a general picture plus a heavy hint or two.'
They talked for some time. Fran kept her contributions light, reluctant to reveal everything was not perfect. She made no mention of the unwelcome press coverage, and Sacha knew nothing about it since she had been away when it happened. They were just beginning to wind down and Fran was considering ringing Grant when the doorbell went.
Sacha pulled a face as she got up to answer it, but she gave a squeal as she opened the door and exclaimed, 'How lovely! Go and see who I've already got here!' and Fran looked up enquiringly to see Libby and Seth shedding their coats as they came into the room.
Libby was considerably more pregnant than she had expected. She must have shown her surprise because Seth grinned and said, 'Don't worry—it's all legal now.'
'That must be a relief for Libby,' Fran observed. She gave her a mildly apologetic glance. 'I'd somehow got the impression that the event was rather more in the mists of the future.'
Libby said breezily, 'A slight miscalculation in the beginning, then it took me another month to get round to telling Seth.' She settled herself into the corner of the settee, obviously unconcerned by her advanced condition since she hadn't bothered to shroud the bulge in a smock. 'But don't bother to humour him—he's over the shock now.'
'Yeah,' Seth agreed. 'It's good for the tax situation. I was keeping her before anyway. Now it's cheaper.'
'And don't be fooled,' Libby added. 'He's not as cynical as he sounds. Sacha, love, I could murder a cup of tea—can I beg one? I'm off coffee and alcohol and I'm dying of thirst.'
Always restless, she struggled to the edge of the settee to get up again, and Seth leaned forward and lifted her easily by her elbow. He did it unconsciously, which Fran felt was a good sign, and when Libby had followed Sacha into the kitchen she smiled up at him. 'Has the thought of fatherhood lost its terrors?'
'Almost,' he admitted. 'She's a good kid really, or so her mother keeps telling me. Irons a real cool shirt.' He paused and smiled back at her. 'And how's life with you? Your husband beating you yet?'
'No, but he might start if I don't ring him soon,' Fran said. It occurred to her for the first time to wonder how Grant would react to finding Seth there, and she felt a stirring of unease. It might be better if she went down and waited for him outside. To her annoyance she found she was feeling guilty, as though she really had got something to hide, and a faint rebellion awoke in her. It was the first time she had been out in the evening on her own, whereas Grant had left her several times and she had only his word that he had been where he said he was going.
She had half-risen from her chair, but she sank back again and listened with amusement to the conversation issuing from the kitchen. Sacha's current craze was health foods and she was extolling the virtues of herbal tea, which appeared to be the only kind she had in the place. Libby, inclined to be forthright, gave her opinion of it, and came back into the lounge resignedly clutching a glass of lemon squash.
'And you're lucky to get even that,' Fran informed her. 'It's been here since I left.'
'It keeps, darling,' Sacha soothed. She emptied the last of the wine into Seth's glass, filling it to the brim, and went to open another bottle. She couldn't find room for it on the table when she got back, so she stood it on the shelf next to the clock, and Seth told her amiably that the place was a tip. Sacha pointed out his own shortcomings, and while they were arguing, Libby quietly went to sleep. After a while Sacha noticed and raised her eyebrows in astonishment, and Seth grinned.
'It's all right, she does it all the time. It's getting late though, so I'd better wake her.'
He got to his feet and Fran realised with a jolt that it was nearly midnight. She must have somehow misread her watch the last time she looked at it. She was conscious of a feeling of relief at the thought that at least Seth would be gone when Grant came for her now, but at that moment the bell went again, and with sinking feeling she knew this would be Grant.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Seth let him in and he stood just inside the door, not bothering to smile as he looked round at them all and then round the room.
Fran looked as well, and saw how it would appear to him—the bottles and glasses and cigarette smoke—one of Sacha's discordant records playing in the background. She was smoking herself, which she hadn't done for months, but Seth had offered her one and she had accepted it, mainly because she thought she might just as well inhale her own smoke as his.
Still unsmiling, Grant said, 'It was getting late so I came for you anyway.'
He remained standing where he was, obviously waiting for her, and Fran said quickly, 'Come and sit down for a moment. You can't walk straight in and straight out again, and you haven't met Seth's wife, Libby yet, have you?'
She was babbling. She could hear the nervous inflection in her voice herself, and realised she was afraid of Grant saying something cutting, and spoi
ling for the others what had been a very innocent, enjoyable evening. With relief she noticed the lines in his face became less rigid. Responding to the unconscious plea in her expression he acknowledged the introduction and even accepted a drink from Sacha when she waved the wine bottle at him in casual invitation. Afterwards he stood talking to Seth and Fran gradually relaxed when it seemed they were getting on well enough, amicably comparing the changes that the acquisition of a wife had made in their lives.
'Do you reckon they realise how lucky they are to have caught us?' Seth demanded, gesturing towards Libby with his wine glass. By no means drunk, he was nevertheless a little mellow, enough to make him incautious, and he missed the sardonic light in Grant's eyes as they slid over Libby's expanding shape before returning to his face.
'Oh, I'm certain Libby realises it,' Grant returned, smoothly cynical.
'Yeah, but you've got to keep reminding them of it regularly,' Seth insisted. 'Otherwise they start taking you for granted. I mean you sure came along at just the right moment for Fran, so keep her on her toes—tell her how lucky she is every day over breakfast, that's my advice to you.'
Smiling still, Grant was suddenly alert. His voice deceptively casual, he enquired, 'How did I come along at just the right moment?'
Seth hitched himself round to lean more comfortably on the back of the settee. 'I was scraping the barrel for her,' he admitted frankly. He gave a mournful shake of his head. 'You know, it's an odd thing, this business. You get some girl come along and you wouldn't even call her good looking, yet she's got something that comes across—photographs like a dream. Then there's Fran here, seems to have everything when you look at her—beautiful, got the high cheekbones, the lot, and she comes out like Miss Piggy.'
'Darling, I wouldn't stand for that!' Sacha exclaimed, outraged. 'Tell him!'
But Fran couldn't, held mute by impending disaster as Grant pursued quietly, 'But I thought you told me she could have had a brilliant career.'
'Oh, she could have done,' Seth assured him. 'She'd still have been at the top even now if she'd taken my advice and stripped off in the early days. I'd have made a pile from my twenty per cent.' He drained his glass with a flourish and put it down on the table beside him, then shook his head again. 'She changed her mind too late though, and of course that operation finished her chances. There's not much you can do to hide a scar like that—no good even to the bra and briefs customer now. Pity, because I'm sure I was right. With that last set of photographs I've got we'd have had them fighting for her.'
There was total, electrified silence as he smiled reminiscently and drew on his cigarette. Fran knew he was the only one in the room unaware of the violent menace behind Grant's sudden stillness.
She cried out quickly, 'Grant…!' but he ignored her, and said softly, 'I want them.'
'Eh?'
'I want them,' Grant repeated with the same soft savagery. 'Those photographs—I want them now!'
Seth awoke belatedly to his own danger. 'Hey, don't get the wrong idea,' he said protestingly. 'This is advertising, man! Shower units, bathtubs, deodorants, the new magic formula that dissolves away the hairs on your legs instantly!—Women's glossies stuff! Hell, Fran,' he appealed. 'Tell him I run a respectable business, will you? I'm not into girlie mags and peddling porn!'
'I'll hear what she has to say later,' Grant told him. His voice was glacial, and Fran felt the threat in it transferred to herself. 'But first I want those photographs. Where are they?'
Giving up the fight, Seth said, 'Down at the agency office in the files. You'll have to drive. I should get breathalysed.'
Mortally afraid for him, Fran said, 'Give me the keys and I'll get them. I know where they are.'
Grant merely said, 'No,' without looking at her, and she subsided, too frightened for herself as well to risk enraging him further.
There were two quite separate and distinct reasons for his fury, she knew. One was that the photographs existed at all, and remembering his reaction to a neckline he considered too revealing she shivered, because the one would have been enough in itself. The second reason was that Seth still had them. With an ounce of the self-preservation the wine had robbed him of he would have realised his mistake and said instantly that they had been destroyed, or at least claimed that he had forgotten them. As it was, he had betrayed that he knew perfectly well that they were still there, four months after her operation—four months after any usefulness had been killed.
She saw him suddenly realise and sober up. She hoped he was sober enough to think of some convincing explanation on the way to the office, because frankly she couldn't herself.
Nobody said a word as he put on his sheepskin coat and felt in the pocket to make sure he had the keys. He and Grant went out, and the silence lingered until they heard the Daimler start up below the window. Then Sacha said in a careful voice, 'I think you may have a teeny bit more than you can handle there, sweetie. Your old bed is still vacant if you'd rather give tempers time to cool and deal with it in the morning.'
Fran's stomach was palpitating with fright and she daren't look at Libby. She was almost certain that Grant would never physically harm a woman, but he was unlikely to exercise the same restraint when it came to Seth. She said, 'Thanks for the offer, but I think he'll calm down when he actually sees the portfolio. With any luck Seth will have the sense to show him a few of the others in the files, then he'll realise they're absolutely standard.'
Caustically, Sacha said, 'It's a pity Seth didn't realise before he opened his big mouth that what is just shop talk to us might sound very different to a husband who's not in the trade.'
For Libby's sake they were both skirting round the fact that the portfolio should have been scrapped, but Fran knew that Sacha was speculating as well on how Grant could have remained so long in ignorance of the true facts about her former career.
She made no comment, however, merely saying, 'Well let's try to create a slightly better impression for when they get back.'
Opening the window six inches, she gathered up the full ashtrays and a handful of glasses and took them into the kitchen. Fran and Libby collected up the rest, and when they had wiped the tables and straightened the cushions the place was comparatively presentable and free from smoke. They were all listening for the car's return, and when it stopped outside, Fran picked up her jacket and bag. 'On second thoughts it might be better if Grant didn't come back in.' She gave them both a wan, apologetic smile. 'Sorry to have wrecked the evening.'
Libby gave her a feeble, suspicious smile in return, and with an assumption of lightness, Sacha said, 'All that tidying up for nothing. Well, scream if you need any help, darling, and give me a ring when you can.'
Fran nodded and made a hurried exit. She passed Seth on the half-landing and was relieved to see that though his face was grim there was no outward sign of damage. She couldn't summon the courage to look at Grant.
Nothing was said until they were in the car, then he paused before switching on the ignition and ordered harshly, 'In future stay away from Bernstein!'
He started up the engine before she could reply, and she made no attempt to defend herself until they were in the apartment. Then, she said desperately, 'Grant, I know what you're thinking, but you're wrong.'
'Am I?' His face taut with rage, he took his coat, off and flung it on to a nearby chair, unheeding when it slid off and fell to the floor. 'But then you don't know what I am thinking, do you?'
'Seth isn't…' she began, but he cut in on her violently.
'I don't want to hear!'
He swung away from her and rubbed his clenched fist across the back of his neck for a moment, then turned round to face her again and repeated more quietly, 'I don't want to hear. I've never asked you about him and I'm not asking now—you would deny it anyway.' He drew a deep breath, and when he spoke again his voice was all the more deadly for its rigid control. 'But no man, with my knowledge, keeps photographs of my wife to look at and gloat over in secret. He had no re
ason to hold on to them, apart from his own private gratification, and you know that as well as I do. So stay away from him! For his sake as well as yours!'
He picked up the Scotch bottle and unscrewed the cap. Pouring himself a generous measure, he cradled the glass in his hands and leaned against the sideboard, watching her broodingly. 'You asked me why I was marrying you, but I never asked you that same question. It seems I should have done.' He gave a short laugh. 'But you were hardly likely to tell me you were broke and out of a job…'
Momentarily his mouth twisted in distaste, and Fran burst out, 'I wasn't broke and I had got a job!'
'Doing what?'
'I was a beauty counsellor. I demonstrated make-up in a store.'
Contemptuously, he said, 'Are you asking me to believe you were satisfied with that after the sort of life you'd led before?' His voice harsh, he went on, 'You'd been used to something very different; premieres and parties, mixing with people who had money, living in an expensive flat, then suddenly you were a sales assistant.' He took a mouthful of the amber liquid in his glass. 'And your lover had inconveniently got another girl pregnant and was out of the running. I certainly did come along at just the right moment for you, didn't I?'
'No!'
She almost shouted it, and he made an impatient sound and slammed his glass down on the sideboard. 'You took damned good care I never discovered any of this at the time.'
'It wasn't like that! I wasn't deliberately hiding it from you!'
He stared across at her, his eyes hooded, then said abruptly, 'All right. Why did you marry me?'
'I…' Under his gaze, she swallowed and fell silent. There couldn't possibly be a worse moment for telling him she loved him—she cringed at the thought of his sneering disbelief. 'I think we both had the same reason,' she said at last.
Grant sent her a humourless smile. 'So nothing is really changed. We've both still got what we wanted. And you give value for money, darling, I'll grant you that. I hope I never disappoint in my turn.'
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