The Winter King

by Amanda Carpenter

  ‘You’re making a severe mistake, my friend,’ she whispered. His ice did not crack at the warning. ‘Consider carefully what you do. I’ll make your days a living hell if you don’t let me go.’

  ‘How extraordinary,’ remarked Adam Ruarke, who—astoundingly—smiled. It was a singularly handsome and unattractive expression. ‘And after you went to such extravagant lengths to bring me to your bedroom. I’ve had a multitude of actresses attempt many different ploys to get my—er—attention, but I must admit,Yvonne Trent, your approach wins the brass ring.’

  Her narrow hands curled into claws; her breath whistled high and audible through flared nostrils. She spat, ‘Spare me the gratuitous fantasies of a vain and self-deluded man! Incredible as it may be for you to believe, I did not walk away from this industry two years ago just to fall meekly into line at the first hint of your manipulations! You’re not the first to have tried to get me back. Get your mind out of your pants and off the casting couch—I quit!’

  He looked at her narrow-eyed, as if he’d never seen a specimen such, as she before, and he didn’t appear to like the experience. ‘And you quit with such apparent vehemence,’ he murmured.

  She nearly smiled. He was getting the message. Good. ‘And I’m not coming back either,’ she growled.

  ‘Oh, you’re wrong,’ said Adam Ruarke vividly, as he ran one long hand through the darkling flame of his hair and leaned a shoulder against the door. ‘You’ve already come back, from whatever God-forsaken place you’d hidden yourself in. All the way back from—where?—to me, tonight, just to slap my face and to tell me you’ve retired? It sounds to me as if you’re already on a leash, darling.’

  She cocked her head to one side. Time to try another tactic. ‘How dare you?’ she said quietly, and her eyes were magnetic pools absorbing shadows, dark mirrors to the disillusionment of the soul. She bled for the tragedy of fine ideals destroyed; it shone in her gaze, wet and vulnerable and heartbreakingly fragile. ‘How dare you play with my father’s career like that? Do you know what you’ve done to him, holding that part over his head like a weapon? He’s a fine and qualified actor who’s had the bad luck to play unsuccessful parts in the last few years. They’re business mistakes—they don’t reflect on his ability.’

  The Iceman stared at her, transfixed: were tears really the way to melt him‘? ‘I’m beginning to see for myself what your father’s abilities are,’ replied Adam Ruarke slowly. ‘I know he wants the part, of course. Any self-respecting actor would: as the female lead’s dying father, the role isn’t a central one, but it’s so ‘exquisitely written that it’s ripe for an Oscar-winning performance.’

  ‘You’ve made that part look like his salvation,’ she accused, then bowed her slender neck, too tired for bitterness. The tears spilled on to her cheeks. ‘And then you withhold it. How can you be so cruel as to make his part contingent on whether I take the lead or not? Can’t you see now how wrong you’ve been? He’s perfect for that role—I’m the one who’s wrong for your project.’

  He started to shake. She peered at him, sidelong through furtive lashes, and ground her teeth in fury at what she saw.

  Adam Ruarke, emotionless, soulless, cold-hearted demon that he was, threw back his wine-red head and shouted with laughter. It was deep-throated and full-bellied, a male roar of sheer delight. It carved through her head, and heart, and, shaken with complex reaction, all she could do was stand stiffly in the face of it and glare.

  ‘I stand amazed,’ said the Iceman when he,had recovered enough to speak. ‘Yes, I believe I’m quite overcome with it. Young lady, you surpass all my expectations. The tears—God, yes, the tears were just the right touch.’

  The tears had dried as if by magic. Yvonne’s lips were pulled back in a snarl of rage. Her hands twitched in deep, yearning desire; he saw it, and smiled at her gently, and purred, ‘Don’t even consider it. You got your one shot at me. You won’t get another.’

  ‘How can you be so sure?’ she said. Her face was taut as a bowstring humming before the release of an arrow, but her eyes were desperately wary with the sense of an impending trap. ‘Unless, of course, you agree with me and have decided not to pursue this any further.’

  ‘But I don’t agree with you at all,’ replied her tormentor easily, as his grey eyes ravished every nuance in her expression. ‘I find I’ve got a different opinion entirely. You’ll take the part of the female lead, your father will get his role, and I—get what I want. A perfectly equitable solution all around.’

  ‘No,’ she whispered, her throat tight. , ‘

  He smiled at her impatiently. ‘How can you say that? You haven’t even seen the script. It’s a beauty of a piece, challenging and evocative and multidimensional—any other actress would give, her eye-teeth to get such an opportunity.’

  She shook her head and the strands of her chestnut hair whipped I through the air. Her arms were crossed around her narrow mid-section. ‘You’re just not listening to me. I’m not an actress any more,’ she whispered.

  ‘Rubbish,’ he snapped shortly, his dark brows coming together in a harsh frown. ‘You’ve been acting since the moment you showed up on the doorstep. You do it as naturally as you breathe; you’ve got so much talent seething inside you, you don’t even know what to do with it.

  But where had been her fatal mistake? How had she lost her advantage to come to this débâcle? She’d come to conquer, and he had her on the run, and she was terrified at what he saw and said to her.

  Her dark gaze clung to his. She refused to acknowledge it as entreaty, and threatened, ‘I won’t do it. You can’t make me. I’ll thwart you at every turn—I’ll make you wish you’d never laid eyes on me.’

  ‘Shadows,’ said the Iceman dismissively, his icy gaze a caress, his elegant mouth ruthless. ‘Spitfire and shadows. You love your father too much for that. Give it up, Yvonne. You came, you’re here, you’re mine.’

  She shivered, then flung her lovely head back proudly. ‘You underestimate me.’ p

  ‘No,’ he murmured, shifting his position so that he leaned fully back against the door of her cage, his flame-dark head back against the wood in a deceptive attitude of laziness. ‘I’m just getting the measure of you.’

  ‘Your arrogance is beyond endurance,’ she flung out wildly, goaded, whirling to stalk to the middle of the floor and stand there bewildered. ‘You know nothing of what I am or who I’ve been, or what I can or cannot do!’

  He said, with slow, shattering deliberation, ‘Do I not, Celeste?’

  Her mouth opened on a silent, stunned gasp.

  Adam said, ‘Do I not, Mary?’

  Her back was to him. She was across the room. Of course he couldn’t see the fine tremor that ran ‘through her body; of course he couldn’t.

  He asked in a tenderly employed relentlessness, ‘Do I not, Elizabeth, Eloise, Rhiannon, Sara -?’

  She cried out loud, the wordless agony the sound of a falcon shot out of the sky, and the fine tremors broke the regal stance of her body, and she fell to her knees and bowed her shoulders in defeat.

  ‘My God.’

  Someone was shaken. Yvonne closed her eyes, spearing inwards for her centre: her centre, not anyone else’s, not that loss of identity, not that ever again. Someone was bending over her, a canopy of protection against the harsh light. In a minute she could take the time to remember the present.

  ‘My dear God.’

  Someone stroked the hair away from her ashen face with long, clever fingers, came down to the floor in front of her, slid a steel-muscled arm around her waist, which bent back pliant as a willow tree. In a minute she would understand the relevance of all this, why her head fell back strengthlessly and was cradled in the palm of a single hand, why her twisted bow of a mouth was covered with another’s gentle sensuality.

  The winter king kissed her in twilight warmth. Her eyes opened; could a face carved in stony remorse be warm? Her fingers flew to answer the question and found it to be so, warm and vibrantly male and
every bit as vitalising as anger and even more definitive.

  ‘Yvonne, I’m sorry,’ he whispered. ‘We went too far. I didn’t mean to hurt you like that; I didn’t know——’

  Why, heavens, the Iceman cracked. She started to laugh, softly, unsteadily, giddily, and his head reared back as though a cobra had just raised its hooded head and hissed, his expression undertaking a violent transformation.

  She watched it all with intense satisfaction, and laughed even harder when he snatched his arms away so abruptly that she fell flat on the floor. Adam surged to his feet and towered over her, while she rolled onto her back, stretched out her legs and leisurely crossed them at the ankles, regarding his furious black expression in merriment.

  ‘My God, you’re a lethal piece of work,’ he growled from between his teeth. He looked as if he could have cheerfully murdered her and gone whistling to the hangman.

  ‘Shot number two,’ said Yvonne blandly. She laced her fingers together, put her hands behind her head and tilted it to one side, the better to read his face. ‘And the first night isn’t even over with. Just imagine what four-odd months of me would do to your famous composure. Bow to the inevitable, Adam. Let me go.’

  He shook his head and snarled, ‘Never! You’re going to do the film, whether you like it or not; ‘whether you protest or not; whether you struggle and rant and rave or not! You’ll do it efficiently, on time, and with courtesy to everyone concerned, because if you don’t your father won’t get within a thousand miles of this project, and, as precariously as his career is balanced right now, that could meant he might never get the chance of a quality piece again! Is that clear?’

  ‘Exceedingly,’ said Yvonne succinctly in a cold voice. Her eyes were bottomless black pits of fire in a taut white face. ‘I’ll do your blasted little film, whether I d like it or not. I’ll do it with meticulous courtesy and efficiency, because I have my reputation as an excellent professional to maintain, not because you command or beg it from me. And I’ll be that way for everybody concerned—but you. I’ll smile, and be charming, and polite, and helpful to everyone—but you.’

  ‘I can do without it,’ he snapped’ contemptuously, breathing hard.

  ‘Fair warning, then,’ she said slowly.

  ‘Fair warning.’ His beautiful mouth twisted, unwillingly, it appeared, in rueful acknowledgement as he stared down at her. She cocked her pointed chin mockingly at him, and his breath escaped him in a short, unamused laugh. ‘God help us both.’

  He pivoted and as he strode away Yvonne murmured gently, ‘Running away, my friend?’

  The winter king laid a long hand along the curve of the doorknob and looked back at her. ‘You and I will never be friends, Yvonne,’ he said in his rich, mellifluous voice. ‘That much I do guarantee you. And this I also give you for nothing: I never run away from a challenge or a fight. But your father and I have unfinished business, and I am very much interested to see what he has to say for himself.’

  He, like the maid, shut the door behind him.

  Thankfully she shed the indolent supine position it had cost her so much to maintain, sat and drew her knees to her chest to huddle in a tight porcupine ball.

  She dropped her face to her knees. Oh, boy, she was in at the deep end. Yet again. Tonight had been a watershed occurrence, but now what did this mean?

  She scowled, and, since nobody was present to witness, it must have been for her own benefit. It meant that Adam Ruarke had a tiger by the tail; that she had to find some way to maintain her grip at the Iceman’s throat. For who knew what calamitous thing might happen as they glared at each other, face to face, if one of them happened to slip?

  Who knew?

  Oh, she longed to be home, to be a selfish coward without pride, to care for her precious horses and look out from her front-porch step at her land, as far as the eye could see, to dream as she had dreamed these last two years away under a wide Montana sky.

  She shuddered and said aloud, ‘You bloody fool.’

  That too must have been for her own benefit, since angels always seemed to fear treading where she went, but she doubted that she would profit from the realisation.

  CHAPTER TWO

  HER agent was transported into raptures.

  Irritably Yvonne poured scorn on his enthusiasm. He did not appear to mind it. After she had taken his phone call, she finished dressing. The procedure took less than a minute: ancient jeans and as scarlet blouse, which Betty had ironed, and white canvas oxfords. She dragged the heavy mass of her hair to one side and braided it loosely, fastening the end with a plain rubber band and throwing the heavy length over her shoulder.

  The morning after was nearly noon. The Iceman had to have moved very fast indeed, to have contacted the executive producer of the film, and the other relevant parties, then to have called her agent with a concrete offer. She hadn’t even called her agent yet. Apparently the contract was already being telexed to him. It was an extraordinarily generous one; given the immense success of Adam Ruarke’s films, she stood to gain a fortune from the enterprise, plus a meteoric re-entry into the industry. The point was, she’d,needed neither the fortune nor the burn-up of the re-entry, but as far as blackmails went the scenario was at least an unusual one.

  She wondered at Adam’s role in all this. Film directors had carte blanche over many things, but his activity in her contract negotiations indicated that his involvement in this film was far greater than normal. Did he oversee all his films like that, or was this one special?

  She ran down the stairs, long legs flashing, and went in search of her family and breakfast.

  At the doorway to the dining-room, she hesitated, a vivid woman caught in mid-motion. The clan was gathered to lunch. Vivian and Christopher were laughing together over some great jest, a handsome pair of gleeful conspirators; their marriage, after thirty years, was still a huge success and one of Hollywood’s celebrated anomalies.

  They had visited her in Montana rarely, preferring instead to maintain contact by phone. Vivian had conceived a dislike for ‘the dreaded beasts’ as she called Yvonne’s lovely thoroughbreds; but David, her older brother by five years, liked the ranch and was a frequent visitor in between the success of his own projects as a bitingly satirical screenwriter.

  Her presence was noticed, and greeted with warmth and affection. Over a light repast of asparagus quiche and fresh fruit she caught up on all the latest sagas and gossip in her family’s lives. Under the conversation she studied her father in speculation and concern. Christopher looked incredibly well for a man in his fifties, physically fit and appearing younger than his actual years, his handsome chestnut hair silvered at the temples.

  Stricken anew, for some reason, by how odd it was to have a sex symbol for a father, Yvonne leaned her chin on one narrow hand and asked him, ‘Did Adam and you talk last night?’

  Her father regarded her with wary love. ‘Yes, we did.’

  The entire room had hesitated. Vivian stared with fascination at her lunch, and David studied his own hands. A fool she might possibly be, but she wasn’t stupid. Yvonne’s massive eyes narrowed. She smelled a‘ rat.

  ‘And is everything all right?’ she asked in a dangerous soft voice. If it wasn’t, if the Iceman had somehow reneged on his part of the unholy bargain, she would rip him apart with her bare hands.

  A heated fantasy: herself in wild fury, the winter king tall as an ivory tower crowned with flame, her hands tearing the clothes from his graceful body, his head tilted back in supplication. Yvonne shook with the beauty of it and was consumed by desire.

  But her father’s eyes positively sparkled with delight. ‘Everything has worked out—far better than anyone could have hoped,’ replied Christopher with care. ‘Adam and I reached a very satisfactory agreement.’

  Damn it, she felt equal measures of disappointment and relief. Was there ever such a contrary creature as herself? For her father’s sake Yvonne forced a smile to her lips, and said simply, ‘I’m glad.’

&nbs
p; ‘And what a rare gift it is. I get the privilege of working with one of today’s greatest talents, who happens also to be my very beautiful daughter,’ said her father gently, and he reached for her hand to carry it to his lips. ‘I love you very much, Yvonne. Thank you for what you’re doing for me. We couldn’t be more proud of you.’

  ‘Oh, rubbish,’ she grumbled ungraciously, for she was an inheritor of many aspects from her parents, but gentleness had not been one of them. Still, her fingers curled against her father’s cheek, a fleeting, furtive caress that was nevertheless well noted by everyone in the room.

  Even the new arrival.

  ‘How touching,’ lightly remarked Adam Ruarke from the doorway. Everyone stirred in surprise; the intimate relaxed atmosphere fled in violent disarray; instantly Yvonne. plummeted into savagery, her face taut and feral as a wildcat as she glared at the intruder.

  Who did he think he was, to stand there with the erect and regal pose of a monarch? His auburn hair was brushed sleekly from a finely defined forehead, his skin the light transparent gold of morning, that elegant mouth holding a faint, cryptic smile, his icy, beautiful eyes regarding her in wry contemplation.

  His clothing was as simple and as classic as it had been the night before. The cream shirt was open at the neck, the deerskin-coloured trousers moulded to the lean grace of his hips and thighs. His body was classically proportioned, muscled and taut and clearly. powerful without an ounce of excess flesh anywhere on him.

  ‘Vivian, Christopher. Hello, David,’ said Adam without taking his eyes away from her. They greeted him with easy affection. It infuriated her even further, despite the hard common sense that underlaid it: why antagonise the victorious conqueror into retribution? ‘Good afternoon, Yvonne. May I say that you’re looking remarkably in character today?’