The Winter King

by Amanda Carpenter

  It was a characteristic imbued with arrogance, but Yvonne had come to accept it.

  What she could not accept was how Adam prompted in her a keen violence of reaction. She burned continually to tear away his ineffable supremacy, to break that distant gulf he lay between himself and the outside world, to darken the serenity of his contained, handsome, gold-hued features into a blood flush, and her own desires appalled her.

  Why she felt it she could not understand, unless it was, perhaps, the desperate need to change him before he changed her, to bring the winter king down to the world of mortality, to drag him off the pedestal he seemed to deserve so richly, to reach behind that perfect exterior-and discover a multitude of unforgivable flaws so that she could look at him in contempt and walk away unscathed.

  No one else held her in check those first few weeks, for no one could. She held herself in check, trembling with the internal struggle, her great lovely eyes eloquent with reined-in force and terror. Her conversation was muted, the angles and hollows of her face blank and unrevealing, the comportment of her graceful body studied and meticulously deliberate.

  The result was not colourless; quite the opposite. She was unaware of the fact that everyone exposed to her presence watched her in uncomprehending, amazed fascination, for she was a sultry-pitched vibration; she hummed with magnificent unpredictability, a powder-keg with a lit fuse of unknown length, dynamite about to blow.

  Final preparations for the location were wrapped up while Adam guided the cast through the last of their rehearsals and long, exhausting hours of arguing, brain-storming, group interaction and methodology. They bonded in mutual respect and utilisation of each other’s talents; they couldn’t help but do so under Adam’s wise and unfailing direction. Yvonne found the experience humbling and quite extraordinary.

  She took advantage of the long weekend respite he gave them to fly home. She was due on location Monday morning, but for a few precious days she sought obsessively a temporary escape from the inexorable procession of events that had claimed her life. To her grief and fury, she did not find relief, for she brought the film, her character, her unquiet, terrifying emotions and the pervasive memory of Adam with her.

  The ranch was fine. Her housekeeper and ranch manager, an earthy and wholly lovable husband and wife team, were fine. Her herd of fifty thoroughbred horses were fine. The stable hands were fine. They were all delighted to see her, of course, and professed to miss her and asked when she was coming home for good.

  She believed their sincerity, knew they loved her, and she loved them in return down to the last foul-mouthed, good-hearted ranch hand, but the weekend was unbearably bland and untroubled. She wanted to cry or scream for the loss she felt, and instead flew to Phoenix, Arizona on Sunday afternoon with the sense of escape she had sought by returning home in the first place. She felt like a thoroughly bewildered traitor. It was not an experience to engender a good mood.

  She prowled through the baggage claim area and stalked out of the departure gate, her hair ruthlessly yanked away from her taut face in a tight, confining braid, dark sunglasses hiding the restless confusion in her eyes.

  Richard, her ‘husband’ in the film, had agreed to pick her up at the airport. It was a four-hour turn-around drive from the location and she just as easily could have taken a car from the Hertz rental booth at the airport, but Richard was a good-natured soul and apparently hadn’t minded the thought of the trip. Perhaps he had looked forward to a few hours of the uncomplicated and wholly superficial flirtation their relationship had fallen into.

  She would never know for sure, for as she paused just outside the departure gate he was nowhere to be found.

  Damn the man, she thought without heat, for he was a talented actor but as frivolous as he was good-natured, and no doubt the arrangements they’d made had slipped his light-hearted mind.

  She pivoted on one sandalled heel, intent. on renting a car, and nearly collided into the hard, relaxed body that had strolled up behind her.

  Few men could make her head tilt back. She was at an equal level with Richard, though slender as a reed against his muscled handsomeness. But this man she had to look up to; she’d had to from the very beginning.

  Her sensual mouth tightened at her inward lurch of recognition, but the undisciplined words escaped her anyway. ‘What the hell are you doing here?’

  Adam smiled, and reached to take her case from her nerveless fingers with a sculpted hand. He was as cool as ever, the grey eyes aloof and hooded, his lean expression composed. He was dressed in tight faded jeans and a light summer shirt with the sleeves rolled to the elbows. The outfit was unpretentious and unaffected, and emphasised the bulky curvature of his chest and arms, the heavy bulge of powerful thighs, the long, evocative line of his unbelted waist. His body was that of a stunningly magnificent animal, and his mind that of an unbreached treasure vault; dear God, he was so intensely alive and sexually vibrant and tortuously distant.

  ‘Hello to you too, darling,’ he purred with an imperturbably sardonic note. ‘Yes, I had a good weekend, thank you. How was never-never land?’

  Her breath hissed between her teeth. Had she been restrained these last two weeks? Had she ever managed such an impossibility around him? Well, it was gone, all of it; blown to smithereens in the winter storm-blast of his impenetrable eyes.

  ‘What have you done with Richard?’ she enunciated in icy wrath.

  ‘I tied him up and left him on the nearest railroad tracks, of course,’ he said as he gave her a very odd look. ‘Why, do you fancy playing the rescuing heroine? I should warn you that he’ ll be fickle with his gratitude-the love of his life is whoever happens to be with him at the moment.

  She had matched him stride for stride towards the short-term car park without even thinking about it. Now she stopped dead in the middle of crossing a car lane, her clenched fists rigid at her sides and her eyes closed tight. Her temper was an evil genius, and she was determined not to misplace it; it belonged right where she had put it, a hard, coiled lump of burning heat in her breast.

  A taxi roared up to her, screamed to a stop, and the driver found his car horn and leaned on it rudely, ‘Yvonne, you’re blocking the traffic,’ remarked Adam in mild warning.

  Her body quivered, then she whirled, long legs ravening the short distance to the taxi. The driver watched in escalating amazement as she jerked the sunglasses off her nose, and thrust her furious face through his open window. Her deadly gaze bored into his, and she growled very softly, ‘Take that hand off your horn, or I shall be all too happy to do it for you.’

  The man melted all over his seat, mouth gaping and shutting like a stranded fish. ‘My God,’ he gasped rapturously, ‘aren’t you—aren’t you—you are, aren’t you? Yvonne Trent, I love your films; my God—oh, I’m so sorry I was so rude, my wife is going to die—could you possibly, I mean, could I possibly have your autograph?’

  Weren’t taxi drivers supposed to be unforgivably belligerent and rude? She pulled back and leaned her forehead with resignation against the top of the window, for she’d been looking for a fight and felt bitterly disappointed.

  The driver scrabbled for pen and paper with shaking hands and thrust it at her; she scribbled a charming note, signed it, and handed it back. By the end of the brief exchange, the man would have been happy to drive her anywhere on the continent, never mind about his wife. She turned away from his ecstatic face, the pleasant smile she’d adopted falling away from her to reveal a dark thundercloud.

  Adam appeared to be quite relaxed. His powerful body leaned indolently against a nearby concrete pillar. The long hand he ran through his wine-red hair hid his face from her. She frowned and stalked over to him, and hesitated as she caught a glimpse of his gleeful eyes. ‘What happened to you?’ “

  He shook his head, averted his face, and explained with deceptive calm, ‘Swallowed wrong.’

  Her eyes narrowed in suspicion, the unwilling question dragged from her lips. ‘Are you all right?’r />
  His nod was enthusiastic, and she heaved a great, long-suffering sigh. Lord, she would never understand him, never in a million years; she shouldn’t even try to, it was a foregone conclusion, but, instead of feeling peaceful fatalism at the thought, she felt suddenly very discouraged.

  Adam’s ‘recovery’ was too masterful. It was a pity. She would have enjoyed pounding hard on his wide back. He captured her slender shoulders with one hard, long arm, and prompted her in the right direction. His eyes were still sparkling with a gigantic remnant of some strange reaction, but the tough precision of his handsome expression was once again composed.

  She preferred him debilitated, and frowned her displeasure as she probed, ‘Are you sure you’re all right?’

  ‘Perfectly sure,’ replied Adam with a slight smile. He glanced at her and then said a bizarre thing. ‘Yvonne, you are exquisite.

  Her gaze startled very wide. She thrust her dark glasses back on her face to hide it, muttering shakenly, ‘Oh, please.’

  He let her go to unlock the door of the BMW they had halted by. It was his car; he must have driven it through the desert.

  Her imagination saw him speeding along the open straight road at night, solitary and withdrawn and spearheaded with twin pin-points of light. She slid into her seat as he held the door, a weak surrender of boneless muscles at the thought of his long hands negligent on the steering-wheel, his body relaxed, that king’s face in repose, the elegant line of his mouth stern with thoughtfulness, and remote.

  He slid into the driver’s seat, put on his seatbelt and started the car. Only then did he look at her troubled expression, a quick, light-filled, unrevealing glance.

  ‘You are exquisite,’ he repeated with a cool deliberation that had a shattering effect. ‘Even in the midst of your most terrible temper, you still find room to be generous, still manage to cloak the harsh emotions that prey upon you, still manage to protect other people’s vulnerabilities from what you think is the worst part of yourself.’

  She covered her face with one hand and turned away from him. She couldn’t help it. ‘I haven’t the faintest idea. what you’re talking about,’ she whispered unsteadily.

  ‘You’re a liar,’ he said, ruthless in his understanding. ‘You lie to me, but you lie to yourself most of all. I find I much prefer the honesty of your fury.’

  ‘Damn you,’ she gritted. Her hands, lying impotent in her lap, clenched and unclenched. ‘Why are you doing this?’

  If he was an amazement before, at least he didn’t fail to continue living up to expectations.

  ‘I told Richard I’d come pick you up because I wanted us to have a chance to talk in private,’ said Adam briefly, frowning’ in concentration as he negotiated through the city traffic with swift, decisive driving, just as he did everything else.

  ‘Whatever happened to saying please?’ she snapped.

  ‘You would have said no,’ he said in a frigid voice. ‘I know you that well, at least. God knows, you don’t grant any quarter or opportunity. The only way I seem to be able to get any time alone with you is by taking you captive, by forcing it, by stealing the bits of you that you’re careless enough to leave exposed, and damn, but that’s not an occurrence that happens often. You’re my weak link, and I’m concerned about you.’

  ‘Weak link!’ she exclaimed in horror and revulsion. The hurt was appalling, both to her pride and to her self-confidence. ‘How can you say that to me? My professionalism is perfect!’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ he murmured, and at first it was a quiet, angry sound, ‘perfection. That must be important to you. Do you want to hear it? Very well: your technique is flawless. Unescapably. You have Richard, Rochelle and Sally and even your own father in awe of you. You’re never late, you never miss a cue, never screw up your lines. You blow up at the drop of a hat at any other time, but you never lose your temper on the job when they do. You’re patient, you improvise beautifully to cover their inadequacies, and even in exhaustion you’re just so perfect.’

  ‘Then for God’s sake why are you shouting at me?’ she cried furiously, holding her clenched fists to her pounding forehead. He was attacking her without mercy, without warning, and her eyes were hunted and wild with provocation.

  ‘Because I hate it,’ he said from between gritted teeth, and for once the line of his mouth was not cut in elegance, but primal, twisted, volatile. ‘Because you’re not giving anything to your performance, and you’re giving all the wrong things to everyone else. You do everything I tell you, take every direction without a murmur -you’re like a human doll, flesh and blood and no spirit. It’s almost pornographic.’

  ‘I have never in my life been spoken to the way you speak to me,’ snarled Yvonne, her eyes filled with furious tears. Furious tears, no technique or manipulation, but the real thing; she. hadn’t cried in sincerity in front of another human being in so many years, she’d lost count. Her fists uncurled, fingers going to her cheeks to touch the wetness. She looked at her damp fingertips in astonishment. He did this to her. ‘How dare you call me pornographic? My God, it’s outrageous, you throwing stones. You’re the one who bought me; well, my friend, I guess I’ve learned a pretty lesson these last few weeks. Everyone has a price, but let the buyer beware, because he gets only what he pays for.’

  ‘I didn’t pay for this.’ He said it with such contempt, with such underlying emotion that had she granted him the ability to express it-she would have called it pain. ‘What happened to you? When you fought me, we had something to work with, but you changed the rules somewhere along the way. Where have you gone these last two weeks?’

  ‘Nowhere, nowhere at all,’ she said wearily, tired of struggling against his goads and her own terrifying emotions. ‘Adam, it’s all in your head.’ .

  He made a sound of pure rage, and the glance he speared her with was electrifying as he said with incredulity, ‘The worst part about it is that nobody else seems to notice it. You’ve locked yourself away and hidden the key, and you could conceivably sail through any awards ceremony on the basis of the performance you’re giving now. But, sweetheart, you and I would both know it would be a travesty. My God, winning an award wouldn’t even be an injustice, because without even trying, without even pushing yourself, you are the best actress I’ve ever seen.’

  ‘Praise from Caesar?’ The viciousness slipped out, in spite of herself, stabbing him, stabbing her. Her breath sucked in; she held it tight, and in her pounding breast her coiled temper reared back and raised its head.

  ‘I’m not giving you praise.’ The harsh whisper could have been a lion’s roar and it would have had the same effect. She flinched, and missed the quickening of his sharp attention at her malicious rejoiner, the silent menace of his hawkish gaze spearing in with shotgun focus. “I’m too offended to give you praise.’

  ‘You’re too offensive for me to accept it, even if you were,’ she snarled back, holding on to her seat tight just in case she rocketed off it with the force of her own emotion. Her temper hissed, snake-like, and struck. ‘You rummage around in our heads like a kid playing dress-up in an attic: try this emotion on, try that. It’s all so intellectual for you, isn’t it? How to put the puzzle pieces together in the best possible way! How to capture us on film—your words: “capture”, “steal”, “take”! Well, I won’t be taken!’

  He said, his face bloodless, ‘So you really are angry with me still’. You didn’t go away, or curl up and die inside that body after all. I wondered.’

  ‘I’m cursed with a long attention-span,’ she spat.

  ‘You must be, because I swear your anger at me has been years in building up.’

  At first she couldn’t believe she heard it, and gasped, ‘What?’

  ‘You heard me,’ he growled, and the midnight-red fall of his hair on to that strong, golden, forehead was only a visible manifestation of the molten lava that poured from him then, both psychic and physical. How could she have ever compared him to a white snowfall in winter? He radiated volcanic hea
t. ‘You’re so pathologically determined not to lose yourself the way you did the last time. How insecure can you get? I’m the villain in this piece, the ravager and the taker, “in a B—movie retake of all the injuries that happened to you before.’

  ‘You swore that you’d never bring that up again!’ she snarled in rage. ‘Damn you, you promised me!’

  His eyebrows, dark and sleek and dusted with fire, shot up in classic satirical astonishment. ‘I would have been more than happy to leave the past where it belongs,’ he snapped furiously. ‘But it wouldn’t stay there, would it, Yvonne? It had to raise its ugly head in your mind, and suddenly the face of the past has become ‘mine! Well, I won’t play the role you’ve forced on me! I’ll challenge, and goad, and say whatever damned thing I please to you, but I will not suck your soul dry, not for this film or for any reason, and you’ll have to come to terms with it!’

  She was stunned; to the bottom of her intense, fierce, confused soul, she was stunned, and she subsided into reeling silence. Had she really cast Adam in her mind into such a repressive and dominating role‘? Had she unconsciously been expecting him to drain her of every aspect of her individuality? Had her fear of self-change transmuted into such a paranoia?

  She twisted her restless body in her seat, staring at him, at the ferocious lowering of his brows, the skin covering his cheekbones taut and darkened, his mouth twisted and tight, his beautiful hands on the steering-wheel snarled with frustration.

  A light bulb went off in her head. The Iceman was every bit a facade as anything an actor had ever produced; Adam was an actor still, playing the cool, unruffled part of the leader for the people who needed guidance; wearing serenity as easily and as well as he wore designer clothes.’