by Nicola West
CARVER'S BRIDE
Nicola West
She couldn't run from him forever
Why had famous sculptor Jason Carver insisted that Linzi Barwick be the model for his latest commission? He had, after all, had to trick her into the whole thing. She would have never returned to him voluntarily.
Surely, after the way she had jilted him and walked out on him five years ago, it was hardly possible that Jason now had any loving feelings left for Linzi.
Why then was the jealous, devious Ceri Penrhys so determined to keep them apart?
CHAPTER ONE
'Just who is that artist you're going to sit for?' Richard Fabian asked, his smooth, rather plump face creased with suspicion. 'Do you really mean to say you don't know?'
Linzi Berwick looked at him and sighed. She had to admit, it did seem strange—that she should be asked for specially for a modelling job by an artist who refused to give his name. Particularly as, except for a few small assignments, she wasn't really an artist's model anyway. But Anna, her agent, had insisted that it was a condition of the contract. For publicity reasons, she had implied— the artist had apparently had problems with newspaper reporters at his previous home and now he had found this remote hideaway he didn't intend that anyone should disturb him there. It sounded reasonable enough to Linzi, who had cause herself to be cautious where newspapers were Concerned, but she didn't know if she could explain it to Richard.
'He's doing a special piece of work, too,' she told him, remembering all she could of the few facts her agent had been able to give her. 'That's what he wants me for. Something quite big, apparently.'
'What sort of thing?' Richard still wasn't satisfied. 'A picture? I hope' there's going to be. nothing—er—distasteful about it,' he added, his voice disapproving.
Linzi felt herself flush at the implication and turned away quickly. If only Richard knew! But she'd never told him the real reason why she'd returned from a successful modelling career in New York. That was something she intended to keep strictly to herself.
'You ought to know me better than that,' she said in a low voice. She crossed to the mirror and stood staring into it, lifting her mane of chestnut hair to reveal the long, slim neck that had earned her the nickname of 'Swan'. She scarcely noticed the slender figure, a little above average height, or the glowing topaz eyes that matched the golden-brown hair. Te her, they were just the tools of her trade, to be cared for but taken very much for granted. But she did notice the shadows that lurked in the tawny depths of the eyes that had looked out from so many magazine covers; and she saw too the beginnings of a tiny line of worry between her finely-shaped brows.
Worry? When she had so much to look forward to? When she was about to become the wife of a successful banker, to enter society at his side and to leave behind her the uncertain world of modelling, the long struggle that had brought her to a peak of success that could, nevertheless, at any moment be toppled? Linzi shrugged her shoulders impatiently and turned away to face Richard again. Worry must have become a habit in these past few months. Now it could be forgotten. In a matter of weeks she would be preparing for her wedding.
But before that, there was this last mysterious job, the one which was causing Richard such concern. And for some reason Linzi wanted very badly to do it. In a dim way she knew that it could be a fitting end to her modelling career, something that would mean more to her in future years than any of the glossy magazine pictures or TV videos she had so carefully stored away. Something that would give her the comfort of knowing that all the struggle had been worthwhile.
She crossed the room to Richard's side and knelt beside his chair, touching his hair with her fingers. She knew that Richard, so conventional and orderly, was disturbed by the bizarre way in which she had been engaged to do the job, and she understood that to his orthodox mind there could only be something suspicious in such a secretive method of finding an artist's model. But to Linzi, the whole affair was exciting and intriguing. She felt she could not bear to refuse and never know who the artist was, or what he wanted her to sit for. And when, gazing at Richard's still furrowed brow and wary eyes, she wondered if perhaps she ought, after all, to refuse, she told herself quickly that they weren't married yet; that Richard was, anyway, setting off tomorrow on a tour of Europe for his bank; and that by the time he returned she too would be back in London, ready to prepare for their marriage.
'Don't worry, darling,' she said softly. 'I'm sure there's nothing sinister in it. Anna told me he's a very well-known artist, but until I've agreed definitely to take the job he doesn't want her to say who he is. That's understandable, isn't it—if he doesn't want any publicity. I might say no and then go and tell some reporter and blow the whole thing! And I promise that if there is anything I don't like, I'll come straight back to London, contract or no contract!'
'It's not as if I even knew where you were going,' Richard grumbled. 'It could be anywhere. The wilds of Scotland—Ireland—Northumbria ‑'
'Or Hereford or Hampshire,' Linzi teased him. 'Richard, don't you trust me? I'm still the girl you proposed to, you know. I haven't changed in the past five weeks. And you liked me enough then.'
'Of course I trust you!' he replied quickly—a little too quickly? Linzi wondered. 'It isn't that. It's just—well, the whole thing's rather silly, if you ask me. All this secrecy. Anna should have been able to tell you the real situation, so that you could make a proper assessment. And then I could have gone away tomorrow knowing just where you were, who you were with and what you were doing. As it is...'
His words trailed away into a dissatisfied silence and Linzi felt a quirk of disquiet. Was he always going to insist on knowing her every movement after they were married? But she shook the thought away. It was simply the natural concern of a newly-engaged man. Richard's own life, surely, was far too busy for him to be worrying every moment about his wife's activities. Not that there'd be anything for him to worry about; Linzi was too grateful for his love and attentions to want to do anything that would upset him.
Richard had come into Linzi's life at a crucial moment. Newly returned from New York, where she had spent the last eighteen months, she had been unsure of what to do next. Modelling was the only thing she knew—she had been working her way to the top for the past five years— but she felt that it had gone sour on her. Luckily, she had saved enough money not to have to work immediately, but she also knew that living in London was now astronomically expensive and that she would have to make a decision before too long. In any case, she must go to see her agent. Anna had befriended Linzi when she had first arrived in London, lost and unhappy, at the age of eighteen. She had guided her through the first uncertain steps in her career, seeing in her a promise Linzi had never recognised in herself, seeing that the lanky, ungainly figure could be turned into something graceful and sensuous, that the wild mop of russet hair could be coaxed into a beautiful and manageable mane.
So it had been Anna to whom Linzi first went on her return from America. Anna, hectically busy as ever, who fell on her with a cry of delight and swept her off at once for lunch at a quiet restaurant where they could talk uninterrupted.
'Give up modelling!' Anna had cried when they had dispensed with all the news of mutual friends and enemies and were discussing themselves again. 'Linzi, you have to be joking. Why, you're at the top of the tree now. The editors and photographers, will be clamouring for you. I can think of half a dozen jobs I could get for you right now. You can't give up!'
Linzi's glowing eyes were unusually sombre as she gazed at her old friend. Anna had known all about her from the moment they first met—but now there was something that even she was not to be told. Oh, she would have understood, she would probably have tried to jolly Linzi out of her feelings and
told her she was worrying over nothing, that every successful model had to take the rough with the smooth—but what had happened had hurt Linzi too deeply to be talked over, even with such an understanding friend. It had to remain secret. And that being so, she could not easily explain her decision to give up modelling. She could only shrug and mutter something about needing a change.
'Well, we all need a holiday now and then,' Anna told her. 'I'm crying out for one myself. Look—why don't we go together, at the end of the summer, perhaps? Really get away from it all. Or maybe there's some other reason why you want to give up the modelling scene?' Her eyes sharpened as she looked with fresh interest at the younger girl. 'Don't say you've found a man at last—that paragon you've been looking for all these years!'
To her annoyance, Linzi felt a warm blush travelling up her neck and over her face to the roots of her hair. 'No, of course not,' she said sharply, and then wished she hadn't been so vehement. Anna might just have accepted that as an excuse. 'You know I'm not interested in men.'
'Do I?' Anna regarded her thoughtfully. 'Well, maybe I do. Men in general, that is. But are you sure you're not still carrying a torch for one in particular? One—Jason— wasn't that his name?'
Linzi bit her lip. She wanted to snap at Anna, tell her to mind her own business, that Jason was buried deeply in her past and she didn't want to discuss him anyway. But just in time she realised that such a sharp retort would only intensify Anna's suspicion that she still harboured a feeling for him. And that, after all these years, was something she wouldn't—couldn't—tolerate. Ever since her first arrival in London her whole life and career had been geared to forgetting Jason Carver. Surely, by now, she was entitled to believe that she had.
There was only one way to remove that interested look from Anna's face. And after all, would it be so bad? She knew the London modelling scene. She hadn't been away long enough to be forgotten, and in any case her success in America must stand her in good stead now she was back. And she had to earn some money somehow—and this was the best, the only way she knew.
'All right,' she said, picking up her wineglass and tossing back its contents as if to seal a pledge, 'I'll come back to modelling. I suppose I meant to all along. Perhaps I just wanted to try my wings a little.'
'Your wings don't need any trying,' Anna said fondly. 'You could do anything you put your mind to, Linzi, and you know it. But it's a shame to waste that perfect figure and gorgeous hair, and those amazing eyes, just sitting at a desk typing, or whatever it is you thought you might do instead. You're in your prime now, Linzi, and you're going to stay there for quite a while.' She picked up her own glass and held it against Linzi's. 'To the future, my dear. May you have everything you desire.'
And it seemed that her good wishes were to come true. Linzi had, once she had made up her mind, thrown herself into her resumption of her career with all her usual enthusiasm and was soon working hard. Editors liked her because she drew the customers—people were more likely to buy an issue of their magazine if it featured Linzi Berwick. Photographers liked her because Linzi respected their work and co-operated with them, never complaining at the long hours spent in unsuitable clothes—furs in August, swimsuits in January—and because she was photogenic enough to reward their efforts with interest. Manufacturers liked her because she could make anything look good. And the women who bought fashion magazines—and the men, too, who glanced surreptitiously at those left lying about by their wives and girl-friends— took her to their hearts.
Linzi had been in London for a little under two months when she met Richard.
Kneeling beside him now, stroking his thinning hair with gentle fingers, she remembered the party. She had been invited, along with the photographer and other members of the publicity team, to celebrate the launching of a new business enterprise just outside London. Linzi had never fully understood what the new enterprise was producing—high finance had always been rather beyond her—but she had enjoyed the party, held at the home of the chairman of the board, and it was as she stood on the spacious lawns, sipping champagne, that she had first caught Richard's eye and found him approaching her purposefully across the grass.
'You must feel at a distinct disadvantage here,' he had told her, smiling. 'Everyone knows your name and face so well! I'm Richard Fabian. You won't have heard of me— I'm a banker.'
'A behind-the-scenes man,' Linzi suggested, and he nodded.
'Exactly.' His light blue eyes regarded her seriously. 'I was wondering what arrangements you have for getting back to town. I've got my car here—thought we might have dinner on the way back.'
Linzi was half amused, half intrigued. Richard Fabian, impeccably if unadventurously dressed, didn't strike her as the type to pick up girls at parties. But he looked a pleasant enough man; just the solid, reliable sort of person you'd expect to be a banker. And, feeling suddenly that it would be a pleasant change to get away, for once, from the rather hectic company of the publicity team, she nodded. 'I'd like that.'
That dinner had been the first of many. Linzi had found in Richard an undemanding companion, one who would listen courteously to her stories of modelling life, her joys and her woes, yet remain firmly but quietly apart from it all. In his company she found herself able to relax and rest in a way that was impossible with her other friends. There was even a kind of repose in listening to him talk about his own work, although Linzi found most of what he said almost impossible to follow.
Before long she was seeing Richard several times a week. And when he had to go away for a fortnight, on banking business abroad, she was surprised to find herself missing him more than she had expected. On his return, she could see that he too had found her absence from his side leaving a bigger gap than anticipated. And when, after a particularly good dinner in a romantic, candlelit restaurant, he asked her to marry him, Linzi knew that she had been expecting his proposal.
'Marry?' she said doubtfully. 'Are you sure, Richard? Sure that I'd be suitable?.
'Quite sure,' he replied, and laid his hand over hers, 'I've thought it over very carefully, Linzi. It's time I married. I need a wife—oh, to run my home, to help me with my entertaining, all sorts of things. And—well, I'd like a family, too. Every since I met you, my dear, I've felt that perhaps you would be the one I could ask to share my life, be a mother to my children. I feel that more and more strongly. And I've hoped, lately, that perhaps you may feel it too.' He looked: at her, his eyes anxious and appealing.
'My job ‑' she began slowly, and Richard, interrupted eagerly.
'You need never work another day. I can support us both in ample comfort, I promise you that. Oh, I know you've enjoyed it—and you've made a success of it, too. But somehow I feel you're ready to give it up for something better. Marriage and all that it means. Comfort, security, your own home and family—isn't that what every woman wants, even in these days of liberation?'
Linzi felt a stab of irritation at his casual dismissal of the career she'd worked so-hard at. But she followed it quickly with a reminder that it must, after all, seem very small beer to Richard with his constant dealings in international finance. She looked thoughtfully at his good-natured face, creased a little now with anxiety as he waited for her reply, He would be a good, reliable husband, never asking more than she could give. With him, she could look forward to a life of comparative luxury— perhaps a house somewhere in the country—and, as he had suggested, total security. It was that that attracted her most. The thought of the security she had missed so much since her teens; the security that had once surrounded her life, only to be cruelly torn away, not once but twice. . . .
Linzi bit her lip as an unwanted image' of a tall, craggy-faced man with black hair and searingly blue eyes swam into her mind. With an almost perceptible effort she pushed him back down into the layers of her subconscious where he belonged. That was years ago, she admonished herself, even more strictly than she had Anna. It was in the past. Dead. Buried.
So why was she still lett
ing it affect her? Why was she still letting the memory of that painful time prevent her from enjoying what Richard had so correctly guessed she longed for—-marriage to a kind husband, a happy and secure home, children of her own? Was it because she had once cherished a hope that those children might, too, have wild black hair and brilliant blue eyes?
She looked up and met Richard's eyes across the table. Brown hair instead of black; pale blue eyes instead of deep navy. But a kindness and steadiness that she thought she needed. With him there would be no storms, no wild passion. But there would, instead, be havens; peaceful harbours. And maybe that, after all, was the better choice.
Thinking of this now, Linzi was tempted once again to tell Richard she would turn down the mysterious job. But again that tiny imp of rebellion stirred within her. Why should she give up a job that tantalised and attracted her so much? She was still her own person, entitled to make her own decisions. And if she did turn it down, what would she do with herself alone in London while he was away, with no work? No, it would be better to go, to satisfy her curiosity, to take on this one last assignment that even now she felt must be in some way important to her.
'Leave me a list of telephone numbers where I can reach you,' she said. 'Or ring through to Anna and let her know. I'll keep in touch, Richard, I promise, and of course if there is any funny business, I'll be back so fast London won't know I've gone. But I'm sure there won't be. Honestly, you don't have anything to worry about.' laughed. 'Why, you'll be in worse peril in all those foreign countries than I shall be! Just watch where you go and don't let any beautiful spies worm the bank's secrets out of you!'
'Of course I shan't! What an idea!' Richard looked shocked, and Linzi sighed a little. His inability to see her jokes worried her a little. But only a little, she told herself firmly. It wasn't really important, and he was beginning, gradually, to understand when she wasn't being serious. And he was so kind and so obviously fond of her that she found it difficult to criticise something he really couldn't help.
