Savage Interlude

by Carole Mortimer

  They had moved into the apartment James miraculously found for them three weeks previously, and although Kate missed the luxury of being waited on she revelled in the freedom of not reporting back to James after every move she made.

  Poor James, he had been so busy of late that he hadn’t been able to keep his usual brotherly eye on her. He had had the run of his play to finish and was also trying to organise his wedding to Sheri before they began shooting Damien Savage’s film, declaring he wanted at least a month’s honeymoon before he began work again.

  Josie handed her the skirt to her black velvet suit, nodding her approval as Kate smoothed it on over her slim hips. The pale russet-coloured blouse was tucked in at the waist and once she had on the jacket it should be suitable attire for a wedding.

  ‘Are you sure you won’t come, Josie? Not even to the reception?’ Kate began to brush her long hair.

  Josie shook her head, her own long black hair secured at her nape with a wooden slide, her slim body clothed in denims and a long-sleeved smock-top. She was a pretty girl, very vivacious, with laughing deep blue eyes. ‘I wouldn’t feel comfortable in the midst of all those film stars and models.’

  ‘Most of them are pretty normal.’ Kate grinned as she said this; she could think of a couple of them that were a bit weird.

  ‘No, I don’t think I will come. It’s very nice of Mr St Just to ask me, but I don’t think Paul would like it.’ Paul was her managing director boss, quite a young one at thirty, and she had high hopes of their working relationship developing on to a more personal level.

  ‘How are things going in that direction?’ asked Kate.

  Josie took her hairbrush and began to brush the back of Kate’s hair for her. ‘Well, he’s actually got round to asking me out to dinner this evening. That’s partly why I’m not going out this afternoon. I’m going to spend the time getting myself ready to impress him tonight. I’m going to give him the full treatment—face pack, hairdo, full make-up, and a new dress.’

  ‘Poor man won’t know what’s hit him,’ Kate chuckled, satisfied that her hair was smoothed out over her jacket. She always wore her hair loose now. It took more looking after this way, but she clung to the fact that Damien liked it like this.

  Damien. She had thought of him a lot the last few months, of the way he had kissed and caressed her, of his strong lithe body pressed close against her own. James had told her that Damien had come back into the country the week before, but although she had visited James a couple of times Damien hadn’t been there either time.

  ‘He’ll love every minute of it,’ giggled Josie.

  ‘You’re probably right,’ Kate laughed too. Josie was fun and Kate really enjoyed living with her. They often stayed up late at night just chatting together and drinking coffee. Josie had a way of never being tired or bad-tempered, and she made Kate feel the same way. She stepped back, looking at Josie for approval. ‘How do I look?’

  ‘Great,’ Josie enthused. ‘I wish I had that lovely fiery hair.’

  ‘You wouldn’t if you had the temper too.’ Kate glanced at her wrist-watch. ‘The taxi’s probably waiting downstairs. I’ll have to go now.’

  ‘Have fun!’

  Kate wasn’t sure that was going to be possible. James’ friends weren’t all her friends, and while she might like some of them, there were a lot of these people she would rather not be left alone with. And James would be much too preoccupied with his new bride to spare the time to look after her. James and Sheri would be leaving fairly early; they were flying to Venice for the start of their honeymoon before going on to further explore Europe, so perhaps she wouldn’t have to stay at the reception too long herself.

  The wedding was being held quietly at a register office in London, only twenty or so guests actually invited to this, but hundreds of people to the reception at one of London’s most exclusive hotels, a huge banqueting room being used for the purpose. Kate was one of the witnesses to the wedding, so she couldn’t be late. Sheri’s brother was the other witness.

  They were all waiting for her when she arrived, her taxi having been held up in the traffic building up outside because of the crowd of people gathering around the doorway, the news of the marriage having leaked out somehow. James’ agent had probably considered it good publicity, even if James didn’t.

  She only had time to give her brother and Sheri a quick kiss on the cheek before they had to go in and start the ceremony. She felt quite emotional during the marriage, much more emotional than when she had left the house to move into her flat. After all, James was no longer just her brother, his first duty must always lie with his wife from now on, and much as she herself loved Sheri and welcomed her into the family she couldn’t help crying.

  She went out with the other selected guests to see them off to the reception, almost getting crushed in the rush of the fans to get a look at their idol and the celebrated model he had just married. She was jostled and knocked about until she thought she was going to fall over and be crushed underfoot.

  ‘Just hang on to me, Kate,’ rasped a familiar voice very close to her ear, and she felt a firm grip on her upper arm.

  ‘And for God’s sake stop crying! Stop making a damned fool of yourself!’

  Her tears stopped instantly and she turned to face Damien Savage. God, how handsome he looked, dressed completely in white, the jacket to his suit fitting tautly across his powerful shoulders, his tanned skin making him look slightly foreign—and very exciting. She always noticed this about him, the way he appeared exciting, even angry as he was now.

  ‘Damien,’ she murmured softly, not sure whether she was glad to see him or not. She had wanted to see him quite desperately a couple of times in the last month, but to be suddenly confronted with him like this had thrown her completely off balance. He must have been at the wedding all the time and she hadn’t even realised. He looked so tall and sophisticated standing there, so completely the man in control. ‘I didn’t know you were here,’ she said lamely.

  ‘I’m not surprised,’ he returned dryly, dragging her along with him, uncaring of the people gaping at him as he became recognised. ‘You appeared to have eyes for no one but the bridegroom—and his bride, of course.’

  They had reached his car parked in a quiet side-street, its sleek lines drawing almost as much attention as its owner. He thrust her inside before coming round to get in behind the steering-wheel, slamming the car into gear and accelerating away from the curious faces watching them through the smoky windows.

  ‘I wasn’t even sure you would be at the wedding at all, let alone act as one of the witnesses.’ He gave her a hard look. ‘What are you, a masochist?’

  ‘No.’ She cleared her throat, loving the tangy smell of his aftershave. She felt happy to be with him and apprehensive at the same time, but most of all she felt aware of him as completely male, sensual and dominant. ‘James asked me and I—’

  ‘You agreed!’ he finished scathingly, those green eyes of his raking over her mercilessly. ‘How could you do that to yourself? Don’t you have any pride?’

  ‘I have plenty, but I—’

  ‘Didn’t it bother you that you should have been the bride?’ he cut in. ‘Didn’t you feel anything!’

  Damn James and his infernal lie! Damien still thought she had been going to marry James. ‘You know I felt something, you saw me crying.’

  ‘Mm,’ he said unfeelingly. ‘It must be heartbreaking to see all that lovely money going to another woman. I must say I didn’t expect James to react quite so drastically.’

  Kate sighed. ‘What do you mean now?’

  ‘Tell me,’ he ignored her question, ‘does Sheri know James asked her to marry him on the rebound?’

  She gasped. ‘He did no such thing! Surely you could see how happy they were just now? As any normal newly married couple should be.’

  ‘Oh sure, they looked happy enough. I think James must have finally got you out of his system. What happened after I left, did he say to hell wi
th the marriage and take you anyway?’

  ‘No doubt that’s what you would have done?’

  ‘Sure I would. Why pay the price of a wedding ring for something that everyone else seems to be getting for nothing? Besides, I can’t think of any other way of getting you out of the system.’

  ‘Well, he didn’t!’ she said crossly.

  ‘More fool him,’ Damien muttered. ‘I guess he just couldn’t take the fact that you’d been with me.’

  ‘But I hadn’t!’

  ‘I’m sure he didn’t believe that.’

  ‘Why shouldn’t he? I had no reason to lie.’

  He gave a sardonic smile. ‘Only a wedding ring. Tell me, Kate, why did you suddenly decide a wedding ring was so important?’

  ‘I’ve always considered it important,’ she told him with a sigh, sick of his opinion of her but knowing of no way to change it.

  He came round to open her door for her, handing his car keys to the doorman before guiding her into the hotel. James and Sheri were waiting to greet them as they came into the reception room and they were far from being the first to arrive. James’ face darkened as they came into the room together.

  ‘Where have you been?’ he demanded of Kate. ‘Tony was supposed to bring you here. He’s been looking everywhere for you.’

  ‘Damien insisted on bringing me.’

  James looked at the other man sharply as if noticing him for the first time, although Kate felt sure he had noticed her companion long before this. ‘Damien,’ he nodded curtly.

  Damien gave his hand a firm shake, smiling unconcernedly in the face of the other man’s displeasure. ‘I found her without your help,’ he remarked quietly.

  ‘So I see,’ James snapped, and turned from him impatiently. ‘Now look, Kate, I want you to steer clear of my mother. She’s on the warpath,’ he warned her. ‘She has her acid look on today. She’s already remarked on the garishness of my friends. She could give you a hard time of it if she decided to dig her claws into you.’

  ‘Kate’s with me, James,’ Damien told him arrogantly. ‘I think I can safeguard her from your mother.’

  Unwillingly James smiled. ‘You don’t know my mother!’

  ‘I don’t need to. Just leave her to me.’ He took a firm grip of Kate’s arm again. ‘We’d better move in and let your other guests come and say hello. Ready, Kate?’

  ‘Oh yes—ready.’ She hugged James and kissed Sheri on the cheek. ‘I’m going to like having you for a sister,’ she whispered.

  ‘Thank you.’ Sheri smiled tremulously, looking beautiful, as all brides do.

  ‘Why doesn’t James’ mother like you?’ Damien asked once they both had a drink in their hand.

  Kate hesitated. ‘Oh, she—well, she just doesn’t.’

  ‘I suppose I can guess the reason.’

  She could imagine! ‘What did you mean when you told James you found me without his help?’ That statement had been puzzling her somewhat.

  He shrugged, looking round at the other guests as he sipped his drink. ‘Well, I have, haven’t I?’

  ‘Yes, but did you—did you want to find me?’

  ‘I told you I wanted you and would do anything to get you.’ He turned to look at her now. ‘James didn’t seem too willing to tell me where you’re living now. But I knew you would turn up some time, your sort always do.’

  ‘My sort?’ She frowned.

  ‘Mm. I knew you’d soon be on the lookout for another rich boy-friend. I just had to make sure I was about when it happened.’

  ‘Why, you—’

  ‘Ah, Katherine, my dear.’ A tall woman with perfectly coiffured grey hair came up to them, her grey eyes so like her son’s, as hard as granite at the moment, her expression one of frosty disdain. ‘I thought I would find you here today.’

  ‘Yes.’ Kate felt overawed as she usually did when in the company of James’ mother. ‘The wedding was very lovely, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Very,’ Louise St Just agreed. ‘And I’m so glad James chose a sensible girl. I didn’t approve of the two of you living together as you were. At least now you’ve had to move out—even if James is still supporting you financially.’

  ‘He doesn’t support me!’ James hadn’t been joking when he had said his mother was in a bitchy mood, but Kate found it very embarrassing that Damien had to witness this.

  She had felt him stiffen when Louise came over to them, and now he looked thunderous. But she personally couldn’t wholly blame Louise for her hard, embittered attitude towards her. It couldn’t be easy to be suddenly confronted with her husband’s child by another woman, especially as James didn’t share her resentful attitude.

  Kate had had these sort of arguments with Louise St Just many times in the last four years, and although she didn’t like it, she could understand it. But not in front of Damien! So far Louise hadn’t got round to the insulting names she usually resorted to, and she hadn’t let it out about her being Richard St Just’s illegitimate child, but knowing her of old she knew it wouldn’t be long before she did.

  ‘You know the reason for the allowance,’ she retorted quietly, ever conscious of Damien’s keen glance.

  ‘Oh yes, I know. I’ve always known—how could I not with James thrusting it down my throat all the time? And I thought it quite disgusting that you should act as a witness to my son’s wedding. I wouldn’t have thought you capable of recognising that there was such a thing as marriage.’

  Goodness, she was in good form today! ‘I believe in marriage, Mrs St Just. It just isn’t possible for some people.’ Her mother, Angela Stevens, and Richard St Just had met when her mother had become his temporary secretary during his own secretary’s illness. It had been instant attraction for both of them, although because of Richard’s marriage they had both fought against it.

  But their romance had been inevitable, only ending after a few months’ duration because his wife found out about their illicit love affair and demanded an end to it. Richard had asked for a divorce but had been firmly denied it, his wife pointing out that his reputation wouldn’t stand it.

  Kate could imagine it had been a traumatic time for her mother, being only twenty to Richard’s already forty years. But it had been made all the worse by Louise St Just’s spiteful attitude to the younger girl, even going so far as to visit her and tell her what a mess she was making of her husband’s life. Her mother had been impressionable and shy, only her overwhelming love for the sophisticated and distinguished Richard causing her to have the one moral lapse of her life. She had paid dearly for that moral lapse, the birth of her child, Kate, a child completely unknown to the father as her mother had already opted out of his life.

  No matter what Louise St Just might have thought of the younger girl her mother had not been the sort of girl to use the leverage of her expected baby to force him into leaving his wife and son. And so she had quietly disappeared from his life and he had never heard from her again, until her death, when she had left the care of their child to him.

  But even now, all these years later, Louise St Just couldn’t forgive and forget, taking out her anger and humiliation on the child of that liaison. Kate was used to it now, but she couldn’t allow this to happen in front of Damien.

  ‘No,’ Louise agreed. ‘Your sort seem to have a penchant for other women’s husbands. I hope James is sensible and keeps you out of his life in future.’

  ‘I would think that’s highly possible, Mrs St Just,’ Damien spoke for the first time. ‘If you hadn’t yet noticed, Kate is here with me.’

  Grey eyes swept over his relaxed arrogance, the sneer left her face and a charming smile lit up her beautiful but ageing face. ‘Mr Savage,’ she purred. ‘How nice to meet you! James has talked a lot about you.’

  ‘Really?’ he returned dryly.

  ‘Yes, really. I’m afraid you’ll have to excuse Katherine and me, we’re old adversaries. If you know anything about my family at all you’ll realise why.’

  ‘I guess so. But like I t
old you, Kate is with me now,’ he told her hardly. ‘James can take care of his wife in future, I’m taking care of Kate.’

  Louise gave Kate a scathing look. ‘You’ll never change, will you—you and Angela, both with the morals of an alley-cat!’

  Kate saw red, a high flush to her cheeks. ‘Now that’s enough!’ Her own insults she would take but not ones against her mother.

  ‘I couldn’t agree more,’ Damien interrupted softly, too softly, his gaze rapier-sharp. ‘I think you would be wise to remove yourself from our company, Mrs St Just. After all, you might become tainted by our lax morals.’

  Louise’s mouth tightened at his deliberate snub. ‘Perhaps you’re right,’ she nodded haughtily. ‘Good afternoon.’

  Damien watched her go, his face grim. ‘Not a pleasant woman,’ he remarked coldly. ‘And she obviously hates your guts. I suppose that’s because you enslaved her precious son. Mothers are always like that over their only children.’

  Kate could have laughed at the irony of that statement; it was because James wasn’t an only child that his mother was so embittered. She couldn’t bear sharing his affections with his half-sister, she had hated her mother and the hate had passed on to Kate.

  ‘Is your mother the same?’ she couldn’t resist asking.

  He gave a slight smile. ‘My mother’s the opposite. She’s openly admitted that she’ll laugh herself silly if some poor female gets me hooked.’

  ‘Poor female?’

  ‘Mm,’ he grinned openly now. ‘The Savage men are known for their—let’s call it rakish behaviour. We’re equally well known for being possessive as hell when we do fall in love, and we all fall in the end. I’m just taking longer to do it than most, which doesn’t please my mother. She swears I’m doing it on purpose because I know she wants grandchildren, as an only child I’m thwarting her plans somewhat.’