Bruno had retreated as far away from his uncle as he could. He was not merely behind Liza, he was trying to hide behind the long velvet curtains at her window.
Keir swivelled slowly and surveyed them both with a frozen stare. The fact that he was smiling, too, made his icy rage the more alarming.
'I thought I told you not to see her before you left?' he asked Bruno.
'What are you doing here?' Liza demanded without giving Bruno time to think up a reply to that.
Keir's eyes flicked back to her face and she had a hard time not flinching.
T was told Bruno had entered the building,' he began and she snapped back.
'Who told you?'
'Security,' he admitted irritably.
'You'd asked them to let you know if he arrived?'
'Yes.'
'Spying on him? My God, how low can you stoop?'
Keir didn't like that, i didn't trust him to keep his word,' he said harshly. 'And I was quite right not to, wasn't I? The minute he got the chance he was sneaking up here to see you.'
Bruno made unhappy noises and that attracted Keir's attention to him again. Bruno fell silent, shrinking, as the deadly blue eyes flashed towards him, and Liza felt very sorry for him.
'He just wanted to say goodbye!' she said hurriedly and Keir looked back at her.
'Well, he's had plenty of time to say it, so he can get out.' He swung back to Bruno and his voice cracked like a whip. 'Did you hear what I said? Get out, and in future stay away from her!'
Bruno threw Liza a flustered, uncertain look, shrugged, said, 'See you, Liza, I mean, goodbye, Liza, thanks for . . .' then almost tripped up in his haste to get out of the room.
Liza looked at Keir with bitter dislike as the door closed again. 'Does that make you feel big? Scaring him half to death like that? You bully!'
'Are you in love with him?' Keir asked and she looked up to find those violent blue eyes fixed on her face, searching, probing.
'That has nothing to do with you!' she retorted, dragging her eyes away.
' Was he with you last night?' The question was like a steel needle under her skin; she winced at the sharpness of it.
'I'm not going to tell you!' She couldn't betray Bruno's confidence and, anyway, now that she had seen for herself how Keir treated Bruno she could understand exactly why Bruno was afraid to tell his uncle about his little escapade in Soho. Could one blame him? No wonder Bruno was in a state of arrested adolescence! He had never been given a chance to grow up.
'Why don't you let Bruno run his own life for a change?' she asked Keir bitingly. 'Nobody learns anything from being told about other people's mistakes—they only learn from their own, and if Bruno can't be trusted it may be because you've never trusted him. Had you thought of that? You're like a gardener who keeps digging up the bulbs to see how they're growing and then complains because they aren't growing at all!'
Keir stared, his face blank. He obviously wasn't going to listen to her and she gave an angry shrug.
'Oh, what's the point? I'm sorry for Bruno, but it really isn't my business. Now, will you go, Mr Gifford? I have work to do.'
He walked slowly to the door and Liza sat down behind her desk and opened one of the leather-bound files, glancing down at the typed pages although she wasn't able to read a word because all her attention was fixed on Keir Gifford, waiting tensely for him to leave.
He opened the door, then paused and looked back at her. 'You really think Bruno might respond to a little less supervision? Or are you just making excuses for him?'
'Try it and see,' Liza said with cool indifference without looking up. She flicked a page and pretended to read, but was very aware of him watching her.
'I wish I could work you out,' he said abruptly, i can't believe you're serious about Bruno. He's a chump!'
She laughed, looking up, her mouth softening. 'A nice chump, though!'
His face relaxed a little, too. 'OK, a nice one, but a chump, all the same! So why do you keep on dating him, if it isn't for the money?'
it couldn't be because I'm fond of him?' she asked drily and his blue eyes kept watching her, trying to read her face.
is that all it is? But for a long time there hasn't been anyone else in your life—you've just seen Bruno, and you can't tell me that other men haven't shown an interest because I wouldn't believe it. You must have queues of men trying to date you.'
i like an uncomplicated life,' she said lightly. 'Look, for absolutely the last time—I do not want to marry Bruno, I've no intention of marrying him and never had. But I'm fond of him and he's fun, which is why I went on seeing him. Bruno is my friend—is that so hard to understand, Mr Gifford? Can't men and women ever be friends, with no strings attached?'
"Why no other men, though?' Keir persisted and she sighed.
'I'm not looking for love and marriage, Mr Gifford. I'm too busy trying to run my company, when you're not interrupting me!'
The console buzzed and she flicked the switch and asked, 'Yes, Maddie?'
'Nicky Wallis on the line again,' Maddie's tinny voice said. 'Any message? He says it's urgent, he must talk to you.'
'OK, Maddie, put him on when I buzz.' Liza glanced across the office at Keir, her face coolly polite. 'Now, will you excuse me? This may be an important call and I have a busy schedule today.'
He considered her with his head slightly to one side and his smile crooked. 'You're quite something, Liza,' he said, and then he turned and went and Liza stared at where he had been and felt her heart going like a steam train. It took quite an effort to snap herself out of it and buzz for Maddie to put Nicky Wallis through.
'What can I do for you, Nicky?' she asked unwisely and Nicky chuckled.
'You know the answer to that, darling, but I'll settle for lunch to talk over this new contract. I've been talking to ferry, and the advertising agency definitely wants a new lace.'
'Talk to Maddie and she'll give you a date. Sorry, Nicky, but I've got a string of people waiting to see me.' She hung up and Maddie came into the room, eyeing her
oddly.
'Ready to start work now? Your appointments have been shot to pieces. Even if you rush each one you'll liver get through them all.'
I'll work through my lunch hour—oh, no, I've got a l.imh booked with the editor of that new women's magazine!'
I've cancelled it,' Maddie said briskly.
' My God, Maddie, why on earth did you do that? She'll in offended and ...'
She wasn't offended. I explained there was a sudden crisis and asked her to have lunch at the Savoy next Wednesday—that was the first free day available in your diary.'
Liza's fraught expression dissolved into a smile. 'The Savoy?'
'I thought we could run to it in the circs,' Maddie said demurely and Liza laughed.
'What would I do without you? Anything else I ought to know?'
'Yes, I've sent down for some cottage cheese, fruit and coffee,' Maddie said, consulting the notebook she carried to check the details. She looked up impishly. 'For your lunch while you go through today's modelling schedule with me, and then dictate a few letters. Oh, and by the way, I slotted Nicky Wallis into a lunch date next Friday—from one till two. I explained that you always left early on a Friday.'
Liza laughed again, then winced—she was still suffering from the after-effects of the last weekend. She wasn't sure she felt like going down to the cottage again for a little while.
'Now, I'll send in your first appointment,' Maddie added. 'Poor girl, she's been waiting for almost two hours.'
Liza groaned. 'This has been one hell of a morning!'
CHAPTER SEVEN
As Liza was about to leave that evening, one of her top models arrived, wearing a very large diamond on her left hand, and all the other girls crowded round her to admire her ring, kiss her, offer their congratulations. Liza opened some champagne from the office fridge.
'I'm afraid I shall be leaving,' Karen told Liza a little while later. 'We're going ba
ck to Brazil to his family larm. He doesn't like it here.'
Under her smile Liza was faintly depressed—Karen was at her earning peak and Liza would be very sorry to lose her, but there was more to it than that. She couldn't help envying Karen; she looked so happy and so carefree, so much in love.
They all wished Karen good luck and then she dashed off to celebrate with her family. Liza was about to put the remaining unopened bottle of champagne back into the I ridge when she changed her mind and took it home with her, thinking that Bruno might call in before he left and (hey could toast his new life in America.
The flat seemed very empty, very chilly. She sat curled up on the sofa, her knees bent up and her chin on them, brooding over the strange sadness which seemed to be hovering around her. She couldn't think why she felt so lonely, so blank, and she wished she would stop thinking about Keir Gifford. He kept answering into her head; he was haunting her!
She hadn't eaten and tried to distract herself by considering whether or not to go into the kitchen to find food, but while she was thinking about that her eye fell on the bottle of champagne which she had put down on the table when she arrived.
That was what she needed—something to cheer herself up! She might forget her fury with Keir Gifford and her sudden realisation of how lonely her empty flat could be—she had never felt lonely there before. It was stupid to let the news of Karen's engagement get to her like that! It was hardly the first time one of her girls had got married; in fact, it often happened, since in modelling they rapidly picked up admirers. Marriage did not necessarily follow, but four of her girls had got married since she started the agency, and she couldn't recall feeling this depressed before.
What the hell is the matter with me? she asked herself, uncoiling to pick up the bottle of champagne and carry it to the kitchen to open it. I've got everything I've ever wanted: a fascinating career, a lovely home, a boat, a car. She found a champagne glass, slowly eased the cork out of the bottle in the manner she had noticed waiters using, and poured a bubbly glass. It was warm, but she didn't care.
She raised the glass angrily to the ceiling. 'To hell with Keir Gifford,' she told her empty flat. Her voice had a hollow ring, though; she drained the glass hurriedly to change her mood as soon as possible.
She couldn't remember ever getting drunk, but tonight could be the exception, she thought, deciding to have a warm shower before bed. She would take her champagne with her.
She had begun to feel happier by the time she had finished showering; she sang as she put on a loose white silk nightie and neglige. They were both in Regency style; high-waisted and full skirted. Liza drifted into her bedroom, singing and dancing, holding her skirts with one hand and the champagne in the other. She had the radio playing; why did they always play sad love songs? It was all so phoney; love was just a trap and if you got caught in it you left a bit of yourself behind if you escaped. Why did people write songs about it that made it sound like heaven, when everyone knew it was hell and damnation?
She sat on her bed because her head was a little dizzy and felt she should stop dancing—but the room went on revolving without her. She focused on it, seeing double.
'Stop it!' she said loudly and the room stopped going round.
'This is all Keir Gifford's fault,' Liza brooded. If she ever saw him again she'd tell him what she thought of him, but now that he'd successfully detached Bruno from her dangerous company he would vanish back into his own glittering, exclusive world, she wouldn't set eyes on him again.
Her green eyes fixed on nothing, moodily contemplating that thought. She had been perfectly happy until he had crashed into her life. What had he done to her?
i hate Keir Gifford,' she almost shouted at the furniture elegantly arranged around her. 'If I knew his phone number I'd ring him and tell him exactly what I think of him!'
That was when the phone rang. She jumped so violently that she almost fell off the bed. Groping for the phone, she whispered, 'Hello?' convinced that it would be Keir, but it wasn't. It was Bruno and he sounded nervous.
'Liza, are you OK?' he asked.
'I'm, fine, fine, fine,' Liza chorused happily, or that was how she wanted to sound—happy! She didn't want
Bruno to know she was in a state of wild misery; it had nothing to do with him, although he had been the innocent cause of it in the beginning.
'You don't sound it,' Bruno said slowly.
'Of course I do,' Liza insisted and drank some more champagne.
Bruno seemed to hear that. 'What are you doing?' he asked and then, more sharply, 'Drinking? Liza, you aren't drinking alone, are you?' He sounded shocked, incredulous, and she thought that was very funny, the idea of shocking Bruno. She began to giggle.
'You should try it, it certainly chases the blues away.'
i'm coming over to see you,' Bruno announced and Liza said furiously.
'No!'
'Liza, listen . . .'
'Your uncle Mr G. K. Gifford, the eminent business person and louse, does not want you to see me ever again, so kindly toe the line or you'll be chucked out of the family, and I wouldn't want you to lose your inheritance over me.' She was pleased with the dignified way in which she said it; it was rather a pity that she hiccupped at the very end. It was even more of a pity that she then could not stop hiccupping. In fact, she hiccupped all the way through Bruno's reply.
'Liza, I'm coming over—we haven't really had a chance to say goodbye.'
Liza tried to explain that they had said goodbye in her office, but she knew she wasn't making much sense between hiccups so she said very loudly, 'Goodbye, Bruno,' and put the phone down.
She went to the kitchen and got some water and tried to drink it from the wrong side of the glass, but it made her choke without stopping the hiccups so she tried standing on her head, a trick someone had once told her about. That simply made her dizzy so she tried to make herself jump by dropping a cup on the floor, but it didn't break, it just bounced, and at that moment she heard a violent shrilling.
Someone was ringing the doorbell. She knew it was Bruno; she wouldn't answer it. He would go away in the end.
He didn't and the bell went on ringing and her head was aching now; bang, bang, bang her head went and she held it in both hands, hiccupping. She felt very ill suddenly, and she had to make Bruno stop ringing the bell so she staggered down the hall and yanked the door open.
'Please stop doing that!' she moaned without looking because she had had to close her eyes in case the whirling of the flat made her sick.
In the same moment somebody kicked the door shut and picked her up bodily. Liza's eyes flew open in shock and the hiccups stopped. She knew it was Keir before she saw him; she felt her whole body respond to the strength of his hands as they seized her.
'No,' she moaned, but he walked into the bedroom with her and sat down on the bed with Liza cradled on his lap.
'Are you crazy?' he asked harshly, those dangerous blue eyes inches away. 'Why have you been drinking?'
i hate you,' she said with violence, her dazed eyes eating him. He looked so familiar, as if she had known him a thousand years—and yet he looked like a stranger, as if she had never set eyes on him before. There were mysterious hollows in his cheeks, a darkness in his eyes, a threat in the tension of his body.
'How much?' he asked and kissed her, sending fever running through her veins. His mouth was hot and insistent, it wouldn't take no for an answer and her lips quivered helplessly as he took them.
'And why?' he asked as if the kiss had never happened, looking down at her out of hard blue eyes. 'Because I sent Bruno away? You aren't in love with him, so it has to be the money you wanted. Would you really marry a man for his money, Liza? Do you need money? Or do you just want to be rich?'
She was so offended, so angry, so hurt, that she spat back, 'That's right, I want to be rich. Why not? Why shouldn't I want to be rich? If it's OK for you to want money, why isn't is OK for me?' She had been shocked into a return of sanity; s
he wasn't drunk any more, but she felt very tired and still faintly ill.
is that why you've worked so hard to build up your agency? Are you obsesssed with success and money like everybody else?' He sounded disappointed, as if she had betrayed him, let him down. 'Does it really matter that much to you?'
'None of your business,' she mumbled, finding it hard to think because she was too conscious of his hand below her breast; one thumb was pressing slightly against the full, warm flesh and she couldn't think about anything else. She shut her eyes and at once she imagined her breast naked in his hand, and a strangled groan escaped her and she opened her eyes hurriedly.
'You're not going to be sick, are you?' Keir asked, sounding dismayed.
'Probably,' she threatened, staring at the incisive force of his features and wishing she didn't find them so deeply attractive.
'Bruno said you sounded ill or drunk,' he muttered, frowning blackly.
'Bruno did? When? Did he ask you to come?' She was bewildered by that and angry, too. Why should Bruno have asked him to come round to her flat?
'I was there when he rang you' Keir said. 'He was going to invite you down to Hartwell for his last weekend in this country.'
Liza's eyes opened wide. 'You agreed?'
it was my idea,' he said, watching her intently.
'But . . . why?' Liza was confused; suspicious. 'You wanted to get Bruno away from me, that's why you're sending him to New York. So why suggest he invites me down to Hartwell? What's the catch?'
He didn't answer that, but then she hadn't really expected him to, because Keir Gifford was devious and if he had agreed to let Bruno invite her to his country house he must have had some secret motive for doing so. She didn't know him very well yet, but she knew that much—Keir Gifford always had a very good reason for everything he did, but he certainly wouldn't admit to her why he had been ready to accept her as a guest in his own home.
'Do you often drink alone?' he asked and she looked angrily at him, turning her head to do so and finding his face far too close.
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