by Penny Jordan
He obviously didn’t believe in wasting any time Emma thought hollowly half an hour later as she left his office. Tomorrow she had to present herself at a studio whose address he had given her, and he had promised that she would also receive the documents releasing Camilla while she was there.
She went back to her hotel and booked in for another night. Then she telephoned home and told her father she had been delayed. ‘Camilla wants to speak to you,’ he told her.
Camilla sounded tense. ‘Did you see him?’ she demanded.
‘Yes, and he’s agreed to drop all the charges.’ There wasn’t much point in telling her sister the price she was having to pay for her freedom. There was nothing martyred or self-sacrificing in her decision; it was simply the only one she could make. She had grown so used to protecting Camilla that it was almost second nature.
She put off telephoning Robert, her interview with him was best left until she got home. Thank goodness she hadn’t actually signed a new contract. The television company would be more than pleased to let her go when they knew why she was leaving. Once her photograph had appeared in Drake Harwood’s obnoxious publication no serious television station would want to touch her with a bargepole. Bitterness welled up inside her, but she fought it down; at least she would have the satisfaction of defeating his main purpose and that, she sensed, was something very few people ever did. He had been quite cold and callous about his reasons for what he was doing; her thoughts and feelings meant nothing to him and neither did the fact that he was destroying her career. She had sensed beneath the mockery a fine contempt of the female sex, and she shuddered inwardly, trying not to think about the ordeal to come.
That evening after she had had her bath she forced herself to study her nude reflection in the bedroom mirror. Her body was slender and well formed, unmistakably feminine; the thought of exposing it to the eyes of some jaded photographer made her shudder with distaste. If only she could blot the whole thing out of her mind somehow… but that wasn’t possible.
Neither was sleep; she lay awake for what felt like hours, prey to her thoughts and too-active imagination. It was difficult to visualise anything more degrading than what she was going to have to do, and her pride rebelled fiercely against it, but there was no escape.
CHAPTER THREE
MORNING came; she was heavy eyed and lethargic. The thought of breakfast held no appeal and having showered she dressed quickly in plain cream underwear. The moment her fingers touched the pale, silky fabric she started to shiver. Dear God, she could not go through with this; she could not subject herself to such sexual debasement. She ran to the bathroom and retched painfully, shuddering convulsively afterwards. If only she could simply walk out of this hotel and away from… from everything, she thought tiredly, but she couldn’t. She had spent too many years as Camilla’s older sister to do that. She could not desert the younger girl now.
A blessed numb calm seemed to engulf her the moment she walked outside; it was like being encased in a soft plastic bubble; safe from all harm; from all contact with her own feelings.
The taxi drive to the address Drake Harwood had given her was over all too soon. The studio was housed in an elegant Regency terrace; testament to how much money could be made from their business, Emma reflected bitterly as she paid off the taxi driver and rang the bell.
It took several minutes for the door to open. A girl of about her own age stood there, dressed in tatty jeans and a bulky sweater. ‘Hi, come on in,’ she directed. ‘Drake warned me to expect you.’ She gave Emma a wide grin. ‘Feeling nervous? Drake said you might be. This way.’
Following her down a narrow corridor, Emma gritted her teeth against the biting retort she was longing to make. Her relief at discovering that the photographer was another woman had quickly been displaced by fury that Drake Harwood should discuss her with her.
‘In here…’
‘Here…’ was an expensively equipped studio, dominated by the large bed on which several spotlights were focused. The bed itself was covered in a satin spread, the colour of rich cream.
‘Drake’s idea. I’m Pat Devlin,’ the other girl introduced herself. ‘I don’t normally accept commissions of this type, but Drake made me an offer I couldn’t refuse, as the saying goes. That was his idea,’ she added gesturing towards the bed and grimacing faintly. ‘He said the spread would be a perfect foil for your hair. Fancy a cup of coffee?’
Nodding numbly, Emma tried to come to grips with reality. It seemed impossible to believe this was actually happening but it was… and there was no escape.
‘Oh and Drake left something for you, said I was to give it to you after we’d finished. It’s over there.’
Emma looked at the thick envelope. So he had kept his promise to her. Somehow she had never doubted that he would. ‘Hey are you feeling okay?’ There was genuine anxiety in the question.
Emma nodded her head. ‘First time nerves,’ she grimaced.
‘And second thoughts. Why not have third ones and forget the whole thing. It’s none of my business of course, but if you’re really hating the thought of it as much as you look as though you are, it will show in the photographs, and no matter how much Drake is paying you, it can’t possibly compensate for what it’s costing you…’
‘I have to do it.’
Emma knew her voice was shaking. She couldn’t look at Pat, just in case she broke down and gave in to her suggestion not to go through with it. The papers were there and she could take them, but pride would not let her. She had to go through with it… but if Drake Harwood chose to print the finished product it would not be of Emma Court, TV newsreader, but simply Emma Court, out of work. He had demanded a price and she was prepared to pay it, but she wasn’t prepared to involve anyone else in that payment.
‘Okay, then let’s get it over with shall we?’
Pat Devlin might not be used to doing the sort of work Drake had engaged her for, but she was a professional to her finger-tips Emma realised in the two hours that followed. Small, and wiry with a shock of thick black hair, she possessed an energy that left Emma limp.
‘Take your hair down,’ she had instructed, helping Emma to uncoil her chignon, after she had taken some initial shots of Emma as she had arrived at the studio.
‘Look,’ she asked in a kind voice when she had asked her to undress, ‘are you sure…’
‘Sure.’
‘Okay then.’
If it wasn’t as bad as she had dreaded it was bad enough. Drake’s magazine was apparently more up-market than many of its competitors and for that reason she had been instructed to make sure all the shots were in good taste, Pat told Emma with a grimace. ‘Personally if I had my way the things would be banned, but a girl has to make a living. He was right about your hair,’ she added when she had positioned Emma on the satin spread. ‘I think you’d better close your eyes,’ she added, ‘they give away too much. You’re supposed to look as though you’re enjoying this, not on the rack. Try to think of something pleasant…’
All she could think of was that at some future date, Drake Harwood would be looking at her like this. The thought made her so tense that Pat had to stop work. What was one man among thousands, Emma jeered at herself, glad of the mug of coffee Pat brought her.
‘Nearly over,’ she encouraged her. ‘God I remember the first nude shots I ever did… I was nearly sick with nerves… but after a while you get used to it…’
Emma shuddered again, thankful when at last her ordeal was over and she could discard the cream satin underwear Pat had asked her to wear. The satin was soft and of excellent quality, the underwear perfectly respectable, sexy, but in an understated way; the sort of thing she herself might even have worn, for a lover perhaps… but now the mere thought of it against her body revolted her. All she wanted to do was to immerse herself in a tub of hot water and scrub her skin until she felt clean again.
Unfortunately, it would not be as easy to erase the morning from her mind.
‘Ok
ay, here’s your envelope, don’t forget it,’ Pat instructed handing it to her when Emma emerged from behind the changing screen.
‘I’ll just pack up my things and then I’ll be on my way too. You know you meet all types in this game, but you… you’re someone I just can’t pigeonhole. You went through agony there, and yet you kept on… why?’
When Emma shook her head, Pat shrugged. ‘Well I guess it’s your own affair. I’d better get back to my flat and get these developed before Drake starts screaming for them. It’s the first time I’ve done this sort of work for him. Industrial stuffs more his line. Still it makes a change from working for Vogue, and photographing building sites.’
* * *
‘Well come on, I want to hear ail about it.’
The first thing Emma had done when she got home was to ring Robert. Now they were sitting in the bar of a quiet local pub, nursing their drinks.
‘I can’t take the job.’ She hadn’t meant to say it so baldly, but somehow the words were out and Robert was staring at her as though she had lost her mind.
‘Emma have you gone mad. Of course you can take it… They offered it to you, I know that, and it’s the chance of a life-time, just what you’ve always wanted.’
‘Just what I did always want,’ Emma corrected unsteadily, ‘I’ve… I’ve changed my mind…’
Robert glared at her as though he was seeing her for the first time. ‘I see, and is one allowed to ask why? Don’t tell me,’ he continued furiously, ‘it has to be a man. God Emma, I thought you were different, I thought you had more sense, but it seems I was wrong. I thought you wanted a career, not…’
‘Love?’ she supplemented drily. ‘All women want that, Robert…’
Although Robert had leapt to the wrong conclusion, it was easier to let him go on believing it than to try and find some alternative explanation for her decision. Inside she felt sick and shaky, one part of her longing to pour out to him her pain and misery, and another warning her against doing so; against crossing the careful barrier she had always maintained between them.
Emma wasn’t blind; she was aware that Robert was attracted to her, it would be easy to push that attraction into something more because she needed someone to confide in and comfort her, but if she did they would both end up regretting it. Robert loved his wife, and she wanted no part of a man who was committed to someone else.
‘Well I hope to God he knows what you’re giving up,’ Robert said harshly, draining his glass. ‘What do you intend to do now? Stay on with us?’
Emma shook her head. ‘No that’s not possible I’m afraid…’
‘Lover-boy wants a little stay at home wife, is that it?’ Robert practically snarled the words. ‘Very well Emma, if that’s what you want…’
‘I’ll give you my notice tomorrow.’ She had to bend her head to hide from him the tears starting up in her eyes.
‘If that’s what you want.…’
It isn’t what I want, her heart cried out rebelliously, but it’s what I have to do… I don’t have any alternative. If she kept quiet and signed her new contract, they would have to abide by it; they would not be able to get rid of her, as they would want to do, once the magazine came out, and she had too much pride to subject herself or them to that.
Robert drove her home in a stiff silence. She had holidays owing to her which meant that she need not work her notice period. When she told her father and Camilla, neither seemed overly concerned.
‘Oh good, you’ll be able to help with the wedding arrangements,’ was Camilla’s selfish remark, while her father commented that it would be nice to have her at home.
* * *
‘I still can’t believe that tomorrow David and I will be married,’ Camilla said for the umpteenth time. They were in her bedroom, Emma doing her packing for the Caribbean honeymoon David was taking her on. ‘Thank God you were able to persuade that beast Drake Harwood to drop charges.’
It was the first time Camilla had referred to Drake Harwood in the month since Emma’s return from London.
‘It’s a shame that you wouldn’t be my bridesmaid, David says his best man is an old friend from school—he comes from a frightfully wealthy family.’
‘Mrs T. wanted you to have young attendants, and I think she was right, David’s twin cousins will look adorable.’
‘I just hope that the weather keeps fine,’ Camilla continued fretfully.
The reception was being held in a marquee in the Manor grounds, and several fine June days had dried out the lawns and warmed up the air. The Manor would make a perfect setting for the occasion Emma admitted; Mrs T. was over the moon because she had persuaded Lady Cornwald and her husband to attend. In fact, apart from herself everyone seemed perfectly happy.
Since her return from London she had heard nothing from Drake Harwood. She had held her breath for a couple of days after the announcement of the new newsgirl had been made, half expecting to suffer the effects of his pique, but when a week went past and she had heard nothing, her jangling nerves settled down again. Doubtless he realised that there was simply nothing he could do. A rather unusual feeling for him, she reflected with acid satisfaction. It would do him good to be on the receiving end of what he was so fond of giving to others.
That he could have made her ordeal worse for her, she was forced to admit; there had been nothing personal in his humiliation of her, Emma knew that… No, that quick entrepreneurial brain of his had simply seen her as another asset; another commodity he could capitalise on.
Press interest in the previously much vaunted contest between Macho and its rival had died, confirming Emma’s opinion that at least a good seventy-five per cent of it had been carefully organised publicity.
Once Camilla was safely married, she would have to start looking round for another job. One of her father’s university lecturer friends was looking for a research assistant to help him with a project he had taken on for the summer recess, and Emma was toying with the idea of offering her services. She had a good degree in political science and the project promised to be quite interesting. She couldn’t stay at home playing surrogate vicar’s wife for ever, she acknowledged, admitting ruefully to herself that her father, with all his charming lazy selfishness, was already inclined to expect her to take on many of his duties. At the moment she was enjoying them, but she knew that eventually they would pall.
Her secretarial skills were good, although perhaps slightly dulled. She wasn’t too sure how good her shorthand speed would be after several years’ neglect for instance, but it had occurred to her that perhaps a secretarial job at Westminster might be appealing—always supposing she could get one—and might serve as a jumping block to other things.
Only one thing was sure, and that was that she could not go back into television. If she did, every job she managed to land in front of the camera would raise the spectre of Drake Harwood’s photographs being re-published. Something like that was just the sort of material the gutter-press loved to get their hands on. No… if she could find herself some congenial work for long enough for the publicity to die down, she could then start to re-think her future career. Of course she was bitterly disappointed about what had happened and about losing Robert’s friendship; he had had every right to be angry with her after he had promoted her career so intensely, and she could have explained to him, but pride would not let her. Perhaps in her secret heart she had hoped that he might object; that he might dig deep enough for the truth to have to come out, but he had accepted her explanation at face value, and in many ways that hurt.
The day of the wedding dawned fine and clear; a perfect June morning complete with cuckoo calls, Emma reflected drowsily, hearing the bird song through her open bedroom window. Fortune had a way of shining benevolently on her younger sister, although Camilla was the last person to think so.
Getting up and donning jeans and a T-shirt Emma hurried downstairs. Camilla had requested the traditional bridal breakfast in bed—the fact that Emma was supposed to
go up to the house and give Mrs T. a hand with the caterers had somehow seemed to escape the younger woman’s memory.
Sighing Emma opened the kitchen door to let Puss in Boots, the cat, out. The sunshine was still faintly hazy, promising the heat to come. On a morning like this there was nowhere to beat the English countryside, she reflected, enjoying the solitude and breathing in the clean air. Although she loved the frantic bustle and pace of city life, there was no doubt that it was good to get back to nature at times, to slow one’s pace down and live in harmony with one’s surroundings.
Her father was awake when she went upstairs with his breakfast. He was to conduct the service in the small local church and a very distant second cousin of the family had been coerced into giving Camilla away in his stead. That this distant relative was from the upper echelons of the family tree had greatly pleased Mrs T., although Emma wondered wryly if she would be quite as pleased when she discovered how eccentric Uncle Ted could be. To the best of her knowledge she had never seen him wearing anything other than a particularly hairy and ancient looking brown tweed suit which looked as though he had inherited it from one of his ancestors.
Morning suits for the men was the order of the day; Uncle Ted had been apprised of this, but just to be on the safe side, Emma had taken the precaution of hiring one for him, and was hoping that she had managed to gauge his size correctly.
Camilla was still asleep when she went in, her peaches and cream skin glowing, her blonde hair curling wildly over the pillow. She woke up when Emma called her. David was at least getting value for money as far as physical attractiveness went, Emma reflected, as Camilla slid out of bed.
Dainty and femininely curved, Camilla took great care to ensure that her figure remained perfect. Watching her pout anxiously as she studied a non-existent spot Emma prayed that the marriage would be successful and that Camilla would not grow bored and spoilt. David would pet and indulge her, which was what she wanted, and if she had the good sense to appreciate him for what he was her life should be a very happy one.
