Spellbound

by Margaret Way

  She was uncertain of his mood. The brilliant eyes seemed calm. He looked neither angry nor surprised.

  'I'm sorry. Did you come looking for me?' It was a stupid question, but he did not answer in his usual acid fashion.

  'Sister told me your little tale.'

  'You have a right to be angry.' How intolerable it was to be pinned to a sofa, to have to lie back against the cushions when she wanted to flee.

  'You've acted incredibly foolishly,' he told her. 'Why?'

  'I can't live in your house.' Her eyes glittered and suddenly her cheeks were hot.

  'You mean you think I might try to seduce you?'

  'It wouldn't be easy,' she said dryly, thereby surprising herself.

  'That plaster will only be on for a short time.'

  Something in his tone made her stare at him. In a black polo-necked sweater and black cords, he looked more than ever the lean, muscular, big cat. His shoulders were wide, so too the strong rib cage, but he was lean-waisted, narrow-hipped over long legs. He was beautiful, and he was just sitting there playing some sort of a subtle cat-and-mouse game.

  'It would be too . . . intimate,' Lucie dragged out. 'I don't know you. You don't know me.'

  He laughed aloud, mocking her and her reasoning. 'What is there to know about you, little one? Up until now your whole life has been your mother and your dancing. You've never lived. You've certainly never loved a man. This is understandable—both you and your mother preferred not to let anything get in the way of your career.'

  'So?' For the first time since he had known her Lucie's darkly hyacinthine eyes flashed fire. 'My mother did without everything so I could get to be a good dancer!'

  'Then it still remains for you to do so.'

  His cruelty was so awful her revulsion showed in her face. 'You know I'll never dance again.'

  'That has not been made so clear to me.' he said decisively.

  'What do you mean?' She was terrified of hoping.

  'I mean,' he held her eyes deliberately, 'Paddon- Jones knows a great deal, but he doesn't know dancers. Kamenova had two operations done on her kneecap. She suffered great pain, but no one attempted to stop her from trying to continue her career. Even her doctors. The human machine is very very complex and possibly more under the control of the mind than we think. Kamenova regained her excellent technique. But then she had courage to an extreme degree. She was a great dancer, not merely a talented little girl.'

  'Talented,' she said bitterly. 'For me, great praise.'

  'So why should you long for me to praise you?' He stood up and came over to her in one fluid movement.

  In spite of herself Lucie made her body small so that he could sit down sideways on the sofa beside her. There was something altogether different about him tonight and she did not know what it was. 'I can't allow you to raise my hopes,' she said quietly, in a voice that would have brought a pang to anyone else but Julian Strasberg's throat. 'My career as a dancer is over. I know it. You know it. The whole ballet world knows it now. Not everyone thought me so ungifted as you. I was offered a place . . . oh, no matter. I'm nothing now.' She turned her face away from him in despair.

  'You're beautiful,' he said as he might have offered stupid or conceited or ugly.

  'What use is that}' Better to be plain and have the full use of unblemished legs.

  'Well, it's something,' he said dryly. 'Look at me, Lucie.' His hand was on her face now, sliding beneath her chin.

  Shivers were zigzagging along her spine, unfamiliar sensations that troubled her. 'What a calamitous day!' her feelings escaped in a deep sigh.

  'Sister told me you had a visitor,' he said.

  She was reluctant to meet his eyes, but she had to, for those strong fingers were lightly forcing. 'I've had lots of visitors.' Why, oh, why did she have to deal with him? He was so ruthless and so strong.

  'Not, I think, Camilla. That must have been her first time?'

  'Yes.' She pushed her head back against the cushions and he let her go.

  'And she told you you must fend for yourself?'

  'She's right,' Lucie said briefly.

  'Even though you can't even lock your door.' His eyes sparkled like black diamonds.

  'Wasn't it locked?' She bit her lip.

  'No,' he said moodily. 'Anyone could have looked through that glass panel and seen you. You fold up most beautifully, and there's that rug across your legs. They could have tried the door, as I did. You don't read the newspapers?'

  'I can always lock it in future. It was an oversight.'

  'It's not possible for you to stay alone,' he told her.

  'And you don't have the power to dictate to me,' Lucie retorted. 'Not any longer.'

  'You want a little mutiny?' It was obviously said to annoy her.

  'I want you to leave me alone. Not to associate yourself with me.'

  'Even as your gaoler?' He took hold of her cold hands and panic started in her mind.

  'Why are you doing this?' she begged him.

  'I do so many things,' he shrugged his wide shoulders.

  'I'm going to give you the money for my hospital bill.'

  'You can do when you come back to the Company.'

  'You're a fiend, aren't you?' she said bitterly.

  'Absolutely.' Though she resisted as much as she was able, he still held her hands, warm now from contact with his own. 'You'll be able to work for me in some capacity. Your world is ballet. If we see you can no longer really dance then we shall find something else.'

  'I don't want anything else!' she hurled at him, sitting forward so urgently that their faces were only inches apart. 'I'm a dancer—I was a dancer. I can't do anything else. I couldn't even do that, according to you.'

  'So why did I make a ballet around you?' he enquired silkily, not even reacting to her violent tone.

  'I can't think why.' She looked desperate and defiant. 'You made Camilla my enemy.'

  'There are always enemies in the ballet world—those who are jealous because you're a good deal better.'

  'Better than Camilla?' She looked up at him with implacable disbelief.

  'All right, so I threw you to the lions! The ballet was a triumph. I've had cables from all over the world. Everyone has heard; now they want to see.'

  'They'll never see me,' Lucie said bitterly.

  'Don't sound so sorry for yourself. At your best I doubt you have everything to make a ballerina. Three or four I can think of, but not you.'

  'I'd almost forgotten what you're like—tearing me to bits!'

  'It helped you a lot,' he pointed out.

  The truth of that kept her silent, and the silence lengthened. Incredibly Julian still held her hands, and she remembered too that he had held them when they wheeled her back to her room after the operation. She had been barely conscious of anything then, but she remembered the warmth and strength of those hands. He was such a dominant person—too dominant at times, and she was bewildered by the extent of his grasp on her life. It seemed he wanted her pinned beneath his paw, but now that she was finished as a dancer, it puzzled her greatly why. Even now he should be at the theatre, within the orbit of his dancers: Camilla, his prima ballerina, down to the least significant member of the corps.

  'Shouldn't you be gone from here?' she asked distractedly. 'Camilla told me she would be dancing.'

  'Camilla can manage without me.'

  'You should go at once.' She touched his wrist and glanced at his gold watch.

  'You little fool.' He held up her chin with his hand. 'How did you think you were going to manage? Trapped on a sofa, unable to move, left to starve?'

  Her violet eyes implored his understanding. 'I was going to ring Joel's mother.' The telephone was right by her hand.

  'What?' His expression was daunting, even faintly shocked.

  'What on earth could I do?' She started to cry. 'I'd got myself out of hospital. I couldn't come to you. I have no one, do you understand? No one. No refuge.'

  'And in your terrib
le straits you preferred Joel's mother to me?' Had she not been so broken it was obvious he would have shaken her.

  'There are only two things in Camilla's life—her dancing and you!'

  'Stop crying.' His eyes met hers with the familiar hardness of command.

  'I'm sorry.' Lucie brushed her face with her hand impatiently.

  'Camilla is nothing to me.' His black head was thrown back and his brilliant eyes half closed.

  'Don't take me for a complete fool!'

  'But I do.' His faintly foreign accent, European, not American, was exaggerated.

  'Well, that's fine, but in this particular instance, we all know about you and Camilla.'

  'It sounds scorching.' He was a past master at registering disdain.

  'I realise it's none of my business.' She had to lean back against the red and gold cushions.

  'My God, no!' he agreed.

  'Camilla is very much against my coming to stay with you.'

  'All right. So what else is the problem?' He stood up impatiently and Lucie had the giddy feeling he was going to tower over her for ever.

  'You don't think it is one?' she parried.

  'I can't answer to every woman I've made love to. Besides, Camilla was years ago.'

  'She still feels things very deeply.' Whether what he said was true or not, she could scarcely argue it out with him.

  'Women can be very disagreeable.' He leaned back against a cabinet and closed his eyes. 'That's why I'm not married.'

  'I hope you never change your mind.'

  The little waspish comment, so completely out of character, made him laugh. 'But how amusing!' Mockery pulled at his long, sensuous mouth. 'What's happened to my timid little Lucienne?'

  'Tragedy.' She removed the fleecy rug with some force. 'What else could make me dream of crossing swords with the great Julian Strasberg? You've been a devil in my mind.'

  'I am still,' he informed her, 'but for a short time, I can be kind.' He turned about and picked up a golden suede jacket, thrusting into it with innate grace. 'Don't reflect too much on what Camilla had to say. Anyone who disturbs you has to answer to me.'

  'Are you going?' Her treacherous helplessness made her voice tremble.

  'For a very short time,' he answered in a quiet, matter-of-fact tone. 'To overcome all your little embarrassments I've engaged an excellent nurse for you. She's possibly the biggest woman I've ever seen, but Sister Jarvis assured me every inch is solid gold. It wouldn't worry me to look after you myself, but of course it would worry you. Then again, Nurse Chandler is our chaperone.'

  'You seem to have thought of everything.' She was filled with enormous relief.

  'Of course.' He bowed mockingly, magic in his every little move. 'I'm going to fetch her now. Beside her, you'll look like a tiny child.'

  From the very first moment Jessie Chandler laid eyes on the stricken and vulnerable Lucie, she was devoted to her, and she was a first-rate nurse. Six feet and a little bit in her stockings, Jessie was a heavily built, vigorous woman, without being in the least fat. It was all big bones and solid muscle, and underneath the first astonishment, Lucie came to depend on her utterly and really care.

  Jessie was extremely strong, extremely patient, and emphatically kind. Every little thing that had become tinged with embarrassment and worry in Lucie's sensitive mind, Jessie sailed over heroically, making Lucie chuckle endlessly when she had been expecting severe depression.

  'Dear Jessie!' she often found herself giggling, aware that had she been left in hospital, isolated and greatly indolent, she might later have needed psychiatry. No matter the utterly ludicrous situations that seemed to arise, Jessie handled it all with gentle, humorous and downright motherly tact.

  Julian liked her too, and as there was nothing much wrong with Jessie the appreciation was mutual. As Jessie told Lucie roguishly, she had never met a man outside fiction who could make her believe in 'volcanic desires'. A while later Lucie had found herself staring at Julian until he had turned around and asked her if she was feeling feverish.

  'Do you wonder?' Jessie had looked at her and winked.

  The whole atmosphere while Lucie was waiting for the plaster to come off was extraordinary. Though it had seemed hardly likely to Lucie that she would ever smile again, Julian and Jessie between them attracted her to all kinds of pursuits and discussions, so she had little spare time to suffer. The house was always full of music and though she had groaned in agony when the first of the ballet suites started Julian had cried at her to listen.

  'Listen, listen,' he had said. 'Listen whenever possible. Some I know don't hear the music at all, just jump up and down.'

  'How about that?' Jessie was always there to look towards her and chuckle.

  In the evenings when Julian came home he brought flowers and wine and lots of things that were party- like and all three of them sat down and became mildly drunk. At least Lucie did. The other two seemed able to dispose of alcohol a whole lot better. Then when it was time for bed, Julian would scoop Lucie up while Jessie told them she was trying at all costs to break her own leg. Not once did either woman hear the bite of the infamous Strasberg tongue, but Lucie knew in her fragile bones it could not last. Hadn't he promised her a short period of kindness? She was being treated like a pet kitten, but behind all the easy charm and solicitude she knew he was the same Strasberg.

  As for the rest, the house was beautiful, the view of the harbour magnificent, and Julian had obviously made it clear there were to be no visitors. Even so, Lucie steeled herself and indeed warned Jessie they could have a surprise visit from Camilla Price.

  'I suppose he finds it a nuisance being so damned attractive to women!' Jessie mused. 'If she gets in, count on me.'

  Though they both waited, Camilla never found her way through the subtropical grounds and life went on. She knew she was being cherished, that two very different people were being wonderfully supportive, but reality would return with the removal of the casts.

  On the morning that was to happen, Lucie was sick with nerves.

  'I feel terrible,' she confided to Jessie.

  Jessie nodded. 'Just remember you had the best there is. Take it from an old admirer of Freddie Jones—never Paddon-Jones in the old days—so stop worrying, lass.'

  It was easier said than done. You worked at being brave, at accepting, the end of a promising career, but underneath like a turbulent subterranean stream was the agony at the loss of power. Was life just a series of terrible tricks? She had never hurt anyone in her life. She had worked so hard. Well, that was how it was. It had happened to others, so much worse, things that were fatal. The start of the day and she was desperately weary. Even the wine Julian had given her had not put her to sleep. The last few weeks had been a curious limbo. She had been handled so carefully she had felt almost consoled. Now came the real test, accepting her enforced fate.

  'Lucie ' Julian crossed the room to look at her, his fingers touched her pale cheeks.

  'I'm afraid.' She looked it, her eyes swamping her face.

  'Don't see it like that,' he spoke almost harshly. 'It's more like a special day. The casts will come off and you can begin therapy.'

  'Yes,' she said, looking even more terrible and too slight to sustain another moment's grief. I'll never be whole any more, she thought. Never a dancer.

  Shortly after the ambulance arrived and to Lucie's surprise Julian and not Jessie made to come with her. Jessie smoothed her brow and looked down into the lovely, clouded eyes. 'Everything will be all right, love. Julian is with you and I'll be waiting when you get home.'

  Home! She did not have a home any longer. The unexpected, the extraordinary was over. In the ride to the hospital she lived through the past weeks all over again. It was a dream. Of course it was a dream, part terrible, part beautiful, out of pity. Even Julian had become affected.

  'You're not going to break, are you?' he asked tersely.

  'What?' she flushed with shock, lost in her tearless, depressed state.

/>   'Let's forget about your legs. What about your plans?'

  'I don't know. I don't know.'

  His expression darkened. 'Well, ray advice is, stay in there. It's been terrible, but that's life. Just don't go retiring yourself.'

  His firmness after so much indulgence left her dazed. 'You didn't have to come with me,' she said in a strangled whisper.

  'You don't want me here?'

  'Yes.' Her sense of dependence on him was far more intense than when he had drilled her until she was hurting and out of breath.

  Mr Paddon-Jones himself was there to take the plaster off.

  'It's good, it's good!' he announced with satisfaction.

  They're not my legs, Lucie thought. Not my legs.

  'I've never seen a better job, if I say so myself!' The eminent surgeon stood back to allow a colleague to examine Lucie's knee.

  'Splendid!' the other surgeon conceded.

  Of course this was their role, Lucie thought wildly. She might have been a piece of porcelain that had been invisibly mended, but she was hopelessly flawed.

  Julian's hand came down hard on her shoulder, dispelling in part the cloudy mists in front of her eyes.

  The two doctors were still talking among themselves, eyes glittering in satisfaction behind their glasses. Why were they looking so pleased when she would never dance again? From the moment she had been wheeled into the hospital her case had been regarded very seriously. Paddon-Jones had been called in. She was yet to find out Julian had done that. Yet to discover that Joel in his crazy panic had rung Julian before he had ever thought to contact his family. She had been looked upon as a very special case, and in repairing her knee and the broken toes and her right leg Mr Paddon- Jones had been put on his mettle.