“It won’t take long. I did all the cutting and molding at the studio’s back lot in Los Angeles. All we have to do is hammer it all together and paint it. We still have to paint hieroglyphics on the tomb walls. Martin’s got to let me know what to hammer together first.” George grinned
Studying him narrowly, Martin decided George wasn’t too smitten with Christina. He felt better about George, although he wouldn’t have blamed the young man if he had been intrigued. There was something mysterious and alluring about Christina Mayhew.
He turned his attention to Christina and tried to study her for a while. Perhaps it was her lack of egomania that was so attractive, although he didn’t think that was the only quality separating her from the majority of her actress kin Every time his brain tackled the problem—and it had been doing so from time to time ever since she’d appeared next to those blasted camels this morning—it settled on the word interest. She was interested in things. That’s what was so different about her.
The only other actress Martin had ever met who cared about anything besides herself and her looks was Brenda Fitzpatrick. And Brenda had married George Peters’s genius brother, Cohn.
Maybe it was something as simple as native intelligence. Brenda was smart and curious, and Martin liked her. Christina was smart and curious, and Martin wanted to grab her in his arms, rip her clothes off, and make love to her until they both turned to jelly.
He passed a hand over his face and wondered if he was losing his mind. The conversation George and Christina had been carrying on had drifted over him like fluff, and he hadn’t been paying attention. Now he jerked his fuzzy brain back to the set plans.
Concentrate, he commanded himself. Concentrate on your damned job, Martin Tafft. He’d never had trouble concentrating on his work before. He’d especially never had trouble concentrating on his work because of a woman. He deplored all the hanky-panky that went on during the filming of pictures. He despised directors and producers who took advantage of young females eager to make it big in motion pictures.
As he glanced once more at Christina, who was smiling now at George and saying something—Martin’s brain was too fuddled to listen to her—he understood something else. He’d never met a woman like her before. Ever. Not even Brenda Fitzpatrick.
He wasn’t sure that was a good thing.
He told himself he was only tired. That’s what was wrong with him. He needed to take a holiday. He hadn’t had a day off in ten years. Until this picture came along, he hadn’t even thought about taking time off. He loved his work so much, it was all he’d ever wanted to do, and he’d never even considered taking a break from it.
But he was tired now. He promised himself a three-week vacation as soon as Egyptian Idyll was wrapped up. Maybe he’d even take a month. A month off to go to Europe. Or maybe he’d sail off to that island. What was it called? Tahiti? Where that crazy artist had lived? That sounded good. He needed a change. A rest and a trip to some new surroundings, and he’d be a new man.
And wouldn’t it be pleasant if he could go there with Christina? Just the two of them, alone on a tropical island. Making passionate love in the waves as exotic birds sang around them and . . .
“So, is that all right with you, Martin?”
Martin blinked and glanced at George, who’d asked the question. “Um, I beg your pardon?”
George eyed him strangely. “I asked if you want to hold off filming the crowd scenes until the end. Then you won’t have to haul the horses and extras in and have them all standing around and waiting for days.”
“Oh.” Lord, he had to concentrate. What was the matter with him? “Sure. That’s what I’d planned.”
“Good idea,” Christina murmured.
Sensing a deeper meaning in the two words, Martin peered at her. He took note of the half smile on her face. Was that an ironic smile? Did she know what he’d been thinking about?
As he reached up and began tugging on his favorite tress, Martin told himself not to be ridiculous. Christina Mayhew might be pretty. And she might be smart. But she could not read minds. Besides, if she’d read his recent thoughts, she’d have slapped his face. Probably sicced her grandmother on him.
He decided to pretend he hadn’t allowed his mind to wander. “Yes.” After clearing his throat and swallowing the lump in it he went on. “While George and his crew are putting this thing together, we’ll film the desert shots.”
“Right.” Christina was all business now “I’ve read the story line a couple of times.” She looked at Martin and grinned. “Are you going to give us camel-riding lessons?”
He grinned back, happy to have his thoughts diverted onto this innocent and amusing track. “Yup. I’ve got a fellow coming to Indio in a couple of days. He’s going to teach you and Pablo all about riding camels.”
“Pablo.” Christina grimaced. “I hope he falls off a camel and breaks his arm.”
“Good God, Christina, don’t even say such a thing!” Martin laughed, but he didn’t think it was funny.
“You don’t know what that man can get up to with his arms, or you wouldn’t be so quick to wish him good health.”
Martin sat up with a jerk, shocked. “What has he done? I swear, Christina, if he ever so much as—” He broke off, realizing he was going to offer to kill Pablo Orozco if Christina asked him to.
He was losing his mind. He had to be. Martin Tafft had never entertained violent impulses in his life until this minute. What’s more, he’d always believed that men who leapt to violent defense of women were more often than not only showing off. He hadn’t—until now—realized how absolutely pure such defensive urges could be.
Christina laid a hand on his arm, and his whole body relaxed. “I didn’t mean it Martin. Don’t worry about Orozco. I can take care of myself with that lout. He’s a pussycat. He only thinks he’s a sleek panther.”
Grandmother Mayhew offered one of her most derisive snorts. “I’ll hit him with my cane if he so much as tries to get near my granddaughter.”
With a laugh, Christina turned to her grandmother. “Not while the cameras are cranking, please, Gran. If you hit him every time he touches me while they’re filming, we’ll never get this picture in the can.”
At the image of Orozco pawing Christina in Egyptian Idyll, Martin’s palms started sweating, his skin itched, and his head buzzed. He had to get over this, and soon, or he’d be fit for the loony bin in no time at all.
Christina eyed herself in the mirror and turned slowly, trying to figure out what was wrong with the image she saw reflected there. Well, sure, it was idiotic, but there was something else the matter, and she couldn’t quite put her finger on what it was.
“Good God, you look like a nymph from the South Seas.”
She wheeled around, startled, and saw Martin standing beside the costumer, frowning urgently at her. She looked down at her so-called Egyptian gown. “By heavens, you’re right, Martin. I couldn’t quite figure out what was wrong with it, but I think you got it right off. It does look South-Seasy, doesn’t it?”
He didn’t return her happy smile, and Christina guessed he took these things more seriously than she did. Which, she supposed, was a good thing. After all, it was his production company behind the picture. It was kind of nice that he tried to put out a good product, even if they were only talking about moving pictures.
Shaking his head and looking peeved, Martin stalked over to her, dragging the costumer with him. Taking Christina by the right shoulder, he turned her as if she were a department store mannequin. Christina didn’t hit him or anything because she liked him, even if he was treating her like a doll at the moment. She understood.
“You see this fabric?” He lifted the long, trailing thing drifting from her shoulder to several feet behind Christina. “This is a print calico, for God’s sake! We need something light and filmy for Egyptian pictures.”
“Hmm. Yes, I do understand what you’re saying.”
The costumer, Karen Crenshaw, had wo
rked on pictures with which Christina had been involved before. She was good at her job, and Christina was surprised she’d made this gaffe. “I think this particular costume is left over from Mutiny on the Bounty,” Karen went on to say. She grinned.
Martin didn’t. He seemed to be in an especially grouchy mood this morning. Christina wondered if he was still worried about the camels. Because she didn’t think costumes were that big a deal, she said, “I’m sure Karen can come up with something more filmy without much trouble, Martin.”
His head snapped up, and he scowled straight at her, pinching his lip and looking worried. Christina maintained her own serene expression for a second, then turned her attention to Karen. “I’ll be happy to help, Karen, if you need me to stand for fittings.”
Karen, who had been concentrating so hard, Christina could almost see smoke coming out her ears, shook her head. “I don’t think that will be necessary, Christina, but thank you This fits you well so I can use it as a pattern.” She turned to Martin. “Is the style all right?” She gestured at Christina. “That off-the-shoulder style with the cord twisted between the breasts?”
Martin lifted his eyes to stare at Christina’s breasts, and for perhaps the first time in her life Christina was embarrassed by a man’s scrutiny. Men didn’t generally gape at her bosom the way Martin was doing. She told herself it was all in the line of duty, and that he wasn’t looking upon her as a woman but as an item on display, but it didn’t help much. She discovered within herself a deep, deep desire to have Martin looking upon her not merely as a woman, but as an alluring woman.
Whatever was the matter with her? She’d better snap out of it, or she’d be in trouble in no time at all. She had to keep her education in mind and not allow herself to get sidetracked.
“Yes.” Martin licked his lips, which had evidently gone dry
Christina gazed at him sharply, wondering if the sight of her scarcely covered bosom had affected him in some way. She hoped so.
“The pattern will do. Get the fabric right, though, all right?”
“Sure,” Karen said. “Will do. You want to step out of that, Christina? I’ve got to pull the seams apart and use it as a pattern to cut a new one.”
“Sure.”
Christina was used to stripping and dressing in front of all sorts of men; it was part of the job. There was nothing in the least modest about acting in motion pictures. Anyhow, she’d read the shooting schedule, and she knew full well there was going to be that shocking naked-bosom scene coming up soon. Shrugging out of her gown, she told herself she might as well get used to it.
A funny gurgling sound came to her ears as she was in the process of pulling the costume over her head. It wasn’t until she’d stepped out of it and handed it to Karen that she realized the sound had come from Martin, who was staring at her with his eyes fairly starting from their sockets. She reached for her silk wrapper and put it on.
“What’s the matter, Martin? Surely you’ve been to costume fittings and seen women in their undies before.” If he went into some kind of too-good-for-this world modest-man act now, Christina just might have to hit him with Gran’s cane herself.
She saw him swallow. “Er, yes. Yes, of course, I have. I—ah—I’ve—well . . .” He shrugged helplessly, obviously not finding the right words with which to express himself.
Enormously irked, Christina said, “I see.” With a savage yank, she finished tying the belt of her wrapper. It had taken great strength of will for Christina to put aside the teachings of a lifetime, not to mention cultural taboos and her own natural reserve, and learn to be as immodest as the rest of the picture industry people with whom she worked. If this man—this man who’d helped found the industry, for heaven’s sake—was going to hold her lack of modesty against her after she’d worked so hard to conquer any hint of delicacy, she was going to be darned good and mad.
“I see,” she repeated, and stalked away from him.
Good Lord, he’d done it now Martin stared after Christina Mayhew’s retreating form in distress. He hadn’t meant to goggle at her. He hadn’t meant to get tongue-tied. He hadn’t meant to act like an addle-pated adolescent. Hell, he’d seen scads of women without their clothes on since he’d started working in pictures. Half of them undressed for no reason at all and any time they felt like it in order to make sure they were attractive to the men they worked with.
Not a single one of them had stirred his juices as had Christina Mayhew just then. And all she’d done was remove a costume. She’d still had her camisole and pantaloons on underneath the costume. It’s not as if she’d been buck naked.
For some reason, though, the act had seemed so incredibly intimate to Martin that he could only stare and make that stupid gurgling sound He’d also had to restrain himself from grabbing her and making off with her. Sort of like Orozco was supposed to in the picture in a few days.
The thought of Orozco putting his hands on Christina’s delicate flesh made Martin’s hands bunch into fists and the blood rush to his head. Great. This was great. Here he was, the director and producer of this picture, and already he wanted to murder the star. And not because the star had done anything stupid, but because the star was going to get to fondle Christina Mayhew and Martin wasn’t. What was he going to do when it came time to direct that scene when Christina stepped, naked, out of her bath? He’d die, was what.
He was feeling very depressed when he wandered outside to shoot the next scene in the picture.
Hammers and saws clattered away behind the resort, where Pharaoh’s palace was being constructed. Christina heard shouts and curses, and she saw a whole herd of people watching from behind the barriers the studio had erected. She assumed they were citizens from nearby who had come to see a picture being made.
She ignored the crowd and everything else, except what she was supposed to be doing, which was carrying a bucket from a well. Civilization had come a long way, she thought with an internal snort of derision. Now women only had to pretend to fill buckets with well water for the sake of entertainment. A few generations ago, she’d have had to do it for real, and she was darned sure it wouldn’t have been entertaining.
“All right,” Martin called from the sidelines.
He looked grumpy for some reason beyond Christina’s ken. He kept shooting glances at her and at Pablo Orozco. Christina couldn’t blame Martin for being grumpy at Orozco, because Orozco was slime. She assumed Martin had a better reason than that, however, and she wished she knew what it was so she could add it to her list of reasons to detest Pablo Orozco.
“Places, everyone!”
She and Orozco took their places. Hers was beside the fake well, complete with a bucket already full of water waiting for her. Pablo Orozco leered at her as she carried the empty bucket on her shoulder across the set to the well. She hooked the bucket onto the chain and lowered it into the well. A crew member hiding inside the well unhooked the empty bucket and replaced it with the one full of water. What amazed Christina was that anyone watching the picture after it was all put together would never even guess that the entire scene was faked.
She was making a pretty good show of carrying the bucket, if she did say so herself. Didn’t spill a drop more than was necessary to convey to the world that there was actual water involved. This was, Christina thought, a most Egyptian-looking scene, even though she and Orozco looked about as much like Egyptians as they did Swedes. But that was all right. The pictures were supposed to create fantasies, and this was a good one.
“Come to me, my pet,” Orozco, who was supposed to be her dedicated lover, purred.
“Not on your life, buddy,” Christina replied while, at the same time, looking shyly at the ground before her. Her character, a slave girl, always comported herself with the utmost modesty. Christina knew it wasn’t worth asking why, if she was so darned prudish, she was one day soon going to bathe naked in front of a man to whom she wasn’t married. The pictures were just like that, and there was no getting around it.
>
“Ah, but you will. And soon.”
The blasted man was so arrogant and sure of his sexual prowess that Christina wished she could slosh the water from her bucket all over him. That, however, would not go over well with Martin, who was standing on the sidelines scowling hideously as the cameras cranked away. Sprockets clunked out onto the dirt, sending up little spurts of dust every time they hit.
Because she was a consummate professional, Christina didn’t react by so much as a flutter of her eyelashes to Orozco’s cheap statement. Instead, she walked demurely past him, at the same time making sure that her hips swayed in the most provocative manner she could summon. She thought rather cynically that for a Biblical epic, this picture sure had a whole lot of sexual teasing in it.
Another actor, Paul Gabriel, who was as fey as a fairy and was only attracted to men, had been hired for the role of Pharaoh’s brother. His character was supposed to lust after Christina’s character, and they were scheduled to encounter one another for the first time in this water-from-the-well scene.
Christina much preferred acting opposite men like Paul, because they never made lewd comments or tried to get her into bed. Naturally, all the studios did their best to hide the fact that some of their most beloved stars preferred partners of their own sex. If that word got out, the Daughters of the American Revolution and the Purity League would have a fit as epic as this picture was meant to be.
Paul strode onto the set now, looking every inch the lustful male animal. And he probably was relatively lustful, Christina mused; only he didn’t lust for women. “Aha, there you are, my pretty!”
He had kind of a squeaky voice, which didn’t fit his astoundingly masculine body, but Christina had long since quit finding such discrepancies amusing. They were now merely part of her job.
“You sound like one of Robin Hood’s merry men,” she said with a smile in her voice. She didn’t have a smile on her face. Rather, she shrank back as if from an evil presence. Which was patently ridiculous, especially when one considered that Pablo Orozco was supposed to save her from the clutches of Paul Gabriel. If justice had prevailed, it should have been the other way around.
Her Leading Man Page 6
