Shadow Marriage

by Penny Jordan

  Sarah felt as though she were taking part in a horrendous play. Ben, Dale and Gina were all watching her with varying expressions, Dale’s triumphantly cruel, Gina’s all spite and malice, and Ben’s—dear God, how could she endure the look in Ben’s eyes! It stripped her of all her defences, laid her wide open to the searing contempt of his bitter glance. It was pointless trying to defend herself and so she didn’t bother, but struggled to sit up, wondering numbly what was going to happen.

  ‘Come on, Ben, you’ve always known the score.’ That was Dale, letting his triumph show, only Ben wasn’t to know why he was triumphant. He assumed it was because she and Dale were lovers.

  ‘Perhaps I’ve been listening to another tune.’ That was Ben, his voice flat and almost defeated, hardening slowly as he added, harshly, ‘It seems you have a natural propensity for bedroom scenes, Sarah, and as a director I’d be a fool if I didn’t make use of such a God-given talent. Seeing that you haven’t been at any pains to hide your… affair from the eyes of the world, you won’t have any objection to my changing some of your final love scene, making it a little more explicit. That’s what you recommended, wasn’t it, Dale? And if he doesn’t mind then why the hell should I?’ Ben finished thickly. ‘Let’s see you display your natural aptitude between the sheets where it does any actress the most good—up on the screen!’

  ‘No!’ What should have been a shout was a husky croak of denial, and horror flitted darkly over her features as she stared up at the silent trio. ‘You can’t do that, Ben,’ she husked defiantly. ‘You can’t just change the script like that! You’ll need to get the permission of the writer, and then there’s the re-writing of the script, and the backers…’

  ‘The backers wanted a hot love scene in the film all along,’ Ben told her ruthlessly. ‘They’ll be over the moon—and don’t even think of trying to break your contract, or the studio will break you.’ Sarah knew his threat was all too real, and shuddered in real anguish. She couldn’t play a heavy love scene. She couldn’t! She struggled upwards, panting, clutching at straws, repeating shakily, ‘You can’t do it, Ben. You’ll never get the writer’s permission, the script is perfect as it is, he won’t let you butcher it simply to torment me…’

  Gina’s jeering laughter filled the silence. ‘You little fool,’ she scoffed, ‘who do you think wrote it? Hasn’t he even told you that much? Well, go on, darling,’ she urged Ben triumphantly, ‘tell your stupid little wife exactly who is the writer she so blatantly hero-worships, and exactly why you can alter the script if you wish.’ Without giving Ben a chance to respond, she turned on Sarah, her eyes glittering with dislike. ‘Ben wrote the film,’ she told her. ‘Everyone connected with the film knew that. All but you. Some reconciliation! Ben obviously didn’t have much faith in it succeeding. I suppose he didn’t tell you because he didn’t want you filing a hefty claim for alimony. Your husband’s an extremely wealthy man, and he can do just what he likes with this film, sweetie—and with you. He owns fifty per cent of the studio!’

  Sarah lay limply on the bed, her eyes burning with horror and pain, pleading with Ben to deny Gina’s assertions.

  ‘It’s true?’ Her voice was a broken whisper, her pride irreparably broken as two painful tears welled up in her eyes and ran unchecked down her face, her body reeling as though it had been physically beaten, real sickness tasting sour in her mouth. Ben was that man whom she had secretly so much admired; Ben had written that hauntingly emotive script, Ben who had never shown her an ounce of the compassion he had given so liberally to his characters.

  ‘Come on, Sarah, we’re going home.’ Strangely enough, of the trio he was the only one who evinced no signs of triumph, his hands cool and firm on her body as he pulled her upright.

  ‘Home?’ Sarah spat the word hysterically. ‘You honestly expect me to go back with you after this?’

  ‘You’d better believe it.’ His voice was coldly emphatic, and Gina shivered sensually, cooing, ‘Darling, you sound so masculine! Such a turn-on to find a really strong man!’

  Strong! He was made of… of… ice, Sarah thought bitterly. ‘I’m not coming with you.’

  ‘Oh yes, you are.’ He bent swiftly and scooped her up into his arms, shouldering his way past Dale and out of the door. They emerged from the side at a side entrance close to where the cars were parked, and Ben dumped her unceremoniously in his.

  ‘I haven’t come this far with the film to have it all ruined now by you. You’re not pulling out now, Sarah,’ he warned her. ‘I’ve got too much at stake.’

  ‘Then don’t make me do this love scene—I can’t, Ben!’ God, how she hated herself for pleading, her mind writhed in torment, but anything was better than having to endure such an ordeal.

  He paused, turning to her, his eyes merciless in their scrutiny. ‘Why is it you hate them so much? It doesn’t matter,’ he told her curtly before she could reply. ‘Perhaps the fact that you do is revenge enough. You think it strange that I should feel a need for revenge?’ His mouth curled disdainfully. ‘It is a little theatrical, I agree, but sometimes all of us need to seek pride’s appeasement, and for what you’ve done to mine I could cheerfully consign you to the fires of hell itself. So you will do this scene, is that understood?’

  Numbly Sarah sat in the seat, still unable to take it all in. Ben had written the script! That explained the typewriter and the constant use he made of it. Obviously he was now working on something else. Frantically she contemplated running away, letting Carew sort out her breaking of the contract when she got home, but Ben had her passport. She was trapped, trapped like a gazelle beneath the lion’s paw, and her mind circled crazily in terror trying to find a way out.

  CHAPTER NINE

  IT was unthinkable that Sarah could sleep. Her first wild impulse on returning to the house was to ring Carew and beg him to find some way of releasing her from her contract; she no longer even cared that it would mean that she lost the role of a lifetime. She could not. She would not play out an explicit love scene, watched and bullied by Ben. Fear made her brain a tight ball of pain inside her skull. Ben had assessed her horrified response to the threat of such a love scene with a bitter triumph that warned her that he would do his utmost to exact retribution from her, drop by excruciating drop. There would be no compassion; no kindness shown to her. He probably wouldn’t even allow them to have a closed set. Lifting her hot face from her pillow, she listened, catching the faint sound of someone typing, her heart thudding painfully against her chest wall. Ben was working. Re-writing her love scene? She wanted to go down and beg him to reconsider, explain to him that…

  That she loved him and had done all along; that Dale had never been her lover, no matter how much he might have tried to make it look otherwise? Even if she were given a written guarantee that by doing so Ben would believe her she didn’t have the courage to admit her feelings to him. She would be shown none of the compassion that came across so strongly in the film.

  Two long and wearisome days crawled by when she never saw Ben, but heard the constant rattle of the typewriter keys through the closed study door. Filming had been suspended, and although Paul had telephoned and offered to take her out, Sarah had refused. ‘I believe Ben is writing us a steamy love scene,’ Paul commented before he hung up. ‘I must say I’m surprised. From the way he looked at me when I kissed you, I thought he was tempted to cut the romance between us out altogether!’ When Paul rang off, Sarah leaned back against the wall, replacing the receiver with fingers that shook so badly she had to use both hands, her teeth biting deep into her lower lip as she fought not to make a sound. She heard Margarita walk into the hall and was aware of the concerned look she gave her, but only in a vague way as though a clear plastic bubble separated her from the rest of mankind, and that only her pain was real.

  On the third morning after Ben had found her in Gina’s bedroom with Dale, Sarah was walking along the beach. She came down to it a good deal, drawn by the solitude and the hypnotic pounding of the surf aga
inst the sand, the sound vaguely comforting. Almost she was tempted to simply walk into the ocean until it wasn’t possible to walk any more; to give herself up to its dark enchantment and allow it to steal away her breath and her life, but the same small flame of courage which had refused to allow her to deny her love for Ben kept her eyes fixed firmly on the horizon rather than the seductive drag of the tide, as she forced herself to remember time and time again how Ben had made love to her on this very beach; how she had given herself up to him, and how she had even begun to hope that somehow they might find a way to… to love one another, she admitted, her face a bitter mask of pain for her naïve folly.

  * * *

  When she heard Ben calling her from the top of the steps her first impulse was to run. But to where? Trying to suppress the nervous agitation churning her stomach, she started to climb the steps, her feet dragging. At the top Ben was waiting for her, leaning back against the wall, the breeze flattening the thin silk shirt he was wearing to the hard breadth of his chest, tight, dark jeans outlining the masculine thrust of his thighs.

  ‘Not contemplating drowning yourself, I trust?’ he mocked as she reached him. ‘You won’t escape me that way, Sarah,’ he added savagely. ‘I’d fight like ten demons to keep you in this world, on this side of the hereafter…’

  ‘So that you can torment and punish me?’ Sarah managed, shivering in helpless response. ‘What kind of man are you, Ben?’ she choked unsteadily. ‘What kind of pleasure do you get from doing this to me?’

  ‘A kind you wouldn’t begin to understand,’ he assured her brutally. ‘You’re far too shallow. Now, I’ve finished the alterations. I want you to come and read them.’ She looked up and instantly felt sick when she saw the green glitter of his eyes beneath the downcast black lashes. Outwardly he was completely calm, but underneath… Sarah shuddered. His body seemed to emanate an intensity of anger that curled tight fingers of tension along her spine, her eyes unable to resist the magnetic pull of his as she found herself allowing him to propel her back into the house, and through the hall where he paused by the telephone and demanded suddenly, ‘Who telephoned you this morning? Dale?’

  ‘As a matter of fact it was Paul.’ She tried to sound aloof and disdainful, her voice coolly clear. ‘He’s heard that you’re changing our love scene.’

  ‘And he objects?’ Ben’s mouth curled. ‘Don’t try that one on me, Sarah. He’ll be thanking his lucky stars. A scene like the one we did on Shakespeare could make him the hottest box office property around, especially when it’s played with you… I know what it did for my career.’

  He was goading her deliberately, baiting her and waiting for her response. He wanted her to lose her temper, Sarah could sense that, and because she could she deliberately refused to let her mind comprehend his insults, simply pinning a blank look on her face and waiting for him to open the study door.

  ‘You can keep your cool now,’ Ben murmured as he bent to turn the handle, ‘but how long for? I saw your face when I told you I was altering the love scene—remember?’

  ‘I’m not stupid, Ben,’ Sarah retorted evenly. ‘I know you’re doing this to hurt me. What I don’t understand is why.’

  ‘You know why well enough—–’ Ben argued tersely, ‘—finding you like that with Dale…’

  Sarah felt as though she were gripped in some painfully numbing cold. Had she ever known this man to whom she was married? He would destroy her—there was no other word to describe what he planned—and he would do it simply to salve his wounded pride.

  ‘Sit down.’ Ben thrust her down into a chair, without waiting for her response, then went over to the typewriter and riffling through some papers while Sarah looked around and tried to steady her pounding heart. The room was utilitarian rather than glamorous, one wall bookshelved and stacked with books, the room furnished with two desks and half a dozen or so filing cabinets.

  ‘Here.’ Ben passed her a sheaf of typewritten pages. ‘You’ll have to excuse my typing errors,’ he added mockingly, ‘but I’m sure you’ll get the drift.’

  Slowly, hardly daring to let her eyes rest on the paper, Sarah glanced down. At first the typing danced illegibly before her eyes, and she realised to her horror that her eyes were full of tears. It was several seconds before she could blink them away sufficiently to enable her to read, her knuckles white with the effort of keeping her hands steady as she did.

  She had barely read one page when she let the papers fall, her face white with pain and disbelief.

  ‘I can’t do this, Ben,’ she told him defiantly, every muscle tensed to back up her refusal. ‘I can’t…

  ‘Oh, come on, Sarah,’ he drawled smoothly, bending to gather the scattered sheets and re-stacking them. ‘What’s all the fuss about? All you have to do is simply go to your lover and beg him to make love to you. Where is the difficulty in that? Dale tells me it’s something you’re very good at,’ he added with insulting ease, giving her a smile that made her skin crawl. ‘Now comé on, read the rest.’

  There was no way she was going to be allowed to escape. Slowly and bitterly she read on, her body growing a little colder and emptier with each line as she saw the explicit detail Ben had written into the script.

  If she was simply reading the passage in a book she might find it powerfully erotic; she might even identify herself with Joanna, but to actually act out what Ben had written!

  ‘We start shooting tomorrow,’ he added blandly, watching her face for signs of betrayal. ‘For this one I think we’ll have a rehearsal. Full cast and crew, I want to get the feel of their reaction…’

  Glancing into his face, Sarah allowed her lips to close over any plea for a closed set. He would love her to beg, and then to refuse her, she thought bitterly—well, from somewhere she would find the courage and the will-power to go through with this scene, and no matter what it cost her she would not betray to him by so much as a quiver what she was really feeling.

  * * *

  ‘Umm, I think that’s okay.’ Linda paused before studying Sarah’s costume. The entire set seemed to quiver with anticipation over the filming of the love scene, a subtle tension infusing cast and crew alike. Sarah was wearing the boy’s garments she had borrowed from Richard’s page to enable her to walk through the camp unnoticed on her way to see her lover, Richard just having told her that she was to marry Raymond of Toulouse.

  Beyond her line of vision Sarah knew Props were preparing the set; the mock-up of her lover’s pavilion. Initially the scene was to be played as before, only instead of immediately recognising her despite her page’s disguise, this time Paul was to mistake her for a page and to command her to assist him bathe. This part of the scene she could probably endure, but she was dreading what would follow; her plea to her lover to make love to her and then their abandoned lovemaking which would follow.

  ‘Sarah, are you ready?’

  Ben! Sarah closed her eyes. He wouldn’t stop hounding her. Sometimes she thought he had a Machiavellian talent for discovering her weak spots, pounding mercilessly at them until… Until what? Until she was totally destroyed? Shivering slightly, she walked slowly towards the set, forcing herself to exclude everything but her role. If she could just do that she might have a chance.

  ‘Now, remember,’ Ben instructed when she reached him, ‘this is your only chance to be with your lover; what happens now must last a lifetime; you’re a woman, not a child, initially you are the more powerful of the two. And Paul,’ he continued, beckoning the actor over, ‘at first you simply follow Sarah’s lead. You love her, but you’re Richard’s knight and you know of his plans for her, but you’re also a man, and she’s a woman you’ve loved and desired and now she’s in your bed, yet part of you resents her for coming to you. I want this love scene to have the raw explosive impact Richard’s do not. There must be an element of conflict in it as well as ultimately love. Okay?’

  * * *

  Willing herself to close her mind to everything else, Sarah took her place, waitin
g for the cue that had her lifting back the flap of the pavilion and walking inside. Paul’s non-recognition of her, his curt instruction to help him undress and bathe, all went well. She even managed the bit she had been dreading, where she had to unfasten and remove her tunic before begging Paul to make love to her with tolerable aplomb, although her fingers trembled as she reached for her tunic, her self-control suddenly faltering, and panic clawing at her spine until Paul realised what was happening and ignored the script’s instructions that he was to wait until she was fully undressed before touching her, and instead picked her up as she stood shivering and carried her across to the bed.

  ‘Cut!’. Ben’s voice sliced through the silence. ‘That isn’t how I want it played, Sarah…’

  Sarah knew Paul must have felt her tense, her eyes wide and unseeing like a hunted animal, fingers curled into her palms. No one else could see her face because Paul’s body hid her head, and after a quick concerned look at her he called back, ‘Ben, it’s only a rehearsal, we can put it right when we actually film.’

  No cold voice came to argue against him, and Sarah felt her tense body relax slightly, aware of and grateful for Paul’s concern as he leaned closer and asked her, ‘Sarah, are you all right? Do you want me to get Ben?’

  ‘No!’ Her voice held sharp terror, and again Paul frowned, but Ben had already given the signal for them to continue. Twice Paul had to remind her of her lines and Sarah knew she had never given a worse or less convincing performance in her life. Had she been playing a terrified virgin about to be ravished by her captor her responses would have been first-class, but for a deeply sensual woman in the arms of the man she was supposed to love, they were appalling.