Unguarded Moment (15 page)

He gave her a long steady look, and then, his mouth curling in a mixture of contempt and distaste, he took her by the shoulders and put her away from him.

She watched him walk away across the room to Bianca's side, saw him smile, take her hand, draw her into his arms and begin to move to the music, their bodies swaying together in sinuous unison. She saw Bianca throw her head back, her mouth pouting seductively as she looked up into the dark face above her, her arms lifting to entwine round his neck.

Alix felt her jaw clench with tension. Bianca had made her angry before, she had aggravated her, hurt her and humiliated her on occasion, but she had never before made her so blazingly, passionately jealous that she wanted to fly at her, dragging her nails down her face. The intensity of her emotions frightened her, and she knew she had to get out of the room and escape before they overwhelmed her. She began to edge round towards the door, almost flattening herself against the wall, scarcely daring to breathe in case any of them looked at her and saw what she was no longer sure she could hide.

Outside in the dimly lit hall, she stopped and released her pent-up breath in one long shuddering sigh. She had gained a temporary respite, that was all.

There was no escape, no freedom, and never could be. Some lines from a half-remembered poem came beating at her brain. 'While I am I,' she thought, 'and you are you. So long as the world contains us both…'

And felt the first scalding tear scar its way down the curve of her cheek.

Plans, she thought, a long time—a lifetime—later, as she sat at the dressing table in her room, brushing her hair. That was what she had to make. She had to give her future some serious consideration. She could not go on as she had been doing, that was certain.

Another job—that had to be the first priority. Perhaps Carlo Veronese could help. He had contacts everywhere, not merely in the film world. Maybe she would stay in Italy—even work in Venice. It wasn't what she had visualised, but then very little ever was.

She had not foreseen the devastating effect Liam Brant would have on her life. She still could not assimilate totally what had happened to her. She felt as if she had woken one day to see a small black cloud on the edge of her tranquil horizon, only to see it swell and grow into a hurricane, sweeping through her life, destroying any cosy preconceptions she might have had about the relationships between men and women.

She had never regarded herself as being in any way frigid. She enjoyed being held and kissed, and she had never doubted for a moment that when she gave herself in the ultimate surrender it would be with joy and passion. But none of the young men who had touched and kissed her had ever filled her with the craving which Liam could evoke by the merest brush of his hand or mouth.

It was madness, she thought, putting down her brush and staring at the pale large-eyed reflection in the mirror. She knew so little about him, their paths had barely crossed, and yet she could hardly draw breathy without thinking about him. Without wanting him, she acknowledged raggedly.

She thought of Peter, struggling to bring him to mind, as she might last night's dream. She had enjoyed his company, the theatres and the dinners, and the slow building of rapport. She had thought she had known heartache over his desertion, but what had she known?

The memory of Bianca in Liam's arms, smiling up at him, stabbed her with knives. This was why she had tried so hard to avoid him during his visits to the house in London. She had been wary then, standing sentinel over her senses and emotions. But that afternoon, beside the pool, one unguarded moment had been her downfall.

Bianca would not be pleased when she told her she was leaving, she thought detachedly, but she would not allow her to talk her out of it as she had done last time.

I wish I'd gone then, she thought. If I'd stuck to my guns and left, at least I would have been spared this.

But if I had, the thought struggled to escape from beneath the weariness and misery in her mind, then I would never have known what it was like to be in his arms. And I would have been half alive for the rest of my life.

The knock on the door brought her sharply out of her abstraction. She swivelled round on the stool and stared at the door, aware that her heart was thudding. Her unknown visitor was pushing at the door now, rattling the handle, but there had been a key in the door and Alix had used it.

'Who is it?'

'Who the hell do you think it is?' Bianca's voice.

Alix sighed. The door gave another rattle. 'Hurry up and let me in!' The edge was sharpening in Bianca's voice.

'I was just going to bed,' Alix protested as she opened the door and Bianca pushed past her into the room. It wasn't true. She'd been doing everything except going to bed. She'd wept, and dried her eyes, and cleansed her face at least twice, and had a bath, and walked a mils up and down the room. ,

'I want to talk to you.' Bianca also had changed for the night. Her nightdress and matching peignoir were in orchid pink chiffon, trimmed with lace. Alix stared at her in amazement.

'I'm sorry,' she said, 'I didn't get your message.'

'I didn't send one,' Bianca interrupted petulantly. 'Monty's in my suite, fussing about my clothes, with one of the maids and the housekeeper. It's like Grand Central Station in there, and I wanted to speak to you privately.' She walked over to the dressing table, and stood looking down at the small array of cosmetics, touching a scent bottle with one pink-tipped finger as if she hardly recognised what it was. 'Did you know Liam Brant was going to be here?' she said abruptly.

Alix leaned against the door, trying to absorb some of the strength of its sturdy panels. 'No, I didn't,' she returned levelly. 'Why do you ask?' .

Bianca turned her head and looked at her for a long, silent moment.

'He isn't for you,' she said.

'I never thought he was.' That at least was the truth, she thought.

'Didn't you? That wasn't the impression you gave this afternoon.' Bianca's lips twisted in the semblance of a smile. 'My rooms overlook the pool area.'

Alix went cold. 'I see.'

'I don't think so.' Alix realised, amazed, that Bianca was not enjoying this. Her eyes were sober, almost troubled. 'You're such a child, Alix. You can't afford to get involved with a man like that. He'd break you into small pieces and throw you away.'

'Does it matter?' Alix stared down at the floor.

'Oh, for God's sake, don't make all the mistakes that I made,' Bianca went over to the window, and pulled back the curtain with an impatient hand. 'I should have left you in your little suburb, with Margaret and Philip and the other girl—what's her name?'

'Debbie,' Alix said quietly. 'Why didn't you?'

She'd never asked before. She'd always taken it for granted that it was just a piece of good fortune, that sudden, unexpected visit, and later the offer of a job, prompted, she'd always thought, by Lester Marchant. Bianca had needed a secretary, and remembered that she had a niece who planned to be one.

But now it didn't seem so simple. When Bianca had set out before to take a man Alix wanted, whether for a light flirtation or a full-blooded affair, she had never bothered to offer any kind of excuse or reason. But that was what she appeared to be doing now, and Alix wondered why.

Bianca shrugged, letting the curtain fall back into place. 'Let's just say it seemed like a good idea at the time.' She turned fully, extending her hands in a curiously appealing gesture. 'Alix, believe me when I say I've known men like Liam Brant before. I met the first when I wasn't much older than you—single-minded, obsessively ambitious. Nothing else mattered. I can see that now, but I couldn't see it then. I thought that I mattered, but I was wrong, and I found out the hard way.'

'Bianca, please.' Alix was embarrassed. 'You don't have to justify yourself to me.'

Bianca's hands dropped to her sides. 'Is that what I'm doing? Perhaps you're right. I thought I was trying to warn you.'

'I don't need to be warned. You said I was a child, but I'd already worked out for myself that Liam was out of my league,' Alix said through stiff lips. 'If it matters, whatever you saw at the pool wasn't serious.'

'Not on his side, perhaps,' Bianca said harshly. 'But you, darling, give yourself away every time you look ,at him, or didn't you realise?' She stopped, and put her hand to her mouth. 'Alix, I'm sorry. I didn't mean that as it sounded. It's just that I've always had this irresistible attraction to bastards, and I don't want you to inherit it.' She gave a little shaky laugh. 'Absurd, isn't it?'

Absurd, and frightening at the same time. Alix felt dazed. Bianca had never spoken to her like this before, never treated her with such intimacy, and she was unsure how to respond. Bianca had set her at a distance when she first went to work for her by insisting that she was a cousin instead of a niece, and she .had never made the least effort to treat Alix any more warmly because of the relationship between them. It was Monty who had always shared the intimacy—whatever inner counsels that Bianca permitted.

And yet here they were, two women talking in the night about a man they both wanted, fumbling their way towards some strange kind of understanding.

What's happening? she thought.

She said, 'I expect I take after my mother. She loved a lovely man. And you married Lester. He wasn't a bastard.'

She wished she hadn't mentioned him, because Bianca looked stricken suddenly. In spite of the gorgeous negligee, the coiled black hair, and the colour on her cheeks and lips and eyes which she always wore, even in bed, for that moment she looked her age, and vulnerable with it.

Bianca took a breath, and the moment passed. She was herself again, vibrant and glamorous, even smiling a little.

She said, 'No, he wasn't. Probably that's why I treated him so badly. I should have hung on to him, Alix. He was one of the best things that ever happened.' The skirts of her negligee whispered across the tiled floor as she came towards the door. She lifted a hand and touched Alix's cheek. Her fingers felt cold. She said, 'Don't hate me, Alix,' and went.

Alix made her way over to the bed, and sank down on the edge of it. Clever, she thought, clever. Any time over the past years she could have hated Bianca. There had been times when hurt and resentment had threatened to take over. She still had to get away—that hadn't changed—but she wouldn't leave in bitterness. Tonight a corner of the veil which hid the real Bianca Layton from the world had been lifted, and it had left Alix shaken. She didn't really think what she felt was pity. It was more subtle than that, and certainly less explicable.

There was no need for her to feel sorry for Bianca— to feel anything for Bianca. Bianca was a winner, or at any rate leading the survivors. The middle-aged woman who had briefly looked out of her face tonight would be shut away again, and only Alix would guess that she existed.

Liam Brant would never see that other woman, she thought. He wouldn't look past the facade of beauty, the aura of glamour, any more than any of Bianca's other lovers had been allowed to do.

The word lover' went through her like a lance. Her hand went to her throat, tugging free the bow which fastened her housecoat as if she were choking.