Fire Under Snow (19 page)

“No.” She sighed. “I've had bitter experience of Jamie's dealings. I'm not surprised.”

She had always had a nervous fear of meeting Jamie again. Apart from that one time at the club, she hadn't seen him since the day he ran from her hospital bed saying he couldn't bear to look at her mutilated hands and her terribly-hurt face. She had dreaded running into him again in case it brought the old pain back. Now she dreaded it for the new grief it would bring her.

Jamie obviously intended to keep up this monstrous accusation he had made against her. Did he think he could bluff his way out? Was that his reasoning? Could he possibly have anything to back up the things he'd said?

She had truth on her side, but on his side Jamie had a lying tongue that was sometimes more plausible than the truth. He was a survivor without scruples. He would just as soon destroy her as look at her to save himself.

“How am I supposed to receive Jamie?” she inquired, lifting her chin and striving for dignity. “In your dressing gown? My dress won't hold together.”

“That's been taken care of. I phoned Judith Brown, my secretary, and asked her to do some shopping for me. She's going to pick up a selection of dresses for you to choose from. With luck she should get here before Jamie.”

“That's charming! She'll know I've spent the night here. What will she think?”

He shrugged. “I don't really care.”

“You might not, but I do. I care about my good name.”

“What good name?” he jeered.

She was still grasping around in her mind for an answer to that as he said, “I'll leave you now. By the time you've taken a shower and generally freshened up, your clothes ought to have arrived. The bathroom's through –”

“Thank you. I know where the bathroom is,” she said through clenched teeth.

She returned, feeling slightly better after her shower, to find four dresses, a most worthy selection to choose from, laid out on the bed, proof of Miss Brown's arrival. Feeling the embarrassment of her situation, blushing at what Noel's secretary must be thinking, she hoped she would depart as quietly as she had come and that she wouldn't have to face her. Sighing, she put that thought from her to make her choice.

A peep at the labels told her they were her size. An accurate guess, or had Noel played detective and found the size from the label on her torn dress?

The keynote, as it so often is with expensive clothes, was elegance and simplicity. A classic cream dress embroidered with sprays of self-colored flowers was next to a chic little number in French blue. A water-ice lemon dress was cool-looking and morning fresh. A feminine swirl of soft-hued pleats caught her eye for a moment before it moved on to a starkly plain aquamarine dress with an abstract pattern. As her finger stroked over it debatingly it gained an amazing fluidity, bringing the pattern to life, and there, swimming across the sea-green material, were hundreds of tiny fish.

This one was irresistible. She dared not spare the time to preen before the mirror; Jamie could be here any minute. She noticed briefly as she combed her golden hair that the blue-green color brought out the green in her eyes. With her hair flowing down her back, she looked like a mermaid. It might be appropriate for the dress, but it would hardly be prudent to look like a Lorelei type who attracted unsuspecting men to their doom, so she wound it expertly around her fingers into a Grecian knot. She delved into her handbag for a lipstick to run lightly across her lips. She looked good and she was glad of it. She needed all the confidence she could get.

Noel was staring broodingly out the window. He turned as she came into the room, his eyes paying her the compliment his lips withheld. They traveled slowly downward from the pale crown of her hair and then all the way up again to rest on her face.

She felt her pulses quicken at the way he looked at her, and she hated herself for not being indifferent to him, just as she knew that he was hating himself for not being indifferent to her. His silent homage had hungry depths. They tore each other apart, yet the desire burned as fiercely as ever.

An ill-founded flicker of sympathy ran through her at his hurt. He had set her up too high, and he couldn't lower his ideals. She suffered his pain with him. She must fight Jamie, no matter what he threw at her. She must see that the truth prevailed, for Noel's sake, because it was destroying him to think this badly of her.

But when he spoke, sounding so cold and civilized, she wondered if her sympathy was not misplaced. “My secretary is in the kitchen, making herself useful with the coffeepot.”

“What have you told her?”

“The basic facts. That Jamie's wife is here and that Jamie is coming around. I warned her it might get unpleasant.”

“I could have made the coffee. It wasn't fair of you to involve her.”

“Me involve her? Surely you did that when you harassed her into giving you Jamie's address.”

“I made one call. That's not harassing anyone. And she didn't give me his address.”

“I'd stay and argue the point, but I think I hear Jamie now. Yes, that will be him.”

As Noel went to open the door, her fingers moved protectively to the palpitating pulse in her throat. She wondered how a pulse could function there at all, because her neck felt like a column of ice; as Jamie came into the room it was as though she were swallowing icicles.

That one time she saw Jamie at Noel's club, she had been sitting too far back to see him properly. Perhaps she had painted that youthful face from memory, or perhaps clever stage makeup had concealed the ravages of time; but viewed across the room, Jamie looked every day of his age and even several years more. The rich living he had craved was beginning to tell. His weak, handsome face had acquired a slight puffiness. It was barely discernible now, but if he kept up his present lifestyle it would not be long before he lost his sweet, angelic look of good, wholesome living.

Noel had said that he'd warned Jamie that she would be here, but as she came within his range of vision she could have sworn that he was surprised – no, the word surprise was too bland, too much of an understatement. He seemed horrified to see her. As his reaction registered on her brain, distress and reciprocal horror raged through her to hold still every functioning thought in her mind. A shroud of numbness came down to envelop her. She struggled, using every particle of mental energy she was able to summon up, to make any kind of sense of the dismay sagging Jamie's mouth and the petrified disbelief glazing his eyes.

Dear and merciful God, no! Because the look on Jamie's face was almost, but not quite, the twin of the one she'd seen when he visited her in the hospital. He hadn't been able to bear looking at the mutilations she had suffered in the fire and had backed away from her in repugnance.

For one icily sick moment she was back in those black days, swathed in the grievous pain of it all to such an extent that she wondered if the intervening healing years had really happened or if she had dreamed them. A manifestation conjured up by her tortured mind of what she hoped one day would come to be.

She looked down at her hands, cringing in fear of what she might see, but they were smooth and healed. As she touched one over the other for reassurance, a wondrous sense of relief filled her throat and made her feel almost lightheaded. Yet that same relief gave her an even greater desire to know what it was all about and, at the same time, somehow made it possible for her to reason more clearly. Dismay had been keener than horror on Jamie's face. He had walked into this room conditioned to see his wife. Well, she was Jamie's wife, wasn't she? Yet he had been surprised to see her!

As her eyes flashed at him, puzzled and angrily demanding an explanation, Jamie's mouth was already in the process of forming a reply. It shaped to say her name in silence and then the words exploded from him in ragged agony. “Lorraine! I didn't expect to see you ...”

He stopped speaking with an abruptness that made the ensuing silence all the more profound, and his hands lifted in a gesture that expressed so much but told so little. Jamie was a performer, and now that he had got over the initial shock of seeing her he was able to draw heavily on his professional expertise to cover up.

It was Noel who pounced on him, surveying him through shrewd eyes. “You didn't expect to see Lorraine?” he challenged. “How come? I told you that I had your wife here.”

His wife, not me, Lorraine thought. The speculation spun dizzily in her head. She had no idea where it came from, or what sense could be made of it.

“My –?” began Jamie. The question-held pause was so slight as to be almost indiscernible; the feeling of query was just as instantly turned into the proudest of declarations. “My wife,” he said with astounding boldness and assurance. “My
beautiful
wife. That's what took me by surprise, what I meant. I didn't expect to see Lorraine looking so devastatingly lovely. Lorraine,” he said, turning his attention from Noel to her. “You are so beautiful.”

Whatever else was false about the situation, it was not that. The words came out sincerely, voicing his true thoughts, and gave credibility to his reaction. She was being unduly suspicious, looking for something that wasn't there. He hadn't been surprised to see her; he was surprised to see her as she was now, not ugly and gruesome anymore.

He came over to where she was sitting and knelt before her to take her hands in his. Last time they met he couldn't bear to look at her; now he couldn't seem to take his eyes off her. She could feel the lust washing over her.

“How could I have let you go?” he moaned. “I must have been out of my mind.”

His nerve was incredible. She dragged her hands away, cringing in revulsion at his touch just as he had cringed from her in revulsion when she had been hurt and had needed him so desperately. Jamie was down now, and it was just possible that he needed her; but she felt nothing for him. The agony he had put her through had killed every bit of love and tender feeling she must once have had for him.

Jamie was still speaking, attempting to take her hands back and looking at her in the old remembered way with the melting, little-boy appeal which she had been unable to resist. It did nothing for her now; even though she was trapped in this hideous situation, she felt gloriously free on that point.

“Don't be angry with me,” he implored. “I know I shouldn't have walked out on you, but don't you see, it was because I loved you so much that I couldn't stand to see you so hurt.”

“No, Jamie,” she said resolutely. “If you'd loved me you would have stayed and given me the support I needed.”

“I wasn't strong enough, Lorraine. You know what I'm like. I can't help how I'm made. I need to have beauty around me. I couldn't know you'd get your looks back. I've made such a mess of everything. But – we can put it all behind us, darling. Make a fresh start. Things will work out, you'll see.”

Before she could reply, Noel said in jealous fury, “It seems that you have been granted a full pardon, Lorraine.”

“Pardon?” she said, grappling for understanding. Ridiculous as it might seem, with all the other crowding of emotions she had forgotten the blackmail charge that Jamie had made against her. Remembering, she said wearily, “I haven't done anything wrong.”

“No?” Noel said, and although she looked deep into his eyes his expression was unreadable.

He then took Jamie roughly by the arm, hauled him to his feet and tossed him into a chair. “Now listen to me, you sniveling little creep. It's time you realized that you can't drop people when the going's tough and then come back and expect to find everything the same. You had your chance with Lorraine and passed it up.”

“What's it to you whether or not Lorraine and I make it up?” Jamie said sulkily.

“That's my business,” Noel replied curtly. “But I'll tell you one thing. You needn't be worried about being blackmailed anymore. I'll see to it that all that nonsense is dropped.”

“How can I drop something I've never done in the first place?” Lorraine broke in desperately. “Tell him, Jamie, that I've never on any occasion been in contact with you since my time in the hospital. And for the sake of my sanity, I implore you, please tell
me
what it's all about.”

But Jamie remained hunched and silent in his chair, and, although Noel was sending him searching, angry looks that might indicate a softening in his attitude toward her, it was apparent that he still thought Jamie's story contained an essential element of truth.

It was like a nightmare she could see no way out of. She couldn't get through to anyone, and' suddenly it was all too much for her. She clenched her fingers and began to cry. Hysteria, frustration – all these things went into the desperate sounds coming from her throat.

Noel's long body ejected itself from his chair. He reached forward to grasp hold of her arms, and he shook her until her teeth chattered. She knew he was doing it to calm her down.

“Stop it. This isn't doing any good at all,” he condemned sternly.

“Nothing does any good,” she said, choking on a sob. “I can't make anyone believe me. I'm going to divorce you, Jamie, and I don't want to see you ever again. And that goes for you, too, Noel. Goodbye. I'm getting out of here before I really break down.”

“You're not going anywhere in this state. Jamie – you'll find Judith in the kitchen. Tell her to hurry up with that coffee. A shot of something in it might be a good idea for Lorraine.”

“Just coffee,” she said, exhausted after her lapse and realizing the futility of trying to fight against Noel's strength of mind and physical superiority.

He waited until Jamie had disappeared into the kitchen, watching to make sure that he'd closed the door behind him. His hands were still on her arms, and she knew that if she pulled away she would be brought closer. Noel couldn't have her this near and not want her, and the same went for her. His eyes could pierce her with steel-gray contempt, as indeed they were doing, and his brows could be drawn in disapproval, but, to her shame, it made no difference in the way she felt about him.