Kitabı oku: «A Passionate Deceit»

CHAPTER ONE

‘I THOUGHT you said the film crew would already be here,’ said Tessa Conway, her wide-spaced blue eyes scanning the luxury of her almost deserted surroundings before returning to the petite figure of her cousin in the armchair beside her.

‘They’re here all right,’ Babs Morgan assured her. ‘In fact, they’ve already started filming on the beach just below here.’ She smiled indulgently as her cousin leapt excitedly to her feet and raced to one of the several tall windows overlooking the sea in the hotel lounge. ‘Tess, if you’re going to behave like a demented groupie I’ll take you straight back to London with me tomorrow!’

Tessa returned to her chair, an impish grin dancing across her strikingly attractive features. ‘What, and let the wardrobe take care of itself?’ she teased.

‘I’m sure Carla, the production secretary, would be quite happy to help out should the need arise,’ murmured Babs with arch innocence.

‘You’re not being fair, expecting me to be as blasé as you are,’ laughed Tessa. ‘OK, so your job brings you into constant contact with film legends and their talented offspring, but you have to remember that despite all the times you’ve let me help with wardrobe work I’ve never been within a mile of a film set’

‘Tess, I know—and I’m eternally grateful that you were able to help me out like this,’ said Babs, then gave her a wicked grin. ‘But, as I’ve already explained, all the real filming’s finished—so I’m afraid there won’t be any stars around for you to gawp at.’

‘Babs, you know I’m not the gawping type!’ exclaimed Tessa indignantly. ‘And I promise to be on my best behavior in the presence of anyone even remotely connected with the crew.’

‘I’m only teasing, love,’ murmured Babs, her expression affectionate. ‘In fact, I was hoping that this little experience might start you thinking about coming to work for us permanently,’ she added tentatively.

‘I—that’s sweet, of you,’ stammered Tessa, reeling from the feelings of guilt suddenly bombarding her. ‘But it’s still journalism for me.’

‘Tess, why can’t you just accept that your stepfather’s too powerful a man for you to waste your life trying to prove him wrong?’ sighed Babs.

‘Charles is wrong! Just because he owns Conway Press and has a stake in several daily papers, it doesn’t mean he’s infallible! All I need is a break.’

‘You know, Tess,’ sighed Babs, ‘I sometimes get the feeling that the only thing that makes you so keen on journalism is the fact that Charles is against it.’

‘Against it? He won’t even discuss it with me,’ protested Tessa, ‘yet he puts every obstacle he can in my way—’ She broke off, guilt flaring once more in her as she realised how intently she was being scrutinised. ‘What’s wrong?’ she asked defensively.

‘I knew there was something odd with you!’ exclaimed Babs, grinning. ‘You look about twelve. For heaven’s sake, Tess, what have you done to your hair?’

Tessa’s hands rose to the bunches into which she had tied her shoulder-length, dark blonde hair, her look of uncertainty as she did so making her indeed look extremely young.

‘I—it’s easier to manage like this,’ she stammered, then gave a diffident shrug. ‘Actually, I hadn’t the faintest idea what sort of things people wear around a film set—I mean, they can hardly flit around the place dolled up to the nines—and you’d already left for here by the time I got around to thinking about it.’

‘An Irish beach in the middle of winter is hardly the place for anyone to be dolled up to the nines!’ observed Babs, then leaned back in her chair, giggling weakly. ‘Tess, you haven’t by any chance been reading what the gossip columnists have to say about a certain film director by the name of Sandro Lambert, have you?’

‘What on earth is that supposed to mean?’

‘Because, according to them, he has a gargantuan appetite for women,’ laughed Babs. ‘But I’m sure they’d tell you that pigtails won’t help you—that he’d gobble little girls like you up for breakfast, if he felt so inclined.’

‘Ha, ha,’ muttered Tessa, now suddenly not in the least sure that her decision to play down her looks had not subconsciously had something to do with what she had read of Sandro Lambert’s infamous reputation.

‘You needn’t worry, love,’ teased Babs, rising to her feet and strolling over to one of the windows. ‘Rumour has it that Sandro’s off women with a vengeance at the moment—or, at least, that he was when filming finished a few weeks ago.’

Tessa rose and joined her, a sigh of awed disbelief escaping her as she looked out over the hotel grounds and down on to the turbulent majesty of the sea below.

‘It’s so incredibly wild and beautiful here,’ she sighed. ‘I’ve never been to Ireland before, but I’d love to—Babs, who’s that?’ she exclaimed as a tall, dark-haired woman appeared round the side of the building. ‘Wow, she certainly matches the scenery for beauty!’

‘Good heavens, it’s Angelica Bellini!’ gasped Babs, her neck craning as the woman disappeared from view.

‘Is she a film star?’

Babs shook her head dismissively. ‘Her brother, Umberto, often works with Sandro. He’s quite a famous cameraman—you might have heard of him. There was a terrible accident on the set of Sandro’s last film and Umberto was badly injured. Oh, look—here come the crew now.’

Tessa leaned forward, peering intently through the window as a group of men, laden with equipment, appeared from the shrubbed path leading up from the beach and walked across the lawn. ‘Which one is Sandro Lambert?’ she demanded, feeling a sudden twinge of excitement even though none of the men she could see seemed to bear any resemblance to the photographs she had seen of the fêted film director.

‘He doesn’t appear to be with them,’ muttered Babs. ‘Oh, yes—there he is now.’

Tessa watched the tall figure of a man stride from the path and across the lawn. He was dressed in what she took to be ski-wear—a sensible choice, she decided, given the piercing cold of the January wind now whipping its way through the curling blackness of his hair—his broad shoulders hunched against the elements and his hands rammed deep into his pockets. The photographs she had seen of him, she now realised, had given little indication of the true size of the man, or of the virile strength almost radiating from that purposefully striding figure. It was when he drew close enough for his features to become clearly visible that she heard her own gasp of disbelief.

‘He’s not exactly what you’d call photogenic, is he?’ she breathed. ‘Babs, he’s…he’s absolutely gorgeous!’

‘This is all I need!’ groaned Babs, hauling her away from the window and back to where they had been sitting. ‘It’s bad enough Angelica turning up here, but if you start drooling over him, my girl, he’ll make mincemeat out of you—I mean it, Tess.’

‘For heaven’s sake!’ exclaimed Tessa indignantly. ‘I wasn’t drooling! And why is it bad that Angelica’s turned up?’

‘I…oh, forget it,’ muttered Babs. ‘Look, they’ll be here any moment now and I forgot to warn you not to mention your connection with Conway Press. Sandro’s become a bit paranoid about the Press of late—and that’s putting it mildly.’

Tessa felt her entire body tense. ‘Conway Press is hardly the gutter press,’ she muttered, her tone verging on defensive. ‘But, if it makes you feel better, you can introduce me as Tessa Morgan.’ The instant she had made the suggestion she was sickened by her own duplicity and suddenly she was no longer sure that this fortuitous trip to Ireland would turn out to be the brilliant career move it had so recently seemed.

‘Actually, that’s not a bad idea!’ exclaimed Babs. ‘It can be your professional name,’ she teased.

Realising that she couldn’t bring herself to deceive her cousin like this, Tessa opened her mouth to protest, then closed it with a silent groan of frustration as a group of men burst into the room, all talking at the tops of their voices in a baffling assortment of languages.

‘Ciao, Babs!’ called out one of them, a thick-set, craggily attractive man who made his way over to them with a broad grin of delight. ‘This Ireland!’ he groaned through a heavy Italian accent. ‘So beautiful, but so wet and cold!’

‘Paolo, I’d like you to meet my cousin, Tessa—Tessa Morgan,’ said Babs, once she had extricated herself from his bear-hug of a greeting, her laughing emphasis of the surname leaving Tessa once again awash with feelings of guilt. ‘She’s standing in for my assistant who, like everyone else, has come down with the flu.’

‘More of this terrible flu,’ murmured Paolo with a doleful shake of his head as he and Tessa shook hands. ‘We’ll all die here,’ he added dramatically, kneeling down in front of the huge, open fire and spreading his arms as though about to hurl himself into its flames. ‘I tell Sandro the film is perfect, is finished—but he don’t listen. He brings us here to freeze to death while we film footage we don’t even need.’

‘Paolo’s the director of photography and just about the most brilliant cameraman around,’ Babs confided in a loud stage whisper, ‘but he’s also an unremitting pessimist’

As the rest of the group gradually joined them by the fire, Tessa felt a glow of exhilaration as she was drawn into their boisterous, multi-lingual banter, and decided that, even if her plan to break into journalism by means of a covert profile on Sandro Lambert came to nothing, at least she was going to enjoy these few days in this easygoing, cosmopolitan company.

‘What we are now about to have is an Irish tea.’

Tessa turned her head at the sound of those words, attracted by their fascinatingly husky tones and the faintest trace of an accent so elusive she wasn’t certain it actually existed. The first thing to catch her eye was a five-tier trolley being wheeled in by one of the hotel maids, its lower tiers laden with a lavish assortment of sandwiches, home-baked fruit breads and cream cakes, its upper ones with tea and coffee, silverware, cutlery and crockery. Her gaze then moved along to the man who had spoken and who was now conducting a conversation in Italian with Paolo and another of the men.

He had changed, she noted, completely oblivious of the intensity of her gaze as her eyes moved up from the long, perfectly shaped legs, now encased in denim so faded it was almost white, to the heavy navy fisherman’s sweater adorning an athletic, broad-shouldered torso. When her gaze finally alighted on Sandro Lambert’s face, the thought that again crossed her mind was that he really wasn’t in the least photogenic. True, any pictures she had seen of him had portrayed an extremely good-looking man, but not one of them had managed to capture anything of the extraordinary vitality he exuded—a powerful, almost animal magnetism that seemed to radiate from him.

Tessa’s eyes were still engrossed in their inspection when he broke off his conversation with the two men.

‘I’m sure we can manage to serve ourselves,’ she heard him tell the maid, a hint of laughter further warming the husky attractiveness of his voice.

So this was what was meant by charisma, thought Tessa, utterly fascinated and so lost in her leisurely inspection of this phenomenon possessing it that she hadn’t noticed the point at which he switched from Italian to French, her whole attention caught up in the husky softness of the sounds emanating with such fluid ease from a large, expressive and sensuously full-lipped mouth that parted every now and then to display teeth of stunningly white perfection.

She would no doubt have indulged herself in an equally leisurely inspection of the strong, classical lines of his nose had her gaze not been drawn, as though by command, to a pair of eyes trained implacably on her own. The eyes she encountered were a startling blend of velvety brown and topaz, but it wasn’t their unusual colour that startled her, nor was it the fact that he was still holding an animated conversation with one of the French members of his crew even while his eyes held hers in their mesmerising gaze. It was the unmitigated hostility with which she was being observed that startled her into a flustered awareness of how blatantly she had been staring.

The sensation of hot colour flaring to her cheeks only adding to her feelings of utter mortification, Tessa hastily transferred her gaze to the trolley the maid had wheeled round to the side of the sofa.

‘Right, there’s tea or coffee,’ announced Babs. ‘Which one of you is going to pour?’

There were six men in the room: Sandro Lambert standing, Paolo crouched by the hearth and practically in the fire, two sprawled along a sofa and the remaining two draped across armchairs—to a man they were looking at Babs as though she had suggested something faintly indecent.

‘Just look at them, will you?’ groaned Babs, trying unsuccessfully to hide her amusement. ‘They’re useless! Mind you, I blame Carla—Sandro’s production secretary—she mothers them as though they were all three-year-olds! By the way, where is Carla?’ she asked, addressing the director. ‘I thought she was due here this morning.’

‘She was,’ sighed Sandro, approaching the trolley with the air of one condemned. ‘But she’s gone down with this wretched flu—as have Gina and Andy, half the grips and our continuity clerk, to mention but a few.’ He gingerly lifted the lid of the hot-water jug and swore as he burned his fingers. ‘Who’s for tea and who’s for coffee?’

‘Oh, for heaven’s sake, let me do it!’ exclaimed Babs, shaking her head but grinning broadly as she got to her feet ‘And while we’re on the subject of being short-handed, you know I have to leave tomorrow and that one of my assistants was to take charge.’

‘Was to take charge?’ enquired the director, glancing cursorily in Tessa’s direction.

‘Yes, was,’ said Babs. ‘She’s also been stricken by this flu, which is why I’ve had to rope in my cousin. The trouble is that she’s had no experience on set, so I was relying on Carla keeping an eye on things—especially the crowd scenes.’

‘Your cousin?’ muttered Sandro, this time not even giving Tessa a cursory look.

‘Yes—Tessa Morgan,’ stated Babs, again with emphasis, as she busied herself at the trolley.

‘I’m resigned to the fact that things will be chaotic here without Carla,’ stated Sandro gloomily, not so much by a flicker of an eyelid acknowledging Tessa’s presence, ‘and that our being so short-handed will only make a bad situation worse. Paolo’s due to start something in Florence in ten days and anyway my schedule’s too tight for any changes…so it looks as though I’ll have to scrap the additional medieval crowd sequences.’

‘So much for the trailer arriving any minute now, with costumes for two or three hundred,’ chuckled Babs, handing him two cups of coffee. ‘But at least Tess shouldn’t have any problem coping with the rest.’

‘The only wardrobe we’ll need will be for the scenes with the old man and his sons,’ said Sandro, looking down at the cups in his hands as though uncertain what to do with them. He glanced behind him and promptly handed one of them to the man nearest him, then removed himself to the chair Babs had just vacated and began drinking from the second.

‘Come and get it!’ called out Babs, flashing the unconcerned director a murderous look before picking up two cups of tea and handing one to Tessa. ‘You don’t mind if I perch here, do you?’ she asked, her pointed words bringing no discernible reaction from the man at whom their sarcastic content had been directed as she sat herself down on the arm of Tessa’s chair.

‘Would you like me to hand round the food?’ offered Tessa, once the men had helped themselves to drinks.

‘Over my dead body,’ growled Babs, then began chuckling to herself as two of the younger men stirred themselves and started passing the laden plates around.

‘You see,’ murmured Sandro after a while, amusement glinting in those extraordinary eyes of his as they homed in on Babs, ‘we’re not completely helpless without Carla.’ Then he added with a morose sigh, ‘At least, not as far as handing around a few plates goes.’

‘Surely you can learn to cope without her for the short while you’ll be here!’ exclaimed Babs unsympathetically.

‘You know perfectly well how invaluable she is to me,’ he protested. ‘It’s like losing my right hand!’

As he went on to extol his missing production secretary in lavish terms, Tessa listened with only half an ear, her ego reeling from the completeness with which she had been ignored…and was still being ignored! Though that was a bit like wanting to have it both ways, she admitted reluctantly to herself. She was the first to complain when, as frequently happened, she found herself on the receiving end of far too enthusiastic interest from men she barely knew. In fact, she reminded herself with a squirm of embarrassment, there had been times when she had treated ogling strangers in pretty much the same way as Sandro Lambert was now treating her!

‘For heaven’s sake, Sandro, you can’t start importing secretaries!’ exclaimed Babs, her incredulous laughter distracting Tessa from her discomfiting thoughts. ‘Why don’t you try roping in Angelica? I’m sure she’d be only too pleased to be able to help.’

‘This isn’t a joking matter,’ snapped Sandro. ‘How am I supposed—?’ He broke off as the hotel porter approached.

‘Miss Morgan?’

‘Yes?’ said Babs, turning.

‘The trailer’s arrived with your costumes.’

‘Thanks, I’ll be right out,’ she replied, draining her cup as she rose. ‘Come along, Tess, duty calls.’

Tessa rose and returned her cup and saucer to the trolley, then she followed her cousin to the door.

‘Heck, why didn’t I think of it?’ exclaimed Babs, leaning over to peer round her approaching cousin as she called out to the director who was staring morosely down into the contents of his cup. ‘Sandro, I suggest you try talking nicely to Tess…she’s a whiz-kid when it comes to shorthand and typing!’

Tessa gave her cousin a look of stunned incredulity.

‘Is that true?’ demanded Sandro, appearing as though by magic at her side and now interest personified as he gazed down at her, a megawatt smile adorning his hand-some features.

‘Sandro, not now,’ groaned Babs, grabbing Tessa by the arm and pulling her through the door. ‘I have to show Tess exactly what you’ll be needing from the trailer, otherwise you’ll have even more problems than you already have.’

‘And what, exactly, was all that about?’ hissed Tessa as she followed in her cousin’s rushed wake through the rear of the hotel and out to the car park housing the equipment trailers.

‘Sandro’s fretting because he won’t have Carla to tie his shoe-laces for him,’ retorted Babs with a laugh. ‘Though, as Carla never stops taking notes while he’s on set, he probably does need secretarial assistance of some sort—and I’d jump at it, if I were you.’ She opened up one of the trailers and motioned Tessa to follow her inside.

‘I wouldn’t have the faintest idea what a production secretary does,’ protested Tessa.

‘I’m sure Sandro’s perfectly capable of explaining what he needs,’ chuckled Babs, turning on a light and casting a critical eye around the neatly packed interior. ‘It’s just that getting three men costumed up isn’t exactly going to occupy much time and I know for a fact that Sandro would pay you top rates if you stood in for Carla.’ She turned and gave Tessa a reassuring smile. ‘At least give it some thought while we root out what you’ll need from this lot’

* * *

‘So, have you had any thoughts?’ asked Babs as they ascended the main staircase to their rooms an hour later.

‘It’s not as though I’ve been offered anything yet,’ stalled Tessa—but if she were, it would be a golden opportunity, she thought with an inevitable pang of guilt.

‘Look, Tess, you’re obviously aware how fond I am of Sandro,’ said Babs gently. ‘This is the third of his films I’ve been involved with and I’ve nothing but admiration for his incredible talent and also his professionalism.’

‘But?’ demanded Tessa wryly as they reached the door of her room.

‘But he can be extremely difficult where women are concerned.’

‘Babs, I’m perfectly aware of his reputation.’

‘I wasn’t necessarily referring to his allegedly lousy behaviour towards women,’ retorted Babs. ‘It’s just that I’ve seen the other side of the picture—the way women subject him to every bit of adulation as they do the male stars in his films.’

‘My heart bleeds for the poor man,’ retorted Tessa waspishly.

‘Tess, that’s not fair! He’s a director, not a film star, and he plainly loathes the way those women slaver over him. Not that I’m saying that’s quite what you did when he came into the lounge, but he didn’t take too kindly to your being so obviously bowled over by him.’

‘I wasn’t in the least bowled over by him!’ exclaimed Tessa indignantly. ‘He’s simply the first real celebrity I’ve ever met and I was a bit—well, overawed,’ she added lamely. ‘I—oh, what’s the use?’ She opened the door of her room, grabbed her cousin by the arm and pulled her inside.

‘Tess, I want to go and have a shower,’ protested Babs.

‘Just sit down—there’s something I want to show you,’ muttered Tessa, opening one of the dressing-table drawers and taking out a file. ‘You’re going to hate me for this,’ she muttered, handing her cousin the file.

Babs sat down on the bed, her face expressionless as she glanced through the couple of pages of notes, then turned to the pocket at the back of the file and removed a wodge of press cuttings.

‘Who put you up to this, Tess?’ she asked quietly.

‘I was talking to Ray Linton a couple of months ago——asking him for a job, actually. He mentioned the names of some celebrities and said that if I could come up with a profile on someone of that calibre he’d be prepared to look at my work. Sandro Lambert was one of those names, so when you mentioned helping you out here…’ She shook her head miserably as her words petered out. ‘It was despicable of me even to think of using you in such a way.’

‘You know the sort of paper Ray Linton edits!’ exclaimed Babs harshly. ‘Profile, my eye! All he’s interested in is muck—the more the better!’

‘Babs, you know I wouldn’t dream of writing anything like that,’ protested Tessa hoarsely.

‘Yes, I do,’ sighed Babs, tossing aside the file. ‘Which is why I’m certain that, even if you succeed in writing up some surreptitious article on Sandro, you haven’t a chance in hell of having it printed.’

‘Why?’ demanded Tessa hotly. ‘Because my allpowerful stepfather will make sure I don’t?’

‘Grow up, Tessa,’ sighed Babs, rising. ‘You never had any real interest in becoming a journalist until you discovered Charles was so against it. For as long as anyone can remember, all you ever wanted was to be a nurse. I know how hard it was on you having to give it up and how difficult it must be having to think in terms of a different career—but are you really certain that journalism is that career?’ She walked over to Tessa and gave her an affectionate hug. ‘I’m off to pack and have a shower,’ she said. ‘I’ll see you for supper…Oh, yes, and I’ll let you have that book I was telling you about—I’ve finished it.’

Tessa flopped down on to the bed once the door had closed behind Babs, gazing dejectedly around the beautiful, wood-panelled room that had earlier so enchanted her. The thought of her own duplicity had racked her with guilt, she admitted to herself, but, even having confessed, she didn’t feel any better. Babs was right—right about everything! Her only ambition had been to become a nurse, and she had sailed through her written exams and had high hopes of doing the same in her practical training until the antiseptics she was coming into increasing contact with had triggered off an allergic reaction in her hands. And Babs was right about her having ogled Sandro Lambert! It was round about the time that her unfortunate tendency towards allergy had manifested itself that so too had her equally unfortunate tendency towards being attracted to completely the wrong sort of man. After the first two—lame, but dauntingly tenacious ducks—it was those dangerously attractive and often virtually unattainable men on whom she had invariably set her sights. Men like Sandro Lambert, she thought with a sudden prickle of apprehension…well, not exactly like him, she corrected herself as it occurred to her that she had never in her life met a man with the presence, the almost palpable animal magnetism that this man possessed.

She gave an exasperated shake of her head. There was only one word to describe a woman who could feel as strongly attracted as she had towards a man who hadn’t even bothered to acknowledge her existence, let alone exchange a civil word with her—and that word was stupid! Yet nothing she had done warranted the way he had behaved, so why on earth should she feel any guilt? If Sandro Lambert was to be her stepping-stone into journalism, she intended stepping without a qualm!

‘It’s still open,’ she called out at the sound of a knock on the door. ‘I’ve been doing some thinking,’ she announced as the door opened.

‘Is that so?’

The words, and the appearance of Sandro Lambert in the doorway, brought a shriek of horror from her.

‘I thought you were Babs!’ she accused, leaping from the bed.

‘I can’t think why,’ he murmured, a look of amusement flitting over his otherwise coolly expressionless face. ‘There’s something I’d like to discuss with you,’ he continued. ‘I’m in the Donegal suite at the end of the corridor—I use the sitting-room as my office.’

‘I’d be useless as a secretary, if that’s what you want to discuss,’ she called after him as he turned to leave. What on earth was she saying? she asked herself incredulously the instant the words were out—what more could she have possibly asked for, as far as her proposed article was concerned, than to observe him at work from virtually by his side?

‘How refreshingly modest of you,’ he drawled, ‘especially when you haven’t the slightest idea what would be required of you.’

She bit back a groan of frustration as the door closed behind him, then hesitated for only the briefest of moments before dragging it open and racing down the corridor after him.

‘It’s just that I don’t know anything about film work,’ she excused herself breathlessly when she had caught up with him.

‘A point we had already established,’ he observed drily, unlocking the door to the suite and holding it open for her with a mocking bow.

She entered the small hallway and on through the doorway before her into the sitting-room, her eyes discounting the clutter littering just about every available surface. It was a beautiful, high-ceilinged room, its exquisite furnishings matching the same high standards she had noticed throughout the hotel.

‘It’s a lovely place,’ she blurted out, the breathlessness in her words betraying her stifling lack of ease. ‘The hotel, I mean…and its surroundings.’

‘Ireland is a very beautiful country,’ he murmured, flashing her a slightly startled look before clearing the debris from one of the chairs and motioning her to be seated. ‘Do you know the country?’

‘No, this is my first visit,’ replied Tessa, her mental state approaching that of a nervous pupil about to be interrogated by the headmaster as she sat down.

‘Tell me, Tessa,’ he murmured, removing a bundle of papers from the armchair opposite hers before sitting down on it, ‘what do you do?’

‘Do?’ she echoed, suddenly distracted by the memory of pictures she had seen of Leona Carlotti, the extraordinarily beautiful Italian actress who was his mother, and wondering why she hadn’t spotted the obvious family resemblance until this very moment.

‘Yes—do,’ he snapped, then made a visible effort to curb his impatience. ‘Babs mentioned your having stepped in to help her out at the last minute—so I take it you’re not in the costume design business?’

‘No—I was made redundant just after Christmas,’ she said, her own reason warning her only a fraction after his angrily tensing jaw had that she hadn’t actually answered his question.

‘But you can do shorthand and typing,’ he stated in tones that revealed how little used he was to curbing his impatience.