Merlyn's Magic (17 page)

'Because of Heathcliff?' Liza asked with interest.

'Rochester,' she corrected dryly.

'Whatever,' her friend teased. 'In that case I should
watch yourself around Christopher, away from the cameras he may be a
pussycat—'

'I've never found him in the least like a pussycat,'
Merlyn scorned the description.

Liza grinned. 'I didn't say he didn't have a few claws
even then—'

'A few!' she scoffed, pushing away her empty coffee-cup.

Her friend laughed. 'You haven't seen anything until
you've seen him in action behind the cameras.' She shook her head.
'He's earnt every foul name he's ever had thrown at him!'

Merlyn soon learnt that—to her cost. Christopher
was like a Jekyll and Hyde character, and Hyde took over behind the
camera!

He was a perfectionist to the point of faultless-ness,
their first four attempts at filming her anguished acceptance that she
was actually ill declared by him to 'look like a cow in labour', 'like
she had just lost her favourite puppy', 'like some-one had stolen her
ice-cream', and the final humiliation, 'like she had just been told her
lover was a married man'!

Merlyn stood up in outrage. 'Now just a damned
minute—'

'That's it!' Christopher cried excitedly from a
neighbouring boat where he was supervising the scene. 'If you stood up
just like that and gazed up at the sky, as if challenging the elements
themselves. Brilliant, Merlyn.' His eyes glowed his pleasure.
'Absolutely brilliant!'

Maybe other actresses in the past had been grateful to
accept these crumbs of praise after the most callous of insults from
him, but Merlyn had been ridiculed and sitting out in the middle of
this lake with the wind ripping into her for over two hours now, and
she wasn't about to
thank
the man for putting her
through that! She was cold, and miserable, and she
hated
Christopher Drake, she decided.

'Christopher, I think—'

'I know, and it's fantastic,' he cut in enthusiastically,
looking up at the cloud-filled sky. 'Now if we can just wait for that
black cloud there,' he pointed it out to the cameraman, 'to get behind
her as she stands up, it will be perfect.'

Merlyn's protestations at his insulting behaviour were
lost as he excitedly issued new instructions to the rest of the people
involved.

She was furious with him, intended telling him so as soon
as she got off this lake; she might lose all control and actually
attempt to drown him if she tried to tell him now.

Twenty minutes later she was still sitting in the small
row-boat waiting for the black cloud to be in the exact position
Christopher wanted. Now she knew why she had stuck to theatre work the
last few years; there you didn't have to wait for the position of a
cloud as your cue.

It was late afternoon when Christopher declared himself
satisfied with a take that would probably only use up thirty seconds of
the actual film, the light too bad by then for any more filming today.

Merlyn was grateful for the blanket that was wrapped about
her shoulders once she got to shore, cupping her frozen hands about the
coffee-cup that was thrust into them.

'You were wonderful, Merlyn.' Christopher put his arm
about her shoulders.

She turned to glare up at him. 'And you were a bastard!'

He chuckled. 'All the best directors are,' he mocked
without rancour.

'Yes.' She ruefully acknowledged that he had finally wrung
a performance out of her that she was sure would require every member
of the audience to reach for their handkerchieves.

'You go take a shower and warm up and then we can meet for
dinner later,' he suggested lightly.

Dinner. She was having dinner with Rand this evening.
Christopher had demanded such intensity of feeling from her today that
she hadn't even had time to think about the man she loved.

She couldn't quite meet Christopher's gaze. 'I can't,' she
excused. 'I—I have other plans.'

'Hillier?' he challenged. 'I told you I don't approve of
relationships between my leading man and lady.'

'Only between
you
and your leading
lady, hm?' she scorned.

'Someone's been talking,' he drawled.

'Not soon enough,' she bit out. 'I like you, Christopher,
and I think you're the best director there is in the country today, but
I won't put up with your insults again the way I've had to today.'

'You won't?' His eyes were icy.

'No,' she declared, not in the least cowed by his cold
arrogance. 'It may work with other actresses but not with me. I don't
want an affair with you but neither do I want to feel the lash of your
tongue every day. You didn't get where you are today by stereotyping
the people you work with.'

He frowned at the rebuke, the chill fading from his eyes.
'And you react better to gentler handling,' he guessed. 'Okay, I'm
sorry about today, it was force of habit. I'll try not to be so hard on
you tomorrow.'

She wasn't so sure he could keep to that promise, but she
felt better for making her feelings about his behaviour today known.
'Here.' She thrust what was left of her coffee into his hands. 'And I'm
not seeing Mark Hillier later.' She grimaced at the idea. 'Give me
credit for better taste than that!'

Christopher laughed softly. 'I've never been able to work
out what it is that turns us all into neurotics once filming starts.
Individually we're all capable and talented people—I wouldn't
have anything less on my film crew!' he added with his usual arrogance.
'And yet once we start to work and the adrenalin begins to flow the
most unlikely relationships occur!'

'
Nothing
is more unlikely than Mark
and me,' she assured him with distaste. 'Now, why don't you go and find
one of those "talented" women and get them to tell you how wonderful
you
are. With one word of advice,' she added dryly. 'I wouldn't bother with
Liza; she was the one who told me what a swine you are!'

'Really?' He turned to seek out Liza as she talked
animatedly with one of the cameramen as he packed away for the day, his
eyes gleaming with sudden interest. 'She's quite beautiful, isn't she,'
he mused slowly.

'Christopher—'

'I never can resist a challenge,' he cut smoothly across
Merlyn's warning, slapping the empty coffee-cup back into her hands.
'See you later.'

Merlyn watched in dismay as Christopher tersely dismissed
the man Liza was talking to, speaking softly to the other woman before
she shruggingly accompanied him back to the hotel. Merlyn smiled as she
too turned to leave; she knew Liza better than Christopher did, and her
friend wasn't easily impressed.

'Didn't he believe you last night?'

She stiffened at the sound of that mocking voice,
resignedly turning to look at Mark. His hair had been styled to look
more like Rand's had three years ago, shorter than Mark usually wore
it, the three-piece suit and snowy-white shirt donned for the role he
played too, as the scene with Suzie out in the lake ended with her
pained gaze focusing on her husband as he stood watching her from the
shore. Despite the changes in his appearance, Mark was unmistakably
Mark, and Merlyn knew it had been the identity of the man playing Rand
that had resulted in her unusually stilted acting today.

She gave a weary sigh as she looked at him. 'It's been a
long day, Mark, and I'm not in the mood for your innuendoes,' she
stated flatly.

His handsome mouth twisted derisively. 'Drake appears to
have lost interest in you— already.'

She drew in a deep breath. 'Christopher was never
"interested" in me,' she scorned. 'So if you thought that little scene
you created last night would cause trouble for me you were mistaken.'

'I think you underestimate your own attraction,' he
drawled, his gaze moving over her insolently.

'And I think you
overestimate
yours!'

'If you get lonely in your big bed, just give me a call,'
he sneered. 'I might be able to find you the odd free night.'

'You can—' She broke off, looking at him
questioningly. 'How do you know I have a big bed in my room?' she asked
sharply.

Mark looked taken aback at the question. 'All the rooms
have double beds—'

'No, they don't.' She shook her head, unable to stop the
trembling that suddenly racked her body.

'Well mine does,' he dismissed tersely. 'And I just
assumed yours did too. Good God, Merlyn, it was only a casual remark,
there's no need to make a scene about it.' He glanced about them
awkwardly, although most of the crew had gone back to the hotel by now,
glad to get in out of the cold.

'Someone was creeping about outside my room last night,
and—'

'Well, it wasn't me,' Mark cried in disgust. 'I have
better things to do with my time than try to get a glimpse of your
unimpressive body through your bedroom window—'

'How did you know they were outside my window?' she
pounced, her eyes wide. 'I only said they were outside my room!'

Mark gave her a pitying glance. 'Well, whoever it was
could hardly expect to see you through a closed door,' he mocked.
'Lighten up, Merlyn. You probably imagined the whole thing.'

'No—no, I didn't.' She shuddered at the memory
of how frightened she had been.

'Well, it wasn't me,' he said again more firmly. 'I happen
to have been in a certain young lady's bedroom all night—'

'Which young lady?' Merlyn demanded to know.

He frowned. 'I'm not going to tell you that,' he dismissed
irritably. 'It's none of your damned business who I go to bed with.'

'Then you can't prove where you were last night,' Merlyn
challenged triumphantly, sure she had solved the mystery of who had
been outside her room last night. Mark had said he had never forgiven
her for the fact that she had lost him that film role six years ago,
and he was vindictive enough to enjoy half frightening her to death.

'I don't have to.' He slowly shook his head, looking at
her frowningly. 'Merlyn, I know we had our differences in the past,
but— Are you sure you haven't been imagining things?'

She flushed at his almost condescending tone; he made her
sound as if she were some hysterical female on the verge of a nervous
breakdown. 'No, I'm not imagining things,' she snapped. 'There was
someone outside my room last night.'

Mark shrugged. 'Then I suggest you look elsewhere for your
peeping Tom,' he mocked. 'My nights are much too busy to be spent
hoping for a glimpse of your body.' His gaze raked over her insolently
again. 'It just isn't that unique,' he drawled before striding off.

God, was he right, was she becoming paranoid?

Maybe if it had been the first time something like that
had happened to her she could have taken it in her stride, but it was
the memory of that vivid dream she wasn't sure was a dream the last
time she stayed here that haunted her. What if the man had been real
then too, and last night he had come back to sneak into her bed again?

She had to be with Rand, he was the only one who made her
feel safe.

By
the time she had showered and changed, her feelings of fear down by the
lake seemed fanciful even in her emotional state. Of course she wasn't
only safe when she was with Rand, no one was trying to hurt her, just
frighten her a little. And despite what he said she still hadn't
discounted Mark as the culprit; she knew only too well that he was
capable of anything.

But she wasn't going to dwell on that any more, had her
evening with Rand to look forward to. Besides, she was too tired after
the long day she had just spent to think about it any more.

'Goodness, you look worn.' Anne frowned her concern when
Merlyn opened the door to her knock.

'The same can't be said of you; you're glowing!' She
invited the other woman in by stepping back and opening the door wider.

Anne grinned. 'No morning sickness either; I'm expecting
to come down with a bang pretty soon!'

'I don't see why you should, my mother said the only thing
that made her pregnancy bearable when she was carrying me was that she
wasn't sick at all,' she smiled.

'Suzie was really sick with hers, although we all
thought—' Anne broke off, stricken by what she had
unthinkingly revealed. 'I don't suppose you can forget I said that?'
she groaned.

Merlyn moistened her lips, swallowing hard. 'But Suzie
never had a baby…' she croaked, stunned by what Anne had
just said.

'No,' Suzie's sister acknowledged heavily. 'I told you
there were some things in the last few years of Brandon's marriage to
Suzie that I omitted from the book; that was one of them. I only wanted
my book to encourage other people who were diagnosed as terminally ill
not to give up, not make Brandon suffer. He's already suffered enough.'

'Suzie lost the baby?' Merlyn's breathing was shallow.

'Yes,' Anne nodded abruptly.

'Oh God.' She groaned at the cruelty that had taken that
other life from Rand. A child could have been the one thing to help him
after Suzie's death, and
she
had blithely told
him how her own parents had blamed each other for her existence before
sending her father off to be sterilised so that the mistake shouldn't
happen again! No wonder he had needed another drink after she had told
him that; he had lost
his
chance to become a
father.

'Merlyn?' Anne frowned worriedly at how pale she had
become.

'Sorry.' She attempted to shake off the shock she had just
received. 'It was—a surprise.'

'Yes,' Anne acknowledged levelly. 'Now you know why I was
so worried about Brandon's behaviour last night,' she sighed.

With good reason. At the beginning of the evening Rand had
been like the man she first met; full of bitterness. As he had been
yesterday afternoon when he came to her room and demanded to take her
so savagely…