Love's Prisoner

Suzy felt at once knocked askew and annoyed. Renewing contact with Piers Armstrong had never featured in her scheme of things and she resented the editorial director’s taking it upon himself to organise so high-handedly without consulting her.

‘I have an appointment for later this afternoon,’ she said.

Randolph tweaked at the white damask napkin which covered his lap. The girl’s beauty came accompanied by a full complement of brains, so why couldn’t she see that, whatever the hassle, the insertion of the war correspondent into her book was entirely to her advantage? Why wasn’t she grabbing this chance to dramatically boost her sales—and Kingdom’s profits—with both hands? A swift untasted drink was quaffed from his glass. He had sat down at the table in the expectation of wining and dining a biddable young companion who would hang on his every word, and he did not appreciate becoming embroiled in an argument which was threatening to ruin his digestion.

‘What time is your appointment, and where?’ he demanded, sounding like an irked schoolmaster.

‘Four-thirty, in Fulham.’

‘I’ve fixed for you to be at the clinic some time after three o’clock,’ he said, as a waiter removed their empty plates and replaced them with boeuf en crôute à la reine Marie for him and lemon sole for his guest. ‘It can be no more than a ten-minute taxi ride from here, so you have ample opportunity to call in and speak to Armstrong first.’

Suzy frowned. ‘Even so—’

‘The deadline for your manuscript may have been extended by eight weeks, but time is of the essence,’ he snapped.

Suzy helped herself to mange-touts from a dish which the waiter had proffered. It was clear that her host’s patience was fast running out and if she continued to protest she would not only sour their lunch date, but could place any future goodwill at risk—which would be short-sighted and counter-productive. Kingdom were a major company in the publishing world, and it would be foolish to offend them.

‘I’ll see Piers Armstrong today,’ she said resignedly.

Randolph beamed. ‘That’s a good girl,’ he said, and, after reaching across to give her hand another pat, he contentedly devoted himself to his fillet in its filo pastry case.

* * *

As directed, Suzy took the lift to the third floor and turned right on to a broad pastel-walled corridor. She checked her watch. Having secured her agreement to visit the private hospital, Randolph Gardener had proceeded to spend the rest of the meal chatting amiably and volubly, and—perhaps due to an over-indulgent intake of wine—had seemed immune to how the afternoon had begun to tick away. In the end, she had been forced to make her apologies and leave him still savouring a liqueur. On emerging on to the street, she had taken ages to find a taxi, and then the vehicle had travelled barely a mile before becoming snarled up in a traffic jam. So now time really was of the essence.

Still, her visit would not take long, Suzy comforted herself, as she kept track of the numbers on the pale oak doors. She was only here to pacify Randolph and go through the motions. Lacklustre motions. Her request for interviews would be so apathetic that Piers Armstrong would be certain to demur; at which point she would be out of the clinic—fast. A line etched itself between her brows. It was possible that this distaste for a collaboration could be two-sided and the ex-hostage might harbour misgivings of his own—but if that was the case, it would make securing his refusal so much easier.

Piers must have been surprised to be told that Suzy Collier required an audience, she reflected, standing aside to allow a porter with a trolley pass by. Though it would not have thrown him, and his equilibrium would not have been shattered. Randolph’s request might have made it annoyingly apparent that the war correspondent still possessed the power to unsettle her, but she would have been dismissed as no more than a blip in his sexual history long ago. Indeed, he had probably forgotten all about her.

Suzy’s heels rapped out a brisk staccato on the tiled floor. If Piers Armstrong had wiped her from his memory, she had not spent the past few years thinking about him—no, sirree! On the dénouement of their liaison, the ‘career woman’ button had been determinedly pushed, and the responsibilities and pressures which had resulted had left her little time to brood. Those responsibilities and pressures had also made her grow up. The girl who had once been far too gullible, far too naïve—as brutally demonstrated by her brush with the journalist—had matured into a poised and aware young woman. A young woman who was now nobody’s fool.

Suzy’s march came to a halt. Here was the specified room. She neatened the line of her cropped jacket and smoothed the high-waisted skirt over her hips. Opening her clutch bag, she found a mirror and tidied her hair. A slick of rosy lipstick was applied. She stared at her reflection. Don’t look so frightened, so tense, so agitated! she instructed herself. He can’t hurt you now.

Raising a hand, she rapped on the door.

‘Come in,’ said a deep melodious voice which, even after all this time, seemed woefully familiar.

Her stomach churned and she felt a strong impulse to turn tail and run. What was she doing here? Suzy wondered. Why had she allowed herself to be steamrollered into calling on Piers Armstrong? She should have vetoed the suggestion of adding a section on him point-blank. She ought to have insisted that, as it had been accepted and fulfilled the terms of the contract, her book must be published, as was. Though could she do that? The small print would need to be checked.

‘Come in,’ the voice commanded again, a touch impatiently this time.

Suzy straightened her shoulders, summoned up a smile, and strode into a functional but comfortable magnolia-painted room made airy by a large picture window. A man with thick dark hair was sitting on the edge of a quilt-covered bed, idly leafing through a newspaper. In an open-throated midnight-blue shirt, black Levis and suede desert boots, no concession had been made to the fact that he was a patient. Her nerve-ends corkscrewed. Piers Armstrong had always dressed casually, and yet there was something in the way he held his body, in his personal dynamic, which imparted an aura of masculine elegance to the simplest of shirts and jeans. In the past, she had found this most appealing, and it registered that she still did. Her smile became a little strained.

‘Good afternoon,’ she said.

Piers rose to his feet. ‘Long time no see,’ he remarked drily.

Although she had watched his return on the television news, confronting him in the flesh was entirely different. His face looked thinner, the skin was stretched taut over his high cheekbones, and the crinkle lines at the corners of his eyes were deeper. When she had known him before, his hair had been cut short, but now the silky brown-black waves brushed against his shirt collar. Add a tan which he had picked up from somewhere, and Piers Armstrong looked darkly feral and romantic, like a modern-day pirate.

To her dismay, Suzy felt a catch form in her throat. When she had seen him on television she had wept, for his father’s sake and out of normal sensitivity to his plight, but—oh, heavens!—she must not weep now. Piers might misinterpret her tears and think she was crying over him as him, rather than over him as a returned hostage. She swallowed hard, twice. An innate sentimental streak meant that she would have been tempted to cry when faced with any person in his position, Suzy assured herself.

‘Yes, it must be—’ she paused, pretending to pinpoint a date which had been engraved in capitals on her heart ‘—three years since we last met.’ For a moment she wondered whether she ought to indicate the formality of her visit by shaking his hand, but decided against it. Infantile though it seemed, the prospect of even such run-of-the-mill physical contact was disturbing. ‘How are you?’ she asked.

‘Fine.’ His pale grey eyes travelled from the top of her blonde head, down the curves of her body, to her high-heeled sandals in a leisurely but all-encompassing appraisal. ‘You’re looking well. Very much the classy lady in the power suit.’

Suzy shot him a glance from beneath her lashes. Was that a compliment, or a dig at the change he must see in her? It was not only her character which had matured, but also her looks and her dress sense.

‘I’ve been out to lunch,’ she said, by way of explanation.

Piers gestured towards a chintz-covered armchair which, together with a small sofa and occasional table, formed a sitting area for visitors.

‘Have a seat.’

‘Thanks. So—you’re coming through your medical tests with flying colours?’ Suzy enquired, in a bright, conversational voice.

Although her stay would be as short as possible, she needed to comment on his situation. Indeed, after listening to the other hostages’ tales, she was well aware of how at a loss and disorientated Piers must be feeling and, as a caring human being, she sympathised.

He nodded. ‘The doctor’s verdict is that I’m in good working order,’ he said, and, as if to demonstrate, he flexed his shoulders.

‘You appear to be more muscular than I remember,’ Suzy remarked, her eyes drawn to the contours beneath the deep blue shirt.

‘Every time my captors untied me I made a point of doing press-ups and sit-ups,’ Piers explained, ‘so although I’ve never been puny I’m in better shape now than I’ve ever been.’ A dark brow arched. ‘You’d really see a difference if you saw me stripped.’

Her cheeks pinkened. Why had she commented on his physique? she wondered. It had been a mistake. The last thing she wanted was to revive memories—of how she had seen Piers stripped; of how, also naked, she had been held against his chest; of how they had once been lovers.

‘I don’t want to take up too much of your time,’ she began, primly switching into the work mode.

He strolled over to lounge a broad shoulder beside the window. ‘You may take all the time you wish,’ he said, gazing outside at the big city panorama of roofs and towering office blocks. ‘Anything to relieve the monotony and make the afternoon pass quicker.’

Suzy’s lips compressed. A man whose career had had him constantly moving from one trouble spot of the world to another, Piers Armstrong possessed a low boredom threshold—as she knew to her cost, she thought astringently. It was obvious that he would be chafing against being confined to the clinic; as he would have chafed against being held hostage. But while she had not been exactly falling over herself to see him, she objected to being informed that all she represented was a better-than-nothing diversion who had been granted admittance into his presence simply because he was fed-up!

‘Pity I didn’t bring some tiddlywinks, then we could have had a game,’ she said, a touch tartly.

His mouth tweaked. ‘It would have put a hell of a kick into my afternoon.’

‘When are you due to be discharged?’ she asked.

‘At the weekend, and it can’t come soon enough,’ Piers said, with feeling. ‘But to what do I owe the pleasure of this visit?’

Suzy looked at him in surprise. ‘You don’t know?’

‘I was in the middle of some tests when the receptionist rang to say you wished for a pow-wow, so I couldn’t ask.’ He thrust her a sardonic look. ‘However, I doubt if you’re here merely to enquire about the state of my health.’

‘I’ve come to ask if you’d agree to—to my interviewing you,’ Suzy said, the need to ask him for a favour, albeit one she did not want, making it difficult to prise the words from her throat. ‘Though if you’re sick and tired of speaking to people, I shall understand,’ she added, at speed.

Piers’ brow furrowed. ‘You want to interview me for the Pennant?’ he enquired, referring to the newspaper which she had worked for after she had left The View—and broken with him. ‘But I’ve already spoken to a man from there.’

‘No, I left them over twelve months ago, and now I’m writing a book for Kingdom Publishing on the worldwide hostage scene,’ she told him. ‘It includes a number of case histories which detail how people have reacted to being kidnapped and the effect it’s had on their feelings, their beliefs and their lives, with an accent on the human/family side. What I require are some sessions which would enable me to compile a similar case history on you. However, I—