Wild Melody

‘The rail is quite adequate,’ she returned stiffly, then spoiled it by stumbling as they stepped off at the top.

Her feet sank into a thick carpet, and somewhere soft music was playing. Everywhere there were clothes, displayed on models, pinned on wire frames, hanging on rails and circular racks. She felt she was dreaming, and then another more demoralising thought struck her. She caught at Jason Lord's sleeve.

‘My money! I—I left it in the rucksack.'

‘Well?’ He looked tall and forbidding as he swung to look at her. ‘What of it?'

Catriona gestured awkwardly around her.

‘I haven't enough with me to pay for anything here.'

‘I never suggested you should. Now come on. We've a lot to get through.’ He sounded impatient. ‘First things first. We don't even know whether you'll find a dress you like here.'

‘But they must have hundreds of dresses,’ Catriona gasped.

‘You're an unusual woman if that makes any difference,’ he said. ‘Ah, there's the person we want.’ He propelled Catriona towards a grey-haired woman in a smart black suit, standing by a rail of coats studying some papers. ‘Hello, Mrs Cuthbert. We need your help.'

‘Mr Lord.’ The woman smiled charmingly, then turned to Catriona. ‘My word!’ she said.

‘And that's putting it mildly.’ Jason Lord took Catriona by the shoulders and pushed her forward. ‘She's going to Mrs Lord's party with me and she hasn't a thing to wear. What can you do for her?'

Mrs Cuthbert studied Catriona, now flushed with humiliation.

‘Well, there are possibilities,’ she said cautiously. ‘What does she need?'

‘The works.’ Jason Lord released Catriona and stepped back. ‘And her hair, Mrs Cuthbert. I don't know who attends to my sister-in-law, but …'

‘It's Miss Barbara,’ said Mrs Cuthbert. ‘I'll phone the salon now and see if she can squeeze another appointment in.'

‘Fine.’ He consulted his watch. ‘Shall we say the restaurant in two hours?'

‘I'll send her to you,’ Mrs Cuthbert promised.

Catriona raged inwardly. They might have been talking about one of the dummy figures standing round the department, she thought furiously. And just who was going to pay for all this? She still had to find somewhere to live until she and Jeremy could be married. She could not afford to spend any of her little hoard of money on a party dress she did not need. But Jason Lord's tall figure was already disappearing, and Mrs Cuthbert was leading her gently but firmly to a fitting room.

Later that evening, Catriona stood in front of the mirror in the small bedroom at the flat and looked at herself in frank disbelief.

The dress was almost the same green as her eyes, and its low bodice cut square across her small breasts was covered with sparkling crystals with narrow matching shoulder-straps. The straight satin skirt reached the floor, hiding her delicately strapped high-heeled sandals.

She was really Cinderella, she thought wonderingly.

Her hair, expertly trimmed, had been set so that it hung smooth and shining to her shoulders, just turning up at the ends. She was lightly made up, with eye-shadow and mascara used just as the girl in the beauty salon had shown her, and her lips glowed a pale rose. A small evening bag, studded with crystals, lay on the dressing table. She picked it up, and putting the long stole that matched the dress over her arm, went down the hall to the room where she had met Jason Lord.

He was standing leaning on the mantelpiece, with a glass in his hand. He looked up as she entered, and she paused nervously waiting for some barbed remark. But the silence stretched on endlessly, and she felt oddly disappointed.

‘Would you like a drink?’ There was a formal note in his voice.

‘No—thank you.'

‘Right.’ He finished what was left in his glass and put it down. ‘We'll be off, then.’ He took the stole from her and placed it round her shoulders. She was acutely aware of his touch on her bare skin and moved away restively.

They drove for a long time in silence. Catriona kept stealing looks at her companion, but his eyes were firmly fixed on the road and all she saw was his hard profile. He too had a chin, she noticed, and a nasty habit of expecting his own way to match it. Which reminded her of the worry that had been nagging her all afternoon even through her bewildered enjoyment of choosing the dress, and its underwear and accessories, and the hair-do and beauty treatment that followed.

‘This dress is outrageous,’ she informed him.

‘I wouldn't say so.’ He still did not look at her. ‘A little more revealing than you're probably used to, that's all.'

‘I didn't mean that, and you know it,’ said Catriona hotly. ‘I mean the price.'

‘Don't worry about it,’ he told her lightly. ‘After all, it's in the family, isn't it? And Jeremy's mother has an account there, as you may have gathered. We could charge it to her, if you'd rather.'

‘We'll do no such thing——’ Catriona began, then saw his lips twitch. ‘You're laughing at me again,’ she said uncertainly.

‘A little,’ he said. ‘Why not forget about the cost of it all, and start thinking about what you're going to say to Jeremy. Surely that's more important than anything else. Concentrate on the dialogue, darling, and forget the props. They're just incidental.'

‘I wish you wouldn't call me darling!'

‘I know you do.’ He sent her a swift glance, one mocking brow raised. ‘And so—darling—I do it all the more.'

‘Just to annoy me?'

‘You do rise to the bait so beautifully—and so regularly,’ he said.

Catriona lifted her chin and stared through the windscreen into the darkness. Jeremy's parents, she had learned, lived just outside Staines near the river. She supposed that one day she would be familiar with this route, and with the house they were bound for. Now she felt totally at sea, and it frightened her to realise that she was wholly dependent on this stranger beside her. After all, she only had his word for it that there was a party at all. He could be taking her anywhere.

The car slowed steadily, then turned through a pair of white gates and up a shallow drive.

Catriona saw the lights of a large house and heard the steady beat of music close at hand. There were a lot of other cars parked in the drive and on the gravelled sweep in front of the house, and she sat quietly as Jason manoeuvred his vehicle into one of the remaining spaces.

When he opened the door for her, she sat still for a moment, marshalling her courage.

‘Cold feet?’ he inquired.

‘I'm perfectly warm, thanks,’ she returned, deliberately misunderstanding him. His hand closed round hers as he helped her out of the car, and for a moment she almost returned the pressure of his fingers. But just in time she remembered who he was, and the treatment she had been forced to put up with from him, and snatched her hand away.

‘Come along then, Miss Muir,’ he said, and she was startled to hear the harsh note back in his voice. ‘This is what you wanted. Make the most of it.'

Inside the house, Catriona was startled to find a uniformed maid waiting to take their coats.

‘Don't worry,’ Jason murmured. ‘She's not permanent staff. Just hired for the big occasion.'

He guided her expertly through groups of chatting people in the hall into a large room with a bar at one end. Catriona noticed that French windows stood open at one side, leading apparently to a big conservatory.

‘There's Clive—never far from the drinks,’ he remarked. ‘Brace yourself, darling, you're about to meet my respected brother, and Jeremy's papa.'

Clive Lord was shorter than his brother with slightly receding hair and a developing paunch. He looked much older than Jason too, but in his smile Catriona thought she could detect a reminder of Jeremy, and she warmed to him.

‘I don't think I've seen you here with Jason before, have I, Miss—er—Muir?’ he asked, handing her a glass filled with a glowing red liquid.