Wild Melody

‘It wasn't false pretences,’ Catriona protested. ‘I asked for Mr Lord. I thought it would be Jeremy.'

‘And instead it was me.’ He pushed his hair back from his forehead again, almost wearily. ‘A nasty shock for you, no doubt, and my advice to you is to go back where you came from as quickly as possible and get over it.'

‘I can't go back,’ Catriona said quietly. ‘What's more, I came here to find Jeremy and I won't leave until I've seen him. And he'll not be very pleased when I tell him how you've treated me,’ she added, a little vindictively.

But far from being perturbed, he merely smiled faintly.

‘I don't think I have much to fear from that quarter,’ he said. ‘Tell me, why do you want to see him so urgently?'

‘That's my business.’ Catriona tilted her chin defiantly.

‘On the contrary, you've also made it mine. Besides, his mother has been on at me for years to take a proper avuncular interest in the boy. Oh, I forgot,’ he added satirically, as Catriona's eyes flew startled to his face. ‘I didn't introduce myself, did I. I'm Jason Lord, Jeremy's uncle.'

‘I didn't know Jeremy had an uncle,’ Catriona said numbly.

‘Well, he didn't tell me about you either, so we're quits. Well, Miss Muir, I'm waiting.'

Catriona thrust her hands into the pockets of her coat to hide the fact that they were shaking. She met Jason Lord's scornful grey eyes with a flash of her green ones.

‘In that case he probably hasn't told you either that we're in love and going to be married,’ she said.

He had been lounging rather negligently against the door, but at that he stiffened instantly. His eyes went over her again, not with the same contempt as before, but assessing her, almost stripping her, while the colour rose in her cheeks.

‘You're going to marry Jeremy,’ he said slowly. ‘What in hell's name gives you that idea?'

‘He did. Last summer.'

‘Which was a long time ago.’ He looked at her wryly. ‘And where was this—er—troth plighted, may I ask?'

‘At Torvaig.’ He still looked blank, so she explained, ‘It's a little village on the west coast of Scotland. It's not very well known, but Jeremy found it while he was touring, and he stayed on.'

‘I'll bet he did!’ There was an almost savage note in the muttered words.

‘Now will you let me see him?’ she begged.

‘No.’ He spoke almost reflectively. ‘In fact I think it's even more imperative that you use the other half of your return ticket and take yourself back to Torvaig and forget you ever knew Jeremy.'

‘I'll do nothing of the sort!’ she raged. ‘I have a right to see him. I've come to London and I'm staying no matter what you say.'

‘Look,’ he came to stand in front of her and gripped her arms tightly, his eyes bleak as a winter's day, ‘I'm telling you for your own good. Forget him and go home. Can't you take my word for it that it's the best thing to do?'

‘I wouldn't take your word for what day of the week it was,’ Catriona said angrily, and his hands fell away from her so quickly that she swayed a little, feeling oddly dizzy.

‘What's the matter?’ he asked.

‘I—I'm sorry. It's so warm in here.'

‘Not that warm. Have you had anything to eat?'

‘I had a few sandwiches on the train.’ How long ago that seemed, she thought tiredly.

‘That must have been a great comfort,’ he said sarcastically. ‘Well, you'd better take that appalling coat off and come with me.'

‘To see Jeremy?’ she asked hopefully.

‘No,’ he said witheringly. ‘To have some breakfast before you pass out on me. I want you leaving here on your own two legs, not carried out on a stretcher.'

Catriona was just about to fling his insulting offer back in his face when it occurred to her how hungry she really was and how much better she would be able to continue the battle if she was fed. So more meekly than she felt, she allowed herself to be shepherded through the hall to the rear of the house and a large shiny kitchen.

It was a poem in gleaming ceramic tiles and stainless steel with gadgets Catriona had only ever seen before in magazine pictures. Remembering the old-fashioned sink and scrubbed wooden draining board back at Muir House, she felt a stab of envy. It seemed so unfair that Auntie Jessie had had to struggle with her work, while this unpleasant man had been living in the lap of luxury with hardly the need to lift a finger for himself.

‘Mrs Birch!’ he called, and the woman who had admitted Catriona came bustling in.

‘Can you organise some breakfast for this starving morsel?’ He indicated Catriona with a casual wave of his hand and she went hot with fury. ‘Bacon and at least two eggs, I think. Oh, and porridge of course. She's from Scotland.'

‘Porridge, sir?’ Mrs Birch gaped at him. ‘Well, I don't know if …'

‘No,’ Catriona interrupted hastily. ‘I don't eat porridge.'

‘Heresy,’ Jason Lord said solemnly, but he was laughing at her, she knew. ‘Well, grapefruit, then, and lots of coffee, Mrs B., and I'll have some as well.’ He turned to Catriona. ‘You'll be quite safe with Mrs Birch. I'm going to finish shaving and get dressed.'

Before Catriona could reply, he vanished.

Mrs Birch was setting out plates and cups and Catriona could already smell the bacon sizzling in the pan.

‘Is there anything I can do?’ she asked shyly.

‘I can manage.’ Mrs Birch gave her a quick glance. ‘I should sit down before you fall down, lovey. You're as white as a sheet.'

Catriona complied shakily. ‘I—I've had rather a shock.'

‘Well, I wondered, though it's not for me to say. I could have told you he doesn't like seeing people so early in the morning. And when I saw that guitar I said to myself, Elsie, I said, she hasn't got a prayer, poor little soul.'

‘My guitar?’ Catriona echoed bewilderedly.

‘He doesn't do musical acts, lovey. It's all current affairs and documentaries. I thought you'd have known that.'

And as Catriona continued to stare at her in amazement, she tutted impatiently.

‘Well, you do know who he is, don't you?'

‘All I know is that he's Jeremy's uncle,’ Catriona admitted.

‘Lord above!’ Mrs Birch cracked the first of the eggs into the pan. ‘He's a TV producer, dear. He does Here and Now on a Monday, apart from anything else. And his documentary on alcoholics last year got an award.'

‘I'm afraid I've never seen much television,’ Catriona said quietly. ‘We didn't have a set at home.'

Mrs Birch was obviously as staggered by this as if Catriona had suddenly grown a second head.

‘Well, there's a thing,’ she said at last. ‘And there was me thinking you were pestering him for a job.'

Catriona coloured. ‘Oh, it's nothing like that,’ she said.

‘I'm pleased to hear it.’ Mrs Birch set half a grapefruit frosted with sugar in front of Catriona and lowered her voice confidentially. ‘You see, dear, the better known he's become, the worse it's got. A lot of girls just think he's the key to fame and fortune and heaven knows what. He knows so many people in television, you see, and one word from him can do all sorts. I'm glad you're not one of them.’ She beamed approvingly at Catriona, then turned back to the cooker. ‘Now you get started, because this is nearly ready.'

Catriona had almost finished her eggs and bacon by the time Jason Lord returned. In a silk-textured dark suit he looked even more forbidding, she thought, and had to fight an urge to flinch as he slid on to the stool next to hers at the breakfast bar.

‘That's better,’ he remarked coolly. ‘You're beginning to look more like a human being.'

Mrs Birch put two steaming cups of coffee down on the bar and hurried out of the kitchen to her other chores.

‘You've placed me under an obligation to you——'

Catriona began stiffly, but he interrupted.

‘Then repay it—please—by going home.'

‘I have no home.'

‘You just thought you'd move in with my nephew.’ His tone was glacial again.

‘No,’ she answered wretchedly. ‘I've told you—we're going to be married.'

He glanced meaningly at her ringless hands. ‘You're officially engaged?'

She hesitated miserably, unwilling to share even part of her precious secret with this man. Then, very slowly, she undid the top two buttons on her white shirt blouse and pulled out the silver chain she wore round her neck. There were two metal objects hanging on it—a small key and a silver ring set with a cairngorm. A cheap enough trinket, but Jeremy had bought it for her one day in Fort William.

‘Until I can afford a proper one,’ he had whispered as he put it on her finger and kissed her. She had thought she would die of happiness, and some of that remembered joy lingered in her face as she extended the ring to Jason Lord in the soft curve of her palm.

There was a long silence. Then, ‘I see,’ he said in a voice devoid of any emotion. She looked at him, puzzled, but his eyes were veiled as he looked down at the thin trail of smoke from the cigarette held lightly between his fingers.

‘You will let me see him, won't you?’ Her voice was pleading.

‘Yes.’ He stubbed the cigarette out with sudden violence. ‘Yes, Miss Muir, you win. I'll take you to him this evening.'

‘Not till this evening?’ She couldn't believe her victory, but at the same time this apparently unnecessary delay jarred on her. ‘Why not now?'

‘Because he's away. He'll be back this evening—his mother's giving a party. I didn't intend to go, but now I will and I'll take you with me.'

‘But I couldn't let you do that,’ Catriona said at once. It was not at all how she had planned to see Jeremy again, at a party against a background where she would be an interloper. ‘I'd be a gatecrasher. And besides, I haven't anything to wear.'

‘The eternal cry of woman, but in your case it could just be true,’ he said, his eyes flicking over her dismissively. ‘And you won't be a gatecrasher. You'll go as my guest. Marion always expects me to bring a girl-friend to her parties.'

Catriona felt a quick surge of revulsion at the idea of being taken for his girl-friend.

‘I'm sure there are other people you'd rather take,’ she said awkwardly.

‘Dozens,’ he retorted. Suddenly he leaned forward and his long fingers brushed the small curve of her breast. Startled, she pulled away, feeling oddly as if she had been scorched by a sudden flame.

‘Don't be a fool,’ he said. ‘Give me credit for a little more subtlety in my approach than that. I'm just curious to know what this is.'

It was the key that shared the chain with the ring.

‘That's just the key of my cashbox,’ she said a little nervously.

‘Cashbox?’ he queried, with raised brows. ‘What cashbox?'

So perforce Catriona found herself telling him about Auntie Jessie and the sale of Muir House.

‘So when all was settled I had about two hundred pounds altogether. I spent some of it of course on my ticket and on a taxi today. But the rest is in a box in my rucksack,’ she added, noticing with alarm that he was frowning again.

‘You've been carrying all the money you possess in the world around London with you all morning!’ he said with ominous calm. ‘And supposing you'd been robbed? Dear God, girl, you're not safe to be allowed out!'

‘I can look after my money and myself,’ Catriona said indignantly.

‘Can you now?’ he said softly. ‘So much so that you blunder into a strange man's flat, make all kinds of demands and stay for breakfast without any thought of what you might have to give in return.'

‘I'm quite willing to pay you——’ she began, but he silenced her by placing an authoritative finger on her parted lips. An odd shiver ran through her. She had never been touched, she told herself, by anyone she loathed as much as him.

‘But supposing I asked for payment in kind rather than cash?’ His eyes held hers and she was aware that her breathing had quickened involuntarily.

‘I'd scream for Mrs Birch,’ she found herself saying with amazing calmness.

‘You assume she'd be on your side. Well, she probably would. She has a weakness for waifs and strays.’ With an insouciance that infuriated her, he let the key and ring drop back inside the neck of her shirt. They felt disturbingly warm from his fingers and again she felt that unaccountable shiver.

‘Well,’ he slid off the stool, ‘studio for me, and bed, I think, for you.'

‘Bed?’ Catriona gasped.

‘Of course. Don't tell me you got much sleep on that train last night.'

‘No—but I can't sleep here.'

‘Why not?’ he asked. ‘And don't start behaving like an hysterical virgin. I've already told you, I'm going to work. I'll get Mrs Birch to wake you around two-thirty and I'll be back at three to take you shopping.'

‘Shopping?'

‘Must you repeat everything I say?’ he said with studied patience.

‘But I don't need to go shopping.’ Catriona thought desperately of her small store of money. She could not go to Jeremy completely empty-handed.

‘Oh yes, you do. You need a party dress,’ he said coolly. Before she could argue, he was gone, and a moment later she heard the front door slam.

Catriona leant on the breakfast bar. Her head was throbbing, and she pressed her finger tips against her forehead with a little sigh. He was everything that was detestable, she thought, and he seemed to take a perverse delight in unnerving her. Only the thought that when evening came he would take her to Jeremy stopped her from grabbing up her things and running away as fast as she could.

‘Come along, lovey.’ Mrs Birch's voice was kind. ‘A nice lie down is what you want. You'll feel better in no time.'

Catriona found herself in a small bedroom furnished in muted browns and yellows with a thick continental quilt on the single bed. It was incredibly soft and warm and she felt an almost sensuous relaxation as she stretched out under it.

‘A good sleep,’ Mrs Birch was saying somewhere a long way off. ‘A good sleep.'

Catriona slept.

CHAPTER TWO

SHE was awoken by a hand on her shoulder. Mrs Birch in outdoor clothes was standing by the bed, holding a small tray.

‘Coffee, miss,’ she announced. ‘Mr Lord will be back soon. I'd be ready if I were you. He hates being kept waiting.'

Catriona was sorely tempted to proclaim her total indifference to Mr Lord's likes and dislikes, but she knew that under the circumstances, that would be churlish.

‘The bathroom's just across the hall, and I've put clean towels in there in case you want a shower,’ Mrs Birch went on. ‘Now if that's all, miss, I'll be getting along.'

‘Thank you. You've been very kind,’ Catriona said sincerely.

‘It's been a pleasure,’ Mrs Birch replied brightly. ‘I hope we meet again, miss. And if I might say so'—she lowered her voice confidentially—‘I wouldn't wear the jeans, miss. Not up West anyway. Fine for the Kings Road, but I don't suppose you'll be going there.’ And she was gone.

Catriona finished her coffee and slid out of bed. The unpopular jeans and her shirt were lying on the dressing stool and she picked them up, her face a little mutinous. All she had in her rucksack were two cotton dresses she had made last week, and some woollen sweaters. Tossing her dark hair determinedly from her face, she marched off to find the bathroom.

She was brushing her hair back into a ponytail and securing it with an elastic band when Jason Lord returned. She heard him come whistling down the hall and pause outside her door, and she squared her shoulders.

‘Are you ready, Miss Muir?’ he called.

‘Quite ready.’ She picked up her duffel coat and walked to the door. Somewhat to her surprise, he gave her a mocking grin as she emerged into the hall.

‘I like a girl who sticks to her principles,’ he commented as his eyes ran over her. ‘Come, Cinderella, you shall go to the ball.'

Her blood boiling, she followed him to the front door and down the steps to the sleek cream-coloured car that awaited them. Jason Lord held the door open for her and she subsided a little awkwardly into the low tan leather seat on the passenger side. She stared entranced at the dashboard, wondering what the various buttons and dials could be for.

‘Do you drive?’ He slid into the seat beside her, and flicked the ignition expertly. The car started immediately, and they pulled away.

‘I had a few lessons, but I never took the test.'

‘A pity. It's an advantage, wherever you happen to live,’ he said.

‘Perhaps Jeremy will teach me.'

‘Perhaps he will,’ he returned noncommittally.

Catriona tried to make note of each turn they took, but she was soon bewildered. The streets were wider now, and the traffic was getting heavy. The houses were giving way to shops too, and as they drove along Catriona saw signs advertising more theatres and restaurants than she had ever dreamed existed.

‘I've never seen so many people,’ she remarked impulsively, then regretted sounding so naïve.

‘You should see it on Sundays. It's almost as quiet as Torvaig,’ he said. ‘And what's more, I've seen a vacant parking meter. Here we go.'

A few minutes later, Catriona found herself in a huge shop. Jason Lord's hand was under her elbow, urging her forward through the crowds thronging the counters, as she caught tantalising glimpses of exquisite displays of scarves and handbags and sniffed exotic odours as she was whisked through the cosmetics department.

‘Lift or escalator?’ he asked, then quickly, ‘I'm sorry, I'm treating you like a child. But you look so damned young in those jeans with your hair tied back.'

‘I know—like a waif,’ she retorted, already more than conscious that she seemed to be the only person in jeans in the whole massive building. ‘And I've never been on an escalator.'

‘Up we go, then.’ He steadied her on to the moving staircase. ‘Hold on to me if you like.'

‘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.