Her Leading Man (41 page)

After casting one more torrid glance at Christina,
he turned his
attention to the goblet and pretended
to drain it. Christina pressed a hand to
her presumably
palpitating heart and looked scared. Paul wiped
his mouth w
ith the back of his hand—Martin had
objected to the
brutish gesture as an unlikely one for
a refined gentleman of the era to
have made, however
warped his character. Lovejoy had won, however, and
the gesture
remained. It reminded Martin of how a
lumberjack might act after drinking too
much beer.
Not that Martin knew any more about lumberjacks
than he did about
Pharaohs’ brothers.

At any rate, after making the gesture, Paul lunged
at Christina, who
scurried back on her couch as if
a rabid beast were after her. Paul stood,
weaving on
his legs.

“
Good
job!” Lovejoy cried.

Since he was now out of camera range, Martin
joined in his
approval. “Great job, Paul! You look
perfectly uncivilized!”

“
Good,” Paul called back, still with his heated
gaze
raking Christina

She pushed herself off the couch and stood, too,
in the classic pose
of a virgin about to be ravished.
In other words, she clasped her hands
together and
wrung them pleadingly as she begged for mercy
from her captor. If
Christina had really been in that
position, she’d have bashed the fellow
over the head
and hightailed it for the hills The thought made
Martin
smile.
God, he loved her. No matter how misguided
she was.

But he was on again. As soon as Paul staggered
and sat, hard, on
the couch Christina had just vacated,
Martin
tiptoed onto the set
.
Christina caught
sight of him,
and her relief was obvious—which was a good thing,
since the viewing
public needed to see it on her face.
Paul did a superb job of acting like a man
who’d just
been slipped a knockout potion. He blinked and shook
his head as if
trying to clear blurred vision, glanced up
at Christina, saw her staring past
him at something,
turned, and saw Martin. He lurched to his feet and
reached to his side
for a dagger that wasn’t there.
As if
finally realizing he’d been drugged, he made a
last lunge
at
Christina, who
shrieked and jumped aside. As luck—and artistic
direction—would have it, he
managed to
clutch only the hem of her frothy costume, which
ripped
from
her body, leaving her there with her gorgeous long
legs exposed and her
hands pressed to her
cheeks.

Martin rushed up to her as soon as Paul lay,
ostensibly
out cold, on the floor, grabbed her by her
hand, and pulled her
after him out of camera range.
She was supposed to drag her feet at first,
looking
with
horror upon Pharaoh’s brother,
although Martin
didn’t know why
.
After
all, she wanted to be rid of
the great oaf. Why should she stand around and
think
when an
opportunity for escape presented itself?

But who was he to argue with art? He certainly
wasn’t a man who
argued with success. So he did
as he was supposed to do. And Christina did as
she
was
supposed to do. And Paul did as he was supposed
to do.

And
both Phineas Lovejoy and all the
people
watching from the sidelines cheered wildly when
Christina finally
fled from the wicked brother’s
clutches.

Christina really wanted to talk to Martin alone. But
she had to be civil
to everyone else
involved
with the picture
. And since Phineas Lovejoy planned to
leave
the
next day and return to his home in Pasadena,
she owed it to everyone to be
present at the big dinner
he was hosting for the cast and crew that
evening.
Right now, she and Gran were headed for the drawing
room, where everyone
was gathering for a social hour
or so before going in to dinner. Christina
had about
as
much interest m socializing as she did in learning
how to knit sweaters
for dogs. She did, however,
know where her duty lay.

Her grandmother’s rubber-tipped cane made a soft
click-clack on the
floorboards behind her. If Christina
hadn’t known it was her grandmother there,
she
might
have been disturbed by the weird, almost
ghostly, noise.

Come to think of it, her grandmother was probably
more dangerous than
any number of complete strangers
or otherworld oddities.

Considering the brouhaha Gran had perpetrated
that afternoon
before the banquet scene, Christina decided
to air some of her disapproval. What
the heck,
why
not? Gran was never shy about telling others
what she thought about their
behavior. Why should
Christina cavil at doing likewise. “That wasn’t very
nice, what you did
to Pablo this afternoon, Gran.”

“
The
man’s a toad.”

“
His being a toad has nothing to do with the
issue.
First you goaded him into behaving badly, and then
you hit him with
your cane when he did. That’s not
only unkind, it’s unfair.”

“
Bah.
Life’s unfair. I don’t care to put up with it.”

They reached the drawing room, and Christina
opened the door so
that her grandmother could enter
before her. “But don’t you think you’re
being disingenuous,
Gran? I mean, if you preach equality, don’t
you think you should
behave with the same propriety
you expect from others?”

Her grandmother gave Christina a hard stare as she
walked past her and
into the throng of people awaiting
them in the drawing room. “No.”

Oh. Well, that settled that, Christina guessed. Far
from
satisfied, but not wanting to continue the discussion
in
front of
the others, she gave it up for the time being.

She was feeling pretty low this evening and for that
reason had taken
special care with her toilette. She was
wearing her finest dinner gown, a
light green silk
underbodice
with a high waist,
narrow skirt, and uneven
hemline that showed off her shapely calves and
ankles.
The
darker green overbodice with short dolman sleeves
with a beaded-bow
motif, green satin cummerbund, and
matching bound hem
created an impression of
elegance.
She’d gilded the lily by attaching a silk flower to
her
cummerbund. Sheer black silk stockings, black satin
shoes with cross
straps, pointed toes, and Louis heels
completed the ensemble.

Even though she felt like the ragged edge of hell,
she knew she looked
good. So good, in fact, that she
entertained the mean-spirited wish that
Martin would
fall groveling at her feet in awe and
admiration.

No. Not really. She didn’t want a groveling Martin.
She wanted a Martin
with whom she had built a singular
rapport as well as an enduring
love.

Now how, she wondered, did a body go about creating
that happy
combination of emotional and spiritual
circumstances with a person who
didn’t share
one’s basic beliefs?

Unfortunately, she had no idea. With a sigh,
Christina decided to
think about happier things.

The filming had gone exceptionally well, according
to Mr. Lovejoy.
Benjamin, the chief cameraman,
aimed to experiment with close-up shots of Pablo
tomorrow,
since the actor didn’t look very Egyptian
with a plaster cast
on his arm. While at first Martin
and Mr. Lovejoy had worried about how
Pablo’s injury
was going to affect the filming, now they held
out great hopes that
the new and innovative use of
close-up shots would be a landmark breakthrough
in
motion
picture history.

Not only that, but they’d managed to get two major
scenes filmed in one
take each
.
Word from the spectators
was that
Egyptian
Idyll
was
going to be every
bit as spectacular as Peerless had hoped it would
be.

A lot of its spectacle had to do with the elaborate
sets, but Christina
believed the acting, the creative camera
angles,
the
close-ups, and even the relatively silly
plotline played a
big part in what she hoped would be
the picture’s success. The more money
Peerless made
from a product that included her, the more apt
Peerless
would be to use her again when she needed money.

Money. Christina caught herself frowning as she
considered money,
and stopped. She didn’t want to
get wrinkles before she even entered
medical school.
On a personal level, she didn’t much care how she
looked, but on a
professional level she needed her
looks.
Quit lying to yourself
,
Christina Mayhew
. She
stopped dead in her tracks, startled, the thought
having
come
through so crisply and clearly that it had
sounded like a real voice in her
ears.

Only it hadn’t been anyone else talking to her. It
had been herself
talking to herself. And one of them
was telling the truth.

Blast. Very well, she might as well admit it. She
did, too, care how
she looked, because she wanted
Martin to love her, and men seemed to care
more
for
pretty women than for smart ones. And they assuredly
cared more for
pretty ones than for ugly ones.
Unless the ugly ones came with money
attached.

If Christina got any more cynical, she’d be exactly
like her
grandmother. And that, she thought gloomily,
was a possibility too grotesque
and catastrophic even
to contemplate.

She saw Martin from across the room. He saw her,
too, and looked away
quickly. The gesture reminded
her why she was feeling so dismal. Her heart
hitched,
her
throat got a lump in it, her mouth went dry, and
her eyes prickled as
if with tears.

Darn it all, why did everyone always go around
mooning about love
and how wonderful and thrilling
it was? From her perspective, love only
hurt, and
she’d rather have been spared the ordeal. If she’d
been
alone,
Christina might even have sat herself down and
had a good cry She didn’t
normally indulge in such
so-called feminine behavior, but she’d never been
involved
in
an ill-fated love affair, either, and figured
she deserved at least one good
crying jag.

She saw Martin take a deep breath, as if preparing
himself for an
unpleasant ordeal, and turn toward her
again. Was she really that difficult
to get along with?
Was she that much like her grandmother? Already?
She wasn’t even old
yet!

It was a truly
horrible thought.

Because she didn’t want to act like her grandmother
almost more than she
did want to go to medical school,
Christina forced herself to smile brightly
at the man
she loved. Martin’s expression lightened slightly,
and
he looked
a shade more cheerful when he started toward
her and Gran from the other side
of the room.

“
Here comes your young man, Christina. He
looks
ridiculous with his hair dyed black like that. Look
at
hi
m
. They even darkened his eyebrows.” She
snorted.

“
Oh,
will you stop it!”