Never to Love (21 page)

Andrea had expected
to meet, if not actual antipathy, at least a certain degree of reserve among the other models taking part in the show. So she was relieved to find them friendly and helpful and very interested in the opportunities and working conditions in the London fashion world.

There were five other models—two from each of the three houses taking part—three of them French, one Italian and one Franco-Chinese girl with an exquisitely white skin and lambent almond eyes. Andrea’s co-model was a very tall French girl called Mignonne who confided that it was her ambition to work in America where she could earn a much higher salary and quickly save enough to retire from the hectic life of the haute couture
cabines.

“Then I will no longer have to starve myself in order to keep this shape,” she said, laughing and patting her incredibly small waist.

As the time of their appearance approached, Andrea felt much less excited than she had expected and hoped to be
.
She had wanted this evening to make her forget, if only for an hour or two, the ache inside her.

But as she made up her face, her thoughts were far away from Paris.

“You are pale,
c
he
rie.
You are nervous, yes? There is no need to be.”
Mignonne patted her shoulders encouragingly, thinking that the English girl’s evident tension was caused by stage fright.

The parade was due to start at midnight, and a few minutes beforehand the couturiers came into the
cabine
to make sure that every detail of their creations was correct
.
Andrea’s first ensemble was an afternoon dress of raspberry-red printed mousseline de soie worn with an
enormous white straw hat decorated with clusters of tiny artificial fruit.

When they had been inspected, the girls went down a staircase to a small salon leading into the ballroom. They could hear the orchestra playing and the hum of voices, and peeping through the heavy silk curtains screening the entrance, Andrea caught a glimpse of the glittering spectacle beyond.

Presently the music stopped, there was a brief pause to give the dancers time to return to their tables and then a fanfare of trumpets announced the beginning of the parade. The first model to appear gave a final twitch to her skirt, smoothed her gloves, lifted her chin and then, as a red light switched on above the entrance, she swept through the entrance and then it was Andrea’s turn.

As she stepped through the curtain and into the bright pool of the spotlight, she knew an instant of terror. But it was only momentary, and as she made her first pivot confidence flowed back. As coolly as if she were alone in the vast flower-banked room, she whirled across the polished floor, her skirt belling out around her slender legs. The rim of the spotlight glanced over the tables, catching the glint of diamonds and the flash of medals.

Then it was over and she was back in the salon and flying up the stairs to change into a narrow side-slit tunic of caramel crepe de chine with a gold lame turban.

There was a ripple of applause as she made her second entrance, and this time she scanned the tables for Leonie and Jacques but was unable to see them.

Her third and final appearance was in a dress that was calculated to steal the show, an immense crinoline of ice-white satin embroidered with garlands of crystal beads and silver paillettes and confined at the waist by a deep sash of vivid emerald satin falling in two long streamers behind. This time the applause was vigorous and prolonged, a deserved tribute to the splendor of the gown.

But as she reached the orchestra dais and was about to turn, her step faltered, and forgetting the hundreds of eyes on her she stood in frozen stillness, her anguished gaze held by the tall dark man who sat at the nearest table. For perhaps thirty seconds the spotlight fell on them both and the clapping gave place to a murmur of speculation as the audience realized that here was something unrehearsed. Then, with what those nearby could see was a tremendous effort, Andrea finished her turn and walked swiftly, too swiftly, from the floor.

Once behind the curtains, she fled up the stairs to the dressing room, stripping off her gloves and jewels with feverish haste and begging the startled dresser to help her out of the crinoline at once. She did not care what the designer would say or what effect the incident might have upon her future career. All she knew was that Justin was here in this building and that she had to get away before he found her.

She was dimly aware that the other models were silent, staring at her in fascinated astonishment as she dragged her street dress over her head and searched agitatedly for the missing belt. It seemed an eternity before she found all her belongings, and every second she expected a rap at the door.

Then without warning the door opened and her heart lurched wildly, but it was only Mignonne returning from the ballroom. She had made her entrance a few seconds before Andrea saw Justin and so knew what had happened.

“You are going? But what has happened? Who is this man who makes you stand still?” she cried excitedly, seeing Andrea fumbling with the buttons of her coat.

“Oh, please, I can’t explain. I must get out of here,” Andrea said urgently.

“But you cannot go like this. There is to be a party and—”

“I’m sorry,
I
must. Goodbye.”

Before anyone could stop her, Andrea snatched up her hat and bag and slipped quickly out of the door and along the corridor away from the salon staircase. There was a service stairway at the other end and with luck she might be able to leave by a back entrance.

A few minutes later she was out in the street and hailing an approaching taxi. Temporarily safe from pursuit, she sank back against the worn leather seat and expelled a long breath of relief. At first she was angry with Leonie for betraying her confidence—what else could account for Justin’s presence at the ball? But on thinking it over she realized she had been foolish to admit the truth to the Frenchwoman. No doubt Leonie had thought she could bring about
a reconciliation and that the means would be justified by the end.

Presently she tapped on the glass panel and asked the driver to stop. Walking would help her to think out what she could do next. One thing was certain. She could not go back to the pension for some time, as Leonie would almost certainly have given Justin th
e
address and, finding her gone, he would be bound to start looking for her there. Supposing he persuaded the Bollets to hand over her luggage? Most of her remaining money was in her suitcase and the little she had in her purse would barely pay for a night’s lodging. It was already nearly one o’clock, and even in Paris hoteliers might look askance at an unaccompanied Englishwoman arriving at such an hour.

Finally she decided that, even at the risk of walking into Justin, she would have to go back to the pension. There were fewer cabs around in this part of the city, and by the time she found one she was close to tears from tiredness and stress.

The hall light was still on in the little hotel and Monsieur Bollet was asleep at the reception desk. Wondering if he was waiting up for her, Andrea crept past him and felt her way cautiously up the narrow staircase. At the foot of the topmost flight she paused to see if a light was showing beneath the door of her room, but all was silence and darkness. She fumbled for her key, opened the door and drew in a terrified breath as a dark shape rose from the chair by the window.

“Good morning.” Justin switched on the light. “I’m sorry if I frightened you, but I thought that if you knew I was here you might run away again.”

Andrea swallowed hard. “What do you want?” she said unsteadily.

“To talk to you.”

She moved across to the bed and grasped the brass rail. “There’s nothing to say. Leonie had no right to tell you I was here.”

Behind her Justin closed the door.

“She did as she thought best,” he said quietly. “It wasn’t our intention to upset you during the show.”

Andrea’s hands tightened till her knuckles showed white.

“I’m very tired. Please say what you have to and then go.”

“Do you hate me so much?” he asked softly.

“I never said I hated you.”

“Then why did you run away tonight?”

She made an impatient movement. “Isn’t that obvious? Our
...
our marriage is over. There’s no point in having a postmortem.”

“There might be. Are you so sure you know why it failed?”

She swung around to face him, her face white and strained with repressed anger.

“You can hound me all over Europe, but you’ll never make me change my mind,” she said furiously. “I told you in my letter why I was leaving. I said I was sorry. Why don’t you accept the fact that we made a terrible mistake? Or I did. I thought that money was all that mattered in life, so I sold myself to you. It took me quite a time to learn that money can’t buy anything that really matters.”

Her voice broke, and she turned away again to hide the treacherous quiver of her mouth, the pain that must show in her eyes.

“Do you really believe that?” he asked. “That I bought you?”

“Why not? It’s the truth. At least you were honest. You never pretended. I thought I was
b
eing honest, too, but I didn’t know myself then.”

“And you do now?”

“I
know that if I were starving I could never go back to that
...
that empty life,” she said vehemently. “Oh, why couldn’t you have left me alone? It’s over. Finished.”

“Not quite. There’s one thing I should have said a long time ago. Look at me, Andrea.”

Something in his voice compelled her to obey, and for the first time she saw how much older he looked.

“I love you,” he said quietly. “I married you because I loved you.”

She stared at him in stunned silence.

“I was a fool,” he went on. “I wanted you so much that I took a crazy gamble, telling myself that I could make you love me. I knew that sooner or later you would need more than material benefit. I hoped that, when you discovered that, we would be close enough for me to tell you the truth, but it didn’t work out the way I’d planned. Life generally doesn’t.”

There was a long silence.

“Why are you saying this now?” she asked at last
.

“Partly because of something that Leonie told me and that I hope may be true, but mainly because we had come to the point when it had to be said. I intended to tell you the night you left London.”

“What did Leonie tell you?” she asked, very low.

“That you were very unhappy, and she thought it was because I had failed to give you the one thing you needed.” He took a step forward. “Is it true?”

Her heart was beating like a wild thing.

“Are you saying this because you think it’s the only way to make me come back with you?”

In one stride he was beside her, his hands on her shoulders.

“My God!” he said hoarsely. “Did it ever occur to you that the only reason I kept up that farce was because I loved you, because I couldn’t bring myself to touch you unless you wished it? If you knew what it did to me when you disappeared! I was half out of my mind with worry until Leonie told me you were here.”

His grip on her shoulders tightened, but she felt no pain, only the gradual welling up of a joy so exquisite that it made her weak and dizzy.

“Oh, Justin, if only you had said this before,” she whispered.

“Then it’s true! You do care a little?”

“A little!” She made a sound between laughter and tears. “More than I ever dreamed.”

The next moment she was locked in his arms, her face pressed against his shoulder, and he was murmuring all the tender endearments that she had never hoped to hear him say. Even now, held in a crushing embrace with his lips against her hair, she could scarcely believe that it was true, that in a matter of minutes all the misunderstandings and invisible barriers had been swept clean aside and the future was a bright vista of happiness.

At last his clasp slackened a little.

“Forty-eight hours ago I wouldn’t have believed this was possible,” he said softly. “When I read your letter I thought I’d lost you for good. You’ll never know how often I wanted to s
e
ize you and hold you like this, to know that you were really mine. Every time I was on the point of telling you the truth, something went wrong and you seemed to draw even farther away. There were times when the whole situation seemed hopeless. Then, the day after that scene with Brennan and what followed, I knew it had reached a crisis. I spent hours walking up and down Kensington Gardens, making up my mind to tell you. When I got back to the house you’d gone.”

“That was the day I realized I couldn’t go on living with you unless you loved me,” she said, with a shiver of remembrance. “I wanted to stay terribly, but I cou
l
dn’t bear the thought of having you make love to me unless you really meant it. Say it again, Justin.”

“What? I love you? I can tell you much better like this.” Gently he raised her face and smoothed a loose strand of hair from her forehead. Then his mouth was on hers, softly at first and then with increasing urgency. She had dreamed of his kisses, but she had never imagined the intensity of emotion that the passionate demand of his lips would arouse in her. It was like waking out of sleep, being touched by magic,
discovering paradise.

When at last he let her go her face was radiant.

“Do you want to stay here?” he asked huskily.