Heart On Fire Part 7

They invented the word..."

70 "Let's go before the war starts," Claudia said to Stephen, and they left the husband and wife still locked in Anglo-French discussions and slipped away.

The roads out of London were as crowded as usual, and it took them quite some time to get through the outer suburbs, but eventually they pulled up outside an old hotel, set among green lawns, beside the upper reaches of the Thames.

"I've booked in here for lunch," Stephen said, looking at Claudia uncertainly.

"They do a very good meal here. I hope you like it."

"It's enchanting," she said, staring at the gleam of water she could see through bare, wintry branches at the end of the hotel gardens.

"I.

don't really know this side of London, at all. It's very odd, the way Londoners seem to stay in their own part of the city and rarely venture out into other districts. They always say that London isn't so much a city as a series of villages, you know. " They lunched beside a window looking down over the river. The food was as good as Stephen had promised; nothing spectacular, just excellent English cooking--a home-made vegetable soup, perfect roast beef and crisp vegetables, with which they drank a gla.s.s of red wine each, with a delicate orange mousse to finish with, and then some really delicious coffee.

While they ate they talked, mainly about old Mr. Lefevre, although the way Stephen talked about his father told 'her as much about Stephen himself as about the old man. His eyes were amused and wry as he tried in advance to apologise for his father's crotchety manner.

"He can't come to terms with losing his sight. He tries to pretend it hasn't happened, and when the truth is forced on him he gets very angry, very frustrated."

71 "That's understandable," Claudia said sympathetically.

"Oh, yes, but you're going to need a lot of patience." He shot her an anxious look.

"But if you can only forgive him for those little flare-ups, and get to know him, I'm sure you'll like him." He broke off, grimacing. "I'm pushing you, and I didn't warn to do that. I will understand if you feel you can't take him on, honestly. I don't warn to force you into doing something you really don't want to do."

Claudia smiled at him.

"I promise you, I'll only agree to take the job if I think I can handle it~' She~could already see one reason why she shouldn't take the job--the difficulty of travelling to and from the cemre of London each day. It would be exhausting, very expensive, and make it difficult to attend auditions, see her voice coach or go to the gym.

On the other hand, she thought later, at the house, this would be a lovely place to work. Quentin Lefevre lived in a comfortable Edward Jan house with art nouveau stained gla.s.s windows, high ceilings, solid mahogany doors and furniture which exactly matched the architecture. Behind the house, gardens stretched down to the river; green lawns, wintry flower beds, and the silvery gleam of water through bare branches.

A slight, elegant Frenchwoman wearing a very chic little black dress, opened the door to them and smiled a wry welcome to Stephen.

"He has been waiting for you on the edge of his chair for most of the morning! He is not happy."

"Oh, dear," said Stephen, leaning forward to kiss the woman on both cheeks, French style.

"You may well say, "Oh, dear!" she said drily. She had fine, dark hair liberally sprinkled now with silver, her make-up was perfection and she carried 72 ~tEART ON FIR herself with poise and a.s.surance. She made Claudia feel clumsy and over-colourful as Stephen introduced them.

"This is Claudia, I told you about her. Claudia, this is Celeste--she makes sure this house runs smoothly, I hate to think what would happen without her."

Claudia offered her hand and Celeste took it, studying her thoughtfully.

"Hmm..." she murmured, and Claudia hoped that did not signify disapproval.

"You had better hurry," was all she said, though. "He is getting nasty!"

Claudia was getting very nervous about meeting Quentin Lefevre, and as soon as she set eyes on him she could see she had had good cause to be worried.

One look, and she knew just what Ellis Lefevre would look like when he was seventy: hair white, face lined and bony, fierce with pride, his body long and thin and stooping. Quentin Lefevre looked like a blind old eagle, perched in a high and lonely place, screaming his rage at the empty skies. ~ "So, you want a job?" he snapped at Claudia, after Stephen had introduced her, and for a second she almost snapped back, Not with you! But then she took a second look at the old man and she couldn't walk out on him. He might be difficult and p.r.i.c.kly, but he was very unhappy, and he needed help.

"Yes, sir," she said politely.

He asked her about her secretarial qualifications, and she was honest in reply.

"I'm not the best in the world, but I am adequate."

He laughed brusquely.

"Adequate, hah?" He had a very strong accent, not one she recognised, and nothing like that~ of either of his sons.

"Well, I will dictate. You have a pad, a pencil?"

73 He dictated rapidly and she managed to get it all down, then she put the letter into the computer and printed it out, read it back to him while he listened intently, those blind eyes staring straight ahead.

"Hmm, yes. Adequate," he said without enthusiasm. "I like to work very early in the morning," he said.

"I don't sleep much, so I get up at six every day, take a walk in the garden, have breakfast and I am ready to start work by seven."

"Seven?" she repeated in horror.

"I'm sorry, I don't think I could get here by seven--it will take me an hour at the very least to make the journey."

"Hmm..." he said again, his silvery brows lifting, then he said, "Look out of the window?

"Out of the....9, " Window, girl, window," he snarled.

Baffled, and wondering if he was a little crazy, Claudia went to the window and looked out.

"See the building at the far end of the gardens, by the river?"

Quentin asked.

"The sort of cottage?" she asked, staring at the~ black-and-white mock Tudor building she could just see through the trees.

"It's a boathouse. Not that I ever go on the river, but the previous owners did. There are still a couple of boats in the lower part, but the floor above is a small flat, just a bedroom, a sitting-room, a kitchen and bathroom. Stephen can take you down there and show you.

It isn't big, but it is comfortable, so I'm told. Haven't been in there, myself. It would save you the trouble and expense of travelling to London and back every day. " Claudia was taken aback and didn't know what to say for a moment, then she nervously said, "I suppose it would, but you see there's my career to think of " Your career? " barked Quentin Lefevre, scowling. " What are you talking about? " "I'm an actress," she began and he interrupted impatiently.

"An actress, G.o.dd.a.m.nit? An actress? What do I want with an actress? I need a secretary. Stephen? Where's Stephen? Why did my son bring you here to meet me, if you don't want to work for me?"

"I do, sir," she hurriedly a.s.sured him.

"At the moment, I'm not working in the theatre. I'm between parts, I'm resting, as we say..."

Quentin's h~avy brows met above those sightless eyes.

"And how long is it since you had a job?"

She flushed.

"Well... Not recently... I haven't had much luck lately " Aren't you any good at it? " Quentin brutally asked and she flinched, resenting the question, even though it was one she had been asking herself for a long, long time now. But you couldn't let yourself think like that. Confidence was everything in the theatre. You had to believe you were good, you would make it, you just needed the lucky break, the big chance. If you once started doubting yourself you were finished.

"Yes, I am," she said defiantly, her colour high, and Quentin put his head to one side, listening to her angry, shaking voice, but what he was thinking she could not tell from his face.

"Anyway," she said after a pause, 'if I'm to live here, I shall need to have time off if my agent gets me an audition. Or for my various lessons--I have voice training once a week and I need to do my physical training; dancing and fencing and gym. You have to be fit, of course. " "Hmm..." Quentin muttered.

"And exactly how much time off does this add up to during the week?"

"That isn't easy to say. For certain, it will mean one afternoon off for voice and physical training--and, if there are auditions, maybe another day?

But not more than that a week. Parts don't come up every week."Quentin tapped his fingers on the desk grimly for a moment, then saidbrusquely, "Oh, very well. But you cannot go to more than one audition a week, and I'd like you to fit your voice training 'et cetera into the weekend, if you can."

"I'll try," she promised, in relief.

"Good." Quentin picked up the telephone from his desk, barked, "Stephen!

Come here."

Stephen hurried into the room and his father curtly told him to take

Claudia to see the boathouse. Stephen showed no surprise, merely nodded, and Claudia realised that he and his father must have discussed the idea of letting her use the boathouse flat.

As they made their way down the paved path which ran between the smoothgreen lawns, Stephen looked sideways at her and asked eagerly,"What did you think of him?" She hesitated and he grimaced."You can be honest! I know he isn't easy to get on with!"

"No, he isn't," she frankly admitted then.

"But somehow, I rather liked him, even though he did remind me of your brother."

Stephen laughed.

"I told you that, too. That's why they quarrel so violently. I'm

trying to persuade my father to forgive Ellis, but even if I did I don't know that Ellis would forgive him. They're two of a kind."

Stephen waved her into the boathouse and followed her up a flight of

stairs, to the upper floor.

/0 The flat comprised a small bathroom, a fully fitted kitchen, a bedroom with pale green walls, dark green curtains and carpet, and a s.p.a.cious, light-filled sitting-room with white walls, a blue carpet, blue curtains and simple white leather couch and chairs.

The effect of the rooms in wintry sunlight was oddly Mediterranean; she found it hard to believe that when she looked out of the high, wide windows she would see a grey English sky, bare trees along the grey waters of the river, birds shivering in the chilly wind.

"What do you think?" asked Stephen, watching her delighted expression.

"It's lovely! I only have one room in my sister's flat, so this seems like a lot of s.p.a.ce to me!"

He grinned happily.

"So you will take the job?" he pressed, and perhaps there was something of his brother in him after all. He certainly went for what he wanted, in his own way. She looked uncertainly at him and Stephen frowned.

"What's wrong? It isn't Ellis? I told you, he never visits my father, and, anyway, he's going to j.a.pan for a month this evening. You needn't worry about having any trouble with him."

"I wasn't," Claudia lied, relaxing now that she knew Ellis would be far away.

A month was a long time. "When would you want me to start?"

"How about at once?" said Stephen, grinning, and when they rejoined Quentin Lefevre he, also, asked her to start immediately.

"I am writing my autobiography and I want to get on with it!" he said, offering a salary that was more than she had expected.

Stephen drove her back to Mayfair. It was dark by' the time he pulled up outside the back entrance of the restaurant, under a street lamp.

77 "I am very glad I thought of asking you to work for my father!" he said, smiling at her.

"He liked you, I could tell. I so want him to be happy, Claudia. Writing his life story will be a kind of therapy for him, I think. It could help him come to terms with his blindness."

"I'll do my best to help him," she promised, and Stephen's eyes glowed with grat.i.tude.

"Thank you." He leaned forward and kissed her lightly on the cheek, to her surprise, but it was a brotherly kiss, nothing to worry her, and when he drew back she smiled at him.

"I'll see you tomorrow, then, Stephen." She got out of the car and watched him drive away, then turned to go into the restaurant, but stopped dead, her heart in her mouth, as someone moved out of the dark shadows around the building.

She was just getting ready to scream for help when the man came out into the yellow circle of the street light, and she recognised the powerful face, the black hair, the cold grey eyes.

"Oh, it's you!" she breathed with relief, and then suspicion shot through her. What was he doing here? Had he known she was going down to see his father, and when she would be arriving back? Had Stephen lied to her, after all? Was Ellis behind the scheme to get her to work for their father? But she didn't have a chance to ask him any of those questions.

"What the h.e.l.l were you doing with my brother?" Ellis bit out with a black frown, walking towards her, making her very aware just how tall he was, and how disturbing.

"Why? Does he have to have your permission to date girls?" Claudia asked with furious mockery, and saw his eyes flash.

"Oh, it was a date, was it?" His voice was harsh, thick with rage, and she was convinced by it. No, Ellis had not known she was out with Stephen. His eyes were very hard and narrow as he stared down at her.

"So I did see him kiss you! I thought I'd imagined it. How long has this been going on? I wasn't even aware he had ever met you!"

"It's none of your business I' she said, s~desteppmg him and making a dash for the back door of the restaurant.