Authors: Charlotte Lamb
boy whose freckled face bore traces of jam and butter.
“Hallo, can’t stop. Sacha has disgraced himself again—
more food on the outside of his face than the inside! Help
yourselves to a chair. I’ll see you later.”
Kate laughed. Jean-Paul stared after Clare with awe.
“She always talks like that,” he confided. “And when she
speaks French,
ma foi
! It is ten times worse. French is a
much faster language than English, of course!”
He left for his own apartment and Kate went to her room
to change for dinner before the concert. She had not yet
managed to discover why Jean-Paul had invited her. He
had not mentioned Pallas, or Marc, or anything but the
merest polite small talk. Yet she still felt that he had
invited her here for a specific reason.
She wore her white voile dress, as it was now her best
dress, and Clare Murray admired it volubly.
Jean-Paul arrived on time, kissed Clare Murray’s hand
and took Kate off with him to dinner.
“Why did you ask me to come to Paris?” she asked, over
their coffee, having decided it was time to be brutally
frank.
Jean-Paul’s hand hesitated as he lit his cigarette. Then he
smiled at her. “I wanted to see you again.”
“Will Pallas be there tonight?” she asked flatly.
He flushed. “ I ... I do not know,” he murmured without
meeting her eyes.
“Jean-Paul!” she reproached him. “It was a good idea for
you to make her jealous, but not yet! You really must be
more patient. I thought you agreed that you might try
again in a few years?”
He smoked nervously, rather red around the ears.
“Well,” he began, “you see, Kate, I met her last week, by
chance. She was at a party. Pyrakis was talking about you
to Marc, and Pallas kept looking at me. She made a joke
about you and me! But she was not really laughing, you
know? And I thought she seemed ...” he shrugged
deprecatingly, “well, I thought ...”
“She was jealous!” Kate finished the sentence for him.
“Yes,” he admitted. “Kate, I am afraid she will meet
someone else at this Conservatoire. She will forget me. I
cannot wait!”
Kate said soberly, “But is it right to use me as bait?”
He looked at her apologetically. “You are angry with me?
I do not find it easy to talk to most girls, but you are
different. I thought you would not resent it.”
She sighed. “Well, I don’t, as a matter of fact, but I do
feel you’re trying to rush things. Why don’t you just start
dating Pallas and go on from there? Take her to concerts,
not me.”
He stubbed out his cigarette. “I am afraid she will
refuse,” he said simply.
“You’re far too self-deprecating. You’re an attractive
man.”
They discussed it as they drove to the concert, but Kate
saw that nothing would make Jean-Paul brave enough to
expose himself to Pallas’s tongue. His formal education had
made him shy and backward with the other sex.
The concert was extremely enjoyable. Kate had never
heard Pyrakis play so well. She sat beside Jean-Paul,
listening intently and remembering the day she had heard
Pyrakis play just for her and Marc. It seemed light years
away now.
As they drifted out afterwards she caught a glimpse of a
dark head. Her heart thudded harshly and she stumbled
slightly, clutching at Jean-Paul’s hand.
So it was that when she came face to face with Pallas and
Marc, she was hand in hand with Jean-Paul.
Pallas gave them a cold nod. Marc’s glittering grey gaze
rested on the linked hands, then rose and looked at Kate,
contempt and anger in his face.
Pallas spoke first, breaking the silence which seemed to
lock them all together.
“Hallo, Kate—I didn’t expect to see you in Paris!” Then
she bit her lower lip, flushing, as if she would like to
recall the words.
“The concert was very exciting, wasn’t it?” Kate said
with artificial enthusiasm. She felt Jean-Paul’s fingers
growing cold against her own, but he held on tightly, as
though afraid to let go.
“Marvellous! How’s Sam?” Pallas smiled sweetly. “I do
miss him terribly, you know! And he misses me, I know,
from his letters.”
Kate blinked. She had asked Sam only the other day if
he had heard from Pallas and he had said he had not.
She knew her brother too well to doubt his word. He
would never write to a girl unless she wrote to him first.
She smiled, however. “Oh, yes, I expect he does! But he’s
back at college now, of course.” She did not add, as she
could have done, that Sam was dating two entirely
different beauty queens, one a redhead, the other a
statuesque blonde with a Swedish accent and strong
Women’s Lib views of the world.
It interested her that Pallas was refusing to look at
Jean-Paul. He might have been invisible for all the notice
she took of him.
Pallas looked sideways at Marc, who was standing
silently listening, his hands jammed in his pockets.
“Well,” she said, laughing rather falsely, “we must go,
Kate. See you some time.”
Hating herself, yet unable to help it, Kate let her eyes
flicker over Marc’s dark, rigid face. Their eyes met. Hers
shrank and fell before the look in his. Then he and
Pallas had vanished and she was walking out of the
theatre with Jean-Paul.
They drove along the riverside slowly, neither in a
mood for talking. Kate hardly noticed where they drove
after that. By common consent they seemed to drift on in
the red sports car, through street after silent street.
When the car stopped Jean-Paul looked up at the
narrow house, then at her, with surprise. “Oh, I am so
sorry, Kate—I have brought you to my own apartment
by mistake.” He grimaced. “And it is an error, I assure
you, not a trick.”
She smiled. “I’m sure it is, Jean-Paul.” Then she
looked at her watch and gasped in horror. “Good
heavens, look at the time! It’s two o’clock! What will the
Murrays think? I haven’t got a key. I’ll have to knock
them up.”
He exclaimed apologetically, “It is my fault! I forgot
the time! I am so sorry. But look, come in for a cup of
chocolate before you go. I am too tired to think properly
but too depressed to think of sleep The Murrays will
understand. After all, one is not in Paris for nothing!
They will make assumptions, yes, but charitable ones!”
She hesitated. She did not suspect him of any ulterior
motive, but she was wary of all men at the moment.
Then she shrugged. Why not? She, too, was too
depressed for sleep.
She followed Jean-Paul up into the old-fashioned lift
and they whined slowly upwards, coming to a stop with a
shudder of machinery. He unlocked a door along the dark
corridor and stood back to let her enter.
It was an elegant apartment, very obviously that of a
man, yet furnished, she suspected, with the help of
Marie-Louise. The curtains and carpets were of a
traditional French Empire style. There were delicate
pieces of porcelain along the white and gold mantelshelf.
But the furniture was solid and masculine and fitted
oddly with the more feminine furnishings.
Jean-Paul gestured her to take a seat, but she said
that she would help him make the chocolate. He led her
into the tiny kitchen and they companionably heated the
milk, talking very little.
“You were right, Kate,” he sighed. “She barely looked
at me. Well, I am finished after this. I shall ask Marc for
a job elsewhere—in England, perhaps.”
She stirred the chocolate. “Be more patient,” she
advised again. “Wait and see. Ring her in a few weeks
and ask her out. If she refuses, don’t make a thing of it—
wait and ask again.”
They carried their cups through into the sitting-room
and were just sitting down when the doorbell rang.
“Who can it be?” Jean-Paul said, staring in surprise.
“At two-thirty in the morning?”
He left Kate seated on the sofa, her head back against
the fat striped cushions. She ran her fingers wearily
through her hair. It was very untidy. Their long drive, in
the open-topped sports car, had whipped her blonde hair
into a positive birds’ nest and she had not yet had time to
comb it.
She sipped her chocolate and choked on it as she heard
the voice of the new arrival behind her. Spinning round,
with a scarlet face and wide, panic-stricken eyes, she
faced Marc.
He was grim and furious, his eyes sparking at her.
“Quite a surprise,” he drawled, jamming his hands into
his pockets. “Who would have expected to see you here at
this hour?”
“Let me explain, Marc,” stammered Jean-Paul, very
red.
Marc raised a lazy, sardonic eyebrow. “Do, by all
means. I am in the mood for fairy tales.”
Jean-Paul looked aghast. “No, no, you misunderstand!
It looks odd, I suppose, but truly ...”
“Looks odd?” Marc bit off his words with a fierce snap
of his white teeth. “You’re damned right it looks odd! Let
me guess—Kate got locked out and had to beg a night’s
lodging here? Or she couldn’t find a hotel in Paris ready
to take her?” He laughed unpleasantly. “Or would it be
more accurate to guess that this ...” he gestured around
him, “is the hotel at which she is staying?”
“I am staying at the apartment of Henry Murray,”
Kate intervened in a clear, cold voice. Her own anger had
got the better of her now. How dared Marc burst in here
with these wicked insinuations? What right had he? Just
because he led an irregular and immoral life it was no
reason to imagine everyone else was as bad.
Marc stared at her. “Henry Murray?” he repeated
blankly.
“We went for a drive,” she explained, “and were just
having a drink before we went to bed.” Then her last
words echoed in her brain and, with a feeling of hot panic,
she added hastily, “Before I went back to the Murray
apartment, I meant.”
Marc’s face twitched suddenly, as though he were
laughing at her. He looked at her slowly, his gaze
mocking. “You need a comb. May I?” And offered her a
comb from his inside pocket.
She knew, from the derisive smile, that he would not
believe her hair had got rumpled in the drive around
Paris. He was quite determined to believe the worst.
Jean-Paul swallowed audibly. “It is unfortunate, the
appearance we present, Marc, but you must believe me
that Kate and I ... we were not ... I mean, there is no ...”
he stammered to a silence, scarlet under Marc’s sardonic,
cynical gaze.
Kate stood up. “Oh, never mind, Jean-Paul. Let him
think what he likes. I’d better go back to the apartment, I
think. Will you drive me or shall I call a taxi?”
“At this hour?” drawled Marc. “Allow me—my car is
outside.”
“No, thank you,” she snapped, “I’d rather walk!”
He took her arm in an iron grip. “Now, don’t be
ridiculous. Why will women take these little things so
personally? Good night, Jean-Paul. By the way, are you
free tomorrow afternoon? My mother is in Paris for
shopping and would like you to take tea with her and
Pallas.”
Jean-Paul looked at him incredulously, eyes alight.
“Take tea? Why, yes, I should be delighted ... What hour?”
“Three o’clock? Good. Afterwards you might take Pallas
for a drive to Versailles. She needs some fresh air.”
Jean-Paul clasped his hands behind his back and
swallowed. “I ... yes ... I ...” he stuttered, visibly shaken.
Marc looked down at Kate, his grey eyes mocking her.
He marched her to the door and pushed her out in front of
him. She maintained a frozen silence while they were in
the shuddering, droning lift, but when they were out in
the street again, she shook his arm away.
“I’ll walk,” she announced, turning on her heel.
“Oh, no, you don’t,” snapped Marc, grabbing at her.
He pushed her into his car and slammed the door.
Rigid with fury, she stared straight ahead as he started
the car. But within minutes she realised that he was not
driving her to the Murray apartment, which was only two
streets away from Jean-Paul’s, but was heading out of