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‘No. No, I can’t, but if you walk out of here now, Campion, that’s the end as far as I’m concerned, and you might as well throw that manuscript on the fire. Is that what you want? Do you want to quit? To give up? To admit that you simply haven’t got what it takes to…’
She went white, and swayed where she stood, her whole body filled with pain. His words came so close to the insults hurled at her by Craig. So very close that she denied them instinctively, and only realised as the pain subsided exactly what she had committed herself to.
She had committed herself to staying here and finishing her book. And Guy was making it plain that he had every intention of staying here with her.
Suddenly, she was too exhausted to argue the point any further, and besides, her pride would not allow her to back down now. He had virtually told her that he didn’t think she was capable of bringing her characters to life, and suddenly it was very, very important to her that she prove him wrong. She would finish the book, and when she had done it it would be so real, so alive, that…that… Muzzily, she touched her head. What was happening to her? She felt so weak, so drained…
‘You’re tired. Why don’t you go to bed? You can fight with me all you like in the morning.’
Why did the terse words have such an edge of rough pity? She flinched back from it instinctively, giving Guy a single baleful glance as she picked up her bag and headed for the stairs.
‘Admit it, Campion, coming here was a form of running away. A cry for help, if you like.’
The quiet words froze her on the stairs. She turned on him like an angry tigress, the cool aura of remoteness she generally projected for once gone.
‘If I was running away from anything, it was you,’ she told him furiously. ‘You and your interference in my life!’ She stopped abruptly, conscious of an odd tension in the small room. It made her skin tighten slightly, and she was intensely aware of the man watching her. ‘You’re the last person I’d cry out to for help, Guy,’ she added recklessly. ‘The very last.’
‘I see. Very well then, you must stay or go as you please, Campion, but remember one thing, if you leave here…’
‘I’ll be admitting that you’re right and that I can’t finish the book,’ she flung at him. ‘Oh, I’m not going, Guy. I’m staying, and I’m going to make you take back every insult you’ve made about my work. You wait and see.’
A strange look crossed his face, a combination of weariness and triumph, and it made her feel as though somehow she had stepped into a cleverly baited trap. But how could that be? Guy wouldn’t stay on at the cottage for very long, she assured herself as she made her way to the larger of the two bedrooms. He was a city creature; someone who fed off the bright lights and excitement the city generated; he would be bored out of his mind within a very short space of time, and then he would go and she could get on with her work in peace. Until then, she would just have to ignore him. It shouldn’t be that difficult; she had managed well enough for the last ten months. Determinedly, she ignored the small voice that reminded her that during those months she had had Helena to act as a buffer between Guy and herself.
She stalked angrily round the small room, wishing for the hundredth time that her agent had not seen fit to go into partnership with such an irritating man.
She knew that her opinion was a minority one. Everyone else seemed to think that Helena was very fortunate indeed in having as her senior partner a man whose reputation in the literary world meant that he had authors clamouring for him to represent them.
Well, she would never clamour for his services, Campion thought fiercely, and a sudden dark tide of colour washed her pale skin as she realised the significance of the double entendre conjured up by her thoughts. Guy had no permanent relationship in his life, but that did not mean that he lacked feminine companionship. Far from it! Her mouth tightened as she recalled the seemingly endless line of beautiful women who Helena had told her flocked around him.
Well, they were welcome to him, and she just wished he would take himself off back to them.
It was unfortunate that Mabel had so unwittingly told him what she was planning to do. She ground her teeth as she remembered his accusation that she was running away. From him and his threat of a secretary, yes; from her work, no—never—she loved her work.
She froze as she heard footsteps on the stairs and then a brief rap on her door. Guy opened it before she could protest, poking his head around the small gap.
‘Anything you want bringing in from your car? I take it that small carry-all isn’t the only luggage you’ve brought with you? Water’s hot, by the way, if you want a bath.’
Did he really think she was incapable of carrying her own suitcase upstairs if she wanted to?
His pseudo-concern made her feel angry. Did he really think she was stupid enough to believe he was the slightest bit concerned about her comfort? All he wanted from her was a successful book. She frowned, confused by the contradictions in her own emotions. She was tired and on edge, and he was the last person with whom she wanted to share such confined quarters as the small, remote cottage, but she had told him she was going to stay, and she wasn’t going to be the one to back down.
‘If I wanted my case, I’d go and get it,’ she told him rudely. ‘And I don’t want a bath. What I want to do is to go to bed,’ she added pointedly.
She saw his eyebrows lift, but there was nothing amused in the way he was looking at her. Rather it was a combination of weariness and pity that darkened his eyes.
Pity. She felt her own eyes grow sore and dry as he stepped back and closed the door. Her throat felt raw and her heart seemed to be beating too fast. How dared he pity her. How dared he… She undressed with rapid, almost ungainly movements, checking that he had actually gone back downstairs before she used the bathroom.
A brief wash, her teeth cleaned, and she was back in her bedroom. As she unpinned her hair, she rubbed the tension pri
ckling against her scalp. Her hair was thick and softly curly. She ought to get it cut into a short, manageable style, she thought as she brushed it. The men’s pyjamas she had bought especially for the cottage were just as warm as she had hoped, but somehow she couldn’t settle. It was all Guy’s fault, she decided bitterly, as the adrenalin continued to pump and her body refused to relax into sleep.
If only Helena had not fallen ill…or, even better, if only her agent had never agreed to go into partnership with him in the first place…
But something made her acknowledge that the faults would still remain with her book, and that they could not be laid at Guy’s door. What was she going to do? How was she going to make her heroine come alive? She forced herself to try and think about her, to imagine what her feelings would have been. Was Guy right in saying that, once she knew of the marriage Henry had arranged for her, she would have tried to overset it? Perhaps. It worried her that he seemed to have a better perception of her character’s probable behaviour than she had herself.
At last she fell asleep, but her dreams were a confused jumble of images and thoughts. In one, she saw her heroine confronting Henry and telling him that she would not marry the man of his choice; she saw her run through the corridors of his palace while Cardinal Wolsey looked on disapprovingly, and the other courtiers turned diplomatically away. She heard her throw the challenge at Henry that she would get herself with child by the first man who crossed her path, rather than marry the man of his choice. She saw Lynsey run out into the gardens, crying out her cousin’s name as she saw him sitting with a group of young men, and then she saw the dark shadow of the man who seemed to come from nowhere to impede her pathway to her cousin, snatching her up at the last moment, when she would have run into him full tilt. As he swung her round to put her on her feet, the sunlight fell across his face, striking a blaze of colours from the sword hilt at his side. He was more soberly dressed than the courtiers she was used to, and she struggled to break free; and then Campion saw his face.
She screamed a denial, her whole body shaking, as she came abruptly awake. Her bedroom was in complete darkness, the silence still and unnerving after the constant hum of London traffic. She was cold, and yet she felt breathless, as though she had been running. The flesh on her arms burned as though someone had gripped it hard. She looked down at herself, confused to see the pyjama jacket where she had expected to see rich satin and expensive lace, and then a hot flush seared her skin. In her dream, she had been Lynsey, and the man who had swept her off her feet had been Guy French. She shivered as she remembered her impulsive words to King Henry, and then shook her head in irritation. Her words… What was the matter with her? She had become involved with her characters before, but never to this extent, surely?
