AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Thinking about it now, lying in bed in her lonely hotel room, Katy recognised that it was only because her emotions had been frozen in shock that she had managed to carry it off. It had taken her months to get over the pain, and tonight she had been forced to realise that she had not really succeeded.
Jake had written to her in Paris, having got her address from her father. At first she'd forced herself to reply with a few lines extolling her life in France to reinforce her explanation for leaving him. But after a few weeks she'd deliberately composed a 'dear John' letter, telling him she had met a young student and Jake had been right all along—he was too old for her.
To her amazement he had replied with an eloquent letter—he was deeply disappointed, but understood, and hoped they could remain friends. From then on flowers had arrived for her birthday and Christmas, plus a few postcards in between. She was hoist with her own petard. There had not been a thing she could do about it without confessing the real reason for leaving him. Two years later, not long after her first appearance on the cover of Vogue, Jake had appeared in Paris. She'd had no excuse not to meet him, but she'd chosen her ground carefully, arranging to see him at Anna's house along with Anna's husband and Claude.
She had played the party girl and dashing young model for all she was worth. He had asked about the young man. 'Which one?' she had taunted, while clinging to Claude's arm. Jake had been furious.
But still when4ie'd caught her on her own he had again asked her to marry him. She had laughed in his face, and told him Claude would not like it.
'And you said I was too old—what the hell do you call him?' Jake had snarled. His rage had been terrible to witness and finally he had stormed off in disgust, calling her nothing better than a whore.
She had never seen him again until tonight, and it was obvious Jake's perception of her had not changed. Perhaps it was just as well, she thought fatalistically. Jake still had the power to hurt her, but only if she let him.
The last few years had given her confidence, and now she perceived herself as a successful, mature young woman, not a naive young girl. The men she had met in the modelling world had reinforced her firmly held belief that no man could be trusted. Wryly she admitted her father looked a saint compared to some of the men she had met. Yawning widely, she burrowed down under the covers, and finally as the light of dawn flickered across the sky she fell into a troubled sleep.
'Katy, girl, it is good to see you back where you belong.' Her father sighed contentedly and settled back in the big winged armchair, a coffee-cup in his hand. 'Looking at you sitting there, I can't see any trace of Lena Lawrence, the celebrity. I never asked, but do you expect me to call you Lena?'
'No, Dad, of course not.' She smiled and stretched her long jeans-clad legs out in front of her, allowing her head to fall back on the soft cushion of the sofa. It had been much easier than she had imagined, coming back to her father's house, though she had been shocked at the change in him. When she had left he had been a handsome middle-aged man with a slightly thickening waistline. Now he was very much overweight and looked every one of his sixty years.
They had shared a splendid lunch of roast beef, and were now relaxing in the drawing-room with a pot of coffee. 'In fact, Dad, that's what I wanted to talk to you about—Lena Lawrence.'
'I can't pretend I was pleased to see your picture plastered over the hoardings, or the gossip about you in the newspapers, but I suppose it all goes with the territory. I never thought my little girl would be such a great success. It took some getting used to, I can tell you.'
'Well, it's all over now, Dad. Lena Lawrence has officially retired, as from yesterday. From this day forward I intend to be myself: Katy Meldenton.'
'You've retired! At your age...!' he exclaimed. Katy laughed out loud at the look of astonishment on his face, but she quickly sobered when she realised her father was not amused. In fact as she studied his flushed face she got the distinct impression that he was avoiding looking at her.
'You don't want to be too hasty, Katy. There must be a lot of money to be made in your profession. Why, it could lead to films, television—the sky is the limit.'
'Yes, so I've been told, but I already have enough to buy an apartment and still keep some change in the bank. Your trusteeship has ended now, Dad, and, well, I intend taking up my seat on the board of Meldenton.' There was no mistaking the shock on her father's face at her words. 'But more importantly I want a job. I would like to be a designer, as Mum was when you first met her.'
Her father tried to talk her out of the idea, but by the time she left to return to her hotel Katy had won. The following day she checked out of the hotel and took a taxi to her father's home.
Tears sparkled in her large green eyes as she looked around her old bedroom. It was stupid, she knew; as a teenager she had not particularly cared for the large Georgian town house. But now she realised she had missed it. Her bedroom was unchanged—the same single bed, the pretty pink and white flowered colour-scheme she had picked herself. It was all so familiar. She brushed the moisture from her eyes with the back of her hand. How often she had lain in this room dreaming of Jake...
No. She was not going to think of him. That part of her life was over, and tomorrow she was going with her father to the factory, and the start of a new lifestyle.
The Meldenton family business had started with the china clay works in Cornwall in the middle of the seventeenth century. By the middle of the eighteenth century one of her ancestors had decided, rather than just shipping the clay to the porcelain factories of London, he would start up his own factory on the banks of the Thames. It was to be the turn of the nineteenth century before the factory became a reality, and by 1850 Meldenton porcelain ranked alongside anything the Imperial Potteries of Lambeth could produce.
Katy could remember her grandfather taking her to the British Museum, and showing her a flask marked 'Stephen Green, Imperial Potteries, Lambeth' and bearing the cipher of Queen Victoria. It was then he had explained the history of Meldenton. His own father had trained with Green before working in Meldenton.
Katy thought about the past in an attempt to banish her nervousness at the prospect of starting her new job. The next day her father drove the car through the London traffic with the skill of long practice, and when he finally parked she looked around her in amazement. The factory she had remembered as huge now appeared as a dingy place trapped between two large high-rise apartment blocks.
She turned to her f
ather. 'What happened?' she asked.
'Nothing for you to worry about, Katy. About four years ago I diversified into the construction industry; these are part of the company.'
Katy might have asked more, but her father stopped the car and with almost indecent haste jumped out. Two months later she was to wish she had...
The early-morning sun glittered on the Thames, turning the slowly flowing water to a stream of shimmering gold. Katy drained her cup of coffee and replaced it on the window-sill. It was a perfect late-October morning and the leaves on the young trees planted at the front of the apartments were already blanketing the ground in a carpet of orange and red. She had moved into the apartment two weeks ago, having bought it from the family firm. It was in an ideal position—she could walk to work in two minutes.
Work. A contented sigh escaped her. In a brief eight weeks she had succeeded beyond her wildest dreams. The men on the factory floor had passed the odd comment, and at the same time speedily removed one of her advertising posters from the canteen wall. But their curiosity had soon fizzled out when they realised she was serious about her work.
She had persuaded her father to let her try her hand at designing, and he had agreed but insisted she try the other departments as well. The first week, instead of going straight into the office, she had started with one of the decorators in the factory.
The glazed china was decorated by using transfers of ceramic enamel covered with a plastic coating stuck on to backing sheets. The decorator's job was to soak them in water and lift them carefully from the backing, and then skilfully slick them into position on the china, rubbing them down to remove any bubbles.
