Fire Under Snow (8 page)

“Jamie. Jamie Gray,” she said, her happiness at seeing Sir William again changing into pain at the memory his presence conjured up.

It was not Sir William's fault – he would be the last person to hurt her – but Jamie's face, recoiling from her in horror, lived in her mind; Jamie's voice crying in repugnance, “Oh, my God, Lorraine. No – it's no use. I can't bear to look at you,” was hauntingly close to the surface, needing little resurrection.

Remembering brought back the sensations she had experienced then. The shocked withdrawal, the icy sickness. She pressed her hands to her stomach to calm the waves of nausea. She tried to absolve Jamie by explaining, as if by doing so she might be able to understand it herself. “He couldn't help the way he acted. It was the way he was made. He never could bear anything that was abnormal. He was a natural worshipper of beauty and recoiled from anything that was ugly. I was repulsive to him. It would have been sinful of me to expect him to remain tied to me for life. He was right to run away.”

“I agree there would have been no point in his staying. He was too weak to support himself, let along give you moral courage. But I won't have the other. There is no abnormality in being scarred by fire. You were never ugly to me, even at your worst. I remember the day they brought you in, so small and lost and hurt. Even though the flesh was a sorry sight, you had the finest bone structure I'd ever seen. I made a vow to myself to use all the skill the good Lord gave me to give you back the beauty you had once known. And I have. May I?” Without waiting for her permission, he drew back the silky blonde fall of hair from her forehead. “Perfection,” he said, excitement stirring his voice. “Sheer perfection.” Then he held out his hands. She put hers trustingly in them and smiled as he inspected them minutely before lifting each hand in turn to his lips and kissing her fingers. “No one would ever believe that this skin was grafted,” he said with a proud look. “My dear, are you all right?” he asked in quick concern as he noted the bright tears in her eyes.

“I think I'm more all right than I've been for a long time. You operated on me to erase the scars, so perhaps it's fitting that you should be the one to make me take the first step out of the shadows. You're not a phony. You wouldn't tell me that I looked as good as I did before if you didn't think so. And please don't think badly of me. I must sound odiously vain.”

“On the contrary, you sound sweetly human. There's an old saying: ‘A woman without vanity is like a rose without a scent.' You are a rose
extraordinaire
. You were a little girl pretending to be a woman when we last met. You are a woman now. But I'm deviating. I asked you if you were all right, and you said yes. So why are you crying?”

“Oh, you know me. I was always too emotional.”

She stemmed the trembling of her lips. Not for anything would she tell him that he had brought back the bad memories, that for a moment she had been caught in the nightmare terror again.

“My shoulder would be honored to act as a sponge for your tears, but it's not quite the ... Yes, it is! I see the dancing has started again. How very providential that it's a waltz. My favorite dance. Impossible to gyrate to in that diabolical modern fashion. Will you give me the pleasure of partnering you on the floor, my dear?”

“I'd be delighted.” As he took her hand to lead her onto the dance floor she said, “You won't laugh, will you? I fell a little in love with you three years ago. Oh, I know it didn't mean anything and that it's traditional to indulge in fantasies of that nature. Anyway, I played a little scene in my mind where we met again years later and you asked me to dance. You're not laughing, are you?”

“No, my dear,” he said as his arm closed around her waist. “I'm not laughing. There were times when I, too, had to make myself remember the doctor-patient ethics of the situation and the fact that you were a married woman.”

She stiffened in his arms and her step faltered. “Sir William, when the dance is over I would like you to return with me to my table and stay until my friend returns. I want you to meet him. But please, don't mention that I'm married. By one of life's peculiar quirks, he has a business connection with Jamie. He doesn't know I know Jamie, let alone that I am Jamie's wife.”

“You haven't got around to telling him yet?”

“I deliberately withheld the fact from him, just as I have from everyone else. My rings were removed in hospital before the grafting could be done. I never put them back on again and I reverted to my maiden name. That part was easy. I hadn't been married long enough for me to have got used to being called Mrs. Jamie Gray.”

“I'm surprised that you are still married.” He stopped. “We can't talk about this here. Let's chance your escort's annoyance and go outside. Will you be warm enough without a wrap?” he inquired solicitously.

“Yes,” she said.

As she walked by his side she was not unconscious of the fact that he was in fine physical shape. His expensive, well-cut clothes were in the latest fashion. His age – forty-five? fifty? The pure silver of his hair made her add the years, but his youthful face suggested it might be more correct to subtract them.

“Would you consider sitting in my car with me? It's parked just here and we would be assured of privacy.”

“After all we've shared? Need you ask, Sir William?”

He had never been attracted to her in that way. If he was being flirtatious with her now, it was because he thought her ego needed the lift.

He guided her toward a silver-gray limousine, in keeping with the luxury afforded by his handsome income. Only when she was cushioned on the soft, red-leather upholstery did he pick up the conversation. “So you are still married, Lorraine?”

“Yes. I ignored your advice.”

“When I counseled you to take early steps to end the union, you replied adamantly that there was no point. You said your husband had let you down and you would never give your trust to another man. You also said you could not break the vows you had made to God. I asked if you were prohibited from seeking your freedom on religious grounds. You said no, but that your own principles barred you. Surely, by now, you have had a change of heart?”

“A change of heart, yes – and a change of mind, too. And yet, when I made my vows in church I meant them in all sincerity. I believed then, and still do, that marriage should be ‘until death do us part.' ”

“The marriage ceremony is cruelly unrealistic. It should be rewritten ‘until heartbreak do us part.' I'm deeply concerned about you, Lorraine. It's not just seeing you tonight that has jolted my mind; you have been in my thoughts for a long time. I've regretted not keeping in touch with you. I've restored the looks of many pretty girls, but you are the first one I've ever allowed myself to feel personally involved with. When you walked into the restaurant tonight, you walked back into my life. I promise not to trouble you or embarrass you; I simply want to be your friend. I won't lose track of you again. Take this card with my home address and private telephone number on it and put it away. Promise me that you will use it if you need help.”

“I promise,” she said, closing her fingers around the card.

Sir William flicked on the interior light. “Your address, please, and telephone number if you have one.”

It had the ring of a command and she obeyed, watching the hand that so firmly and precisely wielded a scalpel write the information down in a distinctive, flowing script.

He turned out the light. “I must return you or your escort will be out for my blood. One thing before we go back. I have taken dreadful liberties with your body in the course of my work. You are no longer my patient. This liberty is for me.” He bent his head and kissed her, very expertly and pleasantly, on the lips. “Medical ethics no longer apply. Only you can say whether or not that liberty was permissible.”

There was no one she owed more to or held more dear in her heart. She found his words touchingly old-fashioned and replied by returning his kiss, brushing her lips across his cheek and not his mouth. “Dear Sir William, I'm so pleased we've met again. I badly need a friend, someone I can talk to freely. So much has been bottled up in me for so long. Do you know what I mean?”

“Perfectly.” His arm removed itself from her shoulder. “Come, my dear.”

She had hoped that she might discreetly excuse herself and slip into the powder room to retouch her makeup, smooth her hair and generally remove the evidence of the emotional scene she'd had with Sir William before introducing the two men, but she saw, with a sinking heart, that Noel was already sitting at their table. As she could not let Sir William go up and introduce himself, she could only hope that she did not look as disheveled as she felt.

As she approached, bringing Sir William in her wake, her heart dropped further when she saw Noel's strained expression. His mood had been dark enough before, but it was obvious that it had suffered a sharp deterioration in the time she had been absent. The fact that Toni Carr wasn't with him made her wonder if his mission had been unsuccessful. Was the singer piqued because he hadn't arrived in time to see her performance? Had she refused to join him at his table? That could certainly account for his ill temper.

“I'd like you to meet a friend of mine,” she said as Noel rose to his feet, her expression making an appeal for him to like Sir William. No answering warmth came to his eyes, and an involuntary shiver went through her body as she said with proper deference, “Sir William, may I introduce Noel Britton to you? Noel – Sir William Vane. Sir William is one of our most eminent surgeons in the field of plastic surgery. I owe the fact that I am not badly scarred to him.”

“Your own healthy skin did more to aid your recovery than I did,” he said before turning to Noel. “How do you do?”

Sir William had a penetrating way of looking at a person, perhaps something to do with the nature of his work, as if he were stripping away the face that was presented to him and probing what lay underneath. It could be disturbing.

Not only did Noel meet the shrewd blue eyes unflinchingly, but Sir William's scrutiny was matched with equal keenness as he extended his hand. “How do you do, sir? Will you join us?”

His manner was too civil, too formal. She didn't know what it did to Sir William, but it chilled her.

“I have already been absent from my own party for too long,” Sir William said pleasantly enough, despite the slight frown which touched his brow.

It was not the happiest of remarks, because it drew attention to the fact that she had been absent for the same length of time. The narrowing of Noel's eyes told her that the same thought had gone through his mind.

“Then surely a few more moments will make little difference one way or the other?” he said.

The words were all right; it was the tone that was wrong. This was no friendly entreaty but a command. Didn't he appreciate the importance of Sir William's position?

She didn't think Sir William would bend, even to a will as strong as Noel's, but she was wrong.

He nodded and said, “That makes sense.”

Noel snapped his fingers to alert a circulating waiter and had an extra chair brought over. He detained the waiter while he inquired what Sir William would have to drink.

“Thank you, that is most kind. However, I can't let you have your own way in this,” Sir William replied, the charm of his smile sufficient to eradicate the offense which Noel might have taken at the refusal. “I am abstaining this evening because I am in the operating theater tomorrow, but please don't let me spoil your pleasure. Order for yourselves.”

“Far be it from me to lead you into bad ways,” Noel drawled, conceding the point, but not in a nice way.

There was a hint of mockery in his voice that scorned such worthiness, but, to Lorraine's mind, it did not ring true; Noel was moderate in such things himself. He was a social drinker. The well-stocked bar he kept was for the entertainment of his associates and friends, and he made it a golden rule never to touch liquor while conducting business because he believed in the virtue of keeping a clear head.

“What will you have, Lorraine? Your usual?”

Under normal circumstances she would have said yes and let him order a bitter lemon for her, knowing that he would order wine with their meal, but she was finding enough bitterness to swallow in the way he was talking down to Sir William.

She said sharply, “Nothing for me just now, thank you.”

Noel's left eyebrow lifted derisively. “It seems that I am drinking alone. I always think solitary drinking is so decadent,” he said, his mouth closing in relish round each word before turning to the waiter. “A whisky and American dry.”

Had they been on their own, she would have said, “Why not make it a double? What's decadence if it's not doubled?”

Had he lifted the thought from her mind? With sickening clarity she heard him instruct the waiter, “Make that a double.”

She knew that his eyes were challenging her to comment. She tightened her mouth. The situation was bad enough as it was. She didn't want Sir William to get caught in the crossfire of their angry words.

Sir William said blandly, maybe trying to smooth things over but really making them worse, “You didn't get here in time to see the show?”

There was a taut silence. Then Noel's lips parted in a brittle, barbed smile. “Unfortunately, no. We were ... delayed.”

The studied pause, deliberately inserted to revive in her mind the reason for the delay, brought the shameful rush of color to her cheeks.

Ignoring Noel, aiming at normality, she said, “Was Toni Carr good, Sir William?”

“The audience thought so, and I must admit she's not hard on the eyes and she has quite a pleasant voice.”

“It was unfortunate we couldn't get here sooner ...” Her voice trailed off. It might be imprudent to say that Noel was thinking of signing Miss Carr up. Perhaps these things were conducted in secrecy.