Victoria Fox - Tales Of Temptation - Rivals / Pride / Ambition

She didn’t believe that for a second either. ‘Thanks.’

‘So…’ Isaac chewed his lip, ‘…tonight?’

She scanned the cast, landing on Christopher and Nina chatting amiably while Emily lurked moodily behind. ‘What about tonight?’

‘The pub?’

‘Oh yeah. Course.’

‘Meet you at the main gate at six?’

‘Sounds good.’

Isaac grinned. She noticed what a nice smile he had.

‘OW!’ The teacup, spewing hot liquid, flew to the ground. ‘My God , how on earth do you expect me to handle boiling-point liquids and remember my lines?’

‘CUT!’

Shakily Julia deposited her silver tray, stepping forward to collect the discarded china and help stamp out the wet patch spreading through the rug.

‘You asked for the tea to be fresh, Emily,’ commented the director. Emily insisted on her scenes being as ‘real’ as possible, including props, so had commanded that if Lucinda were drinking Earl Grey, so should she be.

‘But palatable, at least!’ she snapped. Her hazel eyes landed on Julia. ‘It’s Maud Screwe’s fault. Couldn’t you have let it cool down, I don’t know, a degree , before forcing it on me?’

Julia’s mouth went dry. ‘I thought that was how you wanted it,’ she managed.

‘Well next time why don’t you bring the whole bloody kettle through and chuck it all down my dress? It’d save us the china, wouldn’t it?’

Oh, how she’d love to.

‘Let’s go again,’ intervened the director. ‘From: Remember you taught me the “Suite Bergamasque”?’

Julia retrieved the tray and took her position against the fireplace. The scene began with Lord Ackland giving Lucinda a piano lesson. When they were interrupted by Nina Tarot’s character, Vivian, Lucinda was relegated to a nearby couch to watch as the two duetted (and what a proficient pianist Christopher was!), devoured by jealousy that Julia suspected was only partly acted and clutching her too-hot tea.

Afterwards, Emily stalked off to have words with the director. Julia scratched under the cap—the cotton made her itch—and was fidgeting with a stain on her apron when she heard a deep, seductive voice enquire, ‘Are you all right?’

Christopher Fenwick was standing right there. He was talking to her .

‘Y-yes,’ she stammered. ‘Thanks.’

He placed one hand on the wall and regarded her mockingly. Julia couldn’t help but glance down. As she did, she took in his stance. Those breeches were tight .

‘Can’t think what’s got into her,’ observed Christopher, as though he were chatting to an old friend. ‘I thought it was jolly rotten the way she spoke to you.’

Julia resisted returning something catty like, I’m used to it—you should’ve seen her at school! and concentrated on removing the teastain, all the while burning with embarrassment and thinking, Why can’t I speak to him?

‘Need someone to look at that?’

‘Oh! No. I’m fine. I mean, it’ll come out—’

‘Here.’ Before she knew what was happening, Christopher had lifted her apron in his manly fingers and was inspecting it with a nail. ‘Might scratch off…’

‘Careful, Christopher, it might be catching!’

Emily joined them, quick as a snake, her eyes flashing, and laughed to make light of the horrid comment. ‘That is to say, you don’t know where it’s been .’ Julia saw her adversary stare pointedly at the maid’s costume but knew the implication concerned what—or who—was beneath it.

‘Come, come!’ she sang, looping her arm through his.

Christopher acquiesced. ‘I was seeing if I couldn’t help a lady in distress…’ He winked at Julia. ‘Sorry, what’s your name?’

‘Julia Chambers—’

But Emily had already dragged him off. Julia watched them go, anger building inside her, rising and rising like an unstoppable tide until it threatened to steal the breath from her lungs.

She would get revenge on Emily Windermere if it were the last thing she did.

Next week’s live appearance. It was meant to be.

Shopping used to be a pleasure—before she’d started getting recognised!

Of course Emily embraced the adulation, being stopped for her signature or to listen to a teenage girl rhapsodise about what an inspiration she was. Part of her job was to give back to her fans (especially after a magazine piece last month had labelled her ‘snotty’ and ‘detached’—how dare they?) and she considered herself generous to permit the intrusion, on a day like today when all she was after was a Mulberry plum leather handbag. Still, it wasn’t fair that only Emily Windermere got to enjoy Emily Windermere—aside from Christopher Fenwick, of course, who was enjoying her too.

Unable to get down to any serious retail pursuits (in Louis Vuitton she’d been chased by a furiously whispering duo to the point where she’d been afraid to use the changing rooms), she emerged from the shopping centre, adjusted her huge sunglasses against the morning light and made her way to her brand new Audi R8.

A flurry of paparazzi blocked her path.

‘Emily, are the rumours about you and Christopher Fenwick true?’

‘Do you dispute allegations you’re sleeping with a married man?’

‘Have you got a message for his wife and children?’

Managing to battle through, Emily wrenched open the driver’s side and slipped in, slamming the door behind her on the cacophony of shouts and flashing bulbs. The horde chased her to the road, aimlessly snapping, and she kept her face impassive lest the tinted windows let her down.

That was it: she’d have to get a bodyguard. Everyone who was anyone had security—she bet Nina Tarot had bloody security—and besides, when it came to this level of harassment it was surely a question of safety. The car could have crashed! Admittedly only into a bollard on its way out of the car park, but even so.

As she concentrated on steering the vehicle through a jam of west London traffic, hands shaking on the wheel, Emily realised what had vexed her. It wasn’t the paparazzi’s persecution—it was the reason for their hounding. Somehow her trysts with Christopher had shifted in the press from a teasing, sexy possibility that no one took too seriously, to an altogether more sinister and unsavoury accusation. Perhaps public feeling towards her was changing, rumbles of objection beginning to rise from the ranks. It was one thing to have people merrily speculating on a fact they couldn’t prove and another entirely to be thrusting a mic into your face and demanding you pay penance to a middle-aged woman whose husband was banging everything in sight. It made her feel like a tacky wannabe who’d slept with a married footballer.

Emily was destined for more than that. Wasn’t she?

Arriving on set half an hour later, she scanned the grounds for Christopher. He was nowhere to be seen.

‘How’s that feeling?’ asked the wardrobe girl as she tightened Emily’s bodice. There was so much boning in it she felt like she’d been gobbled up by a wild animal and was now gasping for air inside its ribcage.

‘Fine,’ she squeaked, unwilling to admit to a slow asphyxiation because that might mean she’d put on weight. Next came the painstaking arrangement of her hair, which required several hundred hairgrips and so much Elnett that had someone struck a match anywhere nearby she would have gone up in a puff of smoke.

A folded tabloid was sticking out of the stylist’s bag. Emily could make out the glaring headline—MY STEAMY NIGHT OF PASSION WITH LORD LOVE!—and Christopher’s brooding picture beneath it, alongside a busty blonde with barely anything on. Her face burned. You had to take these kiss and tell scandals with a pinch of salt, but the story was hardly outside the realms of possibility.