and backed by a large publishing firm, she had agreed to attempt to produce something a little more commercial than her usual skilful and very factual blend of historical fact and fiction.
At first, she had been thrilled with the commission. It would give her something to get her teeth into, something with a much broader scope than her usual books, but that had been before she realised what the publishers truly wanted of her. Now she was locked into a contract that demanded that the manuscript be finished and soon, and the changes Guy French was demanding …
She was not that naïve, no matter what he might think, and she had been well aware that she was expected to provide a certain sexual content to her book. Previously her books had dealt more with the historical than the personal aspect of her characters’ lives, but this time … This time her heroine, the Lady Lynsey de Frères, as a very rich ward of court, and therefore a valuable pawn in the hands of Henry the Eighth, would be expected by her readers to do more than simply acquiesce to the marriage arranged for her by Henry.
And the problem was that she knew in her heart of hearts that Guy was right.
He wanted her to be more explicit in her descriptions of the morals and manners of the times—much, much more explicit. He had even pointed out to her that the publishers had already rejected her first manuscript on the grounds that the heroine was too insipid and unreal to hold their readers’ interest. And now she was running out of time, and Helena would not be back at work for another whole month, a full week after her final manuscript was due on her publishers’ desk.
If she tried to cancel the contract now, the publishers would be legally free to sue her and, although she did not think they would do that, it would be a very black mark against her.
Where had it all gone wrong? She had been so thrilled with the original commission, and now …
‘What does Guy suggest you do?’ Lucy pressed her.
‘He wants me to have a secretary.’ She scowled again, as she had done in the taxi.
‘Well, what’s wrong with that?’ Lucy asked her, plainly at a loss to understand her reluctance. ‘I’ve thought for some time that you could do with one. You type your own manuscripts, and it must be very time-consuming …’
It was, but that was the way she preferred it. To Campion, writing was a very personal thing indeed, so personal that on some occasions she could almost feel that she was the character she was writing about, and on those occasions she didn’t want to have someone else with her, watching her, monitoring her reactions. It would make her feel so vulnerable, so … She gave a little shiver, her eyes unknowingly registering her fear.
She had lovely eyes, Lucy thought, watching her compassionately: neither green nor blue, but something in between. With a little care and thought, she could have been a very beautiful woman. They were the same age—twenty-six—and yet at a first glance Campion could have been mistaken for someone easily ten years older. Lucy itched to take charge of her—to make her throw away her hideously drab clothes, to do her face, and to get her to have her hair properly styled.
Her husband, an acute and very shrewd man, had said to her the first time she introduced him to Campion, ‘What happened to her? She’s like a plant that’s been blighted by frost.’
‘A man,’ Lucy had told him carefully. Because, after all, the story was Campion’s and not her own, and she knew how much her friend hated talking about Craig.
‘I don’t want a secretary!’ Campion exploded now. ‘I just want to be left alone to get on with my work.’
‘Well, tell Guy that,’ Lucy suggested reasonably.
‘I have, and he won’t listen. He’s insisting that I must have someone to work for me. It’s almost as though he thinks I need a gaoler, someone to keep me at work. And then there’s this tour coming up,’ she added angrily.
‘Tour?’
‘Oh, you remember. I told you about it. A small publicity tour for that book I did about Cornwall. Guy seems to think that if I can have a secretary, I can somehow manage to dictate huge chunks of the new book in between signing sessions, and she can then presumably type them up while I’m signing.’
Lucy sighed and reached out across the table to take her hand. ‘Campion, be honest, if Helena had suggested this, and not Guy, would you feel quite so strongly?’
Campion frowned and then admitted huskily, ‘I don’t know. There’s something about him that rubs me up the wrong way. I feel as edgy as a cat walking on too hot sand whenever he comes near me …’ She rubbed tiredly at her eyes. ‘I don’t like him,’ she added childishly, ‘but I don’t know why I react so strongly to him.’
I do, Lucy thought achingly, and it’s called sexual awareness, but she knew that there was no way she could say that to Campion.
Instead, she asked carefully, ‘So what do you intend to do?’
‘What can I do?’ Campion asked her bitterly, revealing how much she resented what was happening to her. ‘I have to go along with what Guy’s saying. I don’t have any option. Do you know what he told me?’ She took a deep breath, fighting for self-control as she leaned across the table, her eyes flashing fiercely, ‘He actually admitted that he was the one who advised the publishers to reject my first draft. He had the utter gall to tell me that he thought it wasn’t worthy of me—that he had seen more emotion in the writings of a seven-year-old! He told me my book was flat and boring, and that my characters, especially Lynsey, had about as much reality as cardboard cut-outs!’ Suddenly the fight left her and her eyes dulled. ‘And the worst thing is that I know he’s right. Oh, God, Lucy, why on earth did I ever take on this commission?’
‘Because it’s giving you an opportunity to stretch yourself,’ Lucy reminded her gently. ‘You wanted to do it, Campion,’ she told her.
Opposite her, Campion groaned. ‘Don’t remind me. I must have been mad! I can’t do it, Lucy. I know that I can’t.’
‘Have you told Guy this?’
Immediately her eyes darkened with anger. ‘Throw myself on his mercy? Never!’
‘Then what are you going to do?’
‘Get back to work—not here in London. Helena has a small cottage she lets her writers use. I’m going to go there … that way, Guy won’t be able to force me to have a secretary,’ she added childishly. ‘I’m going tonight. It’s in Pembroke.’
‘Wales, at this time of the year?’ Lucy shuddered. ‘We’re already into November … Which reminds me, have you any plans for Christmas? Howard and I will be going to Dorset as usual, and of course we’d love you to join us.’
Lucy had inherited, from her grandfather, a very lovely small manor house in Dorset, and she and Howard spent every Christmas there, and as much time as they could during the rest of the year.
‘Please do,’ she coaxed. ‘I’m going to need your help this year. I think I’m pregnant.’
Shortly after their marriage Lucy had suffered a very traumatic miscarriage, and since then Howard had flatly refused to even consider the idea of them trying for another child, but now it seemed he had relented.
‘Dr Harrison has finally persuaded Howard that what happened before won’t happen again, and I’m giving you fair warning here and now that I’m going to ask you to be godmother.’
Just after three, they left the restaurant, Lucy to go shopping and Campion to go back to her flat to pack for her trip to Wales.
She had been to Helena’s cottage several times before, but never to work, only as a visitor. She had never before needed the solitude it offered. Writing had always come so easily to her—writing still did, it was the emotions of her characters she was having problems with.
She packed carefully and frugally: a couple of pairs of jeans, seldom