know, who saw her as some strange creature imbued with magical powers. Gifted—or should that be cursed?—with a talent they daren’t even dream of having. They looked at her as if she was somehow different from them. As if she were an alien from outer space. Something to be studied and discussed and dissected. But not human. Never human.
What she wouldn’t give for one person on this planet to see past the tutus and the pointe shoes.
More than once she had to change direction when a gap between bodies closed up. Eventually, she just stood still and waited. Chasing the holes in the crowd was impossible; she would wait for the tide of bodies to shift once again and let the gaps come to her. Her stillness, however, was just another way to mark herself out from the other guests.
All around her people were celebrating. It had taken an army of people months to prepare for this night, and now they’d pulled it off their relief and joy was spilling out of them in smiles and laughter and excited conversation.
But Allegra felt nothing.
No joy. No bubbling. Nothing inside desperate to spill out of her.
Except, maybe, a desire to scream.
It was funny, really. For a few years now she’d wondered what would happen if one day she did exactly that. What would they all do if the habitually reserved Allegra Martin planted her feet in the centre of the room and split the hubbub with a scream that had forced its way up from the depths of her soul?
The look on their faces would be priceless.
She treasured this little fantasy, because it had got her through more stuffy cocktail parties, lunches and benefits than she cared to count. Only it didn’t seem quite as funny any more, because tonight she felt like making the fantasy a reality. She really felt like doing it for real. In fact, the urge was quickly becoming irresistible, and that was scaring her.
She had to start moving again, keep walking at all costs, even if she ended up momentarily heading away from her father, because she feared that if she paused, that if her two feet stayed grounded for long enough, she might just do it.
Despite her meandering progress across the Floral Hall, she had almost reached her father now. He hadn’t noticed her silent zig-zagging approach, however, because he was deep in conversation with the Artistic Director. She heard her name mentioned briefly above the din of the party. Neither man looked happy.
Had she done badly tonight? Had she let them all down? The thought made the panic racing inside her torso double its speed. And that internal momentum had a strange effect: just as she was on the verge of stepping into the circle of their conversation, a gap opened up to her right and, instead of ploughing forward and greeting her father, she took it.
Bizarrely, she found that once she’d started going in that direction she couldn’t stop. Not until she’d left the crush of the party far behind, not until she’d run down the minimalist wooden staircase at full pelt, leaving her warm champagne glass on the flat banister at the top, not until she was standing in the foyer. She rushed past the cloakrooms to the large revolving door and moments later she was amidst the pillars and cobbles of Covent Garden, the cold night air soothing her lungs.
But she didn’t run any further; she stood there, blinking.
What was she doing?
She couldn’t leave yet. She couldn’t escape.
Her father would be waiting for her. There were senior staff and investors and a minor Royal waiting to greet her.
No, her body said. Enough. And she was inclined to agree with it.
Now that the adrenalin high from the performance had evaporated, she ached all over. She’d been up since six, had done class this morning and then had spent most of the afternoon making last-minute changes to a pas de deux with her partner, Stephen, that the choreographer had insisted were essential. And the performance that had seemed so light and ethereal on the outside had been gruelling beyond belief.
She stood still for a few seconds, closed her eyes. Trap the breath then let it out slowly…smoothly.
Unfortunately, a sense of duty was hardwired into a dancer’s psyche.
When she had finished pushing the carbon dioxide out through her clenched teeth she opened her lids again.
And then the ballerina turned, with all the grace expected of her, and let the revolving door coax her back inside, let its momentum almost propel her back up the stairs and into the crowded bar. Her glass, full of warm and flat champagne, was waiting for her on the banister and she retrieved it before pulling herself up tall and losing herself in the tangle of bodies.
Allegra cranked open an eyelid and focused half-heartedly on the digital clock by her bedside. Definitely way too late still to be awake. Or should that be way too early to get up?
Ugh. Who cared?
She always got this way after an opening night—too tired, too excited, too aware of the reviews only hours away now in the morning editions.
Knowing she’d only get even more grumpy if she lay there in the dark chasing sleep, she fumbled on the bedside cabinet for the TV remote and then pointed it into the darkness. A bluish light flooded the room. She squinted and drummed repeatedly on the volume button, hushing the garish advert for oven cleaner. She didn’t want to wake her father.
She changed the channel a dozen times. And then a dozen times more.
There really was nothing on at this time in the morning, was there? Unless you counted infomercials, ‘channel off-air’ graphics and lengthy documentaries about long-forgotten prog rock bands. She carried on changing channels until she lost count, and she was just about to give up and turn the TV set off when the image replacing the previous one caused her thumb to freeze above the button.
A pair of crinkling brown masculine eyes. And a killer smile to match.
She held her breath. Then she looked towards her bedroom door and quickly back again to the television. Without tearing her eyes from the screen, she pressed down hard on the volume button until the noise from the set was only just audible, turning the subtitles onto compensate. And then, finally, she let out the air she’d been holding captive in her mouth.
Finn McLeod. My, he was gorgeous!
All rugged male energy, with a glint of adventure in his eyes.
His dark hair, that never seemed to sit quite right, flopped over one side of his forehead and a smile stretched his stubble-studded jaw. She’d had no idea they were showing late-night reruns of Fearless Finn. Just as well, really, because if she’d known she could have watched him jumping into rapids and hanging off mountains by his fingertips all night long, she might have done just that. Unfortunately, a sleep-deprived ballerina at the Royal Opera House would not have gone down well.
Sometimes, she thought, as she tugged an extra pillow from beside her and stuffed it behind her shoulders, she felt so old. That wasn’t right at twenty-three, was it? But she felt as if she’d been riding the same unrelenting merry-go-round of classes, rehearsals and performances for so long that her life had sped up, and she’d aged faster than she should have done. It was hardly surprising that, deep down, she longed for something fresh, something new.
Her gaze returned to the screen, where Finn McLeod, in his gorgeous, rolling Scottish accent, was explaining how to find food if one was unlucky enough to be stranded in the mountains.
She smiled. Really grinned. See? She’d never realised there were tiny little seeds inside pine cones that could be prised out and eaten.
Or had she?
She supposed she had. She had pine nuts on her pasta all the time. It was just that she’d never connected the tree on the mountainside with the tiny packet on the supermarket shelf, never thought about what bit of the tree the nut came from or how it could be harvested.
And that was why she loved watching Fearless Finn. It reminded her she was young, that there was so much of