The Royals Collection. Rebecca Winters

       And now, instead of running somewhere to hide, she had to smile as though she meant it and say with as much composure as she could to the woman standing with the Duchess, ‘Melanie, how lovely to see you again.’

       Melanie Trinders had been a close friend of her mother. They had modelled together, and Melanie had been a regular visitor to their home.

       Lily had tried to sound cool and slightly remote, but her attempt to put some emotional distance between them had no effect whatsoever on her mother’s old friend. Lily was immediately embraced—wrapped, in fact—in the warmth of expensive cashmere and even more expensive scent, and subjected to a fond continental exchange of kisses before being held at arm’s length by the elegant and still beautiful late middle-aged woman dressed in a scarlet designer dress that fitted her model-svelte figure like a glove.

       ‘To think that when you invited Harry and me here tonight I had no idea that your guest of honour was going to be my dear Petra’s daughter. And such a clever and beautiful daughter. Petra would have been so proud of you, Lily. Proud of you and happy for you,’ she emphasised, giving Marco a meaningful look before turning back to Lily. ‘Emotional happiness was always so important to your mother. I could never understand what she meant about the importance of love until I met my Harry.’

       Smiling at the Duchess, she told her friend, ‘Carolina, this is such a wonderful coincidence. Lily’s mother was one of my closest friends. We modelled together.’ She gave a small sigh. ‘A lifetime ago now. Petra was younger than me, and such a lovely girl.’

       Melanie turned back to Lily, still holding her hands. ‘Lily, you are the image of her. I remember when you were born. Your father was still furious with your mother for having a baby. He didn’t even go to see her when she was in hospital—just as though he had nothing at all to do with your arrival into the world. He bullied her dreadfully to lose weight, of course, so that she could go back to modelling.’

       ‘Your mother was a model?’ Marco demanded, his mistrust and suspicion returning along with his angry contempt. If Lily’s mother had been a model that meant she would have even more cause to know just what could happen to the unwary—and yet she had still tried to inveigle his nephew into it. The loathing he felt for the kind of people who had brought about Olivia’s destruction surged through Marco’s veins.

       ‘Not just a model, but the model of her time—just as Lily’s father was the photographer of his generation. I’m not surprised to hear from Carolina that you use photography in your own work, Lily. I can still remember watching you playing in your father’s studio as a little girl. Even then you preferred taking photographs rather than being in them. Your father was a genius with the camera and a wonderful success in the fashion world.’ She looked at Marco. ‘Given your relationship with Lily, though, I’m sure that she will have told you that whilst her father was brilliantly successful as a photographer he was a disastrous husband and father. I understand his second marriage broke up as well, Lily?’

       Melanie had obviously taken Marco’s fixed concentration on what she was saying as a sign that he wanted to hear more, Lily decided miserably. Because without waiting for Lily to answer she continued, ‘I can remember going into the studio and seeing Lily playing there on the floor. You were such a sweet-natured, pretty child, Lily, and you could have been the perfect child model. No wonder Anton wanted all those pictures of you.’

       Champagne nearly spilled from Lily’s glass as she made a sudden rejecting movement she couldn’t control. Her hand was trembling uncontrollably, her stomach heaving with sick dread, and she looked towards the door, desperate to escape.

       Something was wrong. Something was very wrong, Marco was forced to recognise, and the rebellion within him rose up and totally overwhelmed the weakened force of his determination to remain distant from Lily. It was that rebellion and not he himself that had him moving towards her, putting himself between her and the others to shield her, taking hold of her arm to steady her, taking charge and obliterating any resistance. Lily looked numbly at him, like a hunted, tormented creature in fear for its life, caught in a car’s headlights.

       ‘Anton liked photographing her, then, did he?’ the rebellion in him asked conversationally, mercilessly silencing what he thought of as his real self when it tried to protest that it didn’t want to get involved.

       ‘Oh, yes,’ Melanie agreed. ‘He always said she had real model potential…’

       Lily struggled to subdue the sound of protest and anguish rising in her throat. She looked ill, Marco recognised. Bruised and defeated and agonised.

       ‘I was so sorry when I heard about your mother’s death, Lily,’ Melanie added in a much more sombre voice. ‘Such a dreadfully sad thing to happen.’

       ‘She was never able to come to terms with her divorce from my father,’ Lily responded in a strained voice, somehow managing to drag herself back from the edge of the dark, greedy chasm of fear that had opened up at her feet.

       The other woman patted her arm and then excused herself, explaining, ‘I must go—my husband will be looking for me. Stay in touch, Lily darling.’

       The Duchess too had moved away to talk to another guest, leaving Lily alone with Marco in their own little pool of silence.

       Marco was still looking at her, even though he had now released her arm, and Lily could imagine what he was thinking. Draining her glass, she turned to him and spoke in an empty voice.

       ‘My mother committed suicide—drink and prescription drugs. Oh, yes,’ she added fiercely when he didn’t speak, ‘I do know what the modelling business can do to those who are too vulnerable for its cruelty. I’ve experienced it at first hand. That’s why…’

       Without waiting to see what his response was she stepped past him and walked away, her head held high and half blinded by the tears she knew she dared not shed. She didn’t stop in her headlong flight until she realised that she’d lost her way and was in a small ante-room, thankfully all on her own. She wanted fresh air—fresh air and privacy—and the self-indulgence of crying for a mother and a childhood that were long gone. But she wasn’t here to indulge herself, she reminded herself sharply. She was here to work. But the floodgates had been opened and there was no holding back the memories now.

       CHAPTER EIGHT

      SHE knew who the hands on her shoulders belonged to without needing to turn round.

       Marco. It couldn’t be anyone else.

       And the reason she knew was because…because she would know him anywhere. Because with her emotions exposed to the painful air of recognition by Melanie’s revelations she had committed the worst self-injury of all. Because there were no other hands she wanted to hold her, only his.

       When had her emotions become entangled with her desire for him? When had they melded together to create the most eternally binding human cord of all? Love. Ah, how the mere thought of it threatened pain. She couldn’t love Marco. He was turning her round and wrapping his arms around her, holding her as carefully as though she might break. Out of pity, she told herself fiercely. Out of pity—nothing else. And pity wasn’t what she wanted from him. She knew that now. She tried to break free but he wouldn’t let her go

       ‘You’re right,’ she told him, as though he had made the statement. ‘I’m here to work, not to behave like a silly fool who can’t control her emotions.’

       The rebellion that had begun as a small protest he could easily control had become a raging force for change within him, directing him into responses that should have felt awkward and unwelcome but which instead seemed to come fatally easily. It seemed the most natural thing in the world for him to demand, in a voice that was low and rough with something that could have been self-condemnation, ‘Why didn’t you tell me any of this before.’

       ‘Tell you what? Tell you that my father was a photographer? Tell you that my mother was a model? Tell you that between