Before the Dawn Read online

  “We’re having dinner with Freret tonight. Why don’t you come with us?” Lora asked.

  “Oh, no, I wouldn’t want to interrupt a business meeting.”

  “That’s no problem.” King made a dismissive gesture. “I figure having Lora along will help sell Claude on the idea. You’d just make it twice as good. What director could turn down the chance to work with women like you?”

  Alyssa smiled and shook her head. “No, really, I can’t. I cabled my father that I was coming today and made a date with him for dinner tonight. I’d love to another day.”

  “Sure. And, listen, why don’t we go shopping together?” Lora suggested. “I need your advice. Your taste is better than mine.”

  “I know that’s not true,” Alyssa responded. “But I’d love to shop with you. Tomorrow?”

  “Yeah. That’d be great. The sooner, the better. See you tomorrow morning.” As Lora and King walked away, she tossed back over her shoulder, “If you change your mind about dinner tonight, just call. We’d love for you to come along.”

  “I’ll remember that. Good-bye.”

  As soon as Alyssa checked into her room, she rang the operator and asked for the American embassy, then sat down to wait, knowing from previous experience with the French telephone system that it could be quite a while before her call went through.

  However, when the call at last came through, it was not her father on the other end of the line, but his secretary. “I’m sorry, Miss Lambert. He’s not here. A meeting came up out of town, and he called yesterday to say he wouldn’t be able to return to Paris for another two days. He asked me to apologize when you called. He said he would get in touch with you as soon as he returns.”

  “Oh. Thank you.” Alyssa set the ornate receiver back on its pedestal.

  She wasn’t surprised that her father’s business had come before her; it came before everything. When she was a child, she had blamed her mother for her parents’ split-up, but as she grew up she began wonder if it wasn’t as much or more her father’s devotion to his “duty” that ruined their marriage; perhaps it even caused her mother’s problems. With the world in the political mess it was, she knew her father would be terribly busy; why else would Roosevelt’s chief troubleshooter in the State Department be here? Still, it disappointed her, as it always had.

  With a sigh, Alyssa stood up and walked over to the window to look out. Now what was she to do the rest of the day?

  She could choose a dress for dinner this evening and hang it out to be pressed. Lie down and rest from the trip. When she got up she could take a long, soothing bath, touch up her nails, put on new makeup. It was easy to waste an afternoon that way. But what about this evening? It stretched out long and lonely in front of her.

  She picked up the phone again. “I’d like to leave a message for Kingsley Gerard, please. Tell him: ‘I accept. Alyssa.’”

  *****

  When Philippe Michaude entered Maxim’s, he was greeted with a smile. The maître d’ immediately escorted him past the others who waited and through the cloth-covered tables to one with an excellent view of the room. A man was already seated there, and he stood at Michaude’s approach.

  “Ah, Philippe. Good to see you.”

  “Jean-Louis.”

  Philippe sat down with his back against the wall, looking over the spread of tables, and accepted the glass of wine which the other man poured for him. “Delicious.”

  “Trying to befuddle your sense,” Jean-Louis said with a faint smile, “so you’ll leap to put your money into my film.”

  Philippe raised an eyebrow. He had a cool, rather inexpressive face, made even more so by the light green color of his eyes. His features were sharp and straight, the skin stretched tightly over prominent cheekbones. His eyebrows were coal black, narrow slashes above his eyes, and his thick hair was equally black. He was considered handsome by most women; there was an elemental appeal to the apple-green eyes, fringed as they were by thick black lashes, and to the careless way his hair fell across his forehead. Tall and lean, well-dressed, with an air of sophistication that was close to cynicism, he was bright and talked easily and well; when he wanted to, he could be charming. Given the right situation, he could be equally cold and hard.

  “Are you saying that I’d enter into your venture only if I were befuddled?” he asked now, his low voice teasing and lazy.

  Jean-Louis threw up horrified hands. “Philippe, please! A joke, only a joke. It is an excellent investment.”

  Philippe shrugged. “The last film was. I made a nice profit.”

  Jean-Louis smiled, remembering. “Didn’t we all? Ah, I wish they were all so easy.”

  “Put an actress like Louise Mignot in them, and they will be, I imagine.”

  Jean-Louis gave an extravagant sigh of admiration. “She is beautiful, no?”

  “Beguiling.” Philippe touched his face at the corner of his mouth. “It is the beauty mark here that does it. Irresistible.” Suddenly he grinned. “Until you try to talk to her, at least.”

  The other man snorted with laughter. As an investor in Jean-Louis’ last film, Philippe had attended a party at the studio, where Louise had sought him out. Jean-Louis had been surprised later to see Philippe leave the party alone, and he had learned a few days later that Mademoiselle Mignot was livid because the wealthy backer had turned down the hinted offer of her favors. Philippe’s refusal was evidence of Michaude’s intelligence; Louise as a vacant-headed, selfish harpy. But intelligence was one quality men usually didn’t demonstrate around Louise.

  “You like the cinema? The business?” Jean-Louis asked casually.

  Philippe smiled faintly. “I enjoyed it, yes. A nice diversion. It was amusing to be on the fringes of it. Cinema is a world to itself. Too emotional for one to spend one’s whole life in it. But I wouldn’t mind continuing to invest.”

  “Good. I suspect you’ll find it as irresistible as Mademoiselle Mignot’s beauty mark.”

  “Ah, but I resisted that,” Philippe reminded him, his eyes amused. Philippe Michaude had struggled his way to the top in the razor-sharp world of business, rising from a poor boy on the streets of Lyons doing odd jobs for a few centimes to the owner of one of the largest businesses in France. Compared to that world, the cinematic industry seemed a fantasy, a confection—intriguing, but too shifting and uncertain, too dependent on the vagaries of human nature to make it one’s life. Still, he couldn’t deny its pull; it held the thrill of gambling. And the boy from the streets still liked a little spice of adventure in his life.

  A solicitous waiter took their order, and the two men settled back in their chairs. Philippe lit a cigarette and let his eyes drift over the room.

  “Have you looked at the script I sent you?” Jean-Louis asked.

  “Yes. He is a good writer. The script isn’t the problem. You know that.”

  “Unfortunately, yes. A script can be fixed. I can’t do anything about a war.”

  “Everything is uncertain. It’s not a good time to invest in an entertainment that will take several months to develop.”

  “No more than four.”

  “Who knows what France will be doing in four months?”

  “Even in a war, people will still want to go to the cinema.”

  “Perhaps.”

  “I don’t know anything about wars—or business, really. But I know cinema.” Jean-Louis sighed. “My studio is beginning to thrive—this crazy war comes at the worst time possible.”

  “Yes, it’s too bad the generals didn’t take your career into account,” Philippe said drily. He glanced toward the doorway and froze. His cigarette burned unheeded between his fingers. All around the room heads turned to look at the group of four people who had just entered.

  One of the men was small, with a bald head and a bobbing way of walking; he looked faintly familiar to Philippe. The other man was larger, though not tall, and an aura of power clung to him. He was obviously American, a
s was one of the women, a petite attractive blonde—an American cinema star everyone recognized. But Philippe hardly noticed her. It was the assured dark-haired woman beside her who caught his attention.

  She was taller than the blonde, and her figure in the long, black sequined Chanel evening gown was slim, with full, soft breasts. The black satin dress caressed her white skin, shimmering with the same dark life as her hair, which hung down to her shoulders, curling under slightly at the ends. Philippe couldn’t see the color of her eyes from where he sat, only that they were large and expressively beautiful. Her face glowed with color; it was perfectly, delicately formed. Her mouth was soft and vulnerable. She smiled at something the powerfully built man said, revealing small, even, white teeth. Philippe felt as if he’d been hit in the solar plexus.

  “Who is that woman?” he asked softly. His cigarette burned his fingers, and he glanced at it as if surprised to find it there. He stubbed it out.

  Jean-Louis glanced at Philippe in surprise. “Lora Michaels. The American—“

  “No, not her. The other one. The beauty.”

  Jean-Louis cast an intrigued glance at Philippe and turned back to the party crossing the room. “I’m not sure. She looks familiar.”

  “She’s American, too?” Lora Michaels obviously was, despite the French clothes. But the other woman moved with an elegance and poise that spoke little of nationality.

  “I think so. The little man is Claude Freret, the director.”

  “Yes. I thought I had seen him before. Who is the other man?”

  “Kingsley Gerard. He owns Royal Studios.”

  “Ah. Even I have heard of Royal Studios. Do you think she is his mistress?”

  Jean-Louis looked amused. “Gerard is married to Lora Michaels, and I don’t think she’s so complaisant a wife as to take his mistress with them to Maxim’s.”

  “She couldn’t be with Freret.”

  Jean-Louis chuckled. “Of course not. She’s the wrong sex for him. She was probably brought along to be a companion for him. For show, you know.”

  “I’ve seen her somewhere before.” Philippe tracked her every move, noting the exquisite grace of her gestures. He wondered if she was, perhaps, a dancer. But, no, she didn’t have the cold distance of a ballerina.

  “At the cinema, I suspect. I’m almost positive she’s been in an American film. But I can’t remember…” Jean Louise rubbed his chin. “A Lora Michaels film; that was it. Weekend Wife.”

  “Yes, of course. I saw it. She was the other woman, the femme fatale.”

  “Yes.” Suddenly Jean-Louis’ brow cleared. “Lambert. Alyssa Lambert. I knew I’d remember it eventually.”

  “She is more beautiful than in that movie.” He remembered even then she had been quite enchanting. Her voice was beautiful, rich and low, soft in a way that drew one in.

  “Yes. Some women are that way. Not photogenic.”

  A small smile touched Philippe’s lips. “She certainly took my mind off Lora Michaels. I remember thinking I would rather have the siren, claws and all.”

  Jean-Louis watched Philippe. He hadn’t taken his eyes off Alyssa. “I know Claude Freret,” Jean-Louis said.

  Philippe looked at Jean-Louis and smiled faintly, his green eyes narrowed and glittering. “Good. I have a sudden desire to meet him.”

  *****

  Alyssa enjoyed the meal. The food was delicious, Lora was fun to be with, and it was amusing to watch Kingsley Gerard lock horns with someone as stubborn as himself. Claude Freret was a small man and seemed mild; Alyssa’s first impression was that King would roll right over him. But when it came to taking Gerard’s offer, Freret had no difficulty crossing one of the most powerful men in Hollywood.

  “No. No. No,” he said, shaking his head with each word for emphasis, and no matter how many times King came back to the subject or expressed it differently, Claude’s answer was the same. He couldn’t possibly leave France.

  Alyssa watched King’s anger and frustration building despite his supreme effort to keep it under control and maintain a pleasant face. Out of the corner of her eye she could see Lora glancing around the room, an air of unconcern on her face, but Lora’s lips kept twitching, and she sucked her lower lip between her teeth. Alyssa knew that Lora was avoiding looking at her for fear she would burst out laughing. It was funny to see this little man obstruct the mighty Kingsley Gerard.

  But she wondered how Lora could be so amused when she would be the one who would have the job of calming King down tonight after they returned to the hotel—but, then, maybe calming King down had its rewards. Alyssa wondered, not for the first time, if Lora loved Gerard. The consensus was that Gerard was so crazy in love with Lora that she’d have been insane not to marry him. No one would have passed up that kind of power and prestige. But, watching them together, Alyssa thought perhaps Lora loved King just as much as he loved her. The two of them reminded her of the French fairy tale “Beauty and the Beast.” And hadn’t Beauty wound up as ensnared by the Beast as he was by her?

  All through the meal Alyssa had the feeling that someone was watching her, which wasn’t uncommon. In New York she was often recognized; and even if no one realized who she was, her looks had attracted attention from the time she was a teenager. She had grown accustomed to staring, but not when it was as steady and persistent as this. She tried to ignore it, refusing to look around the restaurant for the person who watched her. But now and then she sneaked a peek, trying her best to appear casual.

  Just as she finished her meal, Alyssa glanced up and her eyes met those of a man sitting on the opposite side of the room. She knew instantly that it was he who had been staring. He still gazed at her unabashedly, not even glancing away now that she had discovered him. He didn’t leer, nor did he nod or smile at her. He simply smoked a cigarette and watched her, but there was something in his tightly drawn features, in his very carriage, that made Alyssa know that he wanted her.

  She glanced quickly away, turning her attention back to Lora. Frenchmen were much more matter-of-fact about such things than Americans, much bolder. It embarrassed her a little, and she felt her pulse speed up. It annoyed her that she was letting this stranger make her uncomfortable.

  Lora asked Alyssa a question, and she answered, her mind not really on the conversation. Almost involuntarily she glanced back at the man’s table. He was no longer there. She looked around and saw him winding his way through the tables, walking toward her slowly but purposefully, a few steps behind a heavyset man. A little spurt of panic darted through her chest. What was she to do? But that was a silly thing to think. She knew what to do; she couldn’t count the number of men who had tried to pick her up over the years. She had become adept at coolly polite rejection. The fact that this man was bolder than most meant only that she would have to give him an icier set-down.

  She watched him walk toward them. He was tall and trim, and he moved with a smooth grace that European men felt no need to hide as American men did. There was power in him, Alyssa thought, just as there was power in Gerard, except that in this man it was covered by a layer of sophistication that made it no less dangerous.

  He looked at Alyssa as he walked, only at the last minute pulling his gaze away from her as he swerved toward Claude Freret at the end of the table, still following the heavyset man. The other man stopped beside Freret. “Claude! What an unexpected pleasure!”

  Claude jumped up, all smiles. Alyssa suspected Claude would have greeted the devil himself with smiles if it offered him an opportunity to ward off King’s pressure for a moment. “Jean-Louis! My good friend. How nice to see you.”

  They exchanged a few pleasantries, then Jean-Louis half turned to include the dark-haired man behind him. “May I introduce my friend, Philippe Michaude? He was involved in my Louise Mignot film last year. Philippe, this is Claude Freret, the famous director.”

  “Yes, of course, I’ve heard a great deal about you, Monsieur Freret.” Michaude’s voice was d
eep and appealing.

  Lora leaned over and whispered a little tiger growl to Alyssa. “That one’s a lady-killer. Frenchmen are so sexy.”

  This one was, at any rate. His gaze left Freret and flickered down the table to Alyssa. His eyes were light and lined by smoky lashes. They turned down a little at the corner, giving them a sleepy look. “Look at those bedroom eyes,” Lora added in a whisper, shielding her mouth with her hand.

  Freret hastened to introduce the two Frenchmen to the rest of the group, glad to have found reinforcements. “Please, allow me to present Monsieur Jean-Louis Deligne and Monsieur Philippe Michaude. Monsieur Deligne, he, uh makes the cinema, as you do, King. Jean-Louis, Monsieur Michaude, this is Madame Lora Michaels—I should say, Madame Gerard, the so famous American movie star. And her friend Mademoiselle Lambert. And, of course, this is Monsieur Kingsley Gerard, the owner of Royal studios.”

  “How do you do?” Philippe lifted Lora’s hand to his mouth in a Continental greeting. “Mrs. Gerard. I enjoy your movies very much.” Next he took Alyssa’s fingers in his and slowly raised them to his lips. His hand was long and thin and firm around her fingers; his mouth brushed her skin with soft warmth. He gazed straight into her eyes as he kissed her hand. She saw that his eyes were pale green, the color of new leaves in spring, a cool color, but penetrating and intense. “Miss Lambert, I am pleased to meet you.” He spoke in English, his voice seductively accented.

  Alyssa’s stomach turned cold, then hot. “Monsieur Michaude.” She managed to keep her voice level.

  Freret smiled encouragingly at Philippe and Jean-Louis. “Please, would you join us? We were about to have a liqueur after dinner.”

  “Yes, please do,” King added grudgingly. Alyssa was sure he didn’t care for the idea of any fellow countrymen bolstering Freret’s stubbornness.

  “Thank you. That is most kind.” Michaude smiled at King, but his eyes went to Alyssa. He motioned for a waiter and asked him to bring extra chairs; and when the waiter returned with them, Michaude adroitly squeezed his in between Alyssa’s and Freret’s.