Daniel and Daughter

'Ah…' His murmur was so soft that she had to strain to hear it. 'Your own choice-I'm so glad. Lee, my darling, I'm so very, very glad.'

CHAPTER SIX

The week that followed passed far too quickly for Lee. She moved in to Daniel's home and began to learn the kind of person he was. The years with Jimmy hadn't taught her that a man could be passionate and funny, fierce and tender, authoritative and humble. It was like being a girl again, in love for the first time, knowing that life would never be the same now this one man had drawn back the curtain on a new world.

They slept wrapped in each other's arms and Lee would awake with her head resting on his smooth brown chest. It was the sensation of warmth and safety that struck her first. Daniel's arms tight about her always made her feel as though nothing could go wrong with her world.

He delighted in getting up first and bringing her a cup of tea. He would hover while she sipped it, enquire, 'Is madam satisfied?' then hurry away to start the breakfast. Being waited on made her feel like a queen. Sonya had sometimes done so, on birthdays and Mother's Day, but as Sonya cooked with one eye on the stove and the other in a book the results weren't encouraging. Daniel gave all his loving attention to creating tempting dishes for his lady.

Although she had the week off, Lee kept in touch with Gillian, checking on the bookings that were coming in.

'Can't you forget work for five minutes?' Daniel complained. 'Relax.'

'I'll never relax until I get where I want to be,' Lee insisted.

'And where's that?'

'At the top. The very top. I get a lot of big commissions but I don't get the top rates, and I'm not first in the queue.' She sighed. 'I guess I'll just have to keep plugging away.'

'Plugging away isn't always the answer,' Daniel said thoughtfully.

'Then what is?'

'You need something extra to get your name known outside the circle of commissioning editors. If you were to win fifty million on the lottery everyone would queue up to have you take their pictures, just to say they'd met you.'

Lee chuckled. 'And why would I be taking pictures if I'd won fifty million?'

'Well, that's the flaw in the argument, of course, but you get the idea. You've got to make people want to say they've met you.'

'Fine. Any suggestions?'

'I'll work on it. But later.' He took her in his arms. 'Just now I have other ideas.'

She discovered that Daniel was a demon cook, with a well-stocked freezer and a library of recipes.

'Cooking for a growing child taught me some self-defence techniques,' he confessed. The trouble is, I became too good. Phoebe never bothered to learn. Why should she when her old man can do it for her?'

'Why should she anyway?' Lee asked impishly. 'Just because she's a girl?'

'Nonsense! If I can do it, she can do it. That's equality.' He struck an attitude. 'It's time men were liberated from the kitchen sink. Give us freedom! Value us for our brains.'

'Hang your brains! Give me your body,' Lee said, kissing him ruthlessly.

He put up a half-hearted struggle, protesting, 'That's all very well, but what happens when my hair falls out and my waistline expands?'

'Then I shall get me a toy-boy,' she said, silencing further argument.

Afterwards she was never able to remember details of that glorious time. They became a blur of days spent getting up late, picnicking at midnight, and discovering each other in endless passionate hours.

Some of Daniel's shows were being re-run on afternoon television. Lee watched them eagerly. She'd seen one or two before but not as many as she would have liked. As the programme went out during the day she had to tape it, and in the evening she was usually too occupied with the man himself to have time for his screen image.

Now she could study him, and realise what a consummate professional he was. He could work a crowd as skilfully as any showman, making it look easy.

'With so much happening, don't you ever lose track?' she asked one day. 'Or get nervous?'

'I used to. Then I discovered the secret was to have everything at my fingertips and always be in control.'

He was the reverse of conceited, judging his screen self ruthlessly. 'I lost it there,' he admitted. 'I shouldn't have let that woman go on so long-and here the argument got derailed and I didn't pull back fast enough.'

'You looked fine to me.'

'That's sweet of you, darling, but you don't know anything about it.' He wasn't being deliberately rude. He was just a professional fixing a laser gaze on his own work and refusing to be distracted. 'Fool!' he suddenly yelled at his screen self. 'I don't know why anyone employs you.'

'Do you normally shout abuse at yourself?' she asked laughing.

'Always.' He grinned self-consciously. 'I see so many things that could be improved.'

'But you can't be in control of every little detail.'

'You can try. There, thank heavens, it's over! We won't have to watch that idiot any more. Come on, woman. Baked beans on toast.'

There were moments of comedy too. Through tele-phone calls they were able to follow the progress of Mark's disastrous journey to Paris. He managed to get as far as the Dover ferry, but when the boat had crossed the water and docked at Calais the car refused to start. In the end it was ferried back and forth three times, with the shipping company growing increasingly irate.

Finally a tow was arranged on the French side of the water and the car was deposited in a Calais garage. There followed four days of mounting frustration and lively discussions with the mechanic, in the course of which Mark enriched his French vocabulary with a number of pungent phrases that were unlikely to be of use in academic circles.

He finally reached Paris the day before Phoebe was due to leave. Sensing what was coming, Daniel made a frantic call to Madame Bresson, begging her to ensure that Phoebe returned by air and not 'with that young maniac and his collection of welded safety pins'. After that the telephone lines hummed. Phoebe called her father to protest at his high-handedness. Daniel, who was terrified for his daughter's safety, responded by laying down the law in a manner that would have amazed his public.

The next day Phoebe flew home. In a terse scene Daniel further demolished his reputation in his daughter's eyes by flatly forbidding her to set foot in Mark's old car ever again. Phoebe set her chin stubbornly at this edict, but was deprived of the chance to defy it by the fact that Mark didn't get home for another three days, having broken down again at Dover.

Phoebe's return was the signal for Lee to depart. Daniel set out for the airport to meet his daughter while Lee drove home, a heavy ache in her heart. Daniel and Phoebe were going to spend a week with his family in the Midlands. Their parting had been a painful wrench that left her fighting back tears. She tried to tell herself that she was being absurd. She would see him again soon. But it wouldn't be the same as the blissful world where there had been only each other.

He called her that night and they had a long, loving talk. But when the call was over the house was very quiet and the sadness lay on her heart like a weight. The golden, enchanted time was over, and who could tell if she would ever know such happiness again?

It was a relief when the young people returned.

Mark could talk of nothing but his misfortunes, and Lee and Sonya had to hear the story several times.

'So you'll just have to get a decent car," Lee said sympathetically at last. 'That offer of three thousand pounds is still open.'

'Oh, hell, Lee! Why can't you be reasonable now and let me have the seven thousand?' he snapped. 'If I had a really good car it would impress Mr Raife no end.'

'Only if it was safe. And you can be just as safe on three thousand as you can on seven.'

'If it comes to that, you, can be perfectly safe in a one-thousand-pound car if you choose it properly,' Sonya remarked, stirring the embers of discontent with an enthusiastic hand. 'Honestly, Mark, how could you be such a dozy prawn as to buy that thing just because it was the first one you saw?'