the awful tragedy of losing their farm, until they both died within months of each other. That was when she’d decided to fulfil her longheld dream of travelling abroad, and although André had nearly burst into tears and had begged her to stay he’d finally succumbed to her determination and come good in a surprising way. Since she’d had a pair of English-born grandparents and was able to get a work permit, he’d said she might as well keep her hand in at the same time and had written to a friend of his mother’s in London—a dress designer, Madame Minter—introducing Martha. Consequently, Martha had an appointment to see Madame Minter the day after she arrived. Although not well-known in Australia, Martha had heard the name and heard it spoken with some reverence.
But if it comes to nothing I’ll just start my holiday, Martha thought for the umpteenth time somewhere over India; now why don’t you go to sleep?
But even when she did fall asleep she dreamt about Simon Macquarie watching her with that dispassionate, lazy amusement he was so good at, or occasionally with something darker in his eyes and mood that she detected but couldn’t understand—as she systematically pulled up beds and beds of daisies...
‘Well?’
‘Dear, oh, dear!’
Martha took a deep breath in the rather barn-like studio above an exclusive Chelsea shopfront that featured only one exquisite black silk dress in the window behind the gold scroll on the glass that said simply ‘Yvette Minter’, and thought, This is all I need! Because, on top of jet-lag, her luggage had been lost, she’d had to cope with her first dizzying experience of London, buy herself some clothes and now, only twenty-four hours after landing, was confronted with this angular, autocratic French woman who’d looked her up and down and, in only slightly less fractured English than André’s, commanded her to strut her stuff in a strapless gold evening gown with a huge, billowing, unmanageable skirt. And now she was shaking her head sorrowfully.
Martha’s chin came up. ‘Look, I know I might not be looking my best, Madame Minter, but I can’t be that bad,’ she said drily.
Madame Minter pulled a scrap of lace from her pocket and applied it to her eyes, still shaking her head sorrowfully.
‘OK!’ Martha tossed her head. ‘Say no more, love!’ And she reached behind her to unhook the dress.
‘Stop, you foolish child,’ Madame Minter commanded, and put the hanky away. ‘I only express thees emotion because I wonder where you ’ave been all my life—ah, the ‘auteur, the wonderful disdain. I ’ave not seen the like of it for years!’
Martha’s mouth fell open.
Madame Minter continued, though, ‘And just a leetle touch of vulnerability now and then! Plus the athleticism, the legs, the river of gold ’air, the eyes like deep pansies, the delicate bone-structure so sometimes you will look like a great lady, sometimes like a tomboy. Ah, when I ‘ave finished weeth you, Miss Martha, London will never know what ’as heet eet. And we’ll sell an awful lot of my clothes, you and I,’ she added in brisk, perfectly unaccented English.
‘I...I’m...’
Yvette Minter smiled. ‘I cultivate my French accent for clients, you know. And sometimes under strong emotion it cultivates me. But tell me, why has André been keeping you to himself all this time?’
‘I...Do you mind if I sit down?’ Martha said. ‘When I’ve taken the dress off, of course. One thing: I refuse to pout, I always have, but it upsets some photographers.’
‘Who’s asking you to pout? I loathe pouting women myself!’
Which was how, later, she came to be sitting in a cramped office wearing a silk kimono, drinking strong coffee and listening dazedly to Madame Minter.
‘You will be my in-house model,’ she was saying. ‘I sacked the last one, silly cow. I mean to say——’ as Martha blinked ‘—she actually began to remind me of a stately bovine. She had these large unblinking eyes and she never moved with any...flair. Naturally, when I show my collection,’ she went on without pause ‘I employ other models, but you will be assured of a place. I have a showing coming up in about a month—dear, oh, dear!’
Martha frowned. ‘What?’
‘I could have designed it all around you. Never to mind, the next one——’
‘Madame, this is all very flattering but——’
‘You wish to discuss terms and so on?’ Madame eyed her shrewdly. ‘What kind of a contract I intend to put you under? One year minimum,’ she said succinctly.
Martha blinked. ‘Well, I’m not sure,’ she said slowly. ‘This is supposed to be a holiday, really, and I want to travel——’
‘Travel! You will! I take showings abroad. I also intend to make you famous—what’s one year when you’re——’ Madame gestured in a very French way ‘—twenty-two? My dear Miss Martha, when you’re thirty and starting to get leetle lines and your ’air don’t ’ave quite same bounce and gravity starts to attract the bust—that’s the time to travel!’
Martha had to laugh.
‘And this is quite an organisation I’ve built up,’ Madame added proudly. ‘You theenk this is some teen-pot outfit?’ Her black eyes flashed and her accent came back.
‘No, no,’ Martha said hastily.
‘Thees is good,’ Madame said proudly, and switched accents adroitly once more. ‘I’m just about to bring out an exclusive off-the-rack range which will be seen in all the best fashion magazines. Seen,’ she said dramatically, ‘with you inside them. But only if you put yourself in my hands, Martha Winters,’ she added sternly. ‘You think I’m flattering you? I’m only flattering the raw material.’ Martha flinched but Madame flowed on unaware. ‘Certainly some fine raw material but still a very great lot to learn. You have somewhere to live? No? You will come and live with me——’
‘No, Madame, thank you very much but I must insist that I find my own place.’
Deep pansy blue eyes stared resolutely into snapping black ones and for a moment Martha expected a Gallic explosion but Yvette Minter laughed suddenly. ‘I like it, I like it, but you see, you silly girl, I have a perfectly private little basement flat under my house that I will rent out to you for a perfectly normal amount, where you will be able to take your boyfriends without me even seeing them. Mind you, while a certain amount of sex is marvellous for the looks, men do complicate one’s life, much as I love ’em.’ And an oddly penetrating black glance now came Martha’s way.
‘Point taken,’ she said calmly.
Whereupon Madame raised her eyebrows. ‘What does that mean? Don’t you like men?’
‘It means I’m not looking for any complications at the moment,’ Martha said.
‘Ah. Hmm. I see. Yes, indeed. So.’
It was Martha’s turn to raise an eyebrow.
‘I see only that some man ’as ’urt you,’ Madame explained, causing a faint tinge of pink to rise to Martha’s cheek and causing her to curse herself silently. ‘But never to mind,’ Madame continued, ‘it is you who will be going round
