"Only one more scene, darling. Just one more. Look at the angle of the light through the window. Your skin will positively glow. Please, Francesca, you've been such a princess. My exquisite, flawless princess!"

Put like that, how could she refuse?

Lloyd directed her toward a mark that had been placed on the floor not far from the fireplace. The beginning of the film, she had gathered, centered on the arrival of a young English schoolgirl at a Mississippi plantation where she was to become the bride of its reclusive owner, a man Francesca assumed was intended to resemble Jane Eyre's Rochester, although Fletcher Hall seemed a bit too oily to her to be a romantic hero. Unfortunately for the schoolgirl, but fortunately for Francesca, Lucinda was to die a tragic death the same day. Francesca could already envision a splendid death scene, which she intended to play with the proper amount of restrained passion. She had yet to discover exactly what Lucinda and the plantation owner had to do with the main body of the story, which was set in the present time and seemed to involve a large number of female cast members, but since she wouldn't be appearing in that part of the film, it didn't seem to matter.

Lloyd wiped his brow with a fresh handkerchief and went over to Fletcher Hall. "I want you to come up behind Francesca, put your hands on her shoulders, and then lift up her hair on the side so you can kiss her neck. Francesca, remember that you've been very sheltered all your life. His touch shocks you, but it pleases you, too. Do you understand?"

She felt a trickle of perspiration slide down between her breasts. "Of course I understand," she replied grouchily. A makeup man walked over and powdered her neck. She made him hold up a mirror so she could check his work.

"Remember, Fletcher," Lloyd went on, "I don't want you to actually kiss her neck-just anticipate the kiss. All right, then; let's walk it through."

Francesca took her place, only to suffer through another interminable delay while more lighting adjustments were made. Then someone noticed a damp patch on the back of Fletcher's morning coat where he had sweat through, and Sally had to bring a substitute coat from the costume trailer.

Francesca stamped her foot. "How much longer do you expect to keep me standing here? I won't put up with it! I'll give you exactly five more minutes, Lloyd, and then I'm leaving!"

He gave her a chilly glare. "Now, Francesca, we have to be professional. All these other people are tired, too."

"All these other people aren't wearing ten pounds of costume. I'd like to see how professional they'd be

if they were bloody well suffocating to death!"

"Just a few more minutes," he said placatingly, and then he clutched his hands into fists and pulled them dramatically toward his chest. "Use the tension you're feeling, Francesca. Use the tension in your scene. Pass your tension on to Lucinda-a young girl sent to a new land to marry a man who is a stranger. Everyone quiet. Quiet, quiet, quiet. Let Francesca feel her tension."

The boom man, who'd been preoccupied with Francesca's cantilevered breasts for the better part of the day, leaned toward the cameraman. "I'd like to feel her tension."

"Stand in line, bro."

Finally the new morning coat arrived and the scene was shot. "Don't move!" Lloyd called out as soon they were done. "All we need is one close-up of Fletcher kissing Francesca's neck and we'll wrap for

the day. It'll only take a second. Everybody ready?"

Francesca groaned, but she held her position. She'd suffered this long-a few more minutes wouldn't matter. Fletcher put his hands on her shoulders and picked up her hair. She hated having him touch her. He was definitely common, not her sort of man at all.

"Curve your neck a little more, Francesca," Lloyd instructed. "Makeup, where are you?"

"Right here, Lloyd."

"Come on, then."

The makeup man looked vague. "What do you need?"

"What do I need?" Lloyd threw out his hands in a dramatic gesture of frustration.

"Oh, ri-i-ight." The makeup man grimaced apologetically, then called out to Sally, who was standing just behind the camera. "Hey, Calaverro, reach into my box, will you, and toss me over Fletcher's fangs?"

Fletcher's fangs?

Francesca felt the bottom drop out of her stomach.

Chapter 7

"Fangs!" Francesca screeched. "Why is Fletcher wearing fangs?"

Sally slapped the odious objects into the makeup matfs hand. "It's a vampire picture, sweetie. What do you expect him to wear-a G-string?"

Francesca felt as if she'd stumbled into some terrible nightmare. Jerking away from Fletcher Hall, she rounded on Byron. "You lied to me!" she shouted. "Why didn't you tell me this was a vampire picture? Of all the miserable, rotten- My God, I'll sue you for this; I'll sue you to within an inch of your ridiculous life. If you think for one moment I'll let my name appear on-on-" She couldn't say the word again, she absolutely couldn't! A vision of Marisa Berenson flicked into her mind, the exquisite Marisa hearing about what had happened to poor Francesca Day and laughing until rivulets of tears ran down her alabaster cheeks.

Clenching her fists, Francesca cried, "You tell me right this minute exactly what this odious film is about!"

Lloyd sniffed, clearly offended. "It's about life and death, the transfer of blood, the very essence of life passing from one person to another. Metaphysical events of which you apparently know nothing." He stalked away in a huff.

Sally stepped forward and crossed her arms, obviously enjoying herself. "The film's about a bunch of stewardesses who rent a mansion that's supposed to be haunted. One by one they get their blood sucked by the former owner-good old Fletcher, who's spent the last century or so pining for his lost love Lucinda. There's a subplot with a female vampire and a male stripper, but that's closer to the end."

Francesca didn't wait to hear any more. Shooting a furious glance at all of them, she swept from the set. Her hoopskirt rocked from side to side and the blood boiled in her veins as she dashed out of the mansion and toward the trailers in search of Lew Steiner. They'd made a fool of her! She had sold her clothes and traveled halfway around the world to play a minor part in a vampire movie!

Quivering with rage, she found Steiner sitting at a metal table under the trees near the food truck. Her hoopskirt tilted up in the back as she came to a sudden stop, banging against the table leg. "I accepted this job because I heard Mr. Byron had a reputation as a quality director!" she declared, stabbing the air with a harsh gesture directed roughly toward the plantation house.

He looked up from a half-eaten ham on rye. "Who told you that?"

An image of Miranda Gwynwyck's face, smug and self-satisfied, swam before her eyes, and everything became blindingly clear. Miranda, who was supposed to be a feminist, had sabotaged another woman in

a misguided attempt to protect her brother.

"He told me he was making a spiritual statement!" she exclaimed. "What does any of this have to do

with spiritual statements-or life force or Fellini, for God's sake!"

Steiner smirked. "Why do you think we call him Lord Byron? He makes crap sound like poetry. Of course, it's still crap when he's done with it, but we don't tell him that. He's cheap and he works fast."

Francesca searched for some misunderstanding, for the small ray of hope her optimistic soul demanded. "What about the Golden Palm?" she asked stiffly.

"The Golden what?"

"Palm." She felt like a fool. "The Cannes Film Festival."

Lew Steiner stared at her for a moment before he released a belly laugh that brought with it a small

chunk of ham. "Honey, the only 'can' Lord Byron's ever had anything to do with is the kind that flushes. The last picture he did for me was Co-ed Massacre, and the one before that was a little number called Arizona Prison Women. It did real good at the drive-ins."

Francesca could barely force the words from her mouth. "And he actually expected me to appear in a vampire picture?"

"You're here, aren't you?"

She made up her mind immediately. "Not for long! I'll be back with my suitcases in exactly ten minutes, and I expect you to have a draft waiting for me to cover my expenses as well as a driver to take me to

the airport. And if you use a single frame of that film you shot today, I'll bloody well sue you to within

an inch of your worthless life."

"You signed a contract, so you won't have much luck."

"I signed a contract under false pretenses."

"Bullshit. Nobody lied to you. And you can forget about any money until you're finished shooting."

"I demand to be paid what you owe me!" She felt like some dreadful fishwife bargaining on a street corner. "You have to pay me for my travel. We had an agreement!"

"You're not getting a penny until you're done with your last scene tomorrow." He raked his eyes over her unpleasantly. "That's the one Lloyd wants you to do nude. The deflowering of innocence, he calls it."

"Lioyd will see me nude the same day he wins the Golden Palm!" Turning on her heel, she began to storm away only to have one of the hateful pink flounces on her skirt catch on the corner of the metal table. She jerked it free, tearing it in the process.

Steiner leaped up from the table. "Hey, be careful with that costume! Those things cost me money!"

She yanked the mustard container from the table and squeezed a great glob of it down the front of the skirt. "How dreadful," she scoffed. "It looks as if this one needs to be laundered!"

"You bitch!" he screamed after her as she stalked away. "You'll never work again! I'll see to it that no

one hires you to empty out the garbage."

"Super!" she called back. "Because I've had all the garbage I can stand!"

Grabbing two handfuls of ruffle, she hitched her skirts to her knees, cut across the lawn, and headed for the chicken coop. Never, absolutely never in her entire life had she been treated so shabbily. She'd make Miranda Gwynwyck pay for this humiliation if it was the last thing she did. She'd bloody well marry Nicholas Gwynwyck the day she got home!

When she reached her room, she was pale with rage, and the sight of the unmade bed fueled her fury. Snatching up an ugly green lamp from the dresser, she hurled it across the room, where it shattered against the wall. The destruction didn't help; she still felt as if someone had hit her in the stomach. Dragging her suitcase to the bed, she wadded in the few clothes she had bothered to unpack the night before, slammed down the lid, and sat on it. By the time she had forced the latches closed, her carefully arranged curls had come loose and her chest was damp with perspiration. Then she remembered she was still wearing the awful pink costume.

She nearly wailed with frustration as she opened the suitcase again. This was all Nicky's fault! When she got back to London, she'd make him take her to the Costa del Sol, and she'd lie on the bloody beach all day and do nothing except think up ways to make him miserable! Reaching behind her, she began struggling with the hooks that held the bodice together, but they had been set in a double row, and the material fit so tightly that she couldn't get a grip to loosen them. She twisted farther around, releasing a particularly foul curse, but the hooks wouldn't budge. Just as she'd reconciled herself to looking for someone to help her, she thought of the expression on Lew Steiner's fat, smug face when she'd squirted mustard on the skirt. She nearly laughed aloud. Let's see how smug he looks when he sees his precious costume disappearing from sight, she thought with a burst of malicious glee.

No one was around to help her, so she had to carry the suitcase herself. Lugging her Vuitton bag in one hand and her cosmetic case in the other, she struggled down the path that led to the vehicles, only to discover when she got there that absolutely no one would drive her into Gulfport.

"Sorry, Miss Day, but they told us they needed all the cars," one of the men muttered, not quite looking her in the eye.

She didn't believe him for a moment. This was Lew Steiner's doing, his last petty attack on her!

Another crew member was more helpful. "There's a gas station not too far down the road." He indicated the direction with a turn of his head. "You could make a phone call from there and get somebody to pick you up."

The thought of walking down the driveway was daunting enough, let alone having to walk all the way to a petrol station. Just as she realized she'd have to swallow her pride and go back to the chicken coop to change her dress, Lew Steiner stepped out of one of the Airstream trailers and gave her a nasty smirk. She decided she'd die before she'd retreat an inch. Glaring back at him, she hitched up her suitcases and headed across the grass toward the driveway.