Carmen Lister had gone red, too, but not with embarrassment, with sheer, blinding rage; her blue eyes glittering like the Northern Lights, very bright and cold. 'You mean, we've driven all this way from London, set up all that publicity, released the story and gone to all this trouble, and now we've got to start all over again with some other girl?' She wasn't so much talking to any of them as to herself, her voice raw with fury, and Quincy could imagine that she was not exactly an easy lady to work with, especially if you had made a little mistake.
Everyone looked at her. Mr Jones tightened his grip on his son's shoulder. Mrs Jones looked worried and Quincy took a step backward as if afraid Carmen Lister might turn dangerous at any minte, only to tread on Brendan's toe and glance round in startled surprise at his stifled yelp. 'Sorry,' she whispered, rather relieved to find him there.
'What are we going to do?' Carmen was saying, looking at the man in the perfectly tailored blue suit who had not spoken a word yet but had been listening attentively and watching them all. He had a face which was far from easy to read; it had a smooth, plastic look, the smile it wore as prefabricated as the one Carmen usually wore, switching on and off like a faulty light bulb. His eyes were knife-sharp; his pale hair, closely shaven face and well-groomed clothes seemed to help him merge into whatever background he was placed against, but gave away nothing about his real personality—as if, whatever he was, he preferred not to be seen being it in public. He looked, thought Quincy, like a perfectly cloned politician.
'I'm sure we can sort out this little hitch,' he said. His voice was American, Quincy noted. Smiling, he held out his hand to Robert Jones. 'I'm Billy Griffith, Joe's manager, Mr Jones.'
'How do you do?' Mr Jones said stiffly, shaking hands.
'Glad to know you,' said Billy Griffith. 'Now, why don't we have a little chat about this, man to man?' He took hold of Robert Jones's elbow and steered him through the open door of the sitting-room before Mr Jones had had time to work out what was happening. Mrs Jones and Carmen Lister followed, but as Quincy moved she found herself facing a closed door. Flushing, she was about to push it open again when Joe Aldonez stepped into her path and smiled down at her.
'You know, I think we could all do with some coffee.'
'I want to know what they're saying in there,' Quincy said crossly. She was certain Carmen Lister had deliberately shut the door on her. A conspiracy was being hatched behind that door and Quincy wanted no part of it.
The phone began to shrill and Brendan said: 'I'll take that in the surgery.' He walked towards the interconnecting door which led from the house into the one-storey building which had been built on to the side of the house to act as a surgery, and switched the call through as he passed the phone. Bobby was staring at Joe Aldonez, whose dark eyes had followed Brendan briefly.
'You look just like your pictures,' he accused.
'Is that a compliment or a complaint?' Joe enquired, turning his black head to look down at him, his mouth curving into an amused smile. He must be well over six foot, Quincy realised, measuring him against her five-foot-five brother. Against that night-black hair, his skin was smooth and bronzed, betraying the fact that he came from a much warmer climate than the West of England.
'I suppose I don't get a transistor now?' Bobby asked gloomily.
'In your place I'd let the subject drop,' Joe drawled with dry amusement.
'I did win!' Bobby protested, then caught a derisive glance and shrugged. 'Oh, well—hey, Joe, could I have your autograph? I've got one of your albums upstairs. Could you sign it for me?'
Joe considered him, gleaming mockery in his stare. 'And then you'll auction it among the girls in your class, I guess?'
'Who, me?' Bobby said hurriedly, a butter-wouldn't-melt-in-my-mouth smile assumed as he gazed back.
'Of course, that would never enter your head, would it?' Joe teased, and Bobby grinned. 'I get the impression you're a guy worth watching,' Joe added, and Bobby looked distinctly flattered. He hurried to do some flattering in his turn.
'You're dead popular with the girls, they swoon when they hear you sing.' He rolled his eyes up and put on a dying expression. 'And they scream,' he added, letting out an eldritch shriek which made Quincy jump. 'Like that,' Bobby explained to Joe. 'They're idiots.'
'How could I refuse such flattery?' Joe shrugged.
Bobby beamed. 'Will you autograph my album?'
'Sure, why not?'
'Thanks,' said Bobby, and took the stairs three at a time, his feet thudding so hard the hall rocked with the sound.
It wasn't until he had gone that Quincy realised she was alone with Joe Aldonez. She began quietly edging towards the sitting-room door again and Joe asked: 'Where are you going?' in a voice which made her halt mid-step and look at him in alarm. He was using that voice which made her hair stand up on the back of her neck; the deep, soft, husky voice which he used when he was singing. He hadn't used it when he talked to Bobby, then he had sounded more brisk.
'I want to know what's going on in there,' she said.
'You'll find out in due course,' he informed her, taking hold of her arm. 'Why don't we make that coffee?'
'Why don't you let go of me?' Quincy retorted, but the cool fingers clamped on her arm gave her no opportunity to evade the steering grip which was leading her towards the kitchen, and she decided it would be undignified to struggle. She already felt she had been made to look ridiculous by this man. Her temper was ready to take off like a rocket to the moon, and Quincy had learnt to be careful about letting her temper slip the leash. She hadn't inherited the red hair which her father's mother had passed on to both Bobby and their elder sister, Lilli, but Quincy had been handed her grandmother's redhot temper. She usually kept it under control—little in her life had ever given her cause to get really angry. The last time she had lost her temper was when she saw some boys throwing stones at a stray dog, and on that occasion she had thrown one of them into the village duckpond. When Quincy did lose her temper she was apt to go too far, as her mother had remarked.
Joe let go of her in the kitchen and she quietly set about making a pot of coffee, ignoring him as he helped by tracking down the cups and getting out the sugar bowl.
'Is Quincy your real name?' he asked, and she nodded.
'What do you do, Quincy? What's your job?'
'I work for my father, I'm his receptionist and I do the typing.'
'Your father's a vet, isn't he?'
She nodded and Joe said: 'When I was a kid I used to dream about being a vet—I was crazy about horses, I'd have given anything to work with them all day. I've got a whole stableful of them now, but I never seem to get time to ride.'
'I used to ride all the time when I was at school,' said Quincy, and a smile came into his dark eyes.
'But not any more? What do you do in your spare time these days, Quincy?' The intimate note in his voice made her stiffen. He was flirting with her and that charm was probably as synthetic as Carmen Lister's smile. He needn't think he could turn it in her direction just because he had nothing more interesting in view. Quincy was under no illusion about her own looks—her face was unlikely to stop any man in his tracks, she was slightly too thin and her short chestnut hair only took on a vivid colour in strong sunlight, when it acquired a golden glint. When she smiled, somehow people always seemed to smile back, though, and she had long ago learnt to live with her own ordinary appearance. Since she only saw herself in mirrors she was unaware of the fact that when she was looking at someone else, her face was vitally alive, heart-shaped, smooth-skinned, her green eyes full of warmth, her pink mouth a tender, gentle curve even in repose.
Ignoring his question, she said: 'I'm sorry Bobby put my name on that competition entry, Mr Aldonez. I realise it must have caused a lot of trouble for you and your publicity people and I apologise, but I couldn't possibly go through with it. I would never have dreamed of entering. I'm not one of your fans, I'm afraid. I wouldn't want to deprive one of them of her dream-come-true.'
'Why
are you so cross?' he asked.
'I'm not cross!' she denied.
'Your green eyes have got mad lights in them,' he remarked, staring down into them.
'Oh, I'm crazy now, am I?' she said indignantly, and he laughed.
'Not that sort of crazy—mad as in angry, and getting angrier by the minute.'
'Are you surprised? If anyone around here is crazy it's you and your friends!'
His mouth twisted drily. 'The competition? Hell, that wasn't my idea—Carmen and Billy hatched that between them as publicity for my tour of England. I didn't even know about it until I arrived two days ago—they sprang it on me and it was too late for me to call a halt. I can't attend to every little detail myself, that's Billy's province. He'd sell his own grandmother to get some free publicity.'
'I can believe that,' said Quincy, thinking of the pale, unreadable face of Billy Griffith. She wouldn't trust him further than she could see him—and even then she would watch him like a hawk.
'So you're not one of my fans?' he asked, looking amused as she flushed and glanced away.
'I don't get much time to listen to records,' Quincy evaded, thinking guiltily of the album she had hidden upstairs in her bedroom. She had been playing it endlessly for days, but he wasn't to know that, and she certainly did not intend to pander to his vanity by telling him as much.
'And when you do, I suppose you only listen to classical music?' he enquired, and she saw from the quick look she gave him that he was mocking her again, little teasing glints of gold showing around the fathomless black pupils of those eyes. 'Solid stuff, of course,' he said, pretending to think seriously about it. 'Beethoven or Mozart?'
'Don't put words into my mouth!' she flared, very pink. 'I didn't say anything of the kind. I listen to all sorts of music so long as it's easy on the ear.'
'But I'm not,' he supplied, and she eyed him with wrathful reluctance.
'You know very well you are!' He knew, of course, how could he fail to know? He was one of the top recording stars of America and was beginning to be the most popular male singer over here in England, too, although this was his first big tour of Europe. 'You're…' she broke off, biting her lip at his wry smile.
'Go on, Miss Jones,' he mocked. 'I can't wait to hear your verdict.'
'You're not interested in what I think—why should you be?' She was finding his intimate, teasing amusement distinctly nerve-racking, and decided to change the subject. 'I suppose you have to rehearse before your tour starts?'
He did not fail to notice the deliberate introduction of a red herring, but although his eyes gleamed with laughter he answered. 'We kick off in Liverpool in three days' time and go on to some gigs in a couple of other big cities before we go back to London to finish with the big concert.'
'That's sold out, isn't it?' asked Quincy, having read as much in the newspapers. His concerts had been a sell-out within days of the tickets being put on the market and there was a big black market in tickets, she had heard, with people paying fantastic, inflated prices to get hold of one.
Bobby came charging into the room, an album under his arm, and held it out to Joe Aldonez. 'Could you write something across the cover, Joe, not just sign your name?'
Quincy looked at the album furiously—she forgot that she had just told Joe that she didn't like his singing and, her temper soaring, snapped: 'Bobby, you've been in my room again, how many times have I told you to leave my things alone?' Only as she realised what she had said did she stop, her mouth open in a gasp of dismay, meeting the amused gaze of dark eyes and flushing hotly.
'It's yours, is it?' Joe asked softly, watching the colour running up her face with unhidden enjoyment.
'Yeah, it's hers,' Bobby admitted. 'She nearly drove us nuts since she bought it, playing it over and over again.'
It was his most recent album; the record sleeve carrying only a single dark red rose lying against a background of soft black velvet—the image conveying exactly the sexy sound of his voice.
Quincy would have liked to sink down through the floor and never be seen again. She looked at her brother vengefully, and Bobby backed, keeping a wary eye on her. 'But you will autograph it, won't you, Joe?'
'I'd be delighted,' Joe drawled. While they watched he wrote something across the top of the cover, signed his name with a flourish born, Quincy imagined, from autographing a thousand souvenirs, and handed the record back to Bobby, who grinned ear to ear, muttered: 'Thanks, Joe,' and bolted before Quincy could demand her record back. She was dying to know what Joe had written. As soon as he had gone she would pursue Bobby to his lair and retrieve her record before he could auction it or swap it for something he considered more desirable.
The coffee began to make violent noises of impending explosion. She switched it off and Joe took the tray for her through to the sitting-room. She followed, wishing they would all leave. They were visitors from an alien civilisation, as out of place in her quiet little world as she knew she would be in the world they obviously inhabited. Joe might only be wearing black jeans and a white shirt, covered by a black leather jacket fitting tightly at the waist, but she could guess that his clothes were not off the peg: they were designer-made, their cut and fit elegant and sleek. His shirt was silk and clung to that lean, muscled body like a second skin and he breathed an air of sophisticated assurance, wearing the clothes with a casual panache which didn't care what he wore, so certain of himself that she felt he would have looked just as good in shabby, well-washed jeans and an old sweater. Carmen Lister had the same cool, chic certainty about herself.
It wasn't what they wore—it was how they wore it that counted.
Billy Griffith got up as she entered the room and smiled at her. Joe glanced at him, his winged brows lifting in question. 'How are things coming?'
'I've explained how difficult it would be for us to change all the publicity now,' Billy Griffiths said smoothly. 'Mr and Mrs Jones understand the position.' Quincy stared at him and did not much like what she saw. He looked calm and serene, but under his smile he was tempered steel, she sensed, tough and unbreakable, yet ready to bend if he decided it was necessary. Not someone to cross if you could help it, this man, Quincy thought, his charm was strictly skin-deep and his determination to have his own way absolute. As she sat down he sank back into his own chair and leaned towards her.
'Quincy, we're going to have to throw ourselves on your mercy,' he said, smiling. 'Okay, we jumped the gun, and maybe we shouldn't have announced your name to the press before we'd spoken to you, but how were we to guess there'd been this sort of mix-up? We had the draw this afternoon in London, Joe himself picked you out and the press were there at the time. It seemed a great idea to drive down here and have them around when you heard the news. We took your entry at face value.' He smiled again. 'And a very pretty face it is, too—you don't mind my saying that, Quincy? As soon as we saw the photo, we all said: this is our girl!'
'Photo?' Quincy asked, frowning.
Joe put a hand into the pocket of his leather jacket and pulled out a small, crumpled snapshot. She looked at it, appalled.
'Oh, no, Bobby didn't send you that!' It was a very old photograph of herself in jeans and a cotton T-shirt, the dogs cavorting around her, her chestnut hair blown around her heart-shaped face in wild disorder, her eyes wide and bright as she laughed into the camera. 'That was taken years ago, I'd only just left school!'
'You haven't changed,' Joe assured her, and she looked at him with dislike.
'Thank you!'
'You were just what we were looking for,' Billy Griffiths told her. 'A typical fan, someone to represent all of Joe's millions of fans around the world. You're going to live out the dreams of a million women, Quincy.'
Quincy opened and shut her mouth in an attempt to speak, but she was so angry her voice had gone on strike, she couldn't get a word out, and while she was still in her dumbstruck state, Billy Griffiths said: 'Sit down next to Quincy, Joe, I'm sure she's dying to know what we've got in store for her.
'
You bet I am, Quincy thought, wondering if she should escape now and lock herself in her bedroom, or wait until these steamrollers in human form had departed before announcing that she was not going through with whatever horrific plans they had up their sleeves.
Mrs Jones poured the coffee and handed round the cups. Joe sat down and glanced sideways at Quincy, his long lashes sweeping against his tanned skin. 'The general idea is for you to come up to London, have your hair done and buy an evening dress…'
'From one of the best new designers,' interrupted Carmen. 'Of course, it will be off the peg. We won't have time to have a dress made for you, but it will be one of a limited range of boutique designs.'
'And you'll go to an exclusive Mayfair beauty salon,' Billy Griffith added.
'You'll be staying with me,' Carmen told her. 'I've got a spare bedroom in my flat. Your parents needn't be anxious about you, you'll be well protected.'
'I don't need a baby-sitter,' Quincy flared. 'How old do you think I am?' If they had been judging by that old photo, they had presumably decided she was in her teens, but surely it must have dawned on them by now that she was older than that?
'Twenty?' Billy Griffith suggested, and she suspected he would have liked her to agree, but she looked him straight in the eye and said firmly that she was twenty-two. He gave a little shrug and murmured something that sounded remarkably like: 'Pity,' but since it was a comment made mostly to himself she couldn't be certain. She could be certain that they would have liked her to be a dewy-eyed schoolgirl, especially when Billy Griffith turned to Mrs Jones and said: 'But she looks pretty young.'
Everyone considered her and Quincy sat there, bristling, which brought a lazy smile curling around Joe's lips.
'You see, Mrs Jones,' Billy went on, ignoring Quincy, having obviously decided that she wasn't sympathetic enough, 'we wanted to find an ordinary girl; someone Joe's fans could identify with, a girl with a happy family background like yours. If we searched for years we couldn't find anyone who looked as perfect as Quincy.'
'Well, you're going to have to,' Quincy told him. 'I'm not going to do it.' Her green eyes flashed angrily. 'I don't want any part of this phoney set-up, I couldn't pretend to swoon and look starry-eyed every time I saw him.'
A Wild Affair Page 2