A Sudden Engagement by Penny Jordan

by A Sudden Engagement (lit)

  Rafe moved aside, as Kirsty stared numbly up into Drew's face. He instructed the other actors to lead them in, approaching Kirsty with reluctance as he was shown his new bride-to-be by Antonio.

  'Why, then she is mine.' The words were spoken wryly, with a faint edge of bitterness that faded to sorrowful acceptance as he continued.

  'Sweet, let me see your face.' His fingers touched the mask she was wearing and Kirsty trembled to feel them against her face. Her skin felt hot and dry and she barely heard Leonato's lines, didn't even realise he had finished speaking until Drew took her hand. She had forgotten everyone else existed; forgotten that they were playing parts and was conscious of very little other than the powerful magnetism of his eyes on her face, his fingers stroking the vulnerable flesh of her inner wrist.

  'I am your husband, if you like of me.'

  It was her cue, and she raised her eyes to his, conscious of the warmth of his palm through her costume as he drew her against him, shaping her body to his as he kissed her, lightly, lifting his head to study her face with dawning incredulity before kissing her again.

  Her mouth moved on hers softly, feeding her deep hunger, until in spate of all her efforts to resist him she was responding blindly. His hand slid into her hair, holding her captive, the pressure of his mouth increasing, no longer subtle, but hungrily demanding. Kirsty forgot that they were merely playing two parts. He was Drew, and she loved him. She was drowning in his kiss, taking pleasure from the hardness of his hands against her skin. She wanted it to go on and on for ever.

  When he lifted his head she stared blindly up at him. He was speaking, and it was several seconds before she realised, humiliatingly, that he was speaking Claudio's lines.

  When he had finished there was a spontaneous burst of applause from the onlookers, although Rafe did remark teasingly, 'Of course, the fact that you and Kirsty are engaged had nothing to do with the excellence of your performance!' 'It helped,' Drew admitted. He was watching Kirsty with an expression she could not decipher; a considering, almost yarning expression, but he moved and she decided it must have been a trick of the light, unless of course he had been thinking of Beverley alone in New York.

  The scene came to an end and with it the play.

  Drew summoned them all together to run through what he had seen of the play, and as Cherry had suggested, announced that they would have another full dress rehearsal at the of of the week.

  'So far, so good, from what I saw,' he told them, 'but there are several things that need brushing up. Your scene, Kirsty and Rafe, and also Rachel-your Beatrice is excellent, but occasionally you seem to forget that you're very fond of your cousin-it doesn't always come through.'

  It was obvious that Rachel wasn't too pleased by the criticism. She opened her mouth to retaliate, but Drew had already moved on to another part.

  Kirsty was exhausted by the time they had finished and she had changed back into her normal clothes. Cherry and several of the others were gathered in the foyer as she left, chatting about the rehearsal.

  'We're off to the pub,' Rafe told her. 'Fancy coming with us?'

  'She'd better not!' None of them had seen Drew emerge from the other side of the foyer, a supple cream leather jacket over his black pants and cashmere sweater. 'I've already got plans for tonight, and they don't include sharing her with anyone else!

  Everyone laughed, although Kirsty felt herself colouring faintly. He wanted to talk to her, Drew had said, and she could guess what about. It was hardly likely to be the romantic reunion the others were doubtless thinking. Just for one weakening second she allowed herself to think of how it might have been if they were really engaged. Drew would have taken her back to the farmhouse, the tension in both of them growing until they were alone.

  Once inside he would kiss her as he had kissed her earlier, and then . . .

  She deliberately delayed until everyone else had gone, and then when they were alone, and Drew was holding open the door, she told him shakily, 'Drew, if you don't mind, I'd rather give it a miss tonight. It's been rather a long day . . .'

  'You think I don't know that? You should try flying across the Atlantic and then you'd really know what a long day is. Where's your feminine compassion, Kirsty?' he demanded tauntingly. 'is that the best you can do by way of a welcome home?' ' sure it doesn't compare at all with Beverley's greeting,' Kirsty heard herself saying in a tightly batter voice that filled her with dismay.

  'Beverly is a woman,' Drew agreed, watching her sardonically, 'while you're still a child. When are you going to grow up, little girl? Come on, I'll take you home,' he finished abruptly.

  He escorted her to his car in silence, driving competently the short distance to her bedsid. Fortunately she had walked to the theatre that morning, although she would had preferred driving home alone to SITTING next to Drew IN the unnerving silence that stretched her nerves to breaking point.

  'Not quite the conclusion to the evening the others were visualising,' he drawled as he learned across to open the door for her. 'it's not exactly idyllic from my point of view either,' he added with unkind cynicism.

  Suddenly they seemed. to be enemies. Perhaps he was annoyed because she hadn't asked him about Beverley. He was obviously missing her, but Kirsty felt far too heartsick herself to pander to his desire to talk.

  As though he read her minds he said curtly, 'We still have to have that talk, Kirsty, but it's obvious that neither of us is in the mood tonight.

  Having waited this long, I don't suppose it's going to kill me to waft a bit longer-I can't pretend l'm going to joy it, thought!'

  CHAPTER NINE

  By rights tonight there shouldn't be anything on her mind other than the fact that this was their first night, Kirsty reflected, sliding into the car and closing the door. But there was something else on her mind. Drew! Since his return from New York the only times she had seen him had been during rehearsal and occasionally afterwards when he drove her home. During these drives he had been silent and preoccupied-thinking about Beverley, she had told herself, but if so, his thoughts could hardly be pleasant ones, if they were to account for the grim lines round his mouth and the look in his eyes.

  He had never made any reference to the discussion he wanted to have with her, and Kirsty wondered if he was waiting until after their east night to break the news. Perhaps he had guessed how she felt about him, despite her pains to conceal it, and didn't want to upset her before the play opened. The play-she had thought Simon dedicated but it was nothing to the energy Drew put into the production, and somehow that energy seemed to reach out to everyone involved, striking off sparks that lifted it from being merely good to being something exciting and different.

  Cherry had seen it. She had told Kirsty excitedly that it was the best production the company had done.

  'You make a fantastic Hero,' she praised, but Kirsty knew that no matter how many times she played the final scene with Rafe she would never reach the heights she had done with Drew. Why on earth had she been so stupid as to fall in love with him in the first place? Hadn't she always vowed that she would never fall in love until she was in her twenties-at least twenty-six, she had once told her aunt. How easy those words had been to say; and how disastrously wrong!

  Backstage all was chaos. Members of the cast were hurrying in and out of dressing rooms, demanding make-up and costumes; on stage Pete was testing the lighting, and as she hurried to the dressing room Kirsty could hear the scenery being moved about on stage ready for the just scene. Apprehension gripped her, panic sliding coldly through her veins. What if she forgot her lines? What if she massed a cue? She had felt like this before, of course, but before she had not been a member of such a prestigious cast. She trembled is she remembered how bitchily Rachel had commented on her inexperience the previous day. The older woman seldom lost an opportunity to remind her that Drew and Beverley had been in New York together. She mustn't think of that now, she told herself panickily as she stripped off her jeans and sweater, pulling on
a cotton gown as she sat down to start on her make-up. Fortunately, because she was already dark, unlike Rachel she had no need of a wig.

  Cherry came in as she was applying the thick foundation needed to show up under the footlights.

  'Guess what?' she demanded excitedly. 'The most fantastic news! Helen has had a little girl- this morning. They decided to do a Caesar last night, apparently. Simon's here-he came straight to the theatre from the hospital. He's over the moon, as you can imagine. They've decided to call the baby Hero, apparently-God help the poor little mite,' she added viii a pious grin.

  'Simon must be relieved that it's over,' Kirsty commented, applying eyeshadow.. 'It must have been a dreadfully worrying time for him.'

  'Yes, he looked exhausted when he walked in.

  He's going to stay for the performance. I left him talking with Drew. By the way,' Cherry asked Kirsty, 'how's Rafe? ls his throat any better?'

  Rafe had developed a sore throat the previous day, and Kirsty had been concerned about him. Twice during one speech he had been on the verge of losing his voice completely, and Drew had advised him to rest it during the rehearsal.

  'I haven't seen him yet. He's sharing a dressing room with David, isn't he? I'll go and find out how he is. Are you all ready for the party afterwards?'

  Kirsty managed a weak smile. ln truth she could not think beyond the performance to the party being held afterwards.

  'I would be in your shoes,' Cherry told her. 'You've barely seen anything of Drew recently, apart from during rehearsal. Have you made any plans yet-for the wedding, I mean?' 'We haven't talked about anything other than the play,' Kirsty told her truthfully, grateful for the warning bell ringing stridently to remind them how close they were to curtain-up.

  'Well, there's one good thing,' Cherry told her as she opened the door to leave. 'The seats are filling up very nicely-you know we've sold all the tickets? We normally do very well on first nights, but this time we've surpassed ourselves- will your family be there?'

  Kirsty managed a noncommittal shrug. To tell the truth she was both disappointed and hurt that she hadn't heard from either - her parents or Chelsea and Slade, despite the fact that she had written to them both sending her complimentary tickets and asking them to the first night.

  They had all come to watch her in both her previous roles. Perhaps seeing her in two disasters was enough loyalty to expect from any family, she thought dismally, trying not to let the prospect of the ordeal in front of her intimidate her too much. And all at once it was an ordeal. Faint beads of perspiration broke out on her skin as she contemplated the enormity of the task ahead. How could she have ever thought she was good enough to play Hero? No wonder Rachel had been making such snide remarks to her! She would never get through the play without making some serious blunder; she knew it.

  She was just beginning to panic in earnest, when the door opened and Simon popped his head round, smiling at her.

  'Okay?'

  Meg, who had finished her make-up, grinned back.

  'Everything's just fine. And we're having a double celebration afterwards, I hear?'

  'Yes. Helen is over the moon now that she's got her daughter. She sends you her love, Kirsty, and says you're not to worry-you can do it!’

  Kirsty was appalled to find weakly emotional tears blurring her vision for a few seconds, but she was unbearably touched by Helen's kind- ness-to think of her, in the midst of everything that had happened to her, spoke of a depth of kindness rarely experienced.

  'Oh by the way, you know . . .'

  'Time we were on stage,' Meg announced firmly, taking Kirsty by the arm. She was feeling dreadfully nervous, a whole flock of butterflies clamouring for release in her stomach, and she barely registered Simon's unfinished sentence as Meg ushered her out of the room and back stage.

  Rachel was already there, her normal expression hidden beneath her Beatrice.

  'Right,' Simon instructed softly behind them, and in the concerted move towards the stage, protected by the closed curtains, Kirsty barely had time to wonder where Drew was.

  During the initial part of the first scene Kirsty had little more to do than speak briefly and then remain in the background, which gave her ample opportunity to study the other actors as they entered part-way through the scene. They all looked unfamiliar in their costumes-Kirsty still hadn't got used to the difference they could make. She stiffened as she studied Claudio, her eyes widening as they lifted to his face. Only it wasn't Rafe's faced it was Drew's. Her heart started to thump erratically. What was Drew doing playing Claudio?

  She found out during the first interval. Rafe's sore throat had proved more serious than had been expected and he had been told by his doctor that if he went on stage he risked losing his voice altogether.

  'Wasn't it lucky that Simon was able to come back to direct?' Cherry chattered enthusiastically as she helped Kirsty to change ready for the wedding scene, 'otherwise Drew wouldn't have been free to play Claudio. There you are,' she announced, fastening the dress. 'Very nice almost-like a dress rehearsal for the real thing,' she added a grin, 'although Drew's hardly likely to do a Claudio on you!'

  'No,' Kirsty agreed hollowly. It was true he wasn't, for the very simple reason that he had no intention of marring her in the first place.

  Knowing that she was playing opposite Drew increased her nervous tension, and Kirsty was actually trembled when she went back on stage.

  A vague sense of unreality seemed to possess her, so that she wasn't entirely sure what was real and what was merely play-acting. Drew's cool, cynical eyes were real enough, and so was the expression in them. Just for a moment Kirsty actually felt she was Hero, unable to comprehend why her husband-to-be was looking at her so coldly. And then came his rejection of her.

  Listening to the cold hauteur of those words, Kirsty had no need to act. Her shame and pain were real; her agony of mind at being so misjudged evident in her expression as she spoke her own lines in a voice that trembled with fierce conviction. The audience was forgotten; the other actors were forgotten; she was simply a woman in love trying to convince her lover that he was wrong. Gradually her trembling anxiety changed to scorching sarcasm; it was evident in her movements, and the curl of her mouth, under- lined as she spoke her lines, fading away to nothing as she listened to Claudio's final denunciation before swooning away at his feet.

  Somehow she managed to stumble off stage when the curtains closed. Cherry was waiting for her.

  'Oh, Kirsty, you were marvellous! I actually cried!' she told her. 'I couldn't believe I could be so affected-you were a thousand times better than I've ever seen you before. You've stolen the show from Rachel,' she added with relish. 'She's furious! l've just heard her arguing with Drew.

  She says you deliberately upstaged he.' Cherry gave a gurgle of laughter. 'Drew wasn't impressed. Actually he didn't seem to be in a very good mood. Perhaps he's finding being on stage a strain.'

  Kirsty was inclined to dismiss Cherry's comment as fanciful until her final scene with him. He did look strained, she acknowledged.

  Beneath the stage make-up his face was drawn in batter lines. Was it because Beverley wasn't here and he still had to tell her that they were back together?

  Kirsty forced herself to concentrate not on her own private pain but on the play.

  The final scene was a very emotive one. Drew's voice was raw with a feeling that brought the ache of tears to her throat, until the moment when he had to accept her in place of Hero.

  He stepped forward, touching her arm, and Kirsty started to tremble. In the seconds before he kissed her she experienced an aching sense of loss to know that they were simply acting two roles and that the sensual brush of his lips against hers was no more than a part of that acting. But even that knowledge was not sufficient to prevent her lips from parting beneath his, her body swaying against him, her eyes closing as she drowned in the fierce pressure of a kiss that made her eyes sting with tears. And- then it was over.

  The rest
of the play passed in a fog of unreality.

  She took her bows with the rest of the cast, stall wrapped in the strangely numbing blanket which had engulfed her the moment Drew released her.

  As she made her way to her dressing room, the applause of the audience still ringing in her ears, all she wanted to do was to go back to her room and sit re-living the precious memory of Drew's kiss. She started to cleanse off her make-up automatically, when the door opened and in the mirror she saw Drew's reflection. He was still wearing his costume, but like her had removed his stage make-up.

  'It's all right, Meg,' Kirsty heard him saying calmly as the older woman got up to leave, obviously thinking tactfully to give them some time alone. 'I just come to tell Kirsty that I'll pick her up outside in fifteen minutes.'

  'Wasn't she wonderful?' Meg enthused. 'I don't think anyone watching the pair of you could have doubted that you were very much in love,' she added forthrightly. 'It showed. I can't remember ever seeing such a charismatic performance before. Poor Rafe,' she said with a chuckle, 'he's got a lot to live up to!'

  Kirsty had intended to tell Drew that she wasn't going to the party, but she could scarcely do so with Meg listening. Instead she showered quickly and changed into the dress she had brought with her, her fingers stilling for a moment as she slipped it over her head. It was the cream dress she had worn the night she had first seen Drew. She hadn't worn it since, but it was the only thing she had that was suitable, and after all, only she knew what memories it aroused.

  As he had promised, Drew was waiting for her outside, the Porsche gleaming luxuriously under the street lamps. Kirsty was glad she had worn her dress when she saw that Drew was wearing formal evening clothes.

  'Simon normally makes a point of inviting several influential people to these do's,' he told her by way of explanation. 'It helps generate goodwill towards the theatre. He normally holds them at home, but because of Helen's pregnancy, this time he's hired a suite at the York Royale. Have you seen him since the play finished?' he asked her with curious abruptness.