by Penny Jordan
‘I’m glad you realise it,’ Drew mocked. ‘But perhaps you’re right,’ he added thoughtfully. ‘This…’ he tapped the ring on her finger, ‘isn’t going to convince anyone for very long, if you persist in treating me like a stranger.’
‘You are,’ Kirsty reminded him, trying to pull away the hand he had retained and which he was proceeding to tuck through his arm.
‘Is that so? Just how intimately do I have to know you before I cease to be?’
Kirsty stiffened at his side. ‘You don’t know me intimately at all,’ she told him bitterly. ‘Just my body.’
How it shamed her to add those last few words, but they couldn’t be denied, nor his meaning ignored.
‘Every delectable inch of it.’
He seemed bent on tormenting her; on reminding her subtly of her total abandonment to his lovemaking for those few brief seconds while sanity and caution had been suspended.
‘I could have taken you then.’
The words seemed to shiver on the air between them.
‘But without love,’ Kirsty said painfully, her throat suddenly unbearably tight.
For a moment Drew seemed about to say something, and then someone bumped into them and the moment was gone, and with it the strange hurting sensation Kirsty had experienced.
Because there were no rehearsals in the afternoon, Drew had booked them a table at a restaurant just outside York.
‘I would have suggested that we dine out tonight,’ he told her as they waited for their meal to be served, ‘but I promised to go and see Simon. He wants to talk over various things with me.’
Simon must think a good deal of Drew’s judgment and ability if he was content to leave so much in his hands, Kirsty acknowledged. She had discovered so much more about Drew since she had come to York; so many more facets to his personality.
‘I didn’t realise you wrote,’ she murmured hesitantly, toying with the stem of her wine glass. ‘Nor that you were Paul Bennett.’
‘Why should you?’
For some reason the careless words hurt. ‘I started writing some years ago—I acted for a while after leaving Oxford, but I grew bored with it. An actor needs total dedication, total belief in himself—that’s something you must have already learned?’
It was, and deep in her heart of hearts, Kirsty didn’t know if she was capable of such singlemindedness. Chelsea had sensed how she was and had sympathised with her. An actress often had to give up many things to be truly successful. Things like a happy marriage and a family, and Kirsty didn’t know if she was capable of making such a sacrifice.
To banish her uncomfortable thoughts, she murmured, ‘But you’re a critic as well.’
‘At the moment. It’s not a role I particularly enjoy—As I said before, you have a very expressive face,’ he told her. ‘But it’s true, I don’t enjoy it, which is why I’m giving it up to concentrate more on working here and on my writing. I’m thirty—thirty-one almost; and I’m tired of living out of suitcases, of being a homeless nomad. I want to put down roots, have a family… call it a hang-up from my childhood if you like, but when I do I want it to be permanent. It might be selfish of me, but I’m not prepared to settle for anything less.’
Again she experienced the same curious pang she had felt earlier. Why should she care? she asked herself. Why should she feel pain at his admission of love for Beverley?
She barely tasted the steak in its delicious cream sauce, toying with the meat, wondering what had happened to her normally keen appetite.
It was late afternoon before they started back, and instead of taking her home, Drew drove her to the farmhouse. It was the first time she had seen it in daylight. It looked every bit as attractive as she had imagined, but this time she was able to catch her breath in awe at the magnificent views it commanded over the gently rolling countryside.
There was a car parked in the courtyard, and Drew frowned when he saw it.
Kirsty knew who it belonged to the moment she stepped into the hall. She could smell her perfume and recognised the heavy cloying scent of Opium, drowning out her own delicate application of Madame Rochas.
‘Drew, darling—at last!’
‘Beverley!’
His voice was as expressionless as his face, but Beverley wasn’t quite as adept at hiding her feelings, and bitter resentment showed in her eyes for a second as she saw Kirsty.
‘Have I come at a bad time? Really, darling,’ she smiled with false sweetness, ‘I hadn’t realised you were quite so impetuous!’
Drew shrugged aside the acid comment, only drawling, ‘It’s only natural that I should want to be alone with my new fiancée,’ and Kirsty was sure it was by no mere accident that he caught up her hand, lifting it to his lips so that the light caught the diamond-studded gold ring.
However, it wasn’t the ring she was thinking of, as she felt the warmth of his breath against her skin, his lips seductively probing her palm as he uncurled her fingers.
‘Was it something important, Beverley?’ he asked without lifting his eyes from Kirsty’s face. ‘Because if not…’
The tinkling laugh sounded as brittle as shards of glass to Kirsty’s sensitive ears.
‘Darling, you’re hardly tactful,’ Beverley complained. ‘What I actually came here for was to return this.’
‘This’ was a key—the key she had used to unlock the door, Kirsty presumed, thus making it very plain that she had a perfect right to walk in and out of Drew’s house whenever she chose. ‘I shall hardly need it now,’ she added pointedly.
Drew pocketed it without a word, but Kirsty was aware that he looked oddly pale beneath his tan, and she sensed that he was inwardly far from being as calm as he appeared as he escorted Beverley to the door and coolly closed it after her.
‘She wanted me to know that she had a key to this house,’ was all Kirsty could think of to say in the silence that followed the roar of her car’s exhaust.
‘You realise that, do you? Then we’re making progress.’ Beneath the sardonic tone, Kirsty sensed that he was bitterly angry, although she couldn’t understand why. Surely the mere fact that Beverley had wanted her to know about the key proved that she was far from indifferent to him?
‘You wanted to talk to me about Hero,’ she reminded him hastily.
‘Did I?’ His mouth was wry. ‘Somehow it had gone out of my mind. We’ll talk about it another time, Kirsty,’ he told her heavily. ‘I’ve only got so much self-control, and I can’t guarantee there’s enough of it left to get us both unmaimed through even another hour together right now, so I’m going to take you home.’
He did so, in a silence that seemed thick with tension. What was he thinking about? Kirsty wondered, stealing a glance at his forbidding profile. Since they had returned from York he seemed to have changed; to have withdrawn into himself. Because Beverley had returned his key to him, no doubt, she thought tiredly. Her head ached, and she could hardly bear to glance at the glitter of gold and diamonds on her left hand. It seemed a sacrilege that such a beautiful thing should represent so hollow an alliance.
The Porsche came to a halt outside her bedsit. She tugged ineffectually at her seatbelt, shrinking when Drew pushed her hands away, cursing as he released it.
‘Oh, for God’s sake don’t look at me like that!’ he snapped harshly. ‘You’re supposed to be engaged to me, remember? Even timid virgins are allowed to look at their fiancés with something approaching desire—when you look at me it’s either with fear or loathing. You’re an actress, Kirsty,’ he reminded her goadingly, ‘and a good one, or so you tell me. Prove it to me now, and kiss me as though you were my fiancée!’
‘Why?’ she managed shakily. ‘We haven’t got an audience.’
‘Ever heard of rehearsals?’ Drew asked sardonically. ‘And God knows, you need the practice.’
This last taunt was too much. Too furious to think logically, Kirsty slid her hands upwards over his chest, lifting her eyes to meet his.
‘Good,’ he to
ld her, ‘but not good enough. We’re engaged, remember? We’re already lovers, or so they think. And we’re alone. I’ve just given you my ring. You’re an actress, Kirsty, remember?’
And all at once she did. She wasn’t Kirsty Stannard any longer, but the girl Drew had just described, free to experience all those weak, melting sensations curling insidiously through her stomach, sending her pulse rate sky-high as she lifted her hands to Drew’s shoulders, caressing the smooth flesh-covered muscles, her lips trembling as she touched them to his throat, feeling the roughness of his jaw against her skin as his arms closed round her and his lips met hers in a kiss of sensual sweetness that swept aside all her preconceived ideas of what a kiss should be.
Certainly she had never, ever, experienced before this yielding tide of emotion; this need to press ever closer to Drew’s body, her own moulding itself instinctively to his hardness, her fears forgotten in the headiness of what she was experiencing.
It wasn’t until two boys cycled past the car, whistling appreciatively, that she came to, jerking herself out of Drew’s arms with a shocked protest and wrenching open the car door before he could speak.
Acting! That was what she was supposed to have been doing, but only she knew how precious little acting ability it had taken to respond so passionately to Drew’s touch.
The realisation came as she climbed the stairs to her room. She had fallen in love with Drew.
It ought to have been impossible, but somehow she had—against all the odds—managed it. She tried to convince herself that it wasn’t true, that she was suffering from some strange delusion, but the truth once admitted would not be banished.
In the gathering dusk she sat completely motionless staring out of the window, trying to come to terms with the enormity of what had happened. Now more than ever before it was imperative that she got out of this fictitious engagement before Drew discovered the truth. It would be like being flayed alive, she thought helplessly. She couldn’t endure it—no one could, not knowing all the time that he loved Beverley and was simply using her to punish Beverley and bring her to heel.
With almost feverish intensity she tried to formulate some sort of plan of escape.
The telephone rang. She picked up the receiver and heard Clive Richmond’s voice on the other end.
‘A few of us are getting together at my place to go over our parts. Do you fancy coming round? I’m providing the supper, visitors provide the booze. How about it?’
All at once it sounded just what Kirsty wanted—the same sort of uncomplicated, pleasant evening she had enjoyed so often at college.
‘I’ll be round in half an hour,’ she promised, her spirits suddenly lightening. For this evening, she would put Drew and her love for him out of her mind.
It took her just over half an hour to reach the address he had given her. She had been delayed by Mrs Cummings whom she had met in the hallway, and had explained briefly to her where she was going.
Clive opened the door to her ring. Behind him Kirsty could see into the room, smaller and untidier than her own and lacking its cheerful warmth.
‘Rafe and Cherry have just nipped down to the pub,’ he greeted her, ‘the others will be along shortly. Come on in.’
As far as Kirsty could see no attempts had been made to get any supper ready, and remembering her student days, she guessed that that task would fall to the girls when they all arrived.
Clive accepted the bottle of plonk she proffered and poured them both a glass.
‘Make yourself at home,’ he told her, gesturing to the lumpy settee taking up most of the room.
A dog-eared copy of the play had been tossed carelessly on to the floor, and Kirsty picked it up and started to read absently from it as Clive closed the curtains and turned off the main lights. With just the glow from the electric fire and the lamps behind them, the untidiness of the room looked less obvious. Clive put a tape in the cassette machine on the floor, and the sound of Dr Hook began to fill the room.
Kirsty listened appreciatively, making no objection when Clive joined her on the settee.
‘How come you get such a juicy part, when a man of my many and varied talents only gets Borachio?’ he demanded mock-indignantly.
Kirsty pretended to consider the matter, her head on one side, the dark richness of her curls flatteringly framed by the plum-coloured jumper she was wearing over her jeans. ‘You’re not pretty enough for Hero?’ she ventured at last.
‘And our revered director certainly doesn’t fancy me,’ he agreed. ‘By the way, did you know he was dining with the Baileys tonight? And that Beverley was joining them?’
‘I don’t own him,’ she managed at last, unwilling to admit to the searing jealousy she was experiencing. By the time tonight was over would Beverley be in possession of the key to Drew’s house once more?
‘He isn’t worth it.’ She realised that Clive was watching her so closely. ‘Besides, what’s sauce for the goose…’
‘Isn’t it time the others started to arrive?’ Kirsty asked to change the subject, glancing at her watch as she did so. ‘It’s getting quite late—there won’t be much time left to do any work.’
‘They’ll be here soon,’ Clive told her carelessly. ‘And as for work, Drew will make sure none of us slack on that. I should have got Claudio,’ he told her. ‘My agent told me I’d as good as got the part, until your precious fiancé poked his nose in where it wasn’t wanted, and told Simon he didn’t think I’d got the experience. He obviously thinks you’ve got the experience,’ he told Kirsty with a silky vehemence that sounded warning bells in her brain. ‘Have you, Kirsty?’
‘Not really.’ She edged away from him.
‘Oh, come on, don’t give me that. Drew Chalmers is no fool. You can’t be the little innocent you look. We could have fun together, you and I, Kirsty—you know that, don’t you? We’re two of a kind.’
Were they? Somehow Kirsty didn’t think so. Cherry had warned her about Clive, but she had chosen to ignore her, thinking she could use him for her own ends. She had an uncomfortable feeling that she had bitten off more than she could chew. She didn’t like the look in his eyes or the way he was smiling.
It came to her on a sudden rush of distaste that he expected her to cheat on Drew and that while he would do everything he could to encourage her, he was shallow and vain and totally without any substance for anyone to rely on. It was an unpleasant shock to realise how close she had been to allying herself to him, and she admitted tacitly that she would not now go through with her plan to use him to force Drew into abandoning their engagement. She would have to find another way; a way that did not leave her feeling as though she had failed her own high standards.
‘I think I’d better be going,’ she told him quickly. ‘It’s getting late, will you apologise for me to the others?’
‘What others?’ All at once the veneer of good humour was gone. ‘Don’t play games with me, Kirsty. We both know the ground rules. There never was anyone else—just the two of us, and that’s the way we both wanted it, umm?’ His fingers were moving up her arm as he spoke and Kirsty had to fight hard against a shudder of revulsion.
‘You’re wrong,’ she told him firmly. ‘I had no idea. I’m engaged to Drew—remember?’
She hated herself for the weak way she fell back on the protection of Drew’s name; Drew’s ring, glittering fierily on her finger.
‘Sure I do,’ Clive sneered. ‘But we’re both adults—you weren’t thinking too much about Drew Chalmers on Sunday afternoon. Come on, Kirsty,’ he wheedled, ‘what’s the harm?’
‘The harm is that I’m engaged to someone else,’ Kirsty told him. ‘I’m sorry, Clive, but I honestly thought the others would be here.’ She got up as she spoke, heading for the door, but Clive was there before her, his expression bitter as he grasped her arms, swinging her round to face him.
‘You’re a cheat, Kirsty.’ There was an ugly look in his eyes, and a frisson of fear shot through her. ‘But no one cheats me!’
Kirsty struggled to avoid the angry pressure of his mouth, flinching as he lost his temper with her, bruising the soft skin of her face as she tried to avoid his blow. He released her almost immediately, eyes narrowed as she trembled convulsively in front of him.
‘Don’t try running to Drew Chalmers with this,’ he warned her softly. ‘I’ll tell him that you came here of your own free will. It’s surprising how easily soft skin bruises—as I’m sure he already knows.’ His mouth twisted mockingly, and Kirsty was not surprised to discover that she was still trembling when she reached her car.
She seemed to have matured immeasurably in a short handful of hours; first the discovery of her love for Drew, and then learning that sometimes safety came at too high a price. Her own self-respect refused to allow her to stoop to Clive Richmond’s level, and she knew she would rather endure a thousand engagements to Drew in preference to encouraging Clive to believe that she would welcome a sordid affair with him behind Drew’s back.
She inspected her face in her driving mirror before driving off. The skin along her cheekbone was already discolouring. There was a scratch on her throat just above the line of her jumper—she remembered tugging at it—and her bottom lip looked swollen and sore. Swallowing her distaste, she wished she had brought some make-up with her, but she rarely wore more than a touch of eyeshadow, mascara, and lip-gloss, and it would take more than those to disguise her bruises. At least she would be able to conceal them before she had to face the others at rehearsal tomorrow. Heavens, she was a fool! She might have guessed that Clive had no intention of asking the others. No wonder he had refused to believe her!
She did her best during the drive back to compose herself, but it wasn’t easy. She wasn’t going to overreact and assume that Clive had deliberately meant to hurt her, but she had found the experience both humiliating and degrading, and she had probably learned a valuable lesson from it, she admitted wryly, as she parked her car and slid her key into the lock.