Wild Lady Part 14

Claudia, irritated by all this male bonding, interrupted. "Jim, will you find Phillip and ask him to come along to my dressing room as soon as he's free." Then she extended her hand to Mac. "Come along, sweetheart," she said, with a distinct lack of warmth. "I'll show you around."

"I'm all yours," he said, reaching out to take her hand, folding it into his own much larger one.

It was odd. He infuriated her, he made her feel scratchy and cross, yet she had to admit that she enjoyed the feel of his hand about hers. It was a slightly battered hand, and although the nails were clean and neatly trimmed there was nothing manicured or pampered about it. It was rather like Mac, she thought, as nature had intended, but tough as they came and very strong. Wrapped around her fingers like this, it had the effect of making her feel cherished and protected. Not that she would was going to admit it. Ever.

Claudia's silver fox eyes gleamed softly as she looked up at him. "All mine?"

Mac, his fingers wrapped around the small, delicately boned hand of this unreadable woman, felt as if he had been kicked by a mule. She had that affect on him. One moment he was as irritated as h.e.l.l because she was behaving like a wayward brat, the next she looked at him with those extraordinary eyes and he was gasping for air. Yet even as he acknowledged that she was the most bewitching, the most desirable creature he had ever met, his skin crawled with the thought that flirting was something she did as naturally as breathing. That it didn't mean anything. And if it did? The question was there at the back of his mind and wouldn't go away.

But d.a.m.n her, he refused to make a fool of himself over her. He'd do his best to clear up the mess she was in and then he'd forget her. And quickly.

"Just as long as you behave yourself," he told her, brusquely.

"I'm trying to be good." Her husky voice teased him, just as her eyes had and the mule kicked again.

"No, sweetheart, you're just trying."

She looked up at him, startled, but something in his expression must have rea.s.sured her because she laughed, her lips parting softly, the sound as sweet and warm as cinnamon toast.

It was all pretense of course. Meantime her hand felt good in his and the elusive flowery scent she was wearing seemed to fill his head as she leaned against his shoulder, turning to smile up at him as they walked to her dressing room, making certain that everyone they pa.s.sed knew she was in love. He swallowed, hard, and smiled back. After all, this had been his idea.

"Oh, dear lord," she exclaimed, as she saw the pile of newspaper clippings placed in a neat pile on her dressing table.

She reclaimed her hand, crossing swiftly to look at them.

Mac, missing the small hand tucked trustingly into his, somehow managed to stop himself from going after her, concentrating instead on the room itself. Concentrating on the job. Without a window the room was invulnerable from outside. He opened the door to her private bathroom, glanced around, but it had an electric ventilator. Whoever had slashed her costume had come through the door from the corridor, pa.s.sing goodness knew how many people on the way. But no one had noticed. Which strongly suggested that it was someone who had every right to be there. An inside job.

And if whoever it was had left any clues they had all been cleaned away since Sat.u.r.day night. The surfaces at been thoroughly polished, the floor vacuumed, the pots of makeup had all be wiped and were laid out along with brushes in all shapes and sizes in neat rows, waiting for her to transform herself into her character.

The roses in the tall vase had been beautifully arranged, the fading blooms removed. There was nothing hurried, slapdash about it. It hadn't been a quick flick over with a duster. Someone had done this for her, did it for her every day with care and devotion and for the first time he was forced to confront the fact that she wasn't just some tiresome actress who was in a bit of bother. She was the center of this small universe, her talent and her name brought in the crowds whose money paid the wages. That she was, in fact, a star.

"Claudia -"

"I'm afraid this is worse than I expected," she said, turning to him with a sheaf of clippings in her hand, interrupting him before he could make an utter fool of himself. He had to make a serious effort to concentrate on what she was saying.

"Worse?" he demanded. "What could be worse?"

"This," she said, with a giggle as she held up a sheet of newsprint to show him the headline. STAR FALLS FOR PARACHUTE HERO, he read and groaned. "Are you a hero, my darling?" Her voice was teasing. "I think I ought to know."

"I would have thought you'd know better than to believe what you read in the newspapers," he reminded her.

"Oh, I do," she replied, lightly. "But I find it odd the way everyone says that when they are in the news, yet still seem to be taken in by stories about other people."

Mac mentally flinched, conscious that he had just been quietly reprimanded, gently but firmly rapped over the knuckles with the equivalent of a velvet-covered cane. Guilty as charged.

"I suppose," he said, slowly, "that if a thing is repeated often enough it achieves a certain mythical status."

"Hang onto that thought, Mac," she told him, her laughter deepening the tiny lines around her eyes, lifting her whole face, giving it character, depth, offering him a glimpse of the woman beneath the public image. A real woman, warm and full of life and he realized, quite suddenly, that he had been wrong about her. He had judged her on newspaper gossip and his own prejudiced att.i.tudes. He'd made no secret of his feelings and because of that he had only been allowed to skim the surface sh.e.l.l of Claudia Beaumont, to know the part of her capable of taking on the sharpest television host around and steal away his show, the woman who flirted her way across the gossip pages, the part of her the public thought it knew and owned. But there was more, much more and he wanted to break through the sh.e.l.l and discover the whole woman, find out what had made her so very protective of her inner self that he suspected she almost forgot it was there herself. "I think you're about to become a myth in your own right," she added, then glancing obliquely at him. "I do hope you're up to it."

"Why? What does it say?" He was floundering, trying to regain a foothold as the ground shifted treacherously beneath him.

"I did warn you. I'm afraid that since rumors of our romance were too late to catch the Sunday papers, the dailies have rather gone to town."

"I imagine I'll survive," he rea.s.sured her, but as she looked at the photograph accompanying the headline, Claudia caught her lower lip between her teeth. It gave her a curiously vulnerable look and he moved closer, resting his hand on her shoulder as he looked over her head to see for himself.

What he saw made him frown. It was an almost indecent close-up of that television kiss, although why, frozen like this in a grainy black and white photograph, it should seem so much worse than live and in full color before an audience of millions, he didn't know. But live, it had been over in moments, it had been a performance and no one had been looking that closely. But the photograph captured something that the viewer would never see, something that wasn't quite make-believe.

"You did say that Barty James would probably have a journalist on standby," he reminded her.

"Journalist rather overstates the case," she said, touching the photograph with just the tip of her forefinger. "But you're right, as the whole thing had been set up in advance it seemed logical that he would want to take full advantage of the situation."

"We might not have ... cooperated."

"Then he would simply have used the kiss on the film."

"But that wasn't ... you didn't ... Oh, I see."

"I knew you would." Eventually. He'd kissed her and that had given Barty James the idea to use it for the show. And now it was Claudia's name that was being bandied about. Oh, he was there, but no one was really interested in him except as an accessory for their story. And that was how reputations were forged in the heat of the pressroom. Except of course there was no hot lead these days. It was all done clinically, by computer. She hadn't said he was slow on the uptake, but then she hadn't needed to.

He swallowed and turned back to the clipping for another lesson in reading between the lines. In fact there wasn't much more than a caption, leaving the journalist little room to speculate on their relationship. But then he hadn't needed words; the photograph said it all.

Other newspapers hadn't been so restrained. Without the picture of the kiss they had simply printed a stock photograph of Claudia and made up for the omission by telling their readers what they had managed to dig up in the meantime. All of them reported that the two of them had met during a charity parachute jump, all of them repeated the "hero" motive although mercifully without any details which suggested it was just a useful word to go with parachute. Thankfully none of them had taken the trouble to look up his record. Or anything else. Several had made a big point about the instant attraction between them.

"There was an attraction all right," Mac said. "Your near side wing was instantly attracted to the offside of my Landcruiser. I'll bet none of them mentioned that."

Claudia looked back up over her shoulder at him, laughing at his obvious indignation. "Oh, yes they did," she said, rifling through the cuttings. "Listen to this." She put on a pompous voice. ""Claudia Beaumont suffered a minor accident on arrival at the airfield, skidding on the wet gra.s.s in her new sports car. Gabriel MacIntyre immediately rushed to her a.s.sistance..." - rushing to wring my neck more like," she countered - ""and his deep concern was obvious to everyone present."" She turned to face him without dislodging his hand from her shoulder. "Nicely done. You were concerned, weren't you Mac? About your shiny black car. And your aircraft hangar."

"I did apologize."

"Mmmm. I don't think you've quite got the hang of apologies, Mac. You should consider taking lessons."

"I thought you'd forgiven me."

"Well I have," she said, "for that. But you will keep doing and saying things that mean you have to say you're sorry all over again. You're beginning to slip seriously behind. That comment you made outside the theater for instance," she said, ticking it off on her fingers. "Then grabbing my shirt and telling me to behave in front of the crew wasn't exactly gentlemanly -"

And apologizing for his thoughts would take a month. Fortunately Claudia couldn't read his mind. Interestingly she hadn't mentioned the incident with the dress ... Maybe that was her way of admitting she had been in the wrong. Maybe he should ... No. She just wanted to forget about that. He certainly wished he could. Right now she was simply teasing him a little so he kept it light.

"Lady, you could do with a few lessons yourself. Your own manners leave something to be desired. Just because you're a star -"

"A star?" She laughed. "I'm sure you don't think I'm a star."

"A wild star, a slightly wicked star, a star that twinkles when it thinks it will rather than according to any rules of physics, but I don't think there's any doubt about it, Miss Beaumont. You're a star by any definition of the word."

She laughed again, but this time a little uncertainly. "I do believe that was a compliment." She lifted her hand to his cheek, touching it lightly with just the tips of her fingers. "Rather a nice one. Perhaps there's hope for you yet." On an impulse she raised her lips to his and kissed him, equally lightly. "Thank you, Gabriel."

Gabriel. His name had been something of an embarra.s.sment to him as a boy and he had ditched it the moment he had left school. And Jenny had hated it. But on Claudia's lips it suddenly sounded wonderful. "Anytime," he said, his voice thick, his body tight with a sudden and very urgent need for her. Without allowing himself to think about what he was doing he caught her about the waist, drawing him into his body and as he lowered his mouth to hers, she closed her eyes.

They were alone, no audience; the only reason to kiss her was because he wanted to. And he wanted to. If he was honest with himself he'd wanted to since he'd wrenched open her car door and first set eyes on her. Oh, he'd been infuriated by her careless driving, but that had been nothing compared to the wave of anger that had overwhelmed him as he realized that none of the barriers that he had erected to protect himself from his emotions, from feeling anything for a very long time, were one d.a.m.ned bit of use when confronted by Claudia Beaumont. All it had taken had been one look from those incredible eyes, one throwaway line in that low, husky voice and his defenses had begun to crumble. And no amount of reinforcement had helped.

His lips brushed over hers and he felt her tremble slightly, unexpectedly against him. After the confidence of her embrace in front of the cameras he had expected her to respond with a rather more immediate fire. Pa.s.sion or fury. Instead she seemed to be holding her breath, waiting for him to take the lead. Her hesitancy took him by surprise, emboldening him and he took her lower lip between his to taste its warm sweetness, dipping his tongue against her teeth in the gentlest exploration. She gave a little sigh, moved slightly to fit herself more closely against him, raising her lashes over a pair of startled eyes, as she became aware of his all too obvious arousal. "Is this the way you take care of all your clients?" she asked, her voice more breath than substance.

Clients? Did she really think of herself as his client? If that were the case, he'd be giving serious thought about how he collected his account. "It's the most effective technique I know," he a.s.sured her, softly. "If anyone wants to get to you, they have to get pa.s.sed me first."

She thought about it for a moment, then said, "That makes sense." And apparently quite happy with that closed her eyes again. He looked down at her. Her lids were heavy, lightly dusted with the same silver gray as the color of her eyes; her lashes were unbelievably long and thick, like the glossy furs worn by his grandmother when he was a boy. He touched them very lightly with his lips and was rewarded with a tiny sound that came from somewhere deep inside her, tightening his skin, making him very aware of his own desire. But he refused to be rushed by a racketing libido. It had been a long time since he had made love to a woman and he was determined they should both enjoy the experience.

With that firmly in mind, he began, very slowly, very thoroughly to trace the finely molded bones of her face until he reached the small crease just above corner of her mouth. Her lips, he had noticed, tilted up slightly, so that she looked as if she was smiling even when her eyes were saying something else, but the crease only appeared when she was genuinely happy and it seemed that she was happy now. Rather happy himself, he touched the tiny indentation with the tip of his tongue.

Claudia turned slightly as if seeking his mouth with her own, but then she hesitated and looked up at him, her eyes full of question. "This is just for us, Mac?" she asked, with touching uncertainty.

"Just for us."

And she gave a little sigh. He took his time, aware that for both of them this was something new. Not the kissing, he had kissed her before, first without quite knowing why, and then he had kissed her because ... well, there were all kinds of reasons, none of them to do with the way he was feeling right now.

Now he tasted her lips, the smooth minty freshness of her teeth, met and slowly acquainted himself with the heady pleasure of her tongue, drifting away on a tide of this new sensual pleasure. New. The word mocked him. He was thirty-five years old. There was not much left for him to discover, pleasure or pain, that was entirely new and as the kiss deepened a warning bell reminded him that he'd been here before.

Yet not quite here. Not feeling quite like this. This was like being fifteen, knowing nothing and kissing a girl for the first time all mixed up with those years of experience. The combination was so heady that he didn't even hear the door opening behind him. It took a low cough to warn him that they were no longer alone, to drag him back from the dangerous territory into which he had strayed.

It took a moment longer before he focused on the figure standing in the doorway. Mac had seen him before and he didn't much like him. His brain began, slowly, to click into gear. Redmond. Phillip Redmond, the theater manager.

"You sent for me, Claudia?" Redmond said, with the barest touch of something insolent in his manner. "I did knock." But he hadn't waited for her to answer and he had interrupted them when anyone with an ounce of good taste would have simply closed the door and gone away, Mac thought. No, he didn't like him. And he fully expected Claudia to tell the man to get lost in her own inimitable style.

Instead she took a little shuddery breath, Mac felt it beneath his hands before she gathered herself and not quite managing to meet his eyes, turned away from him, putting a yard of distance between them. It felt like a mile, a great yawning empty s.p.a.ce.

"Yes, Phillip, I did." Mac took comfort from the fact that her voice shook just a little and that she sat rather suddenly on her dressing stool. "I want to know the progress you've made so far in your inquiries about what happened on Sat.u.r.day." She avoided looking in the mirror, Mac noticed, avoided looking at him, while Redmond fussed around picking up the cuttings that had slipped from her hands. "Leave those," she said, impatiently. "I'll pick them up later."

She wasn't quite in control, Mac thought, but she was getting there. Phillip Redmond, however, was too intent on the photograph in the newspaper to notice Claudia's lack of poise. "Your mother would never have done that," he said, holding it out to her.

She didn't take it. "It was just a kiss, Phillip," she said, blushing a little. Mac was surprised that she felt the need to explain herself to the theater manager. He was even more surprised by the blush. "It was just a bit a fun to raise money for Fizz's charity."

"Your mother raised a great deal of money for charity without the need to make an exhibition of herself," Redmond replied. "But then, she was a lady."

Claudia finally took the paper, looked at it for a moment and then at Redmond. The sudden flush of color had been leached from her skin and she was perfectly still. "Just what does that mean, Phillip?" she inquired, softly. "That my mother was more competent at raising money for charity than me?" Her pause was epic. "Or that I am not a lady?"

CHAPTER NINE.

THERE was a horribly long moment when the tension was so thick that it could have been cut into wedges and served with whipped cream. Mac finally broke the silence.

"Miss Beaumont asked you a question, Redmond." His voice was scarcely above a whisper, but it was the kind of whisper that would have hit the back wall of a hushed theater, Claudia thought, and no one would have been left in any doubt about his feelings. "It would be ill-mannered to keep a lady waiting for an answer."

A lady? Used by Mac to describe her, the word caught her by surprise. She fought back the urge to look at him and read his face, see if he really meant it. It was too important. She cared too much. So she kept her eyes fastened on Phillip Redmond.

But Phillip was defensive, rather than apologetic. "I didn't say that, Claudia. You know I didn't mean to imply -"

"Didn't you?" With his mean-spirited attempt to justify himself something snapped. Claudia knew the way Phillip felt about her mother. He'd placed the image of Elaine French on a pedestal a mile high and worshipped at her feet.

It had been obvious from the first that he bitterly resented Melanie's presence. She had told Mel that Phillip would get used to her, but it was quite obvious that he had been getting more, rather than less difficult during the run and, Claudia realized with a sinking heart, she was partly to blame.

With the benefit of hindsight she believed her father had been unwise to bring Phillip in to work on Private Lives, a play so much a.s.sociated with the Elaine French legend, although heaven knew that he would have been terribly hurt if he'd been left out of the team. But he had been getting more, rather than less difficult during the run because she and her father had preferred to overlook his behavior, excusing it as a slightly irritating eccentricity instead of confronting it. It had been a mistake, a mistake she had to address right now.

Phillip wanted her to behave like her mother, or at least the woman he thought she had been. No problem.

Lifting her head, she tilted it slightly to one side in the pose that was the very essence of Elaine French and then very still, very poised, she became her mother.

It wasn't difficult. She had been brought up to it, had performed the trick as a child, for her mother's friends, for eager photographers when they came to take "family" shots, even at school.

"I think," she said, in that cool dismissive voice her mother had used when she was particularly displeased, "I think that you came very close to it, Phillip."

Redmond blinked, his shoulders dropped and he took a step back, almost for a moment as if he'd seen a ghost. Then he raised his hand to his forehead. "I'm sorry, madam. I'm sorry. You know I wouldn't do anything to hurt you." He made a helpless little gesture.

Madam. He had always called her mother that and Claudia froze, momentarily horrified by what she had done, how convincing she had been.

"Perhaps you'd better try harder," Mac suggested, stepping forward, a supportive hand beneath her elbow. "Miss Beaumont was put in an impossible situation on Sat.u.r.day. Do you think she enjoyed performing like that?"

"Miss Beaumont? Claudia." Phillip stared at her for a moment and then with a long shudder turned to Mac. "I'm sorry. It's just that Claudia looks so much like her mother. I can't..." He made a helpless little gesture, as if incapable of putting his feelings into words.

Claudia made a small sound, deep in her throat. It might have been the beginnings of a laugh. But then again, it might not, she couldn't be sure. If Phillip had ever seen the ladylike Elaine French screaming abuse at her hapless husband because she was no longer beautiful, because she couldn't bear to look at herself in the mirror and he was the only available target for her venom ...

But no one knew about that. Oh, Fizz had told Luke, and Melanie had been told just a little about why Edward Beaumont hadn't left his deeply damaged wife to be with the girl he loved. But no one who hadn't been there could possibly know. Who could you tell? Who would ever believe it? They had never discussed what they should do. They had each simply chosen to lock away the terrible memories and so the legend had remained intact.

She realized that Mac was looking at her, his eyes suggesting that Phillip was expecting something from her, the gentle pressure of his hand on her arm a.s.suring her that she was not alone. Slowly, with conscious effort she came back to the dressing room, reality.

"The standards of behavior that my mother set were so..." - she struggled for the right word - "... so taxing, that few of us can ever hope to achieve their like, Phillip," she said. It was as near to an acceptance of his apology as she could manage.

He didn't appear to notice the reservation. "She was unique," he agreed, solemnly, as if that answered everything.

"I believe she was." She sincerely hoped so. And she made a silent promise to herself that, no matter what the provocation, she would never, ever, impersonate her mother again. And once this run of Private Lives was over, she would never recreate one of her roles, or even allow herself to be made up to look like her.

A shiver ran through her, as if someone had walked over her grave.

Mac felt it and moved closer. "Claudia?"

She put her hand over his for just a moment while she gathered herself and he saw the brief internal struggle as she reclaimed herself, put on the public smile. "Darling," she said, with forced brightness, "why don't you sit down over there. This won't take long and then I'll show you around."

For the moment Mac accepted that he had temporarily lost the woman he had discovered a few minutes ago. Warm, a little uncertain, a very different woman from the one who wore her couldn't-care-less front so convincingly. But he was concerned about her, too. Just now something had happened inside Claudia's head that he didn't quite understand. She had done something to herself, something that had sent a shiver down his spine.

As he hesitated, she gave him a playful push and taking his cue from her, he reluctantly resumed his self-inflicted role as infatuated lover and retreated to the velvet covered chaise. The temptation to flatten Phillip Redmond was still making his knuckles tingle but it would serve no purpose, Mac decided, other than to make himself feel better and that wasn't why he was there. So he picked up a program to flick through idly as though the business of the theater bored him rigid.

Nothing could be further from the truth. Phillip Redmond interested him a very great deal. He was clearly obsessed with Elaine French and obsessive characters were dangerous. Especially when the object of that obsession, apparently reincarnated in the shape of her daughter, refused to conform to the proper standards of behavior.

Mac wasn't a psychologist but to his layman's mind it had all the hallmarks of a disaster waiting to happen. Or maybe it had already happened. The destruction of the dress would have presented no difficulty for Redmond and he undoubtedly knew where both Claudia and Fizz lived. He could have followed them easily in the heavy traffic of London and once he had seen they were headed for Broomhill he wouldn't have needed to stay on their tail.

The photograph in the parachute was more difficult.