Wild Lady Part 3

Then as Phillip appeared in the doorway she caught sight of the yellow roses abandoned on the chair and in a moment of weakness went back for them.

Phillip gave the flowers a doubtful glance. "You're not taking those home with you, are you?" he asked.

Claudia smothered a strong inclination to tell him that it was none of his business. She was trying to be diplomatic and that would hardly be a good start.

"Don't you like them? I think they're very pretty."

"Your mother hated them," he said, as if that was the last word on the subject. "'Never trust a man who sends yellow roses,' she said to me more than once."

And her mother was undoubtedly an authority on the subject. "Of course she would only accept white roses. Even from Mr. Edward."

"I know." The white roses had been part of the Elaine French image and were banked around her dressing room on a first night like a virgin's boudoir. Claudia pulled a face. "Actually, Phillip, I've decided I don't trust men full stop," she said, a little sharply. Then, "Present company excepted, of course. Roses, however, are something else and the color of these will go perfectly with my new curtains. Shall we go?"

When he stopped outside her door Phillip offered to see her up to her apartment, check it out for her.

"You can't be too careful," he said. "A woman living alone is very vulnerable."

"I know," she said. No one better. "And I am careful. I had an alarm installed a few weeks ago." The strain of the day was beginning to take its toll; she'd had all the enthusiastic reminiscences about her mother that she could handle. That and the lingering scent of tobacco that filled Philip's car and clung to his clothes even though he had refrained from actually smoking during the drive.

By the time she had climbed the stairs to her apartment, her ankle was throbbing in time with the graze beneath her eye and all she wanted to do was fall into bed. She slid her key into the lock, opened the door and groped to reset the alarm before it woke the neighbors.

It wasn't switched on.

Claudia frowned. It wouldn't be the first time she'd forgotten to set it, but after her fright this morning, she'd been so careful. At least she thought she had been careful. She hesitated for a moment in the hall wondering whether to run back downstairs and tell Phillip she had changed her mind. He had insisted that he would stay until he saw a light come on. But if he came up she would have to make him coffee, it would be an hour before he left. Instead, she ran through the last moments before she had left for the theater. The taxi driver had been hooting impatiently. It had been a rush.

The flat was absolutely quiet, the only sound her heart pounding in her ears. She was just letting her imagination run away with her. It was that d.a.m.ned letter. But she didn't turn on the light and she left the front door open before edging along the wall to the kitchen, pushing open the door with a nervous little shove. It was dark inside, only the electric green colon on the microwave clock winking at her to warn her that there had been a power failure in her absence. Could that have knocked out the alarm? She tried to remember what the man who had installed it had said. The sound of the refrigerator starting up made her jump and for a moment she leaned weakly against the door frame while her heart returned to something approaching a normal beat.

"Idiot!" she said, and switching on the light she began to laugh at her own stupidity. "Stupid, stupid -"

Then the front door banged.

She spun around, heart right back in her mouth, pulse rate racketing like an express train. Who's there? The words formed in her head, a silent scream. Because she couldn't speak, couldn't call out for help. Her throat had closed with fear, her tongue become thick and rigid as a plank of wood and her voice, the lyrical, laughing voice with which she enchanted hundreds of people every night, deserted her as a dark clad figure detached itself from the shadows of the hall.

CHAPTER THREE.

"FRIGHTENED, Miss Beaumont?"

The voice was low, gravelly, its very softness making it more, not less threatening. It was also familiar and with the familiarity came unrestrained fury and Claudia boiled over.

"What the h.e.l.l do you think you're playing at, MacIntyre? You frightened the wits out of me."

"That was my intention." He stepped out of the shadows and the dark clothing was nothing more threatening than a suit with the collar turned up to cover the betraying whiteness of his shirt.

"You wanted to scare me?" Claudia's voice had returned with a vengeance and she used it. "Is that what you usually do when a girl tells you to get lost?"

"Making people think about their safety is what I do best. Whether they're packing a parachute, or being threatened from some unknown source. I normally charge heavily for the experience, but in your case I'll consider it reward enough if the next time you come home and find your burglar alarm has been interfered with you'll remember how you felt just thirty seconds ago."

"Remember?" Claudia knew without doubt that she would never forget that momentary feeling of numbing helplessness, in fact her sensory input was taking on a major overload for one day.

"Yes, Miss Beaumont. Remember. And instead of behaving like some stupid female in a television drama going to investigate the noises in the attic, get out as fast as you can and call for help." Claudia, momentarily speechless, just stared at him. "You've had a shock. Would you like me to make you a cup of tea?"

The sheer matter-of-factness of his offer snapped her out of her temporary paralysis. "No," she declared, "I wouldn't. What I want is for you to go. Right now."

He ignored her invitation to leave. Instead, he put his arm around her shoulders, eased her through the kitchen door and encouraged her onto a stool before crossing to the sink to fill the kettle. "Aren't you just a little bit curious to know why I wanted to talk to you this evening?" He turned, his face quite expressionless as he waited for her answer.

Of course she was curious but Mac's impa.s.sive face gave her no clues. Well, two could play that game. Anyone who had gone to so much trouble to get his own way wasn't going anywhere until he had unburdened himself. She wasn't about to make it easy for him.

Neither did she want him to see just how much he had frightened her. So she propped her elbows on the breakfast bar, rested her chin on her hands to keep them from shaking, and waited for him to enlighten her.

He took his time, making tea despite the fact that she'd asked him not to, finding his way around her kitchen with apparent ease. Claudia refused to be impressed. He could have been in her apartment for hours, made any number of cups of tea while he was waiting for her to fall into his nasty little trap.

Nevertheless, she had to admit that he was a pleasure to watch as he set about the task with efficiency and an economy of movement. Men, she had long ago discovered, had a way of making the simplest domestic tasks appear so difficult that women lost patience with them and took over. Most men. Gabriel MacIntyre did not fall into that category. So she watched him. And when he turned with two steaming mugs of tea he saw that she was watching him.

She didn't blush, she didn't look away covered in confusion. She was twenty-seven years old. Quite old enough to out stare any man. For a moment he returned her gaze and challenged that a.s.sumption. Then, as Claudia felt the unaccustomed heat rising to her cheeks he let her off the hook, leaning forward to place one of the mugs in front of her. "It's weak," he said, "but I couldn't find any sugar."

She was furious with him, with herself even more. "I don't have any use for it," she told him.

"I rather suspected that was the case. It's a pity, you might need it when you've seen this." He lowered himself onto a stool on the other side of the breakfast bar and took an envelope out of the breast pocket of his jacket. "You asked me this morning why I switched parachutes..." He opened it and tipped the contents onto the counter in front of her. "I switched them because I found this poking out of the one you packed." Claudia watched as he fitted the pieces of photograph together, then very slowly pulled them apart again so that she could be left in no doubt as to the intended message. He looked up at her. "Have you any explanation to offer?"

"Explanation?" The word made no sense, but then she wasn't thinking very clearly. Her eyes flickered across the kitchen to the bin where she had flung that horrible letter after she had shredded it with trembling fingers. Could that letter have been a genuine threat? A chill feathered her spine and saliva gathered warningly in her mouth.

"What I'm asking, what I need to know," Mac persisted, "is whether this could have been a publicity stunt that misfired?"

Claudia swallowed hard, sipped the tea, dragged her attention back to the man sitting opposite her. 'Publicity stunt?' She pushed her hair back, desperate for something to do with her hands. For a moment they had stopped shaking. Now the tremor threatened her entire body. "Of course it wasn't a stunt. What kind of sick idiot would engineer something like that?"

"I'm asking the questions." He didn't care how she was feeling. All that tea and sympathy had been so much guff. That somehow stiffened her response. She wasn't about to be put through the third degree in her own home by a man who had broken in and scared her half to death just to prove how easy it was.

"Why?" she demanded. "If it was a stunt it didn't work so why are you getting so steamed up about it?"

"Because someone messed about with a parachute in my care. I intend to find out why and by whom. I've got my own security to think of."

His security? Oh, la di da. "You should have lined us all up against the wall and interrogated us this morning," she snapped. "I'm sure you carry thumb screws on your key ring."

"Maybe I should have," he replied, in the same cool manner, ignoring the thumb screws remark, but not denying it. "But this morning I thought I knew who had done this. I was mistaken. So, was it a stunt?" The last four words were rattled at her like pellets from a gun.

"No," she declared, instinctively backing away from him. "Of course it wasn't." She felt defensive, ashamed that he should think she could be involved in something so tacky. So nastily tacky.

He saw her reaction and pressed her for an answer. "You're quite sure?" he insisted. "Think about it."

Claudia thought about it. Her considered reaction was the same as her instinctive one. Her agent knew better than to involve her in anything of that kind; he was on knife-edge with her already over a carelessly drawn contract that had cost her a lot of money. The only other alternative was Barty.

Barty was something of an unknown quant.i.ty, but she was pretty sure that if he had been involved, it would have been handled with rather more skill. For a publicity stunt to work a whole lot of people had to know about it and on that basis it would have been a flop. But if it wasn't her agent and it wasn't Barty, who had taken so much trouble to cut up her photograph and put it where she would find it? Claudia wasn't sure it was a question she wanted to ask.

Mac wasn't so reticent. "Claudia?" he prompted, reminding her that he wasn't going away until he had an answer. And if that was what it took to get rid of him ...

"If Barty had organized a stunt like this," she said, very slowly, "it wouldn't have failed. There would have been a reporter and a press photographer on hand. And he would have ensured that someone reliable would have found..." She reached out to touch the photograph, then s.n.a.t.c.hed her hand back and put it over her mouth. It had to be connected with the letter. And that meant only one thing. Whoever had written it had meant every word.

"Reliable?" Mac prompted.

She raised her lashes to meet his questioning eyes. "Someone in on the stunt. Someone who would have known how to make a fuss. The technician who hooked up the power pack probably. Why didn't you say something?" she demanded. "If I'd known why you'd changed the wretched thing I wouldn't have been so..." She made a little gesture.

"So what?" Mac asked. Scared. But it was stupid to be scared. It was just a prank. It had to be. The alternative was too dreadful to contemplate.

When she didn't answer, he continued. "I didn't say anything because at the time I thought I knew who had done it. I was certain it was just a rather nasty attempt at scaring you. Getting her own back. I didn't think it would help you to know about it. And I didn't believe she would have tampered with the parachute. In fact I know she didn't, because I checked it after you'd gone. Which is why I wondered about a stunt."

"She?" The penny dropped. "You were protecting Tony's wife."

"She's pregnant, a bit overwrought, which is hardly surprising under the circ.u.mstances."

"What circ.u.mstances?"

"He'd told her he was going to a regimental reunion and she asked me if I was going. Unsurprisingly, I didn't have a clue what she was talking about. Then she found a ticket for tonight's show in one of Tony's pockets."

"You should have told me," she insisted.

"Why? Since the object of the exercise was to frighten you, if I'd told you about the photograph I'd have done Adele's work for her. And I didn't want you scared."

But she had already been scared. "You amaze me. I had the impression that "scared" was the very least of the many fates you were wishing on me this morning."

"Did you?" He seemed momentarily taken aback. Then after consideration he conceded that she might be right. "Perhaps I was less than sympathetic after you had plowed into my car, then attempted to demolish my hangar."

"I didn't do it deliberately."

"Pardon me?" he said, with every appearance of disbelief. "I thought you did." Claudia had known she had made a mistake the minute she'd said it, but it was too late to do anything about it now. She would just have to sit and take it. "A question of choosing the lesser of two evils, wasn't it?" Mac continued. "I do hope Barty James was suitably grateful."

"Barty James is a pain in the backside. And if you think my driving leaves something to be desired, his has to be experienced to be believed."

"You did say fast," he pointed out. Then he lifted one shoulder slightly. "But if I'm entirely honest with you," he continued, "I did have another reason for not telling you about the photograph."

"Oh?" She couldn't wait.

"I thought if you had another shock on top of the accident you'd call off the jump for the day. I really didn't want to go through that performance again."

"Not even for a double fee?" she inquired, remembering the eagerness of the crew to pack up and go home.

He must have remembered it too, because he managed a wry a smile. "No, Claudia. Not even for a double fee."

But it wasn't funny. "You should have told me, Mac," she insisted.

"There was no risk -"

"No risk?" she demanded. "No risk?" She was aware that her voice was rising, but the neatly dissected photograph was lying in front of her and she didn't care. "Who the h.e.l.l were you to decide whether there was a risk or not? It was my life!"

He regarded her with a thoughtful expression. "But I changed the parachute," he said, as if that was sufficient.

"You changed the parachute," she repeated, "and that was the answer to everything, was it? Well, Mr. Gabriel MacIntyre, you just listen to this. I woke up this morning to discover an anonymous letter on my mat. My kindly correspondent had gone to an enormous trouble, you know, cutting great big letters out of newspapers, just to let me know that my parachute wasn't going to open. So it was a bit late to protect me from Adele's scare tactics. She had already scored a bulls-eye." She had finally shocked that careful, interrogative expression off his face, Claudia thought. Mac was a man it would be hard to shock, but she had just managed to seriously disturb him. If she had had the time to think about it, she would have applauded herself for such an achievement. But she was too busy telling him exactly what he had done this morning. "I had actually managed to convince myself that it was just a sick joke -"

"A joke?"

"Some people have a very weird sense of humor," she told him. "And approximately eleven million people saw me on television last week. They all knew I was going to make a parachute jump this morning. When you're in the public eye that kind of thing goes with the territory."

"You didn't consider canceling today?"

From somewhere she found a smile. "Believe me I wish I had. The entire twenty-four hours. But I figured that since the idea of the letter was to scare me out of making the jump, it had to be from someone with a motive for making me look pathetic. I mean, who would believe it? Really? If you'd read about it in the newspaper you'd have thought I'd done it myself just to get out of it. Wouldn't you?"

"Maybe I would," he agreed, without apology. "But it would have been wise to mention it so that I could have double-checked -"

"Mention it?" She regarded him with scorn. "Just when would I have mentioned it? After you started yelling at me? I don't believe I had much time before."

He ignored this. "You obviously didn't take it seriously," he said. "No one could be that stupid."

"Oh, right. Give the man a coconut. I didn't take it seriously. It made me feel sick to my stomach but I had still managed to convince myself that everything was fine. Who could tamper with my parachute? It was safely in the care of Tony and he wouldn't do anything to hurt me. Would he?" she demanded and was glad to see an angry color darkening his cheekbones. "Of course not. Then, just as I stepped through the plane doorway I realized that you had changed the parachute, Mr. MacIntyre. That no one had seen you do it. And quite suddenly it occurred to me that I didn't know you from Adam..."

"Claudia?" He stood up. "You didn't think ... Oh, my G.o.d, you did ... you thought it wasn't going to open -"

The recollection of that horrible moment was suddenly too much for her and she was off the stool and running for the bathroom as the bile rose to her throat, stinging, foul. She had eaten nothing all day as events had piled, one on top of the other, conspiring to rob her of her appet.i.te, but her stomach muscles reacting belatedly to the day's traumas weren't bothered about that. Now all she could taste was the acid of the few sips of champagne she had swallowed after the jump as she wretched and wretched and then slumped on the floor, her back against the bath, her cold clammy forehead on her knee.

"Claudia," Mac said, gently, his hands on her shoulders. "Come on. Get up."

She jerked away from his touch. "Go away," she muttered, through the rawness of her throat. "Just leave me alone." He took no notice. Instead he lifted her to her feet, propping her on the edge of the bath before ringing out a flannel under the cold tap.

He wiped her face, pressed the cold cloth to her forehead. "There," he said, as if that would make everything better. "Come and lie down." His concern was obvious, but she didn't want his concern. She just wanted him to go. And so she repeated her request for him to leave, somewhat less politely. But he appeared to have been afflicted with sudden deafness since instead of doing what he had been told, he picked her up and carried her through into the sitting room and put her on the sofa. "Lie down," he said, "and put your feet up."

Claudia gave in, not gracefully, but she gave in; deep down she knew that she didn't have a choice. It was obvious that Gabriel MacIntyre was a man who gave orders rather than took them and so she stopped protesting and allowed him to remove her shoes, prop her feet on a cushion. "How's the ankle?" he asked, as an afterthought when he noticed the strapping.

"There's nothing wrong with my ankle that a pain killing injection and some efficient strapping couldn't handle. I thought I told you to go?"

He went, but almost immediately returned with a gla.s.s of water. She shook her head and he put it on the table beside her. Then crouching down he took her hands, chafed at them.

"For heaven's sake," she declared, s.n.a.t.c.hing them back. "Do I look like some heroine out of a Victorian melodrama?"

"Yes, and from your color one about to expire from consumption," he confirmed, but he stood up. "I did what I thought was best this morning. I know you must have had a horrible few seconds - "Seconds?" She let her head fall back against the cushions, closing her eyes in an attempt to blot it out. "It felt like years. Falling and falling ... Time to think of all the things I wouldn't see, wouldn't ever do..." And for a moment he was holding her, as if trying to absorb the fit of trembling that had overtaken her. His chest had the solidity of a cliff and as she clung to him, for the first time that day she felt safe. It was an illusion of course. Cliffs were dangerous places, continually undermined by the waves and slipping into the sea. And men had feet of clay. "Are you in love with her?" she asked.

"In love?" He pulled away to look down at her. "I don't follow you."

She thought he did, but she was prepared to humor him. "With Tony's wife. That is why you tried to protect her, isn't it? You're in love with her yourself."

"Adele?" The corners of his mouth creased in the wryest of smiles. "No, Claudia. I'm not in love with her. In fact I'd say she'd about the biggest pain in the backside it's ever been my misfortune to meet, but since she's my sister I have to put up with her."

She regarded him with disbelief. "Tony's married to your sister and he's prepared to risk fooling around?"

But Mac's mouth lifted at one corner in the wryest of smiles. "Under normal circ.u.mstances Adele is quite capable of handling Tony. She knows that he's weak."