Whirlwind (7 page)

'Oh, so did I, my dear,' Dame Flossie agreed. 'And I opened my eyes and had a little peek, but she wasn't crying—it was a cold. She'd been blowing her nose all night.'

Anna laughed helplessly. 'Well, my tears were absolutely genuine. You were so marvellous!'

'You changed the business with the Chinese fan,' said Joey. 'Why did you lean against the fireplace, Dame Floss?'

She gave him a wicked smile, her eyes apologetic. 'Joey, I had the most appalling itch right in the middle of my back and I couldn't very well scratch it while the paying customers watched, so ... '

Joey chuckled. 'So you leant on the fireplace and scratched on that?'

Anna laughed, too, but she was aware of Patti standing on tiptoe to whisper in Laird's ear. Dame Flossie glanced at them, too; what was she thinking? Those shrewd old eyes gave no indication.

'Well, if we're going to join the others at this party we should be making a move now,' Joey said, looking at his watch.

The backstage area had almost emptied of people without Anna realising it. She picked up her jacket from the chair on which she had thrown it half an hour earlier and was about to put it on when she felt Laird move behind her. His hand took the jacket and Anna tensed as he held it so that she could slip her arms into the sleeves. Typically, she couldn't manage it for a second or two, fumbling helplessly, very flushed, but at last he drew the jacket up over her slim shoulders and his hands lingered there, deliberately holding her, his fingertips moving softly, pressing down into her flesh. She intensely felt him behind her, his body not quite touching hers, and was angry with herself for being so aware of him.

Over her head, he suddenly asked: 'What did you think of my little sister, Dame Flossie?'

Anna's whole body jerked with shock. She looked incredulously at Patti, whose blue eyes hurriedly met hers, pleading apology in them, then fell from Anna's angry stare.

'A very nice little performance,' Dame Flossie said gently, in time I think she'll make a good actress, but she really ought to spend some time at a good drama school, Some actresses know by instinct what to do, some have to be taught. All of us can learn something from good teachers.'

'Oh, I'd love to go to drama school—I only wish my parents were here to listen to you!' Patti said eagerly. 'They don't want me to go on the stage, they wouldn't let me train.'

Anna had pulled away from Laird's hands and was walking angrily towards the exit. She didn't want to hear any more. They had made a fool of her, why had they lied? Why hadn't Patti told her the truth? Why all the secrecy?

Laird caught up with her in the street. As he grabbed her arm, Anna turned on him like a spitting wildcat. 'Leave me alone!'

'Not until we've had a little chat!' he said, tight- lipped as he watched her. 'OK, you're angry because Patti didn't tell you I was her brother. Surely you can see why? I'm backing the play—she was afraid the cast would think she'd got her part through me.'

'Can you blame them if that's what they think?' Anna muttered, her green eyes feverish. 'She was good enough in the part, but I can think of dozens of actresses who would have been as good, and a lot who would have been better.'

it isn't true, though,' Laird said tersely.

'Maybe not, but they'd have believed it, and they wouldn't have been very friendly towards her.'

'That's why we kept it quiet, why she gave her mother's maiden name instead of her own. Look, Anna, Patti needed to prove she could act—not to me or herself, but to her parents. They didn't believe it, they wouldn't hear of drama school. I think they blame me for Patti's obsession with theatre—I've always been a theatre buff, this isn't the first play I've backed. So far my investments have always paid off, I pick them very carefully. When Joey Ross asked if I'd put up the money for this play I asked him to dinner to talk it over. That's how he met Patti, and she asked Joey if there was a part for her, it was a joke . . . '

'Oh, sure,' Anna said cynically, and he frowned.

'I tell you it was a joke! Joey laughed, we all laughed. I put up the money and it was weeks later that Joey offered her a part. He already had my promise of the money, he didn't need to do that.'

Anna pulled free and walked on across the road towards the restaurant at which the party was being held. Dame Flossie and Patti and Joey were coming behind them now; Anna heard their voices and laughter and wished she found something amusing in this situation. She wanted to be walking on air tonight—it should have been the biggest night of her life. Instead she felt angry and miserable.

'I don't like being lied to!' she threw at him, but she knew that what was really eating away at her was the thought of her warning to Patti about him. Patti had let her say all that without giving her the tiniest hint that she was making an idiot of herself.

'It was only a white lie,' Laird said defensively, frowning. 'Anna, you won't tell the others, will you? Don't ruin Patti's evening.'

Anna gave him a bitter smile. 'Oh, of course not! I wouldn't dream of doing that!' It didn't matter, apparently, that between them they had ruined
her
evening—s/je wasn't important. Staring into his eyes, she saw no flicker of awareness there, no memory of the night they had spent together. It had meant nothing to him, Anna thought, her stomach churning with pain and anger. She had been just one of many, and afterwards he had sent her red roses and wiped her from his mind.

'Patti's very fond of you,' Laird said. 'Your opinion matters to her.'

'Does it?' Anna wondered what Patti had made of those revelations about Laird, or hadn't they been any surprise to her? She must know her brother well enough to have some idea of his love life. Why didn't she tell me? Why did she let me go on and on . . . Anna was so angry she was shaking with it, but at that moment Patti came running after them, her eyes anxiously meeting Anna's.

'Don't be angry,' she pleaded, an uncertain smile on her mouth.

'Wouldn't you be, in my shoes?' Anna asked, but, face to face with Patti, felt the black rage dying out inside her and a rueful impatience taking its place. Patti looked like a child with her big blue eyes and anxious smile.

The others caught up with them before Patti could answer, and Joey opened the door and waved them through. The rest of the cast were waiting, their eyes on the door as they sat around a table, drinking champagne. They grinned and waved at the two girls, but Dame Flossie's entrance got the cheer, everyone stood up and clapped her and she swept over there, smiling benevolently, accepting their homage with her usual warmth.

Anna slid in between two members of the cast and avoided looking at Laird as they ate the supper laid on for them. She wasn't very hungry; her nerves on fire as they waited for the newspapers and the first reviews.

The assistant stage manager rushed in with them much later and everyone crowded round Joey as he hunted through the pages.

Anna was so tense her stomach was tied in knots, then Joey began to read the first review, and Anna felt her face burn at what it said about her. The others were more or less the same; Dame Flossie always took the lion's share of the praise, but Anna was singled out from the rest of the cast for special mention every time, and as Joey stopped reading Dame Flossie turned and kissed her.

'What did I tell you, my dear?'

'It's nice to have something to stick in my scrap- book, anyway,' Anna said, her eyes brilliant. 'My only other notice said I made a very sexy mushroom, which isn't quite how I want to be remembered by posterity.'

'Don't take too much notice of notices, though, my dear, they stunt your growth!' Dame Flossie told her.

Patti shyly leaned over and congratulated Anna. She was obviously unsure of her welcome, and Anna with a wry smile pushed her own anger aside and hugged her.

'You got a nice mention, yourself.'

'One line!' Patti said, going pink.

'Don't knock it, it's a start!'

Glowing with relief, Patti giggled. 'Well, I'm glad I didn't get any bad notices, anyway. Maybe now my parents will come and see the play. They were too nervous to come tonight in case I made a complete hash of it.'

The restaurant was empty now, except for the company, and the band Joey had engaged began to play. The cast began dancing on the little square of parquet which served as a dance floor. Anna danced with the assistant stage manager, talking cheerfully to him while out of the corner of her eye she observed Laird dancing with Patti.

Discovering that he was Patti's brother, not her lover, didn't alter the way Anna saw
him;
she wasn't prepared to forgive and forget as far as Laird was concerned. He had got her drunk and seduced her knowing very well that stone cold sober she wouldn't have let him lay a finger on her. That was despicable—and so was he! No doubt Patti had repeated to him what Anna had said about him; the two of them must have found it very amusing, the idea of Anna warning her against her own brother! Oh, yes, it must have been a great big joke, thought Anna, her teeth grating. What fun they must have had!

She danced with several other members of the company, including Joey, carefully avoiding being anywhere near Laird when the music stopped, and once, when he came purposefully towards her,' moving just as firmly towards the powder-room in time to escape him.

Patti joined her there a moment later, eyeing her warily in the wall mirror as they both renewed their make-up.

'OK, don't give me that panda stare,' Anna said wryly. 'I forgive you, you don't have to apologise again.'

Patti laughed, but caught her lower lip between her teeth in obvious hesitation while she still looked at Anna with that uncertain expression.

'About Laird . . . ' she began, and Anna broke in roughly.

'No, I don't want to discuss your brother. We've already discussed him once too often, and I'm in no hurry to make a fool of myself again.' She had intended to keep her temper, but the rage bubbling inside her wouldn't be kept out of sight; it forced its way to the surface, her green eyes glittering as the hot words erupted. 'You told him, didn't you? Repeated all my lurid warnings about his intentions—my God, that must have made him laugh! What a lot of fun for both of you!'

'No!' protested Patti, her reflection in the mirror wide-eyed and distressed, or was she acting? Anna no longer knew. 'I didn't repeat anything you said, Anna, honestly!'

'Honestly?' Anna threw back in derision. 'Please! I wish I could believe what you said, but after all the other lies, that isn't easy!'

'I'd have been embarrassed, talking to Laird about it,' Patti stammered, her face carrying a sort of conviction. 'He's so much older than me. I know he's my brother, but he hasn't actually lived with us for years, he moved out when he was married . . .'

'Married?' Anna repeated hoarsely, staring at her; a deep, aching pain behind her eyes. The first time she met Laird, she had wondered if he was married— cynically, she had decided that no man that attractive could possibly have stayed single into his mid-thirties. Her suspicions about him had faded into the background after the night she spent at his penthouse—she had been too busy hating him for other reasons.

'It didn't last,' Patti said. 'His wife had affairs with other men, and Laird divorced her. It made him very cynical about women.' She looked away, very pink. 'When you told me about . . . about him making a pass at you the night he gave us a lift, I wasn't surprised. I knew he played around quite a bit, but don't take him seriously, Anna.'

'I've no intention of taking him seriously! Why do you think I gave
you
the gypsy's warning?'

'Yes, but . . .' Patti looked at her uneasily. 'He can be very charming. I've heard my parents talking about it. My father's upset because Laird shows no sign of getting married again, Daddy gets cross when he hears Laird has been seen at parties with yet another woman, because it always comes to nothing. Don't get involved with him, Anna!'

Anna was burning with temper by now. 'I just told you I won't!' Had Laird told Patti about their night together? She couldn't meet the other girl's eyes, but curiosity was nagging at her. 'What was his wife like?' she asked, furious with herself for needing to know.

'I was only nine at the time—I barely remember Merieth.'

'Merieth? Was that her name? I've never heard it before.'

'I think it's Celtic. She was Welsh, anyway—very beautiful, with long black hair and a lovely face, but my parents never liked her. They thought she was spiteful, sly, too; but maybe that's just what they say since the divorce. People do seem to talk with hindsight, don't they?'

Anna was thinking, her brows knitted. 'You were nine at the time of the divorce? That's a long time ago. Did she marry again?'

'Oh, yes, but . . .'

The door opened and Patti stopped talking, looking round as Dame Flossie came in, her quick, sharp eyes moving from one to the other.

'Now then, you two! Stop gossiping in here and come back and join the rest of us! You're not supposed to walk out of a party!' she scolded, pushing Patti towards the door. Anna reluctantly followed them, still absorbed in what she had just been told about Laird. Patti's revelations had made it even more clear that the wisest thing to do about Laird Montgomery was to keep well away from him, and Anna meant to do just that in future, but that decision didn't stop her from thinking about him and realising that his attitudes towards women had been born out of how he had been treated by one of her own sex. Anna didn't excuse him on those grounds; the fact that he had been hurt by his wife was no good reason for deliberately setting out to use and hurt other women. Nevertheless, her anger ceased to be quite so volcanic, although her pride still throbbed with the bruises he had left on it.

She was about to dance with Joey when Laird stood up too, his hand reaching out for her.

Joey laughed, raising his brows. 'My turn, I think.'

Laird forced a tight smile, shrugging, and sat down again. Joey moved off with Anna, grinning down at her.

'I get the impression Laird fancies you. I suppose you know he's our angel? He -backed the play and it looks as if his investment is going to pay handsomely, but I must say I was very grateful when he agreed to put up the money. Although I'd got Dame Floss lined up, the rest of the cast were newcomers and I was having trouble raising the money.'