A Sudden Engagement and The Sicilian’s Surprise Wife(16)

‘A word of warning before you go,’ Cherry cautioned her. ‘Clive—I know he’s a charmer, but I got the impression that Drew wasn’t too happy about the way the pair of you were chatting away together.’

Kirsty endeavoured to look both disbelieving and faintly sullen. ‘Drew doesn’t choose my friends for me,’ she told Cherry.

Cherry looked unconvinced and rather concerned, and Kirsty hated herself for deceiving the older girl. However, there was no way she could tell her the truth.

‘Don’t worry,’ she palliated, ‘Drew isn’t the possessive type.’

Cherry gave her a distinctly old-fashioned look. ‘No?’ she questioned with irony. ‘My dear, if you believe that you’ll believe anything! Drew was looking at you with a distinctly proprietorial look in his eyes. All men in love are jealous to some extent, love,’ she added, ‘and your Drew’s no different. If anything I should think he’s worse than average. Those cool, deceptive ones always are.’

When Clive realised that Kirsty wasn’t in her car, he begged a lift from one of the others, leaving Kirsty to walk home on her own. In many ways she wasn’t sorry. The read-through had been exhilarating in many ways, and she had left the theatre with her mind crammed with new impressions and ideas, and yet it was Drew who occupied her thoughts to the exclusion of everything else as she walked homewards—Drew, who would probably by now be sitting in Rachel Bellamy’s drawing room, sipping sherry and exchanging polite conversation with the love of his life, while Rachel looked on approvingly.

Of course, it was natural that she should champion her friend, Kirsty admitted, and yet somehow she couldn’t help feeling sorry for Drew, condemned to spend the rest of his life with a woman as cold and hard as Beverley Travers.

As the direction of her wayward thoughts suddenly struck her she came to an abrupt standstill. What on earth was happening to her? If she should feel sorry for anyone, it ought to be herself!

Her small bedsit looked remarkably cosy and attractive with the curtains drawn and the one solitary lamp giving a soft glow to the faded chintz settee and pale beige carpet, Kirsty decided as she glanced proudly round the room. On the cane dresser were several photographs of her family, and she had bought some flowers on Saturday which added a bright splash of colour and homeliness to the room. Her mother was a natural homemaker and Kirsty had inherited much of her flair. She decided to wash her hair before she ate, and changed into a pretty candy-striped cotton nightshirt she had bought during the summer, before going into the small bathroom. The nightshirt was pretty enough to wear over jeans had she wished to do so, and more comfortable for relaxing in.

She had just wrapped her wet hair in a towel and wandered into the kitchen to whisk eggs for the omelette she had decided to make when she heard her doorbell ring.

Expecting it to be Cherry, she opened the door with a warm smile, which faded when she saw Drew standing there, tall and leanly powerful in the dark trousers and leather jacket she had seen him leaving the theatre in earlier.

‘That’s what I like,’ he drawled in irony. ‘A warm welcome from my loving fiancée! Aren’t you going to ask me in?’

Kirsty had stepped back automatically, and he followed her in, filling the tiny foyer.

‘I thought you were having dinner, with Rachel and her husband,’ she began stupidly, flushing when he drawled, ‘Now what on earth gave you that impression? Or do I look like the kind of man who leaves his fiancée to starve while he dines with his ex-girl-friend?’

When he said it, Kirsty guessed why he had left early. ‘Of course, you told them you were coming here,’ she guessed distastefully. ‘I trust Beverley was suitably jealous?’

‘If she was, she hid it very well,’ he told her, suddenly frowning as he took in her appearance.

‘I was planning to have an early night,’ Kirsty stammered, cheeks flushing in anger. She had no need to explain her actions to anyone, least of all Drew, nor to feel embarrassed by them.

‘Without eating?’

‘I was just going to make myself an omelette,’ she told him defensively. ‘It’s been a tiring day—and after last night.…’

‘Ah yes, last night.’ His eyes mocked her. ‘That’s one of the reasons I wanted to see you. Tomorrow I’m taking you into York to get your engagement ring. I’ll pick you up at eleven. We’ll have lunch somewhere, talk over your part. I wanted to discuss it with you anyway.’

‘And this way you can kill two birds with one stone?’ Kirsty suggested tightly. God, the arrogance of the man! ‘I don’t want a ring,’ she told him. ‘It isn’t necessary.’

‘It is to me,’ Drew told her. ‘If only to stop young fools like Clive Richmond from flirting with you.’

‘And spoiling all your plans?’ Kirsty ventured, bitterly angry without knowing why. Why should she care if all Drew thought about was Beverley Travers, if she was the only woman who meant anything to him emotionally? They deserved one another, she told herself; and she didn’t give a damn about either of them.

‘Why don’t you go and dry your hair,’ Drew suggested, surprising her, ‘and I’ll make us both that omelette.’

Kirsty wanted to say that she didn’t want to share her supper with him and that she would much rather eat alone, but the words even merely framed in her head sounded ungracious, and besides, there were several points she had been mulling over about her part that she did want to discuss with him.

‘A first-rate director,’ Helen had called him, and Kirsty suspected that she could very well be right, much as it went against the grain to say so.

She dried her hair briskly with a towel, taking the precaution of changing back into her jeans and a clean jumper, something which didn’t escape Drew’s sardonic eyes when she went back into the small kitchen.

‘You needn’t have worried,’ he told her dryly, ‘I didn’t come here to make love to you.’

Kirsty turned away, willing herself not to colour up. Of course she hadn’t thought that he had, it was just that she hadn’t felt comfortable dressed merely in her shirt, while he was wearing an expensive cashmere sweater and equally costly-looking pants. The leather jacket had been discarded and lay on a chair, but Kirsty could tell simply by looking at it that it was as expensive as the rest of his outfit.

‘Omelette’s ready. Here, pass me the plates, will you,’ Drew instructed. ‘They’re heating under the grill.’

They ate off trays on their knees—a strangely intimate scene, and one that caused Kirsty an inexplicable pang. What did it matter to her if Drew was merely using her? she asked herself. She fully intended to turn the tables on him. But somehow it did matter. She stole a look at him beneath her lashes as she finished off the omelette. He was so handsome, so virilely masculine that she doubted that any woman could remain impervious to him for long, but there was more to him than that. She was intelligent and articulate, and to the woman he loved would be a companion and friend as well as a lover. What was happening to her? Kirsty wondered, the omelette suddenly tasting like rubber. She loathed the man! He was overbearing and domineering; everything she detested in a man.

‘I hope this sacrifice has the desired effect,’ she told him acidly as she collected their empty plates. ‘Just think, you could have been dining in luxury with Beverley Travers!’

‘But instead I chose to eat with the woman I love,’ Drew mocked. ‘Although I doubt that they’d believe me—that I came here to eat, I mean,’ he told her. ‘I suspect they thought I had very different appetites in mind when I said my goodbyes.’

For the life of her Kirsty couldn’t meet his eyes.

‘It’s late,’ she told him in a strained voice. ‘I think you ought to be going.’ Somehow any reference to the way she had felt in his arms, no matter how oblique, made her stomach churn in protest.

‘How very timid you are! I thought in these modern days girls no longer feared being alone with their intended husband and his unbridled passion.’

‘That hardly applies in our case,’ Kirsty told him stiffly. ‘I’m simply tired, that’s all. It’s been a long day…’

‘And looks like being an even longer night,’ Drew drawled in a curiously bitter tone. It struck Kirsty then that there were faint shadows beneath his eyes, a look of strain round his mouth, and she wondered how much he felt the deprivation of being without Beverley, who had undoubtedly spent more than one night wrapped in his arms.

It was several seconds before it dawned on her that the emotions aroused by the mental picture she had conjured up were those of pain and envy, and several more for her to come to terms with them sufficiently for her to get to her feet and walk numbly towards the door.

‘Kirsty…’ Drew’s hand was on her arm, a more understanding expression in his eyes than she had ever seen before. ‘I know this is hard for you,’ he told her, ‘but I…’ He frowned suddenly, black brows snapping together as the doorbell pealed.

‘A late visitor,’ he remarked. ‘Were you expecting someone?’