A Sudden Engagement and The Sicilian’s Surprise Wife(7)

‘Save it,’ she was advised with dry impatience, followed by a curt, ‘What the devil are your parents thinking about, letting a baby like you loose on the streets?’

‘I’m not a baby,’ Kirsty stormed back at him. ‘I’m twenty!’

‘A very great age,’ Drew taunted. ‘But I’m talking about experience, not age, little girl, and when it comes to the former.…’

‘I’m simply not in the same league as the Beverley Travers of this world,’ Kirsty supplied with a bitterness that surprised her.

‘Nowhere near it,’ Drew assured her mockingly. ‘Now come on, let’s get you tucked up in your little bed, before you go and drive some other unsuspecting male half crazy!’

Those minutes in his arms when he had wanted her so much that he had been tense with the effort on containing it might never have been. All at once she had been relegated to the role of child, and irrationally she resented it.

In the end Drew left her outside her room, but long after he had gone Kirsty lay awake reliving those emotions she had experienced in his arms, shivering at the knowledge that it had taken him to arouse them. A pure fluke, she assured herself, nothing more, and thank God she would never have to set eyes on him again. She didn’t think she could endure the humiliation. Bad enough if he had actually ‘raped’ her, as he described it, but in some ways worse to have been found out and rejected on the grounds of her innocence; to have fallen short of his requirements in a woman and be dismissed merely as a foolish child.

She had heard other people describing virginity as a ‘turn-off, but this was the first time she had come across concrete evidence of the fact. Drew had desired her, she knew that, but the moment he realised that she was still a virgin his desire had gone. Kirsty writhed in a torment of mortified chagrin; somehow the swift death of his desire made her feel a failure as a woman, a freak almost. What was the matter with her? she asked herself. She ought to be thanking her lucky stars. Self-disgust rose up inside her. What on earth had happened to her belief that physical desire was nothing without love? Why had she responded in the first place? Had perhaps fear released an adrenalin into her blood which had led to that warm, yielding tide of desire? That must be the explanation. Feeling happier, Kirsty closed her eyes. If she was honest she was forced to admit that she had been foolish enough to go to Drew Chalmers’ suite, but having done so and endured the after-effects, all she wanted to do now was to put the whole affair behind her, and forget about the incident completely. She could only thank her lucky stars that her path and Drew’s were hardly likely to cross again!





CHAPTER THREE


WAS she dreaming, Kirsty wondered, waiting in the wings for her turn to read, or was she actually here in Yorkshire, ready to go on stage for her first rehearsal as Hero, in Much Ado About Nothing?

She pinched herself just to make sure, reassured by the tingling pain in her arm. So much had happened in such a short period of time; first the failure of her previous play—not exactly unexpected—and then the phone call from her agent, Eve, in London telling her that she was to present herself in Ousebridge in Yorkshire for an audition for the part of Hero.

What had totally floored them both was that the director and producer Simon Bailey had specifically asked for her. He had heard that she might make an excellent Hero from a friend who had seen her on stage, he had told Kirsty with a smile when she had commented a little breathlessly on her good fortune in being invited to audition. Parts like Hero did not come the way of struggling young actresses very often, especially with such prestigious companies as the Ousebridge Players.

‘That was excellent, Kirsty,’ Simon approved as she came off stage. ‘You’re beginning to get the idea. Like I said, I want to get right away from the hackneyed image of Hero, and instil something a little different.’

Her head in the clouds, Kirsty hurried down to the communal dressing room, her mind already on the letter she would write to her parents when she returned to her hotel.

They had been thrilled for her, of course, and her mother had even gone so far as to loan Kirsty her precious Mini for the duration of her stay in Yorkshire.

‘Don’t forget about the party tomorrow, will you, Kirsty?’ Cherry Rivers, the A.S.M., called as she hurried past the open door. ‘All the rest of the cast will be there!’

Simon had already invited her to the get-together party he and his wife were holding for the cast of Much Ado. As he had explained to Kirsty when he initially auditioned her, the Ousebridge had only a very small nucleus of permanent actors, preferring to audition afresh for each play, and because of their excellent reputation they were normally able to obtain some of the more glittering stars of the theatrical world to play their leading roles. For Much Ado, they were lucky enough to have a world-famous actress to play Beatrice. Kirsty had seen her once in the West End, and was rather overwhelmed at the thought of appearing in the same production as such a well-known personality.

She had already met the small nucleus of permanent cast, one of whom was Simon Bailey’s wife. She, she explained cheerfully to Kirsty, was unable to take part in the current production owing to the fact that she was expecting their second child, which was one of the reasons they needed Kirsty.

‘She had a miscarriage eighteen months ago,’ Cherry had told Kirsty later, ‘and because of that Simon is insisting she takes things easy this time—I don’t think she minds, though, she’s always said she prefers being a wife and mother to the stage. I can see you doing the same thing,’ she had confounded Kirsty by telling her. ‘You don’t have that hungry, driving look one always associates with the ones that make it to the top. Don’t look so upset,’ she had consoled her. ‘Absolute dedication, heart, soul and body, isn’t always a good thing.’

Kirsty had liked Cherry right from the start and she had proved a fund of information about the Ousebridge Players and the people connected with them. And at least someone had thought her acting ability worthy of note and recommendation, even if Drew Chalmers did not. Drew Chalmers! Why on earth had she had to think about him? She loathed the man, but he had developed a disconcerting habit of stealing into her mind when she was least expecting it. Had she been less honest with herself she might have been able to delude herself into believing that what had happened in his suite had come unpleasantly close to rape, but her scrupulous inborn honesty wouldn’t let her off so lightly. However unwittingly and briefly, she had participated.

Her fingers curled into her palms as she left the theatre and headed for her Mini, mentally reliving the turbulence of those moments when Drew had touched her body; the excitingly sensual roughness of his body hair against her skin; the skilled possession of his kiss.

‘No!’ She shook her head vigorously, as though by doing so she could dislodge the persistent memories, but they clung as tenaciously as steel sutured cobwebs.

She had been at Ousebridge just over a week now—long enough for her to have put Drew Chalmers completely out of her mind, but instead.…

Just let him wait, she thought wrathfully, waiting for an opportunity to join the stream of traffic along the High Street, just let him wait; she would show him!

In the short space of time it took to drive from the theatre to the quiet hotel where she was staying she became lost in a delightful daydream composed of glowing tributes to her interpretation of Hero; somehow—and the exact accomplishment of it was still very hazy—Drew Chalmers would be in the forefront of this worshipping crowd, full of apologies for previously misjudging her; and ready to tell the world of his folly in doing so.

She came down to earth with a bump when another irate motorist blew his horn at her and she realised that he was flashing her to let her go. How crazy could she get? she asked herself wryly as she drove on. The day Drew Chalmers had a good word to say about her would never dawn.

Her evenings had developed into a similar pattern since her arrival in Yorkshire. After dinner she either retired to the hotel lounge and watched television and read, or she went to her room and studied her part. Tonight she had decided to do the latter, but she had barely done little more than read through the first two acts before she started to wonder who could have recommended her in glowing enough terms to Simon Bailey to make him audition her.

That she had been fantastically lucky was in no doubt. She knew from Cherry that she was the youngest and most inexperienced member of the cast; and although she knew that parts were obtained by word of mouth references, she hadn’t thought she numbered anyone amongst her acquaintances influential enough to get her considered for such a prestigious company.

She put the typed sheets on one side, and opened her wardrobe on impulse, wondering what on earth she was going to wear to the party.

The Baileys had invited the entire cast, plus several local dignitaries; financiers and friends.

‘You’ll enjoy it,’ Cherry had assured her when it was first mentioned. ‘It’s a regular thing, and like you I was terrified the first time I was invited to one when I joined the company two years ago. You sometimes get a certain amount of bitching,’ she had added, ‘but then of course that’s the theatre for you!’