An Unexpected Song (15 page)

Dazedly raising her eyes to Eric’s face, Daisy said, “I don’t understand. Do you know what this is all about? A showing of Charlie’s work?”

“Actually only one work,” Eric said quietly. “Your portrait.”

She laughed shakily. “But that’s crazy. No gallery would have a viewing of one picture unless the artist was Rembrandt or Van Gogh. Certainly not one by an unknown like Charlie. Why should—” She broke off and her gaze searched Eric’s face. “Jason?”

Eric nodded.

“Bribery?”

“Hell no, you can’t bribe a snobbish gallery like Von Krantz.”

“Then how?”

Eric took a tape out of his jacket pocket and popped it into the cassette player on her dressing table. “This.” He pressed a button on the recorder. “It’s the first music Jason has composed outside the musical theater in over twelve years. It’s being released to the TV and radio stations tomorrow together with the announcement of the exhibition. He calls it ‘Charlie’s Song.’ ”

She sat perfectly still to listen to the hauntingly beautiful music. Strength and gentleness and a triumph of love and the spirit. Charlie.

She could feel the tears running down her cheeks, but she made no motion to brush them aside. As the last strain drifted away, she continued to stare at the glittering metal of the cassette player.

Eric reached out and turned off the player. “Jason said it was a two-pronged plan. The song should generate interest in the painting, and even if the critics pan your father’s work, he still has a chance of being remembered in the art world for a very long time because of the uniqueness of the presentation.”

“Something to live on after him. Charlie’s immortality,” she murmured, blinking back more tears.

“Yeah,” Eric agreed. “I guess you could call it that.”

“Why didn’t Jason tell me?” she asked huskily. “He did this incredibly wonderful thing and he never said a word. How can I thank him?”

“He doesn’t want thanks.”

Daisy jumped to her feet, snatched a tissue
from the box on the dressing table, and dabbed her wet cheeks. “Well, he’s going to get it. Where is he?”

“Eaglesmount.” Eric shook his head. “And he won’t see you, Daisy.”

“How do you know?”

“Because he gave me a message for you.” He hesitated. “He said to tell you that he didn’t do this for you. He wants you to know you don’t owe him anything. He did it for Charlie.”

“And that isn’t for me? I
loved
Charlie.”

And she loved Jason Hayes. The knowledge shone bright as firelight; it thundered like cymbals. Her bewilderment and hurt were gone. She didn’t understand him; she might never understand him. What did any of that matter? By all that was holy, she loved him. She started for the door. “I’m going to see him.”

“No!” Eric shook his head. “I tell you he won’t see you.” He grimaced. “And Eaglesmount has security as tight as Fort Knox. You’ll never get beyond the front gate.”

“Dammit.” Daisy whirled to face him. “How did he expect me to react? I want to see him.”

Eric smiled faintly. “I imagine he expected you to react this way. He knows you pretty well, doesn’t he?”

“Better than I know him.” She lifted her chin. “But that’s going to change.”

“He’s not going to let it change.”

“Why not?”

Eric hesitated.

She gestured impatiently. “Never mind. You’re as close-mouthed as Jason. Tell me one thing. Does he care anything for Cynthia Hayes?”

“Good Lord, no!”

She breathed a sigh of relief. “From what he said I didn’t think he did. Then it’s open season.”

Eric frowned. “You don’t understand the situation.”

“And I’m not going to understand if I’m not told. How can I understand anything if Jason won’t even see me?”

“If you want to show him your gratitude, then give him a great Desdemona. This play means a great deal to him.”

“Gratitude? But I want to—” She broke off and gazed at him steadily. “All right, here’s the deal. Tell him I won’t go to Eaglesmount if he comes to the opening.” She added fiercely, “And I
don’t
want him standing in the back of the theater like some two-bit phantom of the opera. I want him beside you in the fourth row, and I want him backstage after the performance to tell me how great I was. Do you understand?”

“Oh, I understand.” Eric wrinkled his nose. “But I’m not sure Jason will agree.”

“He’ll agree if you tell him otherwise I’ll be camping outside the gates of Eaglesmount. He knows I don’t give up easily.” She smiled tremulously. “After all, it’s really his own fault. If he hadn’t composed ‘Charlie’s sons,’ I probably would never have seen beyond his Othello mask.”

“Mask?”

“Never mind.” She moved toward the door. “Just give him my message.” She smiled brilliantly over her shoulder. “And tell him he’s going to see one hell of a Desdemona tomorrow night.”

*    *    *

Daisy curtsied low, her cheeks flushed scarlet with excitement while the waves of applause rocked the theater.”

Kevin’s hand tightened on her own, his cheeks were also flushed, his eyes shining brilliantly. “Don’t look now, but I think we’ve just caused a happening.” The jubilant murmur was audible only to her. “Lord, I feel a hundred feet tall.”

Daisy was soaring too. A standing ovation, twelve curtain calls, and the audience still didn’t want to let them go. She looked down at Jason in the fourth row.

He was on his feet, applauding but gazing at her with an expressionless face. Had he liked it? Had she been wrong? No, she wouldn’t let herself be intimidated by his blank stare. She had let him deceive her by his wall of silence before, but she wouldn’t make that mistake again.

A gamine grin lit her face, and she gave him a conspiratorial wink. She chuckled to herself when she saw his startled reaction. Then she began to move with Kevin toward the wings.

“Daisy. Daisy darling! You were wonderful!”

A familiar woman’s voice issued from the first row. Peg?

Her gaze searched the audience and her smile faded.

Cynthia Hayes stood near the stage, gowned in a brilliant peacock blue, ornamented by a magnificent sapphire necklace. She was holding up a bouquet of white roses toward Daisy.

Kevin had noticed her too. “A friend of yours? I’ll get them.” He quickly stepped forward, reached down, and took the flowers from Cynthia with a graceful bow. He turned, gave them to Daisy, and
then escorted her from the stage. “Gorgeous woman,” he said. “I wonder if she likes chili.”

The creamy roses in Daisy’s arms were exquisite and obviously expensive, but revulsion surged through her as she looked at them. She wanted them gone. Why had the woman given them to her, she wondered uneasily. She didn’t understand the gesture any more than she understood Cynthia Hayes. “I doubt it.” She quickly dropped the bouquet on the prop table in the wings. “She looks more like the veal Orloff type to me.”

“Don’t you know her?”

“She’s Jason Hayes’s ex-wife.”

“Oops! Then I guess you don’t want these roses sitting around in your dressing room.”

She glanced at him. “Why do you say that?”

“I saw the photo in the
Journal.
You’re clear as water, Eliza Doolittle.” He kissed her cheek. “You don’t need any more flowers anyway. Your dressing room already looks like a flower garden. I noticed someone even sent you a bottle of wine.”

She nodded. “Roderer Cristal. It arrived just before I went on stage. I don’t know who sent it. I couldn’t read the scrawl on the card.”

“Then it must have been Eric. His writing could baffle the guys who deciphered the Rosetta Stone. Shall I pick you up and take you to Eric’s party after I get dressed?”

“No, I’m rather tired. I think I’ll rest awhile before I change. You go on without me.”

“Okay.” He started down the corridor toward his own dressing room, his step springy with jubilation. “Though Lord knows how you can be tired on a night like this. We’re a hit!”

A faint smile touched Daisy’s lips as she proceeded down the corridor to her own dressing
room. She knew how he felt. And now that she had rid herself of those blasted roses, her own exhilaration and anticipation were soaring.

Jason had been in the audience tonight. He had seen and heard her make his dream a reality.

And if he had been in the audience, surely he would take the next step and come backstage.

She opened the door of her dressing room and wrinkled her nose as waves of fragrance assaulted her. Kevin was right, the scent of blossoms was overpowering and the room did resemble a flower garden. Still, a romantic rendezvous in a flower garden wasn’t a bad idea at all. She had the setting, now she only needed the costume.

The costume she had chosen was a white satin gown that bared and framed her shoulders, hugged her waist and hips before cascading into rows of heavy gleaming petaled skirts like that of a flamenco dancer. The bodice revealed the curves of her upper breasts and she let her hair flow down her back with only two jeweled combs to confine it.

Costume and setting. But where was the male lead?

She drew a deep breath to try to still the butterflies in her stomach. What did she do now? All dressed up and no one to see her. Jason would come, she assured herself desperately. It hadn’t taken her more than twenty minutes to dress, and the reporters had probably surrounded him directly after the performance.

She crossed to the vanity, opened the bottle of wine, and poured a little into the goblet on the
tray. She needed all the warmth and bolstering she could gather. If Jason didn’t—

A knock sounded at the door and she hurriedly set the goblet of wine down on the vanity. She ran across the room and threw open the door.

Jason, dark, powerful, elegant in his black and white tuxedo, stood there.

“Hello.” She sounded like a breathless child, she realized with disgust. “Come in, Jason.”

He didn’t move. He just stood gazing at her. “You look—” He broke off, pulling his gaze away from her smooth shoulders rising from the white satin frame of the gown. “Exquisite.”

“My first designer gown.” She closed he door behind him. “For Eric’s party. Are you going?”

“No.”

“Why did I know that would be your answer?” She moved swiftly across the room toward the vanity. “Wine? It’s a fantastically good year. It’s one of my opening night gifts.”

“No, thank you,” Jason said haltingly. “I’m here, Daisy. What do you want?”

More than she was brave enough to tell him yet. “I want you to tell me I was everything you wanted in Desdemona.”

“That’s easy. You
were
Desdemona.” He looked away from her. “I sat in that audience and you gave me gift after gift until my cup ran over. Is that all?”

“No.” She cleared her throat. “But you did that very well. Here’s the big one. I want you to tell me I’m everything you want in a woman.”

He went still, his gaze flying back to her face. “What brought this on?”

“ ‘Charlie’s Song.’ ”

“Gratitude.”

“Oh, yes.” A smile made her face radiant. “I’m very grateful.”

“All right, now you’ve said it. But what I told Eric was true. I did it for Charlie, not you.”

“That isn’t the point. The important thing is that you did it at all.” Her face glowed with eagerness. “Don’t you understand? It would take an extraordinary man to go to these lengths just to give a man his dying wish. I knew that something was wrong, that I had to have misunderstood what happened between us.”

“Stop looking at me like that,” he said hoarsely. “And don’t make me out to be some kind of saint. I did only what I wanted to do.”

“But what you wanted to do was wonderful.” She smiled hesitantly. “And that makes you pretty wonderful too.”

“The hell it does.”

She drew a deep breath and then said in a rush, “I want you to tell me you care about me.”

“Of course I care about you. We once had a relationship, and it’s always difficult to rid ourselves of emotional baggage when it’s ov—”

“Don’t do this.” Daisy’s hands clenched into fists at her sides. “I need you to help me.”

Jason made a low sound beneath his breath and started to turn away from her. “I don’t think we have any more to talk about. Can I drop you at Eric’s on my way home?”

“No.” She whirled and stared numbly at her reflection in the mirror. Her face looked pale and strained, and she felt beaten. She had hoped for so much more. Perhaps she had been wrong. Maybe he didn’t care for her in any permanent fashion. She reached out blindly, lifted the glass
of wine to her lips, and sipped it. “I don’t think I’ll go to the party after all.”

“Of course you’ll go,” he said roughly. “This is your night to celebrate.”

“Celebrate?” She hurled the goblet onto the floor and whirled to face him. “Why aren’t you celebrating? This is your night more than mine. Why the devil are you going back to Connecticut?”

“I can’t do—What the hell is wrong?”

She was swaying, she realized with panic. She was suddenly ice cold and her lungs were starved for air. “I don’t feel—” She was falling. What was happening?

“Daisy!” Jason’s pale face swam above her as he caught her in his arms, braced her. “What is—My God!” He wasn’t looking at her but at something on the vanity—the bottle of wine. His hands closed on her shoulders as he stared down at her. “The wine. Who sent you that damn wine, Daisy?”

She couldn’t answer, her throat felt frozen, the words came out in a croak. “I don’t know … couldn’t read … scrawl …”

Then she pitched forward into icy darkness.

She was cold. So cold. She huddled into a ball to try to shut out the chill.

“Shhh.” Jason’s low agonized voice. “Don’t cry. I can’t stand it. Tell me what’s wrong. Tell me how to help you.”

She hadn’t known she was crying. She opened her eyes to see Jason’s face above her. “Cold.”

He immediately drew the sheet higher up around her. White sheets; stark, antiseptic cleanliness. A hospital. That’s right she was ill.…

“Better?” Jason asked hoarsely.

Poor Jason. His eyes were glittering, his expression tormented. How she wished she could help him. He looked so alone. He was alone. Why had she never realized how terribly alone and isolated he was?