Whirlwind (3 page)

'A what?' asked Anna in a rising voice.

'A large block of offices. We're going to the top.' His smile was teasing. 'Isn't that where you're aiming? The stars?'

Her suspicions were aroused again; she didn't trust this man. 'What's at the top of the building?' She had imagined that they were going to have dinner in some swish restaurant, for some reason coming to the conclusion that the underground car park belonged to a big London hotel and that when she emerged from the lift she would find herself in an elegant,
crowded
foyer. If this was instead a block of offices she had an appalled suspicion that there were not going to be any comforting crowds around wherever they were headed; she was going to find herself alone with him.

'We're going to have dinner in a penthouse flat,' he drawled, and Anna leapt for the button panel.

'Oh, no, we're not!'

Before her finger hit a button, he had caught hold of her wrists and was tethering them at her sides, smiling down into her flushed, agitated face with mocking enjoyment.

'No need to get hysterical. You're not about to get raped.'

'I don't intend to be!' she spat out, writhing in his grip and finding it impossible to break out.

'What sort of monster do you think I am?'

'I've no idea—what sort of monster
are
you?' she muttered, avoiding the gleam of the grey eyes. He still wasn't good-looking, but she had a nervous feeling that she found him attractive, and that wasn't good. 'I don't even know who you are,' she wailed. 'I don't believe that that's your real name; it can't be. Nobody could have a name like that. It's a stage name.' Then her eyes flew to his face, startled. 'Are you an actor, after all?'

'I have never set foot on a stage in my life,' he said as the lift doors slid open and he hustled her out, her feet dragging as if she were a reluctant child being taken to the dentist.

Her eyes flashed around the corridor into which they had emerged: smoothly carpeted, well lit, silent. Worrying.

'Who lives here?' she demanded, and got the answer she had dreaded.

'Me.'

'Just you?'

He smiled, one hand still circling her wrist and pulling her along like a slave girl going to the auction block. "Jujt me.'

'Take me back to the car!' Anna snapped angrily, trying to run back to the lift. He refused to relinquish that grasp of her and leaned over to press a bell beside the only door in sight. Nothing happened. He put his finger on the bell and kept it there, frowning.Anna began to calm down, watching his scowl with relief. He wouldn't be ringing the bell if he had a key, and if he didn't have a key they couldn't get in.

'Let's go and have a hamburger somewhere,' she suggested in a friendlier voice. 'Pity about the Chateaubriand, but I'll be perfectly happy with a hamburger.'

He wasn't looking so charming now; the teasing little smile had vanished and he was as black as thunder. 'What the hell is going on?' he muttered, banging his fist on the door. 'Parsons!' The roar made Anna jump and watch him anxiously. He wasn't going to turn violent, was he? And who on earth was Parsons?

'Open this damn door, Parsons!' Laird yelled, and as he did so, the door did open and a very small, stooped old man peered out at them as he shrugged into a white jacket.

'What's all this then? No need to bellow. I was coming.'

Laird had let go of Anna and was advancing angrily on the old man, snarling at him. 'You've been at the bottle again!'

'I 'ave not.'

'I can smell it, damn you! Can't I trust you an inch? Do I have to send you to that drying-out place again?'

The old man did up his white jacket and straightened his few white strands of hair with a supercilious sniff. He was just tall enough to come up to Laird Montgomery's top shirt button. His face was a yellow waxy colour, his nose bulbous and his watery eyes flecked with red. He was not a pretty sight, even when he began to do a fair imitation of a butler.

'Good evening, sir, good evening, madam,' he intoned, staring straight ahead at nothing. 'May I take your wrap, madam?'

Very tempted to giggle, Anna began unbuttoning her coat and Laird automatically moved behind her to slide it off her shoulders. Tossing it to the old man, he said curtly, 'We're having dinner.'

'Yes, sir,' Parsons said, dropping Anna's coat and slowly bending to pick it up. Anna almost expected to hear him creak, but he managed it and straightened again, holding her coat. She flushed slightly as she saw him peer at it incredulously; it was as old and shabby as her shoes.

'Caviare.' snapped Laird. 'With all the trimmings.'

Parsons scratched his chin. 'I think I got a jar in the fridge, but I'll have to boil the eggs.'

Laird ignored that. 'And then a Chateaubriand.'

'A what? I 'aven't got a bit of steak in the place!' Parsons protested indignantly. 'I wasn't expecting you, was I? If you don't let me know you're dropping in how am I supposed to have Chateaubriand handy? Think I'm a mind-reader or something?'

Anna looked hard at Laird, whose angular profile was all she could see; that still betrayed a faint flush. He had been lying about the candlelight supper for two, or else he had brought her to a different place? She felt her nerves prickle—was that it? Had he brought her here with something other than dinner for two in mind? The building below them was silent and dark; everyone had gone home, leaving the offices empty. Up here on this penthouse floor they were as isolated as if they were on a desert island, and Anna began to feel flutters of panic in the pit of her stomach.

'What
have
you got?' Laird asked through his teeth.

'I'll 'ave to look and see. I got a freezer full of stuff. Trout or veal or . . . look, leave it to me and I'll rustle something up.' The old man shuffled along the polished woodblock floor of the hall in which they had been standing. He threw open a door and Laird walked towards it with Anna's hand held tightly in case she ran away.

'It seems a pity to put that poor old man to so much trouble,' Anna said as Parsons closed the door on them. 'Why don't we go out and have dinner somewhere?' Somewhere busy and full of people, preferably.

'I don't pay him to get drunk every night, it will do him good to have work to do.' Laird stalked over to a black and gold enamelled cabinet and threw it open. 'What would you like to drink?'

She stared at the array of bottles uneasily. 'Nothing, thanks.'

Pretending not to have heard, he reeled off a list of drinks. 'Manhattan? Gin and orange?' he ended, and Anna shook her head. She hadn't eaten anything except one cheese sandwich and a slice of cake in the last twenty-four hours and she knew that any alcohol "she drank would go straight to her head. In fact the very idea of food made her feel faint, and as Laird swung frowningly to glare at her she heard an embarrassing rumble from her stomach, and turned bVight pink, walking away in the hope that he might not have heard it too.

The room was rectangular and high-ceilinged,very spacious; one wall all window, the lace curtains drawn over the glass but a dazzling view of London's illuminated skyline visible from up here. Anna walked over the deep-piled white carpet and stood at the window, staring out.

She heard Laird walk out of the room, the door closed quietly, and she spun round, startled. Where was he going?

Being alone gave her a chance to stare openly at the furnishing and decor; it was expensive and modern but had no particular character. She was faintly disappointed; she would have expected him to have a more distinct taste in style. Black leather couch, deep-upholstered chairs to match; a low glass- topped coffee table—it had no personality whatever.

The only interesting object in the room was a bookcase on the wall opposite the window. Anna slowly wandered over there, studied the titles curiously—an odd mixture of novels, biographies and poetry. She pulled out a collection of sixteenth- century verse and the book fell open of its own accord at one page, as though it had often been opened there. Anna's eyes caught the first lines of a poem and a smile of surprise curved her lips.

'They flee from me that sometime did me seek . . . '

Was Laird Montgomery a Wyatt fan? Anna closed her eyes, her low voice huskily murmuring the words, their melancholy echoing in her mind. She knew it by heart; it had been one of her audition pieces long ago.

She didn't hear the door open or the man who entered the room walk slowly towards her, listening intently.The first she knew of his presence was a smell—a delicious, tormenting smell which Anna for a few seconds imagined to be the product of her fevered imagination. Her nose quivered and she sighed, then jumped several feet in the air as Laird Montgomery spoke at her elbow on the last syllable of the poem.

'Eat this while it's hot.'

Her eyes dropped to the plate he held out. On it lay a perfect semi-circle; golden and fragrant with herbs and cheese. It was the most beautiful omelette she had ever seen and it wasn't the mirage she had believed it to be. She put out a finger and touched it; it was hot.

Laird Montgomery walked over to the coffee table and put the plate down, offering her a fork. Very flushed, she walked to join him, biting her lip, furious with embarrassment because he had realised how hungry she was, but dying to taste the omelette all the same. Hunger had little pride, she thought grimly, and sat down without looking at him.

'Thank you,' she muttered, head bent.

'You spoke the Wyatt beautifully,' he merely replied, and walked out of the room again, leaving her to eat in peace.

By the time she had finished every last scrap she was feeling very friendly towards him. It had been tactful of him to go, and as he came back she smiled wryly at him, her head back against the black leather couch and her body relaxed and warm and fed.

'That was delicious! Parsons is a terrific cook, I haven't enjoyed a meal more for years.' He was carrying a tray on which stood a glass of milk. He put that down, glancing drily at the empty plate.

'How many meals have you had lately.?'

She coloured but laughed. 'I'm on a diet,' she lied. 'Perhaps I went a little too far.'

They grey eyes watched her sardonically. 'Drink your milk,' was all he said, however, then he strolled over the to enamelled cabinet and picked up a glass of whisky, walking across the room again with it and sitting down next to her on the low couch. Anna had already swallowed half the milk; contentment invaded her and she became aware of the physical and mental weariness which hunger had kept at bay for hours. She had been working so hard during the last month; permanently at full stretch and using up every last ounce of energy during rehearsals, but not replacing it with enough food because she couldn't afford to spend a penny on anything but the bare essentials. She had learnt during her years in London to eat the cheapest foods: porridge for breakfast, baked beans for lunch and supper, an apple here, some milk there. Going without meals had become a habit; she had to pay the rent and her fares. Eating was dispensable.

'Do you live alone?' Laird Montgomery asked her, sipping his whisky, and she turned her head sleepily to nod.

'In a flat?'

'One room,' she admitted frankly. 'A bedsit. It isn't Buckingham Palace, but it's home.' She laughed, her nose wrinkling at the memory of it, but Laird didn't smile.

"Where do your family live?'

'I haven't got one.' She linked her hands behind her head, her chin tilted and the full rich flood of her red-gold hair spread over the black leather cushion.

'I'm a little orphan,' she said lightly, mocking herself.

'Nobody at all? Not even one relative?' he asked, his brows lifting in that winged fashion which made his face so memorable.

'None that I know of ... ' She told him about her parents and he listened, his face shuttered and unreadable, betraying none of the pity Anna would have found so unbearable. She hadn't told anyone about her background before, except in curt explanations when she was asked a direct question, because she hated people to feel sorry for her. It irked her pride, and that dislike of pity was one reason for her burning ambition—if she became a star, nobody need ever feel sorry for her again.

That wasn't the only reason, of course; her drive to the top answered all her problems. When she made it and saw her name in lights, she would be safe, she would never be hungry or worried about paying the rent, she needn't wear cheap, shoddy clothes or be cold and lonely in a bleak little room.

She had very different reasons for choosing the theatre as her route to security—subconsciously aware that she could have picked another way, gone into business or become a model. Quite apart from wanting to be rich, Anna was passionate about acting. It fulfilled some need she felt; gave her a ,chance to escape from herself, gave her an enthralling mystery to unravel, the secrets of another human being to glimpse. She loved language, delighted in expressing it with her voice the way she had murmured the Wyatt poem a short time ago. The theatre gave her far more than just a hope of reaching final security; she knew she would have become an actress even if she hadn't needed success. It had always been what she wanted, right from the first play she ever saw.

"What did you do before you got this part?' Laird asked, and she turned her head to smile at him lazily.

'I was a fairy mushroom.'

His brows flicked up. 'What did Parsons put in that milk?' He leaned forward and picked up her empty glass, sniffing suspiciously at it.

Anna laughed. 'I'm serious—I really did play a fairy mushroom in a panto. It was rather fun, actually, and the pay was good. I ate well while I was with them.'

He leaned back, his head turned towards her and his arm along the back of the couch, his long body casually relaxed beside her so that their knees touched. He wasn't smiling, though, his eyes were cool and thoughtful.

'How much do you earn a week?'

Normally she would have prickled at that question and refused to answer, but she was in a soporific trance conjured up by warmth and good food on top of bone-cracking weariness, so she told him cheerfully, and he frowned.