Fast And Loose

Then, with her cheeks a feverish raspberry and her nerves twanging like crazed harp strings, she had dashed from his bedroom, hurled herself between the closing doors of a most obligingly placed lift and, on reaching ground level, had galloped across the lobby and out into the night.

Darcy sipped from her glass of sparkling water. The memory still made her squirm. And now, after intruding so discomfitingly into her consciousness earlier, for Keir Robards to appear in person was a bizarre coincidence—one which tempted her to make another hasty exit. But was he involved in a deal with Maurice? His elegant calm made a stark contrast to her agent’s ponytailed flamboyance, yet she supposed it was possible.

‘I’m staying at the hotel. I’ve been in London on business,’ he told her, ‘just for a couple of days. I fly back to the States tomorrow.’

‘Busy guy,’ Maurice murmured approvingly. ‘Sit down, sit down. Take my seat,’ he insisted when Keir looked around to draw up a chair. ‘You must have a drink,’ he said, and, after establishing his guest’s preference, he rapidly organised a gin and tonic. ‘I was on the point of telling Darcy about the new situation.’

Keir shot her a look. ‘You don’t know?’

‘Know what?’ Darcy asked in bewilderment. She frowned up at Maurice. ‘Would you kindly tell me what it is you’re talking about?’

‘The play,’ he said.

In a month’s time she was due to fly to the States to start rehearsing the female lead in a new, hard-hitting emotional drama which, after two weeks of previews in Washington, would premiere with much fanfare on Broadway. Darcy felt a trickle of alarm. She had thought everything was cut and dried, but there had, it seemed, been changes. Yet how could this have anything to do with Keir Robards?

‘There’s bad news—and good news,’ Maurice went on.

‘What’s the bad news?’ she enquired, thinking that it was always better to confront that first.

‘Bill Shapiro’s been forced to withdraw.’

‘Oh, no!’ Darcy exclaimed in dismay. ‘Why?’

‘He’s had a quadruple heart bypass which means he’ll be out of the scene for three months min. Poor Bill,’ the young man said, more automatically than sympathetically. ‘But the good news is…’ he paused to beam down at the American ‘…Keir’s come to the rescue.’

Darcy’s tension tightened as if turned by a ratchet. Her heart kicked behind her ribs. ‘You’ve—you’ve taken over as director?’ she faltered, struggling desperately up from the cocooning depths of her maroon velvet armchair.

Keir nodded. ‘I have.’

She perched, ramrod-stiff, on the edge of the chair. ‘But——’ she started to bleat.

‘I knew you’d be thrilled,’ Maurice declared, and gave a loud guffaw of satisfaction which boomeranged around the bar. In a lesser establishment it would have raised eyebrows and swivelled heads but the Brierly’s clientele were too well-bred to react.

‘“Thrilled” appears to be something of an exaggeration,’ Keir murmured, watching her, then looked up as a bell-boy in a grey brass-buttoned uniform appeared between the tables, holding aloft a board on which was written ‘Telephone for Mr Robards’. ‘Excuse me,’ he said, rising, and, with a word to the youth, he strode out to take his call at one of the telephones that were discreetly sited on the far side of the lobby.

‘We were both happy with Bill Shapiro directing,’ Maurice said hastily. ‘Though, let’s face it, as the play is your dream ticket to stardom we’d have been happy to go along with most any director unless he was a real doggo. Robards isn’t a doggo; he’s the crème de la crème.’

Darcy frowned down into the cut-crystal tumbler of sparkling mineral water which she suddenly realised she was holding in her fingers. Holding tight. Very tight. Stardom did not bother her—what mattered was her wonderfully challenging role. The observation that there were few meaty parts for actresses might have been a cliché, yet, as cliches often did, it contained much truth, and she had been savouring the prospect of getting to grips. But now…

‘I don’t want to work with him,’ she said.

Maurice affected a look of frog-eyed surprise. ‘Why ever not?’

Darcy had two reasons. Valid reasons. What she had come to think of as the bedroom incident was the first, though no one knew about that—praise be—but the second reason, and by far the more important, lived in the public domain—at least a part of it did. A line cut between her brows. However, the real source of her hostility, the crucial, damning factor, remained a secret, locked away at the back of her mind. It was a secret which, after much agonising, she had learned to live with.

Darcy sat back. ‘You know why not,’ she said impatiently.

‘You can’t be bothered about that episode between Robards and Rupert all those years ago?’ the young man protested as though—gee whizz!—the thought had only just occurred to him. He dropped down into the empty chair. ‘Come on, kiddo, artistic differences happen. They’re an occupational hazard and nothing to get uptight about.’

Her chin lifted. ‘My father feeling forced to withdraw from a production for the first and only time in an illustrious forty-year career just happened?’ Darcy enquired, a glacial edge to her voice. ‘Keir Robards was an innocent bystander?’

‘Look, Rupert was in his sixties, and taking instruction from a guy of under thirty who at that point had only directed on a couple of occasions could’ve seemed infra dig and been a bit of a strain. It’s under-standable. Human nature.’

She glared. ‘Which is supposed to mean that it was my father who was at fault?’ she demanded.

Maurice sighed. While some pride and filial support was to be applauded, in his opinion Darcy took the role of devoted daughter far too seriously. She also possessed a faulty perspective.

OK, Sir Rupert Weston had been an endearing old codger and an upper-echelon actor, but it was a well-known fact that the guy had been no saint. Anything but. And yet, he philosophised, it was also human nature for kids to dote uncritically on their fathers.

‘All it means is that you and Robards are a very different combination from him and your pa,’ Maurice replied, as if soothing a foot-stamping and sadly misguided three-year-old. He stood up. ‘Everything OK?’ he asked, smiling at his guest, who had returned.

Keir nodded. ‘And with you?’ he enquired, his eyes flicking down to where Darcy sat solemn-faced.

‘Wonderful,’ Maurice claimed. ‘There’s no doubt Darcy would’ve zapped the critics under Bill Shapiro’s direction——’ she received a flattering smile ‘—but with you calling the shots she’s destined to take the Big Apple by storm. You’re sharp, energetic, imaginative.’ Now it was Keir’s turn to be shone a flattering smile. ‘A guy with a firm concept of what he wants and who isn’t afraid to go for it.’

Keir lifted a brow. ‘You reckon?’

‘And how,’ Maurice enthused, deaf to the pithiness of the comment. ‘Didn’t have a chance to break the news to her before because this has been one hectic week,’ he continued. ‘On Monday a client who’s always causing me pain——’

As her agent rattled off into a non-stop and unstoppable account of his week’s trials and tribulations Darcy sneaked a look at the man who had sat down opposite her again. Despite the intervening years, he was much as she remembered him. The odd strand of silver now gleamed amid the thick, straight dark blond hair which brushed his collar, and the vertical creases on either side of his mouth were etched deeper, but his eyes remained a clear cobalt-blue beneath brows which were uncompromisingly straight. His jawline was still granitecut and his nose aquiline.

As an actor Keir Robards had collected female fans with insolent ease and yet, while she, too, had considered him a sight to make any girl’s knees turn to water, his good looks had not been the appeal. What she had found magnetic was his intelligence, his style and a sense of inner steel which had made him seem…dangerous. Darcy felt a sharp pang of distress. He had been dangerous, as she knew to her cost.

That steely quality remained and with the years had come a sureness. The younger Keir Robards had been quietly confident but the mature Keir Robards was a man of authority, a man of stature, a man with whom one did not mess.

As she gazed at him from beneath her lashes two emotions travelled through her—emotions which contradicted each other yet were intertwined. She felt a strong hostility—and an equally strong attraction. A shadow crossed her face. How could that be? It made no sense. She loathed and despised Keir Robards. End of story. Finishing his recital, Maurice grabbed his glass from the table and drained it in one gulp. ‘I must be off,’ he declared.

Darcy’s head snapped up and she looked at him in astonishment. ‘Off?’ she repeated. ‘You mean you’re not having dinner?’

‘Nah. You don’t need me around. Much better if I vamoose and leave you two beautiful people to talk things over together in a cosy tête-à-tête. Don’t you agree, Keir?’

His guest had been watching their interplay and he gave a dry smile. ‘That’s what you arranged.’

‘Besides,’ Maurice went on, when Darcy started to protest, ‘I have another appointment fixed for this evening.’

As he beckoned to the waiter and paid for the drinks Darcy’s green eyes began to burn. She had been set up! Guessing she would not wish even to meet Keir Robards, let alone work with him, Maurice had prepared a trap.

Firstly, he had delayed advising her of the change in director, which he had apparently known about for days. Secondly, he had contacted the American and fixed for him to have dinner with her. Thirdly, this evening he had been late—on purpose, she thought angrily—which meant that he must have chickened out of dropping his bombshell when they were alone and when she could have properly voiced her dissent. When she could have laid it on the line that she was—as in definitely, no ifs nor buts, come hell or high water—pulling out of the play.

And now his intentions were clear; he expected her to be beguiled by the magnetic Mr Robards and swap her dissent for slavering acquiescence. A thought occurred. Had Maurice known how besotted she had been seven years ago? No. She had not started acting in earnest and been his client then. But he would be alert to Keir’s heartthrob status so it made no difference.

‘I’m sure you can cancel your appointment,’ Darcy said, shooting her agent a fierce, slit-eyed look which warned him that she had realised the game he was playing and was unamused.

He shook his head, pony-tail swinging. ‘’Fraid not.’

‘But Maurice——’ she began, switching from ferocity to a somewhat frantic appeal.

‘I understand the food is excellent here and I’ve arranged to foot the bill, so enjoy,’ he instructed, and after bestowing ‘mwah-mwah’ kisses to both her cheeks the young man made his farewells and hurried away.