Fast And Loose

So he spent the time between assignments on holiday. This surprised her for, no matter how fascinating the locations were, Keir seemed too active and vigorous an individual to swan around for quite so long.

‘Sugar?’ he enquired.

Darcy shook her head. ‘Don’t take it.’

Her gaze returned to the living-room. Unlike the homes of some entertainment people which she had visited, there were no silver-framed photographs showing him arm in arm with Hollywood megastars, no cavalcade of posters which advertised his productions and proclaimed his success to every passing visitor, no evidence of the awards she knew he had won. While she was reluctant to give praise, he did seem to have his place in the world in a pleasingly modest perspective.

‘Where are your trophies?’ she asked.

‘In a cupboard somewhere,’ he replied, and cast her a wry look. ‘You have your Best Actress statuette slap bang in the middle of the mantlepiece, highly polished and spotlit at night?’

‘Wrong! It’s also in a cupboard.’

He gazed at her in silence for a moment, then he opened the fridge. ‘I guess an apartment would’ve been easier to run than a house,’ he reflected, ‘but I like space.’ Keir returned the cream-jug to a shelf. ‘So do you,’ he said.

‘Me?’

‘I understand the bedrooms at the De Robillard are the size of aircraft hangars.’

Darcy grinned at his description. ‘Almost. My bedroom at home would fit three times into the room I’ve been given and twice into the bathroom,’ she told him, ‘which, in addition to all the usual facilities, has a Jacuzzi and a multi-purpose exercise machine.’

Standing with his long legs apart, Keir folded tanned arms across his chest. ‘And you figure that as an award-winning, big-shot actress you deserve nothing but the best?’

Her grin withered. The cobalt-blue eyes were critical and so was his tone. Darcy knew that back in London she had been over-zealous with the airs and graces, but now they had begun to rebound.

‘No, I don’t and it wasn’t my idea to——’ She swerved.

‘You’re thinking how my father liked to live in the lap of luxury and that I’m the same?’ Darcy demanded. ‘You’re mistaken. I’m not. But if he enjoyed driving around in Rolls-Royces and drinking fine brandies and cruising the Mediterranean on fancy yachts, so what? An appetite for good living is not a crime and even if it did mean he died penniless it——’

‘Rupert hadn’t crossed my mind,’ Keir said. He fixed her with piercing blue eyes. ‘But you seem knotted up about him.’

‘Rubbish,’ Darcy rejected sharply, and frowned. Her outburst had surprised her as much as it had obviously surprised him, and she had no idea where it had come from, no idea what had made her veer off into a spontaneous defence of her father or even mention him. It was, after all, a personal and disconcerting area.

Darcy readjusted her grip on the bulky pale blue bound copy of the script which she held to her chest. She was not going to attempt to explain or excuse herself—even if she could. ‘Carry on,’ she instructed.

‘Thanks,’ Keir said grittily. ‘Have you any idea how much staying at the De Robillard during your two months or so in Washington will cost?’

‘Er…none.’

All she knew was that the production company was picking up the tab. Should she tell him that Maurice had chosen the hotel and it had not occurred to her to query it? How she had simply assumed that the choice had been sanctioned? Darcy hesitated. But, if she did, once again she would appear to have left too much to her clever-dick agent and once again she would appear incompetent.

‘But you don’t care. Well, you may not give a damn about soaking the system and sending the expenses for the production shooting into orbit but I do,’ Keir rasped, and he brought his hand down flat on a worktop like the blade of a wide knife, making her jump. ‘As someone who’s to receive a share of the profits I intend to see that we make a profit and that it’s not frittered away by——’ he jabbed a finger ‘—you.’

Darcy’s chin lifted. She objected to being accused and so roundly denounced. She also refused to be heaped with all the blame.

‘And by Jed Horwood,’ she said.

‘What?’

‘If my accommodation is five-star his must be even more so,’ she declared, for the movie actor’s taste for the perks and privileges of stardom was notorious. ‘I’ve heard how on film sets he demands an elaborately designed trailer and expects his every wish to be met by a sizeable and fawning entourage, who are known as “doormats” because he likes to walk over them.

‘So while Jed’s in Washington he’ll doubtless be parading it in a super de luxe penthouse somewhere, with a coterie of servants, including a chauffeur and a chef and a personal fitness trainer, to look after him.’

Keir shook his head. ‘No,’ he said impatiently.

‘All right, Jed Horwood has rented a mansion,’ Darcy said, charging straight into an alternative scenario. ‘With a billiard-room and a swimming-pool, and a stretch limo waiting in the drive. And——’

‘While I hesitate to stop you in full flow,’ he said sardonically, ‘not that either. We’re working in the study,’ he told her, and, picking up the steaming mug of coffee, he strode off.

Darcy hesitated; then, left with no other option but to trail in his wake, she followed. She glared at his broad, navy-shirted back. Her espadrilles were flat, which meant that today she was several inches shorter. Today she did not feel protected by his presence; today she felt subordinate. Trifling. Small fry. Big man and the little woman, Darcy thought sourly as Keir led the way to a room at the back of the house. A big man with a neat rear end, muscled thighs and long legs, the hormonal part of her mind added.

To one side of the study stood a desk, bearing a telephone and computer, a swivel chair and a trio of filing cabinets, while the other half of the room contained a comfy chintz-covered ottoman and a glass-topped coffeetable. Three walls were lined floor to ceiling with books, while large windows in the fourth looked on to a garden, where sunlight dappled a patio and a lawn encircled with spring-green trees.

Placing her script on the table, Darcy sat down. A budding home-maker, she always took an interest in other people’s houses and if this one were hers she would, she decided, put leafy pot plants on shelves and windowsills and bring the spirit of the garden indoors.

‘Thank you,’ she said, accepting the mug which Keir handed to her. She took a sip of coffee. ‘So where is Jed Horwood staying?’ she asked a mite tetchily.

‘He isn’t.’ Swinging his chair round to face her, he levered his long body down into it. ‘He’s quit the production.’

Stunned, Darcy looked at him. ‘Crikey.’

‘Succinctly put.’

‘But—but the play’s still on?’ she faltered, struggling to absorb this latest item of shock news and make the necessary mental adjustments. ‘It is,’ she said, answering her own question, for Keir had summoned her here in order for them to make a start. ‘I’m relieved that Jed’s gone—extremely—but——’ she was intrigued and a little apprehensive ‘—who’s playing the male lead now?’

Keir stretched out his denim-clad legs, leaned back in the swivel chair and gave an idle swing. ‘I am.’

She stared. Her whole stomach turned over. For a moment she was on the brink of yelping, squeaking and screaming a protest—You can’t, you mustn’t, no!—but in the next she remembered how she would not—repeat not—be fazed.

She drew in an unsteady breath. She had been right to feel apprehensive, but Keir was joking, using a devilish black humour to tease her…wasn’t he?

‘You?’ she said, without expression but with a great deal of care.

His lips curved into a wry smile. ‘Life’s a bitch, isn’t it?’

Darcy sat as if carved from ice. This was no joke. Keir Robards playing the male lead, playing opposite her, was fact—chill, hard, entrapping fact.

‘You wouldn’t be my first choice,’ she said tautly, and could not resist adding, ‘Nor my last.’

‘But you’ll rise to the occasion?’ he enquired, and his voice carried the hint of a dare.

Her eyes glittered. ‘Like a rocket,’ she informed him.

‘I must remember to stand well back when you light the blue touch-paper,’ he said drily.

‘It would be advisable,’ she responded. Darcy took a drink of coffee, though a stiff whisky would have done a better job of calming her nerves. ‘Why you?’ she asked.

‘Cal Warburg, who I assume you know is head of the production company——’