A Sudden Engagement. PENNY JORDAN

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СКАЧАТЬ found the room without too much difficulty, biting her lip in sudden vexation as she realised she had no means of getting into it.

      Furious with herself and on the verge of abandoning her plan, she was shocked into stiff immobility when she felt someone touch her arm.

      Dreading coming face to face with Drew Chalmers, she glanced round, then sagged with relief when she realised it was only the chambermaid.

      ‘You ‘ave forgotten the key?’ The girl was foreign—Spanish, Kirsty guessed, and obviously sympathetic, from her smile. ‘See, I have one. I will let you in.’

      Truly the gods were favouring her tonight, Kirsty marvelled as she thanked the girl and stepped into the darkened room.

      Only it wasn’t a room. It was a suite, and she was just gazing open-mouthed round the luxury of a sitting room furnished in chintz and excellent reproduction furniture, when she heard sounds outside. There was barely time for her to slide into the first door—the bedroom, she deduced from the shadowy shape of the bed—before she heard a key in the lock and the sound of the light switch being flicked.

      Someone was moving around outside. Kirsty strained her ears, catching the tinkle of ice and other small sounds, before the light was extinguished and the door firmly closed. Then she remembered hearing Drew Chalmers ordering champagne. Tentatively opening the door, she saw that she had guessed correctly. The dim outline of an ice bucket on the low table glinted faintly in the moonlight seeping through the uncurtained window. She let out her breath in relief. Next time she would be prepared. She would have to be! She only hoped that Beverley Travers didn’t take it into her head to wait for Drew Chalmers in his bedroom rather than the sitting room. She wanted Drew Chalmers himself to be there when she announced her presence. She wanted him to witness exactly how convincing she could be as an actress!

      She passed the time waiting for Beverley Travers’ arrival in silent study of her shadow-shrouded surroundings. The bedroom and its fittings were typically impersonal; hardly seductive, she would have thought, her body tensing as she heard the sound of a key in the lock, and the light being switched on. She held her breath, praying that Beverley Travers—it could only be her this time, surely?—wouldn’t come into the bedroom, and it seemed that luck was with her.

      How long would Drew Chalmers be? Not long, she imagined. He had told the receptionist that he wouldn’t be. Kirsty could hear Beverley Travers moving around outside, the chink of a bottle against glasses, and then she froze with tension as she heard the outer door open, and Drew Chalmers’ cool, faintly cynical voice drawling softly, ‘Sorry about that, I wanted to get an evening paper.’

      ‘You’re a workaholic!’ Beverley Travers’ voice was warmly seductive. Keyed up and sensitive to everything happening in the other room, Kirsty could imagine the seductive quality of the smile she could sense in the other woman’s voice, the way her eyes would linger on Drew Chalmers’ arrogant male face.

      ‘Not while you’re around.’

      She heard Beverley Travers laugh, and then say, ‘And champagne—you’re spoiling me!’

      ‘Only because you’re worth it.’

      The words held an undertone of insincerity, as though they had been said before, and Beverley Travers obviously caught it too, because she demanded sharply, ‘Am I? Are you sure I’m not just another pleasant little diversion, Drew? Because that isn’t what I want from you.’

      That must surely be her cue, Kirsty thought, smoothing damp palms against her dress. Her appearance now would make a definite impact.

      And yet, strangely, she felt curiously reluctant to move; in fact she almost wished she had never decided to come up here in the first place. Scared? an inner voice mocked her. She admitted that she was, and then quickly smothered her fear. No actress worthy of the name never felt any tremor of nervousness waiting in the wings, but the time for waiting was over, now she had to go on stage and prove to Mr High and Mighty Chalmers exactly what calibre of actress she was, before her courage deserted her completely.

      Taking a deep breath, she moved towards the door, and then thinking quickly, rumpled the severe neatness of the bedclothes, closing her mind against the intimacies her action suggested. What she was doing was in no way underhand, she told herself stubbornly. After all, Beverley Travers must surely know that she wasn’t the only woman in Drew Chalmers’ life. He featured regularly enough in the gossip columns for even the blindest fool to be aware that he liked variety. Dismissing from her mind the thought of her mother’s disapproval, Kirsty reminded herself that she was simply playing a part; showing Drew Chalmers that when it came to acting she could be convincing. Concentrating completely on her role, she pushed open the door and stood there framed in the light, her lips parting on an astonished ‘Oh!’ as her eyes rounded in a mixture of dismay and surprise.

       CHAPTER TWO

      ‘DREW!’ Now Beverley Travers’ voice was neither soft nor warm. It held bitter incredulity, icy disdain in the pale blue eyes sweeping over Kirsty’s disordered hair and rumpled clothes. ‘Drew, who is this?’

      ‘Oh, Drew, I’m so sorry,’ Kirsty murmured huskily, cutting across the other woman’s acid question, one hand stretched pleadingly towards Drew Chalmers as he stared at her with thunderous disbelief in eyes that were the colour of grey flint.

      ‘What the.…’

      ‘Oh, Drew, please don’t be angry!’ Kirsty had the stage now, and allowed her mouth to droop pathetically, tears filling her eyes, as she glanced pleadingly up at the grim mouth, now pulled into a tight hard line. A shiver of premonition iced its way down her spine as she realised that instead of looking disconcerted and embarrassed he was regarding her with a clinical intensity that warned her that she hadn’t caught him as much off his guard as she had expected.

      Beverley Travers, however, was reacting exactly as Kirsty had anticipated, her face flushed with anger as she looked from Drew Chalmers’ impassive face to Kirsty’s tear-stained and pleading one.

      ‘I don’t pretend to know exactly what’s going on here, Drew,’ she said tightly, picking up her handbag and glaring at Kirsty, ‘but next time you invite someone to share a rendezvous with you can I suggest that you check with your diary to make sure you haven’t double booked. Oh, and by the way.…’ she paused in the doorway, her eyes slating Kirsty, before they turned, bitter and icy, to Drew Chalmers, relaxed and apparently totally unmoved by what was happening. ‘As they say in the movies, don’t call me. As for you…’ her mouth tightened as she glanced contemptuously at Kirsty, ‘I presume you’re some casual pick-up Drew made on the way down here. You look the type. Really, Drew,’ she added coldly as she prepared to sweep out of the suite, ‘you ought to be more careful, especially in these permissive times—these little tarts pick up the most obnoxious social diseases, you know.’

      Kirsty winced beneath the venom of her words, unaware of the shocked disbelief in her own eyes as they widened slightly in acknowledgement of the thrust. Events had taken a turn she hadn’t expected.

      The silence following Beverley Travers’ furious exit, and her bitter slamming of the door, was a tangible, nerve-aching void, and it took every ounce of courage Kirsty possessed for her to shake her hair nonchalantly over her shoulder and force a blithe smile as she headed for the door.

      ‘Just a moment.’

      She hadn’t expected him to simply let her go, of course. Nor had she wanted him СКАЧАТЬ