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We’re live-Tweeting tonight from the red carpet of the National Theatre Awards. Follow along for the best—and worst—dressed!
“Smile,” Will said warningly in her ear, as he followed his own advice. A trio of camera flashes went off, and a misguided young woman behind the crowd barrier proclaimed her love for him. He raised a lazy hand and waved to the cluster of predominantly female spectators. Silly screaming ensued. Will’s star had risen recently after a series of guest appearances in a popular American drama. His hand tightened on Lainie’s waist when she tried to step away. “People will think we aren’t such good friends after all.”
Lainie’s fingers tightened around his, but her discreet tug didn’t break his hold. There was only so much she could do in the full glare of the theatrical world, with a feverish tapping of thumbs feeding the intel straight into social media. She had too much dignity to get into a public scuffle with her ex-boyfriend.
But nor did she want to be photographed with his nose nestled in her hair. “The tragic news of your latest breakup was reported less than six hours ago,” she hissed. He turned his head, and his lips ventured way too close to her face. She leaned sharply away. “What I don’t want is for people to think I had anything to do with Crystalle’s Shock Heartbreak! I have no desire to ignite rumours about you and me again. Just stand for the bloody photo and then go elsewhere, please.”
Will made a low sound of disgust. “Heartbreak. I’m sure she’s sobbing her eyes out as we speak, curled up cosily back in her marital bed.”
“Tell me you aren’t expecting sympathy.” Lainie saw Alexander Bennett getting out of a limo. “Bennett’s here.”
They amped up their smiles. Her cheeks were beginning to hurt. She still felt tired from the remnants of her flu bug. She’d only been back at work for one day, and everything still had a slight sheen of unreality outside the bubble of her bedroom. Another flash went off, and she resisted the urge to look down at her gown. Sarah and Meghan had joined forces to help her get ready, and they had taken numerous shots with a camera flash on, in both natural and artificial light. They had all been confident that her shimmery dress would not turn sheer in photographs, but a hint of paranoia lingered. She had worn her sexiest knickers as a morale boost, but she’d prefer that fact not to be made public.
At least not to multiple people. One person, maybe...
Don’t go there.
The cameramen at last turned their attention to the next newcomers, and Lainie hastened forward at some speed. She swore under her breath. It had been epically bad timing arriving at the same moment as Will. She had been unable to turn tail and run without creating an even bigger story, but appearing in the same photograph would be enough to have their relationship rekindled on gossip blogs. Add in Richard’s conspicuous absence from the red carpet, thanks to a speaking engagement that had run late, and her sex life would end up resembling a Ping-Pong tournament. Bounced back and forth between the same two players.
Will seemed torn between tailing her and remaining behind to soak up his newfound sex symbol status. Unfortunately, persistence won out over vanity.
“No,” he said from above her shoulder. Someone shoved against them, and he took the opportunity to put a gentlemanly arm around her. The subtle hip-squeeze was less chivalrous. “I’m not asking for sympathy.”
Lainie glanced at him impatiently. At the moment, she was more concerned with getting inside the venue with her toes and pedicure intact. The street outside the Exhibition Centre was manic. A handful of names from the Hollywood A-list had dabbled in the West End this year, and had been nominated for a National Theatre Award tonight. Earls Court was chaos during rush hour at the best of times; the prospect of seeing a movie star in the flesh had provoked complete insanity. She was trying not to feel starstruck herself, whenever the pitch of screams peaked in volume and she saw another familiar face. This might be her first major awards ceremony, but she didn’t have to act like it.
“I’m the one who ended it,” Will went on, dropping his voice as they made it through the doors. It was still loud inside, excited voices laughing and chattering in every direction, but it was no longer deafening away from the added traffic noise and fan hysteria. “Although she didn’t waste time grieving about it,” he added sourly. His fingers spread on her stomach, pulling her to a stop. “Lainie. It wasn’t working. It wasn’t the same.”
The press of stylish, heavily perfumed, glittering bodies formed a barrier that allowed her to push him away without being seen. “Will. I don’t care. Your love life is no longer any of my business. Thank God.”
“We had something really great.”
“We did not. We had good sex, one shared interest and the inevitable result of propinquity. Would you like to add a suitably regretful ‘I made a huge mistake,’ just to complete the cliché?”
“Did you forget to eat before you came?” Will asked coldly. “You’re always a bitch when you’re hungry.”
“Well, gee. Now I really want the makeup sex.”
Will glanced around. A few interested eyes were turning their way, despite the competition of famous faces. “We’ll talk about this later.”
“We’ll talk about this never. Enjoy your evening. Good luck in your category.” Lainie turned away pointedly and latched on to the first acquaintance she saw.
In less dire circumstances, she would never have voluntarily entered into a conversation with the ghastly woman. Six seconds after her falsely cheerful “Hello! I haven’t seen you for ages,” she was being shown the other actress’s Twitter feed, which included fashion commentary from the red carpet outside. It was a rookie mistake to read blogger opinions of your dress while you were still wearing it. Lainie forced a smile and tried to share the amusement. Personally, she thought her own critique was a little harsh. And she was fairly sure there was no e in the word ho unless it was being used in a gardening context.
She was pleased to discover that the awards were a sit-down-around-tables rather than a sit-in-neat-rows event, the important distinction between the two being champagne—and lots of it. Lainie found her table and saw Richard’s name on the place setting beside her own. She wasn’t sure if someone had confirmed their attendance as a couple, or if even the higher-ups in the acting guilds bought into the gutter press’s scandal-mongering. Whatever—she was just relieved that Will hadn’t been put at their table to spice up the evening.
Her left-side neighbour was an icon of the theatre, one of the Royal Shakespeare Company’s living legends. The association with Richard had nudged her into some exalted circles. The elderly actor was so charismatic and genuinely charming that he brushed aside her intimidated shyness without drawing attention to it. He immediately involved her in a fascinating discussion about the current production at the Globe, and Lainie was sipping Perrier-Jouët when the back of her neck prickled. She sensed Richard’s presence and caught a whiff of his cologne before he slid into the empty seat on her right.
He greeted her companion with a nod and a handshake—the posh gent’s version of rappers raising their chins and bumping fists, Lainie assumed—and then raised an eyebrow at her. “You look very beautiful.”
He looked like a press release for Armani. She did love a good three-piece suit. Richard’s eyes scanned her clinging black gown, resting for an interested moment on the plunging neckline. She hoped he appreciated it. More double-sided tape had been employed in that wrangling job than Santa’s elves used at Christmas.
She met the glint in his blue eyes with a suspicious narrowing of her own.
“Shoes on the right feet and everything,” he added in a congratulatory tone, checking under the table. He opted for a sneaky grope of her knee while he was under there, and she jumped. “Sterling job at covering up the recent psychiatric episode.”
“Translation, please?” Lainie asked, trying not to visibly squirm when playful fingers crept up the sensitive length of her inner thigh. She slapped them away with her clutch. It was gold-plated and apparently useful for more than housing her lipstick and emergency twenty quid.
Richard retrieved his hand and used it to pick up his champagne flute. His throat worked as he swallowed. “I gather that at some point between exiting your car and entering the building, you suffered a brainstorm and decided to rekindle the epic love story. Reports vary as to whether lips and partial nudity were involved, but I imagine the society page of the Sun will fill in the gaps tomorrow.”
Was that sardonic humour in his face—or something else?
Lainie glared at him. “Always happy to provide cheap entertainment. Shall I ask Will to rub himself all over you in full public view, and see how funny you find it?”
The gleam in Richard’s eyes took on a more dangerous aspect. “Define rubbed.”
Her indignation beat a swift retreat at that look. It indicated he would shortly be happy to define right hook for Will. “It was just Will mucking about for the cameras, as usual.” She didn’t mention the Crystalle breakup or the belated show of remorse. There was an even chance that Will been knocking back whiskies in his limo and didn’t mean a word of it. She would bet her entire twenty pounds that he left the venue tonight with another woman, regardless.
“How was your speech?” she asked, determinedly changing the subject. “Were you audible? Eloquent? Sober?” She grinned at him. “I envision a standing ovation and at least one pair of knickers being thrown.”
“That would have been disconcerting.” Richard’s mouth twitched reluctantly. “Given that I was addressing the almost entirely male body of the Westminster Operatic Guild. And there wasn’t a woman there under the age of sixty-five.”
“I’m sure that’s the prime age for knicker-tossing,” Lainie said. “They would have practised their overarm throw during the height of Beatlemania. You’re almost as cute as Ringo Starr.”
Richard looked into his glass. “I think I need something stronger.”
She pushed a bowl toward him. “Have a wasabi nut.”
Without ever having been to a major awards show, Lainie considered herself a veteran. She live-streamed the Oscars, BAFTAs, Tonys, Emmys and Golden Globes every year, and she didn’t always mute the speeches or take tea breaks. She had been not-so-secretly incredibly excited about tonight, despite the fact that she was only nominated for an ensemble cast gong, which she couldn’t fool herself was anything but resting on the laurels of Richard, Will and Chloe. It was still her first nomination. Of many, she told herself, looking around the glitzy, crowded room. She would take a note from Richard’s book of self-confidence and feel inspired and ambitious instead of small and unworthy.
By the three-quarter mark of the ceremony, the effervescent buzz had dulled to a halfhearted fizz. It turned out that sitting on an uncomfortable chair for three hours, intermittently clapping and having to listen in polite silence to the long acceptance speeches, was dull. A fast-forward button wouldn’t go astray. And they lost the ensemble category, although the award went to a production that Lainie had enjoyed so much she couldn’t be totally sorry.
As the winner for the best one-man show giggled self-consciously into the microphone, Lainie heard Richard let out a heavy, annoyed breath. She glanced over at him. He appeared to be playing both sides of an improvised chess match with the leftover wasabi nuts. She hid a smile, and he scowled at her when she ate one of his pawns.
“This is your category,” she muttered when the host returned to the stage. “Sit up and quit fiddling with your nuts.”
The elderly scion of the RSC snorted a laugh into his napkin. Richard looked unamused.
She hadn’t been looking forward to the announcement of this particular award. Both Will and Richard had been nominated for a leading actor statue, Will for The Cavalier’s Tribute and Richard for his most-recent-but-one role in a festival run of Richard III at the Old Vic. It seemed likely to prove an awkward few minutes no matter who won. She had weighed the other nominated performances and decided that none of them were of the same calibre. And unfortunately she had come to the conclusion that, in a fair judgement, there was only one possible winner this year.
The voting panel had agreed with her.
Richard’s face was completely blank as Will went up to the stage to collect his trophy, but there was a telltale flicker in his jaw. First warning sign of an almighty male sulk.
The Cavalier’s Tribute scooped another major award with Alexander Bennett taking the directorial honour. Lainie was thrilled on behalf of the production. She managed to muster some goodwill toward Bennett himself, although he made the task more difficult by giving the smuggest speech of the night. He could do with learning from Richard II’s mistakes. It was wiser not to compare oneself to a deity.
When the host closed the prize-giving portion of the evening and directed everyone’s attention toward the bar, there was a mass rising of bodies and an immediate outburst of chatter. Lainie turned toward Richard. “I’m sorry you didn’t win.”
He grunted, and she continued serenely, “Although you can’t say it was unexpected.”
That woke him out of his disgruntled apathy. His dark brows snapped thunderously together. “What?”
Lainie was unmoved. He might as well get the strop out of his system, so she didn’t have to put up with it all night. “There’s no question that you’re the strongest actor in The Cavalier’s Tribute,” she said, shrugging. “You’re well aware you’re in a supporting role and stealing the spotlight from Will every night, with very little effort.”
That produced a tiny smirk. She ignored it and went on, “But your nomination was for Richard III, not Bandero. It was an arts festival role that ran for three nights, and,” she finished bluntly, “your performance was subpar.”
“Oh, was it?” Richard asked dangerously.
She wasn’t impressed by the intimidating tone. “Yes, it was. And you know it. I saw that production on the opening night. It was the most mediocre, half-assed performance you’ve ever turned out. I bet you anything you like that you were more convincing during am-dram productions in your teens. I wouldn’t have believed it was you behind the costume if your name hadn’t been on the playbill.” She held his wrathful gaze. Her own was calm and measuring. “You still deserved to be nominated. Your worst performance is better than most actors will achieve on their best night. But it would have been a biased travesty if you’d won. What happened?”
“What do you mean, what happened?” he asked rather nastily. “I lost. Deservedly, according to you.”
“And you agree with me.” Lainie spoke confidently. “I know how seriously you take the profession. You’re a solid self-critic. And it must have gone against the grain to skate over a role like you did with that production. What happened?”
He was silent, glaring down at the table. She thought he wasn’t going to answer, but finally he said coolly, “I was told about half an hour before curtain on opening night that a friend from university had committed suicide that morning.”
“Oh God.” Lainie reached out and closed her fingers around his fist.
He gently detached her hold. “It was irresponsible timing on behalf of the messenger, but it was my own failure that I let it affect my performance. The entire production was resting on my ability to convince in the leading role, and I let down every other person on, behind and in front of that stage.” He raised one shoulder and let it fall. “Mea culpa.”
“What did you say the other day about having superhuman expectations? Jesus, Richard. For all intents and purposes, your friend had died thirty minutes ago. I think you can cut yourself some slack. It was understandable you would be distracted.”
“Perhaps. But not very professional.” Richard hesitated. “It hit hard. Not just because of the loss of Derek, although that was a tragedy that should have and could have been avoided if his friends had realised in time. But his death recalled another...situation.”
“Yes?” Lainie prompted quietly.
Looking at his set face, she was unsure if he would have gone on, even if Lynette Stern hadn’t taken that moment to interrupt. The agent put a red-tipped hand on Richard’s shoulder and he stiffened, his expression closing. Lainie felt the intimacy between them shut down as if an iron gate had been lowered.
“Richard,” Lynette said briskly. “Good. Harlan Powell is looking for you. Hello, Lainie, how are you?”
“Fine, thanks.” Lainie was still looking at Richard.
“He can’t be looking very hard,” he said to Lynette. “Since I haven’t moved from my designated seat.”
Lynette ignored the acerbic response. She tugged at Richard’s arm, making him scowl. “He wants to discuss a potential role at the Globe. He’s over at the bar.”
“Of course he is.” Richard looked irritated, but he rose to his feet. His eyes rested on Lainie. “I’ll be back,” he said briefly, and she nodded.
She was watching him walk away, and she jumped when Lynette touched her arm.
“Mind if I sit?” the agent asked, and then draped herself on Richard’s vacated chair before Lainie had time to answer. It was a swooning movement that contrived to look impossibly elegant, but Lainie suspected Lynette’s dress was so tight she couldn’t bend at the middle.
“Help yourself,” she said ironically.
The agent seemed to think the invitation also applied to Richard’s champagne flute. “Thank God for the bubbly,” she said, downing about a hundred pounds’ worth of booze in one gulp. “I think I actually felt new wrinkles forming during Eliza Pimm’s speech. These events make the Hundred Years’ War seem like a momentary blip in time.”
“You’ll be sorry Richard didn’t win,” Lainie said neutrally.
“Mmm.” The other woman eyed her shrewdly. “He was rubbish in that role. Some bloody moron blindsided him with the news of a school friend’s death right before he went on. He pulled it together well enough, considering the circumstances. The average theatregoer might not have noticed a problem, especially if they weren’t familiar with his usual work. Even some of the critics were fooled.”
“Yes. I remember.” Lainie remembered reading more than one glowing review with astonishment, wondering if they had been at the same play.
“But it was a definite low point on his résumé. Thankfully, it was only a three-night run.” Lynette shot her a considering glance. “And how are things going with you two? I expected to be called to a late-night homicide scene by now.”
Lainie smiled faintly. “And which of us would be sprawled inside the chalk outline?”
“Debatable. Richard has the worse temper, but he’s also the more irritating.”
“He would disagree.” Her smile widened. “Possibly on both counts.”
“No doubt.” Lynette studied her. “Do you know, I think you’re fond of him.”
Lainie looked down at the tabletop. She traced a line through the ring left by her glass. “You’re not, I take it.”
“Frankly, I find him a walking, breathing migraine. One makes allowances, of course, for his upbringing,” Lynette said, but she spoke without enthusiasm.
“His upbringing?” Lainie repeated, confused. “I gathered that privileged was putting it mildly.”
“Oh, he’s always been wealthy. Poor little rich boy to the core, and materially spoilt rotten. But it’s the usual story: only child, parents absent for one reason or another, boarding school while still in nappies, succession of indifferent nannies in the holidays. His behaviour just screams it, really. Never been hugged in his life.”
Lainie turned that over in her mind, weighing it against her own middle-class childhood with wonderful parents and more siblings than she knew what to do with. “I think there’s a limit to which a person can excuse bad behaviour with a difficult-childhood card,” she said at last.
“Oh, I expect most of his personality defects are his own,” Lynette agreed, draining the rest of the champagne. “And he got shafted on the genetic front. Looks aside, obviously. His mother was an immoral bitch who’d go to bed with anything that bought her diamonds. And his father was a stiff-necked old sod. Sir Franklin Troy, you know, the MP. He died of a heart attack when Richard was at Eton.”
Lainie actually remembered when Franklin Troy had died. She had been at primary school, and her usually mild-mannered father had gone off on a diatribe against the man. “Not wanting to speak ill of the dead, but...” Troy Senior had been rabidly right-wing and, in her dad’s opinion, a bit unstable.
It was probably a good thing that she and Richard wouldn’t need to have a fake family dinner with their parents to cement their fake relationship. She couldn’t imagine it would have been cordial.
Lynette set down the empty flute and got to her feet. She was still rock-steady on her high heels despite the half quart of liquor she’d poured down her throat. “Well, must mingle, I suppose.” She tapped Lainie on the back of her hand. “Pat and Bob will be pleased to hear that the little side performance is going well. Richard’s reputation seems to be minutely improved. The redeeming influence of a good woman. It’s a bit offensive, really. A month ago, the Operatic Guild would have been content to keep him at a safe distance, whispering behind their lorgnettes.” Her lips lifted at the corner. “You maintain it is still an act, do you?”
“What do you think?” Lainie asked shortly.
Lynette looked thoughtful. “I think,” she said before she disappeared into the crowd, “that I hope for Richard’s sake you can’t act as well as all that.”
* * *
Lainie sat meditatively in Richard’s car, watching the lights of London out the side window. Traffic was still heavy around Earls Court; it had taken them twelve minutes so far to advance two blocks. The Ferrari came to a halt once again behind a hooting, hollering car full of teenagers. Tucking her wrap more tightly around her shoulders, she fingered the sequins sewn on the hem and turned her head to look at Richard. He, too, was quiet. He looked tired, his head tilted back and his eyes momentarily closed. His fingers drummed a lazy tune on the steering wheel.
“Long night,” she said, for lack of anything else to say.
His eyes cracked open. They were glinting sleepily in the reflected lights from the street. “I’ve had more pleasurable evenings,” he drawled. There was a pause. “Although the company could have been worse.”
“I do believe that was a compliment.” Lainie tucked a hand between her cheek and the headrest. “Feel free to elaborate. Don’t spare my blushes.”
“‘The lady doth speak,’” Richard murmured, quoting one of Will’s lines from the play. The rest was pure ad lib: “A little too much, methinks.”
Lainie retaliated by borrowing words from Chloe’s mouth: “‘Thy pretty tongue, Bandero, leaves wounds.’”
“Well, that’s an inapt choice if I’ve ever heard one,” Richard remarked in his usual tones. He sat up straighter as the cars in front began to move. “I don’t think I’ve ever personally been accused of speaking prettily before.”
“You do all right,” Lainie said. “Occasionally.”
She sensed him cast another quick glance at her, but she had reverted her attention back to the window.
Another few minutes passed in silence, punctuated by jerky stops and starts in the flow of traffic. It was going to be dawn before they reached their respective homes at this rate. She was suddenly really hungry too. She tried to predict Richard’s reaction if she asked him to take the Ferrari through a McDonald’s drive-through. Her head turned farther to the side to hide her instinctive smile.
“Almost forgot.” Richard took one hand off the wheel to reach into the pocket of his waistcoat. He had thrown the suit jacket into the backseat of the car, with shocking disregard for the artistry of its designer, and rolled up the sleeves of his shirt to reveal his taut forearms, lightly furred with black hair. She had been trying not to stare at him ever since. His hand came in front of her face with a piece of paper held between his first two fingers.
She took it automatically. “What’s this?” she asked, opening it.
“The new call time for your audition for Somerset County,” he said matter-of-factly, and she stared, first blankly at the piece of paper and then at him in growing astonishment. He intercepted the look and shrugged. “I pulled a few strings. They’ll see you this week.”
“But...” Lainie was aware that she was gaping and mouthing like a stranded fish. She pressed her lips together, and then tried again for a rational tone. “You can’t just...” Rationality fled and her voice rose in pitch. “Richard! You can’t do things like that.”
“As you’re holding a call time, evidently I can and I have.”
“You can’t just call people up and force them to give me a role!”
“I didn’t,” he said, with odious reasonableness. “I called and got them to reinstate the audition you had already earned on your own merit. I couldn’t get you the role even if I wanted to. Mark Forster is a professional. He’s not going to give a job to every woman who passes through my bedroom door just because I ask him to. Which I haven’t.”
“And which I haven’t.”
“No, you haven’t. To my lasting disappointment.”
She set her jaw. “I don’t need favours and nepotism. I can succeed on my own.”
Richard made an impatient noise. “Don’t be naïve. Nobody succeeds on their own. And in this business, they grab hold of every connection they have and squeeze it dry.”
There was an undertone to his exasperation that halted Lainie’s next protest in her throat. His face was very set, and he was concentrating on his driving with far more intensity than earlier.
Had she actually hurt his feelings?
“Well,” she said a bit feebly, after a pause. She added grudgingly, “Thank you.”
His look was ironic. “You’re welcome.” He nodded at the paper. “Forster’s private office line is on there, as well. He wants to talk to you about the charity.”
“The charity?”
“Shining Lights. Regardless of the outcome of your audition, he’s going to arrange for a portion of the profits from the production to be donated to the kids.” Richard seemed to think that side note closed the subject. He returned his gaze out the windscreen, either ignoring or not noticing Lainie’s stupefaction.
“You got him to agree to donate part of the profits to Shining Lights?” she said slowly, reconciling that fact with the picture she already had of Richard in her head. Trying to make the new pieces fit the existing puzzle.
“Yes.” His shoulders shifted, just a little, and the uncharacteristic fidget brought home to her how uncomfortable and out of his depth he was.
A rush of intense, tender feeling almost drowned her. She actually made a slight sound, so taken aback was she by the sensation. She looked down at the paper in her hand again and made up her mind all at once.
Leaning forward, she pressed a sudden, warm kiss to the side of his neck, in the sensitive hollow below his ear.
He jerked, and the car swerved slightly. Swearing, he cast her a look that was an odd combination of warning and heat.
“The traffic is terrible,” she said lightly.
“Cracking observation there, Sherlock,” he said, taking refuge in irony.
“It would probably save time if you skipped the turnoff for Bayswater and just went straight on to your house.”
He froze. She saw his hands tighten around the wheel.
After a single, comprehensive look into her eyes, he indicated to turn right toward Belgravia.
* * *
Richard’s home was one of those sparkling white mansion flats with black-and-white tiled steps leading up to the front door. She often passed similar houses on the various millionaires’ rows, but never seemed to see anyone going in or out. They were like the residential versions of Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory. She stood in a very plush lounge and tried not to think about the size of Richard’s income. She failed, and blanched. Her own conception of financial independence had been shopping at Topshop more often than she did at Primark.
Richard handed her a cup of strong coffee. After that one betraying moment of stillness in the car, he had been behaving quite normally. She didn’t know what she had expected—that he would flip a dimmer switch and activate mood music? Clearly she’d spent too much time with Will.
Sipping her coffee, she strolled awkwardly around the room. They were in Richard’s study, and she was afraid to touch anything. It was like going into shops full of breakable knickknacks and feeling as if any wrong movement would bring a priceless ornament crashing to the floor. Not just when she was small and tagging along with her mother: she still tended to feel that way now.
She stopped in front of a large oil portrait set into the wall above the fireplace. Her eyes went from the intense painted features to the flesh-and-blood man sitting sprawled in a Regency chair. “You don’t look much like your father,” she ventured.
Richard swallowed a mouthful of coffee. “Not at all.” He sounded completely unperturbed as he added, “Knowing my mother, it’s possible there was no blood link. We can but hope.” He frowned as he looked at the portrait. “It’s inset into the wall and it appears that removing it would damage two-hundred-year-old fixtures around the mantel. Otherwise I’d have taken it down.”
Lainie didn’t know how to respond to that. She said, rather uncertainly, “Your father was...fairly conservative, I take it.”
Richard snorted. “My father was about as far right as it was possible to move without falling completely off the grid. I’m not sure what policies his party actually supported. They were too busy opposing everything under the sun. Equitable rights, be they racial, sexual, or gender-oriented. Immigration. Public healthcare. Accessible education. The arts.”
“The arts?”
“Hmm. A waste of time and public funds that ought to be directed into an aggressive overhaul of the military. The practise of licentious and unpatriotic tomfoolery by a bunch of Bohemian layabouts. Loose women and homosexual men.” Richard swirled his coffee. “Franklin and his cohorts would have had ninety percent of the population exiled to Australia—still a jumped-up penal colony, by the way—if they could. Or just lined up against a wall and shot.”
“Nice.” Lainie sat down on the edge of the Queen Anne chaise. “I imagine he wasn’t exactly thrilled to have a son who wanted to go to drama school.”
“He died when I was still at school, and I hadn’t made up my mind what I wanted to do at that stage.” Richard grinned suddenly. “I think I was going through a very late-blooming astronaut phase, which would never have done. Rubbish at physics.”
Lainie could suddenly imagine him as a teenager, and the image was more endearing than she would have expected.
“I did my first school play a couple of months before he died.”
“Did he go?”
“No. He tried to have the drama teacher fired.”
He wasn’t joking. Lainie winced.
“At the time of his death, he was campaigning to eliminate almost all public arts funding. Government cultural grants were to be limited to a select few projects approved by the appropriate ministers, and art education was to be beaten out of the school curriculum with a barbed stick.” Richard’s voice was weary and disgusted. “Cultural resources were even more scarce then than they are now. The system needs a sharp boost, not to be dwindled into bleak totalitarianism.”
Lainie was becoming clear on a number of things. “So first step, the RSPA,” she said slowly. “To pick up the reins that your father dropped and turn the battle in the opposite direction.”
“He would have approved the military allusion.” Richard shrugged. “Perhaps not quite that dramatic, but yes. If he could have, my father would have done this country a monumental injustice in a number of areas. I intend to help correct at least one of them.”
“It still must have been hard. When he had the heart attack.”
There was a long silence, broken only by the sound of their breathing.
“He didn’t have a heart attack,” Richard said. “He was about to be found out in tampering with a parliamentary vote, and he shot himself in the head.”
She drew in a sharp breath, and he continued, “My family had a PR team who make Pat look like a kindergarten teacher by comparison. They hushed up the truth about the suicide, the reason for it, the extent and range of my mother’s affairs, and God knows what else.” He met her eyes, and his smile was awful. “Pretty sort of background, isn’t it?”
Lainie sensed instinctively that if she put a foot wrong now—and if she offered anything resembling pity—he would shove her so far out of his life, she would be left reeling on the street. “I hope,” she said, in tones that were 5 percent compassion and 95 percent admonishment, “that you’re not going to blame your tendency to behave like a complete prick on your parents. Because I would wager my entire salary for The Cavalier’s Tribute that you were a stubborn, bolshie little horror in your pram.”
For a few tense moments, while her stomach twisted, Richard’s face remained expressionless. Then he laughed, and it sounded genuine.
Taking her by surprise, he reached out, grabbed hold of her wrist and pulled strongly, tumbling her onto his lap.
“Bob Carson had no idea what he was setting in motion,” he said, and he kissed her.
It took her a few stuttering breaths to catch up, but she had always taken direction well. She slid her hands along his jaw and into his hair, meeting the demanding thrust of his tongue with her own. He was stroking her own hair, sifting the silky strands through his fingers and humming his appreciation against her mouth. His lips trailed kisses along her cheek, her hairline and the curve of her earlobe. She jerked when he bit down. She could feel his hard thighs beneath her hip, and the subtle shifting adjustments of his body.
Lainie’s fingers went to the buttons of his sexy waistcoat, tugging it open, and then to work on the fine lawn shirt beneath. She flattened a palm on his chest and gloried in the deep shudder that shook through his taut muscles.
Warm fingers traced the lines of bone in her shoulders and clavicle. His hand slid down her spine, igniting a shivering path of nerves as he lowered the zip of her dress, before he retraced his path back toward her neckline.
He came to a frustrating pause before the more interesting part of the proceedings.
Lainie’s heavy eyelids parted and she inhaled sharply, trying to catch her breath. “What’s the matter?” she murmured huskily.
Richard tilted up her chin, forcing her to meet his gaze. His eyes were almost black with arousal. “Tell me you want this. Me.”
It was enlightening that she could be this far gone with desire yet still capable of irritation. “Richard.” She braced herself against his stomach. “I am prepared to stroke many things right now, but your ego is not one of them.”
He didn’t relax his grip. He was scanning her eyes, looking for—what? Reluctance? Sobriety? Temporary insanity?
“A few weeks ago, you couldn’t stand me,” he bit out, and she held his gaze without flinching.
“The feeling was mutual.”
“No. I never hated you.”
“No. You barely knew I existed.” She added thoughtfully, “I think that’s worse.”
He moved an impatient shoulder. “I don’t want to do this if it’s not for the right reasons. If it’s anything to do with what I told you tonight.” Purposely crude, he said harshly, “I have no need or desire for a pity fu—”
Lainie’s hand left his belly and covered his mouth. “If you want to retain the necessary equipment for this interlude, I suggest you don’t finish that sentence.” Her fingers moved, stroking his lips. “Richard. All I’ve had to do is look at you tonight and I want to curl up against you and purr like a cat.”
His slow smile was equally feline. A black panther rather than a cosy house cat.
She put her hand over his and moved it down, sliding it over her jaw and down her neck to shape the heavy fall of her breast. Still he hesitated, until she ran a fingertip from the hollow of his throat to the top of his belt. His body arched sharply under her touch, and his thumb found a racing pulse under clinging silk. Her nails dug into his shoulders.
“A cat with claws,” he murmured, and stood up with her in his arms. She breathed in the clean scent of his hair as he carried her up the stairs. Impressively, he managed to keep kissing her without walking them into any walls. His house was far too big for one person. It took so long to get to his bedroom that he was lucky he was sexy or the mood might have waned.
Her lashes fluttered open when his weight pressed her into a gorgeously plushy mattress. The silk dress was bunched around her hips. She could feel the coolness of the bedcover beneath her lower back and thighs. Richard leant on one arm, propping his body above hers. Slowly, he slid his free hand up her thigh, following the curves of her hip and waist. He looked down, his eyes intent as he watched the movement of his fingers. Catching hold of the folds of silk, he slid the dress up, bunching it in his hand. Her breath quickening, she arched her back, and he pulled it carefully over her head. She heard the crack of static from her hair as it tugged at the loosened strands.
His face was so close that she could only focus on one distinct feature at a time. Eyes, the black lashes lowered. The sharp aquiline plane of his nose. His lips, parted and a little thin. Very gently, still focused on the touch of their skin, he laid his palm on her midriff, spreading his fingers wide. He lowered his head and kissed her tummy, right in the hollow between her ribs.
She was slightly self-conscious about her stomach. She didn’t have the DNA or the will power for visible abs. Generally, she preferred men to pick a direction—up or down—and not linger in the middle region. It was so obvious from Richard’s expression that he found her completely and unconditionally attractive that she let out a slow breath and relaxed in his arms.
He tugged her legs upward, bending her knees, and kissed the inside of her thigh. His mouth came down to blow warm breath against her expensive knickers—and she gave herself a mental high-five for leaving the Spanx at home again. She didn’t need any Bridget Jones-esque comedy for their first time together.
Raising her hips, she wiggled the underwear down her legs and sent it flying with a careless flick of her foot. Their hands met on his belt buckle. She grinned up at him, her eyes sparkling and happy, and he touched the pad of his thumb to her lower lip.
When his body came down on hers again, both of them shivering at the slide of bare skin, she wrapped her arms around his back in a tight hug.
He lifted his head to look at her. “Okay?” His voice was rough and raspy.
In answer, she slid her toes up the back of his thigh, lifted her hips and pointedly arched an eyebrow.
His grin flashed as he adjusted his weight, and his head lowered to her neck.
Where she had expected a rush of blurred sensations, she received lingering clarity, as if the world had come into focused high-definition. She felt every moment of the hours that followed: the brush of his hair against intimate flesh, the warm suction of his mouth on her neck and her breasts, his soft kiss on the sensitive inner flesh of her upper arm when she reached back to the headboard, his hands—everywhere, it seemed.
There was one moment when they tried to roll to a different position and he kind of got trapped between her breasts, which was super awkward, but, she informed him kindly, could have been sexy if she’d been flat-chested and he’d been flexible.
It was worth it for the novelty of seeing him dissolved into laughter.
She had imagined Richard as a selfish lover, and she was wrong. He demanded, but he gave. He seemed fascinated, enthralled by her, which in turn made her feel intensely desirable. He made her feel far more beautiful than any couture gown or luxury cosmetic could ever do. It was a real beauty—messy, sweaty, intense. And it left her reeling.
* * *
Much later, they took a bath. Or rather, Lainie took a bath. Richard hijacked it, and didn’t even have the decency to sit behind her so she could prop herself against his chest.
“How come you get my cosy self for a cushion, and I have to lean against cold marble?” She threaded playful fingers through his chest hair.
“My bath,” he said, wrapping her legs across his lean belly so he could tickle her feet, “my cushion.”
He stretched against her like a slick, satisfied seal, rubbing his wet hair into the curve of her neck. Lainie closed her eyes and dropped her head back. The water lapped at the drooping ends of her intricate hairstyle, most of which had been thoroughly mussed by Richard.
“What did Harlan Powell want?” she asked.
Richard traced interlocking circles on the inside of her knee, drawing patterns with soap bubbles. “Mostly to talk about himself. He did mention a possible role in Macbeth next year.”
“Oh,” she said sleepily. “Good. As Macbeth?”
“I don’t see myself as the Macduff type, do you?” His hand reached back to cup her cheek, providing a handy pillow against the hard surface of the bath. “I also ran into Eric Westfield, the RSPA vice president.”
Lainie’s eyes opened. “And?”
“Looks hopeful. He wants to have us over for dinner a week from Sunday. Smart casual dress.” Richard sounded amused. “He obviously thinks you’re a stabilizing influence on me, Tig.”
“Interesting.” She kissed his ear and smiled against his damp neck. “I would never have guessed he was so insightful.”