London Celebrity @LondonCelebrity. 35m
Hot new couple alert!
West Enders Richard Troy and Elaine Graham cuddle up at Pink Ribbon benefit...goo.gl/Ep2m03
It was the noise that was so overwhelming. More so even than the cluster of camera flashes, which left her temporarily reeling and blinded, circles of light pulsing in her vision. The chattering sound as the cameras got their shots, snapping one after another like rapid-fire machine guns. It seemed to run through the crowd of paparazzi in the rhythm of a Mexican wave, each click of a button echoed by its neighbour. And the competing human voices shouting demands—”Richard! To your left, Richard! Richard, to your right! Elaine! Over here, Elaine!”
Trying to bait or cajole or provoke with their commentary: “Looking gorgeous, Elaine! Who are you wearing, Elaine? Are you two dating? Richard, how long have you been together? How does Will Farmer feel about it? Did it start before the breakup?”
Hammering away at them. Rude. Relentless.
Usually, it was a minor barrage. Theatre actors tended to get only the surface interest from the paps, who congregated outside overexposed celebrity events. They ranked somewhere between minor reality stars and radio personalities on the saleable news scale. The increased harassment was one of the reasons she had thought twice about pursuing roles in television.
Thanks to her escort, she was getting her first taste tonight of what it meant to be prime real estate in the banner news headlines. And she was not enjoying it. Nor, she had to admit, was Richard, to judge by the grimness of his face as they pushed forward from the car. The valet whisked the Ferrari away, and he followed its progress as if he suspected an illicit joyride might take place. His fingers were iron-tight around hers, the skin of his hand surprisingly rough and calloused. She couldn’t imagine him doing manual labour. Or even the dishes. He growled a warning in the back of his throat when a heavily built photographer advanced close enough that she felt his moist breath against her ear.
Her feelings of empathy were limited. It was not lost on her that if Richard didn’t make the paps’ job so easy by losing his temper left, right and centre, they wouldn’t flock around him like starving seagulls.
With her free hand, Lainie held down her skirt against the brisk wind. She had read somewhere that the Duchess of Cambridge had weights sewn into the hems of her dresses, which seemed like sound common sense. The last thing Lainie needed was a wardrobe malfunction. She was wearing her lucky knickers with the hole over her left bum cheek. The evening ahead had seemed a miserable enough prospect without adding Spanx into the mix.
“Would you keep up?” Richard muttered in her direction, and she barely resisted the urge to pull a face in response. There was something horribly provocative about the knowledge that one irresponsible gesture would set off a rippling wave of flashes, like blowing into a pool of water and causing a tidal wave. It perversely made her want to misbehave.
A teenage YouTube star arrived to pandemonium from young fans, which diverted most of the camera attention. Lainie let out a deep breath and released her skirt to catch her handbag before it dropped from her arm. It contained her phone, and her favourite sister-in-law had strict instructions to call with a fake emergency if prompted by text. She had promised to appear at the Pink Ribbon benefit with Richard; she had no intention of remaining by his side for the entire evening if he proved his usual intolerable self.
At least it was for a good cause, she thought gloomily, as Richard gave another impatient pull on her arm.
“Stop it,” she hissed, and then smiled at the bouncers as she handed over her pass. “You’re not hauling around a bag of golf clubs.”
Richard also produced his pass but dispensed with the smile. A muscle flexed in his jaw, but he said nothing until they were inside the hotel foyer. “I don’t carry my golf clubs,” he eventually remarked. “That’s what a caddy is for.”
First eye roll of the night.
The hub of voices in the room was almost as loud as the throngs of paparazzi outside, only here the shouted demands were replaced by shrieks of recognition and social giggles. Lainie was an adamant city girl, but for a second she thought wistfully of a quiet spot in the countryside, where the only noise came from birds and trickling water.
And probably wasps, heavy machinery, meatworks and cattle trucks, she acknowledged a moment later with a faint smile. The peaceful haven of her imagination had more in common with Lark Rise to Candleford than the twenty-first century. Occupational hazard: too much time spent amongst artificial sets, slight loss of grip on reality.
Richard handed her a cocktail glass from a waiter’s passing tray, and then ruined the polite gesture by frowning in the direction of her breasts and asking, “Did your stylist choose that?”
She took a very large gulp of fruit-laced vodka. “I don’t have a stylist,” she said grimly, resisting the urge to make self-conscious tugs and adjustments to her dress. Which was fine. It was a perfectly simple LBD with a classy amount of cleavage.
Richard sipped gingerly from his own glass, looking into it as if he suspected lacings of cyanide. He must have been quite good in Hamlet, she noted absently.
“Have you considered hiring one?” he asked, in tones of friendly interest.
Thousands. Thousands of pounds for Shining Lights.
She put a mental heel on her growing irritation and ground it into the very fancy parquet floor.
She tried not to imagine Richard’s face was under there also.
“Darlings!” Greta French arrived in a wash of air kisses and perfume. The chat show matriarch was the only three-dimensional human Lainie had ever met who actually addressed people she had neither slept with nor conceived as “darling.”
Greta beamed at them. Her nose was all but twitching as she scented material for her five-past-two gossip slot. Lainie felt Richard’s biceps shifting against her shoulder. She told herself it was an impatient fidget. He probably wouldn’t clock the woman. However tempting it might be.
“I had no idea,” Greta went on, looking from one to the other of them. “Elaine, you sly thing. You didn’t utter a peep when we had our little chat about Will last week.” Her voice was hushed and confidential. An eavesdropper—and there were at least four in Lainie’s direct line of sight—could be forgiven for thinking that she made a habit of phoning Auntie Greta in tears after every romantic disaster.
The “little chat” in question had consisted of Greta ambushing her in the yoghurt section of Waitrose and making snide digs about Will’s obvious preference for silicone.
Richard smiled back at Greta. It was a completely manufactured, calculated movement that had nothing whatsoever to do with genuine feeling. That didn’t lessen the impact. Eyes became more blue, interesting lines and dimples appeared around firm lips, and a face that could be overly severe in repose became almost mythically handsome. Even Lainie’s heart gave an extra thump in response, and she still wanted to upend her cocktail over his smug, shapely head.
“No idea about what?” Richard asked, his words blandly curious. He took another sip from his own glass and managed to skip the aftertaste blench this time. It was a fairly horrible drink.
Greta looked slightly discomposed. She blinked under the dual threat of the smile and the purring lack of response. “Well...” she said, tearing her eyes from Richard’s mouth with some difficulty. Her gaze kept drifting back like a fly unable to pull its feet from sticky spider webbing. She looked meaningfully at Lainie. “I couldn’t help noticing you come in,” she said, with a revolting comradely nudge. “Holding hands.”
The undertone of “Scandal!” was so heavy that one would think Lainie had walked into the room with her hand thrust down Richard’s pants.
“Oh, you know me, Greta.” Richard was still smiling. “Always a gentleman.” He ignored Lainie’s muffled cough and patted her on the shoulder. “She was a bit unsteady on her feet. Light-headedness is fairly common with that particular strain of the virus, I believe. I assume you’ve had your vaccination?” he added with concern. “It’s running rampant in the theatre at the moment.”
Greta tried an uncertain smile, obviously prepared to humour the joke, but at Richard’s persistent look of bland enquiry, she grew restless. With a wary glance at Lainie, perhaps checking for a flush of fever or sprouting pox, she developed an intense need to greet another acquaintance.
Lainie watched her departing back. “I’m speechless,” she said. “I am without speech.”
“If I thought that was remotely true, I would feel considerably more optimistic about my evening.” Richard glanced at his watch. “Christ, we’ve only been here for five minutes. It’s like being stuck in the TARDIS. Time has lost all meaning.”
He turned away to ditch his cocktail glass, thus missing Lainie’s gobsmacked expression. A Doctor Who reference from her second-least-favourite person? Wonders never ceased. How potent were these drinks?
She followed his example and got rid of hers on a side table, watching Richard from between lowered lashes. She could not, for the life of her, imagine him going home after a performance and crashing in front of the TV. She actually couldn’t imagine him existing in a room by himself. It was if he flashed into being inside the doors of the theatre and disappeared again when he left. With occasional sightings of the poltergeist reported on Twitter when he threw plates at people’s heads.
“So, is it solely my presence that offends,” she asked when he returned with obvious reluctance to her side, “or do you just despise people in general?”
He seemed about to resort to sarcasm, but changed his mind and considered her question. A faint frown appeared between his arching black eyebrows. “I do find the majority of people somewhat lacking in intelligence,” he admitted. Eye roll number two. “But they’re more tolerable in isolated groups. En masse, with the addition of alcohol, these occasions tend to be a social experiment in pushing the absolute boundaries of insipidity and vanity.” He looked around the filling room with disdain. “Three-quarters of these people are a walking waste of oxygen. And that’s a conservative estimate.”
“Well, it’s nice to see that success hasn’t gone to your head.” Lainie gave him an exasperated look. “If you hate people and parties so much, why do you bother coming? You could go home and get to bed at a reasonably decent hour. I bet you’re a chronic insomniac,” she said thoughtfully. “It might explain part of the grouchiness. And the dark rings.”
He instinctively touched under his eye with the pad of his thumb, and then looked furious with himself for the gesture. He glared at her. “My success has not gone to my head.” He ignored the rest of her insults in favour of the first observation, which seemed to truly offend him. “My personality has not once altered under outside influence.”
“Then I’m genuinely appalled, and your childhood nannies have my intense sympathy. You’ve got a bit of a nerve, don’t you think, accusing other people of vanity? You make Mr. Darcy look like the poster child for low self-esteem.”
“There is a difference between vanity and having a clear idea of your own abilities and potential.”
She grimaced, lifting her hands to her cheeks. “Oh my God. I have never had such a sisterly feeling for Elizabeth Bennet.” She looked at him with both brows raised. “Please tell me that you were misquoted in Time when you referred to theatre as the only true forum for the craft. And that you did not call screen actors ‘fame-mongering puppets with as much understanding of the complexities of drama as Kim Kardashian has of nuclear physics.’”
“The journalist exaggerated, as usual. Although my opinion of the comparative status of theatre against film and television is fairly well-known, I believe,” Richard said, a bit stiffly.
“Yet you obviously watch TV.” She was suddenly feeling defensive about her miniseries ambitions, and was correspondingly cross with herself. Who bloody cared about Richard Troy’s out-of-date elitism? “And I’m frankly amazed that you even know who Kim Kardashian is.”
“I’m not denying the entertainment value of screen productions, nor the importance of their documentary and educational role. But I maintain that the roots and truest expression of drama is in live theatre. With the odd exception, most of the programmes produced for British television are absolute rubbish. And I was once unfortunate enough to share an interview slot with Kim Kardashian.” After a moment, he said grimly, “Don’t even get me started on reality TV.”
She possibly agreed with him on that score. Still—
“You’re going to be perfectly suited for the RSPA,” she said, and it was not intended as a compliment.
“Yes, I am,” he agreed coolly. He looked behind her. “Speaking of which...”
Lainie turned and saw a florid sixtyish man in a suit approaching. He couldn’t have declared his status any more clearly if he’d pulled out his wallet and offered them a tenner to do a skit. If he wasn’t on some sort of committee, and in it for the tax benefits, she would eat her bargain-price handbag.
“Eric Westfield. Current vice president of the Society,” Richard said close to her ear. He put his hand on her upper arm and gently moved her about six inches away from him. “Could you just...”
“I’m sorry,” Lainie said, “did you just move me? You do realise I’m not actually contagious?” She nodded at a point on the far side of the room. “Would you like me to go and stand over there? Because I think he may still guess that we’re together.”
“We aren’t—”
“I didn’t mean romantically.”
“Richard.” Eric Westfield beamed at them both. The bunched-up cheeks were rather sweet but didn’t go at all with the jaded expression in his eyes.
Richard wiped his face free of impatience and returned the other man’s handshake. “Eric. Good to see you.”
Westfield turned to Lainie. “And I believe this young lady has something to do with the theatre?” He accompanied the question with a roguish twinkle that made her take an instinctive step back.
“Elaine Graham. I’m currently appearing in The Cavalier’s Tribute with Richard.” Shaking his hand, she added sweetly, “When I’m not spreading the plague.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“I was going to get in touch this week,” Richard cut in, shooting her a warning look. Well, aren’t we just all politeness when we want something? “We should meet up for a drink sometime. Perhaps Thursday evening if you’re free.”
Thursday was the night his alternate took over the role of Bandero and the rest of the cast breathed a sigh of relief.
“We’ll do that.” Westfield looked chuffed. Not so jaded after all, if he could still be gratified by the prospect of socialising with notoriety. Unless it was the snob value of Richard’s blue blood. Lainie remembered reading that he was seven hundred thirty-second or something in line for the throne.
God help them all in the event of an actual plague. If Harley Street succumbed and the royal family was forced to rely on the aid of the NHS, they would probably drop like flies. Whereas Richard would likely crawl unharmed from the rubble of a nuclear disaster. Like a cockroach.
She tuned out the rest of the conversation going on above her head. It reeked of the stale cigar smoke and ego-bolstering of an old boys’ club. She was vaguely disappointed in Richard. Pandering to the conventions of the Boodles set was almost worse than acting like an ill-mannered, temperamental diva. At least the latter side of his personality seemed honest. In this industry, she could have a certain amount of respect for someone who didn’t paste a fake cover over an obnoxious book, even if she wished she could swap that book for a lighter read.
Richard finally finished his schmoozing, and Westfield kissed her hand before he disappeared into the crowd. She wrinkled her nose. There had been a definite suggestion of tongue against her knuckle.
“You want to be careful,” she said. “One more pump of hot air and his self-importance would have exploded all over the room. Imagine the size of your damages bill then.”
“It’s called regrettable but necessary networking.” Richard took another long-suffering glance at his watch. “I’m sure you occasionally have to employ some of it yourself.”
“No. I generally just employ good manners, no matter whom I’m speaking to.”
“I can’t say I’d noticed.”
“I’m polite, not a saint.” Lainie returned the smile and wave of a former castmate, and hoped he wouldn’t come over. It had been a very long run of a very bad play. “Do you really want a stodgy bureaucratic role?” she asked with genuine curiosity. “I would have thought you would have enough to do.”
“I have no pressing desire to wrangle committee meetings and have my portrait painted for the presidency wall. But I want to see a certain amount of change instituted in arts funding and education, and this is the first step toward achieving that.”
Oh, God. He was going to end up as their Minister of Culture someday.
She hesitated. “Do you really think you’re the political type?” she ventured, trying to think of a way to put it tactfully.
“Meaning?” The enquiry was frosty.
Screw it. “Meaning you have the diplomatic abilities of a tea bag, and a tendency to go off like a rocket at the slightest provocation.”
“I’m aware I’ll have to work on controlling my temper,” he said even more stiffly.
“And the playpen behaviour?”
He looked seriously annoyed now. “Such as?”
“Such as chucking expensive china at irate chefs. If the food was that bad, why didn’t you just ask for a new plate?”
He made a sound of intense irritation in his throat. “I may have a quick fuse, but I do have some idea of how to conduct myself in a public place. I have never thrown a plate or any other object at anyone. The closest I’ve come is hurling a truly appalling script at the wall, and I don’t recall any material damage to either. Unfortunately, in the case of the script.”
“Then what happened at the Ivy?”
“Randolph Gearing has held a grudge since I gave his first restaurant in Primrose Hill a bad review. It was a throwaway remark on the radio, and he needs to learn how to accept criticism. Nor was it my choice to dine at the Ivy the other night. My companion thought it was the place to be seen,” he added with a slight sneer. “Gearing picked a fight, he threw a plate and I merely responded. With words, not actions, violent or otherwise.”
“I see.” Lainie studied him. “I hate to imagine the task of the police if somebody eventually snaps and has better aim with a platter. Your list of enemies must be reaching to the floor by now. Have you tried counting to ten?”
“I wouldn’t have to lose my temper if people weren’t such morons.”
“I would suggest going with a different quote when you open your campaign speech.”
Richard suddenly swore under his breath, and Lainie saw Lynette weaving toward them through the crowd. She was also wearing a little black dress, but it was decidedly littler than Lainie’s. And her shoes were fabulous. Lainie eyed them covetously. Evidently, even a commission from Richard’s salary was more profitable than her own earnings.
“A photographer from Tatler is circling.” The theatrical agent looked them up and down critically, exactly as if she were a parent grooming her children for their school pictures. She looked about three seconds away from licking her thumb and smoothing back Richard’s errant curl. “In a moment, I want you to put your arm around Lainie, Richard, and say something into her ear. Lainie, you look up at him and laugh. Then kiss her. A peck. Playful. Affectionate.”
“This is not a sitcom,” Lainie snapped. “I am not going to mindlessly giggle and pucker up on cue. We agreed to attend events and hold hands. Done and done.”
“No,” Lynette said with barely leashed temper. Maybe Richard was rubbing off on her. “You agreed to foster a certain impression.” She looked around at a few interested faces and lowered her voice. “Which is not being fulfilled by the two of you standing three feet apart, glowering at one another. Only the most diehard romantic and the clinically brain-dead would be seeing hearts and flowers.”
A camera flash went off nearby and Lainie spotted the photographer turning in their direction.
With a sigh that almost parted her hair, Richard lifted his arm and slid it around her waist. Pulling her up against him, he smiled down at her and the creases reappeared around his sardonic blue eyes. His warm breath gently fanned her ear when he ducked his head and whispered, “You’re habitually overplaying the death scene.”
Her own eyes sparking retribution, she returned his smile. And laughed, light and tinkling, like an absolute idiot. She could feel herself tensing, knowing what was coming next, and had to steel herself not to physically lean back from his mouth.
It was the most sexless, unexciting kiss she’d had since primary school, when a seven-year-old boy had kissed her on a dare and then run off screaming to stick his face in the drinking fountain. Eric Westfield had used more tongue on the back of her hand. After a couple of seconds, there was another camera flash, and Richard removed his lips from her person, looking equally bored.
“There,” said their proud surrogate mother. “That wasn’t so hard, was it?” She smiled cajolingly at an unimpressed Lainie. “And you look great. Love the dress.” Which was not exactly convincing, when her own was clearly nicer. “Doesn’t she look nice, Richard?” Lynette prompted him, again with the parental nagging.
Richard spared Lainie’s dress another brief glance. “Hmm,” he said, and Lynette looked as if a few silent prayers for patience were taking place behind her bland expression.
“It’s fortunate you’re so attractive,” she said to Lainie, with a certain amount of relief.
It would obviously be too much to expect the great actor to lower his lips to a plain face.
This whole evening was beginning to feel exhausting.
“Don’t you think Lainie’s pretty?” Lynette had turned into a stuck record.
Richard was eyeing Lynette’s neck, and Lainie wondered if he was valuing her diamonds or indulging in a strangulation fantasy. “I hadn’t really thought about it,” he said, and she scowled at him.
That was no less flattering than her opinions of him, but really. “Have you ever actually spoken to a woman before? Because with charm like that, I can’t imagine where your new nickname came from.”
His lips tightened. Evidently that one was rankling a little.
“Play nice, kiddies. Remember, you’re smitten,” Lynette warned, and then thankfully took herself off before either one of them could give in to a murderous impulse.
Another camera flashed and people turned to look their way, whispering to one another. A few partygoers entirely gave up on manners and just openly pointed. Richard’s affectionate smile looked more like a grimace from where she was standing. “You can hold my hand,” he said, as if he were the Queen bestowing a knighthood.
She ignored his raised palm. “No, thank you.”
His smile became even more horrifying. “Just take my damn hand. Two more circles of the room, a donation at the door, and we can get the hell out of here.”
It was the prospect of going home to her bed, kettle and chocolate stash that sealed the deal. Suppressing a sigh, she held the tips of his fingers. He rolled his eyes and wrapped a warm, rough hand around hers.
“Why, hello. Fancy seeing you two here. Together.”
They turned to greet the newcomers with identical fixed smiles.
“Two more circles of the room” was easier said than accomplished when they were stopped by friends, colleagues and nosey parkers every two steps, but they finally made it to the exit, where they each made a pledge to the cause. Lainie was impressed against her will by the size of Richard’s donation. He was many things—few of them complimentary—but he wasn’t mean.
In the financial sense. In terms of attitude, half a dozen stage assistants reduced to tears would disagree with her.
They left by the side entrance of the hotel, where only a handful of photographers lay in wait. A valet brought Richard’s car around and received a generous tip but no verbal acknowledgment. Richard didn’t even look at the friendly young man.
When the valet had moved away to take another guest’s keys, she shook her head. “You could have at least said thank you.”
“To whom?”
“The valet.”
Richard shrugged. “I thank people when they do me a favour. He’s paid to do a job. For which I gave him additional compensation.”
“Because it would kill you to just say a quick ‘thanks’ when people work hard to make your life easier?”
Under her steady regard, his high cheekbones took on a very faint tinge of red. He said nothing in response, but when the valet walked back past them, he held up the keys. “Appreciate it,” he said, and the kid blinked and grinned.
“No worries, sir.”
Richard looked at her with a raised brow. “Satisfied?”
She was, oddly. For the first time—ever, possibly—she gave him a genuine smile.
It was also the first time she had ever seen him genuinely disconcerted. His eyes flickered to her mouth and then up to her eyes, and he hesitated before opening the car door to let her climb inside.
The journey to her flat in Bayswater was quiet and almost peaceful. It was a stark contrast to the constant bickering earlier in the evening when they’d left the theatre. Lainie, her gaze fastened dreamily on the lights and nightlife out the darkened window, put it down to mutual tiredness. She said very little beyond giving the odd street direction. Richard brought the Ferrari to a stop outside her building, an old Victorian terrace house, and deposited her on her doorstep with a curt “Good night.” She nodded, and watched thoughtfully from the open door as he returned to the car. About thirty seconds later, he stared at her impatiently through the window, and she realised he was waiting for her to go inside so he could leave. With a spark of mischief, she offered a cheerful wave, and his scowl deepened. It was tempting to blow a kiss, for the sheer novelty of seeing his head explode, but she did have her limits.
Grinning, she closed and locked the door, and made her way up the creaking stairs. It was a tidy, warm house, but as comfortably decrepit in its small way as the Metronome was on a grand scale. The carpets definitely needed replacing. Her flat was on the top floor, which was a bugger when she had shopping to carry up, but at least meant she got enough exercise to justify skipping a gym membership.
That was her story, and she was sticking to it.
Her landlady’s fat ginger cat was asleep outside her door and she stopped to stroke his soft fur. He was also called Richard, which had afforded her considerable amusement over the past couple of months, particularly since he had one of those adorably squished, chronically grumpy faces. Human Richard, for all his good looks, was afflicted with a similarly epic case of resting bitch face. He had the elastic features of a natural-born actor, but at the close of a scene, he tended to return to his factory setting of grouch.
Turning on lights and pulling curtains as she went, she set the kettle boiling in the kitchen and hunted out a bag of Yorkshire tea. As she played with the spoon, pressing the bag against the side of the cup in an attempt to speed up the steeping process, she idly wondered what human Richard was going home to. Not a wife and four hopeful children, unless he kept secrets locked tighter than the vaults of MI5. She found it hard to believe any woman would voluntarily cohabit with him. There wasn’t enough money in the world to put up with that level of stress.
She was imagining chandeliers and staff. Perhaps a Jeeves-style butler to murmur approvingly over his choice of evening clothes and help him put his jammies on. Although ten to one, he slept naked.
Her mind temporarily shorted out at that point.
Her clutch vibrated on the table and she went to retrieve her phone, taking her cup along for a sustaining gulp of too-hot tea. Flicking her thumb against the touch pad, she read the text from Sarah: Are you home yet? No chat abbreviations from her sister-in-law, who taught English at her local comprehensive school and had vocal opinions on the subject of lazy spelling.
She curled up on the couch, wedging a cushion behind the small of her back, and dialled the number for Sarah and Niall’s home in Camden.
“If it isn’t the future Mrs. Troy.” Sarah was obviously trying hard not to laugh, and failing dismally.
Lainie sighed. “I see the gossip columnists didn’t waste any time.”
“Oh, no. The photos started appearing an hour ago. London Celebrity is running two consecutive articles on the hot new romance, one in which they have you almost engaged, and the other which writes off the whole thing as a rebound fling. With some fairly sketchy allusions to Will and the timing. I wonder if they were written by the same person, if their staff ever bother to check what the next cubicle is writing, or if they just don’t care.”
“When in doubt, pick C.” Lainie took another sip of tea. Her iPad was resting at the other end of the couch and she pushed it a little farther away with her big toe, in a symbolic gesture of rejection. “Sounds like business as usual, then.”
“Can’t say I think much of the lip-lock, though,” Sarah said disapprovingly. Lainie could hear her mouse clicking. “I’ve seen steamier embraces during church services. He looks like he’s performing CPR on someone he’d secretly rather have left at the bottom of the pool.”
Lainie laughed, but she wasn’t entirely amused. At all, in fact. “Accurate representation by London Celebrity. That’s a first.”
“The atmosphere backstage still a trifle chilly, is it?”
“It’s social Antarctica. If it wasn’t for Chloe, who’s even nice to Richard and is totally oblivious to snubs and any underlying tension, performances would be about as much fun as drinks out with the Borgias.”
“He can’t be as bad as Wee Willy, though,” Sarah said firmly, and Lainie almost snorted tea through her nose.
“Have I mentioned lately that I love you and Niall?” she asked, as she lunged for an old dusting rag to mop up the mess.
“Yeah, we’re quite fond of you too. And don’t avoid the question.”
“I wasn’t aware you’d asked one.”
“It was implied in the statement. I refuse to believe that Troy can be as big a waste of testosterone as your genitally challenged ex. Bad temper aside—and having seen a bit of what you put up with in the media, I’m not sure I entirely blame him—”
“Blame him. There are people who deal with a lot more hassle from the media than Richard, and he perpetuates most of his bad press himself. If he kept his head down, he wouldn’t be half as interesting. And it isn’t only dodgy photographers who come under his fire. He’s rude to almost everyone. Ask his dresser. Ask my dresser. Ask the girl who delivers the morning papers.”
“Oh, I know the type, and I grant you they’re hard to tolerate. There are at least two of them in my class every year, and it’s depressing to know they might not grow out of it.” Sarah was clicking her mouse again, and Lainie wondered what fresh delights she’d found in the news feed. “But he seems to at least trump Will in the romantic sense.”
“Allow me to fall about laughing at the idea of Richard Troy being romantic.”
“Well, I can’t find any love rat rumours. He’s never been involved in any sort of cheating scandal, has he?”
Lainie tried to remember what she knew about Richard’s love life. As little as she’d been able to manage. He’d been linked with a few businesswomen and a high-powered barrister at one point. Never with an actress. Their fake relationship was probably a hard pill for him to swallow in a multitude of ways.
“No, his relationships never seem to last that long, but they at least take place one at a time. As far as I know. And he doesn’t seem to hop from one bed to the next.”
“Surprising, when you think about it.”
“Not really.” Lainie was dismissive. “You would have to have a skin like a rhino to put up with him. Or just no self-esteem at all and a faint aura of desperation.”
“Ouch,” Sarah said, sounding as if she was grinning. “I’m beginning to feel sorry for the man.”
“Said no person who’d actually met him, ever.”
“I wonder what he’s like in bed,” Sarah mused, and Lainie choked on her tea for the second time.
“Sarah! Married woman.”
“I vowed to be faithful, not dead from the waist down. And whatever his faults, you can’t deny your Richard is a bit of a dish.”
“Please never refer to him as ‘my’ Richard again.”
“Well, I admit the chemistry between you isn’t exactly sparking off the screen,” Sarah said—and click, click, click again. “Yeah. No. I’m not getting a ‘let’s split this joint and get naked’ vibe. More of an ‘I vaguely fear contamination’ vibe.”
“Funny you should say that.” Lainie sighed. “Can we change the subject while I’m still able to sleep tonight?”
“Stirring lust?” Sarah asked with interest.
“Creeping horrors. How’s my second-favourite niece doing?”
“Who’s taken top billing this week?”
“Charlotte. She Photoshopped a collage for me involving Will and the T. rex from Jurassic Park. I’ve hung it on my fridge.”
“Obviously Emily needs to up her game. She’s fine. She’s just being a bit...”
“A bit what?”
“A bit thirteen.”
“Enough said.”
“She’s excited about the fête on Saturday, though.”
“Is she? I wouldn’t have thought cake stalls and sack races would be her thing.”
“No, but Johnny Blake is very much her thing. She’s highly impressed that you’ve managed to get somebody semi-cool to open a fête in Little Bottomsworth.”
“Upper Bidford,” Lainie corrected, and tried not to smile. “And Johnny Blake is a sweet kid, as far as these teenage YouTubers go. His mother is a leukemia survivor, so he wanted to support the cause.”
“You know I’m all for the cause. I’m just not sure why we’re fund-raising for the foundation in the remote Cotswolds.”
“There are plenty of events planned in London over the next few months as well, but the villagers in Bidford wanted to help. They lost a seventeen-year-old to non-Hodgkin lymphoma this year.”
“Oh.” Sarah was quiet for a moment. “Dreadful.”
“Yes.”
“Well, we’ll be there, and we’re bringing cakes. I can’t promise they’ll meet the Women’s Institute standards, but...”
“I really appreciate it, Sarah. Thanks.”
“The whole family appreciates what you’re doing with Shining Lights.”
Lainie made a murmuring sound, dismissing not the sentiment but the need for it. Her gaze went inevitably to the framed family portrait above the heat pump, and zoomed in on one face.
Hannah had inherited her freckled cheeks and gap-toothed smile straight from their dad. She and Lainie were also the only ones who had copped his dark red hair. In appearance, their father was basically the lost Weasley. Hannah had stopped talking about dental surgery after Georgia May Jagger and Anna Paquin had made the tooth gap fashionable, but she had always moaned about the freckles.
At least until other problems had made them seem a comparatively petty complaint.
Lainie had thought then, and still thought now, that her little sister’s face was adorable. Freckles and all. Hannah had retorted that it was easy to say that when you looked more like Jessica Rabbit than Raggedy Ann.
A wave of grief hit her. She longed intensely for the sound of her sister’s voice. Even at its most high-pitched whine. It almost toppled her where she stood, at least once a day, how much she missed the irascible little brat.
“We all miss her,” Sarah said quietly into the receiver. “She would be really proud, you know.”
“Not that she would admit it in a million years.” Lainie bit her lip. “But, yeah. I know she would.”
“And she would get a huge kick out of this thing with Richard Troy.”
“Her opinion of my taste in men was always low.”
“Well, after Wee Willy and Sir Stamps-A-Lot, we can only assume it’s all uphill from here.”
“We can but hope.”
* * *
Richard could hear voices when he stepped into the foyer. One was female, high-pitched and came with a laugh that would have been invaluable as an air-raid signal during the Blitz. He followed the lingering scent of lavender floor cleaner to the kitchen. Mrs. Hunt had left the radio on for him again. She was convinced it was “friendlier” than coming home to an empty house. Apparently his housekeeper was confusing him with a dog with separation anxiety. Lovely woman. Absolutely no common sense.
He switched the radio off, silencing another paint-stripping peal of laughter. Then he began the arduous process of turning off almost every light on the ground floor. Mrs. Hunt also thought it was friendlier if he came home to a house lit up like a burlesque hall.
His thoughts became considerably more charitable when he reached his study and found a tray on his desk, whisky decanter sitting ready. She’d also laid out a cigar from the box he kept for visitors, mostly uninvited former colleagues of his father. He didn’t smoke, but suspected Mrs. Hunt had formed her conception of actors based on Victorian novels.
Pouring a couple of fingers of whisky, he dropped into the armchair by the window and looked absently out at the dimly lit street. Every few seconds, headlights flashed by and car tyres threw up a silvery splash. It was starting to rain heavily. He sighed, letting the tension drain from his muscles. The adrenaline buzz from the performance had worn off about ten minutes into the charity benefit. He had a perfectly competent assistant whose job it was to quietly disburse money into charitable donations and endowments. He had no problem parting with the cash. His objections lay in having to do it publicly, with second-rate champagne in his hand, for the edification of a bunch of social degenerates with cameras.
His iPad beeped with an incoming text message and Richard rolled his head to the side to look at it. He glanced at the clock on the mantel. It was bound to be from a woman. Men had the judgement to reserve this hour of the morning for sleeping, sex, or live-streaming American sports. Stretching out a lazy hand, he picked up the tablet. He trusted the message wasn’t from the date he’d taken to the Ivy the other night. He’d realised that was a mistake the moment they’d been served with their entrée and she’d pulled out her phone to take a photo of it. She’d uploaded the image to a calorie-counting app, and then refused to eat it based on an arbitrary and almost certainly inaccurate analysis. He thought Gearing’s food was overpriced and barely worth eating too, but not because the man cooked with butter.
The text was from Lynette. A jubilant Lynette. She’d actually inserted a smiley face. The last time his agent had used an emoticon on him, he’d just walked out of a live interview. The symbol in question had involved a fist and several fingers, and was probably banned in the district schools.
She’d inserted a link to a trashy online rag that masqueraded as a news site. Against his better judgement, and partly under the warming influence of the whisky, he brought up the page and was greeted with the image of his own scowling face. He winced. Jesus. He looked like his great-aunt Harriet. It was something about the combination of the frown and the emerging beard.
His gaze moved to Lainie. She was standing at his side, her arms crossed over her breasts. With no compunction, he let his eyes linger there. He was willing to bet that dress had been designed on a flat-chested mannequin. His lips pursed in a silent whistle that would undoubtedly have earned him a smack around the ear had he been in feminine company. Lainie’s own expression, as she stared directly into the camera, was heavily disapproving. She looked like she would happily garrotte someone with the chain of her handbag. No prizes for guessing whom. Richard’s lips tilted unwillingly.
His eyebrow rose when he scrolled to the next set of images. They silently chronicled Lynette’s arrival on the scene, Lainie reluctantly cuddling up to him, smelling sweetly and elusively of vanilla, and then the staged peck on her mouth. Her lips had been sticky with gloss and had tasted of synthetic strawberry. Like a throat lozenge. The tableau looked ridiculously fake. Background extras in a C-grade soap could pull off a more convincing display of affection. There was obvious tension, but it was more of the angry than sexual variety. It was bad acting, and it riled his professional ego. The whole situation was bloody distasteful.
It came down to how badly he wanted the chair of the RSPA. He was neither deaf nor self-absorbed to the point of oblivion. He’d heard the murmurings. His media reputation was becoming a millstone around his neck. He was yet to be convinced, however, that the way to redemption was on the arm—and presumably, in public opinion, between the thighs—of an attractive girlfriend. Even if she did moonlight as Mother Teresa in her spare time. His apparent involvement with Lainie seemed more likely to damage her reputation than polish his own.
Surprisingly, the thought irritated him. His eyes returned to the iPad screen. Scissoring his fingers, he enlarged a headshot. His study of her features was less dispassionate than it would have been only hours earlier. He must have been aware that she was a beautiful woman, but symmetrical features, white teeth, glossy hair and generous breasts were a dime a dozen. The women—and men—he’d worked with over the past fifteen-odd years blended into a composite Hollywood ideal. If people couldn’t offer anything beyond genetic blessings and surgical enhancements, either by way of wits or—to be frank—useful connections, their voices didn’t tend to rise above the clamour.
Lainie had been a mild revelation tonight. Jessica Rabbit actually had a personality. And a fairly biting tongue. He shook his head. She was wasted on the simpering legs-and-lashes role they’d given her in The Cavalier’s Tribute. She could probably have made a decent job of Helen. Chloe tended to oversimplify and oversex the calculating, sardonic character.
On the other hand, Chloe wasn’t moronic enough to fall into bed with Will Farmer.
He moved one shoulder abruptly, trying to shake off the unusual feeling of restlessness. After the inane backstage chatter at the theatre, his silent house was usually a refuge. Tonight, his thoughts seemed to echo into the corners of the large comfortable room, coming back to taunt him. For one insane moment he considered going into the kitchen and turning the radio back on.
He flicked over to his calendar and checked his schedule for the rest of the week. The space for Saturday morning was currently fantastically blank. He couldn’t bring himself to insert the change of plan. A village fête. In October. It was like something out of Agatha Christie. Frozen dead bodies and all, probably, considering the weather forecast.
His chin lifted. He eyed the portrait of his father above the fireplace. The old man glared down at him. If Richard squinted, he could almost see the painted moustache quivering with rage.
The fête it was.
Silently, ironically, he saluted his father with the whisky glass and then drained its contents.