Fast And Loose. Elizabeth Oldfield

       CHAPTER ONE

      DARCY frowned at the young man who sat on the other side of the low mahogany table. ‘I was stood in the lobby waiting for you for almost half an hour,’ she told him.

      ‘Sorry. Had trouble finding a taxi,’ Maurice Cantwell declared, fingering the apricot and white spotted bowtie which he wore with a pale apricot sharkskin suit. ‘Though you could’ve waited in here.’

      ‘But if I’d sat immobile where people can take their time and look someone might’ve recognised me,’ she protested.

      ‘So? Other actresses like to be recognised. Other actresses …’ His words dried as he looked beyond her to the entrance of the oak-panelled bar. ‘Hi, there!’ he called, waving an eager hand. ‘We’re over here.’

      As her agent put down his cocktail and leapt to his feet in readiness to greet someone whom he had clearly expected Darcy’s lips compressed. She had thought his invitation to dinner at the Brierly Hotel was odd, but— dumbo!—she ought to have guessed that it might not necessarily be just the two of them.

      Maurice had his fingers thrust into endless pies, and now it seemed that he might be attempting to swing one of the deals which he habitually indulged in and that she had been asked along as feminine decoration and some form of inducement. While the refined and dignified Brierly had been chosen as the venue in order to impress.

      Darcy gritted her teeth. Sitting with her back to the door, she was unable to see who was approaching, but she refused to spend the evening making small talk with some impresario for Maurice’s benefit. She refused to be exploited.

      Her agent took a step past her to welcome the new arrival. ‘Great to have a chance to meet you at last,’ he said in what, for him, were surprisingly sincere, reverential tones. ‘I’m a big admirer of both your acting and directing skills, though it’s a long time now since you’ve acted.’

      ‘As I get older I find I prefer to tell others what to do, rather than be told myself,’ replied a man in a smoky American drawl laced with an ironic inflexion.

      Darcy froze. She was sure—almost—that she recognised the voice. Whipping her head round, she looked up. Her green eyes flew wide open. Her jaw dropped. Her mind seemed to implode. Towering above her was a tall figure—a broad-shouldered, narrow-hipped and utterly virile figure. The expected dinner guest was a man whom she had last seen seven years ago and whom she had never wanted to see again—Keir Robards!

      She gawked at him. Like her agent’s dress style, his was also different from that of the hotel’s other, conservatively suited male customers, but whereas Maurice had gone for overkill he had opted for understatement. He wore cowboy boots, faded denims and an ancient black blazer thrown over a dark blue poplin shirt. His appearance was casual yet somehow he contrived to look smarter than every other man in the bar.

      ‘You two know each other,’ Maurice announced, with the gleeful air of a television host who—surprise, surprise—was bringing together a pair of old, dear, but long-lost friends.

      Realising that she was still gawking, Darcy closed her mouth. She wanted to murder Maurice.

      ‘We did,’ she said, tautly placing their relationship in the past—where she intended it to remain.

      ‘Good evening, Darcy,’ Keir Robards said, and held down a large, tanned hand.

      His handclasp came accompanied by a smile—a slow, crooked smile which, once upon a time, would have had her crumbling into a pathetically adoring heap. But no longer. Darcy nodded, withdrew her hand, sat back and crossed long, black-stockinged legs. Seven years on she was made of sterner stuff.

      Nevertheless, the pressure of his fingers and the feel of his skin against hers had had an annoyingly sensitising effect. It made her aware of the way some physical contact, however mundane, could start the adrenalin spurting. It had also created a tension.

      ‘What