Fast And Loose. Elizabeth Oldfield
the guy?’ She shook her head. ‘I have and——’ He broke off. ‘How tall are you?’
‘Five feet nine.’
‘He’s much the same, in his built-up heels. But the male lead’s height is important because it’s integral to the plot that he’s seen to physically dominate the girl. Some actors—good stage actors—could create the illusion despite the lack of inches, but Jed? I doubt it.
‘He’s also dark and so are you, but a visual contrast would be better. The two characters are supposed to be chalk and cheese, different in many ways, until finally they join together.’ He eyed her sable-brown curls. ‘I couldn’t persuade you to get busy with the bleach bottle?’
‘Persuade?’ Darcy said warily. ‘Going platinum isn’t stipulated in my contract?’
‘Nope.’
She expelled a sigh of relief. As soon as she could she would go through the small print with a fine-tooth comb. ‘Then no chance.’
‘I don’t blame you,’ Keir said, and, stretching an arm across the table, he entwined a wisp of her hair around a long finger. ‘You have beautiful hair.’
‘Thanks,’ Darcy said, and drew back, forcing him to draw back too. She knew that it was simply his charm kicking in and her common sense kicking out, yet his touch seemed alarmingly intimate. Like a lover’s touch. ‘So you have your doubts about Jed’s capabilities too?’ she enquired.
Keir nodded. ‘Between you and me, I feel that in insisting on taking on the role he’s being overly ambitious. By far. That said, I’ll squeeze as good a performance as it’s possible to get out of the guy and I won’t let him turn the play into a piece of hokum.
‘However,’ he added, with a faintly mocking twist to his mouth, ‘while I hesitate to step on your ego—or put myself at risk of an impromptu vasectomy—don’t forget that it’s Jed who’ll bring in the audiences. You might be the cat’s pyjamas of the British stage but in the States you’re an unknown.’
Aware of being adroitly cut down to size, Darcy gave a thin smile. ‘True.’
‘Though,’ he continued, ‘there are some who’ll recognise you as Sir Rupert Weston’s daughter.’
She shot him a glance. His expression looked benign but did she detect condemnation again or could this be a jibe? From the start of her career Darcy had had to face comments, sometimes envious, sometimes scathing, about how she was following in her father’s footsteps, yet doing so had not been easy. His fame was a doubleedged sword in that while it had opened some doors it had closed others; and on the occasions when she had got inside she had had to perform and expectations had been high.
‘True,’ she repeated, being determinedly noncommittal. ‘Why did you agree to direct the play if you have doubts about Jed Horwood?’ she enquired, when they had both refused dessert but ordered coffee.
‘Because it’s so cleverly plotted and the dialogue crackles with such credible passions that, given dedicated performances, it has the ability to be theatrical dynamite. And because my financial deal is excellent.’
‘It is?’ she said, with a frown.
He nodded. ‘I had something going which I was reluctant to leave, but a special deal whereby I get a percentage of the profits was hammered out and I agreed,’ he explained. He swirled the remaining red wine in his glass. ‘I also agreed because the rehearsals and previews take place in Washington.’
‘What’s special about that?’
‘I live in Washington.’
‘I didn’t know,’ Darcy said, thinking that in fact she knew very little about his private life.
‘In Georgetown, so it means I’ll be able to keep a handle on—the rest of my activities,’ he said vaguely, ‘which is useful.’
His activities? What did he mean? she wondered, and it suddenly occurred to her that her one-time hero could now have a wife and it might be family life which demanded his attention. A line cut between her brows. The idea shocked and oddly jarred.
‘Are you married?’ she enquired.
‘No,’ he replied a little brusquely.
‘Oh, I just thought that, well, your looks and your talent make you quite a catch——’
‘You’re not praising me?’ Keir drawled when she stopped, aware of talking herself into an awkward verbal corner.
‘And you’re thirty-six, which is a marriageable age,’ Darcy finished in a rush.
‘I’m still single,’ he said, and raised his glass in a toast. ‘Here’s to the success of the play and here’s to the next time we meet—in Washington in a fortnight.’
‘A fortnight? You mean in a month,’ she protested.
‘No. This appears to be something else which Maurice neglected to mention,’ Keir said mordantly, ‘but rehearsals start in two weeks’ time. As you know, the lead roles are complex and, while Bill Shapiro may’ve been happy with a month of rehearsals overall, I’m not. I want two weeks with you and Jed working on the script together and alone before the rest of the cast arrives. OK?’
‘Do I have a choice?’ Darcy enquired tartly.
A grin tugged at the corner of his mouth and he shook his head. ‘None,’ he said.
FASCINATED by the panorama which stretched for miles into the hazy, shimmering distance, Darcy gazed out of the tenth-floor window. As her eyes travelled across rooftops, traffic-dotted streets and swaths of green to focus on the dome of the Capitol, gleaming in the afternoon sunshine, she smiled. This was her first time in Washington and her plane had only touched down a couple of hours ago, yet already she was enchanted.
‘Jim-dandy city, ain’t it?’ the friendly black cab driver had said, noticing her pleasure on the journey in from the airport, and she had assured him that with wide boulevards, majestic memorials and squint-white obelisks Washington lived up to its claim of being the greatest free show on earth.
Her focus blurred. Enchantment was not a feature on her agenda; she had come here to work—with Keir Robards.
Although at first she had raged against what had seemed the inscrutable, star-crossed perversity of fate, over the past fortnight she had gradually come to realise that, by throwing them together, fate had performed a favour, insomuch as it had presented her with two opportunities. The first was to be a smash hit in the play, for, in all honesty, Keir’s directing abilities by far exceeded those of Bill Shapiro, and the second was to get even.
Darcy tweaked at the neck of the putty-coloured silk top which she wore with matching trousers. No, not even—full retribution could never be exacted—but she would make it plain that while Keir might have trampled mercilessly over her father he could not trample over her—and she would take some revenge in the process.
She was not malicious by nature, but she did not see why he should escape from his sins scot-free, not now that fate had so emphatically intervened and when her relationship with Keir Robards was beginning to seem more and more like unfinished business. She might have thought about him spasmodically, yet it had not been so spasmodic and she had never forgotten him. How could she have done when he had had such a dramatic effect on her life—in different ways?
Darcy nibbled pensively at a fingernail. She must not do anything which might damage her reputation or mar the play—that would be counterproductive—but whenever a chance arose to rile, unsettle or alarm the man she would take it. For the next couple of months she intended to make Keir Robards’ life hell—subtly.
Her thought-train jumped