Dangerous Masquerade

by Janet Dailey

  A weak smile curved her lips. “Actually it started out as a joke. LaRaine remarked that she wished she could be two people—one of her could go to Mobile and the other could do the film."

  “I can take it from there,” Rian said dryly, stubbing the cigar out in the ashtray. “But what made you agree to the masquerade? Did you nurture secret dreams of becoming an actress, too, and saw that pretending to be LaRaine would give you experience?"

  “No,” Laurie denied quickly and a bit breathlessly. “It wasn't anything like that. LaRaine was legally committed to appearing in the film and morally obliged to come to Mobile. If she didn't live up to the first commitment there was a chance that her parents could become entangled with legal actions. They took me in when my parents were killed. Uncle Paul has a successful business. A suit from a large movie studio could have ruined him,” she explained earnestly. “At the time it seemed such an innocent thing—to pretend to be LaRaine, considering the damage that could have occurred to my uncle if my cousin had come here instead of fulfilling the contract."

  “Was I to learn the truth when I returned, or was it a case of what Rian doesn't know won't hurt him?” he jeered, his lip curled derisively as the truth flitted across Laurie's expressive face. “That's what I thought,” he ground out sarcastically.

  “LaRaine didn't want you to think less of her, and she was afraid you would,” Laurie murmured.

  “So this little episode was to be kept a secret until after we were married, I suppose.” The leashed violence was evidenced by the arrogant flare of his nostrils and the clenched jaw.

  “I don't know,” Laurie mumbled untruthfully.

  “I could hardly be expected to endorse this farce, now could I?"

  “No,” Laurie agreed numbly, feeling the humiliation wash over her afresh. “You have every right to be angry. But please,” she turned the pleading look in her blue eyes on him, “don't blame LaRaine entirely for this. That movie role was sort of one last fling for her before you two were married. She never intended any harm to come of it.” That arrogant, austere expression on Rian's face frightened Laurie. Somehow she had to salvage LaRaine's engagement that, by the look on his face, Laurie guessed was about to be broken. “After all, it was my idea to come here in place of LaRaine,” she lied. “I don't think it would have ever occurred to her to deceive you this way. I convinced her I could do it."

  Her false admission was met by stony silence as Rian signaled to the waiter for their check. Now what? Laurie wondered, following Rian's lead as he rose from the table. He surely wasn't going to leave it at that. She had told him how she had come to pretend to be his fiancée. Didn't he intend to tell her what he was going to do?

  The tables were nearly filled with elegantly dressed men and women. Laurie noticed the way heads turned as she and Rian walked by, but his presence always seemed to dominate any room. She wasn't aware of the way his masculine dark looks complemented her own quiet, dark beauty or the way her inner agitation had produced a glowing colour in her cheeks. Next to Rian Montgomery, Laurie felt very inconsequential.

  When they reached his car, he still maintained the silence between them until Laurie thought she would fairly scream. He was doing it deliberately, exactly the same way he had prolonged her explanation. He probably enjoyed seeing her squirm, she thought angrily, casting a mutinous glance at his sharply defined profile.

  The city was being left behind them. Yet Laurie sensed that this wasn't the direction that would bring them back to Vera's home. But she refused to question their destination. It wouldn't do for Rian to know that she preferred the safety of numbers when she had to be in his company. Nervously Laurie thought he had probably guessed that already. Did he know how his hardened reserve intimidated her? Her mind was racing so swiftly, trying to second guess his motives, that she didn't notice the speed of the luxury car decrease until the sound of rubber tyres slowly turning over sandy gravel penetrated the silence.

  The cessation of movement followed by the switching off of the engine alerted Laurie to her surroundings. They were parked in a layby on a country road with the dark shadows of the pine woods behind them and no sign of any buildings. A few feet in front of the car were the shimmering waters of Mobile Bay reflecting the silver-gold orb of the moon. Across the bay the fairy lights of the city became lost against the star-speckled sky. A match flared to life, briefly illuminating the aloof, arrogant features as Rian touched the flame to the tip of his slim cigar.

  Laurie swallowed nervously, wanting to know what they were doing here but refusing to ask. A movement from Rian flooded the dim interior with jarring light. Pushing the dark curls behind her ear, she turned to meet his relentlessly searching gaze.

  “Now that you've got yourself into this situation, how do you propose to get yourself out?” Rian mocked sarcastically.

  Her finely arched brows lifted momentarily. So she was to name her own punishment, Laurie discovered with surprise, before realizing that with a man like Rian Montgomery a person would never get off easily. But her own sense of guilt wouldn't allow her to anyway.

  “There are really only two alternatives,” she replied, determinedly keeping the quaking of her bones from affecting her voice. “I can pack my suitcases tonight and leave in the morning as LaRaine Evans. Or I can go to your aunt, explain who l really am, and how came to be here."

  “And shatter all her precious illusions in so doing,” he added grimly.

  Her hair fell like a jet-black curtain over her cheeks as Laurie bowed her head in acknowledgement. “I know,” she murmured. The last thing she wanted to do was to hurt the woman who had welcomed her so openly and so completely into her affections. “The most logical thing would be for me to leave tomorrow morning."

  “It would be the easiest,” he agreed sardonically. “What happens when Vera eventually meets the real LaRaine?"

  “She won't ... I mean, LaRaine said...” Laurie stammered, “she said you hardly ever see Vera. The chance of you bringing LaRaine here was practically non-existent."

  “I wonder why she thought that?” he remarked indifferently, leaning back against the plush seats with indolent disregard.

  “That's true, isn't it?” Laurie whispered. “Vera told me herself that she hardly ever sees you."

  “In Vera's terminology, three or four times a year is hardly ever seeing someone.” His gaze narrowed on her stricken face. “So what do you propose now? That I cut myself off from any association with my aunt to protect you?"

  Laurie sighed heavily, “No, you can't do that. I'll ... I'll just have to tell her the truth and hope she doesn't hold this against LaRaine for the minor role she played."

  “And everyone concerned is just supposed to forgive and forget that any of this ever happened, is that it?” Freezing contempt glittered in his dark eyes.

  “Do you have any other suggestions?” Laurie demanded sharply, tired of the cat and mouse game he was playing with her, wishing that if he was going to pounce on her, he would do it and stop toying with her.

  A twisted smile lifted one corner of his mouth. “Yes, I have one. You can stay here as my fiancée and we'll forget there ever was a LaRaine."

  “You can't be serious!” Laurie gasped, watching in disbelief as he calmly exhaled a grey cloud of smoke. “You aren't going to let my stupid masquerade break up your engagement to LaRaine! You can't!"

  “As far as I'm concerned,” Rian stated coldly, “our engagement was broken the day she took off my ring and put it on your finger."

  The silver-gold band of the sapphire ring fitted snugly, defying Laurie's attempts to pull the burning circle of metal from her finger. Before she could succeed, her right wrist was seized in a vicelike grip that nearly stopped the flow of blood in her hand.

  “No, no!” Laurie protested vehemently, struggling uselessly to free herself from his hold. “I can't let you take your vengeance out on LaRaine. She loves you! She's talked of little else but her marriage to you and how much it means to her. All of this
was my idea,” she repeated, willing to take all the blame on her shoulders rather than see her cousin's engagement broken. “She wouldn't have agreed to it if I hadn't convinced her. She even said she didn't want to be in the movie if it meant risking her engagement to you! You two loved each other. You were going to be married. I can't let you hurt LaRaine because of my stupid plan."

  “It's very touching the way you leap to your cousin's defence,” Rian commented cynically, not releasing the hold on her wrist that brought his lean, hard face so close to her. “But I fear you don't know your cousin any better than you know me."

  “What's that supposed to mean?” Laurie breathed. Her blue eyes hesitantly met the enigmatic expression in his nearly black eyes.

  “LaRaine didn't love me any more than I loved her.” His face glittered with mocking amusement at the astonished and disbelieving expression in her face. “It was a case of satisfying a mutual need. I wanted a wife who was well-bred and attractive, someone who wouldn't demand too much of my attention. LaRaine wanted a rich husband who would buy her jewels, clothes, and offer an opportunity to mingle with the socially élite."

  “How can you say that!” Laurie exclaimed in a horrified whisper. “You don't know how LaRaine really felt about you. Not if you believe what you just told me."

  “I'm sure it suited the image she wanted to project for you to believe that she loved me.” His cynical reply struck a cold shaft of doubt in Laurie. “LaRaine is too much in love with herself.” Laurie did know LaRaine well enough to know that Rian might be telling the truth. Her cousin could sometimes be very calculating and unfeeling, totally selfish when she went after what she wanted.

  “It doesn't change anything,” Laurie murmured, lowering her gaze to the lean brown fingers holding her wrist. “If you don't really care for her then it doesn't make any difference whether or not your aunt likes her."

  “Vera is incredibly romantic.” His low voice carried a derisive note. “She wouldn't understand why LaRaine would allow you to come here pretending to be my fiancée."

  “So you want to keep up a pretence, too?” Laurie snapped caustically, suddenly hating him for being so cold and inhuman. Marriage was a sacred thing to her, not something to be indulged in to satisfy a material or physical need. At the same time, her loathing didn't carry itself on to her cousin who was guilty of the same sin, according to Rian.

  “I don't want to hurt my aunt unnecessarily,” Rian corrected with cold anger.

  But Laurie's slow to rise temper didn't pay heed to the warning. “And you propose to prevent that by acquiring me as your fiancée? What happens to her feelings when our engagement comes to an end?"

  “Why should it?” He mercilessly raked her face, noting the blue sapphire eyes sparkling with her anger, adding a volatile beauty to her face. “You're an attractive little orphan girl.” His words cut her to the quick with the harsh reminder of her lonely childhood. “Surely the security of a rich husband isn't something to be casually dismissed?"

  “Money isn't the most important thing in the world to me,” Laurie declared proudly. “When I marry, it will be to the man I love and who loves me. He'll be someone tender and warm and kind."

  There was a flash of white teeth, indicating a smile, but the expression mirrored in his eyes revealed only disdain for her romantic avowal. “You speak as though you have someone in mind. I can't believe the love of your life is waiting at home while you're here pretending to be my fiancée. Or is it someone you recently met? Colin, for instance?"

  “Colin is all those things,” Laurie admitted defiantly, not caring whether Rian thought she was implying that she had fallen in love with him.

  “Do you think you're in love with him?” he jeered.

  “I haven't really known him long enough,” attempting to protect herself from his biting cynicism.

  “Surely love strikes like a lightning bolt?” he mocked, openly amused by her defensive attitude. The quelling look she gave him bounced off without leaving a mark. Subtly his manner changed, dropping the cold disdainful look to wrap her in the virile and disarming force of his maleness.

  “Have you ever felt a man's caress?” Low laughter accompanied the rising colour in her cheeks. “I thought not.” The gleam in his gaze sent the blood racing to her face. A tanned hand touched a pink cheek, tingling her senses with the feather lightness of his touch. The tips of his fingers trailed down to her lips, brushing the sensual line of her lower lip. “I wonder what you'd look like if I made love to you.?"

  “Stop it!” Laurie demanded hoarsely, pushing his hand away in self-defence. She had already experienced his seductive ability when he had kissed her by the pool, and she had no doubt that he knew how to arouse a woman's desires. At this moment she could feel his irresistible magnetic pull.

  “You didn't find my embrace so distasteful this afternoon,” Rian reminded her complacently, a malicious dancing gleam in his dark eyes.

  “You took me by surprise then,” Laurie replied, fighting the odd breathlessness his nearness was causing.

  “And now?” His mouth moved hypnotically closer.

  “And now I don't want you to touch me,” she answered quickly.

  In the next instant her wrist was released and Rian was leaning back against his own cushioned seat, an amused chuckle shattering any impression that her weak words had halted him if he had wanted to kiss her.

  “You don't have to worry,” he taunted. “Seducing young girls in the back seat of a car is not my style. I've become accustomed to more adaptable surroundings and more experienced women."

  Flames of hot embarrassment coursed through her body until Laurie felt suffused with colour. “I hate you!” she rasped out in a voice trembling with anger and humiliation. “You're a despicable, arrogant beast! LaRaine is lucky to be rid of you."

  “But you aren't so lucky.” The slightly upturned corners of his mouth straightened into a grim, forbidding line, reminding her that her insolence wouldn't go unpunished. “You're my fiancée."

  “I'll never marry you!” she declared vehemently. “And you can't make me!"

  “Don't be too sure about that.” There was a proud flare of his nostrils that set off the dark, aquiline features. “For the time being, I'll settle for your agreement to the engagement."

  “Why should I?” Laurie demanded, tossing back her black hair to eye him coldly.

  “Have you forgotten Vera?"

  In the force of his baleful stare, the blue eyes blinked hesitantly, all thought of anyone else save the man sitting next to her had momentarily been wiped from her mind. Weakly Laurie knew she didn't want Vera to find out about the deception. She had grown fond of the woman, but to be truly Rian's fiancée was a price she had not bargained to pay to keep Vera's respect.

  “You can't be getting cold feet?” Rian mocked. “After all, she's already convinced you're my fiancée, thanks to your masquerade."

  “I won't marry you.” Her voice was quiet, but it carried grim determination.

  Rian smiled without amusement. “"Let the day's own trouble be sufficient unto the day.” We'll cross the other bridge when we come to it,” he stated.

  “That was ... a quotation from the Bible,” she announced with considerable surprise.

  “You forgot,” he jeered softly, “Satan was once an angel."

  Had she just made a pact with a devil? Laurie wondered, studying the arrogantly carved face with its black eyes and brows and the rakishly curling jet black hair. The interior car light was switched off, plunging her into darkness. As the motor sprang into life, Laurie shivered and huddled deeper into her seat. She had yielded to his overpowering presence, succumbed to the temptation of not having to tell Vera of her deception.

  CHAPTER SIX

  LAURIE spent a restless, uncomfortable night. Her troubled conscience kept sleep just out of reach. Morning came all too soon with the grim reminder that she was Rian's fiancée and Rian was here in the same house with her. She tarried as long as possible in her ro
om before finally trekking downstairs dressed in rust-gold slacks and jacket. Rian was standing near the front door talking to Vera, an attaché case in his hand, as Laurie reached the hallway.

  “I was trying to persuade Rian to wait a few more minutes,” Vera called out gaily, “that you were usually an early riser like me."

  Ignoring Rian's speculating dark gaze, Laurie kept her attention fixed on the smartly dressed silver-haired woman. She knew his keen eyes would pick up the pale shadows under her vivid blue eyes and astutely guess that he was the cause of her sleeplessness.

  “You woke up in time to say good-bye to me,” he declared sardonically as she halted next to Vera.

  “Good-bye?” Laurie repeated with a frown of disbelief, unwillingly glancing up at his aristocratic face to make sure she had heard correctly.

  “Yes,” Vera grimaced ruefully beside her. “He barely arrives and he's dashing off on another business trip."

  “I have a plane to catch,” Rian informed Laurie. “You can walk me to the car."

  “Have a safe journey,” Vera wished before squeezing his hand in farewell and quietly retreating to leave Laurie and Rian alone.

  His smile mocked her disconcerted expression as he opened the door and waited for Laurie to pass. His hand rested very lightly on her waist as she walked unresistingly towards the white Continental.

  “Aren't you curious where I'm going?"

  “No.” A mutinous gleam in her clear blue eyes. “Only how long you'll be gone."

  “Don't be sarcastic, Laurie love,” he warned, his jaws hardening at her defiant expression. “I know you would like to see the back of me, but I didn't get you into this situation. It was of your own making."

  “You were very quick to take advantage of it,” she accused, flinching under the velvet whip of his false endearment.

  “Do you blame me for protecting my family?” Rian asked. “That's what you claim you were doing."

  “Not claim,” she corrected sharply. “I was."

  “I would advise you not to give in to any quixotic impulse and tell Vera the truth or to attempt to run away. E. J. has been fully informed of the situation,” Rian told her coldly, “and under my orders to take whatever action is necessary to prevent any movement you may try to make to alter things."