by Lucy Parker
Richard was standing close enough to measure their breathing patterns.
And Will didn’t help matters by deciding to chuck professional standards out the window and involve his tongue in what should be a solely smoke-and-mirrors-and-platonic-lips manoeuvre.
He was lucky she wasn’t a violent person and that she valued her career prospects, or he would have come away from the encounter with a bloody chin. It took considerable effort not to wipe her mouth with the back of her hand. She glared daggers at him even as she smiled and swayed into his hold, apparently besotted and aroused.
There was a loud crack when Richard set down the tankard of coloured water he was holding. His eyes were glinting as he watched them. Usually, he played his part in this scene with amused boredom: the malevolent aristocrat who viewed the lower-class Julietta as a negligible speck on his horizon, a gullible bug to be crushed beneath his boot. It was not, Lainie had always thought, much of a stretch for his acting abilities. She was fairly sure he had considered her a sort of human prop in the past. An irritating prop that walked and talked, had deplorable taste in men, and wouldn’t stay where it was put.
Richard, as Bandero, said something snide; Will retaliated, and Richard suddenly grabbed him by the throat. They were nose to nose, and the atmosphere had nothing to do with pretence. Lainie thankfully seized upon her cue and darted from the stage, crossing her fingers and uttering a silent prayer that they made it through to the curtain with no incidents. One thing to be thankful for: Alexander Bennett wasn’t in the house tonight, so they wouldn’t be hauled over the carpet tomorrow morning for unprofessional behaviour.
Her throat was scratchy, and she went to beg another over-the-counter remedy from Meghan.
Her dresser frowned and touched a palm to her forehead. “You do look a bit flushed. How bad do you feel?”
“Bit achy.” Lainie looked at the bottles of cough syrup Meghan held in each hand and chose the children’s version with the picture of the giraffe on the box. Artificial cherry flavouring was one of her secret vices. “I hope I’m not coming down with something.”
“After what I’ve been hearing about you and Troy, I suspect a brainstorm at the very least.”
“Yes, well, there’s a story there. I’ll fill you in at some point.” Lainie swallowed a dose of medicine. “Don’t worry. I haven’t lost my mind just yet.”
Haven’t you?
She ignored that traitorous little voice within and put a hand to her temple. She couldn’t wait to get home to bed. She was starting to feel nauseous and the memory of the blueberry pancakes was coming back to haunt her.
“I’m not sure we can say the same for your menfolk,” Meghan said. They could hear the raised voices from the stage as Will and Richard warmed up to their altercation. “I was actually kidding when I wished they would make more judicious use of their swords.”
Lainie was plucking restlessly at the fastenings of her gown, and Meghan pushed her fingers away and loosened them for her. “Careful. You can’t have them too loose or the show is going to go unexpectedly burlesque. You have too much up top to run around unsupported.” She retied the ribbons. “And your feminine charms are obviously potent enough. Ten quid says one of them ends up a barbecue skewer yet.”
The callboy signalled to Lainie before she could retort. With a muffled growl, she shimmied her skirts back into place and returned to the wings to await her cue. Only a couple more pages of dialogue to get through. Then she could take Chloe’s dagger through the neck and drowse in her dressing room until the curtain call.
She was pallid and shaky by the time she performed her final scene. Her onstage death had never been more convincing. Richard caught her arm as she wobbled past him in the wings. He frowned down at her, the movement cutting a line through his heavy makeup. He was quite revolting in full costume. Dissipated wasn’t the word for it. He looked as if he’d spent the past thirty years draining the contents of a distillery and neglecting to wash his hair.
“Are you all right?” he asked sharply. He put a large, cool hand to her forehead. She wished people would stop doing that. Her swipe at his fingers was feeble, and he looked even more concerned. “You look shocking.”
“Look who’s talking. You’re probably single-handedly keeping the hair-oil industry solvent with this production.”
“Go and lie down. Before you fall down.”
Meghan was waiting to help her remove the bloodstained items of clothing before she had to reappear on the stage, and he spoke brusquely to her. “Get the medic to have a look at her.”
“I don’t need a doctor! I’m fine.”
Her traitorous body succumbed to a coughing fit, and he raised his eyes to the heavens. “Medic,” he repeated to Meghan. “Now.”
The callboy gestured urgently for Richard’s cue, and he returned to the stage with a reluctant glance back at her.
“You heard the man,” Meghan said. “Get off your feet and I’ll find someone to stick a thermometer in your ear.”
Lainie glared at her. “Since when do you listen to the greasy dictator out there?” She stamped off toward her dressing room, aware she was being a total pill.
Her mood was not improved by the doctor, who had latent comedy ambitions and kept up a running stream of jokes about treating the walking dead. She, like the proverbial Queen Vic, was not amused. By the time Meghan half carried her back to the stage for the curtain call, she was drowsy and feeling strangely detached from her legs. She walked forward when nudged, and listened, as if from a distance, to the rolling thunder of applause. Will’s hand was slippery with sweat, and she kept dropping his fingers.
“What’s wrong with you?” he hissed close to her ear as they took the full cast bow. She wavered, and he made a grab for her. “Jesus! Stand up!”
Lainie turned a look of dignified reproach on him. “I’m fine,” she said, very clearly.
And then she passed out on a West End stage in front of two thousand people.
* * *
Sight and sound returned with considerable force and volume. She opened her eyes in the epicentre of a furious argument. Masculine voices snapped back and forth above her aching head, and she blearily tried to focus on who or what was responsible for the racket.
“I think I can manage to get her home without your assistance, thanks.”
She knew that biting sarcasm. Blinking, she raised her eyes and looked up at the underside of Richard’s stubbled chin. She was close enough to his skin that she could see the paint contouring on his jaw. She watched, fascinated, as her own finger came up and rubbed at the makeup, helping to blend in a smudgy line. That brought his face down to look at her, and his hand closed around her raised fingers, squeezing them.
His smile was grim—a thin, compressed slash in his bony face. She touched that too, feeling the smooth softness of his lips, testing their resilience. At her movements, the smile became a little more genuine and some of the tension eased from his shoulders. “You’re hell on wheels for my blood pressure, Tig.”
A muscle flexed under her shoulders. She became at least half-aware of her surroundings. Scenery flats towered above her, seeming far taller than usual, and there was a strong smell of paint. She was down on the floor backstage, on Richard’s lap and in his arms.
“Tig?” repeated an incredulous voice, and she rolled her head against Richard’s chest to look at Will.
He was looming above them, glowering down like an enraged genie. “She should be in bed,” he said between clenched teeth. “The doc said she needs rest and fluids. Not a cuddle on a damp floor.” He added snidely, “And being quite familiar with her bed, I’m happy to transport her there. I can also do it less conspicuously, in a car that doesn’t look like the Batmobile.”
Richard completely ignored him. He was still looking down at Lainie. With the pad of his thumb, he rubbed gently between her eyebrows, exactly where the worst of the pain was grumbling. “I know you were bowled over this morning, but this seems a bit extrem
e.”
She closed her eyes on a wave of nausea and snuggled her nose into his neck. “Prick,” she murmured.
“And on that sentimental note...” Richard rose to a standing position, still holding her. Even in her semi-comatose state, she was impressed that he accomplished the move with no visible staggering or hopping to keep his balance. It would have been a bit of an anticlimax with Will’s critical glare fastened on them.
Meghan drifted in and out of sight with her belongings, and Lainie felt herself being lowered into a car. Camera flashes went off, voices clamoured, and Richard snarled something over his shoulder. He kept his body angled protectively in front of the open door, keeping her out of range for decent shots. The interior of the car was spongy and warm—her old friend, the Ferrari, again. Lainie stroked the leather seat and drifted off to sleep.
She was lying on her own bed the next time she woke, which was such a relief that she almost cried. Wonderful, familiar hands were helping her into her pyjamas. She blinked up at her mother. “Mum?”
“Bonus of having such a notorious daughter.” Rachel Graham smoothed down Lainie’s vest top. “When she takes a nosedive onstage, I read about it online five minutes later.” She pushed back a lock of Lainie’s sweat-tumbled red hair and smiled down at her. “You never did do things in a small way, did you, darling?”
“Oh.” Lainie groaned and scrubbed her hands over her face. “I’m so not going to be happy about that when my head returns to normal size. Where’s Richard?”
Her mum’s eyebrows rose archly. “Your devoted swains are sitting in opposite chairs in the lounge, looking like thunder. I suspect words would be exchanged at some volume if it weren’t for my inhibiting presence. As it is, they’re quietly growling and snarling at one another like a couple of territorial bulldogs. You do lead an interesting life, poppet.”
“Will’s here too?” Lainie turned her cheek on the pillow, trying to find a cool spot. “Can you please get rid of him, Mum?”
“With great pleasure.” Like Sarah, Rachel had borne the brunt of Lainie’s initial reaction to the Crystalle situation. Without going so far as her husband’s threats of castration, her opinion of Will was short and brutal. She pulled the covers up, resisting her daughter’s attempts to kick them away. “In another five minutes, you’ll be freezing. That temperature is raging.” At the door, she paused. “And shall I also eject the other brooding presence?”
Lainie mumbled something into the pillow, and her mother hid a smile. “I’ll tell him he can come back for a few minutes in the morning, shall I?”
Will at his most belligerent was a puny opponent for her mother. Lainie heard the altercation, and he was ousted from the flat in less than sixty seconds. Richard was made of sterner stuff. It took her mum almost five minutes to get rid of him, and he insisted on having another look at Lainie before he left.
The bed dipped as he sat on the edge of it, his eyes fixed on her face. She stared miserably back, and he unexpectedly leaned down to kiss the spot on her forehead where the imprint of his thumb still teased. “I’ll be back to check on you in the morning,” he said. “Try not to succumb in the interim.”
“Following your Pat orders?” Lainie asked drowsily, and he snorted.
“Completely flouting them.” There was a tiny note of bewilderment beneath the sardonic words, as if he was surprised by his own behaviour. “I’ve been commanded to stay well out of the infection zone. They don’t want to inflict more than one understudy at a time on a paying audience.”
“Oh.” Lainie’s fevered brain struggled to cooperate. “Maybe you should stay away.”
“I have no doubt whatsoever that I should stay away.” He touched a light hand to her hair and stood up. “Nevertheless, I shall see you tomorrow.”
* * *
It was still dark outside when Richard followed Lainie’s landlady back up the stairs to her flat the following morning. And he was still on edge.
He’d been trying to keep his focus away from Lainie when she’d taken a header into the stage floor and just about given him a fucking coronary. He’d been less immersed in his role than usual, partly due to Farmer’s unprofessional stirring. He could cheerfully have thrown Lainie’s ex-lover the length of the theatre. He had never liked Farmer. The antipathy was mutual, and now personal.
He wasn’t used to worrying about someone. He’d pushed the speed limit to get her home from the theatre and away from the vulture press, thankful that he possessed a comfortable car for her. He hadn’t realised her skin could go several shades whiter than her usual shade of pale. The spots of burning red on her cheeks and the purple smudges beneath her lashes had prevented her from looking like a black-and-white still.
He approved of her mother. Rachel Graham had calm eyes and a no-bullshit demeanour. And a way of handling Farmer that was almost artistic. He’d been less appreciative when she’d tried to evict him, as well.
He coolly returned Cat Richard’s stare when he passed the lounging lump on the landing. The cat looked heavily disapproving, but could be feeling euphoric for all anyone would know. It was not a pretty face.
Twinsies. Jesus.
He knocked on the door, only just overcoming the instinct to walk straight through and into Lainie’s bedroom.
Rachel answered the summons. She examined him thoughtfully, her eyes moving from his head to the soles of his boots. It was difficult to read anything into her expression. She would have made a very good Rosalind.
Her daughter was more of a Beatrice.
“How is she?” He moved forward, forcing her to take a step back and let him into the flat.
“Good morning.” Rachel had an empty coffee cup in her hand, which she took into the kitchen. “Her temperature is still up. She’s asleep.”
Without waiting for further permission, he walked down the tiny hallway to the equally miniscule bedroom. Lainie was curled up in the middle of a double bed that left very little remaining floor space. The room smelled like her. Flowery. Sweet. With a slight undertone of sweat at the moment.
He sat gingerly on the edge of the bed, looking down at her, and touched his hand to her face. Her forehead and cheeks were burning hot against his fingertips. He smoothed his hand over her forehead, stroking back the damp, matted red hair.
She looked bloody awful, and he said as much to her mother.
Rachel’s gaze moved to where he rubbed his thumb in a rectangular pattern on Lainie’s collarbone. “It’s a nasty bug. But she’ll be fine.”
Once more, the feeling that was attempting to crawl up his throat from his chest had nothing to do with a solely physical attraction, and he intensely disliked the sensation it left in its wake.
“Of course she will.” She had the flu in the twenty-first century, not the bubonic plague in the seventeenth. He took her hand in his. With little awareness of his actions, he brushed her knuckles back and forth across his lips.
Rachel gathered a pile of dirty washing and quietly left the room. She looked thoughtful.
* * *
Lainie’s existence had narrowed to a series of brief, uncomfortable intervals between naps. Her mum stayed in her flat, sleeping on her couch—fortunately with no idea what other activities occasionally took place upon its cushions—and ferried her back and forth from the loo. They both balked at assisted showering, but Rachel did hover outside the bathroom door and insisted it be left open a crack so she could hear if Lainie face-planted into the tiles.
“I’ll shut my eyes and grab for a towel if I have to come in and save you. Although in case you’ve forgotten, fruit of my loins, I have seen your bare bottom before.”
“There was less of it then,” Lainie managed to retort through her congested misery.
Richard was quite often present during her periods of consciousness, and even Will made a number of determined appearances. She was amazed he even ventured past her bedroom door. He wasn’t the type to mop a fevered brow and hold back hair to facilitate puking. It might be grati
fying if he didn’t spend ninety percent of his visits scowling at Richard.
She would usually be self-conscious about men sitting by her bedside when she hadn’t had the strength to wash her hair. However, it was hard to care when she felt like something that had recently been dug out of a sarcophagus.
Her fever peaked on the third day, and she was almost delirious when Richard forced his way past her mother. The back of his hand pressed against her forehead and her cheeks.
“Shouldn’t she be getting better by now? Does she need the hospital?” he asked through a fog. Her mum’s voice was a low, soothing murmur. She smiled into her pillow. He was getting the “oh, these silly children” parental tone. Her dad never managed quite the same blend of reassurance and condescension.
Then she was drifting again in a pleasant, dozy sea, carried along on a boat of Paracetamol. Will swam by at one point, and she hastily rowed away. He tried to steal her hand, and she jerked it free of his grasp.
“Don’t touch her.” It was a captain’s voice. Cool. Commanding.
Will, sneering, “Think you have exclusive rights, do you?”
“I think she doesn’t even want your hands on her when she’s unconscious. Wise woman.”
Blessed quiet, and a sense of receding heat. Her eyes opened a crack. The room was dim and the strip of visible window between the curtains was black. Night. There was someone sitting on her bed. She could smell warmth and spice and man.
“Will?” she asked blearily, apprehensively.
A hand gently touched her cracked lips. “No. The better option.”
She closed her eyes again and smiled against his fingers. “Richard.”
The stroking touch moved to her cheek and played at the edge of her hairline.
“You smell nice,” she said drowsily.
“Thank you. You smell like cherries and chemicals. I think it’s the cough syrup.”
