by Susan Napier
‘Excuse me, Miss Marlow, would you like me to store your hat in the overhead compartment?’
‘Thanks.’ With a straight face Rosalind doffed her wig along with the hat, enjoying the flight attendant’s classic double take. They both broke into chuckles and the hostess’s mask of impersonal politeness was banished by the relaxed warmth of their shared moment of humour.
Rosalind’s natural optimism raised its battered head. She suddenly felt freer than she had in a long, long time. No stresses, no awkward questions, no responsibilities. Maybe this holiday was just what she needed to get her life back on its former smooth-running track.
She sighed with satisfaction as she ruffled her flattened hair into its normal spiky style and accepted the suggestion that she might like a glass of champagne as soon as the flight took off. She stripped off her jacket and rolled up the sleeves of her green shirt, revealing a slender gold bangle on her left wrist.
Glancing at the seats diagonally behind her, she saw the ineffectual Mr James wrenching his seat belt unnecessarily tight, his mouth flat and grim, his precious computer sitting on the empty aisle-seat beside him. He was wearing dark-rimmed spectacles that gave his face a top-heavy look. Maybe it had been myopia rather than mental confusion that had led him to look at her so blankly in the terminal.
He was looking at Rosalind rather than concentrating on his task, and she judged from his frozen expression that he had seen her little performance with the wig and heard her womanly giggle. Evidently he wasn’t a theatregoer, because there was no sign of slack-jawed recognition or avid curiosity in his regard, only cold disapproval, and Rosalind’s sense of liberation increased. She gave him a provocative, feminine smile and a flutter of her dark lashes and he scowled, a muscle flickering in his cheek, his skin taking on a betraying colour. She had never known a man whose complexion was such a telltale barometer of his emotions.
As the stewardess swished past on the way to strap herself in for take-off, Rosalind attracted her attention and murmured, ‘He’s probably too embarrassed to mention it but I think Mr James back there might be a first-time flyer with a touch of phobia.’
The stewardess looked discreetly over her shoulder and made a swift professional assessment. ‘Hmm, he does look a bit white around the mouth, and that case of his should be stowed away...’ Her voice took on an unprofessional lilt of mischief. ‘Cute, though. Maybe I’d better sit by him and hold his hand for take-off...’
She suited her action to her words and Rosalind couldn’t resist watching the man’s disconcerted expression as the attractive young woman stowed his computer and bent over to adjust his lap-belt before slipping into the vacant seat beside him and enveloping his hand in a manicured grasp. She said something to him that made his head jerk up. He pushed his spectacles up his nose and shot an accusing look in Rosalind’s direction that was a surprisingly fierce mixture of frustration and annoyance. Rosalind beamed him a plastic smile. Ungrateful nerd!
Dismissing him from her mind, Rosalind settled in to enjoy the flight. She had never flown first class before and intended to take full advantage of the shameless pampering. Some of the pampering involved the liberal distribution of newspapers and magazines and Rosalind almost choked on her champagne when she spied a photograph of herself cavorting on the front cover of a local popular women’s magazine. She quickly took it for herself and confiscated several other magazines that she suspected might carry news of her current notoriety in their pictorial gossip columns.
Unfortunately her clumsy attempt at censorship was thwarted by the fact that the other stewardesses were offering an identical selection to other passengers. Taking a furtive peep around the cabin, Rosalind was relieved. to note that most of the others were selecting more edifying reading... business reviews and glossy fashion magazines...except for the wretched James man, who received a copy of every single publication and then proceeded to open the very one Rosalind was hoping would be beneath his intellect to notice.
Rosalind muttered to herself as she slid over into the window-seat, out of his sight-line. Maybe he wouldn’t make the connection—the cover photo was years out of date, taken when she’d still had long hair. What kind of man picked a women’s magazine as his first choice, anyway? And did he have to hold it up in such a way that his fingertips appeared to be tucked. into an intimate portion of her bikini-dad anatomy?
Thinking she might as well know the worst, Rosalind thumbed open her own copy and read the three-page story, torn between anger and amusement to discover that it comprised euphemistically couched rumours of her bisexuality, supposedly dating from the time that she had ‘eagerly’ accepted a lesbian role on stage. There was an illustrated list of all the men with whom she had been ‘romantically linked’, which seemed to consist of every male celebrity with whom she had ever been photographed, and to that list was now added a gaggle of ‘galpals’.
Turning the page in fascinated awe at the artistry of the inventions, Rosalind learned that she was now on the ‘hot list’ of a radical gay organisation that focused on outing famous people and that she was on the verge of accepting an offer to appear as the nude centrefold in a famous men’s magazine.
Unfortunately this time it wasn’t only her own somewhat tarnished reputation at stake. Thanks to the country’s strict libel laws, there wasn’t one mention of Peggy Staines, but she would obviously be in the mind of any reasonably informed person who read the story.
If only Rosalind hadn’t agreed to meet Peggy at that hotel! If only Peggy hadn’t insisted on such extremes of secrecy, even down to registering the room in the damning name of Smith. If only Rosalind hadn’t been so stunned by the older woman’s private revelations that she had ignored the first signs of her distress and then wasted precious time searching Peggy’s bag for her medication instead of calling the emergency number straight away.
Rosalind struggled against a renewed flood of guilt. None of it had really been her fault, she reminded herself. She had made a few mistakes in judgement, that was all. She might have been a principal player in the drama, but she hadn’t been its author. It was Peggy who had written the original script, and in spite of her sympathy for the woman Rosalind couldn’t help resenting the fact that she had somehow ended up as the scapegoat in the tangled affair.
She stuffed the offending magazine into the pocket on the seat in front, determined not to brood. Rosalind’s philosophy of life was simple: be positive. There was no point in agonising over actions and events that couldn’t be changed. Self-pity got you nowhere but in the dumps. You had to keep moving forward, substitute ‘if onlys’ with ’what ifs’ and regard each negative experience as character-building for the future rather than as a destructive barrier to present happiness.
With that firmly in mind Rosalind shucked her boots off in favour of the free airline bootees and prepared to eat and drink and make merry across several thousand kilometres of airspace. If she was going to zonk out on a beach for three weeks she had no need to worry about jet lag!
Her body, however, had other ideas. The stresses of the last couple of weeks and the strain of the past few months caught up with her, and after a superb dinner accompanied by a few more glasses of champagne Rosalind found her eyelids drooping and her mind pleasantly unravelling.
She snuggled under a down-soft blanket and fell asleep watching a movie she had particularly wanted to see, and when she awoke was disorientated to find herself muffled in total darkness. She fought her way free of the blanket covering her face and found that the cabin lights had been dimmed and almost everyone else was asleep. The attendants were murmuring in hushed voices in the curtained galley.
Feeling a pressing need, Rosalind stumbled blearily into the aisle, staggering slightly as the plane hit mild turbulence. Not quite everyone was asleep, she found as she groped her way sleepily towards the toilet. The James man’s bent head was burnished by a pool of light, revealing glints of red-gold amongst the nondescript brown strands which had slipped forward to mask his
tilted profile. As she passed his seat she saw that his laptop was open on his unfolded table and that in his hand he was holding...
‘Are you crary?’ Rosalind lurched forward and snatched the object from him. ‘Have you been using this?’ she whispered, shaking the cellphone accusingly in his startled face.
‘I—’
‘Didn’t you read the safety information? Don’t you know it’s prohibited to use portable phones on board planes?’ she hissed.
‘Well, I—’
Rosalind glanced around to see if anyone had noticed and crammed herself down into the seat next to him. ‘They can play havoc with the plane’s electronic systems,’ she told him, speaking quietly so as not to disturb the sleeping passengers around them. But even in a whisper her classically trained voice retained its full range of articulation and expression. ‘If anyone had reported you, you could be arrested as soon as we land... that’s if you don’t cause us all to crash first!’
His eyebrows rose above the straight line of his spectacle frames at her fiercely delivered lecture. ‘Are you going to report me?’ he asked curiously.
She was offended by the suggestion. ‘Of course not!’ She was still slightly muzzy with sleep but he looked disgustingly bright and alert as he studied her expressive face. For a fleeting moment she thought she glimpsed a smouldering rage in the dark eyes, but when he blinked it was gone and she decided that it must have been a trick of the light.
‘There’s no “of course” about it,’ he said evenly. ‘You might have found it amusing to get me into trouble with the authorities—’
Her snort of indignation was genuine. ‘You must have a very odd idea of my sense of humour. I don’t happen to think it’s funny to mock the innocent.’
‘Is that what you think I am? An innocent?’ His mild voice sounded hollow, incredulous even. No doubt in his own mind he was a witty, sophisticated man of the world... The imagination had wonderful ways of compensating for one’s personal inadequacies!
‘Well, an innocent abroad, anyway,’ she said, humouring him. ‘It does rather stick out: you didn’t know about not using portable phones...or about the check-in procedures, and you were practically falling to pieces with nerves at the airport—’
‘Perhaps I was merely stunned speechless by your beauty.’
His sarcastic retort left her unruffled. She knew she wasn’t beautiful in the classical, restrained sense but she had flamboyant good looks that most men found attractive and an innate sense of style. ‘You thought I was a boy,’ she reminded him smugly.
‘Did I?’ he murmured quizzically, leaning back in his seat so that his face moved out of the spotlight. Thrown into shadowed relief, his features were stripped of gentleness, imbued now with a brooding strength that seemed vaguely sinister. A man of dark secrets and intriguing mystery...
‘You know you did,’ she said, admiring the effectiveness of the illusion: comic relief as villain. She had always believed that lighting was more effective than make-up in creating a character and here was the proof.
He said nothing and she frowned, suddenly remembering the magazine he had been leafing through at the beginning of the flight. Her pride bristled. Damn it, if he was toying with her over the matter of her identity...!
‘But you obviously know who I am now, right?’ she challenged.
His eyes dipped to her breasts, which were barely visible under the loose drape of her shirt, and to the slender curve of her hips, spanned by a wide leather belt which emphasised the narrowness of her waist. His gaze travelled down further, to the cellphone resting on her upper thigh, next to where the snug V of her jeans was pulled flat across her pubic bone.
‘Yes...you’re obviously a woman.’
The stifled statement was somehow more flattering than a gush of admiring words. To her surprise Rosalind felt her body tingle as if he had physically touched her where his eyes had wandered. Usually perfectly comfortable under the most leering male appraisal, she hurriedly crossed her legs in an unconscious gesture of self-protection.
A woman. If all she was to him was an anonymous female then he hadn’t paid much attention to that magazine, she thought with relief. He’d probably just skimmed over the glossy pages of celebrity clones before tossing it aside.
She looked at him through her lashes and received another small shock. Instead of politely averting his gaze, he had allowed it to linger on the deepened V created in her lap by her crossed legs, almost as if he could see the transparent emerald lace bikini briefs she wore beneath the sturdy denim. The muscles along her inner thighs tightened with a feathery ripple and she instinctively sought to shatter her unexpected self-consciousness with flippancy.
‘Those aren’t X-ray glasses by any chance, are they?’ she joked, and his eyes jerked back to hers. ‘Or are you going to confess they’re just plain glass and you’re simply a mild-mannered reporter?’
‘I beg your pardon?’ His eyes looked like polished jet—or perhaps it was just a coating on his spectacle lenses that made them look so hard.
‘You know—like Superman?’ He looked at her steadily and she let out a huff of disbelief. ‘For goodness’ sake, you don’t have much of a grasp on popular culture, do you? What do you do for a crust?’
‘Crust?’
She rolled her eyes. ‘A living? What sort of job do you do?’ She leaned sideways to peer at his laptop, to see if it would give her a clue. She glimpsed a busy clutter of characters before, with the swift tap of a single finger, he closed the file he had been working on, leaving the cursor blinking on a blank screen.
. ‘Top secret, huh?’ she teased, tilting her head back, the light flaring to fierce brilliance in her short cap of red hair.
‘Something like that.’
She shrugged good-naturedly at the rebuff. ‘Oh, well, we all have our secrets.’
‘Some more dangerous than others.’
The idea that his vague and distracted manner was a cover for a life riddled with dangerous secrets tickled her funny bone. ‘Ah, don’t tell me...’ Her voice dropped to a bare whisper as she rasped behind the back of her hand, ‘You’re really a spy travelling to the mysterious East on a secret mission of national importance!’
She ruined the blood-curdling effect with a husky chuckle. ‘A spy’s who’s afraid to fly!’
His colour rose. ‘I’m not afraid of flying.’
‘Of course you aren’t,’ she said, deadpan. ‘The stewardess only held your hand for take-off because she thought you looked cute.’
‘You told her to do that,‘ he accused through his teeth. ’Oh, for goodness’ sake, that was only because I knew you were probably too shy to ask for help. She came up with the “cute” all by herself—’
‘Too shy?’ He looked as if she had hit him over the head. Did he think it didn’t show?
‘Well, you must admit you don’t have a very...um...assertive personality, do you?’ she said tactfully, patting his arm. It felt surprisingly solid under the dark fabric. Unlike the other men in the cabin he had not removed his suit jacket but merely loosened his tie and a couple of shirt buttons. Through the sagging gap in the crisp white shirt she could see the smooth, surprisingly tanned skin of his chest. No hairy he-man he, she thought with an inner giggle.
‘Not that there’s anything wrong with being shy,’ she continued as he glowered at her. ‘A lot of women find that endearing in a man...you know, a nice change from the swaggering macho come-ons. You shouldn’t feel embarrassed about asking for help when you need it, though. People respect you more for admitting your weaknesses than for trying to hide them behind a mask of false bravado. It takes courage to let people know that you’re vulnerable—’
‘I don’t need anyone’s help.’ He interrupted her homily with an exasperated snap. ‘I don’t know where you get your ideas but I can assure you Miss—’ He stopped abruptly and sucked in a sharp breath. ‘Miss...?’
‘Marlow,’ Rosalind offered quickly, anxious that his sudden burst of self-as
surance should not be undermined by a minor point of etiquette.
‘Miss Marlow,’ he accepted grittily, without a flicker of reaction to the name. ‘I can assure you that if I am ever in need of assistance I am perfectly capable of arranging for it by myself!’
‘Excuse me!’ It was one of the stewardesses, speaking to Rosalind in a sternly admonitory tone. ‘That’s not a portable telephone you’ve got, is it?’
Rosalind sensed the man beside her stiffen, as if he expected her to leap at the chance to rat on him. He was probably honest to a fault. Left to himself he would doubtless pour out a full, frank and totally unnecessary confession.
‘Yes, but don’t worry, I’m not using it,’ she said swiftly, with a winsome smile. ‘Mr James here has been showing me his state-of-the-art travelling office. I was just holding this while he demonstrated some dazzling technical wizardry on his computer.’ She cast him a look of patent awe before switching her attention back to the object of her persuasion. ‘Naturally the phone is switched off,’ she said, hoping it was. ‘We’re both well aware of the airline regulations.’
‘Hmm, well, just to be on the safe side, perhaps we should remove the batteries to prevent it becoming arccidentally operational.’ The stewardess smiled, whisking it from her and deftly opening the panel. ‘Oh, someone’s done it already...’
A masculine arm brushed against Rosalind’s breasts as the telephone was firmly retrieved by its owner. ‘Yes, I did—prior to take-off. As Miss Marlow pointed out, I’m fully aware of the current regulations.’
‘You might have told me,’ Rosalind protested in chagrin as the stewardess glided away. She scrambled to her feet, acutely conscious that her breasts were humming from his unexpected touch.
‘You didn’t give me a chance to get a word in edgewise. You were having too much fun jumping to conclusions and patronising my ignorance,’ he said sardonically.
