Wild Lady Part 2

"I know you wouldn't do anything to hurt your baby, Adele. But I can't have you or," he waved vaguely in the direction of her b.u.mp, "it, on my conscience."

"I know. I do understand." She held out her arms to him. "Come and give me a hug."

Claudia was dabbing at the bruise developing below her eye with a concealer when Melanie put her head round the dressing room door.

"Still in one piece, then?"

Claudia glanced at her half-sister through the mirror. "Just. But coupled with the fact that I managed to all but write-off my new car, I have to say that I'd give a big thumbs down to leaping out of an airplane as a way to spend the morning. There," she said, leaning forward to examine the result of her camouflage job more closely. "Will I get away with that do you think?"

"You've had an accident? Should you be here? What happened?" Anxious questions bubbled out in a rush.

"Nothing much. I put my foot on the brake pedal and, well..." she shrugged "... as I said, nothing much happened."

Shaken, Melanie, younger than her twenty years, five of them spent working in Australian television, might suggest and still endearingly impressionable, sank into an old-fas.h.i.+oned basket chair set at an angle beside the dressing table. "You mean the brakes failed?" she whispered in a shocked voice.

"You could say that." Claudia mentally reviewed her conversation with the manager of the garage which had supplied the car. "I believe I said something along those lines when I called the garage and asked them to pick up the wreck."

"But how did you stop? I mean -"

"Stopping was no problem. An aircraft hangar obligingly got in the way."

"A what!"

"An aircraft hangar." Claudia tossed a grin in her sister's direction. "Eventually. First I bounced along the side of a very large Landcruiser that belonged to an equally large man." She gave another little dab at the bruise. "He wasn't very pleased. In fact a short while later he pushed me out of an airplane." She indicated the bruise beneath her eye. "It's been a fun day all round."

"It doesn't sound like my idea of fun. Should you be here?" she repeated.

"The bruise is that bad?"

"The bruise doesn't show. Well, not that much. But you must be pretty shaken up."

"Shaken, my dear, but not stirred. The show must go on." There was a tap at the door. "Come in."

Jim Gardner, the stagedoor keeper brought in a hand tied bouquet of roses. "A gentleman just brought these to the stage door for you, Miss Claudia. There's a note. He's waiting for an answer."

"Is he, indeed?" Claudia took the pale yellow roses and picked out an envelope tucked between the stems. If it was Tony he'd get all the answer he could handle.

"How lovely. Who are they from?" Melanie asked.

"I've no idea." Her name, written in bold, black ink, gave her no clues. She flipped it open and slipped out the card. It's important that I speak to you. I'll come backstage after the performance. Gabriel MacIntyre. Claudia laughed. "Well, well. It appears my very large, very angry man wants to see me."

"Maybe he wants to apologize for pus.h.i.+ng you out of that airplane," Melanie suggested, taking the card and regarding it with interest. "He's a touch dictatorial, but he has lovely handwriting."

Apologize? For being rude, or for kissing her, Claudia wondered briefly before turning to the waiting doorman. "Jim, please tell Mr. MacIntyre that I'm sorry but I'm busy after the performance." She glanced defensively at Mel. "Good handwriting doesn't make up for rude."

"I didn't say a word." Then, "You're keeping the flowers?"

Claudia lifted the blooms to her face, but florists" roses rarely had much scent and these were no exception. "It would be too cruel to return them. What would a man do with a bunch of flowers? And all that ribbon, too. They'd be nothing but an embarra.s.sment to him." She grinned at Mel. "Perhaps I should send them back. I'd enjoy embarra.s.sing him."

"Would you? Why?" Claudia didn't enlighten her and she shrugged. "Sending the roses back won't embarra.s.s him unless he's truly stupid. He'll just dump them in the nearest bin," Mel informed her. She shrugged. "I tried it once."

"You have hidden depths, little sister." But Claudia knew instinctively that Mac wasn't the kind of man to allow a woman to embarra.s.s him quite so easily. "In that case I'll keep them. Thank you, Jim, just pa.s.s on my message."

Jim, who had heard just about everything in a long life spent behind the scenes in the theater and was surprised by nothing, nodded. "Yes, Miss Claudia."

"No, wait. I want to be sure he gets the message. Forget the "sorry". Just tell him that I'm busy. And don't on any account let him in," she warned, as an afterthought. "No matter what he says."

"Right, Miss."

"You're absolutely heartless, Claudia," Melanie chided. "If the poor man just wanted to say he was sorry for losing his temper the least you can do is listen. You did run into his car."

"Yes, I did. But I wasn't showing off."

"Oh," Melanie murmured, "is that what he said?"

"He did. So, if he wants to tell me how sorry he is, he'll have to try a lot harder. Yellow roses, indeed."

Melanie took them from Claudia. "What's wrong with them? You didn't expect red, did you?" Then she gave Claudia a thoughtful look. "Or did you? In addition to being very large and very irritable, is he also very good looking?"

Claudia laughed. "I'm sure some women would find him absolutely devastating," she said, remembering those blue eyes, "but he's a bit rough hewn for my taste."

"Then why won't you see him?"

"Because in the language of flowers my sweet innocent, yellow roses indicate insincerity."

"You can't expect a man to know that!" her sister protested. "Especially not the rough hewn variety."

"Maybe not, but I sense that he chose yellow instinctively."

"But you've already said that red wasn't an option, what does that leave? Pink? You're not the kind of girl a man would send pink flowers to."

"No?" Claudia considered the matter. "No, I think you're right. Pink would be altogether too wishy-washy a color for Gabriel MacIntyre."

"Gabriel MacIntyre. It's a wonderful name. I'm tempted to go and have a look at him. Perhaps I could stand in for you, receive his apology by proxy? After all I am your sister."

Claudia laughed. "Oh, no. You're too young and tender a plant for the likes of Mr. MacIntyre, my sweet. He needs a woman capable of biting back."

"It sounds to me as if he's made quite an impression on you, whether you're admitting it or not. What a pity he didn't understand about flowers. Although there doesn't seem to be much choice left. White?" she offered, doubtfully.

"White?" Claudia laid her fingers dramatically across her breast. "For a scarlet woman who flirted with someone else's husband?"

Mel laughed uncertainly. "Don't be silly."

"I'm not being silly," Claudia informed her. "It appears that Tony was married, a small detail that he somehow forgot to mention."

"Married? What a rat."

Claudia waved an admonis.h.i.+ng finger. "Unkind to rats, Mel."

"But if you didn't know, why is Gabriel MacIntyre blaming you? And why does he care?"

Why indeed? "They work together. Maybe it's some male bonding thing. In any case Mr. MacIntyre a.s.sumes that I didn't care whether Tony was married or not, so you can see that white roses would have been out of the question." And there was only ever one actress who had commanded white roses by right.

"Obviously," Mel continued. "In fact I'm beginning to wonder why he's bothering."

Claudia shrugged. "Oh, come on, Mel, use your imagination," she encouraged, cynically. "Gabriel MacIntyre may be disapproving, but he isn't entirely immune."

Mel blushed. "You're joking?"

"Maybe." She caught sight of her reflection in the mirror, the curve of her lower lip accentuated by the slight swelling that an ice pack had reduced, but not entirely eliminated. It had a bee-stung look. The look of a woman recently kissed. She lifted her fingers to her mouth as if to still the slight throbbing, then s.n.a.t.c.hed them away. "Of course I'm joking," she said, with a rather forced brightness. "He probably just wants to know the name of my insurance company. Can you give me a lift home this evening, by the way?"

"Of course." Mel handed Claudia the roses and got up. "I'd better go and get ready." At the door she paused. "Claud? I'm really sorry about Tony. I know you liked him."

"I should have realized a man that pretty was too good to be true."

"Maybe you should try the rough hewn type for a change," Mel advised with a grin as she departed.

As the door closed behind her Claudia lifted the roses to her face, ruffling the soft petals against her lips for a moment before she tossed them onto the chair Mel had vacated and turned to the mirror to complete her make-up.

"Have you hurt your ankle, Claudia?" She was laughing at something her leading man had said as the enthusiastic audience finally allowed them to leave the stage, but she turned at the stage manager's obvious concern.

"Just twisted it a little, Phillip, but it's nothing serious," she said, falling in beside him, slipping her arm through his as they made their way back to the dressing rooms. She extended her ankle a little to show the strapping. "I hope it wasn't too obvious on stage?"

"Not a soul in the audience will have noticed," he rea.s.sured her. "I saw you limping when you arrived, that's all. Have you had an accident? I thought I noticed a bruise, too. Not that it shows now," he added, quickly.

"Thanks to the miracle of make-up." Phillip Redmond had been part of the back-stage scene ever since she had been old enough to visit her parents in their dressing rooms under the watchful eye of nanny, and he was one of the first people her father turned to when he was mounting a production. More like one of the family than an employee. "I made a parachute jump this morning for a television program," she told him with a grin. "I wouldn't recommend it as a pastime; I'm b.u.mps and bruises from head to toe."

He was horrified. "You shouldn't be taking risks like that, Claudia. If you'd broken your ankle what would we have done tonight?"

"Put on my understudy and no one would even have noticed," she said, as they reached her dressing room.

"Claud!" Mel came flying out her dressing room in her wrapper. "An old friend of mine from Oz just called and we're going to a party. Do you want to come?"

"I think a party on top of the day I've day would just about finish me, sweetheart. You go off and enjoy yourself, I'll get a taxi home."

"A taxi?" Phillip asked. "What's happened to that fancy new car of yours?"

"She wrote it off this morning," Mel told him. "What with that and a parachute jump, you'd have thought she'd have taken the night off."

"The public paid to see Miss Beaumont perform," Phillip said, reprovingly, "not some girl they've never heard of. But you don't have a theatrical background so I wouldn't expect you to understand that." As far as Phillip was concerned television didn't count and having dismissed Melanie he turned back to Claudia. "Don't call a taxi, I'll be happy to take you home."

Claudia bit back a reminder that Melanie Brett Beaumont was her sister, even if a very recent and unexpected addition to the family. Phillip had made no secret of the fact that he thought she was an interloper with no business adding Beaumont to her name. Given time he would probably get used to the idea, but he couldn't be forced into accepting the girl. And although she would rather have called a taxi, she decided that it might be a good idea to accept his offer and attempt a little quiet diplomacy on Mel's behalf. "That's kind of you, Phillip. I appreciate it."

"Not at all. I'm happy to take you home anytime. I often performed the same service for your mother." The slightest emphasis on the last word seemed to have been especially for Mel's benefit, Claudia thought, her spirits sinking slightly. It would take rather more than diplomacy to reconcile him to Melanie. "Can you wait about twenty minutes or so?" Phillip asked.

"It'll take me that long to clean off the warpaint," Claudia told him. "Come along to the dressing room when you're ready to go."

Mel glared after him. "Who does that man think he is?" she demanded.

"I'm sorry, but he goes years back with us, Mel. My mother took him on as a.s.sistant stage manager when he was a stage-struck youth. I remember him keeping Fizz and me quiet backstage during a matinee once, during a gap in nannies. He fed us toffee non-stop." She glanced around. "It was here, I think, in this theater. It must have been Anthony and Cleopatra."

"If it was Anthony and Cleopatra," Mel said, with a sharp edge of bitterness, "my mother was playing the second handmaiden on the left. I've still got the program."

Claudia, cursing herself for her lack of tact, put her arm around Mel's shoulders. "Come on, darling, we know which of them Dad loved best, that's what matters. And we all love you. Do you really care if the stage manager's just a bit prudish about it?"

"He doesn't let his prudery show when he's talking to Dad. I've heard him. Yes, Mr. Edward. Of course, Mr. Edward. Three b.l.o.o.d.y bags full, Mr. Edward." Melanie had lived most of her life in Australia with her own mother. When she was angry she became very antipodean. "He missed his vocation. He should have been a butler. He would be a whizz at putting the lower cla.s.ses in their place."

Claudia swallowed a smile. "Darling, try to understand. Elaine French and Edward Beaumont were portrayed as the perfect couple, on stage and off. It might have been a public relations creation but Phillip thought it was true. Everyone did. That's one of the reasons the theater's full night after night. I've been dressed up to look exactly like my mother and you're Beau's love child. The nation's prurient curiosity simply cannot resist the temptation to see what we're like together." She grinned. "Dad might be a good actor and no slouch as a director, either, but when it comes to marketing he really does deserve one of those little gold statuettes."

For a moment Mel remained tense and angry, then with a little shudder she let it go. "Sorry. I shouldn't let it get to me. It's just that everyone thinks your mother was a saint and that mine was no better than she ought to have been. It's a bit hard to live with."

Claudia hugged her. "We know that's not the truth and you shouldn't care what Phillip thinks."

Mel rested her head on Claudia's shoulder. "I know. But I'm not as strong as you."

"Rubbish. You're a Beaumont, strength comes as standard. Now go and have a good time at your party. Just don't forget we've got a matinee tomorrow."

Mel groaned. "I loathe matinees."

"At least you can put your feet up between performances. I've got to rush off to the television studios to accept a cheque on behalf of the hospice."

Mel grinned. "And get loads of publicity for that new television serial you're in. It starts next week doesn't it?"

"Don't remind me. I've got half a dozen interviews lined up already, mostly at the crack of dawn."

"My heart bleeds for you."

Claudia laughed. "Brat," she said. "Fizz would never have dared to speak to me like that."

"If you believe that you don't know Fizz as well as you think you do," Mel contradicted her. "But she's a lot nicer than either of us."

"Nicer than me," Claudia countered. "You're not so bad, considering."

"Considering what?" Mel demanded, hands on hips.

"Considering that you're an Australian, of course."

It was a running gag between them and Mel, dropping into the flat vowels of her home city, responded in kind. "Oh, really? Well let me tell you that for a Pom you're not so dusty yourself."

"Compliments, compliments," she said, laughing. "I could listen to them all day, but hadn't you better go and get changed if you're going to a party?"

Melanie gave a little yelp of dismay and dived back into her dressing.

Back in her own dressing room, Claudia picked over the messages left at the stage door by her admirers, along with countless single red roses. She was surprised to discover that she felt a certain discontent that Gabriel MacIntyre had not, after all, persisted in his efforts to see her. She had the feeling that he wasn't a man who would easily give up anything he wanted. Or maybe she imagined more in his kiss than he had intended. Maybe he always kissed like that.

She climbed into a pair of close-fitting designer jeans and a silk s.h.i.+rt that clung to her figure emphasizing her well-shaped bosom and her narrow waist. Then she flicked a comb through her hair, leaving it loose about her shoulders. She had gathered the red roses together and pushed them into a vase already stuffed with similar offerings that stood on her dressing table. The letters were swept up and dumped into her bag to be read and, if necessary, answered at leisure.