Rescue Operation. PENNY JORDAN
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years ago now, but you’ve never really got over it.’
‘A sensitive little plant, that’s me,’ Chelsea agreed with self-mockery, ‘I should have listened to you in the first place. You never really wanted me to go to drama school, did you? But I insisted, and you and Ralph gave way. When Darren told me I was exactly right for the ingénue part in his new play I swallowed it completely; fool that I was. The only part he had in mind for me was the traditional role of mistress, and a very brief part at that.’
‘Oh, Chelsea, don’t!’ Ann protested, hating to hear the bitter self-accusation in her sister’s voice. ‘We were as much to blame. You were far too young to leave home—we should never have let you go to London alone. When you came back that night …’
‘My pride in tatters but my virtue intact,’ Chelsea supplied dryly. ‘I honestly believed that he loved me and that in time he intended to leave Belinda. He actually laughed at me when I told him that, you know—I don’t know if I’ve ever told you that touching little detail before. Heavens, when I look back, the whole thing was more farcical than tragic, although at the time no one could have convinced me of that fact. I thought the world had come to an end, turned my back on drama school.’
‘And made a first-class career for yourself …’
‘As a repairer of ancient tapestries,’ Chelsea supplied. ‘But we were talking about Kirsty, not me. What’s this man like? He can’t be much of a man if he needs to search the ranks of schoolgirls for female companionship.’
Ann’s dry, ‘Don’t you believe it—he’s very, very much a man,’ brought Chelsea’s eyes to her sister’s face in astonishment. Ann pulled a face. ‘Oh, it’s not just that he’s good-looking—and he’s that all right, but he’s also incredibly sexy with it. You know the type—even I went weak at the knees.’
Chelsea did. Darren had been the same, and she was beginning to dislike Slade Ashford without even meeting him.
‘Well, in that case Kirsty can hardly be the only contender for his … attentions,’ Chelsea told her sister. ‘Is he married?’
‘No. In a way I almost wish he was,’ Ann admitted. ‘Chelsea love, please, you’ve got to help!’
‘Willingly,’ she agreed, her dislike and contempt for Slade Ashford growing with everything Ann said about him, ‘but how?’
‘We’ve invited him to our anniversary party. Kirsty insisted, and of course he is Ralph’s boss. You know we’ve decided to hold it at the Clarence?’
Chelsea nodded. The anniversary Ann spoke of was their twentieth, and she knew that her sister and brother-in-law had planned for some time to celebrate the event in some style. The Clarence was their most expensive local hotel, an old country house set in its own grounds, and the party was something Ann had been planning for for many months.
‘Well, what I thought was that you …’ you Ann stirred her cake mixture carefully, avoiding Chelsea’s eyes. ‘I thought you could somehow get Slade away from Kirsty,’ she finished, adding defensively, ‘I know it’s a cruel trick to play on her, but kinder in the end, surely you can see that?’
‘It’s certainly cunning,’ Chelsea agreed. ‘Always supposing it was possible. What makes you think he’d drop Kirsty for me?’
‘Haven’t you looked in the mirror lately?’ Ann demanded dryly. ‘Kirsty may be a pretty girl, but you’re a beautiful woman, Chelsea.’
‘Well, thank you!’
‘It’s true,’ Ann said quietly. ‘You are beautiful, even though you always try to deny the fact.’ She studied the rich dark red fall of her sister’s water-straight hair, and the long, dark-lashed eyes with their sensuous, smoky darkness. A faint flush touched her high cheekbones, emphasising the triangular shape of her face, faintly feline and subtly sexy, although Chelsea herself always denied the fact. Add to that a tall slender body with long, long legs, a narrow waist and rather fuller than fashionable breasts, and it all added up to a woman men looked at and looked at again. And it was all such a waste, Ann thought regretfully. She had lost count of the men she and Ralph had introduced to Chelsea; the little dinner parties they had arranged. She sighed … Just because she had been hurt once Chelsea seemed to have made a decision never to let any other man close enough to her to be hurt again.
‘It takes more than physical appearance to attract a man,’ Chelsea was saying crisply. ‘I’m sorry, Ann, but it just wouldn’t work. I don’t have the right aura …’
‘But you do have the right equipment, and the training to use it properly if you wanted to,’ Ann reminded her quietly. ‘Please, Chelsea, if you won’t do it for me, do it for Ralph. He thinks the world of Kirsty. It would break his heart if she did anything … foolish.’
‘Like letting herself be seduced by a man old enough to be her father, you mean? Are you so sure it hasn’t happened already?’ Chelsea asked bluntly.
Ann paled, her hands trembling slightly. ‘She said it hadn’t so far, but I suspect it’s only a matter of time. If you could just show her that his interest is only fleeting; that he would respond to any attractive woman who made herself available to him …’
‘So … I’ve got to make myself available to him as well as steal him away from my niece? Anything else?’
‘Oh, Chelsea!’ There was real anguish in Ann’s voice. ‘Kirsty is making a fool of herself over him. Please help! I hate having to ask you, but I can’t think of anything else. I know you’ll hate doing it, but with your drama training ..’
Ann’s shoulders were hunched, tears making damp tracks down her floury cheeks. Chelsea took her in her arms, remembering all the times as a child when their roles had been reversed and Ann had been the comforter.
‘It’s all right, love—I’ll do whatever I can,’ she promised. ‘He must be a swine to contemplate an affair with an innocent like Kirsty. It’s been a long time, though, since I was called upon to put my training into practice, let’s just hope I can rise to the occasion. I seem to recall that I never was much good at the role of femme fatale!’
It was a thought that lingered in her mind on the drive back to her flat, images of Darren coming back to torment her. A stupid little prude he had called her, and worse. She had gone round to his house to read the script, or so she had thought. She had been surprised to find him dressed only in a bathrobe as although she felt herself in love with him she had been too naïve to contemplate a full-blooded affair. But she went willingly enough with him when he said his study was upstairs. She shuddered as she remembered what had followed. Darren’s fury when he realised she wasn’t going to give way to his advances had been a real eye-opener. He had been amused at first, and then amusement had given way to anger. Chelsea could remember quite vividly how disillusionment had warred with sickness as she listened to his furious abuse. And then his wife had returned, setting the seal on her humiliation with her amused contempt. Apparently Chelsea hadn’t been the first little diversion Darren had sought. Even now, years later, her stomach heaved at the memory; because there had been a moment when because of her love for him she had been tempted to give way to him. She had loved him—or had thought she had, she thought bitterly. God, she had been a fool, and naïve! And now here was history almost repeating itself with poor little Kirsty!
Her phone was ringing as she entered the flat, and when she picked it up she heard the familiar voice of her boss, Jerome Francis. He wanted to tell her about a new commission they had obtained from the National Trust. Jerome’s company specialised in repairing prize tapestries and other antique fabrics, and Chelsea was his most skilled employee. She had left drama school after her débâcle with Darren, too humiliated to return, guessing that the others on the course with her must have known how Darren had been deluding her, and admitting to herself that she did not have the aptitude for the stage she had once thought. She lacked the hard, unyielding core that made a first-rate actress, one of her teachers had told her, but she had gained a certain panache; a way of moving and holding her head