Free Whirlwind by Charlotte Lamb Page B

Can she act?'
    'Yes!' she assured him, stressing the word.
    His old eyes peered into her face. 'Not up to your standard, though, eh?'
    'You can't honestly expect me to answer that . . . ' she demurred, laughing angrily.
    'You just did, Miss Rendle,' he commented drily.
    'Patti's still very young,' Anna began, and he patted her cheek, smiling at her.
    'And you're so old, is that it? How old, I wonder? Twenty-one? Twenty-two? D'you really think that in a couple of years' time Patti will be able to act you off the stage the way you do her now?'
    'I hope I do nothing of the kind,' Anna protested hotly. 'We're a team, the whole company, we aren't in competition. The star system is dead.'
    His sardonic stare reminded her of his son so forcibly that she blinked. 'Is that why Dame Florence's name is neon-lit outside this theatre tonight?' he asked, and Anna could think of nothing to say in answer.
    As they left, Mrs Montgomery turned to Anna and said, 'Will you come to lunch soon? I'll tell Patti to fix a suitable day. It's been a pleasure to meet you, Anna.'
    Anna had said smilingly that she had enjoyed meeting them, and would love to come to lunch. She might not have so readily" agreed if she hadn't remembered that Laird no longer lived with them and wouldn't be there. As she and Patti stood in the wings later Patti had given her a shy, wistful look. 'What did you think of them?'
    'Your mother's charming and your father is amazingly like your brother,' Anna said at once, then gave her a searching stare. 'Laird isn't your mother's son, is he? She looks too young to have a son that age.'
    'Oh, didn't I tell you?' Patti asked, laughing. 'I'm so used to thinking everyone knows! No, my father was married before and Laird's really my half- brother.'
    Anna heard her cue and turned away at once, taking on her alter ego as she walked on to the stage, at once sucked into the drama being played out and forgetting everything else.
    Now, though, she thought back over that brief conversation, her sleepy contentment seeping away as Laird shouldered his way back into her thoughts.
    Had his mother died or had there been a divorce? She didn't want to think about it; it was dangerous to be too curious about the man, it kept him in her mind when what she ought to be doing was forgetting all about him. It was infuriating that Laird simply refused to be evicted; he kept coming back. Like indigestion, she thought crossly.
    The morning after the first night another couple of dozen red roses had arrived. She had still been in bed; Mrs Gawton had handed them through the door, positively apoplectic with curiosity, and Anna had shut the door on her excited questions and put the flowers down to sit and stare in brooding preoccupation.
    What was Laird playing at? she had been asking herself with foreboding. She vividly remembered his expression the night before as he looked up at the shabby house, his eyes distasteful, his mouth twisting. Now he knew where and how she lived, he could see how far outside his own milieu she moved—so why was he sending her red roses? He thought she was a cheap pick-up, obviously. He thought he could buy her with a few flowers and a candlelight dinner. Anna had felt like shredding the dark red, scented petals and flinging them to the four winds. If he laid one finger on her again she'd hit him so hard he wouldn't stop bouncing for a week!
    Irritated with herself because she seemed unable to stop thinking about him, she made herself get up and have a bath. She had to share the bathroom with everyone else on her floor. The water was always lukewarm and had a rusty tinge when it first came out of the tap, making a knocking, shuddering noise. The bathroom was draughty and usually had a cobweb or two in the corners. Anna was always finding huge black spiders in the bath. She hated touching them, so she shut her eyes and turned the taps on full to wash them down the plughole, only to be full of guilt over it afterwards.
    Today she