I'm planning to submit this novel to iUniverse.com. I don't want editorial feedback, thanks. All I want to know is, would you buy a copy of this novel, based on this first chapter?
Thanks!
Angeline Baxter frowned at the monitor. Again. Things did not look good. The damn web page was still trashy. "Damn those idiots." Her fingers pounded the keyboard. "This isn't going to work, Steve. We can't show this to the board. They'll think we're totally incompetent."
She spun her chair around and shot herself across the room. Her office mate leaned toward her computer, grimacing. "Shit. Who did this? Walker?" At her snort of agreement, he shook his head. "Brown-nose Bob doesn't know the first thing about building a page. Whose idea was it?" Angeline didn't answer. Steve Miller ran his hands through his sandy hair. Oh, god. No wonder she was so pissed. "Dan." Daniel Clayton, Marketing. Angeline's husband-to-be. The owner's already-son.
"Steve."
"Enough said. No comment. Move along, nothing to see here." He lost it. "Shit, shit, shit."
"Okay, I get it." Angeline regretted her acceptance of Dan's proposal more each day. More than she'd ever thought possible. "Can we fix it?"
"Nobody can fix it. We'll have to start from the ground up. It's an all-nighter, Leen. Cancel any plans with Danny Boy." He started a fresh pot of coffee. "I hope he's damn good in bed, Leen. Otherwise you're wasting yourself. IMHO."
I wouldn't know, she thought. I can't stand the thought of finding out. She allowed herself to reflect, for one millisecond, on her previous lovers. Ah, that way lies madness, she told herself firmly. "Thanks for your HO, Steve, but I don't really want to talk about it."
"Mm. Okay. None of my biz anyway. What are we gonna do with this chunk of turtle bait, Angeline, baby?"
Straightening out the "chunk of turtle bait" really did take all night. Amidst the pizza boxes, diskettes lay like abandoned soldiers. Steve's shoes hung from the ceiling fan, slowly spinning, a weird Calderesque display. Angeline's shoes were thrown into a corner. Her bra decorated the back of her chair. She knew she didn't have the figure any more to go without it, but the damned thing, so uncomfortable. Underwire. Might as well be barbed wire.... She planned to put it back on before the rest of the staff arrived at 8:30.
Unfortunately, Dan Clayton arrived at 8:10. Ostensibly to check their progress, but she knew he was really checking their "progress." When she'd canceled dinner, dashing yet again his hopes for a chance to have "dessert," he'd sounded suspicious. God, she hated that. She hadn't slept with Steve once in the ten years they'd worked together, and she wasn't about to start. Hadn't slept with anybody for fifteen years. Angeline had long ago realized that trying to explain away Dan's insecurities only compounded them, and she didn't try now.
Dan gingerly plucked the bra off the chair. Offered it to her with a look of distaste. At his own desk, Steve scrawled the word "prick" on a piece of paper and held it up behind Dan's head.
"I know you like to consider yourself a free spirit, Angie, but decent women actually wear these things." His snotty tone, the one Steve called "grit in the underwear," set her teeth on edge.
Bone weary, knowing that a whole evening's work had been required to set right his error in judgment, she had to do it. She just had to. Without a word, she shucked her blouse, tucked it between her thighs, took the bra from him, put it on, then pulled the blouse back over her head. "Happy, Dan?" Angeline turned her attention to her PC until he left the room.
"Holy shit, Leen. Danny Boy's going to be steaming over that for a long time."
"Let him. God, I've had enough of this place." She leaned over, placed her palms on the floor, feeling the stretch along her legs. "I'm going for breakfast."
"I hear that."
Food made some difference in her outlook. Not much, she conceded, but some. "I'm too old for this, Steve. God, I am too old."
"You're only thirty-five, Angeline. That's not old."
"I feel a hundred and thirty-five." Sometimes she really did. The day she'd noticed her hair was about one-fourth white to three-fourths honey-gold. When she couldn't get along without her glasses any more. When she noticed that her morning stretches were encountering bulges she didn't remember having. "I used to have a life, Steve. I swear I did."
"I know." He knew what the problem really was. And that she was trying to block it out of her awareness. "It's almost Richard's birthday, isn't it?" Felt a surge of guilt when her eyes filled with tears.
"Yes, damn it." Angeline hated her own weakness. "I don't want to talk about it." Richard. Seldom-seen, always in her mind. Her son.
In that moment, with absolute clarity, Steve Miller knew it. She hadn't told Dan about Richard. "Oh, Leen. Oh, Leen, baby."
"Don't. Just don't say it, Steve. Just don't."
"How the hell are you going to visit him when you're married, Angeline? It's hard enough for you to get away now." Her sudden, broken-hearted sobbing shocked him. In all the years he'd known her, Angeline Baxter had never, ever cried in front of him. Never cried period, as far as he knew. "Oh, shit, Leen, I'm sorry." His mother always hugged his sisters when they cried. Maybe it would help his friend. "God, Leen, please."
She fought to control herself. What a picture, she thought savagely. Miss Independent, bawling like a baby. Angeline wrestled her emotions down. When Steve felt her stiffen, he let her go. She reached for the box of tissues on her desk, wiped her face with one, blew her nose. "The last time I was in England, I left a note for Geoff. I told him I was getting married. And I'd try to make time...." Geoffrey. Pain like a knife in her stomach. He wouldn't be fooled for a minute. She could almost see the terse, tightly-written words. He'd know how she really felt about Dan. Every time her phone rang, she flinched. She never answered any more, but let the machine take it. Every time the phone rang, it might be Geoff, concerned, asking how she was doing. Asking why.
"Angeline, why in hell are you doing this?"
"Oh, god, not you too, Steve." She felt trapped. "Why" was the one question she absolutely didn't want to face.
Steve was exasperated. Exhausted, worried, and generally disgusted by Dan Clayton as a matter of principle, he pressed her. "Why? You're still attractive, you're rich as hell, you're ungodly smart. Why him?"
The unspoken question hung between them. Why not Richard's father? The unnamed Englishman she still had ties to, through their son.
"Because he wore me down. Okay? Satisfied? I gave up fighting." Heard her own voice, bitter, raw.
"Shit, Leen, that's no reason."
"I don't want to talk about it."
Spring was in the air. Dan continued his snit, attempting to bring her to heel. Angeline remained stone-silent for the most part, speaking only in answer to direct questions. The change in her behavior had the whole office on eggshells. One of the vice-presidents even whispered about "Hurricane Angeline," and wondered when it would hit. Clayton International had weathered her explosions before, but they usually only built for a day or so. This one was going to be a whopper, three weeks-plus in the making.
Ron Clayton blamed his son. "Look, Dan, I don't know what you did to Angeline, but you'd better set it right."
"I did nothing, Dad. Not a damned thing!" He told his father, pinch-mouthed with indignation, that she'd been fooling around with what's-his-face Miller. She'd even taken her shirt off in front of him, in front of them both. "She was trying to push me, Dad. I know it."
"Why, for god's sake? You're getting married in less than a year. Why would she need to push you?" Brushed aside his son's lame excuses. God, what an insufferable jerk. Poor girl. "You're not going to like hearing this any more than I like saying it, son, but Angeline's more valuable to the company than you are at this point. Make it right. Or better for her, end it. I don't care. End of discussion."
Steve kept her up-to-date on the "hurricane warnings" posted in the staff-eteria. Angeline had isolated herself in their office, leaving only for occasional meetings and to use the restroom. She came in every morning, worked through lunch and breaks, and left exactly at five every evening. A model employee. A zombie.
When he realized she was losing weight, Steve bullied her into eating. This wasn't the calm before the storm, this was something else. "Angeline?"
"Mm."
"Leen, listen to me." He shook her, hard. Her glasses fell into her lap. She looked up at him, her gray eyes flat, uncaring. "Damn it, Angeline! What's going on?"
"I don't want to talk about it." She replaced her glasses. "Have you finished the Maxwell presentation yet?"
"Fuck Maxwell, Angeline. What the hell's happening to you?"
She turned back to her computer as if he hadn't spoken. Steve gave up.
Four days later, just after lunch, of which he'd managed to make her eat exactly three bites of sandwich and nearly a dozen potato chips, the reception desk buzzed their office.
"Steve? There's someone to see Angeline. Should I bring him back?"
"Sure, why not. Can't make things worse."
Marcy tapped on the door. She offered the charming youth some advice. "Ms. Baxter's been in a hell of a mood lately. I hope you can run fast."
He smiled, and bowed elegantly to her. "No need, dear lady. She's always in a mood of one sort or another, isn't she?"
Marcy grinned and returned to her desk. She studied the three men who'd come in with the boy. They looked so familiar, but she couldn't quite place them.
"Good morrow, lady mother."
Angeline's heart skipped a beat. She spun her chair toward the door. Vaguely aware of Steve rising from his chair, she stood up. "Good morrow, Richard."
"Mr. Miller, I presume?" He smiled at Steve, who nodded. "Sweet lady, I am come on a matter of some urgency."
God damn, Steve thought, the ultimate in live theater. Curious, he watched Richard cross the room as though it were a stage.
"A cinema version of the Scottish play is in train, dear lady, and in setting the characters, we hung upon the villainess of the piece. Thy name was advanced. Mine own place is secure, admittedly minor, but definite." He kissed her hand. He grinned. She had to smile back. "I am sent by certain of our company to soften thy heart, and win for us thine ear, that our case we may lay before thee."
Her heart was thudding painfully in her chest. She pressed her free hand between her breasts. "We?"
"Debate yet rages, full and hot, over which might better seal thee to our purpose, lady mother. I, with proper filial devotion, do support my father's cause." His eyes twinkled merrily. "Suffolk's claim doth press passing strong, however, and I know not where victory may fall."
"Oh, my god." She sat down hard. "Richard, stop speaking English. Are you saying what I think you're saying?"
He dropped his theatrical delivery, and knelt beside her. "Cawdor in the summer, Mum, and we want you for Lady Macbeth. Charlie Latham's doing the whole of it. Dad's in, and Edmund as well. Please, please, please! At least let me tell them you'll think about it!"
Steve ran the names through his mind. Charlie Latham. Charles Latham? The golden boy of British movies? Edmund Suffolk? The Latham Shakespeare Company's cornerstone, and one of the handful of actors Latham used in every film? Then it hit him. The third musketeer. Geoff. Geoffrey.
"Geoffrey Carlysle." Angeline's crimson face confirmed it. He whooped. "You surely did have a life, didn't you?" Geoffrey Carlysle. The brightest star in the heavens of the theater. A man pursued by countless women, his leading ladies included. Never caught. Never a breath of scandal. Never a name linked to his. Except, obliquely, that of Edmund Suffolk, as his most frequent co-star.
Angeline ignored him. It was a stellar performance, and he knew it. He applauded her, grinning. She continued to ignore him. "I don't know, Richard. I haven't done anything since before you were born." She looked down at her son, his hands folded on her knee, his blue eyes shining under dark gold brows, and over his "Please, please, please, please" she finally said, "I'll read through with them. Once should tell us if it could work." Surely just once couldn't hurt.
He jumped up, kissed her on both cheeks, and spun her chair around. "A thousand thanks, lady mother, could ne'er be enough! Now do I fly, on the wings of the wind, to bear thine answer to the gallant gentlemen who so fervently await." He waved at Steve as he headed for the door. "Later."
"Later," Steve replied. Then he said, "Oh, fuck!" as Richard squeezed past Dan Clayton in the office doorway. Steve settled into his chair to enjoy the show.
Geoffrey Carlysle. What a comparison. Make it, Leen. Please.
"What, may I ask, was that all about?" Grit in the underwear. "Have you taken up with the Little Theater, Angie?"
Her face was stone. Steve noticed that her fingers dug into the armrests, but she showed no other sign of what she might be feeling.
"Or have you just taken up with little boys?"
Amazing that Clayton was so incredibly stupid. Did he really not know what her set mouth and flared nostrils meant?
Hurricane Angeline was about to hit the coast.
Steve punched the all-call on his phone. "Take cover immediately. Force Ten. I repeat, take cover immediately."
Richard Carlysle strode down the hallway, humming. Success! And Charlie thought I couldn't pull it off. Fat lot he knows, Richard thought.
They pounced on him directly he reached the lobby. "What did she say?" demanded Latham.
"Will she do it?" from Suffolk.
And from his father, "Did you talk her round, Richard?"
"Well...." He paused. This was his shining moment. Born and bred to the boards, he knew how to play an audience. Edmund and his father, shoulder to shoulder, equally intent. He knew that they had shared his mother as they'd shared the stage so often. His father's admission had come years after Suffolk's confession, but Richard treasured the honest answer to his question anyway. Only blood type had sorted out which of the two men started Angeline Baxter's child. They were rearing him together. It had never bothered him a bit. They look natural together, he mused.
"Richard. Please." Geoffrey Carlysle seldom found his son annoying. Why, in god's name, was he choosing now to make up for lost time?
"She'll give you a read-through."
Latham's victorious yell rattled the windows. Seeing him, jaw tilted up, one fist raised heavenward, Marcy recognized him. "Oh, my," she whispered. Just like the movie poster.
Carlysle and Suffolk gripped hands, thumped each other on the back. Richard bounced on his toes, grinning at them all. When Latham congratulated him, Richard buffed his nails on his shirt front, blew on them gently. Opened his hand to view them. "It was nothing, really."
Suffolk's hand tightened on Carlysle's. The gesture was pure Angeline. They stared at each other for a heartbeat, then each moved to shake Richard's hand.
"Take cover immediately. Force Ten. I repeat, take cover immediately." The announcement blared from a speaker somewhere on the reception desk.
"What the hell?" asked Latham.
The receptionist calmly checked her watch. She pushed a button on her phone. "1:27 pm. Whoever had 1:27 pm, stop by on your way out for the pool." She looked at the men in front of her desk. Folded her long, slender hands to hide their quiver. Said as casually as she could, "Sorry, inside joke. Hurricane Angeline's just hit."
"Pardon? Miss?"
Marcy was able to place the dark-haired, stocky man now. His beard was trimmed a little differently than when she'd last seen him, ten feet tall on the movie screen. He seemed shorter in person.
"Hurricane Angeline, Mr. Suffolk." Oh, god, imagine. Me, Marcy Andersen, talking to Edmund Suffolk! Who'd ever believe it? "Ms. Baxter has occasional.... That is, her temper...." He nodded. "Anyway, when she blows, it's Hurricane Angeline."
"Richard, was your mother upset when you left her?" the third man asked.
Mother? Marcy's mind shrieked.
"No, Dad, she was fine. She seemed fine, anyway." The boy frowned. "There was some twit popping into the office as I left, though...."
The blond man was charging down the hall, Latham and Suffolk in his wake, when Marcy finally recognized him. "Oh. My. God. That's Geoffrey Carlysle!" She hit the speed dial for Accounting. She was by hell going to get witnesses.
Carlysle crashed through the door first, world-famous face set in a world-famous expression of righteous fury. Backing him up as always were Edmund Suffolk, grim with rage, and Charles Latham, fists at the ready. Holy mother of pearl, thought Steve. The knights are storming the fucking castle to rescue the lady fair. And they were not acting. This was real. Steve whistled softly. "I would not want to be facing that. No sirree bob."
Richard stopped beside him. "Just like the movies, eh?" The boy was grinning, excited. "That's him, then?" he asked, jerking a thumb toward Clayton.
Steve laughed, caught up in the moment. "It was."
Dan released Angeline's arm. She jerked away from him violently. The red mark of her hand stood out on his pale face. He tried to look stern as he saw his father skid to a halt inside the door, mouth falling open. "Angie? Would you care to explain yourself?"
She barely heard him. "Geoff. Ned. Oh, my god." She never heard whatever mealy-mouthed nonsense he babbled as she threw herself at the two men.
Suffolk caught her in a bearhug that made her ribs creak, kissed her soundly, his tongue far from subtle in filling her mouth. When she was breathless from his attentions, he passed her to Carlysle. Who frenched her just a bit less noticeably. Then she was handed to Latham, who forbore to kiss her, settling for a whirl-around hug instead. Angeline was crying, and laughing, and dizzy from the whirl. Latham stepped back a bit to let the other two sandwich her in their arms.
"Just like old times!" He laughed, his head thrown back, hands on his hips. Shouted exultantly, "Ah, Richard, the stars are set right in their courses once more!" Energetically pounded the two men's backs.
Ronald Clayton was completely confused. "Miller? What the hell?"
"Deee-lighted, Mr. Clayton! Meet Richard Carlysle, he's Leen's kid." Laughter bubbled up from his belly as Clayton and Richard shook hands. "You may recognize his dad, the blond over there? Tongue in her mouth? Geoffrey Carlysle? And the other guy giving Leen a feel is Edmund Suffolk. Poor Latham's odd-man-out, looks like. They're actors. You know how these theater people are, Mr. Clayton. So dramatic."
Ronald Clayton was no longer confused. Just completely dazed. He managed to shake it enough to say, "Wedding's off, I'd say. Good for her!"
Angeline knew she was lost from the moment they burst through the office door. She'd been so careful, all these years. She'd never gone to the movies, never looked at celebrity magazines. Hardly watched television. And she'd been most careful during her visits to Richard. Sometimes, she'd hear Geoff's laugh, far off, in another room. Rarely, Ned's bass roar would echo down a hall as they worked on lines. They'd respected her painful request, and stayed clear of her while she played with her son.
It had never occurred to any of them that she could abort. They hid her advancing pregnancy by going into seclusion in Yorkshire, under pretenses of thrashing out a difficult script. She'd lost her scholarship, lost her place in school, and felt she'd lost nothing. She gained a son. Richard was born in a huge bedroom in Charlie's rented house, where the four of them, and Charlie's wife Catherine, were living. Catherine was the only one who understood Angeline's desperate need to avoid publicity. Angeline was eighteen when she had somehow captured the interest of not just one rising young actor, but two. So very young herself. But she wasn't an idiot. A public display of their menage a trois would destroy their careers, and her life.
Her parents never knew. She returned from her two years abroad a quiet, mature woman. Who had left her heart and soul behind. To her family's increasing concerns that "something's wrong," she replied only that she hadn't met anyone in the States worth her time. Finished with college, she could have settled down quite comfortably with her huge trust fund for company. She didn't dare. Every minute unoccupied was a minute filled with memories. And guilt. She knew she'd hurt them. Confounded them. Despite all their protestations of love, despite her own, she left them. In her conversations with Catherine Latham, she learned that they had taken her warning to heart, and had become the epitome of discretion. It didn't ease her pain, though. She couldn't see any way to make it work out.
Geoff's face as he stormed into the room. Ned's bull shoulders bunched, ready to pound something. She was lost.
Eventually Dan's whine registered on her. When Ned released
her mouth to gasp for air, she managed to twist around. His face was unbelieving. She felt Geoff's hand sliding under her blouse, and laughed from sheer joy. Nothing could disturb their careers now, nothing. And they still wanted her. Angeline couldn't reach her left hand, on Ned's broad back. She settled for wiggling her fingers at Latham. "D'y'mind, Charlie?" Grinning hugely, he pulled the ring off her finger.
Richard snatched it from his grasp before he could hand it to Angeline. Extended his hand, ring balanced on the palm. "My mother isn't interested anymore." Then, when Dan didn't take the ring, he tucked it solicitously into Clayton's shirt pocket. Patted it down. And closed the older man's gaping jaw with his fist.
As Clayton collapsed, Richard Carlysle turned to his mother. "I don't like anyone making you upset, Mum." He touched her rosy cheek. "Carry on."
Keeping tight hold on Angeline, the two men swung to acknowledge the cheers and applause in the hallway. "Curtain call, wildcat," Carlysle laughed. The three of them bowed, and Suffolk roared when Latham ceremoniously presented Richard as "the hero of the day."
Steve had never seen her this way. Sparkling, eyes flashing. So very, very alive. It was more than just theatrical pleasure. Ah, well, all good things come to an end, he thought. "Mr. Clayton? I'll help you haul him out if you want."
"Hmm? Oh, yes. Thanks, Miller." Ron reached down and most unceremoniously grabbed his son's arm. "Never could figure out how she stood him. Even his mother doesn't like him."
"Ron?"
"Yes, Angeline?"
"If you're a smart man, you'll double Steve's salary. Maybe he'll stick around."
He studied her face. Knew without a doubt that she was out the door. "I'm a smart man, Angeline." And to the man yanking his son's other arm, he said, "And you're a very lucky man, Miller." He closed the door behind them.
In all of his sixteen years, Richard Carlysle had never seen his mother truly happy. Among his memories of childhood were fragments of torment. He'd hear his father, and glance at her. He'd catch just a glimpse of the agony in her soul before she could ruthlessly suppress it. Once, he'd heard his dad and Edmund practicing a fencing scene upstairs, feet scuffing on the floor, voices raised, foils crashing, hurling lines at one another. A choking sound burst from her, and she ran into the bathroom. The door did little to muffle her ripping, terrible sobs. The noises from upstairs ceased abruptly. Utter silence in the house while she regained her self-control. He'd believed it was only coincidence until he'd seen their faces after she left.
Latham watched the boy carefully. Empirical knowledge is one thing, he reasoned, but practical knowledge can be a stone bitch. He remembered the first time he'd realized what they were about. Draped over the sides of a wingback chair in Carlysle's flat, he'd turned from the script they'd all been reading through. Noticed that Carlysle and Suffolk bracketed Angeline on the sofa, that she held a single script for the three of them. And noticed that each man had a hand between her thighs. He remembered thinking, stupidly, can't they feel the other...? Then she pressed her thighs together. And he knew. The whole moment of awareness had taken virtually no time at all, and his friends hadn't even paid him the slightest attention. He'd been shocked at first, not by Suffolk and Carlysle, god, he'd known about that for two years. It was the inclusion of Angeline that sent it all over the top. And trying to explain it to Catherine later.... Her calm "I knew that, dear. Where've you been?" So he watched Richard.
For his part, Richard privately admitted to prurient curiosity. Publicly, however.... He chose to watch Latham watching him. Tipped an eyebrow at the older man. Dared him to comment. Grinned when he didn't. After what he hoped was a suitable interval, Richard said to the trio behind him, "I'm for the hotel."
"You can stay at my house, Richard. Charlie. It's huge, really, there's plenty of room." His mother's breathless voice undid him.
Crimson, and thanking whatever god protects children from seeing their parents in flagrante, Richard said with admirable calm, "Thank you, lady mother, but no thanks. I'd like to get a good night's sleep. I reserve the right to doubt whether your house is that huge."
Latham howled. "I'm with you, lad!" He clapped Richard on the shoulder.
"Hell with the house, how big is the bed?" asked Suffolk.
"Five quid says it's kings-sized!" Latham dug out his wallet.
"Save your money, Charlie. It is." Angeline's eyes darkened, and her smile faltered slightly. "I don't sleep well."
Carlysle and Suffolk exchanged glances over her head. They'd discussed it many, many times. All these years, they'd had each other, even with the restrictions imposed by discretion. And they'd had Richard, who was blood and bone of their Angeline. She had no one.
"You will tonight, dear heart, and every night hereafter," Geoffrey Carlysle whispered in her ear. "You won't be left alone again, I swear."
The ringing of the phone dragged her out of sleep. Angeline draped herself across Ned's wide chest to answer it. "Mm. Hello?"
"Gigi?"
"Mother, please don't call me that. My name is Angeline." Her eyes drifted closed. She inhaled the scent of him.
"Angeline. Sorry. Did you see CNN last night, Angeline?"
"No. I was occupied." She bounced slightly as Ned chuckled. Squeaked as Geoff's hand caressed her hip.
"Your father says there was something on about Clayton International."
"Mm. Is this going somewhere, Mother?"
"This is," Geoff murmured, his fingers inching over her hip toward her groin.
"Stop that! No, Mother, not you."
"Your father says there was something on about those British actors he likes, the ones from the movies? showing up at Clayton. Did you see them, Gigi?"
"Yes, Mother, I saw them. Quite well. Up close and personal." Ned chuckled again, stroked her hair.
"Did you really see them, dear, or are you humoring me? Your father says--"
"This is ridiculous. I'm going to the bathroom now, Mother. Ask them yourself." She climbed over Suffolk, left the phone on his stomach. Sighing resignedly, he picked it up.
"Gigi?"
"No, Edmund." He frowned at Carlysle. "Calls our girl Gigi, like she's a bloody poodle."
"Excuse me? Did you say--"
"Edmund Suffolk. Are you really this daft? God, I've no patience with this sort of nonsense." He flung the phone at Carlysle, then rolled out of bed and headed toward the bathroom.
Carlysle heard the woman's irritating voice buzzing from the receiver. He squinted at the clock, then reached for his spectacles. "Madame, are you aware that it is only six-flaming-twenty-two in the morning?"
"Who is this?"
"Geoffrey Carlysle. Who is this?"
A blessed moment of silence. "I thought you said you were Edmund Suffolk."
"No, Ned said that. Madame, I have no idea who you are, but please have the courtesy to ring back at a decent hour." He hung up the phone, then took the precaution of unplugging its cord. He lay on his back, spectacles still on.
Angeline gently removed them and placed them on the bedside table. She kissed him tenderly. He smiled up at her. Thought about how she'd looked yesterday when they'd entered her office. Her eyes, dark-circled and defeated. What a change. He drew her to his chest.
"No offense, wildcat, but your mother sounds an idiot." The bed rocked slightly as Suffolk settled himself. He turned to them and began rubbing her back.
"I know. Half of her sentences start with "Your father says...." It's like she's got no mind of her own. And she has no concept of privacy."
"Obviously."
She felt Ned snuggle against her. She giggled.
"Dear god, Suffolk, haven't you had enough?" Geoff asked.
"Never, Carlysle. Never." But he only nuzzled the back of her neck, burying his face in her long hair. He wrapped an arm over her, stroked his fingertips along her arm where it rested across Geoff's chest. Fell asleep with his arm beside hers, his hand over hers, and Geoffrey's soft chuckle in his ears.
Carlysle was the last to drift off. Angeline's breasts against him, the weight of their arms upon him, left him wishing they were all a few years younger. He thought back to the days when they never had enough of each other. His memories settled on the events that had turned their twosome into a threesome. Seventeen years ago. Or it might have been yesterday, so crystalline was it all, in his mind.
Catherine Latham had introduced an American girl, barely eighteen, to Charlie. Told him Angeline Baxter had the most amazingly emotive voice she'd ever heard, and he'd be fifty kinds of fool if he didn't find a place for her in the company. The three young men had glanced at each other. Catherine meant well, surely, Miss Baxter, Charlie began, but.... The voluptuous child-woman drew herself up, turned to Catherine, and told her in no uncertain terms that she really hadn't time, patience, or interest in proving her worth to someone like Latham. By the end of her speech, Carlysle's blood was fire in his veins. Suffolk's face had flushed to the roots of his hair, he remembered quite clearly. He'd never seen Ned blush before. Her voice was smoke and velvet laid lightly over cold steel. She was passion incarnate.
She was out the door before any of them could move to stop her.
Now you've done it, Catherine had sighed. I'll have to convince her all over again. She followed the American into the street. Their argument drifted back through the open windows. He and Edmund had stared at one another, examined one another's faces carefully. Discussed it briefly, awkwardly, when Latham went outside to add his words to Catherine's.
God in heaven, Suffolk had said hoarsely, that a woman could make me feel.... His own choked comment, much the same. From somewhere in his wildest imagination the idea sprang, and he heard himself ask Edmund if he thought she'd.... Would she go for.... The both of us? Together? D'y'think?
Latham stuck his head through the window before Suffolk, scarlet, could fumble a reply. Help us talk her round, you two. Please.
How could they do aught else? The four of them had coaxed the angry woman back into the flat. Had coaxed her into reading a bit with them. Had coaxed her into the company.
She was a student, they learned. Not on holiday as they'd originally guessed, but on a two-years scholarship. Angeline had arrived in England only three days ago, and had met Catherine at a bookshop. During dinner she'd laughed, her face bright with pleasure, and confessed she'd discovered that books were her great weakness. She'd already bought so many, she'd have to take a larger place. They'd stumbled over themselves, he and Suffolk, to talk to her.
Looking back on it, Carlysle realized that Catherine had known where this would lead from the first moment she saw the three of them together. Her smug, gentle, Mona Lisa smile that whole first night. His lips curved, and he rested his hand upon their arms. Quiet, unassuming Catherine. The consummate stage manager. She'd managed them, all right.
In the days that followed, Angeline had attended rehearsals as her schedule allowed. By turns fierce, and charming, and surprisingly shy, she'd wormed her way thoroughly into their very souls. Suffolk waxed quite poetic over her, when she wasn't around, and devolved to tongue-tied babble when she was. God, how that had cheesed him off. And that was what broke the siege.
One afternoon, they were sitting in his flat, running lines. Opening night was fast approaching, and the pressure was building like a storm front. Suffolk had arrived late. He didn't know that Angeline was in the kitchen brewing tea. He'd suddenly thrown his script across the room. It had smashed into the wall quite loudly. He'd shaken his fists, and bellowed. She'd come to the kitchen door. He couldn't see her, although Carlysle could. Suffolk had poured out his heart's desires, a marvel of eloquence delivered in a voice full of anguish at his bumbling inadequacy, full of hunger for the very woman who stood behind him as he raged, her small, square hands pressed flat to her belly.
Every detail of her was graven in his memory. Her face flushed. Her nipples grew hard, pushed against her thin blue tee shirt. Her nostrils flared. Her full breasts heaved with her efforts to pull air into her lungs. Her thigh muscles tensed. Her gray eyes, luminous, hot, met his a heartbeat before Suffolk said, You want her too, Carlysle, god, we've talked about it often enough! Why can't we find the balls to--
He broke off as he realized Geoff's attention was not quite on him, but focused on something a little past him. His dark eyes had gone amazingly wild, his fists clenched. God in heaven, he'd whispered, she's right behind me, isn't she. And here you've let me....
Her fingers brushed his back. When he turned to her, she fell eagerly into his arms. Ned had claimed the first kiss. Geoff had taken her virginity, although he hadn't known that until much later. Angeline had been so delightfully responsive. He had no experience with women. He'd thought her sharp gasp as he sank into her was only pleasure. God, that first night. A glorious blur of twining, striving bodies, soft cries and moans, a kaleidoscope of taste and touch and sound and scent.
Richard had to have been conceived that night, Carlysle knew. They'd been quite careful to use condoms after. The two men discussed it, and knew it would be the height of selfishness to risk her future, and possibly her health, for their pleasure. A thin shield of latex, they found, was no real hindrance to that.
As he fell asleep, he wondered a little whimsically if she'd have another boy, or a girl this time. Because they'd forgotten about the damned condoms. Again.