Fire Under Snow (2 page)

The table number was the one she was sitting at. Her worst fears founded, her eyes flashed to Jessica, whose smug smile proclaimed her the culprit. How could she do this to her? How had she found out? The spotlight swooped and drenched her in its beam.

“I think our birthday girl is shy. How about a round of applause to encourage the little lady?”

Shane Peters said, putting his own hands together.

The other participants had all been good sports; every one of them had cheerfully entered into the spirit of the thing. There was no way she could gracefully duck out of this ordeal. “I'll talk to you later,” she said to Jessica in a muttered aside as she rose to her feet.

The spotlight marked her progress down the steps. She held her chin high and kept her eyes front until she reached the stage. It was raised, obviously mounted by steps. Everyone else had seemed to know automatically the point to make for. In her acute self-consciousness she was less perceptive and faltered.       ,

“To your left, Lorraine,” Shane Peters instructed.

Even as her brain worked out which way was left, a hand like an electric charge cupped her elbow, guiding her the right way. She looked up to thank the man who had jumped to her rescue, and the words dried in her mouth. Yet why was she surprised to see it was Noel Britton? Hadn't the instinctive reaction of her skin to his touch identified him as the disturbing stranger?

“Thank you,” she managed.

He nodded curtly in acknowledgement, but his steel-gray eyes were kindly and not contemptuous. His hand left her elbow, leaving her feeling strangely deserted and alone even though Shane Peters's hand was reaching down to assist her the rest of the way.

“Don't be nervous. Shane will look after you.”

From a distance, by his style of dress and the way he did his hair, the show's compère could be mistaken for a much younger man. Close up, it was a shock to realize that his age couldn't be much short of fifty.

“That's a lovely dress you're wearing. Isn't she a little firecracker, folks? I understand it's your birthday today. How old are you, darling?”

“Twenty-three.” He was holding the microphone too far away, and it came out as a whisper.

“Speak up, darling. I can't hear you.”

“Twenty-three.” This time he brought the microphone up close and she appeared to be shouting.

“That's a lovely age to be. I wish I were twenty-three. Still” – his eyes danced with mischief – “I can wait.”

He gave the cue to the stagehand to come on with a bouquet of flowers, which he took from the youth and handed to Lorraine. “Happy birthday, darling. Do I get a little kiss?” he inquired impishly.

She knew she was being maneuvered for laughs, but she wasn't quick enough to do anything about it. He had deliberately put the flowers in her hands at an awkward angle. He leaned forward to kiss her and stopped. “This could be dangerous,” he said, carefully pointing the stalks the other way. The audience loved it. They rocked in their seats with laughter. Shane Peters bent to kiss her and squeezed her hand in token apology as if to say, “It's only a bit of fun.” Then she was allowed to leave the stage.

A hand came up to assist her down the steps. The tingle in her fingertips told her it belonged to Noel Britton.

Once again she thanked him for his kindness.

He said, “Would I be right in thinking you feel too much in the public eye as it is and that it would prolong the agony if I invited you to my table for a drink?”

“Yes, you would be right.”

“Later, perhaps?” he said, his left eyebrow flaring in speculation.

“I think not. Thank you all the same, Mr. Britton.”

“You have the advantage of me.” Her green-flecked eyes challenged that. No one would ever have an advantage over Noel Britton. “I know you are called Lorraine, but I don't know your full name.”

Smiling coolly, she said, “That's all right. I do.”

He wasn't used to women withholding things from him. Their names ... their bodies. The hand that had provided welcome assistance down the steps now was unwelcomely tight around her arm, a steel trap that would not free her until she gave him what he wanted.

There was no other way. She could have stood up against his greater physical strength and his iron will, but, as if the odds weren't already weighted in his favor, he had on his side the enthralled attention of every eye in the club, or so it seemed to Lorraine as she squirmed in embarrassment.

She surrendered her name with a dignified lift of her pointed little chin. “Lorraine Marshall.” It secured her release. As she walked away from the tall, distinguished-looking figure, it was not all the other eyes she was most conscious of, but his eyes. Gray eyes that had regarded her with undisguised interest. Were they following her now to derive the last scrap of amusement? The cruel clamp on her arm had provided the clue. He was the type who would delight in this kind of taunting.

She resumed her seat, hoping her friends would refrain from commenting on her heightened color.

Jessica was looking at her in awe, admiration and envy. “You move in high circles,” she gasped. “What did he say to you?”

“Surely you heard every word he said, and also my replies once he'd stopped fooling around with the mike.”

“Not the compère – Noel Britton.”

“Nothing much,” she said, dismissing him with a shrug. “What on earth made you do that to me? You know how much I hate to be the center of attention. How did you know it was my birthday?”

“Ah – that would be telling.”

Lorraine supplied the answer herself. “You got it from Records. It was a mean trick.”

“I'm sorry,” Jessica said, not looking sorry at all. “Me, now, I would have lapped it up. Honestly, I didn't realize you would find it so awful. Anyway, you can relax now. It's over.”

She hoped it was. But it was a small sliver of hope. One that, nevertheless, grew stronger until she could rest easy, having convinced herself that Jamie wouldn't have witnessed her impromptu stage appearance from behind the scenes. He had come a long way in three years. He was very much the big star now. In the event of his having arrived at the club, he would be safely tucked away in his dressing room, either putting on his stage clothes or relaxing. He wouldn't be standing in the wings, gleaning all he could from the other acts as he had done in the struggling days of his career when she knew him.

He had been like an unpolished diamond then. The potential was there – he had the voice and the melting, little-boy looks – but he'd lacked the sparkle. That had somehow been acquired along the way. He'd always talked big. He had promised himself a large house in the country with its own heated swimming pool, a car with his personalized number plate, a holiday home abroad. It wasn't the dangling carrot of a life of luxury that had attracted her to him. If anything, that would have put her off, because she wasn't grasping by nature. She would have given anyone who suggested otherwise the sharp edge of her tongue. Easy going for the most part, she could speak her mind when the occasion demanded it. Her father used to say, “You've inherited your mother's fine features, high cheekbones, heart-shaped face, beautiful green- flecked eyes and golden flood of hair, but, heaven help you, girl, my temper!”

So it wasn't the things Jamie promised, it was Jamie himself. His winsome appeal had spoken to her strongly, and she had mistaken her responses for love. In a way it might have been love. There are different levels of loving. She had loved him with her eyes and not her heart. He was twenty-five then, although he'd looked about seventeen. In the full magnificence of male youth, he was like a god on a pedestal to her. At first glance there had seemed about him an innocence and purity that was almost feminine. Later she realized his gentleness was a form of weakness, not a praiseworthy characteristic in anyone, but worse in a man than in a woman. There was no saving sweetness anywhere in his nature. The softly rounded curve of cheek and chin and the fullness of his mouth masked a hard streak of indifference that was to bring her more pain than if he'd lifted his hand to her in cruelty and assaulted her. Success was more than a dream he would work hard to realize; it was an obsession. If anyone got in his way, that was just too bad – for them.

She had reasoned all this out later. At the time her brain hadn't been functioning too well. She had still been mourning the death of her father, so perhaps all the tears weren't for herself. The thought had even crossed her mind that the tears were some kind of delayed reaction, a penance she had to pay for not being able to weep for her father. The death of her father had shocked her so profoundly that she had been too numb to feel, to shed the normal tears of grief. It was as though Jamie's defection pulled her round and unlocked the tears she hadn't been able to shed a few bitter months before when her father had died. She was made to feel, cry, sorrow, and, painful as it was, it proved her salvation.

If she'd known that Jamie was topping the bill she would have made some excuse to decline Jessica's invitation to join the party. Now, despite everything, a tiny part of her was glad she had accepted in ignorance. She was curious to know how the intervening years had dealt with Jamie. Three years isn't all that long when measured against time; but, measured against events, it can sometimes seem to be a lifetime. They had been good years for Jamie. He'd risen from an unknown supporting artist to a top recording star. Had he been able to adapt? Was he equal to it? Suddenly acquired wealth brings its own crop of casualties. Pressures build up, false props are relied on. The Jamie she had known was not noted for his sagacity. He was neither prudent nor level-headed, and she knew from bitter experience that he crumbled in a crisis.

Her own foolishness struck her. It was incredible that she could still worry about him after all that had passed between them. In any case, it was totally unnecessary. He had his own built- in buoyancy, so that, whoever else sank, he would always remain afloat. He was a superficial person but a likable one; if all else failed, he could charm his way out of the darkest corner. He had even made it seem right when he . . .

No more time for thoughts. They were playing Jamie's music now. Shane Peters made the announcement, the velvet curtains swung away and the spotlight centered on Jamie's dipped, golden head. He wore a white satin suit and a deeply frilled midnight-blue shirt that was casually unbuttoned to reveal a medallion suspended on a chunky gold chain. In the old days the chain would have been silver. Apart from that, he was just as she remembered him. He had more polish, more confidence, but, even though he was three years older, which brought his age up to twenty-eight, he still looked seventeen.

How do you do it, Jamie
? she wondered, just as she was to wonder how such a lightweight person, whose keynote was insincerity, could reach out to an audience and within minutes hold that audience in the palm of his hand.

He began by lifting his chin slowly for maximum dramatic effect. His candyfloss smile – sweet but with no substance to it – singled out every female in the room, making her feel as though he was lighting up just for her. His program was more varied than in the old days. He switched from a new hit to a nostalgic oldie; one minute her foot was tapping, the next her throat was constricting. So much she remembered; so much more she'd forgotten. He put down his guitar and went into an informal chat session. Although it was new, she remembered it was something he'd wanted to introduce. But the hesitation, the break in his voice, the little laugh – these things were familiar. They were tricks he'd applied in the old days when a note was beyond his pitch. He used to spend hours before his mirror getting the timing right, perfecting his facial expressions to make it seem off-the-cuff, ensuring that it had the ring of spontaneity.

When the curtain finally closed after three encores – the audience would have kept him there all night – Jessica said breathlessly, “He's magic! What charisma!”

During his chat spot Jamie had announced that he would shortly be leaving for Las Vegas, where he was booked to appear. He'd also mentioned that he would be in the foyer after the show to sign copies of his latest record.

The girls were discussing this now. Jessica said, “I love him to bits. I'm going to buy a record and get him to autograph it.”

Lorraine was the only one not eager to do the same. “I won't wait with you. I'll make my own way home.”

“How?” one of the others said.

“I'll phone for a taxi.”

“It will cost you the earth. Why don't you wait with us? Even if you don't want to buy a record, you're surely not going to miss the chance of seeing him up close.”

Jessica was eyeing Lorraine shrewdly. She informed the girl who had just spoken, “Save your breath. Wild horses wouldn't drag Lorraine away. Talking of horses, you're a dark one, Lorraine.” A tormenting yet not unkind smile touched her mouth. “I know why you don't want to meet Jamie Gray.”

“You do?” Lorraine queried throatily.

“Correct me if I'm wrong,” Jessica said with irritating slowness, “but I think you've got bigger fish to fry.”

“Bigger fish?” Lorraine repeated stupidly.

“Don't play the innocent. We saw you and Noel Britton with your heads together. You were arranging to meet later. In fact, it's my belief that he's waiting for you right now at the bar. Do you deny it?”

Lorraine said, on a brittle laugh, “It seems I've been found out.” Her brain was working frantically. If she didn't string along with this supposition of Jessica's, her kindhearted friend would never allow her to call a taxi and go home by herself. But she simply could not countenance the consequences of a face-to-face meeting with Jamie in these surroundings, under the eyes of her friends. Distasteful as it was to her to lie, she could see no other course.