Lauren's Designs (22 page)

The chauffeur had opened the trunk and was taking out the bags. Lauren went to him, took her case, smiled her thanks—she couldn’t manage to speak—and looked around for a taxi. She saw one and gestured the driver over.

The chauffeur appeared at her shoulder, a worried expression on his face.

Lauren found her voice. “It’s all right. I’ve thanked Mr. Landrill for the lift. Thank you, also.”

She climbed up into the big boxlike cab. The chauffeur handed in her bag and shut the door. He still looked worried. He touched his cap to her as the cab drew away from the curb.

“Where to, miss?” asked the cabby.

“The Bristol Hotel, please,” Lauren said. She was glad of the gloomy interior of the musty old cab. She could cry without anyone seeing her. But somehow, she didn’t.

It was a very short trip to the Bristol. When she got there, she found that Dani and Nella hadn’t checked in yet. Also no one had canceled her reservation, thank God. She signed the register and followed the bellboy up to her room. It was small, tastefully decorated, and empty. It also had a lock and key, which she used as soon as the boy had left her suitcases. Slowly she took off her clothing, dug into her suitcase for a nightgown, and got into bed.

I wish, she thought drearily, I was dead.

And then she cried. For a long time.

It was the telephone ringing that awakened her. She made no effort to answer it. However, a few minutes later, there was a pounding on the door. Lauren said nothing. And then Dani’s voice, shrill enough to be heard through the door, called to her, “Lauren! Are you in there?”

Wearily, feeling more like a hundred than thirty-five, Lauren padded over and unlocked the door. Dani took one look at her face and grabbed her. “It’s all right, Lauren, we’re here now. Nella and I will look after you, poor baby.”

Looking into those concerned brown eyes, Lauren felt the first break in the iron agony of grief that had held her imprisoned.

The models insisted that she accompany them to the theater. They had managed to get three tickets, they informed her proudly, to a hilariously funny show that had been running for nine years. Lauren glanced at her watch. Five o’clock. She forced a smile. Right now she wanted nothing more than to hide in her room until it was time to catch the plane for Los Angeles, but Dani and Nella’s loyalty demanded a cheerful response.

“We’ll have to try some of that famous British high tea, then,” she said.

“Time? No way,” Dani advised her positively. “The show begins at six-thirty. I guess that’s for the convenience of people who want to dine in style after the show, at nine or ten o’clock. But we’re ravenous. We’ll dress and have dinner before we go.”

Hastily Lauren calculated. Shower, dress, eat, taxi to show. Between five and six-thirty?

“You’re planning to snatch a bite in the coffee shop?” she asked.

Dani gave her a superior smile. “The Bristol Hotel doesn’t have a coffee shop,” she announced. “I already checked. But they do have a gorgeous maître d’ and he says he’ll serve us dinner if we get there by five-thirty. Not all their guests want to wait till ten o’clock to have a meal.”

Lauren couldn’t help smiling. Dani was incorrigible. Lauren only hoped it wouldn’t occur to her to ask some handsome guard at Buckingham Palace to give her a private tour.

All through the elegant meal served in the Bristol’s spacious dining room, Dani and Nella chatted excitedly. There were only two other tables occupied. At one sat an elderly couple in tweeds, who apparently had nothing to say to one another, but ate every course with relish. At the other table sat two men in faultless evening dress. One of them was a good-looking middle-aged man. To Dani’s dissatisfaction, neither of them spared a look at the other diners, but instead carried on a low-voiced, intense argument throughout the meal.

The food was superb: lobster bisque, Cornish game hens, asparagus, accompanied by a fine white wine, and then raspberries in thick cream. They had no time to linger over coffee. Lauren signed for the meal and left a generous tip. Dani had been right. She was welcoming the trip to the theater, since no one could reach her by phone or in person while she was there.

And then she though bitterly, who am I trying to fool? I’m just afraid he won’t want to reach me ever again. And I don’t want to sit around waiting for him not to call.

Dani noted the bitter droop to Lauren’s lips but said nothing. She didn’t believe in asking questions about personal troubles. She told herself she might have to do something if she knew the score, but that cynical attitude was just was just a pose. She really couldn’t bear to see anyone hurt. Not knowing was a defense. She urged Lauren to get a taxi so they could get to the theater before curtain time.

“It’s only six o’clock,” protested Lauren. “The way we raced through the meal, the maître d’ will never forgive us.”

Lauren found herself laughing with her friends at the naughty, funny play. Nella bought chocolates and tea in the intermission. They were still chuckling over certain lines and actions in the play as they got out of the taxi and went into the small but luxurious lobby at the hotel. “Thank you for tonight. I really enjoyed it,” Lauren said.

They got their keys and went toward the elevator.

“They call it a
lift
here,” Nella whispered.

“Well, it does,” argued Dani, who already showed signs of becoming an Anglo-phile. “I’d rather be lifted than elevated.”

While Nella was puzzling this out, they reached their floor and went toward their rooms. Taped on Lauren’s door was a large, official-looking envelope. Lauren took it down, opened her door, and said goodnight to the models. Nella looked anxious, but Dani pushed her into their room, which was next to Lauren’s.

With her door locked behind her, Lauren opened the envelope with shaking fingers. Whatever he had to say, she wasn’t going to get mixed up with Mike Landrill ever again. It hurt too much. She took a deep breath. She had to know what the note said, even at the risk of further pain. She took the folded letter out of the envelope. A slip of paper fell out to the floor. Absently, Lauren bent to retrieve it. And then she saw what it was.

It was a check for twenty thousand dollars. And it was made out to Lauren Rose, and signed, in a slashing hand, Mike Landrill.

Lauren felt such a gust of rage that she shook with it. That bastard. That rotten excuse for a human being. How dare he send her money to pay her off as though she were some cheap tramp! Not pausing to reflect that at twenty thousand, the tramp could hardly be called cheap,. Lauren jammed the unread letter and the check into her handbag and almost ran back downstairs and out of the hotel.

There was a taxi waiting near the entrance. Lauren flagged it imperiously.

“The Ritz,” she snapped.

Her screeching rage hadn’t had time to cool down when she was deposited in front of his hotel. She strode into the lobby, and demanded to be told the number of Mr. Landrill’s suite.

“Is he expecting you, madame?” enquired the clerk.

“Oh, yes,” said Lauren loftily. She would have told any lie in the book in order to throw the check in his rotten face.

When she had the number, Lauren lost no time in going up to the correct floor. She strode along the corridor, her anger carrying her. When she reached the door, she hammered on it with her fist and then turned the handle. It gave. She flung the door open.

“What kept you?”

Michael Landrill was lounging on a comfortable-looking couch, dressed in the dark-blue robe she well remembered. Near him was a trolley loaded with silver chafing dishes and trays of food. Coffee bubbled in a percolator, its fragrance mouth-watering.

Mike stood up with a grin. “I knew the check would bring you if the note didn’t.”

Lauren was dizzy with the conflict of emotions that pounded at her brain. “What note? I didn’t read the letter. When I saw that check I could have—I could have—”

“Thanked me nicely?” There was derisive laughter in his words, but his eyes held a light Lauren didn’t understand. “Kissed me? Killed me?”

Lauren gritted her teeth. “Of all the rotten, low-down, creeps I ever met.” She drew a breath. “If you think you’re going to give me money for what was between us, you’ve got another think coming. All I want to do is forget that I ever met you.”

“That’s going to be kind of hard,” Mike said in a surprisingly calm voice.

It caught Lauren’s attention. “What do you mean?” she asked suspiciously.

“Well, if we’re going on a honeymoon, we sure can’t pretend we don’t know each other. People would think it was peculiar,” he added in a tone of kindly explanation.

Lauren gaped at him. Was he crazy? What was this about honeymoons?

The man actually laughed! Lauren surged forward, her hand raised to strike the laughter off his mocking face. He caught it, and since it held her purse, he took that from her and opened it. He extracted the letter.

“I knew you’d bring it,” he said, pleased. “You probably intended stuffing it down my throat.”

“How right you are,” Lauren snapped.

“Did you read the letter?” Mike persisted.

“No! The check fell out and I saw it. I got so angry—”

Mike grinned. “It worked, didn’t it? I knew that if the note didn’t—”

Lauren snatched the note out of his hands rudely. She flipped it open. It read:

Dear Lauren,

Please come to the Ritz and let me beg your pardon properly for the foolish, stupid, childish act I put on this afternoon. I guess it was the last strike back of a bitter conditioned reflex I’ve been saddled with since I was a kid.

Or perhaps it was bridal nerves?

Anyway, I’ve been fighting it out in my mind, and the answer is simple. I’ve got to marry you, so I can have exclusive rights to giving you your showers. Also feeding you midnight suppers, and swimming with you at the crack of dawn, and maybe letting you win a few more races. Also I can’t jeopardize my chances of signing you for Landrill’s, exclusively. My lawyer would never forgive me if I lost him our chance at September Song! To say nothing of my chef, who feels he has never been properly appreciated.

So please come, Lauren.

I beg you. My lawyer begs you. My chef begs you—or would, if he realized the problem.

If you say no to this triple plea, then take the money and spend it on a smear campaign of Landrill’s; or buy Herbert an exploding cigar. Or something.

I hope you’ll come. Because I love you.

Lauren folded the note slowly. She wanted to look at him, and yet she was almost afraid to. What would she see on his face?

And then, suddenly, it didn’t matter. Because she loved him so desperately that nothing in life would ever have been truly joyous again if she had lost him.

She dropped the letter and and faced him fully. And he wasn’t laughing. There was a look she had never seen before, a searching, hopeful, vulnerable sweetness and appeal that broke down every defense she might have erected. She ran to him, and his arms were open and ready when she reached him.

“Oh, Lauren,” he said, and his deep voice trembled with the love and relief he felt. “Oh, Lauren, thank God. I thought I’d blown the one chance I’ve ever had at the real thing.”

His kiss, hard and demanding, expressed his need. And then it softened, and became deliciously seductive. Lauren opened her love-drugged eyes. He was smiling down at her, so pleased and satisfied at the success of his stratagem that she had to chuckle.

“You said, once,” he stated, “that you didn’t want a shipboard romance. Well, I’m afraid you’re going to have to settle for one.” He waited, eyes glinting with mischief, for the expected flare-up.

Laurel smiled demurely. She
trusted
the guy. Still, not to spoil his joke, she said, “What do you mean, shipboard romance?”

He laughed triumphantly. “I’ve just booked us for the
Queen Elizabeth’s
world tour. And am I going to romance you for three months!”

“I love you, too,” Lauren whispered.

About the author

Elizabeth Chater was the author of more than 24 novels and countless short stories. She received a B.A. from the University of British Columbia and an M.A. from San Diego State University, and joined the faculty of the latter in 1963 where she began a lifelong friendship with science fiction author Greg Bear. She was honored with The Distinguished Teacher award in 1969, and was awarded Outstanding Professor of the Year in 1977. After receiving her Professor Emeritus, she embarked on a new career as a novelist with Richard Curtis as her agent. In the 1950s and 60s she published short stories in
Fantastic Universe Magazine
and
The Saint Mystery Magazine
, and she won the
Publisher’s Weekly
short story contest in 1975. She went on to publish 22 romance novels over an 8 year period. She also wrote under the pen names Lee Chater, Lee Chaytor, and Lisa Moore. For more information, please visit
http://www.elizabethchater.com