Smoke and Mirrors (18 page)

Grudgingly Erin admitted he was one of the few men she knew who could carry off such a gesture. And he certainly knew how to dress. Ordinarily she paid little attention to men's clothing, but Laurence's was spectacularly suited to his public persona and his lean, trim figure. He would have been a good-looking man except for those cold, knowing eyes and the cynical twist of his lips. The fresh breeze had not dislodged a single lock of his hair. Erin smiled to herself as she remembered Nick's comment: "He doesn't
go to a barber; his hairdresser comes to him, if you please. The same guy who does Reagan's hair—you noticed it's the same style,
didn't you?"

"I had a luncheon appointment with a friend," Philips went on, retaining his hold on Kay's hand.

Her smile almost matched his in cynicism. "A useful sort of friend, I presume?"

"You wound me to the heart!" He dropped her hand to press his over the organ in question. "I lingered in the hope of seeing you. I had hoped for a little private chat."

"Oh, indeed? Well, I haven't time now, Philips. My appointment is at one."

"Yes, I know." Again they exchanged knowing smiles— almost, Erin thought, like lovers who couldn't be bothered to conceal their liaison. "Afterward, then. Come, I'll escort you to the door. "

She took his arm. Erin followed; for once she didn't mind being overlooked. But when they reached the doctor's office Laurence took possession of her with the cool aplomb of an arresting officer. "I'll show Erin the sights of Middleburg, such as they are. We'll be back in half an hour. "

Erin got out one word—"But"—before she was interrupted. "I need your assistance in selecting a gift—for a lady. You can't refuse, my dear."

Laurence's glance at Kay implied she was the lady in question. Her faint frown disappeared. "I'll wait for you here," she said, turning into the office. "Don't be long."

Outflanked and outmaneuvered, Erin had no choice but to go with him. Like Joe, she wondered what he was up to. Was he planning to apologize for his performance the night before? An apology was certainly called for, but she doubted Philips Laurence was the man to make it.

Laurence's face was well known because of his television appearances; people stared and pointed, and one woman stopped him to ask for his autograph.

He made quite a performance of it, murmuring compliments and deprecating remarks; but as they walked away, leaving the fan
in a state of gaping adoration, he said, "I've seen sheep with more intelligent faces."

Erin said nothing, but her reaction would have been clear to a less perceptive student of human nature than Laurence. With a sidelong smile he said, "You think I'm a twenty-four-carat son of a bitch, don't you? Well, you're mistaken. It's only twenty-two carats." While she was trying to decide whether to respond—and what to say—he went on, in quite a different voice, "Do you like to shop?"

Another loaded question. If she refused to accept the stereotyped female role, she was letting him manipulate her into a flat-out lie.

"I do," Laurence said, without waiting for an answer. "The truth is, there's not much else to do in Middleburg. Oh, we have our tedious historic buildings and our boringly quaint inns, and I could lead you up and down the streets spouting data. . . . For instance, did you know Middleburg got its name because it is halfway between Alexandria and Winchester? Do you care? Does it matter? I mean, for God's sake, who ever goes to Winchester?"

"People," Erin said.

"Doubtless." He hadn't heard her; he took it for granted she wouldn't say anything worth listening to. "But the real tourist sights—the house where the Reagans lived during the 1980 campaign, the sumptuous mansion of Senator Warner and his much more famous wife, Elizabeth Taylor—aren't in town. So the inhabitants shop, the tourists shop, and everybody hopes that one of the famous names will shop. We have here kitchen shops with names like Cozy Cupboard and the Gingham Goose; craft shops with names like the Calico Cat and Country Cozy; innumerable restaurants, cafes, pubs, and the like; and clothing shops where you can buy the same garments you would find in D.C., but for twice the price. They all have names such as—"

He waved her gallantly into the door of a shop called the Sly Fox. "It's the hunt scene, of course," Laurence went on. "So tacky."

"Don't you hunt?" Erin asked. "You look as if you would."

"Ouch." He grinned at her. "I deserved that, I suppose. No, my dear, I do not hunt. Oscar Wilde said it best—"

" 'The unspeakable in pursuit of the inedible.' '

"Just as I thought; you are adequately educated as well as beautiful. Go on, browse to your heart's content."

Erin turned to a rack of blouses. "What size is she?"

She had hoped to catch him off-guard, but he was too skilled at subterfuge—or perhaps he had only spoken the simple truth. "Your height, but considerably broader. One hesitates to use the word 'fat' of a lady. . . . About her size." He indicated the hovering saleswoman. It was a gratuitously cruel remark, and the woman's smile wavered.

Erin had expected the prices would be high, but the first tag she examined made her wince. Two hundred and ten dollars for a plain linen blouse?

Laurence flipped through a rack of robes and nightgowns. "Frightful," he said loudly. "Do you see anything that would melt a woman's heart, Erin? No? You have excellent taste. Let's try elsewhere."

They were followed out of the shop by two other customers and—Erin felt sure—the silent curses of the saleslady. As they emerged onto the street a breeze caught at her hair and lifted it like a bright banner; a scattering of golden leaves from a nearby tree sprinkled her head, and Laurence stopped short.

"Exquisite," he breathed. "No, don't brush them off, they suit you better than gold or gems. You're a pretty thing, Erin. Not beautiful, I lied when I said that. Not sweetly pretty, either. Pretty ..."

The questionable compliment didn't offend Erin, perhaps because it sounded not only genuine but genuinely impersonal. He might have been talking about a statue or a painting.

"Why do you do things like that?" she demanded.

Laurence knew exactly what she meant. He laughed. "My dear, I must maintain my image. My public expects it. Think of the pleasure that women will derive from telling her friends that Philips Laurence is as rude and unpleasant as he is reported to be. What about a sweater? One can never have too many sweaters."

He stopped before a display window. Soft swirls of cashmere
had been strewn with seeming carelessness over cardboard logs and paper sprays of bright-colored leaves. The colors glowed like autumn—forest green, deep gold, rusty red.

"There's nothing like cashmere," Erin said dryly.

Some of the labels were familiar—Braemar, Pendleton—and the clothes were country casual. One table was heaped with hand-knit and embroidered sweaters which the obsequious salesman assured them were one of a kind. Erin believed him; someone with a charming sense of humor had designed the patterns of marching cats with separate, swinging yarn tails, foxes sneering at panting hounds, horses engaging in inappropriate contortions, elephants trooping in solemn parade.

"Elephants sell well in this bastion of conservatism," Philips remarked, playing with the dangling trunks of the animals in question. "No donkeys? I fear Kay would never stand for the insignia of the other party. Do you think she'd like the cats?"

"They're absolutely adorable, but I can't imagine Kay wearing anything like this," Erin said. "What about a scarf?"

None of the scarves suited Laurence's refined tastes, so they left without buying anything and headed back toward the doctor's office. Bright leaves swirled and danced in the freshening wind; on the hillsides beyond, the colors of the trees burned like flames.

Laurence said unexpectedly, " 'The scarlet of the maples Can shake me like a cry Of bugles going by.' " Then he added coolly, "I memorized that piece of sentimental trash in prep school. What a pity one can't purge one's mind of childish enthusiasms."

"Isn't it just as childish to cultivate a veneer of false sophistication?"

Laurence stared at her in surprise and then burst out laughing. It was the first spontaneous demonstration of genuine amusement she had seen him display, and it warmed his austere features amazingly.

"I've heard that particular put-down before, but no one has expressed it quite so effectively," he said. "I suppose it's the contrast of your ingenuous face and your cutting words. So you do think I'm a twenty-four-carat bastard, and a hypocrite to boot? You needn't be afraid of offending me by speaking the truth."

"I'm not afraid." The statement was true. 'Liking' was too
strong a word for her new feeling for Philips Laurence; it would be more accurate to call it an absence of positive antipathy.

"No I can see you aren't. Let me confess something to you, since you read me so accurately. I am genuinely and sincerely anxious to see Rosemary win this election. I'm sure the entourage has speculated about my motives?"

"Not to the exclusion of all other subjects," Erin said, in a fair imitation of Laurence's drawl.

It won her another burst of laughter. "Oh, excellent. I know they've been wondering, and suspecting me of subtly sinister designs; but they're wrong. I've known Rosemary ever since she was Ed Marshall's shy little bride. She's come a long way since then. I differ with her on many issues, but I have enormous respect for the passion and integrity with which she pursues her goals." The speech flowed so fluently that it sounded like a quote from one of his columns; but the next sentence did not. "I'll do anything I can to help her win."

"I believe you. But why? Are you ..." Erin stopped. "None of my business."

"Am I in love with her? I've asked myself that same question, and I'm damned if I know the answer." His even voice roughened, as if with anger. Then he laughed lightly. "She has her own peculiar charm, does Rosemary. You must have felt it."

"She's very nice," Erin said.

"Ah, you haven't yet succumbed. You will. Everyone does. Even Buzz Bennett . . . Let's run in here for a moment, I can't return to Kay empty-handed."

The store was a food shop, featuring expensive gourmet goodies. Laurence wasted no time looking around; he picked up a handful of tiny gold boxes with the name of a well-known candy manufacturer, and paid cash for them.

"If you want to ingratiate yourself with Kay, this is the way to go," he said, pocketing his change.

"Godiva chocolates? Poor as I am, I think I could spring for something a little larger in size," Erin said.

Ah, but that's the point," Laurence said cheerfully. "Kay has a deplorable tendency to pig out—isn't that the phrase?—on chocolates, and an even more deplorable tendency to gain weight.

These little dainties contain only two pieces, just enough to satisfy her sweet tooth without making her feel guilty about devouring the entire box. We feed them to her one box at a time."

Kay seemed to appreciate the minuscule offering, and Laurence's broad hint that it was a token of a finer gift to come. But Erin's hunch that she, not Kay, had been his real quarry, was confirmed by the conversation that followed, over cups of tea in the Hungry Hound Cafe. Laurence said nothing new or confidential, he only reaffirmed his desire to help Rosemary, and his concern for how her health would stand up to the stress of the campaign. When Kay said it was time they were getting back, he didn't try to detain them.

Kay had obviously enjoyed herself. She looked like a different woman when she came out of the doctor's office, and Erin suspected that the new, lighter bandage was only part of the reason. She had applied fresh makeup, and loosened strands of hair so that they curled softly around her face. For the first part of the return trip she was silent, not even commenting when Erin wriggled the car out of the parking space, which had been constricted by a newcomer who had pulled up behind her.

I wonder if I'll ever understand people, Erin thought. Just when I think I've got someone figured out, they turn into an entirely different individual. Like the two-headed god Janus of Roman mythology, but even more complex; a dozen personalities instead of two, layer upon layer of masks. Maybe I'm the one who's naive, to suppose people are so simplistic. Or are these people more accustomed to concealment—two-faced in the slang sense of the word?

If someone had asked her to justify her conviction that Kay and Philips had once been lovers she could not have pointed to a single piece of evidence. It was more an atmosphere, a vague feeling. For the past few days Kay had been moping around the house, looking like an old woman. Now she looked her true age— and she wasn't that old. No older than Laurence, at any rate.

Kay sat up straighter. "Watch out for that branch, " she said sharply.

"I see it." Erin smiled. Kay was herself again.

As soon as they walked into the office they knew something had happened. The clerks were all clustered around the door of the inner office; none of them actually had his or her ear pressed to the door, but that would not have been necessary, since the raised voices could have been heard at a considerable
distance.

"If you have nothing to do I can find work for all of you," Kay
said loudly.