Tender Deception (20 page)

“Staged?” Vickie lifted a brow.

“Oh, definitely!” Monte laughed, crinkling his eyes. “I train my people well.”

“Yes, you do,” Vickie told him, grateful that he had turned the jealousy she had been feeling into amusement. “But tell me, Monte, how many people can see what is staged?”

“The people who count,” he said sagely. “Feel like a little touch football?”

Vickie’s grin became broad and mischievous. “Sure.”

The game endured another hour after Monte and Vickie joined in. Impishly unable to control an urge to torture Brant in kind, Vickie played like a little hellion, having chosen the opposing team. She was careful to be tagged several times by Monte and Bobby, positioning herself so that she eluded Brant’s section of the field each time. Until she had a chance to make a touchdown. The goal line being a pair of not quite even palm trees, she was forced to shoot past Brant if she wanted to get the points. She ran like a panther, her feet barely touching the sand, but her effort wasn’t quite good enough. Brant didn’t merely touch her. She was soundly tackled, imprisoned in his arms, and a recipient of a severe and dark scowl.

“What do you think you’ve been doing?” he gritted, his face inches from hers.

She could blame her ragged breathing on the run and the fall and she could act as well as Terry. Raising an impertinent brow, she said haughtily, “I was attempting to make a touchdown.”

“You know damn well what I’m talking about!” he grated out harshly.

Her eyes widened innocently. “What?”

“You’ve been in the arms of everyone here!”

“So have you,” she reminded him sweetly. “We theater types are a ‘touchy’ group, aren’t we?”

A play of emotions triggered through his eyes, too fast to be read. “Too touchy,” he snapped, jumping lithely to his feet and dragging Vickie with him. He kept ahold of her hand while sending the football in a high, spiraling pass to Bobby. “Keep it going!” he yelled. “Vickie and I are going to start dinner!”

“We are not!” she protested, chagrined at his high-handedness.

“Yes, we are,” he answered. Giving her no further chance to protest, he lifted her deftly and tossed her over a shoulder. “I’m going to give you a lesson in the fine art of intoxicating lobsters.”

“Damn you, Brant!” Vickie screeched, straining from his hold. “I don’t intend to be your lackey! Put me down!”

“Momentarily,” he replied with determination.

He did put her down, flushed and furious, when they reached the kitchen. But when she opened her mouth to lash out at him, he closed it for her quickly with a deep, inescapable kiss. The touch of his full lips elicited the same heady dizziness as always, denying all resistance. Still, her train of thought persisted, and when his lips left hers, she pursed them again to speak. Brant’s forefinger fell to them then, silencing her again. The harshness was gone from his eyes and tone as he said, “I don’t think either of us is up to football today. We theater types are too touchy!”

“And new lovers too prone to jealousy,” Vickie agreed.

“Silly,” Brant murmured. “Do you think we’ll outgrow it?”

“Never!”

“Control it?”

“Hopefully.”

“Definitely, hopefully. I can be a bit of a chauvinistic commando.”

“Yes, you can.”

“But then, you can be a tease.”

“Oh, surely, not purposely!”

He grinned ruefully. “Ha. That was on purpose! Watch the flirting, Ice Maiden, or else!”

“Or else?” Vickie queried.

“Well, actually,” Brant countered, taking her hungrily back into his arms, “you shall be a victim of subtle torture. Like the lobsters. Right now I’m going to put them into a huge pot full of beer.”

“Beer?”

“Beer. It’s only fair that they be sloshed out of their minds before hitting the boiling water.”

“Humane torture?”

“Precisely. The meat is also much more tender. The poor inebriated creature hasn’t a chance to tense its muscles. It’s always best to hit with a ton of bricks when the mind is foggy. Keep that in mind.”

Brant didn’t notice that Vickie’s smile had all but disappeared. He had released her to pop the cans and pour beer into a huge cauldron in preparation for the feisty crustaceans. She was taking his words to heart. One day soon she would be doing her best to get Brant very, very “sloshed.” And hopefully his muscles wouldn’t tense.

He was, however, as tense as a piano wire when he returned her to her house the next day, holding her as tightly as a long-lost treasure. “Less than a week,” he murmured, “and I’ll never let you go again.”

“You don’t have to let me go now,” Vickie whispered into his chest.

Her words had a straightening effect upon him and he set her away from himself firmly with a rueful shake of his head. “Mark is due home soon, and he may be only two, but I’m marrying his mother before I move in with her. And you have a show tonight, and a rehearsal tomorrow, and we have to get a license tomorrow and Othello will open with us as newlyweds—need I go on!”

“No!” Vickie chuckled, careful not to touch him again lest she cling and demand he stay with her. She frowned suddenly. “Brant, can we keep the marriage secret for a while?”

“I guess it would be a good idea,” he agreed, smiling as he touched a finger to her forehead to ease the lines. “We should have a little time before being hit by the publicity. Monte is going to have to know. I’d like him to be a witness. And I’d like to be married at Frankie’s by the beach, if you don’t mind. We can have a small reception with plenty of Dom Perignon.”

“Perfect,” Vickie told him with wide eyes, catching his finger wickedly and nibbling on its tip while watching him. “Monte already knows. I told him.”

“Stop that,” Brant threatened, pinching her cheek as he snatched back his finger. “Or else your son and brother will return to a very indecent scene!” Grinning, he headed for the door, only to halt and add, “Well, I’m glad you told Monte but what about your family? Would you like your brother and his wife at the ceremony?”

“No!” she said quickly, too quickly. “I mean, I’d like this very small. Just us. Please?”

“Fine, I just thought…”

“Oh, I am close to Edward. Very close. I really can’t explain it, I just want the ceremony to be small.”

Brant shrugged tolerantly. “Then small it shall be.” He was gone then, and Vickie shortly had reason to be grateful. Edward appeared with Mark.

After she had greeted both him and her son, and after Mark had scampered off into his own room, Edward was on her with the demanding familiarity of an older brother. Only her father could have quizzed her with more presumption. “I want,” he said flatly, “to know what that was all about.”

“What?” she made a play for innocence.

“Don’t give me that, Victoria,” Edward insisted, fuming. She wondered for an idle moment if perhaps she hadn’t been mistaken. Edward was much better at paternal indignation than even her father was. “I know, sibling dearest, that you are a superb actress. But the act doesn’t work on me because I know that you’re acting. Why did you throw me out of your house when I picked up Mark?”

“I didn’t throw you out of my house!”

“Yes, you did. You would have done so literally if you could have!”

Vickie glanced at her fingernails and then studied them as if she expected to find an answer in their shiny color. Her teeth began to work on her lips, and then she tried to stop the involuntary action. Edward would also recognize it as a sign of her guilt. She couldn’t stop the gnawing though, and she came to another quick decision. Edward was going to get that answer soon, and if he happened to be around Brant, his surprise would give it all away. But if he knew, if he understood, he would willingly make sure not to be near Brant until she had her chance…her right moment.

She was in for a lecture. One much worse than Monte’s. But she had to get it over with eventually, and each time she admitted the truth, perhaps she would gain strength for the ultimate revelation…

“Mark is Brant’s son,” she said bluntly, tonelessly, not looking at her brother. “I was afraid you’d figure it out and give me away.”

She heard his long, indrawn breath. His reaction was similar to Monte’s. “Of course. It was right there in front of me.” Suddenly he spun on her. It was lecture time.

“And you still haven’t told him!”

“No, I—”

“Oh, Vickie! I always supported you; I always stood by you. I thought you had sensible reasons for what you did.”

“I did, and do—have sensible reasons!” Vickie blurted out.

She wasn’t sure Edward even heard her outburst. He continued. “Brant Wicker is a responsible man, Vickie; he would have married you. He would have taken care of Mark. Been there. I never pressured you, Vickie, because I thought you had some sound decisions made. I thought the real father might have…might have…oh, I don’t know! Been killed. Been a petty, sad infatuation, one you had quickly gotten over, a dropout…some kind of a real bum, skid-row type—”

“Thanks, Edward,” Vickie interrupted dryly. “I’m glad you have such faith in my taste.”

He stopped for a moment to stare at her in confusion, and then flushed slightly. “All right, not skid-row, but you know what I mean. Some kind of a young guy with no sense of responsibility, someone who really wouldn’t care. But Brant Wicker isn’t that type—”

“I didn’t realize you knew him that well,” Vickie interrupted again.

Her words didn’t deter him this time. “I know of him,” Edward said with a gray glower. “And he can’t be too terrible if you’re seeing him again.”

“Edward, he isn’t terrible at all! I’m very much in love with the man, and always was.” With a surge of agitation Vickie left the sofa, where she had been calmly sitting, and restlessly plucked a cigarette from a box she kept on the coffee table, tapping it lightly before she lit it. Inhaling deeply, she stifled a cough and turned back to her brother. “Edward, Brant will know now, in time. I’m going to marry him.”

“Before you tell him about Mark?”

“Yes.”

“Victoria—”

“Don’t Victoria me, Ed! Think about it. Would you like to wonder if you’d been married because of a child?” Vickie demanded point-blank.

“Oh, Vickie—”

“Would you?”

“Of course not, but he’s already asked you,” Edward reminded her.

“I know.” Vickie was pacing the room like her brother. She made herself stop, realizing that the scene between the two of them could have been taken straight from an old Tallulah Bankhead movie. “Edward,” she told him honestly, “I’m scared. No, Brant isn’t a bum. He isn’t terrible. He’s wonderful to millions of people. Think of who he is, Ed. This marriage has to be so very positive! Less than fifty percent of normal marriages work out. In Hollywood—”

“This isn’t Hollywood, and I doubt if Brant Wicker lives the usual Hollywood life-style.”

“Oh, Edward,” Vickie moaned, “please try to understand.”

“Vickie.” Capturing her shoulders, he smiled into her eyes. “I do understand. I just want you to think very hard about what you’re doing.”

Vickie slowly returned his smile. “I have thought, believe me. I’ve gone into self-inflicted mental torture over the whole thing!”

“Okay then, lecture is over. When is the big day?”

“Soon. We’re having sort of an elopement and keeping it secret awhile,” Vickie told him, brightening.

“Damn!” Edward suddenly marveled. “I just realized that Brant Wicker is going to be my brother-in-law! Damn!” he muttered again, shaking his head.

Vickie chuckled. “Stardust, brother?” Not thinking, she repeated Brant’s words. “He is a man, Edward. Not a star in the heavens—a man.”

But during the week Vickie began to think of Brant as an unreachable star again. Rehearsals became grueling as opening night for Othello approached and, other than the few hours they stole away together to acquire their marriage license, she didn’t see Brant alone for a second. Costumes were worn to rehearsal; props came into use. Even the set was taking shape behind that of the
Godspell
flats. And on Friday, they went to full makeup. Even Vickie was shocked when she first saw Brant with his hair rinsed black and his skin stained to a deep bronze.

The effect was astounding. He was Othello the Moor. Strong, resolute uncompromising, his performance as vivid and energetic as the blue of his eyes against the stain of his skin.

There was dead silence when the curtain fell, then Monte’s excited reaction as it reopened with the cast anxiously waiting onstage. “Damn, that was good! We’re ready for an opening!”

Cheers rose on the stage, and everyone began congratulating everyone else, especially Brant. He didn’t shy from compliments, but rather turned them around. “Othello is nothing without a striking Iago!” he said, shaking Bobby’s hand. The two men unabashedly embraced as Roman legionnaires might, old friends come together again in a moment of glory. But Brant’s salutes did not end there. He went on to include the entire cast, exalting even the college students hired as the extras. “This has been said a million times, but no part is so small that its execution can afford to be less than a real part of the whole. Our production is a tight one because every spoke in our wheel is turning.”

Monte’s grin could be seen flashing white from the darkened table where he sat. “I think Brant said just about everything. But don’t pound your backs too hard yet. Tomorrow we’ll have two full dress/tech rehearsals. They will be slow ones—I want to adjust a lot of lighting. Tomorrow night
Godspell
closes. Tuesday afternoon is our last rehearsal, a run-through with no flaws, please. Tuesday will be opening night for the press.” His tone had grown severe, but he ended with another ear-splitting grin. “Right now I think we’ll break out some champagne…”

Brant and Vickie were still by the bed where she, as Desdemona, had just been smothered by Brant, as Othello, because of her supposed infidelity, egged on by Iago. Brant reached for her hand as the others filed offstage to change. His grip was a firm one, pulling her into an embrace. “I forgot to mention what passion for an indisputably sexy and gorgeous Desdemona could do for the performance of an Othello!” he whispered wickedly.

Chuckling, Vickie chastised Brant. “Let me go, mighty warrior! Everyone will be watching.”