Rescue Operation

The weekend before the party, Chelsea was surprised to hear someone knocking on her door and to discover Kirsty standing shivering outside in the cold east wind which was blowing.

‘Come on in,’ she invited her niece. ‘Do you fancy a cup of tea?’

She had already noticed the storm signals flashing in Kirsty’s blue eyes, and the stubborn set of her mouth, and her heart sank as Kirsty shook her head and flung herself into a chair.

‘It’s impossible at home,’ she announced bitterly. ‘Anyone would think I was seven, not seventeen!’

‘Do you know,’ Chelsea remarked conversationally, ‘I’ve often noticed that people have a tendency to treat us the way we behave.

There was a pregnant pause. She looked up and smiled guilelessly at Kirsty, adding sympathetically, ‘What’s wrong? Arguments over the curfew?’

‘You mean Mum hasn’t told you?’ Kirsty asked suspiciously.

‘Told me what?’ Chelsea frowned. ‘The last time I saw her she was full of preparations for the party.’

‘I want to go to drama school,’ Kirsty told her aggressively, ‘but they won’t let me.’

‘You’ve still got a year to do at school,’ Chelsea reminded her, her heart sinking a little. She and Kirsty had always been able to talk to one another, but here was her niece masking her involvement with Slade Ashford by pretending her quarrel with her parents was about her desire to go to drama school.

‘Yes, and then I’ll be eighteen; able to do exactly what I want.’

Fear shafted through Chelsea.

‘The acting profession is a very gruelling and often heartbreaking one,’ she warned her niece. ‘You know I went to drama school?’

‘Yes, but you left.’

‘Not just because I realised that the stage wasn’t for me,’ Chelsea admitted. ‘I got involved with someone I met there—an older man.’ Beneath her lashes she studied Kirsty’s set face. ‘He was married, of course,’ she continued carelessly, ‘but I was far too naïve to realise that he was just using me—until it was too late. I’d hate that to happen to you, Kirsty.’

‘Things are different nowadays.’ Kirsty tossed her head and eyed her thoughtfully. ‘I never knew you were involved with a married man.’

Chelsea winced at her choice of words.

‘He was very attractive—sophisticated and extremely worldly. I thought he genuinely cared about me, but of course he didn’t. How could he? We were worlds apart. I was a girl of seventeen who knew next to nothing about life, he was a man in his thirties who’d already experienced nearly everything it had to offer.’

There was a small silence and then Kirsty got to her feet.

‘Mum’s told you about Slade, hasn’t she?’ she demanded scornfully, making Chelsea wince for her own clumsiness. ‘You just don’t understand—any of you!’

She was gone before Chelsea could protest, black curls bouncing on her shoulders, her coltish jean-clad legs padded with scarlet striped leg-warmers a bright splash of colour as she ran quickly down the street.

Cursing herself for mishandling the situation, Chelsea paced her small living room. There had been disappointment and wariness in Kirsty’s expression—and a barrier that had not been there before.

As she watched her niece disappearing Chelsea resolved that no matter what it cost she would somehow rescue Kirsty from Slade Ashford.

CHAPTER TWO

ALTHOUGH not a dedicated partygoer, Chelsea was not normally averse to accepting the many invitations that came her way; mainly as a means of in-depth study of the human race at play. Ann often protested that she spent far too much time watching from the sidelines when she could have been joining in the fun, but her experiences with Darren had left her wary and cynical and more especially reluctant to get involved.

Tonight, though, was different. Normally she would have enjoyed the thought of attending Ann’s wedding anniversary gathering, but there was no thought of enjoyment in her mind as she made careful and thorough preparations for the evening, the maxim of her drama school tutors ringing warningly in her ears. ‘Immerse yourself completely in your part,’ had been their favourite command. ‘Remember that when you walk on the stage you are the character you are playing. If the audience is to believe it, you must believe it.’ Something told her that Slade Ashford was the most demanding ‘audience’ she was ever likely to meet, and so, as she lay in a deep bath of scented water, mentally relaxing and breathing deeply, she forced herself to put aside her own character and assume that of the woman who – for tonight – she was going to be.

Her efforts were so convincing that by the time she was ready to emerge from her bath she had almost come to like the rich Oriental perfume she had chosen for her role – one that normally she would have avoided in favour of something more Establishment.

No bra was necessary because of the way the bodice of her dress was boned, and smoothing fragilely sheer matching blue stockings over silkily perfumed legs, she paused for a moment to study her appearance objectively in her bedroom mirror. Her skin was creamily pale; her breasts firm and full, the, curve of her waist lending a delicate sensuality to the narrow-boned hips.

Minute petrol blue briefs matched her stockings and suspenders. Her fingertips brushed accidentally against one silk-clad thigh and with a slight grimace of distaste Chelsea turned away from the mirror. She looked like a slave girl adorning herself for the market. Unbidden, a memory struggled to be unleashed from the chains in which she had bound it—herself at seventeen, bright-eyed, eager, and more than a little embarrassed as she spent her meagre savings on cheap fake satin undies, hardly daring to imagine how she would feel if Darren saw her in them.

Fool! Fool! she goaded herself. Why remember all that tonight? And the ridiculous thing was that when Darren had tried to make love to her all she had felt was fear and revulsion. Frigid, he had called her, and with good reason.

Stop it—stop it! Her teeth ground together with her efforts to deny the memories. She had never dreamed when she went round to read the script that night that Darren would … Somehow whenever she had envisaged them making love it had been in some secluded hideaway, remote and fairytale; not the house he shared with his wife. The moment she had realised that script-reading was the last thing he had on his mind, her desire had disappeared, too weak to overcome the suffocating awareness all around them that Darren was married to someone else.

Since then she had walked warily, too fastidious to ever allow herself to become involved with any man who had ties elsewhere and too cautious to trust even those who did not.

Her phone rang, and she went to answer it. It was Ann, ringing to bolster her courage and thank her yet again.

‘Don’t thank me yet,’ Chelsea warned her sister. ‘All I’ve promised to do is try.’

Half an hour later, fully dressed and made up, she studied her reflection critically. The blue dress was perfect against her pale skin and dark red hair, emphasising the rich blue of her eyes which she had deliberately emphasised with her new make-up. Gold glitter shimmered in her cleavage and along her high cheekbones. As the salesgirl had suggested, she had twisted her hair into a smooth chignon and decorated it with the blue silk flowers.

It was only when she secured the band of ribbon round her throat that her fingers betrayed a fine tremble. With their coating of lip-gloss her lips looked full and softly vulnerable, matching varnish gleaming softly on the nails she had deliberately allowed to grow. She normally detested anything other than natural or faintly pearl varnish on her nails, but tonight hers were those of a predator—dipped in blood, she thought, shuddering.

For Kirsty’s sake she had to succeed, and yet already she was hating the thought of the pain she knew she would inflict upon her niece.

Rather than drive herself to the Clarendon she had ordered a taxi. It arrived promptly, and because the night was cold Chelsea pulled on a cream wool coat which had been a present to herself the previous Christmas.

The hotel was ablaze with lights when her taxi drew up outside, and in the car park she glimpsed several familiar cars. Melchester was a relatively small market town and her family were fairly well known. She and Ann had grown up there, and when Ann had married the young man who had come south from Birmingham to work for Lutons, Ralph too had been absorbed into the closely knit society Chelsea and Ann had known from childhood, hence the party tonight was well attended with the friends and families of their school friends.

The early arrivals were clustered round the bar of the self-contained hotel suite Ralph and Ann had hired for the evening, when Chelsea walked in. She left her coat with the cloakroom attendant and quickly sought out her sister.

Apart from the slight concern shadowing her eyes, Chelsea didn’t think she had ever seen Ann looking better; not even on her wedding day. Maturity suited her fair prettiness, and even as they stood side by side no stranger could have guessed at their relationship. Ann in her early forties was small and inclined to be slightly plump, her fair hair cut short and waving softly round her face.

‘Chelsea!’

They kissed. Ann was wearing Guerlain’s Chamade, and raised her eyebrows slightly as they drew apart, her murmured, ‘Very, very sexy!’ drawing a reluctant smile from Chelsea.

‘Where’s Kirsty?’ she asked.

‘Oh, she refused to come with us. Apparently Slade is picking her up.’ Ann sighed, and looked unhappy. ‘I’m so worried about her. She’s changed completely. Oh God,’ she protested feelingly, ‘there are the Rosses. I’ll have to go and speak to them. See you later!’

Humanity the world over was much the same, separated only by the greater or lesser degree of sophistication their particular society enjoyed, Chelsea reflected, observing the delicate cut and thrust of conversation between two well-known rivals and co-members of the Town Council.

Out of the corner of her eye she noticed a slight disturbance by the door, and the suddenly prickling awareness shivering along her spine alerted her before they came into view that Kirsty and her escort had arrived.

Wondering if she was being over-sensitive in thinking how silent the room had suddenly become, Chelsea reflected that if she was successful in detaching Slade Ashford from Kirsty he would have scant chance of restoring himself to her good books. Desertion in the face of so much interested observation would be a bitter pill for any seventeen-year-old to swallow, and she was relieved to see that the son of Ann and Ralph’s closest neighbours was obviously home from university. Was it really only last Christmas that Kirsty had been swooning over him? She had grown up a good deal in ten short months.

Discreetly keeping out of sight, Chelsea studied her quarry meticulously. Expensive dinner suit, obviously neither hired nor bought off the peg; thick silk shirt; even thicker dark hair brushing the collar of his jacket. He turned, and Chelsea automatically stiffened slightly, hoping that Kirsty hadn’t seen her. It was not part of her plan to be introduced to Slade Ashford as Kirsty’s aunt.

Kirsty had spotted her parents. Slade Ashford cupped her elbow. Poor Kirsty, she didn’t stand a chance. It was almost literally possible to see the awed reverence in the eyes of the women they walked past, as they rested appreciatively on Slade’s lean form.

For almost an hour Chelsea circulated among the other guests, deliberately creating a subtle presence, a distinct awareness of her as a woman. Several men of Ralph’s generation paid her heavily gallant compliments, while many of the younger ones were a little more obvious in their attentions, responding to her sensuously appealing aura.

To anyone watching her Chelsea’s progress across the room had neither purpose nor pattern, but it did bring her into a circle of people barely two feet away from Kirsty and Slade Ashford. Across the room she caught Ann’s eye. It had been arranged between them that when eventually Chelsea managed to get Slade’s attention, Ann would distract Kirsty.

Perceiving her signal, Ann moved discreetly towards her. Summoning every ounce of control, Chelsea stepped backwards, deliberately allowing herself to collide with Slade. Her drink spilled as he turned to apologise and steady her, a cynical awareness in his eyes which at any other time would have made her writhe with shame. Out of the corner of her eye Chelsea saw that Kirsty was about to make some comment.

Clinging gracefully to Slade’s arm, Chelsea bent to fuss over her shoe, which had been splashed with the contents of her now empty glass.

‘Oh, what a nuisance!’ she pouted.

‘I think they’ll dry.’

Chelsea was quite sure they would. Lifting her head slowly, she raised her lowered eyelashes and let her lips curve into a seductively promising smile. Beneath her tensed fingers Slade Ashford’s arm felt like solid rock.

His eyes which she had imagined to be brown shocked her by being a deep intense jade, and as coolly mocking as her own were sensually promising.

‘Oh, I’m not worried about my shoes.’ The husky softness of her voice surprised even Chelsea herself. Perhaps age had turned her into a better actress than she had ever imagined—age, or perhaps necessity.

‘It’s my drink,’ she murmured. ‘I had to wait simply ages to get it—waiters never pay the slightest attention to a woman on her own, and now I’ve lost it.’

‘Then please allow me to get you another …’

So far so good; she had managed to both capture his attention and very unsubtly let him know that she was alone. As she drew a rather shaky breath of relief she heard Ann saying urgently to Kirsty, ‘Darling, can you spare us a moment?’

For a second Chelsea held her breath. If Slade elected to go with Kirsty there was nothing she could do about it. Her own fingertips still rested on his arm, and she could almost feel her niece’s puzzled and hurt look, but she refused to yield to it.

‘Quite a sweet little thing,’ she said patronisingly as Ann led a reluctant Kirsty away. ‘A relation of yours?’

Only she knew exactly how much satisfaction it gave her to see the slightly grim expression in those dark green eyes as Slade said curtly, ‘No; the daughter of a business acquaintance—Now, your drink …’

Now came the most difficult part of the evening, Chelsea warned herself. She had managed to detach him from Kirsty, but now she had to keep him not only away from Kirsty for the rest of the evening, but also firmly and publicly attached to her.

She had to wait several nerve-wracking seconds before he returned to her side with a fresh Martini, and managed to draw out their mutual self-introduction for ten minutes, one half of her mind bemused and appalled by the fulsome inanities she was uttering.

‘I hate coming anywhere like this alone,’ she confessed when she saw his attention was beginning to waver. ‘My date couldn’t make it at the last moment. Oh, wouldn’t you know it!’ she pouted, suddenly having a brainwave as the band suddenly started playing a dreamily romantic tune. ‘They would play my favourite when I don’t have a partner to dance with!’

At any other time the cool irony in those green eyes would have shattered her, but tonight she was playing a part and there was no room for her normal icy reserve.

‘Far be it from me to disappoint a lady,’ Slade Ashford drawled, and just for a moment as he negotiated a path to the dance floor it struck Chelsea that his ironic comment could have more than one meaning, but she swiftly dismissed the thought as over-imaginative.

In keeping with the romantic mood of the evening the dance floor was dimly lit, and in the darkness Chelsea almost stumbled, shocked by the sudden warmth of Slade’s fingers on her arm as he reached for her.

In his arms on the dance floor it came as a shock to realise how long it had been since a man had held her like this. She had danced, of course, but never with this intimacy, since Darren, and the hard brush of muscled male thighs against the softness of her own body as they moved in time to the music became increasingly disturbing as frissons of awareness spread upwards from her thighs. Revulsion coursed through her in waves and the need to tense her body against the alien intrusion of arrogant male flesh became overpowering, but she refused to give in to it.

Slade’s hand caressed her spine, sliding upwards to stroke the vulnerable nape of her neck. Her breath caught in her throat. Dear God, what chance would Kirsty have against a man like this if he chose to submit her to the full force of his sexual expertise?

She missed a step and was drawn still closer to the lean male body of her partner, her breasts crushed against the hard wall of his chest, his breath fanning her temple. The revolving spotlight suddenly caught them in its beam and Slade raised his hand to the dusting of glitter along her cheekbones, tracing it lightly. The music stopped and she withdrew from him, smothering a gasp as his fingers left her face to trace instead the glitter-dusted curve of her breasts above the bodice of her dress.

‘Very enticing.’ He smiled at her and in the darkness there was no irony in his smile, and Chelsea felt her breath catching in her throat at the unbelievable appeal of that smile.

For the rest of the evening she clung to him like ivy, firmly closing her mind against what she was doing. He left her once to collect some food for them both from the buffet tables, and Ann hurried across to whisper,

‘Keep it up—you’re doing marvels’ You should have seen poor Kirsty’s face when she saw you dancing with him! She hasn’t said anything, but I suspect she’s discovered that her idol most definitely has feet of clay. Just to make sure I thought it might be as well if she were to see you leaving with him, if you can engineer that. He’s attractive enough for the fact that other women are attracted to him to add a dangerous piquancy.’

Unable to do anything other than agree with her sister’s observation and worried about her niece’s reaction to her behaviour, at first Chelsea almost missed Slade’s cool, ‘Do you have your own means of transport for getting home?’

For a moment she was tempted to tell him that she intended getting a taxi, and then she remembered Ann’s whispered suggestion, and summoned the last of her flagging courage to say with a slow smile,

‘I’m afraid not. I was hoping someone would be kind enough to offer me a lift.’

She couldn’t have made her meaning any plainer, and she almost shuddered to see the cynicism carved deep in the grooves running alongside his mouth, as he drawled, ‘Allow me.’

As luck would have it Kirsty was standing with a group of teenagers by the foyer, and as they walked past the group Chelsea couldn’t bear to look at her niece.

At last they were out in the cool night air, crisply autumnal with the intensely evocative and faintly mournful scent of woodsmoke and frost hanging in the stillness.

‘Here we are.’

Slade stopped alongside a svelte, powerful-looking car, its dark paintwork gleaming, and paused to unlock the doors before helping Chelsea inside. Expensive hide moulded itself to her body, its rich smell filling the dark interior, mingling with the tangy aftershave Slade was wearing.

‘You haven’t asked me for directions,’ Chelsea pointed out to him as the long bonnet nosed its way out into the traffic.

In the darkness she could feel him glance at her, and a nervous fluttery feeling began in the pit of her stomach and spread outwards as he said smoothly,

‘First I thought we’d go to my place, have a cup of coffee.’

For a moment Chelsea’s brain refused to work. When she had been planning the evening she had never thought as far as this. Somehow she had imagined that it would end with her leaving the hotel with Slade and then getting a taxi home. She turned towards him to protest, checking as she saw the cold cynicism of his smile, and anger suddenly welled up inside her. It didn’t take much imagination to guess that ‘coffee’ wasn’t all he had in mind. The arrogance of the man! she seethed. Did he expect her to jump into bed with him simply because she had accepted a lift from him?

It wasn’t purely because she had angled for a lift, honesty made her admit; she hadn’t exactly kept him at a distance during the evening. Forcefully she pushed aside the thought. So Slade Ashford thought she was going to allow him to make love to her. Perhaps it was time that someone showed him that when it came to women he wasn’t as overpoweringly irresistible as he seemed to think.

This thought was enough to boost her spirits and keep her doubts at bay for the fifteen minutes it took them to reach Slade’s flat; one of half a dozen in a prestigious luxury two-storey block on the outskirts of the town set in the grounds of what had once been the old manor house.

With a cool economy of movement that made it impossible for her to object Slade drove the car into a garage at the back of the apartments, locked it, and escorted her into an attractive communal hallway.

‘My apartment’s on the second floor,’ he told her, indicating the lift.

It whisked them upwards so swiftly that Chelsea felt that she had left her stomach behind. She was twenty-six, she reminded herself dryly as they emerged from its claustrophobic confines, and this wouldn’t be the first time she had had to fend off unwanted advances; and it probably wouldn’t be the last. Shrugging aside the tiny inner voice that warned her that Slade Ashford was different, she allowed him to usher her into a small inner hall. As he snapped on the light she had a brief impression of stunningly effective faux-marble walls in rich brown and cream, one of them mirrored to add to the illusion.

‘Not my choice,’ he told her, noticing her expression. ‘I needed a place in a hurry and this one was vacant. I believe the previous owner was a businessman who let it to a … friend.’ His voice was expressionless, but the meaning was plain nonetheless, and Chelsea suppressed a sudden shudder as she contemplated how narrowly she had escaped being Darren’s little ‘friend’, his kept mistress.

‘Living room’s through there,’ Slade told her, opening another door.

It was decorated in varying shades of pale blue and grey; with expensive silk-covered settees, and a thick pile carpet, and Chelsea wondered if it was merely her imagination which made her think that despite its luxury this wasn’t a happy place.

‘I’ll take your coat. Make yourself at home while I get us both a drink.’

This was the moment when she should tell him that she wanted neither a drink nor his company, but he was gone before she could speak. She would tell him when he came back, she decided. Fortunately they weren’t very far from her own flat, and if he refused to take her home, she could always walk. She was studying a painting when he returned, and her first intimation that she was no longer alone came when she felt his hands on her shoulders, turning her round to face him, his expression hidden from her as he bent his head and touched his lips to the soft flesh swelling above the top of her dress, following the line of gold glitter.

‘Opium,’ he murmured appreciatively against her skin. ‘Tell me, is all of you as deliciously scented as this bit?’

‘Let me go!’

The persona she had assumed fell from her like a borrowed cloak, her eyes darkening with anger and fear as she pushed ineffectively at his hard shoulders.

‘Don’t you think it’s a little late to play hard to get?’ he laughed sardonically. ‘You should be honoured. I don’t normally fall for such obvious ploys, but there’s something about you …’

‘I asked you to give me a lift home, not … not maul me!’ she managed on a choked whisper.

‘Maul?’ His expression was ugly as he raised his head and looked at her. ‘Believe me, if I really wanted to I could make what I’m doing now pale into insignificance—and don’t bother starting to cry rape. There’s not a court in the land that would uphold such an accusation after the way you’ve been putting yourself about tonight—in front of witnesses too!’