“Think about what?” The voice came from the top of the stairwell. Lainie almost jumped out of her demure two-inch heels.
How much had he heard?
Richard was leaning against the wall, one hand tucked into the pocket of his tailored trousers, his leather jacket hanging open over a cashmere jumper. The query had been cool and uninterested, but he was anything but relaxed. His eyes were fixed on the spot where Will’s fingers bit into her arm.
She could almost see the tip of the panther’s tail twitching, ready to spring.
Will responded by turning pink and inflating his chest, and Lainie groaned audibly.
Testosterone. It was massively overrated.
And please, God, let him have just arrived.
“Nothing.” Lainie yanked away from Will’s restraining hold. “Will was just leaving.”
“You seem undecided, Farmer,” Richard said softly. He pushed away from the wall and advanced toward them. “Do you need a helping hand down the stairs?”
Will’s face was uncharacteristically ugly. “Try it.”
“Oh, for God’s sake.” Lainie turned on Richard and put her hand on his chest. It was an instinctive movement, as if she was simultaneously laying a claim, declaring her allegiance and foolishly trying to hold him back from any rash action.
He looked down at her fingers, spread against the fine wool jumper, and then into her face. A more genuine smile tipped the corners of his lips. “Saving me from myself again, Tig?”
“Wallowing in the dirt with you, more like,” Will muttered, and Richard’s whole body tensed.
Lainie gripped his upper arm with her free hand. “Don’t even think about it. I will never let you use me as an excuse to behave atrociously. Just let it go. He doesn’t know what he’s talking about.”
After a dangerous pause, Richard touched his thumb to her eyebrow, smoothing the curve. “What have I let myself in for?” he murmured.
“You’ve never been so lucky in your life,” Lainie retorted.
“No, he hasn’t,” Will agreed jerkily, and Richard’s hand stilled against her face.
Will abruptly turned his back on them and left, his footsteps muffled on the worn carpeting of the stairs.
Richard watched him go and then looked at Lainie. “You look upset. What did he say to you?”
It was more what Lainie had said to him. How could she have blurted out Richard’s most private business like that, and to Will, of all people? She briefly debated confessing the disastrous slip, but what was the point? It hadn’t seemed to interest Will much. If Richard confronted him about it, it would only underline the fact that it was a card to be played against him.
The cowardly justification did not sit well with her conscience.
“Just the usual.” She let her hand slip down his chest and drop away. “His ego playing up. He made a mistake; I’m making a bigger one. So on and so forth. Although I got a comment that could almost be interpreted as an apology for the Crystalle debacle, if you squint hard and replay it in slow motion, so that’s new.”
“And a bloody long time in coming. Idiot. Does he often visit you at home?” Richard’s eyes were still uncomfortably shrewd, and Lainie shook her head.
“No. Not even very often when we were together. I gathered he had the same objection to perfectly decent Bayswater terraces as you do. He said he’d been trying to talk to me at the theatre, but I was too busy canoodling with you in your dressing room.”
“Canoodling?” he repeated, some of his preoccupation sliding into a wicked gleam. His arm slid around her waist to tug her into his body. “What does that involve, exactly?”
His lips found the curve of her neck, and Lainie moved involuntarily into the nuzzling kiss. “I believe you’ve answered your own question,” she said on a breathless laugh. Her hand came over his marauding one as it explored the length of her spine and ventured farther south. “And any further practical demonstrations will have to wait until later, because we’re about to be late for your very important date.”
“Sod it,” Richard said, and he kissed her hard. “You’re right. I’m not the political type. Let’s have a lie-down instead.”
“You’re an actor.” Lainie slipped her hand between their lips. “Act like you’re the political type.”
*
Social graces. He did them well when he wanted to, Lainie thought later. Over the flickering candlelight on a Knightsbridge dining table, she watched Richard being effortlessly charming to the very objectionable vice president of the RSPA. Not so long ago, that fake pandering had been supremely irritating, but now it at least seemed to be in pursuit of a worthy cause. Every so often, their eyes met, and Lainie had to hide a smile at the expression she read in his.