His eyes suddenly narrowed. Two minutes ago, Westfield had been standing at the bar, pouring another round of drinks. The liquor was now proceeding down the gullets of a couple of middle-aged stockbrokers, and their host had vanished.
Without bothering to excuse himself, Richard turned his back on the third stockbroker, who’d been trying to bore him into unconsciousness for the past quarter of an hour. He strode out into the hall, closing the door behind him. The women had gone upstairs. His head cocked, he stood tensely, listening.
At the sound of her muffled cry, he wasted no more time. Swinging nimbly around the bannister, he took the stairs two at a time.
When he found them, his frustration with the evening exploded into sheer fury.
*
Putting her hand over Westfield’s wrist, Lainie pulled it away and turned around to face him, inwardly groaning. She had seen this scene played out on a hundred different sets, from melodrama to slapstick comedy, and it usually ended in torn clothing and at least one fat lip.
How to remove herself from this situation without completely scuppering Richard’s chances at the RSPA chair?
She tried simple avoidance first. “Excuse me,” she said evenly, going to step around him. She threw in a bit of marital guilt: “Your wife will be wondering where I’ve got to.”
Westfield obviously had no conception of how to follow a cue. He snorted and latched on to her again. “Karen never wonders anything. Except when I’m next going away on business and what present she’ll get when I return.”
Lainie seriously doubted that Karen waited impatiently for his return, even if he did come bearing duty gifts. “Yes, well, I should still—mph!”
The rest of her sentence was swallowed up in his mouth as he pushed her against the wall and kissed her. Kiss was too romantic a term for it. Assaulted her, to give things their proper name.
She tried to twist her face away, making a sound of disgust in her throat. Her hands pushed ineffectually at his barrel-like chest. The moment she got out of this, she was investing in a set of hand weights. Westfield’s horrible clutching fingers started pulling at the hem of her skirt, which was thankfully too tight to rise above her knee. Then he yanked, and there was a distinct ripping sound.
Oh, I don’t think so.
Her outrage was becoming tinged with genuine fright now. She kicked him and he grunted, but apparently a bit of violence just spurred him on. His mouth sought hers again, and she exclaimed in fury, shoving against him.
Finally—and about bloody time, she thought with unreasonable, panting anger—there was a loud, bitten-out curse from somewhere behind them and a swift movement. Westfield skittered away on his heels like a spooked crab, Richard’s right hand fisted in the back of his jacket.
The older man went to speak, his face a dark unhealthy red, and Richard took a vicious step forward, angling his body in front of Lainie. She had a bizarre moment of déjà vu from the play. She was almost waiting for the clink of swords, and for Richard to burst out with a good old “you godforsaken knave!” or “blackguardly cur!”
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” Richard’s voice was low and deep. He looked at Lainie. She almost took a step back under the impact, and his anger wasn’t even directed at her. “Are you all right?” he asked her tightly, and she nodded.
“Yes.” Her hand—shaking, she realised—went unconsciously to the torn hem of her skirt, and Richard followed the movement. The muscle in his jaw jumped.
Westfield, who apparently had no instincts for self-preservation at all, continued to play to stereotype. “Just a bit of fun, my boy,” he said, in an attempt at just-one-of-the-lads jocularity. “She didn’t mind.”
“Yes, I could see how much Lainie was enjoying herself. Pinned against the wall and screaming.”
“She’s been asking for it all night,” said the stupidest man in London.
Richard calmly pulled back his fist and punched the other man on the bridge of his nose.
Lainie winced at the sound. Their dubious host let out a vaguely animalistic grunt. Blood dripped between his raised fingers as he glared daggers at Richard, but a muffled, distant laugh seemed to return him to some sense of his surroundings, and he didn’t retaliate with his fists.
He jerked his chin toward Lainie, still clutching at his nose. “Don’t be a fool, man. Throwing away a good opportunity for a woman like her?”
“And what kind of woman is that, exactly?” Lainie asked, irritation breaking her out of a shocked trance. “One who can’t be bribed with presents to let you touch her?”