Merlyn's Magic by Carole Mortimer Read Free Book Online Page B

to.' He frowned in his effort to
read her expression with the daylight reflected behind her.
'But—'
    'I don't,' she snapped, her hands moving together
nervously. If this was the way a woman felt the morning after going to
bed with a man she was glad she had avoided such encounters; she had
never felt so uncomfortably out of place in her life!
    He ran a hand through his loosely curling black hair. 'I'd
been drinking—'
    She had known that, had tasted the brandy on his lips and
tongue, colour flooding her cheeks as she vividly recalled their
insistent probing. 'If that's supposed to make me feel better, it
doesn't!' Her eyes flashed deeply green.
    'I'm not trying to make you feel better—'
    'That's good—because you weren't succeeding!'
She was so tense her usual control had gone. 'You see,
I
hadn't been drinking!'
    Rand sighed. 'I'm out of practice with the niceties of
these bedroom games, and I'm sorry if all of this is coming out the
wrong way.' He didn't notice how pale Merlyn had become as he moved to
pour himself a cup of coffee from the pot Merlyn had made earlier.
'Believe it or not, I was faithful to my wife for the eight years of
our marriage—'
    'Why shouldn't I believe it?' she snapped. 'You loved her.'
    'Yes, I did,' he grated bleakly. 'But it isn't fashionable
in her world to be faithful to a spouse.'
    What was he saying, that Suzie had been unfaithful to
him
?
Merlyn had seen too many show business marriages fall apart because of
the long separations and the loneliness their work often necessitated.
But she wouldn't believe that of Suzie Forrester.
    'We were
both
faithful.' Rand seemed
to mock her indignation. 'And since her death—' He made an
impatient movement, as if it still hurt him to admit she
was
dead. 'I'm just trying to explain to you why the age-old platitudes of
"how good it was" and "you were wonderful" don't trip lightly off my
tongue—'
    'It wasn't that good,' Merlyn cut in hardly, knowing that
as far as she was concerned she lied; it had been beautiful. 'And I
wasn't that wonderful,' she scorned self-derisively.
    Rand's eyes had narrowed. 'You weren't that bad either.
Look, I'm not trying to give you a rating from one to ten, I just
wanted to make you understand that I don't usually extract that sort of
payment from unexpected guests, that last night was just—the
circumstances were—'
    'Unreal,' Merlyn supplied softly. 'They were completely
unreal, as if they happened to two other people and not us at all.'
    He blinked at her. 'Yes,' he confirmed in a puzzled voice.
'That's exactly the way it seems. I don't remember the last time I—' He turned
towards the front door as the bell rang, his expression grim. 'That
will be Anne.'
    Merlyn swallowed hard, dreading her meeting with the other
woman now, feeling as if she had betrayed Anne's trust in her. 'Please
don't let her realise about last night—'
    Rand glared at her. 'Do you think I want that any more
than you do?' he snapped. 'God knows we've had our disagreements in the
past, but making love to one of her friends would not be acceptable to
Anne at all.'
    Merlyn released her breath raggedly as she waited for him
to admit the other woman. She wasn't a friend of Anne Benton's, but she
had wanted to be, and she knew that if Anne realised what had happened
in this room the night before that she, too, would wonder at Merlyn's
motives. She doubted anyone would believe her only 'motive' have been
to be with the man she had wanted so desperately from the first.
Mistaking this house for the hotel had been bad enough, but making love
with Rand had ruined any chance she might have had of convincing him to
let her appear in the film, especially as that chance had been slim to
start with.
    The woman who entered the lounge at Rand's side wasn't at
all what Merlyn had been expecting. Anne was a short blonde woman of
about thirty who, if one were being generous, could be called cuddly,
and if one weren't, would be called plump. Suzie had been