Whirlwind by Charlotte Lamb Read Free Book Online Page B

in there!' Mrs Gawton threw after her, her voice making it clear that she had read it. Anna didn't look back or answer, she went up the stairs, and Mrs Gawton stared after her, before vanishing into her own quarters.
    In her room, Anna fished out the note with shaky fingers. 'Will be away for a few days. See you first night,' it said, his initials scrawled under the words.
    Anna's emotions were confused but powerful: fury with him for sending the flowers and for believing that after what he had done to her she would want to see him again, painful relief because he had gone away and she wouldn't have to worry about finding him waiting for her outside the theatre, and a peculiar ache whose causes she preferred not to track down.
    She was tempted to throw his flowers away so that they should not keep reminding her of him, but they were too beautiful, and she had never been given red roses before. She hunted out a chipped glass jug and filled it with water, arranging the roses in it tenderly, her fingertips brushing their cool petals. All evening she looked up and saw those deep red, satiny petals—and each time she thought of Laird, besieged by images of him. In a few short hours she had learnt so much about him; she felt as if she had always known him. That odd sensation of familiarity disturbed her. He was as insidious as spring, creeping up inch by inch while you weren't watching.
    The problem was that she had started to like him very much; all that evening in his penthouse suite she had been registering aspects of Laird and liking what she noticed—his humour, his kindness, his arguments with that old man whom he had rescued from the gutter, his liking for the same poetry as herself, his teasing eyes and deep, cool voice.
    None of that seemed to fit with what happened later, with Laird's ruthless use of her when she was too drunk to know what was going to happen.
    Each time she thought of it she felt a pang of shame. It was ironic that she had been so worried about Patti—she should have worried about herself. If she had been more careful there wouldn't have been any consequences.
    That was when it dawned on her that there was one possible consequence she hadn't taken into account.
    She went white, sitting up with a hand over her mouth as if to silence the groan she gave. What if she was pregnant?
    That idea kept her awake half the night, and she overslept and had to run to catch her bus without having time to eat. She bought a roll at a baker's and ate that when Joey gave them a coffee break, but she was so obsessed with her new fear that people kept looking at her oddly, and Dame Flossie actually asked her outright.
    'What's wrong, dear? Not too well? Or just tired?'
    Anna dragged a smile into her face. 'We're all tired, aren't we?' She made it light, but Dame Flossie's keen old eyes were shrewd as they studied her pale face, and even Joey seemed concerned.
    'I hope you're not coming down with some bug, Anna,' he said impatiently. 'That's all I need.'
    Anna imagined the way he would look if she was pregnant—how could she face that? She spent twenty-four miserable hours wondering what she would do if the worst proved true, and then her period started dead on time and for the first time in her life she welcomed it with deep, unutterable relief. At least she didn't have that to worry about! Not that it would have bothered Laird Montgomery at all—hadn't it occurred to him that he might get her pregnant?
    He probably thought she must be on the Pill, Anna told herself grimly. Many girls were these days, but it had never occurred to Anna because she didn't sleep with anyone, she never had. Her life had been too hectic for there to be any room for men.
    During the following week, she had little time for thinking about Laird, however. Joey's urgency drove them all from the minute they walked on to the stage to the minute they emerged, drained and weary, into the night air. The dress rehearsal was a total madhouse, everyone in