from the time that she had ‘eagerly’ accepted a lesbian role on stage. There was an illustrated list of all the men with whom she had been ‘romantically linked’, which seemed to consist of every male celebrity with whom she had ever been photographed, and to that list was now added a gaggle of ‘galpals’.
Turning the page in fascinated awe at the artistry of the inventions, Rosalind learned that she was now on the ‘hot list’ of a radical gay organisation that focused on outing famous people and that she was on the verge of accepting an offer to appear as the nude centrefold in a famous men’s magazine.
Unfortunately this time it wasn’t only her own somewhat tarnished reputation at stake. Thanks to the country’s strict libel laws, there wasn’t one mention of Peggy Staines, but she would obviously be in the mind of any reasonably informed person who read the story.
If only Rosalind hadn’t agreed to meet Peggy at that hotel! If only Peggy hadn’t insisted on such extremes of secrecy, even down to registering the room in the damning name of Smith. If only Rosalind hadn’t been so stunned by the older woman’s private revelations that she had ignored the first signs of her distress and then wasted precious time searching Peggy’s bag for her medication instead of calling the emergency number straight away.
Rosalind struggled against a renewed flood of guilt. None of it had really been her fault, she reminded herself. She had made a few mistakes in judgement, that was all. She might have been a principal player in the drama, but she hadn’t been its author. It was Peggy who had written the original script, and in spite of her sympathy for the woman Rosalind couldn’t help resenting the fact that she had somehow ended up as the scapegoat in the tangled affair.
She stuffed the offending magazine into the pocket on the seat in front, determined not to brood. Rosalind’s philosophy of life was simple: be positive. There was no point in agonising over actions and events that couldn’t be changed. Self-pity got you nowhere but in the dumps. You had to keep moving forward, substitute ‘if onlys’ with ’what ifs’ and regard each negative experience as character-building for the future rather than as a destructive barrier to present happiness.
With that firmly in mind Rosalind shucked her boots off in favour of the free airline bootees and prepared to eat and drink and make merry across several thousand kilometres of airspace. If she was going to zonk out on a beach for three weeks she had no need to worry about jet lag!
Her body, however, had other ideas. The stresses of the last couple of weeks and the strain of the past few months caught up with her, and after a superb dinner accompanied by a few more glasses of champagne Rosalind found her eyelids drooping and her mind pleasantly unravelling.
She snuggled under a down-soft blanket and fell asleep watching a movie she had particularly wanted to see, and when she awoke was disorientated to find herself muffled in total darkness. She fought her way free of the blanket covering her face and found that the cabin lights had been dimmed and almost everyone else was asleep. The attendants were murmuring in hushed voices in the curtained galley.
Feeling a pressing need, Rosalind stumbled blearily into the aisle, staggering slightly as the plane hit mild turbulence. Not quite everyone was asleep, she found as she groped her way sleepily towards the toilet. The James man’s bent head was burnished by a pool of light, revealing glints of red-gold amongst the nondescript brown strands which had slipped forward to mask his tilted profile. As she passed his seat she saw that his laptop was open on his unfolded table and that in his hand he was holding...
‘Are you crary?’ Rosalind lurched forward and snatched the object from him. ‘Have you been using this?’ she whispered, shaking the cellphone accusingly in his startled face.
‘I—’
‘Didn’t you read the safety information? Don’t you know it’s prohibited to use portable phones on board planes?’ she hissed.
‘Well, I—’
Rosalind glanced around to see if anyone had noticed and crammed herself down into the seat next to him. ‘They can play havoc with the plane’s electronic systems,’ she told him, speaking quietly so as not to disturb the sleeping passengers around them. But even in a whisper her classically trained voice retained its full range of articulation and expression. ‘If anyone had reported you, you could be arrested as soon as we land... that’s if you don’t cause us all to crash first!’
His eyebrows rose above the straight line of his spectacle frames at her fiercely delivered lecture. ‘Are you going to report me?’ he asked curiously.
She was offended by the suggestion. ‘Of course not!’ She was still slightly muzzy with sleep but he looked disgustingly bright and alert as he studied her expressive face. For a fleeting moment she thought she glimpsed a smouldering rage in the dark eyes, but when he blinked it was gone and she decided that it must have been a trick of the light.
‘There’s no “of course” about it,’ he said evenly. ‘You might have found it amusing to get me into trouble with the authorities—’
Her snort of indignation was genuine. ‘You must have a very odd idea of my sense of humour. I don’t happen to think it’s funny to mock the innocent.’
‘Is that what you think I am? An innocent?’ His mild voice sounded hollow, incredulous even. No doubt in his own mind he was a witty, sophisticated man of the world... The imagination had wonderful ways of compensating for one’s personal inadequacies!
‘Well, an innocent abroad, anyway,’ she said, humouring him. ‘It does rather stick out: you didn’t know about not using portable phones...or about the check-in procedures, and you were practically falling to pieces with nerves at the airport—’
‘Perhaps I was merely stunned speechless by your beauty.’
His sarcastic retort left her unruffled. She knew she wasn’t beautiful in the classical, restrained sense but she had flamboyant good looks that most men found attractive and an innate sense of style. ‘You thought I was a boy,’ she reminded him smugly.
‘Did I?’ he murmured quizzically, leaning back in his seat so that his face moved out of the spotlight. Thrown into shadowed relief, his features were stripped of gentleness, imbued now with a brooding strength that seemed vaguely sinister. A man of dark secrets and intriguing mystery...
‘You know you did,’ she said, admiring the effectiveness of the illusion: comic relief as villain. She had always believed that lighting was more effective than make-up in creating a character and here was the proof.
He said nothing and she frowned, suddenly remembering the magazine he had been leafing through at the beginning of the flight. Her pride bristled. Damn it, if he was toying with her over the matter of her identity...!
‘But you obviously know who I am now, right?’ she challenged.
His eyes dipped to her breasts, which were barely visible under the loose drape of her shirt, and to the slender curve of her hips, spanned by a wide leather belt which emphasised the narrowness of her waist. His gaze travelled down further, to the cellphone resting on her upper thigh, next to where the snug V of her jeans was pulled flat across her pubic bone.
‘Yes...you’re obviously a woman.’
The stifled statement was somehow more flattering than a gush of admiring words. To her surprise Rosalind felt her body tingle as if he had physically touched her where his eyes had wandered. Usually perfectly comfortable under the most leering male appraisal, she hurriedly crossed her
