Private Lives Read online

  Angela Ripley, Fin knew, had been a raven-haired beauty with the deep blue eyes that everyone raved over. She looked tall and elegant in the photographs here, with the sort of curvaceous body that had made men turn and stare at her. Paul Halliwell looked tall, dark, and debonair, had been blessed, Fin knew, with more than his fair share of that smooth English charm that Hollywood had found so attractive in the eighties. He was the sort of man that women turned to stare at.

  And standing between these two glittering film stars in the photograph was Jacob Dalton, Angela’s husband, the director of the film. Taller than Paul Halliwell, dark hair cut severely short—which probably accounted for some of her uncertainty in recognising him earlier today!—even at the twenty-nine he must have been ten years ago, Jacob Dalton projected a hard cynicism that clearly showed he was impatient with the tedious demands for publicity for this latest film, that he would rather be anywhere else but standing in front of this camera.

  And a few weeks later he had been. They all had. Angela and Paul had been dead, Jacob Dalton had been in hospital.

  Angela and Paul had been killed in a fire at the Dalton home in Beverly Hills, Jacob Dalton only just managing to escape the same fate by escaping out of a window, nevertheless receiving burns to his body that had necessitated his being admitted to hospital, although those burns obviously hadn’t been serious enough, Fin had clearly seen by his nakedness this morning, to leave any lasting scars.

  Hollywood had deeply mourned the death of the beautiful woman, who had risen from a child-star of the sixties and seventies to one of the most popular and highest-paid actresses in the eighties, as only Hollywood could, seeming stunned by this terrible disaster that had taken their darling from them.

  Paul Halliwell had been a fairly new bright and shining star, something of an unknown quantity still, with a wife and young daughter at home in England. And it had seemed, after the initial shock, that only Paul’s wife and daughter remembered that he too had died in the fire.

  Fin’s mother had been devastated by her husband’s death, unable to believe that her charmingly irresponsible husband was gone forever.

  To Fin he had been a laughing man who showered her with gifts and laughter when he was ‘working’, and sank into the depths of melancholia and ignored her very existence when he was ‘resting’!

  She hadn’t seen much of him at all for the six months before he had died, her father busy filming in Hollywood, his busy schedule not allowing him time off to get back to them in England. Fin’s schooling had prevented them from going out to America to be with him too often either—in fact, her mother had refused to go again after their first visit there; she hated the artificiality of ‘Tinsel Town’, and the people who lived in it! And so they had continued to live their lives, for the main part, exactly as they had when her father was at home, Paul sending money home for his family, Fin going to school, her mother kept busy with the various committees she belonged to, along with her volunteer work in a local charity shop. For them life had settled into a not unpleasant pattern.

  All of that had been shattered by the death of Paul Halliwell and Angela Ripley in that house fire!

  Still suffering from shock, her mother had insisted on travelling over to America alone to bring back her husband’s body for burial, leaving Fin with the family of a schoolfriend for the few days it would take her to sort out the formalities over there.

  She had come back alone too, completely alone, white-faced, the shock deeper than ever. Instead of bringing her husband home she had buried him in the country he had adopted as his own, among the people he had apparently come to love too—most of them women, her mother had discovered from the gossip that was so rife there. Dozens of them. No woman, it seemed, had been safe from the lethal Halliwell charm!

  On her return Fin’s mother had methodically and systematically set about removing any evidence of her husband’s very existence in their lives—photographs, clothes, belongings, all of it had been thrown out. His betrayal of them both had been total, Jenny had told Fin dully, the last letter he had written to her still among his things, waiting to be posted, at the apartment he had rented. In it he had told her how sorry he was but that he had met someone else, someone he had fallen in love with. That he wanted a divorce.

  The ‘someone else’ he had met, Paul had explained, was Angela Ripley, Jacob Dalton’s wife for the last three years …

  Fin looked down again at the magazine she still held in her hand, magazines she had acquired at the time and managed to hang on to during her mother’s rampage through the house to destroy everything that would even remind them of Paul. In this photograph Angela was laughing lovingly up into Jacob’s face even as the camera had clicked. She certainly didn’t have the look of a woman involved in a torrid affair with the other man photographed there. But she had been an actress, after all—an even better one than any of them had given her credit for …!

  It had been obvious from the news that was printed at the time of the fire, from the renewed publicity over the tragedy every year on the anniversary of Angela Ripley’s death—the most recent one only two weeks ago—that the great general public had had no idea of the affair between the two stars. Fin knew that her mother, angered though she had been at the time by her husband’s betrayal, certainly hadn’t wanted it to become public knowledge either; her private humiliation was enough to cope with. But had Jacob Dalton been aware of the affair between his wife and Paul Halliwell? Fin now wondered.

  He had been noticeably silent, even for a man who ordinarily spurned publicity, after the tragedy, and once he was discharged from hospital, and after the very public funeral of his wife, it had been announced by the film company that Jacob Dalton was in need of a rest, that the strain of work, and now his wife’s death, had been too much for him.

  As far as Fin was aware, that ‘rest’ had lasted for the next ten years. Was still continuing, in fact …

  The man at Rose Cottage was him, she was sure of it. Well, almost … Enough to feel deeply concerned, anyway.

  She chewed on her bottom lip, wondering how long he intended staying in the area. Would her mother recognise him if she should see him? Would he recognise her mother? He wouldn’t know Fin, she was sure of it, even a grown-up Fin, because Jacob Dalton had been noticeably absent on the day Fin’s father had taken her around the studio. Having heard for so long what an ogre he was to work for, Fin had assumed that he probably didn’t like children either! But he and her mother had met once, if only briefly, when Jenny had made the sad trip to America to collect her dead husband’s belongings.

  It was ten years ago, and maybe in normal circumstances Jacob Dalton wouldn’t have remembered the unobtrusive wife of one of his stars, or Jenny him. But they hadn’t been normal circumstances; their respective spouses had just died together in a fire that Jacob Dalton himself had only just managed to escape from, and, on top of that, the two film stars had been having an affair at the time of their deaths!

  Jenny had come on a long way in the ten years that had elapsed since that time, had found a man she could love and trust, a man who made her, and her daughter, extremely happy; what had Jacob Dalton done with himself during the same amount of time? Not a lot, Fin would guess from his unkempt appearance. Except, perhaps—and she allowed him only a small benefit of the doubt!—consuming whisky in large quantities!

  ‘Fin!’ her mother called up the stairs to her. ‘Darling, there’s a telephone call for you.’

  She had given a start of surprise at the first sound of her mother’s voice, quickly closing the magazines and hiding them away in their usual place at the bottom of the wardrobe, panicked in case her mother should actually come up to her room, and relieved when she didn’t hear the sound of ascending feet on the stairs.

  Fin had never really been sure why she had obstinately held on to those two particular magazines, especially when she knew how upset her mother would be if she should discover them. But somehow she just couldn’t throw them away
. And thank God, in this case, she hadn’t, for those photographs at least confirmed what Fin had suspected: the man at Rose Cottage was too much like Jacob Dalton for him to be anyone else!

  She quickly went out into the hallway outside her bedroom before her mother should wonder why she hadn’t responded to her call, looking down at her mother as she went down the stairs two at a time. ‘Who is it?’ she frowned.

  ‘Delia!’ Her mother rolled her eyes expressively. ‘Something to do with wanting to know if you’re going to the committee meeting tonight.’

  Fin returned the knowing grimace; her mother was as familiar with Delia’s over-caution as she was. ‘I wouldn’t dare do anything else!’ Not many people would!

  But as she talked soothingly to Delia over the telephone, making all the right sympathetic noises, hopefully in all the right places, a totally ridiculous, unacceptable realisation came to her: the answer to the problem of their sudden lack of a director for their play lay not three miles away, at Rose Cottage. A Hollywood—ex-Hollywood—film director, no less. Jacob Dalton …!

  * * *

  ‘Is that one of the elves or pixies?’

  Fin stiffened instinctively at the sound of that particular voice over the telephone the next morning, her fingers tightening around the receiver. ‘Good morning, Mr Danvers,’ she greeted smoothly, hoping none of her agitation was detectable.

  This was the second consecutive morning that her first call of the day had totally disconcerted her; the last person, the very last person, she had expected to voluntarily hear from again was the man who called himself Jake Danvers! But she would recognise that mocking voice anywhere.

  ‘The chief elf herself, no less,’ he realised tauntingly, recognising her voice as easily, Fin able to visualise his cynically derisive expression as he did so.

  She drew in a deep, controlling breath. ‘This is Fin McKenzie, yes,’ she confirmed abruptly. ‘What can I do for you, Mr Danvers?’

  ‘You told me to contact you if I was in need of anything,’ he reminded in a low, suggestive drawl.

  ‘Yes?’ she prompted tautly, wishing he would just get on with whatever it was he wanted to say. But that would be too easy, wouldn’t it? She doubted this man ever made life easy, for himself or anyone else.

  ‘I need something,’ he told her huskily, obviously enjoying himself—at her expense—immensely.

  Fin wasn’t feeling in the best of humours this morning. As she had known they would, she and the rest of the committee had spent the majority of the previous evening going round and round in circles. No one within the society was prepared to take up the directorship of the play, it had been established after two hours’ discussion on that very subject, and then they had spent another hour deciding whom they could approach, without causing a political storm, outside their society.

  And for the whole of the time they had been going round in those agonising circles Fin had known exactly who they could at least ask. Although the very idea of it was unpalatable to her, and she very much doubted he would even consider it; they were only a small local amateur society, after all, and he was a Hollywood film director—ex-Hollywood, she reminded herself again. As if that really made any difference—he was still Jacob Dalton!

  And the last thing she had been expecting this morning was a telephone call from the man himself. For whatever reason!

  She certainly wasn’t in the mood to be the recipient of his rather warped sense of humour.

  When she had finally got home from the meeting the previous evening it had been to be told by her mother that Derek had telephoned twice during the last half-hour, and when she had called him back it was to an expected frosty reception; at least she wasn’t disappointed in that. Derek’s disparaging remarks about the play had made it impossible for Fin even to discuss with him the problems they were having; an ‘I told you so’ was the last thing she had felt like coping with when she felt so tired and despondent. A little loving support would have been very welcome, but it hadn’t been forthcoming, and consequently their call had ended with a certain amount of strain on both sides, and this morning when Fin had given her mother and David their anniversary present over breakfast and wished them a happy day she had had to act as if everything in her own world were rosy too!

  Her mother, after brooding all night about the exciting secret she had, had looked, by this time, ready to burst with the news. Fin had shared in her tense excitement, hoped and prayed that the test result would be positive, and her mother could give David his gift over dinner this evening.

  And now Fin had to deal with Jake Danvers as her first business call of the day! ‘Yes?’ Her irritation wasn’t quite masked by the politeness she fought to attain.

  ‘Is everything not running smoothly and with complete harmony in the land of the Little People this morning?’ he came back mockingly.

  Fin drew in a ragged breath. ‘Mr Danvers, I’m—’

  ‘Not in the mood, hm?’ he guessed tauntingly. ‘Well, Fin—I can call you Fin, can’t I?’ he drawled softly. ‘After yesterday I feel we know each other so well.’

  They didn’t know each other at all, and never would, but she really didn’t care what he called her—as long as it wasn’t elf or pixie!—just wanted him to tell her what his problem was and then get off the line; she had other work to do, and the truth of the matter was that the memory of his rudeness to her yesterday was still too raw for her to be able to deal with him calmly. That and the knowledge of exactly who he was …!

  ‘Please do,’ she invited impatiently.

  ‘Did you have a late night? Is that why you—? Better not push my luck,’ he dismissed wryly as he obviously sensed her increasingly frosty response. ‘You had better call me Jake,’ he invited distractedly. ‘I actually telephoned because I need to know who I would contact to arrange to have a carpet cleaned,’ he explained with a certain amount of rueful reluctance.

  Because he was having to admit, for all his previous arrogant claims to the contrary, that he did need her, after all. The admission lightened her mood slightly. ‘What carpet would that be?’

  ‘The one in Gail’s bedroom,’ he muttered so softly that Fin could barely hear him.

  What on earth had he done in there now? Yesterday he had stunk the place out with whisky, today he— Whisky …? Could that possibly be why it had smelt of the alcohol in there yesterday, why the bottle had been lying empty on the floor beside the bed? Could it be that the bottle had actually tipped over at some time and the liquid soaked into the carpet? It sounded like a reasonable explanation to her.

  ‘You spilt whisky all over it,’ she guessed wryly.

  ‘How the hell did you—? An advantage of being one of the Little People, I suppose,’ he accepted ruefully.

  Fin refused to take the bait this time over his continued mockery of the name of her business. In fact, she chuckled softly. ‘Something like that,’ she confirmed lightly. ‘As to the carpet, normally I would have offered to come and do something about it myself, but in the circumstances … If you look in the Yellow Pages under the heading “Carpet, curtain and upholstery cleaners” you should be able to find someone who can help you.’

  ‘You really know your stuff, don’t you?’ he said with grudging admiration.

  ‘It’s part of my job,’ she dismissed, ready to end the conversation.

  Jake had other ideas. ‘Why isn’t my request being treated as “normal”?’ he prompted sharply. ‘And exactly what “circumstances” do you mean?’

  He had surely made his feelings clear yesterday, concerning her initial offer of help! As to the ‘circumstances’, he wasn’t aware of it, and Fin had no intention of telling him either, but her father had been having an affair with this man’s wife ten years ago! There was surely enough reason there for her to stay completely away from him. Besides, the less contact she had with him, the less opportunity there would be for her mother to meet him too. On the days when she was really busy at work her mother often stepped in to help out
; it would be disastrous for all of them if her mother should happen to get called out by this man!

  ‘You surely haven’t forgotten how disparaging you were about the service offered by the Little People when we talked yesterday,’ she reminded smoothly without rancour. ‘And there must be any number of companies in the telephone book who could do just as efficient a job for you—possibly better if it’s something they specialise in.’

  ‘In the Yellow Pages, under the heading “Carpet, curtain and upholstery cleaners”,’ he repeated mockingly to show her he had been listening to every word she’d said to him. ‘I think Gail would rather you came and did it.’

  And Gail was her client, he was reminding her. And it was Gail’s cottage, Gail’s carpet. Damn him!

  ‘I’ll be there within the hour,’ she told him tightly before ringing off abruptly, angry at being put in this position. She didn’t want to go back to Rose Cottage. Didn’t want to see Jake Danvers or Jacob Dalton again!

  The tinkling of the bell over the door announced the entrance of someone into her office, Fin forcing a polite smile of welcome to her lips before looking up, the smile deepening with genuine warmth as she saw it was her mother. Although thank God she hadn’t arrived a few minutes earlier; her mother might not have had any idea of who she was talking with on the telephone, but Fin had, and it would have made her reaction to Jake Danvers even more stilted than it had been!

  She stood up to move round the desk to hug her mother. ‘You didn’t tell me you were coming into town.’ She frowned slightly. Mother and daughter were very alike facially, even if their colouring was different, Fin’s red hair a throw-back, she had been told, to a great-grandmother on her mother’s side.

  Her mother was still filled with the restless excitement of earlier. ‘I’m on my way to see Dr Ambrose,’ she explained. ‘He telephoned as promised this morning, just after you left actually, but he wouldn’t tell me anything over the telephone; insisted I go into the surgery.’