Cruel Angel. Sharon Kendrick

playwright demanded. Just what was this tension? she wondered. She could almost smell it in the air, could feel it surrounding her like a heavy cloud, reminiscent of the charged, expectant air just before a storm broke.

      It was unusual enough two weeks before opening to have a full dress rehearsal, and on stage instead of in the rehearsal rooms. Most of the cast had muttered about it, but Cressida had just put it down to one of the director’s little foibles.

      She briefly looked down towards the back of the house, to where Justin, the director, sat in his customary chair, but today, to her surprise, he was not alone. She could see the shadowy form of a man beside him.

      She began speaking her lines, uttering them in the anguished way which was still comparatively easy for her to do. For who better could convey the despair and the loneliness of a marriage in its final death throes?

      But she found the words unbearably difficult this afternoon. The atmosphere in the theatre was affecting her in a tangible way. She whirled to pick up the champagne glass to hurl at Adrian, and as she did her eye was caught by a movement next to the director. She stared into eyes that glittered like jet, and the plastic glass slipped out of her hand to bounce harmlessly at her feet. Her head bowed forward as if it were too heavy for her slender neck to support.

      ‘Oh, my God,’ she said weakly, and passed out.

      When Cressida came round a few seconds later, it was to uproar all around, with Justin, the director, on his feet. ‘What’s going on?’ he was shouting. ‘See to her, someone!’ then, holding his hands helplessly up in the air, as he turned to the tall black-haired man who stood beside him.

      ‘I’m sorry about this; I don’t know what’s got into her. She must be ill.’

      Cressida heard a horribly familiar voice—deep, with the slightest foreign inflexion.

      ‘Ill?’ The voice mocked. ‘Indeed?’

      With a monumental effort she forced her eyes open to find herself surrounded by her fellow actors—Jenna holding a glass of water and Adrian proffering a cool cloth. She pushed them away, determinedly getting to her feet, smiling at Adrian to indicate that she wished to continue with the scene.

      ‘I’m fine,’ she insisted. It had been an illusion, she thought desperately. It must have been. A flashback brought on by the content of the play. ‘Fine. Honestly!’ She straightened her back as she stood up, giving her familiar wide-mouthed smile, which shrivelled and died like a scorched leaf when she saw that it had been no illusion. The man had risen, along with Justin, but he made the director fade into insignificance. He was staring at her intently, but the theatre was too dark to interpret the expression on his face. Not, she thought bitterly, that it had ever been a face which wore its feelings openly.

      Her eyelids felt as if they had been weighted with lead, fluttering to cover the huge eyes, and when she opened them again he had gone.

      She was unable to carry on. It had never happened before, and she was close to tears. She had always been a professional, through and through, and now here she was, a quivering wreck, her hands shaking as if she had seen a ghost.

      But you have seen a ghost, tormented a voice in her head. The ghost of your past. You had never thought to see him again; not now—after all this time. Hadn’t she prayed for that, night after night, once her initial heartbreak was over?

      Justin scrambled up on to the stage. He held out his hands and grasped hers tightly. ‘Don’t worry, lovie.’ He smiled. ‘Is it nerves, or are you ill?’

      She gave a pale smile. ‘Headache,’ she said lamely. ‘I’m sorry, Justin.’

      Justin fished a peppermint out of his pocket and began to crunch. ‘Go home,’ he said firmly. ‘And rest. You’re my favourite actress, and you’ve never pulled a stunt like this before. We’ll rehearse tomorrow instead. Now go! Quick! Before I change my mind!’

      She wanted to ask him about the man sitting with him, about what he wanted with him. Or with her? But to ask that would be to acknowledge that she knew him, and that was the last thing she wanted. That was an area of her life which she had carefully concealed—a definite no-go area, and far too painful to resurrect.

      She stumbled back to her dressing-room, collapsing into the chair in front of the mirror, her green eyes looking huge in her unnaturally white face, the full lips a ghastly slash of trembling scarlet.

      Had she dreamed it? Could she just have imagined it? An over-active imagination conjuring up an image of him? She shook her head, the hairspray-stiffened fifties hairstyle scarcely moving. That had been no dream. That had been Stefano, in the warm, living flesh.

      And then it dawned on her. The letter from her solicitor had gone to his in Rome just a couple of months ago, requesting a divorce after two years of separation. And it had gone unanswered. Stefano had ignored it. ‘Leave it for a while,’ her solicitor had reassured her. ‘There’s often a hiccup at this stage. Cold feet, perhaps. Your husband may have decided he doesn’t want a divorce, after all.’

      Like hell, thought Cressida bitterly. An ultimatum delivered coldly, followed by absolute silence for two years. No further evidence was needed to convince her that Stefano wanted her out of his life.

      She could remember the words he had used as if it had been yesterday. ‘I will not have you remaining in England to work, while I am in Italy. A wife’s place is by her husband’s side, and if you take this job then our marriage is over.’ But there had been no choice—she had to take it—that way lay sanity, at least. And what alternative had he offered her? A marriage growing worse by the minute with a cold, distant husband who seemed only to want her when she was in his bed?

      Cressida stared sightlessly into the lighted mirror of her dressing-table, sitting as mute and as still as a statue. And in her heart she knew that she was waiting, so that when the knock came she didn’t even start, but moved slowly towards the door as if she had been put on automatic pilot.

      It could, of course, have been anyone—a member of the cast, the director, or the prompt: all legitimate visitors to see how she was feeling after her unexpected collapse. But she knew without a doubt that it was none of these. Even the knock at the door was typical of the man—not loud and insistent, but soft and firm, the trademark of a man who did not have to yell and bluster to get what he wanted. Oh, yes, she thought, that was Stefano to a T—used to getting exactly what he wanted in that quietly determined way of his.

      She pulled the door open, carefully composing her face, knowing that polite disinterest would be her most effective weapon. ‘Hello, Stefano,’ she said coolly.

      Black eyebrows arched arrogantly. ‘Such a disappointing greeting for your husband,’ he murmured. ‘I had hoped for something a little more—familiar.’

      The way he said the word made it sound like an insult, and yet the lilting Italian accent sent a shiver of graphic remembrance through her in spite of herself. She prayed for the right, dispassionate response. ‘You are my husband in name only,’ she stated. ‘We have been separated for over two years and legally that means I am now free to seek a divorce. Surely you realise that, Stefano?’

      She had a reaction at last. There was a spark of anger in the dark, glittering eyes, but it was gone in seconds. ‘I realise it only too well, cara,’ he said, in a voice which was soft with menace. ‘But, as you know, divorce means nothing to me. In the eyes of the church—and in—’ he dropped his voice to a velvety whisper ‘—my eyes, we will always be man and wife, with all the endless and delightful possibilities that the state of matrimony offers.’

      He stood, lounging in the narrow doorway, as though he had every right to be there, his stance relaxed, though she knew him well enough to know that the muscles beneath the smooth brown skin were flexed and alert.

      Outwardly, she thought, he had changed little. Perhaps the features were slightly more fined down, but not dramatically so. Even as a relatively young man, his face had held none of the softness of youth. The eyes, even then, had been hard, glittering