Phoenix Falling (19 page)

"You're grasping at straws, Kenzie. We're going to drive each other crazy. But you're right, the movie will probably benefit by having both of us, even if the camera guys have to work twice as hard to make me look young enough." She rose from the sofa. "I think I'll call it a night."

"Isn't it a little early? We could do some rehearsing."

They'd rehearsed together many times since that first night with
The Scarlet Pimpernel
at Kenzie's house, but so much had changed. So damned much..."I haven't got a copy of the script."

"I do. I'd planned on working tonight. We can manage with one copy. I've learned just about all of my lines, and since you wrote the screenplay, you must know it almost by heart."

He'd booked this exotic hideaway for a Saturday evening of work? "Sometimes, Kenzie, you're downright inhuman."

"You've finally discovered my deep secret—that I'm a space alien who learned to act so I can pass as human."

Though he said it jokingly, there was a strange kind of truth in his words. Not that he was from outer space, but that he felt like an outcast. Many actors felt like outsiders, herself included. She knew the source of that primal sense of disconnection in her own life, but not in Kenzie's. He'd posted the subject of his childhood off-limits at the beginning of their relationship, and she'd respected that.

But she'd wondered what influences had shaped him. His voice, accent, sophistication, and confidence indicated an upper-class British background. Yet he had an almost complete lack of ego, which didn't jibe with a privileged upbringing or his phenomenal success. In the most narcissistic profession in the world, he was profoundly unassuming. He accepted that he would receive star treatment, but never seemed to want or expect it.

Nor did he have the vanity that was usual with most beautiful people. Neither did she, but that was because she hadn't been a particularly pretty child. With her skinny frame, thin face, and odd red-blonde hair, she'd been passable at best. She'd stared into minors and brooded on the unfairness of fate for not giving her Clementine's lush beauty.

In time she'd learned to play up her good features and carry herself as if she were beautiful. That illusion had worked for her as an actress, but it wasn't the same as being born with traffic-stopping good looks.

She deduced that Kenzie's childhood had been very difficult, maybe an alcoholic or abusive parent. Maybe, like her, he hadn't been a very attractive child. If he'd been overweight, it explained the lack of vanity and his rigorous physical fitness regimen. Access to a gym was a standard clause in all his movie contracts.

Or maybe he'd been dumped into a boarding school and forgotten, or been a short skinny kid who'd been bullied mercilessly. Whatever the details, that upbringing had been so painful that he wouldn't talk about it to anyone, not even to her. Maybe he'd anticipated that they wouldn't stay together, and she might tell his story to the tabloids after they parted. Life had made him extremely wary.

One of the things they had in common.

Though she would prefer to put a door between herself and her husband, it would be foolish to waste several hours of uninterrupted working time when the movie had such a tight production schedule. "I suppose we could do a read-through of the script, though I don't want to get into serious acting."

"Agreed. I figure I'll only be able to manage Randall and his problems for one or two takes per scene, so I'm not going to waste the emotion at this early stage." He pulled a copy of the screenplay from his duffel bag and handed it to her. "But a read-through will help us to get a handle on playing these characters together."

She'd loved working with Kenzie on the two movies they'd made before this one. Not only was he incredible to act with, but it had meant spending more time together. Conflicting obligations had kept them apart for half their marriage, and that had contributed to their breakup. How many times had she talked with him on the phone when the hunger for his physical presence had been so great she'd almost moaned from the pain of separation?

Forcing her mind back to the present, she flipped through the script. Every scene between Sarah and Randall was either romantic, charged with heavy emotion, or both. It was difficult directing Kenzie through this material—acting with him would be hellacious. It was a good thing that Sarah was on the verge of tears half the time. That Rainey could handle.

She began to read her first scene, when Randall asked Sarah to many him. Miss Naïveté at her most credulous, full of wonder that the handsome, dashing officer she'd adored from childhood wanted her as his wife. Rainey kept her voice flat, and suppressed the memory of Kenzie proposing to her in California. He read his part with matching neutrality.

After the engagement came Randall's African campaign and imprisonment. He dreamed of Sarah during his captivity, her innocent beauty becoming an emblem of his homeland, but they didn't see each other again until he stepped from the train at Victoria Station and found himself a hero.

Though her parents didn't approve of a gently bred girl meeting her fiancé in such a public place, Sarah insisted on going to the station. She was waiting with her protective father as Randall emerged from the train. They couldn't speak properly in the middle of the turbulent crowd, but she was close enough to see the longing in Randall's eyes when he saw her. Then the panic as journalists and hero-worshippers closed in on him.

Line by line Rainey and Kenzie worked out the rhythms of the dialogue so that the formal Victorian language wouldn't sound stiff. The characters had to be convincingly historical, yet the language must not distance the audience. That was why Rainey had wanted an English actress with classical stage training. Luckily, she'd spoken the dialogue as she wrote it, so she could manage the high-flown sentences.

Besides running the dialogue, they began to roughly block out movements. She had clear mental images of how far apart they would stand, how they would look at each other—or avoid a glance.

Despite her intentions, she began to slip into her character. Rainey had written the final shooting script in a white haze of pain after she and Kenzie split up. It was impossible to separate herself from Sarah when they shared the anguish of losing a beloved man for reasons they couldn't understand.

Kenzie wasn't doing much better. His natural fluid movements had been replaced by the rigidity of a repressed, tormented Victorian officer, and he was acting out every sentence as if they were on camera. By the time they reached the scene where Randall tried to break the engagement, Rainey's nerves were raw, and Kenzie was darkly convincing in his portrayal of a man on the edge.

Desperate because of the social pressures that were inexorably forcing them to the altar, Randall asked his fiancée to walk with him to the village. She accepted happily, prattling on about aspects of their wedding until he said harshly, "Sarah. My dearest girl. I... I can't marry you."

"Not marry?" She stopped dead, horror-struck. "You can't mean that! Are... are the preparations too elaborate? If you prefer, we can have a simple ceremony."

"No! It's not the ceremony, but the marriage itself."

Two beats of silence before she whispered painfully, "What have I done, John?"

"The fault isn't yours, but mine." He turned away, his movements brittle. "I am... flawed. Broken. Unworthy to be your husband."

"That's not true! You are a gentleman, a soldier, a hero. You are worthy to marry any woman in England." She caught her breath. "There's someone else, isn't there? A grand lady better suited to be your wife."

"There is no other woman. There never will be." He gazed at her, his soul aching in his eyes. Was that Randall's pain, or did some of it belong to Kenzie?

"Then
why
? I don't understand."

"Thank God you don't." A muscle jumped in his jaw. "The world is a place of great wickedness, and it has... destroyed my honor. I cannot marry."

Heart hammering, Rainey realized they were acting a scene she hadn't had the courage to face in real life. "But we pledged ourselves to each other! Even if you won't be my husband, in my heart I am your wife. I love you. I always will."

"How can you love me when you don't even know me? I'm not the man you think I am, Sarah. I never was." He touched her hair with yearning, a gesture so eloquent it must be duplicated on camera. "You mustn't marry a stranger."

But Rainey had, and with her eyes wide open. "Aren't men and women always strangers to each other? You dreamed of valor and honor, while I dreamed of creating a home for you and bearing your children."

Her voice broke as she thought how much she'd wanted to have Kenzie's child. "Two years I waited and prayed for you, and half that time I thought you were dead. Never once did I look at another man. Do you think I can stop caring simply because you bid me to?"

"You
must
leave me," he said with barely suppressed violence. "For both our sakes."

"To say that, you are more honorable than you believe." More Rainey than Sarah, she stepped nearer, struggling with the desire to touch him. "I will release you if you truly wish it—but only if you will swear that you don't love me."

"This isn't about love!"

"How can marriage not be about love?" She stopped so close they were almost touching. "Persuade me that you don't love me, and you are free."

"Free?" His mouth twisted. "You were with me every moment I was in Africa. In the bleakest hours, thoughts of you were my only link to sanity. You were my salvation then. I can't drag you down into my darkness now."

"As long as we're together, I won't mind the darkness." Rainey turned her head and kissed his hand, tears stinging her eyes as she abandoned all pretense that she was acting. "Why, Kenzie? I don't understand any more than Sarah does."

He flinched, retreating into his role as a shield against her loss of control. "Don't cry, Sarah. I can't bear to think I'm hurting you."

She choked back a sob. "But you are."

The script called for him to kiss her tears away. For a taut moment they stared at each other, caught between the force of the story and painful reality. She thought he'd withdraw without touching her, but he bent into the kiss.

The frayed line between characters and actors dissolved and she tilted her head back. Their lips met, his salty with her tears. It was not the kiss of a Victorian soldier with his innocent fiancée, but the embrace of a husband desiring his wife.

The script fell from her hands as she clung to him like a drowning woman to a lifeline. For months she'd hungered for his touch. This was insane, but she didn't want to think or judge, only feel. "Ah, Kenzie, I've missed you so much...."

"Not as much as I missed you." His arms encircled her and they kissed with explosive force. She wrapped herself around him, trying to melt into his body, until he released her, swearing under his breath. "I should never have suggested rehearsing in such an isolated place."

Shaken by his withdrawal, she said acidly, "You mean this isn't a planned seduction?"

"Hardly. I've hurt you enough," he said, his voice laced with pain. "The last thing I want to do is hurt you again."

"Like John Randall, you're painfully honorable, at least in this." She placed her hands on his shoulders, slid them down his arms, feeling his muscles tense at the caress. What did she want tonight, wisdom or passion?

She began to unfasten his buttons. "I already feel miserable. At least if we sleep together, there are compensations."

He caught her hand. "Strictly temporary ones, with a fierce morning after."

She tugged his shirt loose. "I've read that it's pretty common for couples in the process of getting divorced to sleep together, so this is normal behavior."

"Normal, maybe, but not wise."

"To hell with being wise." She kissed the hollow above his collarbone, enjoying the shiver that went through him.

"Are you sure?" His hands slid down her back to cradle her hips, drawing her tight against him.

She hesitated, knowing she should take this chance to change her mind. But she wanted him so much it was a physical ache, and they would never have such privacy again. "I'm sure. This will change nothing, but... I want to be with you one last time." Perhaps a final intimacy was needed to say good-bye.

"Then let's make it a night to remember." He caught her up in his arms and carried her into the bedroom, enfolding her body after he laid her on the bed. As he kissed her throat, he murmured, "No past, no future. Only now."

"This won't even have happened." She buried her hands in his dark hair and released the doubts and fears that ruled her life. For now they were lovers, and nothing else mattered.

They came together with fierceness and tenderness, ravenous hunger and taut restraint, knowing each other so well that no words were needed. She cried out when he entered her, wanting to weep at the familiarity and rightness of their joining. Why had he thrown away something so precious?

She buried the thought, concentrating on the fever in her blood, the rising urgency that drowned out mind and pain and anger.

Until in the firestorm of fulfillment, she was free.

Chapter 14