A Question of Identity

She was still wearing her glasses, and her eyes, behind the lenses, were over-bright with embarrassment. He simply didn't have the heart to tell her of her mistake, though his agent and secretary had not been very pleased with his decision to eat the rest of the meal with a strange girl, especially as they had brought manager-producer Roxanne Kent, of the Crown Theatre Company, to meet him.

“Were they friends of yours?” she ventured nervously.

“No, I work with them,” he replied. Her face cleared.

“I suppose they run the murder weekends, don't they?” she said. “You told me about them on the phone?” He helped himself to fruit.

“Yes Murder weekends are fun, and very stimulating, especially if you get to be the corpse.” She looked confused.

“But you do, don't you?” she said, puzzled. “Get to be the corpse, I mean. That’s what you said you were.” He ate a piece of pineapple neatly.

“My specialty,” he said smoothly, without turning a hair. “The knife in the chest,” – he clasped the front of his shirt with a look of mock anguish; – “the cyanide in the champagne;” – he rolled his eyes theatrically; – “or the axe in the head. It's all one to me, you know.” She laughed delightedly.

“What else do you do,” she asked, “apart from corpses?” He gave her a wary look.

“This and that,” he replied. “Whatever I'm offered; commercials, walk-ons. I've even been known to do Restoration Drama, or to say 'Monsieur!' in a French language program.”

“I can see you are very versatile.” Her laugh was sweet, and totally unaffected. “Do you think you could be versatile enough to become Lucas Baird for a weekend, for the benefit of my family and friends?”

 He leaned back in his chair, and eyed her curiously.

 “I'd like to know why being Lucas Baird is necessary,” he said. “What's behind all this subterfuge, Sophie?” She flushed deep pink, and looked down at her hands, and the bright blue napkin in her lap.

“It's very important to me,” she confessed, “but do I really have to explain?”

“I'd prefer that you did,” he told her. “After all, you might be planning some criminal activity, like nicking the spoons or the family jewels, and I wouldn't like to get mixed up in something like that.”

She looked up at him, and for a brief moment he was afraid she was about to cry, then she said awkwardly, “I was engaged to Derek for almost two years, then he broke off our engagement. A little while later he took up with my childhood friend, Charlotte. Now they're getting married the first Saturday in June. I'm sure I'd like them both to be happy. It's just that I have a problem wanting them to be happy together. That doesn't sound very charitable, does it?” He was surprised at the level of indignation he felt on her behalf.

 “It's understandable,” he said gently. “No one likes to be dumped.” He paused. “And where does Lucas Baird fit in to all this? Don't tell me he did something similar to you, or I shall be forced to hunt him down and sort him out for you?”

She smiled at his attempt at humor, but he saw with some compassion that it was a tremulous smile. She shook her head, the movement stirring the flurry of shining curls against the petal smoothness of her long neck.

“No, Lucas Baird hasn't dumped me,” she said quietly. “He's the enduring, faithful type, though not in the least boring. Lucas is very clever; he's read everything worth reading, and he can discuss literature for hours. He understands, too, that the future can only be understood with a good working knowledge of the past, so he is pretty knowledgeable in history. And he's practical; he can cook, or fix cars, fuses, anything.”

Henry's eyes were as cold as blue ice.

“I take it he's blond, blue-eyed and acceptably tall, too,” he said. “Obviously, you are in love with this paragon, so what's the matter with him, Sophie. Why can't he take you to this wedding himself?”

She hung her head. The pale brown silk of her hair fell forward, and for a moment she sat like that, her face partly hidden from his scrutiny. A grass-skirted girl willowed up, with the bill nestling in a pink conch shell. He placed a credit card in the hollow of the shell, and thought whimsically, as the girl willowed away again, that the pastel-tinted smoothness of the shell was no less spectacular than Sophie's skin.

 She looked up again, and met his eyes steadfastly.

 “There's nothing the matter with Lucas,” she admitted, “except that he doesn't exist. I made him up one day when Charlotte was being sorry for me over Derek. At the time I had no idea she had acquired Derek, either, otherwise I'd probably have said something even more damning. Then Charlotte told my mother, and I added all sorts of details for her. Before I knew it, I was quite carried away by my own fiction.”

“And now Charlotte, who is marrying Derek, wants you to produce the amazing Lucas at their wedding,” he added slowly. “Sophie, that is quite a mess. What happens after the wedding, if I agree to do it?” She shook her head, and gleams of silver in her hair matched her shining eyes, he thought, blaming the rum for his fancy.

“I really don't know,” she admitted. “I expect I'll invent a row over something, or he'll return to the States. I haven't got that far yet. I just want to get through the wedding without losing all self respect.”

He smiled again, the ice melting in that blue gaze.

“I presume you are a novelist,” he said, “or a journalist, at the very least.”

“No, I'm a history teacher in a secondary school,” she admitted, “though I have tried to write.”

“Everyone tries to write at some time,” he agreed, “even out of work actors.” His credit card was returned, this time in a sleek, incandescent shell that reminded him of the light in her gray eyes. Sliding the card back into his wallet, he told himself that getting fanciful on one fruit punch was a sign of increasing age, and decreasing tolerance to alcohol. He looked deliberately into those gray eyes.

“If you're ready,” he said, “I'll see you home, if I may.”