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'Of course, that would never enter your head, would it?' Joe teased, and Bobby grinned. 'I get the impression you're a guy worth watching,' Joe added, and Bobby looked distinctly flattered. He hurried to do some flattering in his turn.
'You're dead popular with the girls, they swoon when they hear you sing.' He rolled his eyes up and put on a dying expression. 'And they scream,' he added, letting out an eldritch shriek which made Quincy jump. 'Like that,' Bobby explained to Joe. 'They're idiots.'
'How could I refuse such flattery?' Joe shrugged.
Bobby beamed. 'Will you autograph my album?'
'Sure, why not?'
'Thanks,' said Bobby, and took the stairs three at a time, his feet thudding so hard the hall rocked with the sound.
It wasn't until he had gone that Quincy realised she was alone with Joe Aldonez. She began quietly edging towards the sitting-room door again and Joe asked: 'Where are you going?' in a voice which made her halt mid-step and look at him in alarm. He was using that voice which made her hair stand up on the back of her neck; the deep, soft, husky voice which he used when he was singing. He hadn't used it when he talked to Bobby, then he had sounded more brisk.
'I want to know what's going on in there,' she said.
'You'll find out in due course,' he informed her, taking hold of her arm. 'Why don't we make that coffee?'
'Why don't you let go of me?' Quincy retorted, but the cool fingers clamped on her arm gave her no opportunity to evade the steering grip which was leading her towards the kitchen, and she decided it would be undignified to struggle. She already felt she had been made to look ridiculous by this man. Her temper was ready to take off like a rocket to the moon, and Quincy had learnt to be careful about letting her temper slip the leash. She hadn't inherited the red hair which her father's mother had passed on to both Bobby and their elder sister, Lilli, but Quincy had been handed her grandmother's redhot temper. She usually kept it under control—little in her life had ever given her cause to get really angry. The last time she had lost her temper was when she saw some boys throwing stones at a stray dog, and on that occasion she had thrown one of them into the village duckpond. When Quincy did lose her temper she was apt to go too far, as her mother had remarked.
Joe let go of her in the kitchen and she quietly set about making a pot of coffee, ignoring him as he helped by tracking down the cups and getting out the sugar bowl.
'Is Quincy your real name?' he asked, and she nodded.
'What do you do, Quincy? What's your job?'
'I work for my father, I'm his receptionist and I do the typing.'
'Your father's a vet, isn't he?'
She nodded and Joe said: 'When I was a kid I used to dream about being a vet—I was crazy about horses, I'd have given anything to work with them all day. I've got a whole stableful of them now, but I never seem to get time to ride.'
'I used to ride all the time when I was at school,' said Quincy, and a smile came into his dark eyes.
'But not any more? What do you do in your spare time these days, Quincy?' The intimate note in his voice made her stiffen. He was flirting with her and that charm was probably as synthetic as Carmen Lister's smile. He needn't think he could turn it in her direction just because he had nothing more interesting in view. Quincy was under no illusion about her own looks—her face was unlikely to stop any man in his tracks, she was slightly too thin and her short chestnut hair only took on a vivid colour in strong sunlight, when it acquired a golden glint. When she smiled, somehow people always seemed to smile back, though, and she had long ago learnt to live with her own ordinary appearance. Since she only saw herself in mirrors she was unaware of the fact that when she was looking at someone else, her face was vitally alive, heart-shaped, smooth-skinned, her green eyes full of warmth, her pink mouth a tender, gentle curve even in repose.
Ignoring his question, she said: 'I'm sorry Bobby put my name on that competition entry, Mr Aldonez. I realise it must have caused a lot of trouble for you and your publicity people and I apologise, but I couldn't possibly go through with it. I would never have dreamed of entering. I'm not one of your fans, I'm afraid. I wouldn't want to deprive one of them of her dream-come-true.'
'Why
are you so cross?' he asked.
'I'm not cross!' she denied.
'Your green eyes have got mad lights in them,' he remarked, staring down into them.
'Oh, I'm crazy now, am I?' she said indignantly, and he laughed.
'Not that sort of crazy—mad as in angry, and getting angrier by the minute.'
'Are you surprised? If anyone around here is crazy it's you and your friends!'
His mouth twisted drily. 'The competition? Hell, that wasn't my idea—Carmen and Billy hatched that between them as publicity for my tour of England. I didn't even know about it until I arrived two days ago—they sprang it on me and it was too late for me to call a halt. I can't attend to every little detail myself, that's Billy's province. He'd sell his own grandmother to get some free publicity.'
'I can believe that,' said Quincy, thinking of the pale, unreadable face of Billy Griffith. She wouldn't trust him further than she could see him—and even then she would watch him like a hawk.
'So you're not one of my fans?' he asked, looking amused as she flushed and glanced away.
'I don't get much time to listen to records,' Quincy evaded, thinking guiltily of the album she had hidden upstairs in her bedroom. She had been playing it endlessly for days, but he wasn't to know that, and she certainly did not intend to pander to his vanity by telling him as much.
