Shock!. Donald Ph.D. Ladew

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СКАЧАТЬ I wouldn't be intruding, I'd like to come by. Usually I work in the afternoons, but I'm sure I can manage something." She paused to gather herself.

      "You could invite me to dinner sometime. I would like that."

      When he didn't answer for a moment she blushed even harder, and pretended to examine a book on one of the shelves. She watched him covertly. He looked helpless, and for some reason she was sure he wasn't an indecisive man.

      "That would be very fine...please forgive me, Miss Melville, I can't think of anything I would enjoy more. I'm not at my best. My whole world is upside down. If you would come by from time to time, for tea or just to talk...I need to get used to having company. When I feel more on center, I'd like very much to have dinner with you."

      She smiled ruefully. "Well, it's not complete rejection." She laughed self-consciously. "You know, Gilbert, people are seldom at their very best, and they still manage to have a good time."

      "I know." The intensity of his voice startled her. "I want very much to see you, to take you places, to get to know you. I'm just a bit undone right now. You deserve all of a man's attention."

      She felt flustered, unsure of herself. It was a new feeling. She wasn't sure she liked it. He was formal, yet his intention felt as intimate as a caress. She didn't understand it, all he did was shake her hand and she felt out of breath.

      "Should I call ahead of time? I wouldn't want to disturb your afternoon tête-à-tête with Rachel. She may be jealous and I know she can scratch," Grace said.

      "You may come here anytime you want. I hope you will." Gilbert's intensity forced her attention.

      She wasn't ready to leave and went over to the sofa. As soon as she sat, Rachel, finished with her after-lunch toilette, jumped into Grace's lap and stretched out regally. Grace looked up and found Gilbert looking at her intently with a bemused expression on his face.

      "A penny for your thoughts?" Grace asked.

      He smiled quite openly. "I think how easily you become part of this room. You are like the other beautiful things here." His dark eyes held her like strong hands.

      "That's more like it. I knew you could say nice things. Tell me something, I get up very early and my bedroom window looks out over your garden. Was it you I saw doing those peculiar exercises with Mr. Nakamichi?"

      "Yes. I think when he first looked at the garden he thought I was a complete Philistine for letting it go to ruin. Then, when he discovered I was a practitioner of Tai Chi, he forgave me."

      "Tai Chi?" She raised a lovely eyebrow in inquiry.

      "Tai Chi Chuan: It is one of the more ancient of the martial arts of China. Most people do it for the exercise and the calming effect."

      She seemed puzzled. "I'm trying to figure why you might need to know such things. You don't look like someone who would be interested in violence." From the expression on his face she wondered if she had said something wrong.

      "Ahhhh, yes, violence." He smiled sadly. "I work in parts of the world where rooms like this," he looked around at the walls of books, "are unknown, more than unknown, they are inconceivable. "The source of the next meal is always in doubt. That reality has a tendency to bring out the worst in people, though I am unwilling to call violence motivated by hunger and lack of a future the worst side of man.

      "I worked for three years in South America. There is no middle ground, it is all saintliness and evil, and of course violence and its twin, cruelty."

      He hadn't been looking at her, but at events indelibly written on his memory.

      "Again, I must apologize. I haven't quite acclimated to this world. I can't even have a conversation with a beautiful woman without these morbid parts of life creeping in," Gilbert said apologetically.

      "Please don't apologize," she said. "If we have to pick our way through subjects, selecting only those that are 'nice', we aren't going to be very real to each other."

      He walked over to the sofa, sat down next to her, picked up her hand and held it tightly.

      "I am going to like you very much."

      She started to say something.

      "No," he smiled at her tenderly, "don't worry, I will let you set the pace. I can't help how I feel. I wouldn't if I could. To feel affection at all amazes me. Last week, I was convinced the capacity was gone." He took her hand and raised it to his lips gently and placed it back in her lap.

      She couldn't answer. She sat silently at a loss for words. "I have a thousand questions, but I think I'll save them for the next time we meet."

      As she got up to go, he smiled at her and said, "That's the nicest thing I've heard in a long time."

      "What's that?" Grace asked.

      "The next time we meet."

      "Oh, yes. I'll see you soon, Gilbert." She walked back through the garden. Her legs felt shaky. She was puzzled and elated at the same time.

      Chapter 8

      Rachel followed Grace out into the garden. Gilbert stood for a long time staring after her, going over everything they'd said. I really don't want this now. I have things to do. She's right; of course, I've seldom been the aggressor. But I know how, I do know how.

      He walked slowly across the room to the French doors, closed and locked them, and then more purposefully walked to the other side of the room and opened a smaller door. Two colorful still life paintings covering it made it almost indistinguishable from the rest of the wall.

      He went through the door and down a hallway toward the back of the house. Beneath a paneled staircase, he pressed a piece of molding and a small door, only slightly higher than his head, opened silently. Beyond it a light went on automatically. All that could be seen was another staircase going down, and a dark wall covered with unfinished oak planks.

      When his great grandfather built the place at the turn of the century his only experience with houses had been those in the East and in England where he'd lived as a boy. A house should have a cellar, he said, in this case a wine cellar.

      His grandfather, had for reasons of his own, paneled the area beneath the stairs, and had hidden the entrance to the cellar.

      At the bottom of the stairs, Gilbert flipped a switch and the whole area was lit by hooded hundred-watt light bulbs.

      Directly in front of the stairs were ten rows of double-sided racks. They stretched from the floor to the ceiling and were filled with bottles. If wine were the only thing of value in the cellar, there was good reason to protect it. Gilbert, like his father, didn't see it in those terms, but as part of his heritage. Like the house, the paintings and other treasures, the wine was something to be protected, preserved and appreciated.

      Opposite the last row of racks light shone into a smaller room. It contained a dozen cases of unracked wine and a small desk with a ledger on top and ten other ledgers inside. On a small extension leaf on the side of the desk were several old crystal decanters, a funnel, a sieve and candles.

      He leafed through his father's wine log. He'd posted each purchase of wine and spirits, along with the date and his comments regarding the vintage. On the opposite page СКАЧАТЬ