Love's Golden Spell. William Maltese

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СКАЧАТЬ her breathing erratic. His continuing smile infuriated her.

      “I’ll be sportsman enough to accept a one-on-one exchange, but don’t try to take advantage,” he warned her.

      “You bastard!” she accused, her voice dripping venom. She went quickly to the door, willing her weak legs to support her. She expected to find Tim, Roger, and Jill in the next room, but they weren’t there. Nor was the camera equipment. She hurried through the French doors and around the house, praying she would be in time. She prayed in vain. The van was gone. She was alone with Christopher Van Hoon, except for the people who worked for him.

      She could count on no one but herself. There was something disturbing about her predicament.

      Christopher stepped out on the front porch like an Olympian god about to bestow his favors on an unwilling maiden.

      “I insist you have someone drive me back to my hotel immediately!” she said.

      “You’ll be driven to your hotel—later,” Christopher said, his smile mocking her demands.” Right now, Ashanti will show you where you can freshen up. We do, by the way, dress for dinner.” The servant who had collected the punch glasses appeared on cue.

      “Dress for dinner?” Janet echoed incredulously. She expected him to tell her he had raided her hotel room for the only dress she’d brought for formal occasions. She wasn’t expecting opportunities for dressing up in the bush, where she was heading the day after tomorrow.

      “I’m sure you’ll find something in the room to fit you,” Christopher said instead. “I’m partial to the black silk myself.”

      “Then you wear it!” She refused to humor him. “I’m returning to my hotel!”

      “Suit yourself,” Christopher said with a shrug. “I just hope you’re up to the walk.” He turned and disappeared into the house.

      Janet looked at the driveway, knowing how far it was to the main highway, let alone to Johannesburg.

      “Miss Westover?” It was Ashanti, waiting patiently for her to obey Christopher’s wishes.

      She didn’t answer. She started walking away from Lionspride and the madman who owned it.

      CHAPTER TWO

      “YOU’RE LUCKY you’re dark complexioned,” Christopher said. He was sitting behind a large oak desk. “That bit of redness will fade, and you’ll look even more beautiful in your new tan.”

      “Call off your goons, damn it!” Janet said. If she had originally looked upon the two men as her salvation, her opinion had changed when they’d driven her back to Lionspride.

      “Bill and Karl, this is Janet,” Christopher said, pyramiding his fingers beneath his chin. He looked disgustingly cool and calm, but then he hadn’t been trudging in the South African sun. Janet, on the other hand, looked a sight, and she didn’t need a mirror to tell her that.

      “Ma’am,” Bill and Karl said in unison. They’d been supremely polite until she’d tried to force her way out of the moving car. Even then, they had done nothing but keep her from jumping out and hurting, maybe even killing, herself. She should thank them instead of calling them names—except they had brought her back to Christopher. She was no better off than she had been a couple of hours earlier, although she was considerably more tired. And no matter what Christopher said, she felt the tightness of sunburn across her forehead.

      “That’s all for now, men,” Christopher said. “I’ll have Ashanti show Janet upstairs—that is, if she’s finally decided to cooperate.” Ashanti appeared: a man-robot getting messages via telepathy.

      Bill and Karl left, Janet staying where she was. Christopher ignored her, attending to his paperwork. He looked up several minutes later, pretending surprise to find her still there. He made a great show of checking his wristwatch. “I really wouldn’t recommend any walks after dark,” he said.

      “I refuse to believe this is happening!” Janet said, leaving the room. He would have left her standing there until doomsday.

      “Miss Westover?” It was Ashanti, trying to perform the task Christopher had assigned him.

      The view through the drapery-banked windows confirmed it was getting dark. Even with no wild animals around, Janet wouldn’t tempt fate after nightfall. “Okay, Ashanti,” she said, resigned—temporarily—to defeat, “where’s this room?”

      ‘This way, please,” Ashanti said, leading the way to the sweeping stairway that reminded Janet of a set from Gone with the Wind.

      Once in the room, she locked the door and looked for a telephone. There was none. The room wasn’t one Janet remembered. She had never been in all of the rooms of Lionspride. Christopher used to joke that he hadn’t, either.

      The bathroom was well stocked, complete with expensive perfumes. Everything was obviously designed for the use of not one but a procession of women, of whom Janet was merely the latest.

      Christopher had never married. The press kept Janet informed, because no matter what Christopher Van Hoon did, he made the papers. He was interesting copy, tremendously good looking and tremendously rich. That he hadn’t married gave Janet satisfaction long after her marriage to Bob.

      The bathroom mirror confirmed that she looked like hell. Her sunburn, though, wasn’t as bad as she’d thought.

      She started running the water in a bathtub as big as a swimming pool, liberally adding bath salts from two of six available jars of the stuff. The result was so inviting, she got into the tub before it was filled. She used her sore feet to turn off the faucets, then leaned back, closed her eyes and relaxed her weary bones.

      Qwenella Fairchild might have enjoyed the luxury of this sunken tub, Janet mused. Christopher had dated her in the States. That, too, had made the gossip columns. Qwenella was an ex-Playboy Bunny and centerfold. Compared to her, Janet looked like a man. Then, there had been the high-fashion model who had gone from the cover of Vogue to a big movie contract. Compared to her, Janet looked like a Playboy bunny. Then, Lady Bellona Morrel, who was related by blood to the Princess of Wales.

      “Who knows, I may marry you when you grow up,” he had told Janet sixteen years before. The sun was hot that day, a huge ball of molten gold behind blue-gum trees. Christopher’s hair was long over his ears and collar. He looked like a young lion. “If you ever do grow up,” he had added with a laugh, and kissed her.

      She roused herself from a drifting lethargy, concentrating on her lips, sensitive from his most recent, stolen, kiss. What a world of difference between their first kiss and this last one. What a world of difference between the loving youth and the hateful man.

      She hadn’t stopped thinking of Christopher when she married Bob. Some of those thoughts she hadn’t minded—those concerned her plans to get back at the Van Hoon family. Others, though, were betrayals of her father and of her wedding vows. That Vincent Van Hoon was dead and buried, her husband murdered by guerrillas in Central America, didn’t make such thoughts less disturbing. She was never physically unfaithful to her husband during the years of their marriage; but, every woman indulged in fantasies. It didn’t mean she didn’t love Bob. It didn’t mean she loved Christopher, either.

      She came out of the bath like Venus from the sea, reaching for one of the Turkish towels monogrammed with the Van Hoon СКАЧАТЬ