Love's Golden Spell. William Maltese

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СКАЧАТЬ were betraying her. She had been crazy, basing so many daydreams on an incident that had happened sixteen years ago.

      She found a black silk dress on the bed. She hadn’t put it there, and the door was locked. This didn’t mean anything. It was Christopher’s house, and he had the keys. He must have been there while she was in the bath, the bathroom door ajar. He must have watched ever so silently, and—

      She was letting her imagination run away with her because of one unpleasant kiss meant to scare her. He had laid out the dress to scare her, too. He was getting back at her for her plan to blacken the Van Hoon name. Scaring, though, was as far as it went. Christopher, with all the willing women he could have, wasn’t going to force himself on her. Janet wasn’t a little Miss Nobody. She was a well-known personality in the States and in five foreign countries that syndicated Animal Kingdoms in the Wild. She could cause one helluva big stink that not even Van Hoon money could gloss over.

      He was playing a game. She could play games, too. She walked over to the bed and lifted the dress for closer inspection. It was a Valentino: simple, expensive and with a revealing neckline. She checked the closets and dresser drawers for accessories.

      He knew her correct size at a glance, because the dress fit like a glove. If the bodice was tight, the effect was sexy. It was so sexy, she wouldn’t have worn the dress in public, but only the servants and Christopher would see her here.

      She unlocked the door and stepped into the hallway, surprised when she wasn’t confronted by guards. She could enter one of the other bedrooms to find a phone, but her rescue party would be spotted before it reached the house. Besides, she wasn’t as frightened as she had been.

      She paused at the top of the stairs, her fingers poised delicately on the highly polished banister. Her gaze followed the long downward curve of the railing, her mind flashing to long-ago rides with her and Christopher astraddle the thing. At eighteen, he had argued that he was too old for such antics, yet Janet hadn’t had that much trouble changing his mind.

      Janet was older now and wasn’t dressed for a ride, but the temptation was too great. She assumed an experimental sidesaddle position, more weight on her feet than on her derriere. By the time she made her slow slide to the bottom, the silk dress was hiked well above her knees. She felt ridiculous when she slipped off, feeling more so when she realized Christopher was watching. It wasn’t possible to guess how long he had been there.

      He was dressed in a white dinner jacket with black tie, the jacket and white shirt contrasting attractively with the darkness of his tan. His cufflinks were small asterisks of gold.

      “I used to be quite a tomboy,” she said, recovering enough poise to speak. “Sometimes, I’m afraid, there’s a reversion to childhood.”

      “Yes? Well, you could have easily fallen and broke your pretty neck,” he said unsympathetically. He was the one who once had fallen from this particular banister, but reminding him would reveal too much. With a small cut on his forehead, he’d remained undaunted, immediately going back for another ride. Maybe the small crescent-shaped scar was still there, waiting for her to brush back the attractive tumble of his blond hair to find it.

      “Where’s supper? I’m starving!” she said, taking the last three steps to the marble floor. Her tone of voice said she was now in control.

      “I’ll do my very best to satiate your every appetite,” he said suggestively. He was insinuating more than food, but she let his double entendre pass without comment.

      “So, let’s eat!” she said, sweeping grandly past him and leading the way to the formal dining room. A long teak table, set for two in the intimacy of one corner, was illuminated by three beautiful chandeliers. “I presume the head of the table is your spot?” she said. She would have said more to emphasize her new mood, but he was giving her a strange look.

      “It has taken you an astoundingly short time to find your way around my house,” he said.

      Janet had made a very dangerous mistake by leading her host to a room she had supposedly never seen. But she was far better at subterfuge than she expected when she said, “It’s a knack I’ve always had,” tossing off his observation as less than it was. “Most women have it. It comes with the territory.” She walked to the table, not surprised when Ashanti was there to pull out her chair. Christopher hesitated, finally joining her.

      They were served hotchpotch of curly kale, a hearty Dutch stew of cabbage, potatoes, sausage, salt, butter, pepper and chicken stock. The stew was anything but pedestrian, served as it was from a large Delft soup tureen into matching soup bowls and accompanied by a 1947 South African Cabernet Sauvignon from the Groot Constantia vineyards outside Cape Town. The wineglasses were Baccarat.

      “You say you’re going to Great Zimbabwe?” Christopher asked when they paused in their small talk about the food. Janet had told him her travel plans earlier, using them as her excuse for avoiding this very meal.

      “I guess it’s Great Zimbabwe, Zimbabwe, isn’t it?” she said, and recalled her earlier confusion at the apparent redundancy. Great Zimbabwe was once only a group of impressive archaeological ruins on a high plateau in Rhodesia, she knew. When Rhodesia became officially independent from Britain in 1980, Zimbabwe also became the name of the new country, and Great Zimbabwe now also referred to the game reserve surrounding those ruins.

      “The camera crew and I are going to spend some time with a government group,” Janet continued. She didn’t mention elephants. Christopher’s promise to show her the Ivory Room was more of a bonus for her than he imagined. “We’ll stop off in Salisbury first.”

      His right hand realigned the lush blond hair that tumbled almost to his golden eyes. She longed for the fluid movement of those silky strands through her fingertips.

      “I was at the Great Zimbabwe ruins not long ago,” Christopher said, putting Janet on her guard. He eyed her over the elaborate place settings, his eyes luminous and hypnotic. “There was a government team there, then,” he added. “An encampment of soldiers, too, for that matter.”

      “Soldiers?” Janet asked nervously. Soldiers hinted of more unexpected dangers.

      “There’s a heavy poaching problem in the area,” Christopher said. “The troops have been sent in to stop it.” He, no more than Janet, mentioned elephants, but he sure1y knew which animals concerned the Great Zimbabwe research group. He knew how interested Janet was to see his Ivory Room.

      He was taking her attempt at revenge too lightly—not that he seemed to recognize it as revenge. Her motivations probably didn’t matter to him—he was that confident she wasn’t a threat. He had not only let her crew leave with the tapes but had hinted at giving her more ammunition by showing her what was in the basement.

      She was at a decided disadvantage. Her memories were interfering, while he thought her nothing more than a busybody television hostess. She would tell him who she was. If nothing else, that would assure him of her determination.

      But she caught herself in time. She couldn’t let more tender emotions take control. Her best chance for success was in getting the tapes to the States, editing them to emphasize the now extinct animals tacked so proudly on the Van Hoon walls. There would be footage shot at Great Zimbabwe about elephant herds endangered not only by encroaching civilization but by people like the Van Hoons who had encouraged the poaching epidemic in their eagerness to stockpile ivory.

      She couldn’t spoil her plans because she wanted Christopher to laugh as he once laughed, or because she wanted the sparkle back in his eyes instead of the glaring СКАЧАТЬ