Lady Love. Diana Palmer

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       Chapter Two

      Merlyn hated him immediately. Of course, he couldn’t have known that she’d be standing in the middle of the hall in the dark at twelve o’clock at night. On the other hand, she hadn’t expected him to blow in out of a horrible thunderstorm and knock her down onto the thick pile carpet.

      “Of all the…” came a voice as black and deep as thunder rumbling. “Who the hell are you?”

      She threw back her long black hair. The next lightning flash caught her glaring into a face that would have gone well with a copy of Jane Eyre and antique furniture.

      He was big. Bigger than any man she’d ever met face to face. Tall, built like a wrestler. Hands like hams, holding a black attaché case and an umbrella. He wasn’t wearing a hat, and his hair was thick and black and bushy and needed trimming. He was wearing a blue pinstriped suit, and the eyes she couldn’t quite see under his heavy eyebrows seemed to throw off sparks.

      “Why don’t you watch where you’re going?” she shot back, too shaken to get up. “You were moving like a freight train! Come to think of it,” she added darkly, “you look a little like one.”

      “Get up from there.”

      “Yes, sir!” she said smartly, glaring at him as she pulled herself to her feet. She didn’t like the way he was looking at her, so she pulled the thin blue robe closer around her slender, half-clad body. Her feet were bare; she hadn’t thought about slippers. She hadn’t even brought any, come to think of it.

      “Well?” he growled.

      “That,” she said with a sweet smile, “is a deep subject. And you look like a man with a shallow mind. Were you invited, or are you a cat burglar?” She looked him up and down. He was doing a great impression of a man about to explode. “Make that an elephant burglar. Boy, I’d love to see you try to sneak up on somebody.”

      Her grin didn’t seem to impress him much. He slammed the attaché case to the floor. “Who the hell are you?”

      “Miss Jane Eyre, sir,” she said, making him a sweeping curtsy. “I’ve come to tutor the youngster and provide romantic interest for you.”

      “Oh, my God, I don’t believe this,” he muttered, running a hand over his unshaven face. “Six hours on airplanes, two waiting in baggage claim…Lady, unless you want to spend what’s left of the night in the nearest police station, you’d damned well better come up with some quick answers.”

      “There’s a phone in the living room,” she suggested. “I’ll look up the number for you.”

      He moved forward, and she moved backward. “Now, now,” she cautioned, stumbling. “Temper, temper. You’ll hurt yourself.”

      “Not damned likely,” he said darkly, and kept coming.

      “Mrs. Thorpe!” Merlyn screamed, and went tearing off down the hall toward that lady’s room.

      “What?” Lila appeared in her doorway, looking disheveled and drowsy. She gaped at Merlyn cowering against the wall, and then at the big, angry man almost on her.

      “Cameron!” she exclaimed, a smile appearing on her lined face. “Well, what an unexpected delight on a horrible evening like this. Come here and let me look at you, dear!

      “I see you’ve already met Merlyn Forrest,” she continued, smiling at the younger woman pressed against the wall. “Merlyn, this is my son, Cameron.”

      “Your son?” Merlyn blinked. “This is your son?” She stared at the man, who was easily twice his mother’s weight and the exact opposite of her fair coloring.

      “Who is she?” Cameron Thorpe asked coldly.

      “Now, dear…” his mother began.

      “Who?”

      “Merlyn Forrest,” Lila said, exasperated. “Don’t you remember that I was looking for someone to help me do some research on my new book?”

      He stared at Merlyn as if he couldn’t imagine that she had enough brains to be able to read.

      “How did you find her?” he asked curtly.

      “In the Yellow Pages,” Merlyn murmured, “under ‘brilliant research associates.”’

      He gave her a hard look. “Mother?” he persisted.

      Lila sighed. “A friend of yours, in fact, that Jack Thomas. He knew someone who knew someone.…”

      “Does she have credentials?” he asked with a suspicious glance at Merlyn.

      “I have a B.A. in history,” Merlyn said sweetly. “And СКАЧАТЬ