Читать книгу Indiscretions - Robyn Donald - Страница 6

“I THOUGHT YOU’D BE interested.”

Wide blue eyes shaded with cynicism, Mariel Browning lifted her brows at the bartender. “Why?”

“Well, they are fellow countrymen of yours. You can’t meet many of them—didn’t you tell me there are only three million of you?”

“I did, but at least half of those are overseas at any one time.”

She grinned at the look he sent her over the top of his spectacles. Desmond was too good a bartender to show any disbelief, but she’d met him several times over the past year and was beginning to be able to read his expressions. This one said, Pull the other leg!

“Well, that’s the way it seems,” she amended, her smile and tone edging into irony. “I trip over New Zealanders all the time. They’re everywhere. When their kids grow up the first thing they want to do is fly away from those three little islands at the furthermost ends of the earth and see what the rest of the planet is like. In any group of more than five people anywhere in the world, you can be sure that one of them is a New Zealander.” She smiled to soften the stiffness in her tone. “Yes, even here in South Carolina, where most people don’t know New Zealand exists, and those few who do think it’s part of Australia.”

The middle-aged black man, who had been one of the latter, gave her a stately smile as he set the tall glass of gently fizzing mineral water in front of her. “But these are important New Zealanders,” he said seriously.

“The Minister of Trade, no less, here to talk business with his Japanese counterpart. Big deal,” she said lightly, hiding a tiny niggle of unease with a dazzling smile. Where there were politicians intent on conferring there would also be diplomats, discreetly powerful, unobtrusive and necessary.

Until her arrival on Jermain Island, one of the Sea Islands off the coast of South Carolina, she’d believed she was going to be interpreting for a group of businessmen. Noted for her fluency in Japanese and her ability to navigate flawlessly through the ideographs of its written language, Mariel always enjoyed coming to Bride’s Bay Resort. However, had she been told this was a diplomatic occasion, she’d have looked for some excuse to stay away.

She had reason, she thought with a twist of her full mouth, to be wary of diplomats.

The cool mineral water slid down her throat as she looked appreciatively around Desmond’s domain. Some forty years ago the bar had been planned to reflect the stately, country-house sophistication of an English gentleman’s club. Mariel had never been in an English club, but she thought the designer had produced a very pleasant atmosphere.

But then, the hotel was noted for its beauty and refined ambience. That was one of the reasons it was so popular with high-powered groups of businessmen and diplomats for semiofficial meetings like the one ahead.

After a moment she said restlessly, “I don’t know that I count as a Kiwi anymore—I’ve been away for the past ten years.” Ever since she was eighteen.

And I didn’t enjoy it much while I was there, she added silently. Hated it, in fact.

“You’ve still got an accent,” Desmond said, looking past her as a man entered the room and sat at one of the tables. Moving toward the newcomer, he said professionally, “Good afternoon, sir. What can I get for you?”

“Weak whiskey and soda, please.”

In spite of herself, Mariel’s head turned. Although the newcomer’s deep textured voice invoked an involuntary feminine response, it was the accent that caught her attention most. Far from a conspicuously antipodean drawl, the unmistakable intonation and rhythm nevertheless proclaimed his antecedents.

Definitely one of the New Zealand party.

And a diplomat to boot.

Certainly not a politician. For a start, he was too young. Thirty-four at the outside, showing a smooth elegance that hinted of a lifetime accustomed to the confidence and privileges that only social position and money can buy.

Some of that money, Mariel decided, covertly evaluating him with an eye honed in embassies as a child, had been spent on an exclusive London tailor.

Not that his clothes made him. Oh, he certainly wore them well, his suit clinging lovingly to broad shoulders and long limbs, but there was much more to the man than excellent tailoring. Shocked, she registered a subtle tug at her senses, more antagonism than excitement, as her eyes lingered on the play of muscle when he stretched his legs and picked up a newspaper from the rack beside his chair.

And then, as if he’d known all along of her sideways scrutiny, he looted directly at her, all icy appraisal. It hit her like a blow. Mariel knew she was no raving beauty, but perhaps she had become too accustomed to the involuntary homage most men paid to red-brown hair and ivory skin and large blue eyes with enough turquoise in them to make them intriguing.

Not, however, this man, this New Zealander. The only emotion in his expression was an uncompromising assessment, calculating and studied, that flicked her self-esteem.

He thinks I’m trying to pick him up, she realized. The nerve of the man! What conceit!

Forgetting her normal caution, she allowed an amused, condescending curve to widen her soft lips. David had told her often that when she smiled like that, the tiny creases at the corners of her mouth deepened, giving her a smile of sultry aloofness that both beckoned and discouraged. For some reason she hoped David had been right. Coolly, with measured, leisurely deliberation, she looked the newcomer over from beneath dark lashes, keeping her eyes steady, almost placid.

He suffered her scrutiny with an impervious, bored selfassurance, his only measurable response being the slight narrowing of pale eyes that gave him the concentrated, vigilant stare of a hunter.

An atavistic fear shivered through Mariel, but pride kept her head high, kept that small, provoking smile pinned in place as she ran her gaze across the arrogant features of the newcomer’s face. And it was pride that lifted her shoulders—although nobody would ever be able to say for sure that she’d shrugged as she turned away. Yet even as she presented her back to the newcomer, she felt the lash of his glance. Adrenaline surged through her, tightening her skin, hurrying her breath. Fool, her brain said. Fool, fool, fool…

It would have been more sensible to suffer that antagonistic glance passively, because beneath the newcomer’s instant hostility she discerned another, equally potent response. In the first few seconds of that intent, wordless communication, senses older and more primitive than the five most obvious had homed in on his interest. And she was experienced enough in the battle between the sexes to understand that a dangerous combination of pique and reluctant interest had driven her to issue a challenge.

Sexual attraction was a wild card, ungovernable, a matter of dangerous chemistry. It could play the very devil with your life, which was why she refused to allow it any place in her emotions, let alone her career.

Yet that primal call of male to female had goaded her into flinging his barely concealed antipathy back in his face. And although he had immense mastery over his expression so that not a muscle moved, not an eyelash flickered, no color licked along the prominent cheekbones, he hadn’t been able to hide his sharp, fierce reaction. She could smell it, she thought, forcing herself to lift her glass to her mouth, feel it like the crackle of electricity against suddenly sensitized skin.

And she brought it on herself, behaving like a cheap idiot in a singles bar. Over the years she had evolved rigid rules. She had just overturned one of the most important: Never get involved with a client.

So it was alarming that one glance from a total stranger should propel her over the invisible line of demarcation.

Even more alarming was the fact that every cell in her body was still caressed by a purring, lazily feminine satisfaction that had nothing to do with the normal rules of daily life and everything to do with the man who sat so silently a few yards away.

Desmond delivered his drink and came back to the bar. It was the slack time of day, when he ran the place by himself for an hour. Without being obvious he turned up the Mozart on the tape.

“Know him?” he asked softly.

A spot between her shoulder blades prickled. She shook her head. “Never seen him before,” she said, easing her dry throat by swallowing half her drink.

“Well, he looks as if he finds that red hair and those long legs mighty interesting” Desmond said neutrally.

Resisting the impulse to lift her heavy, shoulder-length tresses clear of her neck, Mariel tilted her glass, keeping her eyes on the bubbles fizzing up through the clear liquid. “He’s a guest,” she muttered.

As well as clients, guests were out of bounds. And she had just stepped over those bounds. Still angry with herself—and the unknown man with the unsettling glance—she asked, “When does the rest of the diplomatic party arrive?”

Desmond knew everything about the hotel, including, rumor had it, the identity of the man who was the lover of Liz Jermain, the resort manager.

“They’re meeting the launch at four o’clock,” he told her, “so they’ll be here in a couple of hours. The New Zealanders, that is. The Japanese arrive forty minutes later by helicopter.”

Mariel had been at the hotel for no more than an hour herself, just time to unpack in the small room she’d been allocated in the staff quarters, put out the items that made each impersonal room a temporary home and order the flowers she always needed to sustain the illusion.

She drained her glass. “Thanks, Desmond. That saved my life.”

“You should eat more,” he said disapprovingly. “Languages are all very well, but they don’t put meat on those thin bones. And you’ve got shadows under your eyes, too. I thought I told you last time—”

“Tell the people I work for,” she said, smiling. “They’re the ones who drag me out of bed to translate and interpret, and keep me working all night.”

“But you like it.”

“Wouldn’t do anything else. See you later—I’d better go and talk to Elise.”

He nodded, looking sober. “Poor girl,” he said.

“Is her husband still giving her a hard time?”

Desmond frowned. “Something is,” he said, exercising his famous discretion.

“I’d better go. See you later.”

Still acutely conscious of the man who sat apparently intent on the newspaper, Mariel walked with brisk steps across the room. Intuition warned her that the stranger was aware of every footfall. I hope he hates it as much as I do, she thought, trying to smooth away the raw patch his instant contempt had left on her psyche.

She turned away from the foyer, its cool elegance warmed by great jardinieres filled with the flowering azaleas that were nature’s tribute to spring. Ahead lay the hotel’s business center, set up with the latest in equipment. Elise Jennings, who ran it and organized the staff necessary to deal with anything a diplomat, industrialist or business leader might need, had been going through a particularly difficult time. Her marriage had broken up messily, and she’d been forced to sell her home on the mainland and move into staff quarters with her seven-year-old daughter.

Normally a quiet, reserved person, Elise had wept on Mariel’s shoulder the last time she’d been at Bride’s Bay, and they’d talked for hours. This time, however, although the older woman looked just as tired and heartsick, she greeted Mariel with pleasure.

“Good to see you again. How’s New York?”

“Noisy,” Mariel said, adding delicately, “How’s Caitlin?”

Elise frowned. “Just the same. Very dependent,” she said briefly.

“Are you still living in the staff quarters?”

“Yeah, and she still wants to go to California to be with Jimmy. I can’t convince her that she’s better off here with me—she thinks she’d be able to go to Disneyland every day.”

“Poor kid.”

“I know.” Looking down at the sheaf of papers in her hand, Elise said bitterly, “You remember I told you last time I thought he was up to something? Well, my noble Jimmy decided he wasn’t going to share any of his hard-won assets, so he declared bankruptcy. Caitlin and I have nothing.

Appalled, Mariel asked, “Can he do that?”

The older woman gave her a cynical smile. “Honey, if you’ve got a good enough lawyer, you can do just about anything. Oh, I can understand it. He grew up on the island here—in a little house down by the fishing wharf—and he had nothing. It was sheer guts and working his butt off for years that got him where he is. He isn’t about to share any of it. Well, he lost, too, because I’ve got custody, and there’s no way I can afford to fly Caitlin and me out to California. And I’m not letting her go without me.”

The telephone interrupted her. Elise picked it up and said, “Yes, sir, we can do that right away.” When she’d replaced the receiver she said, “Mariel, you’re needed in room 27. The guy wants a document translated from English to Japanese.”

“I thought the New Zealand lot weren’t coming until four,” Mariel complained mildly, getting to her feet. “Oh, well, no rest for the wicked.” With her luck it would be the antagonistic stranger in the bar who wanted her.

“An eager beaver,” Elise said. “Learned any new languages lately?”

Mariel grinned. “Basque. It’s supposed to be the most difficult language in the world.”

“Is it used much?”

“Almost never.” Mariel met her surprised gaze with a slow twinkle. “Only six hundred thousand or so people speak it.”

“Then why learn it?”

“The challenge,” Mariel said cheerfully as she turned to go. “I can’t resist a challenge.”

“Hey, how much do you know?”

“I can say ’good morning’ and ’good evening,’ and I think I might have a handle on ’goodbye.’ Beyond that it’s a mystery.”

She left the room to laughter and went swiftly up the gracious sweeping staircase, trailing her fingers over the elegant curves of the banister, worn smooth by thousands of hands over the years. There was nothing in New Zealand to match this, she thought with enormous contentment. Nothing at all.

The Sea Islands had waxed rich for generations, first on indigo, then on cotton, and always on the efforts of slaves. This glorious building was the original Jermain plantation house, its white pillars like an evocation of the Old South. After the Civil War the family and the plantation had fallen on hard times, until Liz Jermain’s grandmother scraped up the money to join the two flanking buildings to the main house and transform it into a hotel.

Outside room 27 Mariel took a deep breath and straightened her shoulders before knocking. The door opened immediately, and yes, it was the man from the bar.

His eyes, so pale a green they were almost colorless—except for glints of gold blazing through a matrix of jadeheld hers for a moment before the professional politeness in his expression changed to cold aloofness. But he couldn’t prevent a flicker of elemental response.

Shockingly, an inchoate flutter of anticipation in Mariel’s stomach burned suddenly into excitement.

“Good afternoon,” she said, her formal smile hiding a perilously balanced composure. “You want a document translated, I believe.”

His lashes half covered his eyes, intensifying that disturbing glitter. “Yes, from English to Japanese. Can you do it?”

“Certainly, sir.”

“Here,” he said curtly, “in this room.”

She did not want to sit at the charming desk beside the magnificent four-poster bed and work while he watched her, and she certainly didn’t care for his implied mistrust. With out thinking, she shook her head. “I use a computer”

“A portable, surely?”

Lord, but her wits had gone begging. “Yes,” she said woodenly. “But—”

“This is confidential, Ms…”

The keen eyes had missed nothing, certainly not the absence of rings on her long slender fingers. “Browning,” she said stiffly.

“How do you do, Ms. Browning. My name is Nicholas Lee.”

Automatically she took the hand he held out. Although his grip was firm it wasn’t painful, but an instant sizzle of electricity made her draw a sharp breath into her lungs. Without thinking, she jerked her hand away.

Damn, the man was dynamite, and he had to know it.

However, nothing of that recognition showed in the hard, handsome face nor in the green-gold eyes, although some foolish, hidden part of her preened at the quick tightening of his mouth and the way his eyes narrowed even further, giving him a hooded, menacing look.

He said smoothly, “I’m afraid I must insist that you work here, Ms. Browning.” He added with an undertone of mockery that whipped across her confidence, “If you wish, I can leave the door open.”

Color heated the soft ivory of her skin. He saw too much. “That won’t be necessary, sir,” she said, striving for the right touch of amusement, the note of casual sophistication that would put him in his place. “I’ll get my computer.”

“You understand that I’ll expect you to translate into Japanese symbols?”

“My computer is quite capable of doing that, and so, Mr. Lee, am I,” she said in what she hoped was a repressive tone.

When she’d arrived back he handed her a letter from a Japanese businessman, one of the country’s most forward-looking industrialists.

“This is the letter I’ve answered,” he said. “You might find it helpful to read it first so that you know what I’m talking about.”

Apparently he had an interest in some new invention. Well versed as she was in the subtleties of Japanese business language, she realized that the industrialist had written to him as an equal.

So he had power.

Well, she didn’t need a letter to tell her that. He reeked of it, she thought snidely; power and the personality to make use of it oozed from every pore of his tall, graceful body.

Doing her best to ignore his potent male presence, she got to work. His name, she realized, looking at the slashing black signature, wasn’t Lee; it was Leigh.

It figured. She wasn’t surprised that his name should have the more complex spelling; he was complex. Not to mention prejudiced, she thought with irritation. He didn’t know her, and yet he had presumed to judge her, and that before she’d been stupid enough to issue her own version of a sexual challenge.

Perhaps he had something against tall redheads who drank mineral water in bars.

Fortunately, because he was having an unsettling effect on her nerves, she had long ago perfected the skill of complete concentration. She needed it now. He’d given her a fairly complicated document which took some time to translate, but eventually she was able to say, “Here you are, sir, it’s finished,” and lay the three sheets down on the gleaming desk.

Clearly he shared her gift of losing herself in work, because she had to speak twice before he looked up from the sheaf of papers he was studying, black brows knotting as those disturbing eyes focused on her face.

“Read it to me, please. In Japanese.”

Too well trained to ask why, she obeyed, her voice slipping through the liquid syllables with confidence.

“You have an excellent accent,” he observed when she’d finished. “You must have learned to speak the language as a child.”

Mariel returned impersonally, “Yes, sir.”

“I see,” he said, a dry note infusing his voice.

She asked, “When did you learn?”

And could have kicked herself. Normally she’d have stopped at a simple thank-you; natural caution should have overridden an unsuspected desire to learn more about him.

Although his brows drew together above the blade of his nose, he said mildly enough, “In my teens. I can speak the language fluently, and to a certain extent read it, but I can’t write it and I’ll never lose my accent.”

Shrewdly Mariel surmised that this would always be a source of irritation to him. He would demand perfection from himself, as well as others—the very worst sort of man, totally impossible to live with.

She wasn’t going to have to live with him. However, she was going to have to work with him, and that meant that from now on she was going to be resolutely, professionally, implacably aloof.

With a touch of brusqueness he resumed speaking. “Thank you, you’ve done a good job. I’ll order tea. I assume you are a tea drinker? Most New Zealanders are, especially at this time of the afternoon.”

No, he didn’t miss anything. As well as keen eyes, he had keen ears. Although her American colleagues invariably picked up the trace of an antipodean accent in her speech, any New Zealanders she’d met during the past few years usually assumed she was American.

Mariel looked at her watch. “I’m sorry, sir,” she said without expression, “but I need to be free when the other members of the delegation arrive.” She gave him a businesslike smile, carefully not quite meeting his eyes, and as she got to her feet said in the same collected tone, “It was kind of you to think of it. Thank you.”

He waited until she had packed up her computer and printer and was halfway to the door before saying, “I am not kind, Ms. Browning. I do, however, appreciate efficiency and intelligence.”

Delivered in a cool, inflexible tone, the words sounded almost like a warning.

MARIEL SAW Nicholas Leigh again that night at the inaugural dinner. According to Liz Jermain, the purpose of the conference was to conduct a high-level but informal discussion of trade patterns.

Known worldwide for its exclusivity and superb service, the resort, with its health club and golf course and rifle range, its banquet rooms and world-class restaurant, its proud history of discretion and opulence, was the perfect place for such occasions.

However, in spite of the official lack of ceremony, someone had decided that these proceedings should begin with a dinner. Although both parties had brought their own interpreters, Mariel, clad in a black dress so circumspect it almost rendered her invisible, presented herself at the small lounge off the reserved dining room to mingle and make herself useful, which she did, stepping in when conversations stuttered and died, acting as a sort of subsidiary hostess, smoothing the diplomatic pathways.

Apart from a middle-aged woman with shrewd, worldly eyes and two extremely elegant women of about Mariel’s age—all New Zealanders—the room was filled with the dark elegance of about twenty men in good-quality evening clothes. Most were comparatively young; only a couple were the same age as her parents would have been had they still been alive.

Deep inside her, a barely discernible foreboding faded to quiescence.

As always she eschewed alcohol; this time she chose club soda and lime. While she was thanking the waiter for making a special trip to get it, she looked up to see Nicholas Leigh talking to one of the younger women, a very attractive person with smoothly coiffed hair the color of newly minted copper. The woman’s fine, patrician features were lit by a composed, gracious smile, but there was nothing composed about the swift glance she sent him from beneath her lashes.

Dumbfounded as a hitherto cloaked emotion flared abruptly and painfully into life, Mariel thought, I’m jealous!

And the vivid sexual awareness that had sprung so unexpectedly to life in the bar a few hours earlier began to assume a much more sinister aspect.

Sharply she turned her head away, glad when her glance fell on a middle-aged Japanese man smiling at a younger New Zealander, who looked to be at a loss. She set her jaw and made her way toward them.

The older man was too sophisticated to reveal any sign of relief when she joined them and introduced herself with a deprecating remark, but the younger man greeted her with a frown. He turned out to be Peter Sanderson, a career diplomat. Short and blocky, his expression pugnaciously intense, he had narrow, suspicious eyes that flicked hastily from person to person as though he was terrified of missing something. However, after the first irritated glare at Mariel, his brows straightened, and he smiled at her with overbold interest.

She didn’t like him, she thought when he asked her where she was from.

“New York? You don’t sound like a native of the Big Apple,” he said, watching her as though he suspected her of lying.

She smiled. “I’m a New Zealander, Mr. Sanderson.”

“But you’re not one of our party,” he said, his brows meeting.

“I’m an interpreter and translater,” she told him, smiling to take away the edge in her voice.

The older man interposed politely, “With an excellent grasp of Japanese.”

Transferring the smile to him, she bowed. “You honor me too much.”

After waiting impatiently for the formalities to be over, Peter Sanderson asked, “How long have you been living in America?”

Trying to hide the wariness in her voice, she told him. He continued asking questions, cloaking them with a veneer of politeness too thin to hide his determination to get answers. His tenacity made Mariel uneasy; she didn’t like the way he watched her, as though assessing her value as a pawn to be played in some game she didn’t understand.

She suspected that his attitude wasn’t personal—he was probably the sort of person who valued people only for thenuse to him—but she had to struggle to maintain her aplomb.

Five minutes later she felt someone behind her and turned, her eyes meeting with a small shock those of Nicholas Leigh. The redhead was still with him, and for a moment a purely feminine challenge crystallized in the woman’s pale gray eyes as they met Mariel’s.

Nicholas made the introductions; the woman was Susan Waterhouse, an aide to the New Zealand minister of trade. Perfectly pleasant and charming, she was nevertheless blanketed by an aura of detachment—neither aloof nor indifferent, yet oddly uninvolved—except when she looked at Nicholas.

In spite of its resemblance to a social occasion, this event was business; Mariel was merely a necessary adjunct, like a computer or a printer. In fact, her profession meant that she should try to be as inconspicuous as possible. Yet she couldn’t repress a spurt of indignation when Susan Water-house’s eyes rested for sizzling seconds on Nicholas’s arrogant, hard-edged countenance.

Distastefully ignoring the scuttling, furtive envy that crawled across her heart, Mariel looked away. The unaccustomed strength of her reaction added to her troubled apprehension. Within a few minutes she made her excuses and left them.

As with most diplomatic affairs the evening was run with slightly soulless efficiency. Exactly enough time had been allocated for two drinks, so just as Mariel finished her second glass, a concerted movement propelled her toward the dining room.

She sat in an alcove to one side of the main table, waiting in case she was needed and trying unsuccessfully to keep her gaze firmly directed away from where Nicholas Leigh sat, charcoal hair wanned with a sheen of bronze by the lights, the poised head held confidently high, features sculpted in angles and planes that were at once fiercely attractive and invulnerable.

Handsome didn’t describe him exactly, she thought, catching him as he smiled at the middle-aged woman beside him. Handsome was too effete, too ordinary. He had the disciplined, inborn grace of a predator—judging by the letter she’d translated that afternoon, a very intelligent, clear-minded predator. His classical good looks, based on coloring and bone structure, were overshadowed by an effortless, supremely well-controlled strength and authority.

Just what was his position in this high-powered group of politicians and diplomats?

He sat at the main table, which meant he had influence.

Surely too much power and influence for a man of his age?

The skin along her cheekbones tingled. Steadfastly she kept her eyes on the two ministers at the center of the table, but as plainly as if she was staring at him she knew that Nicholas Leigh was looking at her. And even from that distance the impact of his elemental magnetism flared through her, heating her skin and churning her stomach and melting the vulnerable base of her backbone.

At last the head of the Japanese mission rose; his interpreter, a slim, bespectacled man, stood to one side. Mariel settled herself to listen intently and professionally.

He was good, but the New Zealand interpreter who followed was not. Technically, she thought objectively, he had the words, but he was missing the nuances. Once she exchanged a glance with the Japanese interpreter, a splitsecond communication in which neither face moved a muscle, but both understood perfectly.

When she looked away her gaze was captured and held by Nicholas Leigh’s half-closed eyes. Carefully she gave him a small, meaningless smile and returned her attention to the speaker, but that hard, searching, far-too-perceptive glance set her heart thudding disconcertingly against her ribs.

At eleven o’clock the dinner broke up to mutual expressions of immense esteem. Mariel waited until everyone had gone before sliding out of her chair. One of the least enjoyable aspects of occasions such as this was watching others eat delicious meals, but because she never knew when she’d be called on, she preferred to eat offstage, so to speak. The sandwich she’d eaten before coming down had been enough to satisfy her, but she could, she thought with anticipation, enjoy a good cup of tea right then.

The door of the dining room closed behind her; she relaxed and had begun to head off for the staff cafeteria when a voice from behind said, “Ms. Browning.”

Not now, she thought, forcing her features into a mask of composure before turning. “Mr. Leigh?”

“I’d like to buy you a drink, if I may.”

This was definitely not a part of her job description. Sedately she responded, “I’m afraid I’m not encouraged to socialize with guests, sir.”

A spark of temper lit his eyes to pure, flaming gold, but was instantly curbed. “I need your professional opinion, and I need it tonight.” When she still hesitated he said levelly, “We can do it like this, or I can insist on a formal meeting.”

He didn’t raise his voice; he didn’t have to. An implacable note in the even tones made itself more than obvious. Involuntarily Mariel looked across the foyer to where Mr. McCabe, the New Zealand trade minister, was standing with a small group of men. As if summoned, he glanced their way, his shrewd eyes going from her face to Nicholas’s. The minister’s gaze returned to her countenance, and he nodded with an air of authority.

“Very well,” she said, surprising herself with her acquiescence, and in case he got the wrong impression, added a fraction of a second too late, “sir.”

Heavy lids hooded his eyes. He said quietly, “Thank you, Ms. Browning.”