Maid for Marriage

by Sue Peters

  Some clients provided their own escort, depending upon the value of the consignment. Some did not, preferring to rely upon heavy insurance cover if anything went wrong.

  The priceless collection twinkling up at her from the black velvet drape made Dee thankful that their client had chosen the former course on this particular occasion, not because she doubted her own competence, but because Bill's training had made her well aware of the vulnerability of a sole courier carrying a priceless collection of gems. Having a companion would halve the very real risk. She dragged her eyes away from the dazzling display as her companion spoke again.

  'There are still a number of pieces to come, to complete the exhibit.' He carefully folded the black velvet over the glittering fire, and transferred the precious parcel to a safe deposit box. 'As soon as they arrive I'll have the necessary documentation filled in, ready for their transfer to London.'

  'Let me know when you receive them,' Dee replied. 'That way I can book the first available return flight. I'll remain in my room at the hotel tomorrow until I hear from you.'

  Her companion looked taken aback. 'There will be no need for you to do that. It would be a pity for you to miss the sights, now you are here.'

  Dee felt she would very much like to see the sights, but she was not here on a sightseeing trip. Bill trusted his couriers not to waste time on their travels, and she had no intention of betraying that trust. She answered firmly, 'If I happen to be out when you ring it might mean that I'll miss the chance of a seat on a London flight tomorrow.'

  The darkly handsome face on the opposite side of the table broke into a smile. 'You won't be going back for a day or two, at the very least. You'll have plenty of time to get acquainted with Delhi. Even if the rest of the exhibits arrive quickly ‑' his tone questioned that possibility '—your escort won't be ready to leave until Thursday at the earliest.'

  Today was Saturday. Dee made a rapid count. 'That's another five whole days,' she protested, and felt thankful that Bill had not yet settled on a venue for the exhibition. If he had, her own particular consignment would have looked likely to be the one exhibit missing. 'Surely whoever my escort is can...' she began, and her companion shook his head.

  'He's Luke Ransom. You may already know him.'

  'Do you mean Luke Ransom the antiques dealer?' A nod confirmed her guess, and Dee added, 'I don't know him personally. I've heard of him, of course.'

  Who had not? In the world of the rare, and the beautiful, Luke Ransom was king. His sphere was far removed from that of the collectors' mass market. The treasures which passed through his hands were one-offs, of fabulous worth, meant for discerning collectors of equally fabulous wealth. He did not use WW for conveying his treasures. Luke Ransom was the sort of man who relied upon no one but himself.

  He was known as an authority on silver and porcelain, and travelled the world in search of pieces to bring back to his small and exclusive bow-fronted shop in one of the most select districts of London.

  Dee had passed it once, on her way back from visiting one of Bill's clients, and curiosity had made her pause to gaze in at the window. There had been little to see, but lack of quantity had been more than compensated for by quality.

  A single porcelain vase, of goodness knew what antiquity, had rested on a length of wild silk which had been draped with seeming carelessness across the back of the window, but which nevertheless had managed to pick out exactly the main colours of the porcelain and highlighted its fragile beauty to perfection.

  Nothing so vulgar as a price tag showed itself in Luke Ransom's window, and Dee had hurried on her way, musing as to the kind of wealth that could purchase such a treasure.

  Perhaps, in the end, the antiques dealer might decide to keep it for himself? Maybe he was one of those avid collectors who could not bear to part with his artefacts? With his sort of expertise, doubtless built up over a long lifetime of experience, he was probably a bit of an antique himself, she'd reflected.

  Although within the trade Luke Ransom's name was one to conjure with, Dee had never actually set eyes on him, or even seen a photograph of him in the newspapers. He had the reputation of being a very private individual, who shunned publicity, and, since the work of Bill's couriers was finished when they delivered their particular consignment into the hands of the client, and they did not themselves attend any of the actual exhibitions, only their own clients became known to them personally.

  It would be interesting to meet the famous antiques dealer, Dee thought, and hid a smile at the prospect of his acting as her escort. If he was as antique himself as she suspected he would be more of a liability than an asset, from a security angle.

  She persisted, 'Can't he possibly make it earlier than Thursday? If the exhibits arrive before then, I mean?' A possibility struck her. 'If he isn't in the country yet I'm quite prepared to take them back on my own.'

  'Mr Ransom has been in India for some days. He's on his way back from Japan. I believe he has been over there, negotiating for some particularly fine pieces of porcelain for a special client. He broke his journey in Delhi in order to visit an old school friend.'

  'Old school friend' fitted in with Dee's guesstimate as to Luke Ransom's possible age. With an effort she curbed her growing impatience, and insisted, 'In that case, surely he could be ready to fly out as soon as you have all the exhibits together and the documentation ready?'

  'Oh, no.' Her companion's tone became almost reverent. 'Nothing would induce Mr Ransom to go before Thursday. He'll be at the cricket match on Wednesday.'

  'Cricket match?' Dee wondered if she had heard aright. She took in a deep breath, and repeated carefully, 'Cricket match?'

  'That's right. It's a big charity match, with all the top players taking part.' The reverence was obvious now, and confirmed the speaker, too, as a devotee of the game.

  Dee let out her breath in a carefully measured hiss. Luke Ransom was evidently one of those crusty, arrogant old Colonel Blimp kind of creatures who expected the entire world to grind to a halt merely because he wanted to see, of all things, a game of cricket.

  In vain she tried to persuade her companion to allow her to go alone, but he was not to be deflected from his purpose. Mr Ransom had been approached on the subject of providing an escort, and he had agreed to take on the task himself, in view of the priceless nature of the exhibits.

  But not before Thursday.

  'Have a look round the city. Enjoy the sights while you can,' Dee was urged.

  With difficulty she forbore to point out that the sight she most wanted to see was the aforesaid Mr Ransom, plus herself carrying the exhibits, boarding a plane bound for London.

  There was nothing to be gained by further argument, however, and with a guilty feeling of committing severe dereliction of duty Dee acted upon her companion's advice the following morning and set out with a guidebook, provided by the hotel, to obtain her first glimpse of Delhi.

  Frustration at the delay, mingled with the knowledge that it might be a long time before another such opportunity presented itself, drove Dee to more activity than was strictly wise until she had become accustomed to the humid end-of-monsoon heat, but it had an advantage in that there were, as yet, fewer tourists to add to the already formidable congestion in the narrow streets of the old city.

  She visited temples and mosques, turned her back on the impressive legacy left by Lutyens and Baker in the new part of the city, and dived happily into the narrow, packed streets through which she had been driven the day before, fascinated alike by the throbbing, noisy life of the bazaars, and the intricately carved buildings which bore images of people and animals from another era, frozen in stone on the walls, and gazing down impassively from their elevated stance upon the teeming modern life below them.

  She purchased a dazzling silk headscarf to protect herself from the sun—and lost it to the clutching paws of a daring troupe of monkeys clambering about an ancient fort—and returned, drained by the heat and the exertions of the day, to the wel
come coolness of her air-conditioned hotel.

  Bill's contact met her in the foyer.

  'Can you spare me a minute, before you go up?' he wanted to know. 'There has been a hitch with the delivery of the other exhibits. They may take a bit longer than ‑Oh, hang on a minute. It looks as if my phone call has come through.'

  He followed a signalling waiter, gesturing to Dee to wait where she was, and she sank with a sigh on to a low settee. She felt grubby, tired, and sticky all over, and she longed for the comfort of a soapy shower and a change of clothes.

  Her practical cotton top-and-trousers set clung to her damply, and she wondered if it was the done thing in India to invite a male business acquaintance to her room, where she would not be obliged to endure the ordeal of comparing her own dishevelled appearance unfavourably with the pristine condition of other guests waiting round the foyer, who, if they had been out sightseeing too, showed no signs of its occupational ravages in their sophisticated dress.

  The man coming towards her looked as if he had stepped straight out of the proverbial bandbox. Dee threw him a disgruntled look. In contrast to her own crumpled cotton, his cream linen suit bore knife-edge creases down the lengths of his trouser legs, and absolutely nowhere else.

  It fitted his tall frame like a glove, hugging broad shoulders and slim hips with the ease of expensive tailoring, and made a perfect foil for the mane of red-gold hair which betokened a fiery nature beneath the cool tone that enquired of her, 'Is this anybody's seat?'

  Dee shook her head dumbly. Why did he have to come and sit on the same settee as herself? she wondered irritably. There were plenty of unoccupied seats in the foyer.

  She wished her colleague would hurry up and finish his telephone call, and come back and release her to her room. She wished she had chosen to sit in the solitary splendour of an armchair rather than a multi-seated settee. The latter was a large three-cornered affair, and she threw the stranger an inhospitable glance as he lowered himself on to that part of it which brought him into opposite eye contact with Dee whenever she looked up.

  His eyes were hazel, she noticed, with odd little glints in them like tiny pieces of quartz. The glints suddenly fired, and she realised she was staring. Confusedly she dragged her eyes away, pretending to be distracted by the sound of a portable radio announcing the latest cricket scores.

  'Cricket!' she ground out, remembering.

  'Don't you follow the game?' the stranger enquired politely, and Dee looked across at him, startled. She had not realised that she had spoken out loud. When she did not immediately reply he repeated patiently, 'Don't you follow the scores?'

  'No!' She remembered belatedly that she was in India, the home of cricketers par excellence, and padded out her sharp monosyllable with a grudging, 'I've got nothing against the game. Not usually, anyway.' His raised eyebrows asked a question, and she answered it with an irate, 'At the moment I'd like to consign cricket to the dustbin!'

  His finely cut lips curved upwards at the corners, and he protested mildly, 'That seems a rather drastic disposal of an inoffensive ball game.'

  'It isn't the game that offends me. It's the people.'

  'The players this season are first class.'

  'I don't mean the players. I've got nothing against them. Only the spectators. Or, at least, one spectator in particular.'

  The exasperation she had kept bottled up inside her all day, simmering in the intense heat, had had to boil over some time, and it did so now with a rush, triggered by his amused, 'Has your boyfriend stood you up in favour of watching the match?'

  Dee glowered. The arrogance of the man, to assume that she, personally, had come second-best to a ball game. She denied stiffly, 'I'm not here with a boyfriend. This man is a business contact I'm supposed to be meeting.'

  She wondered fleetingly why she should bother to explain herself to this stranger, but the pent-up frustration found some relief in explanation, and she went on, careful not to go into any detail that would reveal what her errand here was, 'I'm having to kick my heels here, waiting for him to join me. And what happens? He decides he can't come until Thursday because, of all things, he wants to watch a cricket match on Wednesday. The arrogance of it,' she fumed, 'to expect the world to grind to a halt while he indulges his liking for cricket. It's unbelievable. He must be unbelievable.'

  'You could have a look round Delhi while you're waiting. It's a fascinating city. There is a lot to see.'

  'I've tramped all over Delhi today.'

  His cool look assessed her dishevelled appearance. 'You look as if Delhi has tramped all over you.'

  Dee repressed a gasp of outrage. Whoever he was, the stranger did not believe in being economical with the truth. Before she could think up a suitably cutting answer, however, he turned away from her to signal to a passing waiter, and ordered, 'Iced lime-juice for two, please,' without waiting to see if she was willing to accept his non-offer, or even whether she liked lime-juice or not.

  Whoever he was, he did not lack confidence in himself. Dee stiffened her sagging muscles, and retorted with massive dignity, 'I'm not used to this brand of heat.'

  'You shouldn't try to do too much until you've become acclimatised. There are easier ways of seeing Delhi than by exhausting yourself. And you need a head-covering.'

  He was criticising her now. The cheek of the man!

  'I bought a scarf in the bazaar.' Dee could have kicked herself for sounding defensive. She didn't have to excuse herself to anybody, least of all this stranger. 'A monkey stole it,' she finished flatly.

  'You've been to see the fort.'

  It was a statement, not a question, and for a wild moment Dee had the feeling that the strange flecked eyes had the power to look into her mind. With an effort she pulled herself together. It was evident that the stranger knew Delhi. His 'There are easier ways of seeing Delhi' meant that he had probably used those ways himself, and so it stood to reason that he would be aware of the monkeys.

  She managed an indifferent, 'I can buy another.'

  Out of the corner of her eye she caught sight of her erstwhile companion hurrying back towards her, his telephone call finished, and she said thankfully, 'Here comes a colleague of mine now,' in a tone that discouraged any further questions from the stranger.

  If he asked her what was the nature of her business in India she could not tell him. Parrying such a question might arouse his curiosity, and if she answered it it could put herself, and the precious artefacts in her charge, in considerable danger, and her colleague was returning at just the right time to rescue her from the dilemma.

  Nowadays thieves did not necessarily come complete with the time-honoured uniform of eye mask and swag bag. The modern international variety were impeccably dressed, and highly plausible. Their ploy was usually to strike up a conversation with someone they suspected of being a courier, offer them a drink, and...

  Dee threw the cream suit a look of dark suspicion, and, in spite of her raging thirst, she left the iced lime-juice where the waiter had placed it, untouched, on the table.

  'I'm sorry to keep you waiting for such an age,' her colleague apologised, sitting down beside her on the settee. 'The call took longer than I thought it would. It's not good news, I'm afraid. I shan't get the rest of the consignment for another ten days at least.'

  Frantically Dee's look signalled to him not to mention what the consignment consisted of. Did he not know that he must be discreet? Perhaps it was the first time he had ever dealt with such a matter. Perhaps nobody had thought to warn him. She said quickly, in a desperate attempt to head off any detailed explanation, 'Then the cricket match on Wednesday won't matter, after all.'

  'Not now. Indeed, you might like to go to see it together.' Her colleague smiled across at the cream-suited stranger. 'I see you've already met Mr Ransom.'

  CHAPTER TWO

  There was nothing to say. If there had been, Dee felt incapable of saying it. A rising tide of indignation choked her, that Luke Ransom had led her on, allowing
her to roundly condemn, in no uncertain terms, all arrogant cricketing enthusiasts, and one in particular—namely, himself.

  How he must have laughed as he'd watched her dig a large hole for herself and then fall headlong into it.

  Luke Ransom was far from the geriatric antiques dealer she had imagined him to be. He was young—in his early thirties, she judged. He was above-average good-looking—and knew it, she decided sourly. He was also a man of guile, who would need to be watched.

  Having lit the fuse, her colleague adroitly dodged the coming explosion. Into the void of silence he announced brightly, 'I'll leave you two to introduce yourselves. Coming!' he digressed as the waiter signalled again for him to take another telephone call, and added over his shoulder, 'I'll be in touch the moment I hear anything definite.'

  Before Dee could find words with which to detain him he was gone, and she was left alone with Luke Ransom. She threw him a wary look, while her mind searched frantically for something cool and poised to say, and he denied her the opportunity by enquiring briskly, 'Where is the male courier who is accompanying you?'

  'There isn't a male courier. No one is accompanying me.'

  'I was told there was a D. Tredinnick.'

  'I am Dee Tredinnick. D-e-e,' Dee spelled it out clearly with some satisfaction. Clearly this main did not think a mere girl was capable of working as a courier.

  He sat upright in his seat abruptly. 'You don't mean—you can't mean—that a girl has been sent out here alone on such a mission?' His surprise and anger were as obvious as they were insulting, and Dee's indignation rose to meet his.

  'If Bill Williams trusts me, so can you.'

  Her tone reduced him to the ranks, but she didn't care. It wasn't any of his business who Bill sent on his missions. This man was nothing to do with WW. He was merely coming along for the ride, at the behest of their Delhi contact. He had no responsibility, and even less authority, so far as she was concerned. With an effort she strove to make herself speak calmly.