by Sue Peters
With an effort she choked the words back, and reached out towards the glittering display on the table with a hand that shook. She touched the first ring, fumbled, and it rolled away from her fingers, and Luke, watching her closely, said, 'Let me.'
He picked up her left hand in his, and then paused, and his eyes searched her face. Dee realised, dismayed, He's felt the tremble. He said, quietly and without inflexion, 'If you're afraid, I'll carry them myself.'
She was afraid, desperately so, but not of wearing the jewels. Not of jewel thieves, who might try to snatch the gems from her, perhaps causing her physical harm in the process.
What she feared was the electric touch of Luke's fingers over her own, carefully separating one suddenly numb digit from the other, the better to slide on the rings.
She feared—oh, how she feared!—the fire which spread through her veins at his touch, and burned in his curiously flecked eyes as he watched her, waiting for her to reply.
The silence stretched. Luke seemed to have been holding her fingers forever. Dee became vaguely aware of her colleague in the background, watching and waiting too. She drew a deep, steadying breath. Only one. There wasn't time for three. But it was enough to float out the lie between her clenched teeth, 'I'm not afraid.'
Luke nodded as if satisfied, and began to slide the rings on to her fingers. He was a perfectionist. He put on one, and took it off again, repeating the process until he was satisfied that each ring rested on the finger it best fitted.
When all of them nestled safely, he held up her hand as if to satisfy himself that he had fixed them to his liking, and Dee looked on in silence at the galaxy of beauty adorning her fingers, such as they had never done before, and never would again.
They tingled with the warm contact of Luke's grip as he carefully slid each ring into place. One, two, three, four. Her mind counted them automatically. For better, for worse, for richer, for poorer. Why did he have to choose her left hand? Was it a random choice that he had put two of the rings on her engagement finger, one of them the ring that had attracted his special attention?
Hurriedly Dee sent her mind in search of another rhythm to fit. Rich man, poor man, beggar man, thief. That was more appropriate, except that the rich man confronting her threatened also to be the thief, stealing not precious stones, but her own infinitely more precious freedom.
Dee lowered her hand and clenched it convulsively into a fist, turning the stones from view. He must not succeed. Mari, whoever she was, must have no rival.
CHAPTER SIX
Luke held Dee's hand in the back seat of the car, all the way to the airport.
Just like an ordinary courting couple, she thought with a giggle that died in a gasp of protest as his fingers clamped over her own like steel bands, completely engulfing them, pressing the hard edges of the gems into her flesh with painful force. Chaining her to him. She tried unavailingly to tug her hand free, protesting, 'There's no need for you to hold my hand in the car. No one can see. If you're scared,' she lashed him with scorn to try to gain her release, 'I'll sit on my hand and keep it out of sight.'
Anything would be better than the electric impulses flowing from his touch, which set her every nerve-end jangling, not just her fingers.
'I'll hold on to you,' he answered curtly, and did. 'That way I know you'll be safe.'
'You'll be safe'. Not 'the rings will be safe'. Would he have been so concerned for her safety if it hadn't been for the rings? The answer was obvious, and extinguished the small warmth which had started into life inside her, and she pointed out flatly, 'The car doors are locked.'
'If your training in security was as good as you claim, you must know that locks wouldn't stand a chance against a determined raid.'
Luke always had the last word. With tightened lips Dee turned her head away, and looked out of the car window on her side.
Her eyes widened on a brightly decorated elephant that plodded towards them, urged on by its watchful keeper. It headed a noisy procession of people which took up half the street, obviously celebrating a festival of some kind.
Or on their way to try to wrench open the car door and steal their precious cargo? Were the elephant, and the musicians, and the noise just a front to cover a more sinister purpose?
Locks wouldn't stand a chance against a determined raid...
Dee shrank back against Luke as the animal came closer and forced the car to slow to a crawl in order to allow it to pass.
She felt Luke's hand over her own tense and tighten. Her nerves screwed to screaming pitch as the elephant's huge bulk loomed over the car, the searching trunk investigating the paintwork.
The chains in its keeper's hands were strong enough to remain intact if they were flung through the window, and round the door-jamb, when one good pull by the animal they were attached to would be enough to rip the car in half.
And expose herself and Luke to attack.
Dee flinched away, pressing herself against muscular hardness, reassuring hardness under the khaki bush shirt, feeling the ridge of the leather belt and its contents round the tight waist.
The elephant plodded peacefully past, and the noisy crowd melted along with it, and Dee felt herself go limp. Reaction brought with it anger, and she hated Luke for frightening her unnecessarily. Hated herself for showing fear.
Taking delivery of priceless artefacts was always a nerve-stretching business, bad enough when she merely accompanied the cargo. A thousand times worse, she discovered, when she was actually wearing it. Her escort, who was supposed to take the tension out of the exercise, was deliberately adding to it, she blamed Luke bitterly.
Frightening a female courier was just another way to show his power. Abruptly Dee sat upright, away from him, putting distance between them that was no distance at all because he continued to hold on tightly to her hand.
People, and what they were carrying with them, could be snatched from cars. It happened. But mostly in films. This was not a film. This was the real world, the sane world, in which danger was recognised, but rarely happened.
Dee's lips curled in the darkness of the car, and she steeled her fingers to lie limp and unresponsive in their prison. She wouldn't give Luke another opportunity to feed his ego at her expense.
They had remained in the bank for some time, completing the documents necessary to enable them to clear Customs with their cargo, and it was dark when they had finally emerged.
Her colleague had said, 'I'll drive you to the airport in my own car. It's less noticeable than a bank van,' and added, 'I've spoken to Customs, both here and in London. One of their officers will meet you at each end, and steer you through without fuss. It will lessen the risk.'
'Identification?' Luke had asked immediately, and the other man had answered.
'Both of the officers will be known to you personally, Mr Ransom.'
To Luke. Not to Dee. With an effort she had swallowed her frustration and followed the men to the car.
The darkness outside was at once a cover, and an increased risk. To Dee's nervily alert eyes the streets had seemed to be much more crowded than usual. Perhaps because of the festival which had brought out the crowd with the elephant? Festivals in India meant lots of people in the streets, crowding round the traffic, reducing its speed.
A golden opportunity for thieves to attack, and grab, and melt away again afterwards into the crowd, uncaught. The tension returned. Lights flickered in windows, from the flaring of countless candles. Dee turned her eyes enquiringly on to Luke's face, and he answered her unspoken question.
'It's the start of Diwali, the Festival of Light. There will be musicians on the streets, and processions, and fireworks.'
Fireworks? That would account for the bang she had heard the night before. Another piece of the jigsaw slotted into place.
After the heightened tension the sheer normality of the flight came as an anticlimax. The alerted Customs man dealt with their exotic luggage with smooth efficiency, and in a separate room, and then exc
eeded his duties by insisting they bypass the usual boarding formalities, and escorted them on to the plane himself.
He, too, was well aware of the risk, and didn't want any untoward incident to rebound upon his own head.
As he escorted them to their seats, before leaving them in the care of the stewardess, Dee heard one impatiently waiting passenger grumble discontentedly, 'Money talks,' and another answer, 'More likely to be trouble of some kind. The girl looks as if she might be under arrest. Did you see how the man was holding on to her?'
Arrest was what it felt like, Dee thought ruefully as Luke steered her into the window-seat and sat down next to her, still holding tightly to her hand. He didn't release her until the plane became airborne, and then not before his fingertips had cautiously investigated, to make sure the gems were, as he had instructed, turned round into her palm.
Contrarily, the moment Luke released them Dee's fingers felt bereft.
They straightened with quick longing, flexing themselves to reach out and curl round Luke's hand, and hold their erstwhile protector to them, and, scorning their weakness, Dee sent her other hand to cover them, but, although it held them in submission, it couldn't make up for their lack.
To occupy them she forced them instead to attend to the in-flight meal, cutting food which she didn't want to eat, and raising drink to her lips that, for all her muddled senses were aware, might have been tea, coffee, or river water.
The flight itself proved to be uneventful. The passenger who occupied the third seat, next to Luke, was an expansive middle-aged lady, returning from a package tour and full of her once-in-a-lifetime holiday. Separated from her fellows by the seating arrangements, she turned to Luke and Dee for conversation, and thankfully Dee let her talk, welcoming the distraction to her own unwelcome thoughts.
'It's going to feel cold when we get out at Heathrow after all that lovely sunshine, isn't it?' their fellow traveller prophesied with a shiver. 'I hope you've got something warm on under that nice suit, dear?' Her eyes assessed Dee's neat two-piece with the resigned look which had long since learned to bypass anything under a size sixteen.
Dee hid a smile. 'I've got a light coat with me, if I need it.'
'A coat is all very well.' The tightly permed curls wagged disapprovingly. 'It's underneath you need the warmth. My daughter, now, she's about your age, and she simply refuses to wear a vest.' She sighed resignedly. 'It doesn't matter what I say. And as for the things she wears in bed...' The curls shook again. 'What I say is, she might as well not bother. Nothing but a bit of lace and ribbon, that's all they are. Not enough to keep a body warm. I keep telling her, get yourself some nice winceyette pyjamas. They're the things for cold weather.'
Dee clamped down hard on a rising giggle, and beside her she felt Luke stir. She glanced up quickly and met merriment in his narrowed eyes, and averted her own hastily lest her giggle betray her. Unaware of the exchange, their companion shrugged plump shoulders and complained, 'You youngsters never listen. I don't suppose you've got anything warm either... Oh, duty frees? Yes, please.'
She turned her attention to the hovering stewardess, and Luke leaned down and murmured sotto voce in Dee's ear, 'Have you got any winceyette pyjamas?'
With an effort, Dee kept her face straight. 'As a matter of fact, I have,' she answered primly.
Luke's eyebrows registered his astonishment, and, unable to help herself, Dee let the laughter surface in a gurgle as she confessed in a whisper, 'My grandmother gave them to me for Christmas, years ago. They're bright pink, with big roses all over them. Sensible, she said they were.'
'And?' Luke's dancing eyes hung on her answer, and she grinned.
'They're still in the packet.'
Their arrival at Heathrow was greeted by two bored-looking newspaper reporters, who were waiting for a VIP due on a much delayed flight. 'Haven't seen you around for a while, Mr Ransom,' one of them called out, and Luke answered,
'I've been abroad.'
Dee felt him tense as the two men approached them, and his hand round her own tightened its grip. Luke took no chances, even though he obviously recognised the two men, and Dee noticed that he treated them with the same automatic courtesy that seemed to be a part of him, and brought him willing service where others, more demanding, were forced to wait.
'Business, or pleasure?' one of them asked, with his eyes fixed significantly upon Dee.
'You could say a bit of both,' Luke drawled.
'Did you have to say that?' Dee muttered furiously.
It gave the men carte blanche to make whatever they liked of the fact that Luke was holding her hand. She stiffened as the reporter's alert glance slid over her, taking in every detail of her appearance. Making mental notes so that he could describe her accurately in his paper's gossip column?
Dee wondered disjointedly which newspaper he represented. Was it one of the rags? It scarcely mattered, since the undergrads at home read a wide selection, most of which found their way, sooner or later, into the hands of her family via their 'daily'.
Dee's only consolation was that the reporters didn't know her name. She could only hope that any description, if it was printed, might go unnoticed at home. If not... Her raw nerves quivered at the prospect of her mother speculating. Of Oliver teasing, reminding her of his bet. Of her sister-in-law saying, 'I told you so.' She wondered what Mari would think if she read it.
At least there wouldn't be a picture to back up the description. Luke never, ever allowed his picture to appear in newspapers.
The reporter begged, 'Be a sport, Mr Ransom. Give us a shot, just this once. If the VIP doesn't arrive, and we don't go back with something, our editor will have us for breakfast.'
'Just this once, then.'
Dee's ears refused to believe what they had heard. Luke didn't... he couldn't... he had. 'No!'
she protested, and shot him a look of urgent appeal, and at that moment the camera clicked.
Luke collected his car from the long-stay car park. It was a low-slung grey Jaguar, sleek and powerful, like its owner. Glowering, Dee got in beside him, and when a short time later they reached base, and Bill approved, 'It was a good move to wear the rings,' she snapped ungraciously,
'It was Luke's idea, not mine.'
One part of Dee's mind registered that, in spite of Luke's earlier, harsh criticism of her boss, the two men appeared now to be on amicable terms, while the other took in Bill's probing look at her use of Luke's first name.
Dee's face became stony. The moment they were alone together she would wipe out the hopeful look on Bill's face, and explain in no uncertain terms exactly what was her relationship with Luke. In the meantime it rankled that her escort should get the credit for doing her job.
Hurriedly she stripped the jewels from her fingers and thrust them into the tray which Bill provided, not without a lingering look at the one particularly attractive ring which Luke, too, had admired, and which had fitted on to her finger as if it belonged there.
Resolutely pulling her eyes away, she slid the tray into the safe Bill had opened to receive it, and Luke reached under his bush shirt and unstrapped the soft leather body belt.
'The rest of the exhibits are in this.'
To Dee's astonishment, Luke handed the belt to her to give to Bill, a token gesture of her responsibility which, she thought sourly, came too late to salvage her pride.
She reached out to take it from him, and immediately she felt the soft leather touch her fingers she wished contrarily that Luke had bypassed her and handed it straight to Bill instead. The belt was still warm from contact with its wearer's body, and her fingers clenched convulsively round it as a wave of sensation flowed from the warmth and set her fingertips burning as if they had received an electric shock.
Hurriedly she released the belt to Bill, dumping it into his outstretched hand with unseemly haste, aware of his startled look. She averted her eyes from Luke's face, shrinking from the derision she knew must be there, that had noticed her haste to rid herse
lf of the burden and guessed its cause, and would prove to be the last straw in a day that had unmercifully piled one on top of the other.
Bill stowed away their cargo and locked the safe with the satisfied comment, 'Those will be all right in there for the next twenty-four hours,' and Dee thought with relief, Twenty-four hours is just what I need to give me space away from Luke.
Space to regain her composure, and the opportunity, when she reached home, to field any newspapers containing the photograph of herself and Luke together before they were able to cause speculation among her family. News of the picture was bound to filter through, in the small, gossipy community, but by the time it did she would be away again on another assignment, out of reach of both questions and teasing, and when she returned the nine days' wonder would have died down and given place to other things.
What the photograph would do to the girl called Mari, if she saw it, was her problem. And Luke's. Dee knew a malicious satisfaction that his outrageous behaviour could rebound upon his own head and leave him with some awkward explanations to make. She said out loud, striving to keep the relief out of her voice, 'Twenty-four hours will give me nice time to go home and sort out my clothes, and collect my car.'
The two men spoke at once. Bill said, 'Betty will collect any clothes you need,' and Luke put in,
'You won't need your car.'
'I must have wheels if I'm to commute between home and Ransom Court.'
Even as she voiced her protest, Dee had the feeling that something was being stacked against her. Luke confirmed her intuition with a masterful, 'You won't be commuting. You'll be living at the court for the duration of the exhibition. It's all arranged.'
Without her consent! Anger and dismay fought for supremacy as Dee sought desperately for a means to extricate herself, when a cheerful voice enquired into the strained silence, 'Did I hear my name mentioned?'
Betty, Bill's indispensable secretary and Jill-of-all-trades, popped her head round the door of her boss's office, and Bill nodded.
