by Ruth Wind
But I couldn't really hold the thought. I was too tired. Taking the nozzle out to fill the tank, my arms felt like they weighed 10,000 pounds each.
Or maybe that would be 10,000 tons.
The liters clicked away, adding up obscenely, and I resolved, as I always did, to never complain again about the price of gasoline in America. The overhead fluorescents beat down on the scene with their usual depressing cast, and I huddled into my damp coat, putting my back to the icy wind. I glanced at Luca through the windshield, and he had his eyes closed.
Could it only have been six hours since we'd met?
Inside, the clerk was obviously performing the last tasks of the day, wiping down the counters, straightening the stock.
"Hi," I said, stomping off the chill.
She nodded and went back to her tasks. From the counter, I picked up a couple of bottles of water and a packet of chocolate biscuits and handed them over. I pulled out a credit card to pay, and realized with a cold shiver that it would be a way to track me if someone was inclined. "Wait," I said. "I'll pay cash."
"Thank you," she said, taking the notes.
"Is there a hotel close by?"
She had hair as shiny red as a setter, which she flipped away from her thin face. "Ye can try the Carrick B&B." She gave me directions.
"Thanks," I said, depositing my change.
Back in the car, Luca stirred when I opened the door, rousing himself. I gave him a bottle of water, feeling a wreck with my wet hair and wet feet and makeupless face. "I hate not having my things," I said, looking into the rearview mirror and poking at my hopeless hair. My lips were as pale as chalk. "Ugh."
His smile was half-hearted as he unscrewed the lid of the water. "You're lovely even when you look like a drowned cat."
"At least I don't look dead, like some people in this car."
"Undead, remember. I am from the land of Count Dracula."
"Ah, I knew I should have recognized that accent."
We drank water silently for a minute. "Do you want me to get out now?" Luca asked.
"It would be best," I said, "but I don't seem to have the heart to make you do it."
He looked at me. "No?"
"Don't get any ideas." I put the water bottle down and fit the key into the ignition. "I can't turn you out on the streets when you're bleeding and exhausted, but it's not because I'm entertaining thoughts of bliss in your arms."
"You have a sharp tongue!"
"Aye," I said wryly in Scottish. "Just so ye understand I ken yer motives."
"Do you?" he asked quietly. "I wonder if you do."
"You can't bear to touch this jewel. You want me along to be your courier." I frowned. "Not that it seems a particularly good idea for you to be this close to it. Have you noticed?"
That startled him. "I had not thought of that."
"Yeah, well, maybe it's the curse after all."
"I don't believe in the curse," he said.
"Oh, really?" I rolled my eyes.
He blinked lazily. "Do not be arrogant, Sylvie."
"I wasn't. I mean, I just thought…it's your Achilles' heel."
He sipped his water, then nodded. "Perhaps the Katerina is the weakness in my family."
"So why risk it, Luca?" I asked.
He shrugged. "It is, as you say, a long story."
"Okay." I pulled out. "The girl said there's a hotel on the High Street. We should be able to get a room there."
I had to get the proprietor out of bed, and I wisely used my Scottish accent because she was grumpy and xenophobic when she looked out the window and saw the swarthy—and grimy-looking—Luca sitting in the car. "My husband," I said with a wicked lift of my eyebrow. "Handsome, isn't he?"
Her watery blue eyes said she was too polite to disagree to my face. I paid her in cash, and she gave me a key. "Ye don't mind seeing yerself upstairs, d'ye?"
"Not at all."
The room was small, she said, with only one bed—and I couldn't very well complain after saying he was my husband, could I?—but it had an en suite bathroom, and that was a major plus. I thanked her profusely.
Luca barely could walk up the stairs. He had to lean on the railing unsteadily and haul himself up a stair at a time. He must have taken quite a battering in the car accident.
Or, I remembered, at the hands of the thugs. I'd have to remember to ask him what had happened there.
We let ourselves into the room, plain and square and old, smelling of damp plaster and mildew. It was cold. A sagging double bed covered in a white chenille spread from the old days of chenille occupied the place of honor.
But it was very clean. Every surface was dusted and polished, and the curtains were crisply pressed. On the dresser was an electric kettle and a basket of tea bags, individual tubes of sugar and packets of dried cream. Very civilized.
Luca limped into the room and settled with a groan on the chair. I squatted to turn on the fire. "How did you get away from those guys?"
"You took care of one very well, and I got away from the one outside and stole the car."
"So they're still back there, somewhere?"
He lifted his shoulders, let them drop. "What will they drive, hmm?"
In the light, he looked very grim indeed. "Why don't you go shower?" I said. "It will be warmer when you come out."
"Thank you." He peeled off his coat and spread it over the chair. "For everything, Sylvie. I did not earn it."
"I know."
He disappeared into the bathroom, and I stripped off my own coat and the sweater below it so I could warm up. I shivered there next to the gas flames for a few minutes, but the room did take to warming very quickly. I moved to the mirror.
I looked worse than I expected. So bad, really, that it surprised me that no one had commented. My right eye was a little battered, though not so much as my chin, which had taken the brunt of my fall at the caravan. It was quite purple.
Not to mention, every scrap of makeup I'd put on had been washed away, and I looked about sixteen.
In the bathroom, I heard the water go on, and took the chance to strip off my T-shirt, too, and examine my wounded breast. The Katerina made a nice lump in the silhouette of the bra, and I slipped it out, wincing. It hurt to take it out, and I was afraid to look at the tender flesh. Visible above the fabric of the bra was a finger of red.
It didn't matter—once the jewel was in my hand, I forgot all but the Katerina, all 80 magnificent, humming karats. She captured me, again. The play of light which makes diamonds so appealing was multiplied a hundredfold. Even the most desultory diamond clasps the light, returns it back to you.
And this one—I loved the simple table cut that allowed the rainbows of light to enter and exit with such elegant directness, the quality of sparkle, glints of rainbows. There in the middle, the dark red ruby, suspended like blood, a heart. A tear.
"Where do you want to be, my beauty?" I asked her.
Every jewel, left loose or made into a ring or a brooch or a necklace designed to hang between the breasts of a woman, has a story. The geological story to begin, of course, all those forces coming to bear, transforming elements into something rare and fine.
Then the discovery, the raw ore yielding something huge and impressive to be shaped and sawed and illuminated.
"She has seduced you, hasn't she?" Luca said from behind me.
I jumped—I hadn't even heard the shower turn off!—and covered my chest with my shirt hastily. I needed to put it on, but the idea of trying to straighten the wet fabric was too much to contemplate. Mostly covered, I turned. "Perhaps."
He was shirtless, too, and damp from the shower. His hair, towel-dried into ringlets, made me think of a Renaissance painting. He'd slipped back into his jeans, but the shirt was flung over one shoulder. His chest was beautiful. Supple skin covered toned pecs, and there was exactly the right amount of dark hair scattered in an artful triangle between his nipples.
He came closer and looked at the diamond, careful not to
touch it. "I have never seen anything so beautiful," he said.
"I know, I am, aren't I?"
He bent and kissed my shoulder. "You are attracted to me, I think."
"Yes," I said, and moved away from his reach. "But it doesn't matter. You're a criminal and you used me."
His lips quirked in appreciation, and he hesitated, then cocked his head. "Will you mind if I kiss you just once as a real thing, just to see what might have been?"
"I do mind," I said, and picked up the jewel to tuck back into my bra. For a moment, I'd forgotten the injury, and sucked in my breath at the pressure. "Ohh, other side, I think."
"What happened?"
"Nothing much. An encounter with the floor." I vaguely indicated my chin. "No big deal."
"Shall I look at it for you, hmm?"
"Very funny. How's your head?"
"I'm fine." He tossed his shirt on the bed. "I assume we will share the bed?"
"Not much choice, is there?"
He shook his head.
"I'm going to shower," I said.
I felt superstitious about the jewel, and took it into the shower with me. The water was good and hot, and I felt tension and cold and long hours of driving and travel pour down my arms, my legs, and go down the drain. I dried off, then wiped clean a spot on the mirror so I could look at my poor bruised breast.
Not pretty—but it was remarkable. The jewel had left an exact imprint on the white flesh of my breast, a purply-green rectangle. With a star of broken blood vessels in the middle, bright pink.
Eerie. For a long moment, I stared at it, wondering if there was any truth to that curse. Would I, too, meet a gruesome, violent death?
I thought of the thugs again. How had they tracked me to the hotel? To the caravan, which was out in the middle of nowhere? And what—
Stop. I had to get some sleep before anything else happened. Wearily, I pulled on enough clothing to be decent—bra and underwear, basically, and even those were damp, but I'd at least have semi-dry clothes tomorrow morning if I left them all spread out in the room. Tucking the Katerina back into my bra, I carried my T-shirt into the other room and spread it over the night stand, close by the fire.
"Are you warm enough?" I asked Luca, who had climbed into bed and was watching television, one arm propped behind his head. There was something so intimate about the casually exposed hair beneath his arm. I had to look away, an odd heat in my cheeks.
"Finally, yes," he said. "The blankets are warm, too. Come." He clicked off the television with the remote control, and pulled back the covers for me.
I hesitated. What did he have in mind?
Chapter 15
Scintillation: refers to the flashing and twinkling sparkle of a diamond when moved under light. A diamond is always more beautiful in motion because its scintillation depends upon the number of facets visible to the eye when the diamond moves.
—www.costellos.com.au
I crawled in gratefully. For the second time tonight, we curled together. Every cell in my body damned near wept at the pleasure of lying prone, in a soft place, with warmth around me. Luca spooned close, his body warm and solid. "It means nothing," he said, "only comfort."
"All right." I put my arm over his, let my head sink into the pillows. "You are warm. I've been frozen for hours."
"Where is that accent from, Sylvie?"
"I'm American."
"No. There is more." He murmured the words close to my neck, like a long-term lover. "Cannot place it, exactly."
"My mother was Scottish. And the first ten years of my life, we lived between Nice and Ayr, so I picked up parts of both of those accents." I smiled to myself and said, in my best Scottish, "I can speak Scottish when I've a mind to."
He chuckled.
"And," I said with the musical lilt of that language, "I have perfected a French accent for travel in Europe this days, which is better than being American, no?"
"Yes," he said with another small laugh.
"I can even," I said in a posh London accent, "be quite British when the situation requires it."
He went quite still behind me. "Are you Interpol?"
I laughed. "No."
"You should be."
"Too dangerous."
"You've had danger here tonight, no? And weren't you nearly killed in Egypt last summer? It was in the news—The Blue Nile."
"Well, my mother used to say I had a talent for trouble. Last summer, a sheik wanted the Blue Nile as badly as the Egyptian government."
"As now." His hand moved on my tummy, slightly, and his breath touched my ear.
"Yes," I said, and squeezed his wrist to halt his imaginings. "Go to sleep Luca."
"Mmm."
Outside, the rain splayed against the window again. The faint hiss of gas feeding the fire was a comforting sound. Luca spooned around me.
I felt him fall asleep. Heavily, deeply. A moment later, he began to snore very quietly. It made me think of a kitten.
Only then did I allow myself the luxury of letting go. I tumbled hard into the most narcotic of submarine sleeps, so far and deep and away it was like going to another planet.
* * *
Awakening slowly, I felt Luca's weight before I fully surfaced, and for long moments, I felt confused and disoriented. Where was I? With whom?
Paul.
I'd been dreaming about him, in some wicked way, which was what always seemed to happen if I let down my guard. Next to me, Luca shifted and I surfaced more completely. His hand moved on my arm.
"Are you awake?"
"Sort of," I said, and cleared my throat. "How did you get away from the thugs yesterday, anyway?"
"Same way you did—I just kept fighting."
"I don't understand how they found me."
"I don't know that answer, Sylvie," he said. His hand moved on my hip, which was nearly bare. It felt luxurious, especially when he nestled closer, pressed his lips to the back of my neck. "You feel nice," he said.
"No funny stuff," I said, shifting away. "You've gotta go."
"I could love you," he said.
"Don't be ridiculous."
"I am quite serious. You are beautiful, smart, balanced." He pushed against me. "Will you come to Romania with me, Sylvie? Please?"
A sudden warning told me this was not a game, that I could be in trouble if I didn't play along. For a long moment, I was still, then I turned and put my hand on his lovely face. "Are you really so afraid of the curse?"
"No," he said, "I just want you." He slid his hand upward, and covered my breast, and the jewel. With hooded eyes, he looked at my face. "You want me, too," he said. "I can feel it." He stroked my nipple to arousal, a purely sensory response, and then bent over my mouth. "Don't you?"
I wondered, suddenly, what his game was. I let him kiss me, pretended to be swept away. "I am attracted to you," I said, "but that's not really enough. What's in it for me if I carry the jewel into Romania for you?"
"We can work something out," he said, and drew his hand down my body. Against my thigh, I felt his urgent arousal, and I caught his hand before he went exploring too much.
"Not now," I said. "Let's eat."
I did not have to catch the ferry to Arran until mid-morning, which gave me time to think of what to do to handle Luca. We followed the scent of good Ayrshire bacon down the stairs to the dining room, which was made cheery by green and white chintz and sparkling clean windows. The weather beyond was grim, of course, but it was spring in Scotland. Some daffodils struggled to keep their heads up in a windowbox.
The breakfast was hefty—eggs and bacon, tomatoes and mushrooms, the good fluffy white bread that's practically a lost art in America now, and black pudding. "Want my pudding?" I asked Luca.
He nodded happily. "You do not like it?"
"No, thank you." My head felt much clearer this morning. "So what will you offer me?"
"I'm not doing this for money," he said.
"That's a lie, Luca. It's just that you think you can
get something else out of it, too."
"Perhaps." He spread jam on his toast. "What do you want?"
"Half of whatever you get."
He rolled his eyes. "Please."
"Thirty percent, then."
"Twenty."
I pursed my lips. "Twenty-five."
He considered for a long moment. "All right. Twenty-five it is."
My plan was to abandon him at the very next opportunity—he'd have to wash his hands or use the toilet, and that would be that.
Sayonara, Luca.
* * *
Unfortunately, we headed back to the room without a chance for me to ditch him.
And more fool I.
I bent down to pick up my bag and felt a blow come down on top of my head. I tumbled forward, stunned, and tried to catch myself before I hit my face again. Too late, my hand slammed into the corner, at least protecting my mouth from that viciousness, and my eyebrow alone caught the door handle to the bathroom.
"I am sorry, Sylvie," Luca said, grabbing me from behind, capturing my wrists in a fierce grip.
"Bastard!" I cried, and slammed my foot backward, trying to catch his instep, but he danced away. He had my wrists stacked one on top of the other, and was now wrapping something around them. I struggled, trying to get away.
"Do not make me hurt you," he said, and with a tensile strength that belied his size, he picked me up, pressed me against the wall, his body against mine. "I do not want to hurt you," he said, and touched my hair. I yanked away, feeling something drip in my eye.
"Damn you."
"No doubt," he said ironically. He put his attention on my ankles, wrapping them tightly together with what I saw now was duct tape. I roared my frustration, and tried to pull my wrists apart.
"Luca, don't do this, please. You said yourself that you'll die if you handle this jewel."
"I went to great trouble to avoid it, but now there is no choice." With a last, satisfied snap, he tore the end of the tape holding my ankles, and stood up. "You wanted payment, and I am not returning it for payment. I am returning it for the honor of my family."
"What does a thief care about honor?"
He turned me around to face him, not ungently. "If there was a monarchy in my country, I would be fifth in line for the throne. But my father disgraced our family through his exploits with the Communists, and I was a hostile youth, you understand?"
