Frozen Enchantment

by Jessica Steele

  Feeling not at all hungry, Jolene, with her watch now reading half past one in the morning, was more inclined to the idea of getting herself settled in her room. She was surprised, therefore, when Cheyne Templeton, who up until then had seemed barely to notice that she was there at all, suddenly addressed her.

  'How about you, Jolene?' he enquired. 'Are you hungry?'

  Masking her surprise that apparently no member of the Templeton firm was to be allowed to go to bed hungry, she replied politely, 'No, I'm not, actually.'

  'Then get to bed,' he commanded her curtly. 'We have a full day tomorrow.'

  Cheyne Templeton, Jolene considered, had the most aggravating knack of rubbing her up the wrong way! But, 'Goodnight,' she managed, her pleasant 'Goodnight' extending to cover both Alec and Keith. Then, having hidden that she was starting to get irked by her employer's bossy attitude, for all he was boss, she headed for the lifts and for her room.

  She did not sleep well in the narrow bed provided, but she was mollified somewhat when she thought that if she was having trouble, if the size of her bed was hotel regulation size, then the tall, broad-shouldered Cheyne Templeton must be finding getting to sleep a nightmare!

  She had had enough of trying to get to sleep by six o'clock, and although dawn had not broken and it was still dark outside, she got up and bathed and dressed.

  Daylight had broken at seven o'clock, and at half past seven a knock on her door revealed a woebegone-looking Keith extending his wrist, saying, 'Are you going to go all Women's Lib on me if I tell you that a button has come off the cuff of this brand new shirt, and that I'm prepared to let you have my next Aeroflot tub of jam if only you'll sew it on for me?'

  What could she do? She laughed. 'I presume you haven't brought a sewing kit with you,' she tried to sound severe as she invited him in.

  'You've got a TV in your room—we haven't in ours,' Keith commented as he held his arm still while she stitched the button back for him. 'That's great,' he said a minute later as she broke off the cotton. 'Are you coming to breakfast?'

  Pausing only to pick up her bag and her room key, Jolene followed him out of her room—then stopped as though frozen. For waiting by the lift, and looking down the hall at them, stood Cheyne Templeton, and it was clear from the thunderous expression on his face that he had put his own interpretation on why she and Keith Shaw were leaving her room together before breakfast that Monday morning.

  Turning to check that her door was secured, Jolene, observing that Keith was still fiddling about with hi§ cuff, determined that she was not going to make any excuses. She had not forgotten that Cheyne Templeton believed she had a penchant for married men, but, as stubbornness set in, she reminded herself that she was totally innocent, Keith Shaw's coming to her room was totally innocent, and she'd be blowed if she would explain. And, as her stubbornness set solid, Jolene decided that her too-quick-to-jump-to-conclusions employer could jolly well believe what he liked!

  Her chin was tilted at a defiant angle and there was a light of battle in her eyes as she walked with Keith to the lift. Then, as Cheyne looked blackly from her to Keith, and looked as though he was about to sort the pair of them out, Keith, about the sunniest person she had ever met, was saying, 'Good morning, sir. In the interests of looking immaculate for this morning's meeting, I've just borrowed your secretary to sew a button back on to my shirt.'

  Knowing full well what Cheyne had been thinking, and might still be thinking, for all she knew, Jolene refused to say good morning to him. Not that he looked ready to break out into spots about that, she observed when, with his expression not much lighter, the three of them stepped into the lift.

  'Alec went down earlier,' Keith filled in what was a cold silence as the lift descended. 'But these beds—did you...' he broke off as the lift stopped and several more people got in.

  The lift emptied at the second floor as everyone went to find a breakfast table. Alec was sitting in solitary splendour at a table for four, and they went to join him.

  Jolene saw him look at Keith's shirt cuff, and after the 'good mornings' were out of the way he said 'I told Keith that you'd be bound to have brought your needle and thread,' and smiled.

  By then Jolene had lost some of her stubbornness, and supposed it was no bad thing to have Alec confirm for Cheyne Templeton that Keith had only been in her room for the purpose he had stated.

  'I don't suppose you can sew either,' she commented to Alec, but her glance had flicked to Cheyne, and as she stared at him she rather got the impression that he had realised that, while she would willingly sew a button on for Alec, he, her 'dear employer', could lose every one of the buttons off his shirt, but he'd be wasting his time in coming to her room to ask her to sew them back on again for him.

  Breakfast consisted of a large cup of delicious buttermilk-type yoghurt, followed by slices of cheese and slices of the tenderest beef together with dark brown bread and a dish of butter. There was also a cheesecake type of confection which was very tasty too, and a dish of jam. Suddenly hungry, Jolene set to with a will, and drank coffee while she decided to give the tea a try tomorrow, as Alec, who seemed to have the capacity for finding out all sorts of irrelevant bits and pieces, told them that it was twenty degrees below freezing outside.

  If things were freezing outside, however, then as the morning progressed a thaw started to set in with Jolene. Perhaps the fact that Cheyne himself seemed to have forgotten to be curt with her had something to do with it. But in any event she no longer felt antagonistic to him as they made their way to the large factory where it seemed they were to spend most of the day.

  Anticipating that it would be here in Irkutsk that her Russian would be put to the test, Jolene realised that it was too late now to wish she had done the crash course which had included Russian engineering terms.

  But as a delegation stood in the reception area and she prepared to perform what introductions were necessary, she was little short of dumbfounded when Cheyne Templeton, having previously met the Director of Engineering, it seemed, stepped forward and shook hands with a greying, smartly suited man somewhere in his early fifties.

  'Dobrahyee ootrah, Anatoly,' she heard him say, and while she quickly decided that to say 'Good morning' in Russian was probably the only Russian her sharp employer knew, he went on to dumbfound her some more when, asking fluently after the Director of Engineering's health, he set about introducing his team.

  'Ehtah Gahspahzhah Jolene Draper,' he turned first to her. And while she shook hands with the Director, and as Cheyne introduced his two engineers, there began a round of introductions with the Russian engineering team.

  'I am most pleased to meet you,' said a man of about thirty, who was introduced to her as Viktor Sekirkin, and who smiled warmly at her and, as he gripped her right hand, insisted on speaking English.

  A moment later they were shown to a cloakroom where in the general hubbub of shedding their warm coats, hats, scarves and gloves, Jolene exchanged smiles with Ivetta Shvetsova, a woman of about forty who was Alec's counterpart in engineering.

  Sociably they all went off to drink coffee, and although there was another woman by the name of Tatiana who was standing by to interpret, her services were not called upon.

  Shortly afterwards they embarked on a tour of the massive factory, with Jolene and Tatiana trailing in the rear. Tatiana, Jolene rather thought, was trying to look as interested as she was trying to look whenever they stopped, which seemed to be every two minutes, to stand and stare for interminably long periods by some large hunk of machinery or other.

  Jolene, stifling a yawn, was still trying to look as though her work began and ended with a lump of green-painted oily-looking metal when she saw Cheyne Templeton flick a glance at her. Immediately she tried to appear as though she was riveted by the intricacies of the piece of machinery. She could not, however, resist a quick look to him as she sensed his glance move away from her. To her amazement, though, when if anything she would have thought he would be frown
ing at his perception that she was finding it tough going to maintain a show of interest, Jolene saw that he was in the act of suppressing a definite upward curve to the corner of his mouth.

  Certain that he had just won a battle against allowing himself a smile, she wondered had she again—unwittingly—amused him?

  Whether she had amused him or hot, though, she afterwards felt much more friendly towards him than she had. The tour of the factory was completed by lunchtime and they were entertained to lunch by the Director and his engineers. As they went to their places, however, Jolene found herself walking with Cheyne Templeton for a few moments and, rather than allow him to say something in any way acid about her shortcomings on the morning's tour, should he be so inclined, she hurried in to say brightly, 'I'd no idea you could speak Russian!'

  Very much aware of his glance down at her from his lofty height, she anticipated an arrogant reply along the lines of 'What makes you think you know everything?' But, to show that he was not a snarling brute the whole of the time, his tone was quite pleasant when he disclaimed, 'It's only a smattering picked up from a cassette on my drive to and from the office just recently.'

  A smattering! she thought, having heard him speaking quite fluently to Anatoly Markov in Russian. And, as she remembered how up until recently he had been out of England on other business, and realised that his knowledge of the Russian language must have been picked up in a very few days, she just could not resist saying, 'You must live hundreds of miles from the office, then.'

  She was then fairly shattered on two accounts—the one, that she discovered that she was quite interested to know where he lived, the other, that as Cheyne Templeton looked down at her, he actually smiled a most super smile, as he queried, 'Am 1 to take that as a compliment?'

  She was glad to be saved from an answer when at that moment he was diverted to go and sit next to the Director at the large luncheon table, while she was urged by Viktor Sekirkin to come and sit next to him.

  'You enjoyed your visit to the factory?' asked Viktor as they began their meal with thick smoked salmon accompanied by green olives.

  'Very much,' she told him, a lie not only permissible but definitely required in the circumstances, she felt. To her relief, however, Viktor, as he asked her to call him, had no intention of spending his lunchtime filling in the large gaps in her education about engineering machinery, but filled in a few of the blanks on her education about Irkutsk.

  During her first course she learned that Irkutsk was the administrative and economic capital of Siberia. 'Siberia, as you know, I think,' he smiled, 'means sleeping land.'

  Their next course was bortsch, a soup of which the main ingredient was beetroot. Viktor was most attentive to her as he first served her from the soup tureen and then helped himself.

  Jolene was half-way through her soup when she glanced around the table to observe that Ivetta Shvetsova was deep in engineering conversation with Alec. Edwards, while Keith and Tatiana were politely conversing. When her glance fell on Cheyne Templeton, however, Jolene just knew that although he appeared to be giving the Director his entire concentration he was at the same time every bit aware of what each of them was doing.

  They were on their third course, which was beef Stroganoff, rice and carrots, when as Viktor suggested, 'Maybe you would like a guide to show you Irkutsk?' Jolene happened to glance again at the man sitting next to the Director.

  It was then that she began to doubt that she had ever seen anything on his face that could be termed a smile, let alone a super smile. For Cheyne had his glance fixed on no one but her, and as his dark eyes glinted dangerously, and his expression—with not a smile in sight—looked little short of threatening, Jolene was remembering his accusation that she was man-mad, and how he had told her that he was not having the Russian talks put in jeopardy because of it.

  'I'm—er—not sure quite what free time I'll have,' she replied as tactfully as she could to Viktor, and was back to hating Cheyne Templeton again. It could have been that Viktor was offering his services as a guide, or was offering to get her a guide, but suddenly she felt too stilted to be natural with him. Fair enough, with Cheyne Templeton close enough to eavesdrop on her conversation, he could well have overheard Viktor's suggestion, and could—knowing her employer—well have thought that she was leading Viktor on. But dammit, they were here to do business; was she not supposed to give Viktor the time of day?

  Jolene tucked into her final and fourth course of mousse and ice cream and endeavoured to appear as if there was not so much as a trace of mutiny in her.

  After coffee, they took a small amount of exercise when they visited the factory's photographic exhibition. But the whole time she was studying the photographs of the end product of the factory's labours, she was rebelling against having this trip of a lifetime spoilt by the man she was there to work for.

  Guessing that she would never come this way to work again, Jolene gave the meeting all her attention when later they adjourned to sit round a table, when both sides talked 'possibilities and feasibilities'.

  The meeting went on for some good while, and then it was time to leave. The Director and the engineers, with Tatiana still in tow, escorted them to where they had left their top coats and accessories.

  The Director and Cheyne Templeton were still in conversation as they walked towards the outside door. Then everyone was shaking hands, and Viktor, to Jolene's exasperation when Cheyne was but a yard away, was saying, 'Perhaps you can find out if you have free time tonight. You can telephone to me and I can come for you at your hotel if...'

  'I'm afraid my secretary has to work this evening,' Cheyne, not giving her the chance to reply for herself, cut in smoothly. Any pride Jolene might have experienced to hear him call her his secretary, though, was immediately negated the moment she looked beyond his bland expression to read an expression in his eyes that again warned her to behave herself. She said her goodbyes and stepped into the waiting car.

  She was still feeling insurgent when back at the hotel she went to her room, changed, and fumed that, but for Alec and Keith, she would not go down to dinner.

  Purely because she knew that she would not have Cheyne I'm-keeping-my-eye-on-you Templeton as her sole dinner companion, she did go down to dinner, though. She need not have been concerned about being called upon to enter into a friendly foursome, however, because, engineering being what they were about, it was engineering, and what they had seen that day, that ruled the conversation at the dinner table.

  After dinner both Keith and Alec said that they were going to try to hunt up a beer in the hotel, which left Jolene, since they were again housed on the same floor as each other, to share the lift upwards with the man she was still not liking any better.

  They were stepping out of the lift when, having been determined not to say a word to him, but having not forgotten that he wanted her to work that night, she suddenly found herself saying, 'Your place or mine?'

  She had to give him full marks for instant comprehension. 'Bring your pad to the lounge area on this floor,' he answered shortly. 'We'll work there.'

  CHAPTER FOUR

  JOLENE awoke on Tuesday morning, saw that it was daylight and immediately wanted to go back to sleep again. In her opinion Cheyne Templeton was just too much!

  For some moments she lay there, staring unseeing at the folded blanket which was inserted through an aperture in a sheeting bag, and which served as a kind of duvet. The man was tireless, was her considered opinion as, realising that if she was serious about a career then she should be welcoming this chance to prove herself, she pushed back the duvet and got out of bed. She thanked him not that his parting words last night had been, 'You needn't type it back tonight.' Super-woman she was not!

  Her thoughts flitted to Gillian Frampton, the nearest she had seen to Superwoman, as she went into the bathroom and began to run her bath. It was something to strive for, she supposed, to one day be as super-efficient as that charming and unflappable lady.

 
; Fleetingly she wondered if Gillian Frampton liked her employer. She'd have to like him, wouldn't she? Jolene had no idea how long Gillian Frampton had been PA to Cheyne Templeton, but surely one would have to like the slave-driver to work for him.

  Remembering that her employer had also mentioned that they would be breakfasting later this morning than they had yesterday, Jolene slowed her pace and wallowed in her bath as she pondered, still, did Gillian Frampton like him, and indeed, how could anyone like the impossible man?

  She was towelling herself dry when the thought suddenly struck her, did he like anyone? Did he, in fact, like Gillian Frampton? All at once Jolene was recalling, quite clearly, that first day she had met him and how his tone when he had spoken to Gillian had been vastly different from the tone he had used when he had spoken to her. His tone of speaking to Gillian, she remembered without effort, had been quiet, even gentle!

  A small frown wrinkled her usually smooth brow and from being in not so much of a hurry that morning, she was suddenly in very much of a rush. Swiftly getting dressed, she quickly brushed her hair and applied the small amount of make-up she wore, as if all the time trying to escape from something she did not want to know. Eventually, however, she slowed down and, letting her thoughts carry on to their natural conclusion, she just could not stop the question—was Cheyne being such a brute to her in particular because he had not wanted anyone but Gillian with him on this trip and was missing her? Was he, in fact, having an affair with his PA?

  Feeling decidedly out of sorts at what her probings had brought her, Jolene left her room trying to tell herself that she was being ridiculous. She knew precisely why he was being a brute to her, for heaven's sake—he thought she was man-mad, and he was just out to ensure that her 'man-mad' tendencies did not put a spanner in the works of this business opportunity.