by Nora Roberts
Doug led her downstairs. As long as she was in a good mood, he might as well make his pitch. Companionably, he swung an arm around her shoulder. “So, how’d you sleep?”
“Just fine.”
On their way through the lobby, he plucked a small purple blossom from a vase and tucked it behind her ear. Passionflower—he thought it might suit her. Its scent was strong and sweet, as a tropical flower’s should be. The gesture touched her, even as she distrusted it. “Too bad we don’t have much time to play tourist,” he said conversationally. “The Queen’s Palace is supposed to be something to see.”
“You have a taste for the opulent?”
“Sure. I always figured it was nice to live with a little flash.”
She laughed, shaking her head. “I’d rather have a feather bed than a gold one.”
“ ‘They say that knowledge is power. I used to think so, but I now know that they meant money.’ ”
She stopped in her tracks and stared at him. What kind of a thief quoted Byron? “You continue to surprise me.”
“If you read you’re bound to pick up something.” Shrugging, Doug decided to steer away from philosophy and back to practicality. “Whitney, we agreed to divide the treasure fifty-fifty.”
“After you pay me what you owe me.”
He gritted his teeth on that. “Right. Since we’re partners, it seems to me we ought to divide the cash we have fifty-fifty.”
She turned her head to give him a pleasant smile. “Does it seem like that to you?”
“A matter of practicality,” he told her breezily. “Suppose we got separated—”
“Not a chance.” Her smile remained pleasant as she tightened her hold on her purse. “I’m sticking to you like an appendage until this is all over, Douglas. People might think we’re in love.”
Without breaking rhythm, he changed tactics. “It’s also a matter of trust.”
“Whose?”
“Yours, sugar. After all, if we’re partners, we have to trust each other.”
“I do trust you.” She draped a friendly arm around his waist. The mist was burning off and the sun was climbing. “As long as I hold the bankroll—sugar.”
Doug narrowed his eyes. Classy wasn’t all she was, he thought grimly. “Okay then, how about an advance?”
“Forget it.”
Because choking her was becoming tempting, he broke away to face her down. “Give me one reason why you should hold all the cash?”
“You want to trade it for the papers?”
Infuriated, he spun away to stare at the whitewashed house behind him. In the dusty side yard, flowers and vines tangled in wild abandon. He caught the scents of breakfast cooking and overripe fruit.
There was no way he could give her the slip as long as he was broke. There was no way he could justify lifting her purse and leaving her stranded. The alternative left him exactly where he was—stuck with her. The worst of it was he was probably going to need her. Sooner or later he’d need someone to translate the correspondence written in French, for no other reason than his own nagging curiosity. Not yet, he thought. Not until he was on more solid ground. “Look, dammit, I’ve got eight dollars in my pocket.”
If he had much more, she reflected, he’d dump her without a second thought. “Change from the twenty I gave you in Washington.”
Frustrated, he started down a set of steep stairs. “You’ve got a mind like a damn accountant.”
“Thanks.” She hung on to the rough wooden rail and wondered if there were any other way down. She shielded her eyes and looked. “Oh look, what’s that, a bazaar?” Quickening her pace, she dragged Doug back with her.
“Friday market,” he grumbled. “The zoma. I told you that you should read the guidebook.”
“I’d rather be surprised. Let’s take a look.”
He went along because it was as easy, and perhaps cheaper, to buy some of the supplies in the open market as it was to buy them in one of the shops. There was time before the train left, he thought with a quick check of his watch. They might as well enjoy it.
There were thatch-roofed structures and wooden stalls under wide white umbrellas. Clothes, fabrics, gemstones were spread out for the serious buyer or the browser. Always a serious buyer, Whitney spotted an interesting mix of quality and junk. But it wasn’t a fair, it was business. The market was organized, crowded, full of sound and scent. Wagons drawn by oxen and driven by men wrapped in white lambas were crammed with vegetables and chickens. Animals clucked and mooed and snorted in varying degrees of complaint as flies buzzed. A few dogs milled around, sniffing, and were shooed away or ignored.
She could smell feathers and spice and animal sweat. True, the roads were paved, there were sounds of traffic and not too far away the windows of a first-class hotel glistened in the burgeoning sun. A goat shied at a sudden noise and pulled on his tether. A child with mango juice dripping down his chin tugged on his mother’s skirt and babbled in a language Whitney had never heard. She watched a man in baggy pants and a peaked hat point and count out coins. Caught by two scrawny legs, a chicken squawked and struggled to fly. Feathers drifted. On a rough blanket was a spread of amethysts and garnets that glinted dully in the early sun. She started to reach out, just to touch, when Doug pulled her to a display of sturdy leather moccasins.
“There’ll be plenty of time for baubles,” he told her and nodded toward the walking shoes. “You’re going to need something more practical than those little strips of leather you’re wearing.”
With a shrug, Whitney looked over her choices. They were a long way from the cosmopolitan cities she was accustomed to, a long way from the playgrounds the wealthy chose.
Whitney bought the shoes, then picked up a handmade basket, instinctively bargaining for it in flawless French.
He had to admire her, she was a born negotiator. More, he liked the way she had fun arguing over the price of a trinket. He had a feeling she’d have been disappointed if the haggling had gone too quickly or the price had dropped too dramatically. Since he was stuck with her, Doug decided to be philosophical and make the best of the partnership. For the moment.
“Now that you’ve got it,” Doug said, “who’s going to carry it?”
“We’ll leave it in storage with the luggage. We’ll need some food, won’t we? You do intend to eat on this expedition?” Eyes laughing, she picked up a mango and held it under his nose.
He grinned and chose another, then dropped both in her basket. “Just don’t get carried away.”
She wandered through the stalls, joining in the bargaining and carefully counting out francs. She fingered a necklace of shells, considering it as carefully as she would a bauble at Cartier’s. In time, she found herself filtering out the strange Malagasy and listening, answering, even thinking in French. The merchants traded in a continual stream of give and take. It seemed they were too proud to show eagerness, but Whitney hadn’t missed the marks of poverty on many.
How far had they come, she wondered, traveling in wagons? They didn’t seem tired, she thought as she began to study the people as closely as their wares. Sturdy, she would have said. Content, though there were many without shoes. The clothes might be dusty, some worn, but all were colorful. Women braided and pinned and wound their hair in intricate, timely designs. The zoma, Whitney decided, was as much a social event as a business one.
“Let’s pick up the pace, babe.” There was an itch between his shoulder blades that was growing more nagging. When Doug caught himself looking over his shoulder for the third time, he knew it was time to move on. “We’ve got a lot more to do today.”
She dropped more fruit in the basket with vegetables and a sack of rice. She might have to walk and sleep in a tent, Whitney thought, but she wouldn’t go hungry.
He wondered if she knew just what a startling contrast she made among the dark merchants and solemn-faced women with her ivory skin and pale hair. There was an unmistakable air of class about her even as she stood bargaining for dr
ied peppers or figs. She wasn’t his style, Doug told himself, thinking of the sequins-and-feathers type he normally drifted to. But she’d be a hard woman to forget.
On impulse he picked up a soft cotton lamba and draped it over her head. When she turned, laughing, she was so outrageously beautiful he lost his breath. It should be white silk, he thought. She should wear white silk, cool, smooth. He’d like to buy her yards of it. He’d like to drape her in it, in miles of it, then slowly, slowly strip it from her until it was only her skin, just as soft, just as white. He could watch her eyes darken, feel her flesh heat. With her face beneath his hands, he forgot she wasn’t his style.
She saw the change in his eyes, felt the sudden tension in his fingers. Her heart began a slow, insistent thudding against her ribs. Hadn’t she wondered what he’d be like as a lover? Wasn’t she wondering now when she could feel desire pouring out of him? Thief, philosopher, opportunist, hero? Whatever he was, her life was tangled with his and there was no going back. When the time came, they’d come together like thunder, no pretty words, no candlelight, no sheen of romance. She wouldn’t need romance because his body would be hard, his mouth hungry, and his hands would know where to touch. Standing in the open market, full of exotic scents and sound, she forgot that he’d be easy to handle.
Dangerous woman, Doug realized as he deliberately relaxed his fingers. With the treasure almost within reach and Dimitri like a monkey on his back, he couldn’t afford to think of her as a woman at all. Women—big-eyed women—had always been his downfall.
They were partners. He had the papers, she had the bankroll. That was as complicated as things were going to get.
“You’d better finish up here,” he said calmly enough. “We have to see about the camping supplies.”
Whitney let out a quiet, cleansing breath and reminded herself he was already into her for over seven thousand dollars. It wouldn’t pay to forget it. “All right.” But she bought the lamba, telling herself it was simply a souvenir.
By noon they were waiting for the train, both of them carrying knapsacks carefully packed with food and gear. He was restless, impatient to begin. He’d risked his life and gambled his future on the small bulge of papers taped to his chest. He’d always played the odds, but this time, he held the bank. By summer, he’d be dripping in money, lying on some hot foreign beach sipping rum while some dark-haired, sloe-eyed woman rubbed oil over his shoulder. He’d have enough money to insure that Dimitri would never find him, and if he wanted to hustle, he’d hustle for pleasure, not for his living.
“Here it comes.” Feeling a fresh surge of excitement, Doug turned to Whitney. With the shawl draped over her shoulders, she was carefully writing in her notepad. She looked cool and calm, while his shirt was already beginning to stick to his shoulder blades. “Will you quit scrawling in that thing?” he demanded, taking her arm. “You’re worse than the goddamn IRS.”
“Just adding on the price of your train ticket, partner.”
“Jesus. When we get what we’re after, you’ll be knee-deep in gold and you’re worried about a few francs.”
“Funny how they add up, isn’t it?” With a smile, she dropped the pad back in her purse. “Next stop. Tamatave.”
A car purred to a halt just as Doug stepped onto the train behind Whitney.
“There they are.” Jaw set, Remo reached beneath his jacket until his palm fit over the butt of his gun. The fingers of his other hand brushed over the bandage on his face. He had a personal score to settle with Lord now. It was going to be a pleasure. A small hand with the pinky only a stub closed with steely strength on his arm. The cuff was still white, studded this time with hammered gold ovals. The delicate hand, somehow elegant despite the deformity, made the muscles in Remo’s arm quiver.
“You’ve let him outwit you before.” The voice was quiet and very smooth. A poet’s voice.
“This time he’s a dead man.”
There was a pleasant chuckle followed by a stream of expensive French tobacco. Remo didn’t relax or offer any excuses. Dimitri’s moods could be deceiving and Remo had heard him laugh before. He’d heard him give that same mild, pleasant laugh as he’d seared the bottom of a victim’s feet with blue flame from a monogrammed cigarette lighter. Remo didn’t move his arm, nor did he open his mouth.
“Lord’s been a dead man since he stole from me.” Something vile slipped into Dimitri’s voice. It wasn’t anger, but more power, cool and dispassionate. A snake doesn’t always spew venom in fury. “Get my property back, then kill him however you please. Bring me his ears.”
Remo gestured for the man in the back seat to get out and purchase tickets. “And the woman?”
There was another stream of tobacco smoke as Dimitri thought it through. He’d learned years before that decisions made rashly leave a jagged trail. He preferred the smooth and the clean. “A lovely woman and clever enough to sever Butrain’s jugular. Damage her as little as possible and bring her back. I’d like to talk with her.”
Satisfied, he sat back, idly watching the train through the smoke glass of the car window. It amused and satisfied him to smell the powdery scent of fear drifting from his employees. Fear, after all, was the most elegant of weapons. He gestured once with his mutilated hand. “A tedious business,” he said when Remo closed the car door. His sigh was delicate while he touched a scented silk handkerchief to his nose. The smell of dust and animal annoyed him. “Drive back to the hotel,” he instructed the silent man at the wheel. “I want a sauna and a massage.”
Whitney positioned herself next to a window and prepared to watch Madagascar roll by. As he had off and on since the previous day, Doug had his face buried in a guidebook.
“There are at least thirty-nine species of lemur in Madagascar and more than eight hundred species of butterflies.”
“Fascinating. I had no idea you were so interested in fauna.”
He looked over the top of the book. “All the snakes are harmless,” he added. “Little things like that are important to me when I’m sleeping in a tent. I always like to know something about the territory. Like the rivers here are full of crocks.”
“I guess that kills the idea of skinny-dipping.”
“We’re bound to run into some of the natives. There are several distinct tribes, and according to this everybody’s friendly.”
“That’s good news. Do you have a projection as to how long it should be before we get to where ‘X’ marks the spot?”
“A week, maybe two.” Leaning back, he lit a cigarette. “How do you say diamond in French?”
“Diamant.” Narrowing her eyes, she studied him. “Did this Dimitri have anything to do with stealing diamonds out of France and smuggling them here?”
Doug smiled at her. She was close, but not close enough. “No. Dimitri’s good, but he didn’t have anything to do with this particular heist.”
“So it is diamonds and they were stolen.”
Doug thought of the papers. “Depends on your point of view.”
“Just a thought,” Whitney began, plucking the cigarette from him for a drag. “But have you ever considered what you’d do if there was nothing there?”
“It’s there.” He blew out smoke and watched her with his clear, green eyes. “It’s there.”
As always she found herself believing him. It was impossible not to. “What are you going to do with your share?”
He stretched his legs onto the seat beside her and grinned. “Wallow in it.”
Reaching in the bag, she plucked out a mango and tossed it to him. “What about Dimitri?”
“Once I have the treasure, he can fry in hell.”
“You’re a cocky sonofabitch, Douglas.”
He bit into the mango. “I’m going to be a rich cocky sonofabitch.”
Interested, she took the mango for a bite of her own. She found it sweet and satisfying. “Being rich’s important?”
“Damn right.”
“Why?”
He shot her a look.
“You’re speaking from the comfort of several billion gallons of fudge ripple.”
She shrugged. “Let’s just say I’m interested in your outlook on wealth.”
“When you’re rich and you play the horses and lose, you get ticked off because you lost, not because you blew the rent money.”
“And that’s what it comes down to?”
“Ever worried about where you were going to sleep at night, sugar?”
She took another bite of fruit before handing it back to him. Something in his voice had made her feel foolish. “No.”
She lapsed into silence for a time as the train rumbled on, stopping at stations while people filed on or filed off. It was already hot, almost airless inside. Sweat, fruit, dust, and grime hung heavily. A man in a white panama a few seats forward mopped at his face with a large bandana. Because she thought she recognized him from the zoma, Whitney smiled. He only pocketed the bandana and went back to his newspaper. Idly Whitney noticed it was English before she turned back to a study of the landscape.
Grassy rolling hills raced by, almost treeless. Small villages or settlements were huddled here and there with thatch-roofed houses and wide barns positioned near the river. What river? Doug had the guidebook and could certainly tell her. She was beginning to understand he could give her a fifteen-minute lecture on it. Whitney preferred the anonymity of dirt and water.
She saw no crisscross of telephone wires or power poles. The people living along these endless, barren stretches would have to be tough, independent, self-sufficient. She could appreciate that, admire it, without putting herself in their place.
Though she was a woman who craved the city with its crowds and noise and pulse, she found the quiet and vastness of the countryside appealing. She’d never found it difficult to value both a wildflower and a full-length chinchilla. They both brought pleasure.