‘Filing.’
There was a small silence.
Then Philip said, ‘All right. No more filing tonight.’ She could hear the smile in his voice.
It made her exultant. And terrified.
She said in a high, artificial voice, ‘The place where you watch the waterfall is just round this next bend. Come on.’
When they rounded the headland, she had no cause to complain. Philip stopped as if he had been shot, gasping.
The waterfall poured down rocks on the other side of a deep valley. It was silver in the moonlight. The spray was flung up into the sky like shooting stars. The air was no longer languorously warm but electric. Kit could taste it on her tongue like champagne.
‘Good God.’
Kit was pleased with his reaction. But she could not resist teasing.
‘Want to tell me how many tons of water that shifts a minute?’
‘No,’ said Philip with conviction.
Kit beamed in the darkness. ‘Come and sit on the viewing platform. If you open your mouth you can taste the water in the air.’
She led the way, sure-footed and fast now that her goal was in sight. Only to stop dead when she got there.
She had said to him that it was just a viewing place, with no romantic trappings. She had even believed it. But oh, boy, had she been wrong.
‘Oh, my lord,’ she said, horrified. Embarrassment swamped her.
This time there were no orchids to distract him. And she gave up on even trying to hide it. She stood there, twisting her hands together, agonised.
He would think—He would think that she—
Philip came up beside her.
‘I don’t understand,’ she said. It was a cry of pain. And it was more to herself than to him.
‘Ah,’ he said. ‘The grotto.’ He sounded infuriatingly bland.
Kit turned, spreading her hands. ‘I never realised—I didn’t see—I’m stupid. I’m so sorry.’
‘Sorry?’ Philip sounded amused, too. He was clearly enjoying himself.
But enjoyment was not an option for Kit. She writhed inwardly. And it showed.
She waved a repudiating hand at the little temple that had emerged from the jungle undergrowth beyond the clearing.
‘That wasn’t here—I mean, I never saw it before—I mean, it must have been here but I didn’t notice it…’ She broke off, wringing her hands.
It was a rotunda, with supporting columns and a domed roof. Someone had lit hundreds of small candles inside it. They flickered gently in the softly eddying night air. The light turned the pale stone to gold.
So now Kit saw that what she had taken for trees and creepers were fluted columns. It was half-hidden by the lush vegetation, true. But it was manmade. Made, furnished and now illuminated by man for a purpose which was all too clear.
Damn this honeymoon island and the oversexed imagination that had put it together.
She gave up on words. ‘Aaaagh!’
Philip was even more amused.
‘Live for the moment,’ he quoted back at her maliciously.
But Kit was too upset to see any humour in the situation.
‘What an idiot I am.’
Philip saw that she was on the verge of tears. He was touched.
‘Hey. No harm done.’
‘But—’
‘It’s all right,’ he said soothingly. ‘I see how it happened. Whenever you’ve been up here by day you’ve sat on one of those stones and looked out at the waterfall. That means you’ve had your back to the little temple of earthly delights over there.’
Kind though he obviously meant to be, he still sounded wickedly amused about that. Kit flushed in the darkness.
‘Really, stop worrying. I never thought you got me up here to seduce me,’ he told her.
He even managed to sound as if he meant it, thought Philip, pleased with his performance. The trouble was, he was not finding it easy to forget the moment when he had thought that was exactly what she had in mind. And how he had reacted.
Now he saw how wrong he had been. She was as distressed as if he had caught her going through his suitcase. He set himself to reassure her.
‘Come on. Since it’s the first time either of us has seen it, we can find out what’s inside together.’
What was inside was a banquet. A carved low table. Food in silver-covered dishes. A great cornucopia of exotic fruits. Gleaming goblets. Wine. Water, sweet as nectar. And a rattan couch scattered with golden cushions.
Kit gulped.
‘Ah,’ said Philip, mastering his astonishment with more skill. ‘Our picnic.’
‘Picnic!’
‘You were the one who vetoed the beach barbecue,’ he reminded her. Unholy amusement quivered in his voice.
‘I didn’t mean I wanted this—this—’ Words failed her.
‘Over-the-top extravaganza?’ he suggested, straight-faced.
‘Tawdry set-dressing,’ said Kit coldly.
‘Would you call it tawdry?’
‘And phoney. Just to—to—’
‘Set the mood?’ he supplied again, helpfully.
‘Will you stop finishing my sentences for me?’ said Kit between her teeth. ‘This is ludicrous.’
Philip strolled forward. ‘Looks rather good to me.’
He picked up the lid of one of the silver dishes and sniffed appreciatively.
Kit resisted the temptation to throw things. ‘It’s not funny.’
‘Yes, it is. Relax. You don’t want to seduce me. I don’t want to seduce you.’ May God forgive the lie. ‘No one can make us do anything we don’t want to do.’
She looked at him with hot eyes. In the flickering candlelight he could not guess at their colour at all now. But he saw all the little flames reflected in them. And her misery.
How sensitive she was. Too sensitive.
He curbed his amusement. And his regret. He said gently, ‘Look, let’s just sit down and have our meal. Then we’ll go back down the cliff again and I’ll do a couple of hours’ work. By the time you go to bed tonight, this will seem like nothing. Just a meal that was a bit more interesting than a barbecue. You’ll see.’
She came into the temple reluctantly, like a wild animal that kept a wary eye on its escape route all the time. And she sat awkwardly on the couch, as if she was afraid he would sit next to her. She looked ready to bounce to her feet the moment he approached.
Philip said with an edge to his voice, ‘Relax.’
‘How can I?’ said Kit angrily. She looked round the temple with distaste. ‘Any minute now one of those whispering waiters is going to turn up, isn’t he? I mean, how did they get all this up here? No one passed us on the path. They must have someone up here. Waiting for custom!’ She sounded furious.
Philip’s head came up, arrested.
‘What?’ said Kit, alert to his change in mood.
‘You’re right, of course. Why didn’t I see that?’
‘What? You really do think there’s someone up here?’
She tried to find it amusing. It was difficult. She had never felt so exposed.
That’s what letting yourself respond to erotic fantasies does for you, thought Kit grimly. If Lisa had not told her about rose petals and harem couches appearing for lovers as if by magic, she would not now feel as if someone was standing in the undergrowth, spying on them. Or so horridly self-conscious.
She raised her voice, trying to make a joke of it. ‘Come out, come out, whoever you are.’
Philip did not smile, though. He shook his head, eyes narrowed.
He said, ‘Quiet!’
It sounded as if he was used to giving orders. Suddenly he looked like someone she did not know.
Well, that was crazy. She didn’t know him anyway, did she? But she had felt as if she recognised him somehow. She had not exactly been comfortable with him. It was too spiced with uncertainty and sexual tension for that. But right somehow, as if they were in some sort of elemental harmony. As if her body recogni
sed his body, maybe.
But, looking at him now, she realised that was an illusion. In spite of the warm night, she began to feel cold.
‘What is it?’ said Kit slowly.
‘Nobody passed us on the path. There’s got to be another way of getting up here.’
He went back into the clearing.
Kit sensed a sudden urgency in him. Nothing to do with her. Nothing to do with the hotel’s erotic-fantasy service. She ought to be relieved, she told herself. Of course she was relieved. Suddenly there was no need to be embarrassed any more.
And they were a thousand miles apart.
She heaved a long sigh—of relief, she told herself, of relief—and followed him.
‘What’s the matter?’
‘I think I may have been very stupid,’ said Philip, more than half to himself.
The ankle-height lighting led to the temple and stopped at the steps, of course. He stepped off the illuminated path, into the undergrowth. He brought the small torch out from his pocket, and raked the heavy foliage cover.
It did not take them long to find it. It was a rough wooden cage attached to an even rougher pulley system. It came up the straight side of the cliff from the valley floor. Its landing place at the bottom must be only a few yards from the main hotel kitchens, Kit calculated.
She said so.
‘Of course,’ said Philip.
He prowled round the contraption, studying it. She watched him, brows knit.
‘What is it?’ said Kit again.
‘It would be easy for someone to come up in the cage. With all the noise of the waterfall and the jungle wildlife, we probably wouldn’t notice.’
‘You mean, creep up on us when we aren’t looking?’ scoffed Kit, though her heart beat suffocatingly hard all of a sudden and she had to work hard to put all thoughts of rose petals out of her mind. ‘Why would they do that?’
He gave her a quick, unsmiling look.
‘I think I’d like to make sure it doesn’t happen. Just in case.’
So he didn’t want rose petals showered about them. Heavy-handed romance was out! Well, she was glad. Of course she was glad.
He began to winch the cage up from the valley floor. In spite of its evident age, the winch and pulley were almost silent. Philip raised his brows. He bent forward, examining the cogs.
‘Thought so. This has been greased. And recently.’
In spite of her conflicting feelings, Kit’s lips twitched. Romance was out with a vengeance, it seemed!
‘Wow. When they set up a fantasy, they take it seriously.’
‘Fantasy?’ He was frowning. ‘Oh, yes, of course. Fantasy.’
So he wasn’t even thinking about rose petals! Kit shivered and put both arms round herself.
Philip stopped winding and peered over the edge of the cliff. The cage was about a quarter of the way up.
‘That should do it.’
She strolled over, keeping a careful distance between them. ‘Do what?’
‘Distant early warning,’ he said obscurely.
He produced a Swiss Army knife from his pocket and flicked open a stout blade. He went briskly round the plants, looking for dead wood. When he had a sizeable bundle he stuffed it into the winch.
‘That won’t hold it,’ said Kit practically.
‘It doesn’t have to hold it. Just alert us when someone starts to winch it down.’
‘Alert us?’ She was startled and suddenly rather worried.
He seemed to realise that he was disturbing her. He shrugged and said lightly enough, ‘I don’t like surprises.’
But Kit did not believe in that light tone. It was the first time she had not believed something he said, she realised.
She must have looked sceptical because he frowned.
‘Always cover your back,’ he said crisply.
He snapped the Swiss Army knife together and stowed it in his pocket.
Kit swallowed. ‘It’s like being under siege.’
He did not answer that, just tested his device. As the balance changed, a few of the twigs broke with a crack like a pistol shot. Kit jumped.
‘They won’t creep up on us now,’ said Philip with satisfaction. He saw her expression. ‘Don’t look so worried. It probably won’t happen anyway. Forget it.’
‘Oh, yes? Like you’re going to forget it?’ said Kit drily. ‘We’re going to be sitting here, waiting for the pistol to go off.’
He grinned. And suddenly he was the man she knew again. Or the man her body told her she wanted to know, anyway.
‘No, we aren’t. You’re going to tell me the story of your life. I’m going to forget everything but that.’
He stood back with a flourish. The path to the temple was illuminated like a runway. Kit smiled and stepped onto it. Philip followed.
But she saw out of the corner of her eye that he took out a small mobile phone from his pocket and checked that it was switched on. Oh, yes, romance was definitely out. It had probably never been on the cards at all, except in her own self-deceiving imagination.
That’s what comes of staying in a hideaway designed for lovers, Kit told herself ironically. That and too many tropical stars. It played havoc with the perspective.
She went back into the temple, struggling to get her perspective back into focus.
He had lost her, thought Philip. He was furious with himself, with the whole situation.
He had followed his instincts. All he had wanted was to be an ordinary man for a few hours. Who was he kidding? Hell, all he had wanted was to be a man. And all he had succeeded in doing was putting Kit Romaine in potential danger.
The best he could hope for now was that she would not realise it. And that he would get her back safe.
For a moment he had toyed with the idea of returning at once. But only for a moment. That path was too narrow. If Rafek’s men were really intending to kidnap him, he could walk Kit straight back into their arms. And if they took the cage to the bottom of the valley, who knew what would be waiting for them when they got there?
No, much better to stay here, as if he had noticed nothing, and wait for his enemy to show himself. If there was an enemy, of course. Even now, he was not sure.
Whether there was or there was not, Kit must not be alarmed. His precautions had already made her jumpy. He could see that and he could not blame her. But he had to do something about it and fast.
If there turned out to be no danger, he wanted her to have an evening to remember. And if the danger was real—well, he needed her calm. So, either way, she must be charmed into relaxing.
Philip set himself to charm as he had never charmed before.
So when she said, ‘That sabotage device looks very professional,’ he gave her one of his best glinting smiles and shook his head.
‘Not professional. Inventive.’
She sat down. ‘What’s the difference?’
‘Professionals come prepared. Inventors have to use whatever is to hand.’
She relaxed a little, looking amused. ‘Well, it’s very clever.’
‘Learned from an expert,’ he said lightly.
That worried her again, he could see.
He added hastily, ‘Before my father was seconded to the diplomatic service he was in the army. He commanded a troop who specialised in what they called dirty tricks. They used to show me how it was done.’
‘And you enjoyed it,’ she said on a note of discovery.
‘Any small boy would enjoy it. But I like finding solutions to practical problems, yes.’
And the practical problem here was to get her back to the hotel safe, without scaring her out of her wits.
He surveyed the loaded table. The candles flickered among the bright dishes, making it look like some seducer’s banquet. His mouth quirked with wry self-mockery. Fat chance of that!
He picked up a tapered dark green bottle. ‘Wine?’
She shook her head. ‘Water for me. I’m thirsty. And anyway, the wine is probably spiked with
powdered orchid.’ It was a gallant attempt at a joke.
Philip was impressed. He had seen how his antics out there had scared her. Her determination to hide it touched him.
So he responded in kind as he poured her water into an over-decorated goblet. ‘Why powdered orchid?’
‘It’s an aphrodisiac,’ she said with a great air of expertise. Then flushed to her golden hairline as he raised his eyebrows. ‘At least—that’s what Lisa told me.’
‘Well, we certainly don’t need an aphrodisiac,’ said Philip drily. He inspected the label on the bottle, then put it on one side. ‘I think I’ll pass, too.’
There was some guava juice. He poured sparkling mineral water onto it for himself. Then he flung some cushions onto the marble floor and sank down onto them. He clutched one arm round an upraised knee and surveyed her over the top of it.
‘So tell me about yourself. What are you doing in this part of the world?’
Kit considered that seriously. ‘I suppose I’m having a holiday.’
‘You suppose?’ He was intrigued.
‘Well, it wasn’t planned or anything. But my sister is here with her husband and he has turned out to be working all the time. So she called me to come and join her.’
He nodded. ‘I see. So you’re here as a lady’s companion.’
She laughed aloud at that. ‘You wouldn’t say that if you knew my sister Lisa. She’s not a lady’s companion sort of woman at all.’
‘But she still wanted company?’
Kit’s laughter died. ‘She’s not been well.’
She was looking anxious again. He wanted to take her in his arms and smooth the worry lines from her brow.
‘Hey,’ he said gently. ‘Not a lady’s companion. More like Florence Nightingale. Or maybe St Joan.’
She looked startled. ‘Good heavens, no. I couldn’t go into battle to save my life. I’m just here to share the sunbathing.’ She gave an affectionate smile. ‘Lisa is the one who goes to war. She can’t bear injustice.’
And she began to talk about her sister. Then her struggling single mother, with her limited budget and high ideals. Then, slowly, hesitantly, she began to mention herself.
This was important, thought Philip. He sat very still.
Kit was not used to talking to someone who listened so attentively—or without interrupting. Almost imperceptibly, she began to edge towards the difficult stuff. He did not interrupt. He did not exclaim. He did not seem shocked or, worse, sorry for her.
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