Frozen Enchantment

by Jessica Steele

  In any case, she assessed as she stepped into the lift, if Cheyne Templeton had been having an affair with Gillian Frampton, and had wanted her with him on this trip, then without a doubt he would have made darned sure that Gillian had gone on the same intensive crash course in Russian that Alec and Keith had attended.

  Anyway, Jolene decided, as she left the lift and headed for the hotel's restaurant, he needed Gillian back, in London, where she could be of immense help to him in fielding any problems that arose at that end. What did she care anyhow? Jolene discarded the issue as she neared the table that had been assigned to them. Cheyne Templeton could have as many affairs as he liked, it was nothing to do with her—she did not give a light!

  Having taken a seat at the table where last night the four of them had dined, Jolene was surprised that, for all they were starting work later than yesterday, she was the first one down.

  A minute or so later, though, the tall and attractive being in the shape of the man she loved to hate came striding easily through the restaurant doors. 'Good morning,' he greeted her civilly, and dropping his serviette over his lap and ignoring the yoghurt he reached for the cheese and dark brown bread. 'Not hungry?' he paused to enquire as, before he had tasted a morsel, he observed that she was neither sipping her yoghurt nor tucking into the bread and cheese.

  'I thought I'd wait for Alec and Keith,' she replied.

  'I shouldn't,' he remarked drily, 'they breakfasted an hour ago.'

  'An hour... But I thought we were all starting later this morning?'

  'Not Edwards and Shaw,' he replied. 'By now they should be hard at it doing the job which they're more especially here to do.'

  'Oh,' Jolene murmured, but, quickly getting over her surprise, 'We'll be going to the factory later?' she enquired, and got an even bigger surprise when, expecting him to tell her at what time they would be leaving for the factory, he instead told her,

  'We won't be going to the factory. You and I, in fact, won't even be in Irkutsk in a few hours' time.'

  'We won't?' she echoed, her eyes large on his as she wondered where they were going now.

  'There comes a time, Miss Draper, when man must rest,' he drawled. 'Listvyanka, I'm reliably informed, is the very place in which to recharge one's batteries.'

  In Jolene's view, Cheyne Templeton's batteries never need d topping up! She had never seen any sign of them running down anyhow. But, just as she had never heard of Irkutsk before, this Listvyanka fell into the same category, and since she, Alec, Keith and their employer had travelled everywhere together since leaving London, it seemed no more than a normal question when she began, 'What time do we pick Keith and...'

  'Forget married men for a time!' Cheyne Templeton cut in sharply, and when she stared angrily at him that just the mention of Keith's name on her lips should bring to the fore this man's belief that she had a penchant for married men, he was telling her abruptly, 'We're leaving both engineers here, you'll have to manage without them!'

  Furious enough to want to throw her yoghurt over him, Jolene somehow managed to restrain the impulse to take some physical action against him. There was no doubting that she was inwardly on the boil, however, when, recalling his 'man must rest' remark, and feeling sorely in need of a rest—from him—she said through stiff lips, 'This Listvyanka—do I get a break too?'

  Her boiling fury very nearly spilled over when he had the unmitigated gall to bark, 'Have you typed back those notes I gave you?'

  Keeping her hands firmly away from her cup of yoghurt, not sure that she would not be decorating him with it yet, she snapped, 'You know I haven't!'

  'Then you'll need your typewriter,' he rapped.

  For about three tense icy seconds Jolene glared at him, and he stared furiously at her. Then, when all the odds were against it, they were suddenly both laughing. Somehow when they seemed poles apart, all at once her sense of humour came out, met his, and matched.

  She was not laughing when three-quarters of an hour later she was back in her room, collecting her things together. For the suspicions which had earlier sprung to her mind were there in her head again, and were being added to. Because it was when she was recalling how a short while ago Cheyne Templeton had told her to pack her case as they would be checking out of the hotel that she also remembered something which Alec Edwards had told her. If memory served, it was on the plane to Irkutsk that he had referred to how, although things were becoming much more relaxed in the USSR, one could not yet move around freely. Alec had told her, she was certain, that one must still apply in advance to visit the locations one wanted to visit.

  Jolene packed her belongings in a very solemn frame of mind, for suddenly it was very clear to her that when Cheyne Templeton had decided to go to this place Listvyanka without his engineers, he had envisaged taking a different female with him from her. At that moment Jolene knew that, since Gillian Frampton had intimated that she did sometimes travel with her boss, the London office could quite well manage without her, and that she had originally been down for this trip too— but something had happened to make her back out.

  Convinced that Gillian had been scheduled for this assignment, Jolene realised that while Cheyne Templeton must have been out of England for a good deal of the time that his PA was making the Russian travel arrangements, he must have agreed these arrangements in advance. Since he would have had to sign his Russian visa application before he had gone away on his other trip, this man, who never flagged and who never seemed to tire, must have known and fully approved that he and Gillian Frampton would be leaving the two engineers in Irkutsk while they went to Listvyanka for a 'rest'.

  Hating herself for her suspicions that Gillian Frampton was more to Cheyne Templeton than just his superbly efficient PA, Jolene tried to tell herself that it was nothing to her what sort of a relationship he had with Gillian anyway. Once more she assured herself that she didn't give a light whether he was having an affair with his PA or not. But as she closed her suitcase on the last of her packing and fastened it up, she. could not help but remember that the gentleness in his tone when he had been speaking to Gillian Frampton had never been in evidence when he was speaking to her.

  The time was nearing eleven o'clock when, with theft luggage in the boot, Jolene sat beside Cheyne Templeton in the taxi which was to take them to Listvyanka.

  Snow lay everywhere, and the temperature was way below freezing, but the sun shone brightly as they headed out of Irkutsk. Jolene still felt in a solemn mood, however, and she was glad her employer was not minded to entertain her with polite chat. Not that she could ever recall a time when he had put himself out to entertain her, or to indulge in chat for the pure politeness of it, she thought glumly, then instantly brought herself up short. What did she want, for goodness' sake?

  She was unable to find the answer to that, but, knowing only that she suddenly felt more restless than she had ever done in her life, she looked at the snow-cleared road in front. Then she looked at the sides of the roads which were deep in snow. And all at once, as she looked at the sleeping land and at the for the most part leafless trees that seemed like tall poles on a white carpet, she began to know a sense of peace. The nearer they got to their destination of Listvyanka, the more that feeling of peace increased.

  'It's incredible!' the whispered words slipped from her, as the taxi took them through the taiga—the forests that extended through countless miles between tundra and steppe.

  'I couldn't agree more,' the man by her side said quietly, and most unexpectedly, and as Jolene turned to him she was taken by a tremendous feeling of being at one with him.

  For the most part the trees that lined their route were giant pines interspersed with giant silver birch, but there were cedar trees too, and some larch, Jolene noticed. Then all at once, when everything around had been frozen and still, they came to a spot where flowing water met rock-solid ice.

  'Can we stop?' Jolene could not prevent the exclamation, and warmed to Cheyne when, not taking exception to her
request to do something not on his schedule, he straight away instructed their driver to pull over.

  No sooner had the taxi halted than Jolene knew she could never be content just to sit and admire the scene from the motor vehicle.

  Without another word she got out, and felt a sudden gladness in her heart when, as she stood by a rail at the water's edge, Cheyne came and joined her.

  'This, I think, just has to be the river Angara,' he commented.

  'Why has to be?' she queried.

  'Because,' he obliged, 'I've a vague recollection of reading somewhere that while Lake Baikal has over three hundred rivers and streams flowing into it, it has only one outlet. That outlet's the river Angara—whose source, apparently, never freezes over.'

  A little open-mouthed, Jolene stared from the running water to the forested hills and snowy rocks on the other side. Then her glance went to her left where a ship of some sort was making its way across the river near to where, in almost a straight line, free-flowing water met rock-solid ice that went on for miles and miles. Staring at this phenomenon in awe, she had all the proof she wanted that the ice was indeed rock-solid when, in astonishing contrast to the ship on water, she saw there in the distance that a lorry was travelling over the ice.

  'That's Lake Baikal?' she asked Cheyne as she pointed to the frozen lake.

  'That's it,' he replied. 'The deepest freshwater lake in the world.'

  'Do you know how long it is?' she wanted to know.

  'You make me glad that my reading's as wide as it's varied,' he smiled, and told her, 'Near enough four hundred miles, if I remember correctly.'

  Jolene was certain he had a perfect memory, but, feeling in harmony with him for once, she smiled back and, very much impressed by the frozen lake, just had to gaze at it some more.

  Then Cheyne was escorting her back to the taxi, telling her, 'You'll have plenty of time to look your fill later.'

  'We're coming back this way?' she enquired.

  He did not answer that question, but to her delight he told her, 'This is Listvyanka. My information is that our hotel's situated less than six hundred yards from the lake.'

  Which it proved to be. Although any absurd thought that might have struck her that she and her employer were perhaps at the beginning of a more harmonious association was doomed within ten minutes of their booking into the hotel.

  The hotel was much smaller than any they had so far used, being only three storeys high. Once their luggage had been brought to their floor, Cheyne dismissed the porter. Then he opened the door in front of them and stood back for Jolene to go in.

  Stepping through the open door, she realised as he followed her in that he had come to check for himself her accommodation in this smaller hotel. Then surprise took her, because as she walked along a hall she observed that to one side lay a curtained bedroom and that to the other side lay a sitting-room. She had, in fact, been allocated a suite!

  'Have you a suite too?' she enquired impulsively, and realised immediately that that was a daft question, because of course he would have.

  His reply, however, made her stare at him in astonishment, when he told her coolly, 'We'll share this one.'

  'We'll do nothing of the kind!' she snapped immediately, her eyes wide on his. Though as, rocking back on his heels, he stared back at her as though he thought she had just taken leave of her senses, Jolene felt she must have made the most appalling blunder. 'You do have a room of your own?' she then felt compelled to query.

  Siberia had nothing on the coldness or the cutting quality of his tone when, the ice forming in his eyes too, he clipped, 'Don't flatter yourself, Miss Draper, I merely meant that, since this suite has a dining table for you to work from, it would be better to set up office in here.' With that he dropped her suitcase to the floor and strode to the door. 'We'll lunch in half an hour. See that you're punctual!'

  When was she ever late? Jolene fumed as he closed the door decisively after him. Let him go hang, was her next furious thought, she'd be damned if she would go down to lunch—she'd starve rather!

  Five minutes later she had calmed down a little, but was still angry at being spoken to in that way by him. 'Don't flatter yourself, Miss Draper,' he'd said. Who the hell did he think he was anyway? She was not the least little bit interested in him, for heaven's sake.

  Another five minutes went by, during which Jolene was not at all sure how she felt about him coming and going as he pleased to her office-apartment.

  After a further five minutes, though, she was starting to realise that the reason why she had so quickly jumped to the conclusion she had when he had stated, 'We'll share this One,' had been because of the suspicion she nursed that Gillian Frampton had been scheduled to come on this trip originally, and the suspicion that the two of them were having an affair. What more natural, if her suspicions were correct, with neither of the engineers around to tell tales when they returned to England, that Gillian and that brute Cheyne Templeton should share the same suite for anything but office purposes?

  Jolene was stumped to know where that left her suspicions, however, when, with ten minutes to go before lunch, she questioned why then had Gillian Frampton booked him a separate room.

  She gave up trying to get to the bottom of it when she went to the bathroom and washed her hands and tidied her hair, and was stung all over again when Cheyne Templeton's 'Don't flatter yourself, Miss Draper,' came into her head yet again.

  Three minutes later she left the suite to go looking for the restaurant. She still felt angry enough to prefer to starve rather than eat with the swine. But—and here pride played a major part—she was determined, following that 'Don't flatter yourself to show him just how uninterested in him she was.

  She did not get much chance, however. For a start, she was late going in to lunch, though she hardly considered that it was her fault that it took her all of five minutes to locate the hotel's dining-room.

  As dining-rooms went, it was a very nice dining-room, but she had never expected to have to negotiate four flights of steps down into the basement to find it.

  'I'm sorry I'm late,' she offered aloofly, and, when it had cost her a very great effort to talk to Cheyne at all, she could have hit him when he ignored her.

  Never, she thought as she tucked daintily into her first course of thinly sliced cold pork, smoked salty salmon and lettuce and cucumber salad, had any one man of her acquaintance so brought out the worst in her!

  Never, she fumed as she drank a home-made tomato soup that was 'interesting' for what else it contained, had any one man made her feel so violent towards him.

  She remembered the incident with the shopkeeper in her Saturday job six years ago while she ate her way through her next course of fish in batter. The violence that had been in her then had been brought on as a result of her terror, she reflected, and realised only then that that foul man would probably have caved in instantly had she thought to tell him not to be so stupid and that she would tell his wife.

  But she had been too frightened to so much as think clearly that Saturday, she recalled, as she ended her meal with a piece of fruit cake and a cup of tea. She was thinking of Cheyne Templeton again and of how it was not terror or fear of him. that made her feel violent towards him on quite a few occasions, when she became aware that he had finished his meal and that any second now—quite probably without having said a word to her— he would be leaving the dining-room.

  Without a word to him, Jolene chose that moment to pick up her bag. She got to her feet and bestowed on the waiter who had served them a smile of such loveliness that he stared after her when, in the next instant, and with her head in the air, she left the dining-room.

  Nor did she wait for the lift. With no wish to spoil her exit should the lift delay its arrival and give Cheyne time to join her, she made for the stairs.

  She returned to her room, of the opinion that if Cheyne Templeton wanted her for anything, then he knew where 'the office' was!

  She did not, however,
see him at all that afternoon. She had plenty of work to be getting on with, though, and spent a good many hours at her typewriter, where every now and then she would break off to wonder why it was, in fact, that Cheyne Templeton of all men should make her react so intemperately. What was it about him, that he had the power to rile her so? It was so unlike the person she knew herself to be that, when she was not wanting to empty a cup of yoghurt over his head, she should be wanting to hit him.

  When Jolene got round to thinking of her sense of humour and his sense of humour and how, if she had felt like hitting him, then she had also laughed with him, she went out on to her balcony.

  In seconds she was lost in fascination of the panorama of the frozen Lake Baikal. The wind had swept snow into light drifts over the ice, she saw, and to her mind the picture appeared like a frozen sea with frozen white waves upon it.

  She gazed and gazed, and then, looking at the trees near to the hotel, and then at the granite-looking mountain range way over beyond the lake, she was suddenly taken by a yearning to investigate.

  The Siberian cold biting through her indoor clothing, however, made her quickly return to her 'desk'. But having tasted a glimpse of what was out there, she was all at once itching to get away from the hotel to explore.

  Instead she stayed where she was, pounding the typewriter keys and resenting with all she had that since the report she was typing would not be needed until they were back in England, it could quite well have waited. But no, she fumed, 'tomorrow' was not good enough for Mr Cheyne I-want-it-done-yesterday Templeton. Whatever happened, be he working in the Sahara or in Eastern Siberia, he would not allow work to go undone.

  Jolene typed the last full stop on her transcribed shorthand at five-thirty that afternoon. She was seated in an easy chair taking what she considered a well-earned breather when, at a quarter to six, there was a tap on the door of the suite.

  She guessed who it was, and went to the door experiencing an unexpected sense of achievement that if Cheyne. Templeton had come to see how the work was progressing, she could tell him she had finished it.