Frozen Enchantment

by Jessica Steele

  'It's to be hoped you haven't been giving any of our secrets away!'

  Jolene no longer wondered what it was about this man that, when her heart had been aching over him on and off throughout the afternoon, her first sight of him should coincide with an urge to hit him. 'What do / know, for heaven's sake!' she erupted hotly.

  'For a single woman of your young years, far more than you should!' he snarled, to make her hand itch again.

  'For your information,' she hissed, 'I'm still a virgin!'

  'Huh!' he scorned, and had the lift not come at that moment, and, had he not at that same moment moved, Jolene felt certain she would have hit him.

  She rode up in the lift with him in fuming silence, and was damned if she'd ask him if he had any work for her. All too clearly he had seen her in the foyer with Viktor Sekirkin, and had taken a dim view of it.

  Collecting her room key from the floor attendant, she went to her room with her heart full of mutiny. My godfathers! Was there ever such an impossible man!

  She was still angry as she got washed and changed ready to go down to dinner, and although she knew that he had not believed her, she had to wonder why in creation she had let him goad her into telling him of her virgin state.

  She went down to dinner that night having got herself well under control. She was coming to terms with the fact that quite obviously Cheyne Templeton had no time for her. Though it still rankled that plainly he did not trust her to keep the firm's confidences, she decided, in the interests of a harmonious dinner table, that she would not mention to either Alec or Keith that Viktor had shown her a little of the city that afternoon.

  She had reckoned, however, without Alec killing the odd moment or two with doing a spot of window-watching, and having disposed of her first course, she was just cutting into a slice of beef when Alec chose to remember, and query, 'Didn't I see you crossing the road with Viktor Sekirkin this afternoon?'

  What could she do? She made sure her glance did not flick in Cheyne's direction, and she smiled. 'Yes, you did,' she replied brightly. 'We did a mini tour of the city.'

  She had hoped to end the conversation there, and had returned her attention to her beef, when Keith decided to add his two pennyworth. 'Trying to do your bit for Anglo-Russian relations, Jolene?' he enquired.

  'He's a nice enough man,' she returned pleasantly, by then receiving grim vibes from the dark-haired man opposite her, and knowing that this conversation was not finding favour with him.

  'He's an excellent engineer,' Keith responded, and as Jolene lifted her head, 'Going out with him again, Jo-Jo?' he teased.

  As she was about to tell him in a friendly way that it was none of his business, the fact that he had so surprisingly hit on the version of her name which her parents sometimes used unexpectedly got to her. Her parents loved her, and right then Jolene felt in need of having someone love her.

  'I have a—tentative—date with him tomorrow,' she told Keith, and was soon laughing when he went through the lists of dates he had had prior to his marriage, not one of them ever being a 'tentative' one.

  The conversation had gone from her. 'tentative' date to cover a few other subjects, and was on how the weather must either be getting warmer or they were acclimatising, when, their second course cleared away, Alec held the plate of cakes out to her.

  'Any plans for tonight, Jolene?' he asked as she helped herself to a spongy cake with a lovely-looking gooey topping.

  Instinctively her glance went to Cheyne, but when she saw the chips of ice in his eyes as, unsmilingly, he held her look, the idea of asking him if she would be working that night went straight out of her head.

  Luckily, though, at that moment Keith chose to explain why Alec had put his question. 'Alec and I are thinking of taking a stroll around the place in half an hour or so. Would you like to come with us?' he asked.

  Dragging her eyes away from Cheyne's icy expression, Jolene at that point felt she had, just about had enough of him. 'Where will you be?' she asked, inwardly starting to fume that, devil take it,, she might be in love with the wretched man, but she was nobody's doormat, to sit there afraid to be herself in case she offended him.

  Jolene was still silently fuming as Keith told her that they would wait for her down in the lobby. Oh, she knew quite well what Cheyne was thinking, she thought furiously—he was thinking that, not content with one married man—and she'd be damned if she would tell him that Viktor was divorced—she was setting her cap at his two married engineers—both at the same time!

  The four of them left the dining-room together and made for the lifts. Alec and Keith were housed several floors below the floor she and Cheyne were on, and got out at their floor with a mutual, 'We'll see you later.'

  The grim silence in the lift when she had nothing to say to her employer, and he had nothing he wanted to say to her, did not cool Jolene's temper at all.

  Since he had nothing to say to her, however, she was prepared to see him in hell before she would say one more word to him. Suddenly, though, as the lift stopped at their floor it became evident that he did have something to say to her.

  Though, in her opinion, his words were more barked than said, when as they stepped out of the lift, he as good as ordered, 'It might be an idea if you cancelled your arrangement to join Edwards and Shaw and had an early night.'

  It was one thing that she should know that she had lost a lot of sleep last night, but quite another that Cheyne Templeton should choose this moment to tell her she looked a wreck. 'Why?' she questioned belligerently.

  'For the same reason you'll be cancelling your 'tentative' date with Sekirkin,' he commanded toughly. And when Jolene was about to bridle, his voice went suddenly silky, as he ended, 'You and I, Miss Draper, are catching the Trans-Siberian Express in the morning.' Her jaw had just about hit the carpet when he told her, 'We'll breakfast at eight.'

  Jolene was still staring at him open-mouthed when, without another word, he walked away from her.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  BY THE following morning Jolene had recovered from her immense surprise that she and Cheyne were to journey on the Trans-Siberian Railway. A small smile played around her mouth as she got out of bed and went to run her bath, for she could not deny that she felt a flicker of excitement at the idea.

  She had still been shaken the previous evening, though, when first she had got through to Alec's room to tell him not to wait as she would not be joining him and Keith for their stroll around Irkutsk. After she had telephoned Alec she rang Viktor, as commanded, to tell him that she could not see him tomorrow, because she was leaving by train.

  'You are saying that this is "goodbye" and I might never see you again?' he queried, sounding desolate and doing her pride a world of good to think that if one particular man of her acquaintance had no time for her, then that did not go for the whole male population.

  'I'm afraid so,' she replied, knowing for sure that while Viktor might soothe her pride, his air of gloom was exaggerated. She rang off having promised that she would keep his phone number and that if she were ever in Irkutsk again, she would ring him immediately.

  Having become aware that although it was bitterly cold outside, the central heating inside was excellent, Jolene calculated that the Russians would have seen to it that the interior of the train was no exception. For this reason she did away with her thermals and opted to wear layers rather than thick clothing, and after her bath she dressed in a comfortable pair of trousers and a crisp white blouse, topped with a thin sweater. She had a thin cardigan ready to put on for when she returned to her room after breakfast.

  She saw a similarly lightweight-clad Cheyne Templeton leaving his room just as she came out of her room. Glad that she appeared to have got something right, she fiddled about securing her door, thinking that from what she knew of him, he was just as likely to walk past her as to wait for her.

  But no, he seemed in a better humour this morning, for he bade her, 'Good morning,' and actually paused in his stride to w
ait for her to fall into step with him so they could walk to the lift together.

  'Good morning,' she replied and added sweetly, 'Cheyne,' for no reason other than that she sometimes had the devil in her.

  They went down in the lift with Jolene giving herself a little talking to on the subject of that little imp of mischief in her that would have to be severely suppressed. Not that Cheyne seemed to have taken any exception to her calling him by his first name—though since it was he who had invited her to use it, she did not see how he could, anyhow.

  Breakfast was a more brisk affair that morning. As soon as the bread and cheese and boiled eggs, were partaken of, Cheyne instructed her that the train was said to arrive punctually and depart punctually.

  She returned to her room briefly to collect her belongings and discovered that Alec and Keith were on hand to help her with her luggage, and then it was all bustle, with Cheyne checking them out of the hotel, and Alec and Keith coming to the taxi to see them off.

  'See you in a week's time,' Alec told her, as he kissed her cheek in parting, and Keith followed suit.

  'Dah sveedahneeyah,' she told them, and at her Russian 'goodbye' the taxi moved off.

  The flicker of excitement which had been with her since first thing that morning increased by leaps and bounds when at the railway station she walked with Cheyne down some concrete steps and was then well and truly among a throng of people all crushing together to get to the same train.

  Her excitement soared when, after some minutes of walking through a kind of subway, the queue of people turned right, she among them, and there, to the left, was the train.

  Jolene had no idea at all if their seats on the train were reserved, but since Cheyne seemed to know what he was doing, she went with him and stopped when he stopped. He was in the act of hefting their cases up into one of the coaches, though, when, as she went to give him a hand, she heard her name called in much the same fashion as yesterday afternoon.

  She turned swiftly—and could barely believe her eyes, for there, with a single red rose in his hand, stood Viktor Sekirkin.

  'Viktor!' she exclaimed, and because she felt that, although he was a flirt, he was otherwise perfectly harmless, she beamed a welcoming smile.

  'I could not let you go without seeing you once more,' he said, to warm her bruised heart.

  'Oh, Viktor,' she said softly, and was suddenly enfolded in a bear-hug.

  Hurriedly she stepped back, and it was then that he handed her the red rose. 'For you,' he said and, making her smile as he piled on the flattery, 'No rose can compare with your beauty.'

  It was on the tip of her tongue to make some laughing comment to the effect that he should have been a poet, when suddenly a harsh voice was grating, 'This train won't wait!'

  Quickly Jolene clambered aboard, and had time only to wish him, 'Dah sveedahneeyah, Viktor,' and then the conductress in charge of that particular coach was securing the door and the train was off.

  With Viktor's rose in her hand Jolene walked up the coach until she found the compartment in which Cheyne stood stowing their luggage away. The compartment for their larger cases was way up high, but he was tall and athletic, and where a shorter or less fit person might have needed help, he had no such need.

  When she was about to smile and thank him for stowing away her luggage, though, Jolene was suddenly struck by his hostile expression when his glance went from her face to the red rose in her hand.

  Suddenly then that devil that had got out of her control earlier that morning was on the loose again. 'Who says romance is dead?' she trotted out sweetly.

  '1 wonder how many roses he gives his wife!' Cheyne shot back at her before she could blink, making Jolene aware, if she wasn't already, that his better humour had not stayed around for long.

  'He's divorced!' she snapped, and, her sweet tone soon gone, she stared antagonistically at him for two seconds—then the rest of the compartment began to impinge.

  Switching her gaze from him to look about her, she saw with something of a surprise that, although one could quite well sit in the compartment, it was made up of four bunks, an upper and a lower bunk on either side of where she was standing. With startled eyes she saw that in actual fact the compartment she was standing in was a sleeping compartment!

  In the next few seconds it had logically registered with Jolene that the only reason for anyone to have a sleeping compartment was that they would be sleeping on the train. So why, awoke her surprised brain, had Cheyne Templeton put his luggage in here as well as hers? She thought, before they went any further, that it was about time she found out.

  'What exactly,' she turned back to him to ask in a short tone, 'is your case doing in here?'

  She had to give him full marks for being quick on the uptake, but no marks at all for charm when, giving her a look which she translated as meaning he thought she was being tiresome to say the least, 'At the risk of repeating myself,' he snarled, 'you're not my type!'

  'Neither,' flared Jolene, hurt and not needing to have that rubbed in, 'am I sharing my bedroom with you!'

  'Hell fire!' he roared, and went striding out of the compartment.

  Hell fire to you too! Jolene mutinied as she went to the door to see where he was heading. She saw that he had buttonholed the conductress and guessed he was making arrangements to book a berth elsewhere.

  Let him stew, she fumed as she went back into the compartment. She'd be hanged if she would go and help him out with his Russian. Going over to the half-curtained window, she looked out, but her thoughts were not on the snowy scene outside but on how, although she hoped Cheyne was getting into all sorts of a tangle with the Russian language, knowing him, he probably wasn't.

  Swine of a man! she raged inwardly, still smarting from his remark about how she wasn't his type. She hoped his chickens died.

  Suddenly she became aware that she still had Viktor's rose in her hand, and she moved away from the window. There was a small cloth-covered table in front of the window, she saw, and as well as holding a small dish of pre-wrapped biscuits, a lidded sugar bowl, and a bottle of mineral water, it was also decorated with a piece of greenery in a porcelain vase. The vase seemed the natural place for her rose. She decided against putting any water in the vase at this stage, but thought she would first check out just how rocky the train ride was going to be.

  She was sitting on one of the lower bunks, that did daytime service as a carriage seat, and her indignation had quietened down to a steady simmer when Cheyne returned to block the doorway. Her anger with him was to go soaring again, however, when, looking up and expecting that at any moment his hands would be busy in taking his possessions out of there, she saw that they were already busy—holding two metal-framed glasses of tea!

  Feeling ready to explode, and certain that even a novice could not get their Russian so confused that 'I'd like another compartment' came out sounding like 'I'd like a cup of tea', Jolene took a deep breath to begin seethingly, 'Didn't you...'

  'Yes, I did!' he cut her off sharply as he placed the tea on the table. Bluntly then he went on, 'Remember "when in Rome"—well, you'll be pleased to hear that apparently it's quite usual on this railway for the sexes to mix in together with no one—save the odd foreigner— thinking anything more about it.'

  'You mean I'm expected...'

  'I mean that there's no chance of my finding alternative sleeping quarters,' Cheyne again cut her off, and before she could make anything out of that—and she was ready to—'The position is this,' he went on forcefully. 'This train is so crowded that we're lucky we've got accommodation at all. Doubly lucky, in fact,' he continued toughly, 'in that had Gillian given thought to cancel the train reservation for Edwards and Shaw, then besides me you'd have two stringers of lord knows what sex for company.' Jolene was soaking in every word when, his jaw jutting at an aggressive angle, he gritted, 'Now, if you want to make something of that—go ahead. I assure you that if I could find somewhere else to sleep this night, I would.'

&
nbsp; Jolene felt as though she had just been chewed up and spat out again. But she had no intention whatsoever of letting him see what it did to her that he could not bear the sight of her. 'Is it just for one night?' she questioned snappily, hoping to convey that, although it went against the grain that she had to accept the situation, she could accept it much better if she did not have to put up with him for two nights.

  'We're due in Novosibirsk shortly after lunch tomorrow,' Cheyne rapped back.

  Realising that she had already accepted the situation for what it was, some stubbornness in her made her hold out before final capitulation. 'Couldn't Gillian book herself a separate sleeper?' she questioned. 'After all, she was the one who was supposed to be coming with you.'

  'I've told you,' Cheyne began exasperatedly, 'sex, male or female, doesn't count on this...' he broke off suddenly, and his tone was marginally less harsh. 'I'm glad to see that you now believe that I've no relationship with Gillian outside the office.' His tone had toughened again, though, as he went on to refer to her question, 'But since you ask, Gillian is mature enough to take in her stride that when a train is as popular as this one, she's been extremely fortunate to get a berth at all for the date she wanted.'

  'Thanks,' Jolene grunted. In contrast to Viktor's flattery, Cheyne Templeton was one insult after another. She considered that, in the light of Gillian's being 'mature' enough to take this in her stride, Cheyne had just told her to grow up. Turning her face away from him, she stared unseeing out of the half-curtained window, and wondered if she would have protested so strongly had she not loved the bossy brute.

  'Besides which,' Cheyne, his tone much lighter than it had been, suddenly caused her to look away from the window and at him, 'Gillian was so taken with the idea of actually travelling on the Trans-Siberian Railway that she probably wouldn't have cared had she to share a compartment with the devil himself.'

  Was he in some way apologising for his previous remark? Jolene wondered. His lighter tone seemed to suggest that he was. For about five seconds she was determined that he could go and take a running jump before she'd accept his apology. Then all at once her heartbeats were accelerating, because she just knew that Cheyne was not the kind of man who normally went around apologising for anything, which had to mean that he did like her a little after all, didn't it?