Frozen Enchantment

by Jessica Steele

  It was no good, a smile was breaking out somewhere deep in the heart of her, and that smile would not be kept in. Indeed, it became more of a grin when, her eyes wide on his, she returned as lightly, 'If you'll pardon the impertinence, I suppose it's better the devil you know than the one you don't.'

  Dark grey eyes, warm dark grey eyes, were fixed on hers and she saw the corners of his mouth go up. 'Impertinence pardoned,' he drawled, and the atmosphere in the compartment all at once considerably eased. 'Drink your tea,' he instructed her.

  The stout and solid door of the compartment was left open and the morning passed in a happy vein. Cheyne went out exploring once their tea had been downed, and although Jolene had a paperback she could be enjoying had she felt like reading, she was gaining more enjoyment from just being on the train.

  Feeling happier within herself and starting to think that it was not so much that Cheyne could not bear the sight of her as that, with him wanting the best out of this business trip, and working hard towards that end, it was only natural he should find her fussing about the sleeping arrangements irritating.

  She gazed out at the snowy landscape and felt so good about him that she was ready to forgive him every slight, real or imagined. For some time she gazed for the pleasure of it out of the train window at the white-blanketed scene with its forests and occasional village of larch-built properties. How vast Siberia was, she mused; she had some vague recollection of its being over four million square miles, and she wondered if she had got that right, for four million square miles was indeed vast.

  Having investigated under the lower bunks to discover blankets and fold-away mattresses, Jolene decided to step out of the compartment. In a very few paces she was through the slid-back open door and out into the carpeted corridor where white and blue patterned curtains covered the bottom half of the window.

  For some time she stood at the hand-rail which ran along the length of the corridor and gazed out at a similar scene to the one she had witnessed from the compartment.

  Feeling adventurous, she walked to the end where, next to where the conductress responsible for that coach had her own quarters, was the toilet and wash-hand basin. Having inspected these facilities, Jolene returned to the corridor. She was staring in some absorption at the solid fuel-burning samovar which stood in a corner of the corridor and which was adorned with a collection of pipes, handles and valves, when Cheyne appeared from down the other end of the coach.

  'Hungry?' he enquired, and looked friendly.

  'I could eat a horse!' she smiled.

  'You'll wish you hadn't said that,' he drawled, and suddenly she was happy again and she just had to burst out laughing. She saw his expression go serious as his eyes went to her mouth. Then that friendly look was there once more in his eyes, and with his glance back on her eyes, he said, 'Let's eat,' and led the way.

  Happily Jolene followed him through train corridors. Happily she leapt on to the metal humps where each coach was connected to the next. And, with the whole of her being tingling, she held on to the hand he offered each time she leapt from the metal hump into the next coach.

  The restaurant car was busy, but she and Cheyne had a table for four to themselves. There were the same blue and white patterned curtains starting half-way down the window as elsewhere on the train and, not wanting to miss any of it as they waited for their meal, Jolene pulled the curtains to one side and looked out.

  The same snowbound, tree-filled scene met her eyes, with the occasional track of some wild animal in the snow. She was unaware, however, of her rapt expression until suddenly Cheyne asked quietly, 'Enjoying it?'

  'It's absolutely fantastic,' she replied, and decided there and then that, given the unpropitious way this train ride had begun, she was, from that instant, going to enjoy every moment of it. Thinking that she was going to need some good experience to look back on when, back in England, long cold days would pass without her ever seeing: him, Jolene found herself hurrying into speech. 'You intimated that Gillian Frampton is worth her weight in gold as a PA, but I don't think you can be such a bad boss, after all,' she told him suddenly.

  'After all?' he enquired drily, with a lift of his left eyebrow.

  As she was about to reply, just then a waitress came to serve them with a sliced pork and chopped spring onion starter. No sooner had the waitress gone, though, than Jolene, taking up her knife and fork, questioned, 'It was Gillian's idea to take the Trans-Siberian Express to Novosibirsk, wasn't it?'

  'It was,' he conceded.

  'Which makes you quite an—um—a nice employer, that you agreed.'

  'Steady, Jolene!' he warned. 'You nearly fell over yourself there trying not to spread the compliments on too thick!' And as she grinned, for in truth she had hung back a little with her praise in case he thought she was purposely trying to butter him up, he drawled, 'Though would that I were worthy of your good opinion. But in point of fact, although it made no difference to me how we got to Novosibirsk, I told Gillian that only so long as she could make the arrangements to fit in with my Novosibirsk schedule could she go ahead and make the train reservations.'

  In Jolene's opinion that still made him a nice employer. More, it made him a kind employer, because he could have just as easily have told her to forget it and to make arrangements for them to get there more swiftly by air.

  'She must have been thrilled, anyhow,' she insisted.

  Cheyne nodded. 'She was,' he had to agree. 'But she was even more thrilled to tell me on my return that she wouldn't be coming on the trip after all.'

  'Because of the baby?' Jolene smiled, but did not need him to answer.

  She tucked into her next course of tomato soup, happy for Gillian who, plainly because of past disappointments, had said nothing to Cheyne of her hope that she was having a baby until he returned from his other trip, by which time she was really sure.

  'Not a horse in sight,' Jolene murmured when the next course of beef and a variety of chips unlike any she had ever seen before was placed in front of her.

  She flicked a glance to Cheyne and saw that although his expression seemed amused, in his eyes there was a thoughtful look. It gave her the strangest impression that he had been studying her for the last couple of minutes.

  That whimsical notion passed, however, and after a piece of cake and a cup of coffee they did the return— for her—hand- and body-tingling leap from coach to coach, to their own compartment.

  What with pulling into a station soon afterwards, and finding things of interest from both compartment window and corridor window, it was about half an hour later that Jolene returned to take a seat in the compartment. Not many minutes later Cheyne joined her, and so began an afternoon that for Jolene was little short of magical.

  On any other train journey due to take as long as this one, she would have been tempted to get out a book. But she made no attempt to read that afternoon, because she was caught up in the grip of the excitement of actually being on the Trans-Siberian Railway. And, to heighten that excitement, she and Cheyne appeared to be getting on well.

  Not one single abrasive word had passed between them since they had gone to lunch and, as a bonus, it seemed that Cheyne had done sufficient exploring of the train for the moment, and was content to stay put—with her.

  Intermittently they stared out of the window, passed some comment, or drew each other's attention to something a little different on the landscape.

  'Two magpies—there!' Jolene suddenly directed his attention, and wanted to believe that he, like her, was storing up each and every memory, but she very much doubted it.

  From time to time her interest was taken with the happenings inside the train, and she watched through the open compartment door at how the conductress would unroll a length of drugget to cover the corridor carpet whenever the train halted at a station. As soon as the disembarking passengers were off, and the embarking passengers were on, she would roll the drugget up again.

  At some time during the afternoon the con
ductress came round with a trolley of items available for purchase. Deciding against chocolates or sweets, for she found the meals quite filling, Jolene exchanged some roubles for a pack of playing cards; only to smile with Cheyne when on inspection she discovered that the pack contained only thirty-six cards—all that were required for Russian card games, apparently. It was moments like that shared smile with him, though, which she hoarded to her like some miser.

  With Jolene savouring every moment of this companionable, enchanted time with him, they spent some time in desultory easy conversation. Cheyne had just mentioned that there were two types of accommodation on the Express, and how they had been booked into the 'hard' as opposed to the 'soft' class, when the conductress came and brought them steaming glasses of tea.

  'Spahsseebah,' Jolene thanked her, and when the conductress had gone, and sensing that Cheyne would have preferred the other class, she suggested, 'I don't suppose Gillian knew that one had a choice when she made the booking.'

  'I don't suppose she did,' he murmured, but there was a warm light in his eyes when he added, 'I've known Gillian for long enough to be aware of where she excels and where she fails, Jolene, so you've no need to defend her to me. But then,' he went on, 'I've a suspicion that as well as your being outwardly beautiful, there's an inner beauty in you.' Jolene was looking at him, speechless and hardly believing her hearing, when he got to his feet, turned away from her and tossing something casually over his shoulder about stretching his legs, left the compartment.

  She was still glowing from what he had said about her outer as well as her inner beauty long after he had left. Surely to have said such a thing must mean that he liked her—didn't it?

  Her thoughts were still hopping here and there, with Cheyne the central pivot, when she glanced at the table, where his tea was no longer steaming. From there, however, her glance flicked to the flower vase, which she had intended to fill with water so that the rose Viktor had given her should not die. But, with startled eyes, she saw that she had no need to take any such action, because the rose which she had personally placed in that porcelain vase was no longer there!

  Surprised to say the least, Jolene stared as though hypnotised at the vase that now contained only the greenery for decoration which had been there when she and Cheyne had boarded the train. Ridiculously then, her first thought was that Cheyne, having taken against Viktor for some reason, had lost no time in removing all evidence of him.

  Her next thought was to realise just how ridiculous that first thought was. Cheyne would not care a tinker's cuss either way about Viktor Sekirkin. Cheyne was a businessman first, last and always. It would matter not to him whether he found Viktor agreeable or disagreeable; what did matter was that he, or members of his team, could talk engineering to the Russian.

  Having seen what an idiot she was to have such wild notions, the best Jolene could come up with as an explanation for where her rose had disappeared to, was that the conductress must have removed it. Evidence that she had been in the compartment while they had been at lunch lay in the fact that freshly laundered sheets and pillow slips which had not been there before now lay on top of one of the upper bunks. Perhaps there was some railway rule which said that only greenery of a uniform nature must be placed in the vases, Jolene cogitated. Or, bearing in mind a very jerky stop the train had made once that afternoon—and bearing in mind how houseproud the conductress was with her drugget—perhaps she did not intend to risk having a passenger put water in the vase when, should the train make another jerky stop, some of the bedding might get christened.

  However, Jolene remembered Cheyne telling her she had beauty, and where Viktor's rose had got to did not figure greatly in her thoughts from then on.

  She was standing in the corridor staring at what looked like a timber mill as they flashed by when a movement up the corridor to her left sent her heart drumming. A second later the tall figure of Cheyne Templeton was standing next to her.

  Feeling choked suddenly, but needing to say something—anything—'Your tea's gone cold,' she told him, and could have groaned aloud at the inanity of her remark. For goodness' sake, Cheyne was the sort of person who, if he had wanted a drink of tea, would have stayed and drunk it, not decided that to stretch his legs was preferable to sit tea-drinking.

  He quickly sent all thoughts of what a fool she was from her mind, though, when, as easily as before, he remarked, 'Which makes it just as well that dinner is only half an hour away.'

  'Really?' Jolene turned from watching the view. 'I haven't had a chance to get hungry since I've been here!' she exclaimed.

  After a quick wash and tidy-up, she went with Cheyne past all the sliding doors which had previously been solidly closed but which were now open, through several coaches to the restaurant car.

  Jolene was barely aware of what she tucked into that night, for Cheyne had not altered from the dear companion he had been that afternoon, and she was falling deeper and deeper in love with him all the while. More, she was growing to like him exceedingly well too.

  That they had finished the first course of ham and dill pickle, and were on their second course of mashed potatoes, peas and beef, barely impinged as Cheyne kept her amused with an anecdote here and there, and listened attentively to anything that she had to say.

  There was a lull in their conversation as the waitress came to their table and asked them which they would prefer, tea or coffee. They both opted for coffee, but as the waitress filled their cups and went on her way, the question of whether Gillian Frampton would be returning to her office after the birth of her baby came to her mind, and before she could think about it she had put the question to Cheyne.

  'Not a chance,' he replied, and added, 'After waiting this long she's far more mother-minded than she's career-minded.' Suddenly then, though, as Jolene looked at him and felt good inside that he had so unhesitatingly answered her question, she saw him hesitate, as though in mid-thought. Then he was rubbing his forefinger along his chin as though he was thinking hard about something. And then, to her complete astonishment, he said quietly, 'Talking of careers, and not forgetting that you are career-minded, my PA's job will be advertised both internally as well as externally ‑' He paused, and then let fall, 'I'm sure any application from you would be favourably looked on.'

  Jolene was still somewhere up on cloud nine as she and Cheyne made their way back to their compartment. Surely, if she had not suddenly gone dense from the shock of it, Cheyne could only have been saying that the job of his PA was hers for the asking!

  Feeling thrilled and delighted at the thought of not only working for him but of seeing him every day, Jolene was still trying to take it in when, with Cheyne having taken out some paperwork and sitting opposite her, she got out her paperback and pretended to read.

  For how long she sat there occasionally turning over a page but taking in nothing of the printed matter, she could not have said. Though daylight had long since gone, and it must have been some time since she had turned over a page when, with her thoughts on how Cheyne must be pleased with the work she had so far done for him, he said into the quietness of their compartment, 'Why not get into bed?'

  'I've had it with this book, anyhow,' she responded, lest his suggestion stemmed from the fact that he knew she was not progressing very far with her reading.

  Together they got out mattresses, blankets and pillows, and while Jolene made herself up a lower bunk Cheyne manhandled her suitcase down on to one end of the lower bunk opposite. While she extracted what she needed, he attended to making up a bed for himself on the bunk over the top of hers.

  It felt strange to her to be taking her nightly wash in the swaying facilities of the train, and even stranger to be walking up the train corridor in her nightdress and dressing-gown and clutching her toilet bag. But Cheyne had said 'When in Rome', and for goodness' sake, she had been so happy that day, and from that bad start, that if he now said black was white she would have gone along with it.

  For all her 'when
in Rome' thoughts, though, nothing could have induced her to part with her cotton dressing-gown when, back in the compartment, she climbed into her narrow bed with it still on.

  Cheyne was not yet in bed, and she guessed he would probably work on for a few more hours yet. But she watched him when, having instructed her to go to bed, he went to the sliding door, and for the first time that day, closed the solid wood compartment door on any passerby.

  'Goodnight, Cheyne,' Jolene bade him, and tucking her dressing-gown closer around her, she went to lie down to get what sleep she could.

  'Good...' he broke off, and looking at him, Jolene saw his expression suddenly change to one little short of incredulity when, instead of ending with the 'night' she had expected, he substituted, '...lord,' and added, 'You are!'

  'Are what?' she asked, having no clue to what he meant.

  Cheyne was still looking thunderstuck as he exclaimed, 'You really are a virgin.'

  Startled, because that was the last thing she had expected, suddenly that old imp of mischief had awakened in her again, and, with her green eyes large and innocent, she queried, 'Would I lie to you, sir?' and, turning her back to him, but expecting at any moment to hear the wonderful sound of his laugh, she closed her eyes.

  She did not hear him laugh, though, and she realised that he could not have been amused by her reply. She reached out a hand and put out the light by her head, and over the next few hours she lay listening while Cheyne rustled papers and generally moved around.

  Once she drifted off into a light sleep, but when she came awake again and could not go back to sleep, she got around to thinking that she might never travel on the Trans-Siberian Railway again, and most assuredly never again with Cheyne. On that thought, she decided she wanted to stay awake through the rest of the night so that she could keep this memory, too, to take out and savour when she was back in England.