Black Ice - Anne Stuart [18]
Chloe was suddenly entirely sober. She swallowed, looking into Hakim’s dark, calm face. And then she forced herself to laugh, breaking the tension.
“I think I need a map to find my way around this place,” she said. “If you can give me directions to my room I’ll head there. I’m exhausted.”
He hadn’t let go of her arm. He had thick, ugly hands, with dark hair across the backs of his sausagelike fingers. He said nothing, and for one brief, crazy moment she thought he was going to shove her back into the deserted wing where no one would hear her scream.
And then sanity returned, and he dropped her arm, and while his smile was far from pleasant at least it was a smile.
“You should be more careful, Miss Underwood,” he admonished her. “Other people might be more dangerous than I am.”
“Dangerous?” She just barely managed to keep the stammer out of her voice.
“Like Monsieur Toussaint, for instance. He can be very charming, but you would be wise to keep your distance. I saw the two of you in the hall this evening, and I was most concerned. For you, Miss Underwood.”
It was shadowy enough that he wouldn’t be able to see the flush that mounted to her cheeks. “He was just showing me the way to the library.”
“With his mouth? I’d keep out of his reach if I were you. The man is notorious. His appetite for women is insatiable, and his tastes are, shall we say, peculiar. I would feel somewhat responsible if you were to run into any trouble while you’re here. After all, I’m in effect your employer, and I wouldn’t want anything unfortunate to happen to you.”
“Neither would I,” Chloe said.
“Turn left, down two corridors then two right turns.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“That’s the way back to your room. Unless you prefer I escort you?”
Chloe managed to suppress her shudder of revulsion. “I’ll be fine,” she said. “If I get lost again I’ll scream.”
“You do that,” Hakim said in a cool voice that somehow failed to reassure her.
But she made it back to her corridor without further mishap, and there was no one lingering, watching for her. The satyrlike M. Toussaint must have found his partner for the night, she thought, faintly disgruntled, as she pushed open her door.
Someone had been in there. There was no key, no way to keep anyone out, and the sense of violation was unavoidable. She shook her head, trying to clear the paranoia away. Why should anyone be interested in a hired translator?
The bed was turned down, one of Sylvia’s diaphanous nightgowns was laid out across it, and a tray with a crystal decanter and a plate of chocolates rested on the gilt table beside the bed.
“Relax, idiote,” she said out loud, to break the hush that enveloped the room. “It was just a maid.”
She got ready for bed quickly, pulling the confection of lace and silk over her head. If she had any sense at all she’d go straight to bed, but her encounter with Hakim had driven sleep right out of her mind. A snifter of brandy wouldn’t hurt.
She might not have made it as a chef, but her sense of taste was excellent, and the cognac was slightly unusual. Some faint undernote that she couldn’t quite recognize. Almost metallic, she would have said, but a place like Château Mirabel would never serve an inferior cognac. It must have been her imagination. It was quite deliciously warming, and she could already feel her eyes drooping. She’d sleep soundly tonight, and she wouldn’t dream of anyone, certainly not Bastien Toussaint.
It was then that she recognized the barest trace of scent in the air. A subtle, distinctive cologne that brought an instinctive, warm response. Until she remembered where it had come from. The silken folds of Bastien’s Armani suit. Why…
She tried to set the snifter of brandy back on the tray, but it was much farther away than she had thought, way of out her reach, and it fell on the floor with the faint tinkle of shattering glass, and she followed it, sprawling out on the carpet.
She hadn’t had that much to drink, she thought, trying to sit up. Surely that one sip of cognac wasn’t enough to send her over the edge.
But apparently