Ice Storm - Anne Stuart [24]
Rooms? There was a plural there—a great relief to Isobel. She needed someplace alone, quiet, to sort things out in her head. Her meeting with the dead man hadn’t gone the way she’d planned, and she needed time to put things in perspective.
He was looking down at her, large, bulky and unattractive—despite Samuel’s concerns. And yet there was still some intangible something…. Maybe it was something inborn, something that had nothing to do with physical beauty. Because any beauty on Serafin’s part had been shot to hell a long time ago. Thank God. It left her coolly, totally immune.
“What did she do to Mahmoud?” Isobel asked.
“A simple tranquilizer. He’ll sleep for hours, wake up in his new life at the Christian school.”
“Poor kid,” she said reflexively.
“At least he’ll be alive. None of his friends or family has survived, and if I’d left him in Lebanon he wouldn’t have survived much longer himself.”
“He came from Lebanon? What were you doing there? I thought your last job was working for Fouad Assawi.”
“I get around,” he said, telling her absolutely nothing. “We need to get back to the apartments. It wouldn’t do for Samuel’s servants to see us. He runs a pretty strict household, but people would pay a lot to find out where I am.”
“And who could blame them?” she muttered, following him. She wasn’t sure if she was relieved or not that they’d finally gotten rid of Mahmoud. Particularly since Serafin had yet to give her a straight answer as to why he’d kept the boy with him, why he was indulging someone determined to kill him.
The rooms at the back of the house were cool and dark, the windows shuttered, with fans turning lazily overhead. There was a sitting area with a cushioned bench and not much else, and a bedroom. One bed, and not a very big one at that. There were fresh clothes lying across it, including a dark blue burka that would disguise her completely. As long as she kept her mouth shut and her eyes demurely downcast. There were men’s clothes, too, and she scooped hers up quickly, not wanting her clothing to be too close to his.
Serafin said nothing, but she could sense his amusement. “The bathroom’s over there. Take your time. We’ve got all day.”
She headed for the bathroom door. “You’d better see if Samuel’s got other clothes for you,” she said as a parting shot. “I don’t think those are going to fit you.”
And his laugh followed her into the bathroom.
She stripped off her clothes and stood under the shower, letting the hot water beat down over her weary, dusty body. She’d barely slept, and while she could manage for days without doing so, a few hours of rest would do wonders. Right now she didn’t have to stop and make sense of the situation she found herself in; her actions would be the same no matter what. Her mission was to get Serafin into England without one of his legion of enemies putting a bullet in his head, and she had no intention of failing. One foot in front of the other. He had just as much of an interest in getting out of this country in one piece as she had, and she could presumably trust any escape route he’d come up with.
Sometimes the smartest thing was to let go and let someone else control the situation. It was the hardest lesson she’d ever had to learn, but she’d learned it well. Though she didn’t have to like it.
There were clean underwear, jeans and a T-shirt to wear under the burka. Isobel had contact lenses to make her eyes a muddy hazel, but even so the color might trigger some kind of warning, and she yanked her silvery-blond hair into a tight ponytail. She was better off under the enveloping robe—no one looked twice at Arab women in purdah, and with luck she’d never have to use the considerable firepower tucked in her waistband. She’d just follow Serafin at a discreet distance, like a good Muslim wife.
She didn’t want to leave the bathroom, face him again. She recognized the emotion, accepted it and pushed open the door to the bedroom.