Trojan Gold - Elizabeth Peters [22]
Finally his eyes shifted; they scanned my face, with painstaking slowness, feature by feature. Then he raised his hand. One fingertip touched my cheek and glided lightly from the cheekbone to the corner of my mouth, along the curve of my jaw up to my ear, where his other fingers joined it to twine through my hair, cupping the back of my head. I was not conscious of other movement, his or mine, until our lips met.
He withdrew as delicately as he had advanced, settling himself behind the wheel as behind a barricade and presenting another barricade in the form of a bland, impassive profile.
“Cigarette?” he inquired politely.
“I don’t smoke. How trite of you, John.”
“I have become trite—commonplace—conventional. High time, wouldn’t you say?”
He was not as cool as he pretended. There was the slightest possible tremor of his hand as he reached for the lighter. I thought I was doing better until I realized I was still leaning toward him, lips parted and expectant, hands reaching. I sat up, smoothed my skirt, and folded my hands primly in my lap.
“So you’ve become respectable. What have you been doing since I saw you last?”
“As you say, I’ve become respectable. Nice little cottage in the country, nice honest job….”
I laughed. I couldn’t help it, any more than I could help asking the next question.
“Nice little wife?”
That shocked John out of his calm. “Good God, no. What a horrible thought.”
I didn’t say anything. After a moment, John inquired, “And you?”
“I don’t have a wife either.”
The curl of his lip showed what he thought of that cheap quip. I didn’t think much of it myself.
“It’s only been six months,” I said. “I’d have to be a fast worker to locate and capture a husband in that space of time.”
“You’re too modest. I assumed you always had a few candidates waiting in the wings.”
“And that I would be so devastated by your presumed demise that I would seek solace in the arms of the first personable male who made me an offer?”
John blew out a smoke ring. “You knew I wasn’t dead.”
“I was…almost sure.”
The catch in my voice was slight—and, I assure you, unpremeditated—but John caught it. I was afraid he’d laugh or make some mocking reply. Instead his bushy eyebrows drew together, and there was no amusement in his voice when he said, “I suppose you feel I ought to have sent you word.”
“Not at all. Neither of us is under any obligation to the other.”
“Neither? You ungrateful wench, I risked a horrible death for your sake.”
Just like old times, I thought, and sailed happily into the fray. “My sake, hell. I may have been first on the death list, but you were a close second. It was kill or be killed, buster.”
“That is a highly questionable assumption. I swim like an eel. I could easily have made my getaway while he was slaughtering you and the old gent.”
“The old gent raised a memorial to you.”
“I know. What a tasteless monstrosity,” John said disgustedly. “Honestly, Vicky, couldn’t you have exercised a little control? Those mourning cupids, with bums like cups of custard, weeping through their doughy fingers—”
“I designed those cupids, I’ll have you know.”
The muscles at the corner of his mouth quivered. I went on, “Unfortunately, I couldn’t persuade him to use the motto I favored.”
“Which was?”
“‘He hath no drowning mark upon him; his complexion is perfect gallows.’”
The muscles gave up the fight and stretched into a broad, appreciative grin. “Oh, lovely. Couldn’t have done better myself. Well, I appreciate the thought, darling. Shall we call it square? The absolute dreadfulness of that monument makes up for any neglect on my part.”
“Square,” I agreed. It was the only possible way of dealing with John, forgetting the past and letting bygones be bygones. If I started adding up all the aggravations he had caused me, I’d get mad, and I was about to ask his help.
“So what are you up to now?” John asked curiously. “I dare not hope it was for the sake of my beaux yeux that you