Love's Golden Spell. William Maltese
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Christopher had a room full of elephant ivory. With each elephant killed, the source of that ivory was depleted by one. Christopher became richer. When all the elephants were dead, like the quagga and bluebuck were dead, Christopher would be a very rich man.
Damn it, he was rich enough already! He shouldn’t think of how to add more money to the family coffers. He should take steps to insure that his children would see live elephants instead of just pictures of them.
But Christopher was childless. He wasn’t married. Janet felt funny inside as she swept through the doors of the Carleton Hotel. The hotel was part of a vast complex of boutiques, movie theaters and restaurants, none of which claimed her attention. She wasn’t all that interested in the spectacular view of city lights from her hotel window, either.
The bed had been turned down by the night maid. Janet searched a suitcase for her cotton pajamas. Her negligee was in the closet, but she didn’t want it. It was too provocative against her skin. She shouldn’t have brought it. It was extra baggage. Pajamas were more practical where she was going.
The negligee was black silk. Christopher had dressed her in black silk, like a doll, tossing her aside as soon as a honey-colored diamond came along.
The phone rang. Her sweet visions were of his calling to apologize—better yet, telling her that he realized who she was, that he was angry for not realizing it right away, that he wanted to see her again. She was a fool for letting them get off to such a ridiculously bad start. There were memories to talk about after sixteen years.
It was Jill. She wanted to make sure Janet was back safely. She wanted to satisfy her curiosity. Tim and Roger had rushed her away from Lionspride grinning from ear to ear like two Cheshire cats. “Janet really landed herself a big one this time!” Roger had said as they drove off.
Janet was in no mood to talk about Christopher. She wanted to forget him. All the interesting tidbits Jill wanted to hear hadn’t happened. “Did you get the tapes ready for shipping?” Janet asked, using business to counter Jill’s snooping. There was silence at the other end. “Well?”
“You’ve the tapes,” Jill said. “Don’t you?”
“How could I have them?” Janet asked. Frustrated. Something was wrong. She didn’t need this. “I stayed at Lionspride, didn’t I? You called to see whether I was back. Right? Right!”
“But he said…,” Jill replied, leaving the sentence hanging.
“Who said what?” Janet asked, her heart sinking.
“The man who stopped us at the gate,” Jill continued tentatively. “He told us you wanted the tapes to play for Mr. Van Hoon at the house. He ran them back to you. Didn’t he?”
“Don’t worry about it,” Janet said, keeping her cool. There was no need to take out on Jill what wasn’t her fault. It was logical for her to have accepted the information as given. Everybody had video equipment nowadays. Christopher could afford the very best. “I’ll talk to you in the morning, okay? I’m a little tired right now.”
“But what about the tapes?”
“I’ll talk to you tomorrow!” Janet insisted with finality. She hung up the phone, her hand gripping the receiver so tightly her fingers were bleached white across her knuckles. “That rat!” she forced out between clenched teeth. He was a liar like his father! If Donald Geiger hadn’t distracted him with that diamond, he would still be lying, insisting he wanted fair payment for tapes that he had no intention of letting her have.
She released her grip on the phone, her fingers hurting as she uncurled them. She paced, but it didn’t help. She lay down on the bed. She would sleep and worry about this in the morning. She didn’t need the tapes. She could say the Van Hoon wildlife collection contained extinct species, and Christopher couldn’t deny it. There were people who had seen the trophy room, and they could substantiate her story if Christopher called her a liar. Of course, a picture was worth a thousand words. Television audiences were visually oriented.
He was less flippant about the threat she offered than he appeared. The Van Hoon name was vulnerable to attack after all.
She squeezed her eyes shut, trying to clear her mind. She was enveloped in the smell of exotic perfume. She had splashed the fragrance on extravagantly at Lionspride after finding a sixteen-ounce bottle in the bathroom. She had used too much; she smelled cheap. She felt cheap. Christopher Van Hoon’s toy, his plaything—tossed aside when he tired of her.
She wished he could be guiltless. It was his father— and the Van Hoon tradition most of all—that she hated. If she was obvious in pinpointing the extinct animals before the cameras, it was because she wanted Christopher to convince her she was wrong to condemn him. At eighteen, he had promised he would never kill another animal. Or was his promise never to kill another gazelle? It didn’t matter. It was a lie. He had said she could have the film if she stayed for supper. A lie. She had endured the brunt of his amusement for nothing. He had been laughing at her.
She got up, stripping off her pajamas, and went into the bathroom to take a shower. She scrubbed her body until her skin was raw, exchanging the exotic muskiness for the antiseptic blandness of soap. She would wash away all memory of him.
Her pajamas reeked of the perfume. She threw them in a corner and climbed into bed naked. She wanted to sleep, but the caress of the sheets against her nakedness was sensuously distracting. When she did sleep, she dreamed of Christopher.
He was young. He was standing in the shade of a blue-gum tree. He didn’t need the sun in the sky, because he carried sunlight in his hair, in the glow of his eyes, in the tan of his skin. Janet was in the dream with him. She was happy. God, it was so good to be happy! Ahead of her stretched unlived years of pain in which her father and husband died and left her. She would pick up the pieces each time she had this dream, remembering how it was to live in innocence, to laugh and touch in innocence, to kiss in innocence. Was it wrong to want it back?
She was filled with loss and futility when she awakened. She was Janet Westover, not Janet Kelley. She was twenty-nine, not thirteen. She was a widow, not a virgin. She wasn’t innocent, and there was no bringing back the past.
A knock on her door brought her back to reality. A second knock made her moan and wish whoever it was would go away. She was tired. It had taken her an eternity to get to sleep, and now this. She opened her eyes, surprised to see that the sun was shining through the window.
“Give me a minute!’ she said, throwing back the blankets. “I said, just…a…minute,” she erupted irritably as a third knock sounded. Her robe was in the closet, hanging next to her black silk negligee. She put on the robe, securing the belt at her waist. She opened the door.
He was standing there with his blond hair and golden eyes, deeply dimpled cheeks, and wide smile. “Hi!” he said. She was dreaming. His left hand was behind his back, his right hand extending a bouquet of golden roses. She could smell the heady fragrance of the flowers.
“There’s only one thing I want from you!” she said, wishing he wasn’t so handsome, wishing his eyes weren’t sparkling with good-natured humor.
“And surprise, I brought that, too,” he said, producing the tape spools from behind his back. “I did promise them to you, didn’t I? In exchange for supper, wasn’t it?”
“I suppose you spent last night erasing them,” she accused, taking them anyway.
“Janet, Janet,” he said, his low voice as teasing as it was chiding. “May I come in?”
“I’m not dressed,” she said, watching his wide smile spread.
“I know,” he retorted.
“No, you may not come in,” she replied. He was too handsome, too charming, too capable of being nice one minute and hurtful the next.
“Then will you come out?” he ventured playfully. “I’m taking a look around one of the Van Hoon gold mines this morning, and I thought you might like