Night Heat. Anne Mather
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down the stairs, she had given little thought to its weakness, but now she leaned against the wall, wishing she had not been so precipitate.
Still, she was here now, and unless she wanted Jeff to come upon her as he returned to his room, she had to make an effort. Having come so far, it would be foolish to return to her room without at least trying to see him, and moving slowly, she edged towards the terrace.
A mesh door, similar to the ones that protected the front of the house, stood ajar, and guessing the progress of the wheelchair made opening doors difficult, she was encouraged. Besides, the open door enabled her to emerge unnoticed, though her heart was beating so loudly, she was sure it must be audible.
Ahead of her, something glinted in the darkness, and she realised it was a swimming pool. It was just as well she hadn’t tumbled into that, she thought wryly. What a way to announce her presence! She could just imagine Grant Masters’ anger if she crowned her arrival by destroying Jeff’s efforts to cure himself.
Inching forward, she found herself on a flagged patio, which was doubtless a suntrap in daylight. The ribbed outlines of low chairs around the pool seemed to point to this conclusion, though the obvious absence of any cushions gave them a skeletal appearance. But where was the wheelchair? she wondered uneasily. Surely, after all her efforts, Jeff had not abandoned his vigil.
And then she saw it. Set some yards along the terrace, the chair still rested below the level of the balcony, and even as she gazed towards it, she saw the revealing circle of fire as his cigarette was drawn to his mouth.
If only she could see more clearly, she thought frustratedly, cursing the moonless night. She wondered what he would do if she spoke to him. Would he be shocked, or angry, or both? Dared she intrude on his isolation? Or might she, as she had thought earlier, destroy any desire to recover his strength by exposing the frailty of his efforts?
‘Why don’t you come and join me?’ he asked suddenly, evidently aware of her quivering observation, and Sara gulped. His voice, coming to her in the darkness, was low and harsh and attractive, and undeniably mature for a boy of his age. ‘What were you hoping to see, I wonder?’ he added, turning his head towards her. ‘Will you be making a habit of sneaking about the place, when you’re supposed to be in bed? If so, I’ll have to watch I don’t do anything to shock you!’
‘I wasn’t sneaking …’ Sara took an unsteady breath, and then continued: ‘How—how did you know I was here? How did you know it was me?’
‘Call it—intuition.’ He shifted slightly towards her, and moving closer, she saw the long, useless legs stretched in front of him. ‘Miss—Fielding, isn’t it? Tony’s final solution! Forgive me if I beg to doubt his confidence. He always was hopelessly romantic!’
The harsh disturbing voice scraped on Sara’s senses, but in spite of the cynicism of his words, she knew a kindling surge of encouragement. Surely if Jeff could speak to her like this, he was not the grim, despairing youth she had been led to expect. If, by exposing his nightly ritual, she had pierced the surface shell he evidently presented to the other members of the household, surely she must stand some chance of reasoning with him.
Her excitement was blunted somewhat, however, by the sudden reminder of why she was here. If Jeff was making such obvious progress, why had he attempted to take his own life less than two weeks ago? Why, if he could speak so philosophically about his uncle, had Tony told her no psychiatrist could reach him?
She was still pondering this enigma, when the wheelchair squeaked and its occupant rose easily to his feet. ‘Forgive me.’ The tall, lean man who had vacated the seat sent the remains of what he had been smoking shooting away in an arc across the terrace. And as Sara backed away in sudden panic, he came towards her holding out his hand. ‘I should have introduced myself,’ he finished easily. ‘I’m Lincoln Korda. And you, I believe, are a friend of my brother.’
SARA lay awake for the rest of the night. She told herself it was because she had slept for six hours already and she wasn’t tired any longer, but in all honesty, it was neither of those things. Meeting Lincoln Korda had been such a shock, and try as she might, she could not dispel the trembling in her knees which had gripped her when he rose up out of the wheelchair. Dear God! he had scared her half to death in that moment, and then he had completed the process by inviting her into his study and offering her a drink.
She had accepted a brandy in the hope that it might restore her shattered defences, but of course it hadn’t. It would take more than an albeit generous measure of cognac to help her regain her confidence, and in spite of Lincoln Korda’s solicitude, she had wished quite desperately that she had never left her room.
Apart from the obvious strain that his careless deception had caused, she had had to cope with an entirely different reaction. Lincoln Korda bore no physical resemblance to his brother whatsoever, and although Sara knew he was three years the elder—and therefore forty, or thereabouts—he had the litheness and physique of a man ten years younger. He was tall, as she had noted when he was sitting in the wheelchair, and much darker-skinned than his brother. His hair was dark, too, and only lightly touched with grey, longer than she would have expected, and lying thick and smooth against his head. His eyes were grey and deep-set, probably the only characteristic about him that she had anticipated, in that they were cool and remote. Otherwise, his features were lean and intelligent, with narrow cheekbones and a thin-lipped mouth, and a nose which she suspected had been broken, and which gave his attractive face more character. Unlike Tony’s, his stomach did not strain at the waistband of his pants, and in black jeans and a black cotton tee-shirt, she could have been forgiven for mistaking him for one of his employees. But not his son, she added silently, acknowledging her anger with both of them for creating such an embarrassing situation.
‘I know—you thought I was Jeff. I’m sorry,’ he had said, after they had entered the book-lined elegance of his study. ‘Sit down. You look as if you’ve had a shock.’
She had. But although she felt like telling him what she thought of his methods of introducing himself, she did not need the ruby-set signet ring on his little finger, or this luxuriously-appointed apartment, to remind her that from everything she had heard, Lincoln Korda was not a man to tangle with. It was her own fault. She had thought she was being clever, when she wasn’t. And now she had to deal with the unwelcome realisation that she had made a complete fool of herself.
He poured her a brandy from a crystal decanter set on a silver tray. The tray itself was residing on a cherrywood cabinet, whose definite design was echoed in the scrolls of the leather-topped desk, and repeated in the armrests of the comfortable sofa. The carpet was of Persian design, the desk flanked by two leather recliners, and a pair of club chairs were grouped about a chess table, set with elaborate chess pieces. The room was generous in proportion, but the clever combination of furniture enabled its owner to create whatever kind of atmosphere he chose. Right now, Sara was uncomfortably aware that she felt distinctly overpowered by her employer’s nearness, and she was irritatingly conscious of him in a way that was neither cool nor logical.
He allowed her to swallow the better part of her drink before speaking again, but when he did she was compelled to answer. ‘You had no dinner, I understand,’ he remarked, hooking his thigh over a corner of the desk. ‘Cora tells me you didn’t eat in your apartments, and as you didn’t join the rest of us …’
Sara’s tongue rescued a pearl of brandy from the corner of her lip, and then she said: ‘I didn’t realise you were here, Mr Korda. I—was given to understand you were in New York.’
‘Who told you that?’
His eyes were intent, and meeting their cool deliberation, Sara wished she still had the darkness of the patio to hide her blushes. She was acutely conscious of her bare face and carelessly-tied hair, and the corded pants had not benefited from their discarded sojourn on the chaise-longue. If she had anticipated meeting Tony’s brother—and it had not seemed an imminent possibility, from what he had said—she had assumed she would