Free The Silver Fox and the Red-Hot Dove by Deborah Smith Page A

disgust. “Mr. Rex has been sniffing a bit too much hair spray, I’d say.”
    “What happened?”
    “Nothing. He admits he was the only one who saw it. Elena was staring after you at the time.”
    Audubon grasped the edge of his desk. “What did he see?”
    Clarice slapped her silk skirt and laughed. “He said one of the African violets ‘exploded’ into bloom.”
    She was a different person now, and not just because she’d finally escaped from Kriloff. Everything she knew about herself, about her responses as a woman, about her fears and goals for every part of her life, was confused because of Audubon.
    Freedom was still her guiding light; she’d never jeopardize the chance to have it—to go where she wished, have a job, make her own living, make her own decisions. But wasn’t it possible she could have Audubon, along with the rest? Did he think of her as someone he wanted to know better—not as a project, but as a friend and lover?
    Elena looked at the transformed person in the floor-to-ceiling mirror in her suite’s bath and wasn’t certain what she was becoming. Whatever it was, it felt strong and optimistic. But it felt dangerous also. Freedom—or at the least the prospect of it—was a heady thing.
    Downstairs, the evening sun glinted through the beveled glass of the open French doors. The stalwart Bernard, dressed in his housekeeper’s uniform of patent shoes, black slacks, and a crisp white shirt with a gold tie, ushered her onto a patio by one of the pools, set in natural stone with a man-made waterfall at one end. Tall lamps with Victorian fixtures were beginning to flicker into life. She realized they were some modern wonder that responded to the setting sun.
    She felt the same way, her excitement growingbrighter as she waited for Audubon to reach her personal horizon.
    Bernard stood patiently beside her, watching her wide-eyed appraisal of the place. He had a small team of maids and valets who scurried around during the day, doing the menial chores; he seemed to be a general, and she tried not to stare at him in awe too. He was graying and dignified and very much like a picture she’d seen of Sir Laurence Olivier.
    “You look absolutely lovely, Miss Petrovic,” he said sincerely, guiding her toward a table set with linen, crystal, and a spray of white orchids in a short, porcelain vase.
    “Thank you. I am overwhelmed by the change myself.” The patio was surrounded by beds of tulips; draping willow trees whispered, as their green tresses swayed in a hint of breeze. The sunset’s golden light bronzed the pool’s surface. Elena’s senses were already drunk with stimulation, and Audubon hadn’t even arrived yet.
    She touched Bernard’s arm as he pulled a chair from the table and nodded toward it politely. “Please, I’m too nervous to sit down right now. May I ask you some questions about Mr. Audubon?”
    “Certainly.” He smiled, but she read the polite restraint in his expression. This man, like everyone else who worked for Audubon, belonged to his loyal inner circle of trusted allies. They wouldn’t reveal anything Audubon didn’t want revealed.
    “Have you worked for Mr. Audubon a long time?”
    “Ah! Since the Sphinx was a pebble! I came to work at Grace Hall when Mr. Audubon’s father was a young man, years before Mr. Audubon was born.”
    “Grace Hall?”
    “The original Audubon estate. A magnificent Southern mansion. It dated from seventeen eighty-two. It’s located not far from here.”
    “Who lives there?”
    “Mr. Audubon sold it to an international investment group twenty years ago. It’s become a country club.”
    “But … it had such tradition, such sentiment. Why did he sell it?”
    Bernard’s cordial expression stiffened a little. “I’m sure Mr. Audubon would prefer to answer these questions himself. It’s a … tragic story.”
    “His parents are dead?”
    “Yes, for many years,”
    “They had no other children?”
    “There was a younger child,