Free Vendetta by Susan Napier Page B

workplace; it was a shadowy corner of a private universe, lit only by twin flickering candles set on a table laid for two. A casserole dish sat in the centre, flanked by a bottle of red wine and two glasses. Nicholas, she discovered with an upsurge of her heartbeat, was still wearing his white robe—a spectral white phantom floating at her out of the darkness.
    ‘What happened to the lights?’ she asked sharply. ‘Where’s Frank?’
    There was a brief gleam of teeth from the phantom and a movement of his head so that she could see that the dark triangle of his eye-patch was back in place, his vulnerability well-masked. ‘I’m conserving generating power,’ he said, in a tranquil tone of reason that sent a frisson down her spine. His silky calm was like the eye of a hurricane—she could feel the energy swirling around it. ‘And Frank’s already eaten. He’s in his bedroom. Why? Did you want him for something?’
    The innocent enquiry made her seethe. He knew damned well why she wanted a third person present! Frank was no use as a buffer tucked away in his little concrete bunker down the hall.
    It was pure nerves that made her blurt out as she sat down, ‘I’m not sleeping with you tonight!’
    He sat across from her, leaning his chin on his hand so that his face moved forward into the flickering pool of light, his eye gleaming, a tiny candle-flame dancing like a devil in the hot, black centre. ‘What’s so different about tonight?’
    She was hypnotised by the devil. ‘It just is, that’s all.’
    ‘Do you mean that you’re more aware of me as a man than you were last night?’ he murmured.
    She didn’t think that was possible! ‘An angry man,’ she qualified stiffly.
    ‘I’ve been angry with you before. Usually you just fling my temper back in my teeth.’
    ‘Usually you behave with more self-control.’
    His smile was darkly knowing. ‘Maybe it’s not my lack of control that you’re worried about. Don’t you trust yourself in bed with me any more, little fire-cracker? Afraid I might have lit your fuse?’
    Her soft mouth tightened and he laughed softly, reaching across the table towards her. Vivian stiffened, but he was only removing the lid from the casserole.
    ‘You dish up the food. I’ll pour the wine.’
    ‘Oh, but I don’t know if I like red wine—’
    ‘You’ll like this one. It’s a gold-medal winner from a vineyard I part-own in Gisborne,’ he said, brushing aside her diffidence as he filled her glass. He poured himself aglass, drank half and refilled it, all in the time it took her to ladle some of the steaming casserole on to their plates.
    She waited until she had eaten several mouthfuls of food before she took her first sip. In spite of her determination not to react, she was unable to prevent a murmur of surprised pleasure as the full-bodied flavour exploded against her palate, drenching her senses in its heady bouquet.
    ‘You see, you never know whether you’re going to like something until you try it. You need to be more adventurous, Vivian, experiment more…’
    She didn’t like the strange tension in him…nor the dangerous ease with which he broached the bottle as they both pretended to eat. She noticed he had shaved since their confrontation in his office. It had been necessary for him to shave but not to dress? She felt a strange thrill of fear.
    ‘Weren’t you afraid?’ he said disconcertingly, his deep, hushed tone seeming to weave itself into the darkness. ‘The only locked room in Bluebeard’s castle… Weren’t you afraid of the horrors you might find in there when you stole the key?’
    ‘This isn’t a castle and you’re not Bluebeard,’ she said, resisting the powerful vision he was slyly conjuring out of her imagination. ‘You’ve only ever had one wife,’ she said deliberately. ‘And I’m certainly in a position to know that you didn’t murder her.’
    He looked at her broodingly over the rim of his glass. ‘Ah, yes, my beloved wife.