Free Unknown by Unknown

not talking about me. It has nothing to do with me what you do.’
    ‘And yet it rattles you?’ He laughed softly. 'Come,' he said, ‘let us not get into deep water. I want you to stay on, and after everybody has gone, we will listen to music ... and I will mix you a very special drink, with fruit at the bottom of the glass and decorating the side of it, and later we will have something to eat.' She watched him moodily as he lifted a hand in farewell to someone who was leaving.
    ‘I don’t think so,' she answered.
    ‘And why is that?’ He took her fingers in his own.
    ‘Because it could bring disorder.’
    ‘Disorder does not bother me.’ He lifted her hand to his lips.
    ‘But it bothers me.’ Jade wriggled them free.
    ‘You are acting as though I have just asked you to spend a weekend with me,' he drawled, and the remark caused her immediate humiliation. ‘Whereas,' he continued, ‘I have merely asked you to stay on, enjoy some music, have another drink and, later, eat a meal prepared for us by my very excellent cook. Soon after coffee and a liqueur, maybe, I will see you back to the hotel ... all very casual.’
    ‘So casual, in fact, that my presence here caused Nicole de Speville to be jealous? And no doubt there are others.'
    ‘I don't understand this,’ he said. ‘Why are you troubling yourself with these thoughts? Are you jealous because you believe Nicole is jealous?’
    ‘Of course not! Why should I be jealous?’
    ‘So, as this makes no difference to you ... that is what Nicole or any woman might feel because you have dined with me here, there is no reason why you should not stay. Okay?’ Suddenly he smiled, and the hand that writes on the wall was beginning to write something else for her.
    ‘Okay,’ she found herself saying, ‘it’s just that Nicole seemed to be trying to get something across to me and I found myself resenting her remarks.’
    ‘There is nothing to prevent you from doing as you please,’ he told her. ‘You are not married to Marlow Lewis yet. As for Nicole, she is very unhappy.'
    ‘Who is responsible for this unhappiness?’ she asked. ‘Or shouldn’t I ask?'
    ‘That is something I am not prepared to discuss with you.’
    Laurent’s guests were in various stages of departing and then suddenly they were alone and they went downstairs, and Jade watched him moodily as he mixed her an island cocktail. After he had frosted the rim of the glass with what appeared to be caster sugar he passed it to her.
    ‘What are you brooding about?’ His strange green eyes went over her face. The glass doors were open to the lawns and they could hear the breakers on the coral reef.
    'I wasn’t brooding,’ she lied, feeling something like 'the girl who just can’t say no.’
    ‘I was admiring the beautiful objects in your chalet, as a matter of fact.’
    ‘I come from a long line of collectors,’ he told her. ‘I myself am a collector. Many of the things I like to collect speak of a bygone age. I suppose collecting is in my blood.’
    'Isn’t this what is called a Foo dog?’ she asked, reaching out finger-tips to touch the blue-and-white, ferocious-looking dog.
    ‘Yes. To be precise, it is a hand-painted Kutant Foo dog.’ He gave her a smile which, for her, cast him in a hero mould from which, so far as she was concerned, he would never escape, and that was the dashing, sword playing corsair type. ‘When I take you to my house I will show you the jade phoenix.’
    ‘Did I say anything about visiting your house?’ Jade kept her voice light. While he had been speaking she had been reminding herself that he was a man who would collect women. This, too, would be in his blood and in the end they, too, would speak of a bygone age. The only difference was that they would no longer grace his chalet, or the house he had told her about previously.
    ‘Looking at you,’ he ignored her question, ‘I can see that you have a style which can only be described as an expression of your