Free The Daughter of Night by Jeneth Murrey Page B

living-room floor. Silently Demetrios picked up the cases and took them down to the car, coming back to look at the carton with disfavour.
    While he was gone, Hester had been tempted to lock the door against him and stay there, but reason prevailed. Without those cases, she would have nothing to wear and nowhere to go except back to Poplar—which was unthinkable. She didn't want anything she'd done to even touch the edges of Flo's life. Look on this as a change of employment, she reasoned with herself. A different environment, different conditions and different duties—it would be easier that way.
    'You don't want this stuff.' Contemptuously he kicked at the carton, which toppled over and disgorged her four cushions, covered with Mia's crocheted wool, and a couple of stuffed toys—a koala bear and a black lamb that Flo had made for her from offcuts of beaver and Persian lamb.
    'Where I go,' she said sullenly, 'they go. I won't move a step without them!'
    He picked up the two toys and examined them, smoothing down the koala's well worn fur and running a gentle finger over the lamb which was not so well worn. 'Have it your way.' All signs of temper were gone and he sounded quite amiable. 'Come on, madam wife, I don't know about you, but I'm starving!'
    In the underground carpark of the hotel, Demetrios frowned as he put a small key into the lock of the private lift which stopped only at the kitchens before it went on to the top of the building. The key wouldn't turn because the small illuminated arrow over the door showed in the 'up' position. To Hester this meant nothing, but seemingly, he was displeased.
    'Arrogance!' she chided him bitterly. 'Not everything's set for you convenience.'
    Evidently she'd upset him again, because he looked at her out of an expressionless face with hard, angry eyes.
    'My convenience has nothing to do with it,' he said between his teeth. 'And if you haven't worked out what it means…' He shrugged, pressed the 'call' button and she heard the whine of the lift on the way down. When it stopped, he ushered her inside, the door closed and in the confined space she heard his voice like the trumpet of doom.
    'Where were you yesterday? I called three times, but each time you were out. Finally your landlady told me you'd left very early in the morning, saying you wouldn't be back until late.'
    'Out!' She was brief but dignified.
    'I also tried to contact your ex-employer,' his voice became silky. '
He
seemed to have disappeared as well. All I received in the way of information was that he couldn't be reached.'
    'So,' Hester shrugged as the lift stopped and she walked out into the corridor, 'you add two and two together—in this case, one and one. It doesn't matter if you get the wrong total because the answer's bound to be right if
you've
done the addition.' She was lofty in her displeasure.
    She could have explained—that she'd been at the airport, seeing Flo and Mia off to Switzerland—that she had come back to Town, done a bit of shopping, lunched in the cafeteria of a department store and then gone on to Poplar where she had called at the housing offices, paid Flo's rent for three months ahead and then spent the rest of the day cleaning and polishing the flat. That her only company had been a garrulous neighbour from across the hall who had come offering to do the small amount of washing and water the pot plants.
    As for Crispin, she knew very well where he would have been—knee-deep in decorators and suppliers of salon fitments, going from one wholesaler to another until he found just what he wanted at the price he was willing to pay. He'd have spared no effort and time would have meant nothing to him. But Hester wasn't going to give her new husband this information.
    'As of eleven o'clock this morning,' she said icily, 'you have the right to know where I am, what I'm doing and how many times I blow my nose. But yesterday, that doesn't come within your orbit. Yesterday, I was free and over