probably have declared a fascination with polar exploration and munching razorblades if he thought that was what she wanted to hear.
She would soon see how well he sat a horse. They had a date to ride out at dawn tomorrow morning.
'How far will you go?' Isabella asked herself in the mirror. She thought about it carefully before she answered. 'Well, he is terribly amusing and quite sweet, and they do say that men with bald heads have a tremendous libido.' She pulled a face at herself in the mirror. 'You are a terrible little tart, aren't you? A regular Mata Hari.' When she was fourteen years old her brother Sean had taught her a smutty rhyme about Mata Hari. How did it go? She cast her mind back.
'She learnt the location Of a very secret station On the point of emission In the twenty- third position.'
When she had asked him what 'emission' meant, Sean had sniggered dirtily and darkly. She had been obliged to look it up in the dictionary, which didn't do much to clarify the issue. She smiled at her unintended pun.
'Would you actually go that far?'she demanded of herself and grinned again.
'Well, perhaps not as far as the twentythird. The second or third position should do the trick quite nicely.' Beneath the flippancy she knew she would do anything for Nicky and Ram. en.
Dawn was still only a pale promise in the east when she went down to the stables the following morning, but already Aaron was waiting for her. He wore jodhpurs and riding-boots. That he had his own riding-gear was encouraging.
The syce was already walking the saddled horses. The animals at Dragon's Fountain were seldom exercised sufficiently, and there were always fields full of lucerne and oats irrigated from the spring. They were usually full of pep. However, she had ordered the quietest old gelding in the stables for Aaron. She hoped he could manage him, and she watched uneasily as he approached his mount. She need not have worried. Aaron went up into the saddle, and she saw immediately that he had a good solid seat and gentle hands.
They skirted the kopie as the sun burst over the horizon. It was cool enough to make her grateful for the waxed cotton Barbour hacking-jacket she wore. The still air had that peculiar desert lambency that made her believe that she could see to the very ends of the earth.
The vultures left their shaggy nests m the rock-cliff above them and soared on wide graceful wings overhead. Out on the plain the springbok herds were still nervous and jittery from the previous day's hunting. In their alarm they erected the snowy plumes of mane from the pouches of skin along their spines and flashed them in the bright morning sunlight as they blew away, lightly as smoke, into the purple blossoming sage. The sweet clean air seemed to fizz like champagne in her head, and she felt gay and reckless.
Once the horses had warmed up, Isabella urged her mare into a gallop, and led them on a wildly exhilarating charge along the old dry riverbed and down to the dam. Huge flocks of Egyptian geese rose honking from the muddy brown water as they reined up on the bank.
Isabella slid from the saddle and dabbed in theatrical distress at her eye with the end of her silk scarf. Aaron tumbled from the saddle with gratifying concern.
'Are you all right, Isabella?' 'I seem to have something in my eye.' 'May I look?' She turned her face up to him. He cupped it gently in his hands and stared into her eye.
'I don't see anything.' She blinked her long dark lashes, and the early sunlight 28e splintered into myriad pinpoints of pure sapphire in the depths of her iris.
'Arc you sure?' she asked. His breath was sweet, and his body odour was clean and manly. She stared back into his eyes. They were dark and shining as burnt wild honey.
He touched her lower lid, gently massaging the eyeball through the skin.
'How does that feel?' he asked, and she blinked again.
'You have a magic touch. That's much better, thank you.' And she kissed him with wet and open lips.
Aaron shuddered with shock, then recovered swiftly and seized her round the waist. She pressed her hips forward and let him explore the inside of her mouth with his tongue for a few seconds. Then the moment she felt the flare of his loins she broke away.
'I'll race you back to the stables.' She laughed her husky sexy laugh at him and went up into the saddle with a lithe bound. The gelding was no match for her chestnut mare and, besides, she had two hundred yards' start.
Over the next three days, she made Aaron Friedman's life an exquisite torment. She touched his thigh under the dinner-table. She let him have a good grope while they were playing water polo in the swimming-pool that was fed directly from the spring. Innocently she adjusted her bikini top in front of him while they lay on the lawn and he read Shelley to her. When he helped her up into the back of the hunting Land-rover she gave him a glimpse of the transparent Janet Reger panties that she had donned for the occasion. When they danced on the veranda, she rotated and oscillated her hips in lewd and lazy circles. Trapped between them was something that felt like the handle of a cricket bat.
On the night before he left Dragon's Fountain to fly back to the Transvaal with Garry, she allowed him to see her up to her room and say goodnight to her in the corridor outside the door of her suite. Without breaking the kiss he manoeuvred her until her back was pressed firmly against the wall and her skirt was up around her waist. Once he hit his stride he was really rather masterful.
Isabella liked that and soon found she was almost as breathless as he was.
She didn't really want him to stop. Her first impression had been intuitive; with those fingers he should have been a concert pianist, his touch was light and artistic. Unwittingly she found herself on the very threshold.
'Won't you leave your door unlocked tonightt he whispered into her ear.
With an effort she roused herself from a trance of lust and pushed him away.
'Are you crazy?' she whispered back, smoothing down her skirt with trembling fingers. 'The house is crawling with my family - my father, my brother, my grandmother, my nanny.' 'Yes, I'm going crazy - you're driving me mad. I love you. I want you. It's torture, Bella. I can't go on like this.' 'I know,' she said. 'Me, too. I'll come up to Johannesburg.' 'When? Oh, tell me when, my darling.' 'I'll telephone you. Leave me your number.'
Isabella was serving on the Senate committee of inquiry into civil service pensions. She and the two other members of the committee were taking evidence in the Transvaal the following month. She drove up to Johannesburg mi the Porsche. She stayed with Garry and Holly in their lovely new home in Sandton and telephoned Aaron at the Pelindaba Institute the morning she arrived.
She drove out to fetch him, and they dined at a chic little restaurant.
Over the crayfish cocktails she sounded him out discreetly about his work at the nuclear research institute.
'Oh, it's all terribly boring really. Anti-particles and quarks.' He was genially evasive. 'Did you know that the name originated from a James Joyce quotation, 'Three Quarks for Muster Mark', and should be pronounced 'Quart' 'How fascinating.' She touched his thigh under the table, and he seized her hand. 'What you do must be very hard,' she said.
'Yes.' He moved her fingers a few inches higher. 'It is, rather.' 'I see what you mean.' She widened her eyes. 'Do you really want to go dancing after dinner?' 'We could go back to my place for coffee.' 'I'm not all that hungry. The crayfish was very filling. Let's skip the second course,' she suggested.
'Waiter. The bill, please.' Aaron had a flat in the apartment-block in the residential compound of the institute. Although the security was not nearly so strict as in the main research and reactor area of the facility, Aaron was obliged to show his pass at the gate and Isabella had to go with him into the security office to sign the visitors' book and fill in all her particulars, including telephone number and residential address. The guard looked knowing and smug as he issued her a visitor's pass.
She had been much too long without love, and Aaron was an immensely satisfying lover. At first he was gentle and patient. Then as her passion mounted under his lips and cunning fingers, he became forceful and demanding. He pushed her to the edge half a dozen times and then held her back at the very brink until she screamed with exquisite frustration.
When at last she plunged over the top he went with her, and let her down softly on the other side. He held her and caressed her and murmured flatteries until she glowed with contentment and asked with a happy little sigh: 'What is your birth-sign?' 'Scorpio.' 'Ah, yes - Scorpios are always wonderful lovers. What date?' 'November the seventh.' In the morning they made breakfast together, scrambled eggs and laughter. When she saw him off to work at the door of the flat, she was dressed in one of his pyjama-tops with the sleeves rolled up and the shirt trailing to her knees.
'I'll sort things out with the guard at the main gate - you don't have to leave until you are ready.' He kissed her. 'In fact, if you were still here at lunchtime, I wouldn't mind a bit.' 'No chance.' She shook her head. 'I've got work to do today.' As soon as he was gone she double-latched the door. The safe was in his study. She had looked for it as soon as she entered the flat the previous evening. There had been no attempt to conceal it behind panelling. It stood four square beside his desk. It was a heavy expensive jeweller'squality Chubb with a six-numeral combination lock.
She sat cross-legged in front of it.
