it might take a year or more, unless you could prove malafides, unless
you could prove he deliberately betrayed the trust of agency. Can I
prove that, Nicky? She turned to him now, lifting her face to him. Has
he betrayed that trust? I don't know yet, Nicholas told her cautiously,
and she cut in.
I've made a terrible fool of myself, haven't I? He kept silent, and she
went on tremulously, I know there is no way I can apologize to you for
what I did. There is no way that I can make it up to you, but believe
me, Nicholas please believe me when I tell you, I have never regretted
anything so much in all my life. It's past, Chantelle. It's over.
There is no profit in looking back. I don't think there is another man
in the world who would do what you are doing now, who would repay deceit
and betrayal with help and comfort. I just wanted to say that. She was
standing very close to him now, and in the cool night he could feel the
warmth of her flesh across the inches that separated them, and her
perfume had a subtlety altered fragrance on that creamy skin. She
always wore perfume so well, the same way she wore her clothes.
It's getting cold/ he said brusquely, took her elbow and steered her
back into the light, out of that dangerous intimacy. We still have a
great deal to discuss. He paced the thick forest-green carpet, quickly
establishing a beat as regular as that of a sentry, ten paces from the
glass doors, passing in front of where she sat in the centre of the wide
velvet couch, turning just before he reached the headless marble statue
of a Greek athlete from antiquity that guarded the double oaken doors
into the lobby, and then back in front of her again. As he paced, he
told her in carefully prepared sequence all that he had learned from
Lazarus.
She sat like a bird on the point of flight, turning her head to watch
him, those huge dark eyes seeming to swell larger as she listened.
It was not necessary to explain it to her in layman's language, she was
Arthur Christy's daughter, she understood when he told her how he
suspected that Duncan Alexander had been forced to self -insure the hull
of Golden Dawn and how he had used Christy stock to buy re-insurance,
stock that he had probably already pledged to finance construction of
the vessel.
Nicholas reconstructed the whole inverted pyramid of Duncan Alexander's
machinations for her to examine, and almost immediately she saw how
vulnerable, how unstable it was.
Are you certain of all this? she whispered, and her face was drained of
all its lustrous rose tints.
He shook his head. I've reconstructed the Tyrannosaurus from a jawbone/
he admitted frankly. The shape of it might be a little different, but
one thing I am certain of is that it's a big and dangerous beast. Duncan
could destroy Christy Marine/ she whispered again. Completely! She
looked around slowly, at the house - at the room and its treasures, the
symbols of her life - He has risked everything that's mine, and Peter's.
Nicholas did not reply, but he stopped in front of her and watched her
carefully as she absorbed the enormity of it all.
He saw outrage turn slowly to confusion, to fear and finally to terror.
He had never seen her even afraid before - but now, faced with the
