desperately, you stopped asking. Just like that.' Blade groaned aloud.
Quickly she leaned to kiss his cheek. Her lips were chill and in her voice was a subtle note of change as she said: 'Poor darling. Does it hurt so much?'
She was not, he knew, alluding to any physical pain. She had her lovely little sharp talons ha him now and she was going to rend a little, just to even matters up.
'You disappear for long periods of time, Richard. You never give me any excuses, I'll say that for you. You just disappear and then come back with strange marks and scars on you, and an odd look in your eye, and you walk in and expect me to pick right up where we left off. And I do. I always have, so far. I hop right into bed and I love it. But I can't love it forever, you know. I'm a woman. I want to get married and have children and have a husband I see every day. And every night. You won't even tell me what you really do for a living!'
Blade squinted up at her and made the effort. 'Come off it, Zoe. You know what I...'
She put a cool hand over his lips. 'Bureau of Economic Planning. Whitehall.'
It was a new cover, one that J had dreamed up since the computer experiments began.
'I asked about your real job, Richard. That Bureau thing is only what they call a cover in the thrillers. I've looked into it. Father has friends, I have friends, and all our friends have friends. It wasn't so hard, really. You have got an office in Whitehall, and a pretty little thing as a secretary, and you spend about one hour a week there, signing papers that mean nothing.'
Blade closed his eyes again. Somewhere a cuckoo sang a last sad parting note. Wait until J heard about this! The plumbing was leaking. It had, of course, been a hasty setup.
Zoe leaned to kiss him softly on the mouth. Her lips were warm again. 'Dick. Sweetheart. If you are some sort of secret agent, doing some sort of dreadfully mysterious and dangerous work, why don't you just simply tell me? Just one word. I'll understand and never ask another question.'
Hah!
'I can't tell you,' he said. 'I can't tell you anything at all.'
'Not even yes or no?'
'Not anything.'
There was silence. The cuckoo cried a last time. Zoe was leaning over him, her marvelous taut breasts touching his face.
'All right,' Zoe said at last. 'Will you marry me, then? Right away. I love you so much that I'll settle for just that. Marry me and I'll try my best not to be a hindrance to you in whatever it is you do.'
'I can't marry you.'
When the computer thing began they voided his old Official Secrets Act and had made him sign a new one - with a special codicil. No marriage. J was the best security man in all Europe and he did not trust bedsprings, even connubial ones.
Zoe drew away from him. 'You can't marry me? Or won't marry me?'
'Can't. I...'
They heard the phone ringing in the cottage then, a hundred yards back from the cliff, shrill and angry in the quietness.
Zoe stood up abruptly and starting brushing off her skirt. 'I'm not expecting a call.'
'I am. Come on. I'll carry you.' Blade snatched her up and ran down the path, carrying her as effortlessly as a man carries a kitten. There was a four-step stile just at the turnoff to the cottage and he took it in stride, vaulting the high stone like a thoroughbred at the National.
Zoe cried out. 'You fool. You'll cripple both of us!' Ordinarily she would have loved it. There was no particular hurry. Blade knew the phone would keep ringing. It did.
The phone was in the bedroom. Blade flung Zoe on the bed in a flurry of skirts and long bare legs and went to answer it. It was an ordinary black phone with no scrambler attachment. 'Hello.'
'Hello, dear boy. How are things?' J's tone was bland and calm as the Channel a hundred yards away. He sounded as if he were about to invite Blade to tea the next day.
'Things might be a little better,' Blade said. He glanced at Zoe on the bed. She had arranged her skirt and was regarding him with an odd little smile, her chin cupped in her hand. A reclining Mona Lisa.
'My dear fellow,' said J, 'I hope I haven't interrupted anything.' J sounded as though he actually meant it.
'Only a blazing quarrel, sir. Nothing to worry about. What is it? Is the deal going through?'
'It is,' said J. 'First thing in the morning. Can you be at your office in Whitehall to sign the necessary papers? Quite early?'
'Right, sir. I'll be there.' He hung up. Blade went to a closet to get his light suitcase, very conscious of Zoe's dark eyes on him.
'Off again, darling?'
He nodded, still without looking at her, and began to toss things into the suitcase. He hadn't brought much down from London this time.
'When shall I see you again?'
At last he could be honest. 'I don't know. And I'm not being evasive, Zoe. I just have no way of knowing when I will see you again.'
He was about to add - perhaps not ever, but cut it off in time. That would be cruel. She loved him. She was going to imagine things anyway, but at least they would be in the realm of ordinary human fears. Bad enough. Tell her
