Dangerous Entanglement

Annette blushed even deeper. ‘Well…’

‘Annie, you’ve only known him for ten minutes, at the outside,’ Joanna reminded her with gentle concern.

‘I know, but…’ Annette’s fine eyes took on a dreamy look. ‘How long does it take?’

Joanna smiled wryly. ‘Oh, about ten minutes,’ she acknowledged, reflecting how easily she could have done the same, if bitter experience hadn’t taught her to be more cautious. ‘But just the same, take it slowly,’ she warned anxiously. ‘You don’t know anything about him—I’d hate to see you get hurt.’

Annette’s soft mouth trembled slightly, betraying how very vulnerable she was. ‘I know,’ she murmured. ‘But…’ The sound of a Land Rover pulling up outside sent all other thoughts spinning from her brain, and she rushed over to the window. ‘It’s him!’ Love had thrown her into a panic. ‘Do I look all right?’ she pleaded, running back to the mirror to smooth her hair and her skirt, and fidget with the neckline of her pretty blouse. ‘Oh…I’d better go and check on the dinner—will you let them in?’

‘Of course I will.’ Joanna smiled her reassurance. ‘And don’t worry—you look gorgeous. If he hasn’t fallen in love with you already, it won’t take him long.’

She had barely finished speaking when there was a rap on the door. Annette squeaked in alarm, and dived into the kitchen; Joanna was outwardly rather more casual as she strolled across the room, though her own instincts were urging her to hide too. But she had to survive this evening—for Annette’s sake. She could still remember what it was like to be young and in love—though it seemed like a long time ago now.

Pausing to steady her nerves with a slow, deep breath, she pulled open the door. Greg was on the doorstep, his eyes alight with an eager expectancy that changed to an almost ludicrous disappointment when he saw Joanna standing there instead of Annette.

‘Oh…Hello…How are you?’ He was far too nice a young man to forget his manners completely, and his open smile won Joanna’s heart; it was so totally obvious that he was every bit as besotted as Annette.

‘I’m fine. Come on in,’ she invited, taking pity on him. ‘Annie’s in the kitchen, checking on the dinner.’

‘Oh…Well, perhaps I should…just go and see if she needs a hand, then, shall I?’ be suggested earnestly.

‘Good idea,’ she agreed, tongue in cheek, noting with satisfaction the signs of the effort he had made to spruce himself up for this evening—a slight redness beneath his chin where he had shaved for the second time, a betraying pleat in his shirt where he had ironed it rather inexpertly.

He shot her a grateful grin, and darted across the room—leaving her alone to face the tall man who had walked in behind him.

‘Good evening,’ she managed, just the slightest trace of stiffness in her voice.

‘Good evening.’ That hard mouth was curved into a wry smile, acknowledging the position they both found themselves in, as gooseberries to the other couple.

He cast a brief glance around, and she followed his eyes, trying to see the tiny flat as he would see it. Close to the centre of town, in the heart of the tourist bazaar, it was above a narrow Aladdin’s cave of a shop that sold everything from T-shirts printed with meaningless hieroglyphics to beautiful hand-engraved glass hubble-bubble pipes and copper tea-trays.

It was far from being a palace, though it was clean and comfortable enough for their needs. There were just two rooms, one of which they used as a bedroom, the other as a study, cluttered with books and papers and dusty finds from the tomb site waiting to be properly catalogued. The kitchen was little bigger than a cupboard, with an ancient gas stove and a huge old stone sink, and an occasional problem with scorpions for which they kept a jam-jar and a piece of cardboard ever ready.

The best feature was the wide balcony at the back, with a spectacular view over the floodlit ruins of Luxor Temple to the wide sweep of the Nile; Annette was trying to grow geraniums out there, not with any great deal of success. Tonight she had spread a red and white-checked tablecloth over the weathered wooden table, and they had pillaged one of the odd chairs from the study to make up enough to sit on.

‘Nice place you’ve got here.’

‘Thank you.’ She returned him a sardonic look, knowing that the remark was mere politeness.

‘Oh, by the way, we brought along a couple of bottles of wine.’ He held it out to her. ‘White—Greg brought red, to be on the safe side.’

‘Fine—thank you.’

She glanced fleetingly at the bottle, recognising the label. It was a very good burgundy—a little extravagant to eat with such a scratch meal, perhaps, but then Alex Marshall looked like the kind of man who would expect a good wine whatever he was eating. Maybe it was just as well he’d brought his own, she reflected with a crisp touch of irony—the anonymous bottle of plonk they had bought from the shopkeeper downstairs had probably been standing around in the simmering Egyptian heat for the past six months, and would taste more like vinegar than anything else.

Alex strolled across the room, and out on to the balcony, standing balanced with his feet a little apart, his hands deep in the pockets of his khaki trousers, his wide shoulders square against the sky. ‘Nice view,’ he accorded casually.

‘Yes.’

Joanna spared a glance for the brooding ruins of the temple, and the tranquil river beyond, glittering darkly beneath the desert moon. If she had been a romantic, she would have said there was something almost magical about the scene…But fortunately she had learned to control such flights of fancy a long time ago.

Well, if this was going to be the height of their conversation, it didn’t bode particularly well for the evening ahead, she mused to herself as she moved across to the table, sitting down and folding her hands together on the cloth to stop them fidgeting.

Alex slanted her a smile of wry amusement. ‘Have you managed to maintain any other topic of conversation this afternoon?’ he enquired, nodding his head in the general direction of the kitchen.

Joanna glanced at him warily, not sure if an admission would be betraying Annette’s confidence. But since he was being so frank, maybe she could afford to be too. ‘Not for very long,’ she admitted. ‘Love’s young dream, eh?’

He lifted one dark eyebrow in quizzical amusement. ‘You sound a little cynical,’ he remarked.

She shrugged evasively, glancing away. ‘Oh, maybe,’ she conceded. ‘I suppose I’ve been around once too often.’

‘Only once?’ he enquired with a trace of ironic laughter.

‘Once was enough.’ She hoped her effort to sound light-hearted about it had come off, though she suspected’he was far too perceptive to be deceived.

With a casual movement he hooked out a chair, and sat down at the far end of the table. ‘You’ve been married?’ he asked with a gentleness that surprised her a little.

‘Once,’ she managed.

‘And divorced?’

‘Three years ago.’

An awkward silence fell again. Joanna was already regretting that she had told him even that much about herself—she had intended to keep an impersonal distance between them. But there was something about this man that was very disruptive to her hard-won peace of mind; and there was no way she could pietend that the way her heartbeat was racing at this moment was due to claustrophobia.

But to her relief, he chose to change the subject. ‘Shall we make a start on the wine?’ he suggested, reaching for the bottle.

‘Oh…Don’t you think we ought to wait for the others?’ she suggested, her voice a little unsteady.

From the kitchen came the sound of merry laughter. ‘If we wait for them, we could be waiting all night,’ he remarked with perspicacity. He pulled a heavy-duty penknife from his pocket, and opened a corkscrew from among the various useful attachments folded into it. ‘Be prepared,’ he mocked himself mildly.

Joanna’s lips quirked into a smile. ‘You were a boy scout?’ she enquired, daring to tease him a little.

He grinned, that hard face suddenly almost boyish. ‘A long time ago.’

She propped her elbow on the table, resting her chin on her cupped hand, her blue eyes dancing. ‘I can’t imagine it,’ she mused. ‘Did you wear shorts and a woggle?’

Dark eyes twinkled with amusement at her across the table. ‘Of course.’ He took her glass and filled it. ‘What shall we drink to?’ he enquired, a lilt of light humour in his voice. ‘Young love? Or wisdom and maturity?’

‘Oh, the latter, I think,’ she asserted wryly. ‘It lasts much longer.’

He laughed in ironic agreement. ‘Unfortunately, you’re probably right.’

Joanna sat back in her seat, enjoying the rich, distinctive flavour of the wine. A few years in the wood had given it a mature subtlety that she found very pleasing, a smooth sweetness that lingered on the tongue, deeply satisfying.

It was a romantic evening, she acknowledged to herself. A slight breeze was rustling the leaves of the palm-trees along the riverbank, cooling the lingering warmth in the air. The sky was a velvet black, spangled with stars, and the water was smooth and dark, disturbed only by a few clumps of water-hyacinth that floated slowly downstream on the current. In the distance, music was playing—there must be a dance on board one of the cruise-boats moored at the ferry-stage.

‘So, what happened with your marriage?’ Alex enquired with the kind of sympathy that could only come from someone who had trodden the same rocky path.