The Judge and the Gypsy (23 page)

She nodded as she scooted the stool away from the vanity table, then rose. “I’ll need one more
day. I’ve contacted a priest who will act as administrator, but I still have to discuss the details of the distribution network and bypass procedure.”

He smiled as he stood. “You always make your projects sound like a very complicated heart operation.”

“They are complicated.” She crossed the room and linked her arm with his. “And a heart operation isn’t a bad simile, either, is it, James?”

“No.” He patted her hand. “Whatever you do always has plenty of heart, Alessandra.” His gray eyes softened in affection. “I guess I can stall Naldona for one more day. But no longer.”

“No longer,” she agreed. She wrinkled her nose. “Now I guess we’d better put in an appearance at that blasted cocktail party. Am I presentable?”

He frowned. “Barely. The gown you’re wearing must be five years old. We’ll have to stop in Paris on our way home and do some shopping.”

“If we have time,” she said with a grin. “I don’t know why you insist on trying to make me into a lady of fashion, James. I’d think by now you’d realize what a rough diamond you’ve acquired.”

“Just hardheaded, I guess.”

“You’ll have to accept the fact you’ve polished this particular diamond to its highest luster and leave it at that.” Her smile softened to gentleness. “You have to remember what raw material you were given to work with.”

His expression of mocking amusement faded to be replaced by pain. “I do remember. I’ll always remember, Alessandra.”

She felt a swift surge of remorse. Dammit, she should have chosen her words more carefully. She knew the burden of guilt James carried every day
of his life. She quickly lowered her lashes to veil her eyes. “Perhaps I will let you buy me a new gown. I wouldn’t want you to be ashamed of me in Mariba.”

“Mariba?” Surprise replaced the pain in James’s face. “Where the hell is Mariba?”

“It’s the capital of an island in the Caribbean called Castellano. I’ve done some research, and I think that most likely it will be our next stop. The government there is on a par with Naldona’s regime as far as oppression is concerned.”

He chuckled and slowly shook his head. “You’re always one step ahead of me. Do you suppose we could go home for a few days first, so I can see if I still have a factory?”

The shadow was gone from his face, thank heavens. “I don’t see why not. I believe I can fit it into our schedule.” Her long lashes lifted to reveal dark eyes dancing with mischief. “Provided we skip our visit to Dior and St. Laurent.”

James chuckled, and he suddenly looked a good decade younger than his sixty-seven years. “We’ll discuss it.”

“Of course we will. Haven’t I always been a reasonable woman?”

“When your determination doesn’t get in the way,” James said dryly. “Then reason doesn’t stand a chance.” He glanced at his wristwatch. “You’re right, we’d better get going. It’s almost seven-thirty, and we wouldn’t want to make Naldona impatient. He’s going to be difficult enough to handle without a fit of temper to contend with.”

She fell into step with him as they left the bedroom and crossed the sitting room toward the door leading to the hall. “Those fanatical eyes of
Naldona’s remind me of that picture of Lenin on display all over the Kremlin.”

“His eyes aren’t the only thing about him reminiscent of Lenin. His politics fit quite nicely into a Bolshevik niche.” James frowned. “I’ll be glad as hell to get away from here. Tamrovia may have a certain Balkan charm, but when it gets down to basics, civil war is a dirty business whether it’s in Tamrovia or Guatemala.” He stopped, his expression clouding again. He added in a tone just above a whisper, “Or Said Ababa.”

Her hand tightened on his arm. “But we’re not in Said Ababa now. That’s finished. In the past.” Her gaze held his with compulsive force. “And what happened there is finished too. There are only places like Tamrovia and Mariba and what we can do here and now.” She drew a deep breath and deliberately loosened her tense grip on his sleeve. “And what we can do at the moment is smile and be perfectly charming to Marc Naldona.” She suited action to her words and fixed a brilliant smile on her lips. “Shall we do that, James?”

He touched her cheek with an affectionate fore-finger. “Yes, we’ll do that.” He grimaced as he opened the door. “After you, my dear.”

Alessandra found her smile becoming increasingly strained as she circulated among the guests in the ballroom. She was never comfortable in this kind of atmosphere, though she had trained herself to appear at ease. She always felt as if she were drowning in perfume and smoke and the crosscurrents existing beneath the small talk floating on the surface of the party. Lord, when were they going in to dinner? At least at the table she’d only have to be polite to her immediate neighbors.

“Miss Ballard, may I speak to you for a moment?”

She broke off in mid-sentence to glance at the young man at her elbow. She had to concentrate for a moment before she could place the rather nondescript face. Michael Fontaine, one of Naldona’s minor aides. “Yes, of course.” She excused herself from the portly businessman to whom she had been speaking and followed Fontaine a few paces away, to the bar against the wall.

He handed her a fluted glass from a tray on the bar and smiled at her with a charm that made his plain face appear handsome. “I thought you might be thirsty. Our guests have been keeping you so busy, you haven’t had a chance to touch the drink you were served earlier.”

She studied him thoughtfully as she accepted the glass. “You must have been watching me closely to notice that. Why would you—” She broke off as she felt a piece of folded paper pressed against her palm as he transferred the glass into her hand.

He met her startled gaze. “Read it,” he said softly. There were lines of tension about his lips as he shifted his position to form a barrier between her and the rest of the guests in the room. “Quickly.”

She hesitated as she searched his face. It was more than tension. Fear. He was frightened. She put the cocktail glass down on the bar and swiftly unfolded the small note. It was very brief and scrawled in bold black script.

Alessandra slowly crushed the note in her palm. “K.?”

Fontaine moistened his lips with his tongue. “There are some names that aren’t safe to mention here.”

Karpathan?
She felt a tingle of shock run through her, and her gaze went involuntarily to the French doors. The most wanted man in the country was only a few yards away. Practically in Naldona’s grasp.

Her gaze shifted across the room to the small, elegantly clad man speaking with burning intensity to James. It wasn’t only Fontaine who would die if she mentioned the note. The man who had written it would have no chance either. She reached for her cocktail and sipped it slowly. “The phrasing in the note could be interpreted as a threat, you know.”

“No threat. A warning.”

“Interesting.” Her gaze moved to the French doors again. “He must be quite a man to inspire you to take a risk like this. You must trust his judgment a great deal.”

“He’s been watching you this evening and thinks you will not betray us,” Fontaine added simply. “And he is the Tanzar.”

Tanzar. “Does that mean he walks on water?”

He shook his head. “Loosely translated, it means the man who gives all. But when the people refer to Karpathan, it means something more. The man who
is
all.”

“I see.” She didn’t really, yet she was undoubtedly intrigued. She had no use for politics or folk heros, but she had a sudden desire to meet this Tanzar and hear what he had to say. She put the
glass back on the bar. “Can you cover for me if I slip out?”

An expression of profound relief appeared on his face. “With no difficulty. I’ve gained considerable practice in the art in the last two years. Drift over to the terrace doors. I’ve arranged for Naldona to be summoned to the study for a phone call. He’ll be kept busy for fifteen minutes. I’ll watch the doors and make sure no one goes out on the terrace while you’re there.”

“You have it all planned.” She turned toward the door. “Just make sure James isn’t worried about me while I’m gone.”

“I’ll take care of it.”

She began to wander casually in the general direction of the French doors leading to the terrace.

Sandor hadn’t expected her to be tall. Jannot’s terse description had brought to mind the image of a Bardot-type sex kitten, but there was nothing kittenish about the woman slowly making her way toward the terrace doors. Alessandra Ballard was close to six feet tall, built on queenly lines, and every inch radiated voluptuous earthiness. The aura of lushness she projected filtered through the sheer Austrian drapes of the French door and reached him clear and vibrant as a siren’s call. No wonder Fontaine had been sure she was Bruner’s mistress. Though she was probably twenty-seven or -eight and Bruner rapidly approaching seventy, Sandor doubted that even Methuselah would have been immune to her sexuality.

There was certainly no question of his own arousal, he realized half incredulously. His body
had responded the moment he had seen her, and now he felt it hardening to near-painful readiness as she walked toward him. Hell, what was wrong with him? It hadn’t been that long since he’d had a woman, and Alessandra Ballard couldn’t even be termed pretty. Her shining nut-brown hair was worn in a severely simple bun on the top of her head. Her features were definitely irregular. Large, wide-set dark eyes glowed serenely beneath winged brows. Her nose was a trifle long, and her lips were a little too full. However, her neck and shoulders were truly magnificent, and the sight of the full globes of her breasts springing from the low-cut square neckline of her white gown made a simmering heat start to tingle through him.

He stepped back into the shadows as she opened the door and stepped out on the terrace. She closed the door behind her.

“Karpathan?” Her voice was a mere thread of sound, but clear and unafraid. Her eyes, searching the shadows beside the door, were also free of fear. “Let me see you. You’ve obviously been out here watching me. It’s my turn now.”

His surprise was instantly replaced by amusement. He stepped out of the shadows into the moonlight. “Miss Ballard.” He bowed mockingly. “I assure you it wasn’t my intention to deprive you of your feminine rights. I’m afraid it was an instinctive act of self-preservation to cling to concealment. Shall I revolve like a runway model to make amends?”

“That won’t be necessary. I can see you quite well now.”

Perhaps more than she wanted to see, she thought suddenly. She was experiencing an unaccountable
tension that had nothing to do with fear. She could feel it in the contracting of the muscles of her stomach and the tightness of her chest. She had seen newspaper photographs of Sandor Karpathan and knew he was good-looking, but now she saw he was more than handsome. The perfection of his classic features and the crispness of his dark hair were overshadowed by the force field of strength surrounding him. He was wearing a dark sport jacket over a long-sleeved dark shirt and close-fitting trousers, and his tall, sinewy body looked hard and fit.

Hard. Why was she so conscious of the unflinching masculinity of the man? She was suddenly excruciatingly sensitive to the soft fullness of her own body—the swell of her breasts against the chiffon of her gown, the teasing brush of the material against her thighs as the gentle summer breeze pressed the skirt against her body. She drew a deep breath and ignored the urge to scurry into the shadows from which she had called him. The instinct for self-preservation, he had said. She knew that particular instinct well enough to recognize it when she felt it, and it was here throbbing between them. “May I ask why I’m honored by your attention?” With an effort she managed to keep her tone light and slightly mocking. “When I received the note, I wasn’t sure if it was a threat or a warning. Fontaine said it was a warning.”

Karpathan nodded as he took a step closer. “We haven’t much time, so I’ll be as brief as possible. Naldona is planning to murder you and lay the crime at my door. He thinks the desire for revenge
will push Bruner into giving him the arms he needs.”

She inhaled sharply. She was shocked, though she had no reason to be. She had known what Naldona was from the instant she met him. “When?”

There was a flicker of admiration in Karpathan’s face. “You’re taking this very calmly. No shocked exclamations, no arguments. Aren’t you afraid?”

She made an impatient gesture with one hand. “Of course I’m afraid. Why shouldn’t I be? But being afraid won’t keep me from getting murdered. There’s a chance that knowledge might. When?”

“We’re not sure. Tonight sometime. I doubt if it will be before you’ve retired for the evening, but I can’t be sure. Fontaine will keep an eye on you at the dinner party. I’ll come to your suite later tonight and take you out of the palace.” He paused before adding with a touch of sarcasm, “Do you think you can discourage Bruner from occupying your bed for one night? It’s going to be difficult enough for me to get you out of here without worrying about stumbling over your aging lover.”

“You won’t have to worry about stumbling over anyone.” Her eyes were fixed on the formal rose garden beyond the stone balustrade. “Thank you for the warning, but I won’t need your help. I’ll take care of it.”

“The hell you will!” He was staring at her in stunned disbelief. “We’re talking about a skilled assassin. Do you think Bruner is capable of saving you from Naldona?”

She lifted her chin. “I wouldn’t ask him to. It would be stupid to tell James about this. He’d feel
he’d have to protect me, and probably get himself killed. James doesn’t know how to handle violence.”

His eyes narrowed on her face. “And you do?”

“I hate violence, but I know how to deal with it.” She started to turn away. “I’d better go back inside.”

“Wait just a minute.”

His hands were on her bare shoulders. Heat. His hands were only mildly warm, yet she felt a throbbing hotness flowing, spreading, from the flesh beneath his hands to every part of her body.