Sirocco

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As luck would have it, Sophie was absent, and one of the other typists, who came to deliver a message from Mr Hollis, explained that her mother had called to say she was full of cold.

‘It's that draughty office,’ agreed Rachel sympathetically, nevertheless relieved to be free of any further explanations for the present, and the other girl nodded in agreement.

Even so, it was not one of Rachel's better days. Mr Black was in a foul mood, due no doubt to the fact that his wife had forgotten to collect his tonic from the chemist, and his chest had worsened accordingly, and Peter Rennison's appearance just before lunch did not improve matters.

Putting down the file Rachel had had one of the typists deliver to him the previous afternoon, he leant familiarly over her desk, inhaling the clean fragrance of her hair. ‘Do I have you to thank for Sophie's sudden aversion to my presence?’ he enquired, bending to switch off her machine so that she could not continue typing. ‘It seems the poor girl has really taken fright. She hasn't even turned up to work this morning.'

Rachel bent and determinedly switched on her typewriter again. ‘Sophie is sick, Mr Rennison,’ she replied politely. ‘Was there something else you wanted? I'm afraid Mr Black has a client with him at the moment.'

Peter Rennison straightened. ‘Cool collected Rachel,’ he remarked sarcastically. ‘Do you ever let your hair down? Emotionally, I mean?'

Rachel did not answer him, and infuriated by her lack of attention, he exclaimed: ‘I pity that poor devil you're marrying! Does he know what a frigid little madam you are? Or maybe he doesn't care. I hear he's quite a mother's boy. Is that true?'

Rachél looked up at him then, the wide blue eyes sparkling with contempt between their fringe of silky black lashes, and the man knew a frustrated sense of contrition. ‘Hell, I'm sorry, Rachel,’ he muttered, leaning on the desk again. ‘But you drive me crazy, do you know that? I wouldn't give a damn about any of the girls if you'd agree to go out with me.'

Rachel sighed and shook her head. ‘You're married, Mr Rennison. And I'm engaged. I—please don't ask me again.'

‘Don't bet on it,’ he responded, conceding defeat for the present and walking towards the door. ‘You tell that bloke you're marrying he'd better make you happy, or he'll have me to deal with!'

Rachel couldn't suppress an unwilling smile as he left the office, and she cupped her chin on one hand and stared disconsolately into space. She couldn't help thinking that if Roger had been more like Peter Rennison she might feel more sure of him, instead of harbouring the suspicion that his mother's feelings would always come first.

She was still sitting there in a daydream when the door opened again, and this time Mr Hodges, the caretaker, came into the office. To her surprise, he was carrying a long white box which he set down on her desk, and she gazed at it in wonder as he gave her his grudging smile.

‘This came for you, Miss Fleming,’ he said, touching the white ribbon which encircled it. ‘Aren't you going to open it? Looks like flowers to me.'

‘And to me, Mr Hodges,’ said Rachel eagerly, abandoning her daydream for an unexpectedly welcome reality, and tearing off the ribbon, she displayed the box's contents.

It was full of roses, pure white roses, as fresh as the moment they were picked from the bush. Long-stemmed, some starting to open their petals, others little more than ivory buds, they spilled their fragrance into the dusty atmosphere of the office, and as Rachel gazed at them, a lump came into her throat.

‘They must have cost someone a pretty penny,’ remarked Mr Hodges drily, bending his head to enjoy the bouquet. ‘Must be more than a couple of dozen of them in there. Roses in February! What next?'

Rachel lifted all the roses out, looking for the card which she was sure must accompany them. But there was none. Just the pure white roses in their pure white box, eloquent enough of the meaning behind them, she decided.

Mr Hodges was lingering, and eager to get on the phone to Roger, Rachel thrust one of the delicate blooms into the old man's hand. ‘A buttonhole,’ she said, smiling, and the caretaker took his dismissal happily, tucking the stem through his lapel.

Her first attempt to reach Roger was not successful. He was not in his office, his secretary told her, and realising it was lunch time, Rachel agreed to call back. Then, collecting a couple of empty milk bottles, she filled them with water and deposited the roses in them, discovering as she did so that he had indeed sent her twenty-four.

‘Two dozen,’ she murmured to herself, as she made her lunchtime cup of coffee. He had never done anything like that before. Which made it all the more appealing, revealing as it did his desire to really mend the breach between them.

She eventually got through to Roger at a quarter to three, and although he came on the line, she could tell at once that he was not pleased to be disturbed.

‘Rachel, I've got the buyer from Streetline with me at the moment,’ he exclaimed, evidently involved in making a sale. ‘Could we talk tonight, do you think? Come to the apartment. We can talk there.'

‘All right.’ Rachel squashed her disappointment that she was not to have more time to thank him right now. ‘I—I just wanted you to know, I love them.'

There was a pause, and then Roger asked half irritably: ‘What was that?'

‘The roses,’ said Rachel urgently. ‘I love the roses. Thank you for sending them. It was a—a wonderful thought.'

‘Wait a minute ...’ Clearly Roger was fighting a losing battle with his curiosity, ‘what are you talking about? What roses? I didn't send any roses. They must be for somebody else.'

Rachel noticed he didn't say from somebody else, and for the first time she wondered how Mr Hodges had known they were for her. There had been no indication on the box, no card, as he had seen. She shook her head bewilderedly. If Roger hadn't sent them, who had?

The answer was too outrageous to be true. In spite of his professed affection for her, Peter Rennison would never do something as incriminating as send flowers, and in any case, what other man of her acquaintance could afford to spend so much money on two dozen roses? It had to be someone to whom twenty-five or thirty pounds meant very little; someone who wore Italian leather jackets and Cartier watches, and treated a Lamborghini Countach with casual indifference ...

‘Is that all?'

Realising Roger was still waiting for her response, Rachel pulled herself together. ‘What? Oh, yes—yes,’ she murmured unhappily. ‘Sorry to have disturbed you, Roger. Goodbye.'

‘Until later,’ he inserted, reminding her of her promise to go to his apartment, and nodding her head, she added: ‘Until later,’ in a low unenthusiastic voice.

When she rang Mr Hodges’ small office to enquire about the roses, he was quite definite that they were hers. ‘A gentleman brought them,’ he said, sniffing down the phone. ‘For Miss Fleming, Miss Rachel Fleming. Now you know there are no other Miss Flemings in the building, let alone a Miss Rachel Fleming.'

Rachel sighed. ‘The man——’ She paused. ‘What was he like?'

‘I dunno. Foreign-looking. Tall and dark——'

‘Dark, did you say?'

‘—wearing a kind of chauffeur's uniform.'

‘Oh!’ Rachel's brief moment of uncertainty fled. ‘Oh, well, thank you, Mr Hodges. I'm very grateful.'

With the receiver restored to its rest, there remained the problem of what she was going to do with them. Her first instincts were to leave the roses in the office, but to do so would evoke exactly the kind of interest she most wanted to avoid. And besides, Mr Black would not appreciate their presence. He would probably say they aggravated his asthma, and with the weekend coming, it wasn't fair to leave them to die. She would have to take them home and hope to goodness Roger did not question her too thoroughly as to their sender's identity. She could always pretend they had been delivered by mistake, but no one knew to whom they really belonged.

In consequence, she emerged from the building that afternoon carrying the white box in her arms. Against the dark material of her double-breasted jacket, it was distinctly noticeable, but happily it was raining and the other girls were in too much of a hurry to get home to pay her any attention. It was a little cumbersome, too, coping with its length and the copious wedge of her shoulder bag, but she gasped indignantly when it was suddenly lifted out of her grasp.

‘Permettez-moi, mademoiselle,' said a rather gutteral French voice, and she looked round in surprise to find a man in chauffeur's uniform at her elbow.

‘I beg your pardon——’ she began, more because she was astounded at his effrontery than at his use of another language, and the man, whose harsh features were not altogether reassuring in the half light, bowed his head apologetically.

‘Forgive me,’ he exclaimed, his English overlaid by a heavy accent, ‘but I am here to escort you, mademoiselle. You wish me to carry your bag, also?'

‘No.’ Rachel was vaguely alarmed by his intrusion. In the fading light of an early evening, it was disconcerting to be accosted when there was no one she knew to come to her assistance, and while she suspected Alexis Roche was behind this, she didn't want to get involved with him either. ‘I——’ She looked regretfully at the box of roses in his arms, and then, realising she could hardly claim them in the circumstances, she shook her head. ‘No, I don't need any help, thank you. Excuse me, I have a bus to catch.'

‘Ah, mais non.’ To her dismay, his hand curled round her sleeve, gripping her gently, but firmly, in the kind of grasp she knew would tighten like a vice if she tried to get free. ‘Monsieur Roche is waiting for you, mademoiselle. Come with me. It is not far.'

CHAPTER THREE (#uf311a7d5-a251-5939-b292-1868b4692d9e)

RACHEL gasped. ‘Will you let go of me!'

‘Please, mademoiselle, do not make a fuss.’ The chauffeur started propelling her along the street without any apparent effort. ‘Monsieur Roche would not wish for you to cause any embarrassment. See, the car is there.’ He pointed to a vehicle parked some yards further along the narrow thoroughfare. ‘It is parked on your yellow lines, non? Let us not keep my master waiting.'

‘I don't give a damn about your master,’ protested Rachel fiercely. She really couldn't believe this was happening, and she looked at the faces of passers-by wondering why none of them was trying to help her. But, amazingly, no one seemed to be taking the slightest notice of her, and she assumed that with the cold and the wet they were more concerned with their own comfort than hers. No doubt they believed she was being escorted to her car by her chauffeur, she thought, a sob of hysteria rising in her throat. The box of roses tucked beneath his arm seemed to confirm this, and no would-be kidnapper had ever had a more powerful ally. The chauffeur was huge, easily six feet three or four, with massive shoulders and the kind of build more in keeping with a professional wrestler. It would take a brave man to tackle him indeed, and Rachel couldn't imagine any of the umbrella-carrying brigade they were passing doing such a thing.

As they neared the car, which she identified as being the most recognisable status symbol of them all, the door was pushed open from inside and a man emerged. Although he was warmly garbed in a thick fur-lined overcoat, his pale hair was unmistakable, and Rachel stared at him frustratedly.

‘How dare you?’ she exclaimed, as soon as they were near enough for him to hear her words. ‘How dare you abduct me like this? I don't know what they do in your country, but in England men do not go around kidnapping young women!'

‘Did you do that, Hassim?’ Alexis Roche enquired lazily, his hands pushed deep into the pockets of his coat. He lifted his shoulders carelessly, without waiting for a reply. ‘My only intention was to offer you a lift, Miss Fleming.'

‘Well, I don't need a lift,’ retorted Rachel, finding herself free at last and rubbing the arm which Hassim had gripped so purposefully. ‘And you had no right to send me those roses. When I want flowers, my fiancé will buy them for me!'

Alexis Roche shrugged, a gesture which seemed to imply a mixture of indifference and regret, and taking the box from Hassim, he tossed it carelessly to the ground. ‘My apologies, he said, as Rachel gazed aghast at the scattered blooms. ‘I thought you might like them. But it is of no matter.'

Rachel caught her breath. ‘You're not going to leave them there?'

‘Why not?'

Drops of rain were sparkling on the artificially-silvered lightness of his hair, and as she looked up at him, Rachel knew an unwelcome quickening of her pulses. He was the most sexually disturbing man she had ever met, as well as being the most unpredictable. For a heart-stopping moment she wondered what he would have done if she had thanked him for the roses, and the prospect of bringing an unguarded smile to those thin lips caused a sudden painful constriction in her stomach.

‘They'll die,’ she said now, forcing herself to think only of the flowers, and he pulled a wry face.

‘As do we all, Miss Fleming,’ he responded, without expression. ‘You are getting wet. Don't let me detain you.'

Contrarily, Rachel hesitated. ‘The roses ...’ she ventured uneasily. ‘You won't leave them like this?'

‘No?’ Alexis Roche swung open the car door behind him. ‘Don't concern yourself. They are nothing.'

‘But they are!’ Rachel sighed. ‘Please ...'

Alexis Roche paused. ‘I will make a bargain with you. Hassim will rescue the roses if you allow me to take you home.'

Rachel gasped. ‘You're not serious!'

‘Deadly serious,’ he retorted mockingly, and she looked down at the wilting roses with a helpless sense of impotence.

‘Why should you want to take me home?’ she exclaimed at last. ‘We hardly know one another.'

‘That can be remedied,’ he remarked, his grey eyes holding her with disruptive consequences.

‘I—no! I mean—you can't. We can't.’ She licked her dry lips. ‘Why are you doing this?'

‘I wanted to see you again,’ he replied simply. Then: ‘What is your decision?'

‘I—I——’ Rachel looked down at the roses again, and then up into his dark face. Unbidden came the memory of Roger's voice on the phone, the impatience he had exhibited, his supreme arrogance in believing that no other man was likely to send her flowers, or indeed, that she might be willing to accept them. And suddenly she found herself saying: ‘All right. All right, you can take me home. So long as you rescue the roses.'

Inside the car, she immediately regretted her impulsive action. The flowers were not that important. What she was really doing was something which she knew would make Roger extremely angry if he found out. And she had no wish to examine any other motives which might have elicited her reckless behaviour ...

Hassim quickly restored the scattered roses to their box and Alexis Roche climbed into the back of the Rolls-Royce beside her after giving the chauffeur his orders. ‘Flat 3, Oakwood Road, Kilburn, isn't that right?’ he remarked, brushing a film of rainwater from his sleeves, and Rachel remembered that she still didn't know how he had found her.

‘That's correct,’ she agreed, edging away from the depression his weight had made in the soft leather. ‘How did you find out? I didn't give you my address, and the telephone is in Jane's name.'

‘Jane?'

‘My flatmate.’ Rachel was glad of the darkness to conceal her expression. ‘I assume you didn't contact the police.'

‘Well, only indirectly,’ he assured her casually. ‘I took the number of your car and a friend of mine identified you.'

Rachel stared at his profile, and now she wished she could see his expression. ‘You took my number! But——'

‘—you thought I was drunk, I know.’ He turned his head towards her. ‘I told you I wasn't.'

Rachel shook her head. ‘Even so, they wouldn't know where I worked.'

‘Ah——’ His lips parted, and she guessed he was amused by her persistence. ‘In that instance I had to rely on Hassim. He visited your apartment and spoke to a—Mrs Bently, am I right?'

Rachel sighed. Of course! Mrs Bently. Why hadn't she thought of that? The woman who came in twice a week to clean the flat was always there on Wednesday mornings, which would account for the fact that Jane knew nothing about it.

‘She had no right to give your—your—Hassim that information,’ she said now, and he inclined his head.

‘I would agree with you. She had no way of knowing what his intentions might be.'

‘No.’ But Rachel could imagine the middle-aged charlady, faced with a man of Hassim's proportions, having little desire to argue with him. ‘I—I shall speak to her.'

‘Do that.’ Alexis relaxed against the upholstery beside her. ‘But don't entirely blame her. Hassim can be very persuasive.'

‘Hassim ...’ Rachel couldn't prevent the question. ‘Is that an Arabic name?'

‘Hassim was born in Bahdan,’ Alexis agreed smoothly. ‘His father was my grandfather's bodyguard for many years.'

Rachel frowned. ‘And—and is he your bodyguard?'

‘My grandfather likes to think so.'

Rachel drew her lower lip between her teeth. ‘Your grandfather?’ she probed, unable to resist. ‘Not your father?'

‘No.’ He expelled his breath lazily. ‘My father does not have so many enemies.'

Rachel was intrigued, but realising she was allowing herself to be diverted, she turned determinedly to the window. It wasn't her concern, she told herself severely. His background was nothing to do with her. After this evening, she was unlikely to see him again. Men like Alexis Roche did not waste their time with girls who showed so overtly that they were not interested.

‘Will you have dinner with me?'

His unexpected request brought her head round with a start, and she gazed at him disbelievingly. ‘Have—dinner with you?'

‘This evening,’ he confirmed, without emphasis. ‘I'm familiar with various eating places in London, or alternatively we could eat at my house.'

‘Your house?’ Rachel felt incredibly slow-witted, but somehow she had never expected him to have a house in London. Paris, perhaps; or Nice; but not London.

‘My house,’ he conceded smoothly, unbuttoning his overcoat. ‘My chef is quite efficient. The food would be good, I assure you.'

‘I'm sure it would.’ Rachel knew a helpless feeling of unreality. ‘However,’ she endeavoured to speak normally, ‘it's completely out of the question. I'm having dinner with my fiancé.'

‘Tomorrow evening, then,’ he said flatly, lifting his shoulders in an indifferent gesture. ‘Hassim will pick you up at seven o'clock and bring you to Eaton Mews. We can decide then what to do.'

‘No!’ Rachel gazed at him frustratedly now. ‘No, you don't understand. I can't—I won't have dinner with you, ever. I'm engaged. I don't do that sort of thing.'

‘What sort of thing?’ She could see the pale glitter of his eyes even in the shadows of the car.