Black Ice by Anne Stuart Read Free Book Online Page B

looked like, before someone with far too much money decided to save it. The plastered walls were crumbling, the floor was stained and buckled, and cans of paint stood as mute testimony to further renovation plans. There was another smell beneath the damp and mold, one she couldn’t quite identify, something old and dark and inexplicably…evil. And all that wine had definitely gone to her head—in another moment she’d start imagining she was in some kind of danger. Too much wine, too much imagination. She backed out of the room, slowly, only to come up against a solid, human form.
    She screamed, biting back the sound as a heavy hand clamped on her arm, spinning her around.
    It was M. Hakim. Her relief was palpable—she actually started babbling. Not that Hakim was warm and fuzzy, but anyone was preferable to the unsettling Bastien Toussaint.
    “Thank heavens!” she said. “I’ve gotten all turned around and I was afraid I’d never find my room.”
    “This section of the château is off-limits to visitors, Miss Underwood. As you can see, it has yet to be renovated, and it would be very dangerous to wander around in there. If you were to get in trouble no one would hear you scream.”
    Chloe was suddenly entirely sober. She swallowed, looking into Hakim’s dark, calm face. And then she forced herself to laugh, breaking the tension.
    “I think I need a map to find my way around this place,” she said. “If you can give me directions to my room I’ll head there. I’m exhausted.”
    He hadn’t let go of her arm. He had thick, ugly hands, with dark hair across the backs of his sausagelike fingers. He said nothing, and for one brief, crazy moment she thought he was going to shove her back into the deserted wing where no one would hear her scream.
    And then sanity returned, and he dropped her arm, and while his smile was far from pleasant at least it was a smile.
    “You should be more careful, Miss Underwood,” he admonished her. “Other people might be more dangerous than I am.”
    “Dangerous?” She just barely managed to keep the stammer out of her voice.
    “Like Monsieur Toussaint, for instance. He can be very charming, but you would be wise to keep your distance. I saw the two of you in the hall this evening, and I was most concerned. For you, Miss Underwood.”
    It was shadowy enough that he wouldn’t be able to see the flush that mounted to her cheeks. “He was just showing me the way to the library.”
    “With his mouth? I’d keep out of his reach if I were you. The man is notorious. His appetite for women is insatiable, and his tastes are, shall we say, peculiar. I would feel somewhat responsible if you were to runinto any trouble while you’re here. After all, I’m in effect your employer, and I wouldn’t want anything unfortunate to happen to you.”
    “Neither would I,” Chloe said.
    “Turn left, down two corridors then two right turns.”
    “I beg your pardon?”
    “That’s the way back to your room. Unless you prefer I escort you?”
    Chloe managed to suppress her shudder of revulsion. “I’ll be fine,” she said. “If I get lost again I’ll scream.”
    “You do that,” Hakim said in a cool voice that somehow failed to reassure her.
    But she made it back to her corridor without further mishap, and there was no one lingering, watching for her. The satyrlike M. Toussaint must have found his partner for the night, she thought, faintly disgruntled, as she pushed open her door.
    Someone had been in there. There was no key, no way to keep anyone out, and the sense of violation was unavoidable. She shook her head, trying to clear the paranoia away. Why should anyone be interested in a hired translator?
    The bed was turned down, one of Sylvia’s diaphanous nightgowns was laid out across it, and a tray with a crystal decanter and a plate of chocolates rested on the gilt table beside the bed.
    “Relax, idiote, ” she said out loud, to break the hush that enveloped the room. “It was