Where the Heart Chooses by Tinnean Read Free Book Online Page B

him over the rim of the glass
before lowering it. “Why are men such asses?”
    “Problems in paradise, little sister?”
    “I thought Thomas Winston was a gentleman.”
He cocked a brow at me as I handed his drink back. He had
introduced us. “The first time we went out, he was so sweet. And
then tonight we went to see the latest Hepburn and Tracy at the
Valencia. He took me up to the balcony, and all of a sudden he grew
octopus arms! When I told him I wasn’t interested in being
deflowered in the balcony of a movie house, he got nasty.” The fact
that I hadn’t been a virgin since my last year in
Tidewater—Sebrings might love only once, but we dallied where we
chose—wasn’t something Winston had needed to know. And neither did
my big brother. “He wanted to know if I thought I was Princess
Grace and had the temerity to call me an ice princess!” Which was
his way of saying he thought I was frigid.
    Tony bolted upright, spilling some of his
scotch. “Son of a—!” He bit off the epithet; he never swore in my
presence. “I’ll black his eyes and break his nose!”
    “Are you insinuating that I couldn’t?”
    A slow smile replaced his scowl. “Does he
have his teeth left?”
    “Yes, but only just. Mother would have been
proud. I didn’t raise my voice, much less my hand.” I began to pull
the pins from my hair. “Tony, have you heard anything regarding
me?”
    “Regarding what about you?” he hedged.
    “You know, I hate when you answer a question
with a question.” I ignored the fact that I did that even more
often than he. “Lately, I seem to be hearing this quite a bit, that
I’m an ice princess.”
    He suddenly looked pensive. “You know,
Richardson is in D.C.”
    “Should I know the name?”
    “Under-secretary to the under-secretary to
the British Ambassador.”
    “The name still isn’t ringing a bell.”
    “That’s his official cover, little sister.
He actually works for the Special Intelligence Section of the
Foreign Office.” Sir Joseph Bowne’s Section. “He was in London
around the same time you were.”
    I scrubbed my face, and then stared at my
palms, irritated that they were now covered with Elizabeth Arden.
“No good deed goes unpunished,” I muttered. I had told him how
Folana Fournaise had attempted to throw up a smoke screen to keep
the SIS away from me.
    “Well, Folana seems to have done an
excellent job in portraying you as emotionally frigid. Is there a
possibility we can get her to work for us, do you think?” He saw my
expression and held up his hands. “No, I imagine not. Why don’t you
wash that war paint off your face and get some sleep? Tomorrow
we’ll take a ride home and see what Father has to say about this
turn of events.”
    “Very well,” I sighed, “but it’s a waste of
a perfectly good Saturday night.”
    “You could always reread War and
Peace in the original Russian. It’s much less complicated!”
    “Perhaps.” But it was still a waste of a
good Saturday night.
    * * * *
    Father volunteered to vet my dates. “I know
some rather nice young men in State, Portia.”
    I knew exactly the sort of men they would
be—cold, undemonstrative, and so wrapped up in their careers they
were about as sexually exciting as a bowl of tapioca.
    I sighed. “No, thank you, Father. I think
I’ll take a respite from the dating scene.” I was surprised when he
didn’t pursue the matter.
    Tony knew better than to offer.
    I wouldn’t have had the energy anyway;
things in the intelligence community had suddenly heated up. It was
a rare night that I arrived back at the apartment I shared with
Tony before midnight, only to return to Arlington Hall by eight the
next morning.
    Of course it wasn’t as bad as the previous
autumn, Tony hastened to assure me, when, on October 4, the
Russians had launched their Sputnik I into space. All hell had
broken loose, with the American public terrified that the
Communists would be able to fire nuclear weapons from Europe to