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There were no lights on in the flat, although jazz played quietly somewhere…complex, soulful, ex- travagant. Rather like Hunter himself, thought Anne nervously.
Perhaps he had already gone to bed. But surely he couldn’t be asleep, not with her so-called typing racketing away in his ear? And she had been knocking loud enough. No, he was just ignoring her and expecting her to creep away like the moral criminal she was.
Anne fumbled along the wall for the light-switch, wincing as she knocked a frame askew in the process. The row of pendent lights flicked on along the length of the room. The antique desk under the vaulted windows was empty; an electronic typewriter with a sheet half rolled through the platen stood abandoned on the cluttered surface. Anne was drawn irresistibly towards it, holding her breath as she tiptoed closer and leant over to read the typescript.
Her eyes narrowed. It was a passage about the current state of Soviet politics, but it wasn’t in the crisp, factual style of a lecture or a text. She shifted a few of the completed pages next to the typewriter.
She almost dropped Ivan.
It was a novel. Some kind of political thriller, judging from the paragraphs she had read, and a well-written one at that, the prose taut and streamlined, yet oddly lyrical in its rhythms.
Oh, hell, he was a writer! No wonder he had asked so many questions about her book. She hunted for the title page with the author’s name.
Lewis Hunt.
She had no sense of instant recognition. Well, perhaps he wasn’t published yet, she thought hopefully. Her eyes strayed to the bookcase immediately beside the desk and her hopes sank without a trace. Lewis Hunt’s name was printed on the spines of three glossy-jacketed hardback novels, and there were several political texts by Hunter Lewis, including a history of Soviet politics. No one had told Anne he was an author, but perhaps it was such common knowledge around the university that everyone assumed she knew.
Next to his own books was a row of books on Russian history and culture—in Russian, of course. Anne’s self-confidence was dwindling by the minute!
She flipped morosely through the loose manuscript again and her eyes widened as she came across an unexpected love-scene. Her mouth formed a little O of shock as she became riveted by the graphic description of the hero’s fierce coupling with a woman he knew to be his enemy. It went on for two pages and was a highly erotic piece of writing, especially when she mentally substituted Hunter for the hero. Anne was breathing hard as she hurriedly tucked the pages back in place. Goodness, what an imagination he had, or was the description drawn from his own experiences?
The thought made her suddenly loath to enter his bedroom. What if he was furious? What if he reacted as his hero had in that scorching scene and tumbled her face-down on to the bed, binding her hands with one of his silk ties so that he could…?
Ivan disrupted her delicious speculation by blowing another bubble in her ear and starting to chew on a strand of her hair. No, she was safe with her tiny witness, Anne decided regretfully. Besides, mothers of teething babies were hardly likely to be mistaken for beautiful, blonde, karate-kicking Valkyries whose passions were as excessively developed as their pelvic muscles!
The darkened bedroom was also empty, although Anne noticed with a frisson when she turned on the light that the bed itself was the same kind of slatted wood as the one described in the manuscript, even down to the convenient posts at the head to which a man could tie a woman…if he was so inclined.
Swallowing nervously, she automatically switched off the radio on the bedside table in the interests of saving electricity, and in the instant of quiet which followed she heard a rattle at the front door and remembered that she hadn’t closed it behind her.
She shot out of the bedroom and stopped dead at the sight of the woman who was setting a soft carry-all bag beside one of the squashy apricot leather chairs.
She was tall and lithe, an ash-blonde, and as she straightened up again Anne could see that she was also beautiful in a very sophisticated, strong-featured way. A veritable Valkyrie, in fact, dressed with dramatic flamboyance in an emerald silk suit.
And not to be trusted, decided Anne arbitrarily. A pushy, expensive, hard-faced tart who was out for everything she could get. And definitely too old for Hunter. Forty at least, she estimated jealously.
‘Hello, have you come to see Hunter? I’m afraid only Ivan and I are home. Can I help?’ she said sweetly, before it suddenly occurred to her that Hunter might have gone out to fetch this hard-faced tart in his car and would soon appear himself.
Astonishment was vivid on the other woman’s face as she looked at Anne’s long wet hair and bare feet, her loose, drop-waisted white Indian cotton dress and the dark-featured baby at her hip.
Then she smiled brilliantly and Anne’s hard-faced tart theory gurgled down the drain.
‘Hello. It doesn’t matter; Hunter wasn’t expecting me. I just dropped in on the off-chance. You know, this door wasn’t even closed, let alone locked. Not exactly wise, even in a neighbourhood like this.’
She came closer in a graceful glide, the brilliance of her smile softening as she pulled a little face for Ivan and earned herself a chuckle.
‘You sound just like Hunter,’ said Anne involuntarily.
‘Oh, dear, how depressing!’ Brown eyes twinkled as they transferred back to Anne. ‘Is he still unbearably bossy?’
Anne’s jealousy writhed briefly again and died. ‘Well, more bearably, actually, considering how much he gruffles and growls when he doesn’t get his way.’
‘“Gruffle”—what a lovely word, and just perfect to describe Hunter when he ruffles his brow and makes those menacing grumbles in his chest. I’m glad to see you aren’t intimidated by his temper. So bad for him, I feel, to think he can use it to manipulate us. We haven’t met before, have we? My name’s Louise.’ She held out her hand, long-fingered and strong, her palm surpris- ingly rough against Anne’s.
‘I’m Anne—’
‘With an “e”, of course?’ The grin was vaguely familiar, the dark-pencilled eyebrows arching as they invited the affirmative answer.
‘How did you guess?’
