All the Queen's Men (18 page)

She searched his face, as if looking for the truth. Finally she said, a bit hesitantly, "I haven't dated since my husband-" She broke off and looked away.

"I understand you're a widow," he said. "Yes, I asked about you. I'm sorry for your loss. It has been . .. how long?"

Five.
The word echoed in her brain, and this time the sadness that flashed across her face wasn't an act. Five long years. "Two years," she managed to say, her voice constricted. "Most people think that's long enough to grieve, but... it isn't."

His expression was somber. "I think the heart has its own calendar. You mustn't let anyone rush you, including me. I give you my word I would attach no expectations to a dinner together. It would just be a meal in pleasant company, no more. Or perhaps you would prefer lunch?"

She let herself waver, then said softly, "Yes, lunch sounds ..."

"Safer?" he suggested.

"More casual. Less like a date."

He chuckled. "I see. Then, Madame Jamieson, will you
not
go out to dinner with me? Let's just have lunch instead."

She smiled up at him. "That sounds very nice."

As soon as he was back in his town house, Ronsard placed a secure call to the villa. Cara answered immediately, though it was late, after one A.M.

"Consult that computer of yours," he said. "I want to know whatever you can find out about Niema Jamieson, from New Hampshire. She's a widow, a friend of the American ambassador, and she's visiting them now."

"How do you spell her name?"

Ronsard hesitated, then remembered what she had said about her mother modeling the name on 'Naomi.' "N-i-e-m-a," he said. "Late twenties, early thirties. Dark hair and eyes."

"Got it. When do you want this?"

"In the morning."

"I'll get right on it."

Ronsard hung up and paced slowly around his luxurious bedroom. It had been a long time since he had been so intrigued by a woman, but that didn't mean he was careless. If Niema Jamieson wasn't what she seemed, he'd know it soon enough. And if she was, then he looked forward to a pleasant chase and seduction. Most women could be had, eventually, and he doubted she would be any different.

He had forgotten how pleasurable it was to be the pursuer, to feel that triumphant thrill when she agreed to meet him for lunch. He laughed at himself; such a small victory, but he felt like a conqueror. He would put a satisfied smile on the widow's face yet.

She had been faithful to her husband's memory for two years. Such steadfastness was rare in his world. He found he respected her for that and envied her the love she must have known. Such a love had eluded him; he loved Mariette, of course, and Laure was his heart, but a sweeping, romantic love ... no, he hadn't known one. Passion, yes. Lust. Possession. But not love. He suspected he never would love anyone in such a manner, that he wasn't capable of that depth of emotion. Or perhaps he was simply too wary, too guarded, with too much at stake to let himself become vulnerable.

Not even for a woman like Niema Jamieson.

Chapter Fifteen

The telephone beside her bed rang at six A.M., jerking Niema out of a sound sleep. She rolled over and groped for the receiver. "Hello." She sounded as groggy as she felt.

She heard a stifled chuckle. "You certainly sound alert."

John. The sound of his voice did funny things to the pit of her stomach. She settled herself deeper into the pillow. "We social butterflies need our sleep."

"Has the fluttering attracted any attention?"

"It certainly has." She yawned. "Within minutes."

"Told you. We're amoebas."

"I hope this line is secure," she said in sudden alarm.

"If it isn't, then the Company isn't doing its job.

All lines into the embassy are secure, and I'm on a secure phone. Tell me everything about last night."

How did he know she'd met Ronsard last night? she wondered in annoyance. "Are you keeping tabs on me? How? Where are you?"

"Of course I'm keeping tabs on you," he said calmly. "You didn't think I'd bring you into this and just leave you on your own, did you? I'm nearby, for the moment."

And that was all he intended to tell her, she realized. Still, it was enough. Until she heard his voice, she hadn't realized how much she had missed him, missed the constant challenge of his presence. If he was nearby, that meant she had to be on her toes, because he could pop up at any second. She didn't want to step out of the shower, stark naked, and come face to face with him. On the other hand . . .

Whoa. She backed away from that thought without finishing it. Instead she began a recital of the previous night's events. "He followed me onto the patio and introduced himself and asked for a dance later. When we danced, he asked me out to dinner. I refused. We're having lunch today at one, at Le Cafe Marly. Do you know where that is?"

"It's in the Richelieu wing of the Louvre. It's where you go to see and be seen."

"And here I thought having lunch with him would be more discreet than dinner."

"Not at Cafe Marly. Why are you trying to be discreet?"

"If I'm this fine upstanding citizen and an old family friend of the ambassador's wife, it would seem more reasonable to at least
worry
about seeing an arms dealer."

"Ronsard is seen by every influential person in Paris," John said dryly.

"Yes, but I'm different." She said that with an airiness that had him chuckling.

"When will you give in and have dinner with him? With enough time, I can arrange to have some of our people placed around you, the table wired, things like that."

"I don't think I will. I'll have lunch with him, but other than that I don't want to encourage him too much."

"Just make certain you encourage him enough to be invited to his estate."

"I'll be friends with him, but that's all."

A pause stretched over the line. "If you're trying to tell me you won't sleep with him, I never intended for you to," he finally said, his tone flattening out.

"That's good to hear, because sex was never an option. Even though I did go on those damn birth control pills the way you ordered."

Silence again. "The pills weren't in case you wanted to have an affair; they're in case something goes wrong."

She understood, then. If anything went awry and she was captured, she could be raped. "Got it," she said softly The issue of birth control pills hadn't arisen on the job in Iran, because she had been taking the pills anyway. She and Dallas had wanted to wait a year or so, maybe longer, before starting a family.

"I'll be in touch," he said, and hung up.

Slowly she replaced the receiver and snuggled back in bed, but any chance of sleep was gone. Her brain felt alert, racing along the way it always did when she talked with John. What she needed was a good, long run. The more she thought about it, the better the plan sounded. She would ask Eleanor where the best place to jog was. She hopped out of bed and began digging out her sweats, which she had packed for a just-in-case occasion.

Not only did Eleanor know, she arranged for one of the off-duty Marines who was a dedicated jogger to run with her. Niema and the serious young man with the sidewall haircut raced side by side until they were both dripping with sweat. By the time they returned to the embassy, she had teased him out of his stiffness and he had spilled out his life story to her, as well as the details of his wedding, which would take place during his next long leave.

Feeling both energized and relaxed by the run, she showered and ate a light breakfast, then decided to get in a bit of shopping before meeting Ronsard for lunch. Eleanor gave her a list of interesting shops, and Niema ventured out into the French capital.

When the taxi let her out at Cafe Marly's terrace on Cour Napoleon at two minutes 'til one, she was carrying a large shopping bag. She looked at the cafe and for a moment a strong yearning swept over her. She would like to be meeting John for lunch in a place like this-
No,
she told herself sternly, cutting off the thought. She couldn't let herself lose focus on the job. She had to concentrate, not think about what John was or wasn't doing, and what it would be like to have lunch dates with him, and dinner dates-"I'm doing it again," she muttered.

Pushing all thoughts of him out of her mind, she entered the cafe and was immediately greeted. All she had to say was "Monsieur Ronsard" and she was whisked away to a table.

Ronsard was already there, smiling as he rose to his feet. He took her hand and briefly kissed it, then seated her in the chair beside him, rather than in the one across the table. "You're even lovelier today than you were last night."

"Thank you." She was wearing a classic red sheath with a single-strand pearl necklace. If he had a discerning eye, and he seemed to, he would recognize the style and quality of Chanel. She looked around, intrigued by the cafe. Glass walls were all that separated the cafe from the stunning works of art in the Louvre.

"You're glowing. Boosting a nation's economy must agree with you." He nodded meaningfully at the shopping bag.

"A woman can never have too many pairs of shoes."

"Really? How many do you have?"

"Not enough," she said firmly, and he laughed.

Today his hair was gathered at the back of his neck with a simple, round gold clasp. But even though he was dressed in trousers and a linen jacket instead of a tuxedo, and his hair was confined, every woman in the cafe seemed to be staring at him just as they had at the ball last night. He had a natural, exotic flamboyance that drew the eye.

Evil should show on the face, she thought. It should twist and mar the features, give some indication of its presence within a person. But if Ronsard was evil, she hadn't seen any sign of it yet. So far he had been unfailingly polite and charming, with a tenderness to his manner that didn't seem at all feigned.

"So," he said, leaning back, perfectly at ease. "Tell me: Did Madame Theriot warn you about me again?"

"Of course. Eleanor cares about me."

"She thinks I'm a danger to you?"

"She thinks you're an unsavory character."

Taken by surprise by her candor, he blinked, then laughed aloud. "Then why are you here? Do you have a yearning for danger, or do you think you can rescue me from my wicked ways?"

"Neither." She regarded him with somber, dark eyes. "I think you may be a very nice man, but I can't rescue you from anything. And you're no danger to me at all."

"I think I'm insulted," he murmured. "I would like to be a danger to you, in one particular way. You must have loved him very, very much."

"More than I can say."

"What was he like?"

A smile broke across her face. "He was . .. oh, in some ways he was extraordinary, and in others he was like most men. He made faces when he shaved; he left his clothes on the floor when he took them off. He sailed, he flew his own plane, he took CPR courses and regularly donated blood, he voted in every election. We laughed and argued and made plans, like most couples."

"He was a lucky man, to be loved so completely."

"I was the lucky one. And you? Have you been married?"

"No, I haven't been so fortunate." He shrugged. "Perhaps one day." But it was obvious from his tone he thought marrying was as likely as the sun rising in the west.

"I don't think your wicked reputation scares off many women," she teased. "Every female in here has been staring at you."

He didn't even glance around, as most men would have done, to see if that were true. "If I'm alone, it's because I choose to be. I was thinking last night that I'd never felt anything like what you obviously felt- still feel-for your husband. Part of me thinks it would be pleasant to love someone that much, but a part of me is very grateful that I don't. But why am I saying this?" he asked ruefully. "Telling you I don't think I'll ever love you is not a good way to convince you to have an affair with me."

Niema laughed. "Relax," she advised, patting him on the hand. "An affair wasn't on the books anyway."

He gave her a crooked smile. "But I would very much like for it to be."

She shook her head, amusement still on her face. "It can't be. All I can offer is friendship."

"In that case, I would be honored to be your friend. And I'll keep hoping," he said, his eyes twinkling.

Later that afternoon, Ronsard picked up the sheaf of papers Cara had faxed to him. He had quickly read through them when they arrived, but now he studied them more closely. There was nothing suspicious about Niema Jamieson. She was from New Hampshire, had attended an exclusive women's college, married at the age of twenty-four, and was widowed at twenty-eight. Her husband had been killed in a yachting accident. They had been mentioned a few times in society columns, usually with a descriptive tag such as "devoted couple." She was exactly what she seemed to be, a rarity in his world.

He liked her. She could be surprisingly blunt, but without malice. In a way, he even liked that she wasn't romantically interested in him. He still wanted to take her to bed, but there was no pressure from her, no expectations to be met. She had simply had lunch with him, and that was that. Afterward she had taken a taxi back to the embassy, without hinting for another invitation-which, of course, made him even more determined to see her again. He had asked her out to dinner again, only to be gently refused. He persisted until she at least agreed to another lunch.

The telephone rang, his private line, and he absently answered it. "Ronsard."

It was Cara. "Ernst Morrell has been in contact." Ronsard's lips thinned. He neither liked nor trusted Morrell. Though by the nature of his business he dealt on a daily basis with fanatics, madmen, or plain murderers, Morrell was probably the most vicious. He was the head of a small but particularly virulent terrorist organization and had a particular fondness for bombs. He had set explosives in a hospital in Germany, killing six patients in retaliation for Germany's cooperation with the United States on a military action against Iraq.

"What does he want?" "He's heard about RDX-a. He wants it." Ronsard swore a lurid phrase. First Temple, and now Morrell. But Temple was one thing, and Morrell something else entirely; though he had expected information about RDX-a to leak, he hadn't expected it to happen quite so fast. He and the manufacturer had an agreement; he would be the lone conduit of the compound. Such exclusivity would be enormously profitable to both of them, at least until someone else was able to duplicate the compound.
He
had not told anyone, because the explosive still wasn't perfected; it would be much more in demand if it were reliable, rather than having an unfortunate reputation for early detonation. That meant the manufacturer was logically responsible for, as the Americans would say, everyone and his brother knowing about RDX-a.