Egyptian Honeymoon Read Online Free Page B

remembered he had every right to come, and without knocking either. She swung round to face him.
    'Will I do?'
    'Very nice, my dear. The Arabian Nights touch is so suitable for Egypt.'
    She saw his thin-lipped mouth curl sardonically. He did not like her dress, she felt sure, and was consequently dashed.
    'I thought you'd appreciate something with it,' she said defensively. 'Or would you have preferred virginal white?' And blushed, for after tonight she would not be a virgin.
    'Beauty such as yours needs no adornment,' he remarked cryptically. 'I like simplicity.'
    'I'll remember that when next I go shopping,' she returned flippantly, reflecting that it would be his money she would be spending. 'Actually this was a model I displayed in our last collection and I was offered it at a reduced price.'
    'Price need not concern you in future,' he pointed out, then added belatedly: 'You look very charming, my dear. Shall we go down?'
    The dining room was as ornately decorated as the rest of the hotel. The long windows overlooking the river were uncurtained, but tightly closed to retain the air-conditioning. The lighting was subdued, so that as they were seated at a table by the window Noelle could see the water and the lights along its banks, boats like fireflies darting over it, and high in the heavens a few great stars.
    The food was excellent, but Noelle had no appetite; in every nerve she was conscious of Steve's presence opposite to her, his eyes wandering possessively over her décolletage. He talked impersonally in his low pleasant voice about the country and the places they must visit, but that was only a disguise for his real thoughts. She drank the sparkling wine he ordered for her avidly, until she seemed to be floating in a dream. Steve refilled her glass without comment, only his smile became more ironic as the meal progressed. When they reached the dessert, her tongue was loosened and she began to chatter, about her family, her work as a model which had terminated with her engagement, her early struggles and disappointments, but she never once mentioned Hugh, who had been the central figure in her past; she had enough discretion left not to do that, though he filled her mind. Steve listened perfunctorily, watching the play of expression across her mobile face, until he said repressively:
    'All that is over, my dear, and I hope your new life will compensate you for the deprivations of the old.'
    'But I wasn't deprived,' she protested. How could she have been, with Hugh there to support her every inch of the way? Their love and comradeship had lightened the darkest prospect and they had been well on the way up when he had died. But that she could not enlarge upon to Steve, instead she told him:
    'It was a fight to get a foothold, but I made good in the end.'
    'Ah!' Steve's face lighted up. 'The triumph of achievement—I know the joy of that.' He looked at her oddly. 'And wasn't it your final achievement to marry me?'
    Noelle was too confused to understand what he meant or to interpret his probing glance. She had not regarded her capture of Steve as a triumph and his wealth and position meant nothing to her except as a means of helping her family. That she might be considered mercenary did not occur to her.
    'We made a sort of bargain,' she said uncertainly. 'We neither of us pretended to be in love.'
    'Good God, no!' he exclaimed. 'That folly is for adolescents. I'm long past it.'
    'Weren't you ever in love?' she persisted, becoming curious about his love life. There must be some romance.
    He shrugged his shoulders. 'Calf love.'
    'And all your girl-friends, didn't they love you?'
    'Only what I could give them.'
    'Did none of them love you for yourself alone?' She would not normally have dared to be so inquisitive, but the wine had emboldened her.
    'That,' he said harshly, 'is something I've ceased to expect.'
    'Poor Steve,' she murmured, reflecting that she had been richer than he had ever been, for she and Hugh had loved