"Robb, J D - In Death 10 - Loyalty in Death (1)" - читать интересную книгу автора (Robb J D)

Eve hit the street with a bit more bounce than necessary. "Shut up, Peabody."
-=O=-***-=O=-
She missed dinner, which was only mildly irritating. The fact that she'd been
right about the PA and the plea bargain on Lisbeth Cooke was downright
infuriating. At least, Eve thought as she let herself into the house, the twit
could have stuck for murder two a little longer.
Now, scant hours after Eve had arrested her in the wrongful death of one J.
Clarence Branson, Lisbeth was out on bail and very likely sitting cozily in her
own apartment with a glass of claret and a smug little smile on her face.
Summerset, Roarke's butler, slipped into the foyer to greet her with a baleful
eye and a sniff of disapproval. "You are, once again, quite late."
"Yeah? And you are, once again, really ugly." She dropped her jacket over the
newel post. "Difference is, tomorrow I might be on time."
He noted that she looked neither pale nor tired -- two early signs of overwork.
He would have suffered the torments of the damned before he would have admitted
-- even to himself -- that the fact pleased him.
"Roarke," he said in frigid tones as she breezed by him and started up the
steps, "is in the video room." Summerset's brow arched slightly. "Second level,
fourth door on the right."
"I know where it is," she muttered, though it wasn't absolutely true. Still, she
would have found it, even though the house was huge, a labyrinth of rooms and
treasures and surprises.
The man didn't deny himself anything, she thought. Why should he? He'd been
denied everything as a child, and he'd earned, one way or another, all the
comforts he now commanded.
But even after a year, she wasn't really used to the house, the huge stone
edifice with its juts and its towers and the lushly planted grounds. She wasn't
used to the wealth, she supposed, and never would be. The kind of financial
power that could command acres of polished wood, sparkling glass, art from other
countries and centuries, along with the simple pleasures of soft fabrics, plush
cushions.
The fact was, she'd married Roarke in spite of his money, in spite of how he'd
earned a great portion of it. Fallen for him, she supposed, as much for his
shadows as his lights.
She stepped into the room with its long, luxurious sofas, its enormous wall
screens, and complex control center. There was a charmingly old-fashioned bar,
gleaming cherry with stools of leather and brass. A carved cabinet with a
rounded door she remembered vaguely held countless discs of the old videos her
husband was so fond of.
The polished floor was layered with richly patterned rugs. A blazing fire -- no
computer-generated image for Roarke -- filled the hearth of black marble and
warmed the fat, sleeping cat curled in front of it. The scent of crackling wood
merged with the spice of the fresh flowers spearing out of a copper urn nearly
as tall as she and the fragrance of the candles glowing gold on the gleaming
mantel.
On-screen, an elegant party was happening in black and white.
But it was the man, stretched out comfortably on the plush sofa, a glass of wine
in his hand, who drew and commanded attention.
However romantic and sensual those old videos with their atmospheric shadows,
their mysterious tones could be, the man who watched them was only more so. And