Paris Encore by Bodie Thoene & Brock Thoene

Author:Bodie Thoene & Brock Thoene [Thoene, Bodie & Thoene, Brock]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: www.FamilyAudioLibrary.com
Published: 2009-06-12T05:00:00+00:00

16

Caught on the Playing Board

Hot water. Josie lay back in the tub in her room at the Brasseur Hotel and let it wash over her in delicious waves. She almost regretted her promise to be ready in an hour. How wonderful it would be to simply throw on her nightgown, climb between cool sheets, and sleep for a while!

The telephone rang. She wrapped in a towel and answered it on the fifth ring. The tone of Andre was too cheerful. “Chèrie! I’ve met some old friends who are staying here. I hope you don’t mind. We are invited to join them at their table. I could not refuse without compromising you to gossip.”

She suppressed her vague sense of disappointment with the knowledge that there was safety in numbers. The way she was feeling, dinner by candlelight with Andre could be fatal. “Of course, Andre!” Did her too-cheerful tone match his?

Dressed in the cobalt blue evening dress, Josie entered the lobby of the hotel on time. Andre had already seen her in the gown—her only one. She felt like a caterpillar among the butterflies he must see all around Paris.

“Fantastic,” Andre uttered, as if seeing her for the first time.

Escorting her to the dining room, he explained that a number of foreign nationals would be at the table tonight, including an American oilman and a Polish colonel in exile.

“All men, I fear. Most English speaking.” He leaned close to her as they entered the dining room. She felt his breath on her shoulder. “You said you were vulnerable tonight. I have taken you at your word. I have provided you with, I hope, an entertaining diversion, but I cannot always say that I will be such a gentleman.”

His frank gaze made her blush again. Suddenly wide-awake, she could feel the color climb from her throat to her cheeks. He smiled at it, and she imagined that he said such things on purpose. There was a kind of power in a man who could warm a woman with a look. Was it an acquired skill, she wondered, or just some inherited talent peculiar to the French? She forced herself to remember the wizened old face of the railroad ticket clerk in Boulogne. What was it he had said about the French bulls?

“May I speak frankly?” she asked.

“But of course.”

“On our first meeting on the train to Paris, I am relieved that your eyes were closed and your mouth open most of the way from Boulogne. Otherwise I might have thought you were a dangerous man.”

“Oh, but I am! You’ll see when you know me better.” He laughed, but Josie had the distinct feeling that he was no longer joking.

The large round dining table was set before a fireplace at the far end of the salon. Four men rose in unison as they approached.

Andre introduced Josie. “This group will be all politics and war. The food is the best in Luxembourg, and this was the personal table of the German kaiser in the last war.

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