(1) Black Ice

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BLACK ICE

By

Anne Stuart

ContentsChapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter TenChapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter TwentyChapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

All that wine had gone to her headin another moment she'd start imagining she was

in

some kind of danger. What could possibly be dangerous about a group of high-level

grocers? Too much wine, too much imagination. Chloe backed out of the

room, only tocome up against a solid human form. She bit back a scream as a

heavy hand clamped on

her arm, spinning her around.

It was M. Hakim. Her relief was palpableshe actually started babbling. "Thank

heavens!" she said. "I've gotten all turned around and I was afraid I'd never find my

room."

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"This section of the chateau is off-limits to visitors, Mademoiselle Underwood. It has

yet

to be renovated, as you can see. If you were to get in trouble no one would hear youscream."

Chloe was suddenly entirely sober. She swallowed, looking into Hakim's dark, calm

face. She forced herself to laugh, breaking the tension. "I think I need a map to

find my

way around this place," she said.

He hadn't let go of her arm. He had thick, ugly hands, with dark hair across the backs

of

his sausagelike fingers. For one brief, crazy moment she thought he was going toshove

her back into the deserted wing. And then sanity returned and he dropped her arm.

"You should be more careful, Mademoiselle Underwood," he admonished. "Other

people

might be more dangerous than I am, and I would not like to see anything

unfortunate

befall you."

It was his overformal English that made it sound threatening, of course. Not any realdanger. But that uneasy little shiver slid down her backbone, and she wondered if

she'd

made a very real mistake in taking this job.

Also byANNE STUART

HIDDEN HONOR

INTO THE FIRE

STILLLAKE

SHADOWS AT SUNSETTHE WIDOW



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Watch for a brand-new historical romance from

ANNE STUART

Coming February 2006

Black Ice

Anne

Stuart

MIRA

ISBN 0-7783-2171-1

BLACK ICE

Copyright 2005 by Anne Kristine Stuart Ohlrogge.



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All characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author

and

have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name ornames. They are not

even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all

incidents are pure invention.

MIRA and the Star Colophon are trademarks used under license and registered

inAustralia ,New Zealand ,Philippines , United States Patent and Trademark Office

and in

other countries.

www.MIRABooks.com

Printed inU.S.A.

This was a gift book for me, one the universe delivered when I was riding in a taxi

inParis , and it comes with a sound track. Listen to Japanese Rock and Roll, French

rock

(Marc Lavoine, Florent Pagny) and maybe some Pretenders. Enjoy!

Chapter One

People might go on and on about springtime inParis , Chloe Underwood thought as

she

walked down the street huddled in her coat, but there was really nothing

to compare to

winter in the City ofLights . By early December the leaves were gone, the air was

crisp

and cool and enough of the tourists had left to make life bearable. In August she

always

wondered why on earth she'd chosen to pull up stakes and move three thousand miles

away from her family. But then winter came, and she remembered all too well.It might have helped if she could have abandoned the city to the tourists

every August, as

all the French did, but she'd yet to find a job that included such luxuries as vacations,

health care or a living wage. She was lucky she'd managed to find work at all. As

it was,



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her presence in France was quasi-legal, and most days she decided just being there

was

blessing enough, even if she shared a tiny walk-up flat with a fellow expatriate who

seemed to have very little sense of responsibility. Sylvia barely rememberedto pay her

half of the rent, she'd never swept a floor in her life and she considered any piece of

furniture or flat surface a place to leave her astonishingly large wardrobe. On

the other

hand, she wore the same size eight that Chloe did, and she was not averse

to sharing. She

was also single-mindedly determined to marry a wealthy Frenchman, and in pursuit

of

that goal she spent most nights away from their cramped quarters, leaving Chloe

with alittle more breathing room.

In fact, it was Sylvia who'd found Chloe her current job translating children's books.

Sylvia had worked at Les Freres Laurent for two years, and she'd slept with

all three of

the middle-agedfreres , ensuring job tenure and a decent salary for

translating spy novels

and thrillers for the small publisher. Children's books were less of a moneymaker,

and

Chloe was paid accordingly, but at least she didn't have to ask her family for

money ortouch the trust fund her grandparents had left her. Not that her parents would

encourage

her. That money was earmarked for her education, and working a menial job inParis

hardly constituted advanced learning.

If she weren't hamstrung by job requirements she could have found something a

bit more

challenging. While her French was excellent, she was also fluent in

Italian, Spanish and

German, with a healthy smattering of Swedish and Russian, and even a few bits

of Arabicand Japanese. She loved words, almost as much as she loved cooking, but she seemed

to

have a greater talent out of the kitchen. At least, that's what she'd been told when she

was

dismissed from the famous Cordon Bleu halfway into the program. Too much

imagination for a beginner, they'd said. Not enough respect for tradition.

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Chloe had never been particularly respectful of tradition, including her

family tradition

of medicine. She'd left all five of the Underwoods back in the mountains ofNorth

Carolina . Her parents were internists, her two older brothers were surgeons, and her

older sister was an anesthesiologist. And they still couldn't believe Chloe wasn't

dying toenter medical school, ignoring the fact that there was no one in this world more

squeamish at the sight of blood than the youngest member of the Underwood family.

No, Chloe wasn't going to get to touch that nice little chunk of money until she gave

in

and went to medical school. And it was going to be a cold day in hell before she did.

In the meantime, she could do amazing things with pasta and fresh vegetables, and

all

the walking she did kept the carbohydrates from gathering in force,

though they seemed

to have developed a fondness for her rear. At twenty-three she couldn't still bebuilt like a

coltish teenager, and she was never going to look like a Frenchwoman. She just

lacked

the style even her roommate Sylvia, an Englishwoman, had in abundance. She

could wear

Sylvia's clothes, but she never could master that faintly arrogant,

slightly amused mien

that she longed for. She might as well have a big butt, too.

Les Freres Laurent was on the third floor of an older building nearMontmartre .

ChloeABC Amber LIT Converter


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was the first one in, as always, and she put on a pot of the strong

coffee that she loved,

cradling a cup in her chilled hands as she looked out into the busy street below. The

brothers kept the heat off at night, and as a junior employee she wasn't allowed totouch

the thermostat, so she'd learned to keep an extra sweater in the tiny cubicle she'd

been

allotted. She wasn't in the mood for workingit was a gorgeous day, with the sky a

bright azure above the old buildings that surrounded them, and for some reason the

adventures of Flora the plucky little ferret didn't call to her. Not enough sex and

violence,

she thought wistfully. Just moral lessons in a heavy-handed lecture, given

by a skinny

rodent in a pink tutu and the smug values of an American Republican. Just once shewished Flora would yank off her tutu and jump the rascally weasel who'd been giving

her

the eye. But Flora would never stoop so low.

Chloe took a sip of her coffee. Strong as faith, sweet as love, black as sin.

She wouldn't

be a real Parisian until she started smoking, but even to annoy her parents she

couldn't go

that far. Besides, the farther away her parents were, the less annoying they became.

It was another hour before anyone else would arrive at the office, and she told

herselfthat no one would know or care if she wasted a few precious minutes before turning

to

the boring Flora. It was no wonder she was so irritated with the fictional

character. What

she needed was a little more sex and violence in her own life.

Be careful what you wish for, a little voice murmured in her head, but Chloe shook

it off,

draining her coffee. Sex had been notable by its total absence for the past ten months,

and

her last affair was so lackluster that she hadn't been energized enough to look for areplacement. It wasn't that Claude had been a bad lover. He prided himself on his

skills,

and expected the gaucheAmericain to be suitably dazzled. She wasn't.

And she could probably do without violence, which was

usually accompanied by blood,

which tended to make her puke. Not that she'd encountered much real violence in her

life.

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Her family had kept her sheltered, and she had a healthy respect for her own

safety. She

didn't go wandering into dangerous parts of the city at night, she locked her doors

and

windows and looked both ways and prayed diligently before she crossed

the homicidalParisian traffic.

No, she could look forward to another peaceful winter in the underheated apartment,

eating pasta, translatingFlora the Plucky FerretandBruce the Tangerine , though how

a

tangerine could have a life of its own had so far escaped her. Maybe that was

why she

was stalling on Flora, knowing her next task was citrus.

She'd find another lover, sooner or later. Maybe Sylvia would finally hit

the mother lode,

move out, and Chloe would find some nice, gentle Frenchman with wire-rimmedglasses

and a skinny body and a taste for experimental cooking.

In the meantime, the doughty little ferret awaited her, as did the daunting task of

coming

up with the French equivalent of "doughty."



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She heard Sylvia before she arrivedthere was no mistaking the noisy clatter of her

expensive shoes on the two flights of stairs, the muttered cursing from her perfectly

rouged mouth. The only question was, why was Sylvia showing up at work

three hoursbefore she usually dragged herself in?

The door slammed open with a bang and Sylvia stood there, panting, not a hair out

of

place, not a speck of her makeup smudged. "There you are!" she cried.

"Here I am," Chloe said. "Want some coffee?"

"We don't have time for coffee, dammit! Chloe, sweetie, you have to help me. It's a

matter of life and death."

Chloe blinked. Fortunately she was used to Sylvia's dramatics. "What now?"

Sylvia stopped cold, momentarily affronted. "I'm serious, Chloe! If you don't

help me outII don't know what I'll do."

She'd dragged a huge suitcase all the way up the flights of stairsno wonder she'd

been

making such a racket. "Where do you want to go and what do you need me to do to

cover

for you?" she asked, resigned. The huge suitcase that would suit most people on a

two-

week trip would keep Sylvia decently clothed for three or four days. Three or four

days

with the flat to herself and no one to pick up after. She could open the windowsand let

the air blow in and no one would complain about the cold. She was prepared to be

helpful.

"I'm not going anywhere. You are."

Chloe blinked again. "The suitcase?"

"I packed for you. Your clothes are awful and you know itI put in everything I

thought

looked good on you. Except my fur coat, but you can't expect me to part with

that," she

added, momentarily practical."I don't expect you to part with anything. And I can't go anywhere. What would the

Laurents say?"

"Leave them to me. I'll cover for you," Sylvia said, looking her over. "At least you're

decently dressed for a change, though I'd lose the scarf if I were

you. You'll manage to fit

in just fine."

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A deep foreboding filled Chloe. "Fit in where? Just take a deep breath and tell

me what

you need and I'll see whether I can help you."

"You have to," Sylvia said flatly. "I told you, it's a"



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"Matter of life and death," Chloe filled in. "What do you want me to do?"

Some of Sylvia's anxiety vanished. "Nothing so onerous. Spend a few days at a

beautiful

estate in the country, translating for a group of importers, making scads ofmoney and

being waited on by an army of servants. Wonderful food, wonderful surroundings and

the

only drawback is having to deal with boring businessmen. You get to dress for

dinner and

make tons of money and flirt with anyone who takes your fancy. You should be

thanking

me for giving you such a golden opportunity."

Typical of Sylvia to turn things around in her own mind. "And exactly why are you

giving me a golden opportunity?""Because I promised Henry I'd spend the weekend with him at the Raphael."

"Henry?"

"Henry Blythe Merriman. One of the heirs to Merrimans Extract. He's rich, he's

handsome, he's charming, he's good in bed and he adores me."

"How old is he? "

"Sixty-seven," Sylvia said, not the slightest bit sheepish.

"And is he married?"

"Of course not! I have some standards."

"As long as they're rich, single and breathing," Chloe said. "And just when would I

begoing?"

"A car's on its way to pick you up. Actually, they think they'll be picking me up, but

I've

called and explained the situation and said you'd be taking my place. All they need is

French to English and back again, which is a piece of cake for you."

"But, Sylvia"

"Please, Chloe! I beg of you! If I leave them in the lurch I'll never get another

translating

job, and I can't quite count on Henry yet. I need to do these little weekend jobs to

supplement my income. You know how badly the Freres pay.""About twice as much as they pay me."

"Then you need the money even more," Sylvia said, unabashed. "Come on, Chloe, go

for

it! Be wild and dangerous for a change! A few days spent in the country is just

what you

need."

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