The Pleasure King's Bride Read Free Page A

early. Six-thirty. Alicia goes to bed at eight.”
    “I will take care of the little one. A bedroom near mine.”
    “They may not stay beyond eight, Vikki.” He couldn’t assume too much, given the hot flare of resentment from Christabel when he had used Alicia to press the invitation. In fact, the giving in may not extend anywhere near as far as he wanted.
    “I shall work it so you have time alone with her, Jared,” came the arch reply. “I have not lost my touch with children. And I very much doubt you have lost your touch for winning.”
    Her confidence set him smiling again. “You’re a wicked old woman, Vikki Chan.”
    He heard her cackling with delighted amusement as she disconnected to make other calls and imagined her wizened little face creased into a myriad happy wrinkles and her black eyes asparkle with plots and plans.
    Vikki Chan would never say how old she was. Probably in her eighties, Jared guessed, though still incredibly spry and full of a zest for life. She’d be on the telephone right now to her seafood supplier, demanding the very best and threatening terrible fates if it wasn’t delivered. The pencil she invariably poked through the bun that kept her scraggly grey hair under tight control would be down in her hand, making notes no one else could read.
    Chinese, she said, but Jared had learnt to speak and read Chinese proficiently and he could never decipher what she wrote. It gave Vikki an enormously smug pleasure to keep her little secrets, while worming out everyone else’s. Though not even she had managed to learn anything about Christabel beyond what Jared had learnt himself.
    Which wasn’t much.
    She knew Amsterdam. A conversation on diamonds had dropped that fact. Singapore was another piece of the jigsaw, perhaps simply a stopover on her way to Australia. Wherever she had learnt it, she had an extensive knowledge of jewellery and a keen appreciation of how it was valued.
    He parked the car in Carnarvon Street, crossed the road to Cocos Ice Cream Parlour, bought two individual tubs of chocolate chip for good measure since Christabel might like it, too, plus several cones in case licking was preferred to spooning.
    From there it was a short drive up to the bluff where the old Picard home overlooked Roebuck Bay. Prime position, Jared always thought appreciatively, though the house itself was not a particularly impressive place, just a big, rather ramshackle wooden building, surrounded on three sides by wide verandas that could be shuttered against inclement weather.
    Still, it held a lot of history for his mother and it was large enough to accommodate the whole family with space to spare whenever his brothers came to Broome. Tonight it was going to accommodate Christabel Valdez and her daughter, for as long as they were willing to stay. As long as he could make it, Jared privately vowed as he headed inside to the kitchen with the ice-cream supplies.
    Vikki was chopping vegetables at her workbench. “Everything okay?’’ he asked, crossing to the freezer.
    “Of course.” She eyed him critically. “You look very hot, shirt sticking to your back. You need a shower and a shave.”
    Having put the ice-cream away, he placed the cones on the bench and shot Vikki a teasing grin. “I think I can remember to brush my teeth.”
    Unabashed, she returned an arch look. “That cologne you have...it is very nice. Definitely a subtle come-on.”
    “I’m glad you approve my choice. Been sniffing it, have you?”
    She humphed. “You need all the help you can get to make the most of this night.”
    “Not artificial help. It won’t impress Christabel one bit. Nothing has...not who I am or what I am or any material advantages she could get from me.”
    “Maybe... maybe not. I’m thinking a clever woman doles out a long rope for a man to hang himself with. You are a prize, Jared, and it occurs to me no other woman has ever tied you up this firmly.”
    He shook his head. “She doesn’t see me as