Queen of Hearts (19 page)

Half an hour later the various small sounds of a household settling down to sleep had ceased. Dressed in her apricot nightgown and matching quilted robe Adam had thoughtfully packed, Janna turned the knob on her door very carefully and glanced down the hall in both directions. No one was in sight in the darkened corridor. Taking a deep breath, she padded the short distance to Adam's room, her fluffy scuffs making no sound. Tonight he had shut his door, she noticed, smiling in spite of herself. Was that because he trusted her this evening or because he wanted to shut out the house full of women? Hesitantly, she raised her hand to knock and then lowered it, electing to let herself quietly into the room through the unlocked door. She shut it gently, letting her eyes adjust to the dim, moonlit room.

"I suppose," came Adam's grim voice from the darkness of the huge bed, "there's a good reason for your being here in view of the fact that you had strict orders to sleep in your own room tonight."

"Well, yes, there is," she began agreeably, moving soundlessly across the rug to stand beside the bed gazing down at him. A rumpled sheet covered him to the waist and it was quite obvious he wasn't wearing anything as civilized as pajamas!

"I thought I explained earlier this evening that we will sleep together when I decide the time is right and not before then," Adam reminded her, his voice softening to reveal the lovely velvet. He leaned back against the large pillows, hands behind his head and regarded her in the moonlight.

"Whatever you say, Adam," she nodded, smiling down at his stern expression. "I didn't come here to seduce you, however. I came to protect you."

"From what, may I ask?" The glitter of something between irritation and laughter shone briefly in his eyes. There was enough light in the room for Janna to see that much, at least and she was grateful for the small sign of humor. It would be difficult enough to persuade him to let her stay as it was.

"From your little friend down the hall, of course," she retorted.

"Thank you, but I'm much bigger than she is and I think I can manage to deal with her if it becomes necessary."

"I'm not so sure of that!" Janna retorted firmly. "The girl has designs on you, Adam."

"Don't be ridiculous! She's just a kid! She came to me because she's annoyed with her father and probably sees me as some sort of adult substitute!"

"Don't be naive. That 'child' is thinking like a full-grown woman and if you don't watch out you're going to be in trouble!"

"Are you by any chance jealous, little queen?" Adam grinned suddenly, affectionately in the darkness. "Come here and I'll give you something to make the jealousy go away for a while!" He removed on hand from behind his head and reached for her wrist but Janna backed off immediately.

"I'm just going to kiss you, honey," he explained, sitting up, smiling at her. "Much as I'd like to carry it a lot further than that. Do you have any idea what you look like standing there with your hair hanging loose and that robe practically inviting a man to remove it?" The sensual note in his words was not lost on Janna and she felt the warmth creeping into her face.

"You...you can kiss me if you like..." she began steadily.

"Thank you," he interrupted with a rich chuckle.

"But don't think that you're going to send me back to my room immediately afterward!" she finished determinedly.

"No?"

"No. I'm staying here with you until I see whether or riot that...that redheaded hussy is going to come knocking on your door tonight!"

"You sound so fierce. Like the crystal dragon I bought you this morning," Adam smiled. "But I can be equally fierce, sweetheart and, much as you tempt a man, I have decided you're going to sleep in your own room tonight." He slid one leg out from under the sheet, his rugged features set in a menacing expression. Janna backed off a short distance.

"Adam, please! Just let me stay for a while...I only want to see if that woman is going to...to..."

"To compromise me, as it were?" he inquired, getting completely out of bed to stand towering over her. At least he slept in his shorts, Janna thought fleetingly. "Nobody but you could think of a crazy thing like that!" He put one large hand on her shoulder, turning her toward the door. Helpless in his grasp, Janna was moved across the room without a word.

The knock came a split second before Adam had his hand on the doorknob. Both of them froze. Janna shot Adam an 'I-told-you-so' glance and then slipped out from under his hand to skip quickly over to the bed. Flinging off the robe, she scrambled under the sheet as Adam, looking the picture of masculine irritation, raked his fingers through his hair and faced the door with a forbidding expression.

"Christy!" he exclaimed as he opened the door with a ferocious twist of the knob. "What the hell do you think you're doing now?"

"Adam! Don't be angry, darling, I only came to visit with you for a while. I couldn't sleep and wanted to talk. It's so hard to have a private discussion with someone else listening and I thought here in your room we could finish the conversation. I was going to explain..."

"Adam, honey, tell Christy it's much too late to be running around the house. At her age she needs her beauty sleep," Janna murmured in a sleepy, languid voice from the bed.

"Is she in here?" Christy blazed, peering over Adam's arm which he had braced against the doorframe to get a look at the bed. "Why that, that..." she began furiously, spotting Janna curled in the sheets. "Adam, that woman is trying to trick you! I know her type. She practically admitted earlier she deliberately followed you to this place today in order to try and seduce you! Sleep with her if you like, but I'm warning you, she's only after your money!"

Janna glared at the younger girl who stood in the hall, dressed in a filmy robe which did nothing to hide the curves revealed by the still filmier gown underneath it.

"I don't believe this!" Adam thundered, having obviously reached the end of his patience. "Christy, get the hell back to your room. Right now\ And don't you dare come out until morning. Is that clear?"

Even Christy seemed to understand that Adam was in no mood for a 'private' discussion at the moment. She flinched, fixed him with a heartbroken, reproachful expression and then fled.

"And as for you," Adam began threateningly, rounding on his other uninvited bedroom guest, "I want to see you out of that bed and back in your own room before I count to five or, so help me, I'm going to pound your backside so hard you'll be eating your meals off the mantle for a week!"

"But, Adam..."

"One...two...!"

Janna was at the door and through it before he had reached three.

A few minutes later, after listening through her own door for suspicious sounds, Janna climbed into her bed and went to sleep with a small sense of satisfaction. Even Christy Benson would think twice about approaching Adam again tonight. The memory of his air of exhausted patience and male outrage made Janna smile before she closed her eyes.

It was the rising sound of voices which woke her the next morning. For a moment Janna lay still, trying to filter the various tones and identify the owners. There was Christy, sounding very young and uncertain and Janna thought she could make out Adam's voice. He sounded in a foul mood. Perhaps he hadn't gotten over his irritation of last night. And then another voice broke through; a heavy, unfamiliar man's tones conveying barely restrained anger.

Who in the world would be calling at this hour? Janna wondered curiously, tossing back the covers and groping around the floor for her scuffs.

"But, Dad...!"

Janna heard Christy's wail and winced inwardly with sudden realisation. The redhead had bragged openly she'd had a better scheme for trapping Adam Halleck than Janna did! What had made Janna think that the one small effort of attracting Adam last night by coming to his room in a filmy nightgown to 'talk' was the only ace up the younger woman's sleeve?

Janna scrambled through her morning routine, instinct telling her that she would be able to handle matters better if she were dressed. Hurrying into jeans and a fresh blouse, she pulled her hair back in a familiar knot and found her shoes. Just before stepping out the door she took a quick glance in the full length mirror which lined the closet door. Yes, she appeared calm enough and, Janna grinned wryly, old enough to convince Christy's father of the truth. There was no doubt in her mind that it was the senior Benson who's deep tones were the source of that tight fury out there in the living room. And Adam had laughed at the idea of sweet little Christy compromising him! It must be very difficult to face a business associate at this hour of the morning and plead innocent to seducing his darling daughter!

With grim determination, calling forth every ounce of royal unconcern and coolness which she could command, Janna made her way calmly down the hall toward the front of the house. The voices grew louder as she went.

The scene which greeted her in the living room was something out of an opera. Or a farce, she amended with a small smile. A bristling, middle-aged man stood squarely planted facing Adam. He was shorter than the younger man and was burdened with a slight paunch, but the righteous indignation of the outraged father seemed to provide him with all the courage he needed to face the man he saw as the seducer of his daughter.

It was clear to Janna that this was the real plan sweet Christy had invented. She stood now clinging delicately to Adam, facing her father with tears in her beautiful blue eyes. She was still wearing the lacy nightgown and wrapper from the late-night visit to Adam's room. As for Adam, he stood like a solid piece of rock, glaring at the angry, balding man in front of him and appearing not to notice Christy's presence on his arm. He was dressed in jeans and a hastily buttoned shirt, the cuffs of which remained undone.

"I don't mind telling you, Halleck, I could hardly believe Christy's note when I found it a couple of hours ago! I thought you were an honest, trustworthy man. We've done a lot of business together and you were one of the few people I knew I could deal with openly and aboveboard! To think that you would stoop to this! She's only a child, for God's sake!"

"Dad, that's not true!" Christy interrupted pleadingly. "I know what I'm doing!"

"I know you've had a stupid, juvenile crush on Halleck for the last three months, ever since he came to dinner. But I never thought he would take advantage of that childish affection to...to...!"

"Frank," began Adam in a furious, tightly restrained tone that told Janna more than anything else how bad the situation really was, "I'm going to tell you one last time what happened last night and that's it! We've known each other long enough to recognize the truth of a situation. Or, at least I thought we did! Christy showed up late last night, totally uninvited, claiming she was..."

"Her note said you'd asked her to come down and spend a few days..."

Janna had heard enough.

"Good morning, everyone. I'm going to make some coffee. Can I interest all of you in a cup? Of course I can," she added easily, answering her own question when the only response she got from the other three people was a sudden, complete silence. At once she was the focal point of all attention in the room and she used it to walk serenely toward the kitchen where she would still be in sight behind the bar.

It was rather humorous, actually, Janna decided, hiding a smile as three pairs of eyes swung to follow her movements, as if fascinated.

"You must be Mr. Benson," janna chatted, smiling across the bar at the astonished man as she measured coffee and water. "I'm Janna Courtney. How do you like your coffee? Adam prefers cream as I do, so don't hesitate to request it. I'm going to have to get it out, anyway." She held Frank Benson's eyes with a very direct look and the poor man felt compelled to answer the mundane question.

"Black, please. With sugar."

"No problem. I realize the three of you are quite involved with your little discussion, but don't you think it's a bit early for such hysterics?" Again Janna didn't give any of the others a chance to answer. "You must have had a long drive this morning, Mr. Benson. Being the father of a lovely, high-spirited little thing like Christy, here, must be very trying at times. When she appeared on the doorstep last night I said to myself, this child should be sent right home to her father! But we couldn't do that. It was much too late to put her back in the car and send her down the coast highway with all it's twists and turns. We really couldn't do much else, in fact, except put her into the study for the night.

"The study?" Frank Benson breathed, still staring at Janna who concentrated her attention on him and ignored the open-mouthed fury of the girl hanging on to Adam. As for Adam, he simply watched her, appearing as mesmerized as his guests, but there was a growing look of wrath on the rugged features.

"Yes. Christy spent the night in the study. There's a couch in there, you know. At least she spent most of the night there except for one brief trip to Adam's room!"

"Halleck's room? She did go there?" Benson pounced, growing quite red at the words.

"Well, yes, I'm afraid so. She wanted to, er, talk, I believe. Seemed to feel a private conversation with Adam would be more interesting than one carried out in front of me in the morning. For some reason she hadn't figured out my role in the household at that point and seemed quite surprised to find me in Adam's bed!" Janna smiled in a supremely worldly fashion at Frank Benson.