The Hawk and the Lamb

'Champagne is hardly likely to do that. Quite the re­verse-some people even bath in the stuff, you know...'

Elizabeth suddenly had a startling vision of that lean, hard, amoral body lounging in a bath of the foaming, golden fluid... not alone, of course...

Appalled at her wayward imagination, she held on to her dogged resistance. 'I don’t think—'

'Obviously not. All the while you are arguing so pointlessly with me your garments are becoming satu­rated beyond saving. I would have thought that modesty alone would have overcome your scruples about my laundry'

Elizabeth's head jerked up and she looked squarely at him for the first time. The silver-grey eyes seemed to penetrate her protective dark mask for a fraction of a second before they lowered mockingly to her breasts. Her hands rose automatically to shield herself but before she could place them across her chest her tormentor had shaken out the neat folds of his handkerchief and draped it gracefully across the provocative indigo pattern traced by the transparent fabric. She clutched it to her soaked body as he murmured, 'Have you something else to change into? I'm sure the air hostess will find some way to dry your blouse for you by the time we reach Nouméa.'

'I—no,' said Elizabeth grudgingly, thinking of her buttonless jacket.

At that moment the hostess returned with a small towel and Elizabeth held it gratefully against her rapidly cooling chest, blotting up the worst of the moisture while extricating the now sodden handkerchief. Should she offer to have it dry-cleaned?

The decision was taken out of her hands when the air hostess spoke across the top of her head in French, graciously offering to have the handkerchief dry-cleaned with Elizabeth's blouse, calling the man 'Monsieur Hawkwood' with a familiarity that implied he was a fre­quent flyer with Air Caledonie. The man responded with a lazily flirtatious remark and in the course of their ex­change reiterated his suggestion that Elizabeth change out of her wet blouse.

Elizabeth opened her mouth to tell him that she was perfectly capable of making her own request when he cut her off with a condescending smile and a rough translation, minus the flirtatious bits, of the conver­sation. He obviously assumed that Elizabeth was a naïve scatter-brain who couldn’t possibly have mastered another language, and she closed her mouth again when she realised that his erroneous assumption could be to her advantage. If he didn’t know that she spoke his language fluently he might inadvertently betray some­thing useful in her hearing.

At the hostess's urging Elizabeth slipped into the compact toilet to remove her blouse and rinse both it and her slightly sticky breasts. She took off the necklace and very carefully washed it, marvelling anew at the fine workmanship that had gone into the ornately wrought settings and triangular gold links of the supporting chain. The diamonds and blood-red rubies glittered brilliantly in her hands but Elizabeth felt only unease at the rec­ognition of their beauty. Why, the stones alone were probably worth tens of thousands of dollars!

Her bra was also damp but she had no intention of removing that, too. For one thing her full breasts always felt uncomfortable without firm support. For another, J.J. Hawkwood made her feel self-conscious enough without the added awkwardness of feeling physically vulnerable.

Therefore she was appalled when the air hostess passed her the promised replacement shirt through a crack in the door—not one from a spare crew uniform as Elizabeth had expected but 'kindly lent by Monsieur Hawkwood, who always carries a full change of clothes'. Elizabeth longed to reject the offer but had already handed over her blouse. The shirt wasn’t of an inex­pensive polyester variety either—it was pure silk, white, softly draping from narrow gathers on the yoked shoulders. The label proclaimed it custom-made. The sleeves hung well down over her hands but Elizabeth had to roll them up anyway because the cuffs only had slits for cuff-links, no buttons.

Elizabeth smoothed her dark brown hair unnecess­arily, putting off the moment when she would have to step out of the door. Her lipstick had worn off and the lower part of her face under her thick fringe and con­cealing sunglasses looked far too pale. She took the sun­glasses off. That was even worse. Her eyes looked huge and bruised in her pale face, a little wild and definitely fearful. A dead give-away in fact. She bit her lips to try and give them a bit of colour but they only seemed to emphasise what she had always felt was a too-small mouth. Everything about her looked somehow out of kilter, which was exactly how she felt.

She buttoned the shirt right up to the small stand-up collar but still it looked far too... sexy. The shirt was too big, of course, but instead of concealing her curves the thin shroud of silk seemed to settle lovingly against them every time she moved. Even in these days of unisex dressing there was something risqué— about wearing a man's shirt, Elizabeth thought glumly. Something chal­lenging, and the last thing she wanted was for J.J. Hawkwood to think she was challenging him in any way whatsoever.

Elizabeth sighed. If only Marge hadn’t fallen ill she wouldn’t be in this mess.

When Uncle Simon had unexpectedly turned up to run her out to the airport earlier that morning she hadn’t at first suspected an ulterior motive. She had merely thought that he wanted to save his two elder brothers the rush-hour trip across town. At seventy-two and seventy-five respectively Miles and Seymour Lamb gen­erally preferred someone else to drive them around in their lovingly cared for vintage Citroen—usually Elizabeth herself.

Uncle Simon had allowed her to say her farewells to the two old men in blissful ignorance, waiting until they were on their way to the airport to drop his bombshell.

'Marge can’t go with you.'

'What?' Elizabeth turned her shocked face towards his profile and he gave her the reassuring 'everything'll be all right, Jake' grin that usually meant the opposite.

'If you've suddenly found some urgent work for her I hope she quits and comes anyway,' Elizabeth said furi­ously. 'She hasn’t had a holiday for sixteen months—' Marge Benson was Simon's secretary-receptionist and general dogsbody, and Elizabeth often felt that her uncle didn’t truly appreciate the extent of her friend's dedication and loyalty.

'No—nothing like that,' her uncle told her hurriedly. 'She woke up this morning with some horrendous variety of flu. She got her doctor to make a house-call and he refused to give her clearance to fly for at least a week. She knew that you'd be upset so instead of ringing she asked me to tell you...'

'But why didn’t you let me know earlier?' Elizabeth cried in dismay. 'If we try and cancel now I'll probably have to forfeit most of my fare!' That was no small sum. The resort at which they were booked was highly ex­clusive and air fare, accommodation, meals and enter­tainment were all included in the cost.

Her next unpalatable thought was that she couldn’t cancel, anyway. Too much depended on her going to New Caledonia as soon as possible.

'You can’t cancel!' her uncle unknowingly echoed her thoughts. 'I mean, you don’t have to,' he corrected himself hastily. 'Marge insists that you go; she'll feel awfully guilty if you don’t. Just because she's sick is no reason that you should have to lose out. You've been looking forward to a holiday for ages and you had to juggle a whole load of schedules to get this leave. You originally intended going by yourself, anyway. And the weather here is awful at the moment—you wouldn’t have much of a holiday at home. What with having just got over the flu yourself you need to get completely away for a good rest. What better place than a sub-tropical island in the South Pacific?'

Elizabeth was touched by his fervent concern until he added sheepishly, 'And...well, I need you to go.’

In spite of her questions he refused to be any more forthcoming until they got to the airport, his craggy face taking on the familiar look of pugnacious determination that served him so well in his profession. After racketing around the world in a variety of jobs in his youth and then doing a five-year stint in the army, in middle age Uncle Simon had surprised his family by settling down to run a detective agency in Auckland.

At the terminal, Elizabeth balked at checking in, steering her uncle instead to the coffee shop and in­sisting he explain himself, which he did, at exhaustive length.

Marge, it seemed, had jumped at the offer to ac­company Elizabeth to the Isle of Hawks in New Caledonia not just because she wanted a holiday, but because it was timely cover for the budding detective to carry out a small 'job' for her boss. She was supposed to bring back photographic evidence of an errant wife's affair with her married boss—who happened to be none other than Jean-Jules Hawkwood, head of the corpor­ation which owned the international chain of exclusive Hawk Hote

ls.

Elizabeth was appalled. 'What do you mean, photo­graphic evidence?' She had visions of Marge hiding in closets and jumping out on the lovers.