Ivory (38 page)

Alex held out his arm and she said, ‘Why thank you, sir.'

There were two dining cars and the first was already full. Wine waiters in black ties were taking drinks orders as he and Lesley edged their way through. There was no sign of Jane or Penfold yet, but as they hadn't been in the first car he presumed they would eventually show up in this one.

‘Wow, this is something,' Lesley said as they entered the next car.

She was right. The second dining car was more elaborately detailed than the first which, while still elegant, had a clean, almost minimalist Art Deco look to it. By contrast, the carriage, in which Jane and Penfold occupied the furthest table, was a confection of Edwardian intricacy and detail. Two rows of ornately carved teak pillars ran the length of the carriage, subtly separating the dining tables so that even when fully booked, as the train was now, it seemed like each party of diners had a private space of their own.

Lesley and Alex seated themselves midway up the dining car and Alex deliberately took the seat facing Jane. He could just see the back of George's head. He kept his eye on her and willed her to look up from her menu. Eventually she did, and almost managed to conceal her recognition. By the time Penfold looked around, Alex had raised his menu.

Alex imagined George would have no idea that the leader of the gang his men were hunting would be on the same train as he. He did know what Alex looked like, from a photo, but Alex reasoned the likelihood of him being recognised would be greater if Penfold saw him alone. Lesley added to his cover. The only problem with the tall, elegant redhead was that she attracted the attention of every man in the carriage, and some of their wives.

Alex ordered a Windhoek lager and Lesley a Brampton sauvignon blanc. Once all the guests were seated the train manager took their orders and the food service followed soon after.

Lesley finished a mouthful of her starter, smoked ostrich carpaccio with tempura vegetables, and wiped her full glossy lips with a linen serviette. She glanced over her shoulder and then back at Alex. ‘Why is that girl at the end of the carriage, behind me, pretending she's not looking at you? Do you two know each other?'

‘An old acquaintance,' Alex said. ‘Though her partner doesn't know me, and we'd like to keep it that way.'

‘Aha. I'm intrigued. I'm sensing you might be what the Brits call a
scoundrel
, Mister Tremain. Is that the right word?'

‘It would be ungentlemanly of me to say, Ms Engels.' He asked her more about her background, and she his, while the waiter cleared away their entrée plates. Alex ordered a glass of Zandvliet shiraz and Lesley stayed with the white as the second course, carrot and ginger soup, arrived. Alex held his wine glass to the light of the candle, admiring the etched RVR logo again. It was the little things that sometimes counted the most. He wondered how many glasses were stolen each trip.

‘So, I know you're half English and half Portuguese and live on an
island in the Indian Ocean, but you haven't actually told me what it is you do, Alex.'

He looked out the window, admiring the floral motif embroidered on the curtains at the same time. The train had cleared Johannesburg's sprawling limits and there were no lights outside as they rocked and rolled through the empty night.

‘I'm a pirate.'

‘Really?' She sipped her wine. ‘Do tell.'

Alex thought for a moment, then said, ‘Sure. Why not?'

T
here were about a dozen passengers in the observation carriage when Alex entered. He ordered a coffee and looked around, but there was no sign of Jane. He checked his watch. It was 9 pm. He walked out the back into the open-sided compartment. It was cool, but still pleasant.

Jane arrived five minutes later and he felt his heart start to quicken as he watched her thread her way down the length of the carriage, stopping briefly to chat with an elderly lady. She opened the sliding door. ‘Sorry I'm late.'

‘No problem.'

The waiter came out and Jane ordered a white wine. Alex downed his coffee and asked for a beer.

‘Where's George?'

‘In his suite. I told him I've got a splitting headache. It's not far from the truth.'

‘Wine will help.'

She laughed. ‘How can you be so relaxed about all of this? Are you addicted to danger?'

He shrugged. ‘I'm looking forward to going into detox. I want the biggest threat to my life to be cockroaches in the kitchen and the
only risk of dying to come from hardened arteries.'

‘Are you serious? I'm sure part of you wants to keep doing what you're doing.'

‘When I thought I'd killed that guy on the
Penfold Son
it made me sick. I don't want to kill any more, Jane.'

They were silent as the waiter re-emerged with their drinks.

When the waiter disappeared again Alex asked her about her family and Jane told him how proud her parents had been when she had graduated as a lawyer. ‘I thought it was all I ever wanted to do.'

‘Thought?'

‘What's happened on this trip, most of it has been ghastly but it's made me realise there's so much more of the world out there for me to explore. There was no excitement in my life, which may be why I fell for George. But I know now that was wrong.'

‘What I do is wrong.'

There's some good inside you, Alex. You'll make a wonderful hotelier and you seem to be a very good judge of soft furnishings.'

He laughed, then looked out at the passing night. ‘I wonder. I do know it's what I've always wanted. I just hope I'm as good at it as I am at storming ships.'

‘Well, you're crap at storming ships.' He smiled at her and she decided it would be better to stick to something safe. ‘Tell me about your family.'

Alex told her how his father had enlisted in the Rhodesian Army after leaving Mozambique, and how he had been killed in action. ‘He died doing a job he actually loved, and for a cause he believed in, but it devastated me. I worshipped him.'

‘I'm so sorry, Alex. And your mum?'

He took a deep breath and a long draught of beer.

‘Funny, but I don't talk about her as much as I do about my father.'

‘Don't, if you don't want to.'

‘No, it's OK.'

He closed his eyes and the visions, the sights, the sounds of that day
rushed back over him, making him more light-headed than the drink warranted.

‘We were leaving Mozambique. We'd taken our boat to Vilanculos and got into the car my father kept on the mainland. Everything would have been OK, but my dad was in a hurry. It was understandable.'

‘Alex . . .'

‘No, it's OK. He made the right call. There was a roadblock manned by looters looking to get whatever they could from the people fleeing the country. My father chanced it. It was mayhem. You can't believe what it was like. Everyone wild-eyed. Too much excitement. Too much booze. It was the way he was. Brash. Confident. He floored the accelerator. There was shooting. It was scary . . . but exciting. You know?'

He could see she didn't; not really.

‘We made it through and he was laughing – shouting. He asked us if we were OK.'

He paused to wipe his eyes, embarrassed by the betrayal of long dormant emotions.

‘Only one bullet hit the car. It killed my mother.'

Jane raised a hand to her mouth. ‘My god,' she whispered, then lowered her fingers so that they covered his.

Inside the carriage the barman was collecting empty glasses and oh so nonchalantly checking his watch. ‘I think we'd better make a move,' Alex said. ‘I'll get a bottle of bubbly for the road.'

‘Are you trying to get me drunk, Captain Tremain?'

‘Yes.' He was glad that she sensed he wanted no more talk of the past for now.

They went inside to the bar and Alex thanked the barman as he collected the bottle and two fresh flutes.

‘I'm afraid I have to lock the carriage now, sir.'

‘No problem,' Alex said, ‘we'll sit in the smoking lounge.' He didn't think it was proper to invite Jane back to his tiny suite, with its two bunks, and hers was next to George Penfold's. In any case, he didn't want her to think he was trying something on.

After the barman said goodnight, Jane took a seat beside Alex on a
brown leather settee, in the small smoking lounge next to the observation carriage. The air still smelled of cigar smoke. ‘We haven't spoken about Cape Town, or how we're going to board the
Penfold Son
.'

‘That'll sort itself out,' Alex said, raising a glass.

‘You struck me as the sort of military man who plans everything to the last detail.'

‘Not everything.' He put his glass down, leaned over and kissed her on the lips.

She half opened her mouth to him then drew back, looking into his eyes. She reached out for him, running a finger down the pitted skin on the left side of his face, where he'd been wounded in the war by the grenade that had taken his fingers. He stared back at her, intently.

She took his face in both her hands and held him close to her as they kissed and his hands began their exploration of her body. He traced the line of her spine, from under her long blonde hair to the small of her back, and she shivered in his arms.

‘Yes,' was all she said.

He moved a hand to her thigh and she parted for him. He felt the softness of her skin and the firm muscle beneath as his fingers continued their trail and found her, ready for him when he pulled the flimsy fabric of her pants to one side. She arched her back in the seat as his fingers circled the hard little bud at the centre of so much softness.

‘My room?' he breathed between kisses.

‘No. Here.'

She reached for him as she kissed him again, unzipping his trousers and reaching inside. She wrapped her hand around him and smiled at the look that sprang to his face. George had wanted her to do things for him, to him, but all Jane could think of now was how much she wanted Alex. It was different. She wanted to let go of her inhibitions without the need to discuss it, or to be told what to do. She undid the top two buttons beneath the bust line of her dress. Alex reached for her, but she dropped to her knees on the carpeted floor of the train, tantalisingly out of reach for the moment. She wanted to do this for him. She freed her breasts slowly, one at a time, from her bra.

Alex groaned and she felt the desire well within her like lava. She leaned forward and wrapped the soft mounds of flesh around his shaft. As he moved against her she lowered her mouth to the head of his cock, tasting him at the end of each long stroke. She felt as if she might catch fire from the heat of him against her chest. With the lights on she felt more lascivious, more excited, more aroused and more right than she ever had in her life.

She paused and looked up at him. ‘I want you.'

Alex sighed and ran a hand through his hair. ‘Jane, I'm sorry, I didn't bring . . .'

She let go of him and reached across for her clutch bag, on the next armchair. She snapped it open, fumbled inside and grinned as she found what she was looking for and tore the foil packet open with her teeth. He closed his eyes as she rolled the latex skin down over him. She loved that he'd tried to do the right thing, and that she, at least, had thought ahead, despite what she'd said to him about there being nothing between them. He opened his eyes and they made her breath catch in her throat.

‘Come here,' he said to her.

He placed his hands on her upper arms and lifted her to him, kissing her deeply and pulling her closer. She climbed onto the lounge, her knees on the upholstered leather on either side of his legs.

‘I've wanted you since I first saw you,' he said.

‘I know.'

She lowered herself onto him and he took her nipples into his mouth, sucking each in turn as she continued her journey. She paused as he filled her, mind, body and soul. She laid her head against his shoulder and he kissed the tender skin behind her ear, lightly.

‘Oh, God.' She moved faster now and the gentle rocking of the moving train matched their rhythm perfectly. Each judder of the train's wheels on the tracks sent vibrations up through his body and into her, and she rode him with the same stop-start motion of the carriage.

Jane threw back her head and he held on to her, arms clasped behind the small of her back as she abandoned herself. Neither of them would
have cared if someone walked in. He looked up at her and when she tilted her head forward again she smiled at him, through glistening eyes.

He raised a hand to her breast and took her nipple firmly into his mouth, drawing it in as she started to come. Alex held her tight as she exhausted herself on him and kissed her hard to muffle the soft cries that nonetheless still escaped.

‘Now you,' she breathed.

Inflamed by desire he held her hips and lifted her off the seat as he drove up into her. He wanted her more than anything else in the world right then. Nothing else mattered. His breathing quickened as he felt his orgasm building.

Far ahead the locomotive braked and the judder passed down the line through all the carriages. It reached Alex and Jane at the moment he was as deeply a part of her as was possible. The sudden jolt brought on his climax and pushed their bodies into one another.

Jane couldn't help herself and started to laugh. Alex joined in, until they heard footsteps. By the time the barman reached them they were sitting side by side, sipping champagne.

‘Everything all right, sir, madam?'

‘Perfect,' they said in unison, which made them start to laugh again.

T
able Mountain was draped in a cloth of white mist, the folds of which hung gracefully down the sides of the imposing altar to nature's majesty.

Alex barely spared the mountain a look as he followed the instructions in the rental car's GPS to the Radisson Waterfront Hotel where Jane was staying. It was three in the afternoon on the day after they had left the
Pride of Africa
at Cape Town's railway terminus.