Mum's the Word by Dorothy Cannell Page B

switched on a bedside lamp.
    â€œBen, I’ve no credentials for the job. No prior experience. Tell me, if you were the baby would you be happy?”
    His face and torso were air-brushed with the rosy glow from the lamp. Lying down beside me he soothed a hand down my arm. “Tell me more about your mother.”
    Turning away from him, I twisted my hair into a knot. “I have only wonderful memories of her. She was beautiful, clever, and breathtakingly
thin
. She was like a Christmas sparkler bursting into the air in a shower of silver light. My father adored her. When she died, he escaped into his midlife amusement park and has never jumped off the merry-go-round.”
    â€œYou’ve got me,” Ben murmured against my neck.
    â€œDo you come with a free coupon for dinner?”
    â€œI was wondering about room service,” he said, undoing the toga and drawing me inside.
    â€™Twas the middle of the night and I awoke to sweating, heartpounding terror. Where was I? The room was a black box with threads of light breaking in through the cracks. As for the person in bed beside me, I reached out and felt blindly over his face until slowly the familiar feel of him warmed my hands and I was able to settle back against the pillows. My breathing slowed. This had happened before on trips away from home ever since Child Ellie paid that first fateful visit to Merlin’s Court. And this time the change in time zones didn’t help when it came to dozing off again. At home this would be mid-morning.
    Hugging my pillow, I remembered I’d forgotten myevening prayers. “Please God, I don’t mind whether the baby is a boy or a girl, so long as it’s thin. And while we are having this little talk, please don’t ever get the idea that I want to be famous.”
    I was sinking back down into the glorious welter of sleep when Ben tapped me on the shoulder with a finger that felt like a mallet. “Wakey! Wakey!”
    The ensuing scene was from a speeded-up horror movie. I was thrust into a steaming shower, spun around, towel-dried, hurtled into my clothes. Still raking a comb through my hair, I ran out the door, raced down the stairs, skidded across the lobby and out onto the street where I was assaulted by brutal Boston sunlight.
    What a ghastly mistake I’d made wearing the salmon pink silk shift. My face would clash with it in minutes. The sky was bleached almost white, and though we were walking fast, my shoes kept sticking to the pavement like hot irons on nylon undies.
    â€œWhat’s the obscene rush?” I asked the mad dog of an Englishman who had brought us out in the 8:00 A.M. sun. His looking as though he’d just been lifted from the tissue paper of an Austin Reed box made me no less cross.
    â€œSweetheart, do we want to waste the day?” His eyes shifted away from mine. Naively, I thought he was making sure we didn’t get nailed by one of several cars, all trying to beat the amber light, as we dashed across the brick street, heavy on charm and hard on the feet. For one bulgy-eyed moment I feared I’d have to vault the bonnet of the last car between me and the pavement, or—as was my habit when faced with leaping the Wooden Horse at school—crawl underneath. All by way of explaining that I still didn’t twig that Ben was keeping something from me when he guided me toward the Golden Arches and into McDonalds.
    On home soil he would only have entered such a place feet first. But surely the possibility had occurred to him that here in Boston Mangés’ spies might be anywhere! To be fair, he sounded edgy when ordering for us and sought out a table screened by plastic leaves entwined around the brass rail room divider. But he had almost finished his Egg McMuffin before he even broached the possibility of danger.
    â€œEllie, this is great! I may find myself fighting an irresistible urge to return.”
    â€œGood heavens! I don’t know