The Marriage Merger. Liz Fielding

dropped it on the floor and didn’t rush to let her go.

      If he was going to die, he might as well do something worth dying for. And, with her head still resting against his shoulder, he carefully removed all the pins and combs from her hair.

      It descended, heavy and dark, the colour of bittersweet chocolate, over his hands and down her back. He shook it loose, spreading its astonishing silky length through his fingers before he laid her gently back against the pillow and stood back.

      Not exactly Sleeping Beauty, but a lot closer than he would ever have imagined when he’d joined her in the back seat of that limousine in the grey chill of a London morning.

      It seemed pointless, after such intimacy, to be coy about taking off her trousers. He accomplished that final kindness without difficulty, scarcely pausing to notice that her knickers were not of the plain, functional kind, but were expensive, French, black. And fitted like a second skin.

      Or that her legs matched her ankles very nicely.

      That would be taking unfair advantage.

      He drew the drapes to keep off any curious insects that might fly in, then, closing the louvre doors to the veranda behind him and leaving her to sleep, returned to his delayed breakfast.

      To consider the conundrum that was Flora Claibourne. The woman hiding behind the disguise of a plain, spinsterish academic. All she’d left out was a pair of spectacles, he thought.

      Ones with heavy tortoiseshell frames—to match the combs.