The Riverboat Mystery (Jenny Starling #3)(32)

Jasmine yawned mightily and flipped over another page of her magazine. She’d only brought one with her — a French fashion magazine — and she was already thoroughly bored with it. But really, what else was there to do in a dead-end hole like this? she thought savagely. The thought of living here permanently, endlessly cruising through the boring countryside, was enough to send a visible shudder running through her.

‘What about Brian?’ Lucas asked, bringing out the dart sets from the top drawer of a short bureau. ‘That is, if you can get the surly bugger to come out of the engine room.’

‘He’s chopping wood,’ Tobias said quickly. ‘We need it for later on. It’ll take him a while.’

Lucas nodded, then glanced at David. ‘You and me, then, me old china?’

David nodded, more than happy with that arrangement. Tobias cast Gabriel a brief, angry look, and quickly turned away, ostensibly to inspect his darts. The last thing he wanted was Olney for a partner. On the other hand, it was rather ironic, when you thought about it.

And so the game began.

Lucas, to nobody’s surprise, was a rather good darts player, and achieved a double with his first throw.

Jasmine turned another page of her magazine and blinked. There, tucked in the pages, was a single piece of neatly folded white notepaper. It said a lot about Jasmine Olney’s personality that she didn’t gasp, start or so much as cast a quick guilty look around her. Instead she merely ran a finger along the edge of her page in masterly nonchalance, and took a slow look up.

The men were all gathered around the dartboard, and little Dorothy goody two shoes was watching her husband with wide, adoring eyes.

Jasmine slowly unfolded the notepaper. It was in handwriting she didn’t recognize, written in black ink and with bold upsweeping lines.

Jasmine,

Meet me upstairs, in your room, at two o’clock. Keep near the door and keep a sharp eye out, just in case your husband comes a-calling.

I can’t wait to touch you. You’ve been driving me crazy ever since you stepped on board.

But then, I expect you already know that.

B O’K.

B O’K, Jasmine thought, her lips curling into a whimsical, highly self-satisfied smile. Brian O’Keefe. So, the engineer had been playing little games with her all along, had he? Pretending not to notice whenever she looked his way, giving her those arrogantly knowing little smiles. She had begun to feel a bit put out about the engineer. She wasn’t used to men not reacting to her the way she expected.

Now, though, she almost purred.

Not that she’d allow anything to happen, of course. Not now, and certainly not here, aboard this damned boat. Gabriel might catch them out, and that really wouldn’t do. Giving him any ammunition in the divorce courts — even in these days of so-called fault-free divorces — wouldn’t do her chances of a hefty alimony settlement any good. Especially if the case got assigned to some silly old fart with old-fashioned views.

Jasmine’s eyes narrowed to slits. No, that wouldn’t do at all. Still, it would be interesting to see what the swarthy engineer had to say for himself. How he handled himself. A few passionate kisses on a slow, Sunday afternoon — no harm in that, surely. A little heavy petting too, if he played his cards right.

Jasmine carefully refolded the paper and took a surreptitious look around, and was mollified, for once, to find that nobody was paying her the slightest bit of attention.

David Leigh was at the oche now, and still struggling to get his first double to allow him to start accumulating his own score. She turned a page of her magazine, checked her watch — which said nearly ten past two — and smiled.

She was already late. Perhaps he was waiting for her upstairs even now? She gave a pleasurable shiver, then yawned widely and stood up. ‘Well, I’m going to take a little nap in my room,’ she said, her voice dripping ennui.

Her husband barely gave her a look. It was not hard to see why. Gabriel was already forty points down on Lucas. Jasmine could have crowed over her good luck. Her husband was a competitive man in everything he did — even a silly game of darts would keep him riveted until he had won.

Of course, it also meant that if he lost, he’d be impossible to live with for days. Jasmine shrugged, smiled at Dorothy, who asked her if she had a headache or needed some aspirin, shook her head ‘no’ and sauntered away.

Her room was empty, but as she’d walked towards the closed door she could have sworn she’d heard something — some kind of noise coming from inside. Obviously, though, it had been wishful thinking, for the bedroom was deserted. Even the windows had been closed, and not so much as a lace curtain moved in the still air.

But she didn’t really mind her would-be lover’s tardiness.

The captain had said he had a lot of wood to chop. He’d probably be all sweaty and callus-palmed when he came.

The thought brought a happy, feline smile to her face. She picked up a chair and set it about a foot from the door, where she was sure to be able to hear anyone coming up the stairs in plenty of time.

*

Downstairs, Dorothy slowly began to go pale. She leaned back in her chair and breathed deeply, but it didn’t take her husband long to notice her distress.

‘Dotty, are you all right?’ he asked sharply, and quickly came across to take her hand. Behind him, both Lucas and Gabriel looked around curiously.