Blue Waltz Read Online Free PDF Page A

chair, did she start to breathe again.
    The menu was filled with entrees she had never heard of before.
    Cornish pigeon with rice dressing.
    Tangerine dressing cockaigne over squab.
    Squid in cream sauce.
    Good Lord, roast and potatoes were sounding better by the minute.
    At length she settled for onion soup, endive salad, and something called Pate de Foie Gras. It was obviously French, sounded exotic, and certainly had to be delicious. Weren't French chefs known for their culinary prowess?
    Her meal arrived with amazing swiftness. Belle suspected the speed had less to do with efficiency than the maître d's desire to see her gone.
    The soup was good, the salad edible, but the foie gras . . . Perhaps she should have asked for roast and potatoes instead. The only item that had been truly delicious was the bread.
    26Linda Francis Lee
    With a sigh she lifted the cloth covering the silver bread dish to peer inside. As expected, there was not a roll to be had. And not a waiter in sight. Leaning back in her chair, she pushed at the pate with her fork until she caught sight of an entire dish of bread not two feet away on the table next to hers.
    The table was occupied by a man who sat with his back to her. He was firmly engrossed in the Boston Globe, which lay flat and folded on the edge of his table.
    "Excuse me," she said.
    The man didn't move.
    "Excuse me," she repeated, leaning slightly closer.
    She saw his head rise just a bit. For a second, when he remained perfectly still, she thought he would ignore her, simply go back to his paper and pretend he hadn't heard. But just when she was about to say excuse me once again, he turned, slowly, not quite all the way around.
    He was large and imposing, with dark hair, cast darker by the faded light in the room. On closer inspection she noticed a thin, half-moon scar just below his left eye. Without a word, she studied him, straight forward, without flirtatiousness, summing him up.
    His bearing was calm and confident—a man used to getting his way, she concluded. Instinct told her he was not someone to cross lightly. Someone dangerous, someone she'd do well to steer clear of. Someone, she thought unexpectedly, who could dissuade her from her path.
    She nearly slipped off her chair when she started to turn away, suddenly apprehensive.
    He reached out and steadied her. "Are you all right?"
    His voice surprised her. The sound was smooth and deep, mesmerizing. A voice a person could drown in, become lost in and never find her way out.
    Blue Waltz27
    For a moment she forgot why she had gained his attention, or that she would do well to steer clear of him. She had the fleeting desire to ask him to say something, anything, whatever he pleased, just so long as he continued to speak and allowed her to listen.
    "You have a beautiful voice," she said simply. "Has anyone ever told you that?"
    Her words seemed to catch this dark, dangerous pirate-man off guard. The thought pleased her immensely and she laughed, delight mixing with her relief, making her careless. "Either the answer is no," she continued, when he didn't respond, "or you don't hold great stores in having anything about you called beautiful."
    One slash of dark brow raised slightly, but still he gave no response.
    "No, you don't look to me to be a man who would like to be called many things at all, much less beautiful." She glanced over his attire, or at least what she could see of it, since he still hadn't turned completely around.
    "Black coat, black trousers, black boots. Unrelieved black. Intimidating," she determined, her apprehension forgotten entirely as her eyes slid over his somber clothing. "And obviously intended to be that way."
    She pursed her lips. "I have a book on fashion that discusses the vices and virtues of wearing the color black. Let me think. Austere, unapproachable, forbidding." She laughed. "Though I'm not certain which are the vices and which are the virtues."
    He leaned back in his chair somewhat, his