Page 32 of Edge of Darkness (Night Prowler 4)
“Chupitos are fried octopus.”
His blank look told her she wasn’t making any progress.
“They’re disgusting. I hate them. Understand? Oh, never mind.” When he didn’t show any sign of comprehension, Ember began to close the door and the driver began to plead with her as it swung shut.
“Please, miss! Please, you don’t understand, you must come—”
But then she spied the copy of Casino Royale on the console table and had an idea. She held the door open again.
“On second thought, I’ll make you a deal…” She was going to say his name, but realized she didn’t know it. “I’m sorry, what’s your name?”
“Corbin, miss.”
“Well, Corbin, I really need to sell this book. Some of us can’t afford chauffeurs. Also there’s a few choice things I’d like to say to your employer. And apparently you really need to drive me somewhere, or you’ll get into trouble. So I’ll make you a deal. I’ll go with you…”
His face instantly brightened. When she finished her sentence, however, it fell again.
&n
bsp; “If you take me to wherever Christian is right now so I can tell him off to his face.”
Corbin gaped at her like a suffocating fish. “That is not possible miss! If I were to disobey a direct order from Lord McLoughlin—”
“Take it or leave it, Corbin. And if it’s any help, you can tell him I forced you.”
There was a moment’s silence as Corbin, twisting the hat to death in his hands and chewing the inside of his cheek, debated with himself. Finally he muttered, “As you will, miss. After you.” He stepped away from the door and held a gloved hand out toward the staircase.
Feeling vindicated, imagining every vile thing she would say to Christian after they’d agreed on a price for the stupid book, Ember picked up said stupid book, locked her apartment and followed Corbin down the stairs to the waiting car.
Fifteen minutes later Ember had forgotten her anger because she was too awed by the view.
“I’ve never been up here,” she said to Corbin from the back seat of the Audi, watching through the windows as the first of the rolling foothills gave way to the steeper, more densely forested slopes of the Collserola mountain range. A full moon blazed white fire in the night sky above, crowning the trees in opal and pearl, and the stars were clearly visible without all the city lights to muffle them. They sparkled in the deep sapphire bowl of the sky like newly minted coins at the bottom of a wishing well. The winding road snaked away in front of the car, disappearing beyond the reach of the headlights, and the trees crowded closer and closer to the road as they drove, thick and dark and towering, their gnarled roots wreathed in ghostly gray coils of fog.
“Yes, it’s beautiful.”
Corbin’s less-than-enthusiastic response prompted Ember to ask, “What did Christian say when you told him I was coming?”
There had been a discreet phone conversation when they’d first set out. Corbin called Christian to report the change of plans, then replied with hushed, monotone answers to whatever Christian was saying on the other end of the line. She would’ve given anything to know the particulars of that conversation, but unfortunately hadn’t been able to hear anything beyond Corbin’s tense “Yes, sir,” and “No, sir,” and “I understand, sir.”
“After his initial surprise, he…laughed, miss.”
Laughed? That son of a—
“Why would he laugh? What’s so funny about this situation?” she demanded, getting angry again. The nerve of this man!
“If you knew Lord McLoughlin better, miss, you would know what an uncommon thing it is for him to laugh.” Corbin looked at her in the rearview mirror. “I believe it to be a true compliment.”
A compliment. That he was laughing at her. The British were very strange.
“So you’re not in trouble then?”
A ghost of a smile flickered across Corbin’s face. “He, ah, he didn’t seem to think it quite out of character for you, miss, that you waylaid me. The word ‘firecracker’ may have been used.”
Firecracker. She hated herself for being so pleased by that. The word filled her with satisfaction, buttery and thick, and she felt like a cat who’d just gorged itself on cream.
“Here we are,” Corbin said. Ember looked through the windshield just as they pulled to a stop in front of a massive scrolled iron gate. Corbin rolled down the window, pushed a code into a security box on a pedestal, and the gates began slowly to swing open.
That’s when the real adventure began.
