A concerted gasp spread around the table, followed by a flurry of whispers.
'You wish to place all your chips on a straight bet?' The croupier was well trained, his face expressionless. 'Do you wish this bet to be in addition to your existing standing bets?'
Elizabeth's violet eyes glittered with a feverishness which had nothing to do with gambling. She picked the olive out of her drink and nibbled it, to disguise the fact that she didn’t know what a standing bet was, let alone that she had one.
She shook her head. ‘I want everything to go on number one,' she said firmly.
'You've got guts, I'll give you that, little lady,' murmured the pudgy, sweating man on her left admiringly. He was an American who had watched her erratic betting at first with condescending amusement and then with envy as she had totally demolished the house odds. ‘I'd love to know what your system is.'
So would Elizabeth.
She took another slug of her martini, her eyes sweeping the room as the croupier had a whispered conversation with a white-jacketed colleague whom he had summoned with a glance.
Where in hell was he?
Normally Jack was doing the rounds of the casino at this time, but tonight of all nights he seemed to be nowhere in evidence.
'Another martini, mademoiselle?'
A waiter appeared like magic at her elbow, a drink already poised on his tray. Elizabeth took it and absently dropped a handful of chips in its place. The waiter's eyes widened, and he was practically bowing as he backed away.
With a jolt in her chest Elizabeth finally spotted him. He was at the twin-columned entrance to the casino, his dark head bowed as he listened frowningly to the urgent conversation of one of his employees.
Her tension tightened another notch. After several days of fruitlessly trying to escape the attention of him and his league of minions she was once again turning the tables and stalking him. The knowledge of what she was going to do when she caught him made her palms sweat.
She tried to whip up the anger that was essential to her bravado. He deserved everything he got for his actions this past week.
True to his word, he had made her very conscious of the fact that she was at the mercy of the absolute dictatorship on Ile de Faucons. He'd had her watched so closely that she was swamped by over-zealous service wherever she went. Although the door between their adjoining suites had, against all her suspicions, remained firmly closed he still somehow managed to seep into every crack and crevice of her awareness.
In fact his invasion of her privacy was so absolute that he had even begun to invade her dreams and almost seemed to know her plans before she did.
In desperation she had been forced to join group tours pony-trekking, or picnicking or cruising around the island, but Jack had merely pulled rank and ta
gged along, effortlessly under-cutting the protection a group provided by making sure everyone knew that Elizabeth was the real focus of his devoted attention. Once that was established Elizabeth had found her hastily acquired new acquaintances all too eager to curry favour with the management by playing Cupid. And the appalling truth was that if she hadn’t known that he was doing it for the express purpose of harassing and humiliating her Elizabeth might well have found him irresistible!
He was charming and worldly, amusing and intelligent and he was so...all right, he was so sexy. Touching her only with his look and his smile, he managed to make her feel a treacherous thrill of desire that disturbed her by its potency. While she could fend off any attack on her intelligence with confidence her senses were not so easy to subdue.
Normally when she was anxious or nervous Elizabeth was quiet, but around Jack that wasn’t even an option. He would just needle at her until she responded out of sheer fury, and once she was talking his provocative replies made it impossible to curb her desire to have the last word. She rarely succeeded.
This morning Elizabeth had thought that she had finally managed to outwit the master of cunning. The previous evening she had loudly booked herself on today's shopping and sightseeing tour of the mainland. Then, while Jack was off on his early morning jog, she had sneaked out along the beach to the pier where the hydrofoil which took the weekly all-day trip to the Phare Amedée was moored. The Amedée lighthouse was at the entrance to the encircling reef and Elizabeth had wanted to visit it anyway before she left New Caledonia... or was deported in handcuffs!
Elizabeth had persuaded the young crewman who was the only person on board so early in the morning to let her go straight on to the boat instead of waiting for the duly appointed boarding time, flagrantly misusing Jack's name to convince him that it didn’t matter that her name wasn’t on the booking list.
It was only when they were safely twenty minutes out to sea that she allowed herself to go up to the roof-top observation deck and breathe the sweet salt-air of freedom. She had done it! Eight hours from now she would have to return to face Jack's displeasure at being outmanoeuvred, but for the interim she would endeavour to relax and forget about the entire wretched St Clair problem.
Her mind blissfully emptied, she gazed out towards a blurred column of light which was fading in where sea and sky imperceptibly blended. She had put on her straw hat but still had to put a shading hand up to the brim as she squinted across the shining waters.
It wasn’t the beacon, but the lighthouse itself shining, proclaiming its dominance over the sea, Elizabeth realised as they neared their destination. The tall, graceful white column perched on the small coral cay was reflecting the rays of the sun to dazzling effect.
The cay itself was tiny, an irregular circle of white beach enclosing a few small buildings among a twist of trees and low shrubs and the lighthouse itself. Their tour party had exclusive visiting rights for the day so the sense of relaxation and isolation was complete and Elizabeth revelled in the pleasure of being an ordinary, unencumbered tourist.
It only took ten minutes to make a circuit of the completely flat island, after which Elizabeth decided that she would try the water while most of the others were investigating the tiny souvenir stall or climbing the lighthouse.
She couldn’t help feeling exposed as she left the small changing-shed clutching her towel around her. She had been in so much of a rush when she had fled the hotel that she had forgotten to pack her beach-shirt. Fortunately there were only a few children and elderly couples already settled on the pristine white beach so she didn’t feel as self-conscious as usual as she shed the towel and plunged joyously into the water. Its silky warmth and buoyancy were delightful, and by the time she walked back up the beach most of the rest of the party were spreading themselves out along the shoreline.
There were the usual male double-takes at the voluptuousness of her pale-skinned figure in the wet suit, but this time she forced herself to ignore them. She wasn’t going to allow a few leering idiots to spoil her precious day of freedom. In fact, she had been a fool to deny herself the pleasure of frequent swimming and sunbathing at the hotel just because she wasn’t as slim and tanned as most of the other female guests under forty seemed to be. Judging from the wealth of their clothes and jewellery, they probably didn’t have to work for a living and could afford the time and money to pamper themselves into the right shape.
Her determination not to let her acute self-consciousness get the better of her led Elizabeth to stretch out on her towel to dry off, curtly fending off an eager offer to fetch a sun-lounger from one persistent drooler. When she felt she had asserted herself enough for one morning she pulled her roomy thigh-length ‘I-shirt over her dry suit and headed for the lighthouse.