Читать книгу: «Travelling Light»

CHAPTER ONE

SHE felt at home.

It was ridiculous. Kristine was in Oslo, thousands of miles from home. She and her parents had left Norway when she was less than three, and she had grown up on a farm in central Canada; how could she possibly have concrete memories of this spacious, stately city? Yet, ridiculous though it was, she did indeed feel at home.

She had been strolling the length of Karl Johansgate, one of the main streets of Oslo, her eyes scanning the shop windows, the restaurants, the faces that passed her by. It was a fine evening in July and the pavements were crowded. As she wandered past an outdoor café, where experience had already taught her she could scarcely afford even a sandwich or a beer, she was oblivious of the male eyes that flickered over her, came back, and lingered, for she was immersed in her own thoughts.

This morning, at the border, she had almost turned back into Sweden, for somewhere deep within her she was afraid of this return to her birthplace, and of what she might learn here. Right now she was truly glad that she had taken her courage in her hands and driven past the checkpoint with its brave red, white and blue flag.

Further up the street clowns were cavorting on the pavement, and a group of Bolivians in colourful costumes were singing folk melodies accompanied by drums and throaty flutes. Her mouth watering for a, the Norwegian version of a hot dog, or for one of the baked potatoes the street vendors were selling, Kristine stopped to listen to the musicians. She had all the time in the world, she thought contentedly, aware that the long summer evening was gradually drawing to a close, the sky darkening above the buildings. The key to Harald’s apartment was safely tucked away in one of the many pockets of her shorts, and he would not be back until the weekend. She was accountable to no one.

Another vendor tried to sell her a long-stemmed rose with petals the colour of apricots. She shook her head, smiling, and said awkwardly, ‘Nei takk.’ The language felt rough on her tongue. She should have made an effort to study it before she arrived. But then until last Saturday when she had phoned Harald she had not really been sure that she was going to come here...

A reggae singer attracted her attention, and then two young men in skin-tight black outfits with white-painted faces doing some very clever mime. The audience, she noticed, was mixed: tourists draped with cameras, indulgent middle-aged couples, and every now and then an archetypal Norwegian youth, tanned, blond, lithe and healthy. Her own hair was blonde and her eyes blue. She fitted right in.

From the slim leather bag that looped over her shoulder and hung in front of her Kristine extracted enough money to buy an ice-cream cone, and because she was relaxed and happy her normal caution in a foreign country deserted her; she did not realise that eyes were following her for reasons other than her looks any more than she had noticed the girl-watchers in the cafés. She heard music down one of the side-streets and wandered in search of it, licking the mint-flavoured ice-cream.

The music came from a bar that she couldn’t afford to enter. Then she saw a small leafy park further down the street, and from beyond it heard the lilt of an accordion and the sound of singing. Even if she couldn’t go into the bars and cafés it was fun to watch the people. A people to whom she was related by ties of birth, she mused, munching at the crusty cone as she followed the narrow pathway through the park in the direction of the singing.

In the last two years Kristine had travelled through Thailand, India, Turkey and Greece, and in none of these countries would she have walked alone at night through a city park, for she had a very healthy sense of survival and had soon learned to be streetwise. But this was Norway, and she felt at home, and now that she was finally here her mind was already dwelling on her next decision. She had a grandfather, father of her father, living in Fjaerland, a little village many miles north of Oslo. Her grandfather had no idea that she was here in Norway. Was she going to visit him?

She would have to decide soon, because her money was running out fast. Or else she would have to get a job to tide her over. Frowning to herself, some overhanging branches brushing her shoulder, she ducked into the shadows of the tree.

From nowhere a figure out of a nightmare sprang up in front of her. A grinning white face with a slash of red lips. Black-circled eyes. A black costume that was part of the shadows of the night. And hands that grabbed for her purse.

The hands were real. Male hands with dirty fingernails. Acting instinctively, Kristine thrust the remains of her ice-cream cone at his face, gathered her breath to scream and from behind felt another hand clamp over her mouth.

So there were two of them. Men dressed as clowns. How could she have been so stupid? So abysmally careless?

The man’s fingers dug into her cheeks. His skin smelled acridly of greasepaint and nicotine, and it would have been all too easy for her to succumb to mindless panic. But Kristine had not been travelling for the better part of two years without learning a few tricks of her own. She sagged against her attacker as if overcome by fear, and reached for the tiny nail scissors that she always carried in her pocket. Twisting, she dug them into the first clown’s hand, heard his yelp of pain, and kicked out viciously at the man behind her.

Philippe, with whom she had travelled in Turkey, had taught her that particular trick. Philippe had a face like a Raphael cherub and had been the meanest fighter she had ever seen.

The kick worked. And she was lucky. The second clown tripped over the iron bench on the edge of the path and crashed into the bushes. His curse, fortunately, was in Norwegian.

Adrenalin pumping through her veins, Kristine screamed as loudly as she could. The first clown swung at her with his fist. She ducked, hearing the swish of air past her ear, and struck out again with her lethal little scissors. As they grazed his flesh, his sideways swipe knocked them from her hand. But in the instant that he was off balance she whirled and fled between the trees.

A branch struck her cheek as cruelly as a whiplash. Almost certain that the clowns were following her, she flung her body through the shrubs, burst out on to another path, and ran straight into the man who was waiting there.

Her gasp of terror drove the last of her breath out of her lungs. Yet even then Kristine did not give up. For Philippe had taught her something else. ‘Always you must have two weapons,’ he had said in his charmingly accented English. ‘One for every day, and one for the real emergency.’

She had a Swiss army knife in her back pocket. Just before the man’s arms could close around her, she hauled it out of her pocket in a blur of movement and raked the sharp point of the corkscrew down his bare arm.

He gave a grunt of pain. But he did not let go. Instead he pushed her away from him and said something urgent and incomprehensible in Norwegian.

He had been a fool to push her away, Kristine thought, and brought her knee up to his groin with malevolent speed.

His countermove was swift and decisive and her knee struck nothing but air. He gasped, ‘Stop! I’m trying to rescue you. Je suis un ami...ein Freund.’

Her fingers were already clawing for his eyes. Then her body went still as his words penetrated her haze of fear. For the first time she realised that he was not in a clown costume and that he was not fighting back: all his moves had been defensive. She said blankly, ‘What did you say?’

He was still clasping her strongly by the shoulders, the warmth of his fingers burning through her shirt. ‘I’m trying to rescue you,’ he repeated in English. ‘Against considerable odds, I might add. You did scream for help, didn’t you?’

‘Yes. Yes, I screamed...but I thought you were another one of them...the men who attacked me, I mean.’ She gave an uncontrollable shudder. It was very dark under the trees and she was still not quite sure she could trust him.

He added in a clipped voice, ‘Let’s get out on the street where I can see you.’

One hand slid to grasp hers, and he led the way down the path. Kristine’s knees felt like jelly; she stumbled after him, and as the light from the street penetrated the trees saw that her unknown rescuer was both tall and broad-shouldered, and moved with a fluid grace that seemed every bit as dangerous as the dead white faces of the clowns.

They came out on the pavement of a narrow street edged with rather grand stone buildings. The man stopped under the nearest streetlight, which was decorated with pretty baskets of flowers, and turned to face her, still holding her by the hand. In silence he looked down at her.

She was of average height. Her clothes—khaki shorts and a faded green shirt—were unremarkable, and her face was innocent of make-up. But the light shone full on her eyes, which were blue as gentians and still wide with remembered terror, and on a cap of short, feathered blonde hair. Her features had the clarity of perfect bone-structure, as such possessing an almost asexual beauty. Only in the tilt of her eyes and the sensual curve of her mouth was to be found her essential femaleness, a femaleness she was doing nothing to accentuate.

As for Kristine, she was instantly aware that her rescuer could have graced any advertisement for a Norwegian ski slope or a northern beach. Like her, he had blond hair and blue eyes. Yet the comparison ended there. His hair was darker than hers, tawny and streaked by the sun, while his eyes, blue-grey like the sea on a misty day, were tumultuous with an emotion whose source she could not begin to guess. His nose was straight, his mouth well-shaped, his jaw determined.

As the silence stretched out, she realised something else. Her survey of his external features could almost have been a defence mechanism. What she was striving to ignore was an intense and potentially devastating masculinity, focused at the moment entirely on her. To say he was attractive was to use that word only too literally.

She pulled her hand free. ‘I...thank you for coming to my rescue.’

In disconcerting contrast to the stormy eyes, his face was expressionless. He said, ‘I think you were managing just fine without me.’

He spoke English with almost no accent. ‘I—I thought they were coming after me,’ Kristine stammered, and realised dimly that she was still trembling.

‘Who were they?’

‘They were after my purse. They were dressed as clowns.’ She grimaced. ‘It was horrible, like a bad dream.’

‘I would gather you’re a visitor here—don’t you know enough not to wander around alone at night? Even though Oslo has a low crime rate compared to most European cities, pickpockets and drug addicts are everywhere.’

Some of the turbulence in his eyes was anger, she realised belatedly, although it was an anger held in check and completely under his control. Yet because of his intervention he deserved an honest reply. ‘I’m not normally so careless,’ she confessed. ‘It was stupid of me.’

‘More than stupid. Criminally negligent...you’re a very attractive young woman; it’s entirely possible they wouldn’t have stopped at theft.’

Kristine lifted her chin. ‘Yet you yourself have just admitted that I got away from them on my own.’

‘So you are high-spirited,’ he said slowly. ‘Besides being very foolish.’

‘I’m not usually foolish!’

‘Then why were you tonight?’ he demanded.

‘That’s scarcely your business,’ she fumed, clenching her fists at her sides. As she did so, the cold metal of her Swiss army knife bit into her palm, and in sudden horror she remembered how she had dragged it down her rescuer’s arm. She reached out and took him by the wrist, saying in consternation, ‘I must have hurt you—let me see your arm.’

His shirt-sleeves were rolled up. From his elbow halfway to the base of his thumb there was a long jagged gouge in his flesh, blood seeping from either side of it. She cried incoherently, ‘I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to hurt you, or at least I did because I thought you were one of them, and then of course you weren’t...’

Her fingers were slender, and bare of rings. He said, a note in his voice she could not have placed, ‘Did you do the same to them?’

She looked up, sudden mischief lighting her face and driving away the last remnants of fear. ‘I was also carrying a pair of nail scissors,’ she said. ‘I used them to very good effect.’

He gave a reluctant laugh, his gaze trained on her face. ‘Do you carry a first-aid kit, too? To minister to the trail of wounded in your wake?’

He was breathtaking when he laughed. Unconsciously Kristine’s fingers tightened around his wrist. Under her thumb she felt the heat of his flesh, under her fingertips a supple shift of bone and tendon—intricate and indelible impressions as ruthless in their way as the anger in his steel-blue eyes had been.

She let his arm fall to his side and heard herself say, ‘The apartment where I’m staying is only five minutes from here and I do keep a first-aid kit there. Will you let me wash that cut and put some antibiotic cream on it? It’s the least I can do by way of reparation.’

One by one her words repeated themselves in her head. You’re crazy, Kristine, she thought. You should be running away from this man much faster than you ran from the clowns.

With a formal inclination of his head he said, ‘Thank you... My name, by the way, is Lars Bronstad.’

‘Kristine Kleiven.’

‘A Norwegian name, surely?’

‘I was born here,’ she said crisply. ‘Shall we go?’

‘Yet you speak no Norwegian?’

She did not want to tell anyone, let alone this handsome and disturbing stranger, the story of her upbringing. ‘I’ve lived in Canada ever since I was two,’ she said repressively. ‘Do you live in Oslo, Mr Bronstad?’

‘High-spirited, foolish, and a woman of secrets,’ he said, setting off down the street at her side.

‘Everyone has secrets!’

There was an answering grimness in his tone. ‘True enough.’

She did not ask what his secrets were. ‘So do you live in Oslo?’ she persisted.

‘On my grandmother’s estate, north of the city. Asgard, it’s called—my great-grandfather had more than his share of self-esteem.’

Her brow wrinkled. ‘I’m afraid I don’t understand.’

‘Asgard is the old name for the home of the gods.’

She chuckled. ‘And they didn’t call you Thor?’

‘Thor was full of brute strength and not very bright—not exactly a compliment, Miss Kleiven.’

‘Kristine, please.’

‘And I am Lars. Are you staying long in Oslo?’

‘I’m not sure what my plans are,’ she said evasively. ‘But while I’m here I have the use of my cousin Harald’s apartment; I’m very lucky.’

They talked about the high prices of accommodation and food until they came to the elegant stone building where Harald had a fourth-floor flat. Kristine unlocked the security door and together they climbed the stairs. Now that she was here with Lars Bronstad, she was regretting her hasty invitation; Oslo seemed to be having a most peculiar effect on her, for it was not characteristic of her to invite a strange man to her room. Particularly a man as compelling as Lars. She hesitated outside the door, and said clumsily and untruthfully, ‘My cousin will be home later.’

Lars said drily, ‘You can leave the door open into the hallway if that will make you feel safer.’

As she glanced back over her shoulder at him, the light fell strongly across the curve of her cheek. Anger hardening his voice, Lars demanded, ‘Did the men hit you?’ Then with one finger he traced the reddening weal on her skin.

His lashes were darker than his hair, and his eyes had an intensity that disturbed her. ‘It’s nothing—a tree branch when I was running away from them.’

‘I’ll put some ice on it for you.’

She turned away, unlocked the door and ushered him in, flipping on the light-switch. Then she let the door close behind them; she already sensed that her safety where Lars Bronstad was concerned had nothing to do with an open door.

Although Kristine had yet to meet her cousin Harald, she knew quite a bit about him from the contrasts in his six rooms. Because the flat with its high ceilings and oak floors was clearly expensive, and because he had several exquisite antiques, she was certain he had money. That he was untidy and did not believe in housework was self-evident. He also skied, played tennis, drank beer, and, judging by the delicious lace négligé hanging on the back of the bathroom door, had at least one girlfriend of equally extravagant tastes.

But Lars Bronstad quite effortlessly dominated Harald’s large living-room. He too looked expensive, she thought, noting his tailored summer trousers, well-fitting open-necked shirt, and crafted leather loafers. He did not look at all like Andreas, Bill or Philippe, young men with whom she had teamed up at various stages of her travels. It was not just that he was older, or that something in his bearing seemed to define the word masculine. There was something seasoned about him as well, as though his life had led him down some rough roads and the scars of travel were still visible. She said politely, ‘May I offer you a cold beer?’

He was examining the painting over the marble fireplace. ‘Thanks...your cousin has good taste.’

In the kitchen she poured the beer into sterling-silver mugs. Then she fetched her first-aid kit from the guest bedroom and said, using his name for the first time, ‘Lars, if you’ll come into the bathroom I’ll wash your cut.’

She was standing in the doorway. He said abruptly, ‘You look tired...did you just arrive in Norway today?’ She nodded. ‘And you haven’t been here since you were a little girl?’

‘That’s right.’

‘Am I way off the mark if I think it’s not easy for you to be here?’

Every nerve in her body tensed. She didn’t want Lars Bronstad guessing the confusion of emotion that had claimed her ever since she had headed in the direction of Oslo. ‘You can’t possibly know that!’

His eyes narrowed. ‘I know it. I don’t know how or why, but I do.’

With a lack of finesse that secretly appalled her, Kristine snapped, ‘Look, I’m grateful you came to help me, and I’m truly sorry I hurt you—and that’s that. My private life—my feelings—are nothing to do with you.’

‘We’ll see.’

Two small words into which he had injected a world of purpose. Her breath hissed between her teeth. An open door into the hallway was most certainly irrelevant as far as Lars Bronstad was concerned, she thought furiously. He was the most unsettling man she had ever met.

In the bathroom she turned on the taps in the basin. The room was graced with a sunken jacuzzi, great piles of fleecy black towels, and rather more mirrors than were discreet; in one of them she watched Lars look around with interest. ‘A hedonist,’ he commented. ‘Why didn’t he accompany his Canadian cousin on her first wanderings around Oslo?’

‘He was busy,’ Kristine said with minimal truth, scrubbing her hands with soap and hot water, then guiding Lars’s elbow under the cold tap. The flesh was swollen. Blood had encrusted his arm, so that the water ran pink into the bowl. His forearm was corded with muscle, and very tanned; blue veins stood out in the crook of his elbow. Her mouth suddenly dry, she turned off the tap and rummaged in her kit for the antibiotic ointment.

After dabbing his arm dry with a sterile pad, she daubed the cream on the long red gouge, her lower lip caught between her teeth as she tried to concentrate on her task. She had not felt the slightest bit like this when Philippe had been stung by a bee, or when Bill had scraped his knee on some rocks. Straightening, forcing herself to meet Lars’s eyes, she said, ‘That looks better.’

His face was very close to hers; she had no idea what he was thinking. His eyes were deep-set, the sockets lined, and again she had the sense of a man who somewhere in his past had been stretched beyond his reasonable limits. Yet she had forfeited the right to ask him how or why, for she had discouraged him from a similar curiosity about herself. She bit her lip in frustration.

Lars reached around her with his other arm, turning on the cold tap again, and taking a face-cloth from the nearest pile. ‘Hold still,’ he ordered.

As he brought the wet cloth up to her cheek, Kristine closed her eyes. He applied only the lightest of pressure, yet as she felt against her other cheek the waft of his breathing her heart began to race in her breast.

What was wrong with her? She’d never reacted like this to a man in her life; had never wanted to. Nor did she want to now. An unknown cousin and a problematic grandfather were males enough.

After what seemed like a very long time, Lars lowered the cloth and took her chin in his fingers. Kristine’s eyes jerked open. She could lose herself in the depths of his eyes, she thought in utter confusion, and felt him angle her cheek to the mirror. ‘I suspect you’ll have a quite dramatic bruise by tomorrow,’ he said.

For a wild moment she had thought he was going to kiss her. Hot colour flooded both her cheeks. Lars said harshly, ‘I wanted to. Believe me, I wanted to.’

Kristine’s eyes flew back to meet his. Her vision had never been so keen, her sense of touch so acute; she felt herself being pulled into the blue of his eyes even as the warmth of his fingers on her skin spread through her body. All the normal barriers between two strangers fell to the ground, leaving the two of them, man and woman, sharing a moment of naked communication that shook her to the soul.

Then she jerked her chin free of his grip. The moment was gone, swallowed by the past, ephemeral as only memory could be. Kristine drew a long, jagged breath, knowing it was terror that had driven her to free herself, terror of a very different kind than that which had claimed her in the park. There was no room in her life for the stark honesty of that moment with its blend of sexual awareness and emotional intimacy, a blend that went far beyond the sexual into territory she had not even known existed. No room at all.

She grabbed a towel to wipe her face, avoiding his eyes. He said flatly, ‘Has that ever happened to you before?’

She shook her head; it was noticeable that she did not ask him the same question. He answered it anyway, and for the first time Kristine had a sense of English being a language foreign to his tongue. ‘Nor to me, ever. What does it mean?’

‘Nothing! I’m tired, I had a bad fright, we’re alone here—that’s all.’

Lars was breathing hard, and she was suddenly aware of the silent, empty rooms that surrounded them and of her distance from anyone she knew. He said, the words falling like stones, ‘I will not allow you to call it nothing.’

In open defiance she said, ‘I’ll call it what I choose.’

‘So you are a fighter, Kristine Kleiven.’ His smile was mirthless as his gaze dropped briefly to his gouged arm. ‘Not that I needed to be told that, did I? Perhaps we should go to the kitchen, where the cold beer is no doubt becoming warm beer?’

Although his change of subject threw her, her recovery was almost instant. ‘Flat, too,’ she said agreeably. ‘I made the mistake of pouring it.’

‘Your cousin isn’t coming back tonight, is he?’

Her lashes flickered. ‘No,’ she said. ‘Not until the weekend.’

‘Yet you invite me—a stranger—up to his apartment. Do you go around looking for trouble?’

‘I asked you here to make amends—not to be insulted!’

‘You haven’t answered my question.’

She gave him a mocking smile. ‘You didn’t have to accept the invitation, Lars.’

‘A fighter, indeed,’ Lars said, balancing lightly on the balls of his feet, and holding her gaze with his own. ‘I want to see you again. Tomorrow why don’t we go to the Viking museum at Bygdoy?’

Normally there was nothing Kristine liked better than to tour a city with one of its inhabitants. ‘No, thank you,’ she said firmly.

‘Every visitor to Oslo should go there.’

‘In that case I shall do so. On my own.’

His jaw tightened infinitesimally. ‘How long are you staying in Oslo?’

‘Not long.’

‘Then what’s the harm in one outing?’ he asked, his smile deliberately high-voltage.

Fighting against his charm, she said, ‘I travel light.’

‘I’m not asking you to bring your cousin.’

In spite of herself her lips quirked. ‘Earlier you called me foolish. I think it would be extremely foolish of me to accept your invitation.’

‘Merely high-spirited.’

‘You have an answer for everything and I need that beer,’ Kristine said feelingly, and marched into the kitchen. There she perched on a stool by the counter and launched a determined discussion of Ibsen’s plays. Lars obligingly followed her lead. They moved to Grieg’s music and drank one beer each. Then Lars stood up. Moving towards the door, he said, ‘What time will I pick you up tomorrow?’

‘You’re taking it for granted that I’m going with you!’

He leaned against the doorpost, his body a long, lazy curve. His blue eyes were laughing at her again. ‘That would be very foolish of me,’ he said.

If she were sensible, she’d say no and oust this man from her life as violently as he had entered it. ‘I’ll go,’ she said crossly. ‘Ten-thirty.’

‘Good.’ Lars pushed himself away from the door and crossed the hall to the main entrance. Pulling one of the tall double doors open, he said, ‘Lock this behind me, won’t you? I hope you sleep well.’ Then the door shut and he was gone.

Kristine, who had been pondering what she would do were he to try and kiss her goodnight, gaped at the gleaming wood panels, said a very rude word, and hoped she wouldn’t behave as atypically during the rest of her stay in Norway as she had on the first day.