"Jack Dann - The Diamond Pit" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dann Jack)

"I can't accept this," I said, handing her back the ring.
"Perhaps I made a mistake about you, Mr. Paul Orsatti."
"It's very beautiful, but I don't think your father -- "
"He won't care. He's going to be too upset to care about anything,
which means he won't be bothering too much about you." She took my hand,
slipped the ring over my finger again.
"What do you mean?"
"There was another plane," Phoebe said. "Couldn't you hear it?"
"Yes, but I thought it might have been your father's."
Phoebe laughed at that, a soft, sexy, whispery laugh. "Not unless he
was flying it. Or Morgan." She laughed again. "Or Uncle George."
"You've got plenty of -- slaves."
She seemed astonished. "Why, you couldn't allow a slave to fly an
airplane."
"Why not?"
"Because -- you just couldn't. But it doesn't matter. Poppa will surely
find out who was flying that plane and what company he worked for and fix it
all up. He always fixes everything up."
"You mean he'll have him killed."
She shook her head and looked genuinely hurt. "Poppa's an honorable
man. He'll have him brought back here to live and give him everything he could
want. We don't just go around murdering people, you know." When I didn't say
anything, she asked, "Are you sorry?"
"About what?"
"What you said about my father."
"Yes, of course. I'm sorry."
She turned back to me and asked, "Well, do you still want to kiss me?"
"I never said I wanted to kiss you."
But against all judgment -- of course -- I did.
****
Phoebe and I lay in bed. It was evening, and the garden was a fantasia
of fairy lights. A sweetly scented breeze wafted in through the balcony,
shadows and pale, milky lights played over a wall-sized Flemish tapestry of
Neptune standing upon a shell and creating a horse of air with his trident.
The walls were covered with blue brocade from Scalamandre, and the gilded wood
ceiling glowed as if lit by fireflies. Phoebe was curled up beside me, and we
were wrapped in smooth satin sheets as blue as the brocade.
"You see, everything is perfect," Phoebe said. "I knew it would be. I
always know."
"Ah, so you always lure lonely prisoners into your den to have your way
with them, is that it?"
"Exactly so." After a pause, she said, "How could you even imagine I
would have anything to do with anyone else?"
There was nothing to say to that, so I enjoyed being close to her,
feeling her smooth shoulder and slipping my hand down to caress her small
breast. She was thin and long and smooth and as perfect as I had imagined.
"Well, just in case it might interest you, I've never had anything to
do with anyone down there" -- I knew she meant the pit -- " or anyone who
Poppa has brought to visit."
"So your father does have guests here," I said. "Doesn't he worry about