Storm of Shadows by Christina Dodd Page B

into the room.

    “Martha escaped the blast that destroyed the Gypsy Travel Agency building, and we are very grateful that she transferred her loyalty and service to us.” Irving’s fingers trembled.

    Martha did not smile. She didn’t look as if she knew how. The woman was anywhere between sixty and ninety; the braids in her gray hair were wrapped around her head in a traditional European manner. She looked serious and grieved and . . . Romany.

    Trapped by empathy and guilt, Rosamund sank back into her chair.

    Aaron pulled up a seat next to her. “Martha is a superb cook, and remember, you didn’t eat lunch.”

    “Martha, did you make the chutney and cheese sandwiches?” Irving asked. “Those are my favorites.”

    “And the watercress and roast beef sandwiches.” Martha indicated the three-tiered, flowered platter. “Of course there’s scones and clotted cream, with pumpkin and mandarin orange marmalade.”

    The scent of the tea and the fresh bread wafted toward Rosamund, and her stomach growled. Aaron was right. She was hungry. And really, it was better if she didn’t go to dinner with Lance Mathews when she was starving. If she ate now, she could concentrate on his glorious self. “I surrender. The aromas are too compelling. I must give in to temptation.”

    As Martha poured tea into dainty cups and placed food on the flowered china, Irving moved to a seat close to Rosamund. “This is a piece that fascinates me, called Bala’s Glass.” He held a rounded clear dome about two inches wide, with a flat bottom, and he stroked it with his fragile, warped, old fingers. “By good fortune, I brought it here from the Gypsy Travel Agency to study on the very day of the explosion.”

    She looked up at Aaron.

    He watched her with cool eyes, making her think once again that the moment of communion in the park could never have happened. This man, this Aaron, was sophisticated, offhand, impersonal, without feeling . . . but he had friends who seemed to cherish him.

    Today at the zoo, he had told her a lot about himself and his past. He had comforted her in a way no one ever had. Yet something about him made her skin prickle with wariness. When she glanced up and caught his dark eyes gazing at her, some primitive instinct told her to hide herself.

    He hunted too well. He observed too much. If she weren’t careful, he would see who she really was.

    “Would you like to hold it?” Irving asked.

    She stared at him blankly, then recovered. “Oh! Bala’s Glass. Yes, please.” She took the ornament from him. It was heavy for its size, gloriously smooth, almost warm to the touch, and deep in its core, all the colors of the rainbow glowed as if captured by the shiny surface. “From India?”

    “Or Sri Lanka. Have you heard the legend of Bala of the Danavas?” Irving accepted a plate of artfully made little sandwiches from Martha.

    “I have. Bala of the Danavas was a great warrior who defeated the gods, so in the guise of a favor, they asked him to sacrifice himself.” She placed the flat side of the glass on her palm, turning it from side to side as she pulled the tale from the depths of her memory. “So pure was his courage, he agreed, and to humiliate him, they bound him with thirteen strings and killed him in slow agony. Because of his pure birth and his deed, his bones became the seeds of diamonds and had the power of the gods in them.”

    “Very good! Not many know that story.” As if he couldn’t resist touching the reading glass, Irving slid his hand over the smooth dome. “This is old, very old, and if the legend is to be believed, was created from Bala’s bones.”

    “Irving.” Aaron was in shock. “This is a diamond ?”

Chapter 10

    A aron watched in amazement as Rosamund laughed up at him without a trace of self-consciousness. “As my father would have said, that’s the problem with legends. When they come up against facts, they fail to pass the test.”

    “Why would you say