He shook his head. «Haven't the faintest idea who you are. Should I know? Are you someone important?»
Again the hint of pout. «No-o. Well, maybe some people think so, but not really. If you see what I mean?»
«I don't. Does it matter?»
The girl stood up. «No. Not the slightest: I like it. We'll have a game, shall we?»
Blade smiled. «By all means. What kind of a game?»
«We won't tell names. Now or ever. And we must each promise never to try to see the other again: Will you do that? We're strangers now and we'll stay strangers. We will never, never see each other again. Whatever we say, or whatever happens between us, will be forgotten when this day is over. It will be like it never happened. Do you promise?»
«Whatever happens? What do you expect to happen?»
A shrug of slim shoulders, a liquidity of unrestrained breasts beneath the dress. «I don't know. Neither do you. This is part of the game. We just let things develop naturally. Maybe nothing will happen.»
Blade laughed. «That I do not like to think about. But all right, I promise. When does the game start?»
She knelt beside him again. «Right now. But first we have to have names-no, don't tell me your real one. I mean made up names. Hmmm-let me see.»
Her eyes roved over his body. She traced a finger through his chest hair. «I think,» said Blade, «that I am going to like this game.»
She put a hand over his mouth. Her fingers were cool and crusted with sand. «Be quiet. Ummm, yes. Hercules. No help for it. It's obvious, and a little trite, but you will just have to be Hercules. You agree?»
Blade reached for his cigarettes and lighter on a nearby blanket. «I suppose I must. As long as I don't have to clean out my stables. Who are you going to be? Something mythical and classical as well?»
«Of course. I am Diana»
Blade nodded. «Good choice. It suits you, I think. Goddess of the moon. And of huntink.»
The green eyes narrowed at him. «I am-very good at hunting.»
Blade leaned back and- exhaled smoke. «And I the willing prey, Diana. Now-are you going to swim or not? I have just remembered a bird and bottle at the cottage. A couple of birds, in fact, and all the bottles we need. Interested?»
«Very much. After my swim»
She glanced up and down the little cove. The beach was small, a scallop of sand and shingle eroded by the sea at the base of overhanging cliffs. Some hundreds of yards down the cliff facade a wooden stair switchbacked precariously up to the rim.
«Can anyone see us?»
Blade flipped his cigarette away and smiled at her. He was still not quite convinced that she would do it, but was prepared to be pleasantly surprised.
«The villagers may be idiots and smugglers, but I doubt there are many Peeping Toms around. They leave me pretty well alone. Of course there is old Professor Wright. He strolls along the cliffs sometimes. But he's nearsighted and more than a little around the bend. He wears an Inverness cape and a deerstalker cap and thinks he is Sherlock Holmes in retirement. He even keeps bees.»
«Professor Wright sounds like an old darling,» said the girl. «I shouldn't mind him seeing me. As long as there are no cameras-«
There was a clue in that last imperfect sentence, but Blade let it slide past. At the moment he did not care who she was. What she was-that was the important thing. And what she was kept him speechless for a moment.
She pulled the mini-dress over her head in a single motion and let it drop on the sand. She faced him, wide-legged, hands on hips, half-smiling and half-serious, with no preening of her body. She simply offered it for inspection.
The black pants were skintight and plain, with elastic in the waist and leg bands. Several long curly tendrils of brown hair strayed beneath the elastic near her mons pubis. Her legs, Blade thought, could only be called elegant. An old-fashioned word, but it fitted. Her legs were so good, so slim and sweetly curving, with thighs and knees barely kissing, that they did not need the arch decoy of high heels to show them off.
Her breasts were beyond description. Blade forgot words and simply gazed, his loins excited and moving. He was something of a connoisseur of breasts and he immediately recognized that hers were hybrid, half Nordic, half Mediterranean. Not tanned pears, but with a hint of conoid; not warm melons, but swelling to found fullness. Her nipples were hall-awakened rosebuds.
«You chose your name well,» Blade admitted. «You are Diana. In the flesh. As she must have been imagined by the ancients.»
She tossed her thick brown hair behind her shoulders. The movement set her breasts to rippling. She regarded him steadily, lower lip caught in upper teeth. «When you have looked your fill,» she told him, «we can get on with the game. There are rules, especially one. I think you had better know about it.»
«There are always rules,» said Blade with a mock scowl. «They usually spoil things. What particular rule did you have in mind?»
«You can look at me, but you may not touch.»
«Oh?» He made no effort to disguise his dismay.
«Until I say you can-if I ever do. Do you agree? If you don't we must stop the game here and now.»
«Oh, I agree,» Blade said hastily. Under his breath he muttered, «La belle dame sans merci.»
She stuck out her tongue at him. «Maybe not. Not entirely. We shall have to see. Are you going to swim with me?»
He reached hastily for another cigarette. «Er, not just this minute. You go on. I'll have a smoke and watch. I wouldn't go out too far-there are some undercurrents that can be nasty at times.»
There was pure and joyous malice in the green eyes. She stared at his breech cloth. «You daren't stand up,» she laughed. «You're afraid I'll see how excited you are.»
Blade busied himself with the lighter. It was running low on fuel. «Don't talk nonsense. You forget who I am. Hercules would never be bothered by such a thing.»
Her laughter came in a full-bodied shout. She bent over, her breasts pendants of symmetry. «You're embarrassed. You really are embarrassed. Hercules is embarrassed by Dianal»
«Like hell he is.» Blade joined her in laughter. He stood up, hoping that he was right about the seclusion of the cove. He had never been disturbed here, but that meant little. There could be peepers, and binoculars, and if so there would be, to paraphrase the old Yank song, a hot time in the old village tonight., Tongues would be clacking in the pubs. Blade thought of J's probable reaction, should he ever hear, and had to grin. J was something of an old woman. Astute, cunning at his job, but on the prim side. Lord Leighton, that scandalous old man, was another matter. He would revel in such a contretemps. Would demand details and relish them with goatish laughter.
«Ohl» She was staring at the massive bulge in his breechcloth.
«Is something wrong?» he inquired innocently.
«Oh, my Godl»
She turned and ran into the seas. Blade followed her, glancing up at the cliff rim. No sign of anyone. No revealing glint of sun on glasses. They were, Blade thought as he plunged into the cold water, probably going to get away with it. For the sake of all concerned he hoped so. The local constable, Bob Anderson, was a stolid man and capable enough but lacking in imagination. Blade went deep into the blue water, down to where it shaded into a cold green, the color of her eyes, and nearly choked at the thought of Diana and Hercules in magistrate's court.
When he surfaced there was no sign of the girl. He swam out a hundred yards, cutting effortlessly through the wavelets, noting that the coaster's flag of smoke had nearly vanished. He did not worry. Such a girl, Diana, could surely handle herself in the water.
There was a frothing explosion near him. She shot out of the water like a porpoise, in a rainbow of spray, laughing at him. Water sequins sparkled as the sun caught her breasts. She splashed water at him, treading easily, tossing her sodden hair behind her shoulders.