by Nora Roberts
something you take back to your superiors.”
His eyes were hooded against the sun, but he watched her. “Haven’t we gone beyond that?”
“I don’t know.” She fenced a moment longer, trying to measure him. She could give him a lie, or could try to, but wondered if the truth would be safer. As long as he was dogging her heels, she would never get to Jaquir to take back what was hers. “I know what you were, Philip, and haven’t asked your reasons.”
“Would you like them?”
The surprise came clearly before she turned her head. She hadn’t expected to find him so willing to give them. “Someday perhaps. I told you more this morning than anyone else knows. Even Celeste has heard only bits and pieces. I don’t like anyone involved in my private life.”
“It’s too late to take back what was said, and a waste of time to regret it.”
“Yes.” She turned back. “I like that about you. Romantic or not, you’re a practical man. The best thieves are a combination of the practical and the visionary. How much vision have you?”
He rose as well, and though he stood at the rail, the width of the table remained between them. “Enough to see our paths crossing again and again—no matter how uncomfortable it might be for both of us.”
Even under the strong sun she shivered. Destiny was the one thing she knew couldn’t be stolen. “That may be, but it isn’t the issue. You asked why I continued to work, and I’ll tell you. It was practice, training you could say, for the biggest job of my life. Perhaps of anyone’s.”
He felt the muscles of his stomach tighten. In fear, he realized, in simple, sharp-edged fear. For her. “What do you mean?”
“You’ve heard of The Sun and the Moon?”
Now the fear raced out of his stomach and into his throat like something vile. “Jesus Christ. You must be out of your mind.”
She only smiled. “Then you have heard of it.”
“There’s no one in the business who hasn’t heard of that necklace, or of what happened in 1935 when someone had the bad sense to try to steal it. The thief’s throat was slit after both of his hands were severed.”
“And his blood washed over The Sun and the Moon.” She moved her shoulders. “Such things legends are made of.”
“It’s not a game.” He moved on her, grabbed her by the shoulders and yanked so quickly that she nearly lost her balance. “They don’t lock thieves nicely in jail in that country. For God’s sake, Adrianne, you should know better than anyone how rough your father’s justice would be.”
“It’s justice I want, and I’ll have.” She jerked out of his grasp. “Since the first time I stole to keep my mother out of a ward, I swore I’d have justice. The necklace was hers, given to her as a marriage gift. The bride price. In the laws of Jaquir what a woman is given in marriage she keeps after death or divorce. Whatever a woman possesses becomes her husband’s, whatever she is, is his to do with precisely as he chooses. But the bride price remains the bride’s, so The Sun and the Moon was my mother s. He refused to give her what was hers, so I’ll take it.”
“What good will it do her now?” He knew he was rough, too rough, but could find no other way. “No matter how much it hurts, she’s gone.”
“You think I don’t know she’s gone?” It wasn’t grief that came into her eyes, but anger driven by passion. “A fraction of the necklace’s worth would have kept her for years, the best doctors, the finest treatment. He knew how desperate we were. He knew because I buried my pride and wrote, begging him for help. He wrote back, telling me that the marriage was ended, and with it, his responsibility. Because she was ill, and I was a child, there was no way to go back to Jaquir and demand, through the law, that the necklace be returned.”
“Whatever he did to you, to your mother, is over now. It’s too late for the necklace to make any difference now.”
“Oh, no, Philip.” Her voice changed. The passion hadn’t gone, but it had iced over and was all the more deadly. “For revenge, it’s never too late. When I take it, the pride of Jaquir, my father will suffer. Not as she did, never as she did, but enough. And when he knows who has it, who took it from him, it will be only sweeter.”
He didn’t understand true hate. Not once had he stolen for any purpose other than to survive, or to survive in more comfort. But he recognized true hate, and believed it was the most volatile of human fuels. “Do you have any idea what will happen to you if you’re caught?”
Her eyes were steady and very dark as they met his. “Better than you. I know my title and my American citizenship won’t protect me. If I pay, then I pay. Some gambles are worth the risk.”
He looked at her, at the way her skin glowed gold in the sunlight. “Yes,” he agreed. “Some are.”
“I know how to do it, Philip. I’ve had ten years to plan.”
And he had weeks, perhaps only days, to change her mind. “I’d like to hear about it.”
“Maybe. Some other time.”
In an abrupt change of mood, he smiled. “Well make it soon, but I’d say that’s enough shop talk for now. How about that swim?”
No, she didn’t trust him, Adrianne thought again. There was something a bit too charming about that smile. It might be best all around if, while he was watching her, she was watching him. “I’d love it. I’ll meet you on the beach in fifteen minutes.”
Adrianne had traveled alone for so long she’d forgotten what it was like to have someone to share small pleasures with. The water was cool and clear, liquid glass through which she could skim and watch the life around her. Like a forest in autumn, coral glowed gold, orange, scarlet, with wispy fans of lacy purple that waved in the current. Velvet-tailed fish darted, their lavish colors gleaming as they nibbled on sponges.
Hampered only with a mask and snorkel, she could dive down to be nipped at by a tiny and pugnacious damselfish or to be watched by the sergeant majors who loitered, waiting for a handout. They swam out where the depth changed, sliding from the reef to fifty mirror-clear feet. Signals between them were a touch of the hand on the arm and gestures. It seemed to be enough that they understood each other, and that the afternoon was theirs.
Adrianne didn’t want to question why she felt so at ease with him—relaxed as she had been on the evening they’d spent at a country inn outside London. She wasn’t a woman who had legions of friends, but, rather, acquaintances, people who came and went in her life. Where she gave friendship, she gave herself with it completely, with no limitations, and therefore she gave it carefully. Though trust wasn’t fully in place, she felt friendship for him, and despite her reservations was pleased to have him with her.
She wasn’t a princess now, or a master thief, but a woman enjoying the sun and the magic of the sea.
She surfaced, laughing, and balanced one flipper precariously on a stump of coral. Water poured off her hair and skin, gleaming jewellike. She pushed her mask back on her head as Philip rose with her.
“What’s funny?” He shook his hair back before pushing back his own mask.
“That fish with the big bulging eye. All I could think of was Lord Fume.”
He lifted a brow and steadied himself. “Do you always make fun of your victims?”
“Only when it’s apt. Oh, the sun’s wonderful.” With her eyes closed she lifted her face to it and made him think of mermaids and sirens. “But you shouldn’t stay out in it long with that pale British skin.”
“Worried about me?”
When she opened her eyes there was amusement in them rather than caution. Progress, he thought. However small. “I’d hate to be responsible for you being sunburned.”
“I imagine it’s snowing in London now, and families are sitting down to the Christmas goose.”
“And in New York the goose isn’t cooked yet.” She cupped a handful of water, then let it pour through her fingers. “We always had turkey. Mama loved the smell of it roasting.” She shook off the feeling and managed a smile. “One year she decided to cook it herself, the wa
y her grandmother had in Nebraska. She pushed so much stuffing in the bird that when it expanded with the heat, it burst. The poor turkey was a mess.” Shielding her eyes, she looked toward the horizon. “Look, a ship’s coming in.”
She shifted for better purchase and slid off the rock into his arms. Water lapped over her shoulders, then to her breasts as he lifted her up and to him. She drew back, but was held firm with her feet unable to reach the sandy floor and her hands gripping his shoulders for support.
She saw his eyes darken, like the fog when the moon slipped behind a cloud. His breath feathered over her lips as his hands slid through the water and over her skin. When he leaned toward her, she turned her head so that his mouth brushed her cheek gently, patiently. Need rolled inside of her, with a pang that came as much from fear as from desire.
“You taste of the sea,” he said. “Cool and unconquered.” He skimmed his lips to her ear and her fingers dug into his muscles; he heard her breath catch and felt her body shudder. “Adrianne.”
She made herself look at him. Facing what couldn’t be escaped had always been her way. The sun was bright on his hair, almost blinding as it hit the water and refracted. From somewhere behind them a woman was scolding a child. But the sound came dimly as her heart hammered in her ears.
And he smiled. “Relax,” he told her as his fingers moved up her spine. “I won’t let you go under.”
But he did. As his lips took hers she went down, farther and faster than safety allowed. Though her head remained in the air and the sun, she fell fathoms deep, heart racing, breath trapped. She could taste sun and salt as his lips coaxed hers open. Coaxed. There should have been a comfort in that, in the lack of demand, in the absence of pressure. Instead, she trembled from the pressure cooker of needs inside her own body.
He strapped his needs down. If there were chains around his passions now, he promised himself there would come a time when he would unshackle them. She needed something more than desire. He needed to give something more. Testing, he nipped into her full lower lip and heard her moan of response. Knowing control could be stretched only so far, he drew her away. Her eyes were clouded, heavy. Her lips were ripe. And his nerves were scraped raw.
“How about a drink?”
She blinked at him. “What?”
He kissed the tip of her nose and struggled to keep his hands light. “I said let’s have a drink so I can get my pale British skin out of the sun.”
“Oh.” It was like being released from the effect of a drug, she thought. An addictive one. “Yes.”
“Good. Last one to the bar buys.” With this he let her go. Unprepared, Adrianne sank under the water. When she’d surfaced, he was halfway to shore. Even as she pulled down her mask to barrel after him, she was laughing.
They drank tart, icy margaritas and listened to the trio of marimba players chime out Christmas carols. With appetites sharpened by sun and water, they dug into enchiladas smothered in cheese and spicy sauce. Later, with the afternoon winding lazily ahead of them, they drove around the island, taking a narrow dirt road on a whim. They passed small stone monuments that made Adrianne think of old worship and older gods.
He was determined to fill her day, to make her forget the grief that had come with dawn. He no longer questioned the need to protect and comfort. When a man had spent most of his life with women, he recognized the right one.
Deliberately, he took the Jeep over a pothole so that it bucked and shimmied. Adrianne only laughed and pointed out another one. The road took them to the north point and a lighthouse. There was a family living at the base with pens holding scruffy hens. A bony cat stretched out on the dirt by a cooler which the enterprising family stocked with cold drinks to sell to tourists for twice what they would pay in the village. Armed with two bottles, they sat on humps of dried sea grass and watched the spray spume. The water was very rough here so that the waves slapped the shore and geysered where time and tide had cut channels.
“Tell me about your home.”
“In London?”
“No.” Adrianne slipped off her sandals. “The one in the country.”
“You’d say it was very British.” It was another measure of their progress that she didn’t shift away when he touched her hair. “The house is Edwardian, brick, very tidy with three floors. There’s a portrait gallery, but as I’m not acquainted with my ancestors, I’ve borrowed some.”
“From where?”
“Antique shops. There’s Uncle Sylvester—a very dour Victorian type and his wife, Aunt Agatha. Pudding-faced.”
“Pudding-faced.” Giggling, Adrianne settled back. “That is British.”
“We are what we are. There are assorted cousins, of course, some of them very grand, and a few sinister types. Then, there’s Great-Grandmama; she was a bit of a strumpet who married into the family despite heated objections, then proceeded to rule with an iron hand.”
“You missed having a big family.”
“Perhaps I did. In any case, they fill out the gallery nicely. The parlor opens up into the garden. Since it suited the house, I went with very formal, very neat arrangements. Hoses, rhododendron, lilacs, lilies. There are hedges of yews and a grove of ash to the west, where a little stream rims. There’s wild thyme there, and wood violets that get as big around as my thumb.”
She could almost smell it. “Why did you buy it? You don’t seem like the sort of man to go in for quiet evenings by the fire or walks through the woods.”
“There’s a time for everything. I bought it so I’d be ready when I decided to settle down and become a pillar of the community.”
“Is that your goal?”
“My goal’s always been comfort.” He shrugged and drained his bottle. “I learned young that to find comfort on the streets of London, you had to take what you could take, and be quicker about it than the next.” He settled the bottle on the sand beside him. “I was quicker.”
“You were a legend. No, don’t grin at me, you were. Every time something spectacular was stolen, the rumors started that it was a EC. job. The de Marco collection, for instance.”
He grinned, watching the spray rise up at her back. “Are you fishing?”
“Did you take it?” She straightened when he only smiled and reached for a cigarette. “Well, did you?”
“The de Marco collection,” he mused. “One of the finest examples of diamonds and precious stones in Milan, or anywhere, for that matter.”
“I know what it was! Did you take it?”
He settled back as a storyteller might in front of a roaring fire. “The museum had the best security available on that exhibit. Light sensors, heat sensors, a weight-sensitive alarm. The floor was wired for twenty feet around the exhibit. The exhibit itself was in a glass dome that was considered virtually impenetrable.”
“I know all that.” Spray flew up and dashed her hair. “How did you do it? I heard dozens of conflicting reports.”
“Did you ever see Royal Wedding, the one where Astaire dances on the ceiling?”
“Yes, but that was movie magic through trick camera work. I’ll concede that you’re clever, but not that clever.”
“Getting in was just a matter of having the right uniform and forging the right identification. Once in, I had two hours before the guard made rounds. It took me a quarter of that just to crawl up the wall and over the ceiling.”
“If you don’t want to tell me how you did it, just say so.”
“I am telling you. You finished with that?” He took the bottle from her and drank. “Suction cups. Not quite the hardware store variety, but the same concept. It gives you insight into how a fly feels.”
“You stuck yourself to the ceiling?”
“More or less. They wouldn’t hold, of course, for the whole job. I rigged a trapeze into the ceiling with toggle bolts. I remember hanging by my knees over all those shiny rocks. I couldn’t even afford to sweat. I had a carbide bit drill packed in Styrofoam to muffle the noise. When I got through the glass,
the real work started. I had stones in my pouch the exact weight of the various pieces in the collection. Piece by piece, I switched. You had to be fast and very sure. More than a fraction of a second without the right weight, and the alarm would go. It took almost an hour, with the blood rushing to my head and my lingers going numb. Then I swung out on the trapeze and landed outside the alarm field. I remember that it felt as though someone were shooting arrows into my legs when I landed. I could barely crawl. That was the worst part and one I’d failed to calculate.” He could laugh now, looking back. “I sat there in a heap, beating on my legs to get the circulation going again and visualizing myself caught, not because I wasn’t good enough, but because my bloody legs had gone to sleep.”
With her head pillowed on sea grass, Adrianne laughed with him. “What did you do?”
“I pictured myself in a cell, then made a very fast and very inelegant exit, mostly on my hands and knees. By the time the alarm was given, I was soaking in the tub at my hotel.”
When he brought himself back and glanced at her, she was smiling. “You miss it.”
“Only in rare moments.” He flipped his cigarette into the spray. “I’m a businessman first, Addy. It was time to get out of the business. Spencer, he’s my superior, had come too close too often.”
“They knew about you, yet they let you in.”
“Better a wolf in the fold than loose, I suppose. Sooner or later you get sloppy. It takes only one mistake.”
She looked back at the sea with its turbulent water. “I have only one more job, and I’ve no intention of being sloppy.”
He said nothing. With a little time, a little care, he was
