She heard the visitor walking in the graveled yard. The footsteps faded in the direction of her house. John put an arm around her, crossed his legs in front of him, then drew one of her arms around the front of his neck. “There,” he said glibly. “If you keep your arm still, no one can see my chain. You won’t be forced to explain your bizarre technique for capturing men.”
When she stared at him in seething anger, he smiled and began flicking wood shavings off his rumpled shorts. “Our visitor will think we’re just a rambunctious pair of lovers.”
“You like to humiliate me?”
“No. In case you’ve forgotten, I’m the one who’s chained to the wall. I’m the one who stands to be humiliated.”
“You don’t look humiliated at all.”
“I’m more concerned with what’s happening between you and me than about what some visitor thinks about this situation.”
They stopped talking as the footsteps came crunching back across the yard and approached the barn. Aggie found herself gripping John’s neck harder and inching a little closer to him. Deep down she admitted that he made her feel safe even now.
“Hello?” an unfamiliar male voice called from the barn’s open door.
“Come right in,” John answered cheerfully.
Aggie pinched the back of his neck in revenge.
The man who came to the stall door and gaped at them was small, slender, and dressed in gaudy yellow trousers and a bright orange, short-sleeved shirt. A large turquoise pin was fastened at the center of the shirt’s buttoned collar, and a matching watch swallowed his wrist. With his blond hair pulled back in a ponytail he was very West Coast, reminding Aggie of the cocky, tasteless young TV executives she’d known in California.
“Hello,” she said calmly. “Are you looking for someone in particular?”
He was still staring at her and John. Finally he got his wits together and shifted his attention to her alone. From the familiarity in his gaze she assumed he remembered her from TV. Occasionally people recognized her, or knew vaguely that they’d seen her somewhere before. “You don’t know me, Aggie, but I know you,” he said with a big, bright smile that worried her. “My name’s Allen Harper. I thought I’d look you up in person. I flew in from L.A. this afternoon. Uh, can we talk in private? Looks like I caught you at a bad time, but I think you really want to hear what I’ve got to say.”
“Certainly,” John interjected. “Go ahead.”
Aggie’s stomach twisted with a premonition of trouble. She’d had all the trouble she could stand for one lifetime, tonight. “This isn’t a good time.”
“You did some work with my dad,” Allen Harper continued, as if he really didn’t care whether she wanted to talk or not. “Billy Harper. Does the name ring a bell? He was a photographer.”
She nodded vaguely, her nerves ready to snap. “Yeah. He did the publicity shots for a movie I was—” The rest of the sentence froze in her throat. John seemed to sense her distress, because his arm tightened around her.
“My dad died last year,” Allan Harper went on pleasantly, his eyes narrowing as he studied her reaction. “I’m a photographer too. Sort of inherited his business, I guess you could say. I want to talk to you about the photos you did with him.”
“Go ahead, talk,” John urged smoothly.
Aggie felt the blood pooling in her stomach. She knew exactly what sleazy little Allen Harper wanted. The day’s events crashed down on her, and she felt as if her shoulders would break from the weight. John had betrayed her, and now her past had betrayed her too.
“Excuse me, I’d better go talk to Mr. Harper alone,” she said to John, without victory in her voice, even though she’d found a smooth way to get out of his clutches.
“I’ll wait outside,” Harper said cheerfully, and left.
John took her shoulders and turned her to face him. “What does he want?”
“None of your business. And if you don’t let me go, I’ll scream. If I’m not mistaken, Allen Harper is so sleazy he’ll call the police just to see some excitement.”
“Are you in some kind of trouble?”
“No.”
“You’re not telling the truth.”
“I guess it’s a habit I picked up from you.”
“Stop it.” He shook her gently. “Tell me what he was hinting about.”
“Are you going to let me go, or am I going to scream? I swear, I don’t have anything left to lose, so don’t push me.”
He studied her leaden expression for a moment, then slowly released her. As he pulled her feet forward and untied them he told her, “Whatever’s wrong, I want to help you.”
“I don’t want your help. I want you out of my life.”
“It’s not that easy.”
“Yes it is.”
She rose, grabbed one of the blankets he’d been sitting on during the day, and wrapped it around her shoulders to hide the dress’s torn back. Bits of wood shavings fell out of her tangled hair. She knew her face was red and swollen, and her bare feet were dirty.
She decided that she looked much, much better than she felt.
John listened as Harper drove away, after talking with Agnes for a long time. Every minute of their secret conversation tore at him. Harper had something on her, probably something to do with his old man’s photographs. What had Agnes done, posed for some nude shots six years ago when she was so confused and desperate?
Good lord, a few nudie photos didn’t matter. Some of the most respectable newspapers in London printed huge color photos of naked models. Nobody thought anything of it. He frowned, recalling Agnes’s hard work to change her life, and the way she fought for her pride. She wouldn’t consider naked photos of herself something to shrug off.
In fact she’d be terribly humiliated if that sleazy little pastel-colored con man had found an old file of photos and was looking for ways to cash in on them. Some tabloid or men’s magazine could grab a few extra readers with her photos and a headline such as “Former Child Star Bares All,” or something equally stupid.
John got up and looked out the stall’s window, clenching the sill angrily when Harper left and Agnes walked into her house. She came out a few minutes later, wearing a different sundress and sneakers. She carried a suitcase.
John watched in stunned disbelief as she got into her truck and left.
Eventually a huge, hulking blond-haired man arrived. “I’m Oscar Rattinelli,” he told John with a lethal edge in his voice. “And since Aggie made me swear not to hurt you, you’re in luck.” He tossed John a tiny silver key.
“Where is she?” John asked anxiously as he unlocked the chain from his neck and slung it aside.
“She said for you to get the medieval books then get off her place. I’m gonna stay here until you do that, and then I’m gonna follow you to the airport and watch you get on a plane.”
“I’m not going. Frankly, I suspect you’re big enough to drag me out of here, but that’s a chance I’ll take. I want to see Agnes. Where is she?”
“I’d love to crack a few of your bones, but there’s no point. Agnes won’t be back anytime soon, so waiting here won’t do you any good. I’m gonna take care of things here for a few days. She won’t come back until you’re gone for good. So take the books and get out of her life.”
John cursed bitterly. He had no choice but to go. “I’ll take the books, but tell her I’ll be back to explain.”
“Right. She’ll believe that.”
John grabbed the sheaf of notes she’d left on the stall’s floor. He wanted to read the diary’s translation, if only because it would make her happy. But reading would have to wait. For now he had a long trip to England ahead of him, and an eight-hundred-year-old legacy to claim.
Ten
Calfred Dolbrook was short, stout, and as determined as a bulldog. His pin-striped suit, derby hat, and bow tie were so proper they would have made Aggie smile ordinarily, but in the week since John had left she’d felt that all the laughter had been dr
ained out of her.
Agnes wished it were later in the evening so the bar would be crowded. Oscar had nothing better to do than glare at Dolbrook while he shoved clean beer glasses onto a shelf. Oscar had seen how tormented she’d been in the past week by John’s actions and Allen Harper’s visit, and Oscar was ready to tear someone apart.
She leaned over the Conquistador’s bar between customers and shook her head at Dolbrook again. “I can’t help you find John,” she repeated. “I don’t know where he was going after he went back to England. I’m surprised you could track him here. Is he in trouble again?”
Dolbrook stared at her. His eyes twinkled over a pugnacious nose. “The bloody hellion is always in trouble.”
She tried not to show her despair. “I guess you’re not a friend of John’s.”
“Me, miss? A friend of his?” Dolbrook cackled. “I hope the day never comes when I’m reduced to being friends with a man who never listens to an order and never plays by the department’s rules.”
“You worked with him at Scotland Yard?”
“For too many years.” Dolbrook bowed slightly. “Inspector Dolbrook, at your service.”
She fought the tears in her eyes, but Dolbrook peered at her closely and saw them. “I think we’d better have a talk in private about John Bartholomew.”
Oscar jerked a thumb toward the hall that led to his office. “You upset Aggie and I’ll break your pound note into shillings.”
“How charming to meet you,” Dolbrook said cheerfully as he followed Aggie to the back.
After she shut the door to Oscar’s tiny office she pivoted toward the inspector anxiously. “Did John really take bribes from terrorist groups?”
Dolbrook arched a bushy black brow. “John take bribes? Did I say he was a criminal? No, I only said he was a hellion.”
“You mean he really was framed? He’s innocent?”
Dolbrook nodded. His upper lip curled in disgust. “He was framed. John may be a hellion and a rebel, but next to me he’s the best and most honest detective at the Yard.”
Aggie sat down limply in a chair. “I didn’t believe him.”
Dolbrook perched his stocky but dapper body on a corner of Oscar’s desk. He idly brushed lint from the derby, which he held carefully in both hands. “Don’t feel bad, miss. He’s not an easy man to get to know. He grew up hard, and he keeps to himself.”
“Why are you looking for him?”
Dolbrook’s eyes were proud as they met hers. “To tell him he’s been cleared. The conviction’s going to be overturned. He can even come back to his career at the Yard.”
“That’s wonderful.” But she was crying silently, and not from joy.
“Here, now, what’s the matter? I think you better explain what happened between you and John.”
She told him how they’d met, and about the books, and how John had deceived her. Dolbrook listened intently, his brows raised in perpetual curiosity, as if he’d never heard a stranger story in his life. “He got close to me just to find out about the books,” Aggie finished, scrubbing tears away with the tail of her bar apron.
Dolbrook patted her shoulder. “I told you John never plays by the rules, but I also told you he’s honest. He doesn’t cheat people. But maybe I better tell how he grew up. Then you can understand him a little better.”
Now it was her turn to listen in rapt silence as the detective revealed John’s ugly boyhood with a pathetically shy mother, who’d died when he was young, and a disreputable father who’d been addicted to gambling.
Addicted to gambling, just like my parents, she thought numbly.
Dolbrook told her how John grew up surrounded by the snobbery of upper-class England and the shame of his own ruined heritage. It would have made any man hard and cynical. It would have made most turn out badly. But John had worked his way up. He’d had to become tough, to do it.
“He thought I wanted the pampered businessman he pretended to be,” she told Dolbrook wearily. “But that wasn’t true. I wish he could believe I respect him. He has his own brand of nobility.”
“That’s hard for him, miss. He’s seen a lot of hypocrisy, and he’s known some so-called ‘noble men’ who stabbed him in the back.”
Aggie huddled in the chair and buried her face in her hands. “I’m glad you told me all this. I never had a chance to learn about the real John Bartholomew. I wish I had known the truth earlier. It’s too late now.”
“Why?”
“I love him, but I don’t think he’ll ever forgive me for some of the things I said and did to him. And I don’t know if he wants the kind of love I have to offer.”
“I think you’re wrong, miss. I think he’s been waiting all his life to find the right woman. I suspect you’re her.”
Aggie shook her head and looked up at Calfred Dolbrook leadenly. “This isn’t a medieval fable. John’s not coming back to fight any dragons or pledge his undying love. He’s not sentimental.”
Dolbrook stood and sighed sadly. “If he shows up again, you tell him to call me at the Yard.”
She nodded to be polite, while deep inside she was withering from the certainty that John would never come back.
The next night, not long before closing time, Allen Harper sauntered in. Pure disgust rose in Aggie’s throat, along with dread. It was a good thing Oscar was in his office going over the books. It was a good thing she didn’t have a baseball bat.
“You flew out from L.A. again just to see me?” she asked Harper, as he settled his slender rump on a bar stool. “You’re wasting your time. I haven’t got twenty-five thousand dollars. I told you that. I can take the embarrassment. Go ahead and sell the pictures to some trash magazine.”
“I’m not here to see you,” Harper said with a puzzled smirk. “You don’t know why I’m here?”
“Why should I know?”
“Well, well, I won’t spoil the surprise. How about fixing me a martini?”
“Because this bar has a minimum-sleaze requirement, and you don’t make the grade.”
Allen leaned toward her, tossed a slender briefcase on the bar, and propped his chin in his hands. Once again he was dressed in pastels, with thick gold-and-gemstone jewelry at his throat and on his wrist. His blond ponytail swayed gently in the breeze from an overhead fan.
He studied her through slitted eyes. “You know, if you’d be willing to do a new photo session, with me in charge this time, we could both make some money off that perfectly stacked package of yours.”
“Your dad had class. You’ll go a lot farther in the business if you at least pretend to have the same kind of morals he had.”
“He was a soft touch. Too soft, because he didn’t hold his clients to their legal responsibilities.”
“When he saw that they’d made a mistake and wanted to change it? No, he was too ‘soft’ to hold them to the legalities of a piece of paper they’d signed when they were desperate. I knew he could sell my pictures anytime he wanted to, since I’d signed a release, but I also knew he wouldn’t sell them if I asked him not to.”
“Well, sweetcakes, it’s too bad you were squeamish about showing off that wonderful pair of friends you’ve got on your chest. But I’m going to make some money off them, and it’s completely legal.”
Harper smiled at her again and leaned farther over the bar, staring at her chest in the loose white pullover she wore with pink shorts. Aggie turned her back and began violently polishing highball glasses. “I don’t know why you’re here or what your game is, but I’m giving you five minutes to leave before I wrap a bar towel around your throat and make your eyeballs pop.”
“I love the little beauty mark between your breasts,” Harper said coyly. “God, I wish you hadn’t been so silly about full nudity. I’m dying to know if you’re a redhead all over.”
Aggie heard him make a strangled sound, like a squawk. “I can make certain you die,” a deep British voice said.
She whirled around and met John’s dark eyes. He had a hand aroun
d the back of Harper’s neck, and the much smaller man was hunched over the bar as if he knew his vertebrae were in danger of being snapped. John’s face was stern, but a hint of humor curled one corner of his mouth up as he pulled Harper back and set him firmly on the bar stool.
When he released the nape of Harper’s neck, Harper coughed nervously and smiled at him. “Glad you’re on time.”
Stunned, Aggie could barely make sense of what was happening. “What are you doing here?” she asked John. “You have a meeting with him?” She jerked her head toward Harper.
John nodded as he smoothed a hand down a beautiful white suit that looked new and very expensive. A gold pin gleamed at the throat of his pale gray shirt. It was set with a large onyx that added another dark accent to his hair and eyes.
He looked like a man who’d recently acquired a fortune. Her heart sank when she thought of the books.
He turned his attention to Harper. “Hand them over.”
“Your wish is my command.” Harper opened his briefcase, took out a thick manila envelope and laid it on the bar.
Aggie stared in bewilderment as John handed it to her. “Take a look through the negatives and see if you think everything’s there.”
Her hands shaking, she ripped open the envelope, turned her back, and numbly studied a handful of color negatives against the bright light of a neon beer sign. “I think so,” she said weakly, shoving the negatives back into the envelope as she turned around again.
“Good.” John pulled a piece of paper from an inner pocket in his jacket and handed it to Harper. “A money order for the whole amount. Just as you wanted.”
“Perfect. I’m so happy to make a deal that protects Aggie’s privacy.”
At that moment, Oscar stalked out of his office. When he saw John his face took on an expression like an enraged gorilla’s. “What are you doing here?”
To distract him, Aggie pointed fiendishly to Harper. “Guess who this is! The man who wants to sell nude photos of me.”
Oscar grunted, and his face turned livid. Harper quickly began tucking his money order into his pink jacket. John clamped a hand on his wrist. “Put it in your briefcase.”
Stranger in Camelot Page 16
