Luke studied her a moment. "Do I frighten you so much?"
Tess gasped, outraged by his arrogance, horrified that he had spoken the truth. "Of all the egotistical—!"
"I wonder what it could be? Are you afraid Jane's watchdog will keep you from success, or are you afraid of my kissing you again?"
He is not a mind reader, he is not a mind reader, he is not a mind reader… Tess made her expression glacial. "The sooner we begin playing, the sooner you can start packing." She sat in the chair opposite Luke.
He grinned at her—damn the man!—and sat down. He offered her the white pieces which she accepted with a shrug and made her opening move. For the next quarter hour there was silence in the salon except for the occasional rustle of paper as Jane turned the page of a report, a muttered "Merde," whenever Luke captured one of her pieces, or a soft "Hell!" from Luke whenever Tess blocked his attack and threatened his king.
That she played chess far more than "a little" Tess did not try to hide. She was in this game to win, subterfuge could take a hike. The problem was, Luke was equally skilled and it required all of her concentration to insure that it was not she who would soon be packing her bags. Bert wouldn't like that.
A half hour slid by as Tess grimly began pushing the game to a draw. It seemed the best she could do for tonight. Her ego wanted the win, but the job required survival. She couldn't let Luke boot her out, not now. Why had she upped the stakes? Why had she let emotion rule her once again on this damned job?
She couldn't in the least understand the smile that flickered across Luke's mouth as she adapted her strategy to containment rather than to victory, because the smile was not smug, or superior, or even triumphant. It was more … appreciative, and if Tess hadn't had to give the game her complete concentration, that would have worried her.
As she was contemplating her next move, Hodgkins entered the salon and approached Jane. He bowed, gravely informed her that he had locked up for the night, and then, raising his voice slightly so that it carried to the opposite end of the room, he suggested that he take charge of the jewels Jane was wearing so he could lock them up safely.
"That tears it!" Tess yelled, spiraling into a sudden, towering rage fueled by the tension of the chess game and Hodgkins's far from subtle hint. She erupted out of her chair and bore down on the stone-faced butler. "I have taken your nasty innuendos, your spying, and your veiled insults for three days now, Hodgkins, and you have just pushed me too far! If I had wanted to rip off Jane Cushman, I would have done it days ago and been so far gone from this place you never could have found me. You stay right where you are," she ordered. "All of you stay right here or I'll drag you back by your ears!"
She stormed out of the salon, up to Elizabeth's room, and jerked open a dresser drawer. She pulled out a suede packet and then stomped back downstairs.
"I have to thank you, Hodgkins," Luke was saying. "You have just saved me from a draw, at best, or defeat, at worst. I doubt if my frail male ego could have stood it."
"I rather thought chess would be Tess's game," Jane said.
"Mrs. Cushman," Hodgkins intoned, "I apologize for any upset I may have caused your guest. It was not my intent—"
"Nonsense, Hodgkins," Jane said, setting aside the stack of reports, "of course it was and now you must take your medicine. Ah, here is the doctor. What have you planned for us, Tess?"
"A small demonstration," she grimly replied.
She set the suede packet on a rosewood secretary against the far salon wall, unwrapped it, and pulled out several tools. She then proceeded to disconnect the alarm system for the room, moved aside the red-hued Degas to reveal a wall safe, and set to work in earnest.
"I've been meaning to talk to you about your security system, Jane," she said, deftly snipping wires. "It's just the pits. An out-and-out amateur could break into this place. You've got a valuable art collection and it needs to be protected accordingly."
"You don't think much of M and A Security?" Jane inquired.
"There were times in the past when I could have sworn M and A was working for the thieves and fences of the world," Tess retorted. "They wouldn't know a decent security system if they tripped over it."
"What about Baldwin Security?" Luke suggested.
"Leroy's one of the best in the field," Tess said, her brow furrowed in concentration as she worked on the safe. She was totally at ease now. Work had always been her lifeline. "One of his systems nearly tossed my fanny into jail a few years back. But if you want the absolute best security available, you should go with Solitaire. The systems they come up with are nightmares. I gave up stealing many a pretty gem whenever their owners had Solitaire's Purgatory system in place."
"Just out of idle curiosity," Jane said, "how did you know I had a safe in here?"
"Old habits are hard to break," Tess said with a smile, reaching for another tool. "I spotted the security system the first day I was here, and the safe on our tour. You've got a floor safe in your study where you keep all of your legal documents. I'd have to guess, because I've never been in there, but I bet you've got another wall safe in your bedroom, slightly different system than this, of course, but still the same pitiful idea. Then there's your ballroom sideboard … Ah," Tess said as the safe door opened. She glanced at her watch. Seventy seconds. Not bad, but not up to her usual standards.
She calmly disconnected the fail-safe security alarm and then withdrew the leather cases from the safe. "Oh my, my, my," she said, opening one case and lifting out a large glittering necklace. "The Stromberg diamonds. I wondered who the anonymous buyer was. My hat's off to you, Jane. These are more than worth the price you paid."
"Thank you," Jane said gravely. But Tess wasn't fooled. Her face was aglow with suppressed laughter. Well, if safe-cracking amused her, Tess would play along.
"And the Greenleaf rubies!" she exclaimed with growing excitement as she opened another case. "My stars, these haven't been seen in two decades. I can die a happy woman right now just having held them." She suddenly turned on Jane as righteous fury swelled her breast. "And you're using M and A to protect these jewels? It would serve you right if they were stolen!"
"I'll contact Solitaire on Monday, Tess, I swear," Jane assured her.
Somewhat mollified, Tess began to place the jewels back in the safe. "Mention my name when you do. We've done business together before. They'll come out a lot faster if they know I'm involved."
"I don't doubt it," Jane murmured.
Tess turned and grinned at her. "I'm the only thief to ever crack their Griselde system. Once I joined WEB, Solitaire had me out to their Connecticut home office to explain how I'd done it. They weren't exactly thrilled when I told them I'd stolen the Griselde plans out of their president's office. They've tightened up their own security considerably since then. So, where's the Farleigh necklace?"
"And just how do you know about that?" Luke asked.
Tess regarded him pityingly.
"It's in a bank vault," Jane said with a smile.
"Thank God for that," Tess muttered. It had been a mistake to look at Luke. He was too damned attractive.
"I trust, Hodgkins," Jane said to her icy butler, "that you will now cease and desist from your suspicions about Miss Alcott? If she were after anything in this house, she would have cleaned us out days ago. I trust that is the correct expression, Tess?"
"Perfectly correct."
"Will there be anything else, madam?" Hodgkins intoned.
"No, no, you may retire for the night."
Hodgkins did so.
"Brava, Ms. Alcott!" Luke applauded as the door closed behind the butler. "That was brilliantly done. I haven't seen Hodgkins so ruthlessly routed in all the years he's worked here."
Luke cocked his head and studied her as if suddenly seeing her for the first time, a smile playing across his sensual mouth.
Oh my.
It struck Tess that if he would promise to smile at her like that for the next fifty years, she would tell Bert
to go take a flying leap and swear off safe-cracking for the rest of her life.
Tess blinked. Uh-oh. Why was it that the harder she ran from Luke, the more she was drawn to him?
She hurriedly sought sanctuary in conversation, discussing with Jane the kind of security system she would need for the estate while she bundled up her tools. Luke was silent, but his emerald gaze burned slowly down her body. It was all she could do to keep her hands from shaking.
Finally pleading exhaustion, she scurried off to bed.
Tess had never scurried in her life. She stuck her tongue out at herself when she reached Elizabeth's bedroom. Running from a pair of green eyes! How humiliating. How … unthinkable.
* * *
Tess crawled out of bed the next morning feeling like death warmed over. What was it about Elizabeth Cushman's bedroom that summoned all the old nightmares she had put behind her years ago? Did the child's room simply evoke too many memories of her own miserable childhood?
Every muscle aching, she stumbled into the adjoining bathroom, praying that a shower would restore her to some recognizably human form. Hot water pounded her weary body and slowly she began to revive. For someone who had gotten no more than two hours of decent sleep the night before, Tess considered this a miracle.
She left the shower in a somewhat better mood than when she had entered it. She brushed her wet hair back from her face, pulled on a blue knit halter dress over her swimsuit, and thought how happy she would be if she could only blame Luke Mansfield for last night's dreams. But since the nightmares were old childhood reruns, that particular sin could not be laid at his door. Everything else, however…
Distracted, lustful, running scared. She had never been these things on a job before. She was now and that she could blame on Luke. Somehow, he had found the key to a door she hadn't known she possessed, and he had gotten to her. Was getting to her. Was lousing her up in a major way.
She stared at the painted puffy clouds on Elizabeth's walls. Damn this bedroom! It had to be the source of her sleep deprivation, and sleep deprivation had to be the reason she seemed to be systematically sabotaging this job.
Why else was she letting Luke Mansfield get to her? Why else was she deliberately straying from Bert's script?
Luke's intelligence and his sly sense of humor and his code of honor and the way his emerald eyes could ignite a flame in her soul offered themselves as viable options.
"Ah, crud," she muttered. Her feelings were the real danger on this con. Luke was just the trigger.
With a sigh, she ran lightly downstairs and into the breakfast room, where her gaze collided with Luke's eyes. She hurriedly sat down and grabbed a piece of toast.
It had come to this: she could be safe, which meant avoiding Luke like the FBI, or she could do her job and get the Farleigh, which meant talking with Luke, getting him on her side, interacting with him as if he weren't the most dangerous person on earth. I've come too far on this job, she reminded herself. I can't go back now. I won't. And that meant surviving Luke and her own traitorous feelings. There was no third option.
As soon as she could escape, Tess headed for the pool. A swimming pool had always been one of her refuges. Miami had been littered with them. She dove in, enjoying the sudden shock of the cool water and the silence as it covered her ears for a moment. Then her body moved into its usual rhythm and the pool went by in a blur. Swimming for Tess was almost meditation. The water surrounded her, buoyed her, kept her safe as her body automatically slipped through it. There was absolute peace and contentment in a swimming pool. She usually found the answer to any problem while swimming.
Tess felt more than heard the splash, felt the sudden change of vibration in the water, and she knew, without looking, that Luke had joined her. Damn the man! She reached the end of the pool a second before he did.
"Haven't you ever heard that two's a crowd?" she demanded as he stood up beside her, rivulets of water streaming down his broad, naked chest.
God, he was gorgeous.
"It's a big pool," Luke said mildly. "I thought I wouldn't disturb you."
Fat chance, Tess muttered to herself. "Do you just want to harass me," she demanded, "or can you handle some real competition?"
He stared at her in surprise. "Are you challenging me to a race?"
"I've got to get some use out of you, Mansfield, and I need a decent pacesetter."
"You don't honestly think you can win? I'm bigger and stronger, remember?"
"You'll have to prove it," Tess retorted just before diving into the water.
Luke quickly followed. For the next fifteen minutes they raced each other up and down the pool, churning the water lap after lap, until finally Tess's lungs were screaming and her arms and legs felt like lead.
She and Luke tagged the end of the pool at the same time and she grimly started to make her turn, preferring to drown rather than give in, when she felt Luke's hand grasp her arm and pull her upright.
"Uncle!" he gasped. "I give up, I give in, I surrender. Don't make me die a watery death. I look awful bloated."
If Tess hadn't been so desperate for oxygen, she would have laughed. "Do you admit you've met your match?" she demanded.
"Set, game, and match."
"Thank God," Tess gasped, flinging herself onto the side of the pool so that she was half in and half out of the water, her face resting on the warm concrete, her lungs heaving gratefully as she drew in desperately needed oxygen.
"Verbal duels, chess games, swimming. If we keep challenging each other like this," Luke said, "we'll both be corpses by the end of the week."
"But beating you is such fun."
"You haven't beaten me once," Luke retorted with the greatest dignity. "Every contest has ended in a draw and you know it."
"If you weren't so stubborn—"
"And if you weren't so pigheaded—"
"We might live to the end of the week."
Luke laughed, climbed out of the pool, and then lifted her fully up and out of the water as if racing for fifteen minutes straight were nothing at all. She tried not to shiver at the contact.
"Thanks," she muttered as she lay down beside the pool, drawing her knees up, letting the sun pour over her.
"Oxygen is a wonderful thing," she pronounced.
"Tell me about it," Luke said, lying beside her.
She could hear every breath he took. She could feel every inch of him, though he lay a foot away. Only a foot away.
Say something, you fool she inwardly yelled at herself. Talk about the weather, the Yankees, anything!
"Were you always this competitive?" she asked.
"Yes, but not always this dumb. Have you ever considered swimming the English Channel? You'd be a natural."
Tess laughed. There was a lot to be said for not fighting the man … fighting with the man. She frowned at herself. She was not used to slips of the tongue, even silent ones.
"I prefer something a bit warmer," she replied. "I thought your game was handball."
"It is. But my exercise is swimming."
"Remind me never to get onto a handball court with you."
"Do you play handball?"
"A little."
"That's what you said about chess," Luke said grimly. "What else do you play?"
Tess rolled onto her side. "Oh, I play lots of games that will get me close to whatever mark I'm working on."
"Who did swimming get you close to?"
Tess smiled with fond memory. "A very nice, dirty old man with a mouthwatering Renoir. He loved to flirt with anyone under fifty. Said it kept him young. It did."
"What's this?" Luke asked, rolling on his side to face her, propping himself up on his elbow, two fingers brushing the green-tinged bruise circling her arm.
"I bashed into the bathroom door frame my first morning here," Tess automatically replied. "I always take a while getting acclimated to new places."
"Really?"
Damn! He didn't believe her.
"It looks
like a bruise left by someone's hand gripping your arm more than hard," Luke continued.
"Oh, that bruise!" Tess said brightly. "That's from a job I was working for WEB last week. Cyril had to haul me up over a window ledge when my climbing rope was … um … put out of commission."
"Who's Cyril?"
"One of the WEB agents I work with occasionally. Let me ask you something," she said hurriedly.
"Yes, you're very good at that, too."
"Thank you. How well did you know Elizabeth?"
The question seemed to take Luke by surprise. He studied her a moment and then replied slowly. "The Mansfields and the Cushmans go back for generations. My father was their family lawyer until he retired last year and he insisted—practically at gunpoint—that I take over the post. I was being carted over here for tea before I could even walk."
"What was Elizabeth like?"
"She was pretty, intelligent, insatiably curious, good with her hands, and an unmitigated pest. You have to remember," Luke said with a grin, "that I was ten years older than she was. Teenage boys take a dim view of female tagalongs."
"Cruel, most cruel. She undoubtedly offered you slavish devotion and you spurned her tender gift."
"Teenage boys are not known for their consideration of others."
"I wouldn't restrict that statement to adolescents, Mr. Mansfield."
Luke's eyebrows shot up. "There speaks a woman made bitter by some callous male."
"No, no," Tess said with a smile. "I am just an observer of the battle of the sexes."
"I wonder why."
Tess suppressed a shiver as Luke's eyes bored into her. "Love is alien to my nature," she retorted.
He looked nonplussed. "I wonder if you're lying to me or to yourself?"
"Look, Brother Grim," Tess said jabbing her index finger into Luke's broad chest and then hurriedly pulling it back as heat shot from her finger, up her arm, and quickly spread to the rest of her body, "don't try to second-guess me because you know nothing about me. Nothing! I am twenty-five years old and in all that time I have never had someone love me, nor have I ever loved someone. The evidence is incontrovertible. Tess Alcott and love do not mix."
"What about Elizabeth Cushman and love?"
STOLEN HEARTS Page 9
