Was Tess a target? Nothing and no one is safe.
Everything that was in Tess wanted to wail. All the old patterns were once more solidly entrenched within her. It was as if the miracle that had been last night had never happened.
She and Jane walked out to the garage and climbed into their cars: Jane's a Mercedes 500E and Tess's a more circumspect Mercedes 190E. She made herself wave gaily to Jane and then drove the sixty-minute trip to Weinstein's apartment in forty minutes.
* * *
Two hours later she and Jane and Monsieur Antoine Giracault were walking into Elaine's for lunch, the unpleasant interview with Bert banished from Tess's eyes and thoughts, her whole being concentrated on her chosen role. She was not Luke's lover, she was a con pulling a job and nothing more. Bert had made it clear it was either him or Luke. Bert could do the most physical damage, Luke the most internal harm. Neither choice was safe. Still, she knew what one of Bert's beatings was like. She had no idea if she could survive whatever Luke threw at her. In a choice between the known and the unknown, Tess thought it safest to choose Bert and this con and who she had been before Luke. The shadows were once again lodged in her soul.
This noisy, packed restaurant was just what she needed to help entrench sanity back in her brain. She gave all of her attention to Jane and to the man who sat between them: Antoine Giracault, although only in his early forties, was one of the world's great art experts. He had spent five minutes with the supposed Vermeer and, before Jane's appalled staff, pronounced it to be a Shively. He had insisted on coming to lunch to grill Tess further on her astounding knowledge of art. Jane too seemed in an interrogatory mood.
Tess knew there was a reason Jane had wanted to give her a tour of the Cushman empire and to introduce her to her senior staff that afternoon. This was yet another test: how did Tess fit into Elizabeth's natural milieu? How did she interact with other people? Was she capable of taking over the empire if she really was Elizabeth? Tess thought the inference was clear: Jane was close to giving Bert and her everything they had worked for: ascension into Elizabethdom. She was not Luke's lover. She was a con close to pulling off the biggest job of her life.
During their first course, she and Monsieur Giracault shook their heads together over a fanatical European collector of Rubens who, only last year, had ignored all of Giracault's warnings and bought in a private sale a very large, and very expensive, Shively. As Tess cut into her lasagna, Jane led them into a discussion of faux-bamboo Regency furniture, American Impressionists, and French illuminated manuscripts. Occasionally Tess felt herself in almost over her head, but she had long been adept at treading water.
"But how," Monsieur Giracault inquired, gazing deeply into her eyes as he habitually did, "can so knowledgeable an art devotee dismiss Picasso's Cubist works out of hand?"
"I don't!" Tess protested. "I like Guernica very much and I loathe The Accordionist. Unless there's an intense message behind the painting, I just tend to be drawn more to beauty than to technical wizardry."
"Technical wizardry?" Jane sputtered and was soon in full cry. Tess was more than content to sit back and let her expound on one of her favorite artists and art styles.
It occurred to her, halfway through lunch and Jane's diatribe, that Antoine—as he insisted she call him—was flirting with her quite expertly. She had been so involved in the conversation that she hadn't really noticed it before. She considered this man whom she had openly admired from the moment they had met for his knowledge and love of art. He was a little shorter than Luke, a bit thinner, his blond hair beginning to recede from his forehead. He also had beautiful hands, a brilliant mind, and a self-deprecating smile Tess couldn't resist. He was not handsome, but he had a Gallic attractiveness that many other women in the restaurant had noticed.
Tess had noticed. But that was all. Here was a man who in so many ways fit into her world, a man who seemed ideally suited to her interests and her temperament, and Tess was not in the least drawn to him except as a partner in conversation. She thought this very odd. There was Luke, who set the blood pounding in her veins even as he tried to have her thrown in jail, and he was the man she wanted, instead of the far more sane and accessible choice of Antoine Giracault.
Fortunately, Antoine and Jane distracted her from these treacherous thoughts by challenging her opinions on Poussin, Flaubert, and Maria Callas.
None of this was a hardship for she was helped along in her role by her growing fascination with Jane's world. After lunch and Antoine Giracault's reluctant departure, Jane once again ushered Tess into her dominion and Tess was enthralled. She wanted to explore every nook and cranny at Cushman's. As far as she was concerned, it was a candy store and she was six years old again. Everything that was beautiful was here. She couldn't ask enough questions, couldn't stop enjoying every minute of the afternoon.
Even the paperwork was fascinating, because behind every memo and spreadsheet and analysis was a beautiful vase, sumptuous carpet, or delicious Delacroix. For the second time in two days, Tess had found a place where she belonged.
Driving back to the Cushman estate that evening, she thought it incredibly ironic that she had finally found a career that would challenge her and give her pleasure—and that career was strictly forbidden to her. When this job was finished, when Jane knew the truth, she would undoubtedly blackball Tess in every auction house in the country, and probably Europe, too. She wouldn't be able to get a job sharpening pencils.
She pulled into the garage behind Jane, parked, and then followed her into the house.
"You had better hurry and dress for dinner, dear," Jane said as they walked into the Grand Hall. "Luke should be here soon."
"Right," Tess said, trying to hold her blush at bay, and failing. She ran up the stairs, well aware that Jane's eyes were still on her.
In her room, she stared into her closet in despair. There was nothing to wear.
She stopped at the thought. Every conceivable item of clothing was in this closer and she had nothing to wear? Bemused, Tess shook her head. There were plenty of clothes, but none of them were attractive enough for Luke's eyes or bullet-proof enough to protect her from those eyes. With a sigh, she finally just reached into her closet and grabbed the first evening dress that came to hand. She grimaced.
But she refused to give in to the stereotypical female fluttering over dressing for a man. He is not my lover, he is a mark, she reminded herself. She relentlessly pulled off her clothes, pulled on the chocolate-brown dress, found a matching pair of shoes, and then went to her dresser to brush her hair. She stayed an extra minute or two before the mirror, her brush attempting to smooth her anarchic curls into some semblance of order. Realizing what she was doing, she stuck her tongue out at herself in disgust.
"Fool," she muttered. She walked out of her room, down the stairs, and into the dining room where the first thing she met was Luke's hot gaze. Paralyzed, she watched Luke advance on her, like a lion stalking his prey. All brain function ceased when she saw the hunger in his eyes. It matched her own heat, the ache deep within her, the rapid-fire leap of every one of her nerve endings.
"Come here," he said just before he pulled her into his arms, his mouth closing on hers, demanding everything. With a groan, Tess realized how much she had needed this all day, how much she had wanted to feel his hunger meeting her own, how much she had wanted him. She eagerly chucked out all rational thought and returned his kiss with equal heat. Bert could take a hike. If danger felt this good, she'd welcome it and gladly.
Finally, when the need for oxygen became too great, they pulled slightly apart, foreheads resting against each other.
"Hard day at the office?" Tess asked with her first lungful of air.
"Long," Luke muttered. "It was very, very long."
Hearing Jane talking to Hodgkins in the outer hallway, they quickly separated and took their seats opposite each other at the table.
Tess evinced great interest in removing her napkin from the porcelain napkin ring a
s Jane walked into the room, but she had the most awful feeling that Jane wasn't fooled in the least. Did she approve or disapprove? Condemn or applaud? Was she suspicious of Tess's intentions, or could she not care less?
All through dinner Tess did a creditable job of joining in the innocuous conversation, her face giving nothing away as she wrestled with the greatest challenge of her career. However much she tried to deny it, however much Bert scared her, she was Luke's lover, and that put her life in jeopardy.
Bert's nerves were already stretched to the breaking point by the casual pace Jane had set in making her decision about Tess. This morning's little chat with him had proven that. If he saw Tess make some foolish Luke-inspired mistake now when they were in the homestretch, he would not hesitate to direct his fury at her. Tess had seen the destruction Bert could wreak on a human being with his bare hands and she shuddered inwardly. He would, she knew, take particular delight in doing the same to her if he thought she had ruined this honey of a deal.
Luke's low rumble of laughter roved up and down her spine and she looked at him, really looked at him, for the first time that night.
He was leaning back in his chair, wholly at ease, a glass of wine balanced in one hand, laughing at some barbed witticism of Jane's, and it struck Tess that he looked different, he felt different. Something had changed, but what? Then he glanced across at her, inviting her to join in the laughter, and she had her answer. His face, even his eyes, had lost every hard edge. He was open, happy—not defenseless, for Luke Mansfield was the most alert creature on two feet—but certainly more … accepting, trusting, gentle.
The guard he had always seemed to keep up around her had apparently crumbled away for good last night. Had her own?
She felt a smile tug at her mouth as Luke and Jane continued their verbal duel.
Oh yes. If he could affect her so easily, draw her out with just a glance, warm her with his laughter, her own shield was mortally wounded. No matter what Bert threatened, Luke and she were lovers and she would not give that up. She had to take the biggest leap of her life. She had to trust that a man would not deliberately hurt her. She had to trust that Luke's words and his lovemaking were the truth. She had to trust that somehow she could avoid Bert's wrath.
"How about an after-dinner stroll through the rose gardens?"
Luke was standing at her side, his smile warm and enticing.
"I'd love to," she said happily, ignoring Jane's curious gaze as she gave him her hand.
* * *
CHAPTER TWELVE
« ^ »
The summer heat of the day had finally burned itself out. The night air was slightly cool and rich with the scent of roses and a chorus of crickets. Tess walked at Luke's side, her arm looped through his. Life, he thought, couldn't get much better than this.
He shook his head at himself. He had definitely fallen off the straight and narrow. Into what, he did not know. But he was different today—the world was different today—and all because of the con artist and thief strolling contentedly by his side.
It wasn't smart, it wasn't reasonable, it wasn't even justifiable, but Luke was happy, truly happy, for the first time in years and he didn't want to give it up, couldn't give it up, absolutely refused to give it up.
"So, how was it meeting the Great Giracault?" he asked into the peaceful silence between them.
"Educational, pleasurable," Tess readily replied. "He makes the most marvelously subtle passes."
"I have never liked the French," Luke said with a scowl.
Tess laughed. "What do you like?"
"You."
He felt her hand spasm on his arm.
"Not very wise, Mansfield. The odds are stacked against you. With my history, I'm bound to disappoint you sooner than later."
"You're talking through your hat," Luke stated. "You're the one who has confessed to having no family, no friends, no lovers. What do you know about intimacy?"
"Nothing at all," Tess agreed. "But then, neither do you."
"Au contraire, ma chère. I have been engaged. I have both family and friends. I've even had lovers."
"Then where are they?" Tess shot back. "You dumped Jennifer twelve years ago, you bamboozled Ellen Monroe nine years ago, and you got the stuffing kicked out of you by Margo Holloway five years ago. Not another female has held your long-term interest."
"My, my, you have been researching me," Luke said, more than impressed. He was intrigued. Why had she dug so deeply into his past? And why had she let it slip?
"Friends have not called you at Hotel Cushman," Tess continued, "family has not visited. Admit it, Luke, you're an outsider just like me."
"Jane did once say we have a lot in common."
"Jane is off her rocker."
"Oh, I don't know," Luke said, stopping to trail a finger down her satin cheek, delighting at her slight shiver which mirrored his own, "we're both good at our jobs, we're both passionate, we love to argue, we enjoy making love together, and we both have avoided intimacy."
"Okay," Tess said with a grimace. "I guess we have a few things in common. I can understand your aversion to romance after getting trampled into the dust by the Terrible Three, but why avoid intimacy with your own family?"
"We have a conflict of interest," Luke said, a touch of grimness in his expression. His family was as much of a sore spot for him as Tess's amnesia was for her.
"That hasn't seemed to stop us," Tess observed.
Luke grinned down at her and then pulled her along the main gravel path in the rose garden. "Maybe our conflict isn't as big as we've both assumed."
"Maybe your conflict with your family isn't, either."
"Tess—"
"Luke—"
He couldn't help but chuckle. "Okay, okay. My parents are the type of Old Money New Yorkers who believe in wearing the right clothes, having the right friends, vacationing in the right places, and marrying the right people. They insisted on corsets for themselves and their children."
"Made you toe the line, hm?"
"Every damn moment of the day. It didn't matter that I liked hot dogs and drive-ins and making out with the head of the cheerleading squad. That was beyond the pale for a Mansfield and off they shipped me to a private all-male boarding school to better myself and avoid polluting my brother and sisters. You see, I was different from the eldest son they expected me to be and they found that difference … distressing."
"And yet, they loved you."
"Yeah," Luke said, staring up at the stars. "In their own narrow, suffocating way they did and do love me."
"Sometimes," Tess said quietly, "families aren't all they're cracked up to be."
"The Cleavers we weren't," Luke wryly agreed. "We were the Mansfields and from the moment of my birth it was hammered into me what was expected of me, who I was supposed to be, what I was supposed to do. My life was a straight line that they had drawn. I rebelled every chance I got, but I always ended up doing what was demanded of me. There's just something about Yankee guilt… I didn't even want to be a lawyer, as is expected of the eldest son. I kicked and screamed all the way to Harvard. Funny thing is, once I got there, I discovered that I actually love the law. I dreamt of becoming Clarence Darrow, defending the poor, the weak, the indigent. Championing truth and justice. I damn near made a cape for myself."
"And instead, you ended up at Mansfield and Roper."
"The eldest son always carries on the family practice," Luke said with a sigh.
"Bleah."
"Exactly."
"Let's see," Tess said, "your folks sent you to the Mansfield family alma maters, then they shoved you into the family business, and now they've got you dating their friends' daughters. Sounds like you've played the dutiful son more than long enough. Luke, you're thirty-five. You can do whatever the hell you want."
A very satisfied chuckle welled up from his chest. "I am."
"But you're at Mansfield and Roper!"
"Not for long."
Tess jerked him t
o a stop. "You're plotting something. I can tell by that self-satisfied smirk. What are you up to, Grim Reaper?"
"You'll laugh."
"No I won't."
"You'll accuse me of being a bleeding heart."
"I have never associated you with that phrase."
Luke chuckled. There wasn't a male ego going that Tess couldn't deflate with both hands tied behind her back and hopping on one foot. "All right. I'm planning to open a storefront law office in downtown Brooklyn on the wrong side of downtown, of course, near Borough Hall and the cluster of courthouses there. I'd like those people to know that the law can occasionally be on their side."
Tess stared up at him. "You've seen The Adventures of Robin Hood one too many times … and I think it's the best possible thing you could do for yourself."
"One of the best," Luke said, surprised at how happy she had just made him.
"Gaslight to grunge in a two-block radius," Tess murmured. "You'll have more cases and more kinds of cases than Harvard even knows about!"
"Exactly," Luke said with the utmost satisfaction.
"When do you move?"
"Two months."
"How did your family react?"
"Well…"
"You haven't told them?"
Luke flushed. "Hey, you're the one who pointed out that they haven't even bothered to call or visit me here. Besides, it takes weeks to get a reservation at the Twilight Room."
"You're scheming, Mansfield."
It was lovely that she could read him so well. "Appalled, horrified, enraged my parents may be at my announcement, but no Mansfield would ever consider throwing a public scene, particularly in one of their favorite restaurants."
"Very crafty," Tess said approvingly.
"Thank you," Luke said, grinning down at her. "And what are your plans? Do you think you'll like running the auction house?"
"If I'm Elizabeth Cushman, I'll love it. If I'm just plain old mongrel Tess Alcott after all, I don't know," Tess said with a shrug. "I guess I'll find a new psychiatrist—because if I'm not Elizabeth, then Max really blew it. I'll probably keep working for WEB until something better comes along."
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