by Gwyn Cready
This time he heard Fiona’s footsteps, though he fervently wished he could have been left to the quiet of his thoughts. The woman with the love of maps had a fire in her that intrigued him. He had enjoyed their discussion and could still feel the softness of her skin on his fingers and see the engaging sway of her hips as she’d climbed the path to the high street. He touched the ball of white silk. Aye, he would very much like to see that chiton on her. In truth, he would very much like to see it off her as well. He’d known enough to be wary, but the fact that she’d openly mentioned maps to him had reduced his concern. It would take a canny spy indeed to be that purposefully provocative.
“What did she want?” Fiona demanded.
“Nothing. An adjustment to her garment.” He lifted the silk and began to fold it.
“Nathaniel says you were dressing her.”
“Nathaniel would do well to concentrate on his own assignments.”
Fiona watched him. “I don’t like her.”
Hugh said nothing.
“I think she was watching for us. I think she knows.”
“You’re wrong. She’s curious about a shower of sparks that knocked her senseless, as any intelligent woman would be.”
Fiona snorted. “You know nothing will stop me from reversing the wrong that’s been done to my family.”
“I’m well aware of the assignment.”
“She had best not return.”
“She will, however. And I shall handle it.” He gazed at the brocade skirt on the odd twisted-metal contraption for hanging and allowed himself a private smile of anticipation. He wished, however, the skirt were not to be a wedding garment.
Fiona, evidently growing tired of this game, changed the subject.
“I have news,” she said. “It concerns Brand.”
“Aye?”
“The publican did something called a ‘search’ for me.”
“And?”
“Brand’s dead.”
Hugh swayed. He thought he might be sick. His life had been ordered by this imagined meeting with Brand. Every step in his career had been taken to bring him to this place. Every skill he’d pursued—pugilism, tracking, fencing, pistols—had been chosen for its value in his mission. For the second time in his life, his reason for living had been snatched away. “Are you certain?”
“Aye. He died three months ago. After a brief struggle with cancer.” She pulled a piece of paper from her pocket and read. “‘A descendant of the wealthy Brand family, Alfred Brand steered Brand Industries in the direction of computer electronic parts in 1980s. The company, which had struggled in the last few years, was burdened with debt and sold just before his death. He is survived by a daughter.’”
Josephine. She’s alive.
“What else? What about his fortune?”
“It says he drained the family fortune in recent years to save the company. In fact, it says he was about to file for personal bankruptcy when he died.”
“What about the company? He wouldn’t have let the secret die with him. Someone has to know. Someone has to have been charged with protecting the map. It was the key to the Brand family fortune and ’twill be the key to anyone who hopes to continue to harness that power into the future.”
“The daughter,” Fiona said.
“Not the daughter,” he said sharply, thinking of that innocent dark-haired child. “Someone else. What else does your paper say?”
She ran her finger down the words. “‘The company was purchased by Brand’s handpicked successor, CEO wunderkind Rogan Reynolds, and a team of investors.’”
“Rogan Reynolds?” He endured a stab so real he could almost feel the edge of the blade.
“Aye. Why?”
He smacked the counter with his fist. “Bloody hell, she is a spy.”
CHAPTER TEN
“Another martini, please,” Joss said.
“Oh, I don’t know,” Di warned as old Sam, the longtime bartender at the William Penn Hotel bar, reached for the gin. “It’s your second. Don’t you have to stay on your toes for business? You never know when a map crisis is going to precipitate.”
“Funny.” Joss nibbled at the remaining olive, thinking about the morning’s visit to the tailor shop. “You know, I can loosen up when I want to.”
“Right. Look at your bachelorette party: you, one pregnant woman drinking club soda and a teething baby. Just doesn’t get more rowdy than that.”
“You know I don’t like big parties. Never have.” Well, at least since her father’s company started going bust and everything in her life became so cost focused. She wiggled her napkin at Luke in his car seat on the bar. He gazed at her with wide, unblinking eyes, oblivious to the fountains of saliva pouring down his fist into the crevasses of his neck.
“You don’t like big parties because you never had time for big parties,” Di said. “You’re the only person I know who attended college orientation week with their corporate attorney.”
“We were being sued. It was a great chance to learn how things like that work.”
“You need to have more fun. We need to have a stripper or something. Isn’t that what Rogan’s having at his party tonight? Maybe one of these nice gentlemen at the bar here will remove his clothes for us.”
Sam, who looked as if he were sporting a small bean-bag chair under his uniform tuxedo shirt, moved the car seat enough to put down Joss’s martini and wiped his hands on his apron. “Anything else I can do for you?”
The vision of Sam in a sequined G-string popped into Joss’s head. “No. Thank you.”
“Word to the wise,” Di said as Sam walked away. “Grab fun while you can. You never know when it’s going to evaporate. The closest I’ve gotten to sex in the last four months is when David wiped baby vomit off my crotch.”
“I was actually having a little fun this morning,” Joss said, smiling into her drink. There was something about a crush that made you want to talk about it, even when you knew you probably shouldn’t.
“Oh, really?”
“Have you ever used the tailor in that alley across the street from our offices?”
“Your idea of fun is going to a tailor? Wow, we really do have a lot of work to do here.”
“It wasn’t the going to the tailor.” Joss flushed. “It was the tailor himself.”
Di looked at Joss over her glasses. “Murray, the white-haired tailor from the shtetl in Warsaw?”
“Uh, no. Must have been the son. His name was Tom. Tom James.” Her James certainly hadn’t sounded like the son of a Murray from Warsaw.
“For heaven’s sake, they’re not really named James,” Di said. “That’s just a name Murray picked. Sounded upper-crust, I guess. Or maybe he thought it fit the look of the building. It’s one of the oldest buildings in downtown Pittsburgh, you know. But, in any case, I’m not sure how you had fun there. I mean, apart from the obvious fact it’s a tailor shop, it’s been closed since July when Murray retired to Punta Gorda.”
“It . . .” Joss was getting confused. First the sparks, then the dome and now his name clearly wasn’t James. She cast a nervous glance in Di’s direction. They were close friends—the closest—but she still didn’t think she could share the really weird aspects of this encounter with her. She decided she’d stick with the crush. The martinis were definitely helping there. It was the only part she felt on firm footing about anyhow. “Okay, look. There was this guy there. I guess I just assumed his name was James. Thirtyish. British. Really cute, like Patrick Dempsey cute. And he was kind of flirting.”
Di put down her glass, and Joss felt the intensity of her gaze. So go the risks and rewards of sharing crush info. “I told him I was engaged.”
“Of course you did. And?”
Joss smiled. “He didn’t stop.”
Di flung up her hand for a high five.
“It’s not like flirting is some amazing new experience,” Joss said, meeting her slap. “I am engaged to a pretty sexy guy.”
“Yeah, but
that was, like, business flirting.”
“Business flirting?”
“I mean, I know you met in a coffee shop then went out to dinner and it was love at first sight, and then your father meets him and they really hit it off. But c’mon, what are the odds of you falling in love with a guy with a GPS company that could bail out your father’s business and then extend a helping hand to yours? Don’t get me wrong. I’m not suggesting either you or Rogan did it for that reason. I’m suggesting you’re so genetically tied into keeping the Brand O’Malley Map Company afloat that sniffing out a guy like that was programmed into your DNA. Your chromosomes were probably rubbing their hands together and laying out a merger strategy the instant you met him. I guess I’m just glad the guy with the biggest GPS company in the world didn’t look like Murray—and, by the way, he really does have a big GPS. What the hell were you two doing in that office? Poor Peter’s still asking questions.”
They both giggled. The martini was starting to hit Joss hard.
“Yeah, thanks for that,” Joss said in mock irritation.
“I texted you! You didn’t respond! How was I to know I’d be walking into an episode of The Real World?”
“No, I mean it. Thank you. I wanted to wait until our wedding night. Rogan had me against the ropes.”
“I don’t know. It didn’t look like you were putting up a particularly aggressive defense to me.”
“Ha. You know how I feel, and it’s just a few more days.”
“Honestly, Joss. No one should end up with the first guy she’s slept with. They’re like the first pancake off the griddle when you’re making Sunday breakfast. You know what those are like. What about this Murray stand-in with the English accent?”
“I hope you’re not suggesting I sleep with him.”
“No, I am definitely not suggesting that. But a kiss . . . A little light petting . . .” She lifted her palms and shrugged her shoulders as if she were Murray. “Please. Everyone needs a Mr. Mistake. That’s how you know the guy you’re with is the right one. Honestly, if I hadn’t slept with Glenn, how would I have known David was going to be such a good father?”
“I’m not following.”
“Glenn was huge, if you know what I mean.” She grabbed the base of her glass and gave Joss a significant look. Joss thought of that pillar candle. “Would a man like that have made a good father?”
“Good point.”
Sam reappeared and nodded toward the club soda. “Ya want another?”
“No. Thank you,” Di said. “I found it to be large but unfulfilling.” Then she added under her breath to Joss, “And the moral is, how would I have known that without playing the field a little?”
“That’s the moral, is it? Okay, that explains Glenn. What about Brad, Andy and that Brazilian with the recumbent bike?”
“You’re missing the point. David is perfect. He mops up vomit. He’s happy to watch the kids because it means he can put on the Three Stooges. And he’s generous enough not to have a penis that could double as a garden gnome.”
Several patrons turned their heads.
“Gee, and you said this wasn’t going to be a good bachelorette party.” Joss swirled the olive in her martini, thinking back on the morning visit. “He told me I looked like a goddess. Nike.”
“Really?”
“And he made me a chiton.”
“A kite-en?”
“I know, I’d never heard of one either. It’s a goddess’s dress. He wants me to wear it for the wedding. Or, rather, he wants to make me a real one to wear for the wedding.”
Di shook her head. “That’s got to be a one-of-a-kind pickup line.”
“Oh, you should have seen it. All he did was cut out a piece of fabric, drape it over me—”
“He was dressing you?” Di squeaked the barstool so hard, Luke dropped his fist and started to cry.
“Well, I mean, just some fabric. Then he tied a piece of gold rope across my chest—”
“Now we’re talking.”
“—and I was totally transformed. I’ve never seen anything like it before. I looked elegant and confident. It was . . . really nice.”
“You were in his shop, and he was dressing you. How did this amazing event transpire?”
Joss’s face turned hot. “Well, that’s the funny thing.”
“Oh, that’s the funny thing?” Di pulled an ice cube from her glass and ran it over Luke’s gums.
“Yeah, I was there to get my skirt hemmed. And he found out it was going to be my wedding skirt and said he saw me in something entirely different.”
“God, please tell me this means we can get you out of that funeral home greeter outfit?”
“He took me in the fitting room and started making this toga thing on me—but it’s not a toga because they’re only for men—and he said I looked like a goddess.” Joss pretended she needed another napkin so that Di didn’t see the sparkle in her eyes. “And the amazing part is, I did. Like Athena or Britannia or something.”
“Britannia,” Di said significantly, “has a breast bared.” Luke sucked the cube, spit up a little and went back to his fist.
“Yeah, that topic came up.”
The arch of Di’s brow went higher than St. Louis’s.
“Stop,” Joss said. “Nothing happened.”
“Except for the dress!”
“No. I told him I couldn’t do it.”
“Why?”
“You know . . . There’s not enough time.”
“So, don’t wear it next week. You can still let him fit you.” Di put a finger on her lip. “Hmm. I wonder how well he would fit you?”
“Di!”
Di looked at her watch. “Do you suppose this mysterious British-Jewish tailor-goddess maker has evening hours?”
“No, no, no.”
“Come on!” Di grabbed Luke’s car seat handle and swung him off the bar. “This is a bachelorette party. I don’t want Luke to be the only one getting breast action tonight.”
* * *
They padded down the alleyway, giggling, with Joss shooshing Di and Di tugging Joss’s arm to pull her along.
“I feel like I’m in ninth grade.”
“Good,” Di said, “because I’m sure you spent ninth grade acting like an old lady.”
A light was on in the tailor shop.
“He’s there!” Di cried.
“Oh, let’s not do this. I feel embarrassed.”
“It looks like a house. Do you think he sleeps up there? Do you think he takes women up there?”
“There’s this woman who works with him,” Joss said. “Blond.”
“Ugh. But he’s definitely not sleeping with her.”
“How can you be sure?”
“Sex with your coworker in a tailor shop? Lacks imagination. I think it’s the clients he beds, when this blond chick is gone for the night. I see him!” she cried. “Patrick Dempsey is definitely in the building. He is cute.”
James was seated at a desk, arranging items in front of him, and Joss felt an instant wave of disabling shyness. “Let’s just look.”
“C’mon. Your whole life has been about just looking. Time for a test drive.”
“Di, please.”
“I’ll tell you what: let’s sneak around the back and see what kind of car he has.”
“Maybe this isn’t such a good idea.”
But Di had already started jogging down the side of the building, jostling young Luke nearly out of his Moo Cow cap. Joss followed her as far as the corner, casting nervous glances over her shoulder to ensure James hadn’t moved from his seat.
“Sports car or SUV, do you think?” Di called. “God, it had better not be a Prius. Nothing says ‘I’m hung like a Greenpeace organizer’ like a Prius.”
Joss wrung her hands nervously. The martinis must have been doubles. She hadn’t felt this weavy in ages.
“I’m taking bets!”
“For heaven’s sake, keep your voice down.” Joss stole a glance at the
upstairs windows. Would he really take women up there? She wondered if having sex inside the dome would be different from having it anywhere else. She had a vision of white silk sheets, gold rope and a slow, careful rhythm.
Her eyes traveled to the downstairs window and the desk was empty.
“Nothing,” Di called, a voice in the darkness. “No car at all.”
Joss jumped a foot. James was standing beside her.
“Di,” Joss called, panicked.
“Damn,” Di continued. “I was hoping for a big red sports car, you know, maybe with a license plate that read I LENGTHEN or SEW BIG.”
“Di!”
“Good evening,” James said with a bemused look. “Would you like to come in?”
“I couldn’t believe it when Joss told me you’d made her such a beautiful dress,” Di said.
She was sitting on a chair in the fitting room, with Luke sleeping at her feet, while James stood, slouched against the doorframe, and watched Joss try not to pace. Joss could feel his smile and was working hard to hide hers. She prayed she hadn’t made herself into the biggest idiot this side of Ashdown Forest.
“Joss, is it?” he said. “I hadn’t remembered to ask your name.”
“Joss O’Malley, yes.” She extended her hand. “And yours?”
“Hugh,” he said, shaking it. “Hugh Hawksmoor.”
His hand was twice the size of hers. It felt warm and steady, and a flash of her earlier fantasy returned to her hard enough to make her toes tingle. The front door opened, and in a moment the blonde entered the fitting room. Di looked her over, caught Joss’s eye and shook her head confidently. The blonde smiled but the emotion did not reach her eyes. “You’ve returned,” she said to Joss.
“Yes, we were walking and, um, sort of ended up in this direction.” The smile was off-putting in itself but even more so after the reception the woman had given her this morning. Joss noted she was all in black now, and Hugh, who had retained his charcoal trousers, now wore a loose-fitting black shirt over them. She found herself gazing wistfully at the shirttails.
“Is your fiancé here?” The blonde looked around curiously. “Hugh mentioned you are engaged to be married.” The final words had been delivered with an unmistakable emphasis.
