For a second, the merest twitch of an eye, she thought she saw amusement.
But no. Mr. Arrogant was as forbidding as ever when he said, “Of course. Pardon me. I lost my head.” He glanced around him. “Can you barf in a Limoges punch bowl?”
“No problem. But”—she took long breaths—“I think I’m okay now. I just have to be careful and not sit up.”
“You have a concussion.”
His certainty made her faintly belligerent. “You’re no doctor.”
“No, of course not. I wouldn’t have sent for one if I were.”
“Ha.” She’d met way too many doctors lately, and while he acted superior enough to be a physician, he was too intense to fit the medical profile.
He continued, “But it doesn’t take a surgeon to see that you hit the lion hard enough to break his tooth.”
Cautiously she checked out the lion. He still snarled, but lopsidedly. “I hope that’s not an omen.”
“If it is, I don’t know how to read it.”
The other guy, tall, bulky, with Asian eyes and a dark brown complexion, returned and hovered. “The doctor’s on her way.”
“Sam, make sure I’m not bothered.”
Without a glance or any acknowledgment of her, Sam left, shutting the door behind him.
“So who are you?” Mr. Arrogant slid the clip off her head—and smiled as her hair tumbled free.
People, especially men, tended to smile when they saw the fall of shining copper curls. In fact, people, especially men, tended to smile at her all the time, no matter what.
Not this stern-faced, hawk-nosed interrogator. His smile vanished at once, like a mistake he wished to call back.
She had more composure now, no desire to explain her mission, and a few questions of her own. “Who are you ?”
“I’m Devlin Fitzwilliam.”
Which told her absolutely nothing. “And you’re here because . . . ?”
“I live here.”
She stared.
“I own this house,” he said helpfully. “The one you broke into. The one with the Honesdale vase and the now snaggletoothed lion.”
“You own Waldemar?” She struggled to comprehend the incomprehensible. “What about the other guy . . . ? The one who used to own it?”
“Bradley Benjamin? Is that who you’re asking about?” Devlin picked up her wrist again. He stripped off her black leather glove. He kissed . . . Oh, my. He kissed her fingertips. “Which Bradley Benjamin? The third or the fourth?”
“I, um, don’t know.” She hadn’t prepared for this conversation. She had planned to break in, grab the painting, and depart, not talk to a guy whose ruthless eyes demanded the truth and whose lips carried on a dialogue all their own.
“Bradley Benjamin the third sold me the house,” Devlin said. “Bradley Benjamin the fourth—I call him Four, which irks him no end—likes to visit and whine.”
“Oh.” Grandmother was wrong. So wrong. Bradley Benjamin had sold the house. This stranger did live here. The painting was not in its place.
And Meadow was in deep, deep trouble.
“Who do you think you are, breaking in here?”
“I’m . . . Meadow.” Not Natalie Szarvas. That was her professional name, and if he knew that, she didn’t stand a chance of getting out of this mess. “I don’t . . . I can’t . . .” How stupid was this? She should have considered that she might get caught. Prepared some kind of story.
But Grandmother had been so sure . . . and now some guy with cold eyes and warm lips kissed her fingers and cross-examined her, and soon she’d find herself on the way to jail. And how was she going to explain that to her parents living just outside the small town of Blythe in Washington State, when they thought she was teaching a glassblowing seminar in Atlanta?
“You don’t remember?” Devlin kissed her wrist.
Nice. Very nice.
His lips, not his questions.
“That’s right. I don’t remember. Because I . . . I . . . I have amnesia!” Good one, Meadow! That’s thinking on your feet!
Lightning struck nearby. Thunder boomed.
Meadow jumped. It was as if God Himself called her a liar.
And Devlin’s mouth twisted. He didn’t believe her.
Hastily she added, “I don’t remember what I’m doing here. I’ve probably had some kind of mental breakdown.” A pretty clever lie, because what was the worst that could happen? The police would send her to an asylum for a few days’ evaluation; then she’d be out on her own and she could try again.
Or perhaps the Almighty would send a bolt of lightning to strike her dead.
“When you didn’t recognize me at once, I was afraid of this.” Devlin gazed into her eyes so soulfully she didn’t dare blink. “My darling, somehow you managed to find your way back.”
“Huh?” She had a bad feeling about this.
Tenderly he gathered her into his arms. “I know you don’t remember—but you’re my wife.”
2
“Are you crazy? We’re not married!” Someone was shouting, and the noise made Meadow’s head throb. Because, she realized, the shouting came from her own mouth.
“You poor thing. You don’t remember, but we married eight months ago.”
Lightning struck. Lights flickered.
“Right! That’s why you welcomed me with open arms!”
“You left me. On one of the worst days of my life you disappeared, and I didn’t know what happened to you. I’ve been worried to death, and when you showed up, hale and hearty and pretending not to know me, I . . . I just . . .” He did a good imitation of a man choking on his emotions.
Except he wasn’t choking on his emotions; he was trying to think of a new lie to tell. She knew it—because she’d never met him before. Ever. She would remember him.
Any woman would remember him. He had the face of a dark angel and the eloquence of Satan’s right-hand man. The flashes from outside danced across his craggy features like stage lighting in hell.
“You just what?” she insisted.
“All the months of uncertainty, of not knowing whether you were alive or dead. I wanted to shake you. But your poor bruised head saved you, and now I’ve got my senses back and I can hold you. Hold you as I’ve longed to.”
Which was tightly and with an intimacy that took the edge off her pain and made her heart beat too fast. Of course, she’d had a scare. Probably that was why her heart thumped. It couldn’t be the pleasure of discovering that the scent of citrus and sandalwood came from his skin, or that she could see the shadow of his beard darkening the cleft in his chin. Beneath his shirt, his chest had that taut warmth that made her want to run her hand over his pecs and down his belly. . . . Without a doubt he worked out, and while she liked a guy who was, as her grandmother would have said, built like a brick shithouse, Meadow was perfectly happy to view the bricks from a distance. In her experience, men who kept themselves buff were self-absorbed, and a brick shithouse-worthy man who wasn’t self-absorbed would be deadly to her peace of mind.
Especially if he smelled good.
Good heavens. Was her nose buried in his chest?
She pulled away.
He gathered her closer again. “What caused the amnesia, darling?” he asked solicitously. “Did you hit your head then, too?”
“I don’t know. I don’t remember ever being with you.” Pin him down. “Where did you say we were married?”
“In Majorca.”
“Majorca.” Majorca?
“A beautiful island off the southeast coast of Spain.”
“Right.” She didn’t feel sick anymore. More like . . . giddy.
“I have a home there.”
“Well, of course you do.”
“You don’t believe me?”
“I believe you’ve got a home on Majorca.”
“And you can take my word, my darling amnesiac, that we met and married there. After all, you don’t remember anything different, do you?”
S
he looked at him . . . at his tanned, rugged face, his dark, rumpled hair, his brown eyes . . .
A man like this—a man whose perpetual expression was harsh intensity—made it difficult to imagine he could be amused. But he had to be . . . didn’t he? Was he punishing her for breaking into his house by playing a practical joke? Did the absurdity of the situation make him want to laugh?
Did he ever laugh?
She got the feeling she would wait a long time before he grinned and admitted he was teasing.
Which left her where?
“My head hurts.” From trying to figure a way out of this maze.
At the sound of voices in the foyer, he glanced around. “The doctor’s here.”
“Wow. You got a doctor to make a house call? I thought they only did that on old reruns.” In her experience, doctors never did anything to make matters easy on the patient.
“I hired Dr. Apps to be on call for the hotel. You’ve given us the opportunity for a dry run. Keep your hand on my handkerchief.” He pressed Meadow closer to his chest, slid his arm under her knees, and very slowly stood with her.
“A hotel? What hotel?” She grabbed the soft linen as it slipped.
“Good girl.” He spoke to her as if she were an obedient dog. “This hotel. The Secret Garden.”
“This is a hotel?” Maybe her brain was affected by her fall. Or hell had frozen over.
Devlin had a sure way of moving that minimized the dizziness and, yes, he probably did it so she didn’t throw up on his rug, but he made her feel secure, the way a Honesdale bowl must feel when she cradled it.
“The grand opening is in three weeks,” he told Meadow; then his attention left her, and he spoke to someone else. “Dr. Apps, thank you for coming.” Placing Meadow on the couch, he went to intercept the doctor at the door. “Meadow fell. . . .”
As he gave Dr. Apps the details, Meadow carefully lifted her head and looked.
Dr. Apps looked back and smiled with that mechanical interest medical people showed when faced with an unspeakably boring case. She had nice teeth. Nice face with a minimum of makeup, and lipstick that was a nice shade of pink. Nice, well exercised, extremely tall body. Nice brown hair done up with a nice clip.
Talk about unspeakably boring.
With Devlin’s attention and his scent and his body elsewhere, Meadow relaxed against the cushions and tried to organize her thoughts.
Bradley Benjamin had sold Waldemar.
Devlin Fitzwilliam had bought it and was turning it into a hotel.
Her beautiful plan was in tatters.
The paintings had probably all been moved according to some decorator’s idea of where they would be most attractively placed. Or they’d been appraised and sold. . . . No, she would have heard about that.
So what to do?
Stay here and poke around, of course.
But Fitzwilliam claimed she was his wife, and she didn’t know why. Or what he wanted.
Of course, there was the usual thing a man wanted from a woman, but he wasn’t a rapist. She snorted. More likely he had to defend himself against hordes of pursuing women. And why bother with a concussed female when he could have someone like the doctor? The doctor whose voice she heard crooning at Devlin. The doctor who couldn’t have made her interest more obvious if she’d wrapped herself in pearls and presented herself on a clamshell.
Meadow moaned softly.
No response. Her husband kept talking to her doctor, and neither one of them paid her a bit of attention.
She moaned louder.
“Darling!” Devlin returned to her side.
That’s better.
“Let’s have a look at her.” The doctor nudged him aside.
He went easily.
“Hello . . . I’m sorry, I don’t know your name.”
Meadow had heard Devlin tell Dr. Apps her name, but she was willing to play along. “Meadow. I’m Meadow.”
“Tell me what happened, Meadow,” Dr. Apps invited. She wore a blue smock with big pockets loaded with all kinds of doctor stuff, and she listened to Meadow’s heart, shone a light in Meadow’s eyes, examined Meadow’s bump on the head, and listened with seeming inattention while Meadow confessed to breaking in, falling down, and blacking out.
“How long were you out?” Dr. Apps asked.
“I don’t know. Long enough for him to get to me.” Devlin stood off to the side, and Meadow indicated him.
“How long?” Dr. Apps asked him.
“Less than a minute,” he answered.
Dr. Apps nodded. “Pupils look good. Nice and even. Eyes are tracking well. Any loss of memory?”
Here it was. Meadow’s chance to escape. “You bet. I have amnesia. I don’t remember what I’m doing here.”
“I thought you said you broke in?” Ruthlessly Dr. Apps cleaned the wound on Meadow’s head.
“Sure! He said I did”—she indicated Devlin—“and I’m sure he’s got the security cameras to prove it.”
Devlin nodded.
Great. When he dragged her into court, they’d show the video and throw her in prison for the rest of her life. “But I don’t remember that at all. I don’t remember anything.”
“But you told me your name.” Dr. Apps didn’t appear to believe her any more than Devlin did.
“That’s the only thing I remember. I don’t know my last name.” Meadow was starting to feel like Klinger in M*A*S*H—trying desperately to convince the doctor that she was crazy. “I only know I woke up with my head bleeding.”
“Hmm. How unusual.” But Dr. Apps wasn’t looking at her. She was staring at Devlin as if he’d said something. Which he hadn’t. He was still standing there, impassive and waiting.
“Really.” Desperate to get her attention, Meadow got up on her elbows. But that made her head throb, so she slid back down. “You ought to take me to the hospital for a mental evaluation.”
Dr. Apps returned her attention to Meadow. “Any nausea?”
“Not anymore,” Meadow said.
“She threatened to throw up in a Limoges punch bowl.” Devlin perched on the arm of the couch.
“Oh, dear. Oh, no.” Dr. Apps pursed those lovely, lipsticked lips in real distress. “Those bowls are exceedingly valuable, Meadow.” Obviously the woman fancied herself a connoisseur and Meadow a Philistine.
Devlin made no move to correct her.
Meadow glared at them both. “So’s the rug, and at least you can run a bowl through the dishwasher.” She savored the sight of Dr. Apps’s sputtering horror.
“Darling, stop teasing. You know what happened the last time you ran a Limoges bowl through the dishwasher. All the gilding washed off.” Devlin dusted Meadow’s forehead with his fingertips. “But I’m afraid she’s telling the truth, Dr. Apps. She doesn’t remember a thing. She doesn’t even remember that she’s my wife.”
Dr. Apps looked at the two of them. Looked again. And laughed so heartily Meadow would have liked her if she weren’t a doctor. “Devlin, you jerk. You set me up, didn’t you? You wanted to see how well your emergency medical plan works, and you called me in on a fake case.”
He shrugged as if admitting guilt, but answered, “I would hardly bash Meadow over the head to check out your response time.”
“So one of your cleaning staff fell and you took advantage of the opportunity.” Dr. Apps stuck her stethoscope and her eyeball light into her capacious pocket. She pulled gauze and tape out of her other pocket, and in swift motions and with no care for Meadow’s discomfort, bandaged her with tape and gauze. “You would have suckered me completely if not for the story including breaking in and having amnesia and her being your wife. That last is a little too much to swallow.” She patted Meadow on the arm. “Did you make all that up yourself?”
Devlin smirked. “Meadow, next time, stick to the script I give you so we can get through a practice run.”
“I did! You’re the one who said . . . I told the truth!” Mostly.
It would serve them both right i
f Meadow did barf in a Limoges punch bowl. Unfortunately her nausea had subsided under her indignation at being accused of lying.
Sure, she was committing perjury, but not for such a paltry reason as Dr. Apps imagined.
“She really did hit her head,” Devlin pointed out.
“She’s going to have a headache, maybe dizziness, maybe irritability. She might need bed rest for a day. Let her make the decision, but no heavy lifting or hard work tomorrow. I’ll leave a prescription for pain relief. And tonight someone needs to wake her every hour to make sure she’s conscious. Don’t worry; she’s going to be fine.” Dr. Apps talked about Meadow as if she weren’t even there, and as Devlin rose, she tucked her hand into his arm. “Now—how did I do on my dry run?”
“Very well. It took you less than ten minutes to arrive.” He escorted her toward the door. “I was sorry to wake you, but it was too good an opportunity to miss.”
“I understand. Don’t hesitate to call whenever you need me.”
The thunder cracked again, shaking the sofa and the floor. “Those storms won’t stop coming,” he said. “I’ll send you home in one of my cars.”
“It’s less than a mile,” the doctor protested, but she sounded pleased.
“And you’ll get drenched.” He sounded firm.
Their voices faded.
Outside, lightning struck and thunder cracked.
Inside, Meadow fumed. Not only did they both patronize her, but the doctor didn’t believe she had amnesia. Of course, neither did Devlin, but if she denounced him for saying they were married, she’d have to confess that she didn’t have amnesia—and he’d have her thrown in jail. She couldn’t fool herself; he looked like the kind of man who would prosecute her to the full extent of the law. He’d probably set his snaggletoothed lion on her.
But if she didn’t confess, she was stuck here.
Stuck. Here. At Waldemar. At her grandparents’ home, looking for a painting she desperately needed, and which was nowhere in sight.
Her plan had been simple.
Break into Waldemar.
Steal the painting.
Get out of Waldemar.
Sell the painting for an absurd amount of money.
Use the money to pay for her mother’s very expensive treatments.
Dangerous Ladies Page 28
