by Linda Cajio
Feeling infinitely better, she caught up with Lettice and Rick, slipping between them. She spared a dismissing glance at the wax figures of master criminals who’d been brought to justice. This was no time for doubts.
“Anybody game for the Tower of London?” she asked. “I have a hankering to see some real jewels for a change.”
*
Jill Daneforth was a dangerous woman.
That fact had come home to Rick with a vengeance since their return from London three days earlier. He had thrown all common sense out the window with one kiss. Angered at how her uncaring husband had treated her, he had wanted to show her she truly was beautiful and desirable and not inadequate in the least. So, he’d kissed her. Well, now he had had that kiss … and that touch … and the rightness of her in his arms … and her response to him. He had never found himself drowning in a woman so fast before.
Her presence had invaded his domain. No matter how late he stayed at the job, she was somehow there the moment he entered the house. He refused to admit how much that pleased him. He also refused to admit how often he remembered how she’d looked that morning, rushing out of his home in a demure robe, her hair spilling about her face with the first morning blush. That she had come for George and his kits didn’t diminish the power of that memory. It had been the sharing of his quiet time that had pulled him under.
He ought to be furious with her for dumping him in London, for hiding what was going on with his grandmother. But he couldn’t. All he could remember was that one kiss. He remembered it every night when he passed her bedroom on the way to his own.
Jill Daneforth was like forbidden fruit. One taste and he craved more.
“Sir, could ye hold the sheep a little tighter? ’Totherwise I don’t give a fig for your fingers.”
“What?” Rick glanced up to see his best shearing man looking at him in exasperation. He realized he hadn’t been paying the least attention to his job of holding the young sheep still for its first shearing. The whirring of the shears and the bleating of frantic sheep was deafening all of a sudden. “Sorry, Bert.”
The man nodded.
“Next year we won’t be so shorthanded that you’re stuck with me as an assistant,” Rick promised.
“Aye. I hope not,” Bert said, grinning.
Rick snorted in self-disgust, while mentally cursing his manager who thought two men were adequate for the job. The creatures were too agile and too afraid to allow the humans to do the shearing easily. He gripped the sheep tighter and decided he’d better stay away from Jill. Not that he hadn’t already told himself that. But he knew he would be insane to start something that was doomed to end in a few weeks.
“Your fingers, sir.”
Rick grinned and shifted his hand. “It would teach me a lesson if I got cut.”
Later that afternoon, Rick decided that making a pledge to avoid Jill had the exact opposite effect. He no sooner entered the house through the dining room terrace doors than she was there. He was grateful, for once, about Grahame’s restrictions concerning “filthy Wellies.” With his boots changed before he came up to the house, at least he didn’t smell too sheepish.
“Still here?” he asked. “I mean, I would have thought you and Grandmother had sightseeing things to do.”
She raised her eyebrows. “Not today.”
“Wonderful,” he muttered, thinking of the distraction she posed. And she posed it very well in the slacks and striped shirt she was wearing. Her breasts pushed against the material, and the junction of her legs was outlined in a perfect vee.…
“Rick, could I talk to you for a minute?” she asked.
“Sure,” he murmured, mentally undoing every small shirt button to reveal her satin flesh.
“It’s about …” Her face flushed pink, as if she knew exactly what he was thinking. He hoped she did not. She continued. “Your grandmother is very active at home. I think she would love to do some socializing while she’s here, to meet some of the people you know. It would be wonderful if you could arrange to take her to a few things. Whatever. You know what I mean.”
He nodded, thinking it was a good idea. His grandmother probably needed some cheering up after the doctor’s visit. He should have thought of it himself. He should spend more time with her while she was still … there. He wanted to. That Jill would be there, too, was a cross he would have to bear. Martyrdom had never looked so attractive.
“You’re right,” he said. “I don’t get out much myself, especially this time of year, but I suppose I could manage a few things for her.” He sighed. “I’ll have to have a word with my manager.”
Jill’s smile held clear relief, then she looked away. “Thanks. I know she’ll appreciate it. I appreciate it too.”
She began to walk around him, and he took her arm to stop her. It was a mistake, he immediately realized as his fingers came into contact with her bare skin. But he was determined to set aside the awkwardness that had come up between them like a wall.
“We need to talk,” he began, staring into her wide eyes. He was distracted by the way they resembled the North Sea in winter, wild and unpredictable.
“About what?” Her voice was husky.
“About that kiss the other day.”
“We already talked about it.” She wet her lips in a nervous gesture.
It had an electrifying effect on Rick. He pulled her forward, fitting her lips to his. They tasted as sweet and as devastating as he remembered. She moaned, the sound sending dizzying signals pulsing through his veins. He ran his hands slowly down her arms, then up again, her skin like the smooth satin he always thought of when he touched her. Her mouth opened. He touched her tongue with his …
Her arm came like a hard bar between them. The kiss broke, and she turned her head away.
“We talked about this.”
“Bloody hell,” he said, letting her go. Tension crackled between them.
“Was that a comment or an opinion?” she asked, stepping back out of his reach.
“A curse on my manners. I’m sorry.” He pushed his hair off his forehead, absently noting it was too long. He also remembered how her fingers had tugged at the shaggy strands.
“Are you always so polite?” she asked.
He stared at her. “What?”
“You keep apologizing for a simple little kiss—”
“It wasn’t simple and it wasn’t little,” he said, grinning.
“It just … happened,” she reminded him, her voice rising. “So let’s not apologize. Or analyze it to death, okay?”
He kept on grinning, enjoying the fire he apparently sparked in her. “You sure know how to clear the air.”
She relaxed. “Well, it’s just that you’re so …”
“Polite?” he suggested.
“Exactly.”
“I was being a gentleman and a good host.”
“I know that.”
“Then why are you so annoyed with me?”
“Because I’m an American, and I have to uphold our reputation for rude manners. I’m annoyed because this seems to be becoming a mountain and not the molehill it is.”
“Maybe,” he began, something inside him driving him to step closer. “Maybe it isn’t a molehill because it was a damn good kiss. Just like the last one.”
She stepped back. “Rick.”
“What?” He moved closer, his blood pounding faster in his veins.
“What are you doing?”
“I don’t know.” He didn’t know why—except that he felt challenged to prove a kiss was not just a kiss. To prove that she had been as disturbed as he by “a simple little kiss.”
She was up against the dining room table, and he was so close he could see her back reflected in the highly polished walnut. She possessed a back made for the sweep of a man’s hand.
“… you got to get the bloomin’ truffles fresh, Mrs. K., otherwise the whole thing tastes like bad English glue.”
The door swung open at the same moment Graha
me finished his sentence. Lettice walked through into the dining room.
“Ah, there you are,” she said.
“Right here,” Rick replied, from the other side of the room and as far away from Jill as he could get in the few seconds between the sound of Grahame’s voice and the opening of the door. There was no sense in giving either of them ammunition on anything—but especially on Jill. If he was making a fool of himself, he preferred to do it without witnesses. He smiled nonchalantly at his grandmother.
“What are you cooking?” Jill asked.
“Not cookin’, dear lady. Heaven forfend!” Grahame exclaimed, waving his arms. “We’re discussing a culinary creation of mine.”
Jill tilted her head in apology. “I am humbled.”
“Don’t be,” Rick said. “Half his creations taste like bad English glue anyway.”
“And your repertoire consists of sausage and mash and weepy eggs. You never had it so good.”
Rick gritted his teeth. In five years, he had yet to get the best of Grahame. And his eggs were not weepy … more like “loose.”
“Were we interrupting, dear?” Lettice asked, gazing at him speculatively.
“No, I was just heading in to do some paperwork.”
“And I was just heading out,” Jill added. She took advantage of the moment to slip out the terrace doors.
“Doesn’t anyone use the front door?” Grahame asked.
Rick shrugged.
“It looks as if you and Jill are getting along just fine,” Lettice commented in a smug tone.
He shrugged again, wondering exactly what she had seen. To encourage her thoughts would be a mistake, although he had to admit this was one instance when she wasn’t “off.” He walked toward the hallway door. “If you’ll excuse me …”
“See if you can carry over your way with figures to the ladies, laddie,” Grahame said. “You’ll need it.”
Rick looked heavenward for help. When none was forthcoming, he escaped to the office, Grahame’s booming laughter ringing in his ears.
Jill took a deep breath in an attempt to calm her racing pulse. She looked around the back terrace where they had had that leisurely breakfast. It seemed like ages instead of just days ago. If she’d thought she had problems then, she should have done a fast-forward.
“Well, at least he agreed,” she muttered, and pushed away any guilt over her small manipulation of Rick. Lettice would enjoy getting away from Devil’s Hall and seeing Rick’s friends. That she was betting Rick’s friends would also move in the Colonel’s circles was no reason to feel rotten. She was just killing two birds with one stone. She was finally moving ahead in her quest to regain the necklace, and doing a good deed in the process.
But how she had fended off Rick’s kiss was quite another matter. She was thankful she had. There was no honor in getting involved with him. She wouldn’t be able to stand herself if she did. And the closer she got to him, the more likely he would discover what she was doing. The truth would come out eventually when the Colonel was caught. But she preferred to be back in the good old U.S. of A. in a good old new job, and about as far away from the Lord of the Manor as she could get when that happened. He would be furious.
Jill closed her eyes as the remembered feel of his mouth on hers rose up inside her. She could almost taste him again. Want swirled through her at the thought of his strong hands stroking across her body, at the way her breasts had been crushed to his hard chest, at the sensations pulsing through her veins.…
“You look contented.”
Jill started as Lettice’s voice penetrated her forbidden dream. The very last thing she felt was contented. She cleared her throat. “Just enjoying the weather.”
“Looks like rain to me,” the older woman said, peering at the black clouds darkening the hills below Bishop’s Cleeve.
“I’m enjoying it until the rains start,” Jill amended, refusing to turn red.
“We haven’t really talked about this,” Lettice said, smiling gently, “but I don’t think you should leave just yet, Jill. I am still furious with Edward for his attitude when I told him how useless that twerp Havilan was.”
“He said if the twerp couldn’t help, then no one could,” Jill reminded her. It was a moot point anyway.
“Well, I’m sorry we can’t get you help over the necklace, but I think it would be good for you to be away from home for a while. It’s about time your mother faced up to her actions. Her friends and loved ones have been bailing her out for years. Don’t you make the same mistake. You have done your best to get the necklace back for your mother, more than you ever needed to do.”
Jill sighed. “I know.”
Lettice patted her on the back. “I intend to stay on until Edward comes home from Moscow. You are very welcome to stay too. Have a little vacation. My grandson would be extremely pleased to have you. He likes you, I can tell. Maybe we can come up with other options. I can call Edward and see if there’s someone else who can—”
“No, Lettice. No. It’s gone. I think I need some peace now. Are you sure you don’t mind if I stay?”
Lettice hugged her. Jill felt as if she had just crawled out from under a rock.
“Yes, I’m sure. I think it’s very sensible of you. But then, I always thought you possessed a great deal of common sense. Fortunately, you get that from your father.”
If Lettice only knew what she was really planning, Jill thought wryly. If Rick only knew.
Thank goodness, he never would—until she was long gone.
Five
“Do you suppose if you turned it upside down it would make more sense?”
Jill flipped the piece of sculpture over as she asked the question. The bronze lump with innumerable points looked exactly the same as it had before.
“This is a jumble sale and fete for St. Peter’s Church,” Rick said. “You’re supposed to pretend it’s a treasure in another man’s junk.”
“This is a junky treasure if ever I saw one.” She pulled out her wallet and headed for the ladies’ auxiliary booth to pay for it.
To her consternation, Rick followed. Her thoughts were haunted by him, night and day. And if it wasn’t those damned thoughts, then it was his presence. Like now, she just couldn’t seem to get away from him. Those few minutes of easy conversation combined with the undercurrent of tension that had flowed between them since their first kiss had, as usual, devastated her equilibrium. At least she had stayed out of his arms since the incident in the dining room. It was a miracle, but she had managed it.
Even now as she walked toward the booth, she was aware of him just behind her—watchful, almost possessive. As if he had a claim. He reminded her all too well of a lord of the manor. The problem was she felt all too much like a cherished lady. That was what she got for insisting on a college degree in the history of the age of chivalry. Cutthroat twentieth-century business courses had a definite no-nonsense appeal.
The two village women at the booth smiled and took her money as they eyed her and Rick speculatively. It bothered her. Unfortunately, it didn’t bother her as much as she thought it ought to.
Rick leaned against the booth’s counter, oblivious to the other women. His intense gaze held amusement.
“Shall we hunt up another junky treasure?” he asked.
Jill forced herself to smile and be polite in front of the two women. “Naturally. It’s for a good cause.”
He straightened and said good-bye to the auxiliary ladies, who actually giggled.
He took Jill’s arm this time, making her acutely aware of his body so close to her. She knew she should be watching out for the Colonel and moving forward in her plan. But now that justice had come down to “just her,” she was nervous. Okay, she admitted, she was scared. But she had to begin, or she’d never get the emeralds back.
What Rick would think, she didn’t want to think about. He didn’t know anything, and that satisfied her completely. Still, between him and her plan to con the Colonel, she felt as if she w
ere juggling far too many balls at once. Rick fasci nated her in countless ways. She was all too conscious of his tall lean body whenever he was near. His voice, with its charming, cultured British accent, could actually make her shiver. She didn’t even want to think about what his eyes did to her, or how she could listen to him talk for hours about his home, his farm, his life. He made her laugh. That was the most dangerous of all.
Lettice didn’t help matters by continually disappearing into the kitchen to “Create with Grahame,” the galloping gourmet of Devil’s Hall. Jill managed to avoid Rick for the most part by reacquainting herself with Britain’s four television channels, BBC 1 and 2 and its clones 3 and 4, until she was sick of them. She’d kill for some MTV. Now she was finally moving ahead her plan to find the Colonel, but somehow she couldn’t seem to think straight.
“You’ve stopped watching George,” Rick said abruptly.
She hadn’t. She was only standing back from the window, out of Rick’s sight, when the foxes came for their morning breakfast. But she wasn’t about to tell Rick that.
“I don’t want to disrupt them.”
“You wouldn’t disrupt them.”
“I’m a stranger. They might stop coming if they saw me.” She tried to focus on the table displays, but the odd lamps and piles of moldy books and dusty glass blurred together.
“I think they would accept you. Do you want to go home without having seen them up close?”
No, she didn’t. Coming down to see the foxes wasn’t the problem, it was the aftermath that was threatening.
She had to avoid unnecessary contact. The early morning quiet with only the two of them sharing a love of wild things was very unnecessary contact.
“I’m afraid I’ll scare them off,” she said, knowing the excuse was lame. She immediately stopped and looked around. “I don’t see Lettice anywhere. Did we lose her?”
“I saw her go up to the church with the reverend a little while ago.”
Jill immediately seized on her salvation. She began walking faster, saying, “I’d love to see the church. Let’s join them.”
