She introduced him to Princess Sophia Marie, who welcomed him with grace and charm, and to Douglas and Anna Chatham, Kate's father and step-mother. From a cursory study Conor surmised that her gaunt, worried-looking step-mother was an anorexic with a compulsive tanning habit, and her short, balding father was a cocky little gobshite who liked hearing himself talk.
"Irish, eh? Markets still raging over there—Celtic Tiger, right? Won't last, you know. You people are way over-exposed. Investors are fools to put anything in Ireland, now."
Kate pulled at her father's arm, shooting Conor an apologetic glance. "Daddy, I don't think we need to—"
"Remember it was me who told you," Douglas commanded, his face a picture of smug satisfaction. "Hard times ahead."
"Sure that'll be nothing awfully new for us, sir," Conor said smoothly. Sophia Marie circled an arm around Kate's waist, and as the group prepared to move on she touched his shoulder.
"I'll be back with a request. I'd love to hear some Schumann."
When she approached a half-hour later, Conor segued from what he'd been playing to the swaying lullaby theme of Schumann's Traumerei. She put a hand to her lips, surprised and pleased, and took a seat on the window ledge behind him. He finished the piece, and turned to acknowledge her applause with a droll bow.
"How did you know?" she asked.
"A hopeful guess. Truth is, the rest of my Schumann is pretty dodgy."
A member of the waitstaff entered the room playing a set of chimes, calling everyone to dinner, but Sophia Marie inclined her head, indicating the space at her side.
"You're looking very flushed. Come and sit down."
Conor left the violin on top of the piano and obediently sat next to her.
"You've become quite an indispensable fixture at the Rembrandt Inn, I understand. Kate has been telling me all about you." His flinch of alarm was mostly for comical effect, and she smiled. "That makes you nervous?"
"Depends what she's been saying," Conor replied, with perfect candor.
"Only the best things, trust me, and even the things she doesn't say I can see on her face. She's hoping for my good opinion, I think."
Oh, God help me. Conor's stomach tightened as though preparing to resist a blow. A matchmaking interview with Kate's royal granny was exactly what he didn't need. The shot of adrenalin propping him up had peaked a while earlier and perspiration was streaming down his back like a small river. He slipped a hand into the pocket of his trousers and surprised himself by coming out with a handkerchief.
"Did you know her husband? Michael?"
Startled, he shook his head while wiping the back of his neck, offering hosannas for the incomparably gifted Milton. "I didn't. When I got ready to emigrate a good friend of mine in Ireland provided an introduction for me with Kate. He was a cousin of Michael's."
Conor stopped, hoping his silence would be enough to nudge the conversation elsewhere. It wasn't.
"I didn't care for him."
"Ah." He gathered the handkerchief into a soggy ball, flexing it inside his clenched fist. Sophia Marie nodded sadly.
"Kate and I have always been very close. She often stayed with me for months at a time as she grew up. So, when I disapproved it became hard for both of us. And then, he died . . . " She lifted her arm and let it fall helplessly to her side. "I felt so guilty. I wished I could have liked him better. I don't know why I didn't."
There was absolutely nothing to be said in reply to such a remark. Conor was mercifully spared from attempting one by the timid advance of Kate's step-mother. She stopped several yards in front of them and stood on tiptoe, nervously tucking a lock of honey-blonde hair behind one ear.
"Sophia?" Anna spoke the word with brittle uncertainty, as though expecting to be contradicted. "We're going in to the Sun Dining Room, now."
"Yes, dear. We're coming." The older woman turned back to him. "You'll join us for dinner, of course?"
"Oh, I've eaten already," Conor lied, distracted as he searched for Kate in the exiting throng. "I was hoping to go in and play some dinner music for you though, if that's all right."
He spotted Kate following her father and two of the brothers out of the room and relaxed a little. She had a hand on Jigger's shoulder and was bending her head to him with a smile. No doubt the boy was recounting the life histories of everyone he'd met so far. Conor turned back to Sophia Marie, who was standing now, regarding him with that same, nearly identical smile.
"There. You see I never saw him look at her like that. Yes. Please come. I'd be delighted to hear more of your dodgy Schumann."
Close to eighty guests were still filing across the floor of the main restaurant into the private dining room. Conor took advantage of the bottleneck to duck into the men's room and throw some water on his face. It helped, which was good because the antibiotics clearly hadn't. His fever was spiking again, and beginning to make him dizzy. He hovered over the basin, taking cautious snatches of breath, then emerged to join the last group as they passed through to dinner.
The Sun Dining Room shimmered, lit solely by candelabras placed between magnificent floral arrangements along each of four long tables. The guests, still in reception mode, milled around the tables instead of sitting at them, their conversation amplified to a garbled roar in the high-ceilinged room. The candlelight dazzled Conor. It bounced off the windows, reaching up to illuminate panes of stained glass near the ceiling, and stretched to raise dramatic shadows in the corners. The effect was spellbinding, but he soon discovered something fundamentally wrong with the scene. Kate was not in it.
19
"Where is Kate?”
Hearing his own question made audible Conor at first failed to note its external source. When it came a second time, cutting through the conversational din around him, he turned to face her brother Peter. He was a handsome, dark-haired man—probably close to his age—and from his glazed, horizon-searching stare Conor deduced him well on the way to being squiffed.
"I'm wondering myself." He forced a smile. "I thought she was here."
"She was here. I thought she went to get you." Peter rattled the ice in his glass, gesturing vaguely to his left. "That waiter came and said you needed her on the porch."
Holy Christ. Conor made an effort not to fasten onto the man and shake him. "Which waiter? Where is he?"
"Well, that one . . . oh, no. Not the guy. Don't see him." With exaggerated slowness Peter rotated in place from right to left, but Conor had heard enough.
"No bother. I'll fetch her back. Just hold this for me, right?"
He thrust the violin into Peter's hands and ran through the main restaurant, nearly colliding with a tray of drinks, then re-traced his steps to the Conservatory and staggered out its rear door. The broad veranda was deserted, and the outline of its dramatic vista was barely visible under a cloudy, moonless night. Conor dropped his hands to his knees, wondering whether he should—or even could—run a circuit of the porch. It comprised nearly a thousand feet of floorboards wrapped around the hotel like an apron. While considering the option and trying to catch his breath, a flicker of brightness beyond the veranda caught his eye. He crept forward, staying low, and squatted to peer between the railing's spindles. About thirty feet below him the fabric of Kate's dress was like an organic form of light, a tapered prism glowing against the darkness. She was halfway down the sloping back lawn, stumbling along the walkway and across the grass. Her eyes, mouth and hands were bound with strips of cloth, and she was straining to escape the grip of the muscular figure in a white waiter's jacket who was dragging her forward.
Conor reached beneath his tailcoat for the Sig-Sauer as he ran for the staircase, channeling a surge of panic into action. At ground level he moved to the right, away from the lower portico, remaining first in the shadows of the hotel's L-shaped footprint then using the lawn's sculpted shrubbery as cover. He did his best not to focus on Kate's increasingly frantic struggles and concentrated on gathering what information he could from the size, shape
and movements of her captor. He was big but clumsy, stopping frequently to adjust his hold on Kate, and from the way he held his right arm Conor guessed a gun was holstered on that side, which meant he was left-handed. The cadence of his voice drifted up the lawn, revealing something else: he was Irish. Armagh accent. From the direction he was taking, it became clear he intended to cross the footbridge spanning the brook to the golf course on the opposite side. As Conor prepared to leave his crouched position of cover, he heard a tread of rapid footsteps descending the hill. He swiveled on his heel and peered up toward the sound.
"Oh, fuck."
Dropping the pistol, he lurched forward to sweep his arm around the pelting form as it came alongside him on the walkway. In a single scooping movement, he snatched Jigger from the path and clapped a hand over his mouth. They fell back behind the hedge and Conor lay panting for several seconds, hand still in place, before rolling him gently onto the ground and putting his mouth against his ear.
"I need you to be very quiet and run along back inside, now. Don't make a sound. Understand?"
Eyes saucer-wide, the boy nodded, but as Conor removed his hand Jigger grabbed his head and pulled him closer.
"What is Kate doing with that man?" he whispered. "Is it a game? I'm supposed to tell her to come back to the party."
"I can't explain right now buddy, but we'll come as soon as we can. It won’t be long."
Conor stripped off the tailcoat and dropped it on the ground, hiding the gun as he slid the weapon back into the holster. When Jigger had disappeared into the shadows of the portico he stepped out on the walkway and started down the hill, reaching the edge of the footbridge before Kate's abductor noticed him. They had reached the opposite side and he was hissing a ferocious stream of obscenities while pulling her toward a golf cart parked behind a stand of trees. He was older than Conor had first assumed, looking like a prizefighter several years past his prime—square face and small eyes, head covered in a fuzzed stubble the color of concrete. Seeing Conor he grunted in surprise and fumbled to reach the holster with his left hand, trying to control Kate with his right.
"Now, you bloody bitch," he crooned. "Here's your boyfriend come to rescue you, and if you don't stop your fuckin' squirming I'll put a bullet between his eyes right now."
Abruptly, Kate grew still and seemed to wilt a little. Conor raised his hands and fought to remain steady as he watched her face tilt upward, searching for him through the blindfold.
"Let her go. I'm the one you're after, anyway. I've got what Durgan is looking for, so let her go and I'll give it to you. You'll be the hero of the day."
"Jesus, listen to you." The older man waved his gun in a show of nonchalance. "As if you had anything to bargain with, mate. Did you think he wasn't coming after you next? But, true enough. Two treasures in one night—he wasn't expecting that. Fuckin' right I'll be a hero. Get your ass over here."
"Let her go," Conor repeated, "and I'll start walking. You don't need her if you've got me."
The man dropped his shooting arm, looking at Conor in disbelief, and then gave a shout of laughter. With his right arm wrapped around Kate's shoulders he shook her and growled suggestively into her ear.
"What about it, Red? Sounds like you haven't told the laddo what you're getting for your birthday?" Kate went positively rigid in the man's grasp as he turned away from her, still chuckling. "What did you get for your thirtieth, McBride? I'm fairly certain I got a bottle of Powers, and that eventually got me a fist in the face just like every other year. This little cherry-top though, she's coming into something a lot better tomorrow, aren't you, love?"
"Look, I don't know—"
"Oh that's pretty clear, McBride. You don't have a feckin' clue. You've been arsing around with a forty-million-dollar heiress and you didn't even know it, and Jaysus, here's your little friend come to the party as well. What's he got to add, I wonder?"
With a sick sensation, Conor turned to see Jigger emerge from the darkness. Oblivious to any danger, he was striding toward them in anxious determination.
"You said this wasn't going to take very long, Conor. They'll be pretty mad inside if we don't hurry up."
"Christ almighty, Jigger." In fear and desperation Conor knelt and took the boy roughly by the shoulders. He whirled him around and pointed him back up the hill. "What did I tell you? Get inside, now."
"Whoa, there. You just stay right where you are, little man."
Conor stared at the flat, expressionless face across the bridge. "You can't be serious."
"I can be, and I am."
"He's a twelve-year-old boy."
"I don't care if he's a crawling infant. He stays right where I can—"
"He doesn't even know what's going on, for fuck's sake."
"Shut the fuck up and bring him over here!"
"I will in me arse. Go ahead and shoot me, if you think Durgan's going to thank you for that."
When improvising strategy in the midst of peril, recognizing the line between constructive chaos and a complete shambles is of vital importance. The first helps an agent gain the initiative; the second gets him killed.
Conor could almost hear the drawl of the MI6 trainer who had schooled him in that particular piece of wisdom. He hadn't appreciated its importance until now. In this case he didn't know which side of the line he stood on, but for a brief moment he thought he'd found the sweet spot.
The man in the murky darkness across from him had lost his temper, in effect had lost control, and Kate was the first to realize it. With a violent twist, she tore herself from his grasp while at the same time shoving blindly at his chest with her bound hands. He staggered sideways, arms waving, and she ran from him, clawing at the strips of cloth around her face.
Conor quickly drew out the Sig. Kate had run only a few yards before tripping and falling headlong to the ground, but there was plenty of daylight between them now and he intended to make the most of it. The burly Irishman had seen the threat; he was regaining his footing and raising his firing arm. Conor brought his gun into position and locked onto him, but then a sudden blur of white crowded the edge of his vision. A nauseating sense of deja vu poured through him. Before he could move Jigger was advancing on the footbridge at a dead run, directly in the line of fire.
"Kate! Kate! Are you all right? Are you hurt?"
"No." Conor's throat convulsed on the word as he sprinted for the bridge. "No! Jesus Christ, don't shoot!"
He made a desperate dive at Jigger, connecting with him as an explosion signaled the release of the first bullet. They landed together on the cement below the apex of the bridge's arch. It provided at least a sliver of cover. The metal railings surrounding them popped and sang with the ricochet of gunfire as Conor flattened the boy beneath him, scrambling for an angle to launch a volley of his own. He got off two shots, burying both of them in his adversary's right thigh, and that proved to be enough. The man went down in a heap, but sprang up immediately. He began dragging himself to the golf cart and Conor continued firing at the retreating vehicle until his magazine was empty.
For a time after that he lost the sense of his surroundings, not unconscious but somehow suspended on the edge of becoming so. When he struggled to his knees the gun had dropped from his hand, and his surging fever sent spangling dots of light across his eyes. An eerie, high-pitched whine muffled the sound of everything around him—shouts in the distance, doors slamming, and somewhere closer in front of him he sensed Kate, but he couldn't concentrate on her because of this other frightening noise. At first he didn't recognize it, and then he did. It was his own voice, straining in hopeless, unending lament.
"Oh please God. Not again. Please not again."
On the ground a huddled form lay wrapped in white, and covered in blood.
20
In the few moments before help arrived, Kate managed to remove the knotted cloth from her hands with her teeth, frantic to have them free to deal with Conor. As if the past twenty minutes hadn't been terrifying eno
ugh, his raving anguish frightened her almost as much. She tried to settle him down, but couldn't make him understand her. When they appeared, even the hotel's security staff could do nothing with him. He tried to rise, and even as his legs buckled and he crumpled back to the ground, he continued to struggle, twisting away from them. One of the men finally pinned him against a bridge post and Kate dropped down in front of him, taking his blazing hot face into her hands.
"Conor, please. For the love of God, sit still and listen to me. Can you hear me? Do you understand?"
He grew quieter, but Conor's delirium and grief continued spilling from him with every irregular gasp.
"Why won't it stop? He shouldn't have been there. I told him to go and he keeps coming back. And I don't see him in time. I can't ever stop it in time."
"Conor, you did see him. You did stop it. He's okay."
She'd reached him at last. His eyes fixed on her. "Kate. Where's Jigger?"
"They've taken him inside to calm him down and clean him up."
He grew agitated again, struggling to his knees while Kate applied all her strength to holding him in place. "Inside where? Where did they take him? He's bleeding."
"No, Conor, he isn't. You are. Quite a lot, it seems."
"I'm bleeding?" He blinked at her, perplexed, and then looked down to inspect himself, which was more than Kate could bring herself to do at this point. She'd already seen the blood saturating the front of his tuxedo, and had watched while most of his shirt was cut away to expose a great deal more. It pooled and flowed down his left side, making it impossible to judge what kind of wound lay beneath. Kate kept her attention fixed on his lowered face, and on his grateful relief when he raised his eyes to her.
The Conor McBride Series Books 1-3 Page 50
