by Kay Hooper
“I’m willing to overlook it,” he said finally.
“Gracious of you,” she said dryly. “But I’m not asking you to overlook anything, Martin. I love Luc.”
Rome was clearly amused. “Of course you do, my dear. I’m sure he’s been breaking hearts for years. But would you really wish to share your life with an ex-policeman, fired in disgrace years ago?”
Kyle stiffened.
He was still smiling. “Outrage, Kyle? Why? Because I had your lover’s background checked out? I considered it my responsibility, to your father as well as to myself. Despite your pretty fabrications, Kendrick is nothing more than a former cop, disgraced ten years ago and living ever since on the bounty of various wealthy women like you.”
Kyle managed to work up even more outrage; it wasn’t difficult. “I don’t care what you say about Luc,” she told Rome in a low, shaking voice. “It doesn’t change my feelings—or his. And you had no right to look into his past, no right at all!”
“As your future husband, my dear—”
“I’m not going to marry you! I told you that two years ago, and I’ve repeated it since.”
“Then your father will disinherit you,” Rome said calmly.
She stared at him, honestly astonished that he thought that would sway her. “I don’t care.”
“I imagine Kendrick will care.”
Kyle didn’t want Rome to begin speculating on why Lucas in fact would not care, so she didn’t defend that point. Instead she tried to place herself in the unfamiliar position of a rich young woman who just might have been betrayed in her choice of lover.
Raising her chin and trying to feel like the spoiled, selfish society darling that Rome obviously believed her to be, she said, “He won’t care, either. He loves me!”
“I’m sure he’s a very proficient lover,” Rome agreed blandly.
It took all the control Kyle could muster to keep herself from leaping at him, enraged by his casual dismissal of what she and Luc had shared. But she forced herself to remember everything that was at stake. “How dare you!” she bit out stiffly.
In a tone of faint reproof, and as if she had not spoken at all, he said, “Once we are married, my dear, I will expect an heir before you begin taking lovers. A man must be certain of his heirs, and I assure you I will be very sure of mine. Discreetly you may take all the lovers you wish—afterward, of course.”
Kyle couldn’t believe the conversation, simply could not believe that the man was serious. She held Lucas’s jacket tightly, trying to work up a little righteous indignation. “So that’s the kind of marriage you’ve planned, Martin? And I suppose your future wife, may the Lord help her, would be expected to turn a blind eye to your reincarnated Aztec princess?”
“Zamara is no threat to you,” he said indifferently. “A mistress is entirely apart from a wife.”
“She wants to be your wife,” Kyle told him. Giddily she thought, Divide and conquer! Maybe if she could encourage a little dissension between Rome and his mistress …
For the first time he looked just a bit startled. “Nonsense. Zamara is perfectly aware of my intention to marry you.”
Since Josh and Raven had not been alone in noticing Zamara’s effect on Rome, Kyle decided to use her own observations to good effect. “Martin, you have got to be out of your mind. You’re putty in her hands and she knows it. And if you think any sane woman would marry you with your little princess standing by, you’d better do some more thinking. It won’t happen.”
He stared at her, frowning. “Then I shall send her away.”
“Right.” Kyle gave him a tight, disbelieving smile. “You can’t do it. She only has to touch you. Everyone noticed, Martin. I wasn’t the only one.”
“I am in control,” he told her flatly.
Kyle just stared at him scornfully.
And, quickly, Rome was back in control of himself. “You will marry me, Kyle. Your family expects it. Whether or not I choose to have a mistress is none of your concern.”
Distantly Kyle said to him, “Luc is meeting me here in a few minutes.”
He studied her for a moment and then shrugged. “I see I shall have to let this little affair of yours run its course. But you might consider being honest with yourself and telling Kendrick you’ll be disinherited if you marry him. Then watch how quickly he drops you, Kyle.”
Kyle gazed after him for long moments, then sank down on the bench behind her.
From an upstairs window in the mansion, Zamara looked down on the maze. She could see the gazebo and, just barely, a couple of feet of green grass around it. She had seen Martin go into the gazebo, as he often did. She had seen Kyle Griffon go into the gazebo. Later—too much later—she had seen Martin leave the structure.
Zamara tapped her long, scarlet-tipped nails against the glass, frowning. The fool! Couldn’t he see that the woman was in love with her blond lover, and he with her? Zamara had excellent instincts when it came to adventurers, being one herself, and she was certain Lucas Kendrick wouldn’t have cared if Kyle Griffon lost every penny she had.
Glancing back over her shoulder, Zamara looked at the tumbled bed with less than her usual satisfaction. Martin was thoroughly under her spell; she would bet on it. Indeed, she did bet on it. Yet he was still determined to marry his blue-blooded Kyle.
It was a troubling situation. Zamara carefully weighed the attractions of Kendrick against the power of a few million dollars and came up with an unequal balance. Abandoning everything for a lover was found between the covers of some child’s story, never in real life. With money and power a woman could buy all the lovers she wanted; without either, she was likely to find herself thrown over for a younger, prettier, and wealthier woman somewhere down the line.
Zamara went to her closet and threw open the doors, then began rapidly changing from her silk nightgown. Something had to be done, and quickly. Martin was too bullheaded to give up Kyle, and she just might be persuaded to give in to him.
It had to be stopped.
“Something is bothering you,” Josh murmured, kissing his wife’s bare shoulder. “You should still be asleep.”
Raven didn’t protest when he pulled her over on top of him, just folded her arms over his chest and smiled down at him. “So should you. I read somewhere that men in their thirties begin losing stamina.”
“Is that a pointed reference?” he asked, wounded.
“I was just thinking they should have used you in that study. You would have messed up their curve.”
He chuckled softly. “Actually it’s all due to my beautiful wife. I just can’t seem to get enough of her.”
Raven traced his smiling lips with a finger, then kissed them. “Good,” she murmured.
“Now tell me what’s bothering you,” he urged quietly.
She grimaced. “Can I fall back on woman’s intuition?” she asked.
“I won’t object,” he told her. “But I’m willing to bet it’s more along the lines of a good ex-agent’s experience and instincts. Anything concrete?”
“No. No, but I feel we’re missing something that could be important. Something about Rome. He just seems a little … well, off center. And did you notice how he was watching Kyle last night?”
“I noticed. But Luc said something about his having proposed to Kyle a while back. Could that be it?”
Raven was struggling silently to bring her instincts about people into focus. “He looked at her as if she were one of those trophies of his. He wasn’t jealous of Luc; he didn’t even seem to take any notice of him. And except when Her Highness had her claws into him, he watched Kyle all the time she was in the room.”
“And so?”
“Well, there was something implacable in his eyes.” Raven shook her head. “Dammit, I just can’t get a fix on it. But I’ve an awful feeling that there’ll be some kind of confrontation before we all get out of here—and it won’t have very much to do with that stolen art.”
Josh couldn’t add to that, bu
t he took serious notice of Raven’s anxiety. She had excellent instincts, years of experience in dealing with complex people, and he respected her very, very much. And since Lucas was one of his best friends, and Kyle was growing steadily in his estimation, he wanted neither of them to get hurt in any way.
“It’s Luc’s show,” he said slowly.
Raven chewed on her lower lip. “I know. We should talk to him and Kyle first. But—”
“Reinforcements?”
“We’re batting a thousand so far,” Raven said. “I’d hate to blow the average by losing one of us.”
It was a sobering thought. They had been relatively charmed since Hagen had first drafted them. But they were playing some potentially very rough games, and the law of averages was against them.
“Kyle?”
She had had only a few minutes in which to decide how much to tell Lucas. And it wasn’t a question of lying to him or even of holding back information she was perfectly willing to share with him; she was just concerned that Rome’s fixation on her could interfere with Luc’s work here. In the end it was because of his work that she decided to tell him what had happened. He needed to have all available information, period.
“Did you tear Kelsey away from his coffee again?” she asked, smiling as Lucas sat down beside her.
“Field rations this time, he said. And he didn’t sound too upset about it. What’s happened?”
“Martin was here,” she said readily.
“He upset you.” Lucas’s facial muscles tightened. “Why?”
Deliberately lightening the moment, she said, “He called you a gigolo.”
After an instant Lucas’s tension eased and he smiled. “He must have pulled quite a few strings to get that on a weekend. So he did check into my background.”
“He certainly did. And he couldn’t wait to tell me you were disgraced, drummed out of the police force, and have been earning a living these last ten years by being nice to rich women.”
Lucas shook his head. “I’ll say this for Hagen: When he plants information, he does a swell job. Rome bought it?”
“Oh, yes. It’s something he understands very well.” Kyle lifted a brow at her love. “Good thing you warned me about that false trail.”
“You can ask Josh,” Lucas said, gravely but with a twinkle.
Kyle smiled at him, and her turquoise eyes were alight. “I’d believe you if you told me the earth was flat, darling.”
“Oh, damn, I was saving that for later as a test.” But his eyes were alight, too, and his kiss was warm and tender. Then he studied her face. “There’s something more. What else did Rome say?”
She looked down at the dinner jacket in her lap, smoothing the material with her fingers. Lucas wasn’t going to like this. “He intends to marry me, Luc. He even made a threat, and he sounded pretty sure of himself.”
“What threat?”
Kyle wondered vaguely if Lucas could possibly know just how menacing his low, compelling voice could become under certain circumstances. Like these. Keeping her own voice casual, she said, “He told me that my family expected me to marry him and that I’d be disinherited if I didn’t.” She glanced aside and saw that his face was expressionless.
“Would your father do that?”
Kyle considered the question. “It’s possible, maybe even likely. Even though he doesn’t take much interest in me, I’ve noticed that he found quite a few opportunities for me to see Martin these last years. He hasn’t said anything to me directly, but he completely approves of Martin. And blackmail would be just his style—to tidy up my life all in the good name of our family, you understand.”
Lucas was silent for so long that she looked at him anxiously. “Luc? For all intents and purposes, I was disinherited years ago. It doesn’t bother me, and I wouldn’t have married Martin in any case. Surely you realize that?”
He hugged her swiftly. “Of course I realize it, love. It’s just that I don’t want to be the cause of a final break with your family.”
Serious, she gazed at him. “My parents’ lack of interest in me has hurt more than once, but nothing will change that now. The final break came a long time ago, Luc. For years I thought that it wasn’t natural not to love my parents—but that’s past. I’m grateful to them for giving me what they did, but I don’t want anything they can offer now. I just want you.”
Huskily he said, “You’ve got me, love.” He kissed her, both of them aware of a swift rise of desire. “I think this gazebo’s bewitched,” he added a bit more hoarsely.
Kyle smiled at him. “I cast a spell on it when I was a kid,” she told him gravely. “This was my magic place, remember? The place where dreams took wing.”
He chuckled softly. “Your spells last a long time, I see.”
“Bet on it,” she whispered, kissing him.
“Eight-thirty in the morning,” a deep male voice said somewhat dryly.
Without taking his eyes from Kyle’s upturned face, Lucas said, “Go away, Josh.”
“No,” his employer said politely. “I’ve come to discuss strategy, whether you like it or not. And to tell you, Kyle, that Her Highness has been looking for you, and Raven thinks you three would do better alone.”
Looking reluctantly at the other man, Lucas said, “Do better at what?”
“Finding out where the princess stands in all this,” Josh told him, sitting down on the bench across from them and stretching his long legs out comfortably. He was holding a mug of steaming coffee in one hand, contemplating it thoughtfully. “She’s probably right too. And we need to know, Luc.”
Kyle got to her feet. “Yes, we do need to know.” She looked at Josh. “Strategy?”
He returned her look, his cool blue eyes warming a bit. “Raven feels a storm coming, and she’s usually right about things like that.”
Kyle frowned a little.
“Ask her about it,” Josh invited. “Maybe you two can put your heads together and figure out our host.”
Remembering the peculiar expression in Rome’s curious, dark eyes, Kyle decided that might be best. She was uneasy about him, very uneasy. “Right.” She leaned over to kiss Lucas. “See you later.”
He watched her disappear, still holding his jacket, then looked at Josh with pained eyes.
Smiling, Josh saluted him gently with his coffee mug. “Now you know how I felt after I met Raven. These bloody assignments of Hagen’s do get in the way, don’t they?”
Lucas’s only answer was a heavy sigh.
Kyle found Raven first, since the other woman had come out onto the terrace looking for her. They both sat on the low stone wall, far enough from the house so that they couldn’t be overheard if they spoke in low voices, which they did.
“Zamara wants me?” Kyle asked.
“That’s what she said. She’s at the buffet at the moment, but we heard her ask two maids if they’d seen you. Think she wants to have it out with you?”
“About Martin? I don’t know. He said that she knew he intended to marry me.”
“Intended?” Raven lifted a flying brow. “Sounds like the man’s made up his mind.”
“Sickening, isn’t it?” Kyle shook her head. “I lightened it a bit when I told Luc, but Martin even tried blackmail. Threatened me with disinheritance.”
“Can he do that?”
“My father can, and he probably would.” She grinned faintly. “I just realized. If we find that stuff, and Martin is arrested, Father will certainly reexamine this perfect match of his. He might even be persuaded to see Luc in the light of savior of the family name. Scandal rubs off, you know, especially if you stand too close to it.”
Raven smiled at her. “So, no more fairy tales?”
“The real thing,” Kyle said, “is a lot better.” She looked at the other woman, whom she felt so close to now. “Want to be my matron of honor?”
“I’d love to,” Raven said promptly.
“Good. Unfortunately we have to get through this weekend first. Wha
t’s this about you feeling a storm coming?”
“Rome. And since you’ve told me about his intentions, I’m feeling even more alarm. Were you supposed to be blind to Her Highness, by the way?”
“A mistress would be none of my concern, if you please.”
“Bastard,” Raven said without heat.
“Yes, medieval. He honestly didn’t know, though, that Zamara had some pretty permanent intentions of her own.”
Raven pursed her lips and gazed into space. “First his apparent belief in this reincarnation business, which he openly admitted to last night after you left the room. Then his obvious sexual reaction to Her Highness, which is just a bit too excessive for him to reasonably believe she’s only a mistress. And then his intention to marry you, even if he has to use blackmail. I don’t like it. Not one bit.”
“Oh, listen to what Luc and I found out.” She quickly told Raven about the will and book, and about their deductions regarding Rome’s apparent desire to preserve his family treasures by using the stolen artwork.
And Raven didn’t like that, either. But before she could comment, Her Highness found them.
“Ah, Miss Griffon.” She looked pointedly at Raven. “If you will excuse us?”
Raven smiled gently. “I’ll stay. Surely you don’t mind?”
Zamara weighed her for a moment, then shrugged. “As you please. Perhaps, though, Miss Griffon would prefer to keep this discussion between herself and me.”
“Not at all,” Kyle said politely.
Black eyes flashed at them both. “Very well, then. My dear, you really should take your man and leave.”
Kyle studied her thoughtfully. “Oh? And why is that?”
Zamara laughed with careful lightness. “Because Martin has the absurd idea that he can persuade you to marry him. Nonsense, of course, but men are sometimes silly.”
Raven was gazing critically at the toes of her boots.
Kyle smiled faintly. “Yes, they are. Still, I wouldn’t worry if I were you. I don’t want Martin, and you certainly seem to have him in thrall.”
