Dangerous Ladies (38 page)

Bradley surged to his feet, caught her waist, and balanced her.

The two of them stood motionless, joined by the sensation of touch and all the old feelings: lust, fury, pain . . . so much pain.

Then Bradley stepped away and wiped his palms on his pants.

The insult broke what was left of her heart, and she almost doubled over.

But she couldn’t lie to herself. She had known what would happen when he accused and she acceded.

Her hands trembled as she placed the wire over the hooks. She straightened the painting as well as she could, then asked, “Is it level?”

“Yes.” His voice was gruff.

“I’m leaving you my best work.”

“You’re a damned whore.” He rejected her with his voice, with his words, with his stance and his accusing gaze.

Mrs. Graham inhaled with shock.

“I know.” Isabelle looked down at him. “But I won’t contest a divorce or ask for support. I won’t take anything of yours. You’re free to find the woman of your dreams.” She stepped off the chair and dragged it back to the desk. Going to Mrs. Graham, she took Sharon and hugged her close to her heart.

The baby stretched and wiggled, opened her eyes and closed them again. “Do you want to say good-bye to her?” Isabelle asked Bradley.

“Why?” He seated himself in his easy chair and picked up his bourbon. “She’s nothing to me.”

Any man who could say that about the infant he had cradled had ice in his veins.

Isabelle was doing the best thing for herself and her child. “You’re right.” She nodded and walked to the door.

When she turned back to look at him one more time, he was sitting in his easy chair, staring at the painting over the top of the fireplace.

 

L
ightning flashed. Shadows of bare limbs clawed the tangled path, and the lithe, black-clad trespasser stumbled. Paused. Shuddered. Then continued toward the Victorian house set high above the ocean. The roar of thunder shook the ground, and the next flash of lightning followed hard on its heels, blistering the massive structure with harsh white light. The spires on the fourth-story cupola stabbed at the roiling clouds, the wind gauge spun wildly, and on the beach the waves growled and pounded. The posts on the second-story balcony stretched and twisted, and a hard gust of wind drove the first burst of rain up on the porch.

The figure ran lightly up the steps and toward the imposing double doors. The large silver key slid neatly into the lock. It turned easily and was quickly pocketed. One black-glove-encased hand rested on the beveled glass, then pressed, and without a sound the door swung open.

No lamp lit the interior, but the intruder confidently strode into the foyer.

Then the lightning struck again, blasting away the shadows. Thunder boomed. The figure halted and spun in a circle.

The wide hall soared two stories above the floor. Gold blazed off every picture frame, every finial, off the coved ceiling. Stern eyes watched from nineteenth-century portraits, and wide stairs stretched up and out of sight. The blast of thunder made the crystal chandelier shimmer, and the prisms sent colored light shivering across the walls.

Then the lightning was gone. Silence settled like dust in the house.

Shoulders hunched, the intruder crept toward the second entrance on the left. The beam of a tiny flashlight slid around the room, touching briefly on shelves crowded with leather-bound books, the massive carved desk, the incongruously modern office chair. In an alcove in one corner of the room, two overstuffed chairs faced a tall fireplace finished with marble and flanked by two snarling stone lions.

The flashlight blinked out, but stayed in the intruder’s hand. Each step fell soft and sure on the wide, custom-woven rug, headed in a straight line for the cozy sitting area.

The figure halted behind one of the chairs and stared up at the painting over the fireplace. The flashlight flicked on again and scanned the wall, once, twice. The picture there, that of a stodgy twentieth-century businessman and his dog, drove the intruder to cast the light around the room in an increasing frenzy. “Oh, Grandmother. You promised. You
promised
. Where . . . ?”

The overhead light flared.

A man’s deep Southern voice demanded, “What are you doing here?”

The intruder half turned. One gloved hand flew up to protect against the brightness.

A tall, dark-haired man stood in the doorway, his hand on the light switch, his face craggy, tanned, and harsh.

He was the most striking, arrogant, handsome man Natalie Meadow Szarvas had ever seen.

The lightning flashed so fiercely static electricity skittered across
the floor. In the yard something broke with a loud crack. The thunder roared and the windows shook.

She’d descended into hell.

She tried to run.

Her feet tangled in the fringe of the rug.

She tripped.

She grabbed for support. Missed. Hit the floor—hard.

Her head and the lion’s head collided.

The lion won.

When the stars had ceased sparking behind her closed eyelids, she took a long, trembling breath. Her bones ached from hitting the floor. The fringed rug smelled good, like citrus and sandalwood. Her head . . . her head really hurt. She lifted her hand to touch the pain at her temple.

Someone caught her wrist. “Don’t. It’s bleeding.”

The man. The one with the contemptuous brown eyes. How had he managed to get from the door to her side?

The explanation was easy. She’d been unconscious. But she didn’t remember being unconscious. She remembered only . . . she remembered seeing
him
.

“Sir, should I call the police?” Another man. Eager. Quiet. Efficient.

“Call the doctor,” Mr. Arrogant said.

“Then the police?”

“Just the doctor.”

“Yes, sir.” The other sounded disapproving—and obedient. His footsteps retreated.

Mr. Arrogant pressed something soft to her forehead.

She winced and tried to flinch away.

“Leave it,” he instructed. “You’re bleeding on the rug.”

“Okay,” she muttered.
Wouldn’t want to bleed on the freaking expensive rug.

“Open your eyes,” he said.

She must be mistaken. This couldn’t be the handsome one. A guy
who used a tone that rude to a girl sprawled bleeding on his floor couldn’t be attractive.

She opened her eyes. She looked up at him.

He looked back at her, a cool, assessing stare.

Her heart stopped. Her breath stopped. She was immobile.

Because she was right about one thing: He wasn’t handsome—he was harsh, breathtaking, his glance striking like lightning and leaving her dead.

And what a way to go. If this was her punishment for trying to steal a priceless painting, then burglary had just become her way of life. “Wow,” she said again.

Mr. Arrogant sat on his heels beside her. He wore a crumpled, starched white shirt with the cuffs rolled up.

And a pair of blue jeans that caressed his thighs.

He held Meadow’s wrist in one hand, and pressed a swathe of white to her forehead with the other, framing her in his arms, sheltering her with his shoulders.

Her heart jumped into a frenzy of action.

“Who are you?” he asked.

“Um . . .”

Apparently she wasn’t fast enough with a reply, because he shot a second question at her. “What are you doing here?”

“Here?” She lifted her head and tried to look around. The instantaneous headache and nausea made her relax back against the floor, close her eyes, and mutter, “I’m going to barf.”

Gently he placed her hand on the cloth on her head. She heard sounds—him standing, moving away, coming back. “If you must, here’s a basin.”

She opened her eyes the smallest chink and looked.

He held an etched-glass vase with gold decoration, absolutely exquisite, done in the Regeletto design.

Aghast, she asked, “Are you insane? That’s a Honesdale vase, an original. I can’t barf in that!”

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.

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.”