Mr. Miracle (Harlequin Super Romance) (16 page)

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Authors: Carolyn McSparren

BOOK: Mr. Miracle (Harlequin Super Romance)
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“You’d miss this.”
“I know. That’s why I haven’t done it. Not yet, at any rate. And now that I’m riding again...”
“And when do you make the great announcement?”
Vic jumped as though he’d struck her. “Never! I couldn’t.”
“So you intend to sneak off in the middle of the night to ride horses alone for the rest of your life? Come on, Victoria. Don’t be an ass. I’ve not worked this hard on you for—”
“You? You’ve worked?” She stood and leaned on the table. “Don’t I get any credit?”
He held up his hands. “Whoa! That’s not what I meant.”
“So what did you mean, pray tell?”
“I want to watch Albert and Angie’s faces when they see you out there on that stallion. That’d almost be worth losing this over.” He held up his gloved hand.
Her face softened. She reached across the table and took his gloved hand in both of hers. “And I’d give up riding again in a heartbeat if I could give it back to you.”
Their eyes held. His fingers curled around hers. “Vic...” he whispered.
She broke the spell. “In answer to your question, I’m terrified to tell anyone. I’m afraid I’d blow it at the last minute, and then they’d all be so sorry for me.” Her shoulders hunched. “I’d hate that. Give it a couple of weeks. A month. You did promise to stay two months if we worked out.” She looked up at him. “I’d say we’ve worked out so far.”
More than she could know, he thought. And less.
“And now I’m off to bed.” She stood and crossed to the door. Then she turned, her eyes wide. “Oh, Lord, I totally forgot! Tomorrow is that benighted party of Vach’s. We’ve never had your suit pressed.”
“That Connaway man does not want me at his party, Vic. You go. I’ll baby-sit the horses.”
“No way. If I go, you go. Even Albert and Linette are going, and Albert hates putting on a tie more than any man I know.”
“All right. I’ll drive into town tomorrow morning and have my suit pressed. But trust me, it’s a mistake to drag me along. You’re going to have to field questions about me you do not want to deal with.”
“I don’t give a damn what anyone thinks.”
But
he
did.
CHAPTER TWELVE
V
ACHEL CONNAWAY LIVED in a sprawling mansion set in a twenty-acre park in one of the oldest sections of Germantown. The house and grounds blazed with light. Uniformed attendants parked cars around the perimeter of the driveway so that the guests could drive right up to the front door.
Good thing, because the skies were spitting sleet After three days of icy temperatures, the ground was cold enough so that any precipitation would probably stick. “I don’t intend to stay long,” Vic said to Jamey in the seat beside her. “I hate driving in this stuff.”
“I’ll drive us home, if you like. I’m used to worse than this at home.”
“You may be used to snow, but nobody can drive on solid ice, and that’s what we tend to get around this time of the year. Just as soon as the forsythia buds. Besides, one of us has to stay sober. Might as well be me. I don’t like liquor all that much, and I’m a terrible drunk. I go to sleep in a corner.”
“A real party animal. Then we’ll both stay sober. One wee dram is all I’ll take. If the whiskey’s good enough, that is.”
“Oh, it’ll be good enough. Vach only has the best.” She took the hand of the young man who opened her door, handed him her keys and said, “Put it where you can get at it. We won’t be staying long.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Jamey followed her up the broad stairs. Tonight she wore high-heeled pumps, which meant she topped him by more than an inch. She’d already had her coat on before he came down the stairs, so he had no idea what kind of dress she wore, but her legs in their black tights—no, in America they were called panty hose or something equally silly—were gorgeous.
Although he felt an incredible burst of pride to be her escort, he knew he’d be the subject of curiosity. That was why he dreaded this party. Questions, stares, insinuations. He’d have to be extremely careful to keep his bland conartist’s countenance in place. Charm the ladies, amuse the men. Play the fool if necessary.
“May I take your coat, Mrs. Jamerson?”
A tall gray-haired man in a white uniform jacket slid Vic’s coat off her shoulders.
“Thanks, Patterson,” she said.
She wore a simple straight dress in a fine wool jersey of such a dark red it was almost black. It had a deep V neck that revealed the swell of her lovely bosom and a split up the side that showed a flash of elegant leg when she moved. She wore diamond studs in her ears.
Jamey wore no topcoat. He didn’t have one with him, but his suit was from Saville Row and tailored for him. So was his shirt. His hair was freshly barbered, and he’d tossed his gold stud into his duffel bag for good. He looked like a prosperous English businessman. He intended to cause Vic no embarrassment over his appearance.
Patterson glanced at him, raised an approving eyebrow and asked, “May I take your gloves, sir?”
Jamey smiled. “I only wear the one. I’ll keep it on, thank you.”
The man inclined his head slightly and moved away to greet the next party.
“Aargh, me lass, Captain Hook at your service,” Jamey whispered.
“Hush, you idiot,” Vic said amiably. “Come on, let’s face the music.”
The decibel level in the drawing room was already deafening. The room was decorated with too much Louis XVI furniture, layers of Aubusson carpets and a great deal of ormolu and crystal. The tall windows were festooned with heavy taupe silk curtains that belonged on a theater proscenium.
The women, whose voices caromed off the silk-covered walls, wore sequins and beads, satins and velvets in a kaleidoscope of colors, and enough diamonds to retire the Scottish national debt. They were elaborately coiffed and made up. Vic was dressed more simply than any other woman in the room. “My God,” he said softly, “she’s an eagle in a roomful of parrots.”
“What?” Vic said.
“Nothing. I like your dress.”
“I don’t have anything fancier.”
“You are the most beautiful woman in the room.”
“Oh, right.”
“Vic, honey,” a deep voice boomed behind them. “You are the prettiest thing I ever did see.”
Vic sighed, pasted on a smile and turned her face so that she just avoided Vach Connaway’s kiss. “Evening, Vach. You remember Jamey McLachlan from the other night at the restaurant?”
Connaway stuck out his hand. The smile on his lips did not reach his eyes. “Indeed I do. Glad you could come to our little soiree, Mr. McLachlan.”
Jamey braced himself for the crushing squeeze he knew was to come. However, when Connaway saw his glove, he quickly withdrew his hand.
“I had an accident some time ago,” Jamey said. “My hand is not a pretty sight.”
“Sorry to hear that. Hard on a horseman not to have full use of his hands.”
“I manage.”
“You seem to be doing considerably better than merely managing,” Connaway said as he glanced at Vic.
Jamey felt his temper flare, but he kept his face neutral.
“Albert and I both find him invaluable,” Vic said.
“I’m sure.”
“Indeed we do.” Albert stepped up behind them and slid his arm through Vic’s.
Jamey glanced at him in astonishment. Albert apparently believed in presenting a united front to outsiders. From his set face and hard eyes, Jamey suspected he disliked Connaway more than he disliked Jamey.
Albert turned to his wife. “Linette, I don’t believe you’ve met our newest employee here.” Albert stepped aside. The woman behind him looked as though she’d just stepped off an Egyptian tomb painting. Despite her graying hair, she seemed considerably younger than Albert and was, in fact, one of the most beautiful women Jamey had ever seen.
Like Vic, and unlike the parrots, she was dressed simply in a soft green velvet dress that clung to her slim frame. For a moment he wondered how such a mountain as Albert had captured such an exquisite creature, but when he saw the glow on her face as she looked up at her husband, he realized he was seeing love in its purest form.
He wondered whether he could ever hope to see anything approaching that in Vic’s eyes.
Linette shook his gloved hand. Albert had probably warned her. “Albert tells me you’re from Scotland,” she said in a voice as warm as honey.
“From Oban.”
“I know where that is. One day, would you come and talk to my fourth-grade class about Scotland? I know they’d love to hear about it from somewhere who actually lives there. And they’ll adore your accent.”
“I’d be happy to, although there’s not much to say. I don’t have pictures or anything.”
“Oh, I’ll come up with slides. You and Vic come to dinner one night next week. We’ll work on it then.”
“Come on, woman, I’m hungry,” Albert said. Linette shrugged, smiled and trailed him toward the dining room.
Vic slipped her arm through Jamey’s. He loved the feel of her against his side, but even she couldn’t alleviate his discomfort.
Vic began to circulate, introducing him to so many people that the faces and names blurred. He was amazed that so many of the women brayed like donkeys and used language in casual conversation that his mother would have slapped his face for.
But he liked them. By and large they seemed warmhearted and open in a way that his Scottish acquaintances seldom were. Despite their sequins and diamonds, the women were as down-to-earth as old shoes, especially when they talked about horses. He gathered that most of the people here were members of Connaway’s hunt club.
“In your country, y’all kill the fox! That is positively barbaric!” one woman said to him. “We don’t have enough foxes to waste. We mostly run coyote, anyway.”
“Take a mighty dumb fox to get himself caught by hounds over heah,” said her husband, a big portly man. “They mostly know when it’s Wednesday and Saturday during the season. I’ve seen ‘em sit on top of a fence post and wait for hounds to discover ’em.”
He laughed and took a hefty swig of his drink, which was a very dark brown. He coughed, said, “Whew-ee!” and took another. “When they go to ground, we let ‘em go. We tip our hats to them, say, ’Good day, B’rer Fox, see you next Wednesday,’ and off we go to run a coyote or two.”
“I haven’t done any hunting at home in years,” Jamey said. “I found I was always pulling for the fox.”
“Why, so do we!” the woman said, and laid a hand on his arm. The gesture was close to a caress.
Jamey looked down to see that her fingers were stroking the wool of his jacket. Her hands were superbly manicured, with long red talons and four large dinner rings. Her skin, however, was the consistency of a fine lizard handbag.
“You’ll have to lend this child a huntah,” she said to Vic. “So he can come out with us one day and see what a real good time is.” Her laugh was low, husky and so full of sexual innuendo that the hair on Jamey’s neck stood up. He glanced at her husband to see if the man took offense and found him simpering gently at his wife. “I mean it, now,” she said.
The pair moved away.
“Was that serious?” Jamey whispered.
Vic smiled at his discomfort. “I’d try to avoid getting caught alone upstairs with her if you expect to go home tonight with your virtue unsullied.”
“My word.”
“Let’s get something to eat,” Vic said, and led him across the hall. “They all think you’re my boy toy, I’m afraid. And that it’s downright tacky of me not to share.”
“I’m sorry.”
She stopped and stared at him. “Well, I’m not. I haven’t had this much fun in years. You have raised my stock right into the stratosphere.”
“Then I’m sorry it’s not true.”
Vic blushed and turned away quickly to speak to someone else.
For a moment he felt a flash of resentment. He wished he were tall and distinguished like Vach Connaway with his fine gray hair and his patrician face. He was glad he’d gone to the barber and abandoned his stud. If only he felt as much a part of this crowd as he looked.
He followed Vic into the large dining room and was astounded by the riot of color and scent from the trays of food that covered every serving area. Even the Christmas hunt ball at home never came close to this over-ostentatious abundance.
One sideboard groaned under towering stacks of hors d’oeuvres, while another held silver trays of tiny tartlets and petits fours. The dining table itself groaned under a carved country ham surrounded by small hot biscuits, a smoked turkey that had been cut up and reassembled to look as though the bird were still intact and a steamship round of beef, which a white-coated sous-chef carved to order and layered between slices of tiny brioches.
Jamey and Vic filled their plates and found a quiet corner of the room to eat. They were both too hungry to do much talking.
Jamey’s mouth was full of his second tartlet when Vach Connaway swept down on them, slid Vic’s nearly empty plate out of her hands, and handed it to the sous-chef, who had to stop in mid-carve to catch it. Without a word to Jamey, he steered Vic skillfully through the crowd toward a doorway at the back of the room.
Jamey swallowed quickly and looked around for a place to set his plate so that he could follow, but was intercepted by Angie Womack, who hugged him with her one good arm and kissed him with evident delight. He looked over her shoulder and nodded to Kevin, who tonight looked well rested and as distinguished as was possible for someone who resembled a koala bear.
“Where’s Vic?” Angie said. “I can hardly wait to see her to tell her the news!”
“News?”
“They think we could have our baby as early as next month. Isn’t that great? And I’m almost ready to get rid of this thing.” She held up her arm. Instead of a sling, she was using a large wildly patterned sequined scarf.
Jamey glanced at Kevin, who smiled benignly at his wife.
“Angie? Is that true?” Jamey heard Vic’s voice at his shoulder and saw with relief that she was alone.
Angie hugged Vic and kissed her. “It’s all thanks to you! I swear, if you hadn’t talked to Kevin...”
“Kevin?” Vic looked at him.
He nodded sheepishly. “Once we started opening up to each other...”
“And he’s talked to his father, who’s going to talk to his brother, and we’re going to go over to see him next weekend when he’s in town. Isn’t that great?”
“I hope so.”
“Yeah. Me, too,” Kevin said with a sigh. “But if anybody can mend fences, it’s Ange.” He smiled at her. “As for the baby, I’m still scared to death, but you convinced me it’ll be no worse having this baby than one of our own.”
“Don’t put this all off on me,” Vic said. “I refuse the responsibility.”
“Okay, it’s going to mean a lot of changes, but I’m really looking forward to it.”
Jamey detected a hint of “whistling past the graveyard” in his tone and hoped he was mistaken.
Angie patted Kevin’s arm. “He’ll be fine. He says all daddies get the shakes before the first one arrives.”

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