Promoted to Wife (Destiny Bay) (12 page)

But life was much more serious to her. She hadn't grown up with his advantages. She'd known times when the wolf was at the door, and she'd known times when she'd needed her dignity. She couldn't forget that, either.

“What happened out there by the pool can't happen again,” she told him evenly. “It wasn't fair.” She took a deep breath. “After all, I am a woman. And you're a very attractive man. I don't deny I find you ... compelling. This is a dangerous situation. We've got to stay away from each other.”

“I don't agree,” he said softly, his gaze skimming over the curve of her cheek.

She bit her lip. “I don't care whether you agree or not. That's the way it has to be.” She lowered her voice, leaning closer. “We can't be lovers.”

His eyes were dark and unreadable, and though his tone was light, she had a feeling he was covering a deeper emotion. “We can be friends, can't we?” he asked, raising his drink to her.

She stared at him, slowly shaking her head. “No. We can't.” She rolled her eyes heavenward and sighed. “How am I going to get this through your thick skull? You are the employer,” she said, using hand gestures to emphasize her point. “I am the employee. You're the master. I'm the servant. We've got to keep those roles clearly defined or we'll both be in trouble.”

She looked at him sharply, wanting to see if her argument had sunk in, but once again his attention seemed to have drifted. He was staring at the glass in his hand. “Cheers,” he repeated softly.

“What?”

“Cheers,” he repeated more loudly. “Of course! It was a clue!”

When she still stared at him blankly he thrust his glass toward her. “What does 'cheers' make you think of?” he demanded.

She shrugged. “It's a drinking toast.”

“Exactly.” Putting down his glass, he rose and grabbed her hand. “Come on. Johnny was giving me a clue. I
know my birthday present is around here somewhere.
Let's check out the bar.”

Terry followed along, intrigued enough to ignore the fact that he was still holding her hand. Once again he was
mixing serious subjects with fluff. But that was just the way he was, and she didn't really need to try to change
him, as long as he didn't consider her part of it all.

“If it's another naked girl, I'm quitting,” she grum
bled.

Rick stood back against the solid wall of mirror that backed the huge wet bar and began to look through the shelves. “You look through the bottles,” he told her.
“There's got to be something here somewhere.”

A ten-minute search revealed nothing at all.

“I guess you were wrong,” Terry said at last, partially
relieved for some unknown reason.

Rick frowned thoughtfully. “The wine cellar,” he
said, winking at her. And before she knew what was hap
pening, they were flying down the stairs, hand in hand
once again.

Terry cried out in dismay when she saw how huge the
dark, dusty room was. “We could spend the rest of the day-—and the night—in here and not find a thing,” she
complained.

“Ah, but think of the memories we could accumulate,”
he teased, touching her cheek.

She shook away his hand. “I should be upstairs seeing
to dinner,” she said.

He shook his head. “Anatole will take care of dinner.”

“Are you even staying for dinner?” she asked. “I
mean, it's your birthday. Surely you have something
planned with friends. ...”

He was looking through the drawer of the little wine
cellar desk. “I did at one time, actually. A bunch of
friends over at the country club invited me to a little bash
they wanted to throw in my honor.” He closed the
drawer and rose to smile at her. “But I canceled all plans and told my friends I had to break in the new butler.” He caught hold of her before she could put more distance between them.
 

“Hello there, new butler.” His voice was soft and smooth as velvet and she almost yielded as his lips brushed hers. But she managed to break away, slipping from his grasp and walking past a long row of bot
tles.

“This is exactly what your problem is,” she lectured as
she went. “You can't keep your mind on what you're
doing.”

“That's where you're wrong,” he returned cheerfully, walking down the other side of the row. “I have my priorities strictly in mind. It's just that they don't happen to
be what you think they are.” He stuck his head around
the end of the row just as she reached it, grinning at her.
“Number one, with me, is having you.”

Despite his arrogant sexism, she had to laugh. “Let's
look for the clue,” she reprimanded him. “Oh, look at
this.” She reached for a bottle that was hanging from a string at the end of the row. “A ship in a bottle. How do
they do that?”

“Let me see.” Rick took it from her hand. “I've never seen this before.” He held it up to the light. “Dust-free,”
he mused. “It hasn't been here long.”

“What does it say on the little flag flying from the main
mast?”

Rick held it closer and deciphered the tiny letters.
“ 'Good on ya', bloke!'” He grinned. “This is it, for sure.
Johnny fancies himself a born-again Australian. It's his
favorite country after the good old U.S.A.” Rick put on his best John Wayne voice and swagger. “He likes places where a man can be a man.”

“Is this it, then? Is this the present?”

“No, of course not. There's nothing lewd or suggestive here at all.”

Terry hid her smile. “Johnny's presents are always a little blue?”

“Certainly. What good is a cousin if he doesn't introduce you to the more sordid side of life?” He squinted at the boat in the bottle. “There must be another lead in here, something we haven't noticed.”

Terry sighed. “Maybe he wants you to go to Australia with him.”

Rick shook his head. “Too straightforward,” he murmured. He held the bottle up for her to see, “What do you make of the name of the ship?” he asked. “Think Australian.”

She stared hard. The letters were very small. “ 'R.D.D. —Three Men’, I think. That's an odd name for a ship.”

Rick nodded slowly. “It means something. I'm sure of it.”

Terry frowned thoughtfully. “Yes,” she said slowly. “But what? Roundabout Dingo Dogs?”

He made a face. “Royal Dutch Dingys?”

She shook her head. “Radical Dang Didgeridoo?” she tried, then winced when he groaned.
 

Half an hour later, they were still guessing. They'd climbed back up from the depths of the wine cellar and were once again sitting on the veranda, staring at the bottle. Rick was on the verge of tearing his hair out with frustration.

“Can't you think of any more nautical terms that
might apply?” Terry asked wearily, her elbows on the table and her chin in her hands.

“I can think of a few appropriate applications for 'frigate' at the moment,” Rick muttered darkly. “When I get my hands on Johnny ...”

“ 'R.D.D.—Three Men,'” she repeated, closing her eyes and letting her head fall back. “ 'R.D.D.—'” Her
eyes flew open. “ 'Rub-a-dub-dub, three men in a tub,'”
she cried jubilantly. “That's got to be it!”

Rick jumped up and pulled her to her feet, laughing
with her. “Not only are you a great butler,” he cried
back, “you're smart too. Let's go. There are twelve bathrooms in this house, nine with tubs. I'll take the second
floor, you concentrate down here.”

In his hurry, he didn't notice how she'd reacted to
what he'd said. A great butler, was she? Should she consider this a sign that he didn’t need a meeting to decide if she was good enough to stay? She smiled to herself as she began to search the first bathroom. She should have had a tape recorder running. She just might
need this endorsement to bolster her case later on.

Rick was the one who found the hiding place. He called her up to have a look. “It's right here, in the soap dish,” he told her, pulling back the glass door of a perfectly ordinary tub and shower combination. A scrap of gold-edged paper lay in the little carved-out dish. “Read
it.”

She took the paper gingerly. “Is it a joke?” she asked
warily, considering Johnny's reputation.

He shook his head, and for the first time she realized he didn't have the bright, happy look of a man who'd discovered his birthday present. “It's not a dirty limerick
if that's what you mean,” he grumbled. “Just another
lousy clue to decipher.”

She read it out loud:

“
I'm out of sight on a normal day.
When a party comes, I'm out to play.
I shine and spin and give you light.
Please let me down. I'll make your night.
”

She glanced up at Rick. “I take it this means nothing to
you.”

He growled incoherently and didn't answer, glaring at
her from under lowered brows.

“Enough.” She handed the poem to Rick. “You fig
ure it out. Johnny is beginning to try my patience. I've
got work to do.”

His handsome face registered mock distress. “You can
desert me in my hour of need?”

“I can,” she returned smartly, starting for the door,
“and I will.”

He stopped her with a hand to her cheek as she tried to pass. She paused, looking warily into his eyes and finding
them disturbingly serious.

“I could forget all about this silly chase if you'd let
me,” he said softly, his voice rough with sensual meaning. “I'd rather celebrate my birthday with you than have
any number of Johnny's presents.”

She wasn't at all sure he was telling the truth, but for some reason his saying it struck a chord deep inside and
she shivered. “The children should be back any mo
ment,” she reminded him, turning blindly and escaping
from the room.

Her heart was beating very fast, and that was strange.
After all, what had happened in that bathroom? Rick
had just made another pass, and she'd deflected it. Noth
ing out of the ordinary at all.

She stopped at the top of the stairs and pressed a hand
against the quick throbbing in her chest. She had to get
hold of herself. The car was arriving, and that meant the
children were back. Pasting a warm smile on her face, she
went down to greet them.

The rest of the day passed in a blur. With so many things to keep track of and prepare for, she shouldn't
have had a moment's time to think of Rick. But it
didn't quite work out that way. Somehow, he was always
there, just at the edge of her thoughts. No matter how
she scowled and shook her head to clear it, he wouldn't
go away.

She was awash in conflicting emotions. On the one hand, she wanted to blot Rick out of her mind. On the other, everything she did seemed to concern him. And
then there was the problem of his birthday.

She was afraid he was disappointed that something
more spectacular hadn't arrived yet from his cousin
Johnny. A brief wave of madness caused her to think
wildly about giving him something herself, but she stifled
that notion, knowing it was not her place to do so. And
then there were the children.

“What's the custom in this family about birthdays?”
she'd asked Erica.

Erica had looked up from the teen magazine she was reading and her little face seemed to freeze into place. “Custom?” she said hollowly. “This family has no cus
tom.”

Terry laughed. “Oh, you know what I mean. When
do you open the presents, do you have a special dinner,
things like that,”

Erica went back to her magazine. “I wouldn't know,”
she said icily. “You'd better ask someone who's been here
longer.”

Not sure if the girl was using disinterest as a defensive measure or if the family really had few traditions, Terry
risked asking one more question:

“You did bring a present for your father, didn't you?”

Erica didn't look up. “I didn't have time to get any
thing,” she said with a shrug.

Terry had to bite her tongue and force herself to walk
out of the room. “It's none of your business,” she told
herself, again and again.

But Anatole was her business. When he returned in the
afternoon she got up her courage and marched down to
the kitchen to confront him about the birthday dinner.

Taking a deep breath, she burst through the swinging door. “Anatole,” she said brusquely, “I want a word with
you.”

He looked up at her, no smile of welcome on his thin
lips.

“I realize that in houses like this there is often a strug
gle for power between the cook and the butler and I
know we will be having our differences but I just want to
say that I don't think it would be fair to use Mr. Carrington’s
birthday dinner as a bone of contention between
us ...”

Her words faded as she began to take in her surroundings. The entire food preparation table was taken up with
elaborate dishes being prepared—obviously—for Rick's
birthday. On the other side of the room she caught sight
of a huge birthday cake shaped like a galloping horse and
bearing the inscription “For He's a Jolly Good Fellow.”