The Ring on Her Finger (10 page)

“I’m not drunk,” he said calmly.

Maybe he was, and maybe he wasn’t. But Rosemary was in a dimly lit, deserted room with a man she didn’t know well—but who had the loveliest green eyes she’d ever seen—and he was telling her he wanted to get to know her better. Something she would have liked to believe was true, but which actually made her uncomfortable. Whether that discomfort was due to his actions or her own response to him, she didn’t want to consider right now. She only wanted the situation to end so she could go back to thinking clearly.

“Please excuse me, Mr. Finn. I have to go.”

For a moment, she thought he would bolt around the island and make a grab for her. Something in him seemed to tighten, seemed to radiate, seemed ready to blow to bits. And Rosemary, God help her, found herself halfway wanting him to do it. She had no idea why, but there it was all the same. There was something about Nathaniel Finn that made her want to do things she shouldn’t do, things she hadn’t done for a very long time, things she had sworn she would never do again.

Then, suddenly, he relaxed. He took a step backward, holding his arms out to his sides in an unmistakable gesture of surrender. “My apologies, Ms. Shaugnessy. I didn’t meant to upset you.”

“You didn’t upset me.”

“Didn’t I?”

“No.”

Once again, he smiled. “Then I must be losing my touch.”

“Goodnight, Mr. Finn,” she said firmly.

He dipped his head forward in concession. But Rosemary suspected that, although he might be conceding the battle, he was by no means conceding the war. Whatever he had begun tonight, and whyever he had begun it, he wasn’t finished with it—wasn’t finished with her—yet.

“Good night, Ms. Shaugnessy,” he said in the same velvety voice that had initially set her on edge. Then he spun around and began to make his way out of the kitchen. He halted at the door, though, and pivoted one more time to look at her. “Until we meet again.”

“We won’t meet again,” Rosemary assured him.

But Nathaniel Finn had already gone, and she was fairly certain he didn’t hear her.

It was going on four A.M. when Nathaniel finally untangled himself from Patrice Gordon’s bony arms and said his goodnights to Justin and Alexis. As bad as Justin’s wager was, at least Nathaniel had dodged one bullet. He couldn’t imagine having sex with someone as gaunt and haggard as Patrice was. She could have put an eye out with one of those elbows. Give him a woman with curves any day. Thank God Justin had named Rosemary Shaugnessy instead.

Strangely, the sentiment felt genuine. Not that Nathaniel was in any way happy about having been stupid enough to fall for Justin’s wager. But since he had been stupid enough to fall for it, and had no choice now but to go through with it, he was oddly satisfied with his friend’s selection of the nanny as the terms.

Not that he’d felt that way at first. His first thought had been something along the lines of how he was about to lose the best horse he’d ever owned, because there was no way he was going to warm up that icy little nun. Even Nathaniel Finn couldn’t work miracles. But as he’d watched Rosemary at the piano, as he’d noted her frequent smiles and more frequent laughter with Abby, as he’d realized that she was actually kind of pretty in a down-on-the-farm, go-to-church-every-Sunday, eat-all-your-vegetables, kind of way, he’d begun to think that it might be fun to try.

Then, when he’d cornered her in the kitchen, he’d felt much better about his prospects. He had known instantly that not only did he stand a chance with Miss Chaste Little Nun, but that she was ultimately going to be as big a pushover as any woman. There was something in her eyes and demeanor, something passionate and fiery simmering just beneath her surface. She might try to fight it, and she might try to hide it, and she might even succeed at both for a while. But eventually, Rosemary would succumb to the conflagration blazing inside her.

Eventually, Rosemary would be his.

Once Nathaniel had realized that, his life stopped feeling exceedingly and profoundly boring. Suddenly, he couldn’t wait to wake up the next day. It might take a while—hell, it might take the entire month—but Nathaniel would have Rosemary. And it would be hugely entertaining getting her.

He’d been one of the first to arrive at the party and had parked in back of the house. As he approached his midnight blue Jaguar roadster, a light went on in the kitchen behind him, and, reflexively, he turned around. Through the window, he saw Rosemary carrying a pink-pajama-clad Abby into the kitchen, hoisting her up onto the counter. The little girl’s chestnut hair tumbled in a tangle around her shoulders, and she rubbed her nose with the heel of her hand as Rosemary disappeared from view.

The open window allowed him to hear the soft murmur of their voices, even though he couldn’t understand a word either of them said. But there was something about the gentle lull of combined feminine sounds that was soothing and cheerful, as was the unexpected ring of Abby’s sudden laughter. Coupled with the gentleness of the sight, Nathaniel felt a strange sense of wellbeing wash over him.

Not sure why he did it, he hesitated by his car to observe the display a little longer. Probably because in that one brief glimpse he’d enjoyed of Rosemary before she vanished, he’d seen she was wearing a white cotton nightgown with thin, lacy straps, one of which had slipped off her shoulder. And also because her hair hung down her back in a ponytail that was gathered loosely at her nape with a pale blue ribbon. He hadn’t seen the end of that ponytail from where he was standing, even though, from his viewpoint, he had been able to see the nanny nearly to her waist.

Really, there was nothing in the scene to keep, or even draw, his attention. A wakeful little girl and a nanny dressed in celibate white. Somehow, though, he couldn’t tear his gaze away. Abby was swinging her spindly little legs as Rosemary reappeared, and Rosemary, as she handed the glass of milk to Abby, smiled at the little girl in a way that Nathaniel had never seen a person smile before.

In his experience, there was always something hiding behind a person’s smile—a deception, a favor, a trade. The only reason people ever smiled at him was because they wanted something in return. But Rosemary’s smile for Abby was natural, untainted, guileless. It was a smile that came about simply because she was happy to be up in the middle of the night, giving a little girl a glass of milk. There was nothing more to it than that.

Something about that smile twisted something inside Nathaniel so hard that he lost his grip on his car keys. Their metallic clatter as they hit the pavement carried through the still night to the kitchen window, loud enough that Rosemary heard it. She darted closer to Abby and glanced out the window to see what had caused it, and her smile fell when she saw Nathaniel.

She said nothing, but draped an arm protectively around Abby as if she feared for the girl’s safety. Ironic that Rosemary would be so worried for her charge when it was herself she should be worrying about.

Her days as a chaste little nun were numbered, he thought as he bent to scoop up his keys and unlock his car. She might try to hide behind a sweet and innocent veneer, but he’d sensed something inside her tonight that he fully intended to exploit, guileless smile or no. She would be his. Soon. He only had to be patient.

He started his car and listened with contentment to the easy rumble of the engine, then began to plot how he would win his wager with Justin. He ignored the strange prickle of what felt suspiciously like a scruple nibbling at the base of his brain and threw the car into gear. And as he eased the sleek vehicle away from the house, the Bad Boy of the Thoroughbred Racing Set never looked back at the peaceful scene in the kitchen. Not even once.

He didn’t dare.

In her first week working as the Coves’ housekeeper, Lucy had a total of eight problems. But she figured the first one, meeting Max Hogan, was unavoidable—she couldn’t exactly escape the car guy when she lived in the building where he spent nearly all his time. So maybe she shouldn’t include that one. Especially since Max wasn’t so much a problem as he was a great, hulking insurmountable obstacle. That left her with only seven problems that first week, averaging one per day.

Surprisingly few for her, once she thought about it.

Astonishingly, none of those problems arose with Alexis Cove’s party. But that was only because Rosemary volunteered to call the guests, since she knew them and Lucy didn’t, and then took Lucy aside on party night to point out each guest and give her a quick rundown on that person, so the next time she was obliged to call them, she wouldn’t feel shy. Naturally, Lucy hadn’t wanted to tell Rosemary that it was the list itself, not its manifested contents, that gave her the most trouble. Still, it was nice of Rosemary to help.

Lucy spent the rest of her first week doing all the usual things one did when one was beginning a new career in a strange place: avoiding the car guy, avoiding the nanny, avoiding the little girl for whom the nanny cared, avoiding her employers, avoiding work, and, once, having a panic attack in the linen closet on the third floor. It helped enormously that Mrs. Lindstrom had given the house a good going-over before she left, because no matter what room Lucy checked at Harborcourt when she was busily avoiding everyone, it was spotless. The Coves—except for Abby—were fanatically tidy people, but even in the case of Abby, Rosemary tended to the little girl’s room. That tidiness of everything else was probably made possible by the fact that the Coves also were seldom home. The elder Coves, at least. Abby, except for school, seemed to go out very little.

So really, Lucy’s first week working for the Coves was a remarkably uneventful one, something that one might conclude would lead to zero problems instead of seven—plus one great, hulking insurmountable obstacle. Still, even those seven problems probably wouldn’t have been all that bad, except for the fact that, although she averaged only one problem per day, all seven of them actually occurred in one day. The good news was they came on her day off. The bad news was they came on her day off. And the worst news was, on her day off from work, Lucy started her first day of school.

When Phoebe originally hacked into/enrolled Lucy at the local university to cement her cover as Lucy French, housekeeper, she had signed her up for three classes. The first was the inescapable Engl 628, Metaphysical Poets, a three-hour session on Monday nights taught by a Professor Besser, which was probably the last night of the week that one wanted study metaphysical poets, coming off the weekend as it was. Not that Tuesday would have been any better as far as Lucy was concerned. Or Wednesday or Thursday, either. Especially since she had the equally inescapable Engl 542, John Donne, taught by a Dr. Proctor, for three hours on Wednesday evenings, and the probably also inescapable—if Lucy could just figure out what the hell it meant—Engl 609, Special Topics: Scholastical Quiddities, taught by a Mr. Lister, for three hours on Thursdays.

Once she was finally able to decipher that last class on her schedule—though sometimes she had to wonder if she actually had deciphered it—she decided she really should have stopped Phoebe after that first green martini. Between Mr. Lister, Dr. Proctor, and Professor Besser, she figured it was a forgone conclusion that her student advisor would be Dr. Seuss.

Mondays would be the worst, though, since that was already her least favorite day of the week—problem number one. And, call her crazy, three hours of metaphysical poetry just didn’t seem like something that would improve it—problem number two. As she stood outside Professor Besser’s class, dressed in what she hoped was a student-appropriate outfit of Phoebe’s black miniskirt and cherry red tank top sporting the command “Kiss Me, You Fool”—though, judging by the looks of the young men entering the classroom, she was dressed in an outfit that was appropriate for something else entirely—and holding the massive tome she’d been required to purchase at the bookstore that afternoon—problem number three—she asked herself, not for the first time, what the hell she thought she was doing. Besides living a lie and kidding herself about pulling off an impossible charade, she meant.

She had ridden to school with Dimitri, the Coves’ gardener—problem number four, though that wouldn’t become evident until later—who had finished working on the rose bushes at Harborcourt about the same time Lucy was ready to call a cab to take her to school. Really, she probably didn’t have to perpetuate the going-to-class part of her deception, but she didn’t want to risk anyone becoming suspicious of her presence in Louisville. So when Dimitri discovered she was off to class as he was himself, he offered her a ride.

Surprisingly, once her metaphysical poetry class got going, it moved along nicely with fairly little incident. Well, okay, with only two incidents. The first was when Lucy got disoriented while trying to follow along in her massive tome and almost threw up—problem number five. But she remedied that by giving up on actually looking at the collection of letters on the page and pretending to be only interested in the lecture. The second incident was when Professor Besser called on her and asked her a question about Gongorism and the European baroque—problem number six—and Lucy had replied by saying she had to go to the bathroom.

She managed to stay blissfully preoccupied once she got back to class by thinking about all the things she was going to do once she was cleared of her murder charge—starting with strangling that moron Archie, which would necessitate, she supposed, another murder charge, but at least that one would be justified, not to mention worth it. Finally, after three grueling hours, the class ended, so she gathered up her massive tome, notebook and pen—pretending all the while that they weren’t, in fact, tools of Satan—walked out of the classroom...

...and saw Max Hogan leaning against the wall opposite the door. Problem number seven. Which, now that she thought about it, was bigger than all the other problems put together.

The moment she saw him, one thought, and one alone, stampeded to the front of Lucy’s brain:
WWDD
? Fortunately, an answer was right behind it. Dino would probably fix a drink, then call up Sinatra and the boys, then say hello, and then sing “Mack the Knife.” “Mack the Knife,” however, was iffy, because she never could remember all the words. And the drink would have to wait until she got home. Sinatra and the boys, she was certain, were much too busy to take her calls. However...