by McKenna Dean
The Hamptons were my old stomping grounds. No one would challenge my presence; it was expected. Even if Ryker gave me leave to look around, he’d never agree to Knight coming with me on Redclaw’s behalf. No doubt Ryker would provide me with some agent to act as my fake boyfriend for the weekend, but the notion of pretending to date Pompadour or his cohort made me shudder. I not only needed someone I could trust, I needed someone who would blend in at the country club. Someone no one would question as my date.
Knight and I had a good working relationship. Despite his rogue tendency to buck authority, Knight had proven himself adaptive and able to think on his feet.
If I found the hoard of missing artifacts and the people behind their theft, I’d prove beyond all doubt my worth to Redclaw. If it turned out to be a wild goose chase and we got caught acting without authorization, my goose would be truly cooked.
So we wouldn’t get caught.
Chapter Fourteen
The car’s tires crunched on gravel, jolting me awake. I lifted my head as Knight nudged me into an upright position with his free hand. He kept the other on the steering wheel, turning the car with ease to follow the drive. As the car pulled up in front of the mansion, the headlights cut across an expanse of grassy lawn that faded away across a black emptiness I knew to be the ocean, before swinging back to the brightly lit exterior of the house. When the car came to a stop, Knight switched off the engine.
“According to your directions, we’ve arrived.” In the darkness, his voice was like that of a fine cello, and amusement was the bow drawn across the strings. The scent of pipe tobacco lingered about him, though there was no pipe in sight. I recalled the red glow coming from the bowl, the stem clamped between his lips, and the rich aroma of tobacco, as we’d sped down the highway. At some point, I must have fallen asleep.
I wiped moisture from the corner of my mouth and suspected there was a corresponding damp spot on his shoulder. Stifling a yawn, I adjusted my hat. “My apologies. I didn’t mean to doze off.”
“Pity I didn’t have a camera. No one would believe the formidable Miss Bishop would curl up like a cat for a nap.”
“I don’t know why you do that.” I said crossly, swinging my feet off the bench seat and smoothing my skirt.
“Do what?”
From the house lights, I saw him looking at me, his fedora pushed back as he scratched his head.
“Make fun of me like that. ‘Formidable’, indeed.”
“You are formidable, my dear. I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
Without waiting for a response, he stepped out of the car, stretched, and walked around behind the car. I got out before he could open my door, breathing in the hint of salt in the air. If I concentrated, I could hear the murmur of waves coming from the other side of the fairway. We were definitely in the Hamptons, where golf and tennis were King, and cocktails were Queen. Taking the hat boxes and makeup case, I left him to carry the suitcases. With a small bag under one arm, and a suitcase in each hand, Knight listed to one side under the weight of my larger case as we made our way up the stairs to the front door.
“What do you have in this thing, rocks?” The Big Bad Wolf couldn’t have huffed any harder.
“You know very well what’s in there. You saw me pack it yourself.”
“Yes, I did. Four evening gowns, one of which was decidedly slinky. Two day dresses. Two cocktail dresses. Hats, gloves, and shoes to go with them all. It’s a wonder you didn’t insist on a trunk.”
“Whereas your bag has seen better days.” I glanced down at the battered leather case in his grip. “I’m not sure Halling will let you in with such disreputable luggage. Which reminds me, what did you pack?”
He set the suitcases down. “Worried I’ll embarrass you? Never fear. I’ll have the clothes I need and the luggage to go with it, too.”
As I stared, the cracked leather case transformed into a monogrammed bag of gleaming cowhide.
“Nice trick. But when the footman carries it upstairs, won’t he find it odd that it changes back into your old case? Just how long is the range on your image projector, anyway?”
The suitcase shimmered back into its former shape. “You’re so practical. That’s not necessarily a compliment, just so you know.” He tapped his temple. “Anyway, I have all the clothing I need, even formal wear, up here.”
Thinking back to his natty dressing on previous visits to my apartment, I now had a sneaking suspicion who his tailor really was. “No doubt an excuse to avoid laundry. Please tell me you wash your real clothes from time to time.”
His sputtering response was lost when the door opened, blinding us with the dazzling light from within.
“Good evening, Miss Henrietta. A pleasure to see you again.” Halling gave a stiff little nod in Knight’s direction. “Sir.”
“Thank you, Halling. This is my date for the weekend. Er...Mr. Richard Day.”
“Miss Emmaline gave instructions for the two of you to be made comfortable. She and Mr. Edgar are at the club this evening. The rest of the family are at a bridge party.” Halling stepped back to let us through the front door. A small gesture from him directed two footmen forward to take our bags. “Would you care for some refreshments after your trip?”
“I’m good, thank you. And you, Richard?” I batted my lashes at Knight, whose sour expression would give lemons a run for their money.
“None for me, Henrietta, dear.”
His emphasis on my given name was pronounced enough to be pointed.
“I believe we’ll just go to our rooms and change. It’s early yet, and we’d like to catch up with Em and Eddie.”
“Very good, miss.”
Halling retreated, allowing me and Knight to follow the footmen up the stairs.
“Richard Day?” Knight’s low growl and the warmth of his breath against my earlobe sent a shiver through me.
Ahead of us, the footmen carried the luggage at a polite distance. Sympathy prickled at my conscience when I saw how the servant carrying my bags labored. Making sure they were out of earshot, I spoke out of the side of my mouth. “It occurred to me your name might be known in some circles here. Best not to raise questions we can’t answer.”
“Unlikely, but I gathered your point when you introduced me to the butler downstairs. I don’t fault your logic. I object to your choice of names.”
Puzzled, I risked a glance at him.
“My dear woman. Richard Day? Really?”
I failed to see why he was so insulted. It wasn’t half-bad for a spur-of-the-moment decision and it was a name we could remember. “Word association. Not the same kind of night, of course—”
Mock indignation rolled off him in waves. “You named me Dick Day.”
An uncontrollable giggle burst out of me, growing louder when he rolled his eyes. The glint of amusement in his expression made me snort, and laughter lightened his voice when he took me by the elbow. “Just for that, you’ll be Henrietta all weekend.”
“No, I won’t. Em would know right away something was wrong. No one calls me Henrietta.” No one but my mother, that is. Just the thought dampened my humor.
“The butler did.”
“He knows me from old. You do not.”
“Ah, but you’re so besotted, you allow me terrible liberties.”
I opened my mouth to fire back a suitably snappy retort, but stared at him with heated cheeks. For a brief instant, the kinds of liberties I might allow presented a distracting image, and from the tightening of Knight’s grip on my arm, I suspected he envisioned some as well.
The fire gleaming in his eyes banked, and he reddened. “Speaking of liberties, if I’m pretending to be your boyfriend this weekend, a certain amount of, er, touching is to be expected during the course of public activities.” He choked over the last words and coughed into his hand.
I drawled in my best Mae West fashion, “If you’re asking for permission to touch me this weekend, the answer is yes.”
I snorted when
he stumbled on the riser.
We reached the landing. The footman carrying my cases breathed a little sigh of relief. I expected our ways to part at this juncture, with Knight being ushered to one wing while my footman escorted me to the other, but to my surprise, both servants went in the same direction.
Em, it would seem, was ever-hopeful about my new boyfriend. Our rooms turned out to be side-by-side. With an adjoining door. Which I promptly locked as soon as I was alone with my bags. Which Knight rapped with his knuckles moments later.
To my utter annoyance, he was ‘wearing’ evening clothes and a smirk. Both suited him well, though I’d never admit it. Some men were born to wear a tuxedo. Knight was one of them. The sleek lines emphasized his lean form and elegant features, and the tux fit him as if someone had poured him into it. Which is, of course, how he imagined it.
“Some of us actually need to get dressed before going out.” I shut the door in his face.
Fifteen minutes later, I opened it, then crossed back to the vanity to adjust my earrings as Knight entered my room. I’d chosen my emerald sheath, the one that fit like a glove and shimmered in the light like some exotic snakeskin. The capped sleeves also had the benefit of hiding my healing bullet wound, which was still an angry red score along my flesh. I was switching out my sturdy little Timex for the dressier diamond Cartier watch when Knight spoke.
“You look nice.”
“Thank you.” I touched up my lipstick with a bold red and dropped the tube into my clutch. The metal casing clinked against the ray gun. I took out the ladybug Ryker had given me and pinned it along the top of my dress. Hopefully, anyone spying it would assume it was a quixotic decoration. I’d committed Ryker’s personal phone number to memory. If I had something to report, I’d call that first. But I wasn’t going to repeat my mistake of not activating the pin if I needed it.
“Yes, well, the marks on your cheek where you were mashed up against me in the car have faded, and the color of your dress keeps you from being washed out.”
I glanced up at him through the mirror, but he was staring at the floor, his hands shoved into his tuxedo pockets, much like a small boy forced to dress up for a party. Uncertain as to the cause of his change of mood this time, I said through gritted teeth, “You look nice as well. Good luck with maintaining that sartorial image throughout the whole of the evening.”
I had the satisfaction of seeing him look aghast as we left the room. Hadn’t thought of that when he’d decided his entire wardrobe could be imaginary, had he?
He drove in silence with frowning concentration to the clubhouse. When we arrived, instead of pulling up for valet parking, he parked the car himself. “Do me a favor,” he said as he killed the engine. “Get out and tell me what you see.”
Smothering a sigh, I did as he asked, making a slow circle around the car, crossing the beams cast by the headlights to come to the driver’s side door. He rolled down the window.
“If you’re hoping for a souped-up hot rod, I hate to break it to you, but you’re still driving the same old junker as before.”
“I was aiming for something classier than that. A Mercedes or a Jaguar. Something that would let us blend in. Look as though we belonged.” He thumped the steering wheel. “Oh, well. At least we have a better idea of the limits of the image projector.”
“Not necessarily. It might not be a function of distance as much as workload. You’re already asking it to dress you. Maybe it can’t do extended projections because it’s a power problem. Anyway, it’s not as if you would have been able to maintain the illusion once we went inside, anyway.” I stepped back as the door swung open and he got out. “I’ll let you in on a little secret about this crowd. No one is as flush as they’d like you to believe. People buy cars on credit. Memberships are offered on reputation. The most important thing is to not show the slightest bit of embarrassment or mortification no matter what the insult. Merely raise an eyebrow and look amused. Respond with that supercilious air you do so well. The one thing no one can bear is being looked down upon. If you don’t care what others think, you’ll be fine.”
He offered his arm when I almost turned an ankle as my heels sank into the soft grass. “Supercilious, eh?”
Although we were well into spring and summer was just around the corner, the night air was still cool. I was grateful for the warmth of his arm threaded through mine. “Yes. Just like that. Speaking of which—”
It was my turn to frown. I stopped, angling him so the moonlight struck his face. The strong white light threw his cheekbones into sharp relief and touched his hair with silver. His pupils dilated into inky pools that hid the true color of his eyes. He could have been carved from marble, Michelangelo’s David, even down to the shape of his nose. “Richard Day shouldn’t look anything like Peter Knight. Can you do something about that?” I waggled my fingers at him. “Make your nose less sharp, somehow?”
He released me to finger the appendage in question. “First you give me a ridiculous name and then you disparage my appearance. I didn’t realize you disliked me so much.”
“Don’t be silly. Your nose is just fine. It’s a very nice nose. But it is a defining characteristic for you. I’d make it wider if you can. And do something about your chin.”
“My chin?” If he’d been faking the haughtiness before, he’d perfected it now.
“Yes. Since you jut it out so much why not give it a slight cleft? And change your eye color, too. Those ice-blue eyes are too piercing. I’d go with a nice, common brown. Same with your hair.”
“Perhaps a wooden leg and a parrot on my shoulder while I’m at it?” Sarcasm leached into his voice but his features shifted with the modifications I’d suggested. A fleeting sense of disorientation swept over me as I watched the man before me become someone I didn’t know, but still seemed somewhat familiar. “There, now. Am I the man of your dreams?”
“What?” My response was somewhat breathless, as his question confused me.
“You’ve made me over into a movie star. I look like Cary Grant now, don’t I?”
I peered at him in the dark. “I believe you do. Except for the sulky expression.”
He withdrew from my perusal with a huff. “Let’s get this over with. I can’t maintain this forever. Between the clothes and the face, I’m already getting a headache. And what about your friends? Am I supposed to be Cary Grant all weekend?”
It did present difficulties.
“We can dye your hair if necessary. And no one at Em’s is likely to remember you in the morning—it was dark when we arrived and you were wearing your hat.” I was stretching it a bit, I knew. Halling would no doubt remember the man I’d arrived with. It was second nature to him. But it was also second nature for him to turn a blind eye to the goings-on of guests. If the man I introduced as Richard Day on arrival didn’t look the same as the Richard Day who came down to breakfast in the morning, he would say nothing as long as my actions didn’t affect the family. “As for everyone at the club tonight, they’re well on their way to being drunk. If we have to, you can fake an illness and use the projector for limited periods. That might work out well for us if you want to do some snooping while I’m at the bridal shower. We’ll worry about tomorrow when it arrives.”
“I knew there was a bit of Scarlett in you.” He took my arm again, and we strode up to the clubhouse like the party couldn’t start without us.
We paused at the entrance of the ballroom to take in the crowd. A small stringed orchestra played on a stage at the end of the room. Couples dawdling over a late dinner drank champagne at tables pushed back to make room for the dancers. Conversation and music struck us like a wall of sound, with the occasional high-pitched laughter breaking through. The dancers moved on the floor in a glittering swirl of color while waiters in black slipped silently among the tables.
It was hard to believe this was once my element.
“We’ll never find what we’re looking for here.”
“Chin up, my dear.”
Knight beamed at me as he snagged a glass of champagne off a tray from a passing waiter.
I punched him in the ribs with my elbow, almost spilling the glass he lifted it to his lips. “You need to keep a clear head to maintain your disguise. And stop mimicking Cary Grant.”
Brown eyes twinkled at me as he made a crossing motion over his heart. “Just blending in. I won’t get drunk, I promise. But you’re right about the crowd. Shall we split up? We can cover more ground that way.”
I saw both pros and cons to his suggestion, but given the fact we were just here for the weekend and we had a lot of things to check out, his plan seemed like the best one. “Agreed. We’ll make our own circuit about the club and meet back here in thirty minutes.”
He raised his glass in a mock toast and walked off, humming Dean Martin’s “That’s Amore”. I couldn’t help but notice the line of his tuxedo fit him exceedingly well. I do like a man with broad shoulders.
I hadn’t taken two steps into the room when someone shrieked out my name. I turned to see one of my old classmates swooping down on me to kiss the air on either side of my cheeks.
“Rhett, dearest! So good to see you again. What have you been doing with yourself? No one’s seen you in ages.” Mary Davenport smiled like a cat flexing its claws on spotting a helpless mouse. She encompassed my appearance with a quick glance up and down. “Darling, you’re so fortunate you can wear the older styles. Not everyone has the right shape to pull off a sheath.”
Smiling at the unspoken implication that only a woman with the body of an immature boy could wear such a formfitting gown, I returned the compliment. “What a darling outfit. All those clever folds. The ruching is exquisite. So flattering to every form.” I let my eyes sweep over hips much wider than my own.
“Givenchy. He’s pure genius.” Seeing as she’d failed to dent my armor, she launched another salvo. “I was so very sorry to hear about your father. Such a tragedy. I understand your mother has remarried?”