The Catspaw Collection

by Anne Stuart

  “And do you?” he questioned mischievously.

  She slid her hand down across the flat plane of his stomach to brush against him tantalizingly. “I guess I do,” she admitted with an air of wonder. “That’s quite a surprise.” She moved her hand back up, across the surface of his chest. “You’re too skinny,” she observed. “Very strong, but too skinny.”

  “I know the cause of that,” he replied, nibbling on her exposed arm. “Not enough cannoli.”

  “Blackheart,” she said, filled with an overwhelming emotion that felt uncomfortably close to love. “I—”

  The pounding began again, louder than before, and Blackheart jumped, swearing, and pulled away from her. “I’m going to see who the hell it is,” he said, grabbing his pants and crawling back down the bed. “And then I’ll give you the attention you deserve.”

  “Blackheart, no!” she wailed, jumping up and heading after him. “You can’t answer my door looking like that.” She grabbed a robe and yanked it on, reaching the living room just as he was opening the last lock. His jeans were zipped but unbuttoned, his bare chest had a few artistic scratches that she hadn’t realized she’d contributed, and there was little doubt as to what the two of them had been doing. “What if it’s somebody?” she hissed.

  The look he gave her would have quelled a sterner soul. “I expect it is,” he said calmly, unhooking the chain and flinging the door open. Ferris held her breath, expecting Phillip, expecting Regina, expecting God knew who. But not expecting the small, dapper man who stood there, temper darkening an already overtanned face.

  “Rupert,” Blackheart said numbly, pulling the door open to let him storm in. “What’s wrong?”

  “What’s wrong?” the angry man demanded. “What’s wrong, you ask me? What the hell isn’t wrong? You had to pick last night of all nights to do a disappearing act. Let me tell you, kid, your timing couldn’t be better. Couldn’t you have kept your pants on until the damned job was finished?”

  Ferris flinched, looking anxiously from Blackheart’s suddenly still face to the angry man in front of her. “Since no one’s making introductions,” she said with a last attempt at calm, “would you mind telling me who you are?”

  “I’m Rupert Munz,” he snapped. “And I’m this idiot’s lawyer.”

  “Lawyer?” she echoed, her voice a little rusty. “Why were you looking for Blackheart?”

  “Because, Ms. Byrd, his partner was arrested last night for grand larceny. And the San Francisco police department are greatly interested in Patrick Blackheart’s whereabouts.”

  “Grand larceny?” Ferris echoed, a horrid sense of déjà vu washing over her.

  Blackheart had a grim expression on his face. “The Von Emmerling emeralds.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with your thought processes,” Rupert snapped. “And at least you had a good alibi. She’ll testify?” A jerk of his head indicated Ferris, and Blackheart’s eyes followed meditatively. She knew what her face looked like, mistrust and condemnation wiping out the last trace of warmth. He’d used her, and she hated him for it.

  She could tell by the darkening of his face that he read her reactions clearly. Turning back to Rupert, he shrugged. “I don’t know. Do you think it will come to that?”

  Rupert frowned. “Who can say? They had a very nasty look on their faces when they questioned me about you. You may be about to have your first experience with the American penal system.”

  “No,” he said sharply. “I told myself when I got out of prison in England that I’d never go back; I’ll be damned if I let them pick me up when I haven’t been doing a thing.”

  “I don’t know if you’ll have any say in the matter. Not if you want to help Trace,” Rupert said heavily. “You can disappear for a while and leave Trace holding the bag, or . . .” He let the sentence trail off.

  “Trace is as innocent as a lamb—he doesn’t belong in jail, and you know it as well as I do. Has bail been set?” Blackheart snapped.

  “Not yet. I was on my way back there when I thought I’d check here. Kate said you might be here. She’s pretty upset, Patrick.”

  “I imagine she is.” He was still staring at Ferris’s shuttered face. “What do you want me to do?”

  “Stay put. I’ll check on what sort of evidence they have—they probably won’t arrest you without something to go by. Unless they’re so happy to finally be able to pin something on you that they don’t bother with such technicalities. You don’t need to worry—if they do, I’ll slap a false arrest charge on them so fast their heads will spin.”

  “I don’t know if that’s reassuring,” Blackheart said, his eyes grim.

  “Don’t worry about it. I’ll see if I can get them to drop the charges before they actually arrest you. But keep out of sight. Let her answer the phone, the door, whatever.”

  She could feel those tawny brown eyes on her averted face. “I’m not sure if Ferris is willing to be Bonnie to my Clyde,” he drawled. “I’ll be in touch, Rupert.”

  Rupert opened his mouth to protest, then shut it again. “Don’t let him answer the door,” he ordered Ferris sharply. “Not if you don’t want to see him in jail.”

  There was dead silence in the apartment when the door closed behind Rupert’s dapper figure. Ferris kept her face averted, the old terry-cloth robe pulled tightly around her as she turned to head down the two narrow stairs to the kitchen. Her sense of betrayal was so strong that it tore at her body, engulfing her in pain that left her numb and shaken. Blackheart didn’t move, but she could feel his eyes intent on her narrow back.

  “Rupert was making too many assumptions,” he said finally.

  Somewhere she found a rusty semblance of her voice. “What was that?”

  “That you don’t want to see me in jail. I get the feeling you’d be very happy to see me locked up right now, with the key thrown away.”

  She couldn’t even trust herself to look at him, much less deny his gentle accusation. “Would you make me a cup of coffee before I go?” he said suddenly.

  She had no choice but to turn at that, and the look on her face was cold and angry. “You’re going to abandon Trace after all,” she accused him. “You’re going to run off and leave him bearing the blame.”

  She had never seen such a look on any man’s face. It was as cold and still as death, and she stumbled backward against the kitchen door in sudden panic.

  An unpleasant smile curved his mouth. “I won’t hit you, Ferris,” he drawled. “Much as you deserve it. And you can believe what you want to believe. I’m not going to sit around and wait for the police to find me, and I’m not going to give you the chance to turn me in. I’m going out to find out who did take the emeralds, and when I find them I’m going to shove them down your throat.” He brushed past her on the way to the bedroom, and she controlled the urge to flinch away. Just as she controlled the urge to fling her arms around his sleek, muscled body and beg him to tell her he was innocent.

  She was still standing there when he emerged, black turtleneck pulled over his tousled head, boots on his feet, his jacket slung over his shoulder. “No coffee?” he drawled. “Nothing to send the weary felon on his way? Not even a good-bye kiss or a simple question? Such as, did you do it, Blackheart? Not that I’d find that element of doubt reassuring, but it would be a hell of a lot better than instant condemnation.”

  “Did you, Blackheart?”

  He stared at her for a long moment. “Damn you,” he said succinctly.

  The buzz of the doorbell shattered the tension. The two combatants stood there in the narrow hallway, motionless, condemning eyes watching the other. Ferris couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe, could only watch him with sudden desperation shattering her heart.

  The bell buzzed again, impatiently, followed by a steady pounding. A wry smile lit Blackheart’s bleak face. “It would
appear the police have found me.”

  She ran a nervous tongue over suddenly dry lips. They felt bruised to the touch, bruised from Blackheart’s mouth. “It might be someone else.”

  “Who else would be so vehement?” Blackheart murmured. “Don’t answer the door, Francesca.”

  His use of her real name almost convinced her. “They know we’re here,” she whispered.

  “They probably don’t have a search warrant. Just give me enough time to climb out over the terrace. Come on, lady, don’t be such a damned prude. Let me go. I don’t want to end up in jail for something stupid like this. It’s a matter of honor.”

  “Honor?” she echoed, her voice rich with bitter accusation. “You call it honorable to let your best friend take the blame for your robbery?”

  He froze, and the last bit of emotion died from his eyes, leaving them cold and brown as winter leaves. “Answer the damned door, lady,” he said savagely.

  “I didn’t say I wouldn’t—”

  “Answer the damned door. Or I will.”

  She couldn’t move. She could only stand there under the force of his rage and inexplicable pain and wonder if she had made the very worst mistake of her life.

  “Then I will.” He moved past her, careful not to touch her body, and the locks melted beneath his practiced touch.

  And still she stood there, as she heard the words drift past her. “You have the right to remain silent. If you give up that right . . .” And when she was finally alone again in her small apartment, when Blackheart had been marched away, those awful handcuffs on his beautiful wrists, when he’d gone without a backward glance, she’d stumbled back into her bedroom and fallen on the tumbled sheets, her heart and her eyes burning with pain and disillusionment and a doubt so horrifying that she pushed it resolutely away.

  Chapter Sixteen

  “REALLY, DEAR, I couldn’t be more distressed,” Regina Merriam murmured. “I can’t imagine how such a thing could have happened. I’ve known Trace Walker for years now, and he’s incapable of dishonesty.”

  “You can’t say that about Blackheart,” Ferris said in what she hoped was a desultory voice. They were having tea in a small coffee shop in the Mark Hopkins after doing their best to placate a semi-hysterical Miss Smythe-Davies, and Ferris wished they’d opted for the bar instead. In the three days since the robbery and the arrests, all hell had broken loose, for the Committee for Saving the Bay, for Senator Merriam and his staff—which included Ferris, in her own nebulous position, and his worried mother—and most particularly Blackheart, Inc. In the two years since Blackheart, Inc., had become society’s darling there hadn’t been a whisper of scandal about them. That halcyon reputation had come to an abrupt end.

  “I wouldn’t say that,” Regina replied. “Despite his earlier manner of earning a living, I’d trust Patrick with my life.”

  “Yes, but would you trust him with your jewels?” Ferris countered. It was only through constant vigilance that she had kept her inexplicable feelings of guilt at bay, and if Regina had noticed her unusual hardheartedness, she tactfully ignored it.

  “Absolutely. And if you thought about it, so would you. If he had taken the jewels, he certainly wouldn’t have hung around waiting to get arrested. If he were the kind of man the police and you seem to think he is, he would have taken off the moment the theft was discovered and let poor Trace rot in jail all alone.”

  “I don’t imagine Blackheart chose to get arrested,” Ferris murmured cynically.

  “Let me assure you, that if Blackheart had wanted to avoid getting arrested he would have. And even the police found they had nothing to hold him on. I think they just arrested him because they’d always wanted to. They just took the least little excuse they could find—”

  “The disappearance of a fortune in emeralds is not a little excuse,” Ferris said sternly.

  “No, I suppose not. But I know in my heart of hearts that Blackheart didn’t have a thing to do with it. And so would you if you were any judge of character. I just thank God he didn’t have to spend the night in jail.” Her patrician cheekbones were pink with indignation, and Ferris leaned forward to pat her hand.

  “Sorry, Regina. I’m afraid when it comes to Blackheart I’m no judge of character at all.” She sighed, taking a sip of her too-cool Hu Kwa. “Have you heard from Phillip recently?”

  “Last night. He’s distressed, of course, but handling it with his usual aplomb. He told me to tell you he’d be in touch next Sunday. He thought it would be best if he kept out of the Bay Area for the next week or so. That way he won’t have to answer any impertinent questions.”

  Ferris smiled wearily. “But he’s so good at dealing with impertinent questions.”

  “Better than Blackheart, certainly. I gather he punched a reporter from the Chronicle. Very unwise of him,” Regina mused.

  “Why did he do that? I’d missed that installment in this ridiculous soap opera.”

  “I gather the man was brash enough to ask Blackheart where he was the night of the robbery. Apparently he wasn’t arrested till the next afternoon, and various people are wondering if he was off stashing the jewels someplace and leaving Trace to take the blame. They haven’t turned up, you know.”

  “They will,” Ferris said, with more wishful thinking than any grasp of the situation. She could remember the look on Blackheart’s face when she’d suggested that he was going to abandon Trace, and knew with sudden clarity that when Blackheart had taken a swing at the reporter he’d been seeing her accusing face. She swallowed. “And then I’m sure it will become clear that Trace had nothing to do with it.”

  “And Blackheart, too,” Regina said sharply. “I certainly hope so. In the meantime—”

  “I was hoping I’d find you two ladies here,” Olivia Summers’s cool, arch tones broke into their conversation, and it was all Ferris could do to control the glare she wanted to direct in the tall blonde’s direction. “Miss Smythe-Davies didn’t seem any happier to see me than she was to see you. I thought I’d help placate her, but I didn’t seem to get any further than you did.”

  Regina gave her a distant, welcoming smile. “Join us, won’t you, Olivia? I expect Miss Smythe-Davies’s shattered nerves are beyond mending. I’m afraid we were less than a success. It was sweet of you to try your luck.”

  “Forgive my frankness, Regina, but are you sure you picked the right committee member to accompany you?” Olivia slid into the seat with her customary smooth grace. “Not that you wouldn’t be welcome, but given the circumstances I would have thought Miss Byrd would have been a less than wise choice.”

  Regina didn’t even try to hide the amazement that washed over her beautiful, lined face. “What in the world are you talking about, Olivia? What circumstances?”

  “Didn’t you know?” Olivia managed an expression of embarrassed concern that was just a shade too perfect. “I realize the details of Patrick’s arrest didn’t make the papers, but I assumed since you were so intimately involved . . . I’m sorry, I’ve been indiscreet. Forget I said anything.”

  “I think I should,” Regina snapped. “You know I don’t care for malicious gossip, Olivia, particularly about my friends.” Tossing the linen napkin down, she rose to her regal height, and even Olivia managed to look paltry. “I have things to do. Are you coming, Ferris?”

  Ferris’s wary green eyes went from Regina’s disapproving expression to Olivia’s sly smile. “I think I’ll share a cup of tea with Olivia. Call me, Regina?”

  “Certainly, dear.” She kissed Ferris warmly on her cheek. The look she gave Olivia would have withered a less self-centered person. “And you, young lady, watch your tongue.”

  “She’s a dear soul,” Olivia said with a bite of acid as they watched Regina thread her way gracefully through the closely set tables. “It’s a shame she has to be disillusioned.”

&nbs
p; “Does she?” Ferris sat very still, waiting for Olivia to strike.

  “But of course. Even if she won’t listen to me, someone, at some time, will tell her.”

  “Tell her what?”

  “Tell her about Francesca Berdahofski,” Olivia murmured. “Tell her where Blackheart spent the night when he was trying to establish an alibi and where he was arrested the next day, and then I doubt her fondness will extend enough to cover those particular transgressions. She’s a sweet old lady, but I don’t expect she’ll enjoy being lied to. It has the tendency to make people feel like fools when they’ve been tricked. Most unwise of you, Miss Berdahofski.” Her pink mouth curved in a pleased smile. “Tell me, does Phillip have any idea? I wouldn’t think so, but the man has surprising depth. I would be surprised if he’d overlook the night of the Puffin Ball, however. I still can’t imagine what Blackheart was doing there and not Phillip. Or were they both enjoying your rather earthy charms?”

  That had pushed it too far. Up till then Ferris had sat there, misery and guilt washing over her. But belated pride made her snap her head up, and the look in her green eyes daunted even Olivia for a moment. A few little pieces of the puzzle had begun to fall into place. The unexpected arrival at Carleton House last Sunday. A tryst with more witnesses than she had expected. The Von Emmerling emeralds clasped around her skinny neck. Ferris smiled, a dangerous smile indeed.

  “Nothing for me,” Olivia told the waiter who’d just made his appearance. “I’m leaving.” She rose, stretching gracefully, but Ferris wasn’t fooled. Every muscle in her slender body was tense. “You might remember not to trust every ex-felon who tumbles you into bed, Francesca. I never got my recreational sex confused with real life. As good as Blackheart is in bed, security is better. And you’ve just lost both.”

  Ferris gave her more than enough time to leave. She sat there, sipping at her cold tea, thinking with careful deliberation. She had jumped to too many conclusions in the last three days—she should have enough sense not to jump again.