by Anne Stuart
She allowed herself a brief glance downward through slitted eyes. It seemed like an endless drop, and the garbage bags didn’t look as if they’d provide too soft a landing, even assuming she was lucky enough to hit them. She couldn’t go down; her only choice was to keep trying to go up.
She pulled again at the vines, pushing with her feet, and managed to gain another few inches, almost back to within a foot of safety. The miniskirt was tight, too tight, impeding her movements, and for half a moment she considered pulling it up to her waist and climbing the rest of the way in her shredded panty hose. But even with no witnesses she couldn’t bring herself to climb around on the streets of San Francisco in her underwear, so she had to content herself with gritting her teeth, hiking the narrow skirt higher up her thighs and continuing upward.
Her pale, manicured fingernails were just inches below the edge of the balcony. She gave herself one last push, holding her breath as she released the vine and clawed for the edge of the terrace, determined to make it or die trying. Her hands caught the rim, slid for a second and then held, and with more panic than grace Ferris hauled her scantily clad body up and over, sprawling onto the wet slate surface, panting in fear and exhaustion, her eyes shut as the rain poured over her face and her wet curtain of hair.
She opened them a moment later and glared at her terrace door. She usually left it ajar, giving her erstwhile alley cat his freedom. But it had been a cold, nasty morning and Blackie didn’t like the rain, so like a fool she’d closed and locked it.
She considered taking off her shoe and smashing one of the panes of glass near the locked door handle. But her shoes were down on the sidewalk in a welter of garbage, and she had nothing that would break glass but her own fist. And she wasn’t quite desperate enough. Yet.
She could do it, of course, she thought, pulling herself to her feet and yanking her purse from around her neck. She could, for example, picture John Patrick Blackheart’s enigmatic face in the glass, a face she hadn’t seen in more than three weeks and of whose whereabouts at the moment she didn’t have the faintest idea, and she could take her fist and drive it right into his teeth.
But that would hurt her far more than it would him. She didn’t need a bloody fist and stitches, simply because she needed to take out on someone else the frustration and confusion of the last three weeks, the last few months, the last few hours and minutes.
She’d used a credit card on a terrace door before and succeeded, so she could do it again. Her bruised knees protested slightly as she knelt in front of the lock, her American Express card in hand, but she merely bit her lip, shoved her sopping hair out of her face, and applied herself. The American Express card bit the dust and was soon joined by her gold Visa card, her Macy’s card, and the one from Nordstroms.
Ferris looked longingly up at the glass, wondering if a karate kick might do the trick. She could limp for a while without greatly impairing her efficiency, if she wasn’t called upon to climb any more buildings and break into any more apartments. And there was something very appealing about the notion of kicking the mental image of Blackheart in the teeth.
She pulled out her Daughters of the Pacific membership card. The plastic was sturdier than the others, and it was the symbol of her successful transformation, from Francesca Berdahofski, daughter of immigrants, always on the outside looking in, to Ferris Byrd, self-made, elegant and self-assured, as if born to privilege. Membership in the Daughters of the Pacific was hard to come by—one had to be proposed by three members, one’s lineage had to pass muster, and one had to be voted on by the bluest blood of San Francisco. Even though Ferris knew how hollow such a victory, such a transformation of her life really was, she’d still secretly cherished the card and everything it stood for.
She slid it between the terrace doors, gently, coaxingly, as Blackheart had once taught her to do. The latch clicked, the door swung open, and thirteen pounds of smoky-gray, outraged tomcat raced out into the dusk, disappearing over the balcony without a backward glance.
“Glad to see you, too,” she muttered, pushing the door open, letting the heat and light envelope her shivering body. She stepped inside, sneezed, and shut the door behind her.
Her apartment, never known for its neatness, was in a worse shambles than usual. Consisting of six rooms and three short flights of stairs, it was a rambling rabbit warren of a place that she would sorely miss if and when she moved out. She shouldn’t be thinking if, not with piles of boxes stacked in every available space, waiting for their removal to Blackheart’s less colorful, more spacious quarters. But when one’s fiancé took to disappearing at odd times during the six months of their engagement, returning without a word of explanation, when he’d gone off again three weeks ago and hadn’t been heard from since, when there’d been a string of robberies in Europe that had reminded suspicious authorities of the heyday of the Blackheart family, then she too could only begin to wonder, to fall victim to the kind of doubts no engaged woman should have to harbor.
There was a light burning in the living room. She didn’t remember having left it on, but then she’d been in a foul mood that morning, having spent one too many lonely nights in her big bed, and she might not have noticed. She moved down the three steps, through the practically impassible dining room and up two steps into the living room. And stopped dead as her outraged green eyes fell on John Patrick Blackheart lounging casually on her sofa, a glass of brandy in one hand, her discarded raincoat folded neatly on the glass-topped coffee table in front of him.
“What the hell are you doing here?” she demanded, breathless with rage, surprise, and something else that was curiously, infuriatingly close to joy.
“How many times have you asked me that?” Blackheart replied lazily, not moving. “I suppose as many times as I’ve broken in to your apartment. At this point I’ve lost count. On the other hand, this was your first attempt, wasn’t it? What took you so long on the balcony? That lock should have been a piece of cake.”
Ferris dumped her purse onto the floor, ignoring the stray shiver that crept across her body. “You knew I was out there? Of course you did,” she answered her own question bitterly. “Why didn’t you let me in?”
At this point Blackheart did rise, his lithe, elegant body graceful as always in black denim, a black turtleneck and an ancient tweed jacket. He shed his jacket, dropping it onto the small couch, and advanced toward her. “I thought since you’d gotten that far, I shouldn’t deprive you of the triumph of breaking in. After that scramble through the ivy like Tarzan’s Jane, you deserved some sort of reward.”
“You saw me climbing up the building?” she asked in a carefully restrained tone of voice.
No one had ever thought Blackheart imperceptive. He kept advancing, but his eyes were wary, as if he knew just how dangerous Ferris Byrd was at that moment. “It was very impressive,” he said softly. “I think my favorite moment was when you pulled that ridiculous excuse for a skirt halfway up to your waist. Though your descent into the garbage bin had to run a close second.”
“You just stood there and watched?” She wanted to make absolutely certain she was understanding him correctly.
“Actually I sat there and watched from my car. It was pouring rain, you know.”
“Blackheart,” she said through gritted teeth. “I am going to stab you.”
“No, you’re not, dear heart,” he said, moving almost within range of her decidedly murderous rage. “You’re going to let me get you out of those wet clothes and ply you with brandy and coffee, and then you’re going to let me warm you up properly, and by the time we’re finished you’ll realize how pleased you are at having broken into your apartment without breaking any laws.”
“Don’t touch me, Blackheart,” she warned, backing away.
“It’s been too long since I’ve touched you, Francesca,” he murmured, his voice low and beguiling and completely irresistible.
He kept on coming.
“Whose fault is that?” She tried to summon up her earlier outrage, her anger and confusion, but all she managed was a plaintive little cry.
“Mine,” he said, reaching for her, his body now within inches of hers.
She batted at him, but his hands were strong, too strong, catching her shoulders and bringing her, willingly enough, to rest against his lean muscled warmth. He didn’t kiss her, simply held her against him, held her until the shivering stopped and her tight muscles loosened, held her until her arms slid around his waist and she tilted her wet face upward.
And then a sigh left his body, as if he’d been holding his breath, and his mouth dropped onto hers, lightly, teasingly, arousing her with such immediacy that she was once more lost, lost—and resentful of that fact.
But right then her mind wasn’t working too well. He’d already managed to unfasten the buttons on her silk shirt, and now he was pushing the wet material off her shoulders and down her arms, letting it drop in a sodden heap to the floor. He found the zipper of her skirt, and with one deft move had managed both to unzip and slide it along with her shredded panty hose down her wet legs. She stepped free of her clothing, clad only in peach silk bikini briefs and a lacy scrap of bra, and was shivering again, this time with something other than cold.
Blackheart slipped his deft, beautiful hands up her sides, cupping the generous breasts that spilled from the inadequate bra, and his tawny-brown eyes were hooded, his breathing was rapid, and his lips were thin with longing. “I missed you, Francesca,” he whispered. “I missed you damnably.”
In response she moved her trembling hands under the fine cotton knit of his turtleneck and began to draw it upward, her knees weak, ready to pull him down onto the floor and make love to him then and there, when a sudden pounding on her flimsy door broke into her consciousness, wiping away any desire and replacing it with fear.
She jumped away from him as if burned, her green eyes looking up into his in a sudden panic she couldn’t hide. His own expression was rueful. “Don’t look like that,” he said gently. “As far as I know, no one’s after me. Go get your robe on, and I’ll answer the door.”
Ferris ran, slamming her bedroom door behind her as she heard Blackheart head for the front door. She was shaking all over, both with frustration and a sudden, incomprehensible reaction that had nothing to do with the moment, that simply brought back another time, six months ago, when a peremptory rapping at her door had shattered the tenuous relationship she and Blackheart had just managed to build up.
He was right, of course. No one was after him just now. No one should have been after him back then, either, but he’d still ended up in jail. When a man spent half his adult life committing crimes, he was more than likely to spend the other half paying for them, in little ways or big ones.
It was something she had to learn to accept; she knew that. It was just at certain moments, moments like these that all her good intentions vanished, and she felt vulnerable. And after thirty years of trying to protect herself, she didn’t like feeling vulnerable one tiny bit.
She didn’t pull on her robe. Now that Blackheart’s hands were back where they belonged, she no longer felt so trusting. Before she went to bed with her long-lost fiancé she wanted to find out exactly where he’d been for the last three weeks and for that matter, where he’d been disappearing to for the last several months. Somehow she needed to pry that information out of him without displaying an unflattering amount of distrust.
She pulled on a faded pair of jeans and a t-shirt over her damp underwear, ran a brush through her wet tangle of dark hair and headed for the doorway. She was foolish to be so paranoid, she told herself. Whoever had come pounding at her door could only be a nosy neighbor or an importunate salesperson.
She opened the bedroom door and moved lightly toward the sound of voices that was coming from the living room. “Who is it, Patrick?” she murmured, then stopped short. She knew, she just knew that all color had drained from her face and her heart had skidded to a stop, just as her body had.
“How can I help you, officer?” she managed in a deceptively calm voice, noting with distant relief that Blackheart’s beautiful wrists were free of handcuffs. He was glaring at her, however, his narrow, clever face suddenly cold and distant, and she wondered if he’d been able to read her mind, read her sudden dread and distrust.
“He’s come about the littering, Ferris,” Blackheart said in a gentle voice. If she’d had any doubts about his anger, they had now vanished. He never called her Ferris unless he was very mad indeed.
“Littering?” she echoed, giving the uniformed officer her full attention. He was tall, bland and beefy, towering over Blackheart’s five feet eleven inches by a sizable margin, and he looked both stern and embarrassed.
“Yes, ma’am. Someone dumped some garbage cans onto the street outside, someone answering your description. I wondered if you had anything to say about the matter.”
“Give it up, Ferris,” Blackheart drawled. “Clearly there’s been an informer on the job.”
“Probably Mrs. Melton from down the hallway,” Ferris said bitterly. “She always sees what she’s not supposed to see.”
“She was probably having as good a time as I was watching you break in,” Blackheart murmured.
“Break in?” the policeman questioned.
“To my own apartment,” Ferris hastened to explain, returning Blackheart’s glare. “That’s how the garbage got spilled. I had to use the empty garbage can to climb up onto my balcony. I’ll go down and clean up the mess.”
“The city would appreciate that, miss,” the cop said stolidly. “I’ll let you off with a warning this time, but I wouldn’t want it to happen again.”
“Neither would I,” Ferris said wholeheartedly.
The officer turned to leave, then paused, peering at Blackheart’s shuttered face. “You look familiar to me,” he said.
“Do I?” Blackheart’s own tone was unpromising. “I guess I have that kind of looks.”
“You sound foreign, too. English?”
Blackheart wasn’t liking this one tiny bit. “Half-English,” he said briefly. “I’m not the one who dumped the garbage can, officer.”
“Such a gentleman,” Ferris said sweetly.
But the policeman wouldn’t be distracted. “I never forget a face. I must have seen you somewhere, and it’s going to bug me until I remember where and when.”
“Then for your sake I hope you’ll remember soon,” Blackheart said icily. “Was there anything else?”
“I’d better go down,” Ferris said hurriedly, eager to break up what might turn into a nasty confrontation. She grabbed her coat from the couch and headed toward the door. “I’ll be right back. Why don’t you make me some coffee, Black—darling?”
Blackheart’s face darkened even more. “Why don’t you remember to wear shoes, if you’re going out among the garbage again?” he countered.
Ferris stared down at her bare feet, then back at the glowering cop. “I left a pair down there,” she said, taking the policeman’s burly arm and pushing him, gently but forcibly, through the open door. “I’ll be right back.”
“Take your time,” Blackheart said softly. “I’ll be waiting.”
THE SLENDER YOUNG woman stood off to one side, leaning against the elegant seating that would soon be folded and packed in readiness for shipping across the Atlantic Ocean, through the Panama Canal to the west coast of the United States. She knew she was in the shadows; no one could see her expression as she watched the act in the center ring of the small, elite circus.
The Porcini Family Circus had been in existence for more than a hundred years. The current owner and latest to bear the name Porcini was high overhead, involved in his act. Marco Porcini was only an adequate aerialist, but he always managed to get the crowd to their
feet, if not for his grace, then for his sheer arrogance. He would try anything, and the woman watching knew that if he ever fell, his reaction would be nothing more than astonishment.
She could hear the crowd ooh in anticipation. She looked up, way up, at the man who called himself her husband. She watched him as he edged his way across the narrow wire, digging her fingers into her palms, her heart pounding, her pale face beaded with sweat.
“Pretty dangerous tonight, eh?” Rocco, the old clown, had come up beside her and was following her gaze. “No net. Marco shouldn’t count on having a charmed life.”
“No,” she said in a shaky voice. “He shouldn’t.”
“Don’t worry, cara,” Rocco said, patting her affectionately on the shoulder. “He’ll be all right.”
And Dany Bunce, better known as Danielle Porcini, looked up at the man high overhead, and prayed that he might fall.
Chapter Two
Suspicion
(MGM 1947)
THE RAIN WAS pouring steadily, sliding down the neck of Ferris’s raincoat. Her high-heeled pumps were even more uncomfortable on wet, bare feet, and several of the garbage bags had split when she’d tossed them indiscriminately onto the sidewalk. Gritting her teeth, she struggled and shoved and pushed the unwieldy bags back into the battered garbage can, rolling it back into the alley with a furious clang, all under the watchful eye of her disapproving patrolman. Through it all she cursed Blackheart under her breath.
The temperature had dropped with the setting sun, and it took all Ferris’s determination to keep from shaking with cold as she stomped back into her building, up the narrow flight of stairs, the simmering heat of her anger the only thing warming her chilled body.
Blackheart was gone. “I’ll be waiting,” he’d told her. A lie. How many other lies had he told her?