What the Lady Wants

by Nika Rhone

  “Sure.” She stepped back to disengage from Oliver’s hold, which had stopped being helpful and was now simply uncomfortable. “I guess I can tear myself away from the festivities for a few minutes.” She thought a flash of temper sparked in his eyes right before he offered his arm. It was the gentlemanly thing to do, especially since they’d be moving through a lot of people and were likely to get separated otherwise. Still, she couldn’t explain the great reluctance with which she tucked her hand into the crook of his arm.

  “For you.” He offered her the glass of champagne he held. “You look like you could use it.”

  Accepting the drink out of politeness, she gave Oliver a bright smile. “Thank you.” Knowing Francine would be following wherever they went as her official shadow for the evening since Doyle was her official date, she said with a flourish of her glass, “Lead on, Macduff. Let’s go see what good old Chuckie wants.”

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  “Lost your lady already, young man?”

  Doyle broke from his casual—or so he thought—perusal of the room and looked down at the diminutive woman standing beside him. He’d been introduced to Josephine Pierce earlier in the evening and had liked her immediately. Brash and opinionated as only the elderly could be and get away with, she’d put a much needed infusion of humor into the evening, giving a spot-on and often sharp-tongued rundown of the milling guests and glitterati.

  Still, he was a little surprised that Amelia’s great-aunt had approached him to chat. They had little in common, although he supposed they were kindred spirits in a way: invited yet unwanted guests. From what Thea had told him, Meredith Westlake considered her aunt a bit of an embarrassment and had only extended the invitation because it was proper etiquette to do so, fully expecting her to do the polite thing and decline.

  Unfortunately for her, Josephine didn’t oblige.

  “Ma’am.” He dipped his head respectfully while ignoring her question. “Can I get you something to drink?” When she gave a regal nod, he turned to the bartender. “Bourbon, neat.”

  He’d already seen her knock back at least two of them like they were water. Not that they seemed to have affected her at all. The woman might be well past the three-quarter century mark, but she had a cast-iron stomach, and the constitution of an army mule.

  The old woman cackled, tapping her heavy wooden cane against the floor to punctuate her laughter. Doyle got his toes out of the way just in time.

  “At last, someone who understands what a real drink is. Thought you’d try to pawn some of that prissy champagne off on me like everyone else has been doing, or, worse, one of those silly old-lady drinks. I like a man who appreciates a good whiskey.”

  “I’m more of a beer man, myself.”

  “But not tonight,” she said shrewdly, glancing at the half-full glass of ginger ale he held.

  “No, not tonight.”

  “Too bad. The way the night’s shaping up, you might be wishing you’d had a good stiff shot or two.”

  Doyle had a feeling she was right.

  “Can’t go wrong with a good, cold beer, though,” Josephine said as she accepted her drink from Doyle, “unless it’s one of those damned fruity microbrew monstrosities. Man would get himself laughed straight out of Texas for drinking something like that in public.”

  Refraining from comment, Doyle smiled and sipped his soda. He knew if he gave her the slightest encouragement, she’d be off and running with a topic she obviously had very strong opinions about. He recognized the type. His brother-in-law, Sean, was the same way. Give him a topic, any topic, and he could debate you on its merits until your ears bled and you were begging to agree with him.

  Then he’d change sides, just to be contrary.

  Sensing she wouldn’t get the rise out of him she’d been hoping for, Josephine harrumphed and turned her attention where Doyle’s had already gone, to the seething mass that clogged the enormous ballroom. The vaulted ceilings kept the room from feeling closed in, but there was no way that several hundred people could occupy the space and not be considered a crowd.

  Somewhere in that mess was Thea, sticking to her friend’s side like a preemptive Band-Aid. Doyle felt a huge pinch of sympathy for Amelia’s situation, but the newly emerging possessive part of him wanted Thea back at his own side. He tried to tell himself it was because it was the only place he could be certain Thea was safe, despite the fact Francine was watching over her, but he knew he was lying. He wanted her there because she felt right there.

  “I thought it might be that way.” Josephine sipped her drink with obvious relish.

  Doyle tore his attention away from his search with great difficulty. “What way, ma’am?”

  She clucked her tongue. “Stop ma’aming me, young man. Makes me feel old.”

  “Only if you stop young manning me. Ma’am,” he added deliberately and broke into a smile when she did as well.

  “Fair enough, fair enough.” She sipped her drink, her gaze roving over the crowd, before answering him. “Took you for just young Cynthia’s escort when we were introduced before. I can call her young, can’t I?” she challenged, although there was a spark of humor in her dark eyes.

  “She’s not here to object, so I don’t see why not.” Even as he said it, his gaze reflexively went back to the crowd. She and Lillian had followed Amelia into the private withdrawing room a pretty long time ago. Surely she had to be almost done doing whatever it was those three did together by now.

  “And that’s what has you all tied up in knots, isn’t it?”

  She rapped her cane again, drawing his attention back to her and her knowing smile.

  “Ma’am? Ah, sorry. Mrs. Pierce.”

  “Never mind, never mind.” With a flip of her wrist, she finished the last of her drink and handed the empty glass to Doyle. “Would you see me back to my seat? Dinner will be served soon, and I don’t trust this lot not to knock me on my keister when the feed bell sounds. Free food comes in second only to free booze with the Washington freeloader crowd.”

  Doyle subdued a laugh. No wonder Meredith Westlake considered her aunt persona non grata. Her opinions were as free-flowing as the two hundred-dollar-a-bottle champagne and went down much less palatably.

  Taking her free hand and tucking it into his elbow, he helped Josephine to where their table had been set into a corner, so far from the dais where Amelia, Charles, and their parents were to be seated that it was practically in a different room. Thea had been furious when she’d seen the placement. Evidently there had been some last minute reconfiguring in guest ranking, and they’d been shuffled to the back of the room to make way for someone that had been deemed more important.

  Settling his elderly charge into one of the comfortable red velvet chairs, Doyle once again scanned the surrounding crowd. Still no Thea. Worry was nibbling at the edges of his instincts. He tried to ignore it, but he’d relied on those instincts for far too many years to not heed them now.

  “No sense going to look for her,” Josephine said, evidently noting his agitation. “She’ll be back when dinner’s announced. You’d probably just pass each other in the chaos. Although you may want to have a waiter get you a bud vase for that,” she added. “A nice touch, but it’ll be dead by the end of the evening without water.”

  “What?” Doyle forced his attention to her words, frowning because they made no sense. “I’m sorry. What do you mean?”

  “The flower.” She nodded her head across the table to where Thea’s place card sat. A single red rose lay across her plate. “Very romantic.”

  Doyle stared at the rose that hadn’t been there when they’d first arrived. Confusion morphed into something closer to panic. Uttering a curse under his breath, he stalked around the table and snatched up the piece of paper that was neatly folded under the flower, knowing he was improperly handling possible evidence and not giving a rat’s ass.

  His fingers shook as he unfolded the single piece of paper. The familiar spidery script jumped out
at him even as everything in him screamed in denial. One line only this time:

  Tonight you’re finally mine.

  No. Not here. Not with all of the layers of security in place. How the hell could the bastard have gotten in? How had he gotten this close with none of them knowing?

  Where the hell was Thea?

  Cursing himself for ignoring the instincts that had been nagging at him ever since she’d gotten out of his sight, Doyle pulled the earpiece that had been tucked inside his tuxedo collar into place, activating it and the mic clipped to his sleeve. “Francine, sitrep, please.” He waited for her to report, but got only dead air. “Francine, what is your location?” Still nothing.

  This isn’t happening.

  His instincts now screaming at him, Doyle almost knocked a waiter off his feet as he bolted toward the withdrawing room, ignoring Josephine’s worried call and the irritated glares from the people he jostled along the way. None of them mattered. Thea. Only Thea mattered. He had to find her, had to make sure she was safe.

  Please, God, let her be safe.

  Not bothering to knock, he slammed into the private room, his heart pounding.

  Empty.

  Doyle activated the mic again. “Red, we have a breach. Our perp is in the building.” His expression was grim as he turned and headed back into the seething mass of guests. “I’ve lost visual on the Lady, and Francine isn’t responding. Have everyone move to their secondary locations and hold until I say otherwise.”

  They had contingency plans ready for all of the ways things could have possibly gone wrong that evening. Moving his people to their secondary locations put them in position to block exits and start a search pattern if the absolute worst happened and he didn’t find Thea somewhere safely circulating with her friends and Francine’s equipment on the fritz.

  By the time he finally found Amelia ensconced in a small alcove with both mothers and an older couple who had the pinched, inbred look of someone who’d smelled something unpleasant, his temper was almost as raw as his nerves. He was sure there was at least one tray of shattered glasses somewhere in his wake, and most likely a Secret Service agent or two who were cutting through the crowd toward his location. That was just fine with him. He wanted everyone he could get at hand if it turned out his worst fears were warranted.

  And it appeared that they were. Panic scorched his tongue like acid when he saw that Thea wasn’t with her two friends.

  “Doyle, what the hell?” Lillian asked in surprise. From the way she and Amelia were staring at him, he could only assume he looked as wild as he felt.

  “Where’s Thea?” Please say she was just here. Please tell me she just went to the ladies’ room a second ago. Please tell me that I didn’t let her fall into the hands of that sick bastard because I thought she was safe.

  “She went to find you,” Lillian replied. A little of his panic seemed to be rubbing off on her, her eyes widening. “Like, ten minutes ago. Maybe more.”

  “Shit!” He ran a hand through his hair in frustration. It was possible they’d just missed each other in the crowd, but he thought, no, he knew that wasn’t the case. Not with the note, and not with Francine not responding.

  Mrs. Westlake drew herself up like a puff adder getting ready to spit.

  “Mr. Doyle! You will watch your language or I’ll be forced to ask you to remove yourself from these premises.”

  “Honestly, Meredith,” Mrs. Davenport said, “can’t you exert a little more control over your staff? I mean, really!” She turned to coo apologetic words to the horrified couple standing beside her, having made it clear that the offense was her co-hostess’s fault and responsibility.

  “It’s him, isn’t it?” Lillian’s voice quivered slightly.

  “What is going on?” Amelia looked from Lillian’s stricken expression to Doyle’s anguished one. “What’s wrong with Thea?” She stamped her foot and gave Doyle a hard shove in his shoulder. “Tell me, damn you!”

  Faintly registering Mrs. Westlake’s outraged gasp of shock, Doyle remembered that Thea had chosen not to tell Amelia about the stalker until after the party. Deciding it would take too long to explain, he focused on Lillian, who at least appeared up to speed on the situation.

  “He’s here,” he said in a low, dangerous voice. “He left this on the table for her.” He waved the paper that was half crumpled in his fist.

  Looking frustrated at being ignored, Amelia grabbed at the paper, her brow furrowing as she read it. “Why would Charles leave a note like that for Thea?”

  Everything inside Doyle stilled, frozen by words he heard but couldn’t quite comprehend. He stared down at Amelia. “What did you say?”

  The menace in his voice made her cringe, but then she straightened her back and shook the paper. “This is Charles’s handwriting, but there has to be some mistake. He must have meant to leave the note for me.” She looked from Doyle to Lillian and back, as though expecting them to understand. “‘Tonight you’re mine’? Hello? Engagement party. Right?” When they didn’t immediately agree with her, she looked to Lillian. “What’s going on that I don’t know about? Tell me!”

  Doyle ignored the demand and jabbed a finger at the paper she held. “Are you certain that handwriting belongs to Charles Davenport?”

  “Yes,” she said, while at the same time Constance Davenport said from behind her shoulder, “Of course, it isn’t.”

  Something close to a growl came out of Doyle’s throat. He nipped the paper from Amelia’s fingers and shoved it in Mrs. Davenport’s face. “Is this or is this not your son’s handwriting?”

  “I just told you that it isn’t.” She brought a hand toward her throat in a subconsciously defensive gesture of a prey animal faced with a slavering predator. “Charles has absolutely lovely handwriting. I wouldn’t have it any other way. That scrawl belongs to his assistant, Oliver Pratt.”

  “No,” Amelia said. “The letters. Charles wrote me letters. They were…personal.” Her cheeks reddened. “He wouldn’t have had Oliver…” She trailed off as the truth sank in. “He dictated love letters for Oliver to write,” she said in a flat tone.

  “Charles is much too busy to handle something as trivial as personal correspondence himself,” was Mrs. Davenport’s condescending response. “That’s why he has a personal assistant.”

  Doyle didn’t give a damn about any letters. “You’re positive about the handwriting?”

  “Why would I lie about something as ridiculous as that? Now, what is this all about?”

  The idea that she was lying to protect her son slid briefly through his mind, but Doyle discarded it. No way even someone as smug and arrogant as Charles would think he could get away with grabbing Thea from his own engagement party. It had to be the assistant.

  Pieces clicked into place in a way they had refused to before. The postmarks from around the country. The hints of intimate knowledge. The inferences of personal contact. Everything lined up with Pratt’s movements as part of the Davenports’ entourage as they stomped around the country drumming up party support for Charles’s upcoming primary bid and their stops in Boulder to visit his fiancée and her family.

  All the time and effort put into protecting her from the bastard who was stalking her, and she’d been accessible to him every time she’d gone over to visit her friend.

  There were dozens of security personnel in place both inside and out of the banquet hall. He had to believe there was no way Pratt had been able to find a way to escape without notice, not with Thea in tow. He’d taught her well enough not to go with an abductor without putting up a fight.

  He refused to consider that she might not be in any condition to resist.

  “Heads up, team,” he said, stalking away toward the nearest exit. “We have a Level One situation. The Lady is most likely with Oliver Pratt, Davenport’s assistant. Five ten or eleven, blond hair, glasses. He’s our letter writer. Find them. Whatever it takes, he doesn’t leave the grounds with her.” Having given unspoken permiss
ion to shoot to kill if it was deemed necessary, Doyle hoped none of his men had to act on the command.

  He wanted the pleasure of killing the bastard himself.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  “So where does Charles plan to have this talk—in a broom closet?”

  The snarky question was muttered half under her breath as Thea turned down yet another hallway in the nonpublic area of the banquet hall. She’d allowed for the fact that he might want a little privacy, depending on the topic he had in mind, but this backroom cloak-and-dagger act was getting ridiculous.

  Surely they could have found a quiet alcove somewhere in that monstrous ballroom where no one could overhear them. Then again, with a room full of reporters salivating for a story and the age of cell phone cameras catching everything that went on everywhere and instantly flinging it around the world via social media, she could understand his paranoia.

  Understand it, just not appreciate it. She really wanted to dance with Doyle before the night got too crazy and she missed her chance. And she had a feeling that the moment the toasts and speeches began, crazy was the least things were going to get.

  Plus she wanted a drink. One that wasn’t the overpriced, far-too-dry champagne Mrs. Westlake had insisted the catering hall offer to their guests. Thea was thirsty enough that she almost regretted depositing the glass Oliver had given her onto a passing waiter’s tray untouched.

  Enough was enough. Just before they turned a corner, she stopped and turned to look behind her. She didn’t like that Francine wasn’t anywhere in sight. “Oliver, stop. I need to wait for my—”

  The burst of pain as she was slammed into the wall knocked the unfinished words from her head with a startled cry of pain. A burst of light and then darkness filtered her vision on impact.