Spike got a kick out of watching Vivian turn pink.
“I been meanin’ to tell you how I’ve gone over every inch of this house,” Wazoo said. “If there’s one o’ them foreign eggs here, I jest don’t know where.” If she thought about how she’d made off with Vivian’s book, she never mentioned it and neither did Vivian.
“Forget the egg,” Vivian said. “We have.”
Spike didn’t think that was entirely true but he was glad to hear it anyway. They figured that Guy Patin had hidden his precious egg as his own insurance against bad times. His riddle, dreamed up when he discovered he would soon die, hadn’t been just a riddle, but a way to make the egg safe from a casual searcher who didn’t have Guy’s clues to follow.
The instant Wazoo was out of earshot he put an arm around Vivian and said in her ear, “Confession time. For a number of hours now, I’ve been seeing things.”
Vivian looked at him sharply.
He nodded gravely. “Scenes. You’re in all of them. Me, too. And I’ve been feelin’ a certain way. And I’ve gotta tell you, cher, I think things are as greased and primed as they need to be.”
She turned in his arm, rested her hands on his neck and kissed him until he moaned. “Time to go?” she whispered.
“Reckon so.”
The guitarist had taken a break but from the open room behind them came the sound of the old piano. They peered around to see Cyrus, still wearing his collar but without his jacket, sitting there, bent over the keys. Madge perched on the end of his bench to watch.
Cyrus began to play, and to sing. Vivian hadn’t known he sang. His voice was a warm tenor with a heart-squeezing break.
“Listen to him,” she told Spike. “Is there anything he can’t do?”
He glanced at her but didn’t comment.
The piano needed tuning. Several notes didn’t work at all but Cyrus kept right on singing “Your Love Amazes Me,” and conducting with his spare hand during missing notes.
When it was over, everyone applauded and called for more, but he became bashful and wouldn’t be persuaded.
“Hey, Spike.” Marc bent over him and said quietly, “Is there anything I need to explain to you? Just so you’ll feel you can take your bride wherever it is you’re going?”
Spike smiled and shook his head. In fact he and Vivian didn’t know just where they were going but that’s the way they wanted it.
Joe approached next. “Nothing to worry about,” he said. “Just follow your instincts.” And Spike suspected a plot that was giving some people a good laugh.
“Ready, cher?” he asked Vivian.
She jumped up and pulled him with her, to the delight of the group gathered around them.
Wendy stood front and center, and accepted kisses from both of them, and hugs. “I’m not gonna ask to come with you again,” she said, wrinkling her nose. “I’m staying with Gramps and Charlotte and they say I wouldn’t like where you’re going.”
That brought a chuckle.
Cyrus tapped Charlotte’s shoulder and gave her an envelope. Crimped up along its length, it was made of pale purple tissuelike paper. “Just tuned the piano for you,” he said. He shot a glance at Spike and Vivian and rolled his eyes, making them both chortle. “Someone slid that in the works.”
“I know what it is, me. I know what it is.” Wazoo went into one of her famous capers. “Why didn’t we think of that? The message was torn, remember? But it say, ‘…all the right notes.’ So God man play the right notes and he don’t get a thing ’cept that letter. It gonna tell us where that damn egg is, see if it don’t.” She waggled her head. “Excuse the language.”
Charlotte worked open the flap, but gave the envelope to Vivian.
One sheet of paper, folded in half, slid from inside and she read it. Then she frowned.
“What it say?” Wazoo demanded.
Vivian cleared her throat.
“Last coming
First going.
First coming
Last going.
Which way?”
She folded the paper again.
“That’s it?” Charlotte said.
“Uh-huh,” Vivian told her, and gave back the envelope and paper. “Have fun. I think it’s time Spike and I got going.” She put a hand under his arm.
The bags were already in Spike’s pickup—now minus the boiling and barbecue equipment. The two of them had opted not to change, mainly because Vivian was too fond of her wedding dress.
Shouts and cheers went up and a few of the hardier guests ran beside the truck on its way down the drive, but eventually they fell back. Spike and Vivian waved to them from the windows. They had been spared the shaving cream announcements on the vehicle, but cans clattered and clanged behind.
When they approached the gates, they looked at each other and Spike stopped the truck. He climbed out to cut the cans free and toss them inside the back.
He looked over his shoulder to make sure he wasn’t being watched from the driveway and heard Vivian’s door slam. “Which way?” she asked. “Which way are we going?”
Spike shaded his eyes to look at her. “You get to pick, sweetheart. I’ll follow you anywhere.”
She stood there, her feet planted apart in strappy white sandals with high heels. “Which way?” she said again and backed toward the road.
For a moment he thought she intended to run and have him chase her. He was game, but feared she might break an ankle.
Vivian went only as far as the gates and he caught up with her there. She crossed one foot over the other, leaned on one post and pointed upward.
“Have you changed your mind about this?” he asked, before he glanced above her head, at the stone finial on top of the post, one of the two pineapple-shaped ones that flanked the entrance. “Wow. Could it be…Last coming, first going. Which way?”
“All depends, doesn’t it,” she said. “Think we’re right? Could it be in one of these?”
“Could be.”
She ran around him and hopped back inside the truck. From the window she said, “Do you care?”
“Can’t say I do much.” He got in beside her and took off the brake. “Do you?”
“Not right now. Maybe later.”
FABERGÉ EGG SOLD AT AUCTION
Bearing the stamp of Michael Perchin, supervising Fabergé goldsmith prior to 1903, a formerly unknown Fabergé egg (discovered in Louisiana) has been sold at auction for an undisclosed sum.
Experts attest that although the small (41/2” high) masterpiece does not appear to be one of the eight eggs known to be missing from the Russian Czarist collection, this is indeed a Fabergé. Part of the egg’s value, the experts say, results from its mystery.
18K gold beneath a shell of the master’s unique oyster enamel (changes color in different lights), the piece is trellised with gold. At each trellis intersection are flowers of pearls with sapphire centers. The egg rests on three sapphire-encrusted cabriolet legs with rose diamond feet. A large rose diamond crowns the egg.
As with all formerly known Fabergé eggs, this one contains a “surprise,” in this case a two-inch jade bowl containing a perfect miniature pineapple cast in gold with jade leaves.
Also by
Stella Cameron
A USEFUL AFFAIR
NOW YOU SEE HIM
TESTING MISS TOOGOOD
A GRAVE MISTAKE
A MARKED MAN
BODY OF EVIDENCE
CYPRESS NIGHTS
All the characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author, and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all the incidents are pure invention.
All Rights Reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Enterprises II B.V./S.à.r.l. The text of this publication or any part thereof may not be reproduced or transmitted in any
form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, storage in an information retrieval system, or otherwise, without the written permission of the publisher.
This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the prior consent of the publisher in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
MIRA is a registered trademark of Harlequin Enterprises Limited, used under licence.
Published in Great Britain 2009.
MIRA Books, Eton House, 18-24 Paradise Road,
Richmond, Surrey, TW9 1SR
© Stella Cameron 2003
ISBN 978-1-4089-1445-8
Table of Contents
Cover Page
Praise
Title Page
Dedication
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
FABERGÉ EGG SOLD AT AUCTION
Other Books By
Copyright
Kiss Them Goodbye Page 40