Ballet Shoes and Engine Grease

by Tatiana March

  He smiled down at her. “You have a storm in your teacup.”

  “Storm?” She peered into her mug, saw the liquid sloshing about in her unsteady grip. She gave a small, breathless gust of laughter. “It’s coffee, anyway.”

  He lifted a hand and slid his fingers down her cascade of silvery locks, past the singed ends that felt rough against his palm. “Your beautiful hair…it’s burned…”

  Looking down, she picked up a handful of the pale strands in one hand and inspected them. “It’s just a bit scorched at the ends,” she told him. “It will trim off easily, just a couple of inches, maybe a bit of layering. But I smell like a wet poodle.”

  “You have smudges on your skin.” He released her hair and touched her forehead lightly with his fingertips. Then he trailed his hand down to her cheek. Softly. Gently. To the corner of her mouth, and said, “Your lips are dry from the heat and from breathing so hard.”

  She stared up at him. “Lip salve will fix it.”

  Irritation flared inside him at how casual she seemed of her welfare, how easily she brushed aside her injuries, as if she felt it was bad manners to make a fuss. The words burst out of him. “I never want to live through that kind of fear for your safety again. Do you hear me, Crimson?” His voice turned harsh. “No taking risks. You should have called for help, not tried to tackle the fire on your own.”

  “I know. I didn’t think.”

  “Typical feminine excuse,” he muttered, and lowered his mouth to hers.

  She tasted of smoke and rain, of coffee and a frightened woman. After a moment of hesitation, she parted her lips. Rising on tiptoe, she responded. The slight rasp from her chapped lips added an oddly erotic undertone of danger and night and flames to the kiss.

  Nick slipped his arms around her and pulled her close to him. The coffee mug she clasped to her chest became trapped between them. He felt a lick of hot liquid spill out, splashing on his shirt. He eased away and reached for the delicate china mug.

  “Let’s put that down before you burn yourself.”

  “No. Nick…I…” She clung to the mug, her fingers curled tight around the shape, her gaze flicking up to him and back down to the hot coffee again. “I…it’s been a hell of a night. I think we need to…regroup. Get some rest…”

  He lifted an eyebrow. “And not in the same bed?”

  “No.” Her rigid posture eased and she gave him a smile. “Not in the same bed.”

  “I can wait.” He took a step back.

  The need, as she’d said, to regroup, was stamped in the slight tremors that racked her slender frame and the nervous expression that flickered across her pale features. He would allow her to put some distance between them, for now. He moved back another step.

  As soon as his body no longer caged her in, she bolted, slipping sideways along the kitchen counter and then retreating to the middle of the floor. There, she turned around and walked backwards, the precious coffee still cradled with both hands high against her chest.

  “Thank you,” she said. “For thinking about my inhaler. For not pushing me tonight. For…everything.”

  “It’s all right.” He waited until she’d reached the kitchen door.

  “Crimson,” he called out.

  She halted on the threshold. “What?”

  “I can wait. Until tomorrow.”

  Her eyes snapped saucer-wide. She spun on her heels and dashed off at such speed, Nick suspected there might not be a single drop of coffee left in her cup by the time she reached the safety of her bedroom. He whistled a tune as he plucked another mug from the pine mug tree and poured a cup of the steaming black brew. All in all, he felt surprisingly pleased with himself, considering the day had seen mortal danger and the ruination of expensive property.

  ****

  Crimson had intended to disregard Nick’s order to take the day off, but by the time she awoke at half past nine, he had already left for the office, leaving her stranded without transport. She dressed in jeans and an ivory cotton sweater and went to the kitchen, where she found a note from him propped against the coffee machine.

  Don’t forget to go to the doctor. She crumpled up the piece of paper and tossed it in the trash. As long as she took her medication and suffered no complications, there was no need to go rushing off to the doctor every time she got out of breath.

  She was reaching for a clean cup up on the shelf when Soames materialized from the hall, as silent as a ghost, carrying a breakfast tray. “I’m sorry, Miss Crimson,” he said. “I meant to take this up to your room.”

  “I’ll eat in the kitchen.” She hurried up to him and leaned over the tray, inhaling the delicious scents of scrambled eggs and ham and mushrooms. “I’m starving.”

  Soames swung the tray aside, like a miser hoarding his savings. “Mr. Constantine said that I’m only allowed feed you once you’ve agreed to visit the doctor. I’ve made an appointment for you at half past eleven.”

  Crimson stared at the slight, dapper man. “Are you blackmailing me?”

  “Yes,” Soames said, rather smugly, she thought.

  “Fine. I’m going to eat in that diner in town…Betty’s, I think it is called.”

  “How will you get there?” Soames asked. Crimson had always considered him totally lacking in emotion, but now she could see humor lurking in his pale green eyes. They’d never discussed the topic, but it dawned on her now that Soames knew she couldn’t drive.

  “I’ll get my mother to drive me.” She spun on her sock feet—ballet dancers like to rest their feet whenever possible—and stalked up to the morning room, where her mother had set up her dolls’ house workshop.

  Thick layers of cardboard protected the floor, making her steps springy. On the big table sat a regency mansion. Three stories, each with a neat row of sash windows. A portico over the front door. Tools and materials littered the tabletop. Tiny paint pots, chisels, knives, glue, swatches of fabric and wall paper and a bowl of papier maché.

  Her mother looked up. “How are you feeling?”

  “I’m fine,” Crimson replied.

  “Are you sure?” Esmeralda put down whatever little object she’d been shaping out of the dollop of sticky paper paste and walked up to her. She stared at Crimson in the intrusive bug-in-a-jar manner that mothers use to study their children at times when they suspect those children might be suffering from some ailment.

  Crimson took an evasive step. “I’m fine.”

  In full attack mode, her mother shot out an arm and clasped her chin and twisted her neck to turn her face toward the light for a better look. Crimson wrenched her head loose and wiped a sticky stain of papier maché from her chin.

  “For the third time, I’m fine.” She tried to distract Esmeralda by lifting off the front from the dolls’ house and inspecting the interior. “This is amazing.”

  “It’s a duke’s residence.”

  Crimson studied the downstairs rooms. Delicate rose couches, washed silk wallpaper, tiny paintings on the walls. She slanted a glance at her mother. Esmeralda was busy shaping something in her fingers again. Her turquoise top, shaped like a tent, clashed with her purple jeans. Her makeup was too loud, her hair too wild. How could someone show such exquisite taste in furnishings and none whatsoever when it came to her person?

  “Could you drive me to Longwood?” Crimson asked.

  “To the doctor. Sure.”

  “No. To Betty’s. The diner.”

  Esmeralda paused her fiddling. The object in her fingers was taking shape. A little joint of ham for the kitchen table, Crimson guessed. Even when only looking at a soggy mass of paper paste that represented an item of food, her stomach growled and her mouth watered.

  “I’m not allowed to take you anywhere unless you promise to go to the doctor,” her mother announced, with the same smug air that Soames had sported. “Nick’s orders,” she added. “My life is worth more than crossing that young man.”

  Crimson flung her arms up in the air. “Has the world gone crazy?”
she demanded to know and stormed out. Then, when she heard footsteps on the stairs and spotted a flash of auburn hair, she yelled for Judy.

  The younger of the two maids, Judy was just over twenty. Her only ambition in life was to get married. Martha, on the other hand, was in her forties, divorced, already going gray, with deep lines of dissatisfaction etched on her face. Her main purpose in life was never to have anything to do with a man again.

  Judy came down the stairs, acting a little frightened, it seemed to Crimson. The girl, dressed in one of the many sets of black leggings and white tops that she wore every day like a uniform, held up a hand, as if to ward off a blow. “I’m sorry, Crimson—they’d agreed to dispense with the Miss—I’ve had to lock your room.”

  “Lock my room? Is there…” She gave a horrified gasp. “Do we have pests? Moths? Carpet beetles? Mice, for heaven’s sake?”

  “No, no. It’s Mr. Constantine. Nick. He said I’ll have to lock your room as soon as you come out and hide the key and not give it back to you until you’ve been to the doctor.”

  “But my laptop…my phone…”

  Judy gave a jerky nod. “I reckon that if you kill me, it will be less painful than Mr. Constantine killing me. I’ve hidden the key. He said I must ask to see the prescription for more of those inhaler things before I give the key back to you.”

  “A conspiracy,” Crimson blurted out. “I’ve been…”

  Judy fluffed up her short auburn hair, an eager smile replacing the look of guilt. “You’re being looked after by your man. It’s the nicest thing that can happen to a woman.”

  “I’m not being looked after,” Crimson said through gritted teeth. “I’ve been grounded, like a disobedient child. And whatever gave you the idea that he is my man.” She drawled out the last two words, putting imaginary quotation marks around them.

  “He did,” Judy said. She spun silently on her soft leather shoes and marched back upstairs, smirking like someone who had just had the last word.

  ****

  Crimson capitulated, and Soames gave her breakfast. Esmeralda drove her to the doctor in the battered old Toyota that predated her marriage to a rich man. Never a snob, she refused to replace the rattling jalopy which she claimed was practically an antique.

  On their return, Judy produced the key, allowing Crimson to retrieve her laptop. She settled to work in the library. As her first task, she intended to have a cyber-argument with Nick about his highhanded manner, but the remote link to the corporate network failed to cooperate.

  Nicholas Constantine.

  Crimson typed his name into Google. She’d done it a couple of times before, when Uncle Stephan had enthralled her with tales of his wonderful son, but at those times it had been to find more recent photographs. Now, she wanted facts. After all, a woman had to get to know her man, didn’t she?

  Page after page, she downloaded motor racing history. Nick had raced in Europe, in something called Formula Three, and then in Japan, in Formula 3000. Both, she read, were breeding grounds for drivers aspiring to Formula One. She recalled Uncle Stephan saying that Nick had chosen Grand Prix racing abroad instead of the IndyCar Series in the US to avoid any chance of coming face to face with his father.

  Eight years ago, she learned, Nick had lost control of his vehicle during a race and spun into the tire wall around the track perimeter. He’d emerged unscathed and walked away, but the following day he had lost movement in his legs due to a latent spinal injury. After a period of rehabilitation, he had made full recovery, but he’d chosen to retire from racing.

  No wonder he insisted on her seeing a doctor.

  Trawling on, Crimson studied old gossip columns. Following the accident, Nick seemed to have gone on rampage, breaking hearts. As she read about his love-them-and-leave-them lifestyle, a chill settled over her.

  Fool, fool, fool. Secretly, she’d been thrilled over his protectiveness. Now, those feelings grew sour. Did he really think that he could just decide they would have an affair, and she’d fall in line with his plans? No way. No way.

  On one website, she found a reference to Nick Constantine’s fiancée, a woman called Marcela Aceves. Fingers shaking, she typed the name into a search engine. Marcela Aceves…Spanish expert on religious history… now Marcela Ballard…married to David Ballard, the heir to Ballard Automotive.

  Now she had a good idea why Nick hated David Ballard. The man had stolen his fiancée. The date of Marcela’s wedding to David Ballard was eight years ago. Crimson couldn’t find the exact date of Nick’s accident, only that it had been in the same year.

  Which had come first? The accident or the breakup? Had one triggered the other? Alternative headlines flashed through her mind. Jilted racing driver crashes car. Fiancée jilts injured racing driver. Which way had it been, if the events had a connection?

  She didn’t really want to know, she told herself. But one thing she knew for certain. She was not going to walk into the trap of handing her heart over to Nick Constantine and then having him trample all over it. All those warm, fuzzy feelings zipping and zooming inside her had better stay there. Hidden. Locked away. Until they died a natural death.

  Back to Contents

  Chapter Eight

  Lights shone from the kitchen windows when Nick returned to Longwood Hall around midnight. Satisfaction swelled in his chest. Crimson had waited up for him. It had been a long, difficult day. Despite the pressure of the investigation, despite all the distractions, he had found time to think about her, worry about her.

  When she hurried out to meet him in the hall, his eager gaze slid over her slender curves. Today, she wore stretchy silver leggings and a pale pink leotard over them. Her hair was twisted into a tight knot at the nape of her neck.

  “You look like cotton candy,” he told her.

  “Sweet and fluffy?”

  “Tempting and ethereal.”

  “I’m fine.” Brown eyes flashed in defiance. “I went to the doctor.”

  “I know.” Her combative tone drew a chuckle from him. “Soames told me. I called the house while you were out. I didn’t call your cell, in case you were driving.”

  He caught the flicker of guilt on Crimson’s face. Puzzled, Nick registered the slight flush that warmed her pale skin. “You did see the doctor?” he pressed.

  “Yes I did,” she reassured him. “There’s an inhaler in the kitchen by the coffee machine, and another one hanging from the lemon tree in the conservatory. I’ve been doing my ballet exercises in there. The handrail between the path and the plants makes an excellent barre.”

  He gave her a nod of approval. “Good girl.”

  She set off toward the kitchen. “How bad is the damage at the factory?”

  Nick followed her. “Two cars are a write-off. Another three will require major refinishing on the bodywork, but the engines and the rest of the mechanics are undamaged. The insurance assessor has been. He is supportive, despite the safety failings.”

  Crimson turned to face him, spinning gracefully on her toes. “What happened?”

  To avoid crashing into her, Nick had to come to an abrupt halt. He would have liked to pull her into his arms, but he carried a briefcase in one hand and a shopping bag full of documents that Anna had packed for Crimson in the other.

  He gestured with his head, and they resumed their path toward the kitchen, where he dumped the briefcase and bag of documents on the counter. “Gregg Watkins, the supervisor who inspects the paintwork on the finished cars, has confessed to leaving the paints out. One of his men had to go home in a hurry, and Gregg promised to tidy up. Then, just before he was about to pack up, he went into the cafeteria for a cup of coffee and simply forgot to go back to the manufacturing hall and put the paints away. He was the last person to leave the factory, so no one else noticed.”

  “It’s my fault,” Crimson said glumly.

  Nick studied her troubled expression. “How can it be your fault?”

  “Anna and Gregg belong to Longwood Players. The local drama
society. They are putting on Midsummer Night’s Dream. Anna is Titania and Gregg is Oberon. She uses every excuse to run out to the factory and talk to him. I think she has a crush on him. When you called yesterday, asking me to stay late, Anna offered to go the cafeteria and make me a sandwich. She has a key to the big refrigerator where food is stored overnight.”

  “And she didn’t want to put on an overall and safety glasses,” Nick said flatly.

  Crimson pulled face. “Can you blame her? She has a crush on the guy.”

  An image of Anna flashed before Nick’s eyes. Small, voluptuous brunette, with the smoldering glamour of Gina Lollobrigida, or Sophia Loren, or Claudia Cardinale. If she was after Gregg, she would have been reluctant to hide her feminine assets in baggy overalls and protective goggles, as required in the factory. More likely, she would have called out to him from the doorway, asking him to come out to the cafeteria. And then, she would have flirted with him like mad, making the poor man forget his own name, let alone the small matter of storing away a few tins of paint.

  “Damn,” Nick said. “Gregg didn’t mention it to me.”

  “Of course he didn’t.” Crimson rolled her eyes. “He likes Anna, or maybe he is just an old fashioned, gallant male. A man who’ll protect a woman at all costs.”

  Nick flicked his wrist to check the time. “I’d better call Hank and try to smooth things over. Hank wants to fire Gregg for a gross breach of safety regulations.”

  Crimson picked up the glass coffee jug from the hotplate, selected a mug from the tree and poured. “What about the lamp you found?” she asked. “Did Gregg leave it on?”

  Nick hesitated. He didn’t want Crimson to worry, but neither did he want to lie to her. “Gregg swears he knows nothing about the lamp,” he said finally. “The inspector from the fire department believes the fire was started when the light, which had been left on, toppled over and the bulb came to rest against a bottle of solvent. The heat burned through the plastic and ignited the contents. The mini explosion spread rapidly through anything flammable. If we hadn’t been in, working late, the whole place might have gone up in flames.”