What a Woman Wants (A Manley Maids Novel)

by Fennell, Judi

  “Chips?” She complained about what he was putting in his body? He’d like to know in what jungle chips were native fare for birds.

  She shook her head and some of her curls swept over her breast—not that Sean was noticing or anything. “The song stuck and so did his dinner vocabulary. I’ve got the perfect diet for him upstairs in his cage. I guess I’ll head up. Don’t forget to pick out a new bedroom for yourself.”

  “I’ll do that.” Right before he got to work on that document.

  Chapter Eleven

  SURE you don’t want to come with me?” Livvy asked as she tugged the giant front door open the next morning in another gypsy skirt that brushed the tops of her combat boots.

  At least today she wore a baggy sweater instead of a camisole. He couldn’t have stood another day of her body-hugging wear and maintained his sanity.

  “I thought you wanted your animals in the barn tonight?” He sure as hell did. The mess they’d left in the living room this morning had put finding the next clue on the back burner.

  “Good point.” She swirled around, giving him another inadvertent glimpse at those shapely legs. “Okay, then, I’ll see you after the library and food shopping. Make sure the animals don’t get too rowdy. The fleece, you know.”

  Fleece was not uppermost on his mind this morning.

  Because you’re fleecing her?

  He turned away to hide his guilt. “Good luck with the research.”

  He’d had a hell of a time figuring out what the damn document had said, which explained some of his mood this morning. His dyslexia was severe enough that he’d known he’d had his work cut out for him. If only he weren’t dyslexic, he’d be able to read the clues and be off and running, far ahead of Livvy. But no. He was stuck with plodding through various online translation programs and the text-to-voice feature on his tablet that had saved his sanity and his business many times. Thank God technology had caught up with his “issue.”

  He’d gotten a crude double translation from all the programs, showing that the document had something to do with a gift from Queen Elizabeth I for service from her “most loyal knight.”

  There was one thing in this house that was owned by a knight and was a “reward still standing.”

  Twenty seconds after Livvy clicked the front door behind her, Sean was staring at the suit of armor. He ought to be making some business calls, but this was the most pressing matter in his business at the moment.

  Where would Merriweather have hidden the clue?

  He cautiously slid a finger beneath the opening at the elbow. Nothing.

  He tried the other elbow.

  Nothing there, either.

  A sound came from outside, and Sean jumped back. He didn’t need Livvy to walk in and find him with his hands in the guy’s pants or whatever they called that part of the armor.

  He counted to twenty, then went searching again. He wasn’t cut out for this subterfuge. Site plans and financial documents, yes. This? No wonder Bond needed a martini.

  And a beautiful woman.

  Sean shook his head, clearing the image of Livvy’s legs from his mind. He had to hurry up. He still had to move the rest of his stuff from his old room, check in with his permit clerk to confirm everything was still moving forward on that end, touch base with the architect who’d been out last week to take measurements, make sure none of Livvy’s animals had gone for a walk, and get enough work done on the barn that she wouldn’t suspect him of doing what he was about to do.

  Sean shoved the guilt behind a steel door in his mind and put a metaphorical lock on it. He couldn’t let it get to him. Business was business.

  Where would Merriweather have put the next clue? She certainly wouldn’t want anyone taking the suit apart; the woman loved the trappings of the family name too much to destroy something so vital to it.

  Sean tried the suit’s neckline.

  Bingo. There was a piece of paper wedged there.

  Ignoring the bleats from the lambs outside the French doors in the makeshift pen on the patio, Sean slid the paper out and unfolded it.

  More Latin graced the top of the letter and Sean groaned. English was bad enough. If Latin weren’t already dead, he might just try to kill it himself.

  Thankfully, it was only one line of Latin in scrollwork at the header of the page, then Merriweather’s precise handwriting.

  A half hour later, he listened to his tablet read it for the third time.

  Brava, Olivia, for following the clues to this, the suit of armor worn by Henry Martinson III, gifted to him by Queen Elizabeth I for his service. It was from this man that the Martinson estates became a force to be reckoned with. He played the political games of the times, kept his head, and set this family on the road to greatness.

  Now, in continuing your search, the next clue:

  His father founded the family’s fame

  ’Twas up to Henry III to secure their name.

  It took two wives for the deed to be done

  And bring forth that all-important son

  When at last the heir was born,

  The lord had it proclaimed that very morn

  For such joy could not be denied

  And he told all he spied.

  Any way that he could.

  I have preserved the deed in wood.

  Sean stared at the screen, the letters making as much sense as the clue. Wood? He had to find a piece of wood? Like there wasn’t enough of it in this place. Where the hell was he supposed to start looking?

  The crash that came from the animals’ holding cell might be a good place.

  I HOPE I’m not intruding, but you’re Merriweather’s granddaughter, aren’t you?” The older woman standing across from Livvy’s table in the library had a halo of silver curls framing her head, and the smile on her face lit up her sparkling blue eyes in a way that gave Livvy every reason to believe the woman was a friend of Dragonlady’s, but not the reasons why. Livvy would have bet Merriweather had never looked so carefree and happy in her life.

  “Um, yes. I’m Olivia—Livvy. You knew her?” She couldn’t actually call Merriweather her grandmother, not when this woman looked exactly like what Livvy had always wanted her grandmother to look like. Soft, smiling, and approachable.

  “Oh, Merri and I, we go way back.” The woman’s blue-veined hands rested on the back of the chair across from Livvy. “May I?”

  Livvy cleared the stack of books she’d been looking through. “Please.”

  The woman sat down. “I’m Dafna Fine. Your grandmother and I played backgammon a few times a month.” She interlaced her fingers and rested them on the tabletop. “Well, we liked to say we did, but actually, we just liked to get together to chat.”

  “Merri—my grandmother?” The woman played games? And chatted? Funny, the image Livvy had always had of her was either prune-lipped or barking orders.

  “Oh, my, yes. Your grandmother was a fine card player, too.”

  Cardsharp if Livvy had to guess, but she wouldn’t say it. Actually, she didn’t have a clue what to say. She hadn’t really known Merriweather. Not this side of her. “I, uh, guess you miss her.”

  Dafna’s smile faltered. “I do. There are so few of us left.”

  “Us?”

  “The girls. Surely she mentioned us?”

  Was this where Livvy poked a stick in the inflated image Dafna had of Merriweather’s largesse as a grandmother?

  She couldn’t. Not to those kind blue eyes. “I didn’t see my grandmother all that much.” That, at least, was the truth and surely something “the girls” would know.

  “Yes, I know. Pity, but then, she wasn’t the most flexible of people. She’d been incredibly hurt by your father. We told her not to take it out on you, but Merri did have her pride.”

  Merri? There was a misnomer if Livvy ever heard one.
And she was glad “Merri” had had her pride. Livvy hadn’t—nor much else either, but as long as Merri had hers . . .

  “Who are the other girls?” Livvy stacked the papers. She’d found what she needed and there was no sense wallowing in bitterness; that would let “Merri” win, and Livvy wasn’t about to allow that in any aspect of her life. With the information she’d collected over the last few hours, she was one step closer to beating Merriweather at this game.

  “Just Hetta and I are left. Hetta Rothenberger. She lives in The Palisades, you know. Merri had the suite custom-painted to match her home because Hetta hadn’t wanted to move. But when her husband passed, well, the house was too much for her. So Merri made a game of it. To see how much we could make the place look like Hetta’s old rooms. We still smile about it today, Hetta and I.”

  Dafna blinked and looked away, brushing the corner of her eye with her pinky finger while Livvy tried to figure out what to say. What to think.

  Her grandmother would do something like that? Merriweather Martinson?

  Livvy shook her head. It was as if she’d just discovered that the woman she’d known all along was a figment of her imagination.

  But those lonely years at boarding school weren’t her imagination, and neither was that forbidding trip to the estate as a child. Or the utter lack of contact, warmth, and acknowledgment.

  “Look at me.” Dafna laughed. “Going all maudlin. I’m sure that’s the last thing you want.” She stood. “I just wanted to meet you. Merri rarely spoke of you, but when we found out she’d left you the estate, well, Hetta and I knew she wouldn’t mind if we touched base. She was a proud woman, your grandmother. But she was loyal.”

  To whom?

  Livvy didn’t ask. It wasn’t fair to this kind woman. Merri was in the past and it couldn’t hurt to accept the olive branch Dafna was extending.

  And maybe she’d know something about one of the clues.

  Livvy shook the selfish thought from her head. She wasn’t like her grandmother, using people for what they could do for her.

  “Would you—and Hetta, of course—would you like to come out to the house for lunch some day? Say, next Wednesday? See if there’s anything of my grandmother’s you’d like to have.”

  Dafna’s eyes sparkled even more, if that were possible. “Oh, my, that’s so sweet. How thoughtful of you. Hetta doesn’t get out like she used to.” Dafna swiped at the corner of her eye again. “But thank you, Olivia. We’d love to come.” She tucked the chair beneath the table. “It’s been a pleasure. Your grandmother would think so, too.”

  Livvy didn’t, but she smiled anyway and waved when Dafna turned back at the sign-out desk.

  Livvy sat back. Merri? Backgammon? Cards? Decorating rooms for a . . . friend? Poems and hunky cleaning guys? There was a whole other side to the woman she’d never known.

  Had never been allowed to know.

  Livvy tossed her pencil onto the table. That’s right. Merriweather had made it more than clear who was important to her. Livvy wasn’t going to begrudge Hetta Rothenberger her painted rooms, but it stood as one more reason to find the clues and get away from this place and the memories she should have had but didn’t.

  She gathered her paperwork and books and stuffed them into her satchel. Enough dwelling. It was time to move on. Her dogs would be here soon.

  That was her life. The dogs, the animals, and her bakery. This little sojourn at the family homestead was simply a means to an end, and no trip down Memory Lane was going to derail her from her goals.

  Not Merriweather’s goals, not Mr. Scanlon’s advice, not even Dafna Fine’s well-intentioned suggestions.

  And no matter how much she hated to say it, not the hunky housekeeper, either.

  Chapter Twelve

  WELCOME back, Ms. Barnum. The rest of your circus has arrived.” Sean’s sarcasm made Livvy smile.

  She couldn’t help it; he just looked so darn hot all disgruntled.

  ’Course he looked hot no matter what. If he could pull off the Manley Maids’ mint green shirt and matching pants and still manage to be sexy, he could pull off anything.

  Livvy arched her eyebrows (simultaneously, dammit) while juggling the bags of groceries and her satchel as she tried to shut the front door behind her. “Where are they?”

  Sean grabbed the four shopping bags from her, the strength in his arms making her efforts almost laughable—though there was absolutely nothing laughable about his arms. Any part of him, actually. The man was actually better looking this morning than his rain-drenched self had been last night. Though she hadn’t complained about his clothes being plastered to that physique.

  “I put them in the Rose Room’s master bath. I figured they couldn’t damage the tile.”

  That snapped Livvy out of her pheromone-induced fog. “You put my dogs in a bathroom?” She slid the strap off her shoulder and tossed her satchel onto the foyer table.

  “The formal living room was taken, if you recall. By a herd of sheep. And a pair of amorous alpacas. What are you feeding those two, anyway? You might want to bottle it. You’d probably make a fortune putting little blue pill makers out of business.”

  “That’s the plan.” Her libido didn’t need any thoughts of aphrodisiacs in it, thankyouverymuch. Not with him standing right there, looking like that. Man, those pants were tight enough to send her imagination in several directions, and as for the way his shirt hugged his chest . . .

  Who needed little blue pills with Sean around?

  “It feels like you spent a fortune,” he said. “What’s in here anyway?”

  “Dinner.” And that’s all she’d say, still hung up on aphrodisiacs.

  “Oh, about that. I won’t be here. I, ah, have plans tonight.”

  “Plans?” He had plans.

  “Yes.”

  Plans he wasn’t sharing with her.

  “Oh.”

  “So you’re on your own.”

  Nothing new there.

  Refusing to dwell on that lovely thought, Livvy ran upstairs to the Rose Room. She could only imagine what the poor things were feeling being away from her for so long, traveling here in the back of a delivery truck, and now being cooped up in a bathroom.

  Thirty-two paws frantically shuffled on the tile floor as the dogs caught her scent. Then Ringo started barking. Paula joined in with her characteristic wolf-wannabe wail, then Georgia and John started crying. When Davy, Micki, Petra, and Mike joined in, it became a Beatles/Monkees medley in howl-minor.

  Claws assaulted the bathroom door when she ran into the bedroom. Then they assaulted her when she opened the door and the assorted breeds bowled her over.

  It took her about twenty minutes to give them all the loving they craved before they calmed down, but Livvy didn’t begrudge them any of it. Each one was a rescue and still had abandonment issues no matter how much she tried to alleviate them, but she could relate, so she gave them all the attention she wished someone had given her.

  Sean could call them her circus, Merriweather could spin in her grave, but Livvy didn’t mind whatever chaos the dogs caused. They were her family, such as it was, and she loved each one.

  Leading the now-behaved pack down the stairs, she bit her lip at the look of horror on Sean’s face.

  “Please tell me they’re going to sleep in the barn, too.”

  She shook her head.

  “The kitchen?”

  “On that hard floor? Are you serious?”

  He turned the color of his shirt. “Where?”

  “Which room haven’t you cleaned down here?”

  “They’ve all been cleaned.”

  Darn. She didn’t want to purposely ruin all his hard work, but the dogs needed a place to sleep.

  “My room.” Sure, why not? It’s where they’d slept at the co-op. The only difference now being that they’d sha
re a king-sized bed instead of a double. Winners all around.

  Sean just shook his head. “You know what they say about lying down with dogs, right?”

  “My dogs don’t have fleas.”

  “Let’s keep it that way. It’s going to be a big enough job fumigating that living room as it is.”

  She grabbed her satchel off the foyer table and slung the strap over her shoulder, wincing as the extra weight banged against her ribs. “How’s the barn coming? Anything interesting in the boxes?”

  “It’s coming. Slowly. Lots of dishes, knick-knacks, linens . . . So far there’s enough to redo half the bedrooms in this place and there might be enough furniture to replace the goats’ chew toys. I’ve cleared just enough room for the alpacas so far. With the way Rhett’s been after Scarlett, I don’t think he’ll complain about them getting a room to themselves. I sure won’t.”

  Livvy couldn’t help it; she laughed at Sean’s disgruntled look. But she had to hand it to the guy; he was being a good sport for a non-animal person.

  Sean raised his eyebrow in that maddeningly sexy way of his, but it only made her laugh harder. Which was the perfect thing to dismantle the utter awareness she had of him.

  Livvy hunched down and picked up Georgia, the pug mix, a clear cover-up for where her thoughts should not go. She was way too aware of the man. “I, um, had an interesting day.”

  “Oh?” Sean held out his hand. “Here, let me carry that for you.”

  She paused for a moment, but then handed over Georgia. If the guy was asking—

  “Not the dog, Livvy. Your sack. I’ll let you keep the dog.”

  “Oh. Right.” She jostled Georgia—who wheezed her displeasure as she was wont to do when it came to movement of any kind—and worked the bag off her shoulder.

  Sean swung it onto his and headed toward the study. “Have any luck?”

  “Yes, actually. The Latin was an official document from what I could gather. A copy, of course. I’m sure Merriweather has the original locked up in an airtight vault.”