She allowed him to unlock the door, then put a hand out to grasp his wrist. 'You've seen me to my door, now can I have my key back?'
'But of course.' His wrist twisted as he pressed the key into her palm, but before she could withdraw her hand he lifted it to his mouth, his black eyes watching her as he kissed it lingeringly. 'And now I want to see what's on the other side of that door.'
The sensation of his warm mouth moving sensuously against her skin shook her so much it was several seconds before she registered his words, and by then he had opened the door, found the light switch and was moving down her hallway.
'Mr Amory!' she called after him in exasperation. 'For pity's sake, it's two o'clock in the morning and I'm tired.'
But he was already moving away from her, taking no notice. By the time she had caught up he was standing in the middle of her living-room, looking round with absorbed interest.
Intent only on throwing him out, Sorrel found herself wavering. She was very proud of the home she had made for herself and not at all averse to his appreciation of it. She watched while he prowled around, taking in the details: the pleasing shape of the wrought iron standard-lamp and the coloured glass shade Tammy had made for it, the high quality modern pottery and glassware she collected, and her books, shelves of books because, when she was growing up a solitary child, books had always been her friends. He spent some time studying one of the two paintings she had of Charlie's, the one of the street market, studying it so closely that she was glad the other painting, a portrait, was safely hidden from his sight up in her gallery bedroom. Looking at that portrait always made Sorrel uncomfortable because it revealed altogether too much of her private, inner self, and to have this man sharing Charlie's perception of her would be… dangerous.
'Look, I really do think you should go now.' She had meant to sound positive and was horrified when the words came out on a pleading note.
And he caught it, even if he didn't bother to glance in her direction. 'Why? You did say you had nothing to hide.'
She stared at him in frowning puzzlement. 'No, I don't, but I still think this is a gross invasion of my privacy. If you like to come back in the morning and tell me—'
'And give you time to get rid of the evidence? Do you take me for a fool?'
'Evidence? Evidence of what, for heaven's sake?' she demanded in exasperation.
He had reached her desk with her drawing-board alongside and without replying began to turn over the pages of her sketch-book, sketches that Sorrel would be the first to admit were nothing special. Since he had turned down her designs six weeks ago she had been too disheartened for the creative juices to flow.
Dismissing them with a disdainful flick of the wrist, to her stunned astonishment he turned his attentions to her desk, opening the top drawer which contained her paints, closing it irritably to open the one beneath.
'Now wait a minute…' Uneasiness had given way to anger at his nerve. 'You force your way into my home without invitation and now you seem to think you can go through my belongings! Just who do you think you are?'
He turned his head to look at her, his eyes flat and hard. 'Oh, I know very well who I am. The question is… who are you?' And while she gaped at him in impotent fury he slid open the wide, shallow drawer above the kneehole, stood for a frozen few moments then took out the portfolio she had left at Amoroso for him to see. A second later the strings were untied, and as the medieval set of designs spilled across the desk top he let out a long drawn out 'Aaah!'
'Is that what you were looking for?' For a couple of seconds hope leapt. 'Lucas, if you'd only asked—'
'Mr Amory to you,' he clipped, his cold voice lashing with such ferocity she gasped.
She hadn't used his first name consciously, and she was at a loss to know why he should seem so angry, but calling on her considerable reserves of pride, she drew herself up. 'Very well, Mr Amory! You've seen those designs before, and if you'd told me you wanted to take another—'
'Indeed I have seen them before,' he ground out furiously. 'Now perhaps you'll tell me what this series of Amoroso designs are doing in your possession, you little thief.'
'Amoroso designs?' Sorrel stared at him incredulously, sure she must have misheard. 'Either I'm going crazy or you are. Did I hear you claim these are Amoroso designs?'
'There's nothing wrong with your hearing,' he snapped.
'Then let me remind you, you turned them down six weeks ago, Mr Amory,' she said angrily, 'and I certainly have no recollection of you changing your mind and negotiating for them since.'
'Turned them down?' He frowned, and then his brow cleared. 'Oh I see, you're going to pretend these are the designs you were hoping your forged letter would get me to buy.'
Sorrel shook her head in angry bewilderment. 'I'm not pretending anything. You know very well these are the designs I brought to Amoroso.'
'They were apparently the designs you left Amoroso with,' he ground out. 'How you worked the switch I don't know, but by God I'll find out.'
'Switch?' It finally dawned on her what he was accusing her of. 'You mean you're actually accusing me of stealing them? My own designs? My God, you really are crazy! Look, Mr Amory, these are the designs I brought to your office. Your designer, Miss Thingummy can corroborate that; she looked at them in front of me. They're the ones you saw too, so don't—'
'I didn't trouble to look at whatever designs you brought in, not once I'd read that forged letter,' he said in a bored voice.
'It was not a forgery,' Sorrel insisted between gritted teeth.
'Oh, come on, admit you've lost this one. My design department has been working on this range for weeks and they're almost ready to go into production, so you might as well confess—'
'What!' Her mind pounced on the one salient point of his incredible claim and she was almost apoplectic with outrage. 'You're saying Amoroso are producing these without my permission? And you're trying to get away with it by accusing me of stealing? It's not me who's the thief, Mr Amory, it's you!'
'And you've missed your vocation, Miss Whoever-you-are. You'd make a fortune writing crime fiction.' He actually began to collect up the designs from the desk top as if he had every right.
Furiously, Sorrel slapped the drawings out of his hand. 'You little vixen!' Hard hands gripped her shoulders and she knew real fear as she was shaken unmercifully. 'I'm sick of playing games with you. It's a pity, and had we met under more auspicious circumstances we might—' He bit off the rest of the sentence, releasing her so suddenly she lurched against the desk as a rough cockney voice demanded, 'What the 'ell's goin' on 'ere?'
Lucas Amory whipped round to face the intruder, a giant of a man who almost filled the narrow hall, wearing only hastily dragged on jeans and still shrugging his huge frame into a shirt.
'Charlie…' Seeing his familiar face in a suddenly nightmare world had Sorrel running to throw herself into his arms where, to her shame, she burst into tears. 'Oh, Charlie, he—he's trying to steal my designs,' she sobbed. 'He g-got rid of Tammy and sh-shang-haied me. Th-then he started searching the place…'
'What d'you mean, 'e got rid of Tammy?' Charlie questioned sharply, pinning the other man to the spot with his ferocious gaze.
'He—he sent her off in the van, so I'd have to let him bring me home.' Sorrel sniffed inelegantly and wiped her eyes with her hand.
'But she's all right?'
'Yes, she's still on her way back.'
'All right, chick.' Charlie patted her shoulder clumsily. 'And 'e ain't 'urt you?'
As she shook her head the man still standing rigidly by the desk sneered, 'Very touching. I might have known you'd have a bully boy not too far away. I suppose he's in on the fraud, too.' His mouth twisted in distaste. 'Funny, I'd have credited a girl like you with better taste.' Sorrel's colour flared at the implication that she and Charlie were lovers, but he was going on in a hard voice, 'Not that it matters. You'll both be in gaol before your feet touch the ground.'
It might
have been expected that such a remark would provoke a man as big and villainous-looking as Charlie to violence but he merely asked calmly, ' 'Oo is this geezer, Sorrel? Looks the type as'd 'ave the Commissioner of Police in 'is pocket.'
Sorrel's laugh was slightly hysterical. 'He probably has, Charlie. He's Lucas Amory, head of Amoroso Jewellery.'
'Is 'e now?' Charlie gave the other man a long, searching look. 'Well, I'll rearrange 'is face a bit for you if you like, but it might make more sense if we sat down an' tried to get to the bottom of this mix-up.'
Sorrel saw Lucas Amory's eyes narrow warily, and much as she would have liked to see him flat on her carpet, she had the feeling he could be handy with his fists too, and she didn't want to see Charlie hurt. 'I suppose we'd better talk,' she said wearily. 'Though trying to hold a conversation with Mr Amory is like trying to talk to the Duchess in Alice in Wonderland —nothing he says makes sense.'
With a gesture, Charlie indicated a chair to Sorrel's unwelcome visitor and after a momentary hesitation, Lucas Amory acquiesced, his mouth tightening grimly as Charlie took a seat between him and the door. Sorrel went back to the desk to pick up her strewn designs, choosing to sit right there to mount guard.
'Now,' Charlie said calmly. 'P'raps you'll tell me just what you're accusing Sorrel—and apparently me—of doin'.'
'It's my designs,' Sorrel rushed in. 'The ones I submitted to Amoroso six weeks ago and he turned down. Now he's claiming that they're his—he's putting them into production without paying me a penny! He's nothing but a crook, Charlie!'
'I don't pay extortion money to anyone,' Lucas Amory said grimly.
' 'Ang on, 'ang on.' Charlie brought them both to a glowering silence. 'We'll get nowhere with a slangin' match. Let the man say 'is piece first, huh?'
Sorrel subsided and Lucas flashed her a sardonic glance, leaning back and looking perfectly relaxed while she seethed impotently. 'One Monday morning a few weeks ago, the head of my design department brought me a portfolio of unsolicited designs accompanied by a letter of introduction.'
'But a few minutes ago you said you'd never even looked at the designs,' Sorrel broke in triumphantly.
'Neither did I.' At Charlie's raised eyebrows, Lucas Amory went on to explain, 'The letter of introduction was patently a forgery, purporting to come from Felix Valentine, so of course I wasn't interested in any designs the forger had to offer.'
'But what made you think it wasn't genuine?' Charlie asked.
'Because it introduced the designer, Sorrel Valentine, as his daughter, that's why. I've known Felix for many years and he has no daughter, as I pointed out to your… friend when I summoned her to see me that same afternoon.'
Charlie, who had been frowning as he listened, looked at Sorrel. 'I thought you said it was a friend who could introduce you to Mr Amory.'
Sorrel saw with a sinking heart where her reticence on that point had led her. Now even Charlie was disbelieving her. 'It's a long story, Charlie,' she sighed. 'But I can assure you Felix Valentine is my father and that the letter was not a forgery. I was there in his office while he dictated it to his secretary, and he let me read it before he sealed the envelope. It—' tears pricked behind her eyes, '—it was the first time he'd publicly acknowledged me as his daughter.'
'And if you believe that, you'll believe anything,' Lucas Amory said disgustedly. 'I doubt if Valentine is her real name at all.'
'It 'as been for the five years I've known 'er,' Charlie said.
'Then if it is, she used the coincidence to "choose" Felix as a father in order to perpetrate her fraud,'
Lucas retorted nastily. 'Don't you think even if she was his bastard he'd have introduced her to me personally?'
Sorrel flinched against the hurt, because he was only echoing her own thoughts. Her father could have done, discreetly, without upsetting his wife. 'No one is able to choose their father, Mr Amory,' she said quietly. 'I've just been unlucky in mine.'
She saw the look of annoyance tighten his jaw but, before he could retort, Charlie was asking, 'But surely, Mr Amory, you checked on the letter with Mr Valentine?'
For just a moment Lucas Amory's supreme confidence faltered but he recovered quickly. 'Mr Valentine was away at the time, a fact Sorrel must have been aware of or she'd never have tried the trick. By the time he came home… frankly, I'd forgotten the incident.'
'So what brought you here tonight, claiming Sorrel has stolen your designs?' Charlie wanted to know.
Once again, absolute certainty exuding from him, Lucas told him, 'Earlier this week I was at a party where I met a young lady wearing a necklace I recognised as a design from an Amoroso range that hasn't been released yet.'
'My design,' Sorrel gritted.
'The young lady in question was very cagey as to how she'd come by it. She was very young and easily impressed.' His lips curled as he glanced at Sorrel's furious face. 'It wasn't difficult to angle for an invitation to a ball to be held at her family home. And what should I find when I get there? None other than my Mystery Lady. First I spotted her sneaking out of my bedroom, then later I found her presiding over a display of jewellery that included several more items from Amoroso's new range. Naturally I followed it up, sending the very co-operative friend on alone so Sorrel would have to travel with me. She was very reluctant to have me come up here, and—'
'Of course I was reluctant,' Sorrel spat. 'Any woman who knows your reputation would be reluctant to be alone with you in her apartment in the early hours of the morning.'
'You don't mean you took it seriously when I teased you about taking your sister's place in my bed?' he mocked. 'A sophisticated lady like you? Oh no, it wasn't your virtue you were concerned to keep under wraps, it was those. Amoroso's complete new range.'
To her horror Charlie asked curiously, 'Supposin' Sorrel did feel the need to ride on somebody else's back, 'ow do you reckon she might've managed it? Got copies of your designs, I mean?'
His words fell like stones on Sorrel's ears but Lucas Amory shrugged. 'For a lady of her resourcefulness it obviously wasn't too difficult. She visited Amoroso's premises on two occasions, and both visits she spent some time in my head designer's office.' His mouth tightened grimly. 'I'll get to the bottom of it.'
His story must sound so plausible to Charlie, Sorrel realised with a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach, especially as she'd never mentioned to him the identity of the writer of her letter of introduction. She felt horribly alone as her despairing glance fell on the disputed drawings. Was Lucas Amory really going to be able to cheat her out of the best designs she had ever done?
People, men mostly, she thought bitterly, had been doing her down for most of her life. First her father, who had shuffled her out of his life like something shameful, depriving her of her birthright, of his love and guidance. Then Max, smooth-tongued, fornicating Max, who had preyed on her need to find someone to love, who had taken her eighteen-year-old innocence and left only disillusion. Then there was Trevor, solid-seeming, conventional Trevor, who had wanted to marry her but whose love had also turned out to be counterfeit. Ironic really that Trevor should have wanted her only because he knew her father's identity and hoped the relationship would do much for his career, and now here was Lucas Amory, feeling free to stab her and steal her work because he didn't believe in the identity of her father.
Rage bubbled up inside her until she felt like a pot about to blow its lid, her fingers picking at the pages on her desk, the designs that this arrogant, pig-headed, devious man was claiming were his. Her designs, her babies that she'd laboured over for months, first roughing out the early ideas, then developing a couple of them and making up the prototypes to make sure her ideas would work in practice before—
Her brain slid into another gear. The prototypes! One of which she had given to her sister last Christmas. The pendant which Lucas Amory had recognised when Julia had worn it and that had been the means of tracing back to Sorrel herself. Why hadn't she thought of it before? She could prove her
claim to the designs!
Opening her mouth to give voice to her thoughts, she bit the words back. Proving she was the legitimate owner of the designs wasn't going to be enough. What Lucas Amory had tried to do to her, stealing her work and trying to brand her a thief, had been shoddy and beneath contempt. If he could do it to her, he could do it to other unsuspecting designers. She had to nail him. If she couldn't see him committed to prison, at least she would show him up for what he was, a cheap shyster.
She became aware of Lucas watching her and realised she would have to be careful not to give the game away too soon. She wanted him to dig his grave a bit deeper yet. 'So he's convinced you I'm a liar and a cheat and a thief, Charlie,' she said, getting to her feet, and it wasn't hard to put an emotional break in her voice.
Charlie's blue eyes twinkled at her. 'I only said supposin' you felt the need to ride on someone else's back. I know you don't need to when you 'ave ideas oozin' from yer pores like sweat.'
She felt a wave of warmth towards this big, untidy man who was demonstrating his faith in both her talent and her integrity.
'Well, of course, I'd expect you to support your… friend,' Lucas Amory sneered offensively.
Charlie cast mildly reproving blue eyes over him. 'Better not let my Tam 'ear you makin' suggestive remarks like that, mate. Very possessive is Tam, an' very maternal towards Sorrel. Come to that…' he turned to Sorrel reflectively, 'I reckon I wouldn't have done such a bad job of fatherin' you either. Better than yer own dad, anyway.'
'Oh, you would, Charlie, you would.' There were tears in her laughter as she leaned over his chair to hug him.
'Two things about this mix-up strike me,' he went on imperturbably. 'In the first place I don't know as I can see a gent in your place stoopin' to do down a struggling designer and nick 'er work. The risk wouldn't be worth the candle.'
'Charlie!' Sorrel protested. 'If he's claiming my designs as his then he's as guilty as hell.' She cast Lucas a venomous look. 'And I reckon he'd crawl on his belly, never mind stoop, if there was money in it.'
This Man's Magic Page 6