Cloche and Dagger

by Jenn McKinlay

  “No.” He continued eating while I sipped my wine and pondered what sort of hobby would make an earl ineligible for marriage.

  “Tatting?”

  “Ha! No, but points for creativity,” he said.

  “Fly-fishing?”

  Nick shuddered. “No.”

  “Oh come on,” I said. “You have to give me a hint.”

  “Sorry, you’re going to have to dig deep to figure it out,” he said.

  “That was a hint, wasn’t it?” I asked.

  He raised his brows but said nothing.

  “You’re killing me here,” I protested.

  He barked out a laugh. “You have no idea, my dear.”

  “Scarlett Parker, are you flirting with my boyfriend?” Andre asked as he took an empty seat at the table.

  They exchanged a quick kiss and I smiled. “As if I could.”

  “Then this must be Nick’s way of stealing my best girl,” Andre said.

  “Your best girl?” a voice asked from behind me. “I thought she was my best girl.”

  I tipped my head back and saw Harrison leaning over my chair. His green eyes were sparkling and I felt my breath catch.

  “Sorry, fellas, I’m nobody’s girl and happy to keep it that way,” I said, pleased that my voice sounded amused.

  The waiter arrived and cleared our dinner plates. Both Andre and Harrison passed on ordering an entrée but joined us for coffee and dessert.

  “So how did you two meet up?” I asked.

  “Nick texted me that you two were here, and when I passed the shop, I saw this sad lunk outside and invited him to join us,” Andre said.

  “‘Sad lunk?’” Harrison asked. “I suppose I’ve been called worse.”

  “Well, I’m glad you’re here,” I said. “Nick is holding out on me, maybe you can help me pry the information out of him.”

  “What information?” Harrison asked.

  “The passion of Lord Ellis,” I said.

  Andre and Harrison glanced at Nick, who gave them a mild look.

  “Scarlett wanted to know why Lord Ellis married Lady Ellis, and I told her that Vicks was the only one of his many girlfriends who could tolerate his hobby.”

  “I’ve already covered stamp collecting, tatting and fly-fishing,” I said.

  “It’s much more grave than that,” Nick said.

  We waited while the waitress delivered our tiramisu and coffees.

  “Coin collecting?” Andre asked.

  “No.”

  “Dollhouses?” I asked.

  “No.” Nick smirked. “Come on, it’s a dead bore for most of us but he’s buried in it.”

  Andre and I exchanged a confused glance, but Harrison laughed.

  “Is it the sort of hobby that might rub off on you?” he asked.

  Nick grinned and said, “Indeed.”

  Harrison looked at Andre and me and said, “Lord Ellis is a taphophile.”

  Chapter 34

  “Oh, my,” I said. I put my hand over my mouth. I had no idea what this meant but it definitely sounded way more perverted than “copulate.”

  “He’s into gravestones,” Nick clarified.

  “As in the ones in cemeteries?” Andre asked. At Nick’s nod, he added, “Weird.”

  “So, you can imagine that it would take someone with a real eye on the bottom line to agree to spend her life with a man who likes to spend his free time in graveyards doing headstone rubbings.”

  “He didn’t strike me as the sort who would enjoy that type of thing,” I said. Thinking back on it, Lord Ellis seemed more like the sort to enjoy gambling, a good cigar and a pretty woman, and not necessarily in that order.

  They were all looking at me.

  “He came in with Lady Ellis when she picked up her hat,” I said. “He seemed very smooth.”

  “Really?” Nick asked. “The few times I’ve met him, ‘smooth’ is not the first word that comes to mind.”

  “Was he into graves when he was friends with Viv?” I asked Harrison.

  He was sipping his coffee, but paused to shrug. “I don’t know. She never really talked about him or Lady Ellis much.”

  “Viv isn’t one to pay attention to what’s going on around her,” I said to Nick and Andre.

  “I know the type,” Nick said with a sideways glance at Andre, who was studying the room about us as if considering it for a photograph.

  “What?” Andre asked. Obviously, he’d just become aware that he was the subject of Nick’s comment.

  I smiled as they squabbled good-naturedly. I turned to share the joke with Harrison and found him watching me with an intensity that made my heart skip a beat and then pound twice as hard as if to make up for it.

  “What?” I asked, repeating Andre’s question.

  “I . . . nothing,” he said. “It’s nothing.”

  He forced a smile and turned back to the table, engaging Nick in a discussion of Kensal Green Cemetery, one of the seven magnificent nineteenth-century cemeteries in London, and the one closest to Notting Hill. It was also known as All Souls and was where the rock star Freddie Mercury was buried.

  I tucked my spoon into my dessert. It was delicious. I found I wanted to look at Harrison again to see if I could figure out what he’d been thinking, but I was feeling unaccountably shy, not a normal state for me, and so I kept my attention on my dessert.

  I didn’t believe that Harrison had anything to do with Viv’s disappearance anymore. Well, I was pretty sure at any rate. I couldn’t imagine that he would be actively trying to find her and helping me put in an alarm system if he was involved in some nefarious way. Well, unless he was a complete psychopath. Now I did glance at him.

  His dark brown hair was brushed back in its usual careless way. I got the feeling Harrison wasn’t one to spend a lot of time primping. His eyes sparkled as he and Nick traded more puns about graveyards. Dig it?

  His brows rode low over his eyes as if he were in a perpetual state of concentration. His nose was long but took a slight detour as if it had been broken. His lips were full and parted over a generous smile. There was an innate honesty to his face and a sense of integrity that was unyielding. I got the feeling that Harrison said what he meant and he meant what he said. Quite simply, I trusted him.

  “Isn’t that right, Scarlett?” Andre’s voice brought my attention back to the table.

  “I’m sorry?” I said.

  “She wasn’t listening,” Nick said. “She was too busy checking out the only available male at our table.”

  “Nick! That’s just . . . well, inaccurate,” I protested. I felt my face get hot with embarrassment.

  I could tell Harrison was looking at me, but I refused to look at him, as if I’d combust from sheer mortification. Instead, I turned to Andre and asked, “What were you saying?”

  He smiled at me, but I glowered and he sobered up immediately.

  “Sorry.” He cleared his throat. “I was saying that the house the Ellises live in would certainly make one consider putting up with someone else’s eccentricities if the payout was that they got to live there.”

  “It was a gorgeous home,” I agreed.

  Andre went on to describe the interior to the others while I finished my dessert, scraping the dish clean. Nick snatched the check before the rest of us could grab it. And in moments the four of us were making our way back to Portobello Road.

  We saw the police car lights flashing up ahead but still, it took me a moment to register that they were parked in front of Mim’s Whims.

  My first thought was that they were there to tell me they’d found Vivian. My second thought was that if it were police who had come to tell me about her, then the news was bad.

  I broke into a run, not easy to do in super-high heels, but still I ran. I heard shouts behind me but I didn’t wait for the others. Terror had me moving at a clip. Vivian had to be okay. I wouldn’t accept any other explanation.

  Harrison caught me by the elbow but didn’t slow me down, instead h
e spotted me as we ran. My heart was pounding triple time and I’d broken into a sweat. The cold air was making my nose run and I didn’t have a tissue, so I had to snuffle repeatedly to keep my nose from dripping all over my coat.

  A constable was standing at the front, and he held out his arms as if to keep me from plowing into the shop. I stopped, and it was then that I could see through a gap in the shades that the lights were on and the police were inside. It took only a glance to see that the place had been ransacked, as in turned over, or, more accurately, destroyed.

  The white straw hats Viv had strung to hang at different levels in the front windows to look as if they were floating had been left alone and they hung like the ghostly remains of the hats that had been tossed about the shop with little or no regard for their value or craftsmanship. It looked as if the person had been in a temper: chairs had been turned over, drawers and shelves emptied, their contents strewn across the floor.

  “Vivian,” I said to the constable. “Is Vivian here? Does this have to do with her?”

  The constable gave me a confused look and I wanted to yell at him to get with it.

  “Vivian Tremont is the owner,” Harrison explained from beside me. “Is she here?”

  “No, sir,” the constable answered. “We found no one on the premises when we responded to the call.”

  “Scarlett, what happened?” Andre and Nick caught up to us. Nick was winded and huffing and puffing but Andre looked fine.

  “At a guess, I think we were robbed,” I said.

  I glanced at the front door and saw Inspector Franks inside. He gestured that the front door was still locked, so I quickly fished out my new key and unlocked the door. It took longer than usual as my fingers were shaking.

  I pulled the door open and Inspector Franks joined us out front.

  “Ms. Parker,” he said.

  “Inspector,” I returned. I was pleased that my voice wasn’t as trembly as my insides.

  “What happened, Inspector?” Harrison asked.

  “By the looks of it, a burglary,” Franks said. He looked tired and I wondered if he was getting sick of me yet. I doubted even a good Stetson would make him look kindly on me.

  “When the call came in to the station from the security company, one of the constables realized it was your shop and called me,” he said.

  I looked past him and saw Inspector Simms, working his way through the shop, assessing the damage.

  “Can I ask where you were, Ms. Parker?” Franks asked me.

  “Having dinner with friends,” I said.

  “That would be us,” Nick said. He had a steely look in his eye as if daring Franks to doubt him.

  “And me,” Harrison said. “In fact, I met Andre, here in front of the shop, just a little over an hour ago, and there was no indication of any disturbance.”

  “How did they get in?” I asked.

  “Smashed a window in the back,” Franks said. “They must not have realized you’ve had an alarm put in. Still, they were long gone by the time we arrived.”

  “Well, at least I know the system works,” I said. My voice was faint. The thought that I could have been suffocated again or worse ran through my mind and I trembled as if my body was shorting out in fear.

  I felt Harrison’s hand tighten on my arm. I leaned into him to let him know I was okay.

  “We have them sweeping for fingerprints, but given that we didn’t find any last time, I doubt we’ll have much better luck this time, assuming we’re dealing with the same person.”

  “We are,” I said. “It’s too coincidental not to be.”

  “I agree,” Harrison said. His voice was tight as if he was really angry and it was taking every bit of his self-control to keep it in check.

  “I’ll need you to check to see if anything is missing,” Inspector Franks said.

  “Of course.” I turned to Andre and Nick. “Thank you for dinner and everything.”

  I hugged them both and Andre put his hands on my shoulders and said, “We have a guest bedroom. Why don’t you plan to sleep at our place?”

  “Oh, thank you,” I said. I put my hand on his cheek. “But I don’t want to leave the shop or the flat unattended.”

  Both Nick and Andre looked ready to argue, but Harrison cut in and said, “I’ll stay with her.”

  They gave him a look and he added, “On the couch, of course.”

  “Call us if you need us,” Nick said.

  “I will, I promise.”

  Harrison and I watched as they wound their way around the police cars and continued toward their flat. Their heads were pressed together and I wondered if they were discussing what a truly unfortunate friend I had turned out to be. They’d only known me for a week and every time they turned around I was involved in some new drama. It was getting embarrassing.

  It didn’t take long to assess the situation. Whoever had done the damage had never made it upstairs. Obviously, the alarm system worked well enough to have scared them off pretty quickly. Still, the mess was depressing. It was a good thing we were closed tomorrow. I had a feeling I was going to need all day to clean up.

  Nothing seemed to be missing, but given the mess, I’m not sure I would have noticed anyway. I didn’t tidy up, thinking I’d see if Fee could pop in tomorrow and let me know if she noticed anything in particular being gone.

  Harrison boarded up the window with some old shelves Mim had stored in her garden shed. I held the boards while he nailed them, and even though they didn’t cover the window completely, I figured it would be tough for anyone to squeeze through the two-inch gaps.

  Harrison swept up the glass once the police said it was okay to do so. While he dumped it in the trash, I set about making a pot of tea.

  Inspectors Franks and Simms left with their entourage. They promised to be in touch if they found anything, but I wasn’t feeling very optimistic.

  “Come on,” Harrison said as he pulled out a seat at the worktable for me. “Have a seat. Have some tea. It’ll calm your nerves before bed.”

  “Not to be argumentative,” I said, “but I don’t think anything is really going to calm me down.”

  “Don’t worry,” he said. “I’ll be here to watch over you.”

  The words were so comforting that I felt my throat get tight with an excess of emotion.

  “You don’t have to do that,” I said. “I’ll be fine.”

  “I know,” he said. “I’m not doing it for you. I’m doing it for my own peace of mind. You can’t deny me that, now can you?”

  Oh, how manipulative, making me feel guilty if I didn’t let him stay.

  “Well played, Harry,” I said.

  He lifted his cup at me in a toast and then took a long sip. “Hey, is this your first pot of tea?”

  “Yes, I think it is,” I said. I hadn’t really noticed that I was making tea. I had just needed something to do.

  “Not bad,” he said.

  I tasted mine and was relieved to discover that I hadn’t messed it up.

  “Seriously,” he said. “I want to stay. I’d worry.”

  I glanced quickly at the window.

  “Oh, not about anyone breaking in,” he said. “I think the fact that they never made it upstairs shows that the alarm system works. But I’d be worried that you were frightened and that’s unacceptable.”

  “Thanks,” I said. “It’s very kind of you.”

  He waved off my thanks, but still, I realized I was racking up quite a lot of debt with him. There had to be some way I could show my gratitude for his help.

  “What are you thinking about?” he asked.

  “That I need to find a way to thank you for all that you’ve done,” I said.

  To my surprise, Harrison Wentworth actually blushed.

  “Not like that!” I snapped.

  He gave me a sheepish grin that was ridiculously charming and shrugged and said, “A man can dream.”

  Now it was my turn to blush.

  “Just drink your tea,�
�� I ordered.

  “Yes, ma’am,” he said. But I noticed when he lifted the cup to his lips, he was grinning.

  Chapter 35

  This time I slept in my old room and insisted that Harrison take the bedroom on the main floor. I simply couldn’t have him sleep on the sofa, which was too short for him and unforgiving in its firmness. And given this new and somewhat alarming tension between us, I felt the distance of separate floors might be required. No, not for him; definitely, for me.

  I was only a few weeks out of the worst breakup, as in most public and most humiliating, of my life. I was not, I repeat not, going to get involved with the first good-looking, okay, hot, man who came along. Just because he had wicked green eyes and a lovely, deep, gravelly voice and a bod that—whoa, stop right there.

  I was not going to start thinking of Harrison that way. Other than some fuzzy childhood memories and the recent week we’d spent together, I hardly knew the man. The fact that I was even thinking about him just proved that what my mother had said was true. How had I never really noticed before that I always had a boyfriend? It wasn’t on purpose. Or was it?

  This was more self-analysis than I wanted to delve into at the moment. No, my time would be much better spent trying to figure out who had killed Lady Ellis, who had tried to kill me and why was my shop under siege?

  I couldn’t hear Harrison snoring from up here. Crazy as it sounds, that bummed me out. There was something comforting about having audible proof that I was not alone in the flat. I tossed and turned a bit and finally punched my pillow until I’d flattened it enough.

  I stared into the dark, wondering if I didn’t hear him sleeping because he wasn’t asleep. Maybe he was having the same hard time that I was. It was quite the adrenaline rush to come home and find your business has been violated, and twice in one week made it particularly disturbing.

  An image of Harrison lying awake downstairs flashed through my mind. Nope. I was not going downstairs to check on him. That would only invite the sort of trouble of which I was determined to steer clear. No men. Not for a while, at least a year. Oh, that seemed unduly harsh. Six months. I cringed. That seemed a long time to go without a date, but not impossible. Okay, six months it was.