"I need to do some more research on the Grim Reaper."
"Luke Mansfield? Why?"
Tess's smile was grim. "He's getting in my way in a big way," she said. "I've got to find out why. How goes it with you?"
"Simply splendid, thank you," Gladys said, insinuating herself onto the gold chaise with a contented sigh. "Anytime you need a house-sitter, you can count on me."
"Thanks," Tess said with a grin as she headed for the study. "I heard from Cyril."
"So did I. He hates his code name, he hates South America, and he's not fond of Mendoza."
"Poor boy."
"Meanwhile, you loll in the lap of luxury."
Tess turned and grinned at Gladys. "You're not doing too bad yourself."
"We won't tell Cyril."
"Very wise. Did you find Philip Larkin?"
"At three o'clock this morning. That's why I slept in."
"Well, five down, two to go."
"Hey!" Gladys called. "Not even a thanks? Not even a 'job well done'?"
Tess poked her head back out of the study. "Job satisfaction is not enough?"
Gladys threw a pillow at her and missed her head by a scant half second. Tess ducked back into the plant-filled study—it resembled more of a jungle than a work area—and, chuckling, headed for her computer. She began to hack in earnest, eager to find answers to some very disturbing questions. Yes, she needed to know everything about Luke so she could handle him properly on this job. But there was so much more. Who was he really? Why did he affect her so? How had he made her long for his touch, his kiss, the sound of his voice, in spite of Dennis Foucher?
She shuddered. She had thought of Dennis Foucher every day since meeting Luke. She could still feel the too-small school uniform that Bert had ordered her to wear. It had made her look thirteen instead of sixteen. Dennis Foucher had liked them young. She could still hear Foucher's harsh breathing, feel his rough hands tearing at her clothes, her throat tightening with her screams of nine years ago as Bert had ransacked Foucher's library safe for certain incriminating documents.
Tess shuddered again. How could she want Luke when Foucher still haunted her?
It took almost an hour of hard hacking before she got beneath the surface gloss to find some answers. She almost shut the computer off. There was misery here, similar to her own, and she didn't think she could stand it. But she needed some answers.
First on the hit parade was Jennifer Eire. The story Tess pasted together from newspapers and magazine stories and a plethora of gossip columns raised the bile in her throat. "You bitch," she whispered.
Luke and Jennifer had been law students together. He fell in love with her and got engaged at twenty-three. Tess scanned the newspaper announcements. It was startling to see this younger version of Luke. The hardness of his mouth, the cynicism in his eyes, were gone. He looked like exactly what he was twelve years ago: an intelligent, handsome, rich young man giddy with love. Jennifer Eire, at his side, was certainly a beauty, but her eyes had a hard look to them, and her adoring smile up at Luke didn't quite ring true.
If only Luke had been so discerning, Tess thought. Jennifer had been using him, or rather his wealth and family and connections, to get a head start on her own legal career. With the Mansfields behind her, she could have skyrocketed into the legal stratosphere. But somehow Luke had discovered the truth about old Jennifer. Tess found a report that Luke had left Harvard just before Christmas break, driving up to Canada for some reason, basically nonstop. He hadn't returned to school until the fall semester. Jennifer had transferred to Stanford. From what Tess could find, the two had never seen each other again.
She sat back in her chair, staring at the computer screen. She knew what it was to be young and violated, and Jennifer had violated Luke. Tess knew the pain and horror of being used for someone else's strictly mercenary purposes. From everything she knew and had found thus far, Luke had not deserved such treatment. He had led an honorable and honest life. He had betrayed no one, stepped on no one, deliberately hurt no one. And then Jennifer Eire had hurtled into his perfect life like a wrecking ball.
The social columns in the newspapers for the next few years told the story. Cynicism had started to harden his mouth and invade his eyes. There was no giddiness in his smile for the camera. According to the columns, he didn't date anyone for almost a year after Jennifer. And then it was a new girl every few weeks. The gossip columnists said he was playing the field. Tess suspected he had been doing his best to dodge any bullets or knives aimed at his back. Luke had always been intelligent. Jennifer had made him shrewd.
That posed a problem for number two on the hit parade: Ellen Monroe. By every account Tess could dig up, it was Ellen who began pursuing Luke when he was twenty-seven and well launched on his career. After a while, Luke had begun to like being pursued. According to the society columns, Ellen lasted for more than a few weeks. There she was with Luke at a Halloween costume ball for charity dressed as Titania to his Oberon. Tess shivered. Luke made a very sexy Oberon. His costume consisted almost entirely of nudity with a few strategically placed forest leaves. It had caused quite a stir. Ellen too had not been averse to displaying nature's wealth. She was almost as scantily clad as Luke, a wreath of flowers crowning her short brown hair.
There was Ellen with Luke at a Thanksgiving bash at Rockefeller Center. There she was with Luke at a Mansfield Christmas party of about five hundred people, looking adorable in her little elf costume. She and Luke were smiling at each other in the picture with obvious affection, but again there was no giddiness in Luke's smile and Tess, to her horror, was glad of it.
She searched the files but could only come up with one more picture of Ellen and Luke together. They had gone on a ski holiday to Taos. There was Ellen on the slopes, the quintessential ski bunny in her designer skiwear, Luke's arm around her shoulders as they smiled for the cameras. And then nothing. The next picture of Luke showed him dining in New York with some elegant blonde who dabbled in fashion design. What had happened to Ellen? Had Luke gotten smart? Or had Ellen screwed up?
Tess ransacked the New York gossip columns. An appreciative whistle broke from her lips. Witnesses reported a rumor swirling through the Taos Ski Valley to the effect that the Mansfields had lost all their millions. A completely false report, of course, started—it was whispered—by Luke Mansfield himself. Witnesses also reported a one-way screaming match from the Mansfield-Monroe suite. Ellen had done all the screaming, demanding to know if the rumor was true, shrieking that Luke was not such an innocent as to believe that losing tens of millions of dollars meant nothing when their combined income was only a hundred and eighty thousand dollars a year. She had flown back to New York that night. Luke had stayed in Taos for the rest of the week, seemingly enjoying himself to the hilt.
"You set her up," Tess whispered in admiration as she once again leaned back in her chair. "You ran your own little sting operation to get the truth … and you got it." Tess paused, a frown crinkling her brow. "But I think, Mr. Mansfield, that you also got stung."
The first woman he had begun to trust since Jennifer had also tried to use him for his money and his connections. Luke had a real knack for meeting duplicitous women.
"Nice of me not to break the pattern," Tess muttered.
She grimaced when she remembered telling Luke how easy he had had it. Jennifer and Ellen had been hard lessons to survive for anyone, let alone someone as innately good as Luke. She had survived her own hard lessons. She had learned distrust at the hands of others. Maybe this was why she was so drawn to Luke: their similar histories had forged cords that kept pulling them closer to each other. Where was the knife to help her cut that cord?
After two more hours of steady digging through Luke's stellar legal career and strictly casual personal life, Tess found Margo Holloway. She had been accused of electrocuting her rich and ruthless father. Luke, with the help of Baldwin Security, had gotten her acquitted. The computer was beeping at her. Why were there more entries? Tess paged do
wn and suddenly stopped.
"Oh, my God," she whispered.
Eight months after her acquittal, Margo had been arrested and convicted of engineering the deaths of her half brother and half sister in a car accident.
Heart pounding, Tess began to scroll through the many articles on the case. Luke was only mentioned in reference to the first case. But still… Something nagged at Tess. Then she saw the headline from the second day of the second trial: Baldwin Testimony Key to Prosecution's Case.
Wait a minute! It couldn't just be a coincidence that Leroy Baldwin had worked on both of Margo Holloway's cases.
Tess spent an hour vainly trying to access Baldwin Security's files.
"Damn!" she said, slugging the top of her monitor. "Cough it up or face a major upgrade." Still nothing. "Gladys, I need you!"
Gladys leaned against the doorjamb. "Yo."
"Yo?"
"I'm learning American," Gladys said with a grin as she walked up to Tess. "What's the problem?"
"Can you access Baldwin Security's files?"
"Baldwin? The same blokes who have you under surveillance?"
"The very same."
"Piece of cake," Gladys said, nudging Tess out of her chair.
"I need the Luke Mansfield and Margo Holloway files beginning five years ago."
"Coming up."
It was almost dusk when Tess finally shut off her computer. She felt ugly, dirty. She had made herself those things and Luke had sensed it from the start. No wonder he distrusted her with Jennifer and Ellen and Margo having honed his intuition to a keen edge.
Well, now she knew the real enemy, the real wall keeping Luke from believing the con. It was the truth. The truth of who and what she was and why she was here—lost for brief moments in their kisses—reared its ugly head whenever they weren't kissing.
How was she going to get around that?
And how was she going to get around the increasingly glaring fact that the more she learned about Luke, the more she felt as if she were betraying him, and the more inclined she felt to just chuck this job and head for the hills?
"Find what you were after?" Gladys asked, looking up from the blueprints she was studying as Tess stomped into the living room.
"Yeah," Tess said.
"You don't look thrilled."
"I'm not. The man is a walking time bomb. I've got a bad feeling I might end up getting caught in the explosion."
"No one said this job would be skittles and beer. Come give me your advice. I'm pulling the Kincaid heist tonight."
"Solo?"
Gladys smiled. "I'm a big girl and I trained with the best."
Tess spent an hour going over the Kincaid job with Gladys. She wanted to push it to two hours because, truth to tell, she was more than reluctant to return to the Cushman mansion … and Jane … and Luke. Still, if Gladys could concentrate on work, so could she.
She drove back to the New York countryside, the top down on the convertible so she could get some oxygen in her lungs and the wind could wreak havoc with her hair. Fortunately, Jane and Luke hadn't gotten back from work yet. She could swim some laps and hopefully work off this tension and this small knot of fear forming in her belly. She changed quickly and dove into the cool water. But it didn't work.
Everything she had learned about Luke today crowded into her brain and with it the feeling of being unclean grew. She was using Luke just as every woman in his adult life had used him—for her own ends, with no consideration of his feelings, his needs, his own hopes and desires. Only it was worse. She had trespassed twice, once with Luke and once with Jane.
Tess slapped her hand on the edge of the pool and turned for another lap. She didn't like the woman she had become on this job. She was a user and—having been used by everyone in her life—she knew just how loathsome such a creature was. She was selfish and deceitful and a coward, for though she was coming to hate using and hurting Luke and Jane, she wearily accepted the truth: she would not give up the job. Everything she had ever wanted depended on it.
She couldn't bring herself to meet Luke's eyes across the dinner table that night. It was the first time they had been together since that morning's kisses, the first time they had been together since she had fully learned how badly she was betraying him. With a sadness that was shocking, she knew without looking that Luke had sealed himself off from her. He did not watch or study her. He didn't even glance at her. Not only had she grown used to his gaze on her, she had grown to like it. Its absence made the meal even more difficult to get through.
And the weekend. Luke apparently didn't like taking a day off from work. He went to his office Saturday and Sunday. And at night, when he came back to the estate, he avoided her.
* * *
"Tess, dear," Jane said over breakfast Monday morning, "I was wondering if you would mind my doctor running you through a short physical examination."
Tess carefully lowered her spoonful of granola and stared at her. "Don't I look well?"
"You're looking better and better. That is why I want the examination performed."
Her heart hammering against her breast, Tess managed a nonchalant shrug. "Suits me. Just as long as it isn't gynecological in nature. Speculums and I have never gotten along."
"No, no, nothing like that," Jane said with an amused smile.
Tess, having felt, at best, bleary when she had entered the breakfast room, was now wide awake. Maybe the nightmares were omens which she had foolishly disregarded. Maybe this was her punishment for liking Jane, for kissing Luke, for enjoying herself, for enjoying them.
For wanting them both. For betraying them both.
She was a fool. Nothing and no one is safe.
Jane was proof of that. She had just thrown a tiger pit in her path.
* * *
CHAPTER TEN
« ^ »
"Luke, dear!" Jane said. "I have the most marvelous news. Tess passed her physical examination with flying colors!"
Luke stared at his phone without really seeing it. "There's no mistake?"
"No, none, you overcautious lump of skepticism."
Luke loosened his tie. "Have you told Tess?"
Jane laughed with what sounded like pure delight. "Yes. She was just as surprised as you. It was one of the few times I've ever seen her break character. Not only does she have the appendix scar, Dr. Weston says she has a three-inch-long scar near the crown of her head, caused either by a blow or a fall, that might be directly linked to her amnesia. Which also checks out, by the way."
It took Luke a moment to marshal his thoughts. Tess had passed the exam?
"There's still a lot we don't know," he said cautiously.
"But a good deal more that we do know than we did before," Jane retorted.
"I don't recommend putting Tess in your will just yet."
"There are times, Luke, when you irritate me. Of course I'm going to play this close to the chest! I have a good deal at stake here and no intention of making an error in judgment this late in the game. I know what I know, and I also want cold, hard evidence in my hands. I won't make a move until Mr. Baldwin comes up with definitive proof, one way or the other. But I'm feeling hopeful, Luke, and I haven't felt that in twenty years."
Luke hung up the phone and stared without seeing at the view of skyscrapers outside his window.
She had passed the physical!
Every piece of the puzzle—her appearance, her character, her flashes of "memory," her amnesia, the chronology she had given for her life—all pointed to Tess being Elizabeth … or else, Tess had arranged that every piece fit that pattern. Lord knew she was talented enough to pull off something even that fantastic. He would have to decide if he believed her or not.
He didn't want to decide. Damn the job! It was playing havoc with his happiness, his peace of mind, his heart.
His heart?
His heart.
He had been so unused to listening to his heart all these years that he had failed to hear some of its m
ore important messages, including the fact that he liked Tess Alcott. He liked her a lot. He liked her intelligence, and her wit, and her multitudinous abilities, and her temper, and her pride, and the way she gave him everything that she was in her kisses, and… Well, he just plain liked everything about the woman. He particularly liked kissing her and not for the first time damned himself for running away from her Friday morning and avoiding her ever since. The problem was, if Tess's eyes met his even once, he would drag her into his arms and damn the consequences.
When was the last time he had been this stupid? He didn't have to think twice: Margo. Is Tess pulling a Margo? He didn't know. He might not know until it was too late. Or was it already too late?
Tess had passed the physical exam. Every secret thought and feeling he had refused to acknowledge within himself were jumping up and down and cheering.
He searched desperately within himself for a bucket of cold water. She had to have manipulated the test results. She had to! She couldn't be Elizabeth. There wasn't a fantasy world going that could touch that one. And yet, when she was in his arm she felt so real, so right. In those moments, every secret thought and feeling within him insisted that he was holding the truth.
Luke groaned. Why, when he looked at her, did he see a strong, loving, haunted woman instead of the thief and con she claimed to be and he knew she was? Why, when he looked within himself, did he see thirteen years of suspicion and pain shattering like the glass bars of a jail cell? Why was the world looking so different? Why was he so different?
And he was different. A hunger to love and be loved was growing in his soul. He was enjoying each moment, relishing each day. He was reclaiming his own truths.
Because of Tess.
He was different because of Tess, better because of Tess, happier.
And knowing this now, did it really matter if Tess was Elizabeth or not?
"My God!" Who was this man?
Luke wasn't scared anymore. He wasn't scared of Tess or of these new whisperings of his heart or even of this longing to get off the narrow train track his family had laid out for him. He wanted to jump onto a broader path of twists and curves, its end hidden from sight.
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