The horror of the thought made her shudder. Hoyt turned and looked at her.
"Are you all right, darling?"
Eva smiled reassuringly. "Yes. Yes, I'm fine."
She wasn't fine. She was close to hysteria, but what else could she say? She'd said as much as she'd dared yesterday morning, when Hoyt had walked in on her just as she'd opened the note.
Of all days for him to have forgotten his briefcase. Of all days for him to have decided to come back and fetch it himself! If only he'd sent his chauffeur, or a boy from the office.
"But, what does it mean?" he'd asked, after he'd read the note.
"I've no idea," Eva had said brightly.
She'd crumpled the slip of paper as if she'd truly meant it and tossed it aside but Hoyt had reacted with all the fervor of his Puritan ancestors, retrieving the damnable thing, smoothing it out, then tucking it back into its envelope.
"I'd best report it."
"Hoyt, whatever for? It's nothing."
"I'm sure you're right, my dear, but considering the importance of this appointment, one can't be too careful. I'll phone Harry Thurston. We went to Choate together, you know."
Oh yes. Eva knew. The great brotherhood of old money and older bloodlines, that small, select fraternity that had been closed to her until she'd made her first million at Papillon, the oh-so-private club that, despite her growing wealth, would not have admitted her to its ranks had she not bedazzled and married Hoyt.
"Do you have any idea who could have sent this note, Mrs. Winthrop?"
Eva looked at Conor O'Neil. She'd expected the question and she had an answer ready.
"None," she said, putting her cup and saucer on the table.
"Mr. Winthrop?"
Hoyt shook his head, too, his handsome face puzzled. "I'm afraid not, Mr. O'Neil."
"Any thoughts about what it might mean?"
Hoyt shrugged his shoulders. "Not a one."
"Mrs. Winthrop?"
Eva's eyes met Conor's. "Yes?"
"Have you any idea what the note means?"
Her gaze was clear and steady. "No."
Conor nodded again. "Santayana," he said.
Both Winthrops looked at him as if he'd just announced that he'd had a vision.
"The quote's from Santayana. The Spanish philosopher."
"Oh. Of course."
Hoyt Winthrop smiled. He had a face like an open book, easy to read and to understand. He was puzzled, and obviously so. Eva Winthrop's face bore the same expression, but Conor thought there was something else in the way she looked at him.
What was it? Animosity? Probably, and he couldn't much blame her. Her husband had endured the rigors of a government investigation and now a man from some nameless agency was sitting in her library, holding in his hands the power to start the process all over again. When you came down to it, why shouldn't she dislike him?
Conor smiled, trying to put the Winthrops at ease. He folded the note and tucked it into its envelope.
"You don't mind if I keep it, do you?" he said, as if they really had a choice in the matter.
"Certainly not," Hoyt Winthrop said.
"If you feel you must," Eva Winthrop said. Her tone was sharp, and both men looked at her. She cleared her throat. "I just think my husband's worrying about nothing. This is New York, after all. People make threats every day."
"Is that what you think this is, Mrs. Winthrop? A threat?"
Eva's eyes narrowed a fraction of an inch. "It's what my husband thinks. That's why he called Mr. Thurston."
"But you don't agree."
"Central Park is just across the street. I walk through it often. There are homeless people there. Have you ever seen them?"
"Eva, my dear," Hoyt said, "Mr. O'Neil's just trying to help."
"I'm not sure I get your point, Mrs. Winthrop."
Eva rose to her feet and the men did, too.
"If you walk past people like that often enough, you're bound to hear them muttering things. Threatening things, one might say. But I never take any of it personally. New York is full of deranged souls, Mr. O'Neil. Do you see what I mean?"
Conor smiled. She had a point, a valid one. He told her so, and she smiled back at him.
"I'm glad we agree." Eva linked her arm through her husband's and looked past him, at an antique clock on the fireplace mantel. "My goodness, I had no idea it was getting so late. May I pour you more coffee?"
It was a very polite, very proper dismissal but a dismissal, nonetheless. Conor bit back the desire to tell Eva Winthrop that he was as eager to leave as she was to get rid of him. A glance at the same clock confirmed his worst suspicions, that Mary Alice had by now been sitting outside in a cab, waiting for him for at least twenty minutes.
"Thank you," he said, "but I have an appointment."
Eva offered her hand and he shook it. Hoyt led him from the library and into the foyer, chatting casually about this and that. Conor listened, but with only half an ear. He'd been this route before, engaging in the polite conversation that went with people trying to pretend that he might not somehow muck up their lives by uncovering secrets they'd thought were buried deep enough never to be found. He'd only spent half an hour with Hoyt Winthrop but the man seemed likeable enough. Conor wanted to tell him not to worry, that the odds were a hundred to one this note was going to end up in the shredder Monday morning.
But life, and his training, had taught him not to trust the odds. And anyway, his mind was on other things.
The portrait, for one. There it was again. There she was again, the girl with the smile that held a million questions and eyes that seemed to look into a man's soul.
"Mr. O'Neil?"
Conor turned around. Hoyt Winthrop was holding out his coat. Conor flushed, took the coat and shrugged it on.
"Sorry. I was—ah, I was just trying to think of some simple explanation for that note."
Hoyt gave him a hopeful smile. "And?"
"And if I were you, I wouldn't be the least bit concerned," Conor said briskly. "Your wife's right. The world's full of psychos. For all we know, the note's the first step in a solicitation by a bunch of religious fruitcakes. You know, a loose interpretation of the 'Repent, ye sinners,' kind of thing."
"Of course," Hoyt said, looking relieved. "Why didn't I think of that?" He held out his hand and Conor shook it. "Thank you again for coming by, Mr. O'Neil. And if you need anything else..."
"Actually," Conor said, "there is one thing."
"Yes?"
"That painting."
Hoyt's brows rose. "What painting?"
"That one. Of the girl." Conor paused. He felt as stupid as he was certain he sounded, and yet it would be stupider still not to know the answer, to leave here wondering about the girl's identity. "Who is she?"
Hoyt turned, his gaze following Conor's. "Oh. You mean Miranda."
Miranda? Of course. Eva's daughter, Miranda Beckman.
"It was painted when she was sixteen."
Sixteen? Conor thought, surprised. The girl in the painting looked older. Not wiser, just older than sixteen. He looked at her mouth again, at that Mona Lisa smile, and to his chagrin he felt that sudden tightening of his body.
"She doesn't live with us," Hoyt said quickly. "Miranda's been on her own for several years now. I'm sorry to say that we're not close, not close at all."
She lives a pretty wild life.
Harry Thurston's words echoed in Conor's head as his eyes met Winthrop's. The man's message was clear. Don't judge me by my stepdaughter, he was saying. I don't have anything to do with her life and she has nothing to do with mine.
It took nothing to offer a smile of reassurance.
"Yes, sir," Conor said quietly. "I understand."
Hoyt smiled. "Good day, Mr. O'Neil."
"Good-bye, Mr. Winthrop."
The door shut after him. Conor trotted down the steps. There was a cab parked at the curb and he hurried to it and yanked open the door. Mary Alice glared at him as he clim
bed inside.
"Honestly, Conor, I've been waiting and waiting. Meet me at ten, you said, and here it is, going on ten-thirty, and—"
Conor thought of Miranda's portrait. How could he have thought Mary Alice beautiful? Her eyes weren't the color of the sea; her hair didn't frame her face like ebony silk.
"—don't like to be treated this way, not one bit. If you think you can—"
What sort of man got turned on by a painting? Hell, what sort of man got turned on by a painting when he had a flesh and blood woman like this waiting for him? Conor looked at Mary Alice's blue eyes, her daffodil-gold hair. He thought about her satin thighs and the fullness of her breasts.
"—was thinking that perhaps you'd rather collect your things and go to the airport. The shuttle—"
She gasped as Conor pulled her roughly into his arms and kissed her to silence. When the kiss ended, she leaned back and smiled into his eyes.
"Oh, that's nice," she said softly. "Very nice." Reaching out, she stroked her hand over his forehead, threading her fingers into his dark hair. "I thought you'd forgotten all about me."
His smile was slow and sexy. "Not for a minute."
Mary Alice linked her hands behind his neck. "That's good, because I expect your undivided attention."
"You've got it."
"For the weekend, I mean. You do understand," she said, not unkindly. "I'm not into commitment."
Conor laughed. She was just what he needed, this woman. She was all honesty and reality and unabashed desire. As for being beautiful—a man would have to be crazy not to see that she was.
Whatever nonsense had spooked him in the Winthrop house would wither once he and Mary Alice Whittaker took another ride in her bed.
They shared a long brunch and then they took an equally long carriage ride through Central Park. In late afternoon, Conor bought a couple of bottles of Chardonnay at a store that looked more like a place that sold magic elixirs than booze and then they stopped at Zabar's for Brie, English water biscuits and smoked Scotch salmon.
They taxied to Mary Alice's apartment and while she changed to another incredibly sexy gown that seemed to be woven of cobwebs, Conor chilled the wine, lit a fire in the fireplace and tossed the throw pillows from the sofa onto the carpet. They made love slowly, by the light of the dancing flames. It was all perfect... and yet, at the last minute, Conor hesitated.
"Conor?" Mary Alice whispered as he went still above her.
He looked down at her upturned face. "It's all right," he said, bending to kiss her.
And it was all right, just as soon as he closed his eyes and substituted the inky spill of Miranda Beckman's hair for the soft strands of gold that actually lay spread over the pillows, the unfathomable green eyes for the greedy blue ones.
It was the first time in his life he'd ever made love to an imaginary woman. It was a new feeling and he was not sure he liked it, but it brought him to a shattering climax that somehow still managed to be incomplete.
At dawn, he arose from Mary Alice's bed.
"Wha' time issit?" she said sleepily.
"Go back to sleep," he said. Then he kissed her gently on the mouth, showered and dressed, and caught an early morning flight back to Washington.
Chapter 2
Monday morning and it was still raining, in New York and in D.C. But the six o'clock shuttle touched down at Dulles right on schedule.
Conor swung his carry-on bag from the overhead compartment, made his way out into the terminal along with a hurrying bunch of yawning, early-morning business travelers, and headed for the lot where he'd left his car. He slung his bag into the rear seat of the vintage Thunderbird, got behind the wheel and headed for the Beltway.
Traffic was heavy. It always was. Sometimes Conor had the feeling that everybody who worked in Washington spent half their time sitting in their automobiles, driving the roads that encircled the city.
Things eased off, once he headed into the Virginia countryside. Office buildings weren't jammed in here the way they were in town. Traffic was moving pretty smoothly by the time he reached the turn-off for the complex where the Committee had its offices. It was still raining, but that was okay.
The rain suited his mood.
The weekend that had begun with so much promise had ended on an off-key note and he had nobody to blame but himself.
Why in hell had he agreed to do Thurston's "little favor?"
"Little favor, my ass," he muttered as he took the off-ramp faster than was sensible, considering the rain. The 'bird slipped a little on the wet macadam and Conor eased his foot from the gas pedal.
Despite his assurances to the Winthrops, every instinct he possessed told him there was more to that seemingly simple note than he'd pretended. Those same instincts told him that Eva Winthrop knew it, that she knew one hell of a lot more than she'd admitted.
And then there was that portrait.
Conor's hands tightened on the steering wheel. Why couldn't he get it out of his head? It was as if the image of the girl had burned itself into his brain. All he had to do was shut his eyes and he could see that perfect oval face, those green eyes, that mane of black hair.
What kind of stupidity was that?
He was not a man given to romantic daydreams, especially about females who were, what? Sixteen? Wasn't that what Hoyt Winthrop had said Miranda was, in the painting? As for sexual fantasies—like any other man, he'd had his share. A beautiful woman strolling past, hips swaying just so. A quick glance, a smile, and he could amuse himself with some very interesting scenarios during a dull meeting an hour or two later. But he never toyed with fantasies when he had a stunning, eager-to-please woman in his arms—and yet, he'd left Mary Alice's bed in the dark hour just before dawn, not so much because he couldn't sleep but because there was something unsettling about the possibility of making it with her again while conjuring up an image of Miranda Beckman.
Conor's jaw tightened as he pulled into the parking lot. Okay, so maybe the girl's face was stuck in his head. But it wasn't his hormones that kept it there, it was instinct, the same sixth sense that told him that her mother knew lots more than she was letting on.
Miranda Beckman, Miranda Winthrop, whatever Eva's daughter called herself, was somehow part of what was going on. He wasn't sure how or why, only that the note, and the girl, were linked. Despite what he'd told Eva and Hoyt, the note meant business. And it had something to do with Miranda.
Conor trotted up the marble steps of the building that housed the Committee's offices, walked through the doors as they opened soundlessly and made his way across the lobby. He bypassed the bank of public elevators for three others that were tucked away in an alcove, keyed in the code that opened one of them and stepped inside. The doors shut and a disembodied electronic voice asked him to place his fingertips against a glowing panel in the wall. He did, and the same toneless voice asked him to select a floor.
"Seven," he said.
The elevator rose noiselessly.
On the other hand, he wasn't going to tell any of that to Harry Thurston.
For one thing, it was all speculation. For another, he absolutely, positively had no intention of getting drawn into an investigation that was none of his business. The elevator doors opened and he stepped out onto the seventh floor. There was no reason to get drawn in. The Winthrop thing was in the FBI's lap, not CIA's, not the Committee's, and surely not—
"You're late, Mr. O'Neil."
Conor sighed. For all the electronic and digital coding that guarded the inner workings of these offices, it was still a human being who decided who got through the last set of doors. Sybil Aldrich, Harry Thurston's plump, fiftyish and formidable P.A., guarded her boss's lair with unwavering ferocity.
Conor looked at the old-fashioned clock that hung on the bilious green wall beside Sybil's desk. It was 8:03. He'd phoned Harry from the plane and told him he'd be in to see him around eight.
"Did you hear me, Mr. O'Neil? I said, you're late."
"A
nd good morning to you, too, sweet Sybil."
"Mr. Thurston expected you promptly at eight."
"He expected me whenever I showed up." Conor paused at Sybil's desk, bent towards her and took a dramatic sniff. "Mmm. What wonderful, exotic fragrance are you wearing today, I wonder?"
"It's Ivory soap. And you should know by now, your nonsense doesn't impress me."
Conor smiled. Theirs was an old routine. At least, it was a routine on his part. He was never quite certain if Sybil played at being a junkyard dog or if she really was one.
"Try and remember I take my coffee with sugar and cream this time, will you, Sybil, love?"
"Try and remember that asking a Personal Assistant for coffee is a sexist act."
"Two lumps, okay? And make sure you use cream, not that powdered stuff you pawn off on the peasants." He shot her a smile, opened the door and stepped inside Thurston's office.
The head of the Committee was seated behind his government-issue tan metal desk, his swivel chair turned so that his back was to the room and he was facing the window and the grey, steady rain. Conor walked to the desk and sat down in one of the leather chairs that faced it. The chair was government-issue, too, which meant that it was almost as uncomfortable as it was unattractive.
"Your kind of day, Harry?"
Thurston chuckled as he swiveled his chair around. He was a slender, fine-boned man of indeterminate years who would have looked more at home as a professor at an Ivy League university than as head of a group that few people inside government, and no one outside it, knew existed.
"It's a brook trout's kind of day, my boy. I was just wishing I could take the morning off and head up to a little pool I know in the mountains." Harry folded his hand on his desk. "How was your weekend?"
"Great."
Harry sighed dramatically. "It must be wonderful to be young, single and a shoe-in for the next James Bond."
Conor smiled. He dug into his pocket, took out the note Hoyt Winthrop had given him and tossed it onto the desk.
"Only if Bond's an errand boy, Harry. There's your note."
"And here's something to keep you busy, while I read."
Until You (A Romantic Suspense Novel - Author's Cut Edition) Page 3