“Samantha, if you’re in trouble, you should tell someone. Why not me?”
Her head jerked up. “I don’t know you, do I? How can I trust you?”
“Faith?” His brief smile was whimsical. “Or my honest face?” He stood up, stretching his arms above his head, his hand nearly touching the brass lamp fixture that hung from the ceiling. “I guess the only thing to do is to take you out for dinner. Once you know me better I’m sure I can convince you to trust me.”
She couldn’t. It would be crazy to become involved with this man. But his warmth and charm drew her. She’d been alone for months. Only through work and determination had she managed to keep her loneliness at bay.
Trust me, Tony said. But it was herself she couldn’t trust.
Still, it was only dinner, and she realized she was hungry. He’d been kind to her. Perhaps she owed him this courtesy.
“All right,” she said, the worried frown smoothing out. “But somewhere simple.”
Grinning broadly, he pulled at his sweatshirt. “Dressed like this? It’ll have to be simple. How about the fish shop on the corner? Is it any good?”
“Sure, it’s fine.” She smiled, too, but inside she felt a little like a girl on an unexpected date with a boy she’d secretly fancied. “I’ve become one of their best customers.”
A low meow sent her to the kitchen. She stroked her hand quickly over the cat’s head, shivering a little as she recalled how Tony’s lean fingers had caressed the fur with sensuous absorption.
Odd how, in spite of her consuming anxiety, she’d noticed such a thing. Quickly banishing the thought, she let Bagheera out for his nightly prowl of the neighborhood, locking the door securely after him.
* * * *
Outside, the mist had thickened, and the evening felt cool, especially after the unusual warmth of the day.
Tony pushed open the door of the fish shop, inhaling sharply at the steamy heat that clouded the windows. As they entered, the clamor of raised voices in several languages and the hot oil smell from the fryers swirled around them. Sam welcomed the noise and the activity, the tangy scent of vinegar and brown sauce.
Wiping her glasses on her sleeve, she grinned at the Pakistani teenager who manned the cash register, giving him the order for both of them.
“Eat-in or takeaway, miss?” he asked.
“In, please.”
“Right.” He yelled the order at his father who sweated over the fryer at the far end of the high counter.
Sam groped in her handbag for her wallet, but Tony placed his hand over hers. “I invited you. I pay,” he said firmly.
The boy looked from one to the other, his black eyes bright with a knowing humor. Deftly ringing up the sale, he handed Tony his change, along with a receipt and a number. “Ten minutes. The girl will bring it to your table. If you can find one.”
“I’m sorry,” Samantha said over her shoulder as Tony pushed her ahead of him down the narrow aisle between the tables. “I should have asked what you wanted. But I’m in the habit of coming by myself.”
Why that confession warmed him he couldn’t have said. “It’s all right.”
A couple got up from a small booth, and Tony and Sam slid into it, grinning at each other like fellow conspirators as they saw the chagrin on the faces of two young men who’d reached the table seconds too late.
They ate their fish and chips, washing the food down with a soft drink that stained their lips orange. Afterwards, the trade in the shop having subsided somewhat, they lingered at the table, ordering tea.
When it came, Sam made a face. “I hate milk in tea. It’s a new waitress. The old one never put it in.”
Tony looked at her quizzically. “I thought all Brits took milk in their tea.”
“I’m—” She skidded to a stop. “We didn’t in our family,” she said firmly, making a gallant recovery.
“You mean you didn’t sit on the terrace in the summer and pour tea from a silver pot into thin china cups?”
His tone was gentle, but she thought she heard an underlying sarcasm. Lifting her chin, she said grandly, “Of course we did, but we poured our own.”
“It looks as if you’ve come down in the world.” With a smile that didn’t seem quite real he lifted his tea mug in a salute. “Welcome to the real world, Samantha Clark. Now, how about telling me your real name and what exactly you’re up to.”
She knew having dinner with him had been a mistake, and cursed her weakness. Despite the humid heat of the room, a chill seeped into her. She hugged her arms defensively around her chest. “I can’t. Believe me, I can’t.”
“Can’t? Or won’t?” He reached across the table and placed his hand over hers. “What is it, Samantha? What are you afraid of?”
Her face felt still and pale, his quiet concern tempting her. Only the fear kept her from spilling it all. “Nothing.”
A muscle tightened next to his mouth. “Okay, we’ll try a different approach. What were you doing in the Regal Arms this afternoon when you saw the ‘dead’ man?”
“I was buying a newspaper. Whenever I’m in the neighborhood, I buy a newspaper there.”
“Why there, Samantha? There’s a news agent’s on the street corner.”
She flushed. “Because I like the grandeur of the lobby. It reminds me—“ Again she broke off, biting her lip as she refused to elaborate.
Tony nodded as if he understood. “So we have something in common. We’re impressed by the lobby of the Regal Arms. What does it remind you of?”
What would it hurt, after all? “My grandmother’s house. I used to spend a lot of time there when I was a child. The place was enchanting.” Sadness crept into her low voice. “When she died, the house was sold.”
“I’m sorry.” Letting go of her hand, he lifted his cup, setting it down again when he realized it was empty. “Sam, let me help you.”
“I don’t need any help.” She rose from her seat, abandoning her own mug of cold tea. “Shall we go? I have work tomorrow.”
“Work?” he echoed as he followed her out the door into the cool misty night. “What do you do?”
She shivered as the dampness seeped through her jacket. “Translations. I’m fluent in German and French, and I can work my way around Italian and Spanish. Right now I’m doing a literature text for a retired professor. French to English. It’s an easy one.”
They entered her building, climbing the stairs to the third floor. At the door of her flat, Sam fumbled in her handbag for her key. She put it in the lock, eying Tony uncertainly.
“Uh, I’m really tired—”
“Miss Clark. Oh, Miss Clark.”
The singsong voice interrupted her polite dismissal. Sam turned toward her neighbor. Miss Hunnicott came down the hall, her sensible shoes clumping on the worn Oriental runner. In her hand she held a large manila envelope.
“Miss Clark—” For the first time she seemed to notice Tony. She stopped in mid-sentence, and looked at him with disapproval flaring her thin nostrils. Until he smiled, and the censure turned to a coy fluttering of her sparse eyelashes. “It’s nice to see Miss Clark with a friend,” she said with a simpering smile.
“Thank you,” Tony said, giving her the benefit of his most sincere, heart breaker’s grin.
“Miss Clark, this came for you today while you were out.” She handed Sam the envelope. “One of those new private delivery services.”
“Thank you,” Samantha said. “I appreciate you’re taking it for me.” She weighed the package in her hand. Thin. No return address. Probably junk mail, not that she’d occupied the flat long enough to receive much of that.
Miss Hunnicott still lingered. “I knew it must be important. That’s why I waited for you, Miss Clark.”
“Yes. Thank you,” Sam said again, aware of Tony’s curiosity, and wondering how she was going to get rid of him.
“Perhaps we could have tea tomorrow,” Miss Hunnicott said in a wheedling tone when she saw she had less than all of Sam’s attenti
on.
“Perhaps,” Sam said vaguely. “I’ll see if I come in early enough in the afternoon.”
Miss Hunnicott laid a soft, pudgy hand on Samantha’s sleeve. “Please do, my dear. I’m always glad to have you.”
“I’ll try. Good night, Miss Hunnicott.”
“Good night, dear.” She started down the hall, then turned. “I wonder who will move into the empty flat on the second floor. I hope it’s somebody interesting.”
Sam paused. “Empty flat?”
“Didn’t you see the sign outside?”
“Oh. Oh, yes.” It must have gone up only that day. She hadn’t paid any attention. “Good night, Miss Hunnicott,” she said again.
She entered her flat quickly, without attempting to stop Tony who followed her through the door. She would sort him out later, after she escaped the velvet clutches of Miss Hunnicott.
“She’s lonely.” Samantha moved to the kitchen to find a letter opener. “No relatives here, and I think all her friends are dead.” Slitting the envelope she looked at Tony standing in the doorway, his hand braced on the frame. “I really am tired, Tony.”
He gestured at the envelope. “I’ll go in a minute. But look at your mail. It must be important.”
His behavior was worse than her neighbor’s, Samantha thought.
She upended the envelope to remove the contents. Out dropped a second, smaller envelope and a folded note. Picking up the note, she read the brief message.
“It’s from my solicitor’s office,” she muttered. “Strange he didn’t mention it when I had lunch with him today. He could have just given it to me instead of sending it.”
The note merely said that the enclosed envelope had come for her with a request that it be forwarded to the present address of Samantha Smith.
“Smith?” Tony said in an odd voice.
Damn. Samantha crushed the note in her fist, realizing too late that he’d read it over her shoulder.
“I thought your name was Clark.”
“It’s a mistake,” she said hurriedly. “They’ve sent it to the wrong person.” She turned, the paper burning her hand. “I think you’d better go.”
Tony looked mutinous, then shrugged. “If that’s the way you feel about it.”
Without waiting to see if he went out the door, Sam smoothed out the note. The typed message read: Mr. Collins is out, so I’m taking the liberty of sending this on to you since it appears urgent. It was signed by Collins’s part-time secretary.
With a sense of foreboding, she picked up the second envelope. In the bright kitchen light, the post office stamp stood out clearly.
Montréal. The return address was that of Smith Industries. No wonder Mrs. Graham had thought it important.
Samantha’s face went cold and still. Something was wrong. Smith Industries would not be sending her mail through Mr. Collins, since she had given them Amelia’s Nice address. It had to be someone else, using the company stationery.
With trembling fingers she tore open the flap and pulled out the single sheet of paper, staring at the bright travel brochure advertising the amenities of Nice and the French Riviera. Scrawled across the photo of the golden beach were two words: You lied.
“No.” The word whispered past her stiff lips. She closed her eyes, denying what she’d seen. It wasn’t possible. They couldn’t have found her. She went into the living room and sank down onto the sofa.
“Samantha?”
Through the roaring in her ears, she heard Tony’s voice. Was he still here? “Samantha, you look so strange. Are you all right?”
She was definitely not all right. Dazed, she turned to him. “I thought you’d gone.”
Again he detected the inconsistency, the flatness in her vowels.
“Not yet,” he said. “Good thing, too. Samantha, what’s going on? What scared you?”
Slowly, as if she feared it might turn into a snake, she unclenched her fist from the envelope. Like a condemned woman resigned to her fate, she unfolded the brochure. More red letters, crudely printed with a felt marker, leaped out at her. You can’t hide forever.
Beside the words was a crude drawing of a gallows with a stick figure hanging from it, the neck twisted obscenely.
“Oh, no.” Her eyes wide with horror, she dropped the paper on the table.
Gingerly Tony picked it up, staring at the message. “Who sent this, Samantha? What is going on?”
Samantha covered her face with her hands, as if by shutting out the light she could deny the implications of the words and the brochure. She let her hands slide down to her lap where she clasped them tightly together. “They’ve found me. They know where I am.”
Chapter Three
“They? Who’re they?” Tony dropped the brochure on the coffee table. Feeling totally out of his depth, he sat down beside her. He clasped her icy hand in his, rubbing it between his palms. “And what do you mean they’ve found you? Who is it you’re hiding from?”
She hid her face against his sweatshirt, breathing in the cool scent of outdoors and the underlying warmth that emanated from his skin. “I can’t tell you, Tony. It’s better if you don’t know.” She lifted her head, her eyes tear-wet and stricken. “I’ll probably have to move.”
“How long have you been hiding?” Tony asked, without much hope of a straight answer.
But she surprised him, and her reply had a ring of truth he recognized. “Almost six months.”
“And no one knows where you are.”
“Only Mr. Collins, my solicitor. And he would never betray me.” She stood up suddenly, urgent words tumbling from her mouth. “Tony, you can’t stay here. I may be in danger. And you might be, too.”
He remained where he was, staring at her. “Really? What kind of danger?”
A muscle jumped in her jaw as she tightened her lips. “I can’t tell you.”
Tony stood up abruptly, his knee knocking the table. The mug Sam had forgotten from hours ago fell over, spilling the dregs of cold coffee. “Damn. Where’s a cloth?”
“In the kitchen.”
Tony mopped up the coffee, which fortunately hadn’t soaked anything important. Taking the cloth back to the kitchen to rinse it out, he paused on the way. “Sooner or later you’ll have to tell me. I want to help you.”
“I don’t need any help.”
“I think you do,” Tony said calmly. “I’m not leaving until I get some answers.”
“It’s not your affair.” But her protest was lost as he turned on the water at the sink.
Samantha sank back into the sagging cushions. What could she do now? Run again, somewhere else? She massaged the spot between her eyes that was beginning to ache. She had taken such pains to lay down a false trail, winding through Europe in a car rented under Amelia’s name. She’d been so careful, never making close friends, never letting anyone suspect she wasn’t what she seemed, a black sheep member of the aristocracy, exiled in the anonymous city.
And Tony Theopoulos, who had been pushed by some diabolical fate into her life, threatened the whole setup. If the past caught up with her, how was she going to protect him as well as herself? He already knew, or guessed, too much.
She glanced toward the kitchen. What was keeping him? All she could hear was water running, followed by splashing sounds in the sink.
Her eye fell on the yesterday’s newspaper, which had fallen off the table. She gathered up the scattered sheets, stopping short as she saw a photo displayed on the society page. It was Tony, a drink in his hand and a cool smile on his face. He stared back at her, his dark suit and white shirt making him stand out from the crowd behind him. “The prominent hotelier, Anthony Theopoulos, was one of the distinguished guests at Lady Cecelia’s charity ball last evening,” gushed the caption.
All the more reason to get him out of her life, Sam thought with a sinking feeling in her stomach. He moved in the kind of society she’d avoided since coming to London. She knew Lady Cecelia. In fact, their families had known each other for years
.
She couldn’t see Tony again, risk being recognized by someone who would report back to Bennett. It might already be too late.
“Well?”
Samantha jumped. “You took long enough. What did you do, clean the whole kitchen?”
“Why, were you timing me?” Picking up the newspaper, he frowned at the photo and dropped it without comment. He’d already read the story, which made him sound like a playboy, an image he wanted to downplay.
He settled down in a chair opposite the sofa, letting his leg hang over the arm. “Who’s looking for you, Samantha? What are you so afraid of?”
She opened her mouth, but Tony forestalled her reply. “I know. You can’t tell me.” He shifted restlessly. “Isn’t it time you told somebody?”
She gave the idea serious consideration. He could see the wheels turning in her brain. But in the end she shook her head. “No, it’s better this way.”
His foot hit the floor with a thump and he stood up. “Then I can’t help you either, can I? Good night, Samantha. It’s been, uh, interesting.” The door closed very softly behind him.
Samantha sat for a long moment after the sound of Tony’s footsteps receded down the stairs.
He wouldn’t be back.
It was better that way, she reasoned. Safer for him. And for herself, as well.
Forget Tony, she told herself firmly. He was too much like the men she’d always dated, successful and restless, always looking for the next woman, the next business deal. Her mistake with Bennett was too fresh in her mind.
She couldn’t get involved with Tony, no matter how concerned he seemed about her situation.
Her eye fell on the brochure. Nice, playground of Europe. Someone had found out that she was not in Nice, and used her connection to Smith Industries to trace her. But why pick London? Smith Industries also had offices in Geneva and Milan.
Past Tense Page 3