by Maxine Barry
Julie had bearded the youngest woman in the room, and he could tell she was ‘confiding’ in her that she was in love with a married man, and giving out hints that it was one of the men in her company. Of course, the woman she was talking to instantly thought she must mean Reeve, and Julie was having a hard time convincing her that it wasn’t him.
Annis, overhearing this, ignored the twin prongs of jealousy and despair. It was yet another timely reminder—as if she needed one—that falling in love with a drop-dead handsome actor was hardly the smartest thing she’d ever done.
At ten o’clock the door opened and a ‘character’ walked in. The man was in his sixties, with silver hair and moustache, and a lean, tall, thin body that moved with exquisite precision. He had ex-military and important personage stamped all over him. ‘Good morning ladies and gentleman,’ he said, bringing an instant hush to the room. ‘I’m Lord Roland St John James, the Principal here.’ He went on to give a short but pithy welcome speech, followed by a round of applause from his hearers.
By a big open sash window, Norman Rix was telling the owner of a small publishing house about his stint in the police force, and hinting that he had to leave under a bit of cloud. He now worked for Oxford Spires Publishing Company as a consultant for their police-procedural novels. A pity, really, Norman thought mischievously, that Oxford Spires didn’t really exist!
The Principal, known to all his friends simply as Sin-Jun, found himself next to a roly-poly teddy bear of a man, and shook hands yet again. ‘Lord St John James,’ Ray Verney said jovially. ‘I’m Raymond Verney.’ He dropped his voice. ‘The organiser of the murder mystery weekend?’
Sin-Jun smiled wearily. ‘Oh, quite. Are your people here now?’
Ray smiled. ‘They are. Setting up their characters, I hope.’
Sin-Jun nodded. ‘I must say, nobody is instantly recognisable as an actor.’
Ray smiled. ‘I should hope not,’ he said, then added casually, ‘about the removal of this painting . . . ?’
Sin-Jun nodded, remembering that the Bursar had arranged for one of the paintings in Hall to be removed at a propitious moment, just to help the whodunit along. ‘Whatever’s wanted, just say. We’ll be glad to help,’ he said airily.
Ray beamed. It was like taking candy from a baby.
In the middle of the room, Gerry suddenly squealed. It was a discreet, lady-like squeal, but it caught the attention of everyone in the immediate vicinity, and some of those beyond.
‘Annis, love, that necklace of yours!’ Gerry crowed, reaching forward and ostentatiously holding the ‘diamond’ pendant in her hand. ‘It’s a real rock!’ The women in the group around them instantly looked across at the two actresses in genuine interest, whilst Annis laughed, a little falsely. ‘Oh, it’s got a flaw in it. I wouldn’t have been able to afford it otherwise,’ she said modestly, but patently uneasily.
Reeve leaned against a wall and took in her performance with avid, hungry eyes. She’d been so elusive ever since she’d all but told him that their affair was strictly short-term only. He couldn’t tell whether she was already getting bored with him, or whether there was something else. He hoped, fervently, that it was something else.
‘I don’t care,’ Gerry gasped, avarice, jealousy and greed artfully displayed on her face. ‘I’d kill for a diamond that size. It must be . . .’ she named a vastly exaggerated carat.
Annis firmly pulled the pendant away from Gerry’s grip. ‘Oh, no, nothing like that.’ She made a very great show of tucking the diamond pendant under her blouse. Gerry shrugged and moved away, but cast several very obvious glances back at het.
The room erupted into conversation again. Quite a few of the delegates had by now pegged Annis as one of the actors, and they began to speculate. When would the necklace be ‘stolen’? And who’d be murdered?
The sun was shining, the atmosphere was marvellous, and the St Bede’s Murder Mystery Weekend had got off to a flying start.
Over by the door, Ray Verney took a deep, happy, breath and told himself to relax.
Annis, busily denying the size of the diamond to a gently probing editor, caught Reeve’s eye and hastily looked away.
Reeve’s lips thinned. She looked as if she wanted nothing to do with him. And it was driving him crazy. He couldn’t let it go on. Sooner or later, Miss Annis Whittington was going to have to deal with him, face to face, all cards on the table.
And what if she really is bored with you, Reeve? A little voice popped up in the back of his head. What if she meant just what she said—that all she wants is a little fun, and then, adios amigo. What will you do then?
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Frederica stepped back and viewed the room. Her desk was cleared of all paperwork, and had been laid with a pretty Indian silk scarf of deep blues, greens and creams. On it were two plain white plates, a pair of crystal glasses, a vase of Sweet Wilma and a bottle of wine in an ice bucket. She’d ‘ordered in’ from a local restaurant and nesting under silver warming dishes was a warm crab salad with a rich and creamy raspberry mousse packed in ice for dessert. Deep green napkins waited at the side of each plate. She nodded, satisfied at the pretty picture she’d created. A scene set for seduction. A scene set for ambush. Perfect.
She looked around the rest of the room, lingering on the covered canvas, an expression of pain and satisfaction warring on her face. Sometimes she hated it. As if it was easier to blame it for the mess she was in, rather than him.
The painting itself was almost finished now. Forbes-Wright had been famous for the feverish quickness with which he painted, and she’d had to work at the same break-neck speed in order to produce the same effect. Of course, she’d practised the new, faster style on several untreated canvases first, just to make sure she could do it. Those she had carefully burned afterwards.
She knew, in her heart of hearts, that the forgery she’d done had been a masterpiece of its kind. Now she wondered whether she’d been inspired to make it so perfect, or had simply been driven by a need for revenge. The damned painting, after all, was all he cared about. Not her. Not her. The pain of it had her turning away and brushing the thought aside. There was no room for self-pity now.
She deliberately left the covered canvas where he could hardly fail to see it, which was, after all, the whole point. She wanted to see just how far he would go. What would he say about it, exactly? Perhaps, he’d even ignore it altogether—pretend it wasn’t there. Now wouldn’t that be amusing?
She checked her appearance carefully in the mirror. It had taken her hours before she’d achieved the look she was aiming for. She had on a plain white blouse, but it was unbuttoned at the neck, revealing the valley of her breasts, and she’d caught up the ends and tied them in a knot under her breasts, leaving her navel and midriff bare. To go with it, she’d donned a very brief pair of turquoise shorts, which revealed her long, slim, pale legs in all their shapely glory, and hinted discreetly at the rounded cheeks of her buttocks. Her feet were bare. Her face had not a scrap of make-up on it. She’d left her hair loose, and careful shampooing, conditioning, and hair-drying brushwork had left it an artful, waving mass, tumbling over her shoulders, swinging across her back whenever she moved. Her freckles had caught the sun, making their march across her nose unmistakable. She looked as young as she could possibly look. And as provocative and sexy.
Good. She wanted to confuse him. To torment him. To see if he would feel guilty at taking her innocence under false pretences. She’d lain awake at nights, like someone on the rack, wondering if he even felt the slightest tinge of conscience about that afternoon when he’d made love to her. Or was it all just in the line of duty?
He’d seemed genuinely surprised by her untouched state. Did it worry him now? Somehow she doubted it. Oh yes, she doubted it very much. But, just in case she was wrong, she wanted to see the truth for herself.
She glanced at her watch. Nearly twelve-thirty. She jumped, her heart pounding, as a discreet knock sounded against her d
oor. Now that he was here she felt weakened, scared and nervous. And hideously excited. To see him again, his handsome face, his cool, sophisticated aura, to hear his voice. She raised her chin. A grimace of remembered pain and anger briefly twisted her lips, then was gone. When she opened the door, she opened her eyes very wide and smiled at her visitor.
‘Lorcan! Are those for me?’ In his hand he held a large bunch of sweet-smelling white and yellow roses. ‘They’re lovely. Thank you!’ She walked across the small room to a glass vase standing on the windowsill, making sure he got a good view of her bare legs and feet and rounded bottom. When she looked back over her shoulder, she was sure his eyes had darkened.
Lorcan said nothing as she put the flowers in the vase, simply because his breath had been taken away. She looked about sixteen years old dressed like that. Where was the sophisticated vision he’d taken out to dinner that first night?
Where was the summer nymph he’d met on the river bank, in front of the Old Mill?
Frederica saw a bleak look cross his face and felt an odd combination of satisfaction and pain. So the man did have a heart after all. Somehow it both upset and annoyed her.
‘Well, I hope you like seafood,’ she smiled, hastily revealing the succulent crab meat on its bed of lettuce. ‘Would you like to pour the wine?’
Lorcan forced a smile on to his face. He walked towards her, covering the few yards in a few measured steps, and couldn’t help but flick the covered canvas a puzzled glance. Why the hell hadn’t she hidden it? Frederica saw the direction of his eyes, and hid a smile. Later, she’d give him the chance to take a look at it. He must be eaten alive with curiosity. And when he’d seen it, what would he do then?
Her heart stalled as she suddenly realised that her whole future depended on that one question. Now that he was here, filling the empty space around her, she could no longer hide behind her pain—behind this desire for revenge that was nothing more than a distraction, a way of trying to convince her heart that it was in no peril at all. But it was.
If he did nothing after looking at that canvas—didn’t warn her, didn’t get angry with her, didn’t say something, anything, then her life was all but over. She knew, even as she thought it, that it sounded incredibly melodramatic. She waited for a little voice of reason to pipe up and tell her that of course her life wouldn’t be over. She was still young and beautiful and would find someone else. And so she might. But she’d never find someone that she could love again. Not like she loved this man.
A life without love. Or a life with the man she loved. Those were the stakes in this game she was playing. And, for an instant, it was too much. She felt her head swim, felt herself sway, and took a deep, desperate breath. She forced herself to move, to say something.
‘I hope you like white wine?’ she heard her voice, as if from far away, ask calmly.
Lorcan competently opened the bottle of supermarket own brand wine and poured it into the glasses. ‘This is fine,’ he assured her. Then he utterly undermined her by the simple act of walking around and holding her chair out for her. Frederica, her heart pounding all over again, took her seat, every nerve and fibre of her being aware of his arms, so close to her, as he pushed the chair forward. Of the soft sigh of his breath against her head as he leaned over her. She wanted, suddenly and overwhelmingly, for him to touch her. Anywhere. Just the touch of his hand on her shoulder. The brush of his fingertips against her forearm. Any contact at all.
They were so far apart. In that moment, each of them was playing their own game, each aiming for a different goal—they were universes apart, and she knew it. She fought a rising tide of panic yet again, dragged in a painful breath, and waited for him to sit down opposite her.
He was dressed in a pale ice-blue shirt, under a cream jacket, with cream linen slacks. He looked cool, unapproachable, incredibly handsome, and so beloved, that it took every atom of resistance she had ever felt not to reach out to him. It no longer mattered that he was a betrayer, a seducer, a hunter. All that mattered was that, today, she was going to turn the tables. The hunter was about to become the hunted. Not out of revenge or hurt feelings, but because it was the only chance she had left. He was so set on what he was doing—catching a forger—that he couldn’t see what really mattered. If only she could shock him from the path he was following, she might, just might, stand a chance. To show him that she loved him. And, please, oh please, to demonstrate that he had feelings for her too. He must have. She couldn’t believe that a man could make love to her as he had done and feel nothing.
And if she was wrong . . . No. Don’t go there, she warned herself, as a great chasm of pain and darkness opened and then closed before her. With an all-too-human instinct for self-preservation, she pushed the possibility away, and smiled.
Her eyes were soft and guileless as she reached for her glass. She waited until he’d lifted his own wine, then said softly, ‘What shall we drink to?’
Lorcan’s eyes flicked to hers, a strange expression crossing his face. He knew, as sure as he knew his own name, that something was wrong. That canvas, for a start, shouldn’t be where it was. He hadn’t missed her sudden pallor either. And he didn’t miss the strange, dark look in her eyes now. He could only hope it meant that she was having second thoughts about the forgery. That she meant to show him the painting. To confess what she’d done and ask him to help her. But even as he hoped and prayed that that was the case, he couldn’t quite bring himself to believe it.
‘To us, Frederica,’ he said at last. I think we need it, he added silently and sadly to himself.
Us? Frederica thought bleakly. There is no us. Not yet. I thought there was, for just a briefly magical, stupid moment. ‘To us,’ she echoed softly.
The crab was delicious, cooked to perfection and melting in the mouth, but she hardly tasted it. Instead she watched him like a hawk out of doe-soft velvety dark eyes. ‘I kept expecting to see you at the Ruskin,’ she opened the battle with a tender salvo. She allowed, just for an instant, all the real hurt and bewilderment she’d felt to show through, before bravely covering it with a smile. ‘But I expect you were busy?’
Lorcan felt his stomach muscles clench. She looked so vulnerable. She sounded so vulnerable. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said softly. ‘I had to go back to London for a few days. I meant to call you, but then I realised you’d have to talk down in the hall, with who knows who might be listening in. So I thought it best to wait until we were alone.’
Frederica smiled softly. What a wonderfully good liar he was. ‘Of course, you’re right. And I keep forgetting that you have a Gallery to run,’ she added softly. ‘I can’t expect such a busy man just to drop everything for me.’
Again, Lorcan felt a savage fist clench inside him. He already felt like a prize scoundrel—and she was turning the knife in him with every word she spoke.
‘It’s not that,’ he said, and meant it. But how could he tell her that he’d kept away from her just because he was afraid of the very thing that was happening now? He wanted to reach across the table to her, tell her to burn the damned canvas which stood behind them, to trust him, to give herself over to him. He’d protect her. Take care of her. Give her everything she could ever want—fame as an artist, love from a man who adored her. Wealth, anything.
Damn it, he was being a fool. Why didn’t he just put his neck on the block and hand her an axe? He smiled, leaning back in his chair, his eyes wary as he watched her. ‘It’s just that . . . you took me a little by surprise, that afternoon. You should have told me that I was the first.’
Frederica felt herself blush. She couldn’t help it, and it wasn’t part of the plan, but suddenly she felt mortified. Aghast, she felt a huge tear slide down one cheek. Oh damn!
She was supposed to be seducing him, torturing him, not breaking down and crying like a ninny!
Lorcan lurched out of his chair, his face pale. ‘Frederica, don’t!’ he cried, coming round the table, dragging her to her feet as she struggled, and tried to turn h
er head away.
He caught her pointed chin in one hand and turned her to face him. ‘Don’t cry sweetheart,’ he said softly. ‘Please don’t. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be so clumsy.’ He held her to him, felt her cheek press against his chest, felt the warm salt of her tears seep through the material and dampen his skin. He closed his eyes. This was agony. So much worse than he’d ever have thought. ‘I love you.’
The words snapped Frederica’s eyes open, cutting off every sensation like an anaesthetic. ‘What?’ she gulped. For a moment a happiness so profound it was almost too much, ignited inside her like a flare. Then, just as suddenly, it went out. Because it was too good to be true.
Lorcan took a shaky breath. Had he really said that? But she was straining back in his arms now, looking at him with shocked, almost black eyes, and he realised that, yes, he really had said it. And meant it.
‘I said,’ he repeated grimly, ‘That I love you.’
Frederica felt her legs give way beneath her. Even as she asked herself what game he was playing now, even as she warned herself this was—had to be—yet another trick, he was taking her weight, lifting her, carrying her easily to the bed.
‘Are you really so surprised?’ he asked softly, kneeling down beside the bed as he lowered her gently on to it. One finger curled around a stray lock of curly auburn hair that clung to her damp cheek. For a long moment their eyes held.
I don’t believe you, Frederica thought bleakly. But I want to. Oh, how I want to!
Lorcan shook his head. ‘Oh Frederica, what a mess I’m in.’ He laughed, harshly. If someone had told him just a month ago that he’d fall head over heels in love with a much younger woman, an art forger, and a virgin, he’d have laughed himself sick at the absurdity of it. Yet now, here he was.
Lorcan took a huge breath. It was now or never. ‘Frederica,’ he said softly. ‘What’s on the canvas under that sheet?’