by Leslie LaFoy
The frame was thick, ornately carved, and gilded with heavy,
Spanish silver. The subject, as much as the drape of black
velvet permitted her to see, was a man who appeared to be
half looking over his shoulder. No doubt at a lover. The artist
had beautifully captured the seductive-
Alex gulped a startled breath. She knew the curve of that
smile, that delightfully wicked sparkle in the eyes.
"Ladies," the auctioneer intoned, "we caution you and
suggest you avert your gazes for a brief moment."
A few feminine heads turned away as the drape was lowered
by two attendants. A few feminine ones and Aiden's.
She heard him groan, felt him slump down in his chair.
"Aiden?" she asked under her breath, staring at the picture
and knowing with every fiber of her being that those
were Aiden's shoulders, his torso, his waist, and--dear God
in heaven-his buttocks and thighs. Her heart was pounding
and the temperature of the room seemed to have spiked several
hundred degrees. "Who's D. Terrell?"
"My mother," he supplied, sounding as though he were
strangling on every syllable. "D is for Darcy."
She leaned closer to keep their conversation private.
''And who is the subject?" she pressed as the drawing was
discreetly covered again. "His build is much like yours. So is
his smile. The face is different, though. Harder."
He seemed to choke back a whimper before he replied, "I
favor my mother."
"As I favored mine. People always knew we were
mother and daughter," she admitted, thoroughly amused by
his mortification. Who would have thought Aiden could be
embarrassed by "anything sexual? "So is the man in the picture
your father?"
"He'd die before he publicly admitted it."
And his son would, too. Alex turned her attention back to
the front and the opening round of bidding. The impulse was
wicked. And it was absolutely irresistible. She nudged Aiden
with her elbow and whispered, "Bid."
"No!"
She had to swallow down her laughter. "Wouldn't you like
to have it?"
"God, no! Why would I want to look at my father naked?"
Oh, she would pay in her next life for so enjoying this
moment. A bid was accepted, another solicited. She raised
her paddle and joined the fray. Beside her, Aiden gasped and
practically came up off his chair.
''Alex!''
"I'm buying it for my customer," she explained, artfully
playing the soul of cool acquisition.
In response, he closed his eyes and moaned, "Oh, God."
She bid, said, "Aiden, you're blushing," and bid again.
A memory flitted across her mind, no less clear for the
brevity of its presence. The man who had stood in her hall and
calmly killed two men was the same one now sitting beside
her clutching a bidding paddle for dear life and blushing more
deeply than any maiden bride. There were so many facets to
John Aiden Terrell. And every single one of them fascinated
her. He awed her, entertained her, and Lord knew he challenged
her. Being with him made her smile at first light and
happily scramble out of bed, made her regret the inevitable
setting of the sun and their parting greetings each night.
Realization came over her in a slow swell. She held her
breath and focused her attention on holding her place in the
swirling current of bidding, hoping the distraction would
drive it back and away from acknowledgment and acceptance.
The truth wouldn't be denied.
The gavel banged. "The D. Terrell goes to bidder three thirty-
eight."
Alex looked down in amazement at the paddle in her
hand. Three-thirty-eight. What were the odds, she wondered,
of buying a painting in the same moment you realized
you had fallen in love with the artist's son?
Another realization rolled over her in the wake of the
first. What price she paid in the next life for torturing him
this morning would be minor in the grand scheme of things.
Loving Aiden, though ... That was going to cost her dearly
in this one. She blinked at her paddle, trying to .catch her
breath, trying to control her smile, and desperately, rationally
trying to make herself believe that if she didn't protect
her heart she was going to spend the rest of her life regretting
the day she'd met him.
Chapter 13
Aiden dragged a deep breath of cold, crisp air into his lungs
and held it, letting it cool his blood. There was much to be
thankful for, he told himself as he led Alex toward the line of
waiting carriages. The picture had been one of his mother's
more circumspect pieces. There were a few that wouldn't
have been undraped in public. And he wasn't having to haul
it out the door of Christie's himself. That was good. Even
better, he wasn't going to have to ride around town with his
father trying to seduce Alex from the opposite seat Blessed
be the deliverymen of Christie's.
He was scanning the line of carriages and groups of drivers
chatting along the walkway, looking for Barrett's, when
Alex sighed happily and said, "I think that went exceedingly
well, don't you?"
"If your idea-" He blinked and looked back. The man at
the rear of the carriage was gone.
"Aiden? What is it?"
"I'm sorry." He summoned a chagrined smile and a lie as
he searched for another glimpse of the man. "I was looking
for Barrett's carriage and driver and thought for a moment
that I saw them. Would you like to get something to eat now
or after we do a bit of silver hunting?"
"I'm not really all that hungry."
He had to be there somewhere. He couldn't disappear
into thin air. "Then we'll be dutiful for a while."
''There he is," Alex exclaimed, sending his heart into his
throat. “The carriages past St. Bart's Tavern."
The driver. Aiden swallowed down his heart and made one
last sweep of the line. Nothing. Not so much as a shadow.
''Where shall I tell him to take us?"
"Whitechapel Road."
A good choice, he decided as he and Alex made their way
down the walk. Whitechapel was poor, but it was decidedly
Anglo. An Indian man would be far more likely to stand out
in a crowd there. He'd slipped twice now. There was bound
to be a third. And when that happened, the bastard was going
to find himself staring down a gun barrel and answering
some hard questions.
"Since I don't know anything about silver," he began,
handing Alex into their vehicle, his plan made, "I think you
should take charge of the search."
"Sensible," she replied as she settled onto her seat.
"I'll pretend to be your beleaguered, utterly bored husband
and spend my time gazing longingly out the shop windows."
Laughing, she took up his game. ''And at what will you be
gazing, my poor, dear husband?"
Hopefully a startled Indian face. But until then ... Damn,
if she didn't have the most lusciously inviti
ng smile. Lips
made for kissing and an openness that always made his blood
sing. God, what he wouldn't give to say to hell with the Westerham
silver, have the driver take them to Haven House and
spend the rest of the day making love to her. Which, now that
he thought about it, might, with the right touch, be within the
realm of possible.
''The hope," he said, grinning roguishly, "of being wildly,
passionately rewarded for my incredible patience."
Her smile was instant and brilliant, her laugh full and
throaty. Delight shimmered in her eyes as she wagged a finger
at him and declared, ''That, Aiden, is exactly the same
wicked look as your father's."
"It worked for him on my mother. How do you feel about
it?"
"You are such a temptation."
"And you're not? I'll surrender if you will."
"We have silver to find. We promised Barrett."
But if he pressed, she'd abandon it. He knew it. "All right,
my dutiful darling," he teased. "We'll look for a couple of
hours so that your conscience isn't bothered. After that, the
rest of the day is ours to spend as we want."
"What do you have in mind?"
"We'll think of something," he answered, knowing the
value in letting her imagination run on its own. With a grin
and a wink, he added, "We're both resourceful people."
She laughed and in it he swore he heard the angels sing.
He'd done just fine with his pretending for the first forty-five
minutes or so. He'd followed her into one shop after another
and in each one done the same: he'd milled around a bit and
then stationed himself by the front window, crossed his arms
over his chest, and rocked back and forth between his heels
and his toes while gazing out on the street and the people.
And for a while he had seemed genuinely interested in life
on Whitechapel Road.
It was at the forty-five-minute mark-and after the sixteenth
shop by her count-that he'd sighed, struggled to
smile, and suggested that they were wasting their effort, not
to mention their very precious time.
At the hour, his hands were stuffed in his trouser pockets
and he'd abandoned the effort to smile altogether. At an hour
and fifteen, he not only gave up the milling around part of his
performance, he quit the rocking, too. He simply walked in
behind her, stalked to the window, and stood there glowering
out, apparently giving serious consideration to turning
Whitechapel Road into smoldering rubble.
Alex, for her part, was giving serious consideration to
killing him. Not that he'd noticed her increasing frustration,
she privately groused, moving along the walkway with him in
reluctant tow. She passed a tiny doorway and slowed just
enough to give a passing glance to the clutter on the other side
of the rippled, thickly hazed front window. Two steps beyond,
an object registered in her brain. Whirling around, she headed
for the door.
"No, Alex. Please," Aiden practically moaned, spreading
his arms to block her access to the door. "It's nothing more
than a junk shop."
''There's a silver teaspoon in the window," she countered.
"Where there's one piece, there could be more."
"A pathetic junk shop."
"With a silver spoon in the window."
He sighed and dropped his arms. "This is the very last
one, Alex. I mean it," he announced as she stepped around
him and pulled open the door for herself. ''This is a complete
waste of our day."
Alex silently disagreed. She'd learned something of incredible
importance in the last hour or so. Aiden was a wonderful
man. He was handsome and brave and kind and
strong. He had a wonderful sense of humor and a delightfully
devilish charm. But he also had the lowest tolerance for
tedium of any human being she'd ever met and she was
never, ever, ever going to take him shopping with her again
no matter how long she lived.
"Can I help ya?"
Alex looked around. trying to find the woman who belonged
to the voice. The store wasn't much larger than a single
room in her own shop but it was ten times as full. There
were piles and mounds and heaps everywhere. And all of it
without any discernible arrangement or order or readily
apparent value. Aiden had been kind in calling it a junk shop.
"Is anyone there?"
Alex pulled her skirts through a narrow passage in the warren,
moving toward the rear of the shop and the voice. There,
behind a counter made by placing a warped plank across two
rickety produce crates, sat an old woman dressed in a worn
dress and tattered knit shawl. Hunchbacked, her eyes hazed
white, she held a teacup in one gnarled hand as she tilted her
head to hear.
"Good morning, madam," Alex began, and the woman's
attention came instantly to her. "My sister is marrying and I
want to present her with a set of silverware. I saw the spoon
in the window and thought perhaps you might have more.
Would you by any chance have a set for sale?"
"Got three sets, honey," she said, pointing off in the general
direction of Alex's left. "Complete ones they is, too.
Fine pieces."
It took a few moments to find them, but they were there;
three sets of silverware, each badly tarnished, haphazardly
bundled, and tied with a frayed piece of twine. One set was
on the floor, having obviously tumbled away from the two
remaining on the precarious tower above. Alex retrieved all
three and laid them on the counter. A large Shell pattern engraved
with an A and a C, a small Shell pattern engraved
with a K and ... Alex stared in stunned disbelief. And the
Westerhams' Fiddle.
"How much are you asking for this set?" she asked casually,
holding the set out so that the woman could touch it and
identify it.
She didn't move. "It's what you're lookin' for?"
"It might do," Alex began cautiously, afraid that it was
going to cost the moon and stars to ransom. "Her married
name will be Timmons. If the price is right, it would be
worth having a silversmith remove the current monogram.
The W would hardly be appropriate."
From the window, from the other side of the maze, she
heard Aiden softly swear.
The shopkeeper instantly cocked her head. "Is someone
else here?"
"My husband," Alex supplied as Aiden slipped sideways
into the narrow corridor and shuffled toward them. She leaned
closer to the woman and added in a whisper, "He's the worst
shopper in the world."
The old woman chuckled. "Never been a man any good at
it. How does five pounds sound to ya?"
New, it had cost close to twenty pounds. Melted down into
bullion it would have been worth between twelve and fifteen.
Anyone with any knowledge of silver would have asked ten
for it. "For the entire set?" Alex asked, dumbfounded.
"Is it too much? My granddaughter brought 'em to me.
>
Said they was gifts that she didn't know what to do with.
From admirers. I don't get silver often 'nough to know what
folks is payin' for it these days."
Obviously. And that ignorance was costing the woman a
profit she just as obviously needed. Desperately. To offer her a
fair market price would require doubling her request. Which
would be a decidedly strange thing to do. People didn't shop
in secondhand stores unless they were in search of bargains.
And the woman might take the increase as an offer of pity and
charity. Alex didn't want to insult her. But she didn't want to
rob her, either.
Aiden came out of the tunnel, squared up, and stepped toward
the makeshift counter, saying, "Five pounds is quite
acceptable, madam."
Even as Alex met his gaze in frustration and consternation,
the old woman nodded and said, "Sold."
He cocked a brow and mouthed, "What?"
"Look at this place," she answered in kind, gesturing
broadly. "Look at her!"
Frowning, his brows knitted, he shook his head and
reached into the inside breast pocket of his coat, saying, ''May
I ask your name, madam?"
Alex sagged in defeat. The woman stared unseeingly at