by Gwyn Cready
“It’s one of the largest areas of geothermal activity in the world. It’s practically one of the Seven Wonders.”
“It’s practically a nuclear waste dump. I can see the power plant right there.” She made a scornful noise and swam in a slow circle in front of him. Black watched her pale locks stretching hypnotically over a clingy red suit and felt his own trunks tighten.
“It’s one of the few places I can be sure we won’t run into anyone we know,” he added. “And you only had a day before your conference.”
She hmmed, relenting a degree.
“Besides, there’s a lovely fireplace in the bedroom.”
With an enigmatic smile, she ran a finger along the edge of his waistband. “Are you going to put down your e-mail?”
He obeyed instantly. “It was about your article.”
The croc eyes lit with interest. “When can I read it?”
“Well, my dear, it takes—”
“You’re not going to disappoint me, are you?” She leaned back just far enough to pierce the surface with her hardened nipples. “I want to read it.”
He tried to ward off the incipient erection, heart racing, as the headline INTERNATIONAL INCIDENT flashed through his head. “As soon as I have it.”
“Do you think you can get it by Friday? A draft, at least.”
He felt her hands on his suit, tugging, exploring. He clutched the wall behind him. “I’ll try.”
“‘Try’?” She held up a finger. “I can hold my breath underwater for two minutes. Why don’t you show me what you can do for two minutes?” She grabbed the BlackBerry, placed it in his hand and slid slowly down his body and out of sight.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
St. Paul’s Church, Covent Garden, London
Axel clutched his jacket against the rising wind and gazed curiously at the phone screen. He had a general idea of what Black meant by “Send maniscip ttttonit. oNo excussssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss,” but fifty-two “S’s”? Had he been typing with an eggplant?
He turned his gaze to Ellery. The London College connection had canceled on them, and Ellery had immediately suggested that they head for Covent Garden instead.
She had been surprisingly untransformed by their brief assignation. He’d woken after an hour and hopped out of bed to begin a quest for something to appease his rapidly falling blood sugar. When he’d returned, apple in hand, she’d already gotten dressed and was reading. Not a word had been spoken regarding the moments before they’d gone to sleep. If Axel had had anything more than two extremely mediocre beers on the flight over, he’d have sworn he’d blacked out and imagined the whole thing. Not exactly the long-lasting impression Jemmie would have left.
She was holding one of the books Axel had given her, looking carefully from the page to the church façade and back again. He hoped this meant the article was under way, at least in her head. He was going to need to share something with Black soon.
He sidled up beside her, and she slipped the book under her arm.
“You know,” she said, pointing to the sweeping covered portico of the church, “this was where the first casualty of the Great Plague of London was buried. It also happens to be the place where Henry Higgins meets Eliza Doolittle.”
“My goodness,” Axel said. “Vanity Place permits references to My Fair Lady? Do you have to wash your mouth out with cognac when you’re done?”
“I was thinking of Pygmalion.”
Axel bowed, acknowledging her victory, but couldn’t help adding, “Which, of course, was a very fine romance itself.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Do you think?”
“Yes, of course,” he said, surprised. “Don’t you?”
“I was never sure if they ended up together.”
“That’s where faith comes in, Pittsburgh. You have to read, well, if not in between the lines, then at least after the words ‘The End.’ Of course they end up together. They each realize the mistakes they’ve made and change. Sometimes you have to let your heart write the epilogue.”
“I guess that’s always sort of been the difference between us. With me, it’s my head that writes that stuff.” Ellery looked away, flushing. Henry Higgins and Eliza Doolittle ended up together? She had read the play three or four times and though she’d never admit it to Axel, Seen the musical, too, and she’d never seen the ending as happy. She wondered, not for the first time, if something inside her was missing.
She’d awakened that afternoon in a happy, dream-like state, letting the bits and pieces of their lovemaking wash over her, easily silencing the critical voice in her head that whispered, Major mistake! Then she’d rolled over and discovered he was gone. When he’d finally returned, he was devouring the apple he said he’d picked up from a store across the street. She was sure that wasn’t the reason he’d left. She’d had more than enough experience to know the meaning of Axel’s disappearances. Then he’d sauntered directly into the shower without a word about what had happened between them.
Now the voice was whispering, Have you considered getting “Gullible” tattooed on your ass? It would make more sense than what you just used it for.Of course, a tattoo would only add to her prick-related woes.
Axel slipped the camera off his shoulder and began adjusting the dials. “You say this is part of one of the books?”
“Yep.”
“You seemed pretty driven to come here. Is there anything in particular you want me to get?”
She shook her head. What she really wanted was to find the gravestone. The one belonging to Peter’s dead wife. The one he came to visit near the start of the book. But she wanted to do it without Axel looking over her shoulder.
“I’ll just work on some background shots, then.”
“Sure,” she said. “Sounds good.”
He paused. “You don’t need me?”
“No.”
She wandered past the church’s front entrance, which she had heard the tour guide proclaim was not really the front at all, just an appropriate façade to face the piazza, and found the peaceful tree-lined park in the back, crisscrossed with brick paths and inviting benches, where the graves seemed like they’d be.
A few moments of looking was enough to tell her that no one seemed to be buried there at all. She stopped a man in a cassock walking purposefully toward the church door and asked him where she might find the grave of Peter Lely’s wife.
“Lely, is it?” said the man, a textbook example of a ruddy-cheeked Englishman.
“The painter, yes. His wife.”
The man’s mouth twitched. “Aye, I know him. He had a fine artistic eye for the ladies of the court, did he not?”
Ellery nodded, though she did not add that her knowledge of that had been gleaned from a romance novel.
“Are you with the photographer?” he asked. “I saw you talking together earlier. This is a lovely place for pictures.”
“We’re working on a story. For a magazine.”
“Ah.” The priest’s face turned solemn. “In regards to your question, yes, Peter Lely is buried here, and his wife may be as well, but there was a great fire in 1795, which destroyed most of the headstones. We have no idea where in our midst he is, except to know he is here.”
“Oh,” she said, disappointed. “Well, thank you.”
In the book, a heartbroken Peter comes to ask forgiveness of his dead wife. And while Ellery wasn’t far enough along to know what he had to ask forgiveness for, she had found the scene heartbreaking. She knew from her own experience how painful it was to regret something one couldn’t change.
She nodded her thanks to the man and made her way to one of the benches, thinking about all the sorrow that this small garden had seen and how, despite all that, it still managed to exude the most peaceful, welcoming air. It was as if the power to be comforted was stronger even than the inclination to mourn.
It was nearly five, and the November sun was setting, painting the bricks with a golden-pink wash and warmin
g her back. She hoped Peter and his heroine would find more happiness than she and Axel had. As she withdrew the book from her purse, she remembered that when she’d stopped reading, Peter had been about to come face-to-face with his lover for the first time since discovering that she had pursued him to secure information, not because she found herself attracted to him. Though whatever the heroine’s intended reason might have been for striking up a relationship with Peter initially, Ellery was absolutely certain the woman had fallen in love with him before their first evening together was over.
Despite the heroine’s betrayal, Ellery knew things would work out between the two: That was, after all, the essential nature of romances. Yet, she couldn’t imagine how they would overcome such an obstacle and in fact found herself unable to believe it was even possible. And so, with the tension between the lovers at least as strong as that between Ellery’s critical eye and her reader’s eye, she found herself once again drawn in to the story.
She was jerked out of her reverie a short time later by the priest.
“I do beg your pardon,” he said.
Ellery put down the book and wondered vaguely where Axel was. “Is the church closing?”
“No, we have choir practice tonight. You’re welcome to stay. I did a little checking on Lely, and I wanted to share it with you.”
“Oh?”
“We still don’t know where his grave is, but the other priest here reminded me of what we do know about him. He is buried here, and his wife is, too, though there is some question as to whether or not she was his wife.”
“Really?” How like a romance novel to not have its facts straight, she thought, with a private ironic smile.
“Well, the record is not clear. What we do know, however, is the woman died giving birth to their son in 1671.”
“Oh, my.” Ellery felt the emptiness inside her swell like a sponge dipped in water.
“And the son died a few days later. Imagine the poor man’s devastation.”
“I… I can’t.”
Ellery felt slightly dizzy, the way she did whenever another person’s tragedy seemed to catch her in its wake and drag her along on its harrowing ride. The thought of Peter at that headstone, feeling the monumental pull of everything he’d lost, of the wife and the child…
“Miss?”
“What?”
The priest was staring at her, concern on his face.
“No, I’m fine.” But she wasn’t, and for a reason she couldn’t explain, she felt tears starting to well. “Oh, dear.” She hurriedly wiped them away. “It’s just that the story is so sad.…” But she couldn’t stop crying. The more she wiped, the faster the wetness seemed to stripe her cheeks. She tried staring directly into the priest’s face to reassure him and perhaps herself, but the tears continued.
“Are you all right?”
“Yes. I must just be tired from the flight over.” She dug into her purse for a tissue.
“Perhaps you should…” He gestured toward the church.
“No. Thank you. I’ll be fine.”
He left her, and without an audience her last vestige of self-control vanished. She wrapped her arms around her waist and wept.
A moment later she heard the sound of hurried footsteps. She turned as Axel reached her, breathless, and knelt at her feet. The priest stood in the distance.
“What is it?” Axel said softly.
“I don’t know,” she said, crying.
He slid onto the bench and pulled her next to him. She laid her head on his shoulder and cried.
Why had things gone so wrong for them?
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Mullen’s Bar & Grill, Pittsburgh, Five Years Earlier
“I want to go home,” Ellery said, raising her voice to be heard over the din.
Axel shook his head, not understanding, and lifted the beer to his mouth.
Brendan’s band was in the midst of their sound check and the heated riffs of “Tumbling Dice” were mixed in with the ploink, ploink, ploink of the bass player, a drum arpeggio, screeching feedback on the speakers, the clank of glasses and the general noise of the crowd. The cigarette smoke was making her queasy and she was afraid she knew why. Her period was overdue.
“Go home,” she said, louder. “I want to go home.”
Axel’s face fell. “C’mon, Pittsburgh. We just got here.”
“I know, but it’s eleven, and I don’t feel well.”
He sighed and looked at his watch. Then he waved for the check.
“I can drop you off, eh?” he said. “But I can’t stay. I’m doing a shoot with the sanitation workers. Have to be there at four.”
She watched him dig through his pocket, then pop something into his mouth.
“I’d really like you to be at home tonight.”
“Sanitation workers, Pittsburgh. If there’s one rule in the photojournalism world, it’s ‘Never keep a sanitation worker waiting.’ ”
The check came and he laid down a twenty. Brendan yelled, “Ax, you’re not leaving, are you?”
Axel inclined his head toward Ellery and made the motion of driving. “I’ll be back,” he called, and led her out.
She hated feeling like an obligation. She made her way through a fog of smoke and had to forcibly swallow a gag. The next issue of City Sill was due in the morning, and she’d had a pregnancy test kit hidden in her purse since before dinner, hoping to get home to use it.
The idea of being pregnant terrified her, though there was a vein of something like amazement there as well. All her life she’d felt like she’d come from something broken. Her father had left, and her mother had worked hard to give Jill and Ellery the semblance of normal family life. But then she’d gotten sick and died, and Ellery had inherited the job of trying to hold the family, or what was left of it, together. She knew she’d taken good care of Jill, and Axel was fitting in well, but it still felt like she was treading water. Nothing had ever happened that had made Ellery feel as if she might be building something permanent. Until now.
She emerged into the cool air of the street with Axel behind her.
“I’m sorry you’re not feeling well,” he said.
“It’s probably a bug or something. I still have to finish my piece for the Sill and write the editorial.”
What was the point of saying anything until she knew? Even then she thought it would be better to wait until the doctor had confirmed it and the most dangerous period for a miscarriage had passed.
Axel pulled her into the lonely glow of a streetlight and searched her face, his eyes dark and earnest. “Why did you want me home tonight?”
“I want you home every night, Axel.”
He held her gaze a beat, then laughed and put his arm around her. “I love that about you.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
The Rosemary Hotel, London, Present Day
Axel held open the door. The smells of hops, fire smoke and garlic hung over the well-worn wood of the bar.
Ellery gave him an uncertain look. “A pub?” He’d told her this was a hotel, but Ellery knew a pub when she saw one.
“I told you I had friends in London.” He pulled off his scarf and led her to a stool.
“I knew you had friends in pubs in London. What you told me was you had friends with connections to book clubs.”
“Tell her, Simon.”
The publican, a bald, scarred-cheek brute who looked like an escapee from a Guy Ritchie movie, moved the bar rag from one arm to the other. “‘E’s not lyin’, luv. The Rosemary Readers meet here every Thursday night at seven.” He pointed to a table in an alcove in front of one of the establishment’s diamond-paned windows. “Right there in the snug.”
Ellery’s plan was to have these women serve as the panel of readers she’d interview for her article. She’d talk to them as a group, asking stuff like “What makes romance different than other genres?” and “Why do readers read romance?” and hoping the insights of the group would provide a good hook for the st
ory. She’d begin to draft the article tomorrow on the train to Edinburgh even though she still felt no certainty she was willing to have this published with her name on it.
“Axel, will you be wanting a pint? We have a good oyster stout.”
Ellery grimaced. “Oh, God, do those words even go together?”
“Oatmeal, I think,” he said to Simon. “Maybe a nice Scottish Borders?”
Ellery considered the incident in the garden outside St. Paul’s. After some nose blowing and cheek wiping she’d recovered her composure, but she’d dared not tell Axel why she’d been crying. She wasn’t even sure she understood it herself. She’d just passed it off as a combination of jetlag and bad airplane lasagna.
“As you like,” Simon said. “And for the lady?”
“Coffee,” she said firmly, hoping Simon hadn’t been expecting Axel to answer for her.
Simon nodded and disappeared into the back.
Axel and Ellery took seats at the bar.
“This is where those in the know stay,” he explained. “very popular with the GQcrowd. It’s cheap, convenient and friendly.”
“Ah.” Ellery grabbed a bag of potato chips off a display and tore it open. “I hope they have something good to eat here,” she said, popping a chip in her mouth. “I’m starving.”
Truth was, she hoped getting something in her stomach would settle her down a bit. Ever since this assignment had begun, she’d felt like she’d been on a bender. Okay, technically, she had been on a bender. Well, maybe “bender” wasn’t the right word. “Adventure,” perhaps. But an adventure that led to a public striptease that led to a shortsighted session of carnal origami with Axel and an unexpected bout of tears? That was a lot for someone who considered herself pretty level-headed. She looked at Axel, thinking about their unorthodox scene in the hotel room, and held out her forearms, remembering the coolness of the wall beneath them.