Dangerous to Know

by Merline Lovelace

  He gripped the knife in one small fist to demonstrate, then bent the blade back into the handle, reversed it, and held it out to Paige.

  Wetting her lips, she lifted it gingerly with a thumb and forefinger. “Thank you.”

  “Remember, mademoiselle, go for the gut.”

  “The gut,” she repeated weakly, dropping the knife into her gold evening bag.

  His freckled nose wrinkled. “I do not like this! Me, I should be with you.”

  The jangle of the telephone sent Paige’s heart leaping into her throat and deepened Henri’s fierce scowl. Fighting the sudden, craven impulse to slip back into the bedroom and lock the double doors behind her, she watched David move across the suite and lift the receiver.

  “Yes?”

  After a moment, he replaced the instrument in its old-fashioned cradle. His eyes met hers across the room, and then his cheeks creased in that slashing grin Paige was coming to both love and dread. The one that said she was his partner in what was to come.

  “Ready?”

  Paige swallowed. “As ready as I’ll ever be.”

  Paige’s secret, lingering hope that Victor Swanset was simply a charming, if eccentric, expatriate faded the moment David escorted her out the Carlton’s columned main entrance.

  As soon as she spotted the swarthy, dark-haired driver who stood beside the silver Rolls, she recognized him. She’d last seen him just before she tumbled off a gangplank into the oily waters of the marina. He’d been sent to pick up Meredith Ames, and had bundled Paige into the silver Rolls-Royce instead.

  His face pleasantly blank, the chauffeur touched a gloved hand to his hat.

  “Bonsoir, mademoiselle, monsieur.”

  David returned the greeting, which was just as well, since Paige’s throat had closed completely. Her knees felt like unset Jell-O as the driver handed her into the back seat. She sank down with a grateful sigh and was immediately surrounded by soft gray leather and the heady scent of the white roses filling the silver vases attached to the frame on either side of the car.

  Surreptitiously Paige wiped her palm on the green satin skirts of her gown. When David joined her, she inched her hand across the soft leather. His fingers folded around hers, warm and strong and infinitely reassuring.

  “There is champagne and pâté, if you wish it,” the driver informed them, sliding behind the wheel. “It will take perhaps an hour to reach the villa. Monsieur Swanset hopes you enjoy the ride and the view.”

  Paige did not enjoy either.

  Her anxiety mounted with each whisper of the tires as the Rolls glided through the twilight traffic along the Croisette with silent, majestic grace. A few minutes later, it turned inland, and headed toward the mountains that rose behind Cannes like sleeping sentinels.

  When they entered the foothills, the city gradually fell away. The road swirled and curved, backtracking on itself in an endless series of hairpin turns. Through gaps in the stands of fragrant eucalyptus and fir trees, Paige caught glimpses of a stunning panorama.

  Far out on the bay, the last of the sun’s rays painted a kaleidoscope of colors across the distant horizon. Brilliant pink, deep magenta and royal purple clouds all swirled together above an indigo sea. Lights strung from the masts of the yachts anchored in the bay bobbed slowly in the ebbing tide.

  It was a scene she might have drunk in with wonder if she hadn’t been clutching David’s hand in a death grip and holding her breath each time the long, sleek vehicle swung around another of those impossible turns.

  “This car is not designed for roads like this!” she gasped, staring into the stretch of dark, empty space just outside her window with the morbid fascination of a rabbit gazing into the wide-stretched mouth of a cobra.

  David smiled a reassurance. “As a matter of fact, a car like this is much safer on these roads than a mini. With its heavy engine and armor plating, the Rolls has a center of gravity well forward of the driver’s seat. It’s not going to go over unless he loses control—or sends it over deliberately.”

  “Oh, that’s comforting.”

  Paige closed her eyes as they swung around another curve and the vehicle’s rear end seemed to hang suspended in thin air.

  “Have a little champagne,” David advised her. “It will help you relax.”

  Gently easing his hand from her clawlike hold, he poured a small amount into a gold-rimmed crystal flute. He poured some for himself, as well. Leaning back, he touched his glass to hers.

  “To us.”

  He’d warned her that the Rolls would be wired with the latest in electronic listening and recording devices. In her role as Meredith Ames, his paid companion during his stay in Cannes, Paige couldn’t answer his toast as she so desperately wanted to.

  She couldn’t tell him that she loved him with every corner of her heart and soul. That she knew all she ever needed to know about him. That when this night was over, she was marching him straight to the American consulate on the Croisette and forcing the first official they came across to marry them on the spot.

  “To us,” she replied, holding his eyes with hers. “And to tomorrow.”

  His teeth gleamed in the gathering darkness. “To tomorrow.”

  Paige took a sip of her champagne and willed herself not to do anything as unadventurous as stain the underarms of her shimmering ball gown with nervous perspiration.

  Just when she was sure neither the champagne nor the lingering effects of David’s rakish grin would protect her or her gown much longer, the car’s headlights illuminated tall stone pillars and a pair of massive wrought iron gates. An ornate S in gleaming brass was entwined amid the iron grillwork on either side.

  At their approach, the gates swung open and the Rolls swept through. Paige sagged in relief at leaving the narrow cliffside road behind, only to discover a moment later that she’d relaxed too soon. More hairpin turns followed as they climbed even higher. When they finally passed through the arch of what looked like a medieval gatehouse set into a high stone wall, her jaw sagged in sheer astonishment.

  Victor Swanset’s mountaintop villa looked like something right out of one of his movies. Which one, Paige didn’t know, but it was too perfect, too stunningly beautiful, to be real.

  A cluster of outbuildings roofed in red Mediterranean tiles circled a wide, cobbled courtyard. At the west end of the yard was a long building that had obviously been a stable in a previous century, but had been converted to a garage for Swanset’s collection of vintage luxury automobiles. Another low building, connected to the central structure by a graceful arched walkway, housed the kitchens. That much Paige remembered from her study of the floor plan.

  But it was the main residence that drew her awed gaze. Washed a pale yellow in the moonlight, the red-tiled villa boasted a central tower and two sweeping wings. Light spilled out of the many leaded-glass windows and illuminated a magnificent stone portico that might have been sculpted by Michelangelo himself. Muscular Roman gods stood with one arm upraised, supporting an arched pediment. Beneath the pediment was a set of massive timber doors that looked as though they could withstand any medieval battering ram ever constructed.

  When the Rolls purred to a halt at the steps of the portico, the huge doors swung open, and more light cascaded onto the cobbles. A butler or majordomo or whatever the dignified individual in black tails was called came forward with a measured tread to open the Rolls’s rear door.

  Paige gripped her skirts in one damp palm and took his outstretched hand with the other.

  “Good evening, Miss Ames. Mr. Swanset has been eagerly awaiting your arrival.”

  Paige wished she could say the same.

  She mumbled something she hoped was appropriate and gave David a grateful smile when he tucked her hand into the crook of his arm to escort her inside.

  How in the world could he appear so calm? she wondered. As though he were looking forward to nothing more than a pleasant evening with a gracious host.

  Paige could only marvel at this David,
so handsome in his white shirt and dinner jacket, so sophisticated and self-assured. Drawing in a deep breath, she strolled beside him as he followed the butler into a paneled library.

  The huge, barrel-vaulted room took her breath away. Floor-to-ceiling bookcases lined the length of one long wall and were filled with leather-bound volumes. A fire blazed in a marble hearth at one end of the library, and a larger-than-life portrait of Victor Swanset dominated the other. Paige’s fingers clenched spasmodically on David’s arm when she saw the painting.

  This one portrayed the film star in perhaps his most famous role, as a swashbuckling Elizabethan pirate who single-handedly sank most of the treasure-laden Spanish galleons plying the seas. One hand rested on his sword hilt with unconscious arrogance, the other held a white rose. He’d presented the rose to a beautiful, titled Spanish captive he’d plucked from one captured ship, Paige recalled, just before he ravished her.

  “If Victor Swanset steps out of that portrait, I’m going to embarrass myself and ruin this dress,” she whispered to David, uncaring what listening devices might pick up her comment.

  He smiled down at her. “You can’t embarrass yourself. Not with me.”

  That showed what he knew!

  To Paige’s infinite relief, Victor Swanset’s appearance on the scene this time was far more conventional than the last. Leaning heavily on his cane, he entered the paneled library wearing his own body and a gracious smile. Crossing the polished parquet floor, he took her hand and raised it to his papery lips with a courtly flourish.

  “Miss Ames! How elegant you look this evening.” His trained, melodious voice rolled over Paige like smooth, dark velvet.

  “Thank you,” she murmured, impressed by his charm in spite of herself.

  He relinquished her hand with a show of real regret and turned to David.

  “I must tell you, Dr. Jensen, that I reread the paper you presented to the symposium earlier this week. I was impressed, most impressed, with your research into improved digital imaging techniques.”

  “Thank you. That paper was written some months ago, however,” David commented casually. “We’ve gone well beyond the research stage, and are now into concept demonstration.”

  Swanset paused in the act of directing the butler to the crystal decanters arrayed on a massive sideboard. He turned back to David, his dark eyes filled with interest.

  “You have?”

  “We have. In fact, I developed an unclassified version of the concept to demonstrate at the symposium. It’s quite simple, really. Basically a variation of the imaging process you yourself introduced a few years ago.”

  Swanset folded one hand atop the other on his cane. “My lab downstairs is rather well equipped. Perhaps you might demonstrate this variation after we dine?”

  “I’d be delighted.”

  The distinguished gray-haired butler, or whatever he was, appeared at Paige’s elbow, a gold tray in hand.

  “Would you care for a glass of sherry?”

  Normally she hated sherry. The few sips she’d tried in the past had been too sweet for her palate and coated her throat with a smoky almond flavor. At this point, however, Paige didn’t trust her voice to request anything else. She grasped the fragile crystal stemware in one hand and listened to the increasingly technical exchange between David and Victor Swanset with a growing sense of wonder.

  She hadn’t expected it to be this easy.

  Despite the rehearsals, despite David’s endless lists of possible scenarios and Maggie’s careful coaching and Adam’s quiet observations, Paige really hadn’t expected their plan to work so smoothly. Yet they’d been in the villa less than ten minutes, and David had already laid the groundwork for his part of the operation.

  Now she had to do hers.

  She gulped down a healthy swallow of the sherry, trying not to grimace at the taste, and waited for a lull in the conversation.

  “Mr. Swanset…”

  “Victor, my dear. You must call me Victor.”

  Paige returned his smile. “Victor. Would you and David excuse me for a few moments? I’d like to freshen up before dinner.”

  “But of course. How thoughtless of me to keep you standing here after that long ride. Please, let me show you to the first-floor retiring room. It’s outfitted with the exact furniture and fixtures we used in The Rogue of Versailles. I think you’ll find it quite delightful.”

  “I’m sure I will,” Paige returned faintly.

  He crooked an arm, inviting her to accompany him.

  Clutching her evening bag, with its deadly mascara wand, well-worn switchblade and neatly folded gold halter in one hand, Paige placed the other on his bent arm.

  Her heavy satin skirts swished in a hushed counterpoint to the tap of his walking stick on the parquet floor as he escorted her out of the library.

  Chapter 15

  “It doesn’t feel right.”

  Maggie’s raspy whisper hung on the cool night air that permeated the small operations hut. One by one, the black-clad team seated at the table turned their attention from the receiver nestled amid a litter of blueprints and scribbled diagrams and focused on their leader.

  Maggie shook her head and repeated her murmured worry. “It just doesn’t feel right.”

  Adam stood in the shadows at the rear of the hut, his arms folded, his expression neutral, as he watched the interplay between Maggie and her team. They were all pros, all highly trained and experienced, the best operatives France and the U.S. had to offer. Several of them had worked together in the past. All of them had volunteered for this mission. They’d assembled at this isolated airstrip outside Cannes earlier this afternoon, bringing with them their individually tailored equipment and their governments’ full sanction for whatever action they deemed necessary.

  During the long wait for Doc and Jezebel to move into position, they’d reviewed the villa’s floor plans, studied ingress and egress points, and confirmed team assignments. Just moments ago, they’d presented their individual plans for Maggie’s throaty concurrence.

  They were ready.

  Adam felt the steady thrum of adrenaline in his veins. It had been a long time, too long, since he’d been in the field, but he understood how this team felt. Controlled. Intent. Edgy with anticipation. Eager to swing into action.

  Now Maggie’s raspy whisper had given that anticipation a sharper edge.

  A small, wiry man with a ginger mustache leaned forward into the light, his eyes narrowed on her face. “What doesn’t feel right?”

  Brows furrowed, she thrust a hand through hair that gleamed a pale silver.

  “It’s too easy,” she muttered.

  A silence descended, to be broken a few moments later by a gasp. All eyes turned to the receiver.

  Her face taut, Maggie planted both palms on the table and leaned toward the source of the sound.

  “Is that a throne?” The sensitive device magnified a hundredfold the stunned surprise in Jezebel’s voice. “I mean, a real one?”

  Victor Swanset’s chuckle floated on the still air. “A foolish whim, is it not? But what better use for a discarded movie prop than to grace a bathroom?”

  “I can’t imagine.”

  The dazed reply brought a grim smile to Adam’s lips. For all her delicate appearance and thinly disguised nervousness, Paige Lawrence had impressed him with her determination to see this operation through. He’d expected the woman who’d captivated Doc to be special. Paige, he’d decided, was several cuts above special.

  A slight movement to his right caught Adam’s attention. Henri shifted on the rickety straight chair he’d been banished to earlier and propped his elbows on the knees of his new jeans. His freckled face scrunched into a scowl as he listened to Jezebel’s exclamations over Swanset’s majestic retiring room.

  The boy still hadn’t forgiven Doc for not taking him along tonight. His fertile imagination had come up with a wide assortment of reasons why an engineer out for an evening with his very expensive hired compan
ion would have a small redheaded boy in tow, none of which Doc would listen to. Adam had been forced to bring Henri with him to the team’s rendezvous point tonight, sure that he’d slip away and find his own way up to the villa if he wasn’t kept under close watch.

  “I believe you have something which interests me, my dear.”

  Swanset’s soft, cultured tones caused a ripple of immediate reactions.

  Maggie sucked in a swift breath.

  Adam’s eyes narrowed to icy blue slits.

  Henri hunched his thin shoulders and scowled ferociously.

  The rest of the team froze.

  Several miles away, and several hundred feet up in the rarefied elevations above Cannes, Paige stared at Victor Swanset’s wrinkled face with the fascination a mouse might give a patient gray cat. His eyes met hers, as dark as obsidian, as inscrutable as death.

  “The microdot? You have it with you, do you not?”

  Paige nodded. The movement was reflected a hundred, or perhaps a thousand, times in the tall, gilded mirrors lining this wide antechamber. It was, Victor had told her, an exact, if somewhat smaller, version of Versailles’s famed hall of mirrors.

  At one end of the corridor was the most sumptuous bedroom Paige had ever seen, furnished as it had been for Louis XVI. At the other was a vast bathroom featuring an eighteenth-century throne with twentieth-century plumbing. Victor had graciously demonstrated the flush mechanism before returning with her to this hall of mirrors.

  So nervous she could barely keep from shaking, Paige wanted desperately to banish Victor immediately and retreat to that throne. The knowledge that Maggie and Adam and half a dozen other assorted individuals were listening to every word of this conversation through the tiny transmitter in her earring held her in place. She couldn’t chicken out now and let them all down. She wouldn’t disappoint David. Or herself.

  “Yes, I have the microdot.”

  Resting both gnarled hands on his ivory-headed cane, he regarded her benignly. “May I have it, my dear?”