“Let’s try to find those other account books,” I suggested.
Leo smiled at me, and our eyes met. “Quite,” he said.
On the outskirts of Winchcombe, Leo pulled into the gravel parking lot of a small gastropub. It was called the Queen’s Fancy and had walls of mellow Cotswold stone, as well as a real thatched roof. “Tea?” he suggested. “Again?”
Suddenly, I was starved. Fortunately, “tea” in England could mean anything from an actual cup of tea to a five-course supper. I hoped he meant the latter. “Sure,” I said.
Leo had to duck his head as we passed under the low stone doorway and entered a dimly lit chamber filled with rickety wooden tables and chairs, and a long bar at the end of the room. Firelight flickered from the ancient stone fireplace, and instinctively I gravitated toward it. “I’m cold,” I said in surprise.
“Don’t worry,” Leo said. “They’ll have a fire going in our room.” His voice was low and inviting.
I shivered. “Okay,” I said, a little unsteadily.
I sat at the table closest to the fire, and Leo went up to the bar to order. His black hair curled at the nape of his neck, and I wondered what it would be like to entangle my fingers in the curls and pull his head down to mine.
I also wondered how many women had done just that.
“Here you go,” Leo said, putting a steaming drink on the table in front of me and breaking into my thoughts.
The drink was some sort of hot toddy, foaming with whipped cream and heady as champagne. I drank thirstily and ate every morsel of the steaming, rich cottage pie Leo also brought me.
As I leaned back, replete and warm, Leo said abruptly, “It had to have been money.”
I looked at him, admiring the arch of his dark brows and the slight flush on his cheeks. “What?” I asked distractedly.
“Why someone might have disappeared Baby Mary. It had to have been money.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Her mother was one of the richest women in all Christendom,” Leo went on.
Clearly, his thoughts were not heading in the same direction as mine. I sighed. “But I thought Katherine Parr’s money went to Tom Seymour and he forfeited everything to the Crown when he was executed for treason,” I said.
“Yes, but Katherine Parr was smart and wily. What if she arranged for her money and estates to go directly to her baby? She had reason to mistrust Tom, after all.”
“But she adored him,” I protested. “Or at least she was in lust with him.”
“You can be in lust with someone and mistrust them at the same time.”
My cheeks flamed, and I took a long gulp of my hot toddy.
Unheeding, Leo went on: “She had watched Tom dallying with Elizabeth in her own garden when she was pregnant with his baby, for heaven’s sake! Would it be so surprising if she made sure the baby inherited, instead of Tom?”
I shrugged. Leo eyed me for a moment and then got up to fetch more drinks from the bar. Once again, I watched him.
Uncharacteristically, he matched me drink for drink. “I don’t think I should drive,” he said, surprised, after the third—or fourth?—toddy.
“Uh . . . should we get an Uber?”
“And leave my car here? Not a chance.”
My heart started to pound. “So, then . . .”
He looked almost saturnine, the reddish hue of the firelight giving him a high color. Now he was watching me closely. “So, then . . . ,” he repeated.
Why not? I asked myself. He certainly had the air of a man who knew what he was doing, and it had been so long. . . . And I was certainly attracted to him, as any red-blooded woman would have been.
And maybe it would clear the air between us. Maybe, once our barriers were down, I would finally be able to figure out who he was and what he was after.
Why not?
Leo saw the decision in my eyes. “Check,” he called.
At the front desk, I stood behind Leo and pretended to look at the rack of brochures while he talked to the clerk. “Double room, please,” he said.
Double room. I tried to remember which underwear I had on.
The clerk said, “No reservation?”
“No,” Leo said, a little impatiently.
“Well, then, I dunno.”
“My good man,” Leo said, “I feel confident that you can find a corner to stick us in.”
The clerk, a pimply boy who clearly resented being torn away from his iPod and headphones, shrugged.
For a moment, Leo seemed to be at a loss. With an inner smile, I realized that while he may have worn his wealth lightly, he was much more at home in a Ritz or Four Seasons than in this village inn. He said, “I’m Leo Schlumberger, from Oxford.” With a sidelong glance at me, he amended, “Doctor Leo Schlumberger.”
Pimply Boy couldn’t have cared less. “Rooms aren’t made up, mate,” he said, putting his earphones back in and raising the volume. “Maids come in the morning, y’know.”
Tinny strains of some band screaming about death and annihilation came from his ears. I thought he would probably lose his hearing before he was thirty.
Leo, clearly accustomed to deference from hotel clerks, shifted his feet in frustration. I could almost hear him thinking. Then he reached over and took the earphones from Pimply Boy’s ears. “My father is a close friend of Lord Jonathan Rothschild,” he said.
Pimply Boy and I both stared at him.
“And Lord Rothschild is the main sponsor of the Glastonbury Music Festival,” Leo went on.
Ah. Light dawned. For the first time, I noticed Pimply Boy’s shirt, emblazoned with the music festival’s insignia.
“Would you like pavilion tickets this year?” Leo asked.
In record time, we were in our room, with another fire blazing and clean, crisp sheets on the bed. Pimply Boy, now our devoted servant, even supplied a bottle of wine, a bowl of strawberries, and two (relatively clean) wineglasses.
“Well, then,” Leo said, “would you like some berries? I’m afraid there isn’t any champagne, but . . .”
I grinned at him. “Listen,” I said, “you don’t have to put on a great seduction scene. I’ve already decided to sleep with you.”
He looked a little taken aback.
“I thought I planned this quite cleverly,” he said.
“Well, think again.”
His eyes sparkled in the firelight. Alone with him in the small, close room, I was more aware than ever of him as a man: his tall frame, his dark eyes intent on mine, his hard and knowing hands. Suddenly twitchy, I moved away.
I hadn’t had a relationship since Scott, and he had been more of a sleepy stoner than a man of the world. I hoped everything still worked; I hoped Leo wasn’t too much of a connoisseur.
Buying time, I took a glass of wine and sipped it, then wrinkled my nose.
“Local stuff,” he explained. “It takes some getting used to.”
“Like you,” I said.
“Like me,” he agreed solemnly. “But once you know me . . .”
I wondered if I would ever know him; sometimes he seemed almost as sealed off as I was. We were well matched, then.
“Okay, then,” I said, putting down my glass. “I’m ready.”
So was he.
Chapter 24
I couldn’t get enough of him. The first time was fast and furious and blazing with need; the second time, longer and gentler and sweeter. When he was inside me, my body felt full and complete. My hands tangled in his black curls, and my lips sought his, over and over and over again. The third time was magical, and at last we fell asleep tangled together, his rough-haired legs entwined with mine and my head on his shoulder.
Just before I drifted off, mindlessly content, I thought, This might be so much more, frighteningly more, than I expected.
Naturally, I was furious with him when we woke up.
“This can’t happen again,” I said. It was supposed to have been just sex—the scratching of an itch. But now it felt dangerous.<
br />
“Well, now, that would be a crime. We were perfect together. In fact, we are perfect together.”
I looked at him. My face felt raw from his black-stubbled cheeks, and my body felt replete and languid. I couldn’t help smiling. I felt as if I were smiling all over. I just couldn’t help myself. I drifted over toward him and put my hand on his arm.
“Now, that’s better,” Leo said. He dropped a casual kiss on the top of my head. “Where do you suppose my boxers went to?”
I shrugged. “Probably the same place as my bra.”
“I’m hungry,” he said, hunting under the covers for our missing undergarments. “Can you call down for some breakfast?”
“Seriously? Do you expect room service here? We were lucky to get clean sheets.”
Leo looked put out, and I wondered if this was his first time ever in a hotel without room service. It must be fun being rich, I thought.
Suddenly his phone pinged, and he picked it up, triumphantly flourishing the boxers that he had unearthed from under the chair. Unconcernedly, he dropped the towel that had encircled his lean waist and began pulling on the shorts with one hand, putting the phone to his ear with the other.
“Allô? Léo ici.” He pronounced it the French way—Lay-oh—and I glanced at him curiously. The black hair on his chest tapered into a V below his navel, and I looked away, embarrassed by my interest, as he talked into the phone.
Then his tone sharpened, and he switched into Hebrew. I couldn’t understand a word, of course, but I knew he was angry. With a “Merde, alors!” he threw the phone on the rumpled bed and rapidly collected the rest of his clothes.
No morning sex, then.
“What’s the matter?” I asked.
He didn’t look at me. “Family business,” he said shortly. “My bloody beau-frère—uh, my brother-in-law—got himself into some bloody stupid mess, and of course I have to go rescue him.”
I picked up my bra from the floor. I was wearing a light camisole and could have just slipped the bra on under the camisole, but instead, I wriggled out of the lacy slip and slowly, slowly began the business of putting on my bra.
But Leo didn’t even look at me. All his attention had gone back to his phone. He was frowning at a text message and muttering under his breath. I finished dressing in silence.
Leo threw the phone back on the bed and turned back to me. “Sorry, motek,” he said. “This isn’t what I planned for today at all. But I have to go to Paris immediately. How about if you drop me at St. Pancras in London, and then you can keep the Audi until I get back?”
“You’re taking the Eurostar train?” I asked. I willed him to ask me to join him, thinking of days along the Seine and nights at the beautiful old Paris Ritz, with its two-thousand-thread-count sheets and fluffy, buttery duvets. Croissants in the morning, strawberries and champagne in the evening. I had never stayed at the Ritz, of course, but a girl could dream.
“Yes.”
“Oh. Okay.”
“Come on,” he said, a little impatiently. “If we hurry, I can catch the”—he checked the gold Rolex on his wrist—“the eleven o’clock.”
All business, Leo kissed me lightly on the cheek when we pulled up outside the old train station. “Don’t forget, the Audi takes only supreme unleaded. Don’t park it on the street; put it in the garage. And be careful when you—”
“I’m going to drown your stupid car in the Thames,” I said clearly. “Get out. You’ll miss your train.”
With another glance at his watch, Leo jumped out of the driver’s seat and stood watching until I moved over the central console and settled myself in. The seat was still warm from his body, and I resented him even more for making me want him so desperately when he had, so obviously and so thoroughly, moved on. Asshole, I thought.
Leo leaned in through the open window. “To be continued, motek,” he said, suddenly remembering that I was something more than a chauffeur.
“Over my dead body.”
He smiled. “I don’t think so,” he said, and walked away.
Infuriatingly, it took a few moments for me to gather my wits enough to put the car in gear and drive away. I wondered what trouble his brother-in-law was in and whose husband he was. Hopefully not Élodie’s. I had bundled Kali off to Leo’s sister to get her out of trouble, not into it. I wondered if it had anything to do with me. In this day and age, spies weren’t supposed to sleep with their targets—assuming that’s what I was to him. If the phone call hadn’t come, would Leo have been asking me questions about Jules? Would I have been stupid enough to answer, in the hazy afterglow of perfect sex?
Was that what last night had been all about?
Feeling sick, I drove home and crept into my own silent, empty bed for a nap. I hadn’t gotten much sleep the night before.
But once I was lying down, I stared sightlessly at the ceiling. Did I really believe that Leo had seduced me to get information from me? He couldn’t have faked that warmth and passion and tenderness and mindless, hot desire.
Or could he have?
Chapter 25
Ruthlessly, I called Kali the next morning at six o’clock. After all, France was an hour ahead of London. Surprisingly, she didn’t sound sleepy when she answered with a French âllo.
“Kali? How are you? It’s Amy.”
“Oh, hi! I’m fine. But little Benji has an ear infection, so poor Élodie was up half the night with him. So I got up early to take him to bed with me while she gets a little sleep. The twins’ school is closed today, and each of them has a friend coming over. . . .” She chattered on about the family. I was relieved at her obvious happiness but impatient at the same time.
Eventually she wound down, after telling me in excruciating detail about Amélie’s football (i.e., soccer) match. I asked casually, “Is everything all right with Élodie and Gabriel? Leo had to rush to Paris for some crisis with the family business.”
“Oh! That’s right—they were furious when they found out about it.”
Pause.
“Found out about what, exactly?”
“Well, we’re not supposed to talk about it. . . .”
“We.” Already, she seemed to have a new family.
“I’m sure Leo will tell me when he gets back,” I said mendaciously. “He wouldn’t mind if you told me.”
“Well . . . okay, I guess. So, Jacob—he’s married to Maya, the youngest sister—did something really stupid, and now the Sûreté is investigating.”
“What did he do?” I asked.
“Actually, it’s just like your sheikh,” Kali said innocently. “Jacob sold a painting—or maybe he bought a painting; I don’t understand it all. And he thought it was a fabulous deal, but the price was too high. And now the Sûreté is investigating the business for money laundering.”
Suddenly, my heart was pounding so hard I couldn’t breathe.
Kali went on, oblivious: “It’s funny, isn’t it? I had never even heard of money laundering a month ago, and now I can’t stop hearing about it. You know how that happens? You hear about a new thing one day, and then it pops up everywhere.”
Money laundering. Oh my God, Leo’s family firm was involved in money laundering. Like my sheikh. And I was the stupidest, silliest woman in history. I had actually believed he was interested in me.
I wet my lips. “But, Kali, I thought Leo wasn’t involved in the family business. Why did he have to rush back?”
Kali laughed. “Leo’s the big brother. Whenever anyone has a problem, any kind of problem, they call on Leo to solve it. He’s like a superhero to them.”
I could understand that. His air of easy competence was one of the most attractive things about him.
I hated him.
Kali said, “I don’t want to sound dumb, but what exactly is money laundering?”
I wet my lips again. “Crooks and criminals and corrupt politicians make a lot of money. But it’s no good to them if they can’t use it, and to do that, they need to deposit it in a b
ank.”
“So?”
“So, banks are required to report all cash deposits of more than ten thousand dollars, and any other type of deposit that seems suspicious.” I thought of the hundreds and hundreds of reports I had filed in relation to the sheikh’s transactions.
“Okay,” Kali said.
“The crooks and criminals need to get their money into the banking system without anyone getting suspicious. That’s where money laundering comes in. It’s a way to ‘wash’ dirty money through a series of transactions so that it finds its way into the banking system without raising any suspicions.”
Kali said, “I’m still not sure I understand.”
“Okay, here’s an example. Say . . .” I thought for a minute. “Well. Say that an auction house sells a painting for ten million dollars. The painting’s only worth one million, really, but the seller gets ten million. That’s a way to launder nine million dollars, by getting it into the banking system as part of a legit transaction.”
“And that’s illegal?” Kali asked.
“Very. If bankers—or art gallery owners—help the crooks launder money, the bankers and gallery owners can go to jail too.”
Not that was much of a deterrent, though, I thought. Practically every major bank in the world had been hit with fines for money laundering in the past decade. Also casinos, property developers, offshore trusts, shell companies . . . and art and auction houses.
I felt sick.
After I said goodbye to Kali, my mind raced, but my body was slow and clumsy. I couldn’t get the clasp on my bra to close, I broke a nail on the coffeemaker, and I stubbed my toe on the coffee table. The stubbed toe helped. I hopped around, cursing for quite a while, and that made me feel a little bit better. Then, defiantly, I drove Leo’s precious Audi to work and lodged it in the dodgiest parking lot I could find. Take that, asshole!
When I sat down at my desk and logged on to my email, I saw that Audrey had just sent me a message: Amy, I’ve asked Yvette to schedule a one-on-one for us this week to discuss your issues with teamwork.
The Long-Lost Jules Page 15