An English Bride In Scotland (26 page)

“Not exactly,” she said solemnly. “Although the scientists at Argeneau Enterprises have noted that we secrete higher levels of certain hormones and pheromones that might affect mortals, both male and female.”

“Of course,” he said bitterly. “It would make us better hunters.”

Marguerite glanced down to her tea and raised it for a sip. As she swallowed and set the cup down, she said carefully, “You must have a lot of questions about how you are different now.”

“No,” he said gruffly, and then pointed out, “While mother and Roberto made sure I was in the dark as a child, I’ve known about immortals since I was eighteen. I learned a lot in the forty years before I left California. I know most things I think. I just never realized that my brother, Neil, was such a chick magnet because of what he was, not because of his natural charm and wit.”

“Well, see, there’s one benefit at least,” she said cheerfully. “You’re a chick magnet now.”

Jake didn’t argue the point, but simply said, “You said you need my help?”

Marguerite looked like she wanted to say more on the benefits he’d gained when he’d been turned, but she let it go with a sigh and then asked, “I understand you work as a bodyguard now?”

Jake nodded. Before being turned he’d been a vice president at V.A. Inc. in California, a company with diversified interests. Vincent Argeneau had been the president, but the man had been little more than a figurehead, leaving the actual running of the company to Jake and his brother, Neil. Jake had been the daytime vice president. Neil had taken over at night. But after the turn . . . well, Neil already had the nighttime gig, and most companies didn’t need day and night V.P.s. It was only immortal owned companies that did that, catering to both mortals by day and immortals by night. But Jake hadn’t wanted to deal with immortals at that point. If anything he’d wanted to get as far away from them as possible, but a similar position in a mortal company was impossible. Vampires didn’t work days.

Jake had needed a new career to go with his name change, one he could do at night and one that needed minimal training. He’d always been interested in martial arts and had trained at it since he was six. The bodyguard shtick had seemed a good deal; interesting, exciting even. Boy had he got that wrong. Mostly it was standing around, eyeballing crowds for hours on end. But it was a reason to get up in the morning.

“Well, I have someone who needs guarding.”

Jake was pulled from his thoughts by that announcement. He stared at Marguerite with surprise. “Surely Lucian would arrange for Rogue Hunters to protect any immortal who needs—”

“No,” Marguerite interrupted. “This situation has nothing to do with immortals. She’s mortal and so is the person who is a threat to her.”

Jake sat back in his seat, and merely quirked an eyebrow, inviting her to explain. Marguerite was an immortal, and an old one. At least seven hundred or something, he thought, though he wasn’t positive. He was pretty sure she’d been born in medieval days. As far as he knew, everyone she knew was immortal. He couldn’t think what mortal she would be concerning herself with.

“Her name is Nicole Phillips. Her mother, Zaira, is the sister of my housekeeper, Maria. Maria and Zaira were always close, and their daughters grew up more like sisters than cousins. Zaira was a housewife. She kept little Pierina at home with Nicole for Maria after school and during the summer, but there were days she was sick, or had an appointment and Maria used to bring both Pierina and little Nicole to the house those days with my permission. It was never any trouble,” Marguerite added as if she had to explain why she’d allowed it. “They were good girls. They’d play in the yard, or watch movies inside while Maria worked. And it was nice to hear children’s laughter in the house.”

Jake nodded, encouraging her to continue.

“Well, Nicole was always an amazing artist, and she did very well, growing up to be a very successful portraitist. Her work is well respected and much sought after,” she assured him, and then grimaced and said, “And then a couple years back she met a charming Italian while on vacation in Europe. By all accounts, he seemed to adore her. It was all very romantic, a whirlwind affair. He was suave, promising to show her the world and proclaiming his love in the most passionate terms . . . and she was smitten. Then they married.”

Jake’s mouth quirked at her change of tone on those last three words. They sounded flat and grim. “I gather things changed once they were married?”

“Oh yes,” she said on a sigh. “Nicole tried to hide it, but—”

“There is no hiding it from you,” Jake suggested quietly.

“It wasn’t me who figured it out first,” she corrected. “As I mentioned, Nicole was always very close to Pierina, but she moved to Italy briefly to be with Rodolfo—”

“That’s the suave Italian?”

“Yes, Rodolfo Rossi. She lived with him in Italy for a bit and then they married and moved back to Canada, but to Ottawa rather than the Toronto area where her family is . . . at his insistence,” she added grimly. “He claimed he could better find a job in his field in Ottawa. But I realize now that he wanted to isolate her from her family.”

Jake nodded silently. That was usually what happened with an abusive mate, lasso the woman and move her away from family and friends and any kind of support or interference they might offer.

“Fortunately, Pierina came out here to Ottawa to visit Nicole,” Marguerite continued, and then told him, “She wasn’t happy with what she found. At first, Pierina just thought Nicole was working herself too hard, working her way into the grave in fact. She insisted she come to Toronto for a girl’s weekend to relax and I invited the two of them and their mothers for dinner. I wanted to ask Nicole about doing a portrait of Christian and Carolyn for me,” she explained.

“And you read her mind and quickly realized work wasn’t the problem,” Jake suggested.

“I realized it wasn’t the
only
problem.” Marguerite corrected. “She
was
taking on too many commissions and working too hard . . . at Rodolfo’s insistence. She’s much sought after with clients from all over the world. She usually has to refuse a good many of them, or book them years in advance she is so busy, but Rodolfo was insisting she could do more and should accept them all. He insisted she should strike while the iron was hot, the commissions might dry up one day and she should make all the money she could before that happened. He had her working around the clock . . . and all the while he wasn’t working at all.”

“Nice,” Jake murmured.

“Yes, well, while that was helping to sap her energy, the real problem that she was trying to hide was that he was terribly controlling and hyper critical. While he was insisting she should do all these commissions, he would then complain that she spent no time with him. He was also tearing at her self-esteem and independence and basically making her miserable. By the time she came to Toronto, he had demoralized her to the point that I don’t think she could have left him on her own, so . . .” She paused and glanced down with a sigh and then admitted guiltily, “I gave her a mental nudge to make her leave him.”

“Ah,” Jake murmured. It was all he could say. He’d never thought much of the way immortals tended to control the minds of mortals and make them do things they might not otherwise have done. The truth was, he didn’t like it. But in this instance, Marguerite’s heart had been in the right place at least.

“Here we are.”

Jake glanced to the side and sat back to get out of the way as their waitress arrived with their meals.

“Thank you,” he murmured as she set his plate in front of him.

“You’re more than welcome,” she said brightly, beamed at him and then slipped away.

They were both silent for a moment as they tasted their food. As Jake had expected, his steak was amazing. But then it always was. It was the first thing he’d tried here and the last. He tended to stick with things when he liked them. Although, glancing at Marguerite’s quail, he now wondered if he shouldn’t try some of the other dishes here. It looked delicious too.

“It
is
delicious,” she assured him, and Jake grimaced, aware that she was reading his mind. While he too was immortal now, it was a new state for him and he knew most older immortals could read him as easily as if he were mortal.

“Sorry,” she muttered.

He shrugged with a wry smile. Marguerite was immortal, she could and would read the minds of mortals and the young immortals that she could. It was second nature. Swallowing the steak in his mouth, he asked, “So you prodded this Nicole and she left her Rodolfo?”

Marguerite nodded as she took a sip of her water, and then said, “It all seemed good at first. She left him and started divorce proceedings. She also started to see a counselor to try to undo the damage he’d done.” Marguerite smiled. “It’s working, Nicole’s becoming the happy, strong young woman she was before the marriage again.”

“But?” Jake prompted. If everything were going so rosy, Marguerite wouldn’t need his help.

“But there have been some incidents,” Marguerite said on a sigh, cutting viciously into her quail.

“Incidents?” Jake queried.

“Three gas explosions narrowly avoided.”

His eyebrows rose. “You think Rodolfo’s trying to kill her?”

Marguerite’s mouth tightened and rather than answer outright, she said, “He’s going after her money, hard. He’s claiming he left his country, friends, family etc. to marry her and move to Canada and she’s now abandoning him. No one’s buying it,” she added grimly. “He was actually let go before the marriage and suggested the move back to Canada himself. Besides, Nicole had arranged interviews for him with companies in his field here before he even landed in Canada. He refused to go, though, claiming he wanted to switch fields. But then he didn’t look for work in any field, but lived off of her.”

Marguerite shook her head with disgust. “Her lawyer doesn’t think he’ll get much at all. However, if she dies before the divorce is final . . .”

“He gets it all,” Jake finished for her and she nodded solemnly. He was silent for a moment and then guessed, “And you feel guilty because you are the one who nudged her into leaving him.”

She nodded again and then said firmly, “I am not sorry I did it. As I say, she’s regaining her self-esteem and returning to the cheerful, strong woman she was before the marriage. She’s much happier. But—”

“But she’s also under threat now, which she wouldn’t have been had you not interfered,” he suggested quietly and Marguerite sighed and nodded again.

Jake considered her briefly as she took a bite of her quail and then said, “I’m surprised you haven’t just taken care of the husband yourself. Wiped his mind and sent him back to Europe or something.”

Marguerite bit her lip and then grimaced and admitted, “That’s why I’m in Ottawa. Julius thinks I came to go over photos for the portrait Nicole’s doing of Christian and Carolyn, and so does she, but really I intended to take care of Rodolfo and send him back to Europe. Unfortunately, I can’t locate him. Nicole moved out and left him the house at first, the understanding being that she pay the bills and he live there and act as caretaker until it sold . . . at which point they would split the proceeds. But he was apparently enjoying the free rent and making sure it wouldn’t sell, so she had to buy him out of the house. Nicole has no idea where he moved to after that.”

Marguerite scowled and shook her head. “I thought, no problem, I’d get Rodolfo’s address from his divorce lawyer. So I got his name from Nicole and then paid him a visit, but even his divorce lawyer doesn’t know Rodolfo’s actual address. His contact with him is a P.O. Box and a cell phone number that is still registered to the marital house address.” She scowled. “It’s like he’s hiding out. Nicole says when she asked him where he’d moved to, he refused to say, joking that she might send a hitman after him.”

Jake’s eyebrows rose. He was a firm believer in that old saying, a skunk smells it’s own hole first. In this case, Rodolfo’s thinking she might try to bump him off suggested he was thinking that way himself. He probably
was
trying to inherit rather than divorce, but . . . “Why me?”

Marguerite paused with a forkful of rutabaga halfway to her mouth, and cast him an uncertain look. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“I mean, why me?” he repeated. “Why has Nicole not hired a company for protection? And why are you coming to me? I work for an agency, I don’t run it, Marguerite.”

“Oh, yes, I see.”

She slid the rutabaga into her mouth and chewed, her expression thoughtful and Jake guessed she was gathering her thoughts, so turned his attention to his own meal, surprised to find that he’d eaten half of it while they’d talked. That was a damned shame. The steak was good enough it should be savored, not eaten absently and without really tasting it while you were distracted by conversation. He took a bite of steak now, savoring the delicious flavors.

“Well,” Marguerite said finally, “The problem is that Nicole is in total denial and refuses to believe she’s under threat.”

His eyebrows rose and he swallowed before saying, “This doesn’t sound like something easy to deny. You did say there were three narrowly escaped explosions.”

“Yes.” She set her fork down, obviously preparing for a long explanation, and said, “Nicole bought Rodolfo out of the house last month and moved back in herself. Pierina came up to help her unpack. She says they were sitting talking after the move, exhausted and achy and Pierina suggested a glass of wine and a dip in the hot tub would be nice. So, they went to open the sliding glass doors to check and be sure that the hot tub was on, but couldn’t get the door open. Wood was jammed in the door that was keeping it from opening.”

“Many people do that to prevent thieves breaking in,” Jake commented with a shrug.

“The house is about twenty-five years old, and so are the sliding glass doors. They’re a reverse set. The glass door that opens is outside the screen, and the wood was jammed in the track
outside
,” Marguerite said dryly. “A thief could have plucked it out. It was stopping the door from opening from the inside.”