Candlelight provided the only relief for the shadowed corners of the immense room. A classical band to the right of the staircase played “Amelie’s Waltz.” Dancers twirled graceful circles around the perimeter of the rectangular space. Powdered wigs, floor-length ball gowns swirled the vicinity. Miniature citrus trees bearing lemons, oranges, bowl-shaped grapefruits, perfumed the air, aided and abetted by the heat of thousands of candles flickering a soft, golden glow over the Cinderella setting below them.
Scanning the room, Terry’s fingers flexed into fists when he couldn’t find Su-Lin. But all the women looked alike with powdered wigs, mask white complexions, and frothy, lacy gowns of all colors, a myriad of ice cream-colored hues. His mouth curved as he thought of how the scene below would enthrall her.
“Frig,” Thomas said, “we’ll never figure out who’s who.”
They descended into the fracas. Before they could take two steps into the hordes milling about, a hand clamped Terry’s forearm.
“I want to raise at least eleven mil from this event, so I need you to pander to the power brokers, buddy.”
“Suresh, how in the hell did you make me?” Terry checked his friend out, decked out in long black coat-tails, a moss jacket, cream poufy shirt with lace everywhere, and beauty spots, actual beauty spots, one glued to the right of his mouth and one below his left eye. “Jaysus, boyo, you’re wearing beauty spots.”
“So what? I’ll have you know Su-Lin put them on, and she thinks they’re sexy.”
“’Scuse me. Did I hear right? You let my woman touch you?” He emphasized his outrage by stabbing a finger at Suresh’s chest.
“Simmer down. And before you punch my delicate face, I surrender. The woman is gaga about you. Now listen up. Everyone’s paid ten thou for an invitation, but we’re having an auction after the midnight supper, and that’s where I expect to raise the most money.”
“Suresh, I see Bill and Melinda over there. What the bleeding kind of auction would interest them? Their spare change is in the billions, and they’re giving it away.” Thomas punctuated his statement with a dramatic incline of his head.
“I’m not interested in them. They’ve already given their max. And forget about Warren, he’s done the same. I’m interested in the European royalty who’s here. Follow me, let’s work the room.”
“Where’s Su-Lin?” Terry asked.
Suresh let out an exaggerated sigh. He pointed to the far corner of the room. “I believe she’s over there behind a potted lemon tree. She’s guarding her dance card, wouldn’t even let me claim one dance until she’s seen you.”
His senses heightened, and all at once, he became aware of feminine smells, a hint of flowers here, a certain musky aroma to the right, and the background of excited murmurs circling the room. Terry grabbed a fluted champagne glass from a passing footman and downed its contents.
As he pushed through the multitudes, his shoulders and chest brushed breasts bared to nipple point by skimpy necklines and plumping corsets. He hadn’t seen so many uplifted breasts since his stint in LA. His lips pursed at the memory.
Then he spotted Su-Lin and his mind blanked.
She wore shamrock-green satin, the color so dark in the uncertain lighting it appeared a shade above black. His mouth watered and a strange tenderness blossomed in his chest, making it hard to take regular breaths. Even with the white wig, the pale face paint, her slanted jade eyes couldn’t be mistaken, that plus the innocent exhilaration animating her face, her whole posture. Shoulders lifted, one slippered foot tapping in time to a minute waltz, a splayed oriental-patterned fan waving a graceful arc in one hand; he knew at once -- he would never let her go. He stood stock-still, entranced.
Terry couldn’t fight it any longer. He, thirty-one-year-old, hard-ass sailor, was in love.
Big-time.
Fricking, puppy-adoring love.
Do-anything-to-keep-the-princess love.
Carol-Ann-ruining-it love.
Jaysus.
He felt as if someone had rammed him in the gut.
“Terrence,” she said and glided toward him like an angel taking winged flight. “You look so handsome, except for the wig.” She scrunched her nose. “I hate mine. How did people ever wear these things? It’s so itchy, and I keep wondering how they clean them after they’ve been used. Where’s Thomas?” She stuck her head, powdered wig and all, around his shoulder blade. “We shouldn’t leave him alone tonight. I have this feeling.”
He found his voice. “Want to dance?”
He hated dancing, but the thought of holding her in his arms won victory over his left feet.
“I’ve never danced a waltz, but it doesn’t look too hard,” she answered, and her eyes glowed her happiness. “One, two, three, turn, one, two, three, turn. Such simple steps, yet it looks magical, as if the couple’s twirling on air. Yes, please, I want to dance the waltz with you.”
The opening strains of “The Blue Danube” whispered across the room, conquering the low murmur of conversation as violins hit a crescendo, and the familiar rhythm, playful, perfect, hypnotized their movements. Steps ingrained from his mother’s dancing master captured Terry’s feet. Su-Lin’s natural grace matched him twirl for twirl, and their eyes drowned in each other’s.
A lifetime in a dance.
A universe in a dance.
Neither realized the music had stopped, so engrossed in the flawless moments, so ensnared by the other.
“I need to speak with you.”
Reality shattered the magical minute.
Harrison’s voice was as coarse as gravel on skidding skin.
It took Terry aeons to find his brain again, so suspended had it been by Su-Lin, by his stunned realization he had found the only woman in the world for him.
“Go away, Harry,” he growled, unable to wrench his gaze away from her flushed cheeks, the flowing emotion between them.
“Can’t, Terry. I need to speak with you.”
Something in Harry’s clipped tone raised the hairs on his chest, back, forearms, anywhere the damned follicles grew. Terry’s head snapped to the right, and Harry’s expression sent each lock on his body into a full-fledged salute.
“Darlin’,” he said, turning to face her. “Wait right here. Don’t move. Let me take care of whatever it is Harry wants.”
“Okay.” She sighed and her lungs did the sweetest thing to the cleavage, brimming her rounded breasts to spilling over the meager neckline.
A thought snapped his cock into a psychedelic reaction, twitching and jerking in the snug breeches. Was she wearing a corset? Something scarlet and lacy?
“Tell your prick to take a break,” Harrison ordered and dragged Terry through two-story-high French doors. “Carol-Ann’s here.”
“What?” He prayed he’d heard wrong and shook his head.
“Read my lips. Carol-Ann’s here.”
“Fricking hell. Where is she? Ballroom?”
“With Suresh.”
“Suresh? What the hell?” Terry knocked the powdered wig askew when he tried to drag his hands through his hair. “Why?”
“She hasn’t seen me yet, so I’m disappearing in exactly five minutes.”
“What?”
“Chrissake, Terry, concentrate. Get Su-Lin and do a
Without a Trace
. Get gone. Take her back to Nice, to the
Glory
.”
“Settle down. Give me a complete recon,” Terry commanded. “Pronto, Harrison.”
“SITREP. She arrived in France two days ago. She knows I’m here.” Harrison scraped the wig off his head and tossed it into a jasmine-scented hedge bearing tiny white flowers with pale lemon centers.
“Whoa! Stop that,” Terry said, and he stumbled into the stone balcony railings, his mind reeling. “How does she know you’re here?”
“She asked Suresh for me, and you.”
“What?”
“Saw her with Suresh, made a beeline for her.” Harry scowled when he saw Terry’s expression. “For freaking sake, she’s wearing a white wig and a gown cut so low her puppies were showing. Figured she’d be an easy lay. Got close enough to hear her asking about you. Recognized her voice and almost puked. Turned around and hid.”
“Where’s Thomas?”
“Beats me, but not here.”
“What?”
“He hightailed it out of here a while back. Pissed Suresh off. That’s when Carol-Ann latched onto him. She’s seeing greenbacks.” Harry ditched his rented navy coat choosing different greenery to decorate, an eight-foot tangerine tree laden with squat orange globes.
“Stop the dramatics.” Terry knuckled his eye sockets. “Let me think this through.”
Harry’s explanation hit too many hotspots, too many coincidences.
“You’re right. I’ll take Su-Lin back to the
Glory
. Stop stripping, Harry. Look, I can’t take a chance on running into Carol-Ann. You have to go back in there.” Terry pointed to the ballroom. “And get her.”
Harrison had shed clothes by the second and now stood dressed in a pirate’s open-necked white ruffled shirt, buff breeches, and mirror-polished ebony Hessians.
“Why on God’s green earth do you have a boner?”
The question seemed to surprise Harrison. Eyebrows lifted, he shot a furtive dart at his groin and groaned. “Like I need this now.” He flicked a hand in the cool evening air. “I ran into a situation.”
“A situation,” Terrence repeated.
“A freaking incredible situation. I’m not going back in there, not on your life.” Harrison held up his hands and jangled car keys.
At that precise second, the orchestra stopped playing and the metallic clunking jarred Terry’s ears.
Harry leaped onto the balcony rail, bowed at the waist, and jumped.
Terry cursed, sidled to the open doors, and peered around the white-painted wooden door frame. He cursed again and slipped into the ballroom, keeping to the shadows. It took him a good ten minutes to make his way to the spot where he’d left Su-Lin. He couldn’t find her.
Palms damp, he searched for Suresh, Geoff, Thomas, anyone he trusted. Shoulder skimming the cool stone wall, he did a perimeter of the room, gaze surfing the couples on the dance floor.
Nada.
He recognized a couple of celebrities in the card room, smelled a rich Churchill cigar, and worked his way to behind the man smoking the stogie. Swearing under his breath when the man only resembled Geoff in profile, he stalked to the dining room.
A burnished mahogany table laded with canapés, stacks of triangular porcelain plates, and crystal glasses brimming with miniature cocktail forks dominated the room. Under a flickering three-tiered chandelier, masked women and men flirted and conversed above the musical notes of a chamber trio playing in one corner of the room.
Nothing.
Worry tightened his trapezius as minutes ticked into an hour.
The old-fashioned boutique hotel didn’t cater to computer cards, and Su-Lin had the only brass key to her suite, which was located on the ground level. Terry found a side door and left the ballroom. Manicured lawns softened his footsteps, and wisps of fog gave the sole relief to pitch-blackness. He headed to the far end of the rough-textured stone château.
An open, terraced balcony fronted Su-Lin’s room. Loping up the steps, a stiff breeze lifted the tails of his coat and cooled the sweat peppering his neck. Muttering a curse, he fumbled with the cravat, tearing lace in his haste to remove the elaborate necktie. His hand closed around the brass doorknob, and he twisted it, stunned into a sudden immobility when he found it unlocked. Caution slowed his jerky hand, and he waited until his heart settled back into place before inching the heavy door open.
Not a thimble of light sliced the room.
A persistent hum played in the background.
Terry halted in the doorway, edging the wood frame back into place. Deprived of clear vision, he let his other senses join the game. Attuned to every nuance, he identified the source of the noise, a minirefrigerator stacked under a microwave.
A faint hint of patchouli tainted the air, and it spurred memories of Su-Lin’s toes kneading his knotted back. The turndown service had left a triplet of gold-foiled chocolate squares in the center of the king-size bed. His overdeveloped sixth sense had his fingers loose, flexing.
No Su-Lin.
Yet he felt her presence.
He slid out of his heeled shoes and crept through the room on stockinged feet. The door to the sitting area yawned open, but midnight shaded any hint of its contents. His tongue cleaved to the roof of his mouth, fear coating the surface acrid.
Terror sheathed his inching steps. His feet heavier than the rest of his limbs, Terry stepped through the arched doorway and had to squelch down the bile rising in his throat.
Su-Lin lay sprawled on the sofa, powdered wig off center, dipping down over one closed eyelid. One nipple protruded from the sweetheart neckline of her verdant gown. Dark patches covered the bodice, irregular wet spots as if a drunk had sprayed her with a champagne bottle. A bottle of absinthe, green and glowing like a neon sign, spilled liquid onto the paisley buttercup couch. Vomit green blotches on a picture-perfect background.
An anvil stamped his chest; Terry rushed to her and knelt beside the sofa. He grasped her wrist, and the weight bearing down on his rib cage lifted when her pulse pushed against his thumb. One survey of her face brought the proverbial monkey onto his shoulders. This was no natural sleep.
Lips clamped together, fingers shaking, he grabbed for the phone. The receiver hit the plush carpet, and Terry scrambled for the earpiece. It smashed his ear when he finally regained control and stabbed the Front Desk button.
“Get me an ambulance. Now.”
“Terrence?” Su-Lin frowned, and the effort cost her a throbbing back-of-eye-sockets headache. She knuckled her right eyelid, which drummed harder for the effort.
“Thank God,” he said and collapsed onto the bed. “Speak to me. How do you feel?”
“Not good,” she answered and dug the heel of her palm against the right side of her head. “I have a rotten headache and I feel queasy.”
“The anesthesia should wear off soon, and you’ll feel better.”
“Where am I?” Her glance searched the room, found the IV inserted into her left arm. “Am I in a hospital?” Vision blurred as a wave of nausea coiled bitterness over her tongue. Fear developed the taste into a poisonous sourness.
“Yes, you’re in a private hospital in Grasse.”
“My brain doesn’t seem to be working,” she said, and her tongue slowed the words so they came out one at a time in cadence with her mind. “I feel awful.”
“Having your stomach pumped will do that to you, darlin’.” He brushed a damp lock of hair off her cheek.
“I’m sorry?” Confusion warred with reality inside her brain. “My stomach pumped?”
“It appears you drank an entire bottle of absinthe.” He traced a finger over her knuckles.
“I don’t understand,” she said.
“What’s the last thing you remember?” Terrence asked.
She squinted at the instrument beeping on a square metal table adjacent to the hospital cot. The blood seemed to pump faster in her veins as scattered images flitted through her mind. She caught onto one and fixed it in place. “The masked ball? We waltzed?”
Crossing her fingers under the thin sheet, she studied his face, praying for a positive answer, hoping against hope the magical moment hadn’t been a figment of her imagination.
The taut line of his mouth softened. “Yes, we waltzed. Anything else?”
Su-Lin held her breath, and she pinched the bridge of her nose. Her mother’s bewildered face curtained the room and faded into Terrence’s features. She frowned, and the action made the veins at her temples throb.
“What happened next, darlin’?”
He caged her fingers and thumbs between his warm palms. She stared at their joined hands and wondered if the insanity that had dogged her mother’s life would now control hers. Forcing back the thought, Su-Lin concentrated on his last few words.
“I’m not sure.” She licked dry lips. “The masked ball. Was it last night?”
“Yes. Are you okay?”
“Last night seems so far away.”
“The anesthesia will muddle your mind, darlin’. Things will get clearer.”
Shaking her head, her eyes widened as she realized she didn’t have a clue. “I can’t remember.”
“After we waltzed, Harry dragged me out onto the balcony. You were supposed to wait for me where I’d left you. Any of this sound familiar?”
“Not really.”
“Think carefully. Did you eat anything before we danced?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“I checked with the caterers. The chicken bouches were topped with macadamia nuts. The miniquiches had bacon in them.”
She lifted a shoulder. “I can’t remember.”
“Don’t look like that, darlin’.” He rubbed the space between her eyebrows. “It’ll come back to you.”
“Why did they pump my stomach?”
“Around one this morning, I found you in your hotel room passed out cold. There was a near-empty bottle of absinthe lying next to you.”
“I drank a whole bottle of absinthe?” Under the thin cotton cover sheet, her fingers twisted together. At the beginning, after her father had died, her mother had drank. A lot. Most of the time, she didn’t remember what she’d said or done before she passed out.
“They’re analyzing the contents of your stomach.”
She tried to think back to the ball and remembered sipping champagne from a crystal flute after their magical waltz. A vague picture formed in her head of her in full skirts stumbling down a narrow, shadowed corridor.
After a thirteen-second delay, his words penetrated. “Why would they do that?”
“I asked them to. Su-Lin, you were ill yesterday morning. Last night you had to have your stomach pumped. Maybe your allergic reactions are worsening. I’m speaking to the doctors about ordering you one of those MedicAlert pendants for you.”
“I had to have my stomach pumped once before, in high school, because of macadamias.” She shuttered her eyes, not wanting to see his reaction. “But I didn’t pass out.” She had no intention of telling him she’d been curious about absinthe after Thomas had told her about the liquor over lunch. A blurred memory of a glowing greenish liquid in an odd-shaped bottle niggled at the corners of her mind.
Please, please, let it not be true
. Su-Lin crossed her fingers.
“Let’s take this one step at a time. First, let’s get a clean bill of health for you. You need to get some rest and eat, and get your strength back.”
“I really don’t feel so good. I think cobwebs have taken over my brain.” She made a futile attempt to smile, but her lips slugged behind her words, and she burrowed into the pillows. She didn’t want him to notice her mind unhinging.
He tucked the covers under her shoulders, and she murmured thank you, not realizing until after her eyes closed she’d spoken in Mandarin.
Terry returned just as she finished eating a surprisingly tasty lunch; even the baby potatoes tasted wonderful, all garlicky and spicy. Su-Lin dabbed the cotton napkin to the corners of her mouth and said, “Hi.”
He took the tray from her lap and placed it on a stainless steel table. Then he sat on the bed, framed her face, and brushed his lips over hers. She rested one hand on his jaw, feeling the day’s stubble on his square chin. He’d had a cigar recently, and she inhaled the smoky aroma.
“You’re looking better, darlin’. There’s some color in your cheeks, and your eyes are bright again.” His hooded gaze studied her features one by one.
“I had a shower and washed my hair. I feel human again. Terrence, I want to get out of here. Can we go back to the
Glory
?”
“Yes, we can.”
Hearing the “but” in his voice, she sank into the pillow.
“This is the analysis of your stomach’s contents.” He handed her a folded, letter-sized sheet of paper. She opened it, smoothing the crease, and read the printed listing aloud. “Chocolate, absinthe, and I don’t know what the next one is. I can’t even pronounce it.”
“It’s a prescription sleeping pill. According to this, you took more than a triple dosage. The doctor said we were lucky I got you here so soon.”
Her jaw dropped open. She clamped her mouth shut. Her mother had attempted suicide. More than once. Usually after she drank a lot.
“I didn’t take any pills, Terrence. I’d remember doing that. I know I would. Where would I get prescription sleeping pills? I haven’t been to a doctor in months.”
“I’d understand if you had trouble sleeping after your mother died, darlin’.”
“I’ve never, ever taken a sleeping pill. If I can’t sleep, I do this routine Coach taught us. I did it yesterday after you chased me out of your cabin. I burned a lavender candle. I’m sure you could still smell it.”
“If you didn’t take the pills, then someone had to have slipped them into your food or, more likely, your drink.”
“I didn’t take any pills. I swear on my mother’s grave.”
“I’ll check with Suresh and see if anyone else suffered a similar fate.”
“You don’t believe me. Why would I lie?” Su-Lin kept her eyes focused on the sheet of paper crumpling beneath her flexing fingers and prayed Terrence was right. That her mind hadn’t fractured.
“I had chocolates,” she said, sitting up straight, her pulse pounding in her eardrums. “There was a welcome basket in the room, with fruit, wine -- red, I think -- and a box of chocolates. I nibbled on a couple while getting dressed.”
He winced with his eyes, narrowing them halfway through her excited blurt.
“What?”
“I cleared out your room. There was no welcome basket, darlin’.”
She rubbed her eyes and clamped her quivering lips together. “The chocolates were in my stomach contents, so I ate them, right?” When he nodded, she continued, “Where else would I have gotten them?”
“Last night, I noticed your bed had been turned down, and there were three individual foil-wrapped chocolates on your pillow.”
“I didn’t imagine that basket. I didn’t. Maybe the hotel staff took it away?”
“I’ll phone Suresh while you dress and get him to question the hotel’s employees.”
He checked his chrome watch. “Let’s make a move. I want to get into Nice before rush hour. I’ll get the hospital paperwork filled. I brought your carry-on from the château while you were sleeping. It’s in the bathroom.”
While getting dressed, Su-Lin replayed the last six weeks in her brain. Everyone had been kind. Treated like a princess by her aunt and uncle, like a beauty by Terrence, with kindness and affection by Thomas and Harrison.
Except the Gypsy boy, the leader. He’d spat at her.
Shaking her head, she muttered, “It makes no sense. Why would he want to hurt me?”
Terrence walked back into the room at that instant, and her cheeks flamed. He shot her an odd look, but they didn’t converse; instead, they headed to the car.
Even after they’d been driving for over ten minutes, she never noticed the rural rolling hills of emerald grass, the graceful curves as the narrow road hugged gentle slopes. Cracking her window at the top, she welcomed the sudden chill as manure-scented country air rolled around her shoulders and neck.
“Have you remembered anything else?”
Sorely tempted to lie, Su-Lin replied, “No, nothing definite.”
“There’s something else Suresh discovered.”
“I’m almost afraid to hear it,” she said, closed her eyes, and slumped down in the seat.
“It seems a few of the ladies are missing jewelry, six rings, a few bracelets. Almost all of them admitted to being a little tipsier than expected.”
“So it wasn’t just me. Thank God, I thought I was going insane. Why don’t you look as relieved as I feel?”
“You wore no jewelry except for the earrings, and you’re still wearing them.” Shifting gears, he shook his head. “Earrings are not the easiest item to steal. You shouldn’t have been a target.”
“I don’t care. At least there’s a logical explanation. Oh, before I forget, Aunt Emma called before I went down to the ball, to say that she and Uncle James are going back to the
Glory
late tomorrow. I guess that means today.”
“Great,” Terry muttered, and she caught the rasp of dislike in his voice.
Uncle James would be even more protective and overwhelming if he found out what had happened. Over the last couple of weeks, his paranoia about her safety had grown a little unnerving. Su-Lin traced a pattern on the leather armrest, trying to shed the nagging unease bunching her neck muscles. The Range Rover crested a hilltop, and she glimpsed an ivory mansion through rain-greened pine trees.
Glancing at the building, she asked, “Are we taking a different way back?”
“We’re making a slight detour. Thomas left the party in a rush last night, or so Suresh said. He said he had an emergency to take care of at the Fragonard estate.”
Su-Lin recognized the name from the map shop in Nice.
“I’m probably overreacting, but Thomas acted a little out of character last night. My twin intuition is pinging like crazy.”
“Is that château part of the estate?”
“Yes.”
“Do you know the owners?”
“Yes and no. My mother and Madame Fragonard were friends. As young boys, Thom and I visited the estate with her on a couple of occasions. We’re distantly related through some fourteenth-century ancestor.”
“You think Thomas is here?”
“Yes, and he’s not answering his cell.”
“This is lovely scenery,” she remarked, changing the subject.
“Hmm. Darlin’, did you inherit anything when your mother died?”
“The house. It wasn’t worth much. Wrong side of town. Why?”
“How did you hook up with your relatives?”
“My mother’s lawyer had instructions to contact him. Funny, Annika never mentioned Uncle James. After the lawyer called, I went through our old albums to see if I could find a photograph. I didn’t find any.”
“When did you meet them?”
“Aunt Emma and Uncle James? About four weeks after my mother died. The lawyer had gotten in touch with them, and they telephoned me. They came to Mayo for my graduation.”
He broke into a guffaw, and the car jerked. “Mayo? You lived in a town called Mayo?”
“You have no idea how much ribbing we took when we traveled for gym meets. Yes, I lived in a town called Mayo.” Her mouth curved, and the tension she’d shouldered since awakening in the hospital seeped away. “This trip was my graduation present from Uncle James and Aunt Emma. They’ve really been kind to me, Terrence. I know you don’t like them, but if it hadn’t been for them, I wouldn’t be here.”
“I’ll be eternally grateful to them for bringing you to me.”
“But,” she prompted.
“Did your lawyer do a background check on the Lockheeds?”
“I guess so.” She nibbled on her fingertip. “I wish I felt some sort of connection with them, but I don’t. I know that’s rotten of me when they’ve been so generous, setting up a trust fund and all.” Her headache, which had receded, crept forward, and she applied her thumb to a pressure point under her eyebrow.
“Let’s keep your staying on between us for now, Su-Lin. It’s no sense getting James riled when we can avoid it.”
“Especially with his heart problems. I couldn’t live with myself if I cause him to have another heart attack.”
“It wasn’t a heart attack, remember? With his inactive lifestyle and the extra eighty pounds he carries, a heart attack’s inevitable. He overreacted to the thought of you and me.”
“He’s just being protective of me, Terrence. He wants me to be happy.”
“That’s the only point in his favor. You’re so damned young. Any man worth his salt would be overprotective.”
They rounded a hairpin bend and drove onto a tree-lined, sanded road. Autumn colors met and danced over their heads, leaves of every shade from black to rust to gold and rich greens, bobbing in a faint gust. Afternoon sunlight broke through the arched canopy splashing pools of light on the clay dirt.