Priceless (6 page)

A ridiculous assumption on my part, of course, because
my absence in the trash presses couldn’t be tolerated for more than a month before something sordid needed to be fed to the inquiring public.  I sold them a shit ton of papers.  I often wondered what my rank was on their “favorites” list.  I had to be top five.

The blonde
in the trench coat who’d come to my flat had been bought by somebody, and when she’d set down her bag on my coffee table, it’d been a strategic placement.  A good portion of the blow job had made it onto video.  And really, who should give two shits about who I fuck?  Or how?  But apparently some did.

The gossip headlines had been brutal
and getting it taken down had cost me a horrifying amount of brass.  Again.  This fucking crap was becoming status quo for me.

The incognito
escort service was off my list, too.  I didn’t have a choice about that.  They’d been compromised and my privacy couldn’t be guaranteed anymore.  I’d miss the sex, but I’d survive.  One doesn’t need to fuck in order to live.  It’s nice, but not a necessity.

I knew what wou
ld make me feel a little better, though, so I headed outside for the field targets, stopping to collect my beloved Kodiak Recurve and a quiver on the way.  I’d never be able to stop my shooting completely, and hopefully would never have to.  The freshness of this place, the stillness, the peace, the goodness… It was what I needed more than any other thing. 

I told myself th
is was the reason I’d abandoned London to come up to Donadea.  But who was I fooling?  This time of year was always the same for me.  I had to get away from everything that reminded me of the past, and this was the only place I had left to go to where that was even possible.

10
th
August

THE sun was starting to dim when I decided I might as well admit to myself I was lost.

Really l
ost.

The perfect me
taphor for just about everything in regards to my life.

I
pulled to the side of the road and looked at the directions I’d printed out from my computer.  Trouble was, this was a huge estate and most of the roads were unmarked, meandering peacefully in all directions over the rolling green.  The GPS that came with the rental in Belfast wasn’t worth a damn in places like this.  It was likely to have me driving over a cliff if I depended on it.

The words blurred to
gether on the paper anyway.  My reading glasses were in my suitcase, which was sitting in the trunk of the car, where they could do me absolutely no good at the moment, of course.  My night vision sucked, so I was screwed there, too.  I fumbled for my cell phone and dialed the number Professor Langley had given me.

After several rings voice mail picked up.  “Everley.  Leave a message.”  The voice was curt and clipped, somewhat cold.  No greeting.  No other informatio
n offered.  Nothing to make me feel even the slightest bit comfortable about showing up for a job at a gloomy Irish manor house, filled to the brim with god knows what.  I highly doubted it would work anyway.

I was only here as a favor to Paul Langley, one of my
academic advisors at the University of London.  He’d pulled me into his office and basically said if I wanted to be recommended for the M.Phil. in Art History, then it would be prudent of me to accept this appointment, and thereby, please the patron.  Professor Langley was fair, but he could be tough, too.  He’d told me there was a substantial amount of funding riding on this job and that there was nobody better to take it on.  Paul Langley was also on the boards for every art society known to man.  One did not tell him no.  Not if I wanted to get a job in my field someday.  And apparently one did not tell Mr. Everley “no” either.

“This is Gabrielle
Hargreave from the University of London.  I—I’m having some trouble with the directions to find your place.  It’s getting dark.  I suppose...I’m lost.  Please call me back.”  I left my message and sank down in the driver’s seat.  I figured the best thing to do was wait for someone to return my call.  All of those survival shows always said so.  If you are lost, stay put until someone finds you.

The sun slowly dipped below the horizon in a gorgeous displ
ay of red and purple.  I watched the whole thing and waited.  And waited some more.  Nobody called me back.  I checked for messages every few minutes but it remained silent.  The idea of spending the night in this car, afield in the Irish countryside did not appeal to me either.  How on earth had I ended up in such a mess?

I
called the number again and left another message.  I hoped my voice didn’t sound too pathetic on the recording.  God, didn’t the man have some servants?  He was an earl or a viscount or something, according to Professor Langley.  Didn’t they have staff at their beck and call to handle every little problem that arose?  How much longer would I have to wait out here in the dark?  And it was getting colder.  I needed the loo.  Trying to get a handle on my rising panic, I got out of the car, opened the trunk and unzipped my suitcase.

My
jacket would be a good start.  For August, the weather was mostly mild but this was Northern Ireland and I was pretty confident rain was imminent.  And of course, the temperature always dropped with the sun even if it did set late in summer.  I retrieved my glasses, and put them in my pocket.

Truth be to
ld, I didn’t feel at all well.  I had a headache starting and my muscles felt stiff and achy.  I prayed I wasn’t coming down with something vile.  I couldn’t afford to be sick right now and try to do this favor for Professor Langley.  Just—no.

Scanning
the landscape, I looked for anything that might resemble a manor house.  Nothing.  It was so dark now that the only light was from the risen moon, glowing serenely above the fast-moving clouds.  If I didn’t want to get soaked I needed to get back in the car.  I might as well start driving again, too.  Enough of this “staying put” bullshit.  It was getting me literally nowhere.  The dark, the rain, and the morose feelings of helplessness matched my life perfectly at the moment.

I
felt my jaw twitching as I checked my watch.  This was bloody irritating and then some.  Next, I re-read the email Lowell had printed out for me for the third time.
 
Gabriel Hargreave will be driving in from Belfast today to assess your collection.  – Paul Langley

Well,
whoever Gabriel Hargreave was, he certainly couldn’t tell time.  Or know how to use a telephone. 
Useless artsy twit
.

I’d
stayed home purposefully this evening in order to be here to greet the student Langley had found for my archival work.  So far, Hargreave didn’t impress me in the slightest.

I was convinced that y
oung people today didn’t have the drive to be successful.  No initiative.  Little commitment.  It was pathetically shameful what I had to put up with.  I refilled my drink and went to the window to look for the possibility of headlamps coming up the drive.  Nothing.  What a waste of time.  The twit was probably one of those Bohemian art students who lived life on a whim with no idea whatsoever of keeping to a schedule or the job he’d agreed to.  The job I was paying him to do.  Christ, what did it take to get some help around here?

Seeing my mobile blinking on the sofa, I
went over to retrieve it, realizing I must’ve set it down when I was watching ESPN earlier.  I had a bad habit of doing that.

I checked and saw t
hree new messages.  I didn’t know what I expected but what I got was not it.  

Shit!  My grad student, who sounded very
feminine, was lost and off the road in the dark apparently.  I checked my watch again and grimaced.  The first call had been left nearly three hours ago and it was black outside now.  I grabbed my car keys and headed for the garage, hitting redial as I went.

A tremulous voice answered on the third ring.  “Hello?”

“Is this Gabriel Hargreave?” I asked.  “Where are you?  I can come down in the Rover and collect you or at least lead you up the proper road.”  I tried to keep the harshness from my voice.  I didn’t want him to quit,
before
I could fire him at any rate.

“
Not Gabriel, I’m Gabrielle.  Gabrielle Hargreave.  And how the hell should I know where I am?  I told you I’m lost.  And it’s dark out here.”

“Oh, my bad,
Gabrielle,
you’ve been driving around with no idea where you’re going for three hours?”  I was pretty shocked by what she’d just told me.  “Why on earth would anyone continue driving while they’re lost in the dark?  You’re supposed to stay put and wait for help.  Didn’t you ever watch a survival show?”

“Nobody came and I thought I could find my
way,” she wailed into my ear.  “It’s raining and I just drove through a stream across the road.”  She sounded hysterical now, and I couldn’t help wincing as I moved my mobile away from my ear.

I
tried to adopt a patient tone.  “But I cannot come and collect you if you keep driving around.”  Dead silence greeted me, and I wondered if I’d had lost connectivity for a moment, until I heard her breathing.  “What landmarks can you see?”

A muffled sob came th
rough loud and clear, and I felt a moment’s guilt for not catching her calls, when she actually rang for help.  I really needed to stop setting my mobile down in random places—

“I already told you befo
re, I can’t see a bloody thing!” she blasted back at me.

“Well, you need to calm down, Miss Har—”

“Wait!  I can make out the profile of some low hills to my right.  And there’s nothing but fields to my left.  I swear I can hear waves crashing below me.  Please say you know where I am!”

Was she crying?
Unease started to settle in my gut.  Maybe this person was not cut out for the job after all.  “Are you outside of your car?  I think I can find you but you need to hang on and get back in your car.  Turn on your headlamps and whatever the hell else you do, for the love of Christ, stop driving and wait for me.”

I
headed out in the Rover, glad for the four wheel drive over country roads that had turned to slopping mud.  She’d sounded frantic.  The part about hearing waves crashing below her did not sit well either.  There were sections of the cliff side where a person could simply slip over if they were not aware of their bearings.  And Miss Hargreave was certainly not going to be the poster girl for Outdoor Magazine anytime soon, I could safely wager.

The drive was slow going du
e to the rain and mud until I got to the main road.  I traversed that for a good two kilometers before turning off again, for where I thought she might be.  When headlamps came into view I breathed out a heavy sigh in relief and pulled up alongside what I assumed was her Volkswagen.

The
economy did not look promising for making it up the muddy road tonight.  I came up to the driver’s window and looked in.  Where was she?

“Miss
Hargreave?” I called out.

Only the soun
d of rain and the rumble the windscreen wipers from the Rover filled the darkness.

OH
dear God, he was here.

I
’d seen the lights of the Range Rover as soon as it pulled up alongside my rental but I couldn’t just pop out to greet my new boss with my jeans around my ankles, now could I?  I’d needed the loo hours ago and my bladder was past the point of negotiation.

Far
, far past.

The tree I’d chosen to shield my
privacy was an ancient thing, and as soon as I was restored to my former self, I called out to the tall form bent over, peering into the window of my car.  “I’m over here.  Mr. Everley?  That is you, right?”

His head wh
ipped around so fast it gave me a moment’s pause and I stumbled. 

“Of course it’s me.  Who else would it be?  What in the hell are you doing hiding under a
tree?  Why aren’t you waiting for me in your car where it’s dry?”  Mr. Everley sounded very annoyed.  Like an asshole, too.

“I had—I needed to—I was desperate for a loo if you must know
.”  Seriously, did he talk to everyone this way?  It wasn’t like I’d tried to get lost or that I was actually responsible for the torrential summer rain. 

The stiffness of my
legs combined with the mud, the cold, and the general awkwardness of this whole situation did not help me with my balance one bit.

I slipped again and went down on my
ass in the sticky mud, right at Mr. Everley’s feet.

A l
arge hand reached down to help me up.  “You’ll get mud all over my leather seats now,” he said blandly.

I took his offered hand and let him haul me up. 
“No, I won’t.  I’ll follow you in my car.”  I was so mortified at this point, walking in the mud and the rain sounded like a damn good idea. Closed inside a vehicle with my new boss scowling and growling at me, with mud all up my backside?  So out of the question.

Mr. Everl
ey took one sneering look at my car and shook his head at me.  “That little thing will die a muddy death if you try it.  You don’t have a choice.  Get in.”  He certainly had no trouble ordering me around.  Must be the duke or earl in him.

I
stood there for a moment and hoped for a miracle.  The rain kept falling and my boss kept glaring.  I swallowed and gestured toward my car.  “My things.  My equipment.  To do the work, I must have—”

“Tomorrow.”  He said it quietly
, and in a way that brooked no argument.  Christ, he was intimidating, and tall, but that was about all I could make out of him in his bulky rain jacket and ball cap.  The dark, the rain, and my sucky night vision made it pretty difficult to see much of anything.  I mostly just wanted to get under a dry roof.

He shifted and folded his arms across a wide chest.  “Miss
Hargreave, do you enjoy standing in the cold night rain?  Slithering around in the mud to piss behind a tree?  Driving around aimlessly in the dark with no idea where you are headed?  Because I can assure you that I do not care for any of those things.  It’s nearly eleven o’clock and I would like to greet my bed.  Can we get you into my Rover so I may make this a possibility before it is indeed tomorrow?”

Ouch.

I was convinced I had no luck at all.  Not one speck of it.  This man
was
an asshole and I had somehow landed smack dab in the middle of my own personal hell, with him in the role of the devil.  With horns.  And cracking a whip.

I turned and wrenched
my suitcase from the trunk of the rental car, hoping my equipment would be safe for the night, but really, it would be on him if anything happened to my stuff.  He could deal with it.

Pompous jackass!

I marched alongside his Rover with the precious leather seats, tossed my bag in the back atop same said leather seats, and seated myself in front.

Mud?  Meet expensive leather!

I was determined not to speak another word to
Lord Condemnation
if I didn’t have to.

Jerk wad, massive pain in my ass!

MISS Hargreave was nothing like the grad student I had anticipated.  She was a “she” for one thing, a great deal younger than I’d figured on, and from her body language, was quite enraged at the moment.  I looked over at her sitting stoically in my front seat.  Oh yes, she was hopping mad.  Her arms were folded and the earthy scent of wet mud was all over her.  She rather reminded me of a cat being given a bath, all claws and hissing.  She had an interesting accent too.