Dangerous Ladies (66 page)

“He’s taking me on a personalized tour of the house,” Weezy called to them.

“I’ll bet,” Devlin said.

Meadow grinned and tugged at his arm. “Down, boy. You’re married now. All you get to do is run to the end of your leash and bark.”

From the direction of the old men, Devlin heard a series of horrified gasps and choking laughs.

She glanced at them. “Hi, Mr. Gallagher, Mr. Sample, Mr. Osgood, Mr. Benjamin. Got your hearing aids turned up?”

Scrubby Gallagher laughed. “And loving to hear you jerk that leash. Keep it up! You’ll get him trained!”

Meadow gave him a thumbs-up, then went back to work on her cone.

As he viewed Isabelle’s granddaughter, Bradley Benjamin’s faded gray eyes blazed with irritation—and something Devlin had never seen there before.

Maybe the emptiness of a life badly lived?

God, Devlin hoped so. That would make this whole farce well worthwhile.

That, and the pleasure of getting into Meadow’s pants every night.

“I suppose you invited the whole hospital staff so no one got their feelings hurt,” Grace said.

Meadow looked down at her feet as she scuffled them. Her hat brim hid her face, but everyone knew the answer.

“Oh, for God’s sake!” In a dramatic, exasperated gesture, Grace put her hand on her forehead.

“You told me I could invite my friends!” Meadow used her tongue to push the ice cream down into the cone.

Devlin wondered how long he could keep his erection below half-mast.

“Your
friends
, not the people who are in service to you,” Grace said.

Devlin slid his arm around Meadow’s waist. “Meadow makes everyone a friend.”

Meadow shoved her hat brim back and looked up at him, and he saw the mischief in her face. “I suppose I shouldn’t tell her I invited the rest of the household staff, huh?”

The expression on Grace’s face was worth the price of the Ferris wheel. She stammered, “You . . . you invited the staff. The staff of the Secret Garden?”

“Well, sure. I told them to drop in when they weren’t working. Look! They’re having a marvelous time.” Meadow gestured widely. The cone went flying and landed splat on the handrail.

Grace flinched and tried to protect her still-pristine white slacks.

In a voice that insulted and sneered, Bradley Benjamin said, “Mrs. Fitzwilliam, it might help if you maintained enough sobriety to hold on to your food.”

“I haven’t had a drink. I’m always this way!” She smiled at him with that special edge she maintained for Bradley Benjamin. “But it’s okay. I’m an artist. We get to be eccentric.”

Benjamin’s gray eyes would have frozen bourbon in the glass. His lips moved soundlessly, but he wasn’t swearing. Devlin saw it. The old guy said, “Isabelle.”

Meadow saw it, too, because she removed her hat and inclined her head at him.

All Devlin’s suspicions shifted, changed, became certainties. Meadow knew—had always known—about Bradley Benjamin and his position in her grandmother’s life. And Meadow, who liked everybody, didn’t like Bradley Benjamin.

“An artist?” Grace said. “I didn’t know you were an artist.”

“Oops,” Meadow said softly. Wheeling on her, she said, “Grace, you’ve got something on your lapel.”

Grace gave an exasperated huff. “If Meadow noticed, then I’ve
got
to go change. But I’ll be back. Don’t make your announcement until I am!”

“We wouldn’t dream of it.” Meadow watched her leave; then, the picture of guilt, she waited.

Waited for Devlin to question her about her art, he supposed. But he wasn’t disposed to be an asshole today.

They had Bradley Benjamin for that.

Instead Devlin lifted her chin and kissed the corner of her mouth. “Ice cream,” he said.

“Right.” Scrubby put all his disbelief, all his envy, into that one word.

Devlin didn’t care. All he cared about was having Meadow gaze at him as if she adored him.

The raucous music from the calliope, the clamor of the crowd,
the smell of food and sunscreen—they all faded away. He was aware of nothing but Meadow’s delightful smile, her warmth as she leaned into him, the scent of the lemon rinse she used in her hair.

“Mr. Fitzwilliam, if I could speak to you in your office?”

Sam startled Devlin out of his reverie.

When Devlin glared at him, Sam added, “It’s important.”

“Of course.” Reluctantly, Devlin allowed Meadow to slip out of his grasp.

She stepped away from Sam. Looked at him
very
oddly. It was as if she knew Sam had been watching her when she’d shut herself into that closet, and blamed him for telling Devlin the truth.

“Don’t be too long.” She replaced her hat and skipped down the steps.

Devlin glanced over at the old guys. All of them watched her go, and all of them had that wistful, walking-down-memory-lane gleam in their eyes.

All of them except Bradley Benjamin. He looked furious—and old.

The fool. Did his pride keep him company when he sat alone every night?

Or had it occurred to him that if he’d kept Isabelle, he could have had Meadow for his granddaughter?

S
am indicated the bank of monitors in Devlin’s office. “Usually while Mr. Four wanders the halls, he’s reeling drunk. But today . . .”

Four walked along the corridor on the third floor, Weezy on his arm.

“He’s probably looking for somewhere new to get laid,” Devlin said.
Like the linen closet.

“I wouldn’t have come to get you if that was the case,” Sam said. “Watch him.”

Four was wild-eyed, his motions jerky, as he stared at each painting. Once he stopped before a landscape, leaned in, and looked at the signature in the corner. Weezy looked bored to death, and when she tugged on his arm, Four turned on her. It was obvious that he snapped, for she flounced off.

“He’s looking for a painting, too?” Devlin couldn’t believe it. It was too odd. Too similar to Meadow’s behavior to be a coincidence. “What the hell do they think they’re going to get out of the damned thing?”

“Sir?” Sam frowned at Devlin.

“Nothing.” Devlin waved the question aside.

“Sir, do you think perhaps it might be a wise idea to send Mrs.
Fitzwilliam and Mr. Four away until it’s ascertained that this painting isn’t on the premises?”

“But it
is
on the premises.”

Sam stepped forward, and he projected a surprising menace. “Would you explain yourself, sir?”

Devlin considered what to say, how much to say. “The painting is not what everyone hopes. It’s not an important lost masterpiece. It’s an early work, and a hurried work. I like it, but I have my reasons. Why?” Why, of all the people in the world, did Sam care so much?

“When Mrs. Fitzwilliam started searching, I took the liberty of looking over the appraisals of all the art in the house.” Sam went to the file cabinet and pulled out the file. “There’s nothing here that would indicate the kind of interest Mrs. Fitzwilliam and Mr. Four are displaying.”

“Exactly.” Devlin noted that Sam hadn’t answered the question, but before he could ask, his walkie-talkie beeped. He glanced down and saw his mother framed in the small screen.

“I’m ready, and if you don’t hurry, Meadow will go off and jump in the large”—Grace waved her arms—“blow-up clown thing.”

Meadow thrust her head in front of the camera and rolled her eyes.

“I’ll be there in a minute.” Devlin clicked the off button and said to Sam, “Is there anything else before I go back?”

“I have the report on Mrs. Fitzwilliam from the detective.”

“About damned time.” Nothing else could have held Devlin in place. Nothing else.

“It took him a while to sift through and find the right information.” Sam handed him a manila folder filled with papers and photos. His cool, dark eyes met Devlin’s. “Mrs. Fitzwilliam has never visited Majorca.”

“Let’s keep that our secret.”

But Sam still stood there, balanced between what he wanted to say and what he should say. He must have decided they were one and
the same, because at last he used a low, slow voice to ask, “Have you thought that perhaps she’s sleeping with you just so she can stay here and search for this . . . painting?”

When had Sam become so interested in all this? When had he started looking and sounding like the man in authority? “Of course I’ve thought it. How could I not? But if that’s the case, it’s worth it—and I’ll bear up and suffer through.”

“Yes, sir. Do you want me to do anything about Mr. Four?”

“No. Let him search. It won’t hurt, and maybe it’ll keep him away from the booze.”

“Yes, sir.” Sam turned away to his office.

Devlin stared at the folder, at Sam’s neat printing on the tab.

He should go back to the party. He was the host. But Meadow hid too many secrets, and he’d not had time to search them out. He wanted to know everything about her, about her family, about her art, about her background. He held the answers in his hand, and he couldn’t wait any longer.

Sitting down at his desk, he opened the folder and started reading.

When he was finished, he stood up.

Everything had changed. Everything.

He had to find Meadow. This time they would work this thing out.

Instead, when he stepped onto the porch, his mother saluted him with a glass of champagne and called, “It’s the bridegroom! Come on, Devlin; we’ve cleared the Ferris wheel. It’s time for you and Meadow to make your announcement!”

The day had been long and exhausting.

Devlin and Meadow had ridden the Ferris wheel to the top and made the announcement of their marriage to the cheering crowd.
No one had left until after ten, and then only the local half had driven away. The rest of the party had retired to the bar. It was after two by the time the last of the guests had staggered off to their rooms at the Secret Garden, sending the staff into a frenzy of work as they delivered extra towels, antacids, and bottles of water.

By the time Devlin came to bed, Meadow was asleep.

As he climbed under the covers with her, he resolved that he would talk to her in the morning.

But the second Meadow stepped out of bed, Devlin woke up. He lay there for a moment, waiting to see if she turned on the bathroom light.

But no. She slipped into her robe—and left the room.

Perhaps he was a fool, but he knew she wasn’t sneaking off to visit another man. And the moon wasn’t full, so she wasn’t off to dance naked in the garden.

This was about her mother. That single sentence in the detective’s report had explained everything.

Meadow wanted that painting to pay for her mother’s treatment. And how deeply Devlin resented the fact that she hadn’t told him her troubles. Told him the truth. He’d given her so many chances, yet it seemed that while she trusted him enough to sleep with him, she didn’t trust him with her secrets.

He got up and pulled on his jeans and a T-shirt. Going to the closet, he dug out his Reeboks.

All right, maybe some of the things he’d done, and some of the things he’d said, and some of the things he’d encouraged others to say about him, led her to believe he was a ruthless, unyielding jerk.

But didn’t she know? Didn’t she realize?

With her, he was different. He felt . . . young. He believed in possibilities. In wiggly puppies and in spring showers that brought May flowers. In miracles.

The idea of Devlin Fitzwilliam being silly in love seemed absurd—except that he was in love with Meadow.

He tied his shoes.

Well. Tonight he would teach her to trust him. He would do what he had sworn he would not—he’d confess the truth, all the truth. Kind, generous Meadow would realize the error of her ways, and she’d stay with him.

He headed out, figuring he could check the monitors across the dimly lit corridor, see where she’d headed off to search, and find her.