Lovers' Lies (30 page)

"I realize that," he said a grim edge to his tone. "But you now are a familiar face to far too many people. People you don’t know. This makes you far more vulnerable that you realize."

The sober warning stirred some apprehension, especially remembering the lowlife who’d trashed her flat, but she was determined not to be swayed.

She intended to reclaim their lives.

And if anyone could find a way to silence Davina Strathmore, it was Dan Smales.

The security gates opened noiselessly as Keir pressed a switch on the dash. He drove through and they closed just as silently. By the time the car reached the garage the doors were open.
 

The Jaguar purred into its park like a large contented cat. He cut the headlights.

Keir made no move to alight and the garage doors closed noiselessly behind them leaving them in the dim intimacy.

Suddenly, unaccountably nervous, Victoria moistened her lower lip with the tip of her tongue as he half turned in the seat to face her, tracing a finger down her cheek. Her heart was an unruly tom-tom beat and sent heat surging through her.

"Did you enjoy your evening?" His voice dropped to a husky, uneven tone.
 

"Better than I expected too." Her breathing was shallow and uneven, eyelids very heavy.
 

He curled a strong hand around her neck and turned her face upwards and very slowly bent to her lips.

Those lips covered hers, firm and persuasive.

Heat flooded her in a steady, relentless tide.

She sank against him, boneless and pliant.
 

He was all honed muscle and sinew beneath his elegant clothes.
 

An urban warrior.

He lifted his head and, in the dim light, his face resembled honed granite.

His next kiss curled her toes.

He didn’t demand, he very simply took, claimed and possessed her until she had as little substance as gelatin.

Her hands crept up his chest and buried themselves in his hair and then she was crushed hard against him.
 

Her sensitized nipples were abraded by the layers of fabric between them. Resistance was not an option. She burned with the need to touch his skin to run her hands over those firm muscles.

Clothes at the moment were too much of an impediment.

At last he lifted his head and laid an unsteady hand against her cheek as affected by their kisses as she was.

"We should take this upstairs," he said in a husky whisper. "We’ve progressed from making out in the front seat of a car."

Victoria could only nod, speech was beyond her.

Very gently, he unclasped her hands and laid them in her lap then alighted from the car and walked to the passenger door and opened it for her. He extended a hand and without hesitation she laid hers in his.

The genteel thud of the door barely penetrated the delicious haze shrouding her senses. Keir laid a strong arm around her shoulders and guided her toward the lift that accessed the upstairs.

When they reached the bedroom wing, he opened the door into the nursery playroom to where Mrs. T was watching a film.

As soon as she saw them, she switched off the television and stood up.

"Everything okay?" Victoria asked.

"Not a murmur out of him once his head hit the pillow," she assured them with a warm smile. "I’ll leave you now."

Together they looked in on Connor.

He was spread eagled on the bed, one foot peeping from under the covers. She moved out from under Keir’s arm and gently drew the covers over the sleeping child.

As she looked up, she surprised a strange look on Keir’s face. He stepped forward and lifted her chin with strong fingers.

"Did I ever say thank you?" he asked in a husky whisper.

"What for?"

"For Connor." He framed her face with both hands and looked into her eyes. "You carried him and nurtured him, on your own. It can’t have been easy for you."

Victoria colored under his intense gaze.
 

"If Dad had had his way, Connor would have been adopted out at birth." She lifted Keir’s hand to her cheek. "But no one on this earth could make me give away our baby."

"Then I’m doubly thankful." He tilted her chin and sealed her lips with a kiss that plundered her soul.

Lips trapped beneath his, caught up in the sensual haze he invoked so effortlessly, she was scarcely aware of moving until they were enclosed in her bedroom.

The moonlight, chilly and cold, cascaded through the drapes penetrating the sheer curtains.
 

In its ghostly light, Keir lifted his head, "Are you going to send me to my own bed tonight?"

It took a few moments to assimilate his words. She smiled, a small feline movement curving her lips.

"Stay."

Chapter Nineteen

V
ictoria slid into the booth opposite Dan Smales in the Turf Bar just as the garish cuckoo clock on the wall sang the hour, very off key.

She recognized him instantly although their only meeting had taken place more than eight years ago.

A tweed cap concealed her hair, the bill pulled down over her eyes. An ancient tweed coat and a muffler wound around her neck covered the lower part of her face.

Baggy, paint stained pants completed her disguise.

She’d purloined the clothes from the gardener’s closet, and after bribing Mrs. T to let her slip out in the gardener’s utility to escape the pack at the gate.

"Well Missy," Dan drawled with laconic humor. "I can easily guess what you’re after."

Victoria glanced up into shrewd grey eyes, eyes that had seen far too many sordid secrets to be surprised by anything.

"I have to find some way to stop them, Dan." She spread her hands wide. "It’s impacting on Keir’s position. He’s not entrenched enough at Donovans to withstand such a sustained attack."

Dan’s lip curled. "Did he tell you that?"

"Of course not," she scoffed softly. "Can you imagine
him
whining to anyone about his misfortune?"

Dan’s chuckle was answer enough. "So you’re looking for something to shut down the scandal machine? How dirty do you need to get?"

"Whatever it takes." Her mouth tightened into grim line. She might not like doing this but knew the only way to fight fire was sometimes with fire. "I want my life back."

"Not possible."

A frisson of unease slid down her spine as she looked up into suddenly hard eyes.

Reluctantly, she shook her head. It was impossible to ever return to the blessed anonymity she’d once enjoyed.

She glanced at her watch. "I need to go."

"Meet me here, same time next week? How are you getting back?"
 

"Same way I came." She slid from the seat. "My ride is waiting."

Victoria slipped from the booth and escaped from the bar.

To her relief Albee Gates, the gardener, was waiting with the utility, as he’d promised. He’d point blank refused to just drop her and return. Unless she’s agreed to him waiting, he had refused to take her with him.
 

Not until they were safely back at Dunstan with a load of compost and garden fertilizer in the back of the Ute did she breathe easily again.

Mrs. T met her scolding. "Mr. Keir would have both our heads on a platter if he knew we’d let you sneak out of here."

"What he doesn’t know won’t hurt him." Victoria quipped as she hung the gardener’s clothes in the closet.

"It’s too risky child." The kindly woman fluttered around her, clearly agitated.

Her motherly fussing warmed a cold place in Victoria’s heart. Until this woman had come into her life, she didn’t realize how much she still missed her mother.

Impulsively she leaned up and kissed the woman on the cheek. "Thank you for caring."

"Get along with you, child," she chided blushing. "I hear young Connor calling."

As Victoria went off to find her son, her heart was light.

She'd taken steps to stop Davina and her father.

And last night Keir had chosen to bridge the awful yawning chasm between them.

Soon, she hoped with fervent wistfulness, everything would be right with her world.

*****

Victoria’s jubilation at the wealth of information Dan Smales amassed on Davina Strathmore was short lived.

As she looked at the photos, sick to her stomach, she suddenly understood what it meant to hold a proverbial hot potato in her hand.

While she'd wanted Dan to find something that would shut the Davina Strathmore up, she'd never considered he would uncover something so—so horrifying.
 

His skill in worming out other people’s deep, dark secrets chilled her to the bone.

That Davina was a closet lesbian didn’t really surprise Victoria. She clearly recalled the blonde’s expression when confronted by Keir’s blatant masculinity.
 

It was the identity of her long-time partner that floored Victoria, and yet it made a sickening kind of sense.

She stared at the photos then looked at Dan. "You’re certain this is correct?"

"Photos don’t lie, unless you want them to," he drawled laconically. "And these particular ones are gospel truth."

"How long has this—this affair for want of a better word—been going on?"

"Several years."

"Does anyone else suspect?"

Dan shrugged and something in his expression made her unease escalate. She regretted ever approaching this man.

"That’s anyone’s guess. These women are wealthy and money is useful to conceal secrets."

Victoria shook her head feeling more than slightly sick. Her stomach roiled and twisted.

"But Muriel—" she broke off unable to continue.

If this leaked out it would destroy so many people. Logan. Piper. Caine. Connor. Keir and God help her, even herself.

No one in their inner family circle would escape.

It made the present persecution resemble a toddle in the park. At last, she understood Davina’s continued attack on her and Keir.

She was using Victoria and Keir to create a smoke screen to conceal the truth and protect her own secrets.

"What do you intend to do with them?"

"God knows." Victoria looked at Dan, torn. "Can I have these?"

Dan’s stillness suddenly took on an aura of menace. "Not quite so fast, Victoria, there’s a little matter of payment."

Too late, she remembered Logan’s warning
. Trust Dan Smales at your peril.

Her heart missed a beat and then thundered in her breast and her mouth went dry with apprehension.

"Payment?" Dear God what was he suggesting?

He gathered up the incriminating photos and slid them into a folder. "I don’t do this sort of dangerous work for love, my dear. When I have ten thousand dollars, you can have these." He tapped the folder significantly. "And unless I’m paid within a week, these go to the Strathmore’s opposition."

"That’s blackmail." Victoria stared at him, appalled. "I don’t have that kind of money."

"You might not, but to your fiancé its small change."

"I can’t ask Keir," she said in a horrified whisper.

"Your choice. It’s half my usual fee, in appreciation of your help all those years ago." He slid out of the booth and gave her a sly grin. "And I was as guilty as sin, too."

Left alone, Victoria faced the shattering realization she was nothing but a naive little fool, both then and now.
 

In the past she’d often wondered if he was guilty of doping race horses. She’d even sworn, on oath, he’d not been near her father’s horses.

And unless she’d misunderstood, Dan also indicated she couldn’t trust her father.

She’d been a fool to trust him. And, it seemed now, her father, too.

Huddle with thieves and expect to be robbed—
too late she remembered one of her mother’s favorite sayings.
 

A strange man sliding into the booth opposite jerked Victoria out of her stasis.
 

She quickly exited the bar, walked to where Albee waited in the utility and climbed in.
 

Not until they were on the way home did he ask with gruff kindness, "Are you okay, missus?"

She looked at him, knowing her lips were trembling.
 

"I should have listened to you and Mrs. T," she whispered holding a fist to her lips. "What am I going to do now?"

As her stricken words echoed in the cab, the kindly gardener laid a reassuring hand on her thigh. "Talk to Keir, missus. He might huff and puff, but he dotes on you and young Connor. He’ll help you put whatever it is you’ve discovered, right. He’s a good man and a very staunch friend."