Overseas (38 page)

I wiggled my toes, catching the emphasis. “So what
should
I be worrying about?”

He hesitated.

“Look, Ashford. I can tell when something’s on your mind by now. So spill it, please, so we can move on to the welcome-home sex.”

“Nothing like candor, is there?”

“You love my candor. Now talk.”

His body shifted, straightening against the back of the tub. “Kate, I’ve been doing a great deal of thinking during these interminable meetings. I think it’s time for a change of strategy.”

“Strategy?” I trailed my fingers through the cooling bath water, watching the ripples spread out and ricochet from the walls of the tub. “What do you mean?”

“You were right to come into the city. I’ve been a coward, an ostrich, hiding both our heads in the country soil and hoping it would all go away. I haven’t learned the lessons of my own war, you see. I’ve been busy digging in, instead of taking the battle to the enemy and ending the conflict entirely.”

“Sorry, I don’t quite follow military logic. What exactly are we talking about?”

“I mean it’s time to flush out whoever it is that’s threatening us.”

“Threatening us? Is someone actually
threatening
us? Like that guy tonight? Because you didn’t seem worried…”

“Because I don’t think that’s related.”

“Related to
what
? To my stuff being searched? To all these vague premonitions of yours? I mean, what’s going
on
? What aren’t you telling me?”

He didn’t reply at first. “Look, Kate,” he said finally, “you’ll have to take
a bit of a leap of faith here. There
is
a danger, a real one. I honestly can’t tell you what it is. I don’t even properly know myself. But it’s there, Kate, whatever it is, and I think it’s time to stop hiding from it.”

I was silent.

“What are you thinking?” he pressed me.

“Julian, I trust you. If you think there’s something out there, fine. Hire a bodyguard. Do whatever it takes so you can rest easy at night, and we can live our lives.” I stopped. “Just what do you mean by flushing it out?”

He drew in a deep breath; I felt myself rise and fall on his chest. “I mean go out. In public. Charity balls, opening nights, that sort of thing. Allegra can arrange it all; she’s quite efficient. Make a bit of a splash.”

“What?” I sat up and turned to face him, sloshing water over the sides of the tub. “Are you
kidding
?”

“It may, I hope, provoke our chap to act. And we’ll be prepared for it.”

“Julian, I don’t do that stuff. I’m terrible at it. Look at what happened at MoMA. I broke a
champagne
glass over a guy’s
head
. And I wasn’t even drunk.”

“I’ll be by your side every second,” he said. “It’s September, and the social calendar is full of all sorts of rubbish. You might even enjoy yourself.”

“No, no, no. Way out of my sphere. What, prance around in designer dresses and be your
arm candy
? Are you
nuts
?”

He frowned at me. “I thought you
wanted
to spend some time in the city.”

“I didn’t mean I wanted you to turn me into some kind of
socialite
! I was thinking more along the lines of a
career
!”

“Doing
what
?”

“I don’t know! Something!” I stood up and snatched a towel. “I mean, why don’t you just dye my hair blond and stick me in Greenwich with
Geoff’s
wife
?”

“What the devil? Who said anything about bloody
Greenwich
?”

I stepped out of the tub and wrapped the towel around me. “But that’s
what would happen, right? Pretty soon I’d be out in the ’burbs, having babies and doing tennis lunches at the club with the other hedgie wives. Gossip and… and
handbags.
This is exactly,
exactly
what I’ve been afraid of all along!”

“Oh, for goodness’ sake, Kate.” He dropped his head back against the rim of the tub and glared at the ceiling. “We’re talking about a few months here. And you haven’t the faintest interest in handbags.”

“Yes, I do. I like handbags. A little. That’s the problem. It would be too easy to just… be that girl. Get all shallow and complacent.”

“You’re being absurd. You’d never do that. You’re not
like
those women. You’re a completely different animal. It’s why I love you.”

“Then why try to turn me into one of them?”

He stood up, letting the water drip magnificently from his body for a moment before dragging a towel off the rack and draping it around his midsection. An athlete’s body, an active man’s body, flat smooth muscles flexing effortlessly under his glowing skin, making it hard to concentrate on quarrelling with him. “For the last time,” he said through his teeth, stepping out of the tub, “I’m not doing anything of the kind. It’s nothing to do with you becoming a damned socialite. It’s about finding out who’s going to ruin our lives and stopping him before he has the chance.”

“
Who
wants to ruin our lives?
Why?
”

“I don’t know! That’s what I’m trying to find out! If you’ll let me!” He grabbed a hand towel and rubbed his hair furiously with it.

I stared at him. “You really
are
paranoid.”

He turned to face me. “Yes, I am,” he said, his voice breaking. “I’m wild with worry for you. You’ve no idea. Keeping you safe is the first thing I think about in the morning, and the last thought in my head as I go to sleep.”

“Well, stop wasting your time. I’m fine. You should be more worried about yourself. You’re more of a target than I am.”

“That may be true, but
you’re
the one…” He stopped.

“What are you
talking
about? What’s going
on
?”

“Damn it.” He turned from me and struck his fist on the counter. “I
wish
I knew more. I’ve been racking my brains, trying to remember…”

“Remember what?”

“Details,
clues
, Kate. I can’t explain. I only know someone wishes us ill. Someone’s going to have a go at us. At
you.
It may be the chap harassing Hollander. Or something to do with this mess with the banks. I don’t
know
, damn it all. I never found out.” His head bowed, overburdened; his hands gripped the pale marble edge of the counter. “But it’s
there
, Kate. It’s coming. I need you to believe that.”

He was so obviously distressed. I felt my anger melt into compassion. “Look,” I said, stepping near him, “stop thinking you can control everything in life. You can’t. I could get run over by a bus tomorrow. So could you. But the odds are pretty narrow on that, so why spoil the time we have, worrying about all the things that could go wrong?”

He stared at our mingled reflections in the mirror. “Kate, won’t you please try this with me? I give you my word, it’s only for a short while. You don’t have to join all these ruddy clubs and committees and things. I’ll take care of all the donations and arrangements; you’ll just come along with me and amuse yourself.”

“Arm candy.”

“Well, you can’t help being beautiful,” he coaxed, turning around. “I know you don’t enjoy these things, but I’ll be with you. You like going out with me, don’t you?”

“Except for all the women trying to seduce you away from me, yes.”

He laughed and reached for me. “The only woman I’ve eyes for,” he said, next to my ear, sensing my imminent capitulation, “the only woman with even the faintest power to seduce me, is your own lovely self. I shall be fighting my way through your hordes of admirers, trying to reach your side.”

“Cue the crickets chirping.”

“We shall pose for photographs,” he said, moving one hand to untuck
my towel, “and drink rivers of champagne. Then we’ll pick your reward from the auction…”

“Nice try, Ashford, but no dice.”

My towel dropped to the floor.

“… and make shallow brilliant conversation with a few select guests…”

“And if one of these super-skinny social types gets catty with me?”

“Get catty back,” he advised, swinging me up into his arms and carrying me out of the bathroom.

“I was kind of hoping you’d, like, ruin her husband or something.”

“Oh, that goes without saying.” He tossed me onto the bed and crawled after me like a hungry golden panther.

“Rrrrr.” I looped my arms about his neck. “So kiss me already.”

“I thought you’d never ask,” he growled back.

“T
HERE’S JUST ONE THING
,” Julian said, some time later, just as sleep began to drift over me in my warm cocoon of white sheets and male skin.

“What’s that?” I said drowsily, skimming my fingers over the long ragged scar on his right arm.

“I’m afraid, my darling”—he kissed the tip of my nose—“you’ll be obliged to go shopping.”

Amiens

B
y five o’clock that afternoon, the rain had paused and a genuine beam of sunlight struggled out between the clouds. I smiled at it, feeling unexpectedly lighthearted, and drew the straw market basket more firmly into my elbow. I’d gone shopping, scouring the scantily shelved shops of Amiens to gather together a simple picnic: bread and cheese and what looked to be a pretty decent pâté, with wine for him and Perrier water—Perrier, God bless them!—for me. Yes, a picnic. Julian loved picnics.

So distracted was I, cheerful face upturned to the mottled sky, that Geoffrey Warwick’s outstretched hand seemed to emerge from thin air when it grasped my upper arm and brought my momentum to a staggered halt.

“Oww!” I exclaimed, trying to pull away. “What do you think you’re doing?”

He replied quietly. “I might very well ask the same thing of you.”

“Lieutenant Warwick.” I encircled his wrist with my fingers and removed it. “If you’re trying to intimidate me, I should warn you: I’m not like the shrinking violets you’re used to. I can run a mile in six minutes, and I know a self-defense move that would lay you flat on your back in less time than it would take me to scream rape.” That last part was technically a bluff; I’d learned the maneuver in theory during freshman orientation, but I’d never tried it out on a real live six-foot attacker.

“Do you really think,” he said, voice still low, “do you really
imagine
you can insert yourself into his life like this? Brazen, unprincipled woman. Have you any idea of the pain you’re causing?”

“If you mean Arthur Hamilton,” I said, “I believe I do. Of course I do. And I’m sorry for that, very sorry, more than you can possibly know. But you’ve no idea, do you, what really lies between them, between Julian and Florence…”

He started, a sharp backward motion of his head. “What do you know of Miss Hamilton?”

“I know everything. And it’s not what you think. Julian doesn’t…”

He lifted his right hand in a reflexive motion, as if warding away a blow. His face had grown pale under the shadow of his cap. “I don’t give a tinker’s damn about that. It’s not my concern. My concern is for my friends, one of them walking headlong into his own ruin…”

“Ruin!”

“And the other utterly broken, refusing to think the worst of a man upon whose fidelity he stakes his faith in humanity itself…”

“
Ruin
Julian! You think I’m trying to
ruin
him? I’m here to
save
him, you jackass, and from you most of all! Ruin him. For God’s sake.” I nearly spat the last words; I wanted to strike him. My hand twitched with violence, until I had to fist it behind my back.

He flinched. “Who the devil are you?”

“You don’t deserve to know that, Geoffrey Warwick.”

“I demand to know it.”

“By what right?”

His eyes narrowed into severity. “No one,” he said coldly, “no one is more devoted to Captain Ashford’s well-being than I am.”

I shook my head and opened my mouth to speak, and at that moment the light shifted around a passing cloud, catching the man’s eyes from under the brim of his dun-colored cap. Brown, a light speckled brown, nearly hazel and bristling with sincerity. What had Julian told me about him? Not all that much. The son of a City stockbroker, worlds away socially
from Julian’s ancient family. They’d struck up a friendship at Eton, gone on to Cambridge together. A great deal must lie behind that bare history, of course: Julian bravely extending his hand across the great chasm of class and adolescent social pressure dividing them, Geoff probably fiercely loyal as a result. A new world for the City boy, full of careless unstable aristocrats like the Hamiltons, shades of
Brideshead
in there somewhere. And here I came, out of the blue, disturbing the balance. Clearly not in the Florence Hamilton mold, clearly not an aristocrat, clearly not worthy of Julian in Geoffrey’s eyes. I thought about the Greenwich estate, the trophy wife, the relentless ambition. Geoff was a striver, a gold digger in his way; perhaps his instinct to protect Julian from me contained more than a little self-hatred.

Perhaps the key to saving Julian lay right here, before me.

“Look,” I said, softening my voice, “let’s talk a moment. I mean, I think we both have Julian’s best interests at heart here…”

“I doubt that extremely.”

“You really are stubborn, aren’t you?” I said. I set down the basket, which was getting heavy, and crossed my arms. “Look, whether you believe it or not, I love Julian Ashford. Not for his money or his position, God knows, but for himself. For all his wonderful qualities, all those reasons I’m sure you appreciate, too. Wait.” I held up my hand. “Just hear me out, please. You’re aware I know a lot about your past; well, as it happens, I know certain things about the future too. Things that will happen to us, all of us, that will cause harm to Julian, whom we both love. And my whole purpose here is to save him from that. So…”

“What rot!” he burst out, tugging off his hat to run his hand over his hair. “What bloody vicious
nonsense.
Some sort of Gypsy witch, are you?”

“Now, you see, I’m more enlightened than you are,” I struggled for composure, “so I’m not actually offended by that.”