To Catch a Groom (8 page)

“Then I guess we’ll burn together,
signorina.
If you recall we were already halfway consumed by the flames in your stateroom today.”

She swallowed hard. “Only a real playboy would remind me.”

“There speaks a woman who instead of slapping my face enjoyed every breathtaking moment of it. If your sisters hadn’t chosen that moment to interrupt us…”

“Yes?” Greer prodded. “Would you have made an honest woman of me and asked me to
marry
you?”

After a pregnant silence, she heard a sharp intake of breath. “Is
that
what this has been all about?
Marriage?
”

A smile of satisfaction broke out on her face. “For such a clever jewel thief, I’m surprised it has taken you this long to figure it out.”

Max was surprised, too. Stunned was more like it. He’d wanted a confession, so why all of a sudden didn’t it sit well with him?

He and his cousins had been forced to deal with fortune hunters all their adult lives. So far they’d been able to spot them and take the necessary steps to elude them. It was the unpleasant if not ugly part that went with the territory of belonging to the House of Parma-Bourbon.

“So…the whole pendant business was a ruse to win an introduction that could result in a marriage proposal?”

“Exactly. But I suppose it’s poetic justice that the men we targeted turned out to be several degrees more unscrupulous than ourselves.”

Just when he thought he had things figured out, she said something that shot his theories all to hell. “Then you admit the pendants are copies of the original.”

“Except for one of them.”

“The one your family inherited.”

“Yes.”

Max cursed softly. This woman had the ability to twist him in knots. “Which one of you was the mastermind behind that plot?” He might as well hear the rest. In truth he’d never in his life been this frustrated and entertained all at the same time.

“Our parents. But only indirectly,” she amended.

“
How
indirectly?”

“We could only use the money from the Husband Fund our father willed to us to go spouse hunting.”

Husband Fund? Spouse hunting? A bark of laughter escaped his throat. “How much money?”

“Oh, $15,000. $5,000 apiece.”

“I thought the pendants were only worth $200.”

“They are, except for the real one and I have no idea how much it’s worth. Since we’re triplets, and there was
only one pendant, our parents had two more made up just like it. They gave them to us on our sixteenth birthday for us to pass on to our future children.

“That was the whole point of the Husband Fund, of course. Mom and Dad wanted to ensure there would be another generation of Duchesses. That’s something none of us is interested in yet.”

Max’s eyes closed tightly for a minute. Was this one of those cases where her story had to be true because no one could manufacture such a fantastic tale?

“Anyway, we used the fund for this trip and to charter the
Piccione
.”

“Why did you pick the
Piccione
?” This ought to be good.

“Because Daddy always called us his pigeons. You know, in honor of our ancestor the Duchess of Parma who had a pigeon named after her. It’s on our business logo.”

Just as he’d suspected, whoever had coached these triplets was intimately associated with his family and its history.

“
What,
exactly, is on your logo?”

“The white Duchesse pigeon!”

More and more Max felt he was in the middle of some amazing dream. She seemed to delight in weaving lies. “And this business…what kind did you say it was again?”

“I didn’t. We own a company called Duchesse Designs.”

Max rubbed bridge of his nose. “What is it you design?”

“Calendars. Actually Piper does the drawings and Olivia does the marketing.”

“And what do
you
do?” This was getting better and better.

“I do everything else.”

“Like what for instance?”

“Provide the research and keep the books.”

“I see.”

“I’m surprised you’re asking all these questions. If you and your cohorts weren’t so obsessed with taking advantage of rich women, you would have noticed our samples in the bottom of Piper’s suitcase while you were rummaging through our personal belongings.”

He blinked.

“We passed out some to a few distributors in Genoa yesterday hoping to expand our company to an international business.”

So much information had been thrown his way, Max could scarcely digest it, let alone decide what part if any of it was true. But he did seem to recall Signore Galli telling him the
signorine
had come to Europe for a little business, as well as pleasure.

The notes made by the police officers assigned to tail the women after they’d left the airport would clear that up in a hurry.

“You still haven’t answered my question about why you chose the
Piccione
.”

“I’ve been leading up to that. When we got on the internet and were looking at a list of catamarans to charter because they were cheaper than a yacht, we saw that one of them was called the
Piccione
. It seemed like fate, so we clicked on to it. As it turns out, it was the biggest mistake we ever made!”

“Do not worry,
signorina.
If you cooperate, we might be able to arrive at a bargain which will be mutually advantageous for all.”

There was a prolonged silence. “I knew it!” Her voice came out sounding more like a growl. “Admit that one of your cronies on the police force tipped you off that three women wearing the Duchesse pendant would be staying at the Splendido!

“Admit you were up to no good following me and my sisters around! Explain why the waiter obeyed you like a servant!

“Oh yes, and please explain if you can without lightning striking you, how you could suddenly show up on the
Piccione
as the first mate if you hadn’t been orchestrating lucrative conspiracies like these for years! Answer me
that!
”

Her challenge brought an effective end to a conversation that had held him spellbound. There were a few dozen matters he needed to research before he spoke to her again.

“All in good time,
signorina.
”

“That’s what the guard said. Typical male rhetoric. You don’t fool me. You came to the jail to find out if my sisters and I have more jewels hidden away somewhere.

“Well you won’t get that information out of me, not even if the commissioner gave you a key to this cell. I’m warning you now, your powers of seduction leave a lot to be desired.

“Any coward can manhandle a woman confined to a life jacket or behind bars. I have to tell you I would have been a lot more impressed and possibly more forthcoming if you’d tried your best technique while you were escorting me back to my room at the Splendido.

“For a Riviera playboy, I have to tell you that on a scale of one to ten, ten being the ultimate male, you came in a four. Unfortunately a four still isn’t passing. Even Don rated a five. Sorry.”

“Don? As in Don Juan?” he scathed.

“No. Don as in Don Jardine, an American. I should have given him more credit the first time.

“
Arrivederci, Signore Mysterioso.
Oh—before I forget. On your way out to plot your next heist with your henchmen, turn off the hall light, will you? I’d like to get some sleep.”

His body stiffened. “I guess you can try to rest, but for a woman who has as much on her conscience as you do, I don’t hold out great hope for you.
Ciao, bellissima.
”

His mood foul, Max went in search of his cousins. He found both of them outside the door to the commissioner’s office. When they saw him, they stopped pacing.

“You look like the survivor of an explosion,” Nic observed.

“I was going to say the same thing about both of you.”

A nerve pulsed at the side of Luc’s mouth where a tiny scar from the crash was still healing. “You won’t believe what I have to tell you. It has to do with that old wives’ tale concerning one of Marie-Louise’s granddaughters who supposedly had a liaison with a monk.

“Mademoiselle Olivia claims she and her sisters are the descendants of their love child.”

Max’s jaw went slack. “That rumor was proven false years ago and few people outside the immediate family ever even heard of it. Can there be any doubt our jewel thief is someone operating from the inside? When we wring a full confession from the
signorine,
we won’t have to look far to find the culprit.”

“The story goes from one
absurdité
to another,” Luc declared. “According to our lovely jailbird, the granddaughter was purported to have suffered a miscarriage. In reality she delivered a son whom the monk, her lover, secretly christened with the last name Duchesse to protect his identity.

“He then arranged to have the baby taken to Corsica where it was raised by a childless woman loyal to the Bonapartes. Inside the infant’s blankets he’d wrapped the pendant.

“Several generations later that pendant traveled to America where the Duchesse name was changed to
Duchess. It ended up in New York in the hands of the father of the
belles mesdemoiselles.

“Not wanting to slight his offspring, he had two more pendants made identical to the original so they would each have one to hand down to their posterity.”

The sheer scope of the lie left all of them dumbfounded.

Max eventually glanced at Nic. “Did Signorina Piper tell you the same fiction?”

“No—she fed me another lie,” Nic said with asperity. “Something crazy about these pigeon drawings she has done for their family calendar business.

“Get this—” he said in a burst of laughter. “They call the female Violetta, after the Duchess. Since this fictitious monk who remained a mystery for over a century had no first name, she and her sisters decided to call him Luigio, a subtle distortion of the second half of Maria-Luigia’s name.”

A flashback of a certain moment in the pool of the Splendido hit Max squarely in the gut.

Greer—Your name is as unique as you are. Why don’t you guess mine?

Luigio?

The whole time Max had been toying with her, she’d been playing him for a complete fool!

“She says that one of her great-grandfathers, Alberto Duchess, served in World War I in the Signal Corps. Are you ready for this?” Nic’s eyes appeared dazed as they traveled from Luc to Max. “He raised Duchesse pigeons for a hobby.

“One of them carried a message that saved the lives of several hundred men and received a medal of honor from Great Britain. Señorita Piper says the medal is at home among their family mementos.”

Max’s dark head reared back. “Signorina Greer told me
to look in her sister’s suitcase and I would find samples of this calendar.”

“Their luggage is in the car,” Nic declared. “Do you think the samples are really there?”

No one said anything or made a move to walk outside. Max suspected his cousins were holding back for the same reason he was. But they couldn’t stand there forever smoldering with curiosity. It was four in the morning and they were dead on their feet.

Letting out a curse he finally said, “Come on. Let’s find out and get this over with.”

They made their way to the restricted parking area. Luc trailed because at this point he was favoring his cane. They were the only people moving about in the dark.

Max opened the trunk of the estate car they’d driven over from the villa. The inside light made it possible to see enough without needing a flashlight. Nic found the case with the initials PD on it and opened the locks.

After feeling around her clothes, he produced a large square manila envelope. As his cousin proceeded to empty the contents, Max found himself holding his breath.

Out came six calendars.

Luc reached for one of them. “Men’s Most Notable Quotes About Women,” he read aloud.

“For Women Only,” Nic mouthed the title of another sample. Max grabbed for a similar calendar and opened the cover to January’s quote for the month.

So Many Men… So Few Who Can Afford Me.

Sure enough,
there
was the female pigeon Violetta, dressed in a gown and jewels. The male, Luigio, looking weary and dejected, tagged behind.

Max’s eyes widened to realize they’d entered an exclusive designer shop on one of the fashionable boulevards in
Parma.
Next to a pair of shoes, a handbag and dress
she’d drawn placards showing astronomical prices both in lire and dollars.

Astonished, he turned to February’s quote.

Coffee, Chocolate… Men. Some Things Are Just Better Rich.

This time the two pigeons sat in an elegant pastry shop near the Teatro Farnese in Parma drinking espresso and munching on their world famous chocolate biscotti. While Luigio looked longingly at her, Violetta played footsie beneath the table with a well-dressed Italian pigeon wearing the ducale corona emblem.
Incredible.

March’s quote.

Don’t Treat Me Any Differently Than You Would The Queen.

It was yet another drawing of poor, helpless, love-smitten Luigio throwing down his cloak for the treacherous yet delectable Violetta who was visiting Langhirano where you could see the very long, narrow windows, shuttered and open—designated to ventilate the aging hams.

April’s quote.

Behind Every Successful Woman Is A Woman.

His curiosity insatiable by now, Max studied each rendition with total absorption. He came to November.

Ginger Rogers Did Everything Fred Astaire Did, But She Did It Backward And In High Heels.

There was Luigio in a tux and top hat. Violetta wore a gown and high heels while she danced backward on the staircase of the Palazzo della Pilotta in Parma.

Like being mesmerized at the scene of a fire where you couldn’t look away, he turned to December.

A Man’s Gotta Do What A Man’s Gotta Do. A Woman’s Got To Do What He Can’t.