Amaryllis (11 page)

“Amazing. I would never have guessed.” Lucas's lashes lowered slightly, just enough to veil his eyes. “Who was he?”

Amaryllis was so irritated by his undisguised condescension that she considered showing him the door right then and there. But she felt a niggling sense of guilt at the thought
of throwing him out. He had, after all, just spilled his guts to her. That couldn't have been easy or simple for a man like him. He obviously regretted the indiscretion already.

It occurred to her that telling Lucas one of her own small secrets might make him feel that the scales had been balanced. Perhaps that would put him in a better mood when he received the bill in a few days. One of Clementine's many axioms rang in Amaryllis's head:
A happy client is a repeat client
.

“His name was Gifford Osterley,” Amaryllis said quietly. “We worked together at the university until I left six months ago. He's a full professor. Next in line to become head of the Department of Focus Studies.”

“Prism, I take it?”

“Oh, yes. Very strong. Practically a full spectrum.”

“Not quite as strong as you, then?”

A trickle of unease went through Amaryllis. “I
am
a full spectrum, after all.”

“How could I forget?”

She cleared her throat. “At any rate, Gifford and I were involved, if you know what I mean.”

“I think I can figure it out.”

She frowned. “It was serious. We talked about marriage.”

“A nonagency marriage?” Lucas gave her mockingly scandalized look. “You? I don't believe it.”

“Don't be ridiculous.” Amaryllis set her teeth. This was what came of trying to be sympathetic and kind to Lucas Trent. He had no ability to appreciate her generosity of spirit. “We would have registered with an agency when the time came, but we both expected that the counselors would have declared us a good match.”

“Do I hear a touch of prism arrogance here?”

“I suppose you could say we were a little arrogant,” Amaryllis admitted grudgingly. “We are both very highly trained prisms, you know. We thought we knew what we were doing.”

“Yeah, I saw all your fancy degrees.”

“Gifford has even more than I do.”

“Hooray for him. So what happened with you and Osterley?”

“I discovered that Gifford had a relationship with an attractive talent who worked as his research assistant.”

“He was sleeping with her?”

Amaryllis looked down at her unfinished coff-tea. “Yes.”

“How did you find out?”

“The hard way.” Amaryllis swallowed. If there had been a mirror in the kitchen, she knew she would have seen her face go from pink to red. “I blundered into a focus session in one of the labs and discovered Gifford and his research assistant together.”

“Focusing on something other than academically important psychic matters, I take it?”

Anger, pain, and embarrassment fused within Amaryllis. The image still burned in her mind whenever she recalled that traumatic afternoon. “They were having sex on Gifford's desk, if you must know.”

Lucas's eyes glinted. “His desk, huh?”

“Yes.” Amaryllis raised her chin, the better to look down her nose at him. “I would have thought it would have been extremely uncomfortable, but they appeared to enjoy it.”

“I take it you've never done it on a desk?”

The last remnants of Amaryllis's charitable inclinations dissolved. “I'm glad you find it amusing. I certainly didn't.”

Lucas's expression relaxed. “I'll give you the same advice you just gave me. Don't beat yourself up about it. It wasn't your fault that you fell for the wrong guy.”

“I felt like such a fool,” she whispered.

“Well, at least you weren't downright stupid about it.” Lucas paused. “Unlike me, you didn't think you were so smart you could just skip a marriage agency altogether.”

Amaryllis stared at him. “You mean you didn't use an agency when you got married the first time?”

“Hell, no.” His mouth curved faintly. “I was an islander. I knew how to take care of myself. I'd been running a successful company since I was twenty-four. I could find jelly-ice in the heart of the jungle. I was rich and getting richer. I figured I could choose my own wife without any help from the experts.”

“What happened?”

Lucas looked away for a brief moment. When his eyes met
hers again they were unreadable. “The same thing the experts say usually happens when people choose their own spouses. I screwed up big time.”

“That is so sad. Were you very much in love?”

“Sure.” Lucas gave her a laconic look. “People who run off to get married always think they're in love, don't they? Why else would they run off?”

“I don't know.” Amaryllis looked down at her hands. “My parents ran off together shortly after I was born. But they didn't get married. They couldn't. My father already had a wife.”

Understanding lit Lucas's eyes. “I see.”

“They were both killed in a storm on the way to the Western Islands. I was with my aunt at the time. Everyone thinks my parents intended to start over under a new name and send for me when they found work.”

“I'm sorry.” Lucas hesitated. “So you were left… alone?”

She smiled wanly. “You may as well use the right word. I was illegitimate. One of the things that attracted me to Gifford was that he didn't seem to care about the fact that I was a bastard. Some people do, you know.”

“Yeah. I know.”

“But to answer your question, no, I wasn't alone. My mother's people took me in.”

“Your aunt and uncle?”

“Yes. And the rest of the Larks, too. They were all kind and loving. I couldn't have asked for a better family.”

“What about your father's people?”

Amaryllis poured herself another cup of coff-tea. “They prefer to pretend that I don't exist.”

“Figures.”

A short silence descended. It lasted just long enough for Amaryllis to again regret having invited Lucas in for coff-tea. What on St. Helens had gotten into her, she wondered. She had just told a virtual stranger some of her most deeply held secrets. Not all of them, but more than enough. She had turned into a blathering idiot. And all because she'd felt sorry for a client.

It was time she went back to behaving in a more professional manner.

She glanced pointedly at the clock. “It's getting late.”

“So it is.” Lucas got to his feet with a surprising show of reluctance. “I'll be on my way. Thanks for the coff-tea.”

“You're welcome.”

He smiled wryly. “And the sympathy.”

Amaryllis softened. “I know it must have been a difficult evening for you.”

“I've had worse.” He scooped his jacket off the stool and started for the door.

Amaryllis trailed after him. “Lucas, there's something I wanted to ask you.”

He turned around with unexpected swiftness. “Yeah?”

“That other talent you detected tonight,” she began slowly.

Something that could have been disappointment flashed in his eyes. The next instant it was gone. “What about him?”

“When I sensed him through you, I realized that he was very powerful. But I couldn't identify the type of talent he was focusing. I've never come in contact with any psychic energy of that nature. It was very subtle but very strong.”

“He was good,” Lucas agreed without much interest.

“Well, you're the great detector,” she challenged. “Could you tell what sort of psychic power the person was focusing?”

Lucas looked amused. “You didn't realize who the talent was?”

“No.”

“I can't be absolutely certain, but given the situation, I'd stake next year's profits that it was Madison Sheffield.”

“Sheffield.” Amaryllis was astounded. “Senator Sheffield?”

“The next governor of our fair city-state, or so everyone claims. I guess you could say he was working the room.”

“Are you serious?”

Lucas eyed her thoughtfully. “You really didn't understand what was going on, did you?”

“No, I did not. When I work with a talent, I can sense what he or she senses. You have the ability to detect other talents, so naturally I picked up the other talent in the room at the same time you did. As I told you, I also picked up the echoes of the other prism.”

“You said the prism's style of working felt familiar.”

“It was. I would swear that whoever it was trained at the same place I did, the Department of Focus Studies at the university. I could feel Professor Landreth's influence.”

“Who is Landreth?”

“He was the head of the department for years.”

“The name sounds familiar.”

“Probably because of the newspaper articles that were written about him after he was killed in a hiking accident last month. It was a terrible tragedy.”

Lucas nodded. “I remember something about it now.”

“He was a brilliant man.” Amaryllis spoke forcefully because Lucas did not seem overly impressed with just who and what Professor Jonathan Landreth had been. “He contributed enormously to our understanding of the focus link and how it works. More importantly, he wrote the Code of Focus Ethics. His death was a great loss to the profession and to research.”

“Uh huh.”

“It was a great personal loss for me, as well.” Amaryllis's teeth clamped together again. “He was my mentor. I admired him enormously. I miss him.”

“I'm sorry.” Lucas looked as if he didn't know what else to say. “Well, I should be on my way.”

“Wait, you didn't tell me what sort of talent Senator Sheffield was focusing.”

“From what little I got before he burned out his prism, I'd say that he was generating pure bat-snake oil and charm. In other words, charisma.”

“Charisma?” Amaryllis repeated, uncomprehending.

“It's a politician's stock-in-trade.”

“But charisma is not a psychic power.”

“What would you call it?”

“I don't know.” Amaryllis waved one hand in a small,
vague gesture. “A personality trait or something, I suppose. But not a psychic talent.”

“Power is power.” A smile came and went at the edge of Lucas's mouth. “Regardless of whether or not it's been documented and studied by the experts.”

Amaryllis pursed her lips. “I'm not sure about this. I don't think that it would be ethical to focus charisma, assuming it's a form of psychic energy. Especially if the talent was a politician.”

“Don't worry about it. It's not your problem. So what if the guy was focusing with an intent to convince people to vote for him and to donate to his campaign fund? That's what politics is all about.”

Amaryllis was not mollified. “But if charisma can be focused for those purposes, it would be an act of deliberate misrepresentation or fraud or something.”

Lucas looked amused. “Welcome to the real world, lady.”

She scowled. “Doesn't it bother you that a very high-class talent in Sheffield's position is using his abilities to con people?”

“He's a politician, Amaryllis.”

“But he was using an academically trained prism to focus.”

“So what? I used one tonight, too.”

“But Sheffield's prism should know better than to become involved in an unethical use of talent. Professor Landreth drilled the Code of Focus Ethics into all his students.”

“No kidding.”

“There are standards in my profession,” Amaryllis snapped. “And the prism who was working with Sheffield tonight may have violated them.”

Lucas propped one shoulder against the wall and studied her with an expression of reluctant fascination. “I have some advice for you, Amaryllis. Nobody likes a self-appointed conscience.”

“Spoken like a talent with a classic case of prism envy.” Amaryllis reached past him to yank open the door. “Good night, Mr. Trent. Rest assured, your bill will be in the mail first thing in the morning.”

Lucas didn't move and the door stayed closed. “You asked me a professional question. Mind if I ask you one?”

Amaryllis watched him with deep suspicion. “What is it?”

“Was it good for you, too?”

“What?”
she whispered.

He appeared to be satisfied with her stunned expression. “So, it wasn't all happening on my end. I wondered about that. I told you, I haven't had a lot of experience with the focus link, and I didn't know if getting sexually aroused was a common side effect or if it was relatively rare.”

Amaryllis was nearly speechless. She knew she was blushing from the top of her head straight down to the soles of her feet. “I assure you, I have no idea what you're talking about.”

“Just tell me how long I can expect the effects to last.”

“Effects?” she repeated weakly.

“Yeah. Effects. How long will this overpowering urge to take you to bed last?”

“Mr. Trent, please.”

“Will it disappear by morning? It's kind of distracting.”

Amaryllis swallowed and then took refuge once more beneath the mantle of professionalism. “I don't know how long the feeling lasts. I have never heard of any link producing sensations of the sort you're complaining about. Furthermore—”

“I'm not exactly complaining.”

“Well, that's what it sounds like to me.”

“Maybe kissing you would work off a few of the side effects.” Lucas tossed aside his jacket and reached for her.

“Mr. Trent. You're a client.”

“Yeah, I know.” He wrapped her in his arms and pulled her against his chest. “Don't worry, I always pay my bills.”

“That's not the point.”

Amaryllis flattened her palms against his broad shoulders. She barely had time to notice that his gleaming gray eyes were as impenetrable as the dark fog that she had imagined coalescing beneath her kitchen cabinets.