Ballet Shoes and Engine Grease (13 page)

She stared up at him. “Lip salve will fix
it.”

Irritation
flared inside him at how casual she seemed of her
welfare, how easily she brushed aside her injuries, as if she felt
it was bad manners to make a fuss. The words burst out of him. “I
never want to live through that kind of fear for your safety again.
Do you hear me, Crimson?” His voice turned harsh. “No taking risks.
You should have called for help, not tried to tackle the fire on
your own.”

“
I know. I didn’t think.”

“
Typical feminine excuse,” he muttered, and
lowered his mouth to hers.

She tasted of smoke and rain, of coffee
and a frightened woman. After a moment of hesitation, she parted
her lips. Rising on tiptoe, she responded. The slight rasp from her
chapped lips added an oddly erotic undertone of danger and night
and flames to the kiss.

Nick
slipped his arms around her and pulled her close to him.
The coffee mug she clasped to her chest became trapped between
them. He felt a lick of hot liquid spill out, splashing on his
shirt. He eased away and reached for the delicate china
mug.

“
Let’s put that down before you burn
yourself.”

“
No. Nick…I…” She clung to the mug, her
fingers curled tight around the shape, her gaze flicking up to him
and back down to the hot coffee again. “I…it’s been a hell of a
night. I think we need to…regroup. Get some rest…”

He lifted an eyebrow.
“And not in the same bed?”

“
No.” Her rigid posture eased and she gave
him a smile. “Not in the same bed.”

“
I can wait.” He took a step
back.

The
need, as she’d said,
to regroup
, was stamped in the slight tremors that racked her slender
frame and the nervous expression that flickered across her pale
features. He would allow her to put some distance between them, for
now. He moved back another step.

As soon as his body no longer caged her
in, she bolted, slipping sideways along the kitchen counter and
then retreating to the middle of the floor. There, she turned
around and walked backwards, the precious coffee still cradled with
both hands high against her chest.

“
Thank you,” she said. “For thinking about
my inhaler. For not pushing me tonight. For…everything.”

“
It’s all right.” He waited until she’d
reached the kitchen door.

“
Crimson,” he called out.

She halted on the threshold.
“What?”

“
I can wait. Until tomorrow.”

Her eye
s snapped saucer-wide. She spun on her heels and dashed off
at such speed, Nick suspected there might not be a single drop of
coffee left in her cup by the time she reached the safety of her
bedroom. He whistled a tune as he plucked another mug from the pine
mug tree and poured a cup of the steaming black brew. All in all,
he felt surprisingly pleased with himself, considering the day had
seen mortal danger and the ruination of expensive
property.

****

Crimson
had intended to disregard Nick’s order to take the
day off, but by the time she awoke at half past nine, he had
already left for the office, leaving her stranded without
transport. She dressed in jeans and an ivory cotton sweater and
went to the kitchen, where she found a note from him propped
against the coffee machine.

Don’t forget to go to the
doctor
. She crumpled up
the piece of paper and tossed it in the trash. As long as she took
her medication and suffered no complications, there was no need to
go rushing off to the doctor every time she got out of
breath.

She
was reaching for a clean cup up on the shelf when Soames
materialized from the hall, as silent as a ghost, carrying a
breakfast tray. “I’m sorry, Miss Crimson,” he said. “I meant to
take this up to your room.”

“
I’ll eat in the kitchen.” She hurried up
to him and leaned over the tray, inhaling the delicious scents of
scrambled eggs and ham and mushrooms. “I’m starving.”

Soames swung
the tray aside, like a miser hoarding his savings.
“Mr. Constantine said that I’m only allowed feed you once you’ve
agreed to visit the doctor. I’ve made an appointment for you at
half past eleven.”

Crimson stared at the slight, dapper man.
“Are you blackmailing me?”

“
Yes,” Soames said, rather smugly, she
thought.

“
Fine. I’m going to eat in that diner in
town…Betty’s, I think it is called.”

“
How will you get there?” Soames asked.
Crimson had always considered him totally lacking in emotion, but
now she could see humor lurking in his pale green eyes. They’d
never discussed the topic, but it dawned on her now that Soames
knew she couldn’t drive.

“
I’ll get my mother to drive me.” She spun
on her sock feet—ballet dancers like to rest their feet whenever
possible—and stalked up to the morning room, where her mother had
set up her dolls’ house workshop.

Thick layers of cardboard protected the
floor, making her steps springy. On the big table sat a regency
mansion. Three stories, each with a neat row of sash windows. A
portico over the front door. Tools and materials littered the
tabletop. Tiny paint pots, chisels, knives, glue, swatches of
fabric and wall paper and a bowl of
papier maché
.

Her mother
looked up. “How are you feeling?”

“
I’m fine,” Crimson replied.

“
Are you sure?” Esmeralda put down whatever
little object she’d been shaping out of the dollop of sticky paper
paste and walked up to her. She stared at Crimson in the
intrusive
bug-in-a-jar
manner that mothers use to study their children at times
when they suspect those children might be suffering from some
ailment.

Crimson took an evasive step.
“I’m fine.”

In full attack mode, h
er mother shot out an arm and clasped her
chin and twisted her neck to turn her face toward the light for a
better look. Crimson wrenched her head loose and wiped a sticky
stain of
papier maché
from her chin.

“
For the third time, I’m fine.” She tried
to distract Esmeralda by lifting off the front from the dolls’
house and inspecting the interior. “This is amazing.”

“
It’s a duke’s residence.”

Crimson studied the downstairs rooms.
Delicate rose couches, washed silk wallpaper, tiny paintings on the
walls.
She slanted a
glance at her mother. Esmeralda was busy shaping something in her
fingers again. Her turquoise top, shaped like a tent, clashed with
her purple jeans. Her makeup was too loud, her hair too wild. How
could someone show such exquisite taste in furnishings and none
whatsoever when it came to her person?

“
Could you drive me to Longwood?” Crimson
asked.

“
To the doctor. Sure.”

“
No. To Betty’s. The diner.”

Esmeralda paused her fiddling.
The object in her fingers was
taking shape. A little joint of ham for the kitchen table, Crimson
guessed. Even when only looking at a soggy mass of paper paste that
represented an item of food, her stomach growled and her mouth
watered.

“
I’m not allowed to take you anywhere
unless you promise to go to the doctor,” her mother announced, with
the same smug air that Soames had sported. “Nick’s orders,” she
added. “My life is worth more than crossing that young
man.”

Crimson flung her ar
ms up in the air. “Has the world gone
crazy?” she demanded to know and stormed out. Then, when she heard
footsteps on the stairs and spotted a flash of auburn hair, she
yelled for Judy.

The younger of
the two maids, Judy was just over twenty. Her only
ambition in life was to get married. Martha, on the other hand, was
in her forties, divorced, already going gray, with deep lines of
dissatisfaction etched on her face. Her main purpose in life was
never to have anything to do with a man again.

Judy
came down the stairs, acting a little frightened, it seemed
to Crimson. The girl, dressed in one of the many sets of black
leggings and white tops that she wore every day like a uniform,
held up a hand, as if to ward off a blow. “I’m sorry,
Crimson—they’d agreed to dispense with the
Miss
—I’ve had to lock your room.”

“
Lock my room? Is there…” She gave a
horrified gasp. “Do we have pests? Moths? Carpet beetles? Mice, for
heaven’s sake?”

“
No, no. It’s Mr. Constantine. Nick. He
said I’ll have to lock your room as soon as you come out and hide
the key and not give it back to you until you’ve been to the
doctor.”

“
But my laptop…my phone…”

Judy
gave a jerky nod. “I reckon that if you kill me, it will be
less painful than Mr. Constantine killing me. I’ve hidden the key.
He said I must ask to see the prescription for more of those
inhaler things before I give the key back to you.”

“
A conspiracy,” Crimson blurted out. “I’ve
been…”

Judy
fluffed up her short auburn hair, an eager smile replacing
the look of guilt. “You’re being looked after by your man. It’s the
nicest thing that can happen to a woman.”

“
I’m
not
being looked after,” Crimson said through gritted teeth.
“I’ve been grounded, like a disobedient child. And whatever gave
you the idea that he is
my man
.” She drawled out the last two words, putting imaginary
quotation marks around them.

“
He
did,” Judy said. She spun silently on her soft
leather shoes and marched back upstairs, smirking like someone who
had just had the last word.

****

Crimson capitulated
, and Soames gave her breakfast. Esmeralda
drove her to the doctor in the battered old Toyota that predated
her marriage to a rich man. Never a snob, she refused to replace
the rattling jalopy which she claimed was
practically an
antique
.

O
n their return, Judy produced the key, allowing Crimson to
retrieve her laptop. She settled to work in the library. As her
first task, she intended to have a cyber-argument with Nick about
his highhanded manner, but the remote link to the corporate network
failed to cooperate.

Nicholas Constantine.

Crimson
typed his name into Google. She’d done it a couple
of times before, when Uncle Stephan had enthralled her with tales
of his wonderful son, but at those times it had been to find more
recent photographs. Now, she wanted facts. After all, a woman had
to get to know
her man
, didn’t
she?

Page after page
, she downloaded motor racing history. Nick had
raced in Europe, in something called Formula Three, and then in
Japan, in Formula 3000. Both, she read, were breeding grounds for
drivers aspiring to Formula One. She recalled Uncle Stephan saying
that Nick had chosen Grand Prix racing abroad instead of the
IndyCar Series in the US to avoid any chance of coming face to face
with his father.

Eight years ago,
she learned, Nick had lost control of his vehicle
during a race and spun into the tire wall around the track
perimeter. He’d emerged unscathed and walked away, but the
following day he had lost movement in his legs due to a latent
spinal injury. After a period of rehabilitation, he had made full
recovery, but he’d chosen to retire from racing.

No wonder he
insisted on her seeing a doctor.

Trawling on,
Crimson studied old gossip columns. Following the
accident, Nick seemed to have gone on rampage, breaking hearts. As
she read about his
love-them-and-leave-them
lifestyle, a chill settled over her.

Fool, fool,
fool
. Secretly, she’d
been thrilled over his protectiveness. Now, those feelings grew
sour. Did he really think that he could just decide they would have
an affair, and she’d fall in line with his plans? No way. No
way.

On one website, she found a reference to
Nick Constantine’s fiancée,
a woman called Marcela Aceves. Fingers shaking, she typed
the name into a search engine. Marcela Aceves…Spanish expert on
religious history… now Marcela Ballard…married to David Ballard,
the heir to Ballard Automotive.

N
ow she had a good idea why Nick hated David Ballard. The
man had stolen his fiancée. The date of Marcela’s wedding to David
Ballard was eight years ago. Crimson couldn’t find the exact date
of Nick’s accident, only that it had been in the same
year.

Which had come first?
The accident or the breakup? Had one
triggered the other? Alternative headlines flashed through her
mind.
Jilted
racing driver crashes car. Fiancée jilts injured racing
driver.
Which way had it
been, if the events had a connection?