Knight in Blue Jeans (9 page)

“Until sixty years ago.” The girl nodded. “Greta’s house.”

Oookay. Smith could see that she would be oodles of fun. “Well, then. Mitch and Trace drove in, but it’s probably not a good idea for Vox—look, whiz kid, we can’t keep calling you Vox or Vox07. We gave you our names. What the hell is yours?”

Arden’s mouth fell open in rebuke. “Smith Donnell!”

“What, we’ve got two Smith Donnells?” quipped Mitch, and was soundly ignored.

The girl looked at Trace, who rolled his eyes and growled, “We could just call you Shorty.”

“Sibyl,” she admitted. “Won’t tell my last name. Sibyl’s distinctive enough.”

And Smith had thought
he’d
gotten paranoid since his exile from the Comitatus? “You might want to stick with Shorty. Anyway, I’m not sending a teenager who isn’t ours in a car with two strange men. Shut up,” he added, before Mitch could jump on
strange.
“No matter how honorable they are. No offense.”

Vox—that is, Sibyl—said, “I’m not a teenager.”

“Since I’m guessing you aren’t going anywhere without Trace, weird though
that
is, Arden can ride with Mitch. Trace
and I will take the train to the Westmoreland stop with our little informant here. Any questions? No? Good.”

He said that last part impractically fast, standing to make it so, dropping too much cash—goodbye, sweet money—on the table so they wouldn’t have to wait for their lunch check.

Of course, it couldn’t be
that
easy—certainly not considering how Arden arched that beautiful back of hers. “What if Sibyl doesn’t want to take the train, considering it almost killed her?”

“Safe
in
side,” Sibyl reminded her darkly, leaving out the implied
you idiot.
“Comitatus almost killed me.”

“Good,” repeated Smith. “Then—”

“And wouldn’t it be smarter for me to accompany Sibyl and Trace?” Arden’s smile, still aimed at Smith, looked more feral by the moment. “Wouldn’t she feel safer with a woman?”

Smith’s problem was that Arden’s suggestion
did
make the most sense. The only reason he was trying to send her off with Mitch was to buy some time. He had to convince the kid not to tell Arden that her father was Comitatus.

Or that Smith and Mitch were, either. On the tiny chance Arden couldn’t see the flashing signs. That would be nice.

He couldn’t exactly use that argument right here.

Luckily, Sibyl handled the smaller problem on her own, her dark gaze briefly but deliberately touching on Arden. “Wouldn’t feel safer with you.”

The only sign that the girl’s blunt statement hurt was how completely Arden’s expression stilled.

That, and the way Mitch said, “Ouch.”

Smith felt the insult like a gut punch, and decided he didn’t like their little informant. At all. Only sheer pragmatism kept him from pointing out just how amazingly wrong the girl was in her character assessment. Instead of jumping to Arden’s defense, he made a show of helping her up, like the lady she was, and used the moment of nearness—and her warmth, and her magnolia scent—to whisper private encouragement.

“Is it my imagination, or is she not all there?”

As he’d hoped, the stillness of Arden’s hidden pain eased into a more natural expression for her—disapproval of him. “Don’t be rude,” she murmured back, too good a person to return even Sibyl’s dislike with her own. “We don’t know what the poor thing has endured at the hands of these Comitatus people.”

But he thought, hoped, he detected some relief, as well. “If you say so.”

“Good manners don’t cost anything.”

And he couldn’t help himself. He ducked in front of her and kissed the prim right off her full, luscious lips.

Arden neither protested nor pulled away. She didn’t exactly throw him onto one of the plank tables and have her wild way with him, either. But he’d take what encouragement he could. And he was definitely encouraged by how her lips softened against his.

Stupid timing.

“See you two back at Greta’s, then,” he said cheerfully, drawing back from Arden’s blank surprise—and her still-parted lips. “Be careful.”

“She’ll be safe with me.” Mitch gently took Arden’s elbow and guided her easily toward the main exit. “The car’s this way. You may like her. I rebuilt most of her from parts I got at the scrap yards off Jefferson….”

Yes. Arden so enjoyed patchwork automobiles. Still, Smith wasn’t going to waste the moment, and turned immediately to Sibyl. “Look—”

“You’re Comitatus,” she announced flat out, now that Arden was at a safe distance. “Son of William Donnell. Grandson of Wesley Donnell. Descended from the railroad king Donnells.” She considered that. “You don’t want her to know.”

“That’s right. I don’t—not the Comitatus part. So what’s it going to take for you to keep your mouth shut about who
in our immediate circle, including her father, may or may not be secret society?”

All the girl said was, “Secrets are for cowards.”

Great.

Prescott Lowell, in the shade of a sunglasses kiosk, snapped a few camera-phone pictures as the conclave divided into two parties. He didn’t recognize the skinny bit of white trash who had almost gotten herself flattened by the blue-line, and he didn’t really care. She was a girl. Like Arden Leigh, she would matter only if she became trouble.

And Arden Leigh, just as he had expected, had become a great deal of trouble.

Lowell didn’t recognize the men she was with, either. Not personally. But by description? Especially here in the Dallas/Fort Worth metroplex?

The first two—the pale-haired surfer type and the swarthy giant—could have been anyone. But the quick-moving fellow who appeared to be in charge and, more significantly, appeared to be remarkably attached to Arden Leigh?

The same Arden Leigh who’d dated Will Donnell’s son, Smith, until the troublemaker had gotten himself exiled?

So Lowell’s elders thought curious daughters were no great threat. They had ways of diverting her, did they? As he’d believed all along, he was right and they, in their old-fashioned sentiments, were wrong.

This curious daughter was fraternizing with at least one Comitatus exile—behind everyone’s back but his own.

All Lowell had to do was decide exactly when to put this information to its best use, to facilitate his own rise within the inner circles, to where the real power waited.

And to destroy anyone who had impeded him.

Now
that
—that would be power.

A
rden was no idiot. She’d caught the significance behind Sibyl’s murmured comments.
Preston Lowell wasn’t the only Comitatus member. None of Smith’s friends sounded like Comitatus.
Her first reaction had been shocked amusement. But the more she thought about the girl’s claims…

Arden found the denial more difficult to maintain than she had expected.

She would be able to piece more together if Mitch would just
stop talking
for a minute.

Not likely, that.

“So you and Smith, huh?” He had to call the cheerful question over the rush of the open windows. “I mean—
you.
And Smith. That’s good to see. He’s been damned hard to live with, harder to live with anyway, since the two of you split.”

Right. As if Smith hadn’t done the splitting himself. Not that they were together now. “Mitch—”

“I like seeing something good come out of this last year,”
he continued loudly, his hands easy but skilled on the steering wheel. The brown wheel did not match the rest of the car’s blue interior. Arden began to suspect that he really had rebuilt this old sedan from a scrap yard. But it ran.

And it had seat belts, albeit no air-conditioning. Seventy miles per hour kept them marginally comfortable.

“About that,” she tried, raising her voice, but he interrupted her again.

“I’ve got to say, this puts you in an even better light, too, considering. Not that you aren’t one of those people who seems to have her very own heavenly lighting crew at all times, but still. A lot of women won’t have anything to do with a guy unless he’s got the money to back it up.”

So—Smith
was
poor. As, to judge by his ride, was Mitch. She’d suspected as much, considering how poorly they dressed of late, but it had been hard to imagine and impolite to ask.

“Why did Sibyl imply that you were Comitatus?”

“What’s that?”

She felt certain he’d heard her, but fingered a tendril of blowing hair out of her mouth and repeated the question more loudly.

Mitch glanced quickly from the road to her, then back, showing dimples. “Did she imply that? Maybe you misheard—”

“Yes, she implied that.” Arden disliked having to interrupt, but it seemed the only way she would get answers. Trace had already denied the accusation, and, in any case, Arden saw him as least likely among them to have the subtlety or clout to be allowed into a powerful secret society. But the other two? This was too important. She cranked her window up, glaring at Mitch until he did the same. The temperature in the car immediately spiked, but the relative silence was worth it. “Is it you, or is it…?” She swallowed. She could say it. “Is it Smith?”

Mitch glanced into the rearview mirror and said, “Oh, look. Prescott Lowell is tailing us.” He almost sounded relieved.

Arden turned in her seat, looked out the back window. A pickup truck followed them, not unusual in Dallas. But behind that, in another lane, came a dark sedan.

She supposed it could be Prescott Lowell. Or it could be a stalling tactic.

In any case, she refused to be distracted further. Settling back into her passenger seat, surprisingly comfortable and clean, Arden repeated, “Are you or Smith Comitatus, Mitch?”

Mitch slanted his blue eyes toward her, then back to the road. Then to her again. She allowed the silence to loom, louder and louder.

He had to blink first. “I can honestly tell you that at this time neither of us is a member of any secret society,” he admitted finally.

Arden began to relax, to smile at her own paranoia—until she recognized what he didn’t say.
At this time?
So at some other time, the answer might have been different.

The possibility made her go very, very still inside. It shouldn’t have. She should have recognized it a lot earlier—what had Smith said?
I had a disagreement with some of my associates. They had more clout, and I lost.

He’d lost everything.

“I mean, you said so yourself,” Mitch continued nervously. “How ridiculous is that? Sure, we were rich, but we aren’t special. Right? What business would we have, being drafted into a hereditary organization, rubbing elbows with important people, doing anything like that?” But neither of those sounded especially unlikely, certainly not a year ago.
“Taking vows of lifelong secrecy?”
His chuckle sounded strained. “It is to laugh.”

Vows of
lifelong secrecy.
Meaning…

Was he agreeing with her? Without breaking any vows?

Arden stopped asking questions. She wasn’t sure she had the voice to ask more, anyway. Smith was—had been—part of a secret society.

Unless Mitch was teasing. Mitch teased quite a bit.

He looked remarkably serious, in the driver’s seat. For him.

The possibilities and their assorted consequences dizzied Arden in a way that had nothing to do with Mitch’s driving, or the mirror flashes of August sunlight off highway windshields or the increasingly close heat in the un-air-conditioned car. Smith, her Smith, had been Comitatus. And, to judge by his current circumstances, he had left the same way Greta Kaiser’s father had left.

Exiled.

Could it possibly be for as good a reason?

A matter of honor,
he’d said.

Arden knew she could suffer from selective blindness when it came to people she loved—but this was Smith! She didn’t…That is, she hadn’t meant to…

What if he really was a hero, after all?

“So.” Mitch glanced into the rearview again. “Do you like going fast?”

“Excuse me?” When she realized what he meant, though, Arden laughed at her own prim tone. “I’m told you’re a good driver.”

“Lies. I’m a great driver.” Mitch grinned, cranking down his window and raising his voice. “Let’s lose this guy. Stupid, secret-society scum.”

With very little coaxing, his car leaped forward at the same time that he changed lanes.

And lose him they did.

Even Trace was unable to get a promise from the decidedly odd little Sibyl that she would not expose anyone else’s involvement in the secret society. On their train ride into Oak
Cliff, Smith tried coaxing. He pointed out how hurt Arden would be to learn the truth about her father. Chivalry or not, he might have tried threatening the kid, if she weren’t already wound as tight as a lemur on caffeine. It wasn’t that she fidgeted or moved quickly. On the walk from the station to Greta Kaiser’s house, she gave every indication of being still and observant. But Smith could feel the tension roiling off of her all the same.

“You can find your way back, if you need to?” he asked as they turned a corner, him and Trace flanking her. “Not that we won’t take you home, but you do know where you are, right?”

She gave him a
gee, you’re stupid
look from behind her hair before she went back to surveying the mix of old homes, both renovated and crumbling, around them. “Oak Cliff. Location of the historic Texas Theater.” She looked down to watch her feet, in scuffed cowboy boots that didn’t go with her short, flowy skirt, as she walked. “Where Lee Harvey Oswald was captured after assassinating President John F. Kennedy.” She looked back up, quite serious.
“Or so they say.”

Here was an encouraging thought. Maybe Arden wouldn’t believe the kid, even if she
did
tell all.

Arden and Mitch weren’t there yet, which concerned Smith. Greta, on the other hand, was thrilled to have yet another guest for dinner as, of course, was her dog, with whom Sibyl immediately bonded—“Dido. The
Aeneid?
”

Great. The air in Greta’s house already felt weird, charged. Smith couldn’t turn around without some part of him tracking that damned hidden sword, like a compass always knowing which way was north. He didn’t like his suspicion that his continued dreams of battle, of love—of betrayal—had connection. Aeneas had dumped his lover. She’d killed herself over it.

Not exactly a role model, despite the whole founding-anew-empire business.

Luckily Mitch’s gray hobby-mobile pulled up in front of the house before Smith’s concern reached call-her-cell-phone proportions. Mitch and Arden took turns praising how skillfully Mitch had eluded Prescott Lowell’s attempt to tail them, so cheerfully that at first Smith didn’t even notice anything different in Arden.

He was too busy recognizing the suspicion that he felt as jealousy. That had to be why he inserted himself between Arden and Mitch as they settled in the parlor, and why he managed to seat himself beside her, on the love seat, again. As if he had any right to be jealous, possessive or otherwise attached to Arden Leigh.

He did it anyway. At least she distracted him from that sense of the sword’s nearness.

Sibyl, in the meantime, seemed even more comfortable with Greta than she felt with Trace. Sinking onto the floor near Trace’s feet, busying both of her slim young hands petting the cocker spaniel, she considered their pleas for the information she—as Vox07—had promised. “Don’t know what to say that y’all don’t already know.”

More threats to out them. Great.

Arden’s bare arm brushed Smith’s as she leaned forward encouragingly. “All we really know is that it’s a secret society, honey. A society of powerful men, who apparently turned on Greta’s family in the late forties.”

Oh, yeah. Greta’s quest for her roots
was
what had gotten Arden involved in the first place, wasn’t it? Stupid Greta.

“Leo Kaiser,” agreed Sibyl, making Dido shake hands. “Exiled after World War II for challenging the society’s deteriorating morality. Not the only one.”

Arden asked, “What do you mean, not the only one?”

“Well, clearly,” said Smith, “she means that…um…”

Sibyl scowled at him from behind her long brown hair. “Supposedly they once helped others.
Noblesse oblige.
Estab
lished in ancient times. Stewards of the people. That’s why their leaders are Stuarts. From the word
steward.
”

Mitch grinned. “I didn’t know that! As, er…of course, none of us knew that. But, how do
you?
I mean, you’re clearly not Comitatus.”

Sibyl lifted Dido’s ears into a bun on top of the dog’s head. “Know your enemy.”

Uh-oh.

“So how did the society go from helping to being villains?” asked Greta, staring out the window. Smith reminded himself that she was actively watching all of them in her peripheral vision.

“
Honores mutant mores,
” quoted Sibyl, then rolled her eyes upward at Trace’s confused grunt, studying his face as she translated. “Power corrupts.”

And absolute power corrupts absolutely.
That sounded about right to Smith.

“You said there were others?” persisted Arden, dammit.

Again, Smith tried to steer the conversation away from the men in this room—or her father and brother. “Well, if they’ve been around since ancient times, there must be hundreds of thousands of others, right?”

“And other men who challenged their decline,” clarified Greta, not helping.

“Sons of warriors, kings and conquerors,” agreed Sibyl. “Descendents of Troy and Aeneas, of Charlemagne and El Cid and King Arthur, of Beowulf and Siegfried and Samson and Genghis Khan—”

“We get it,” Smith said. “Heroes.”

“Genghis Khan?” questioned Mitch, sotto voce, but Sibyl ignored him.

“Renaissance brought religious schisms. Nineteenth-century corruptions flourished. And true heroic bloodlines thinned, forgotten. Real heroes refused to participate, exiled.”

Like us.

“Now,” finished Sibyl darkly, “what’s left is all bad.”

“Stuck-up rich kids with God complexes,” Trace agreed, and shared a grin down at their little narrator.

Jerk. Arden wasn’t the only one of them with family still in the society. Smith’s father, with whom he hadn’t spoken for over a year, still was. Mitch’s father and grandfather, too. Trace’s—well, Trace hated his birth father, so that didn’t count. He knew full well Mitch and Smith couldn’t defend themselves out loud.

To Smith’s surprise, Arden slid her hand into his—looking for comfort, or giving it? Like he cared? He squeezed it gently.

She squeezed back—and everything in him stilled. He slid a curious, hopeful gaze toward her—and thought he detected a faint blush staining her poise as she noted that, “Growing up rich doesn’t automatically make a person corrupt. Many wealthy people have established incredible charities, used their riches to do good. And some—some are willing to sacrifice a great deal….”

God, he wished she’d look at him.

“
Honores mutant mores,
” repeated Sibyl darkly.

And Mitch, glancing out the window, said, “Not to interrupt, folks, but there’s an example of one of Sib’s mutants out there right now.”

Much as he hated to draw his hand from Arden’s, Smith stood and positioned himself beside the window so as not to draw too much attention to their discovery. He recognized the dark sedan parked down the street as easily as had Mitch. Someone didn’t much value his tire pressure, did he?

“Prescott Lowell,” he groaned.

And Sibyl let out a strangled gasp of betrayal.

Arden barely recognized the girl’s cry, into the bare knees she’d drawn up to her face, as human. Poor thing! Immedi
ately she fell to her knees beside Sibyl, tried to draw the girl into her arms—but the teenager twisted away from her and turned her face into Trace’s legs, as if hanging on to the biggest man there would protect her. “Shouldn’t have come. Shouldn’t have come. Shouldn’t have come.”

“Great,” muttered Trace. “Why’s it gotta be me?”

“
Comfort her,
” snarled Arden.

Obediently, he reached down and awkwardly patted her head twice, like he might Dido, who was snuffling the girl’s face with concern. Then he seemed to tire of that and pulled her hair instead. “Hey, grow up.”

Arden would have chided his heartlessness—if Sibyl hadn’t drawn her face out of his knees to glare up at him. “I
am
grown. And
trapped,
you idiot.”

“Don’t call me that!”