Love Entwined (9 page)

“Then we’ll have Chief Bryant send someone with you.” James pursed his lips.

“You know I don’t want anyone following me around when I’m busy. My travel schedule won’t kick back into high gear for another few months. For the most part I’ll be in Yorkshire while we work on the new designs.”

“What if the assassin follows you to Germany or France?” Lyle asked.

“I’m counting on that.”

“I knew it!” James complained to Lyle. “He is attempting to use himself as bait.”

Lyle shook his head regretfully. “Been planning this since the London incident.”

“The thought had crossed my mind.” Roman put the report down and sat back in the chair.

“We don’t even know who we are dealing with,” James said.

“It has to be Emil Garamonde, unless there is someone else I’ve slighted recently.”

Lyle rubbed his chin in thought. “There must be a better way to draw the person out into the open.”

“Listen, I just want you two to take care of the manor. Let the investigators do their job. I am going to do a little digging of my own while I wait for the next encounter.”

Roman gave them a reassuring smile.

Judging from the solemn looks on their faces, he may as well have been making his own funeral arrangements.

* * * *

“Beautiful.” Roman was staring at her lips.

“I thought you would like them.” She’d had a brief respite from him for a few days while he was in London, unencumbered by all-consuming desire, but it was over now.

After dinner, she had asked Roman to come back to the drafting room to see how their concepts were taking shape. “I re-worked the sapphire.”

When she placed another sketch on the board, they stood with heads bowed together over their collaboration of a necklace with a sapphire surrounded by diamonds.

He picked up the charcoal and started shading a circular edge to the drawing. “I thought I had changed this.”

She put a hand on his arm to stop him. “No, it should be rectangular-shaped.”

He didn’t look up, but kept drawing. “Is that what you want?”

She brought her hand over his to bring the revision to a halt. “And the surrounding diamonds should be cut like starbursts.”

“Not that I am keeping count, but that is the second time you’ve done that.”

“Done what?”

“Touched me. And besides the fact I cannot think when you do that, if you touch me, I think it is only fair that I touch you back.”

Amelie withdrew her hand. She was surprised and a little relieved to know they had been working so hard she had forgotten, for a while at least, the overpowering attraction between them.

She took the charcoal and moved in front of him, careful not to touch him as she bent over the sketch. “Here, let me show you.”

He moved to her side and she smiled to herself. They were trying to finish the sketches of this set tonight. Apparently, he didn’t want to be distracted.

Sometimes Roman could be all business. He had that same single-minded determination in his eye that she knew was in hers. When she was done, she turned the drawing toward him.

He stared at it, a disquieted look shadowing his face. “I think it’s time we went down to the vault.”

Roman led the way to the vault on the underground level.

“This is the oldest section of the manor.” His blue eyes held amusement. “Stay close.”

She was debating whether to take hold of his hand. “Have you ever heard of the Catacombs of Paris?”

“The mass crypt?”

“I feel like I’m walking the subterranean tunnels now with these stone walls.”

“That is a bit fanciful, Amelie.”

Ghostly wisps of air whipped past them…
Jac-que-line
…as they made their way through the corridors.

“Did you hear that?”

He grinned at her.

“I thought I heard something.” Though sensor lights came on and off as they passed under them, her skin prickled. It must have been the wind she heard, but for some reason, she was anxious.

He took her hand. “Just wine cellars and storage down here, Beauty.”

Their footfalls echoed against the stone floor in the cavernous gloom.

She felt a tingling like cold fingers brushing the back of her neck. She avoided looking into the dark void behind them.

As on the drive up to the mansion that first night, she felt they were being observed while they made their way through the labyrinth. Passing stone archways leading to more darkness, they went down one long corridor. At first, it looked like a dead end. When they were closer, she could make out the safe’s huge metal door.

He entered some numbers on an electronic keypad on the wall and a heavy metal tumbler turned inside the door.

Compartments were carved into the walls of the cavernous room, faced with metal and more electronic keypads. A pirate’s bounty lay before them. Gold statuettes and antique vases stood gleaming in lighted wall cases. The floor was lined with rows of large glass-topped casements.

She followed Roman to the second row of casements, and stopped. Diamonds, sapphires and emeralds winked up at them. Pearls, jade and onyx gleamed.

Sparkling up at her from a bed of white satin was a dazzling sapphire and diamond set. A huge sapphire ring was surrounded by white diamonds. The stones in the matching earrings were almost as large.

She took a step forward. The rectangular-shaped sapphire was an inch in diameter, bordered by starburst diamonds at least a carat each in weight. A twenty-inch chain of diamonds looped around it.

Amelie gripped the glass casement with numb fingers. The necklace was an exact match of her sketch.

“These jewels have never left this vault. No one living outside of these walls, save for security, has ever seen this set, not in the last fifty years.”

“What is going on?”

He stared her down, his blue eyes frosted with anger. “That is the million dollar question, isn’t it?”

“There are things happening to me that I cannot explain.”

He took her by the arms. “What is going on?”

“I—I don’t know!” She started to cry.

He gathered her close and she buried her face against his chest. “Sweetheart, don’t.” His voice was gentle now as he kissed her forehead, then her tear-stained face, one cheek and then the other.

She sighed when he kissed the tip of her nose. He prodded her lips open with his tongue, and the tide of desire they had managed to keep at bay all day swept over them.

Her body knew him, and in patent rebellion of her conscious efforts, it relinquished whatever the master requested of it. The hunger took on a life of its own. It cared nothing for her perception; it craved what it knew he could give, as it had in her dreams.

My love…

The woman came up from the depths. She had been waiting for this pleasure.

Amelie stood on tiptoe and put her hands around his neck. He lifted her, sat her down on the glass display case and stood between her legs. She shuddered as her nipples pressed against him.

His hand traveled down and he rubbed his thumb back and forth over a sensitive nub, but it wasn’t enough. He unbuttoned the blouse and ducked his head in, licking her nipple over the cotton bra.

She arched her back, pushing against the heat of his mouth until he nudged her bra aside and began to suckle.

“Roman,” she held his head, running her fingers through his curls.

“Jacqueline, my Beauty.”

Her hands stilled as the blood in her veins turned to ice water. She pushed on his chest with all her strength, but she may as well have been pushing against the safe wall.

His eyes were unfocused, his jaw slack in lust. She kept pushing at him until finally he let her go.

She jumped off the glass display case. “Who is Jacqueline? That is what you called me in the dreams!”

“No one. I mean, I don’t know. Amelie!”

She was almost to the door before he caught her.

“Hang on. Was Jacqueline in your dreams?”

“Is she your girlfriend? Or should I say
was
she your girlfriend?” She attempted to button up her blouse through blinding tears. “
Mon dieu
, I am so stupid!”

The woman with the auburn curls was Roman’s dead lover. She must be Jacqueline. Jacqueline was the name she had written on the drawing pad when she’d first started sketching at St. Clair Manor weeks ago.

“Why am I dreaming of you and Jacqueline? How is it possible? It doesn’t make sense!”

“Amelie, wait…”

She was jabbing buttons on the security panel. “But one thing is all too clear; I know absolutely nothing about you, except your adept talent to make me shed my clothes and my good sense with one kiss!”

Roman jerked a hand through his hair. He reached out to her and then put his hand down. “Amelie, you must believe me. I don’t remember anyone named Jacqueline. And if she is part of your dreams, then we have to find out why.”

“You don’t
remember
anyone named Jacqueline?”

“All right. It is very possible I may have known someone by that name but I can’t recall…”

“This is madness!”

“You said yourself there were unexplainable things happening, remember?”

She shook her head vigorously. “You don’t understand. There is a French woman here with long, auburn hair. She came to my room that first night and welcomed me to the manor. I’ve seen her several times since then. At the pool, she handed me a towel and said that she loved to swim with her
capitaine
.”

He shook his head slowly. “There is no one here by that name.” He backed her against the wall, his hands traveling slowly over her arms, and she went still again.

“Calm down, Amelie…”

She focused on his warm baritone, drawing on it for reason. After all, she was the one who had written the name Jacqueline on the pad in a strange script.

He was right; they were both in the dark, fumbling for answers.

She took a deep breath. “Whatever is between us has us both acting like flesh-crazed bacchanalians.”

“Is that a problem?”

She ignored his comment. “That was you in the portrait. The night I fainted, I saw you in the painting.”

He removed a lock of hair hanging between her breasts. His knuckles grazed the sensitive skin underneath her half-buttoned blouse.

“You called me Jacqueline. And, Roman, I dreamed of you.”

“And you have been on my mind since we met. I am just not fighting it as you are.”

A lazy heat flared between her legs, but she put both hands on his chest and held him away. “That is what I mean! We have only just met and yet the dreams started four months ago. The scenes change, but we are always…together. Sometimes we are on a ship with lanterns in the cabin. And you and I, we…we are always…”

“Making love?” He cupped her chin and tilted her face up to his. “Well, that’s hardly surprising. It’s what we both want.”

“
Oui
,” She confessed, looking into his eyes. “But how can I have been dreaming of you when I did not even know you?” She lowered her eyes over the memory of what they had done in her apartment.

“You may have seen photos of me.” Thick brows hooded his eyes and she could not tell what he was thinking.

“But I have had a dream almost every night, until I met you, and then they stopped!”

Roman said nothing. He did not believe her, of course. He must think she was crazy. Right now, it seemed the only plausible answer to her questions.

She walked to the door, out of reach, her arms folded over her chest. “Please take me back. Now.”

He pressed in the code on the keypad and the door opened.

She followed him out and waited a safe distance away while he activated the alarm. They walked silently back through the corridors. When they reached the manor level, she went ahead up the stairs and straight to her bedroom.

* * * *

“My jewelry is in his vault. I saw it with my own eyes.”

“It is not surprising the jewelry is similar, Amelie, antiques are your specialty.” Her mother’s murmurs came through the line as clear as if she sat next to Amelie on the satin bedspread.

“Yes, but it’s impossible for me to duplicate them right down to the stylized rungs.”

“Not impossible. You have studied designs such as those in the Cardiff collection for many years.”

She sighed. “There is something different about this jewelry. I know this jewelry.”

“
Ma chérie
, how are you sleeping?”

“I haven’t slept so well in months. It is St. Clair Manor.”

I have to help her, whoever she is…

“It is what?”

“It is so peaceful here.”

I’ll find out what happened to you, and then you can rest…

“There, you see, it is rest you need,” her mother said. “I knew the country would be good for you.”

* * * *

What is wrong with me?

He’d been gone a week and despite the disturbing information gathered on Amelie, he dreamed of her softness underneath him every night in London.

Roman turned on his side and punched the pillow behind him. He was kidding himself if he thought to sleep. Hell, sleep wasn’t what he wanted and after tonight, he wasn’t any closer to getting what he wanted.

The LCD display lit up on the bedside table. He sat up on the edge of the bed and pressed the speakerphone. A little late for a call to the family. He had thought Amelie would be sleeping by now. Instead, she was on the phone engaged in the strangest conversation to be had between a thief and her mother. She acted as if she were innocent in all this and as much as he wanted that to be true, it didn’t seem possible.

Her inability to rest gave him perverse satisfaction, but by the time he disconnected the two-way receiver and lay back on the bed, that satisfaction was replaced with more questions, adding to all those that plagued him.

He had only known her several weeks, and she was under suspicion at that, yet he waited for the right time to make her his. This was a first; she was the most unlikely female he would ever have thought of taking to bed. Her behavior—at least around him—was just shy of being priggish, and yet he could not think about anything else but her sweet flesh.