Slightly Shady

Slightly Shady by Amanda Quick

"If you start an Amanda Quick book in the late afternoon, you'll probably spend the night with it." -7he Denver Post Amanda Quick's bestselling trademark is a combination of suspense and passion in historical tales alight with sparklingwit and brimming with dangerous intrigue. Now she serves up the most tantalizing novel of her career as an enterprising woman allies herself with a mysterious spy, only to be caught in a seething brew of treachery-and temptation....

SLIGHTLY SHADY

From the, moment he burst into her antiquities shop in Rome', Lavinia Lake knew the stranger was nod-drig but trouble. He said he was in pursuit of a killer. He swore he was only trying to save her. Yet no matter what he claimed, Lavinia was convinced that Mr. Tobias March was bent instead on destroying her. And when the self-described spy hustled her and her niece out of the shop and back to England, Lavinia could only hope that one day she would find a way to repay Mr. March infull. But Lavinia never imagined the shocking circumstances under which they would meet again ... or that soon he would become her partner in a quest that would grow more deadly-and more compelling-with each passing day. In the business of making private inquiries, Tobias March had been hired to track down a Powerful villain who even now was intent on assuming control of a vast criminal organization. Yet in his search he had found nothing but one dead end-and one dead body-after another.

And then, just as his investigation was heating up once more, he f0 d his mission and his life complicated by the = ungovernable, unpredictable, exasperating woman he had ever met. Faced with a tangled web of deceit and danger, Tobias had no choice but to form a partnership with Lavinia, a lady whose past could only be described as slightly shady. Yet when he persuaded her to become his associate, neither Tobias nor Lavinia realized that their heated disputes would spark a sizzling desire-or that the deeper they kept digging for the truth, the deeper they were digging their own graves....

AMANDA QUICK, a pseudonym for Jayne Ann Krentz, is a bestselling, award-winning author of contemporary and historical romances. There are over twenty-five million copies of her books in print, including Seduction, Surrender, Scandal, Rendezmus, Ravisbed, Reckless Dangerous Deception Desire Mistress Mystique, Miscbief, Affair, Witb Ybis Ring, I nee wed, and wicked Widow. She makes her home in the Pacific Northwest with her husband, Frank. Visit herwebsite at www.amandaquick.com. jacket art C 2000 Alan Ayers jacket lettering C 2000 Ron Zinn jacket design by Yook Louie Bantam Books 1540 Broadway

'Slightly Shady

Bantam Books by Amanda Quick Ask your bookseller for the books you have missed AFFAIR DANGEROUS DEGEPTION DESIRE I THEE WED MISCHIEF MISTRESS MYSTIQUE RAVISHED RECKLESS RENDEZVOUS SCANDAL SEDUCTION SLIGHTLY SHADY SURRENDER WICKED WIDOW WITH THIS RING BANTAM BOOKS New York Toronto London Sydney Auckland

I-T i a4i 13 JUN 2001 DUNEDIN PUBLIC LIBRARIES SLIGHTLY SHADY A Bantam BooklApril 2001 All rights reserved. Copyright Q 2001 by Jayne A. Krentz Book design by Lynn Newmark No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writingfrorp the publisher For information address: Bantam Books. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Quick, Amanda. Slightly shady /Amanda Quick. p. cm. ISBN 0-553-80188-0 (HC) 1. Italy-Fiction. 2. Romantic suspense fiction. 1. Title. PS3561.R44 S55 2001 813'.54-dc2l 00-058528 Published simultaneously in the United States and Canada Bantam Books are published by Bantam Books, a division of Random House, Inc. Its trademark, consisting of the words "Bantam Books" and the portrayal of a rooster is Registered in U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and in other countries. Marca Registrada. Bantam Books, 1540 Broadway, New Yorh, New York 10036. PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA RRH 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0

The intruder's eyes blazed with a cold fire. He raised a powerful hand and swept another row of vases off the shelf The fragile objects crashed to the floor and shattered into a hundred shards. He moved on to a display of small statues. I advise you to make haste with your packing, Mrs. Lake," he said as he turned his violent attention to a host of fragile clay Pans, Aphrodites, and satyrs. "The carriage will leave in fifteen minutes, and I promise you that you and your niece will be aboard, with or without your luggage." Lavinia watched him from the foot of the stairs, helpless to stop the destruction of her wares. "You have no right to do this. You are ruining me." "On the contrary, madam. I am saving your neck." He used a booted foot to topple a large urn decorated in the Etruscan manner. "Not that I expect any thanks, mind you." CA6 CA15 A.5 d1_5 W 140 W 1W W W W 4 V I;Wl Y

AMANDA QUICK Lavinia winced as the urn exploded on impact with the floor. She knew now that it was pointless to berate the lunatic. He was intent on destroying the shop and she lacked the means to stop him. She had been taught early in life to recognize the signs that indicated it was time to stage a tactical retreat. But she had never learned to tolerate such annoying reversals of fortune with equanimity. "if we were in England, I would have you arrested, Mr. March." "Ali, but we are not in England, are we, Mrs. Lake?" Tobias March seized a life-size stone centurion by the shield and shoved it forward. The Roman fell on his sword. "We are in Italy and you have no choice but to do as I command." it was useless to stand her ground. Every moment spent down here attempting to reason with Tobias March was time lost that should be spent packing. But the unfortunate tendency toward stubbornness that was so much a part of her nature could not abide the notion of surrendering the field of battle without a struggle. "Bastard," she said through er teeth. "Not in the legal sense." He slammed another row of red clay vases to the floor. "But I believe I comprehend what you wish to imply." "It is obvious that you are no gentleman, Tobias March." "I will not quarrel with you on that point." He kicked over a waist-high statue of a naked Venus. "But then, you are no lady, are you? " She cringed when the statue crumbled. The naked Venuses had proved quite popular with her clientele. "How dare you? just because my niece and I got stranded here in Rome and were obliged to go into trade for a few months in order to support ourselves is no reason to insult us." "Enough." He whirled around to face her. In the lantern light, his forbidding face was colder than 'the features of any stone statue. "Be grateful that I have concluded that you were merely an unwitting dupe of the criminal I am pursuing and not a member of his gang of thieves and murderers." "I have only your word that the villains were using my shop as a place to exchange their messages. Frankly, Mr. March, given your rude behavior, I am not inclined to believe a single thing you say" He pulled a folded sheet of paper from his pocket. "Do you deny that this note was hidden in one of your vases?" She glanced at the damning note. Only moments ago she had watched in stunned amazement while he shattered a lovely Greek vase. A message that looked remarkably like a villain's report to his criminal employer had been tucked inside. Something about a bargain with pirates having been successfully struck. Lavinia raised her chin. "It is certainly not my fault that one of my patrons dropped a personal note into that vase." "Not just one patron, Mrs. Lake. The villains have been using your shop for some weeks now." "And just how would you know that, sir? "I have watched these premises and your personal movements for nearly a month." She widened her eyes, genuinely shocked by the infuriatingly casual admission. "You have spent the past month spying on me?" "At the start of my observations, I assumed that you were an active participant in Carlisle's ring here in Rome. It was only after much study that I have concluded you probably did not know what some of your so-called customers were about." "That is outrageous." He gave her a look of mocking inquiry "Are you saying you did know what they were up to when they came and went in such a regular fashion?" "I am saying no such thing." She could hear her voice climbing but there was little she could do about it. She had never been so angry or so frightened in her life. "I believed them to be honest patrons of antiquities." "Did you indeed?" Tobias glanced at a collection of cloudy green glass jars that stood in a neat row on a high shelf. His smile was devoid of all warmth. "And how honest are you, Mrs - Lake?" she stiffened. "What are you implying, Sir?" "I'm not implying anything. I am merely noting that most of the items in this shop are cheap replicas of ancient artifacts. There is very little here that is truly antique." "How do you know?" she shot back. "Never say you are an expert in antiquities, Sir. I will not be taken in by such an outlandish claim. You cannot pass yourself off as a scholarly researcher, not after what you have done to my establishment." "You are correct, Mrs. Lake. I am not an expert in Greek and Roman antiquities. I am a simple man of business." "Rubbish. Why would a simple man of business come all the way to Rome in pursuit of a villain named Carlisle?" "I am here on behalf of one of my clients who employed me to make inquiries into the fate of a man named Bennett Ruckland." "What was the fate of this Mr. Ruckland?" Tobias looked at her. "He was murdered here in Rome. My client believes it was because he learned too much concerning the secret organization that Carlisle controls." "A likely story." "Nevertheless, it is my story and mine is the only tale that matters tonight." He hurled another pot to the floor. "You have only ten minutes left, Mrs. Lake."

It was hopeless. Lavinia took two "fistfuls of her skirts and started up the stairs. But she paused midway as a thought struck her. "This business of making inquiries into murders on behalf of your clients-it seems a rather odd sort of profession," she said. He smashed a small Roman oil lamp. "No more odd than selling false antiquities." Lavinia was incensed. "I told you, they are not false, Sir. They are reproductions designed to be purchased as souvenirs." "Call them what you wish. They look remarkably like fraudulent imitations to me." She smiled thinly. "But as you just said, Sir, you are no expert in rare artifacts, are you? You are merely a simple man of business. " "You have approximately eight minutes left, Mrs. Lake." She touched the silver pendant she wore at her throat the way she often did when her nerves were under a great strain. "I cannot decide if you are a monstrous villain or merely deranged," she whispered. He looked briefly, chillingly, amused. "Does it make any great difference? " No. " The situation was impossible. She had no choice but to concede the victory to him. With a soft exclamation of frustration and anger, she whirled and rushed on up the stairs. When she reached the small, lanternlit room, she saw that, unlike herself, Emeline had made good use of the time allotted to them. Two medium-size and one very large trunk stood open. The smaller trunks were already crammed to overflowing. "Thank goodness you are here." Emeline's words were muffled, as her head was inside the wardrobe. "Whatever took you so long? " i "I was attempting to convince Mr. March that he had no right to toss us out into the street in the middle of the night." "He is not tossing US into the street." Emeline straightened away from the wardrobe, a small antique vase cradled in her arms. "He has provided a carriage and two armed men to see us safely out of Rome and all the way home to England. It is really very generous of him." "Rubbish. There is nothing at all generous about his actions. He is playing some deep game, I tell you, and he wants us out of his way." Emeline busied herself rolling the vase into a bombazine gown. "He believes we are in grave danger from that villain Carlisle, who used our shop as a place to send and receive messages from his men.,, "Bah. We have only Mr. March's word that there is any such I villain operating here in Rome." Lavinia opened a cupboard. A very handsome, extremely well endowed Apollo gazed out at her. 1, for one, am not inclined to put much faith in anything that man tells us. For all we know, he wants the use of these rooms for his own dark purposes." "I am convinced he has told us the truth." Emeline stuffed the cushioned vase into the third trunk. "And if that is the case, he is right. We are indeed in danger." "if there is some villainous gang involved in this affair, I would not be surprised to discover that Tobias March is their leader. He claims to be a simple man of business, but it is obvious to me that there is something distinctly diabolical about him." "You are allowing your ill temper to influence your imagination, Lavinia. You know you are never at your most clearheaded when you allow your imagination to run wild." The sound of shattering pottery echoed up the staircase. "Damn the man," Lavinia muttered. Emeline paused in her packing and tilted her head slightly, listening. "He certainly is intent on making it appear that we were the victims of vandals and thieves, is he not?" "He said something about destroying the shop so this villain Carlisle would not suspect he had been discovered." Lavinia wrestled with the Apollo, struggling to get it free of the cupboard. "But I believe it is just another one of his lies. The man is enjoying himself down there, if you ask me. He is quite mad." "I hardly think that is the case." Emeline went back to the wardrobe for another vase. "But I will admit it is a good thing we stored the genuine antiquities up here so we could keep them safe from street thieves." ffair." Lavinia wrapped her "The only bit of luck in this entire a arms around Apollo's chest and hauled him out of the cupboard, "I shudder to think what might have happened if we had put them on display alongside the copies downstairs. March would no doubt have destroyed them too." "If you ask me, the most fortunate aspect of this thing is that Mr. March concluded we were not members of Carlisle's ring of cutthroats." Emeline shrouded a small vase in a towel and stored it in the trunk. "I tremble to think what he might have done to us had he believed us to be consorting with the real villains and not just innocent dupes." "He could hardly have done worse than to ruin our only source of income and throw us out of our home," Emeline glanced at the old stone walls that surrounded them and gave a delicate sniff. "You can hardly call this unpleasant little room a home. I shall not miss it for a fmoment." "You will most certainly miss it when we find ourselves penniless in London and forced to make our living on the streets." "It will not come to that." Emeline patted the towel-wrapped vase she held. "We will be able to sell these antiquities when we return to England. Collecting old vases and statues is all the rage, you know. With the money we receive for these items we shall be able to rent a house." "Not for long. We will be fortunate to make enough from the sale of these objects to support ourselves for six months. When the last of them is gone, we will be in desperate straits." "You will think of something, Lavinia. You always do. just look at how well we managed when we found ourselves stranded here in Rome after our employer ran off with that handsome count. Your notion of going into the antiquities business was nothing short of brilliant." Lavinia managed, by dint of cheer willpower, not to scream in frustration. Emeline's boundless faith in her ability to recover from every disaster was quite maddening. "Give me a hand with this Apollo, please," she said. Emeline glanced doubtfully at the large nude statue Lavinia was attempting to haul across the room. "It will take up most of the space in the last trunk. Perhaps we ought to leave it behind and pack some of the vases instead." "This Apollo is worth several dozen vases." Lavinia stopped halfway across the room, breathing hard from the exertion, and changed her grip on the figure. "He's the most valuable antiquity we've got. We must take him with us." "If we put him in the trunk, we won't have room for your books," Emeline said gently. A sick sensation twisted Lavinia's insides. She stopped abruptly and looked at the shelf filled with the books of poetry she had brought with her from England. The thought of leaving them behind was almost too much to bear. "I can replace them." She took a tighter hold on the statue. "Eventually" Emeline hesitated, searching Lavinia's face. "Are you certain? I know how much they mean to you." "Apollo is more important." "Very well." Emeline stooped to grasp Apollo's lower limbs. Booted footsteps rang on the staircase. Tobias March appeared in the doorway. He glanced at the trunks and then he looked at Lavinia and Emeline. ' "You must leave now," he said. "I cannot risk allowing you to remain here even another ten minutes." Lavinia longed to hurl one of the vases at his head. "I am not leaving Apollo behind. He may be all that stands between us and life in a brothel when we return to London." Emeline made a face. "Really, Lavinia, you mustn't exaggerate so." "It's nothing short of the truth," Lavinia snapped. "Give me the bloody statue." Tobias came toward them. He hoisted the sculpture in his arms. "I'll put it into the trunk for YOU." Emeline smiled warmly. "Thank you. It is rather heavy." Lavinia gave a snort of disgust. "Don't thank him, Emeline. He is the cause of all our troubles tonight." "Always delighted to be of service," Tobias said. He wedged the statue into the trunk. "Anything else?" "Yes," Lavinia said instantly "That urn near the door. It is an exceptionally good piece."