Wilderness of Mirrors (9 page)

It was his brother-in-law’s composed tone that finally silenced Kate’s ringing voice. “He’s probably got the flu, Kate. Go downstairs and have Eleanor make a pot of tea. Go on. I’ll see to him.”

There was a reluctant clip to the retreating heels.

Then, “She’s gone, old boy. Care to tell me what really happened?”

Considering Nigel wasn’t certain himself, he paused before testing an answer. He had come to on the floor, propped up against the side of the claw-footed tub, his sister and her husband standing above him, faces etched with concern.

The marble was cool beneath his left hand. The ringing in his head had abated somewhat, but a chemical-induced thickness clogged his thoughts.

“I thought you were out.” Best to ignore questions you couldn’t answer.

David shook his head. “Not for the day. You know Kate. I wasn’t going to get out of this. I’m a prize.” He radiated irony, spreading his hands wide and glancing down at his gangly, unremarkable form.

Nigel managed to chuckle. “A prize?”

“Yes. The highest donor to Princess Diana’s land-mine charity gets a free consultation and procedure with me.” David pushed back his sleeves from bony wrists and rummaged the linen closet.

“New breasts?” Nigel shifted himself so the back of his neck could chill on the tub’s rim.

“Or a face-lift.”

They both laughed while the tap ran until steam coated the mirror. David sluiced a hand towel through it, and then squatted down with a pile of supplies. “Can you tell me what happened or is it need to know?”

Nigel cleared his throat. “Just a bit of a scrum in the desert. I stupidly took something for the pain this morning.”

“Without food?”

Nigel nodded.

“Never a good idea.” David’s hands touched Nigel’s shirt buttons. “Do you mind?”

“Do I have a choice?”

They viewed the uncovered red plaster. “Knife or bullet?”

“A Baikal IJ 70 pistol from a meter away.”

David ripped away the bandage and pressed a white towel against Nigel’s ribs. “Hold that a moment. That’s Russian made, isn’t it?”

“Mmm. An easily concealed little bitch.” At least that’s what he kept telling himself.

“Lift it away now. Good.”

Nigel felt the soft pressure of a second heated towel, glad David wasn’t Kate. She’d have broken a few more of his ribs on principal. Organic Pima cotton was frightfully expensive.

“Your doctor did a decent job stitching you up. Do I know him?”

“No.”

“Well, we could use him at the practice. Lift your arm. Good. What about the thigh?”

Nigel held his breath until the plaster was secure. “I had hoped you’d’ve missed that.”

“Not likely. You can button your shirt.” David rolled up the towels and shoved them into the bin beneath the massive double-sink. “You’re sitting like a rod’s been jammed in your leg.”

“Kate didn’t notice.” Nigel had worked very hard to hide his pain. Hide his awkward gait. It was humiliating to know it hadn’t mattered.

David eyed him. “Maybe not. Though she does worry about you. I don’t think she’s ever believed you do actuarial work.”

Nigel grabbed hold of the tub and dragged himself to his feet. “What would you have me do? She’s been vetted. I just don’t believe telling her is good practice.”

“You confided in me.” David flushed the toilet after wiping its rim. He twisted the tap and cleansed his hands thoroughly.

“You’ve military experience.” Nigel attempted to tuck in his shirt. “And you know how to keep your mouth shut.”

There was a shake of hands; water made rivulets on the mirror. “Give your sister some credit. She doesn’t gossip nearly as much as you think.”

“No.” That was true. Nigel wasn’t completely certain at that moment why he’d never told her. “I don’t want her worrying about what I do. She’s got enough on her plate playing Queen. Being a mum.”

David dried his hands, fingers and arms. “Sometimes I get tired of lying to her. She grills me. Knows somehow that I’m in on it.”

“I’m sorry.” Nigel knew about lying. It was a skin-shredder.

He watched a smile grow across his brother-in-law’s narrow Welsh face. “Don’t be, I’m just exasperated about a few things of late…treating you hasn’t troublesome in the least. I’d be flat on my backside with your injuries. You should be more careful - at least for the next two weeks. Don’t do anything foolish.”

Nigel ran a hand over his short hair, embarrassed by weakness. “So I’m to pretend I’ve got flu?”

“Either that or a hangover.” David’s teeth gleamed in the fluorescence. “In either case, you need a bit of food and plenty of fluids. You’re obviously dehydrated.” He paused, a brief impenetrable expression crossing his face. “I’d give you something less harsh, for the pain that is, but I don’t keep anything here anymore.”

Nigel shook his head. “No, I’m done with that stuff. Flu, it is. I don’t want her assuming I’m an alcoholic on top of everything else.”

Samantha drove past The Estate’s mellow-stone entrance just as one of the wide mahogany doors swung inward. Dr. Rhys-Chambers emerged. She paused and lowered the window to better see his mouth. “Hello, David.”

“Sam.” David descended two stairs, hands flapping from his too-short Barbour jacket. “A magical transformation. I loathed the original color scheme.”

Tamar snuffled her hair, and she opened his window.

Thank God.
“I’m glad you like it. Have fun today.”

David made a gesture that might have been surrender or a prelude to death. Either way, she was very certain he’d rather be on his way back to Harley Street. Pity the poor man.

A second figure slid into view, and Samantha’s heart kicked her ribs.

Nigel Forsythe.

Here.

And looking as though he’d been run over by a foxhunt. The purple under his eyes had gone from lilac to aubergine and his complexion was in need of a mortician’s assistance.

David held up a finger. Was Nigel his patient? She didn’t think he did office visits at Barkley, but one never knew. “A moment, Sam.”

He turned and spoke to Nigel, who seemed if anything, to have gone a whiter shade of pallid. The icy sapphire eyes crept from the doctor’s face and inched their way up the side of her car until they hitched a ride on her own.

She mustered a half-wave, regretting suddenly that she hadn’t woken Nigel to tell him the truth. The sharpness of his distress had lingered about her like a nasty fog. Something about Brad’s story didn’t really add up. Nigel’s misery had seemed more self-inflicted than if he’d truly been set upon by robbers.

Then, from the movement of his hands, Sam guessed David was informing Nigel of her deafness. The thin end of the wedge. The beginning of the end. The very reason she rarely signed. Pity was more revolting than crimson and yellow.

Irritated, and chilled by the open window, she reached down to find her scarf.

A moment later, she straightened up, startled by the sudden proximity of both men. They were just a few feet from her door. Nigel was military-straight, but David had bent at the waist. Kate had appeared too, under the grand entrance, waving her hand while covering her mouth with a lacy handkerchief.

Welcome to Chateau Crazyville.

“If you’re heading back to the city, perhaps you wouldn’t mind company?” David’s frank face twitched.

Blood pressure increased at the idea of having a passenger, Sam forced a smile. “Not at all.”

“Good. Good.” He bobbed like a bathtub duck, shook Nigel’s hand, and then hesitated, as though wondering if it was a wise idea after all.

Samantha made the decision for him and leaned over to pull her bag from the floor. She flipped the door’s handle and tossed her tote into the back.

Nigel lowered himself, filling the small space with the scent of antiseptic and anger.

It was going to be a long ride.

Doctor Twitch waited until she glanced his way again. “Awfully good of you. By the way, this is Nigel Forsythe. Kate’s brother.”

Oh shit.

Samantha risked another glance of the still waving, anxiety-ridden Duchess
.
Convincing her to call Nigel obviously hadn’t been such a good idea. Kate’s dark hair had been gathered in a stern bun, and the copper trousers and maroon blouse she’d changed into did nothing to soften her.

Little wonder he hadn’t called.

“No worries, David. Take care.” She waved at Kate, put up the window and shifted into first gear. Tamar yanked in his head and busied himself in the Audi’s rear. For an alpha-male, he was a pansy about bedding arrangements.

The car vibrated across the graveled drive. Samantha shifted to second and pulled from the stone gates onto the winding B road.

By the way, I’m Samantha Bond. We met last night over your whisky and drug-induced hallucination. I hang curtains and set up houses like an overgrown schoolgirl. You must be delighted now that you know you’re not mad as a hatter.

She hazarded a sidelong glance.

Fucking hell
. He was staring at her with the oddest of expressions.

She hummed and fiddled with the heat. Was it too hot? Cold?

Music. Did he want to listen to something?

How am I supposed to drive and communicate?

At a loss, she finally said, “I have to be honest, Mr. Forsythe, I don’t normally drive with a passenger. Well, besides the oversized parasite in the back. I’m not sure how to guess what you’re saying if I can’t see your mouth. So feel free to turn on the radio, whatever. Clearly, I don’t care what you listen to.” Her laugh felt reedy.
Crap
. “Tamar might. Um, despise your taste in music, that is… ” She jabbed a thumb toward her dog and forced her mouth shut.

My God, verbal diarrhea was still alive and well.

Her eyes flicked to the side mirror and she caught a fragment of his face. He was still staring, an oddly unsettling expression drifting around the depths of his glacial eyes.

A car was fast approaching them. So she flicked on her signal and pulled into a turnout. Tamar stood.

“Forgive me.” She sucked a deep breath, faced Nigel and held out a hand. “I’m Samantha Bond. We met last night at Brad’s. It rattled me having you thrust into my car just now. I’m not usually this rude on accident.”

Something flickered through his eyes. He hesitated before putting his calloused, dry hand in hers. “Nigel Forsythe.”

His grip was strong. Committed. Warm.

And oddly familiar?

She withdrew her hand, now buzzing with his touch. “Um, where to?”

He shrugged and shifted his gaze back to the road ahead of them. His sweater dipped and the space where his throat became a hollow filled her stomach with something strangely akin to lust. She appreciated beauty as much as the next person, symmetry particularly, and his physique had it in coffers. But this sort of cold splendor usually left her indifferent. Yet, for a moment, she imagined herself tucked inside those solid arms.

Annoyed with her odd reaction to him, she said, “Are you always like this?”

“Like what?” His lips barely stirred and it took her a moment to work it out.

“So… depressed.”
A delightful observation, Sam. Such a wonder you didn’t go into counseling.

He faced her, taken aback. “You think I’m depressed?”

“Yes.”
Might as well stick your oversized American foot in until it hits your uvula
. “Your aura, your Ka, your whatever. It’s off.”
I know about these things; trust me.

His demeanor remained unchanged. “Battersea.” He looked away then.

“Brad’s?” she guessed, the tension in her limbs fading with his obvious disinterest.

He nodded.

“Right. Tap me if you want my attention.”

She gripped the stick shift.

And he startled her by brushing the back of her hand with his fingertips. “I like the scent of your skin.” Just as quickly, he released her hand and shifted his injured leg. “Do you mind if I close my eyes?”

“No.”
You like how I smell?
Samantha felt fire along her knuckles. She put the Audi into gear and retook the road. The hedges swept by in streaks of brown, shabby in their nakedness. A fleck of surprising snow hit the windscreen. Two birds chased one another over the twisty motorway.

And the man beside her slept - or rather, never moved – content or perturbed by silence and his own impenetrable thoughts.

Nigel woke in front of a tidy set of white brick townhouses in Belgravia.

So she was real. Or something like it. He wondered at the odds. Improbable, but not impossible. He was certain now that she hadn’t recognized him. Which wasn’t much of a surprise given a decade had passed and he’d been disguised.

What did surprise him was his disappointment.

Somehow it seemed that the moment in Hong Kong, brief as it was, should have affected them both similarly.

Christ, he had barely been able to look at her. Just her scent, the bloody intoxicating arrangement of notes playing off her skin nearly brought him to his knees. And then he’d gone and touched her, felt the heat of her flesh burn its way through his fingertips. Like fucking electricity she was, touching off every nerve ending from his thumb to his balls. Once more, he had almost kissed her. That is until she’d gone and reminded him that no matter how hard he tried, what he’d done – his stockpile of angry sins – was slowly, but surely destroying him.

Then, despite her observation, she’d brought him home.

He watched as she backed the car into a tiny drive to the side of a wrought-iron encased front garden. An ebony gate folded itself across the front of the vehicle, and the handsome street vanished.

He knew she’d glanced at him, but she kept her thoughts to herself and proceeded to empty the A3 of one dog and one canvas Hermes tote. Her tread was light on the pea stone and he watched in the rearview as she scrubbed the Alsatian’s ears before the dog headed to the garden at the property’s rear.

She approached the side door and unlatched a deadbolt before disappearing into the flat’s interior.

An interesting woman.

And real.

Deaf too, which explained his confusion.