Nights in White Satin: A Loveswept Classic Romance Page 13

  She no sooner sensed something looming in front of them than they stopped.

  She could hear the tiniest clink of metal as he took out the set of special keys Grahame had given to them. “If these don’t work, nothing will,” had been the man’s comment. A cool breeze swept up from the Channel, and Jill shivered, grateful for her gloves. Rick tried several keys before he straightened. “Okay.”

  “Only one lock?”

  “Yes.”

  She shook her head. It was as if the Colonel were asking to be robbed. In the States, he would have been.

  Rick eased the door open, and they stepped inside. Another sweep of the pencil flashlight told them the room was filled with chintz-covered furniture, candlestick tables, and framed photographs.

  Jill frowned. The room was fussy, as if decorated by a woman. She’d been expecting a spartan masculine look.

  “Where do we start?” she murmured, feeling overwhelmed.

  “Grahame said do one room at a time,” Rick replied softly. “You take this side, and I’ll take the far side. The rug’s wall-to-wall so we can skip the floor.”

  She nodded and snapped on her own light. She looked carefully behind all the wall pictures and behind a bulky buffet as best she could. Her heart was beating so loudly, the sound filled her ears. She felt ready to pass out and wondered briefly if the excitement and the terror was giving her a heart attack. Rick would probably kill her if she did.

  Grahame’s admonishment to look for anything very ordinary or out of the ordinary as a possible hiding place rang through her brain like a litany. She glanced at the photos on top of one of the tables, then moved on. She moved back and stared at the young children appearing in several of the pictures. Three were school pictures, but the largest was of the kids in their bathing suits—in front of the Colonel’s patio. Another picture was of an elderly couple with a small Jack Russell terrier sitting between them. The Colonel had relatives?

  At that moment, frantic barking erupted from above them, then she heard voices shouting. Rick shined his flashlight across to her, even as the scrabble of paws racing out of an upstairs room was heard.

  Before she could blink, Rick was pushing her out of the house. He shut the French doors behind them.

  “I don’t think this is the Colonel’s house!” she gasped.

  “No kidding,” Rick gasped back. “Run!”

  They raced for the back wall, the way they’d come in. When they reached it, Rick practically tossed her over the four-foot-high stucco barrier. She tumbled into the huge yard of the house in back. She whipped around in time to hear the yapping and barking suddenly emerge from the house.

  “It’s just that damned cat again, Algernon!” a voice shouted over the canine noise. “Algernon!”

  “Come on, Rick,” she said, glimpsing a small blur racing unerringly toward them.

  Rick started to heave himself over the wall, but the blur attached itself to his pants leg. With a stifled yelp, he fell back into the yard. He spun around and shook the animal off. The dog was small, but it took an aggressive stance in front of Rick.

  “Stay, Algernon! Sit!” Jill hissed at the creature.

  The dog leaped into the air, right at the level of Rick’s crotch. Its jaws snapped together audibly, missing its target by inches.

  “Bloody hell!” Rick exclaimed, and vaulted over the wall in a leap nearly as spectacular as Algernon’s.

  Once Rick was safely at her side, Jill ran for the car parked down the street.

  She kept her hand clamped over her mouth the entire time to smother her laughter.

  Ten

  “Are you sure this is the right house?”

  Rick clenched his teeth together at Jill’s amused tone. “No, it’s the prime minister’s. Yes, it’s the right house. I checked very carefully this time.”

  “Then let’s hope Algernon can’t hear this far.” Rick grimaced at the thought of the previous night’s close call with the neighboring dog. He’d had no idea such a little thing could leap so high. Obviously, if Algernon couldn’t get to the jugular, he’d go for the next best thing.

  This time there would be no near disasters, he vowed, peering through the trees. The night was as black as the last one, and he could barely discern the cottage. Another drive through the neighborhood that day told him it was exactly like Algernon’s. No wonder he’d gotten confused. But he didn’t move yet, wanting to be very sure the house was unoccupied.

  “Looks deserted,” Jill whispered, peering with him.

  She was leaning lightly against his side, her hand like a brand on his shoulder. Her body heat warmed his blood as her breast brushed against his arm. Light perfume drifted around him. Rick drew in his breath, and heard the underlying shudder of desire. It was always so quick with her, he thought, fighting the urge to turn and take her in his arms.

  She had been so passive since they’d come to Cornwall. Somehow, he’d expected her to fight his anger, to show some spark that she actually cared for him and not only for her jewels. But her attitude spoke volumes.

  He refused to be a fool twice, so he forced himself to straighten and break the contact. “Let’s go.”

  She grabbed hold of his sweater as he moved forward. He must be insane to actually attempt a second try, he thought. He’d been insane to try the first. But between his own pride and Grahame’s choice words on last night’s failure, his common sense had taken a major detour. That Jill was accompanying him was only another example of his descent into dementia.

  When his feet touched something other than grass, he stopped and did a sweep with the pencil torch. This patio was of concrete and completely barren of any furnishings. He grinned. Definitely not Algernon’s.

  The French doors were exact replicas, and to his amazement, so were the locks. A careful check of the frame showed no signs of sophisticated alarm systems. Clearly, Jill was right about the Colonel’s psychology. Everything looked as normal as the next man’s.

  Rick smiled grimly and drew out his keys. The confident bastard was about to get a big surprise.

  To his own surprise, he hesitated for a moment as a qualm of conscience rebelled against taking the law into his own hands. But he wanted to get Jill’s property back. His fury at the way she’d used him didn’t cool his love, however. It should have. He shouldn’t be aching for her the way he had last night. Or now. He shouldn’t be wanting to rescue her, or to bring the Colonel to a rough justice for her sake.…

  “Rick.” She nudged his back.

  “Right,” he muttered, and shoved the “magic” key into the lock. Once inside, both of them turned on their torches for a brief look, shading the light with their hands. The curtains were partially open, and Rick resisted the urge to close them. The Colonel or even a neighbor might notice the change. The man hadn’t made things quite so easy after all.

  “Now this is more like it,” Jill whispered, shining her light on the spare line of the Scandinavian chairs.

  “What?” he asked, puzzled. He didn’t see anything.

  “No feminine touches. Hopefully, no twin to Algernon too.”

  Rick chuckled and snapped off the torch. “Don’t wish anything on us, Jill. You take this side of the room, and I’ll take the other.”

  They moved quickly. Rick checked behind pictures and lifted furniture away from the walls. He even tried to pry down the electrical socket boxes in case they were disguised safes. Jill helped him flip the rug ends back from under chairs that looked easy to move. Unfortunately, the task seemed as monumental as last night’s.

  “Nothing. Next room,” he whispered, proud of the way they’d worked quickly and quietly together.

  They went through two more rooms before something about the carpeting in the downstairs powder room caught his eye. It was wall to wall, not unusual. Still, he knelt and tugged at the end under the small sink. It was loosely tacked down.

  “What?” Jill asked, crouching behind him and shining her light on the carpet. The room had no window, bei
ng in the center of the house.

  “I don’t know.” He pulled back the carpet and stared at the small round metal disc set in the floor. It was about five inches wide, with a lock in the center and a lifting ring tucked around the outer edge. His heart beat faster.

  “Bingo!” Jill said, excitement in her voice. She paused. “How do we get it open?”

  He grinned at her. “With Grahame’s magic keys, of course.”

  The lock wasn’t as easy as it looked, and Rick cursed as he struggled with key after key. Half the keys wouldn’t even go in, and those that did refused to budge farther. The room was tiny, and between the two of them, the sink, and the commode, Jill was practically lying on his back as she shone her torch over his shoulder. The light wavered with every movement. Worse, he knew he’d never hear a thing from another part of the house. His stomach flipped at the thought of someone discovering them.

  “Try turning the lock the other way,” she said helpfully.

  “Hold the damn light still,” he snapped, twist ing the key in the opposite direction. He jerked on the ring. It didn’t move.

  “I don’t need this!” she snapped back. “You’ve been snipping at me ever since this started. If it bothers you that much, then go back home.”

  “Knock it off, Jill.” He grunted, trying to turn yet another key. In his desperation he was beyond caring whether it snapped off in the lock.

  “No,” she said. “I didn’t ask for your help. I wanted to take care of this myself. I even wanted to go home when everything got screwed up. But, nooo.” She drew out the word. “Mr. White Knight insists on being a martyr, then complains about it the entire time. I don’t need your help, Rick, okay?”

  “I said I would help you, dammit!” He swore viciously when another key nearly stuck.

  “You’re just trying to make me feel guilty because I hurt you,” she said, pressing closer so she could see his face. Her breasts were crushed against his back. His blood raced now with desire, not anger. “You’ve hurt me back more than enough. Are you happy now?”

  The disc suddenly popped up. Rick blinked and stared at it. Jill gasped, wrapping one arm around his neck while she stretched the torch closer.

  Excited and happy, he tilted his head toward hers. “What were you saying?”

  She grinned, her face half in shadow. “I don’t remember.”

  His lips covered hers in an earth-shattering kiss. It was so good and so right and so perfect, he couldn’t remember why he shouldn’t be doing it. Eventually the awkward position they were in became noticeable.

  He lifted his head. “I hate to ask this, but could you stop playing monkey on my back?”

  She giggled and lifted herself away, although she was still close enough for him to feel her body nestled to his.

  He smiled in pleasure, then lifted the disc away to reveal a cylindrical safe underneath. The interior wasn’t big, but it was jam-packed.

  He pulled out paper envelopes, marked “Deed,” “Will,” and “Bill of Sale.” Very normal. Not so normal, however, was the small roll of suede. His fingers trembled as he unwound it. Jill’s breath was coming faster. The excitement was downright addicting.

  Emeralds suddenly flashed green fire in the torch’s light. They were large, the biggest he’d ever seen, cut square and of breathtaking beauty. The stones were interspersed with pearls that glowed with a pink luster. He held it reverently, marveling at the exquisite craftsmanship of another time. It was a necklace meant to grace a queen.

  “I understand,” he breathed. Had the necklace been his, he would kill anyone who even touched it. Seeing it, he could forgive her for what she’d done to get it back. The real question was, had she come to care for him in the process? He hoped so.

  Jill reached out with her free hand and slid her fingers over the gems.

  “Thank you,” she whispered.

  He nodded. It occurred to him that they were wasting time, and he still couldn’t hear well. “We’d better get moving.”

  She reached into the other pocket of the roll and pulled out the diamond necklace. It was beautiful, but hardly a match for the emerald one.

  “What a bastard,” Rick muttered, thinking of the way the Colonel had humiliated Jill. He decided the man was better off being out of his reach.

  “Wait.” Jill shifted around. Because she did, he was forced to shift, too, in the cramped space. He faced her just in time to see her reach down her pants. She pulled out a pouch and from that extracted an exact duplicate of the emerald necklace.

  Rick raised his eyebrows. “I knew you had a treasure down there—”

  “Rick!” she admonished, but with a grin. She then took out the fake necklace the Colonel had left her in place of her diamond one.

  “What do you do for an encore?” he asked.

  “Hang around and see.”

  “I think I will.”

  Her smile faded as she gazed at him. She took the true necklace out of his hand and put it in the pouch, then the diamond one. She shoved the two false ones into the suede roll. “That ought to keep the Colonel wondering.”

  Rick also wondered what the Colonel would think, then something his grandmother had said on the day Jill confessed came back to him. He picked up the envelope marked “Bill of Sale” and opened it. Sure enough, the piece of paper inside was for the necklace. The flamboyant signature of Caroline Daneforth confirmed it. He flipped the paper around and Jill shined the torch on it. She took it and tucked it down the front of her sweater.

  “It’s amazing that he hasn’t fenced it already,” he said.

  “I know. I prayed that he hadn’t, but I still can’t quite believe it. But he’s a con artist, not a professional thief. He probably found the necklace harder to sell than he’d thought.”

  Rick smiled. “Which was good for us.”

  She took the bill of sale and winked. “Now, for my next trick,” she said, and tucked the piece of paper down inside her sweater.

  She was more addicting than any excitement, he thought, growing ever more eager to be out of the house and alone with her. He looked through the other envelopes first, raising his eyebrows at one and pocketing it. The information it contained about the Rolls-Royces would be very handy to his friend at the Yard.

  “I do believe,” he said, “we’ve just told the Colonel he’s out of business. Permanently.”

  They set everything else back into place, removing all traces of themselves. They were out of the house twice as fast as they had gone in, and across the lawn in a flash. Everything outside was quiet, not a noise or movement out of the ordinary. The low wall let them into another neighbor’s back yard this time. Nothing stirred in either darkened house.

  Triumph raced through Rick, and he was grinning widely. Behind some azaleas and under the safety of an oak tree, he pulled Jill into his arms.

  “I love you,” she said.

  It was all he needed to hear on top of everything else. He found her lips, their mouths melding together. Her tongue swirled with his, over and over. She pressed her body to his, even as he pulled her closer. Her nails dug into his shoulders through the sweater, her passion for him mounting.

  It was foolhardy. That they could be caught any minute only added to his excitement, though. He was helpless against the risk. Against all risks. He tore his mouth from hers. “I love you. I want you.”

  She was already pulling him to the ground.

  “This isn’t safe,” he murmured, one last shred of common sense rising to the surface.

  “I know.” She pushed him onto his back, then pulled up his sweater and ran her hands down his chest. “I know. I thought I’d lost you.”

  “Never.”

  “Love me, Rick.”

  He shuddered and took her mouth in a kiss that nearly shattered them both. They shed their clothes, until flesh was against flesh. They came together in passion and in love, with a fortune in jewels trapped between their clasped hands.

  “It feels odd to be a plain old tour
ist. Especially after being the bickering burglars.”

  Jill grinned at Rick’s words. They were strolling through the center of Falmouth exactly like a couple of tourists. Pretty brazen after only two days, she had thought, but Grahame had recommended they stay put for a little while and everyone behave normally. Since Falmouth was the biggest town on the Lizard Peninsula, it was only normal to visit it, Rick had reasoned.

  “Do you think it was smart to return to the scene of the you-know-what?” she asked, once several people had passed out of earshot.

  “We only drove down a street.” He grinned. “Okay, so it was his street. Relax. We’re all the way on the other side of town. It’s like being on the other side of London. Good thing Grandmother didn’t come. These steep hills would kill her.”

  “They’ll probably kill us before they would her.” Jill was leaning slightly backward to compensate for the sharply angled descent, and her leg muscles were already tight with the strain. But the sun felt good on her face, although the constant breezes had her denim skirt clinging to her legs. The beautifully kept terraced houses, the crowds of strolling people, and the raucous cries of the seagulls above were soothing. The other night seemed unreal—except for the necklaces stowed safely in her suitcase. Rick was becoming daring in their success, though. She’d have to watch him on that. A job she didn’t mind a bit.

  “I’m just glad you’ve forgiven me,” she said, leaning against his arm.

  He squeezed her hand, his warmth flooding through her, leaving her feeling wanted and wanting. Both urges had been wonderfully satisfied over the last days, until they’d practically made a spectacle of themselves. Lettice had told them to get out and see some daylight.

  “Actually, I haven’t forgiven you,” Rick said. She couldn’t see his eyes behind his sunglasses, but he was very relaxed. He paused and whis pered dramatically, “I intend to make you my love slave.”

  She burst into laughter.

  “You do wonderful things for the male ego.”