A Touch of Autumn (2 page)

Niall winced. He had no doubt what would happen if the tabloids got hold of these. They would be all over the front page of every European newspaper.
Killy's years of study and research would be destroyed as he became known as the “Kinky Scientist” It was the end of his career.

“Those can't go public,”
Killy said, his voice shaking. “I'm in the middle of a custody battle for my daughters. If my ex-wife gets hold of those, I'll never see them again.”

“What research are they talking about?” Niall asked.

Killy's face changed, and a trace of pride crept into his voice. “Cold Fusion. I've perfected it. Really, it was simple; I don't see how Pons and Fleischmann missed it. It was just a—”

Niall put up a hand to stop him. “Cold fusion? Explain.” He had an idea, but wanted to be sure.

“Clean nuclear energy. Simple, affordable, safe.”

“Are you sure?”

Killy nodded. “Oh yes. There's no doubt about it.”

Sinead padded along the thickly carpeted corridors of the chateau. Bloody men.  She was supposed to be playing the mistress this weekend, the one who was giving the orders, but mention WWIII and Niall’s inner action-man was primed and ready to do battle.

Hoping that she wouldn’t meet any of the other guests, she hurried down the wide staircase to the entrance hallway and eyed the row of antique mirrored doors.  Each one looked the same.  She had to find Niall’s back-up, Andy, but she had no idea which door led to the servants’ quarters.

Sinead opened one door and closed it quickly when she saw a woman playing with her slave.  It was barely breakfast time.  Wasn’t it a bit early for a flogging? And where did these people get their energy?

She was just about to try another door when it opened.  Sinead recognized the broad shouldered man with the buzz cut.  The previous evening he had sat obediently on the floor and eaten food from the hand of an exotic looking woman with henna tattoos painted on her hands. This morning he looked a lot less submissive.

His eyes lit up with recognition. “Petite Rouge, I thought it was you.”

Sinead nodded politely.  His French was heavily accented with Russian. She had no idea who he was, but he obviously knew her sister.

“Ça va? It’s been a while,” she said, hoping that he would give her some clue as to where they were supposed to have met before.

“Too long.”  His blue eyes roved the length of her body, lingering on the curve of her waist and hips.  “I did try to book you again, but Hermione said that you were
travelling.”

Sinead shrugged. “You know me. I never stay in one place for long.”

He stretched out his hand and ran his index finger along her jaw.  Something told her that this was a man who was used to getting what he wanted. “That was a hot scene you played last night with the whip. I see that you’ve learned some new skills.”

Sinead caught the frank interest in his eyes and resisted the urge to run.  Instead, she slapped his hand away and did her best impersonation of a
Domme-like stare.  “I see that you still haven’t learned any manners.”

“Want to teach me?  You know that I like a lot of pain with my pleasure. Perhaps we could play later?”

The nerve of him.  Sinead gave him a tight-lipped smile. “I’m busy this weekend. Try self-flagellation.  It’s a lot cheaper.”

Ignoring his laughter, she turned on her heel and opened another door, praying that it lead to the servants’ quarters. The narrow corridor looked less imposing than the rest of the mansion.  Hearing voices, she hurried in their direction, praying that the Russian wouldn’t decide to follow her. Pretending to be her sister was proving to be a lot harder than she had anticipated.

Through a glass paneled door she caught a glimpse of a handful of people chatting around a scrubbed wooden table. Three men wore striped waistcoats signaling they were Hermione’s footmen.  A middle-aged woman with a white apron poured coffee into Andy’s cup.  The look of frank adoration in her eyes made Sinead shake her head in disbelief.   She was old enough to be his mother. What was it with these guys Niall employed?  Did someone feed them testosterone for breakfast?

As she stood at the doorway the conversation turned to the female guests.  Apparently, being invited to join a private scene was a perk of working for Hermione.  One of the men made a ribald remark about threesomes before asking Andy, “So, any action with you and the red-head?”

Andy stretched back in his chair. “Well, now that you mention it, she’s pretty voracious in bed.  It’s almost impossible to satisfy her. She likes to …”

Sinead was tempted to see just what kind of a story Andy would invent, but Niall and
Killy were waiting. It was time to break-up the party.  When she pushed the door open, the footmen stood up and the cook hurriedly turned her attention to the black range that was set into the cavernous fireplace.

“You.” She pointed at Andy. “I want you upstairs.”

One of the footmen gave Andy a look that was tinged with envy.

“Yes, Mistress,” Andy replied in a tone that was almost servile but the skin around his eyes crinkled with laughter.  He really was a very bad submissive.  Sinead doubted that any woman could break him. Her inner imp rose to the surface. No mistress could ignore a challenge like that.

“Oh, and you can leave the uniform jacket here.  You won’t be needing it.”

“Yes, Mistress.” He hadn’t been expecting that. Andy held her gaze as he unbuttoned the tunic of his uniform slowly and folded it over the chair.  He really was incorrigible.

She waited patiently as he unbuttoned his shirt and placed it on top of the tunic and suppressed a grin as she saw the cook drinking her fill of Andy’s perfectly honed torso.

Sinead feigned impatience.  “Leave the pants and boots on.  You can take them off later.”

She left the room and had almost reached the end of the corridor before Andy caught up with her. “I know that Niall’s not into threesomes, so what’s up?”

“Someone called
Killy arrived in our room.  He said that WWIII’s about to start.”

“Fuck,” Andy muttered. “We better hurry.”

Niall glared at Andy as he entered the bedroom. What the hell was he doing running around the Chateau bare-chested? “Put some clothes on,” he snapped.

“Yes, boss.” But he noticed Andy giving Sinead the evil eye and she giggled at him. Andy snagged one of Niall’s shirts and shrugged into it. “What's the situation?”

Good, Niall was a lot more comfortable when Andy was fully dressed. McTavish was one of his best operatives on sting operations that involved women, and he was way too comfortable with ladies ogling him. He wasn't sure exactly why Andy had been shirtless when he arrived, but he suspected Sinead had something to do with it. No way was he letting Andy stroll around half-naked in the presence of his lady.

Sinead might not know it, and would fight like hell to avoid acknowledging it, but she was his, and she could forget about other men.

“Er, I don't think we should be telling too many people about this,” Killy said. He was carefully avoiding looking at Sinead, but his meaning was clear.

“I trust both of them completely,” Niall said flatly.

“If you're sure.”

“So?” Sinead drew the word out. She was doing a good job of holding her tongue, and Niall knew it was driving her mad. She hated not knowing everything.

“Killy has invented a working Flux Capacitor,” Niall told them.

Andy whistled.

Sinead scrunched her brows together. “A what?”

The men stared at her. “You've never heard of a flux capacitor?”

“It might have been mentioned on the Big Bang Theory,” she said.

“You've never seen that awesome scene in Back to the Future where Doc throws some old banana skins into the Flux Capacitor and it powers his car? Come on, it’s a classic,” he said.

She shook her head. “Sorry, must have been before my time.” Sinead was twenty-seven.

Oh God, Niall was only thirty-five, but suddenly felt old. “Basically, what a flux capacitor does is turn crap into clean nuclear energy.”

Killy protested. “That's a gross over-simplification. You have to take into account the ...”

Niall held up his hand. “I appreciate that. But it's the simplest way to explain the problem.”

“Why is that a problem?” Sinead asked. “Surely clean nuclear energy is a good thing?”

“As long as you’re not a major oil company,” Niall pointed out.

She winced, seeing the problem.

“And that's not the worst. It could also be used to produce nuclear weapons. Every country with a grudge would be able to kill millions of their opponents.”

She rounded on Killy. “Why would you invent something like that?”

He took a step back, startled by her vehemence. “I'm a theoretical physicist. I don't invent things, I prove truths, and it’s up to the engineers to turn them into working models. It just so happened that my work on cold fusion is so simple and elegant that almost anyone could use it. I hadn't planned to do anything with it until I had resolved the moral issues, but somehow word has leaked out.”

He passed the blackmail note to Sinead and Andy.

She took it from his hand and read it quickly before handing it to Andy. “Do you have the USB they’re talking about?” she asked.

He nodded and patted the heavy bracelet he wore. It flipped open to show a small USB stick. “I couldn't risk anyone else getting it.”

Niall took charge when he saw that Sinead was in danger of playing with the bracelet. “Clearly we need to catch the blackmailers, and make sure we stop them.”

“What about setting up a sting at the masked ball tonight?” Andy asked. He was obviously fed up pretending to be a chauffeur and was salivating at the chance for action. “Catch the bad guys in the act.”

Niall nodded. “Good idea. I'm too tall, but you're about the same size as
Killy, maybe a bit less bulky, but we can pass you off as him. You can be at the hand-over point, and we'll catch them then.”

“Ahem.” Sinead coughed.  What were they playing at?  They were here to find her sister, not play at being detectives. “Have you forgotten why we’re here?”

Niall gave her a warning look, telling her to be quiet.

“Yes,” Andy interrupted, “I heard them talking about it in the servants’ hall. Hermione has gone to a lot of trouble to put on a show for her guests. There’s going to be a man-hunt in the forest this afternoon.”

“A hunt?”  Niall’s eyes narrowed.  “Perfect.  We’ll go watch and you can stay behind and search the guest rooms.”

“But there must be over forty guests here.” 
Killy said.

Andy reached for his jacket and pulled out a hand-written list. “I got this downstairs. Thirty seven guests, and another hundred and fifty are invited to the ball tonight, but we can probably dismiss most of them.  Only a handful would be interested in your research.”

Niall took the list from him. “We’ve got two government ministers, an energy lobbyist and a couple of bad boy east Europeans who like to play dirty.  Start with them, Andy.”

“Will do,” Andy said “I’ll borrow a footman’s uniform. No one notices a servant.”

Outside in the corridor, a gong sounded.  Killy’s head jerked at the sound. “Sounds likes it’s starting soon. I better get back to Mimi.”

When Andy and
Killy were gone, Niall sighed.  “Sorry, this weekend is turning out to be more complicated than I imagined.”

He closed the distance between them and cupped her face in his broad hands before brushing his lips against hers and Sinead arched into his embrace. Through the thin silk of the kimono she could feel the hard muscles of his abdomen. She opened her mouth, brushing her tongue against his.  She could kiss him for hours. They had been so close earlier, maybe they had time to…

Niall pulled away. “I haven’t forgotten about your sister.  I’ve got my team working on finding her. When this is over I promise that—“

A tap on the door interrupted him and Sinead shook her head in frustration.  Their room was busier than
Gare de Lyon at rush hour.

“Je
suis desolé, this should have been delivered to you earlier,” the maid said as she laid the clothing on the bed. “Madame Hermione requests your presence downstairs in the salon in fifteen minutes.”

Sinead whistled.  Andy was right.  Hermione had spared no expense to entertain her guests.  The scarlet hunting jacket was a stark contrast to the pale jodhpurs and white shirt. Luckily she had packed some black leather boots which would be perfect with it.

“Well, at least I get to wear clothes this time,” Niall said ruefully as he looked at the green army issue t-shirt and camouflage pants.

“Pity,” she muttered under her breath. She would have preferred to finish what they had started earlier. If she really was his
Domme, she could have insisted on it, but she would never have the confidence to do that.  She only hoped that he was suffering as much as she was.

Sinead dressed and twisted her long hair into a neat bun which she covered with a fine hairnet before she put on her velvet riding hat. When she was finished she caught a glimpse of their reflections in the mirror.  She looked like the prim and proper lady of the manor while Niall was every inch the rough, tough soldier he was.

Their eyes met in the mirror and Niall didn’t bother to hide his hunger for her. “You know, I’ve always had this fantasy about spanking a woman wearing jodhpurs.”

Sinead laughed. He had taken her to the edge and left her hanging.  She couldn’t resist teasing him in return. “Really?  Well, maybe later, but only if we win.”

She raced to the door, but before she could open it, Niall had caught her. He spun her around and pinned her against the door, with her wrists captured above her head in one of his hands. His breath fanned her cheek. “Is that a challenge, Ms O’Sullivan?”

The heat in his gaze made her nipples peak behind the confines of her riding jacket.  With his free hand, he stroked the length of her body and cupped her ass, drawing her against him. “Before the night is over, this will be mine.”