High Heels and Homicide (6 page)

“Oh, cut me a break. Whoa!” she said, grabbing the seat arms in a death grip as her stomach lurched. “Damn it, I
hate
when they do that.”

“Do what, my dear? And may I say, your usually healthy complexion has gone rather white.”

“Do what? You mean you didn't feel that? The pilot's putting on the air brakes—I think that's what they're called—because we're making our descent. I know, in my head, that he's probably dropping us down from a billion miles per hour to a million miles per hour, but it feels like we're stopping. Thirty-five thousand feet up, and the guy's slamming on the brakes like he's trying to avoid a deer in the road. I
hate
that.”

“Ah, the often too-fertile imagination of the writer. You're your own worst enemy, my dear.” Alex patted her hand. “Close your eyes, Maggie. Meditate. Think good thoughts. We'll be on the ground soon, and shortly after that we'll be at Medwine Manor, where you'll be feted and fawned over as the great talent you are.”

Maggie opened one eye, and glared at him. “Don't patronize me, Alex. I'm not going to get hysterical and start screaming or something.”

“Really? I cannot tell you how gratified I am to hear that. In that case, my dear—lean across me and see the great metropolis of London spread out at our feet. Glorious, isn't it? Like something out of a picture book.”

“Sadist.” Maggie groaned, and slapped her hands over her eyes.

O
ne hand on the golden knob of a sword cane that in style and quality of workmanship greatly resembled the one his fictional self had purchased at the same small shop, Saint Just was a very happy, extremely content man as the limousine rolled out of London and, eventually, into Surrey.

It was raining, nothing out of the ordinary for England, and was rather gray and damp, also not unusual, but nothing could put a damper on Saint Just's enthusiasm. Or on Sterling's.

“Oh, look, Saint Just,” Sterling said now, his head half out of the window he insisted on keeping lowered, the better to take in the scenery. “That marvelous mansion, up there, at the top of the hill. The very picture of your family's estate in Sussex, isn't it?”

Saint Just leaned past Maggie. “Seventeenth century. The pediment is familiar, indeed. The same symmetrical flanking wings, most likely added in the eighteenth century. The unique bell tower. Good God, Sterling, I think you're right. That's Blake House. But here, in Surrey?”

In between them, Maggie slid down on her spine on the leather seat. “Is there a sign anywhere, Sterling? Something with the name of the place on it?”

“I don't—oh, there's an old fingerpost.” Sterling leaned even farther out the window. “It's…I can barely make it out…it's—got it! Peakely Manor. Why?”

Maggie sort of sucked in her cheeks. “Oh, okay. Thanks, Sterling.”

“Maggie?” Saint Just asked quietly. “Is there something you want to tell me?”

“Absolutely not. Nope. Nothing I want to say.” Then she sighed audibly and sat up straight once more. “Okay. I've never been to England until now, right? But you had to have a house, a bunch of houses. Other characters had to have houses. So…so I bought a few books. I think, I'm pretty sure, your Blake House is based on Peakely Manor. I just moved it to Sussex.”

Saint Just was actually finding it difficult to breathe. On one level, he understood what Maggie was telling him. Yet, on another, a more visceral level, he'd just been orphaned, disenfranchised. Erased. Eliminated. “But…but it's
my
home. My family home.”

Maggie shook her head. “Oh, cripes. Alex,” she said, putting a hand on his arm as she spoke to him, quietly. “You're fake, remember? Fictional. You've never really been here. You're more real in New York than you've ever been here. I mean, you
exist
in New York. People see you, talk to you. You're evolving, just as you keep saying, and growing, and becoming more Alex Blakely, less Alexandre Blake, less the Viscount Saint Just. But I agree, this has to be a shock, seeing my imagination up against the real thing. I…I'm sorry.”

She was wrong. Maggie was wrong. He
was
Saint Just. He would always be Saint Just. His address had changed, that was all. This wasn't his England. His England had long ago disappeared, along with Brummell; and Byron, Shelley, and Keats; Prinney himself…even Carleton House.

The past was the past, and he was very much of the moment. To go back would be to disappear into the pages of Maggie's books. He and Sterling both, living again in the Regency Era, but never again living
now
. He could not, would not, allow that to happen.

There was no Blake House to return to, no mansion in Grosvenor Square, no hunting box in Scotland.

In a way, this was probably a good thing. He was becoming less fictional by the day. After all, he couldn't go back…not if there was nowhere to return
to
.

Saint Just took a breath, let it out slowly. “My goodness, Maggie, how you're looking at me. As if I might have an attack of the vapors or fall into a sad decline. I assure you, that is far from the truth. As you say, as I've said, Sterling and I are evolving. Blake House was drafty in the winter, in any case.”

Maggie was quiet for some moments before she spoke again. “You're pissed, right?”

“I am not—upset. I fully understand what you did, why you did it. However, even without home or fortune, I remain Saint Just. That, my dear, will never change.”

She saluted. “Yes,
sir
. Jeez, what a grouch. Sterling? Why aren't you being a grouch?”

Sterling smiled sheepishly. “I don't want to go back,” he said, then blushed. “Sorry, Saint Just, I hate to be disloyal, and all of that, but I really don't. I like Henry, and my motorized scooter, and Socks, and the television machine, and—”

“Yes, Sterling, we get the point,” Saint Just said as the limousine slowed and the driver made the very tight turn between stone pillars. He had turned onto a gravel drive that led downhill rather than up, then finally leveled as the trees disappeared behind them and a parklike setting opened before them, a bubbling stream nearly encircling the large cut-stone manor house at the center of everything.

The dividing glass slid down soundlessly and the driver announced: “Medwine Manor, everyone. You just stay dry in the back while I fetch brollies for you. This is a fierce mist.”

“Mist?” Maggie said as rain drummed on the roof of the limousine. “This
mist
starts looking anything more like a deluge and I'm going to ask you two to begin building an ark.”

“Oh, Maggie, but I'm afraid Saint Just and I don't know how to—oh. I see. Never mind.”

Saint Just smiled at his good friend, deliberately shaking off any lingering melancholy. After all, he had proven in these past months that he was nothing if not adaptable. “Have no fear, Maggie. I shall carry you over the threshold, if necessary.”

“It won't be,” Maggie said, avoiding his gaze, as well as his offered hand once he'd stepped out of the limousine. “There's a porch—portico. I'll make a run for it.”

Saint Just and Sterling followed, taking advantage of the umbrellas the driver offered, stopping just below the curved stone steps to admire the facade of the three-story building.

“Not quite up to what we've been used to, is it, Saint Just? A bit ragged about the edges, and all of that.”

“And yet, obviously being improved upon. Notice the scaffolding to your left, Sterling, in front of the west wing.”

“Are you two coming, or what?”

“I do believe Maggie thinks we're lagging behind, Sterling,” Saint Just said, motioning for his friend to precede him up the steps, to where Maggie waited in the open doorway.

He handed the umbrella to the driver, who also took Sterling's, mumbling something about driving around to the back door to unload the luggage, then took a moment to inspect the foyer.

“I knocked, but no one came, and when I tried the door it was open,” Maggie told him, wiping raindrops from her face. “Oh, this is big, isn't it?”

Saint Just took inventory of the large foyer, at least forty feet square. An intricate black-and-white marble tile floor shone beneath a soaring ceiling painted to look like a summer sky dotted with fluffy white clouds. A wonderfully broad stone staircase rose slowly from the open hallway, and a gallery stretched around three of the four age-darkened white marble walls that had been carved to include columns and angels and goddesses, or some such romantic nonsense.

That last wall, along the stairs, was dominated by an immense mural stretching from the ground floor up to the top of the first floor, a creation that depicted a goodly number of dancing, frolicking ladies and gentlemen being attended by rosy-cheeked children.

“I can only sigh in relief to see that as you were thumbing through books and building my various estates, you didn't pattern any of them after the interior of this pile. The decor is rather…flamboyant.”

“Yeah, well, I think it's pretty neat,” Maggie said, her head back as she turned in a slow circle, looking at their surroundings. “No wonder they decided to film here. Wow.”

“The place is passable, I agree,” Saint Just said, amazed to find he was feeling more and more comfortable by the moment. Then again, after all, this was his milieu, real or imaginary. “Ah, and I may be wrong, but I do believe our host approaches now. He's not rigged out well enough to be a servant.”

They all watched as a fairly squat man dressed in hunting clothes that had obviously seen their share of hunts came lumbering down the stairs, one hand on the stone railing, his gaze directed at his boots, as if he'd taken a tumble once and planned never to do that again.

Not until he had safely navigated the stairs and stood on the parquet floor did the man raise his head and smile at Maggie. (Saint Just and Sterling could very well have been invisible.)

“Hullo, you beautiful bit,” he said, waggling his bushy white eyebrows. “Welcome to Medwine Manor. I'm Sir Rudy Medwine, and you're gorgeous. Another American actress, I hope. We've already got one, but she's a little starchy. Don't think she likes me. She should. I'm very rich. Mine's the Medwine Marauder, best fishing reel in the world. Knighted for it, I was. Now I'm living the high life. Used to live down the road from this place, in a pokey two-up-two-down, and now all this is mine. You want to know me. Really, you do.”

Maggie opened her mouth, may have said, “Uh…” before Saint Just deftly stepped in front of her and bowed to Sir Rudy. “Sir Rudy, how delighted and, indeed, honored we all are to be numbered among your guests. Please allow me to present to you Miss Maggie Kelly, who, writing as Cleo Dooley, penned the brilliant book that will be filmed here on your marvelous estate. I, for my sins, am Alex Blakely, Miss Kelly's personal assistant, and the gentleman just now waving to you is Sterling Balder, her spiritual advisor. We are all quite happy to make your acquaintance.”

Sir Rudy pointed his finger at Saint Just. “You…you're English. Upper-crust English, at that. Are you all English? I wanted Americans. I distinctly told them I wanted Americans.”

“For what?” Maggie grumbled.

This was certainly going well.

“Miss Kelly is very much the American woman, Sir Rudy,” Saint Just told him, taking the man's arm and leading him back to the staircase. “Sterling and I are English, yes, although it has been years since we've been on this side of the pond.”

“Centuries, even,” Maggie groused, following the two men while Sterling brought up the rear.

The small party climbed the stairs slowly, giving Sir Rudy ample time to catch his breath, but he was huffing and puffing by the time they reached the first floor.

“I think everybody's in there,” the man said, pointing to closed double doors that probably led to the main saloon. “They're not a happy bunch. The rain, you see. It's keeping them indoors. And that scaffolding has to come down before next week, for the filming. Dicey, that. I ordered a joint and pudding for dinner, hoping to cheer them up, but they haven't eaten yet, so be careful none of them tries to take a bite out of you.”

“Charming,” Saint Just said, turning to hold out his arm, indicating that Maggie should proceed, enter the room ahead of him. “Sir Rudy is rather unusual, isn't he?” he asked her quietly as she stopped beside him.

“I like him,” Sterling said, standing on tiptoe, the better to see once Sir Rudy had crossed the wide hallway and pushed open the doors. “No airs and graces about that man. None at all.”

“And I'm a toplofty prude, I imagine?” Saint Just asked him.

He should have known Maggie would answer: “If the high-topped Hessian boot fits, Chauncy,” before giving him a wink and heading into the chandelier-lit expanse of the main saloon.

Left with little else to do, Saint Just followed, to be met by an odd assortment of people, some of whom lounged on green-on-green-striped satin couches, some of whom propped up the enormous marble fireplace mantel, and one who was stretched out on the floor, a long leg behind her ear, most of her backside showing, the rest of her fairly magnificent body covered in a bright-blue leotard.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” Sir Rudy announced in a booming voice. “Here's more of you, come to join the party.”

One of the gentlemen at the fireplace pushed himself away from the mantel and strode towards them, his rather pasty flesh sheened with perspiration, his totally bald head glistening under the light from the chandeliers.

“Must be one of the actors. He looks like a pint-size version of Telly Savalas, except he's more rubbery. I wonder if he's going to offer us a lollipop,” Maggie said out of the corner of her mouth.

“I beg your pardon?”

“An actor, Alex. Played a cop on an old television series.
Kojak
. My dad was crazy about him. It isn't important.”

“Indeed,” Saint Just said, feeling more and more comfortable in this large room, more and more in his element. And because of the way he felt, he stepped forward, extended his hand to the bald man, gave a slight inclination of his head. “Alex Blakely…and you are…?”

“Peppin,” the man said in an oddly thin, high voice. An almost childish voice. “Arnaud Peppin, reluctant director of this grand epic, if we can ever start filming. The leads are here, so who are you? Although you already look and sound more English than that idiot over there. He wants an accent coach, like that's going to happen on our budget.”