Hooper, Kay - [Hagen 09] (5 page)

"How will – Oh. You'll put it there?"

"Right. By the way, since Kelly didn't tell you
what had been stolen, be careful not to let on that you know."

"He knows Mother – I got the bracelet."

Dane didn't appear to notice the slip. "Fine. Go on
to him about that – that it was just a lousy bracelet, nothing
to make such a fuss over. Really give him hell. How's your temper?"

She managed a smile. "I'm half Italian. My temper's
a force of nature."

He laughed softly. "Perfect."

"What happens after he finds the plate, assuming he
believes me and searches the guard's room?"

"Then I go to work trying to find the other plate
and the press. It's very likely that it is somewhere in the house, or
nearby."

Jennifer was silent for a moment, then offered, "I
could sketch a floor plan for you. It might save time."

Dane rose and went over to the desk, returning with
several blank pieces of hotel stationery and a pencil. He sat down –
a bit closer this time – and handed them to her. "Thank
you. Jenny," he said quietly.

She reached for a large hotel menu on the coffee table
and slid it under the papers on her lap, then bent her head and began
sketching. "I don't know why I'm trusting you." she
muttered, half angry. "You'll probably steal everything but
the drapes."

"No, I won't do that."

She sketched for a few moments, but the silence began to
bother her. And she could feel his eyes on her, not laughing now but
lit from within as always, like candlelight through fine violet
china. Like sunlight through purple clouds, after a storm. "Why
did you become a gambler?" she asked abruptly.

For the first time Dane found that question difficult to
answer. And he knew why. Her father had lost her home gambling; she
couldn't have a high opinion of that particular form of "recreation."
He knew, in fact, that it was his gambling she mistrusted more than
his possible talent at stealing.

"No answer?" she asked dryly.

"I happen to be good at it," he said finally.
"I have a great memory and excellent concentration, and I've
been playing cards since I was a kid. I'm a
professional
gambler.
Jenny. Not a compulsive one."

"Is there a difference?"

He studied her delicate, serious profile, aware
suddenly of a jumble of emotions. He didn't want her to believe
the worst of him, but he had little choice other than to continue
telling her the variety of half-truths he had lived with and
protected for more than ten years.

No choice.

"There's a difference," he told her. "I
never believe bad luck will turn with the next card; I never believe
good luck will last; and I never bet
everything.
Never."

"Are you lucky?" she asked without looking at
him.

"Usually."

"Do you cheat?"

The question didn't offend him, not when he knew her own
story as well as he did. "I know how," he said steadily.
"And I know how to spot others cheating."

"You didn't answer the question."

He couldn't answer with a lie. "I never have. But I
suppose I would, if the stakes were high enough."

"What price honor," she murmured.

That did bother Dane, and though there was no sound, he
could almost feel Skye move restlessly in the next room as he, too,
heard the cut that went deeper than the protective armor of a
masquerade. " 'His honor rooted in dishonor,' " Dane said a
bit roughly.

Her fingers stilled over the developing sketch, and
Jennifer turned her head to look at him. "Tennyson."

Dane half laughed, though it wasn't a sound of
amusement. "Yes. If I remember, the next line is, 'And
faith unfaithful kept him falsely true.' Paradox."

"Is that what you are?" she asked curiously.
"A paradox?"

"I'm a gambler," he said in a flat voice.

After a moment, Jennifer went back to her sketching.
She was disturbed. Not by what he had said, but by the way he had
looked when he said it. Grim. She got the feeling somehow that he
didn't like labeling himself a gambler.

When she finished sketching the house a little later, it
had taken a sheet of paper for each floor, and Jennifer handed
him the three sheets. "There's a cellar. I've marked the stairs,
but it's cluttered wall to wall with two hundred years of storage.
The attic's the same way, filled with trunks and boxes."

Dane was studying the floor plans intently. "Well
save those for last, then. Thank you, Jenny. This'll be a great
help."

She nodded. "When should I confront Kelly? You'll
need time to replace the plate."

"He's invited several other men and myself to
dinner tonight before the game; we'll be there by six for drinks. If
you could come around six-thirty, that should give me enough time."

Jennifer's slightly puzzled frown cleared. "Oh, I
see. You'll slip out while I'm there and put the plate in the guard's
room."

"Right," Dane said, though he knew that Skye
would most likely do the actual skulking.

She nodded and got to her feet, looking at him a bit
warily as he too rose. "All right, then. Will you – is
there some way you can let me know what Kelly's reaction is? Later, I
mean?"

"Of course. In fact, why don't you meet me on the
grounds before you leave."

"But won't Kelly notice you're missing?"

"Not If you rattle him enough. Besides, if he asks.
I'll tell him I went out into the garden for some air."

"All right. Where should we meet?"

"You know the place better than I do. You'll have
to move your car as if you've left. Anyplace between the house and
the road where we aren't likely to be seen."

Jennifer thought briefly. "As you start down the
lane toward the road, there's an old, rutted track that leads off to
the left. It winds up to the main road. I can pull the car off there,
and meet you just inside the woods. You'll be about a hundred yards
from the house."

"Good enough." He walked with her to the door,
and opened it for her. "We'll get Kelly," he told her.

She looked at him, half puzzled and quite uncertain,
then shrugged almost helplessly and left. Dane closed the door behind
her and slowly returned to the sitting room.

"A friend in Treasury?" Skye asked in a pained
tone.

"Well, I'm bound to have at least one," Dane
told him.

"And what was that about promising to get her
plantation back for her? Dane, are you out of your mind?"

"Probably. Don't rub it in."

Skye half closed his eyes. "Great."

"There has to be a way to do it," Dane said.

"And you did promise," Skye murmured. "I
hate it when you do that. I always end up getting shot at."

"Very funny."

"It's true. You're hidebound about promises; once
you make them, you have this uncomfortable habit of doing whatever is
necessary to keep them."

"Oh, shut up. I have an idea."

"I was afraid of that."

* * *

Jennifer had a restless afternoon. With several hours to
kill before her visit to Garrett Kelly. she returned to the house she
shared with her mother and went back to work. Or tried to. She
couldn't seem to keep her mind off Dane Prescott.

She was Intuitive, a trait strengthened by her artistic
work. yet she had never felt such a jumble of puzzling,
conflicting impressions of a person. Even at that first meeting last
night, an interlude she had carefully blocked out of her mind while
with him today, Dane had baffled her. Startlingly handsome, with a
heartbreaking smile and the most
alive
eyes she'd ever
seen, he had been smoothly charming, humorous, and remarkably
offhand about her theft of the bracelet and his own larcenous
activities. He had held and kissed her, obviously as a ploy to fool
the person opening the study door; yet his action, begun in an almost
comically polite manner, had changed in those few seconds to
something a great deal more personal.

That had been last night. Today there had been a subtle
difference in him. Jennifer found it hard to pin down, except to feel
certain that she had seen more of him, as if some protective layer of
himself had been discarded. He had been more serious, even grave at
times, treating her as an intelligent woman rather than taking
advantage of her bewilderment as he had last night. He had been
obviously disturbed that she and her mother had been blamed for the
rifled safe, and quick to suggest a way of repairing that damage.

And after her dig at his honor, Jennifer had seen as
well as sensed a reaction she hadn't expected from him. He had felt
that cut, and felt it deeply. His quote from Tennyson had held
bitterness, and when she looked at him, the light behind his eyes was
absent for the first time.

A professional gambler, a thief – and honorable?
It seemed impossible, and yet ... Would a man with no honor give a
sweet damn if he were accused of having none? Jennifer didn't think
so. But a man who was highly conscious of his personal integrity and
who, perhaps, lived a life that all too often tested that integrity
might well be sensitive about accusations.

Jennifer had been raised by such a man. Rufus Chantry
had been, in many ways, a man out of his time. His instincts had
harked back to the days when
gentleman
was more than a
word; it was a way of life. Yet his increasing addiction to gambling,
stronger every year, had first bent and then finally broken his
honor. That was why he signed over his family's home without protest,
and why he made both his wife and daughter promise not to try to
disturb that "gentlemen's agreement" in open court.

He had staked his home in a card game; he had lost it.
Like a gentleman, he paid the debt. It never occurred to him
that Kelly might have cheated to win, and the stain he felt on his
honor had come, not from having lost the plantation, but from having
staked it In the first place.

Jennifer, having been raised by a man with that
old-fashioned, almost extinct kind of Integrity, was far more
sensitive and understanding of it than most modem women. And she
was appreciative of it. It had been her father's strength, just as
gambling had been his weakness.

And she was bothered now, because she sensed that same
rock-solid core of integrity in Dane. Whether or not he was conscious
of it, she believed it existed. It could be something as focused as a
personal code of honor, a set of rules and limitations defined by him
for his own reasons and having little to do with law or accepted
morality. Or it could be something broader and looser, a set of lines
he would cross only reluctantly – and, as he had said, if
the stakes were high enough.

What price honor, indeed.

Until she discovered Dane's answer to that riddle, she
couldn't trust him fully.

"Jennifer! You'll strain your eyes." Francesca
came into the room and turned on the lamp over Jennifer's drafting
table.

After a hasty glance at her watch, Jennifer relaxed. It
was only a little after five. She had forgotten to open the blinds in
the room, and since the late afternoon sun was partially blocked by
the trees outside it had gotten steadily darker without her noticing.

"You've done no work since you came back," her
mother noted, casting a practiced eye over the sheets Jennifer had
pinned to the table. "What troubles you?"

Jennifer hesitated, reminding herself of her decision
not to tell her mother about the attempt to get evidence against
Kelly. It was best not to raise her hopes, and besides, Francesca was
all too likely to jump into the situation herself with gleeful
recklessness. But she had to say something, so Jennifer again played
to her mother's maternal and feminine instincts.

"I was just thinking about that man," she said
lightly. "The one I met last night."

Francesca's bright dark eyes became even brighter. She
had been trying to get her daughter matched up with a suitable man
since her late teens, and had refused to give up hope despite
Jennifer's independent nature. "Who is he, my baby? Is he
handsome? Can he take care of you properly?"

Jennifer almost laughed, but wondered uneasily if she
was creating a monster here. "Mother, I just met him – "

"He is unmarried, is he not?" Francesca
demanded suspiciously, her accent thickening as she became more
Italian. "You would not become the lover of a married man!
Unless he were very rich, of course," she added.

Long accustomed to her mother's slightly nontraditional
views of male-female relationships, Jennifer said patiently, "I'm
not going to be anybody's lover, rich or not. I told you. Mother, I
hardly know the man. All I know is that he doesn't wear a wedding
ring."

"Ah! That means nothing; some wives are stupid to
allow such nonsense. We must discover if there is a wife."

"And then poison her?" Jennifer murmured.

"Divorce is easier," Francesca said, unmindful
of irony.

Jennifer looked at her in amusement. "I thought
marriage was forever?" she said, curious to see how her mother
would rationalize her rapid dismissal of an Inconvenient wife when
her oft-stated view was that a wedding ring never came off.

Francesca gave her an intent look. "Well, of
course, my baby. When it is right. But, obviously, this woman
interferes with your destiny. She must be made to release your man.
It will all be arranged – you will see."

Feeling a kind of fascinated horror creep over her,
Jennifer hastily closed her mouth and then said a bit desperately, "I
don't even know if there ts a wife! And he isn't my man. Mother. I
just think he's . . . interesting, that's all."

"Interesting?"
Francesca gave the word
four distinct and appalled syllables. "You would use such a pale
word to describe this man? He does not cause your blood to run hot
through your body? Your heart -does not pound at the sound of his
voice? You do not melt when he touches you?"