Necessary Evil (23 page)

I looked at the
plan mutely. It was a very good plan. Better, in fact, than the camps we’d had
in the past. Lindsay had obviously put a lot of thought into it. I hesitated to
have her work, even superficially with the animals. But if Jacob was there,
maybe it was possible to do it safely.

It would solve so
many problems, not the least of which was allowing me to work mornings at the
vet’s in the summer, something that would greatly ease the financial burden.
But still, I couldn’t just say yes.

“What’s the catch?”
I asked. “What are you all up to?”

They looked so
innocent that for a moment, I thought I was mistaken.

Darlene said, “Is
it so impossible to think that we just want to help?”

I knew, from her
tone, that I was not mistaken.

“It’s entirely
possible,” I admitted. “And this would be a great help, an enormous help. I
can’t even tell you… But I don’t think helping me is the entire reason you’re
volunteering in this way. I get the feeling that there is something more going
on here and I want to know.”

They glanced at
one another and hesitated. Not surprisingly, it was Aunt Susanna who finally
responded.

“Well, it isn’t
every day that you have a real, old fashioned treasure hunt right in your
backyard, Madeleine,” she said defensively. “Can you blame us if we want to get
involved?”

“All we want,”
Lindsay added, “is a piece of the action. We want in.”

“Is that too much
to ask?” Darlene asked.

Under the
circumstances, I had to admit that it wasn’t.

“Anyway,” Lindsay
said, as though in summation, “the sooner we solve this treasure mystery, the
sooner you can get these diggers off of your land and make it safe to ride
again.”

Her shiver was so
slight that Darlene and Aunt Susanna didn’t notice. But I did. If I needed
anything more to solidify my resolution to work with Randall, this would have
been the last straw. It was one thing to terrify and annoy me – but scaring
Lindsay was something else altogether.

“I guess that’s
it, then,” I said.

Suddenly, there
was nothing I wanted more than to see Randall and get started. I was on my feet
so quickly that the other women were startled, and I was half way to the door
when Aunt Susanna stuttered, “But what about the plan, Maddie? Is it a go?”

I stopped and
looked back at them.

“You’re all
hired,” I said, then grinned. “Looks like we’re about to have a very busy
couple of weeks, ladies.”

As I left, I heard
Lindsay say, “It is
soo
good to be back to work.”

I had to agree.

Randall still hadn’t
returned to his study. I put the letter into the safe, taking care to shut it
before I left. In the brutal light of day, the treasure seemed as unlikely as
ever, but that letter was probably the only way we’d find out.

I went out into
the backyard and found Randall striding out of the woods, carrying his walking
stick with Trusty trotting at his side. The professor’s face was pinched up in
an expression that I now recognized as puzzlement. Judging by the sharp way he
swung the stick, I figured he was working through a particularly tough problem.
He brightened a little when he saw me and picked up his stride, no doubt eager
to find out about the letter. But Mrs. Fontaine reached him before I did.

I didn’t know she
was even on the property before she appeared, zipping out of the barn with one
arm waving frantically and the other clutching something to her chest. I’d
never seen the woman move so fast, nor look so eager. She was so intense that
the professor, on seeing her, took an instinctive step backwards before
righting himself. Not that he had any chance of an escape. Mrs. Fontaine was on
him and plucking at his sleeve long before I could get there.

Mystified, I
hurried and came into range in time to hear her say, “…So if you could just
autograph these for my mother, she will be
so
thrilled. You are, without
a doubt, her favorite author. When my daughter told me you were staying here, I
collected all the books I could find and here, I’ve brought a pen…”

She pulled one of
out her pocket, so delighted to hand it to her bewildered prey that she even
condescended to give me a smile as I jogged up to them.

“Hello, Maddie,”
she said, and I was taken aback by her friendliness. “This is so exciting,
isn’t it? The farm
my
daughter takes lessons at is going to be in a
book! Alice was so excited – not that she’ll be able to read these for quite
some time yet, but I did promise her that I would save a copy for her when
she’s old enough.”

She noticed that
Randall was standing, making no motion to use the pen, so she indicated the
title page encouragingly. “Sign it to Alberta,” she said.

The jig is up!
I thought,
panicking.
She’s figured out who he is!

Professor Randall
looked at her, then plaintively at me, the “help me” so visible in his face
that it was almost an audible cry. It seemed to confirm my suspicion, and I
dropped my head into my hands. Just when we were getting started, this had to
happen. Now the secret would get out and we’d be inundated.

Mrs. Fontaine
continued to gush at Randall, all admiration and awe, and I thought,
Never
would have pegged her as a history buff
.
Then Randall said, in a tone as confused as my jumbled thoughts, “But why would
you want me to sign
these
?”

He said it with
such obvious distaste that I looked up. He was holding one of the books high so
I could see it. I nearly choked. It was a large print hardcover with a gaudy
cover, featuring a man and a woman grappling against a Moorish background,
under the title,
My Lord Chieftain.
And in elaborate script under the
tumbling, passionate pair was the name of the author: Gregorianne Vincent.

I clapped a hand
over my mouth to keep from laughing.

“I was curious
about you, so I looked your name up in the local library,” Mrs. Fontaine
explained. “When I couldn’t find anything, I asked the librarian for help and
she told me that it’s common for romance writers to use an assumed name and
even an assumed gender. She guessed right away that you and Gregorianne Vincent
were one and the same because she’s a fan, too, only her favorite was
One
Night in Bangladesh.
”

She paused when
she realized that Randall was still staring at her, then said defensively,
“Well, I know this looks like a library book, but my mother is on Social
Security and she bought it in a sale, so it’s perfectly all right for you to sign
it.”

I heard someone,
probably Alice, calling my name, but I ignored her to watch the interplay of
emotion and thought on Randall’s face as he sorted through the information. He
took another quick look at the cover. He must have spotted the author’s name
for the first time, because he practically reeled.

Mrs. Fontaine went
on anxiously, “You aren’t upset, are you? I hope it’s not an imposition. I know
you’re here to write, but when I learned that my mother’s favorite author,
Gregorianne Vincent, was here, I just couldn’t resist…”

He cut her off,
pointing to the cover, “You think I wrote
this?
” he sputtered, then
looked around her at me. “
This
?” he asked again.

I shrugged, and
Mrs. Fontaine turned defensive.

“You needn’t be
touchy, Mr. Vincent,” she said, then surprised me when she added, “Maddie
didn’t tell us anything more than you were a writer. She told us you were to be
left alone to study. She didn’t give us your penname or anything, but when she
said that you wrote romances, it was easy to put two and two…”

The look on his
face was absolutely priceless. It was all I could do to keep from laughing
aloud.

For a moment,
Randall couldn’t do anything more than stare. When he did regain his voice, it
was a roar.

“Romances! My dear
Madeleine…”

“I’ve got to go,”
I interjected, jabbing behind me. “Duty calls.”

I sped off,
leaving them to work things out. I heard Mrs. Fontaine say, just before I went
out of earshot, “Honestly, I’ve heard of temperamental artists, but you are
carrying this just a little too far, don’t you think, Mr. Vincent?”

Alice was at the
barn, trying to find her gear for a ride she had planned over the weekend with
her friend. I helped her find it, chatting about the camp; then, Mrs. Fontaine
came striding back in. It only occurred to me then that my joke on the
professor might very well cost me a customer, if Mrs. Fontaine was sufficiently
insulted. Anxiety swept over me, but to my surprise, she seemed calm, even
happy.

“Everything all
right?” I asked warily.

She was typing in
her cell phone as she nodded. “Oh, yes. We got everything straightened out. I
don’t envy you, though, sharing a house with a touchy fellow like that. Still, it
must be fascinating to live with an artist. He’s so intelligent, isn’t he? For
a romance writer, I mean.”

“Oh,” I said,
trying to make sense of this. “Absolutely. He signed your book?”

She beamed then,
her face transforming. “Every one. Mom will be so pleased! But don’t worry. I
won’t give them to her until August, as requested. We have to go. Have you got
everything, Alice?”

They left, happy
enough, and I went into the house. Jacob had gone home, but left the bike
behind, leaning against the house and gleaming in the dying sunlight. I thought
it must need more work, but as I ran a hand over its sturdy frame, I couldn’t
see anything wrong with it.

Teenagers,
I thought, and
went inside.

Randall was in the
kitchen, pouring himself and Trusty a drink of water. There was no one else in
the room, so I felt comfortable giving him a hard time.

“So, Gregorianne,”
I said, leaning against the counter with my arms folded. “You signed your book
for Mrs. Fontaine?”

He was lowering a
bowl of water to the floor for Trusty and shook his head in irritation.
“Gregorianne! What a ridiculous name! Yes, I signed the bloody books. What else
could I do without giving the game away?”

“But I thought you
told me that the truth was worth getting into trouble for,” I said. He gave me a
sidelong glance that spoke volumes, but I was enjoying myself too much to stop
there. “In fact, I seem to recall that you abhor forgeries of any kind.”

I was a little
surprised at myself, to tell the truth. It seemed only an hour ago that I
couldn’t bear even the mention of the name Beaumont, let alone verbalizing the
word “forgery”. Now here I was joking about it.

But even as I
marveled at this, Gregory addressed me with another one of those looks of his,
freezing my smug smile in place.

“I do, and I did,
and I still think so,” he said. “But I gave my word that I wouldn’t tell anyone
my true purpose here. I promised
you
that I wouldn’t do so, and then you
went and created an unbelievable story that I am a
romance
writer!” He
ran his hand through his hair and exclaimed, “Romance! My dear Madeleine, of
all the genres, why did you have to pick that one?”

I shrugged, but I
won’t deny that I was feeling a little ashamed of myself. Not that I was about
to let him know that.

“I don’t know,” I
said. “I guess I thought Gregory Vincent needed a more solid background story,
and romances seemed the most likely genre to have pennames. No one would be
surprised that there wasn’t a Gregory Vincent. How was I to know that there was
a Gregorianne?”

He grunted. “I
guess you couldn’t, unless you read the things yourself. But honestly, it was
awful! I had to
pretend
that I wrote them, and that I’m writing another.
She asked if you were going to be in it.”

“Really? What did
you say?”

“I said, of course
you are. She got a giggle out of that.”

I grimaced.
“Thanks a lot.”

“Turnabout’s fair
play. Anyway, she insisted that I sign the stupid things, so what else could I
do? I signed them, and told her that she couldn’t give them to her mother until
the end of the summer. I made up a story about being mobbed by my fans and she
bought it, and promised not to say anything, so I minimized the damage
somewhat.” He sighed, martyr-like. “Now I’ve got to get her mother some books
signed by the real Gregorianne Vincent, if she even exists. I signed them G.
Vincent, so it wasn’t a complete lie, only I forgot and started writing
‘Randall’ in one. I had to finish it with ‘Regards’. Imagine:
G. Vincent,
Regards
, like I was a bloody robot or something!”

He sounded so put
out, so suddenly
human
, that I burst into laughter.

Randall looked at
me in sharp rebuke. Unfortunately, that only made me laugh more, and I dropped
my head into my hands, letting my shoulders shake with the force of it.

“Gregorianne!” I
laughed. “If you could have seen your face – oh
my gosh
,
it was priceless!”

“Gregorianne,” he
repeated wearily. When I looked up, he was leaning on the counter beside me.
While he still looked like he’d swallowed something disgusting, there was a
distinct softening in his eyes, and I knew that the humor of the situation was
beginning to get to him. “That’s an awful name. A truly awful name.”

I shook my head,
wiping my eyes. “Oh, it’s not so bad. It’s just a girly version of yours. If
you ever have a daughter, you can use it.”

“A daughter!” His
eyebrows rose in surprise.

“Well, you seem
like the type of man who’d name his first born after himself.”

To my surprise, he
smirked at that and looked at his feet. “Yeah, probably. But…” he lifted a
finger in defense. “It is a family name, so…”

“Gregorianne?”

He snorted. “No. ‘
Gregory’
.
I come from a long line of Gregory Randalls.”

“I didn’t know
that.”

“Now you do,” he
said. “For your information, my family has a long and distinguished history in
this country
and
in the one before it.” He stopped, shook his head, and
grinned at his feet. “So I’m undercover as Gregorianne Vincent, the
bodice-ripping romance writer.”

“Looks that way.”

“I suppose it
could be worse. You could have told everyone I was writing a cookbook, or one
of those supernatural teenage dramas.” He shuddered and tightened his arms.
“That would have been truly intolerable.”

“I’ll remember
that for next time,” I said, and he grinned wryly as our eyes met.

I was thinking,
He’s
not too bad, once he’s put on the spot.

What he was
thinking, I don’t know, but his expression changed subtly, and I realized I was
being studied. It was as though he was seeing me for the first time. But where
I was finding common ground, he seemed to be digging deeper, looking into what
might be called my soul.

“Watch yourself,
Warwick,” Randall said softly, his smile still mischievous, but with an edge.
“Leave the backstory to me, or I’m liable to start spreading some rumors about
you and a certain shirt-tearing novelist.”

I did a
double-take as a sudden image caused my cheeks to burn. I tore my eyes away,
snorting in feeble derision, saying the first cutting thing that came to mind:
“They’d never buy it. The first rule of deceit is have a believable story.”

Randall winced,
but before he could come up with a comeback, I said, “I’ve brought the letter,
by the way. It’s in the safe in the office.”

“It’s
here
?”
he asked, leaping from the counter like his hands were scorched by the contact.
“Alexander’s letter?”