Stranger in Camelot (21 page)

“Here, now, what’s the matter? I think you better explain what happened between you and John.”

She told him how they’d met, and about the books, and how John had deceived her. Dolbrook listened intently, his brows raised in perpetual curiosity, as if he’d never heard a stranger story in his life. “He got close to me just to find out about the books,” Aggie finished, scrubbing tears away with the tail of her bar apron.

Dolbrook patted her shoulder. “I told you John never plays by the rules, but I also told you he’s honest. He doesn’t cheat people. But maybe I better tell how he grew up. Then you can understand him a little better.”

Now it was her turn to listen in rapt silence as the detective revealed John’s ugly boyhood with a pathetically shy mother, who’d died when he was young, and a disreputable father who’d been addicted to gambling.

Addicted to gambling, just like my parents
, she thought numbly.

Dolbrook told her how John grew up surrounded by the snobbery of upper-class England and the shame of his own ruined heritage. It would have made any man hard and cynical. It would have made most turn out badly. But John had worked his way up. He’d had to become tough, to do it.

“He thought I wanted the pampered businessman he pretended to be,” she told Dolbrook wearily. “But that wasn’t true. I wish he could believe I respect him. He has his own brand of nobility.”

“That’s hard for him, miss. He’s seen a lot of hypocrisy, and he’s known some so-called ‘noble men’ who stabbed him in the back.”

Aggie huddled in the chair and buried her face in her hands. “I’m glad you told me all this. I never had a
chance to learn about the real John Bartholomew. I wish I had known the truth earlier. It’s too late now.”

“Why?”

“I love him, but I don’t think he’ll ever forgive me for some of the things I said and did to him. And I don’t know if he wants the kind of love I have to offer.”

“I think you’re wrong, miss. I think he’s been waiting all his life to find the right woman. I suspect you’re her.”

Aggie shook her head and looked up at Calfred Dolbrook leadenly. “This isn’t a medieval fable. John’s not coming back to fight any dragons or pledge his undying love. He’s not sentimental.”

Dolbrook stood and sighed sadly. “If he shows up again, you tell him to call me at the Yard.”

She nodded to be polite, while deep inside she was withering from the certainty that John would never come back.

The next night, not long before closing time, Allen Harper sauntered in. Pure disgust rose in Aggie’s throat, along with dread. It was a good thing Oscar was in his office going over the books. It was a good thing she didn’t have a baseball bat.

“You flew out from L.A. again just to see me?” she asked Harper, as he settled his slender rump on a bar stool. “You’re wasting your time. I haven’t got twenty-five thousand dollars. I told you that. I can take the embarrassment. Go ahead and sell the pictures to some trash magazine.”

“I’m not here to see you,” Harper said with a puzzled smirk. “You don’t know why I’m here?”

“Why should I know?”

“Well, well, I won’t spoil the surprise. How about fixing me a martini?”

“Because this bar has a minimum-sleaze requirement, and you don’t make the grade.”

Allen leaned toward her, tossed a slender briefcase on the bar, and propped his chin in his hands. Once again he was dressed in pastels, with thick gold-and-gemstone jewelry at his throat and on his wrist. His blond ponytail swayed gently in the breeze from an overhead fan.

He studied her through slitted eyes. “You know, if you’d be willing to do a new photo session, with me in charge this time, we could both make some money off that perfectly stacked package of yours.”

“Your dad had class. You’ll go a lot farther in the business if you at least pretend to have the same kind of morals he had.”

“He was a soft touch. Too soft, because he didn’t hold his clients to their legal responsibilities.”

“When he saw that they’d made a mistake and wanted to change it? No, he was too ‘soft’ to hold them to the legalities of a piece of paper they’d signed when they were desperate. I knew he could sell my pictures anytime he wanted to, since I’d signed a release, but I also knew he wouldn’t sell them if I asked him not to.”

“Well, sweetcakes, it’s too bad you were squeamish about showing off that wonderful pair of friends you’ve got on your chest. But I’m going to make some money off them, and it’s completely legal.”

Harper smiled at her again and leaned farther over the bar, staring at her chest in the loose white pullover she wore with pink shorts. Aggie turned her back and began violently polishing highball glasses. “I don’t know why you’re here or what your game is, but I’m giving you five minutes to leave before I wrap a bar towel around your throat and make your eyeballs pop.”

“I love the little beauty mark between your breasts,” Harper said coyly. “God, I wish you hadn’t been so silly about full nudity. I’m dying to know if you’re a redhead all over.”

Aggie heard him make a strangled sound, like a
squawk. “I can make certain you die,” a deep British voice said.

She whirled around and met John’s dark eyes. He had a hand around the back of Harper’s neck, and the much smaller man was hunched over the bar as if he knew his vertebrae were in danger of being snapped. John’s face was stern, but a hint of humor curled one corner of his mouth up as he pulled Harper back and set him firmly on the bar stool.

When he released the nape of Harper’s neck, Harper coughed nervously and smiled at him. “Glad you’re on time.”

Stunned, Aggie could barely make sense of what was happening. “What are you doing here?” she asked John. “You have a meeting with him?” She jerked her head toward Harper.

John nodded as he smoothed a hand down a beautiful white suit that looked new and very expensive. A gold pin gleamed at the throat of his pale gray shirt. It was set with a large onyx that added another dark accent to his hair and eyes.

He looked like a man who’d recently acquired a fortune. Her heart sank when she thought of the books.

He turned his attention to Harper. “Hand them over.”

“Your wish is my command.” Harper opened his briefcase, took out a thick manila envelope and laid it on the bar.

Aggie stared in bewilderment as John handed it to her. “Take a look through the negatives and see if you think everything’s there.”

Her hands shaking, she ripped open the envelope, turned her back, and numbly studied a handful of color negatives against the bright light of a neon beer sign. “I think so,” she said weakly, shoving the negatives back into the envelope as she turned around again.

“Good.” John pulled a piece of paper from an inner
pocket in his jacket and handed it to Harper. “A money order for the whole amount. Just as you wanted.”

“Perfect. I’m
so
happy to make a deal that protects Aggie’s privacy.”

At that moment, Oscar stalked out of his office. When he saw John his face took on an expression like an enraged gorilla’s. “What are you doing here?”

To distract him, Aggie pointed fiendishly to Harper. “Guess who this is! The man who wants to sell nude photos of me.”

Oscar grunted, and his face turned livid. Harper quickly began tucking his money order into his pink jacket. John clamped a hand on his wrist. “Put it in your briefcase.”

Harper had the good sense to do that without asking why. He snapped the case shut and stared at John fearfully. “Why?”

“I wouldn’t want it to get wet.” John sank both hands into the back of Harper’s jacket and hauled him out of the bar.

Aggie ran after them, with Oscar right behind her. She arrived on the porch that overhung the bay in time to see John toss Harper into the murky surf ten feet below. Harper splashed like a drenched pink flamingo. Big waves washed him toward shore.

“He was too small to hit,” John explained in an utterly serious voice. “But I had to make my point
some
way.”

“Maybe I misjudged you,” Oscar said to John. He sounded astonished and cheerful. He poked Aggie’s shoulder. “Maybe you misjudged John.” Then he went back inside, leaving the two of them alone in the darkness.

John faced her. “We need to talk.”

“Inspector Dolbrook was here yesterday looking for you.”

“I know. His message caught up with me in London.”

They were silent. She felt as if a thousand invisible
strings were trying to pull words out of her, but she was afraid she’d say something he didn’t want to hear. She was in shock. He held out a hand. “Let’s take a walk on the beach.” He hesitated. His voice was gruff. “If you wish, my lady?”

Her knees went soft and she put her hand in his quickly. Seconds later he was pulling her along at a run down the narrow wooden walkway that led to the bayfront street. Waiting there was a gleaming black Mercedes sports coupe with the top down.

He picked her up and set her in the passenger seat, then climbed into the driver’s side. Aggie took her bar apron off and clutched it in her lap as they sped down the bayfront boulevard and left the shops and street lamps of town behind. They crossed the Bridge of Lions in the light of a half-moon and headed toward the beach a few miles away.

She couldn’t talk to John with the wind roaring over them, and she was glad. The car, his suit, the money he’d given Harper—yes, he’d sold the books. She thought about the diary and grieved as if she’d lost a dear friend, but then she looked at John and felt a surge of elation.

He had his family inheritance now. Maybe he’d believe that she didn’t care about the money, and they could get on with their lives. Their life together? But he had his job back at Scotland Yard, the job he loved. Maybe he’d only come here to smooth things over and say his apologies before he went home again.

By the time he slid the Mercedes into a sandy spot along the beach road, she was subdued and worried. He vaulted out, came to her side, and lifted her over the door effortlessly. “Buy a car with doors that open, next time,” she told him.

“It’s rented.”

“Oh. Oh! Of course. You wouldn’t buy a car in America when you’re going back to England soon.”

“I wouldn’t buy a Mercedes, period. I can’t afford it.”

Before she could ask a stunned question, he grabbed her hand and tugged her swiftly toward the dunes between the road and the beach. “But you sold the books!” she said, trying to keep her footing in the deep sand. “Didn’t you? You look like you did!”

John led her between hills of sand higher than their heads. “I look rich because I’m wearing a nice suit? I want you to know something, Agnes. This is the second white suit I’ve bought in your honor, and I’m not going to buy any more. I feel like an ice-cream salesman.”

“In my honor?” she repeated, puzzled.

They were deep within the dunes, now. “White knight, and all that rot,” he muttered.

“Oh!”

He halted her when they reached a very private little valley surrounded by dunes and tall sea oats. John faced her and took her other hand. “Yes, I sold the books. But I’m not any better off than I was before. Not in terms of money, at least.”

“But you said they were worth a million pounds.”

“To a private collector. But instead I sold them to a little museum that specializes in medieval history. They’ll be studied, and cherished, and preserved, and anytime either of us wants to see them, they’ll be available.”

Aggie swayed with astonishment. “Why did you change your mind?”

“Don’t you think I’m capable of putting honor above money?”

She stared at him in silence, fighting the knot of tears in her throat, then lifted his hands and kissed each one. She laid her cheek against them and said brokenly, “Sir John, I think you’re capable of all sorts of wonderful things.”

“I read the diary,” he said gruffly. “The translation, that is. It was magnificent, just as you said.”

“And that made you change your mind?”

“No.” When she raised her head to look at him, he
kissed her. “I’d already made up my mind to sell the books to the museum.”

She smiled in adoration. “I’m sorry I ever doubted you.”

“Well, I certainly didn’t make it easy to believe in me. I thought I needed a fortune so I could fit the image you loved.”

She shook her head gently. “I still wish you hadn’t sold the books. I don’t care about the money. I don’t care about some fairy-tale, Camelot image.”

“I’m glad you don’t mind about the money, Agnes, because a modest little museum can’t pay much for rare books.”

“I think you placed them where they’ll be loved, and that’s important. I
don’t care
about the money. I swear.”

“Good, because it’s all gone. In American currency, it was only about twenty-five thousand. I gave it to Allen Harper.”

She gasped. “You did that for me? You gave up every penny of your inheritance?”

He pulled her to him. “Consider it an act of gallantry,” he whispered. “As true and heartfelt as anything my ancestor could have done in my place.”

She gripped his jacket lapels. “Be
yourself
for me! I loved Sir Miles for the way he loved Eleanor. But I love you for the way you love me!” She halted, hating the words she’d blurted out without thinking. “I shouldn’t have put it like that,” she amended quickly, her voice hoarse and apologetic. “I don’t know if you love me or not.”

He lifted her off her feet and looked closely into her shadowed face. “You love me? God, Agnes, do you, really?”

“Yes! I love you for so
many
reasons. And none of them have to do with your ancestors, or your parents, or who you said you were when you wanted me to believe the best about you. I
know
the best about you, and you
are
that gentle, patient, understanding man I fell in love with.”

She put her arms around his neck and kissed him wildly. He made a gruff sound of happiness against her mouth. “I fell in love with you the night we met.”

He pulled her legs out from under her, scooped her into his arms, then knelt and lowered her to the sand. She circled his neck and drew him down with her. They kissed slowly.