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“I haven’t even begun to be satisfied.” Jennifer herself was angry now as she got to her feet. “I saw one of your business cards in that wallet, and unless you’re licensed to operate here in the U.K., and I very much doubt that you are, then you have no right to investigate me, much less the authority to follow me to Yorkshire.”
“You think that’s what I’ve been doing and that it entitles you to answers?”
“You bet I do. And you can start with the snapshot. You obviously knew Guy, but I can’t believe you were friends, long-time or otherwise.”
“Why not?”
“Because, frankly, I don’t see how you could have had anything in common with him.”
“Meaning that he had cultivated tastes and I’m some kind of a lout who wouldn’t know Chinese Chippendale from Chinese checkers? Maybe you’re right. But we had something in common all right. Our mother.”
Jennifer stared at him in disbelief. “Are you saying you were brothers? But how is that possible when—”
“He was a Spalding, and I’m a McKenzie? Half brothers, Jenny.”
No one called her Jenny, but she didn’t bother to correct him. “I didn’t know,” she said.
Not that Guy would have had any particular reason to mention it to her. Their relationship hadn’t reached the stage of intimate confidences, whatever his efforts in that direction. But she was still very surprised.
“Didn’t you?” he said.
She didn’t like the way he looked at her, as if she weren’t to be trusted about anything she said.
“So, okay,” he relented, “I guess it’s understandable he didn’t tell you about me. Why should he when Guy and I didn’t see a whole lot of each other after our mother died. We were separated when her first husband, who was English, took him back to London, and my own father kept me in the States. But there was always a bond between us, maybe because we were the only family each other had after our fathers were gone.”
All of which meant he must be determined to bring his brother’s murderer to justice, and if he was somehow convinced that she—
But she didn’t know that was his reason for following her. Not for sure. She wasn’t even certain that he had recovered his memory of yesterday’s events, though he seemed entirely lucid this morning.
“Do you know where you’re at, or how you got here?”
“Testing me?” His slow smile wore something of the cocky grin in that photo. “I’ve a pretty good idea, yeah.”
Brother Timothy must have explained it to him at some point. But whether he had any recollection of his encounter with her out in the passage last night was another matter. Maybe not. Maybe it had just been some P.I.’s instinct kicking in so that, dazed though he’d been, he’d left the room to search for her. Whatever the explanation, she had no intention of reminding him of that uncomfortable episode.
“What are you wondering now, Jenny? Whether I’m going to be okay, or whether I’m a candidate for the nearest hospital?”
He was observant all right. He had caught her eyeing the injury on his forehead, where the swelling was considerably diminished, and the tape wrapped around the lower half of that sinewy bare chest.
“I hate to disappoint you, but it’s like this….”
Swinging his legs over the side of the bed, he sat up on its edge. There was something provocative about the way he leaned toward her so earnestly, his dark hair tousled, his unshaven face flushed, as though he’d spent a long night doing more than just sleeping.
Damning her treacherous imagination, she backed several inches away from him. There was no question of it. Leo McKenzie was a threat to her on more than one level.
“There’s nothing wrong with me,” he finished informing her emphatically. “Nothing that a monk’s medicine and a night in bed haven’t already fixed. So, while I’m grateful for both your rescue and your concern, if you think I might be too helpless to keep you from running again—”
“Why?” she demanded. “Why are you after me?”
“My brother was murdered. I’d kind of like to see that his killer pays for that.”
“And you think that I’m the one who murdered him?”
“It occurred to me that you might know something about it anyway, especially after what Barbara had to tell me.”
“Barbara?”
“Yeah, Barbara, his wife. Or do you want to pretend that you didn’t know Guy was married?”
“I didn’t, not until the day before his death.”
“Funny, because Barbara seemed to think you knew all about her. She was in a bad state when she called me at home and begged me to fly over to try to talk some sense into Guy.”
“What did she tell you?”
“Enough to worry me. I got the full details on the way into London when Barbara picked me up at Heathrow the night before last. How Guy had told her he was crazy about you and that he wanted a divorce. How you were already so wildly possessive of him that you’d do anything to have him, including breaking up his marriage.”
Jennifer was dumbfounded. She knew that Guy had been in love with her, or foolishly claimed to be, but to tell his wife such outrageous lies…
“And you believed what she told you?”
“I believed she believed it. As for me, I wanted to talk to Guy before I got real serious about it. Only I never got the chance. The police were there to meet us with the bad news when Barbara and I got to his shop.”
Guy’s esteemed antique business on Great Brompton Road where he had been murdered. The scene haunted Jennifer.
“And you immediately assumed I was the one who killed him? How could you? Or weren’t you told that the police questioned me and were satisfied I wasn’t a suspect?”
“Neither Barbara or I assumed anything. And, yes, I was told you weren’t a suspect. But a P.I. likes to ask his own questions, especially when they concern the death of his brother. Went to your mews cottage the next morning, Jenny, to ask those questions. You weren’t there. A neighbor told me you were in a big hurry when he saw you coming away with your suitcase. Said you went tearing up the street in a small, green Ford. Kind of suspicious to run away like that, wouldn’t you say?”
“And that made me guilty?”
“Not guilty. Not yet. Let’s just say your action makes you a strong possibility. After all, you were involved with Guy. But if you’re so innocent—”
“I am innocent.”
“Then why are you on the run?”
“I have my reasons. Good ones.” But Jennifer wasn’t ready to share them. She still wanted answers. “Just how did you find me?”
“You were careless, Jenny. You must have called directory assistance and then jotted down the number they gave you.”
On the back of an old bill next to the telephone. She remembered that and how afterwards she had crumpled up the bill and tossed it into the wastebasket.
“I called the number,” he said. “Turned out to be the King’s Head Inn in Heathside. I took a chance and told them I was Jennifer Rowan’s husband just checking to be sure they had my wife’s reservation for a room. It paid off. They were happy to verify your reservation.”
“You broke into my cottage and went through my wastebasket? You had no right,” she accused him, resenting the man’s total brashness.
“Now how else could I look for some evidence of where you might have gone?”
“And, of course, you didn’t share that evidence with the police.”
“Didn’t think they’d like hearing I entered your cottage.” His eyes narrowed. “Besides, it had become very personal by then.”
So personal, Jennifer thought, that she realized Leo McKenzie would go to any length to see his brother’s killer convicted of his murder. And if she was his chief suspect, maybe his only suspect at the moment, then maybe he was prepared to wring the truth out of her, no matter what it cost either of them. And the police be damned.
Guy and Leo. She was still shaken by the revelation that they had been half brothers. There was nothing about their characters or looks that were alike. Except for one thing. Guy, too, had been single-minded in his determination to go after what he wanted.
“I’m waiting, Jenny,” he said, sounding patient about it.
But she knew he wasn’t patient at all. He had given her his story, and now he demanded hers.
“What’s the point?” she said, unable to keep the bitterness from her voice. “Haven’t you already condemned me?”
“I don’t remember saying that. Hell, I’m a reasonable man, willing to listen to all the arguments. Maybe you’ve got a good one. So, go on, tell me, and if I like what I hear—”
“What?” she cut him off sharply. “You’ll reconsider your judgmental opinion of me?”
“Depends on how well you explain what made you run to Yorkshire. And while you’re at it, don’t leave out the Warley Madonna.”
He had surprised her again. “You know about the Madonna?”
“It’s no secret it’s missing. What do you know about it, Jenny?”
But whatever she told him, if she decided to tell him anything at all, would have to wait. They were interrupted by a tap on the hall door. Before either of them could answer it, the door opened and the cheerful face of Brother Timothy poked around its edge.
“Looks a rare treat, this does. The both of you awake, and my patient sitting there like he no longer needs me. Feeling better, are you, lad?”
Leo grinned at the monk. “The cure would be complete, friar, with a cup of strong coffee.”
“If you’re up to it, I’m thinking we can do better than that.” Brother Timothy came into the room. “There’ll be breakfast waiting for the two of you in the guests’ dining parlor. Or a tray here for you, lad, if you’re of a mind to keep to your bed for a bit.”
“No trays,” Leo said firmly. “I’m ready to join the living.”
“That’s the ticket. Give you a chance to meet the others in your dining parlor.”
“There are other guests in the castle?” Jennifer asked him.
“There are.”
This was certainly unexpected. Maybe it was what Father Stephen had meant last night when he’d mentioned that other matters had delayed him in welcoming her to Warley. Had he been attending to those guests?
“The lot of you will make a regular party,” Brother Timothy said. “Now, they’ve had their turns in the bath, so I’m guessing you’ll want your own, and then I’ll take you down.”
Not only unexpected, she thought, but another complication.
A SHOWER AND A SHAVE had Leo feeling halfway human again. Getting the meal inside him that Brother Timothy had promised them would be even better.
Not that breakfast was the most important thing on his mind, he thought, eyeing the closed door to the room that adjoined his as he tucked the tail of a fresh shirt inside the waistband of his jeans. She was on the other side of that door, waiting for the monk to come back and conduct them to the dining parlor.
Yeah, she was on his mind all right. More than he wanted her to be, and that worried him.
Jennifer Rowan was not what Barbara had led him to expect. The treacherous seductress who had stolen her husband. Oh, maybe she did physically fit the image, with that shoulder-length hair the color of rich mahogany, a pair of jade-green eyes and a body that a man would eagerly welcome into his bed.
He could see why Guy had been captivated by her. He was susceptible to that allure himself, and if he didn’t watch himself…
The thing of it was, though, nothing else about Jennifer smacked of a conniving woman. She struck Leo as being intelligent, independent, not lacking spirit and scared. Scared with good reason, considering the circumstances.
Okay, maybe all that vulnerability, the kind that made a man want to be protective of such a woman, was nothing more than an illusion. Her face alone could be responsible for that. He remembered that his ex-wife had angelic features like that.
But there had been no angel underneath, he sourly reminded himself, dragging a sweater over his head.
Leo hadn’t trusted a sweet face and a hot body since then.
Anyway, he knew from his work that what people were on the outside seldom matched what they were inside. Look at how he had caught her going through his things. Maybe just an act of desperation. Or maybe she was guilty of something. Because if she were so damn innocent, why had she run? He kept coming back to that.
Sliding his feet into a pair of loafers, he looked at the closed door again.
He could swear Jennifer had been relieved by Brother Timothy’s interruption, and afterwards she couldn’t escape into her own room fast enough. Why? Had she been panicked by Leo’s demand to hear her version of her involvement with Guy and the explanation for her flight from London the morning after his murder? Had she needed to get away from Leo long enough to put together a convincing story?
He wasn’t certain of anything at this point except his frustration. As hungry as he was, breakfast meant a delay, and he wanted to hear Jennifer Rowan’s story. Needed to hear it.
Only that wasn’t completely true. There was one other certainty. He couldn’t stop thinking of that enticing mouth of hers and how they were stranded here together.
Hell, none of this was going to be easy.
“YOU’RE SURE of it now, are you?” Brother Timothy asked as he escorted them along the corridor.
“I’m sure, friar,” Leo answered, trying to be patient with the monk’s excessive concern. “No headache and no chest pains. Just a little tenderness around the ribs.” He didn’t add that he was relieved to be rid of the tape in that area, which he had removed before his shower. Brother Timothy might not be happy with him if he knew about that.
“You’ll do then.”
The monk played guide as they continued along the route to the dining parlor, pointing out things and telling them there were many areas in the castle that the monastery rarely used. Leo could believe it. The place was immense, and probably rooms like the great hall would be impossible to keep comfortable in weather like this.
Jennifer beside him was quiet, offering no comment. She was close enough to him that he could catch whiffs of her fragrance, something subtle but seductive. Damn. It was bad enough that he had to be aware of everything else about her that was desirable.
She didn’t look at him, but Leo sensed that she was equally aware of him. And nervous about it.
“Turned real nasty again, it has,” Brother Timothy observed as they paused at an embrasure where a window in the stone wall looked down into a courtyard. There was a snow-covered sundial in its center surrounded by a formal arrangement of elevated beds framed by clipped hedges.
Or at least that’s what Leo thought he was seeing. It was hard to tell through the curtain of driven snow that had resumed after a brief lull in the storm. Even in this enclosed place the wind had the force of a gale. Not the kind of weather you’d choose to be out in, and yet there was a solitary figure down there pacing the paths. Head bent inside his cowl, he seemed oblivious to the conditions. Strange.
Leo noticed that Jennifer was intently watching the small, stoop-shouldered figure, whose habit identified him as one of the monks. “He doesn’t seem to be minding the cold,” she murmured.
“Not even noticing it, I’m thinking,” Brother Timothy said. “Our Brother Anthony has a deal on his mind these days. Only permits himself to leave his cell to exercise a bit in the cloister yard there or to pray in the chapel on the other side.”
“That is Brother Anthony then?”
“It is.”
