Kane had seated himself at the desk, and now looked across at her with a frown. “Wouldn’t Stefano have known about that?”
“I’m not sure. Damn, I wish I’d listened more closely.” Tyler found the two leather-bound volumes and sat down in her chair with them. She looked at Kane. “Stefano’s father, Vincente, was on his deathbed when his son returned at the end of the war; I don’t know if he was even capable of talking. And this area had been damaged so heavily that Stefano could have assumed the valuables had been destroyed or looted.”
“Elizabeth knew they’d been hidden,” Kane observed.
“Yes. But I don’t think she knew where. And if she didn’t know, neither did Stefano. From what she said, I got the impression Stefano had assumed the stuff was hidden away from the villa . . . somewhere nearby, maybe. And he didn’t spend a lot of time here as a child, he was away at school; he might not have known there was a hiding place in the villa.”
“We don’t know, either.”
“No, but we can find out.” Tyler opened the first of Vincente Montegro’s journals, flipped through a few pages, and then sighed. “He didn’t date the entries by year, only the day and month. I’ll have to read every page.”
Kane smiled a little. “Is it ever easy for us?”
“No.” She looked up at him. “Do you really think Simon’s dangerous?”
“I think we’d better assume he is. And since we won’t know—until we find it—exactly what he’s afraid of us finding, we’ll have to be very cautious about talking to him.” Kane looked at the stack of ledgers on the desk. “I’ll go on looking through this stuff, but our best hope is probably the journals.”
Tyler nodded in agreement, then bent her head over Vincente Montegro’s first journal. His handwriting was clear, at least, and she was secure enough in her knowledge of Italian to be able to read it with fair ease. Vincente, however, had an annoying habit of sprinkling his entries with phrases in other languages. After asking, and receiving, translations from Kane of bits of entries in German and Latin, she finally looked up at him with a curious frown.
“How many languages do you have?”
He looked a bit sheepish. “Both my parents taught languages at the college level . . . and they were linguists. My brothers and I were multilingual almost from the time we could talk.”
Distracted, she said, “How many brothers?”
“Two, both younger. Matt’s a professor at Cal Tech, and Craig runs a computer business.”
Tyler stared at him for a moment. “How many languages?”
“French, Spanish, Greek, Italian, German, some Latin, Arabic, a smattering of Japanese, Cantonese—”
“I’m sorry I asked,” she said somewhat blankly.
Kane grinned at her. “Read your journal.”
She returned to her study of the journal, thinking that Kane was the most surprising man she’d ever known. Two separate degrees in archaeology, a linguist, a mountain climber and a pilot—she hadn’t known that until he’d taken the controls for a while during their flight from Bogotá to the coast. He was an expert with guns, a competent sailor, was adept with mechanical things like engines and possessed an infallible sense of direction.
He was a Renaissance man.
chapter eleven
BY THE TIME the afternoon waned, Kane and Tyler were no closer to finding their answers. He had continued to wade through the ledgers and household accounts while she read Vincente Montegro’s first journal. But neither of them found what they were looking for. When they went upstairs to dress for dinner, Tyler took with her Vincente’s second journal and, with a shrug, Melina’s final diary, as well.
“You never know,” she told Kane. “And I’d rather not leave them down here tonight. Simon will probably want to find out exactly what we’ve been reading.”
To Tyler’s amusement and Kane’s disgust, they found upon reaching their room that his dinner jacket had been cleaned and neatly rehung in his wardrobe.
“Fraser, I suppose,” Kane said irritably. “You never see the man unless he’s serving something, but he always makes his presence felt. Is there a maid? I haven’t seen one.”
“A girl from the town comes in daily, according to Elizabeth. But the jacket was probably Fraser’s doing. I’ll bet he’s used to cleaning up after Erica.”
“Cat,” Kane said, and ducked into the bathroom to take his shower before she could throw something at him.
Sometime later, as she was dressing, Tyler said absently, “I wonder when Simon got here.”
“Does it matter?” Kane asked, watching her.
“I don’t know. He just appeared so suddenly.” She was arranging her hair in a thick braid to hang down over one shoulder, a style that exactly suited her evening gown with its square-cut neckline, full sleeves, and snug bodice. The gown was a soft gold color, and the full skirt fell in graceful folds to her delicate ankles. Tyler was, as always, detached and critical of her appearance. “I look like a peasant girl,” she muttered to herself, turning from the mirror.
“You look beautiful,” Kane said deeply.
She gave him a startled look. “Thanks, but I wasn’t fishing.”
“I know that.” He smiled a little. “Forget that dig I made at your vanity, Ty. You don’t have an ounce of conceit.”
A little uncomfortable, she shrugged. “I always wanted to be tiny and raven-haired. Instead I ended up tall, all legs and cursed with a shade of hair that clashes with practically everything.”
Kane took her hand and tucked it in the crook of his arm as they left the bedroom. “Hair like fire,” he murmured. “Eyes of pure gold. A mouth that drives me crazy. Long, beautiful legs that wrap around me like warm, strong silk . . .”
Tyler couldn’t believe it. They were walking down the stairs, formally dressed, outwardly sedate, and he was seducing her. Her legs felt weak and shaky, her skin flushed and hot, and an ache of desire throbbed slowly inside her. She glanced up to see that his eyes held a hot flicker of desire, and amusement.
“Kane,” she protested softly, wishing that she could feel angry at his obvious enjoyment; he knew exactly the effect he could have on her simply with words that evoked sensual images. She lifted her free hand to briefly touch her hot cheek, hoping that no one else could guess the state she was in.
“After dinner,” he said, “we’re going to go for a moonlit walk outside.”
“We are?”
“In the best romantic tradition. I’m trying to sweep you off your feet, you see,” he added conversationally.
Tyler couldn’t respond to that with more than a startled look, because they reached the sitting room then and Kane led her inside. And, as the evening progressed, she didn’t get much of a chance to think about it.
The contessa was her usual gentle self; Erica was dressed in royal blue and diamonds, and almost utterly silent; and Simon was playing Master of the Manor to the hilt.
She didn’t know if it was her heightened senses or not, but Tyler was almost painfully aware of undercurrents the entire evening. It didn’t take her long to realize that Simon was at the center of them; he was the stone dropped into a quiet pool, spreading ripples of unease. At first Tyler thought that only Elizabeth was unaffected, but she soon realized that the contessa was simply showing it less; there was strain in her lovely eyes, and the firmness of control held her lips steady.
Erica was jumpy, responding to her husband’s occasional bland endearments in a smothered voice and hardly looking at anyone else; Simon was cool and dry and faintly superior. Kane was laconic, and Tyler wasn’t sure what she was feeling.
“How’s the work progressing?” Simon asked as they gathered in the sitting room for coffee after the meal.
Tyler looked at him. “Slowly.” She mentally reviewed what she and Kane had decided they could tell Simon. “At this point, we’re primarily organizing the ledgers and journals into some kind of order. You know, according to date and, in the case of the journals, author. We need
to see what kind of time span we have, if there are any large gaps, like that.”
“I imagine there will be a number of gaps,” he said indifferently. “Aren’t there usually, among family papers?”
“That depends on the family.” Tyler smiled at him brightly. “The Montegros seem to have been a literary lot.”
“Stefano said that,” Elizabeth murmured. “His own father kept a journal, and he was encouraged to, as well. Have you found Vincente’s journal, Tyler?”
They hadn’t counted on the contessa’s innocent questions, Tyler reflected wryly, and answered as best she could. “Yes, his is the most recent. We’ll start with the oldest ones, though, and read forward.”
“Read?” Erica’s dark eyes looked haunted. “I didn’t think—silly of me, I suppose—”
Simon interrupted the disjointed phrases coolly. “They both read Italian, darling. I thought I told you.”
Erica’s cup clattered unsteadily against its saucer. “Oh. Yes, of course,” she murmured. The glance she sent her husband held a pathetic mixture of fear and entreaty.
Tyler, who suddenly saw and understood the reason behind Erica’s heavier than usual makeup, felt herself stiffen. Beside her on the low sofa, Kane slipped an arm around her and grasped her shoulder warningly. So, she thought, he had seen, as well.
She kept her voice light and casual. “My Italian’s a bit rusty, but I imagine I’ll get by well enough.”
“If not,” Simon murmured, “you’re welcome to ask me to translate. My Italian is fluent. So is Mother’s, of course.”
“Thank you.” Tyler kept the smile on her lips, but Kane must have realized that she was on the raw edge of exploding, because he rose to his feet and pulled her gently to hers.
“I realize it’s early,” he told Elizabeth with his charming smile, “but I promised Ty a moonlit walk. Would you mind very much if we said good night now?”
She returned his smile, the tension around her mouth easing. “Of course not. The old gazebo is still standing, and the garden is quite lovely in the moonlight. Just please be careful of the uneven ground; we’ve had some flooding in the area. If you aren’t back by the time we retire, I’ll have Fraser leave the front door unlocked, and you can lock it when you come in.”
“Thank you,” Kane said, and led Tyler out before she could do more than repeat the thanks.
A few minutes later as the soft scents of the untended garden closed around them, Tyler said tensely, “Her face was swollen. He’s been hitting her.”
“I know.”
She glanced up at him as his fingers tightened slightly around hers, and even though she couldn’t see his expression clearly she recognized the flat sound of his voice. Kane was as angry as she was. “Elizabeth’s afraid of him, too. You don’t think . . .”
“That he’s violent with his stepmother? No. Not physically, at least. She’s too strong a woman to stand for that. But she may be at least partially dependent on him financially, and you can bet he uses what power he has against her.”
They walked in silence for a few moments, moving farther from the villa, and then Tyler said, “No wonder Erica was trying so hard. And I think . . . God help her, I think she loves him.”
“How could she?” Kane murmured.
“I don’t know. I mean, I really don’t understand how love can survive that kind of violence. But the way she looked at him . . . She’s terrified, but . . . suppliant. She has the reputation of going after other men, but I’ll bet Simon tells her to. For whatever distorted reasons of his own.”
“Probably,” Kane agreed. “She certainly doesn’t enjoy doing it, yet, in a way . . .”
“In a way, she does. How do people get so twisted, Kane?”
She sounded a little lost, and Kane stopped them, turned her to face him. “I don’t know, baby. But we can’t untwist them.”
Tyler slid her arms around his waist and rested her forehead against his broad chest for a moment. “I’m ruining your romantic moonlit walk,” she murmured wryly.
He kissed the top of her head, then smiled at her as she looked up at him. “No. But try to remember there isn’t a lot we can do about some things. If we can find what we’re looking for, maybe we can put Simon out of circulation for a while and even help Elizabeth financially. But we can’t fix all the broken things in their lives. We can’t, Ty.”
“I know.” She sighed. “I’ll stop thinking about it.”
“Maybe I can persuade you to do that.” He pulled her a bit closer. “Could you think about me instead?”
“Well, if you ask me nicely . . .”
THEY WALKED IN the garden for a long time. The air grew chilly, but neither of them noticed. Kane made her laugh by describing her as a “pagan maid in the moonlight” when she stood inside the small, Roman-templelike gazebo, then drove laughter out of her mind when he held and kissed her passionately.
He seemed bent on courting her, as if they weren’t already lovers, murmuring words of desire that heated her blood and stole the strength from her legs. Touching her with a hunger that was potent and curiously moving. He made her feel incredibly desirable. He made her feel, for the first time in her life, really beautiful.
It was late when they finally started back toward the house, walking slowly. Tyler was almost reluctant to go back into the villa, her feelings about the people who lived there confused and painful and uneasy. But Kane held those feelings at bay, and she loved him more than ever because of that. He made her want him until nothing else mattered.
They had reached the foot of the wide steps leading up to the porch when she noticed a faint light about twenty yards off to the right. It took her a few seconds to recognize the interior light of their rental car, which was parked there.
“Kane,” she murmured, keeping her voice low. “Someone’s been in our car. The dome light’s on.”
His arm tightened around her and then, as always, he moved quickly to deal with the situation. “Wait here,” he breathed, and glided away from her like a shadow.
Tyler half turned to watch him, wishing her eyes were as good as his in the dark. The area where the car was parked was in the murky shadows cast by the villa, and she could just barely see Kane as he neared the car. A moment later the car’s interior light went out.
And, in that instant, Tyler felt the hairs on her nape stirring as a soft scraping sound reached her ears. She tensed like a deer alerted by the cocking of a gun, all her instincts shrieking a soundless warning inside her head.
“Tyler!”
Kane’s hoarse shout galvanized her as nothing else could have done. She leaped instantly away from the steps toward him, a sudden understanding of what was happening lending her that extra measure of strength and quickness that had so often meant the difference between life and death. As it did this time. Behind her there was a thunderous crash, and she felt small shattered pieces of what had fallen pelt her legs.
And then Kane’s arms were around her, holding her with a strength that was almost crushing, and she could feel his heart hammering violently.
“Ty . . . baby, are you all right?” His voice was still hoarse, shaking. And the hands that framed her face as she looked up at him were trembling.
She nodded, finally found her own voice. “I—I think so.” She felt cold with the shock of what had happened, but forced herself to think. “It was one of the statues, wasn’t it?” she asked, not wanting to look behind her.
“That bastard. That murderous son of a bitch—”
Tyler was shaking her head. “It could have been an accident. The villa’s four centuries old.” And there was, she knew, easy access to the porch roof from at least four of the third-floor windows.
“For God’s sake, Ty—”
“Think,” she urged him quietly. “If it was Simon, he’s already back in his room. Everyone else is in bed, and they wouldn’t have heard a thing; all the bedrooms are on the other side of the house. And the villa is old. The statue had to be loose, or he cou
ld never have pushed it over. We don’t have any proof, Kane.”
“I don’t need proof,” he said.
Tyler could feel the rage in him, like a deadly inferno, and her awareness of that was the only thing holding her own calm shell in place. Kane was unarmed, and though she had no doubts of his ability to kill Simon with his bare hands, she also had no doubt that the other man would probably be waiting inside his bedroom with a loaded gun trained on the door.
“Please, Kane.” She kept her voice soft. “If you go after him now, you’ll end up in jail.” Or worse.
After a long moment Kane drew a deep breath. His arms gradually relaxed, and he bent his head to kiss her gently. He didn’t say a word, as if he didn’t trust himself to speak. He kept one arm around her as he guided her around the mound of rubble at the foot of the steps. They went into the silent house. A few faint lights had been left burning for them. Kane locked the massive front door behind them, but left the lights on as they went upstairs.
Their room awaited them as it had the night before, with the lamp glowing softly and the covers of the wide bed turned back invitingly. Kane locked the door. Tyler had begun to shiver with a delayed reaction to the shock, and the sore places on her lower legs where pieces of the statue had hit her warned that she’d have bruises by morning; there would have been cuts if the material of her long skirt hadn’t protected her somewhat.
She knew Kane wouldn’t like seeing those marks on her. And he didn’t, though he noticed the reddening marks, because he immediately ran a hot bath for her and put her in it, still utterly silent. His face was white and still, his vivid eyes darker than she’d ever seen them. Anger and what looked like pain tightened his firm mouth when he saw the marks on her legs, but he handled her very gently as he bathed her and then dried her warmed body with a fluffy towel.
Then he carried her to bed. Tyler said nothing as she watched him undress, but as he slid into the bed beside her, her anxiety over his silence made her say his name hesitantly.