Adam rolled onto his back. "Are you coming back to join me?"
Giana watched in fascination and disappointment as the sheet rolled with him, keeping the mysterious part of him covered while allowing a tantalizing view of an arrow of dark hair boldly pointing the way toward the part of him that stood out against the sheet. "Do you want me to?"
He opened his eyes and smiled at her. "I don't think there is any doubt as to what I want. Do you?" He glanced down at the sheet barely covering the lower half of his body
Giana blushed as she followed his gaze. "I am not sure."
Adam frowned. "Not sure you understand what I want or not sure you want the same thing?"
"I do not understand what it is you want exactly," she answered truthfully, "but I know it is something I should enjoy."
"How do you know that?" Adam teased.
Her answer was low and husky, barely above a whisper, "Because I enjoy your kisses."
His erection throbbed beneath the thin sheet, and Adam found himself fighting to maintain control. "Then put the dog outside and come over here so we can share a few kisses and see where they lead...."
Giana bit her bottom lip as she stared at the dark arrow beneath his navel.
"Don't worry," he soothed. "We can start with kisses. And then, I'm open for suggestions."
"Then I will return." She snapped her fingers and Wagner I rotted to her side. Giana glanced at the boot near the foot of I he bed. The toe was pointing in the opposite direction from I he way she had left it, but the ring was still secreted inside.
"Hurry back," Adam replied as he stretched his arms over his head, then yawned, and lay back against the pillows— pillows that carried the faint odor of musk. Adam raked his hand through his hair. No wonder he had awakened hard and as randy as a billy goat! It wasn't enough that he spent the night dreaming erotic dreams filled with images of George in various stages of undress and various stages of arousal. Awakening to the mingled scents of musk, orange blossoms, and coffee were practically guaranteed to do the trick. "And we'll discuss our options and decide the best way for me to negotiate a treaty with the beast."
"You can start by not calling him the beast."
"He's a dog," Adam said. "He doesn't know the difference."
'7 know the difference." She favored Adam with her mysterious princess smile, then walked to the door. "And he recognizes the tone of your voice."
"Hey," Adam complained. "Aren't you forgetting something?"
"Your breakfast and your coffee are on the table beside your bed."
"And the newspaper?"
"It is on the tray beside your plate." She nodded toward the butler's table.
"You carried that all the way up here by yourself?"
"Yes," she answered proudly. "And your plate and your cup and saucer remain in the single piece."
Are still in one piece. He translated the idiom automatically. "Thank you."
"You are welcome." Giana opened the bedroom door.
"I trust the dog stayed in the wardrobe and behaved himself last night." Adam knew he was pushing his luck when Giana didn't answer right away.
"George?"
"Wagner, come!" She issued the command, then hurried through the door and quickly closed it behind her.
Adam groaned at her choice of words. He listened for the sound of footsteps and of canine toenails clicking against the floor, but there was nothing until he heard her voice.
"We regret the damage to your boot," she said softly. "He was attracted to the mink oil. We hope you will accept our apology and the payment."
"What happened to my boot?" Adam practically leaped out of bed and across the floor to the door. "George!"
Giana and Wagner were halfway down the corridor when she glanced back over her shoulder and saw Adam McKendrick standing in the door of his bedchamber in all his naked male glory.
Giana swallowed the lump in her throat. The sight of Adam McKendrick standing in front of her as naked as the day he was born practically took her breath away. Her imagination hadn't done him justice. He was beautiful! As beautiful as the statue the cardinals in the Vatican had draped upon her family's last state visit.
She hurried down the stairs to keep from flinging herself at him.
"George!"
She began counting, not daring to look back until she heard his bedroom door slam and open again. "Five, six, seven, eight..."
"Wagner! You beast! These boots are handmade! They cost three hundred dollars a pair!"
But Wagner had already disappeared, bounding down the stairs, through the kitchen door, and out into the garden, startling laborers as he hurried to escape Adam's wrath and to relieve himself by the garden gate.
Chapter 23
The Bountiful 'Baron is a proud man. A confident man. A bold man. Sure of his every move.
—The First Installment of the True Adventures of the Bountiful Baron: Western Benefactor to Blond, Beautiful, and Betrayed Women written by John J. Bookman, 1874.
She wasn't coming back. It didn't take three quarters of an hour to let the dog out.
Adam arrived at that brilliant conclusion three quarters of an hour or so after he last saw George hurrying down the stairs as if she feared a lunatic was after her. And the truth was that lie had behaved like one. Shouting at her. Shouting at that blasted dog. Standing in the corridor outside his bedroom at six in the morning shouting to wake the dead while wearing nothing but a scowl on his face and his pride of the morning. Good God! How could he blame her for not coming back? He wouldn't if he were in her shoes.
"Adam?"
He looked up to see O'Brien opening his door.
"I knocked but you didn't answer."
"Sorry," Adam muttered a halfhearted apology. "I didn't hear you."
O'Brien chuckled. "That much is obvious." He set the tray he carried on the foot of the bed. "I suppose you've got a lot on your mind. I brought fresh coffee."
"Thanks." He held out his empty cup and saucer, and O'Brien filled it from the fresh pot.
"You're in trouble, my friend." O'Brien didn't waste time getting to the point or mince his words once he got there. "She's trouble."
"Yes, I know," Adam agreed.
"The other one would be better for you," Murphy continued. "And she's more your type—the kind of woman you've always said you wanted."
Adam squeezed his eyes shut, then opened them again and looked around the room as if hoping to find it had miraculously changed. He gave a derisive laugh. "Christ! You're not telling me anything I don't already know. There's no doubt that Brenna would be much better for me. Better than George in every way. Less talkative. Less stubborn. Less complicated. Less everything. What I wouldn't give to be able to take Brenna to bed and scratch the itch I'm feeling! What I wouldn't give to get it out of my system...." He let his words trail off as he turned toward the door. "Did you hear that?"
O'Brien shook his head.
Adam shrugged. "I thought I heard something."
O'Brien walked to the door. It was ajar. He pushed it shut, leaning against it, waiting for the latch to click into place. But it didn't click into place. It couldn't because there was a fold of black satin caught between the door and the jamb. He eased the door open and nudged the fabric out of the way, then stealthily pulled the door completely closed. "The little lady's maid, Brenna, is very easy on the eyes."
"She is that," Adam agreed.
"She's petite and ladylike and she has curves in all the right places. Any man would be pleased to have her on his arm."
"I can't argue with that."
"She would make you a much better wife than the Amazon."
"If I were looking for a wife," Adam pointed out. "Brenna is the type of woman I'd want...."
O'Brien gave a low, appreciative whistle to cover the sound of a sudden, sharp intake of breath and the sound of footsteps hurrying down the hall.
"But I'm not dreaming about Brenna. I'm not compromising my morals over Brenna. I'm not having any trouble keeping my ha
nds off Brenna." Adam set his cup and saucer down, then got up from his chair and stalked to the window. "And I'm not making a fool out of myself over Brenna."
"There is that," Murphy agreed.
"Have you ever known me to forget to make sure I was dressed before I ran after a woman?"
O'Brien shook his head. "No." The fact was that Murphy O'Brien had never known Adam to run after a woman. Any woman. At any time. He'd known him to offer assistance or ask them to leave—as the case may be—but he had never run lifter one before. And not when he was bare-arsed naked. "Can't say that I have, but I'm very happy to see you rectified your mistake."
Adam snorted. He was clean-shaven and fully dressed except for his boots. "It was the least I could do after the show I put on this morning. Jesus, Joseph, and Mary! What a mess! I must be losing my mind," Adam muttered.
"Just your perspective," O'Brien corrected. "And if it makes you feel any better, Georgiana and I were the only ones who witnessed the display, although some of the others may have heard the shouting."
"It doesn't. But thanks anyway." He crossed the room and retrieved his cup and saucer.
"Well, just so's you know, I've seen far worse things than you in yer birthday suit," O'Brien said in his best Irish brogue.
"Yes, but has she?" Adam made no attempt to hide his thoughts.
O'Brien smiled. "She had a slightly different view," he pointed out. "My view was of yer fuzzy arse. And I'd hazard a guess that you probably made a bigger impression on her."
"Yeah," Adam said. "Proud enough to give an innocent young virgin nightmares."
"Or tweak her curiosity ..."
Adam took one final swallow of coffee and set his cup aside. "As you can see, she hasn't returned."
"She probably has more sense than you." Murphy paced the length and breadth of the room, tidying as he went along. "I take it the dog ate your boots." He changed the subject.
"He chewed the toe of one," Adam confirmed, pointing his foot at the boot in question.
"That's all?" O'Brien bent to get a closer look at the damage.
Adam gave his friend a sheepish look. "I'm afraid my temper got the best of me."
"That's an understatement," O'Brien told him. "Especially when a little boot black and a coat of paraffin should cover the scuff marks."
"What do you use as waterproof?"
"I don't." O'Brien grinned. "I pay one of the stable boys to polish your boots as well as mine."
"What does he use?"
O'Brien lifted the undamaged boot and sniffed. "Smells like mink oil."
"That's what I thought," Adam agreed. "Tell the boy not to use it."
"Why not? You can't beat it for waterproofing."
"How about dog-proofing?" Adam looked over at his friend. "He's a male dog. The musk is attracting him."
"Makes sense," O'Brien commented. "Do you want me to have the boy polish it now or wait until Wagner chews the other one?"
"Wait." Adam sighed. "At the rate he's going, it shouldn't take long." He glanced over at the mantel clock. "I was right to get dressed," he announced. "Because she isn't coming back."
"She's probably trying to give you time to eat your breakfast, to cool off, to drink your coffee, and to read the paper you insisted she bring." O'Brien paused long enough to place the silver covers over the dishes on the butler's table, hiding the remains of Adam's breakfast.
"You don't have to do that," Adam told him. "Don't you remember? You're a Pinkerton detective, not a valet."
"Boyo, the first thing you learn as a Pinkerton is to become whatever role you're playing. This is the role I've chosen to play, and as long as I'm at Larchmont Lodge, I'm your gentleman's gentleman." O'Brien picked up the neatly ironed and folded newspaper and tossed it to Adam. "I see she managed to make it up here without breaking the china and that she brought you your newspaper. Since she went to the trouble of ironing it for you, the least you can do is open it."
"How do you know she ironed it?" Adam shot O'Brien a nasty look before unfolding the newspaper. "Never mind," he added before Murphy had a chance to answer.
Adam held the paper up so O'Brien could see the triangular shape of the iron for himself, then shook his head. Two columns on the third page were scorched so badly they were unreadable. "I don't know what her parents were thinking when they trained her as a domestic," he said. "I'm sure she his other talents, but housekeeping isn't one of them." He refolded the paper, tossed it on the bed, and burst out laughing.
O'Brien looked at him as if he was afraid Adam was about repeat this morning's outburst. "What's so funny?"
"That!" Adam pointed to the paper. "I haven't had the opportunity to read a newspaper since I got here."
"I don't believe it!" O'Brien exclaimed in mock horror. Adam McKendrick? The man who lives and breathes the financial pages?"
Believe it," Adam said wryly. "I've been trying to read a newspaper since I got here, but something has happened to all of them. Wagner shredded the batch I got last week, and George’s attempt at ironing has ruined this one."
But Murphy O'Brien didn't find the matter amusing. "Have you ever thought that someone might not want you to read the newspaper?"
Adam stopped laughing and focused his attention on O’Brian. "What do you mean?"
"What I mean, me boyo, is that I don't believe in that kind of coincidence." He stared at Adam. "Do you?"
"No, I don't." He met O'Brien's gaze. "Hand me my boots, please.
Murphy handed him the boots.
Adam pulled on the right one, then stepped into the left. What the devil?" He took his foot out and turned his boot upside down, shaking it a bit until he dislodged the object stuck in the toe. It rolled out of his boot and thudded onto the carpet. "Son of a bitch!"
Beside his foot lay a ring. Adam reached down and picked it up. It was heavy gold and set with an enormous black pearl surrounded by a circle of diamonds. He wasn't a jeweler, but he'd spent years mining silver ore, and he knew quality when he saw it. The ring he held in his hand was worth a fortune. It could only be a family heirloom, and only one person could have placed it in his boot.
Murphy whistled in admiration. "I've never seen anything like it."
"Me either," Adam told him. "Except on the fingers of kings and queens and of the popes in portraits in museums." He stopped. "What would George be doing with a ring like that?"
"She is a chambermaid," O'Brien reminded him. "The obvious answer would be that she stole it."
"She didn't steal it from me," Adam said.
"The countess of Brocavia?" O'Brien asked.
"It's possible," Adam admitted, "but I don't think so. If she stole it, why would she put it in the toe of my boot where I would be sure to find it?" He scratched his jaw. "Besides," he added, "I don't believe there was a countess of Brocavia. I think it's just a name and a story they made up to get the job here."
"How did you come to that conclusion?" O'Brien asked, and Adam related the incident in the library when George had mistakenly called the woman the countess of Brocadia. O'Brien listened to Adam's argument and nodded in agreement. "They lied about the countess. But why?" He looked down at the ring in Adam's hand. "Where do you suppose they came from?"
"Karolya," Adam answered automatically.
"Karolya?" O'Brien frowned. "Is that where ..."
"Lord Bascombe said that Isobel and Albert had lived in Karolya." Adam handed the ring to Murphy and walked over to his wardrobe, where he began rummaging through the pockets of his overcoat. "There is one newspaper left in this house." He waved the paper triumphantly. "The one I picked up yesterday in London. The one I stuck in my coat pocket to read on the train. But I didn't read it." Adam unfolded the paper, frowning as the ink smeared his hands. "I read the front page and the financial pages and glanced at a few other headlines. But I quit reading when my head began to ache. Still, I thought I remembered seeing something about.. . There it is."
Adam read the headline aloud: " 'Karolyan Princess Missin
g. Feared Dead.' " He read the rest of the article, studying the small photograph beside it. It was hard to tell, but the picture bore a striking resemblance to George. Adam shoved the paper at O'Brien.
"Do you think it's possible?" O'Brien asked, shocked.
"Yeah, it's possible," Adam replied grimly. "It's not very likely, but it's possible." He gritted his teeth. "Unfortunately, there's only one way to find out."
"Adam?" Murphy's voice was filled with concern. "Are you going to ask her about the ring?"
"In a roundabout way."
"What does that mean?"
Adam exhaled. "If she's that missing princess, she's lied about everything since she arrived. And she obviously has her reasons for hiding here and for lying, but tell me, Murph, what in- are odds that she'll trust me enough to tell the truth?"
"II she's that missing princess, she's desperate to remain hidden or she wouldn't be at Larchmont Lodge working as a chambermaid."
"Exactly." Adam met O'Brien's gaze. "But how desperate?"
"Don't," Murphy warned. "Please, Adam, cut your losses. “If she's a princess, there's no hope for it. And believe me, boyo, it would be better if you don't have those memories to carry around."
Adam managed a lopsided smile. "I wish it were that simple."
Chapter 24
A princess of the Blood Royal of the House ofSaxe-Wallerstein-Karolya a never shows strong or upsetting emotions. Her subjects must never see anything other than a pleasant countenance.
—Maxim 217: Protocol and Court Etiquette of Princesses of the Blood Royal of the House of Saxe-Wallerstein-Karolya, as decreed by His Serene Highness, Prince Karol I, 1432,
He found her alone in the newly refashioned women's quarters, lying on her side in the center of her bed, her knees drawn up to her chin, her back curved into a protective posture. Wagner lay beside her.
Adam had half-hoped that he wouldn't find her. And if he did find her, he imagined her looking up and smiling at him or running to meet him, welcoming him with hot kisses and open arms—eager to pick up where they'd left off. But George didn't look up when he entered the room or give any sign of having heard him.