Belladonna, page 11
And Shannahan probably wasn’t the name of her parents’ gardener. Malone had run it through the computer without much hope and had come up empty. It hadn’t surprised him. What had was Bella’s earlier burst of memory.
Her mother had liked fine clothes. She’d had her own personal seamstress, an ex-designer. The family had had a gardener. Obviously, then, they’d also had money.
But what was then name? Not Romaine. Not Parret or Crowe, either, at least as far as Malone could determine. He’d found no information on either Charmaine Parret or Hobson Crowe anywhere in the police records.
Of course, there should have been something, but the Birds were powerful, and power could still buy a modicum of anonymity, enough to keep amateur hackers like Malone from unearthing their secrets.
Moving his aching shoulders, he let his gaze flick one last time to the room in which Bella slept. No, he wasn’t going there, he told himself irritably. Yes, he had feelings for her, but they were controllable, even if the Irish in his nature was rearing its lusty head.
He contained the growl that swelled in his throat and turned right at the top of the staircase. All right, fine, so her skin was as soft and smooth as silk and her legs were long enough to bring a stab of desire to his loins every time he thought of them. And, yes, her breasts were the perfect size, to say nothing of perfectly responsive to his touch. So what if she tasted like fire and fine wine and sex? What did any of that matter to him? He didn’t want to be involved with her. His resolve should put an end to things right there.
It should, but it wasn’t going to. Malone could will away his desire all he liked; the damage was done. Bella had stirred his emotions, and that, he knew from experience, was a deadly thing.
With his head slamming like a bass drum, his heart heavy and his mind too muddled to think clearly, he didn’t bother to switch on any lights in the only guest room that Ronnie had gotten around to renovating. The bed was a four-poster double, the mattress not feather, but comfortable and fortunately directly in front of him. Leaving the door open a crack and the shades up, he forced his weary body across the floor.
He thought he heard a creak in the hall and turned to identify the source. But he saw only Ronnie’s calico cat, strolling in like a queen. Her name was Aberdeen, and this, he recalled, was her room. She was simply allowing him to share it.
She meowed twice, then jumped onto the mattress and made herself a patchwork nest. Too tired to find humor in the feline ritual, Malone tumbled onto the far side, burying his face in the pillow and his thoughts in a dream of Bella that started with a stealthy creak on the floorboards at the top of the stairs….
Chapter Nine
There was a mouse under the table with her. In her sleep Bella searched for it, although the dream child that was she didn’t seem to notice.
The little girl huddled under the table was alternately fascinated by her reflection in a mirror far across the room and frightened by the sound of angry voices far to her right. “In her dream, soft footsteps approached. She ignored them in favor of the raised voices. How many were there? Two? No, three. Two men and a woman. Fear of those voices paralyzed her muscles and her lungs. What if she hiccuped and they heard?
Wide-eyed, she listened, with only the occasional uneasy glance at her face in the faraway mirror. Her hair tumbled over her shoulders, but not over her features. She didn’t look half as terrified as she felt. Maybe she should be an actress—like her mother had tried to be once.
“Mother…” The formal address fell from her lips. She felt cold all over. Shivering, she wished they would stop yelling.
“Marriage vows are sacrosanct, Robert!”
Who’d said that? Amanda? Bella strained to see, but couldn’t. Everything to her right looked fuzzy and dark.
She heard rain pelting the window, and then the mouse squeaked again. It must be getting closer; its squeaks echoed in Bella’s sleeping brain. She drew the pillow over her head and willed herself back into the dream.
In the mirror she saw herself staring openmouthed at the shouting people. The mouse scuttled closer, distracting her. How could she see or hope to think with all that noise?
Her sleeping mind began to wander. Out of the darkness a knife emerged. No, not a knife—a brightly colored parrot attached to a pointy stick. It hopped toward her on the stick, squawking, “Romaine, Romaine!” Then, suddenly, it sprouted wings and flew away.
Another voice emerged to take its place, a man’s disembodied voice. He said softly, “Belladonna. Yes, Belladonna will inherit everything….”
“Oh, no!” The horrified whisper came from behind and slightly to the left of Bella. “Dear God, no.”
Now only the men argued. Something about poison and Belladonna and the dissolution of a partnership. She didn’t understand what they meant.
She felt someone touching her, but was too absorbed in the argument to look. The parrot on a stick had shrunk. Before her fascinated eyes, it transformed itself into a skinny pink knife. The knife flew into a hand that wore a black glove.
The men’s voices rose. “It’s monstrous!” one accused. “You are monstrous. Children can have no part in our operation. They’re meant to play and ride ponies. Not until they are older and well taught should they be permitted to make decisions of this caliber. When they are older, Robert. When they’ve acquired the knowledge and the wisdom to decide for themselves.”
The voices became a jumble after that. Only the mouse’s squeaks and a woman’s whispered, “We have to get away…have to escape this nightmare,” registered in Bella’s brain.
She saw a glint of silver in her peripheral vision as the woman attempted to pull her covertly out from under the table. In the mirror her dark eyes seemed overbright, almost too large for her rapt face. Why was she so engrossed? Why couldn’t she see the whole picture?
“What are you doing?” An outraged male voice cut through the clatter in Bella’s head. She heard his cry of astonishment, followed by a sickening thump.
The pink knife floated into view. The blade was stained bright red, the hand holding it clenched as if in anger.
“Robert!” the woman behind Bella gasped. A lock of blond hair fell onto Bella’s shoulder, covering her own dark pigtail. Amanda? The woman’s voice, with its Southern accent, shook. “Come on, darling, we have to get out of here. You must move.”
Bella wanted to run to the outstretched arms, to hide her face and blot out everything that had happened. But what had happened? Who was Robert? Who were the other man and woman?
Lona’s voice penetrated the dream. “It’s just like Romaine,” she said sadly. “That’s what Amanda told me.”
Amanda. Romaine. Malone…
His name joined the clamor in Bella’s sleeping mind. Her neck and body arched, as if toward him. She saw the parrot attached to the stick again. It flew between her and Malone as they jumped from the dumbwaiter on the burning Sun Sen. “Beware of the Birds!” it squawked, then flew off, its black, pointed tail dripping blood all the way.
Bella couldn’t seem to move, not even when Malone shoved her forward. The squeaking mouse had boarded the ship with them. A mouse and three Birds.
She saw Charmaine Parret—at least she supposed that’s who it was—concealed beneath a veil, a black hat and round sunglasses. Bella’s gaze was drawn to her vivid mouth. Soon that was all she could see—Charmaine’s beautiful, smiling mouth.
Submitting, Bella let Malone pull her away. He propelled her from the smoking ship to a more-intimate fire. He gave her a drink with a pink swizzle stick in it. He touched her breast and sent a tremor of renewed desire through her. Then he kissed her.
Bella moved needfully on the bed. The mouse squeaked close beside her in the dark. Rain slithered down the window. She thought for a moment that Lona’s ghost was out there in the night, but that was just wishful thinking, like the dream of Malone making love to her.
The mouse gave a protracted squeak, then stopped. Bella felt it bump against her. Big mouse, she thought distantly. She envisioned the kangaroo that always terrified Sylvester the Cat, and smiled. She wondered if Malone liked kangaroos.
Drowsily amused, Bella would have turned onto her side, except some obstacle prevented her from doing so.
Unthinking, she kicked at it. The squeak emerged as a grunt now. A man’s grunt. The horrifying realization brought Bella’s eyes wide open and her body to an upright position—or would have if the man hadn’t used his own body to pin her to the mattress.
Too startled to scream, Bella stared up into a pair of gleaming eyes—and knew in that grotesque moment of time how a trapped animal felt right before its death….
A SHRILL SCREAM shredded Malone’s dreams of Bella and feather beds, of New Year’s Eve and sailing on the foggy bay. It was the second time in as many nights that he’d been jolted in this way from a sound sleep, except that tonight the scream had a different timbre and was followed by the sound of a scuffle.
He shot from the bed, dimly aware that he was still fully clothed, and ran down the hall to Bella’s bedroom door. When he realized it was locked, he stared at it, unbelieving, banged twice with his fists, then stood back and, teeth bared, began kicking at it with his bare foot.
“Malone—!”
She screamed his name this time, then something he couldn’t decipher. He pictured Tock’s fat hand closing over her mouth, or worse, pressing a pillow to her face.
He grunted with each hard kick.
“Malone, help!” she screamed again.
He ground his teeth, raising his foot one last time to the door. The wood barrier gave with a sickening crunch. Using his shoulder as a lever, he thrust it open and ran inside.
He saw the hulking shape before he spotted Bella. Someone was on top of her, attempting to do—God knew what. No doubt Tock would be cursed with an inventive nature.
As Malone darted across the floor, he saw Bella’s knee come up. It caught the man squarely in the groin.
“Shee—ahh!” Her attacker shrieked.
Malone’s eyes focused. Skidding to a halt, he yanked the man around, his face a thundercloud. “Ronnie, you idiot! What are you doing here?”
The best Ronnie could do was topple sideways, his face in the pillow. “She-devil,” he gasped. “She kicked me in the bloody crotch! Let go of my collar, Malone. You’re choking me.”
Malone reached over him to help Bella scramble out of the bed. “You’re drunk,” he remarked in disgust.
“Damned right.” Ronnie sprawled over the sheets while Bella, pressed against Malone’s arm, looked on in relieved silence. “Went to a holiday party, to ring in the New Year early.” He lurched onto one elbow. “Am I in the wrong house or something?” His bloodshot eyes moved to Bella and blinked. “What were you doing sleeping in my bed?”
Fighting the urge to giggle, she laid her forehead against Malone’s shoulder. “You sound like Papa Bear. I thought you were Mick Tock.”
Ronnie’s nose wrinkled as if he smelled something decomposing. “That scum? What would he be doing in here? One thing this house has got is a good alarm system.”
Malone, still annoyed by the scare he’d received at his cousin’s hands, said wryly, “We had a run-in with Tock earlier tonight.” But he’d forgotten about the alarm system. Tock would never have been able to circumvent it.
“He tried to kill us,” Bella added. Unable to stop herself, she giggled again. “Sorry, Malone,” she said apologetically at his exasperated stare. “It’s just that I thought I was going to die, and now I find out it was only your tipsy cousin crawling into his bed.”
“My tipsy idiot cousin,” Malone said, not mollified.
Ronnie snorted. “Well, it is my room, Malone, and my house. And I’ll thank you, lass, to watch those knees of yours next time you and this vagabond cousin of mine decide to invade my home. Go to Annie’s, why don’t you, Malone? You’re welcome to leave Bella here, mind, but you’re bad news. Where you go, so goes trouble.”
“Where I go?” Indignant, Malone stabbed a finger in Ronnie’s face. “Now see here, you great Highland prat.”
“That’s an ass,” Ronnie translated to Bella.
“I know,” Bella said, then she knit her brow. “How do I know?”
“Because it’s obvious.” Malone continued to glare at his cousin. “And you’re one to talk about trouble. Who bailed who out of jail for causing a ruckus in a London pub?”
“I was defending myself,” Ronnie protested. “Or Annie was.”
Bella tapped Malone’s arm. “Who’s Annie?”
“Diana’s sister.”
“Who’s-”
“Ronnie’s cousin,” Malone said crossly. “And you were hardly defending yourself, Ronnie. You were playing Gulliver on a burning chair.”
“Someone tipped a candle onto a chair seat,” Ronnie explained, grinning lopsidedly. “I was a wee bit ratted and thought to put the fire out in the fastest possible way—like Gulliver in Lilliput.”
Evidently, Bella knew the story because she laughed, which was amazing after everything she’d been through. Malone, however, found humor in this situation sorely lacking. Maybe he should have tried coaxing her into his bed, after all.
While Ronnie elaborated on his burning-chair story and the less-than-gentlemanly manner of extinguishing the flames, Malone let his gaze travel to the window. It would be dawn in three hours. For the most part, the fog had given way to rain. A slight mist remained to shroud the trees and neighboring houses, yet not so much that he could make out definite shapes below. He saw Ronnie’s car and his own, then beyond them for an instant, a movement. It could have been a branch blowing in the wind—or something else entirely.
“What is it, Malone?” Bella appeared at his elbow. “Do you see something?”
He gave his head a small shake, eyes intent on the ground. “I’m not sure. The fog’s still pretty thick. I thought I saw a movement.”
“Ach.” Ronnie flopped dismissively onto his back. “That’d be Mrs. Bellinsky’s St. Bernard. Bloody great behemoth. Her husband’s off to work at four every morning, so she’s up at three fixing his breakfast, and once she’s up, Toby wants straight out, to do his business, if you take my meaning.”
“He likes to imitate Gulliver, too,” Malone said with heavy sarcasm. He sighed and turned to regard Bella as benignly as he could. “You can use my bed for the rest of the night. I’ll sleep in the living room.”
Bella made no response, except to say good-night to Ronnie, until they reached the top of the stairs. Then she laid a hand on his arm. “You don’t have to sleep downstairs, Malone.”
Oh, God, no, don’t do this, Malone thought. He swayed a little on his feet and a great deal more in his mind. She looked like a sylph, standing there in her silk teddy with Ronnie’s red robe opening to reveal her slender body. Temptation he could resist, but this—this was nothing short of torture.
He got through it, but only by using the last vestiges of his control to force the words from deep in his brain—and only from his brain, because if he allowed his heart to get involved, he’d be in bed with her in a minute.
“Yes, I do, Bella,” he answered evenly. “I have to sleep downstairs and you have to sleep up here, and we both know the reason why.”
If his answer stung, she didn’t let it show. Head raised, she looked him straight in the eye. “The reason,” she said serenely, “is that you are a self-deluded, pigheaded fool. But just to prove that I can be pigheaded, too, I’ll tell you now that I’m going to see Lona tomorrow, before she’s cremated.”
“You can’t do that,” he countered, outraged. “They’ll be waiting for you to show up.”
“Then I’ll have to sneak in, won’t I? There’s no point arguing,” she said when he opened his mouth to protest further. “I’m going. If you won’t tell me where she is, I’m sure Ronnie will.”
“Like hell he will.”
“He will. But even if he won’t, I’ll find her myself.”
She was angry, at him and everything, but mostly, he suspected, at him.
Dammit, though, he was angry, too, and with reason. She’d waltzed into his life, made him care about her against his will, and now she expected him to cast aside all those years of restraint and self-control and fall in love with her.
Trust a bloody woman, he thought, grimacing as the guest-room door closed with a muffled bang. No man would be so irrational.
He heard another click, and Ronnie’s hazy face appeared to his left. “Hey there, Malone, you need a drink?”
“Shut up and go back to bed,” Malone snapped.
Ronnie merely smiled a drunken, knowing smile. “So it’s like that, is it?”
“No, it bloody hell is not.”
Grinning broadly, his cousin teetered over to him. “Scotch or whiskey?” he asked.
Malone sent him a black look. Drinking solved absolutely nothing, never had, never would. He needed to keep his wits about him, for his sake and Bella’s safety. He needed sleep and blessed oblivion.
Jaw set, he regarded his unwieldy cousin. He kept his answer short and tight. “Scotch.”
“HAPPY NEW YEAR TO YOU, ma’am.”
The milkman greeted Bella cheerfully late the next morning. She was alone in the kitchen, drinking coffee and endeavoring to sort through the mire of last night’s dreams and the events that had followed.
In spite of everything, she responded to the man’s pleasant attitude. “Why the whistle?” she asked.
He deposited two quarts of milk, a pint of cream and a container of cottage cheese on the counter. “Hardly any work to do is why. Most everyone’s out of town for the holidays.”
“Lucky them,” Bella said into her cup.
She heard a noise behind her and realized that Malone had wandered into the kitchen. He offered something halfway between a snarl and a grunt by way of a greeting and headed straight for the coffee machine.
“Morning to you, sir,” the milkman chirped. “I was just telling your friend here how easy my job is this week. Normally I deliver to the whole block. Today there’s only your place and three others five houses farther down this street. I’ll be home by one o’clock, easy. How’s that for a belated Christmas present?”
