Heart of a Hero (58 page)

Poor old Sean had to reel in his tongue when she stopped. Eric had applauded, too, surprising them all. His appreciation apparently whetted Carlotta’s ham factor and caused an immediate encore. Now a thin sheen of sweat coated Carlotta and she’d had enough adulation to do her a while, Dawn guessed.

Quince was fiddling with the stereo system that had provided the rousing bambuca music.

Eric rose and offered his hand to Dawn. “Shall we?”

She stood and trailed him across the room to the piano.

“What key?” he asked under his breath as they approached it.

“You choose,” she whispered, now terrified and trying hard to mask it. She didn’t even read music, much less know what key she sang in, but she couldn’t admit that in front of Quince. She was supposed to have been in a choir.

“You begin and I’ll follow. Whatever key is comfortable for you.” He squeezed her hand. “Relax, Aurora. I’m certain you will be fine.”

Dawn swallowed hard, blew out a breath and sucked in another. “I was never a soloist,” she admitted to Quince, “but I shall do my best.”

She had been running over the words in her mind. Her French was fair and she did love the song. She had heard a scratchy recording of Piaf singing it on television.

All eyes were on her now—Carlotta’s mocking, Sean’s curious and Quince’s ready to assess. She looked at Eric for reassurance, and his smile did the trick. He hit several chords, pausing between each, then waited for her to begin.

She closed her eyes and leaned against the piano, feeling the smooth hard surface beneath her forearm.

You’re in the shower. All alone. Doors locked. No one to hear but you.
Dawn imagined the water pulsing down on her, soothing, warm, relaxing.

She began with a breathy talking of the first line of lyrics, then found her way into it, raising her voice as she let loose. The vibrations from the instrument’s strings reverberated through her, giving her confidence.

Words poured out almost without effort and before she knew it, she reached the last note and held it, knowing it sounded sweet. She was a chanteuse!

When Eric’s music trailed away to nothing, she heard only dead silence.

Oh God, she had blown it. Dread held her immobile as she forced her eyes to open.

Sean stood and began to clap, his face rapt and his smile wide. Quince followed suit, grinning from guest to guest. Carlotta merely rolled her eyes and gulped her scotch and water.

Unable to help herself, Dawn turned to Eric. He smiled, too, plunked a resounding chord and added a trill of notes. “Very nice, Aurora,” he said almost inaudibly.

Quince sat down again and waved an autocratic hand at Sean. “Top
that,
I dare you!” he said with a gruff laugh.

Dawn’s knees were absolutely too weak to walk back to her chair. Eric seemed to realize it and got up to escort her, his strong forearm and hand supporting hers. She would have killed for the remainder of Carlotta’s scotch and she didn’t even like the stuff.

Eric returned to the piano to accompany Sean on the ballad. He did “Danny Boy,” probably to annoy Carlotta, Dawn thought. His voice was clear and sweet, reaching notes that sent goose bumps chasing up and down her arms. The boy had missed his calling. What a waste of talent. Or maybe he had talents on the terrorist front that surpassed his music. God only knew.

Eric remained seated after Sean’s offering and gave them a small taste of Beethoven. Just a dash of culture that supposedly wasn’t his but had been necessary to acquire while he had been a foreign student.

Dawn smiled with true satisfaction. He played both the piano and the audience to perfection, she thought.

Everyone had convinced Quince they were who they proclaimed to be, that was obvious. He looked very pleased with himself and with their efforts as he got up from his chair and suggested drinks on the terrace.

The whole evening seemed surreal.

Dawn grasped Eric’s hand in a death grip as they climbed the steps that led up the high wall that surrounded the terrace. The scent of the blooms below swept up and enveloped them in a swirl of heady perfume tinged with salt air. Wind off the sea tossed her hair in every direction, all but blinding her.

He stopped and sat down a few steps from the top where they had an excellent view of both seascape and the terrace where the others were sitting with drinks.

“Let’s play newlyweds,” he suggested quietly, turning her so that she lay back against his chest with his arms around her to ward off the night’s chill. He placed his lips near her ear. “Keep your voice low and no one can possibly hear us up here if you have anything you want to say.”

“Parabolics?” she asked, reminding him of the possibility.

“They’d be useless with this wind, but there won’t be any set up out here anyway. The house isn’t even properly bugged.” He hugged her. “It’s okay.”

“I hate having to interact with them,” Dawn whispered, eager to share her thoughts. “In some respects they seem almost normal at times.” She turned her head so that she could see his expression as they talked.

“Yeah, we’d rather think of them as monsters without conscience, things with no feelings or emotions. But they are people, too, you know,” Eric said with a sigh. He smoothed down the sides of the fake mustache and regarded McCoy, who was laughing merrily at something Carlotta had said. “You know as well as I do that people are seldom all bad or all good.”

“You believe that?” Dawn had known people who were definitely all bad. And her grandmother had been good clear down to the marrow of her bones. “One of them is a killer.”

“And definitely more bad than good,” Eric admitted with a grimace. He lifted his chin in McCoy’s direction. “Take Sean there. Given his behavior toward you and Carlotta, I’d be willing to bet he was always kind to his mother. Loved her. But he was raised in a society filled with hatred for the opposition, and war has always been a way of life for him. He thinks he’s honoring his family with what he does and they may think so, too. No doubt he’s loyal to the death when it comes to his cause and his comrades. Likable fellow under the right circumstances.”

“These are not those,” Dawn muttered darkly. “I suppose you see redeeming qualities in Carlotta, too.”

He chuckled and took her hand, teasing her fingers with his lips. “The girl can dance, you gotta give her that.”

“Big deal. And Quince, what about him? I swear I can’t get a handle on that guy. Why is he playing at this and dragging it out this way? You’d think he’d be anxious to be done with it.”

Eric seemed to be assessing their host as she spoke. For a long time, he said nothing, then shook his head. “Something’s not right about him. Have you noticed how tentative he seems at times? He’ll be totally in command, marching all of us around like chess pieces and then you see this hesitation, like he’s not quite sure what to do next.”

Dawn nodded. “Exactly. I think he’s the front man. Somebody else is running the show, someone who doesn’t want anyone to see his face.” She sighed. “Anyway, that’s my take on it.”

“Astute. I get the same impression.”

She leaned even closer. “Impression? What happened to your mind-reading talent? Can’t you delve into the old gent’s thoughts, or won’t he cooperate?”

He didn’t want to answer, she could tell. After a long moment of silence, he replied. “I can’t do it anymore.”

“C’mon,” she teased, certain now that he had been feeding her a line of bull about it from the beginning. “Not at all?”

“No. I could before and now I can’t, except when…” His voice trailed off as if he’d said more than he meant to say.

“Okay, except when?” she prompted, sure it was a game.

“When we made love. I could see right into your soul,” he told her. He looked so deadly serious, he had to be joking.

Dawn laughed. “Wow. Good one. Was it a pretty sight or did you have to wrangle with my dark side?”

He grasped her chin and kissed her thoroughly, erasing every thought she had except how much she wanted him. And he didn’t stop. Her body hummed, shot through with a current of longing so intense it scared her.

Before she knew it, he had twisted her around so that they embraced fully. If not for the fact that they were outside, balanced on a steep stone stairway with terrorists looking up at them, Dawn knew they would have made love then and there.

When he finally relented, she had trouble catching her breath and recalling what had prompted him to kiss her in the first place. “Wow,” she said on a protracted exhale.

“Yeah,” he agreed. “Wow.”

“You’re angry?” she asked, smoothing her palm down the front of his shirt.

He caught her hand in his and squeezed. “Not with you. Let’s get down from here and cut this out before I lose what’s left of my control.”

On the way down, he preceded her so that she was about
level with his ear as she whispered, “Could you read my mind when you kissed me?” Teasing him seemed to be the only way she might coax him into a better mood.

“Silence,” he snapped, his voice gruff and definitely Jarad Al-Dayal’s.

Dawn made a face at the back of his head, drawing a hoot of laughter from Carlotta, who was watching them.

He turned quickly, his dark eyebrows drawn together in a warning frown. Dawn gave him a bland look of pure innocence and Carlotta laughed again.

“Perhaps we should say good-night now,” Quince announced as she and Eric reached the terrace. “We have a big day tomorrow.”

Carlotta stood. “Wait a minute. How long is this going to continue, Quince? You asked us here to bid on the damned plans. I can’t speak for the rest, but I have other commitments. Could we finish this tonight?”

“No,” he said simply. “If you no longer wish to participate, I will arrange for you to leave.”

That shut her up. Her lips firmed, probably to hold in an epithet.

“Well?” he asked, one dark eyebrow raised in question.

“I will stay,” she declared with a huff of frustration. “You know how important this is to me.”

He nodded, and left them without another word.

Sean went to the bar and poured himself another drink, then relaxed back against it and held up his glass. “Well then. Here’s to us and those like us. Damn few, and they are all dead.” With a snap of his head, he downed the whiskey and plunked down his empty glass.

“A stupid toast,” Carlotta remarked. “What does it mean?”

Sean grinned. “You have to be Irish to understand it.”

“Thank God I’m in the dark, then,” she replied.

“Speaking of a beckoning darkness, would you care to take a stroll in the gardens before bed?”

She hesitated only a moment, then pasted on a patently fake smile. “I would like nothing better.”

They left without saying good-night.

“Interesting evening,” Dawn commented when they were alone. Not really alone, she remembered. Almost certainly there were ears listening and probably hidden cameras watching.

She wanted to ask Eric whether he thought it would be Carlotta or Sean who would return from that walk, but she didn’t dare. After listening to them banter and watching them perform, they had become individuals to her, real people, not simply faceless terrorists. She had to make herself remember who they really were and what they did for a living. One of them had killed Minos on the boat today while everyone else’s attention was on Eric landing that fish. She was sure of it.

Eric frowned at the couple disappearing down the path. “You should go to bed now.”

Yeah, right.
As if she would sleep a wink wondering what was going on in that garden. Would one of them have disappeared by breakfast? Or would Carlotta and Sean join forces to try to get rid of Eric?

“You will come with me?” she asked. More of a demand, really.

“Not yet. I plan to take a walk myself.”

Dawn grasped his arm and shot him a warning look. “I don’t like to be alone, Jarad. I’ll come, too.”

“No.” He smiled down at her and pulled away from her grip as he stood. “Don’t worry. I will return before you know it.” He glanced at the open door to the hallway. “Go
up to our rooms. I’ll watch from the hall until you are safely inside. Remember to lock the door.”

With one further plea in her eyes, Dawn realized she had no way to keep him from going out there and that he wouldn’t let her come with him, no matter what she said.

When she reached their quarters, she set the lock and leaned back against the heavy portal, praying he would stay safe. He would try to prevent whatever Sean or Carlotta were planning to do, whether to each other or to him. Hopefully, his friend was out there somewhere keeping watch. If Clay had made it safely ashore. Eric had not seemed too concerned about that, so maybe he knew something she didn’t.

She pushed away from the door and started across the sitting room to her bedroom.

“You shouldn’t worry about him, you know,” a deep voice said, scaring her out of ten years’ growth. She whirled around to find Quince standing in the room with her. Where the devil had he come from?

He gestured to the panel behind him that appeared to be part of the wall when closed, answering her unspoken question. “Forgive me for intruding, but I thought we needed to talk.”

She pressed a palm firmly against her midsection. “Jarad will kill me if he finds you here,” she whispered.

He chuckled and sauntered over to the formal sofa that sat in the middle of the room. He took a seat and patted the cushion beside him. “No doubt he would. This husband of yours is a violent man, Aurora. And so suspicious! You must know it’s only a matter of time before he gets rid of you. All it will take is his meeting another who intrigues him more than you do. Any trumped-up charge against you would vindicate him in
the eyes of his law. He’ll either divorce you or find a more permanent solution. Why not arrange a preemptive strike? I’ll help.”

She widened her eyes and touched trembling fingers to her lips. “You want me to…do something to him first?”

Quince clicked his tongue. “Makes sense, wouldn’t you say? Here is the perfect place to do it. There are no authorities to call his disappearance into question.”

She pretended to digest the thought and come to terms with it. “How?” she asked, her voice still a whisper.