Stolen Hearts, This is my story...

[Elli]

At least we hope so...

[Melody]

i changd my mind. u guys can just read it long

Chapter 3

Luke led Tess out the French doors, across the brick terrace, and down the terrace steps to a broad, closely cropped expanse of blue-green lawn. A multitude of birds calling to each other was the ony sound beneath a clear blue sky. To their right and left rose an ancient wood, dark branches arching toward the sun.
"Lovely, isn't it?" Luke said, stopping beside a magnificent oak that towered above the center of the lawn.
"I always like to see old money put to good use," Tess replied.
"This must all seem achingly familiar."
Tess's smile was wry. "You wouldn't believe me if I agreed with you, Mr. Mansfield, so why even pose the question?"
"Just trying to find a pattern, Ms. Alcott, in what you do and do not choose to remember," he said, leaning against the tree and folding his arms across his chest. "Take this mighty oak for, for example. It's been here for centuries. Elizabeth would have seen it every day of her childhood. Did you?"
"I told you, I don't remember my childhood. So, where's the swing?"
"Why do you ask?"
Tess grinned knowingly at him and pointed to one of the lower, thicker branches. "The metal rings suggest there used to be a swing here."
Luke gave her a lazy salute. He had to hand it to her, she was the first worthy opponent he had met in a long time. "As it happens, there was a swing here. Elizabeth loved it. John Cushman had it removed after she was kidnapped. He couldn't bear looking at it."
"Understandable," Tess murmured.
"Yes. So tell me Ms. Alcott, just how much of this Return of the Lost Heiress story do you believe?"
Tess chuckled. "None of it."
Luke's arms fell to his sides, his hands curling into fists. "Then what the heck are you doing here?"
Tess cheerfully held up her hands as if to ward off an imminent attack. "Hey, Dr. Weinstein is my psychiatrist. The guy's a genius, everyone says so, including him. Who am I to argue with genius? If he says I'm Elizabeth Cushman, what the heck? I'll play along. My story is that I'm here to find my past, and I'm sticking to it."
"Even though it means hurting an old woman who never did you a moments harm?"
"Mr. Mansfield, give the woman some credit," Tess said in disgust. "Jane Cushman doesn't believe me any more than you do. She's tough, she's sharp, and she's enjoying herself. So back off."
Luke could not recall any woman telling him to back off before. "Do you always come across so strong?" he inquired mildly.
"You're a big boy Mansfield. You can take it. Look, let's cut the polite chatter," Tess said, her hands on her hips. "You and I are adversaries, you've made that clear from the start. You and Jane are trying to rout me with every teddy bear and cup in my path, Max is pushing me to accept a family I don't believe in, and I'm standing in the middle, feeling very much under attack. When I feel like this, I fight back. If you can't take a punch to the midsection now and then, you're in the wrong business."
Luke stalked to within a foot of her. "You will soon find, to your everlasting regret, that I am very much in the right business, Ms. Alcott."
"Pride goeth before a fall," she murmured, staring up at him.
Her blue eyes were short-circuiting his brain again. “That cuts both ways, Ms. Alcott,” he managed. She barely reached his shoulder. She had to tilt her head back to meet his gaze, her throat arched. “You know, I’m curious,” he said. “What is a tough, talented, and successful thief like yourself doing with a psychiatrist?”
Tess stiffened under his gaze and took a step back. “I loathe not remembering the first five years of my life,” she snapped.
“Ah, yes, your alleged amnesia,” he said, grateful for the safety of his job. “Tell me, Ms. Alcott, what do you remember thanks to those convenient little hypnosis sessions with Dr. Weinstein?”
“Such skepticism! Don’t you believe in hypnosis, Mr. Mansfield?”
“Actually, I do. I just don’t believe in you. So trot out some memories. Impress me. Convince me. Drench the lawn in your tears.”
“I haven’t cried since I was five, Mansfield,” Tess retorted with an angry edge to her voice, “so put your handkerchief away. I keep telling you that I remember next to nothing of my childhood. All I have is a vague recollection of an overly fond Great Dane about three times my size and weight who couldn’t see me without bathing me with his tongue. And I remember a woman with red hair calling me Beth.”
She stared out across the lawn and thickly wooded park. “I remember being on a sailboat with a man, although I can’t tell what the man looked like. And I remember being awakened in the dead of night by a man who had his hand over my mouth. That, Mr. Mansfield, is it for five years of living. If you want to know how and when I got my appendix scar, I can’t tell you. If you want to know why I called that teddy bear Fred, I can’t tell you. If you want to know why I keep seeing a playhouse on this lawn when one doesn’t exist, I can’t tell you.”
Luke stiffened. “Where do you see the playhouse?”
Tess pointed to their left. “Over there. It’s a miniature Cape Cod cottage with lace curtains and a white picket fence. All I can say is, thank God I’m already seeing Max, otherwise I’d have to find a therapist fast.”
“Not necessarily,” Luke said, gazing at the wide, immaculate expanse of lawn. “Elizabeth had a miniature Cape Cod cottage playhouse with lace curtains and a white picket fence.”
And the Cushman’s had taken care to keep details of their daughter’s life hidden from the public, both before and after the kidnapping. Only the Cushman family and close friends had known about the playhouse, a fifth-year birthday gift to Elizabeth three months before she was kidnapped. It had been demolished after her disappearance, on John Cushman’s orders.
“Are you serious, or just humoring me?” Tess demanded.
“Of course,” Luke said mildly, glancing down at her, “Weinstein could have found out about the playhouse and described it to you.”
“Yes, there is that,” Tess cheerfully agreed. “Now, as I recall, you are under orders to give me a tour along with the interrogation.”
“You know, you’re absolutely right. Let’s go visit the horses,” Luke said with malicious delight as he began striding toward the stables.
Tess trotted up to his side. “You don’t usually walk with short women, do you?”
He glanced down at her and couldn’t help but smile. “Was I doing my Paul Bunyan routine again? Sorry. Everyone in my family is tall, and yes, most of the women I date are tall as well.”
“Tall?” Tess scoffed. “That Franklin debutante is a giantess!”
Luke nearly tripped. “How do you know about Maria?”
Her smile was serene. “Ah, Mr. Mansfield, I know far more about you than you would ever expect.” Tess climbed gracefully through a white board fence to reach an empty paddock. When Max told me last week I’d probably be meeting you, I checked you out. The report kept putting me to sleep. You’ve had the easiest life I’ve ever studied, Mansfield: the right family, more money than God, the right schools, the right connections, the right jobs, the right clients. Nothing ever seemed to go wrong for you. I’m amazed you haven’t died of boredom.”
“I like boredom.”
Tess grimaced. “You would.”
“And why would you want to study such a bland life?”
“I like to know everything I can about an adversary. Keeps me from getting blown out of the water.”
“So this is war?” Luke inquired, climbing over the fence.
“Oh no, this is merely an interesting little boxing match that will leave one of us with our head bashed in.”
“Not me. I’m very light on my feet.”
“Yes, Mr. Mansfield, but so am I.”
Luke stared down at her, blonde curls springing around her face, blue eyes calm and forthright under his scrutiny. Light? Oh yes, light. He could lift her easily in his arms…Don’t event think about it! Luke ordered himself. Tess Alcott was a fraud bent on hurting his friend and client and Luke had just made it his goal to prove it. His back stiff, his face expressionless, he led her to the stables.
“And what did your night-table reading tell you about me?” he demanded.
“Oh, let’s see,” Tess said, looking around the stable with an excellent imitation of nonchalance, “you are thirty-five and the eldest of four tall children. Your family tree goes back to the Garden of Eden. You took your undergraduate degree at Harvard, with up to wazoo. You were the captain of the Harvard rowing team and might even have made it to the Olympics if you hadn’t broken your wrist playing handball. Bad judgment call on your part, if you ask me. Trading handball for the Olympics. Shame on you! You let the team down.
“You ride well, play a mean game of chess, and carefully avoid any and all romantic entanglements since you ended your engagement to Jennifer Eire twelve years ago. Hence the Giantess. You bowed to family pressure and entered the family law firm to defend the rich and useless against the mighty arm of the law. Prosecuting attorneys have been known to shake in their Hush Puppies when they learn you’re the defending attorney. They call you the Grim Reaper.” She looked him up and down. “Suitable,” she commented. “Last, but not least, you adore Jane Cushman and would willingly slay any and all dragons that come to her door, even half-pints like me.”
“Phew!” Luke said, duly impressed. “How on earth did you come up with so much information?”
“Mr. Mansfield,” Tess intoned. “I am a professional thief. I never reveal my sources. That is why I have known such success in my checkered career.”
“I beg your pardon,” Luke said with a reluctant smile.
They walked down a row of empty box stalls. Only the last two on their right were occupied, one with a chestnut Morgan, the other with a dapple-gray half-Arabian. Each thrust their heads toward Luke, eager for attention and any tidbit he might have brought them. Luke stroked one first and then the other while Tess kept a good five feet away from the stall doors.
“Eugenie had twenty horses here,” Luke said. “Some think she had the best string on the East Coast. When she died, Jane didn’t want to maintain such a large stable, so she sold most of the horses and kept these two for her private use.”
“She rides?”
Luke grinned. “With a passion, despite doctor’s orders and Board hysterics, Jane rides” He turned to Tess and laughed. She was looking green around the gills and that reaction couldn’t be faked. “You weren’t kidding about not liking horses, were you?”
“I never joke about death, Mr. Mansfield, and those hairy, four-legged monsters behind you are the instruments of destruction!”
Luke could afford to be amused. Since Ms. Alcott didn’t like horses, she couldn’t be Elizabeth. End of story. He took Tess’s elbow and led her away from the stalls. It was the first time he had touched her, had stood so close to her. It did not seem wise.
Fortunately, Tess casually pulled herself free to admire a flower bed planted beside the barn and Luke moved several feet in the opposite direction. What in the world was wrong with him today? Why, when she stood six feet away, was he inundated with her scent? Had she doctored his tea? Was this some weird conspiracy between Tess Alcott, his brain, and his hormones to keep him from protecting Jane long enough so Tess could steal her blind?
Keeping a good three feet between them, Luke grimly led Tess on a circular path that provided views of meadows and woods and formal gardens as he ruthlessly grilled her on everything from her criminal career to her French, which she spoke fluently, / her. The impostor had an answer, a quip, or a solid punch to the midsection for every question he fired at her. By the time they returned to the brick terrace, Luke knew he had a much tougher fight on his hands than he had originally anticipated. He revised his opinion accordingly. Tess Alcott was the most talented and dangerous opponent he had ever faced.

Luke glared at Jane throughout lunch, but it did no good. She chatted with Tess and Weinstein as if they were treasured old friends, warmly pressing their hands when they finally said their good-byes and walked from the house to the doctor’s silver Lincoln Town Car.
“Darnit, Jane, have you lost your mind?” Luke exploded when they were finally alone. “Are you deliberately courting the nice men with white coats and butterfly nets? Inviting Tess Alcott to stay!” He paced the black and white tiles of the Grand Hall with barely controlled fury. “How can you encourage that heartless little fraud?”
“I think having Miss Alcott here for two weeks will give us an excellent opportunity to study her in more depth,” Jane replied mildly, her pale blue eyes lit with amusement as she led him into the living room. She sat down on the white sofa, Luke pacing before her.”
“She will steal you blind!”
“Nonsense,” Jane said. “She’s given up that line of work. Weren’t you listening?”
"She may not be stealing art and jewels, but I swear to you Jane, that she is dead set on stealing Elizabeth’s rightful place in your heart, in this house, and in the Cushman fortune!”
“Actually, thus far she has done everything possible to convince us that she is not Elizabeth, a strategy that I find most fascinating. Now do sit down, Luke, and stop striding about like a lion in heat.”
Luke was startled into a laugh and unbent so far as to sit beside Jane. He took her aged hands in his and forced her to meet his gaze. “I want you to listen very closely, Mrs. Cushman, and pay strict attention to what I am saying: Tess is a cold-blooded impostor.”
“No, dear, she is almost certainly my granddaughter, Elizabeth.”
Luke’s hands clenched Jane’s as he stared down into her heavily lined face. “No,” he groundout. “You can’t be serious. You can’t have been won over by a pair of big blue eyes and dimples!”
“Only partially, dear,” Jane replied.
“My God!” Luke exploded, surging to his feet to pace the floor once again. “Has the world gone mad today? However fascinated you may be by her representation of herself, Tess Alcott is not Elizabeth! She is afraid of horses, she hates the sight and sound of the carousel, she didn’t recognize the cup, and I strongly doubt that she recognized Fred!”
“True enough,” Jane replied. “But if you were a five-year-old child suddenly and brutally torn from everything safe an loving, would you not do everything in your power to forget that happy past? Memories of that former life could only remind a child--who desperately needs to feel secure—how unsafe her new world really is. It seems to me that any touchstone to that past would trigger either fear or anger, not happy recognition. Miss Alcott exhibited the first two emotions today.”
Arms akimbo, Luke stopped pacing to glare down at his client. “How did you ever miss a career in the law?”
“My father wanted me to be a poet. He thought it a more suitable activity for a woman.”
Luke had to smile. Jane Cushman’s father had probably been the only person to underestimate her. “Jane,” he said in a reasonable manner, “I agree that Tess Alcott is very good at what she does. She’s had twenty-five years of training to be this clever, this convincing. She gave a masterful performance today to hide her despicable fraud and I intend to prove it!”
“Excellent,” Jane retorted. “Dig up everything you can on Miss Alcott. I suspect you’ll be coming up with just the evidence we need to prove that she is Elizabeth.”
Luke ran his hands down his face, struggling for calm. “All right, let’s leave Ms. Alcott out of this for a moment. We are also confronted with Dr. Maxwell Weinstein, a charlatan if ever there was one.”
“Undoubtedly. Mind you, he’s very good. He sidestepped every trap I laid for him in our little tête-à-tête. Still, I don’t believe his performance.”
“But Jane, if Weinstein is a fraud, then Tess must be as well!”
“Not necessarily,” Jane retorted. “Whoever Weinstein is, he may have stumbled upon some knowledge linking Miss Alcott to Elizabeth. He could have contacted her and either convinced her of the truth of that link, or of his ability to sell her to us. In either case, Miss Alcott is not precluded from being my true granddaughter.”
“Yes, but—“
Jane began to laugh. “Oh Luke, why do you fight Miss Alcott so when you are so clearly attracted to her?”
Luke’s jaw dropped, which sent Jane off into peals of laughter.
“Poor boy,” she gasped, wiping her eyes, “did you really think your surly demeanor could hide your true feelings for a woman who has known you since you were in diapers? Oh, don’t worry, no one else would have guessed. But I must say it did my old heart good to watch you being so rude to the poor girl. You haven’t done anything so socially unacceptable since you were twelve.”
“I am simply trying to protect you from the poor girl,” Luke stiffly retorted.
“Oh, I know. You’re doing a wonderful job of protecting me—and yourself—from Miss Alcott. Still, I’ve been taking care of myself for over seventy years now and I think I’ve got the hang of it.”
“Jane—“
“Of course this girl may not be Elizabeth,” Jane pressed on. “The stakes are high. It makes sense that only the best con would try to win this game. I know you think I’ve got a blind spot where Elizabeth is concerned, but I’ve still got my wits about me, Luke, and I know to be on my guard. I will be studying Miss Alcott under a microscope these next two weeks. Why else do you think I invited her?”
“Temporary insanity?”
Jane frowned at Luke. “I prefer to regard it as a canny trap to catch a thief or reclaim my granddaughter.”
“Then you’ll be needing someone to guard that trap,” Luke grimly stated. “When Ms. Alcott moves in tomorrow, I move in too, and the moment she takes the smallest misstep, I’ll have her fanny tossed so deep in jail, they’ll never get her out!”
“Why, of course, Luke,” Jane said with a smile. “If you think it best.”

[Elli]

heehee...this is good...

although...watch it to make sure your characters aren't too brilliant...they've got to be somewhat human and believable... It's mostly Tess Alcott (I can't remember if that's her real name or not...) that is not quite believable.

And go ahead and just post chapters. It works okay that way.

[Melody]

okeydokey, heres sum more
1st half of chptr 4, ts rahter long....

Chapter 4

Tess sat beside Bert in the Lincoln Town Car, her fingernails digging into the palms of her hands. She knew that Bert wanted to rip her head off, but that wasn’t what was worrying her. It should have, of course. She should have been very, very worried about Bert. Instead, all she could worry about was herself.
Why had Luke Mansfield’s green eyes set her heart pounding? Why had she been distracted every minute she was with him? Why couldn’t she get his image out of her mind?
Was this passion, then? No, that was impossible, because she was constitutionally incapable of feeling passion. Bert and Dennis Foucher had seen to that when she was only sixteen.
What was wrong with her, then? Why, when she had been with Luke, had she forgotten the most basic facts of her existence? How could her whole body be humming because of a man who would toss her into the eager arms of the law at the first opportunity? She was on a job, the most important job of her life. She couldn’t let some man distract her.
Bert jerked the Lincoln to a stop in the underground garage of Weinstein’s Manhattan apartment building, jumped out of the car, and slammed the door so hard the car shook.
She couldn’t let Bert know that somehow a man had distracted her.
Cautiously, she slid out of the car and started for the bank of elevators. Bert grabbed her elbow in a painful vise far different from Luke had held just that elbow. He almost threw her into the elevator. With his free hand he punched the button for Weinstein’s floor. The elevator began to soar upward, Bert’s huge hand cutting off the circulation in her arm.
The doors opened and he jerked her down the hall to Weinstein’s apartment. He unlocked the door and dragged her inside, slamming the door shut behind them.
“Bert—“ she began.
He knotted her ponytail around his free hand, snapping her head back.
“What the hell did you think you were doing?” he shouted. “You nearly ruined us before we got our feet in the door!”
He threw her across the room. Fortunately, the brown leather sofa broke her fall. Tess scrambled to her feet as Bert began to stalk towards her.
“A change of strategy was called for and I made it,” she said quickly, hoping she could break through his anger before he broke her in two.
“You are not on this job to think!” Bert screamed, smashing the lamp on the end table to her left. “I plan the roles, I plan the timing, I plan the strategy! You are nothing! You are only a tool I am using to hide the biggest robbery of my career!”
“I know, Bert,” Tess said soothingly. “You’re in charge, you always have been, you always will be. But I’m the one in the trenches and we had a grenade thrown at us right at the start. I had to adjust.”
“What in hell are you babbling about?”
“Mrs. Cushman wasn’t what we expected,” Tess said, easing around the sofa so that it stood between them. She began to breathe again. “We knew she’s a tough businesswoman, but we thought she had a blind spot when it came to Elizabeth. Why else would she cling to the hope that the kid is still alive? But Jane Cushman is nobody’s fool, even when her heart is involved. One look in her eyes, and I knew that she had heard every angle, had seen every ploy, knew of cons that we haven’t even thought of. Being the weepy amnesiac tearfully searching for her past wasn’t the right angle to use on her, you must have seen that. So, I decided to expand your script, figuring that the best way to disarm her was to make her determined to prove to me that I really am Elizabeth Cushman.”
Some of the fury left Bert’s face, his hands unclenched as he turned this over in his head. He nodded slowly. “You may be right.” he said at last. Tess let out a silent sigh of relief. “In fact, it’s just the change I would have made if I could have gotten you alone for a minute. That Cushman woman has probably endured dozens of young women fawning and sobbing all over her. You’re doing something different. You’re piquing her interest. Is that why you denied recognizing the Tiffany cup?”
Tess forced a nonchalant shrug. “I wanted to throw her off balance,” she replied.
“Fair enough,” Bert conceded. “But what the hell happened with that damned carousel?”
What had happened? The carousel music had started playing and she had been crushed beneath an avalanche of rock and mud. She hadn’t been able to breathe. Her lungs had completely shut down. What in the name of Monet had happened? Were her childhood asthma attacks coming back to haunt her? Tess hoped not, because they would not go down well with Jane. Elizabeth had been as healthy as a horse. There were no lung problems on either problem of the family.
“Was it too dramatic?” she asked casually. “I thought the interview needed a few histrionics.”
“It worked out OK,” Bert conceded, “but don’t ever ad-lib on me again. I’ve got this job planned down to the newspaper stories announcing the return of Elizabeth Cushman to the family fold. I don’t want to have to start cleaning up after you because you suddenly decide to get creative. Which reminds me: why the heck did you mention WEB to them? Now I’ll have to scramble to cover your story.”
“Relax, Bert. I haven’t been idle these last seven years. I’ve got a few friends at WEB and they’ll cover me no matter what kind of inquiry comes their way.”
Bert gazed appreciatively at her. “I trained you very well.”
“You made me what I am today, Bert.”
“I’ll get you your empire yet, babe, Mansfield notwithstanding.” Bert chuckled with grim amusement. “He does not seem to like you.”
“He’d toss me into a torture chamber if he could find one,” Tess agreed.
Bert laughed. “I told you he was trouble and he is. But I figure with your charm and my brains, we’ll make him come around in the end. I’m gonna love this job, babe. It’ll be my masterpiece.”
“I don’t know Bert,” Tess said, slowly moving from around the leather couch to sit on the matching chair beside it, “I’ve always thought the Cartier job was the best work you ever did.”
“Now that was beautiful,” Bert said with a happy sigh as he sat on the couch and kicked off his shoes.
For the next hour, Tess gratefully guided him through happy reminiscences of the many successful he had planned in the past and she had helped execute. That led to his further tales of adventure in South America and a sudden recollection that he really ought to check his Swiss bank accounts. Then he ordered her into the kitchen to make him a mid-afternoon snack.
Until Tess could get safely inside the Cushman mansion, she was more than happy to play the kitchen drudge. It was best to avoid Bert’s company whenever possible. There was no telling when it would suddenly occur to him that she was no longer the thin, small child who had been so adept at stealing for him, but a woman with all the appropriate features to keep a man entertained.
She had no desire, no intention, and no stomach for entertaining Bert, or any other man for that matter. Far better to make his omelet than to risk any advances he might make. If it came to a battle of physical supremacy, she had no illusions as to who would win.
So, she feigned cheerfulness and walked into Maxwell Weinstein’s kitchen. She opened a cupboard and pulled out her box of Godiva chocolates, and popped one into her mouth. Thank goodness for chocolates! They made anything bearable.
Reaching into the refrigerator for the eggs, she finally felt the dull throbbing in her elbow. She pushed up the sleeve of her jumpsuit and swore when she saw the large purple bruise encircling her arm. / Bert! There was no way to explain away the bruise to Jane Cushman, which meant long sleeves for the next week. Sighing, she grabbed the eggs, green onions, mushrooms, and cheese and set them on the counter to her left, directly below the photographs she had taped to the wall.
“Good afternoon, Grandmother,” she said to the snapshot of Jane Cushman. “And how do you like your eggs?” Jane’s regal face regarded her with a somewhat quelling expression in her pale blue eyes. She was not a woman to be easily deceived. Well, Tess had always liked a challenge.
Beside that snapshot was a picture of John Cushman. “You Dad-ems,” Tess said, pulling a bowl down from the cupboard, “what’s new?” He was a handsome man, even beautiful. His dark blonde hair was thick and teased by the sea breeze. He stood at no more than medium height beside his yacht, the Lizzy Dawn, named for his daughter, Elizabeth Aurora Cushman. He smiled engagingly into the camera. Handsome, yes, and undoubtedly charming, but his dark blue eyes lacked the strength of character to be found in Jane’s eyes.
“Regardes, Maman,” Tess said as she used one hand to deftly crack three eggs into the bowl, one after another. Eugenie Danon Cushman was beautiful, even in her fifties when this picture had been taken. Her hair, a vibrant red in her youth, was here a vibrant white, shocking in contrast to the depth of color in her violet eyes, eyes that had her mother-in-law’s strength and determination. She would have to have been a remarkably strong woman, Tess thought, to survive not only her daughter’s disappearance and death, but her husband’s suicide as well. She had been a worthy daughter-in-law to Jane.
Beside the picture of Eugenie was a photo of Tess’s newest role. Elizabeth Cushman’s face was alive with laughter as one of the family Great Danes bathed her face with its huge tongue. At five, she had a small, athletic body, thick braids of blonde hair, and eyes the blue of her father. If she had survived, Tess thought, she would have become a beautiful woman with the charm and happiness of her father and perhaps the strength of her mother.
Chopping the vegetables automatically, Tess looked again at the sturdy little arms holding most of the Great Dane, which easily outweighed her, at bay. There was laughter at the dog’s antics, but a slight frown creased Elizabeth’s brow directed, not at the dog, but at the photographer who had dared to intrude on this affectionate scene. Yes, she might have grown up to be a strong woman, one well able to take on the Cushman empire. It was a pity, Tess thought, that that would never happen.
Her eyes turned reluctantly to the last snapshot taped below this family row. Luke Mansfield stared grimly at her.
This picture had in no way prepared her for the sheer animal power of the man, for the charm of his smile. She hadn’t known. And if she had, could she have protected herself any better?
“Oh no,” she whispered, “I’m attracted to the man!”
This was incredible.
This was disastrous. Too much hinged on this job for her to suddenly discover she really was a woman after all these years of faking it.
Fear sliced into her. So much for handling him with both hands tied behind her back and hopping on one foot. What a fool she had been.
She had just walked into a minefield with no warning flags in sight. Luke Mansfield was more than she could handle. She had no experience in fending off her own desires, because she had never desired anyone before. Still, she couldn’t just give up on the job when she managed to get a foot in the Cushman door. When it came down to choosing between her incomprehensible feeling and this job, it was no contest.
She dumped the chopped vegetable into an omelet pan and began to murderously beat the eggs in the bowl. She had just discovered a heretofore unknown weakness in herself. For whatever reason, she was more susceptible to men than she had thought. Fine. She would act accordingly, boarding up that defect and plastering it over so that no one, including her, would ever be able to find it again.
Fortunately, she and Luke wouldn’t be at such close quarters again. He would undoubtedly turn up now and then during the next two weeks to protect Jane Cushman’s interests, but Tess could handle that. She knew her enemy now and it was herself. Luke Mansfield would not catch her off guard again. She would avoid him as she would a jail cell.

Late the next morning, wearing a simple (long-sleeved) lavender shirt dress and sandals, Bert at her side, Tess once again walked into the Cushman mansion. Hodgkin icily led them into the huge living room which boasted fireplaces on opposite sides of the room, two walls of windows, and a beamed ceiling. Jane and Luke were seated on a huge white sofa, a pitcher of lemonade before them on the glass coffee table.
Dimly, Tess was aware that she was staring at Luke and knew she should not, but how could she help it? The sunlight from the windows set his chestnut hair aflame. His dark charcoal business suit was molded to his body. His emerald-green eyes were hooded, unreadable.
Which is more important? With a wrench that was painful, Tess tore her gaze from Luke to regard Jane Cushman, who had risen at their entrance.
“Ah, Dr. Weinstein, Miss Alcott, how good of you to come so promptly,” Jane said, taking each of their hands in turn. “Come and sit down and have some lemonade.”
“None for me, thank you, Mrs. Cushman,” Bert said. “I just wanted to make sure Tess got here safely and to thank you again for you extraordinary generosity in taking her in with you. I’m sure you can do for her what years of therapy could not. Now, Tess,” Bert said, looking down at her with a wry smile, “try to keep an open mind while you’re here, won’t you? There are worse things than being reunited with your family.”
“Whatever you say, Max,” Tess replied.
Bert sighed and smiled at Jane as if to say, what can you do with a truculent child? “I’ll be in my office on a regular basis, if either of you feel a need to talk,” he said. Then, with a nod at Luke, he left.
Tess was on her own.
“Well, my dear,” Jane said, putting an arm around her waist and leading her to the sofa. Tess carefully kept the surprise at this intimacy from her face. “I am so glad that you have come. Luke, be a gentleman and pour Miss Alcott a glass of lemonade.”
“If I’m going to be staying with you for two weeks, provided you can stand me that long,” Tess said, “don’t you think we ought to forego the formalities? You can’t keep calling me Miss Alcott all the time. I’ll start to feel like I’m in court.”
“Very well,” Jane said with a smile as she sat on the couch, “we shall advance to a first-name basis.”
Luke handed Tess a tall, frosty glass of lemonade, his fingers accidentally brushing against hers. She almost dropped the glass. Ruthlessly forcing herself to retain her façade of calm good cheer, Tess smiled blandly up into Luke’s green eyes, sat in the chair to Jane’s right, crossed her legs, and ordered her heartbeat to return to normal.
Her heart mutinied.
“From what you’ve said,” Jane continued, “Tess Alcott is not your real name?”
“Hardly,” Tess replied, and even managed a grin. “At Oxford I used Preen, Wentworth, Finch, Harley, and Charles. After I graduated I used…let’s see…Marshall, Woodcock, Danby, Clark, Brugger, Horst…oh, and Jeanne-Marie St. Juste. No one was more surprised than me when I came up with that one.”
Jane laughed. “Just how many names have you had?”
“Dozens. I keep a log so that I don’t reuse a name that the authorities might remember in quite the wrong way. Usually I’ve kept Tess, but I’ve also used Julia, Suzanne, Marguerite, Sophia, and a few less colorful others. As for the last names, I’ve been through the alphabet three times now.”
“Hence the A for Alcott?”
“Yes and no. When I turned myself into WEB, I was only up to T Tyler, but I figured a new start and a new life required the first letter of the alphabet, so I went back to A.”
“And how did you choose Alcott?”
Tess grinned. Her heartbeat was back to normal, and she could breathe easily. Relief washed over her. It looked like this was going to work after all. “I was rereading Little Women for the umpteenth time and the name just sort of came to me.”
Jane returned her smile. “And so you’ve been Alcott ever since?”
“I like it. It’s such down-to-earth, honest Americana that most marks can’t help but trust it.”
“I thought,” Luke politely put in, “that you had reformed your career and that marks were no longer of interest to you.”
“Old habits die hard,” Tess retorted, forcing herself to meet his challenging gaze.
“I must say, it will be nice having young people to stay for a few weeks,” Jane said brightly. “This house is just too big for one old woman.”
“People?” Tess said, trying not to choke on a sip of lemonade.
“Yes. Luke will be staying too. We should have some fine times together.”
“I’m having my apartment redecorated,” Luke said as he settled back against the sofa, his smile almost malicious, “and Jane graciously asked me to stay with her.”
“How kind of her,” Tess murmured.
So he meant to be Jane’s watchdog, did he? And he didn’t care if she believed his lie or not? Fine. She preferred open warfare to hidden animosity any day of the week. Every job required some readjustment of tactics, even of tactics forged the day before. She had lived without libido for years before this, she could hide it away for the next two weeks. Really she could. She raised her glass of lemonade in toast, once again forcing herself to look directly at Luke. She would have to get used to it.
“The more the merrier,” she said lightly.
“I’m looking forward to hearing more about your colorful past,” Luke said with equal lightness. “It just fascinates me. I’ve been doing a little checking up on your exploits.”
“Oh, now there’s a shock,” Tess said. “I trust WEB was forthcoming about my exemplary work?”
“They gave you a glowing review.”
“What a swell bunch of people. I love them like family. Who have you got checking up on me?”
“Baldwin Security.”
His poker face didn’t fool her. “Very good,” Tess said, keeping every single one of the expletives raging in her brain from showing on her face. “It’s one of the best.”
“I’ll tell Leroy you said so.”
“That’s enough fencing for now, children,” Jane said.
“On the contrary,” Luke grimly retorted, “Ms. Alcott is going to be living with you for two weeks, Jane. I think you should know more than her phony name, if only to sleep well at night, don’t you?”
“Luke—“
“So, tell me, Ms Alcott,” he said, “what was it like growing up as a female Oliver to a pair of modern-day Fagins?”
Tess’s stomach turned over. She could see Barbara Carswell’s tight, furious face, feel her hand slapping her again as Ernie Carswell looked on, bored. She had been free of those monsters for more than fourteen years and still—
“The Carswells were all right, I suppose,” she said with a shrug, forcing back the nausea. “They never had fewer than ten kids working for them at any one time. We tended to look out for each other, and the Carswells kept us all clothed and fed. I even acquired a rudimentary understanding of reading, writing, and arithmetic. That’s more than a lot of kids in this country can claim.”
“It sounds like you knew some of those others,” Jane said quietly.
Tess shrugged again. “The Carswells never chose anything remotely palatial to work with. It’s hard to hide ten kids in a middle-class suburb. So we mostly hung out on the wrong side of the Miami barrio and learned about the realities of life. The barrio wasn’t exactly clean, or safe for that matter. But oh my, the food when you got it was great.”
“Did the Carswells ever tell you how they…acquired you?” Luke demanded, his face as frozen as the iceberg Jane called a butler.
“Sure. They bought me.”
Luke and Jane stared at her. “I beg your pardon?” he said.
“You’ve lived in your ivory tower too long, Mansfield,” Tess said, unable to keep the bitterness out of her voice. “There are people who snatch kids all the time to people like the Carswells, or to people who want a child so badly they have no problem in not asking questions when a kid is suddenly placed in their arms. It’s sort of like cattle rustling. Just change the brand and who’s to know the difference?”
“The children, to start,” Jane said grimly.
“Wrong. Most of us couldn’t have told you where we came from if you put a gun to our heads. The shrinks call it traumatic amnesia. The information simply wasn’t there for us. It was as if we had suddenly landed on a new and terrifying planet.”
Tess heard the anger in her voice and inwardly cringed Keep it light! she ordered herself. Just because they were treading perilously close to her greatest vulnerability—her amnesia—was no reason to lose sight of the role she was playing.
Luke regarded her a moment with an odd expression she couldn't decipher. "Did you ever wonder about your parents?"
"Oh, sure. I decided a long time ago they had probably sold me to the Carswells for drug money. Don't look so shocked! It happens all the time. And in the end, it didn't matter. I was with the Carwells and there was nowhere else to go."
Jane looked a little pale. "You're very...adaptable, Tess. You don't think your parents might have been John and Eugenie Cushman?"
"I've seen my blood. It's the farthest ting form blue."
"But you fit in very well amidst all this luxury and wealth," Luke observed with a mocking smile."
Tess allowed her self to skewer him with one of her own killing gazes. "Like Jane said, I'm adaptable."
A necessary skill in your career, I'm sure," Luke said, unrattled. "So, you claim to have no family. What about friends who can vouch for your sterling character?"
"None."
"No family, no friends?" Jane said. "What do you have?"
"My work."
"Ah, yes, your career," Luke said. "Tell me all about your humble beginnings Ms. Alcott. How old were you when you first started to work for the Carswells?"
"Maybe four, probably five. I was small for my age. Still am."
"That makes it twenty years ago, then. Another big surprise in your resume. What time of year was it?"
"Who could tell? It was Miami! I'd never been to Miami before."
Tess stopped. How on earth did she know she had never been to Miami prior to the Carswells buying her?
"But you lived there for five or six years, you got used to the seasons. Compare them. When did the Carswells buy you?" Luke demanded.
"Hot," she muttered, still nonplussed by this sudden piece of her childhood surfacing, She hadn't been to Miami before! "It was real hot. Maybe late summer. July, August, I don't know."
"Luke, I know you have to get back to your office," Jane said firmly. "I will expect you for dinner. I will have to do my poor best to entertain Tess while you are gone."
Tess hid her smile by taking another sip of lemonade. It seemed Mr. Mansfield could be trapped as easily as she. Luke had no choice but to glower at Jane, bid Tess a curt good-bye, and decamp.
"It should be an interesting two weeks," Tess said, watching him stride from the room.
"Yes, I think so too," Jane said, mischief lighting her eyes.
Tess turned to her and grinned. "Do you get some kind of a weird kick putting two Siamese Fighting Fish in the same aquarium?"
"This wasn't my idea," Jane said guilelessly.
"No doubt. But you're going to love every minute of it."
Jane laughed. “Yes, I am. Come along, let me show you to your room.”
Standing up together, Jane looped Tess’s arm through hers and led her from the living room. Tess had to force herself not to pull free. Physical contact bred security and Jane had to become secure in the belief that she was trustworthy. That she was Elizabeth. Instead, Tess wanted to recoil from the old woman’s touch, to fend off this casual intimacy as they walked up the stairs to the second floor.
“Impressive little shack you’ve got here, Jane.”
Jane smiled blandly at her. “I like it.”
Tess’s brain kicked in. Jane knew what she was doing! She was using the same intimacy tactic Tess was using on her! Why the old she-devil! Jane was probably lulling her into a sense of false security just before she released a steel-toothed trap. Luke Mansfield wasn’t the only danger in this house.
Remember, she said to herself, repeating a life-long mantra, nothing and no one is safe.
Jane opened a bedroom door and pulled Tess inside. “This was Elizabeth’s room,” she said simply. “I thought you might like it.”
Tess loathed it on sight. It had been kept very much a child’s bedroom. A sky mural with thick, cushy clouds covered three walls. The large bay window and window seat invited an afternoon spent gazing down at the park. There was a large toy box along the side wall. Her suitcase rested on the twin bed. Her garment bag hung in a walk-in closet. Opposite the bed were a tiny table and chairs fit for any five-year-old’s tea parties.
It was a perfect child’s haven and all that Tess could think about was a terrified five-year-old girl being torn from the room twenty years earlier. She had known children who had been kidnapped. She had pulled jobs with them. Even now, she could feel their terror, their confusion, their shock at living in a world that wasn’t safe. She prayed that Elizabeth had died quickly, easily, after the kidnapping. No child should have to live through the aftermath of such violence.

[Elli]

Very interesting. I love how the plot twists and turns, and your reader never knows what to expect next.

[Melody]

heres sum more....end of chptr 4...

“This…isn’t what I expected,” she managed. She wanted to get out of this room now and away from the memories and feelings of her own nightmarish past that this perfect child’s room was dredging up.
“I’m sure there will be lots of little surprises in the next two weeks,” Jane said.
Tess glanced at her suspiciously. If the coming surprises were anything like what she had already endured today, she should probably just pack it in right now.
But no, she was being childish. Nothing was more important than this con. Nothing.
Forcing a smile to her lips, Tess looped her arm through Jane’s. “Come and show me the rest of your stately manor.”
Having memorized the house plans two weeks ago, along with the secret nooks and crannies that had been added over the years, Tess was free to study Jane and to wonder yet again who Bert’s informant had been. The wealth of detail he had passed on to her had to have come from an intimate of the household. But who?
It sure wasn’t the old matriarch. Tess hid her amusement when Jane failed to point out the safe hidden in the ballroom sidebar. Instead, she uttered her real appreciation of the large, oak-floored ballroom with its huge crystal chandeliers and ceiling frescoes of emerald-green dragons frolicking amidst painted clouds.
From everything she had studied of them and had seen today, the Cushmans not only exalted real beauty, they knew how to incorporate it into every level of their lives. She had to fight off growing admiration for the family. Admiration led to friendship, even intimacy. She could afford neither. Intimacy on a job always blew up in your face. Bert had drummed that little lesson into her head by the time she was twelve. She could not afford to admire, or like Jane Cushman. Jane was a mark, end of story. Anything else put the job in jeopardy.
She had to convince Jane of a fantasy—that she was Elizabeth—and Jane had to believe in that fantasy strongly enough to convince Bert that she was convinced. Papers had to be signed, promises made, a necklace obtained, and it was up to Tess to make sure all of that happened.
So she giggled like a schoolgirl at some of Jane’s sillier stories, smiled and laughed and told silly stories in turn, forced herself to keep her arm looped through Jane’s, and kept her heart carefully hidden away.
“Who is that elegant gentleman?” she asked, pointing to a life-sized portrait of an elderly man which hung in the library opposite an extensive gun collection with a pitiful lock.
“My late husband, Edward,” Jane replied.
Tess studied him with interest. The portrait must have been painted in the last years of his life. Even in his eighties, Edward Cushman had been a handsome, vigorous man. He looked, Tess thought with a grin, like he could give Jane a good deal of trouble if he pressed to it, and she said so.
Jane smiled fondly up at her late husband. “He was a rascal,” she stated. “He loved arguing with me just to get my dander up. He could tease me into a fury and then kiss me into a pool of butter. He was…incomparable.”
“You must miss him very much,” Tess said quietly.
“It hurts like hell,” Jane said frankly, turning from the portrait and back to her. “I absolutely forbade him to die before me, but Edward always was an independent beast. I intend to give him a good piece of my mind when I finally join him.”
“I hope that’s not for years and years yet,” Tess said, looping her arm through Jane’s and forcing herself not to cringe. She had meant it, dammit. She had meant it!
Having been warned beforehand that Jane maintained the old-fashioned habit of dressing for dinner, Tess appeared in the family dining room that evening in a simple blue sheath dress, a strand of pearls at her throat, her hair pulled back in a bun that was doing a poor job of holding it in one place. Jane was already seated at the head of the oak table. Luke sat at the foot of the table. He, too, wore evening clothes. And wore them well.
Luke raised one sardonic brow, his green eyes sweeping over her with an approval she hadn’t sought, but was desperately glad to have received.
She mechanically took her place at the middle of the table. Oh yes, she was attracted to Luke Mansfield. She was feeling like a woman for the first time in her life and it was terrifying. Fortunately, Jane began a conversation about the upcoming sale of some important pieces from an even more important English estate and Tess was knowledgeable enough about art and the market to keep the conversation lively and directed very much away from herself. Luke spoke little, but his gaze seemed to be on her throughout the meal, slowly shredding her façade.
“I think the Monet will bring an excellent price, don’t you?” Jane said.
“Hm?” Tess said and then quickly marshaled her thoughts. “Oh, as far as I’m concerned, the Monet should bring a fabulous price. I’m a slave to Monet.”
“I enjoy his work as well,” Jane said, “but I’m not what you would call a groupie.”
Tess laughed. “I am. I stole six of his pieces while I was active, and now I own three, with my eye on future purchases. Maybe I should attend the auction and do a bit of bidding myself. Assuming, of course, there would be no conflict of interest.”
“Not yet, at any rate,” Jane calmly replied. “Why are you so devoted to Monet?”
Tess sighed in happy memory. “When I worked for the Carswells, my main turf was the museums: the Bass Museum of Art, the Lowe Art Museum, the South Florida Art Center.”
“Museums?” Luke said. “My, you were precocious.”
“Hardly,” Tess retorted. “I was just very savvy. Museums offer a wealth of opportunity for a talented pickpocket. Surely you’ve seen the signs warning visitors to guard their wallets and purses? Most people don’t pay much attention, which was fortunate for me. I almost never failed to make my quota.”
“The Carswells had you on a quota system?” Luke demanded with surprise.
“Of course,” Tess said. “It was the best way to get kids to work. Tell them they have to steal at least a hundred dollars’ worth of goods or money a day, or they don’t eat, and those kids will steal a hundred dollars’ worth of goods a day. I picked up the trade well enough so I didn’t go hungry to often. Some of the others weren’t so lucky. Either you’ve got a knack for stealing or you don’t, and some of them didn’t.”
“So you learned to steal out of necessity?” Jane said.
“I’m a firm believer in survival.”
“At any cost?” Luke demanded.
She looked him square in the eye. “Yes.”
“But I don’t understand,” Jane broke in quietly, “how working the museums to make your daily quota made you a Monet devotee.”
Tess turned from Luke to Jane with relief. “I discovered his work in the Bass Museum of Art when I was nine. They have a lovely collection of old masters, even Rococo and Baroque, a few Impressionists. Only at nine, I wasn’t very impressed. It was a weekday, and it was raining, and the pickings were slim. I was getting pretty desperate because it was almost closing time and I’d only made half my quota for the day. The day before had been equally dismal, so I was hungry,” Tess stared into her crystal water goblet for a moment. “Anyway,” she said, giving herself a mental shake, “there I was, desperate, depressed, convinced there was no good and no beauty in life, and I turned a corner and there, on the wall, was one of Monet’s huge water lilies canvases. Suddenly, I felt myself immersed in the painting. I was gliding through the water, lilies brushing gently against me. It was absolutely one of the most beautiful experiences of my life. I’ve been addicted ever since.”
“And did you make your quota?” Luke asked quietly.
“No,” Tess said with a shrug. “But because of Monet, I didn’t mind so much.”
Jane turned the conversation to a less personal discussion of some jewelry that would soon be up for auction, and Tess kept the conversational ball rolling with the utmost relief. Remembering Miami and the Carswells, let alone talking about them, always set her nerves on edge.
The stress of maintaining her own con and surviving Luke’s hooded gaze left her exhausted by the end of the meal. She couldn’t help but yawn over her hot chocolate, while Jane and Luke sipped their coffee as they chatted away about Luke’s sister Miriam and her penchant for attracting over-the-hill athletes.
“Good heavens child,” Jane said, interrupting Luke to turn on Tess. “Stop yawning away like a hippopotamus and go to bed.”
“You’re tired of my scintillating company?” Tess inquired.
“You ceased being scintillating twenty minutes ago. Why else have I engaged Luke in gossip? Go to bed, Tess.”
Tess saluted and gratefully escaped the dining room and Luke Mansfield. It had been a long, stressful day, she told herself as she slowly climbed the stairs to the second floor. That was why her defenses had been so weak tonight. That was why it was safer to turn tail and run rather than slug it out. A good night’s rest and old memories or Luke Mansfield wouldn’t be able to disconcert or distract her again.
She opened up the door to Elizabeth’s room and held back a groan. It was just as awful as she remembered it. She had unpacked before dinner and in her absence someone had turned down the bed and left the bedside light on. If she had been a five-year-old child, she might have felt peace and contentment entering such a haven.
But Tess was a twenty-five-year-old woman who had worked hard to create her own haven these last seven years and she wanted none of Elizabeth’s. Still, maybe she could put it to some use. The room could be blamed for the return of some of Elizabeth’s “memories”.
Slowly she undressed and pulled on her oversized white cotton pajamas. She ran a brush through her hair and then looked around for a book to lull her to sleep. Her gaze fell on the toy box. Slowly, reluctantly, she walked across the room and lifted up the wooden lid. Dozens of toys, books, games, and stuffed animals, including Fred, were carefully arranged inside. She needed no one to tell her they belonged to Elizabeth. The books, of course, were children’s books: several by D. Seuss, a Winnie the Pooh collection, The Wizard of Oz. Having never read them in her youth, Tess didn’t intend to start now. Jane had given her carte blanche of the Cushman library and she would use it.
She padded down the back stairs in her bare feet, to avoid Jane and Luke, and walked into the library. Luke stood at the river-rock fireplace, a snifter of brandy balanced in his long fingers. He stared into it as if seeking the answers to the universe.
“Oops! Sorry,” she said, striding briskly into the room as if her very being was not centered on the green-eyed monster form Hell. “I didn’t mean to disturb you. I just came for a book. Some thing like Richardson’s Pamela. Guaranteed to knock you out cold inside of two minutes.”
Luke’s emerald gaze stopped her half way across the room. “You’re looking for Pamela?” he said. “You nearly fell asleep over your cup of after-dinner hot chocolate.”
Tess forced herself to look away from Luke. She walked towards the bookshelves, hoping to find a book and escape quickly. “Hodgkins laced the hot chocolate with caffeine,” she said calmly, “I’m convinced of it.”
“His dislike of heartless cons exceeds even my own. But then, he’s known Jane longer.”
“Fortunately,” Tess said lightly, “Jane relies on her own opinion, not on that of her butler or watchdog, I mean lawyer.”
“This watchdog will protect Jane from your machinations with the last breath in his body.”
“I expected nothing less,” Tess said, scanning the shelves for Pamela.
“Who are you really, Tess Alcott?”
“You got me. I’ll let you know when I find out.”
“So you intend to play this amnesia story for all it’s worth?”
Rage erupted in Tess and spun her around to face her enemy. “Do you remember your fifth birthday party?” she demanded.
Luke looked surprised at suddenly being under attack. “Sure.”
“Do you remember what your childhood bedroom looked like?”
“Of course.”
“Do you remember what your favorite food was?”
“Yes.”
“Well I don’t!” Tess said bitterly. “You’re supposed to be such a hotshot lawyer, Mansfield, but you’re batting less than a hundred when it comes to knowing what the truth is about me!”
She spun back to the bookshelves, trying to get her temper and her pain under control. The library was silent for what seemed like a very long moment.
“I’m beginning to think you’re right,” Luke said gently. “But still, even with my lousy batting average, you can’t win.”
“There’s that male arrogance, rearing its ugly head again,” Tess said, standing on tiptoe to read the titles on the upper shelves, wanting to relax into Luke’s quiet, and not daring to. “But in a way you’re right, Mansfield. I can’t really win because I don’t have anything to lose. I’m looking for my past, remember? If Jane isn’t there, it’s no skin off my nose. I’ll eventually find someone who was there, and I’ll be able to conduct my own little ‘Up Close and Personal’ interview. So yap away, Mansfield, you can only give yourself a sore throat.”
His chuckle rumbled up and down her spine. Without looking, she knew that Luke had leaned his back against the fireplace mantel and was studying her from head to toe.
"Love your negligee," he said.
Tess forced herself to laugh as she grabbed Pamela and turned to him. The brandy snifter was resting on the mantel, his hands were free. He seemed more dangerous that way. "I think it's best to choose function over form," she said a little breathlessly. "In my line of work, it's often necessary to make a quick, and unscheduled, exit and that means no time to grab your clothes if you're sleeping without them...as I found out the hard way in my youth."
Luke's grin broadened, lightening his face, eroding the cynical mask. "Now that is something I dearly would have loved to see."
"Six French gendarmes had the dubious pleasure instead," Tess said, walking back across the room. It seemed to stretch on for mile before her. "Fortunatey, the shock of seeing a naked girl running along the rooftops kept them from firing their guns and I was able to make my getaway unscathed. Later, I heard about an American bank robber who pulled all of his jobs off in the nude because, I am told on the greatest authority, if you've only seen someone naked, you can't recognize them dressed."
"That wouldn't work where you're concerned," Luke murmured, his gaze forcing her to a stop directly in front of him. "It's a good thing you didn't meet those gendarmes the next day."
A blush flooded Tess's cheeks. "Why, Mr. Mansfield, I do believe you're actually paying me a compliment."
"It has been known to happen," Luke said, sounding a bit surprised himself. "I once made some very nice remarks about a racing skiff I was assigned at Harvard."
"Careful, Mansfield. Such unbridled enthusiasm will have you running amok."
"Running amok sounds wonderful just now," Luke said, his hand reaching out and brushing her cheek.
The world tilted crazily beneath Tess's feet as he lowered his head to hers. "Luke," she whispered, then had no idea what to say next.
As he kissed her, she wrapped her arms around his neck, standing on tiptoe to reach him. His arms slid around her, holding her tight.
It was good, so good. It was the closest thing to Heaven Tess had ever known.
And it ended in the next moment as sanity abruptly returned.
She jerked away, her book clutched to her chest, the back of one hand pressed against her mouth. "What the hell do you think you're doing?" she hissed.
His breath as ragged as her own, Luke stared down at her. Then anger blazed in his eyes. "The same might be asked of you, Elizabeth," he sneered. "Just how far were you willing to go to win me over to your side?"
Something in Tess, newly born, died in that moment. Oh God, he had been using her, testing her. And she had fallen for it. Her hand ached to strike the superiority from Luke's handsome face. Instead, she gripped her book even harder. "Don't think you can use your masculine charms to seduce me out of this house," she snapped. "I am neither that stupid, nor that desperate!"
She stalked from the room, slamming the library door shut behind her.

[Anarion]

It's good Mel! And don't worry to much about the language...if something is a bit too much I'll edit it.


I got through chapter 1 but can't take anymore in at present. Can't wait to read more!

[Melody]

awwww, thanx u guys, maybe i should wait a bit to post more, yes?

[Elli]

no

[Melody]

lol. okay then, heres sum more. u guys'll b caught up to botb soon, which will mean more waiting

Chapter 5

Still dripping from his shower, Luke wrapped a towel around his waist and headed for the bedside phone. He punched in a Boston number, gave his name, and was quickly put through to the head of Baldwin Security.
"Leroy? Luke Mansfield," he said. "Any word on Weinstein?"
"Luke," Leroy Baldwin said with an exasperated sigh, "you asked me that same question, four times yesterday, and five times the day before that. If you would just stay off the phone, I might get some work done."
"You mean you haven't found anything?"
Leroy sighed again. "Give me a break, man. When have I had the time? If you would just stop hassling me-"
"You mean you haven't found anything?"
Another, heavier sigh. "Weinstein's story continues to check out, Luke. Degrees, clinical practice, articles in reputable journals, everything. We've traced him back to high school and everything still checks out."
Luke's fist slammed into the wall. "But this guy is a fraud!"
"Hey, I trust your instincts on this. The man may well be a fraud. The problem is that he's a good fraud, and that takes a little more time to prove."
Luke began to pace, his towel slipping down his hips. "You are supposedly the best in the business, Leroy, but all I've gotten from you so far are excuses!"
"You know, no man is ever this hot and bothered unless there's a woman involved. Who is she?"
"I don't know!" Luke shouted.
"It's Tess Alcott, then. I'd watch y back with that one, Luke. According to my initial report from WEB, she's a tiger with barely sheathed claws. I'd hate to see what you'll look like if she ever goes after you."
"I can take care of myself."
"Yea, right. That's why you are at this very moment pacing around like a caged lion in heat."
Luke stopped in mid-pace and stared at his phone. "Have you been talking to Jane Cushman lately?"
"Heard that one before, have you?" Leroy said, chuckling. "This Jane sounds like my kind of woman."
"She would eat you for breakfast. What else did you WEB contact tell you about Tess?"
"Not a whole helluva lot. A very private person, your Miss Alcott. She doesn't fraternize with her co-workers. In fact, she has to be threatened with vivisection before she'll agree to take on partners for whatever job se's working on. She refuses to carry anything resembling a gun on the job, or off the job for that matter. She's brilliant at adapting to any situation that gets thrown at her, and she's a sucker for Joe Versus the Volcano"
"What?"
"A middling flick with Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan."
"I know what the movie is. I own the movie," Luke retorted. "How does WEB know she's a sucker for that movie?"
Whenever she watches it at home-and a very nice home it is, too-she turns on her answering machine that has the basic message of 'Hi, I'm watching Joe Versus the Volcano, so buzz off."
Luke laughed. “You should see it sometime, Leroy. It does a great job of contrasting survival with living your dreams.” Luke stopped a moment. Tess believed in survival at any cost. Did she even have a dream she wanted to live? Did he? “But we’re getting off track,” he said hastily. “Weinstein’s story should be the easier one to crack. Why haven’t you?”
“Look, Luke, I’ve never let you down in the past and I’m not going to start now. I’ve got my best people working on Weinstein. I’ll have you what you want by the end of the week, I promise. Now relax!”
Sighing, Luke hung up the phone. Relax? laugh and be merry? Dance with the giantess…umm…Maria Franklin. Put Tess Alcott out of his mind. Fat chance.
With an oath, Luke used the towel to dry himself and then began to get dressed.
All right, he was attracted to Tess Alcott. He was feeling alive and excited for the first time in years. Despite her tough exterior, there was a haunted look he had glimpsed occasionally in the darkest depths of her blue eyes that touched a chord in Luke. Tess, like him, seemed to know human deception and betrayal first hand. The human need to trust had been aborted in her by experience. He had never expected to find that he had anything in common with a thief, let a lone that that thief could reignite a flame within him he thought had died long ago.
With any other woman at any other time he would have been amazed that she had so easily scaled his walls, let alone leapt over the moat with the snapping crocodiles. But this was Tess Alcott and her sweet mouth here and now sabotaging his prime objective: protecting Jane…and himself.
Luke was not amazed. He was horrified. He was in so much trouble he didn’t know where to begin to dig himself out. How could he have been so stupid, so incredibly asinine as to kiss Tess last night? It wasn’t as if she had been dressed for it or had done anything, said anything, to provoke him.
Yet she had been so lovely. Her baggy pajamas had only emphasized her femininity. Toughness had warred with sadness in her blue eyes. She had given him a glimpse of the terrified and terrorized child she had been and the sad woman she was today. He had forgotten why she was in this house. He had forgotten in that moment that they were enemies.
That kiss had been, for Luke, a revelation of a self he had forgotten. Fortunately, anger had come to his rescue, returned reason to his brain, brought sanity back into his universe. How he wished Tess had slapped him, as she clearly had wanted to do, because then he could have shaken her until her teeth rattled and the truth came out about Elizabeth and Weinstein, and what the hell an acknowledged con artist and thief was doing at the Cushman estate, and what maddening game she was playing with his brain and his hormones.
“I am losing my mind,” Luke said aloud. He sat down hard on the side of his bed. He was feeling-feeling!-things that had tied his brain up in knots. Emotion superseding reason? It couldn’t be. But it was.
Luke swore bitterly and barged out of his room--right into Tess, his hands automatically going around her to steady them both. He jerked himself back from her as if he’d been burned. She swayed a moment before finding her balance.
“I want to talk to you,” he said brusquely.
“Really?” Tess said, her voice arctic. “How odd. I can’t think of a single thing we could say to each other that wouldn’t be insulting.” She tried to sidestep him, but he blocked her path.
“About last night—“
“Going to apologize?”
“Hardly,” Luke retorted.
“I didn’t think so. You didn’t say anything last night that you didn’t mean. It amazes me that Jane can enjoy the company of such a foul-minded, unscrupulous man.”
“You know, I’d be shocked to discover that you’ve ever been this bitchy with Jane.”
Anger flared in Tess’s blue eyes. “My conversations with Jane Cushman are none of your business!”
“On the contrary, they are my business, a business that I value.”
"Oh, yes," Tess scoffed. "The ever-loyal watchdog. Or should I say lapdog?" She succeeded in getting past Luke, but his hand caught her arm, spinning her back around.
"I'm going to find out what game you're playing," he growled, "and when I do, you're going to wish you'd never heard of the Cushman millions."
Blue eyes blazed up at him. "Such honor, such integrity! They must impress Jane very much. How impressed do you think she'd be if she knew how you tried to prostitute yourself last night in defense of her millions?"
Luke grasped Tess's arms, knowing he was hurting her and his fury not caring. "If we're going to discuss prostitution, you never answered my question last night. Just how far would you go to win me over to your side. You know, it might be fun to find out. My bed is just in there."
"You bastard!" Tess seethed, wrenching herself free and backing away from Luke. "I have never sold my body to any man for any price and I certainly wouldn't start with some two-bit shyster lawyer dangling from an old woman's purse strings!!"
Luke stared after her as she stormed down the stairs.
What had just happened? Had that been him manhandling a woman whose head barely reached his shoulders? Had he really said such vile things?
For the first time in his life, Luke felt dirty, ugly. If Tess was a fraud, she was playing a gentleman's game of it and he had trespassed badly. All she had done was make Jane laugh. All she had done was make him forget who he was, what he was, and where he was going.
Right now, he was going to apologize. There was no other option.
He searched the entire house and half the grounds before he found Tess methodically swimming laps in the outdoor pool, her body slicing neatly through the water, her strokes never varying, her turns crisp and clean.
She had strength and stamina and grace...important attributes for her line of work, Luke ruthlessly told himself, trying to ignore the rush of feelings.
She levered her self out of the water, dragged a towel over herself a few times, pulled the green caftan she'd been wearing back over her head, and started for the house. Luke walked around the pool, meeting her halfway.
"Ms. Alcott, I'd like to speak with you."
"Oh, not again," she said disgustedly.
He couldn't help but smile. It was one of her more annoying habits: no matter how mad he was, she could make him smile. "I'm afraid so," he said. "I owe you an apology."
Apparently puzzled, she peered up at the blue sky and then looked at him. "You've been out in the sun too long, Mansfield. Better get inside before our hallucinations get any worse."
She started to walk around him, but Luke had no intention of starting that old dance again. He grabbed her arm--gently.
"Hold it right there," he said. "I am bigger and stronger than you, so forget any ideas about walking away from this. I am going to apologize to you and you are going to listen!"
She shifted most of her weight onto one leg and sighed heavily. "All right, all right. Just get it over with."
This was not a helpful attitude, particularly when Luke was not precisely in the habit of apologizing to anyone. Remembering what he was apologizing for, her hurriedly released her arm.
"I'm sorry for using Brute Squad tactics on you this morning," he said, forcing himself to be sincere rather than relying on the safety of anger. "I should never have manhandled you like that. Nor should I have thought, let alone said, such horrible things to you. You're an acknowledged con and thief, but you would no more prostitute yourself to win your case than I would. So I apologize for every insulting thing I said to you...last night and this morning.
"Are you done yet?" Tess asked in a bored voice.
Every good intention flew out of his head. "You are the most infuriating woman I have ever met! Has your life of crime so corrupted you that you can't even accept an honest apology?"
"It's a free country, Mansfield. I can accept, or refuse, what I choose. I don't like your bullying tactics, I don't like your filthy mind, and I don't like you. Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go change."
"Change? That's a good one," Luke sneered. "What role are you going to play now? Abandoned waif? Pollyanna? Lucrezia Borgia?
"I am a thief, not a murderess, Mansfield!"
"And so proud of being a thief."
"Yes I am!" she said, blue eyes burning. "Why shouldn't I be proud of doing a difficult job and doing it well?"
"Do you even know what a moral or ethic is?" Luke demanded.
"Oh, give me a break," Tess said, arms akimbo as she glared at him. "This whole country is based on the fine art of highway robbery! First we stole the land from the Indians, then we started stealing it from each other. There isn't a family fortune in this country that wasn't built on piracy, bootlegging, or creative doctoring of accounts. Look at your own noble house. The Mansfield fortune really took off when your illustrious grandfather stole an entire railroad from hi stockholders!"
"Now that is a deliberate skewing of the facts--"
"/," Tess snapped. "He wanted to run his railway his way and when the stockholders balked, he hijacked the company. Your illustrious grandfather happily bought up company after company while their former owners were jumping out windows in 1929. Your great-uncle was a very successful bootlegger. Do you even know what half the Mansfield companies do?"
"My brother Joshua runs he family business--" Luke began.
"And you keep your pristine hands off all that ill-gotten lucre. How noble of you. Aren't you even now defending that beloved millionaire Jesse Wallingham in a very nasty extortion case?"
"I'm his attorney, certainly. But Wallingham is my father's friend and he is innocent and I resent--"
"And what's your fee for taking on this headline-making case? Two hundred dollars an hour? Three?"
"Four hundred," Luke muttered.
"And consoling his young trophy wife while poor Jesse cools his heels in jail, no doubt."
"I have met Gloria Wallingham exactly twice in my life!"
"What about that little affair of public record with Linda Collier?"
"How on earth do you know about Linda?"
"Hey, I read the gossip rags, just like any red-blooded grocery-shopping woman. So, was Linda as good as her press suggests?"
"Better!" Luke barked.
"Gee, that must have been fun. However did the very tall Maria Franklin win you away from the double-jointed Ms. Collier?"
Luke couldn't help himself. The image was so ludicrous that he burst out laughing. Just as suddenly, he stopped and stared down at Tess. "Hey, wait a minute!" he breathed. "Just who is interrogating whom here?"
Tess smiled sunnily up at him.
Luke, in spite of himself, was amused. "My hypothetical hat is off to you, Ms. Alcott. You are very good at what you do."
"Aren't I though?" Tess said serenely as she started for the house. He let her go this time, watching her walk away with a jaunty lilt in her step. She was so damned...irritating. And challenging. And lovely.
He drove to his office at Rockefeller Plaza, alternately insulting himself, remembering Tess’s kiss, and worrying about what was happening to his self-control, his good sense, and his moat with the ferocious crocodiles.
He immersed himself in work to chase away all thoughts of Tess Alcott. He spent two hours on the phone, developing a cauliflower ear that demanded a break. So he spent forty-five minutes discussing with Carol, his paralegal, the precedents he wanted her to find for the Wallingham case. He revamped his calendar with Harriet, his secretary, dictated five letters, three court motions, and a demand for payment. Then he began returning phone calls.
He was in the middle of trying to refer an old acquaintance to a renowned divorce lawyer when it finally hit him.
If Tess wouldn’t sell herself to win an ally—and she wouldn’t, he knew that now as surely as he knew his own name—why had she kissed him? Why had she practically melted into his arms?
“My God,” Luke breathed. She might very well be trying to con Jane’s millions, but her reaction to him, from her anger to her kiss, had been honest from the start.
“What did you say?”
Luke dazedly returned to the phone call. “Sorry, Jeff. Call Apodaca, that’s the best advice I can give you.”
“Yeah, you’re probably right,” Jeff said with a sigh. “I’ve heard she’s the best.”
A moment later, Luke hung up his phone and stared straight ahead. How could an acknowledged thief who knew how to plant a punishing blow to the midsection be heart honest in the midst of a cold-blooded con?
Suddenly a familiar voice from the reception area pierced his conciousness.
Startled, he looked at his calendar and then at his watch. With a groan, he dragged his hands down his face. Then he stood up, put on his coat, and walked to the door. She was the last person he wanted to see, but he had no choice. A Mansfield did not stand up his steady date.
“Luke, darling, there you are!” Maria Franklin said in her silky voice. “Ready for lunch?”
“Sure, sorry I’m late, Maria. I got caught up in some work.”
“You always get caught up in work, darling,” Maria said as she looped her arm through his.
Startled, he glanced at her. Good heavens, she was tall! Her chin topped his shoulder. It actually made him uncomfortable.
She made him uncomfortable. Her black hair was piled on her head in a seemingly careless fashion that must have taken a hairdresser hours to arrange. Her glossy red lipstick was perfectly applied to her slender lips, her makeup artfully hiding all signs of natural beauty. Her black eyes were coy as they looked up at him.
“I’ve just been shopping,” she said as they stopped at the elevators. “What do you think?”
She turned in a slow, slinky circle before him, the red Italian minidress molded to her body, the black stockings emphasizing her shapely legs.
“Gorgeous as always, Maria. That dress was made for you, what there is of it.”
Maria laughed with pleasure as the stepped onto the elevator. She tilted her face up and kissed him for a moment.
He stared at her. Nothing. He had felt nothing.
“I just wanted to make sure you had eyes only for me at lunch,” she said.
“Guaranteed,” Luke automatically replied. Had he ever felt anything when they had kissed the past two months?
They walked to their usual restaurant where his secretary had made their usual lunch reservations. They followed the maitre d’ to their usual, secluded table, people turning in their chairs to watch them.
“I just love being the center of attention,” Maria whispered in his ear as she leaned against him.
“I never knew you were an exhibitionist, Maria.”
“Only in public, darling,” Maria replied, laughing.
Sipping a glass of wine after ordering, Luke watched her as she chatted with him about the charity ball she had attended the night before, the scene thrown there by on of New York’s more prominent stockbrokers and ladies’ men, and the lunch she had had with Luke’s mother the week before.
As she talked and laughed and teased, she leaned invitingly across the table at him, displaying her chest to the best advantage, flashing her perfect teeth at him, her black eyes speaking promises she had no intention of keeping.
He sat watching the performance and wondered who was the greater fraud: Tess Alcott or Maria Franklin?
Maria’s musical laughter at one of her own jokes settled the matter. It really was no contest.
Whatever ulterior motives Tess might have, Luke realized he had met an honest woman, and it wasn’t the Giantess.
When had he become so shallow, or so removed, that a woman like Maria could actually attract his interest? He thought he had done a good job of protecting himself from further betrayals by burying himself in work and keeping every relationship on the surface, far from his heart. Instead, it seemed that the women over the last twenty years who had wanted him for his money and his name had succeeded in making him value himself as little as they had valued him.
He had betrayed himself. Maria Franklin was proof of that.
What mirror had been uncovered, what door opened, that he could see his life so clearly?
Shaken, Luke stared at his wine glass. Has Tess Alcott’s kiss done so much?
Forcing himself to refocus on lunch, he joined in Maria’s laughter, offering up his own amusing anecdotes as they ate, while he silently planned the best way to break up with the Giantess without ruffling too much fur.
He went back to work, but he found it difficult to concentrate. He kept remembering Tess’s kiss and how it felt.
This now painful reverie ended when his secretary buzzed him to say that Leroy Baldwin was on line one. Luke was pacing behind hi desk before he even said hello.
“What did you find, Leroy?”
“And a good afternoon to you, too, Mr. Mansfield,” Leroy retorted. “Your lady checks out one hundred percent, Luke.”
Luke stopped in his tracks. His grip tightened on the receiver. “What?”
“Miami police have records on your Tess as well of dozens of other kids used by the Carswells that I should be able to hand to you in a day or two. And Oxford has records of every one of the names you gave me. Oh, and here’s an interesting tidbit: Four years ago, Oxford received a check from one Tess Alcott covering complete tuition and board, with interest, for a full, three-year undergraduate education. Whatever game she’s playing, your Tess is telling the truth in the middle of it. I like this lady more and more. Mind you, I wouldn’t want to be one of her enemies because I wouldn’t think much of my longevity, but she might make a helluva friend.”
“Terrific,” Luke said, slumping into his chair.
“WEB’s files on her go back eight years and they confirm the career she’s described. Your lady had made off with some amazing pieces of art in her time. But get this, only from private collections. Not a museum gig in the bunch. The jewelry she’s stolen—all from private collections too—would make the Queen of England turn green with envy. My sources at Interpol agree with WEB: Tess Alcott is the best around.
“But is she still active?”
“No one’s clear on that. It’s possible that she just got so good that no one can trace her heists. Or else she’s telling the truth.”
“Wonderful. Anything new on Weinstein?”
Leroy sighed. “The guy continues to check out as good as gold. Has it ever occurred to you, Luke, that you might that you just might be dealing with the genuine articles?”
For a moment exultation stole his breath, and then a red light began flashing: Danger. Danger.
He was treading perilously close to a precipice and he had to do something, anything, to save himself from plunging over the edge. He had to stop being amused by the woman. He had to stop thinking about kissing her. He had to stop believing her childhood could really have been as horrible as she’d described.
“Luke? Are you okay?”
Her childhood. The Carswells. Of course! Why hadn’t he thought of them before? According to Weinstein’s story, the Carswells had had Tess for six years and they might be able to prove her identity as Elizabeth Cushman. Or disprove it.
Oh, they had to disprove it! They had to rescue him from every feeling that was trying to eradicate the sober, rational road he had relied on for so long.
Luke took a deep breath. Self-preservation was his purpose and he called on it now.
“They are not the genuine articles,” he grimly informed Leroy, “and I intend to prove it. Find the Carswells.”
“Luke,” Leroy said wearily, “Weinstein’s the path to follow.”
“So are the Carswells. Find them.”
“I already have.”
“What?”
“Luke, have you forgotten how much you’re paying me on this job? I am being very thorough on your behalf. I like the prompt way you pay your bills.”
“Sorry, Leroy,” Luke said, leaning back in his chair. “I must be suffering from foot-in-mouth disease.”
“Apology accepted. Let me tell you about the Carswells. Both of them ended up in federal penitentiaries in Florida three years ago. Old Man Carswell got his intestines permanently sliced up in a knife fight last year. He is very dead, but Old Lady Carswell is alive and kicking. She is a pit in the fruit salad of life. You want to talk to her?”
“Oh, yes,” Luke said softly. “I’ve always wanted to see what a child buyer looks like.”

[Elli]

...interesting...

[Melody]

Chapter 6

The slam of the door behind Luke was hollow, jarring. He stood in the small, gray interview room and stared at the woman he had flown fourteen hundred miles to see. Barbara Carswell, according to her records, was fifty-two. She looked sixty-five as she sat at the gray metal table. Her once-brown hair was white and unkempt, her skin leathery, her face deeply wrinkled, her body thin and shrunken in on herself. But her brown eyes remained large and horribly alive, cold and calculating as they watched him walk into the room.
“Mrs. Carswell,” Luke said, sitting down and being careful not to shake the woman’s hand. The prison guards, watching them on a video monitor, would not have been happy with such an action. “Thank you for agreeing to see me this morning.”
The woman slouched back in her chair. “It helps me pass the time, and I like French cigs. Thanks for the carton,” she said, lighting one.
“You’re welcome. I’ve come to talk about Tess Alcott.”
“Who?”
Luke handed her two photos of Tess. One had been taken by Leroy’s surveillance team, one had been taken by the Miami police when Tess was ten and had been apprehended for shoplifting on the Carswells’ orders. “Her name is Tess, the last name changes a lot. She used to work for you as a child.”
“Oh, her,” Barbara Carswell said with a sniff. “Who could forget her? She was a real pain in the /.”
"Why?"
“/ kid had asthma. Nearly croaked on us a couple of times. I kept telling Ernie she was more trouble than she was worth, but he always said a blond girl brings in more dough, and he was right, I guess. She did good work when she worked.”
“How long was she with you?”
Barbara Carswell stared up at the ceiling, a bit bored. “Five or six years. I don’t remember exactly. We had a lot of kids coming and going.”
“Do you remember how you got her?”
“Bought her, just like the others.”
“Who did you buy her from?”
“I don’t remember.”
“Then the interview is over.” Luke rose and started for the door.
“Hey!” Mrs. Carswell shouted. “Where do you think you’re going?”
Luke turned back to her, his eyes as cold as hers. “I came for information. You don’t seem to have it, so I’m leaving.”
“Honey, that’s not how the game’s played. I say I don’t remember, you offer me something to refresh my memory, and I give you the answers you want.”
“I have no intention of giving you anything, Mrs. Carswell, beyond a carton of cigarettes. You can either cooperate with me, which will go on your record and aid in your next parole hearing, or you can return to your cell and kick yourself for missing out on this opportunity.”
Barbara Carswell swore, impugned Luke’s family tree, then sighed and told him to sit back down, her memory had suddenly returned.
Luke sat in the chair opposite her again. “Well? Who did you buy her from?”
“Hal Marsh.” Mrs. Carswell said with another sigh. “At least, that’s how we knew him. Hal went by lots of different names, which was typical in our business.”
“Was he your usual supplier?”
“No, just the opposite. He used to buy kids off us when they got to be too old. You know, twelve and thirteen and the like. We’d sell the kids to him or to a few white slavers, that sort of thing.
“Can you describe him?” Luke had never felt so cold, or so murderously angry, in his life. Tess had actually lived with this monster?
“Oh, sure, once you’ve seen Hal, you never forget him. He was tall, skinny, wiry-like, with a big head of red hair, long red sideburns, a mustache he liked to keep waxed, and a laugh like a moose.”
“How did he get Tess?”
“It wasn’t any of our business,” Mrs. Carswell said, lighting another cigarette. “But we asked anyway. See, snatching kids wasn’t his line of work. He said someone had palmed the kid off on him and he had seen her potential and brought her to us. We paid him plenty for her, too. Like I said, blond girls bring in the money once they start working well.”
“Do you remember when you bought her?”
“Aw, c’mon!”
“At least try, Mrs. Carswell. Ten years ago? Twenty? Fifteen?”
“Ah, hell,” Mrs. Carswell muttered, disgruntled. “Ernie had his Harley then, so it was probably when I was in my redhead phase. Always liked to change the color of my hair, you know? So that was somewhere like nineteen or twenty years ago.”
“Do you remember what season?”
“Late summer, early fall, something like that.”
“How old was Tess when she came to you?”
Mrs. Carswell concentrated on blowing an elliptical smoke ring. “I don’t know. Five, maybe four. She seemed small for whatever age she was, annd she could already read a bit. Maybe five.”
“And how long did you keep her?”
“Like I said, five or six years.”
“Who did you sell her to?”
“Some black prostitute calling herself Primrose or Tulip or some such thing. Violet! That was her name.”
Luke fought hard to hide his surprise. “Did she come looking for Tess?”
“She came looking for a blond girl of around eleven or twelve and we had three of them at the time, including Tess. We made her pay through the nose for her, too. By then, the girl was bringing in a lot of money for us, pickpocket, shoplifting, that sort of thing.”
“Did Violet say why she wanted Tess?”
“Said she had a client with real particular tastes,” Barbara Carswell said with a broad wink.
The nausea nearly overcame Luke then. It took a moment for him to regain his self-control. “Did you ever see Tess or Violet again?”
“Nah. From what I heard, Violet skipped town right after that.”
“You had a lot of connections with the underworld, though,” Luke persisted, almost frantic to discover what new nightmare Tess had been thrown into. “Maybe you heard what happened to Tess after she left you. She went by a lot of names: Julia Preen, Suzanne Wentworth, Jeanne-Marie St. Juste.”
“What? screeched Barbara Carswell, lurching up from her chair, her hands clenched in fists, her face splotched with fury. “St. Juste? Why that two-timing, murderous bitch! She’s the one that set Ernie and me up! She tipped the Feds and they ran a sting operation that got us twenty years. She got my Ernie killed!”
While Barbara Carswell paced the room cursing Tess with all the venom in her soul, Luke leaned back in his chair, nausea replaced with warm appreciation for Tess’s seemingly unlimited abilities. She was very good at what she did.
Her nonchalant recitation of her life with the Carswells and her careless attitude about their past, present, and future had been a sham. She had repaid the Carswells for the horror of her childhood and she had done it legally. More, she had spared dozens of children the hell she had endured. She had got her revenge, just as he had with Margo.
/! Why, in his search for evidence to put Tess behind bars, did he keep uncovering ways that they were alike?
“Mrs. Carswell,” Luke said, and had to call her once again. “Mrs. Carswell, one last question. Do you know where I might find Hal Marsh or Violet?”
“No! And I hope they’re frying in hell!”
Mrs. Carswell continued to curse as Luke rose, thanked her for her time, and left the room.
He flew back to New York, unable to do any of the client work he had brought with him, unable to do anything but think about Tess and wonder and try to puzzle it all out. Yes, he had some answers now, but he also had a lot more questions. Tess had been perfectly forthright in the presentation of her past, but she had never mentioned Violet. He could understand her reluctance, it would have been a horrific period in her life. But still, Violet bothered him for a lot of reasons, primarily because he knew of no way that a prostitute could train Tess to become the kind of thief even WEB couldn’t catch. The Carswells didn’t go for the kind of heists Leroy had said Tess had pulled off after she had left Miami. Violet undoubtedly had kept to her trade. So who had trained Tess?
He’d have to get Leroy to start looking for Hal Marsh and Violet. if they were still alive, they had a lot of explaining to do.
He pulled out his credit card and lifted the phone from the armrest beside him, dialing the number automatically. He gave Leroy the facts in less than thirty seconds, hung up, and called New York. It took him a minute to get through a receptionist, and secretary, to finally reach his client.
“I’m heading back,” he announced.
“So what did Barbara Carswell have to say?” Jane demanded.
“A lot, not all of it complimentary. It basically boils down to this: Barbara Carswell positively identified Tess. Her age and date of purchase fit well with the kidnapping timeline. Carswell said she bought Tess from someone named Hal Marsh. I’ve got Leroy Baldwin trying to track him down. Maybe this Marsh character was one of the kidnappers, or at least he knew the kidnappers.”
“To finally capture the people who took my granddaughter…” Jane murmured. “This sounds very promising, Luke.”
“It depends whose side you’re on,” he muttered. “And there is something that bothers me. Barbara Carswell said that Tess had asthma as a child. Elizabeth didn’t have asthma, did she?”
Jane was silent a moment. “No, she did not.”
“You realize there are three possible explanations?”
“Either the asthma was psychotically induced by the kidnapping, or she developed asthma like so many children do, or she’s not Elizabeth. But I believe more and more that she really is Elizabeth, Luke.”
“I wish you’d tell me why,” Luke said plaintively.
“Later, dear, not just now.”
“Well, you know my analytical, overly suspicious mind, Mrs. Cushman. I will want proof in triplicate before I recognize the pretender to the throne.”
“So will I. Thank you, Luke. For everything.”
Luke slowly smiled. “No, Mrs. Cushman, thank you. I haven’t been on a roller coater since I was ten.”
He hung up the phone and stared without seeing through the tiny window by his seat. He had wanted to interview Barbara Carswell to save himself from himself and instead…The roller coaster was taking him up, up, up to the top of the highest hill. Below him lay every belief and illusion and expectation he had clung to for so many years. All would be shattered as he rocketed downhill. His heart was hammering so hard in his throat, it was an ache that wouldn’t fade away.
* * *
Luke wasn’t sure if he was ready to see Tess again, and when she walked into the living room that evening dressed in a long-sleeved gown of silver and green, an emerald necklace clasped at her throat and matching earrings dangling from her ears, he knew he wasn’t ready…Because all he wanted to do was kiss her again. Because he felt plunged into emotional depths. Because he was remembering Tess as an abused child, terrified, ill, hungry, alone. The contrast with the woman before him was stunning. How many people had the kind of strength and courage it took to transform themselves and their lives as she had done?
Generosity toward Tess began welling in him and Luke couldn’t have been more amazed. He had never cut anyone any slack. Never. But looking at Tess now…
His old walls were useless against her. He was thrown back on his last defense: he would have to use a blunt instrument to fend her off.
“Nice emeralds,” he said as she sat down next to Jane on the couch. “Belong to anyone we know?”
“Jewel thieves do not wear their ill-gotten goods, Mr. Mansfield,” Tess retorted, her smile glittering, her blue eyes hard with anger. “It’s an easy way to get yourself arrested. Unless,” she said brightly, “you have them recut and reset.”
Luke grimly held back a smile. Anger was supposed to protect him, not charm him. “And to whom did those emeralds used to belong?”
“Tiffany’s. I bought them last week. Want to see the receipt?”
“That is enough, dear,” Jane said firmly, patting Tess’s knee. “And as for you, Luke, your bad manners will ruin my digestion. Amend them!”
“Yes ma’am,” Luke said.
Hodgkins entered to announce dinner. Luke gallantly offered Jane his arm, which she accepted, and they began to walk toward the dining room.
“The watchdog never far form her side,” Tess murdered from behind them.
“I beg your pardon?” Luke asked.
“Woof!”
It was a good thing his back was to her so she couldn’t see his smile. “There are some, Ms. Alcott, who feel a responsibility to others.”
“Jane can take care of herself. Besides, she’s perfectly safe.”
“No one,” Luke said bitterly, “is safe in your company.”
“Enough, you two,” Jane said. “I want dinner, not your bickering.”
Luke meekly held Jane’s chair out for her, then sat down opposite Tess. Dinner was served with all of Hodgkins’s usual pomp and ceremony.
“I’ll have you know, Luke,” Jane said after a sip of soup, “that Tess has insisted that I pull the Vermeer from next week’s auction.”
“Our art expert objects to selling one of the few Vermeers still available on the open market?” Luke inquired. “A painting that will bring the best price at the auction?”
“If it was real, I’d say go for it,” Tess retorted. “But it’s a fake and it stands a good chance of causing Cushman’s a beastly amount of trouble.”
“It is not a fake!” Jane insisted.
“Yes, it is.”
“Ms. Alcott,” Luke said with great condescension, “The Housekeeper has been authenticated by Ernest Hall himself.”
Tess shrugged as she continued to eat her soup. “It’s been authenticated before.”
“Ergo,” Luke said with some heat, “it is not a fake!”
“Oh, but it is.”
“How do you know?!” Luke exploded.
“Because I know who owns the original, illegally of course, but possession is nine-tenths of the law. I’ve even seen it. It’s in superb condition.”
Jane stared at her. “How do you know this illegal owner doesn’t have the fake?”
Tess grinned and began to butter a roll. “Because the family bought it, well, stole it, really, before the fake was ever produced. The Napoleonic Wars saw a lot of shifting around of artwork, you know. The Vermeer got shifted into this family’s private collection around 1808 and has been held secretly ever since. The heirs to its rightful owners would, undoubtedly, want it back.”
“Undoubtedly,” Jane said. “How do you know so much about this?”
“Because I know all about Anna Shively,” Tess sanguinely replied.
Jane started. “Are you telling me that the Vermeer up for auction is—“
“A Shively,” Tess pronounced.
“Who?” Luke demanded.
“Probably the best art forger the world has ever known,” Tess replied. “Half of her work is hanging in museums the world over and called Delacroix, Caravaggio, Rubens. The other half is hanging in private collections and called Goya, Rembrandt, Renoir. Shively was an absolute genius. She used the same canvas, the same paint, the same brushes that the masters used. She knew how to age a forgery to perfection. There are only a handful of experts in the world that can tell a Shively from an original.
“She was active in the mid- to late nineteenth century,” Jane said, somewhat grimly after a fortifying glass of wine. “It was, in a way, her form of protest against the male artist autocracy that kept her out of the Royal Society of Artists and every exhibition gallery in Europe because she was a woman artist. Her little bit of revenge has been haunting art collectors ever since.”
“A woman after my own heart,” Tess said with relish. “Better pull the Vermeer until you’ve had Antoine Giracult take a look at it, Jane.”
Jane sighed heavily. “You’re right, of course. A Shively. That some one would try to sell a Shively through my auction house.”
“Oh, it’s not the first time,” Tess said.
Jane looked at her with the utmost horror.
Tess burst out laughing.
Luke leaned back in his chair, smiling at the ensuing argument which ignored his presence entirely. While everyone else in the art world treated Jane Cushman with slobbering deference and respect, here was Tess Alcott not merely contradicting her, but laughing at her. If nothing else, from the way Jane’s eyes sparkled and color stained her cheeks as she leaned toward Tess to drive home a point, the jewel thief was a wonderful tonic for the matriarch. Luke hadn’t seen Jane so alive and happy in years.
And when was the last time he had felt alive and eager to see what the next moment held? How long had he lived without anticipation? Curiosity? Joy?
It began to fell like a lifetime. He had made his world a barren cave that habitual fourteen-hour workdays had not filled. It would have been nice to blame this on the fight he had had to wage all of his life against the assumptions others had made about him because of his looks, his family, his money. It would have been nice to blame this on his parents’ insistence that he fulfill his stifling duty to the family. He might at least blame this on all the women who had burned and betrayed him in the past.
But this hollow existence was his own damned fault and Luke knew it. He had been a coward, not a hero, as the various dragons of life had advanced upon him. He had barricaded himself in his work and the arms of soulless women who had inspire nothing in him except boredom. He had deliberately chosen the straightest, easiest path, avoiding every bump, every turning. Avoiding life. He had turned his back on every dream, every joy, in the name of safety. He had existed, not lived.
Did he know what it felt like to be alive?
“Oh, give me a break!” Tess retorted.
Tess and Jane’s argument had strayed into wildly differing opinions about artists including, Luke vaguely recalled, Jan Van Eyck, Piazzetta, Boucher, and Salvador Dali.
He stared at Tess as she and Jane battled back and forth and it came to him that he did know what it felt like to be alive. He had known it in the moment Tess had first walked into his life. Whatever her motives, he owed Tess Alcott a lot and it was past time to start treating her accordingly.

once again, sry bout the language, barbara carswell is NOT a nice person...feel free to edit, anar.

[Elli]

hmm...

[Darantha]

*chants*


more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more,



ok... you get the pic...

anyway, i totally love it, keels

[Elaine]

omgsh!!!! that was totally AMAZING! awesome job!!!!!! DEFINITELY write more....that would be an amazing movie too (done right that is)