A Bird Without Wings Page 8

  Shifting the car into gear, he pulled away from the curb, heading for home and a cold shower. He was glad, dammit, bloody ecstatic it had gone this way. He did not need the complication of a nice girl in his life. Not at all the Admirable Companion sort.

  Except . . . she kind of was.

  He was nearly home before he noticed the yellow parking ticket fluttering under the wiper blade. Maybe he should believe in karma—the bad sort, at any rate.

  Chapter Five

  The door with peeling paint opened, and she stepped out onto the veranda, pulling the door closed and tucking her sunglasses on her nose before moving lightly down the steps and along the crumbling walk towards him.

  “Hi, Lucius,” she greeted cheerfully. “Sorry to make you wait.”

  He did not respond; did not move from where he leaned against the fender of the black Porsche.

  Holy crap. She looked good. So much for the half hope that she would revert to frumpiness.

  At last, he nodded briefly and opened the door for her.

  “Thank you,” she murmured, settling in the seat, smoothing her short pink skirt and straightening the hem of her sleeveless white blouse, all cool and summery, and looking damned fine in the top-down sports car. Curls fell haphazardly, half in and half out of the enormous silver clip that struggled to hold them.

  She switched her sunglasses for reading glasses as he climbed in beside her and, fishing the notebook and a pen from her bag, she launched immediately into a review of the HRF, recapping what she had learned thus far.

  His annoyance at her translated into a mostly silent, almost morose air, answering questions she tossed at him on occasion in clipped tones.

  With her looking like this . . . well, it was not at all the serious scholar he had wanted to present to the family. How the devil would they take her seriously now? All soft and pink and . . . well, at least she didn’t smell like sex anymore. Just that delicate powdery scent . . .

  Clenching his teeth, he made a concerted effort to listen to her, and was surprised, after a while, to find her interesting.

  “I’ve done some groundwork on Ransome genealogy, just to get a feel for the history. I’ve reviewed Neville’s will, and agree with you that it was very thorough in terms of holdings. The wording of the will is odd, though. The last section, anyway.”

  “How so?” He glanced over at her, noting how the sun gleamed on her hair.

  “It is not typical of wills from the time. I’ve read several for comparison. And it’s vastly different from his earlier will, wording-wise.”

  Her scent wafted toward him. “There was an earlier will?”

  “It was in the file.”

  “I’m not that familiar with the contents. I just grabbed everything my parents had.”

  “The first will, from 1863, allows provision for his wife and any issue from the marriage, which did not come until later. Some stipends for servants and that sort of thing. That’s pretty much it. His lands were not entailed in any way—”

  “Indeed?” He could not help smiling a little as she started grooving to her subject. He liked the level, cool tones; so, though he knew the answer, he asked, “What does that mean?”

  “It’s where inheritance is limited to a specific line of successors. For instance, in primogeniture, the passing of property, title, et cetera, would go to the eldest son, or a collateral male relation.” She rambled this off without referring to notes; offhandedly, as if it were something everyone would know. “At any rate, with Neville, everything was to go to his wife, Elizabeth, née Venable. The second will goes into much detail. It reads like an inventory of every possession he had, though the art tends to be described in lumps according to the rooms they occupied rather than by artist or subject—except for . . . I’ll get to that. But the will is all very odd, for it stipulated the division of property between their son, Carlyle, and daughter, Lily, with a not-terribly-generous annuity for Elizabeth should she survive him. He practically wrote her out of the will.”

  “He married money, so presumably the wife didn’t need it—”

  “The wife?” she chuckled. “That’s your great-great-great-grandmother.”

  “Familial emotions are not defined by mere blood ties. You have to know the person to have sentiment about them,” he replied coolly. “As to the detailing of the will, his property was greater by then. He was more experienced, and decided to itemise.”

  “Sure, sure.” At her dismissive tone, his mouth tightened. “But when it comes to the artwork, the bird paintings for instance . . .” Her voice drifted off. “The Pike. Those ravens in your office. There aren’t any more like that, are there?”

  “No, none as bad as that. But there are several paintings of birds in the family. I don’t know how many. None of them valuable, as far as I’m aware, and all very weird. You were saying?”

  “According to the will, there are thirteen paintings of birds.” She nodded vigorously. “They, and other things, indicate that Neville was a bit of an ornithologist. A Victorian-era hobbyist, too. A ferroequinologist. ”

  “A what?”

  “Rail fan,” she explained. “Railroads. Iron horse?”

  “Anyway . . . the will?” he prompted dryly.

  “When it came to these bird paintings, the language changed—almost to poetry, it was so rich.”

  “And what do you think that means, Callie?”

  She smoothed a hand over the notebook page, her mouth lifting in a tiny smile. “Obviously Neville was leaving a coded message about his hidden fortune.”

  It took him a full five seconds to realise she was joking. “Okay,” he chuckled. “How do you really explain it?”

  “Old age. Sentimentality. That the section was something he crafted while the rest was done by his lawyer. Solicitor,” she corrected. “Or is it barrister?” She made a note, as if it were in some way important to discover the intricacies of the British bar.

  “Good, good,” he murmured. Convincing the Ransomes would be something else altogether, but he sensed she was manufacturing a story for them, and he approved of her approach. It was impressive the amount she had already learned. Hell, she knew far more about the family history than he did—he would bet she had whole sections of the wills memorised.

  “I need you to approve two expenses.”

  “What?”

  “For research purposes, I need to subscribe to a genealogical site to collect documentation—Ancestry has loads of documents. I could do pay-per-use sessions, but it may work out to be less expensive if we get a year’s subscription. I’m not certain how long this will take, after all.”

  He grunted. “Do it. Whatever you think is best. I forgot to tell you, I need this to stretch out for a couple of months.”

  “Why?”

  “The Ransome Group companies are privately owned. Instead of a board, the family votes by family committee, each member holding shares and voting proxies for the minors for whom they’re responsible. It’s a real mess. Gramps runs Falcontor with minimal interference, but the family makes decisions at the smaller companies like little stoned dictators, without taking any responsibility for those decisions. If they get involved in the HRF, they’ll be too busy to interfere with me, and I’ll be able to turn things around and get the hell out.”

  “Why aren’t all of the companies under one banner? Surely it would be more efficient. And cheaper. Falcontor Tower could house all of the subs.”

  “That’s a very good question, doll. Maybe you could spring that on them today.”

  “No need to be sarcastic. I gather you’ve made this recommendation?”

  “Before the crash happened, I told them to pull back and consolidate. Instead, they spread out, like warm syrup on a waffle. Putting them in real straits now—they’re going broke.”

  “I thought it was just because of James embezzling.”

  He sent her a hard look. “What makes you think he embezzled?”

  “Office gossip.”

  He
did not confirm or deny. “What other expense did you want approved?”

  “A digital camera. Some of the initial theories of the HRF consisted of secret stocks, concealed land holdings, and even,” she laughed aloud, “smuggler’s treasure and Spanish bullion. But the favourite theory seems to come from the ’fifties, when someone decided that the HRF was hidden in plain sight, camouflaged in the items that Neville listed so thoroughly in his will. You know, Boyer searching for Bergman’s aunt’s jewels.”

  He frowned. “Gaslight?”

  “Exactly. Anyway, to document this thoroughly—and I know it’s an expensive outlay—I want to get current photos of the items, those that are still in the family’s possession at least, so I can walk through each one in the report, discuss the provenance of the pieces, et cetera.”

  Checking his blind spot, Lucius signalled and scooted across three lanes to take the next exit off the freeway. Moments later, he drove into the parking lot of a cookie-cutter open mall, expertly swinging the car into a tight spot in front of a massive electronics store.

  “Come on,” he said abruptly.

  It took more minutes that he thought appropriate to buy the required camera. The young male clerk eagerly answered her questions about price relative to mega pixels and ease-of-use, leaning over the counter towards her, ‘accidentally’ touching her hand and arm too often.

  Her wide-eyed earnestness and occasional blushes were not deliberate flirtation, Lucius knew, but knowing didn’t help. Unable to take anymore, he selected a smart, expensive, and high-tech camera from the choices, paid for it over Callie’s protests that a cheaper one would do just fine, and hustled her out of the store.

  ***

  The next twenty minutes passed in silence as Callie buried herself in the camera manual and Lucius grimly concentrated on driving in the heavy day-tripper traffic. The ambient temperature and humidity fell as they travelled out of the city; the sun shone in a bright-blue sky, and green fields spread out around them as, at last, they left the highway.

  “Where do your parents live?” she asked, donning sunglasses as she surveyed the countryside.

  “Near Nobleton.”

  “Is that where you grew up?”

  He snorted derisively. “No. This is the new place.”

  No elaboration was forthcoming, so she let the subject drop. The information she needed didn’t include the childhood details of Lucius Ransome.

  How she had so looked forward to this when she proposed meeting the family! It was true that the entire success of this venture lay in hearing the family out and systematically eliminating their theories. But in back of that had been the instantaneous realisation that she would have access to the people who knew the object of her infatuation best.

  A shameful blush crept up her neck. Shame over the energy and time wasted over the last months, taking it too far into a fantasy future she didn’t even want.

  Accusing her of—well, she wasn’t sure she was clear on the accusation. Waking up this morning, she had tried to recall exactly what had set her off, but it was foggy. Maybe she had been tipsier than she thought. Essentially, though, not taking into consideration her crush, he had accused her of trying to use him, leading him on with her alleged virginity.

  The man was vile. Self-centred, cynical, and—and—mean.

  But boy, did he know sex. She felt cheated to have lost that moment; she’d never find out what sex should be with the right man. Not the right man in the sense of ‘Mr. Right,’ she hastily amended, but in the sense of a man who had been around the block often enough he didn’t get lost.

  Nope, he knew where everything was and exactly what to do with it.

  Oh, brother. She squirmed in her seat.

  The great thing was that she could be herself with him now. That meant that she would still be a blushing mess (her flush-response must be genetic), but her nerves were all levelled out. With her lustful crush dead and buried, she’d be exactly the same with him as she was with everyone else: Little Miss Know-It-All, who most people took little note of.

  Her gaze drifted from his muscular legs clad in well-worn denim to the shadow of his bronzed torso beneath the thin untucked and rumpled white linen shirt. One powerful hand controlled the wheel, the opposite forearm flexing as he shifted gears. Flicking a glance at his face, she admired the aesthetics of his impeccably crafted profile, with its proud arching forehead, slightly aquiline nose, and strong, square jaw.

  Too bad he was such an amoral, elitist dog.

  He sighed heavily into the silence between them.

  “Callie.” He swore, and started again. “Cal, I’m sorry about last night. I thought it best not to take it any further. It was best for you.”

  “I should have better appreciated the moment, then,” she retorted, smiling. “It isn’t often a woman gets accused of being a virginal whore.”

  She was thrown forward in her seatbelt as Lucius slammed on the brakes, jerking the wheel to halt the car on the shoulder. Shifting into neutral, he whirled on her.

  “What the hell are you talking about? I never called you any such thing!” he gritted.

  She gazed at him coolly, her mouth twitching. “Innocent aura? Allowing men to paw me for free drinks? Burden of innocence? Does that ring any bells, Lucius?”

  His knuckles whitened on the steering wheel. “Dammit! I—” He stopped, swallowed hard, and continued more calmly. “I shouldn’t have said any of those things. But I did not mean them how you took them. When I saw you at the bar, I wanted to scare you a little, because the men were thirty seconds from ripping each other to shreds over you, and you had no awareness of it—which, if I may point out, made it worse.” He sighed. “You are obviously inexperienced, Cal.”

  Obviously? Geez . . .

  “I’m not a virgin,” she said calmly, though the blush those words produced did not contribute any authority to the statement.

  “It hardly matters, does it, when you’re oozing innocence enough for a dozen virgins?”

  “What are you talking about? You go on and on about my innocence, my innocent aura! I have no idea what you mean!”

  “I know. I can’t explain it to you. It’s—it’s a guy thing, trust me. Not many women over the age of eighteen have that air, and you have it in spades.” He leaned toward her, smiling a little. “But don’t kid me, Callie. You aren’t that experienced, are you? How many boyfriends? One? Two, maybe? Young punks, right, who didn’t know what they were doing?”

  A fresh and deeper and truly embarrassed blush flooded her face and she turned her head to gaze across the fields. “You still called me a slut.”

  “I didn’t! But you called me one,” he bit out savagely. “A man like you must have a condom,” he mimicked. “A man like you only does one-nighters.”

  “That wasn’t what I meant,” she informed him quietly. “And not exactly what I said.”

  “Well, then we both seem to be lacking skills in expression and interpretation,” he snapped. Shifting into gear again, he edged the Porsche forward, waiting for a break in traffic, still heavy on the county road. “Let’s just drop it, shall we? Pretend it never happened.”

  “Pretend what never happened?” she retorted with false sweetness.

  Putting the car in neutral again, he switched off the engine. He twisted in his seat and studied her for long moments.

  At last: “Who are you, doll? Where did all of this,” he waved a hand at her, “come from? Forty-eight hours ago you were a dowdy, frizzy, stuttering mess. And now you’re . . . not.”

  It had shocked him—she could see it now in retrospect, that first glimpse of the real Callie Dahl experiencing the death throes of her infatuation—and she imagined the world at large held very few shocks for such a man. That scene in his office . . . well, how could she explain that that persona was the creation of the infatuation? Best to be blunt; truth was almost always the most practical approach, especially when there was no risk of hurt feelings.

  “The frizzy and
dowdy was because I had let little things in my life slide. The stuttering was because I was nervous around you.”

  “Why aren’t you now?”

  “I don’t have a crush on you anymore,” she retorted.

  Silence.

  She wished he would remove his sunglasses so she could better tell what he was thinking.

  “Anymore?” he queried harshly. “When did you?”

  “Come on, stop pretending you didn’t know. Why else would I be so nervous around you?”

  He shook his head slowly. “I didn’t know. We’d never met—”

  “Of course, you don’t remember me,” she retorted. “I’d seen you, many times. I went a little crazy.” She shrugged. “Don’t pretend you didn’t know. And don’t worry. I’m over it.”

  “Since when?”

  “Last night.”

  A chill air seemed to emanate from him. “When last night?”

  “Around the time you accused me of—”

  “Don’t you dare repeat that alleged accusation.”

  She chewed her thumbnail. He was very angry, that quiet kind of anger that loomed and threatened. His normal grumpiness that made others tremble didn’t scare her one bit. This did.

  “Very bad timing,” he muttered finally, the anger fading into normal irritable tones.

  “How do you mean?”

  “Never mind. Can we just start fresh?”

  Her lips parted in surprise. “As? Boss and employee? Friends? Lovers?” she added mockingly.

  “You do like to cover all the bases, don’t you?”

  “Safety first,” she said dryly.

  His laugh was light and honest. “I’m on board with that.”

  “Speaking of which, about assuming you had a condom—I just meant that you, with your experience, would be prepared for responsible sex, even if it were on the fly. An intelligent man is prepared for spontaneity.”

  A sexy little grin met that oxymoronic suggestion, making her heart go pitter-pat.

  “Aren’t you a witty one,” he observed. “Okay,” he continued, businesslike. “Let’s just be two people who are obliged to spend time together and see what happens.” And then to her astonishment, he added, “I like you, doll. You’re different. In almost every way.”