The Baron Read online

  Again the night air filled with a rippling of pleased chatter.

  “So now to business.” The detective’s brows drew together, and he lit a long-stemmed pipe dramatically, then continued. “We have here the deceased—Lucius A. March, wealthy entrepreneur, uncle of Janice and Melody March.” He nodded to the blonde in the black dress and her “sister,” a nervous woman who was trying to give up smoking and spent every waking minute knitting a long, narrow band, “And on his wife’s side, uncle to the Baron von Bluster.” He stretched out the last name dramatically, until all the guests were laughing. Then, one by one, the actor-detective went through the list of characters, giving each one a motive of some sort.

  Halley tried hard to concentrate, but Nick’s warm fingers, now gripping her waist, were building a whole other kind of anticipation within her. She felt as if fireflies danced beneath her breasts and tickling butterfly wings fluttered in her stomach. She bit down hard on her lower lip and shut her eyes tightly.

  “Don’t worry, my Tessa. If you did it, I’ll bail you out.” Nick’s lips were so close to her ear, she could feel the movement of his words; it was a tantalizing sensation.

  Her eyes shot open. “And you, what if you did it?”

  “Then you bail me out. We can’t lose each other again, my love.” His deep, husky voice filled her fully with the fantasy. “Ah, Tessa—Monsieur Detective is about to point out the murderer.” Nick dropped a kiss on the top of her head and directed her attention back to the detective.

  Halley clenched her fists and fought the rushing feelings of emotion. It’s not real, she shouted silently, and forced herself to concentrate on the small man entertaining the guests with a very good imitation of Hercule Poirot.

  “Mr. March, our victim, had an extensive art collection, as we all know.” He nodded solemnly. “You knew that, did you not, Mr. Boyles?” His gaze settled on the butler with whom Halley had had lunch and who now was standing next to her.

  ‘Of course I did,” the man answered. “I worked for the old man. I would have had to be blind not to.”

  The detective laughed merrily. “Blind. You weren’t blind. Not only that, but you recognized great art when you saw it.”

  “Only because I always heard the Baron talking about how valuable it was! He coveted the collection!”

  Nick’s brows lifted in surprise. Halley bit back a giggle and looked up at him solemnly. “Baron, you—”

  “But I have an alibi!” Nick smiled smugly and looked around at the guests.

  Halley frowned and wondered which lovely guest would step forward.

  “Our lovely hostess Sylvia Harrington and I were having a chat in the library until nearly two A.M.”

  The imitation Poirot nodded his head. “Absolutely true!”

  Halley tilted her head to one side and looked into Nick’s laughing eyes. “You could have fooled me—”

  “Ah, Contessa, you don’t think I’d cheat on you our first weekend together?” He kissed her soundly then, and the guests voiced delighted approval.

  “The Baron was too enchanted with finding his beloved Contessa again even to have played with the idea of murder,” the detective announced decisively.

  “But you, Ms. March—” He pointed to Janice, the blond-haired niece dressed in black. “Where were you at midnight last night?”

  “Me? Don’t be ridiculous!” The woman’s brows lifted arrogantly. She spun around and stared at her sister. “What about her? Melody’s the one with the knitting needles!”

  Melody dropped her band of yarn to the floor, her eyes wide. “Why, of all the—”

  “Yes, and her knitting needles have been found all over the estate. Anyone could have picked them up. Anyone who wanted to murder someone.” The detective looked again at the butler. “Anyone who might have been stealing the artwork and replacing them with forgeries, until Mr. March began to suspect—”

  “It was Janice’s idea!” the butler yelled, his arm flying out and pressing Halley back into Nick’s arms.

  “Welcome,” Nick murmured seductively, and Halley responded with a dreamy smile.

  “Of course it was,” the detective continued. “Her uncle suspected her part in the forgeries and was about to cut her out of his will. By murdering him and implicating Melody, she’d have twice as much fortune to share with her lover, the butler! And that, my friends”—his round face broke into smiles—“is that!”

  The guests’ loud and appreciative applause filled the night air, and Halley felt Nick’s arms encircle her, then continue to clap. She was cozily trapped, wonderfully enclosed. The smell of his after-shave blended with the night breeze, and Halley breathed it all in, savoring it, tucking it away.

  Herb Harrington stepped back into the circle of guests and quieted them one final time. “And the winner of the cruise is none other than my close friend, Otto Bailey, known in real life, as most of you know, as Stan Melrose. A hand for our chief detective, please!”

  Halley watched and smiled as the elderly man and his gray-haired wife walked up and hugged Herb.

  “Well, good for Stan and Abbie,” Nick said, half to himself. “I’ll have to see that they make use of it.”

  Halley looked up questioningly, but Nick just smiled down at her and rubbed his chin into her hair.

  “And now, folks, a final feast awaits you. Please help yourselves to the buffet and spend the remainder of the evening peeling off your disguises and getting reacquainted, now that we’re back in the real world!”

  Halley stiffened, and Nick pulled her away from the mingling, noisy crowd of people who were greeting each other by their familiar names.

  “What’s the matter?”

  “Nothing.” Halley tried to smile brightly. At least nothing should be the matter. She was blowing this out of proportion.

  “Well, then, it’s time to confess.”

  Halley took a quick lungful of air. “All right. I am Halley Finnegan.”

  Nick’s eyes smiled. “Halley—” He said her name slowly, letting the sounds slip off his tongue only when they were ready.

  Halley laughed. “Halley. Plain, simple Halley Finnegan. And you are Nick. Nick Harrington?”

  He nodded. “That’s right. Not the original, however. I’m the third.”

  “Nick Harrington the third.” Halley’s heart thudded. She smiled into the space between them. “I’m impressed.”

  “Well, I’m starved, Halley Finnegan. Shall we?” He ushered her to the enormous buffet table, which was filled with platters of smoked turkey, ham, rare roast beef, and croissants. Mustard sauces and vegetable salads wrapped in pockets of freshly baked dough rounded out the meal. The assortment was endless, and Halley filled her plate enthusiastically, finding food a much more manageable topic of concentration than Nick Harrington the third.

  “Contessa—”

  “Halley,” she said, correcting him, as they walked over to a circle of wrought-iron chairs.

  “Halley, then.” Nick set his plate on the low, round table and rescued two glasses of wine from a passing waiter’s tray. “Halley, I want to see you again. Tomorrow if possible.”

  She looked up, her forkful of turkey fluttering loosely in the air. She gulped. “Why?”

  He drew his brows together dramatically. “Because, my Contessa, we have so many years to make up for—”

  “Halley, remember? And, Nick, I don’t think—”

  Before she could finish, they were joined by several other guests, who sat down and filled the charged air with lively conversation. Halley felt a wave of relief, as if she’d been rescued from some danger. She watched as they talked, half listening to them, but mostly thinking about the irony of it all. In their disguises they had been totally free to flirt and laugh and let emotions soar. Now, within the space of a few moments, it was all different. She looked at Nick’s handsome face, then at the others in the group. Obviously they all knew each other, had grown up together, felt at ease with each other. Just as she and Rosie did, and Archi
e and Bridget and the people who made up her world. That was her life. This was Nick’s.

  Only Nick noticed when she got up from her chair.

  “Halley?”

  She smiled down at him. “I want to see Sylvia.”

  “But only for a minute,” he said. “Hurry back.” Then he was distracted by a question from one of the others, and Halley walked off quickly. The cooling night air was refreshing, and she felt the cobwebs in her mind gently blow away. Nick was still caught in the fantasy, but logical Halley wasn’t. Too bad. It was a lovely fantasy. The masquerade had been fun, but she was exhausted, and her feelings for this lovely fairy tale were growing too real to play with anymore.

  No, she knew what she had to do. She’d take her money and run, as they say. Take her dreams and tuck them away, before the masquerade was dropped completely.

  It would be lovely if fantasies came true, she thought as she searched for Sylvia and Herb Harrington, but they couldn’t. Halley Finnegan couldn’t be a contessa. No, even if fantasies could come true, she couldn’t be a contessa, not by the farthest stretch of the imagination. That was the clincher, because it didn’t take any imagination at all to turn Nick into a real-life baron. The thought made her strangely sad.

  “It was wonderful!” she told Sylvia after Herb had sent a servant for her bags. The two stood alone on the wide fan of steps in front of the house.

  “You’re sure you can’t stay a few more hours?” Sylvia looked genuinely disappointed.

  “Yes, and I’m terribly sorry.” She watched Rosie’s bags being loaded into the tiny Volkswagen that the servant had driven to the entrance. Had it been only yesterday when she’d arrived? It seemed a lifetime ago. Impulsively, she hugged Sylvia before starting down the steps.

  Halfway down, she stopped and turned around.

  “Yes, dear?” Sylvia said.

  “I truly did have a wonderful time. I wonder if you’d mind telling the Baron how much I enjoyed his company, and that perhaps we’ll meet again … maybe in Antibes?” She smiled up at her hostess.

  Sylvia nodded. “Or perhaps even in Philadelphia,” she said wisely.

  As Halley watched, a hint of a smile lighted the older woman’s face, then she turned and walked slowly back into her lovely home.

  Four

  Halley sat behind the desk in the tiny library office, her legs twisted around the straight wooden legs of the chair. A small smile played at the edges of her lips. She turned a page of the heavy book, and a fine puff of dust filled the air. “Ah-choo!”

  “God bless you, Halley Finnegan! And where in heaven’s name have you been?”

  “I’ve been to London to visit the queen.” Halley smiled up at her friend Rosie and slipped her glasses to the top of her head.

  “You’re not very funny, Finnegan. At the very least I deserve a full report. Those were my clothes, you know.”

  “Rosie, of that I was very, very aware. There was no way on earth they could have been mine!”

  “You didn’t call last night.”

  “I was bushed.”

  “How bushed? And why were you bushed, living in the lap of luxury for two days?” Rosie leaned against the desk and sipped coffee from a Styrofoam cup.

  “You’re not supposed to have coffee in the library.”

  “You’re not supposed to have that positively X-rated, sensuous smile on your face while you read”—she flipped over the book resting open in front of Halley—“Post Civil War Cemeteries! That definitely doesn’t deserve a smile!”

  “I like cemeteries. And I liked the weekend,” she added softly.

  “Hah! Now we’re getting down to the nitty-gritty!”

  “It was fantasy all the way, Rosie, but not so bad.”

  “Yes, yes—”

  Halley stared off into space for a minute, and her friend smiled. Then, with sudden zeal, she stood and scooped up her books. “Sorry, Rosie, I’d love to chew over all the juicy details with you, but I have a meeting with the Thorne Center board this afternoon.”

  “Finnegan, sometimes I wonder why I put up with you.”

  Halley loosened one arm from under the pile of books and hugged Rosie tightly. “Me, too, but I’m awfully glad you do, because for all your ill-conceived ideas, you’re quite a lovely person and a ten-plus in the friend category.”

  “Well,” Rosie muttered, walking alongside Halley as they made their way through the main library hall and toward the front door, “you sure as hell don’t treat me like a ten.”

  “Why don’t we have dinner tonight so we can debate that?”

  “I’m meeting Fred at the Grill.”

  “Great. I’ll join you and fill you both in on the wild escapades of Contessa Halley Finnegan. Ciao.”

  “Fred agrees with me, you know,” Rosie shouted after her as Halley scampered down the wide marble steps in front of the mansion that was now a library. “You need some sex in your life, Halley Finnegan. Pure, enjoyable, simple sex!”

  Several sedate, elderly couples strolling the spacious estate lawns stopped to stare at the young woman who stood alone on the library steps.

  Rosie smiled sweetly in their direction, lifted one shoulder in a playful shrug, then bounced down the steps and off into the sun-drenched Monday afternoon.

  “So, ladies and gentlemen,” Halley said, pushing her glasses back up her nose, “as you can see, the Thorne Center is quickly becoming far more than a library. The entire estate is being put to use for a variety of purposes. We now have fourteen programs in place and nearly a dozen more on the drawing board.” She smiled happily, slipped off her glasses, and sat back down in the leather chair.

  “I have something to add to all those numbers Ms. Finnegan’s been shoving at us.” The balding, elderly Leo Thorne stood up and smiled kindly at Halley. “If my father had any idea what good things that Irish lass was going to do for the neighborhood, he’d probably have given up his home years ago and moved into a bus station! A fine tribute it’s become, and it’s a damn shame he died before Ms. Finnegan talked me into this harebrained idea!”

  Halley smiled at the white-haired man who was responsible not only for her going on to college but for her job as well. She cared deeply for Leo Thorne. He’d never been anything but wonderful to her—with the exception of coercing her into attending the Harringtons’ party. That idea of his had cost her a sound sleep last night when she finally returned home from the Harringtons’, her head filled with thoughts of barons and her heart slightly askew. She’d have to speak to her dear friend privately and let him know he owed her one.

  A shuffling noise at the boardroom door caused the room to hum with muffled voices for a moment as a younger man came in and took a seat near the door. Halley squinted but couldn’t make out the newcomer without her glasses. Probably another reporter, she thought. Whenever they needed a heartwarming human-interest story, they’d come to Halley, then write gushingly about “the blue-collar neighborhood surrounding the Thorne Estate which now, thanks to a few dedicated souls, has its very own library.”

  Another report was passed around, and Halley retrieved her glasses. One of these days, she thought as she put them on, she’d dress appropriately for these meetings. Heels, nylons, the works. Leo usually held them at his bank, and the women on the board came looking elegant. She glanced down at her long jeans skirt and big, soft overblouse. She’d slipped a belt around her waist as an afterthought that morning and suspected she looked a little like Annie Hall. She bit back a laugh. No, she wasn’t the elegant type, no matter what fantasy she’d played out this weekend. She was plain Halley Finnegan, librarian. That’s who she’d always be. But no matter, the weekend had been lovely. Nick the Baron had been a handsome prince who wouldn’t be soon forgotten. She thought about what he’d said, about wanting to see her again, and shook her head gently. No, Baron, that is not to be … The thought caused a pain of regret deeper than Halley cared to admit, and she forced herself to concentrate on Leo’s discourse.

  “So
, my fine friends, until next month, let’s call it a day and get on with the business of life.”

  Halley lifted her head and smiled at Leo’s solemn words, the same words he used to end every meeting she had ever attended. She scooped up her papers and notes, dumped them into her huge purse, and walked across the room to where Leo stood chatting with a small group.

  He winked at her over the head of several people, but it was when the group parted that she realized the reason for the wink.

  Standing next to Leo, looking every bit as elegant as he had in her dreams, stood her Baron.

  Her heart thudded uncontrollably. “You!”

  Nick grinned. “Me.”

  “Here?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  Nick smiled.

  “Well, now, this is one of the most fascinating conversations I’ve been privy to for some time!” Leo clapped Nick on the back familiarly.

  “Leo … why is he here?” Halley pushed her glasses up until they nested comfortably in her hair. Little did Leo know that monosyllables and simple sentences were absolutely all she was capable of right now.

  “Personal invitation, my dear.”

  “So you know Nick, then.” It wasn’t a question, but somehow Halley felt a need to state the obvious. Then she’d know whether this was a part of the dreams that moved her in and out of sleep all night, or real, true life.

  Nick stood quietly, his eyes carefully recording every inch of her, and suddenly Halley realized why. Although he still looked every inch the Baron—immaculately groomed, wearing an expensive three-piece suit, his thick hair carefully combed—she was Cinderella at her hearth.

  “Leo is a good friend of my uncle’s.”

  “Of course,” she murmured, remembering why she had been at the party in the first place. She pushed a wayward strand of hair back in place while she collected her thoughts.

  “I told you I wanted to see you again, and you were about as difficult to find as the Statue of Liberty.”

  “Find? I wasn’t lost, Nick.”