The Pleasure Chest. Jule McBride
talking to him was unsettling. Disorienting. “Treasure?” It was the second time he mentioned it. She racked her brain. “The treasure in Killman’s cave?”
He nodded quickly, as if pleased to see she was finally getting on page. “War booty mostly. And I’ve got some more buried near the city wall.”
“Good,” she managed to return. “Because if you destroy James’s maps, you’re going to have to pay him for them. And that’ll cost you a fortune. For your sake, I hope it’s a lot of war booty.”
“I’d never destroy a man’s property and not pay,” he assured, looking offended. “What do you take me for? A low-down scoundrel like Basil Drake?”
Rather than answer, she took a very deep breath and simply headed for the whiskey again. Staring at him pointedly, she took a sip, and suddenly, her head swum. For a second, she was sure she’d faint again. Once more, she silently cursed herself for eating so much chocolate after her breakup. Without foregoing food the past few days, she’d never get into the dress she was to wear tonight.
“If I’d o’found one, I would have used one of your televisions to get my bearings,” he added helpfully.
Lifting a remote from the bar, she pressed a button. Behind him, a wall partition rolled back to expose a flat-screen television. “There,” she said.
He was eyeing the remote, like a boy eyeing candy. Quickly gliding his hand over hers, he took it, and an electric jolt from his touch skated up her arm to her elbow, then fizzled into something warm that exploded in her tummy. Toying with the buttons, he found CNN, stared a moment, then studied the buttons and lowered the sound. “Are ya still in Vietnam?” he asked, making her lips part in surprise.
“Uh…I think the U.S. left there in 1975.”
Feeling a definite need to keep moving, if only to escape the gaze that was following her every move, she headed for the small refrigerator behind him and pressed her glass against the ice dispenser.
When ice tumbled down, he uttered another sound of surprise. “Sons of liberty,” he murmured. Following suit, he edged her out of the way, pressed his glass against the dispenser, then flinched as the ice came down, as if it might burn him. “Now, this must be new. Julius didn’t have one of these.”
“An ice dispenser?”
“Ice dispenser,” he repeated, as if trying on the words for size.
There wasn’t enough whiskey in the world to help her through this bizarre encounter. She skedaddled back to the bar, thinking that James and Eduardo both knew costume designers in the city. The waistcoat didn’t look like part of a Broadway costume, though, nor did the musket, or the strange, dusty leather thong the man retrieved from the floor now, to tie back his hair. Her eyes lingered on the strands. She’d felt them brush against her cheek, and even now, her skin was burning from the softest thing she’d ever felt.
“Look,” she suddenly said. “I admit it. I’ve been playing along for the past few minutes. And I really don’t understand why James or Eduardo went to such lengths to produce this elaborate ruse, but…”
He looked appalled. “Your employer and the gay man,” he said. “Do you think they’re somehow foolin’ya, miss?”
The worst thing was, the man looked entirely ready to defend her honor. “I don’t know how the figure who looks like you vanished from the painting upstairs,” she began.
“That was me!” he exploded, leaping to his feet.
“Please stop,” she said. Already, she could tell this guy was a real steamroller.
His emerald eyes were flashing fire. “I thought you believed me, miss! There’s a hex on me! A curse I tell you! And I need your help until I find Julius Royle. He’s my only true friend. Unless of course, he’s dead, which he might well be!” He paused. “Not that you care a wit, miss!”
He’d said the last as if she were the most heartless woman to ever walk the planet. “Sorry,” she began. “I don’t want to make you mad, really I don’t. But you’ve got to admit—”
“I admit nothing! I’ve done nothing!”
“Maybe not, but you’re in my apartment—”
“I gave away my fire, but Basil came gunning for me, anyway,” he vowed righteously, his wounded gaze piercing hers, imploringly. “The man came to kill me in cold blood, he did!”
The events to which he was referring seemed very present to him, as if they’d happened yesterday. “Gave away your fire?”
“A delope!” he exclaimed, his eyes searching hers as if he believed she might be lacking in intelligence. “What exact part can’t you understand, miss?”
“Don’t start insulting my mental acumen.”
He huffed a sigh. “Sweet sons of liberty, woman! As sure as my name’s Stede O’Flannery, I’ve got but a wee week to reverse the hex Missus Llassa put on me, or I’ll be back inside that fool paintin’ again. Next Friday night, at seven-fifteen on the dot, I’ll…disappear.” His voice broke. “Please, miss. It’s no fun livin’ inside yer own paintin’.”
All at once, she realized history really was repeating itself. Her head swam, her knees buckled, her eyes were wide-open, but she saw nothing at all. And then she set her glass quickly on the bar and fainted again.
When she came to, she was lying on the floor once more, stretched on her back, as if for her own wake. She half expected to see even more sexy Irishmen dancing jigs around her, while finishing off the rest of James’s aged whiskey. But there was only one. He was hovering over her, wielding a container of Morton Salt.
“Oh, my God,” she whispered, her voice sounding strangled to her own ears. “You think that’s full of smelling salts, don’t you?”
Looking uncertain, he surveyed the container. “They didn’t smell like it,” he admitted.
Shakily she sat up, pressing her hand to her forehead. Her palm was sweating. And now she felt a trickle of perspiration drip from her nape down her spine. She shivered, then heard him mutter, “Are ya cold, miss?”
Before she could answer, he’d shrugged, divesting himself of the waistcoat and slinging it around her. It was heavy, the fabric like nothing she’d felt before, the buttons seemingly of real silver. Clutching an edge of it, she realized her heart was beating out of control. She still didn’t believe him, not really.
“Maybe you’d better start from the beginning and tell me everything,” she finally said, barely realizing she’d slipped a hand into his. As he helped her to her feet, she felt that strange, unexpected tingle once more. This one entered her bloodstream and danced a jig of it’s own. Still dizzy, she slipped onto the bar stool again.
“I do have some papers about Stede O’Flannery’s history that might be of use to you,” she found herself continuing, barely able to believe she was saying the words. “Eduardo copied them for me when I took the painting to Weatherby’s for appraisal.”
He looked mortified. “You have a dossier on me?”
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