Secret Things and Highland Flings. Tracy Corbett
at the tattoo on her left breast, a dagger piercing a heart. ‘Shouldn’t we get to know each other a little first?’
She snapped on a pair of latex gloves. ‘I’m not one for small talk.’
‘I’ve noticed.’ He watched her peel away the bloodied dressing applied by his previous first aider. ‘You know what you’re doing?’
She dropped it into a sanitised disposal unit. ‘My job dictates I draw blood. Occupational hazard.’
‘I imagine you’re very good at it.’
She almost smiled. ‘Funny guy.’
The way she’d said ‘funny guy’ gave him another strong sense of déjà vu. There was something oddly familiar about this woman. But if they’d met before, he’d definitely remember. She wasn’t the kind of woman a man forgot.
He looked around the parlour. In contrast to the white gallery next door, this place was jet black. There was a sign on the wall that read: THINK BEFORE YOU INK. It was hung next to the image of a naked woman with a creeping vine entwined around her torso.
‘Your designs are exquisite.’
She rubbed something over his cut that stung. ‘I know.’
Modest, too. He winced when she pulled the edges of the cut together and taped it.
Unlike the woman who’d tended to him a few minutes earlier, this nurse wasn’t offering cups of tea or homemade cakes. Still, if it enabled him to get his painting back, he didn’t care.
He looked up at her. ‘I may need the room for a couple of nights, if that’s okay?’
She tightened the strapping. ‘Money upfront.’
He tried to breathe through the pain. ‘No problem. Just the room, you understand?’
She snapped off the latex gloves and placed her hands either side of his head. ‘I unnerve you, don’t I?’
Instinctively, he pushed back against the chair. ‘Hell, yeah.’
‘Relax, sweetie.’ She patted the side of his face. ‘You’re not my type.’ She straightened and held out her hand. ‘Money.’
‘Money, right.’ He got out of the chair and removed his wallet. ‘Thanks for the first aid.’ He handed her the cash.
She took the money and tucked it into her corset. ‘Keep the wound covered. Bleed over my equipment and you’ll—’
‘… die a slow and painful death. Yeah, I remember.’ He pocketed his wallet.
A faint smile played on her lips. She turned and walked away, the sway in her hips disturbingly hypnotic. ‘Follow me.’
He did as he was told. He suspected his landlady wasn’t quite as scary as she made out. But then, he’d never been smart where women were concerned.
Saturday 2nd June
Lexi jolted when the train braked suddenly. Not that she’d been asleep. She rarely slept these days. Even if she hadn’t been lying in a cramped bunk inside a tiny cabin, she’d still be wide awake staring up at the ceiling. Or in this instance, the empty bunk above.
She pushed back the covers and eased herself out of the bunk bed, ducking her head so she didn’t bang it on the bed above. Talk about poky. She edged sideways past the ladder to reach the narrow door and escape into the corridor, which wasn’t much wider.
Maybe she should have put a jumper on; she felt somewhat exposed walking down a public corridor dressed only in a nightshirt. Not that there was anyone about. It was four a.m. Everyone else was fast asleep. Lucky them.
She used to sleep just fine, but everything had changed that fateful night eighteen months ago when her life had been upended. In hindsight, she should have seen it coming. The signs were all there. The secrecy. The excuses. The elaborate stories that didn’t quite ring true. Not to mention her sister’s concerns about Marcus’s erratic behaviour. Nonetheless, it had still come as a shock.
Marcus had been restless all evening, refusing to come to bed, claiming he was dealing with ‘important business stuff’. She should have realised he was up to something when he closed his laptop so she couldn’t see what he was typing. Instead, she’d shrugged it off and gone to bed, only to be woken in the early hours when a door slammed below.
Realising Marcus wasn’t in bed, she’d headed downstairs to find the house empty. And that’s when she’d found his note, propped against the coffee jar. A sense of foreboding had enveloped her. Tears had blurred her vision as she’d read about his affair with Cindy … the business going into receivership … the investigation by HMRC for tax avoidance.
There’d been no heartfelt apology for dropping her in it, or promises to make everything right, just a load of half-hearted excuses for his behaviour. There’d certainly been no mention of his gambling addiction, or emptying of their bank account. That information had only come to light in the days that followed.
Sleep had eluded her ever since.
She shook the memory away and continued down the corridor. A door slammed behind her. She turned sharply, falling against the window as the train rocked from side to side. But there was no one there – not that she could see without her lenses in. Just an empty corridor.
Her paranoia was increasing. Ever since her encounter with the blue-eyed thief, she’d sensed she was being followed. It was crazy, of course. Her imagination was working overtime. But thanks to Marcus, she could no longer trust her instincts.
She used the facilities and returned to her cabin, ignoring the sensation of someone peering out from behind a cabin door. She really needed to dial down her stress levels. It was probably another passenger waiting to use the facilities.
When she was safely back in her cabin, she bolted the door and checked the painting was still tucked under the sink. It was. See? No one was after her.
Shivering, she climbed into bed and pulled the blanket over her.
Feeling jittery was only to be expected. She was travelling with a potentially valuable Renaissance painting. Although whether it was genuine or not remained unknown.
After her encounter with the blue-eyed thief, she’d phoned Eleanor Wentworth’s daughter, who’d confirmed that she did have a brother called Oliver and yes, she’d like the painting returned. Louisa had apologised for any inconvenience caused and claimed she hadn’t realised the painting wasn’t one of her mother’s. However, she’d also sounded extremely confused and unsure as to why there was an issue, so it didn’t take a genius to work out the brother was up to something.
Tempting as it was to enlighten Louisa, she’d decided a better approach would be to wait until she was in Scotland. She didn’t want to badmouth the brother or ruin her chances of evaluating the rest of the family’s art collection. Plus, there was a reason why the brother didn’t want her looking too closely at the painting. Once she was in Scotland and away from the stresses of her life, she might be able to discover what that was.
Thinking about the blue-eyed thief made her agitated.
She rolled over, whacking her elbow on the ladder.
She still wasn’t entirely sure what had happened the other night. One minute she was in the storeroom cataloguing a new arrival, the next she was witnessing a man stealing the Woman at the Window. Or so she’d thought. Her assumption that Marcus had sent one of his idiot cronies to harass her into returning his money had been incorrect. Unfortunately, she hadn’t realised this before stabbing the man with a Stanley knife. Unintentionally, of course. Mortifying, nonetheless.
Just thinking about it made her shudder. She could have killed him. Well, maybe