The Arrangement. Lyn Stone
it. Heady stuff, in spite of its subtlety, maybe because of it. Way too distracting. It made him want to take her to bed. Now? Ha! She’d love that, wouldn’t she! Hell, maybe she would.
“Sleepy?” he asked, blinking up at her stupidly, savoring a wicked inner vision of sharing Kathryn with old Morpheus.
She squatted down very near him and put one of those expressive little hands on his bare shoulder. He felt the heat shoot right through her glove, his skin, and into his bloodstream. God, he was hot. And hard, of all things.
Jon squirmed a little and tried to recall the last time he had bedded a woman. A month? Two? Too long ago, apparently. His appetite never flared up so rapidly as this, at least not since he’d grown old enough to control it. No way to approach her with any kind of proposition now, though, without revealing his identity. He shifted the violin to cover his lap.
“Poor fellow, you look exhausted. Where does he make you sleep?”
Jon let his eyes wander around the chaos of the room and then up. He motioned toward the ceiling.
“Upstairs?” she asked, and took the hand that was still raised to point. “Come on, Pip. I’ll just see you settled for the night and come back with my carriage first thing in the morning. You’ll like where we’re going. All right?” She smiled in a reassuring way and tugged on his hand.
Jon got to his feet rather clumsily; no task to fake, really, considering how long he had gone without sleep. He never got a wink the night before a performance, and tonight’s sudden inspiration had kept him from collapsing afterward. It had been at least forty-eight hours since he rested. That, in itself, wasn’t unusual. It might not hinder his creativity, but it certainly didn’t provide a clear head for dealing with disasters.
He ought not to continue this stupid charade. Even in his current muddled state, he knew it was madness. But, hell, almost everything he did was mad.
His mother, his tutors, his old bodyguard; every one of them had always drummed into him the necessity of thinking before he acted. “Look before you leap” had become a litany. So he’d looked. And usually leapt anyway. The failing persisted, in spite of all their best efforts and his well-intentioned promises.
Jon tugged at the fourth finger of his left hand, a crooked reminder of the impulsive act that had almost destroyed his budding career. He massaged the souvenir of the bloody fistfight that had settled the outcome of the wildest horse race in history.
Maman had brought them home to Timberoaks to sell off the paintings and silver. He had been a strapping thirteen then, drunk with freedom in one of those rare, stolen moments away from Maman’s watchful eye. His stallion, Satan’s Imp, had carried him to a closely-won finish with Bick Wallerford. Old Bick had conceded the race only after Jon broke the fellow’s nose with a powerful left hook. An hour or so later, at the sight of his mangled hand, Jon’s mother had collapsed. So had his racing ambitions, when she reminded him of his vow to his dying father. That had been when he knew without doubt his father had made a dreadful mistake, demanding that Jon give total obedience to Maman. The man couldn’t have wanted a son who quailed at a few fisticuffs. Jon had told her as much, and Maman reluctantly agreed.
A lad of his size and build—especially one who admitted to being musically inclined—couldn’t swear off fighting even if he wanted to. Fortunately, Maman had agreed with him and hired a strong dockworker as a bodyguard soon after the incident.
Sato Nagai, a young Japanese expatriate, relished his new post, anglicized his surname, and became Long San. Understanding Jon’s need to fend for himself and yet protect his hands, Long San had taught him to fight with his feet. The method of fighting had come easily to Jon. Learning precaution and avoidance of a confrontation had proved a much harder task, one he wasn’t certain he had mastered even yet.
Judging by his reaction to Kathryn Wainwright and the threat she posed, he must have regressed farther back than lesson one in sidestepping a conflict. He sure as hell had a conflict here. And his well-trained feet weren’t going to help him at all.
Jon laid the Strad and the haphazard stack of music on the table by the door and led the way upstairs to his bedroom. Stumbling over a broken riser, he grunted his frustration and kicked aside the debris that had fallen or been dropped on the stairs during the past few years.
“Good Lord, this place is a wreck!” Kathryn muttered, following in his wake. “I wonder how he would like to have to live in this mess. Poor Pip. Don’t you worry, I’ll take care of you.”
Jon bit his lip to keep from answering. Through her eyes, he noticed the state of the master bedroom when they entered. He rarely paid any attention to the squalor, since his stays were brief and his thoughts glued to his music. The only things he took care with were the tools of his trade—his instruments, his one good suit, and the blasted wig. There was little point in worrying about housekeeping, since he hadn’t the extra cash to hire a cleaning woman. Tidying things up himself had never occurred to him. Until now.
The grayed sheets lay in wadded lumps, mingled with yesterday’s discarded clothing. One drape hung askew, rotted half off its sagging, tarnished rod. A mouse scurried off a blackened apple core and into its hole near the ash-heaped fireplace.
“Whew!” She grimaced and turned away toward the door. “You can’t possibly stay in here. Is there another room furnished?”
Jon nodded, remembering his mother’s chamber. He’d never been welcome there in the best of times. He hadn’t touched it, hadn’t even opened the door, since she died. Five years ago now? Yes, just before his twentieth birthday.
She patted his shoulder. “It’s all right, Pip. Let’s have a look at the other room.”
He dreaded facing memories he had wanted buried along with his mother, but Jon led her down the hallway to the very end. In front of the dusty oak panel, he stopped.
She brushed past him, opened the door and walked right in. “Oh, much better,” she said brightly, and promptly threw open the windows. “Needs to air out, but at least it looks clean.”
Her pert nose wrinkled when she approached him, and he knew very well why. He needed a long, soapy soak in a hot tub, but Jon knew he couldn’t stay awake for it. His lids drooped over what felt like a spoonful of sand in each eye. “So tired,” he exhaled on a sigh, and collapsed on top of the embroidered coverlet of his mother’s tester bed. Maybe if he feigned sleep, she would go away.
Jon felt her efficient little hands tuck something around him as he wriggled out a niche in the softness beneath him. A smile of sweet contentment stretched his lower face. He drifted toward sleep with the feel of her lips on his brow, thinking that at this moment, being Pip was better than being Jon.
Infinitely better.
Morning dawned gray and dreary at the Hare’s Foot Inn. Autumn had arrived overnight. Chill rain plinked on the roof above Kathryn’s head as she drowsed, reluctant to rise just yet.
A sharp staccato of knuckles against the flimsy door roused her fully. Annoyed, she crawled out of bed and dragged the tattered blanket around her like a robe.
“What is it, Thorn?” she answered as she padded to the door and swung it open.
“He’s gone and it’s your fault!” The massive figure of a black-clad Jonathan Chadwick filled the doorway.
“You!” Kathryn blinked sleepily and shrank back from his furious, heavily powdered countenance. “What? Who’s gone?”
“Pip, that’s who!” he thundered, twisting half away from her and then back again, in a frustrated movement that spoke of violence barely leashed. “You frightened him half to death! What makes you think you can prey on him just for the sake of a damned newspaper piece about me? It’s unconscionable, that’s what it is!” He slapped his gloves against a bare palm and pushed past her into the room.
Kathryn exploded, anger bringing her fully alert. “I? I preyed on him? Why, you ill-mannered thief! How dare