The glass doors to the darkened garden gave easily when she turned the handle. Mercy went through onto the little platform. The lights were still on in the pool, but the wealth of foliage was shrouded in complete darkness. There weren’t even any windows to provide a modicum of starlight. There was only the eerie glow from the swimming pool. From her vantage point on the platform Mercy could see portions of the pool as it wound its way among the overhanging ferns and wide-leafed palms. The blue-tinged light looked oddly unnatural.
The scent of the thick greenery was strong. It seemed to overpower even the trace of chlorine that hung in the air. It was like looking into a night-darkened jungle, and for the first time Mercy wondered how easy it would be to find her way through it to the room that held the vault. That afternoon it had been simple enough because of the ample lighting overhead and planted among the foliage. Tonight it would be a different matter.
She didn’t even know where the light switch was and wouldn’t have dared use it even if she had been able to locate it.
There was no time to waste. She had to go on the assumption that Croft had already found his way into the vault room. She wondered how he expected to open the vault itself. Mercy gathered her courage and her sense of direction and went down the steps into the night-shrouded garden.
She stumbled onto one of the delicate gravel paths more by luck than planning. Once on it she managed to follow it by feel. It wasn’t all that difficult. When she accidentally tended to veer off she felt the gravel change to moist loam beneath her toes. Α second or two later she stumbled into a palm frond or stumbled over a fern.
It was strange how disorienting it was trying to walk through the elaborate garden in the darkness. She tried to use the faint glow of the pool to navigate but it wasn’t very easy. There were several points along the way when the pool light was completely hidden by the heavy growth between the path and the water’s edge.
This was stupid, Mercy decided a few minutes after she had started. Progress was slow and somewhat painful. Gravel didn’t provide the most comfortable path for bare feet. What if Croft hadn’t gone into the vault room? She thought to ask herself with blunt disgust. This wretched jaunt could be a totally wasted trip. He might even now be merrily sifting through the contents of Gladstone’s upstairs study.
Stupid, crazy, ridiculous and potentially humiliating. When she found Croft she was going to give him a piece of her mind.
She never even sensed the movement in the air behind her. When the large masculine hand slipped across her mouth and the arm went around her waist, Mercy didn’t have so much as a split second’s warning. One instant she was laboriously making her way through the overgrown garden; the next she was held prisoner against a man’s body.
Mercy wanted to scream and couldn’t breathe a word. She wanted to struggle and found herself immobilized. When she made a furious effort to employ some of the more brutal tricks she had learned in the three-hour self-defense class she realized in horrified shock that it was totally useless. She went limp. It was the only action left to her.
“You stupid little idiot. What the hell are you doing wandering around here in the middle of the night?” Croft’s voice was a furious breath of sound against her ear. He seemed to realize she couldn’t answer him as long as he had his palm flattened across her mouth. Slowly he withdrew it. “Keep your voice down.”
Mercy gasped for air. “My God, you scared me to death. Don’t you ever jump out at me from the bushes like that again. Do you hear me?”
“Damn it to hell. You’re supposed to be upstairs asleep.”
“I was asleep until I realized you had gone gallivanting off on your own. You have no business flitting around Gladstone’s house in the middle of the night. You were heading for the vault, weren’t you?”
“How long have you been out of the bedroom?”
She blinked, trying to see his face in the shadows. She could barely make out the vague outline of his shoulder. He was just an extension of the darkness around her. “I don’t know. I wasn’t looking at my watch. A few minutes, I guess. Why?”
“Just close your mouth and do as you’re told. We probably don’t have more than a few seconds. Come on.” He manacled one of her wrists and led her straight into the heavy foliage that fringed the path.
“What are you doing? What’s going on?” She stumbled against a palm and then found herself on another path. Croft was yanking her along it with no regard whatsoever for her bare feet. She wondered how he could see so well in the dark. It had to be the ghost in him, she decided resentfully.
“Take off that robe.”
“Forget it. I’m not playing Jane to your Tarzan. Once was enough tonight.”
“The Tarzan bit comes later. Right now we’re going swimming.”
He broke through the foliage that ringed the pool, pulling Mercy with him. She found herself on the tiled edge looking down into the glowing blue water. “No thanks,” she muttered, realizing abruptly what he intended. “I don’t feel like a swim tonight. I want you to come back upstairs to our suite before you get us both in trouble. Can you imagine how embarrassed I’m going to be if anyone discovers you were prowling around the vault in the middle of the night?”
“Your embarrassment would be the least of our problems.” His hand was already on her robe, wrenching free the sash and pushing the garment off her shoulders. Underneath she was naked. The sight obviously did not inflame him to any great degree of lust. He seemed oblivious of her nudity. “In the pool,” he ordered in a soft, dangerous voice. “Now.”
Croft was already unzipping his jeans and shoving them down over his hips. Mercy didn’t argue any more. There was no point. The man might be crazy, but he was serious. She knelt down at the edge of the pool and slipped cautiously over the side. Croft was right behind her.
“Ah,” Mercy sighed, relaxing immediately as she slid into the water. “This is wonderful. What are we doing in here, Croft?”
“Guess.”
She groaned. “I was afraid of that. This is camouflage, isn’t it? In case someone heard us come down the stairs?”
“Not us. You. No one heard me come down the stairs.”
“Why not? Did you levitate?”
“Keep your voice down.”
“You sound irritated.”
“Probably because that’s the way I’m feeling.”
Mercy nodded. “I’m learning to take what I can get in the way of honest emotion from you.” She flipped a hand through the water, sending a small wave in his direction. It broke harmlessly against his broad chest. “I thought it might be a bit nippy in here, but this is like bath water. Perfect. Do you know something? I’ve never gone skinny-dipping in my life.”
Croft glanced at her curiously as he began stroking leisurely toward the far end of the pool. “You’ve led a sheltered life, haven’t you?”
“It was my aunt and uncle’s fault. They were a little old-fashioned.” She turned languidly in the water, enjoying the novelty of a late night swim in the nude.
“They raised you? This aunt and uncle?”
She was mildly surprised by his continuing interest in the subject, especially at the moment. Until now he hadn’t shown much real curiosity about her past. “They got stuck with me when I was three after my parents were killed in the plane accident. Aunt Ruth and Uncle Sid already had two boys of their own who were starting into their teens when I arrived. Just when they’d begun looking forward to getting their own kids raised and out of the house they had to start all over again with me. I think they were a little stricter with me because they’d never raised a girl before. They gave up a lot to take on the job of rearing me.”
“That explains it,” Croft said quietly.
“Explains what?” They were both speaking in whispers, she realized, just as they had earlier in her bedroom. Maybe she was fated to conduct every meaningful conve
rsation with this man in a barely audible tone.
“Your feelings of gratitude toward them. You think you owe them something, don’t you? You feel indebted to them in a way a child doesn’t normally feel toward a parent. And you’re very conscious of your debt. I noticed your attitude the day you told me the story of your ex- fiancé trying to use you to fleece your aunt and uncle. You weren’t just hurt personally, even though it was your engagement that went down the tubes. In the final analysis you were more concerned about what had almost happened to your relatives. You took responsibility for it, didn’t you? You felt that it was all your fault.”
“Well, it was my fault. I’m the one who got hoodwinked by Aaron Sanders. I’m the one who introduced him to them. And I do owe my aunt and uncle a great deal. They didn’t have to take me in, you know. They could have let the state put me into foster care. They had no obligation toward me.”
“When Sanders tried to take them to the cleaners, you blamed yourself for having been stupid enough to believe he loved you.”
“It was stupid of me to believe it.” Mercy didn’t like the way the conversation was going. On the one hand she welcomed more intimate, revealing, honest discussions with this strange man. But on the other hand, she didn’t particularly want to be the one who made all the intimate, honest revelations.
“What I’m trying to point out, Mercy, is that you reacted as you did because you felt responsible, even though you were just another victim yourself. It was a matter of honor for you.”
Mercy stopped swimming and began treading water. “Just what is the point of this conversation?”
Croft stopped swimming too and hovered in the water only a short distance away. He seemed to float without effort. There was no mad churning of his hands or scissoring of his legs to hold his position. He just floated. The uneven, unearthly blue light from beneath the rippling surface gave his hard-edged face a disturbing illumination. “I want you to understand that I did what Ι did tonight because of a similar sense of obligation.”
Mercy raised her eyebrows. “Are you by any chance trying to justify yourself to me?”
He frowned. “I was just trying to explain.”
“You’ve already explained,” she said stiffly. “I know why you came down here tonight. Ι know you feel you have to do this, even though you could easily jeopardize my future in the rare book business and get us both arrested for sneakiness or something.”
His frown turned to an arrogant scowl. “If I’m wrong I’ll take full responsibility.”
“Terrific. When future clients refuse to deal with me because my reputation as a reliable dealer is in shreds and I’ve got a prison record, I’ll just casually mention that it’s really all your fault and that you take full responsibility. I’m sure that will solve everything.”
“Mercy, I—”
Whatever Croft was going to say next was cut off abruptly when the overhead lights and the camouflaged garden lamps came on with no warning. Mercy gave a small yelp of surprise and automatically whirled around in the water to stare toward the doorway. Unfortunately the foliage was too thick to see whoever stood on the platform from this angle.
“Is anybody down here?” The voice was Isobel’s.
“Over here,” Croft called back readily. In the pool.”
“For pete’s sake, Croft,” Mercy muttered. “I don’t have any clothes on.”
“I told you, this is camouflage,” he whispered back.
“Being stark naked in the water with all these lights on is not my idea of being camouflaged.” Mercy launched herself toward the side of the pool, intending to grab her robe. She could hear footsteps on the graveled path and knew Isobel was making her way through the greenery. With all the lights turned on it was an easy trip. She would appear in a matter of seconds.
As it happened she appeared just as Mercy had herself halfway out of the water. Isobel stepped out of the shrubbery at the side of the pool, her expression concerned. She was dressed in a flowing robe of silver satin, her long black hair loose and streaming around her shoulders. Mercy had time enough to notice that the exotic black mass fell all the way to the woman’s waist before she realized Isobel was not alone. Lance was right behind her.
Mercy gave another muffled gasp and dropped back into the water. Lance looked at her immediately, his eyes going from her flushing face to the broken image of her nude body under the surface of the water.
Mercy opened her mouth again to demand some privacy, but before she could voice the words there was a flash of broad-backed, naked male in the water in front of her and an instant later Croft was surfacing to stand between Mercy and Lance’s interested gaze.
“Sorry about this, Isobel,” Croft said coolly. “We couldn’t resist a midnight swim. You said something about feeling free to use the pool at any time and we took you at your word. Mind giving us a little privacy while Mercy and I put on some clothes?”
“Of course not. I’m the one who’s sorry.” She nodded at Lance. “As you can see, there’s no problem. Thanks for alerting me. You may go back to bed.”
Lance accepted his dismissal without a word and vanished back into the bushes.
Isobel smiled at Croft, who was still standing in front of Mercy. Her dark gaze slid over his nude frame with what Mercy could only describe as professional interest.
“Don’t let me interrupt your swim,” Isobel said. “You are quite welcome to finish it. Lance and Dallas have rooms at the back of the house on the floor above. Lance happened to be up getting himself a drink of water or something and thought he heard a noise. We have to take strange noises seriously up here in the mountains. We’re so isolated and Erasmus has so many valuable things here in the house. But now that I know what the problem is, I won’t disturb you further. Good night and enjoy your swim. I’ll turn out the overhead lights on my way back up the stairs. Shall I leave on the path lamps? It’s a little difficult to find your way down here when they’re off.”
“That would be great,” Croft said. “Thanks. And sorry again about alarming everyone.”
“No problem. See you at breakfast, unless you’d prefer to sleep in.”
“We’ll be at breakfast,” Croft assured her.
Mercy exhaled in relief as Isobel disappeared down the garden path. “Good grief. How embarrassing.”
“If you want to save yourself further embarrassment in the future, try not giving Lance an eyeful.”
“Don’t you dare blame me for this. Everything that’s happened tonight is all your fault.” Mercy scrambled out of the pool and grabbed her robe. “And I’m not the only one who got leered at tonight. I saw Isobel staring at you. That water doesn’t conceal much, you know. It was obvious you didn’t have on a swimsuit.”
Croft planted both hands on the edge of the pool and hauled himself out in a single, smooth movement. Then he surprised Mercy with an unexpected grin. “You can stare all you want, honey. I won’t mind.”
“Thank you very much.” Primly, she turned away and fastened the sash of her robe. “But I think I’ve seen all I want tonight.”
Croft shrugged. He glanced regretfully toward the far end of the room. “I haven’t seen all I want, but I guess I’ve seen all I’m going to see tonight,” he muttered quietly. “Now that the hired hands are awake and alert, I can’t risk going back into the vault. Somebody might be paying attention this time. I’ll have to try again later.” He followed Mercy out of the garden room and back up the stairs.
When Mercy walked into her own room and closed the connecting door he didn’t try to open it.
For a long while she sat on the edge of her bed staring out at the endless mountain sky. Tomorrow, she decided, she was going to have a serious talk with Croft. She would insist he take her for a hike to some place where she wouldn’t have to keep her voice low and watch every word.
It occurred to Mercy that this business of ha
ving to worry about listening devices in the bedroom was very useful for Croft. It was an effective way to keep her from asking too many questions or making too many demands. The man definitely had a talent for getting his own way.
Croft wasn’t thinking about his talent for getting his own way the next morning as he sat down to breakfast with Isobel, Gladstone and Mercy. He was giving grave consideration to the limitations on his time at Gladstone’s mountain fortress. The party was scheduled for that night. The next day he and Mercy would be leaving. Last night had very nearly turned into a full-scale disaster; that left only tonight to try to accomplish something useful.
Breakfast was a delightful meal served in a glass-walled room that had spectacular views on three sides. Dallas and Lance served the fresh fruit, heated silver racks of toast. Colombian coffee and goat cheese omelettes. Croft was served tea perfectly brewed in a pre-warmed ceramic pot. The tea was a very fine blend of Ceylon and Indian leaves, full-bodied with an excellent color and aroma.
The room was filled with morning sunlight. It reflected very nicely off the sterling and crystal. The peach-colored napery and a beautifully restrained arrangement of peach gladiolus provided just the right hint of color in the elegantly light room.
Croft knew that from a purely aesthetic point of view he should admire the flower arrangement. It was quite perfect, austere and subtle. Isobel was no doubt responsible for it. But the more he looked at it, the more he found himself wondering how Mercy would have handled the flowers. He suspected she would have chosen a more brilliant shade of flower to start. And then she would have given full scope to the flowers’ inherent lush qualities in her design. The final effect would have been a bright, brash, intriguing counterpoint in the elegant room. Croft knew he would have been charmed by the result even if he did feel compelled to criticize it.
Gladstone was in an engaging mood, talking animatedly with Mercy about books. There was no doubt but that the man was a devoted collector who knew his field. Mercy was once again hanging on his every word, participating eagerly in the discussion while Croft and Isobel listened politely.