Author's Notes: Tada! Hope it's been worth the wait.
6. Tout Mon Amour
"Girls," muttered Rick disgustedly to the guy beside him. "I tell ya. More trouble than they're damn well worth." The other man ignored him, staring straight ahead, and Rick figured maybe he didn't speak English. "Les femmes, hein?" he tried again.
The man grunted neutrally, and gestured for the bartender to fill his glass.
Rick hadn't wandered much further from the hotel than the nearest ramshackle watering-hole. He had an instinct that was nothing short of supernatural when it came to finding such places. It was a small establishment, tucked away in the back corner of a sandstone building which housed--of all things--a semi-legitimate surgical practice. The sort of doctor's office you might go to if you wanted a bullet removed quickly and quietly. The bar, which was open twenty-four hours a day, was obviously in need of new wallpaper, and possibly a liquor license.
This was his kind of company, Rick reflected, looking blearily around the room. Yes, indeed; grifters, sharks, pickpockets, lowlifes, confidence men, crooks of various descriptions... and not a woman in sight.
He slapped another bill down. Upon leaving the hotel, the first thing Rick had done was to open up his wallet and see how much running money he had. He'd been astounded to find himself considerably more well-heeled than he'd been the day before. Boy, those two must have had money to burn on this whole scheme, he reflected, downing another shot. He could live for quite a while on the amount of scratch they'd planted on him, just to add a little veracity to their story. And that girl, well, she was a piece of work. She'd had him completely fooled; if not about the whole marriage story, at least about her belief in it. And, damn it, he'd genuinely liked her. She was smart, and tough, and she had this way of lighting up a room with her smile... and he'd thought she'd liked him, too. She must have seen him coming a mile away.
He shook his head. "I'm a sucker for a pretty face," he remarked.
The guy at the next barstool got up to find a less chatty place to nurse his drink.
Besides the money, he'd also found a little black-and-white photo of her tucked in his wallet. Another plant, obviously. He took it out of his shirt pocket for about the millionth time that hour, and looked it over. Con or not, you couldn't deny that she was awfully cute. In the picture, she was standing with her back to a stone column, hat in one hand, book in the other. She wore a simple white blouse with rolled-up sleeves, the collar hanging open. The same playful breeze that tousled her hair had caught hold of the hem of her skirt, coaxing it slightly higher than it was intended to be worn, and treating the camera to a flash of stockings and white lace. The miniature Evelyn didn't seem to mind; if anything, she was teasing the camera just a little bit, playing at being demure, all the while knowing her slip was showing. Her hair and eyes stood out most of all, darkly luminous against the washed-out greys of the background and the whiteness of her face and bare, slender arms. She was squinting--the sun was in her eyes, looked like--but she was also grinning mischieviously, as though she and the photographer shared some private joke. For such a supposedly innocent girl, it was kind of a sexy snapshot.
After a moment, he found he couldn't look at the picture any more, and flipped it over. On the back, in an elegant hand, someone had written simply, All my love, Evelyn.
If it had been something flowery or poetic, he might have laughed and tossed the little photograph aside. But it was as though whoever had written this knew him--knew his disdain for bathos and sentiment, was aware of the fact that emotional displays embarrassed him--and respected that enough to distill the inscription to a single, all-important statement of affection.
It was, for lack of a better word, creepy.
Rick put the picture back in his pocket. He didn't really want to hang onto it, but it didn't seem right to leave it in a bar, either. He'd have to tear it up. Or maybe burn it. All my love. He'd never known a single girl yet who'd said that, and meant it. It was just a con. And this one was no different from any of the others.
He was on his way to being pleasantly indifferent to the whole mess when he felt a clap on the back. "O'Connell!" bellowed a voice that could give a foghorn a run for its money. Rick turned around, and found himself face to face with someone he'd thought long gone.
"Marsten!" He gestured to the seat beside him. Drinking oneself into oblivion worked best as a team sport, after all. "What's it been, like... forever?"
"At least." Phillip Marsten eased onto the stool next to Rick. He was a short fellow of vaguely British extraction, stocky, with heavyset shoulders. What little hair he had left sprouted in odd brown tufts and hackles over the rocky landscape of his scalp, a human wasteland. His face, which had once been pretty decent, had been molded and mashed by time, dissipation, and one too many uppercuts, into the unmistakable countenance of a bruiser.
"Thought you were doing time," Rick remarked.
Marsten shrugged, and shot Rick a look that suggested it would be best not to pursue that line of questioning. "No profit in it."
"Gotcha." After the last time, Rick had sworn not to get mixed up with the likes of Marsten and his pals again. The last time, he'd been young, trusting, eager for acceptance--stupid, in other words. He'd agreed to act as the gang's lookout. They'd left him holding the bag when a bank job went wrong. He'd been lucky to get away with his skin. If it hadn't been for that guy with the airplane... But here he was, at a loose end. There was no harm in putting out a feeler or two. "So what's new?"
"Well, we got something doing. Might be right up your alley."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah. Practically found money."
"What's the catch?"
"Well, it's found in some bloke's pocket, o'course. We just need to get at it."
Rick shrugged. He knew that if he seemed too eager, Marsten was smart enough to clam up right there. He wasn't sure he wanted to get involved with those guys anyway. Unless Marsten had experienced a religious epiphany while in prison, he was just as likely to leave Rick hanging again if it suited him.
"Looks as though you've come into some found money yourself," Marsten remarked, assessing Rick's near-new outfit with an appraising look.
Rick shrugged again. He didn't feel like talking about how he'd nearly been conned--especially since the fact that he was privy the location of a city full of gold and jewels was something Philip Marsten did not need to know. "Met a nice girl," he said finally. "Nice rich girl."
"Ahh." The older man nodded knowingly. "She, er, she i'n't going to pose a problem to us, now? If we were to invite you in on something?"
"Her? Nah." He waved his hand dismissively, trying to brush away the image that swam before his eyes. Her memory was as doggedly persistent as the woman herself; the more he tried not to think about her, the more clearly her face seemed to appear. All my love, Evelyn. He knocked back his drink, searing her away with liquid fire. His head throbbed, but he ignored it. "She's one of those types that insists on having a husband," he added, savouring the joke.
Marsten pounded him on the back, laughing. "That's my boy." He gestured to the bartender. "Drink for my mate here, eh?"
Rick nodded his thanks. A few more of these, and he could start getting on with his life.
Tears on the honeymoon trip, mused Jonathan, holding his sister close. It simply won't do.
Evelyn had never been one to do things the way other girls did, but really! Coshing the poor chap over the head, and then nagging and sniping at him until he stormed off in a huff? Rick couldn't have been expecting much in the line of compromise if he'd married Jonathan's adamantine sister, but she could at least have approached the matter with a modicum of tact and common sense. Feminine bloody wiles, for heaven's sake! She had them, and he'd seen her use them--why hadn't she employed them on her husband at the moment when they were most needed? She could have subdued him in seconds; all it would have taken was a few flutters of the eyelashes, perhaps a delicate touch on the arm to seal the deal. But no; she would rather quarrel with a man who made a bear with a thorn in its paw seem like an engaging dinner companion. She just had to be right.
Of course, he knew better that to voice any of what he was thinking. Instead, he sought to soothe her, murmuring, "There now... chin up, old mum. We'll fix everything, you'll see."
Evelyn lifted her head to look at him, bleary-eyed. She gave a most unbecoming sniffle, and then demanded, "How can we possibly fix this?" It was a damned good question, one that Jonathan had been asking himself for the past twenty minutes or so.
"Well, we shall... we can, er... look, Evie," he said, employing his trusty handkerchief to pat her face dry, "between the two of us, there isn't a single puzzle we can't solve. I mean, we managed to beat a sodding mummy back into its grave! How much harder can this be?" Funny, he thought. It sounded cheery enough in my head...
"I just wish he'd listen to me," she moaned, with another sniffle, this one culminating in a loud snort. Jonathan pressed the handkerchief into her hand. There were few things more objectionable, to his mind, than a sniffing, wet-nosed child--a classification which included his baby sister, married or no.
"Be reasonable, sis. Remember that day at the prison when you first met him? If he'd told you then that he was actually your long-lost husband, what would you have said?"
"That was different," she said austerely. "For one thing, he sorely needed a bath." She blew her nose emphatically, as if to punctuate this statement.
"Evie..."
"Oh, all right," she snapped. "Perhaps I could have been a bit nicer to him. But where does that get us? We still haven't the faintest bloody idea where he might be!"
Jonathan knew that Evelyn rarely cursed; in fact, she was always reminding him that people who swore usually did so because they were simply not bright enough to think of anything intelligent and insightful to say. And, brotherly instincts aside, he knew better than to tease her about it now.
"Well, if I know him, which I do--although, granted, not as well as some--he'll be out drowning his sorrows in some seedy bar."
A spark came into Evelyn's eyes, setting them ablaze. She stepped back and squared off opposite her brother, spine ramrod-straight, body taut. She looked as if she were spoiling for a fight. "I warn you now, Jonathan, if this is an excuse to--"
"My darling little sister, would I lie to you?" Before she could answer that, he added hastily, "At a time such as this?"
She took a deep, shaky breath, then nodded. "All right. We'll try this your way. Where do we start?"
"We? Er... look, old mum, why don't you let me handle this?"
The chill in Evelyn's look could have capped the pyramids with snow. "I am his wife," she reminded Jonathan tersely.
He canted his head and gave her a dubious look. "Ye-es... that's exactly it, isn't it? You'll try to drag him out by his ear, he won't go, you'll shout, he'll shout, you'll both refuse to back down, one of you will probably strike someone--knowing my luck, it'll be me--he'll run off again, and we'll all be back where we bloody well started!"
Evelyn huffed--which was tantamount to agreeing with Jonathan's argument, but not wanting to admit it.
"There are times when a fellow just needs his mates. I'll buy him a drink or two, we'll hash things out, and I'll bring him right back here as soon as he's calmed down. Scout's honour."
She shook her head, smiling through what few tears still remained. "You were never a Scout," she chided gently.
"Yes, but my honour's not worth the paper it's printed on." He hugged her impulsively. "I'll do you proud, Evie, I promise... now, why don't you just run along and wash your face, then have a little drink and maybe a lie down? You look fagged."
"I am, I'm exhausted. I've hardly slept in days." She passed a hand over her eyes. "Jonathan, I'm so glad you're here," she murmured. "I've really been at my wits' end."
She held out the soiled handkerchief, but Jonathan waved it away. "Just you hang onto that, in case you need it again. It's no use to me anyhow, now you've been slobbering all over it."
Evelyn was startled by the sound of her own laughter.
"See here, you little brat," continued Jonathan plaintively, "it isn't funny! What am I to do if I happen upon one of these pretty Provençales, and she's crying? Offer her my sleeve? We Englishmen already suffer from a rather spurious reputation in these parts, particularly in matters of romance. My actions could set back international relations by hundreds of years."
"Idiot. You can take mine if you like..." Evelyn turned up both her sleeves; ever the practical one, she was seldom to be found without a handkerchief on her person. However, not a single scrap of linen materialized. Well, it wasn't particularly surprising. She hadn't been herself lately, and a clean handkin had been the least of her worries when she was dressing that morning.
Jonathan exhaled derisively. "One of your delicate little embroidered linen frilly things? A pretty picture that would be. What sort of a ponce do you think I am?"
"The very best kind, of course," she said, tucking Jonathan's handkerchief into her sleeve with a grin.
"Hmph. Right, then. I'm off." He flashed her a bright smile. "Never fear, sis. You can depend on me." As always, he sounded as though he genuinely meant it this time.
He was out the door by the time her spirits flagged.
Left to her own devices, Evelyn wandered disconsolately around the suite. It seemed bigger now, and empty. She did as her brother had suggested; after stopping briefly in the bathroom to bathe her eyes and tidy up her face, she stretched out across the bed and tried to sleep.
The bed hadn't been made since Rick's nap that morning, and she burrowed into the covers, inhaling deeply, hoping to catch a trace of him... but it was as if he'd never been there. She felt as though she ought to cry, but she was simply too weary to work up the energy. Instead, she closed her eyes and hugged the pillow tight, feeling herself slip away into slumber.
She was not, ordinarily, a sound sleeper--but the events of the past few days had taken their toll, and Evelyn didn't even stir as a pair of hands rolled her onto her back. None too gently, these same hands slid underneath her and hoisted her up off the bed, her head lolling at an acute angle.
"Mmm," she murmured, only half-awake--and barely that. "...Rick?"
"Guess again, sweetheart," said a voice from above, and then Evelyn felt something being pressed over her nose and mouth. She tried to shout, coughed, and drew a breath--sickly sweet and burning. Her eyelids, already so heavy, seemed impossible to open now. She struggled, briefly, and then passed out of consciousness without ever seeing the face of her assailant.