By Request Collection April-June 2016. Оливия Гейтс

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СКАЧАТЬ frowned. “Or maybe he’s having second thoughts about the whole exploring thing.”

      Alba remained silent.

      She sprang up from the bed and paced a few feet away. “Now that I can see. The main reason he wanted me to come up here with him was to keep me out of harm’s way.” She turned back to face the dog. “All the Sutherlands have this protective streak that runs deep. A kind of inner white knight—rescue-the-damsel-in-distress thing. Only I don’t need someone to rescue me. And I don’t need someone to back out on a deal.”

      Alba raised her head, jingling her bell.

      “Exactly. I may have some wardrobe problems, but I have the winning argument. Sex on demand. Anytime, anyplace, any way. It’s the perfect relationship for us. Win-win.” As she spoke, some of the images from her fantasies slipped into her mind, but she pushed them ruthlessly away. It was time to stop thinking about them and make them real.

      “I’ll just have to make my case. And I’m good at deflating counterarguments. C’mon, girl.” She strode to the door and opened it. Then with Alba at her heels, she headed down the hall and started down the stairs.

      DUNCAN STOOD JUST INSIDE THE first-floor entrance to the library. But it was not where he wanted to be. He’d been at loose ends ever since he’d watched Piper run up the grand staircase to change her clothes. And he’d checked his watch several times, wondering why she hadn’t joined him yet.

      Twenty minutes had gone by, but it seemed longer. After he’d sent the deliveryman on his way, he’d fixed a plate of food for Piper to graze on and put it in the library. Then Vi had invited him into the main parlor to meet Russell Arbogast and his photographer Deanna Lewis. Both had seemed fascinated by Eleanor’s portrait and the sapphires. Duncan sensed Arbogast had been less than pleased with the news that they wouldn’t be allowed access to the library during their photo shoot. But Vi had smoothed over the news by showing them Angus One’s secret cupboard.

      Cam and Daryl had decided that no one outside the family would be allowed access to the library until they figured out exactly who’d been visiting it secretly. And that particular mystery was part of the reason he’d come to the castle, Duncan reminded himself.

      He stifled the urge to look at his watch again. It was time to focus on work.

      Closing the door behind him, he stepped farther into the long, narrow room and tried to clear his mind. Once Piper joined him that could be problematic. Intellectually, he might have decided to keep his distance, but when she’d walked up to him in the driveway, he’d had to stuff his hands in his pockets to keep from touching her. Right now, he wanted to go find her.

      Ruthlessly, he pushed that thought aside and made himself focus on the library as if it were a crime scene. The room was two stories high with an iron-railed walkway running around the second level of bookshelves. Cam’s theory was that after successfully gaining access to the castle, the intruder had entered through the door he’d just closed. The sunlight filtering in through the sliding glass doors that opened to a terrace on this level and a balcony on the floor above didn’t do much to penetrate the gloom. In the middle of the night, the intruder would have needed a flashlight—a high-powered one.

      As Duncan strode down the length of the room, the scent of dust and leather assaulted his senses. Piper’s father had locked the room up after his first wife’s death, and the last person who’d made any use of the room had been his mother when she’d done her research that summer nearly two decades ago. Books stuffed the shelves both horizontally and vertically. Others had spilled into piles on the floor. If someone had come here with the intention of finding some clue to the whereabouts of Eleanor’s jewels, it would be a formidable task. Even with a small crew of helpers, it would take time to search through all the books on both floors.

      But Cam believed it had been one intruder, someone who’d begun that search in a very careful and organized fashion. The only evidence he or she had left behind had been in disturbing the dust on the lower shelves along one wall from the outside terrace doors to well past the fireplace.

      Duncan studied the shelved books as he walked back the way he’d come. He noted the way the dust had been disturbed and in some cases cleaned away. Then he walked around the entire perimeter of the room. None of the other shelves looked disturbed, and he estimated that in six months, the intruder had methodically looked through less than one third of the library’s collection. Which meant he could have more than a year’s work ahead of him.

      That argued for both patience and determination. But it also indicated the same kind of obsession that most serial killers had when they stalked their prey. Whoever had paid regular visits to this library wanted those sapphires and they wouldn’t give up. Obviously, someone believed that the priceless jewels were still here on the grounds somewhere and that there was some kind of clue—a map or drawings, a diary perhaps, that would reveal the location. Or locations. Maybe they’d even suspected that the sapphires might have been concealed in one of the books. People frequently used books as hiding places. All Eleanor would have had to do was hollow out the center, tuck her dowry inside and place the book on a shelf with all the others.

      But she hadn’t. Still, she might have hidden a map or a drawing into one of the books. The fact that one of the sapphire earrings had shown up would only fuel the person’s determination. Obsession was never good news. In fact, there was a strong possibility that what he was beginning to feel for Piper might be headed down that path.

      The question was, did he have any chance of preventing that? An impossible question to answer when he didn’t know if he could keep his hands off her once she walked through that door.

      Work, he thought as he shifted his gaze to the seven boxes of files that he’d had the deliveryman line up along the wall. The only strategy he had open to him was to keep them both focused on the work they’d come here to do.

      PIPER STOPPED ON THE LANDING the second she saw that her aunt Vi was in the foyer, and she wasn’t alone. She recognized the couple who’d arrived earlier in the SUV, and she took a minute to study them. The man was tall in his late thirties with sandy-blond hair and handsome, photogenic features. His suit was Italian, she guessed, and probably tailored especially for him. The pretty brunette standing next to him was wearing jeans, a T-shirt and carried a very professional-looking camera.

      Alba growled at her side.

      Vi glanced up the stairs and made a quick hand signal to the dog that silenced her. Then she smiled. “Piper, you’re just in time to meet Mr. Arbogast and Ms. Lewis. They’re from Architectural Digest. They’re doing a feature article on the castle, and they’ll be doing a photo shoot tomorrow.”

      The man smiled up at her, and by the time Piper reached the group, he had his hand already extended. “Russell Arbogast. This place is such a find.” His smile was warm as were his eyes, and the slight accent added to his charm. “We’ve been running a series on Scottish castles, and when we came across the article in the Times, we called your sister immediately to book a shoot. I’m so glad we did. The photos they ran don’t do it justice. Deanna here will remedy that.”

      “Yes,” the woman said. Her smile was just as warm as Russell’s.

      Piper might have extended her hand to Deanna, but Russell hadn’t let go of it yet. Not that he was holding it captive. His grip was light, the sensation was pleasant. Piper couldn’t help but recall how different her reaction had been when her fingers had accidentally tangled with Duncan’s on the hood of his car.

      “We’re going to do the official shoot tomorrow,”

      Russell СКАЧАТЬ