power.”
He raised his head and felt the triumphant grin spread across his face, stretching long-unused facial muscles. It had been a very long time since he’d had reason to smile. “Let’s all dance,” he told the guards, and he laughed his very rusty laugh as they waltzed all the way to the door.
Chapter 7
Fiona finished changing into her jeans and shirt, toweled off her damp hair, and pressed the button to lower the privacy glass so she could talk to Sean.
“I’m still not sure hiring you was such a good idea,” she said, uncapping a bottle of water and taking a long drink as they prowled through the dark and light of London at night. “I don’t know how much good ‘getaway driver’ is going to do you on your résumé. Not to mention the unfortunate and very real possibility of prison.”
He grinned at her in the rearview mirror, still looking far too young to even be allowed to drive, let alone be the chauffeur of a hardened criminal like herself. “Funny, that. Just sent out fifty résumés yesterday and I’ve had forty-nine job offers already. Evidently getaway drivers are in high demand these days.”
The grin faded and his eyes narrowed as he swerved around a badly parked car. “Stick your arse end out in the street, and you’ll lose it, Mr. Volvo,” he muttered.
“Forty-nine offers, hmm? Does that mean you’re leaving me to fend for myself?” Fiona rested her head against the back of the seat, suddenly utterly fatigued.
“Not quite yet, Lady Fiona. I was really holding out for that fiftieth outfit.” He smoothly rounded a corner and glanced back at her. “Get some rest, why don’t you?”
She aimed her sternest glare at the back of his head. “Call me Lady Fiona again and you’re fired, my young friend.”
“Whatever you say, Lady Fiona.”
She growled at him, but he just chuckled and switched on the music, something light and classical that one wouldn’t expect a twenty-two-year-old man—boy, really—to enjoy. Although it was true that he had never quite had the chance to be a boy. Not with the way he’d grown up. She’d stepped into the middle of a beating that day, seven years ago, and come out the other side with a broken arm and a fifteen-year-old boy who wouldn’t be parted from her, no matter how many times the authorities had tried to find him a suitable home.
So her home had become his home, and the child of a murderer and a whore became the ward of a thief. In her more self-aware moments, she wasn’t that sure it was a step up. But the truth was that she needed the help —help she could trust—and the reward was far too great for far too many for her to retire the Scarlet Ninja just yet.
Even though now she was in danger. She’d been seen.
Her thoughts returned to the man from the Tower. She hadn’t had the time to ask him how he’d gotten past security, not that he would have answered her anyway. But he knew she was a woman; a Scottish woman. He knew and he had absolutely no reason to protect her identity. She’d shot him with drugs and left him for the Guard.
She’d
“
The soothing music and the exhaustion pulled at her, helping to repress the worry for just a few minutes, and brooding turned to dozing until the car smoothly pulled to a stop and she realized they’d arrived safely in her garage. Sean was out of the car and opening her door before she could do it herself, another gallantry she’d tried to talk him out of many times. He took his chauffeur’s role seriously, though, and wouldn’t be dissuaded.
“We’re safe home,” he announced, grasping her arm and helping her out of the car as if she were a ninety- year-old woman with a bad case of the gout.
She bit back the impatient retort that sprang to her lips. It wasn’t Sean’s fault that she’d botched the job. A simple reconnaissance. “How dangerous can it be?” she’d said to Hopkins. Flippant and carefree.
How dangerous could it be? She was ruined. That was how dangerous.
“If you’re all right, then, I’ll say good night,” Sean said. He lived in a lovely little apartment over the garage. Hopkins had overseen the decorating himself, though he’d never admit it.
“Fine, thanks. You get some sleep.” She put a hand on his arm as he started to walk away. “Sean? You’re a wonderful help to me. I know I don’t tell you that often enough. Thank you.”
His pale face slowly flushed to a glowing pink under the dusting of freckles on his cheeks. “You don’t, I mean, I just, we—”
Hopkins’s dry voice sounded from the doorway to the laundry. “He means to say ‘you’re welcome,’ don’t you, Sean?”
“Exactly!” Sean said a shade too loudly. “Just off to bed now. To sleep, that is. Just sleeping. In bed.”
Fiona watched, fascinated, as Sean’s face turned a peculiar shade of plum-purple before he made a bizarre squeaking sound and practically ran for the stairs to his apartment.
When the door had closed behind him, she gathered her bag, closed the car door, and turned to Hopkins. “What on earth was that about?”
“That young man has believed since he was fifteen years old that the stars and moon shine for you alone. Didn’t you realize that all of his puppy adoration and hero worship would almost certainly turn into something a bit more personal?”
She blinked, trying to force her tired mind to put some sense into his words. “He—oh. Oh, no. He has a crush? On me? I’m far too old for him.”
“Oh, yes, all of five whole years. You’re ancient. And yes, a crush, as you say. Unrequited love. Quite an astonishingly fierce case. But don’t fret, it will pass. In fact, perhaps sooner rather than later, considering how lovely the housekeeper’s niece is,” Hopkins said, stepping forward to take her bag.
Fiona decided she’d had enough to deal with for one night and chose to put this latest problem aside. Far aside. Perhaps for the next ten years or so, or at least the next few months, until Sean grew out of it or switched his affections to the housekeeper’s niece.
“Nice pajamas,” she said, managing a grin. He still wore his perfectly creased jacket, shirt, and trousers. “Do you sleep in that outfit?”
A shadow crossed his face, probably at her pathetic attempt to force a bit of lightness into her voice. “Well, then? How did it really go?”
“It could have been better,” she admitted. “We have a bit of a problem.”
Hopkins narrowed his eyes, but she just shook her head. “Upstairs. When we’re in my office.”
“I see. That big of a problem,” was all he said, before leading the way into the house.
“Oh, my dear Hopkins. You have no idea.” As she followed him through the house and up the wide staircase to her second-floor office, she wanted to laugh but clamped her lips shut against it. She was afraid if she started, the edge of wildness racing through her would come out in hysteria, and one thing a lady must never do was succumb to hysteria. Her grandfather had told her that often enough, generally while brandishing his cane through the air and terrifying the servants. Odd that he’d never addressed the issue of a lady going to prison for the rest of her life. That lecture might have come in handy right about now.
As she trudged up the stairs, her thoughts returned to the mystery man. Whatever he was up to, she hoped—quite illogically—that he was safe.
“We’re going to have to put something in that space, you know.” Hopkins indicated the empty space on the wall where her grandfather’s portrait had claimed pride of ownership on the landing.
When she was a little girl, she’d always thought the eyes in the painting followed her around. Frankly, it had
