Atlantis Betrayed

Declan burst into the room. “Oh, yes, definitely cakes. Roast beef sandwiches, too, please. Thick ones—I feel as if I could eat an entire cow. Those book signings always wear me out.”

Hopkins nodded and left the room again, and Christophe roamed around, pacing the floor, picking up objects and putting them back down.

“Casing the room, are you?” Hopkins said, returning through a different doorway.

Christophe shrugged. “You still won’t tell me where the good silver is.”

Fiona remembered the last time the silver had come up in conversation, and her face heated up approximately a thousand degrees. Christophe must have had the same thought, because he flashed her a wicked grin.

Hopkins, unfortunately, must also have remembered, judging by the way he glared at them both.

“So, love at first sight,” Declan said, breaking the heavy silence. “I always wanted a brother.”

Chapter 15

Christophe patted his full belly and finally put down his fork. “I’ll say one thing for you. You put out a great spread for tea. I expected something haggis-like, Your Scottishness.”

He grinned as she put her head in her hands and quietly moaned. He was having a great time with this fake cowboy act—he’d encountered enough of them in America’s Old West to know how to play it—and it was accomplishing exactly what he’d hoped. He’d kept her distracted and aggravated at him enough during the meal to help keep her from brooding about those murdered guards. She’d even managed to eat a little. Still, it was time to make plans.

“I’m going to hit the night side tonight. London’s underbelly doesn’t start rocking until after midnight. I’m heading out then to check it out and see who might know what about the theft.”

Hopkins, who’d finally consented to sit with them, after Fiona had practically issued a royal command, nodded. “That’s where you’re going to find news, if there is any. I’m going with you. Declan can stay here with Lady Fiona.”

Fiona put her teacup down with a distinct clatter. “If you don’t stop talking about me like I’m not in the room, I’m going to throw you both out of my house.”

Declan chimed in: “You tell ’em, sis. Also, I’m going, too.”

Everyone started arguing at once. Christophe watched Fiona, entranced with the way her cheeks flushed a dusky rose-pink when she was angry. The same color they turned when she was aroused. His pants started to feel uncomfortably tight, as he remembered the way she’d arched her back against the window, her pale skin glowing in the moonlight like a fever dream. He shifted in his chair, which was surprisingly comfortable, given the elegance of the room, and cleared his throat for attention.

All three of them ignored him.

“Hey. Hey.”

They finally stopped talking and he seized his chance.

“We can’t all go,” he pointed out. “Hopkins, I know I’d trust you to back me up in a fight, but you come off a little too much like a butler to go to the places I have in mind. The folks who hang in this kind of pub have never seen the inside of a drawing room.”

Hopkins bared his teeth. “I am a butler. Also, appearances can be deceiving.”

He stood up, hunched his shoulders, tilted his head to the right, twisted his mouth up a little, and suddenly, impossibly, the perfect, impeccable butler looked like a homeless drunk from the seediest part of the city. “Spare a euro, guv’nor?”

Fiona gasped. “How did you do that? That’s rather terrifying.”

Declan started applauding. “That’s brilliant. You should be on the stage, Hopkins.”

“Definitely brilliant,” Christophe admitted. “But you’re still not going. You’re not a shifter, a vampire, or a sorcerer. You won’t be welcome, and nobody will talk to you.”

“There’s no way anybody without magic pulled off that heist,” Fiona said slowly. He could tell she was agreeing with him only reluctantly, but it was still agreement. He’d take what he could get.

“Unless it was an inside job, which, though doubtful, is still possible,” he countered. “On a different but related topic, I don’t believe in coincidences. Why is this sword suddenly so popular?”

“Let’s adjourn to my office,” Fiona said, glancing around. “We may be interrupted here.”

Christophe followed the rest of them up the stairs, taking the opportunity to enjoy the sight of Fiona’s lush, curvy ass. There was something about her. Something different. It wasn’t just her body that was spectacular.

When the realization hit, it knocked him back a step. He didn’t just lust after her. He liked her. He admired her courage. Sure, she was a thief, but she was a thief with integrity, if that even made sense.

A thief with integrity. Oh, boy. He was in trouble.

Fiona turned, waving Hopkins and her brother past her at the top of the stairs, and cast an impatient glance back at him. “Any day, now,” she said, tapping her foot.

She was absolutely gorgeous and unbelievably desirable. He should run. He should run fast. Instead, he followed her up the stairs, wondering if this was how Prince Conlan had felt when he’d met Princess Riley.

Terrified.

Back again in her comfortable suite of office space, he commandeered the chair behind her desk, just to irritate her, and grinned when it was obvious he’d succeeded.

“So,” he said, drumming his fingers on her desk. “Why Vanquish? There were plenty of jewels there that would have been easier to steal and more profitable to unload, right?”

She narrowed her eyes. “You first.”

“What do you mean?”

Declan piped up. “She means, why were you after Vanquish?” The boy was nothing if not helpful.

“Shouldn’t you be off chasing girls?” Christophe asked him.

“It’s a fair question, partner,” Hopkins told him. “Answer it.”

Christophe swiveled in the chair to face him. “Why do you always sound as though you’d rather shoot me than talk to me?”

“Perhaps because you have some measure of perceptiveness?”

Fiona held up her hands. “Enough, boys. Instead of shooting each other, let’s find out what happened, who has Vanquish, and how they framed the Scarlet Ninja for the crime.”

“If you hadn’t left your calling card,” Hopkins began, before he stopped and shook his head. “Forgive me, Lady Fiona. This is not your fault.”

She raised her head, and Christophe had never seen despair written so painfully on a face in his centuries of existence. “Yes. It is my fault. I played this game, and now the penalty is mine. Those guards’ families rightfully must be cursing my name. I owe it to them to discover the truth.”

The sight of her face, ravaged by emotion, unlocked a door he’d forgotten was even buried deep inside his heart. He heard the click as the first barrier he’d erected all those years ago opened a slow and painful inch. It was enough to help him come to a decision.

“I need to tell you about me,” he said. “Why I’m here for that sword. Although I don’t really care about the sword, I just need the Siren.”

“Need?” Hopkins said. “That’s an interesting choice of words.”

“A deliberate choice of words. I’m from Atlantis, and unless I retrieve that gem, the Seven Isles cannot rise from beneath the sea.”

He didn’t know what he’d expected, but it certainly wasn’t what he got. Declan burst out laughing. Hopkins snorted in apparent disgust. Fiona did neither. She just looked at him, shock and then anger written on her face.

“If you don’t plan to tell us the truth, that’s one thing, but don’t insult me by making up fairy tales,” she said. “Did you think that since I write those stories in my books that I’d be charmed by another one?”