Last Enchantment

Chapter Three

Chapter Three

Half an hour later, Tegan was sitting in one of the most exclusive restaurants in London, close to the Houses of Parliament. Oliver had ushered her into a taxi, stopped it at his offices, and transferred her to a chauffeured limo, which sat purring on the double yellow lines outside. He had offices in one of those glass and steel structures near the Lloyds building, a breathtaking group of modern offices that rivaled anything London had to offer for seeing the sights.

All swish, understated comfort. The tables bore crisp, white cloths, and a small posy of seasonal flowers sat on the tabletop between them. This being February, seasonal flowers were rare, but they’d found some delicate narcissi. “Why no irises?” she wondered.

“The scent’s too strong.”

“I love the scent. I’d take it over roasting meat any day.”

He lifted a finger but didn’t take his attention from her. “You’re a vegetarian?”

She shook her head. “No. I just love the scent of irises.”

He leaned forward and stroked her fingers where they lay on the table. “I’ll remember that.”

Her eyes flicked wide, and she stared at him, feeling the warmth in her mind. “What is this?”

But the waiter arrived, and he couldn’t say any more. “You’ve decided?”

“Fish,” she said. “I haven’t had sea bass in a while.”

He closed the menu. He hadn’t consulted it once. “Whatever you recommend for a starter, sea bass for the lady and I’ll have the pork roti, please.”

“Sir.”

“Tell the wine waiter we’ll have a crisp white. A 2008 Virgilius if you have one.”

“At once, sir.” And Tegan knew that if they didn’t have one, they’d find one and pay anything the seller wanted. Oliver didn’t need to use the extreme form of psi that could make people do things, usually known as compulsion. He had the force of his considerable personality.

He glanced at her, his eyes capturing her attention in a way she wouldn’t have dreamed of allowing a year ago. “Take your time.”

That low, gentle purr found echoes in her stomach. Lower, in a place she’d denied all sensation to since she’d had her first intimations of orgasm. What was he doing?

As soon as the waiter had moved away, he spoke to her in a soft, caressing voice. “Do you want me to continue speaking to you mind to mind?”

“What?”

“I gave you a taste of what I could do during this case if you want me to. We might work out a way for it to go on, but it could be difficult. If we spend a lot of time apart.”

She caught her breath. He was offering to share his Talent? Vampires didn’t have as strong psi as other Talents. They didn’t need it as much. So Oliver didn’t have much to share, but he was considering doing it for her.

“While we’re doing this, I can share with you. You might not have your Talent, but you have all the skills you used to filter, assess, and mentor it. I have it, but yours is better, more finely honed. So it makes sense that I share what I have and let you use it.”

The sommelier arrived with the wine, beads of condensation frosting the outside of the bottle, and poured them both a glass. No namby-pamby tasting first in this place. Oliver took a sip and nodded. “Thank you.” He watched her, his pale gaze expectant, his face impassive.

She picked up her glass. She rarely allowed herself alcohol, too conducive to losing control, but she had nothing to lose. Nothing at all. So she took a sip and found it good. Fruity, but not overwhelming, with a lovely spicy aftertaste. “It’s good.” She smiled wryly. “I don’t usually drink.”

“I know. I thought you’d enjoy it.” He paused. “You’re safe with me, Tegan. I promise. I won’t trick you, won’t force you into anything. If you get drunk, I’ll take you home and tuck you into bed. Alone.” This time his smile was friendly and uncalculating. “Okay?”

“Sure.” Their starter arrived. Fresh vegetable soup, something she wouldn’t normally consider a treat, but this was special. It was redolent of the fields on a fresh, dewy spring morning, its light green color somehow appropriate, and reflecting the light, fresh taste.

The soup plate was almost empty when she realized something else. She rarely enjoyed her food, just consumed it. But this was adding to the experience of dining here, and together with the ambience and the glass of wine, she felt almost relaxed.

This meal seemed like something out of time, a break before real life started again. But as soon as they left this place, back it would come.

The second course was as appetizing as the first. They spoke of mutual interests, their love of the theater and difficult abstract art, and his Old Master addiction, as he described it. “My home has several examples of the more florid Restoration style. I have a painted staircase.” He grinned. “It kind of grows on you. There are little devils under each riser and angels all over the ceiling.”

“It sounds frightening.”

“That was one of its purposes. The other was to provide amusement. There are many little jokes.” He touched his napkin to his lips, and she watched the soft flesh indent just a little. “I’d like to show it to you.”

“I’d like to see it.” It was true; she would. “I enjoy art. It’s one of my outlets.”

He tilted his head slightly to one side. “Outlets?” His smile invited intimacy.

“When I was a child at the seminary, they taught us to sublimate our sexual energies into other things. Art was mine.” She smiled, remembering. “I tried to paint, but I’m afraid that’s not one of my gifts. But I love to look.”

He latched on to something she hadn’t considered. “You’re Catholic? You said seminary.”

“No, I’m not anything really. I’m a wait-and-see. But my parents were good Catholics, and the seminary was one of the best academies for my kind out there.” Without thinking, she’d used a euphemism for “sorcerer” the way Talents had always done in public. Old habits, not needed any longer. But people still did it. Including her, a non-Talent.

He reached out and took her hand. “You’re still one of us. You always will be.” His touch burned her like fire, soothed her like ice on a burn, and both at the same time. But she had no reason to avoid it anymore. It replaced something she’d lost, gave her a new challenge. And she wanted it, wanted to chase it down and study it.

Tears of self-pity sprang to her eyes. Shamefully used to them by now, she blinked them away. “Thank you.” She’d cried far too much recently. It had been as bad as the rape in its own way, but it had done its work, made her face the fact that she was someone different. “How did you know? Did you read me?”

“No. You’d have noticed. You may have lost that gift, but intrusion by another is always noticeable. You know that. I just saw it in your eyes. You have very expressive eyes, did you know that? I had no idea before today.” He was stroking her palm with his thumb, the gesture moving from soothing to—interesting again. Little thrills of sensation spread through her hand, her arm.

He withdrew his hand. “Eat up, darling. Don’t let your fish get cold.”

She blinked. Darling? Probably— She grinned. “You call women that when you can’t remember their names.”

He finished his bite of food and reached for his glass, taking a swallow of wine before he spoke. “Not in your case. Tegan, Tegan, Tegan. There.” Every time he spoke her name in that low, intimate tone, the warmth inside her grew, slowly, like the sun rising above the horizon. It didn’t happen all at once.

“Why are you doing this?”

He smiled and leaned back, reaching for his wine. “It’s part of my devilish plan.” After finishing his glass, he put it gently down on the table and leaned forward, speaking in a low voice. “You are my girlfriend. After lunch, I’m taking you home. To my home. We’re a new item, so I’m going to be all over you for a while.”

She listened, numb with shock. “Are you for real?”

“You know I am.” He gave her one of his intimate smiles. “But what I’m saying is that you will come to no harm on my watch. None. And the only way I can be sure of that is if I keep you close. My flat is a big one. It has more than one bedroom. My housekeeper knows I don’t sleep with my girlfriends. I use a separate bed, so two messed up beds in the morning is usual to them. You understand now?”

Fuck, yes. The assignment. To find the traitor. All this was an act. But that psi? Amazingly sexy. “That part, yes. But why do you want me so close?”

Gently, he laid his knife and fork neatly together on his nearly empty plate. “To make Marcus curious. He’ll come around. You can bet on that. Sniffing. And then we’ll know from his actions who is telling the truth and how to proceed.” His expression turned grim, his mouth settling into a hard line. “And no, there are no bugs on this table and nobody can hear us. One of my Talents is to detect bugs or interference. It’s like listening to music. I can detect dissonances, changes to the harmony, extra notes. Call it what you like.”

“I didn’t know that.” And she’d worked with him.

“Very few people do.”

“Why?”

He shrugged and glanced away. “It never came up. There wasn’t a reason to tell anyone. Otherwise, I probably would have done. Why would I let G have all my secrets? The man’s a fanatic, determined to do the best for Talents, whatever that means to the general population. CAT probably needs somebody like that, but I don’t. I prefer a more balanced view.”

She’d never thought of it like that before. Until two years ago, nobody had known about Talents, except Talents themselves. Everybody was used to keeping secrets. Now, not so much, but it seemed that in some, it had become an ingrained habit. Maybe he was naturally secretive, or maybe he liked playing games.

Well, she didn’t. “I won’t get involved in a play of yours.”

“You already are. Even if nothing else happens, the media will ask who the beautiful woman was who had lunch with Lord Derrington the other day.”

“I’m not beautiful.” The reflex was there. She could make herself elegant, dress up for an occasion, but she didn’t have the beauty that turned heads. Just as well, considering her erstwhile job.

“Oh, but you are. It’s a lasting, deep kind of beauty. The best.”

She laughed. “And you call yourself a connoisseur.”

“Oh, yes. Yes, I do.” His gaze turned erotic, his eyes transmitting pure sex.

She had to stop this. Tingles consumed her whole body, warmth she wasn’t used to, a restlessness that in previous times had been a warning that she’d better do something else, fast. Now, she couldn’t see the point. She recognized the urge for what it was—sexual attraction. And she welcomed it. It showed that bastard Schofield hadn’t eliminated that side of her, that all her training had only sublimated it, not killed it, as she’d once thought.

But here wasn’t the place to pursue those thoughts. Especially when she was wearing a white linen dress. Already dampness was seeping through her panties. She could feel it, slick on her thighs. She tried to think of something else. She glanced out of the window. Big Ben, great. Had anyone ever designed a more phallic clock tower? He wasn’t for her, too experienced, too clever at the dating game. Out of her league. “Won’t I put a stop to your active love life?”

His slow smile ought to be banned. “That’s up to you. But no. I’m not some randy kid. I can control it. Not as well as you can, I freely admit, but while my nature is all fire, I learned the knack of keeping control years ago.”

The assignment. Think about the goal. “So you want him to chase us.”

“Chase you, darling. You were meant as a warning. Unlike G, I don’t think they meant to kill you. Whoever did this to you wanted you to tell the story you did. I’m sure of it.”

Shock reverberated through her. He was right. “Otherwise they’d have just killed me immediately.”

His smile was all grim certainty. “Precisely. It’s only in spy novels where the man tortured is released to convict the people who did it. They wanted to render you harmless first, so you couldn’t sense what they were doing. But they left you alive, Tegan. Didn’t you think of that?”

She couldn’t hide anything from him. “No.” Shameful that she hadn’t worked it out already. When they’d found her, they assumed she’d fought back, and she’d been close to death, her mind broken by the trauma it had just suffered. But she’d lived. “Why didn’t I think about that before?”

“Because the experience traumatized you, as it was meant to.” His brow creased with concern. “You were too busy getting better. And you didn’t know about the complication. You identified Marcus and your job ended there. That was what they told you, yes?”

“Yes,” she admitted. “It was a shock when I realized he was still at large, but G said he wanted to use him as bait. He wasn’t working alone.”

“He probably does want that. I want the truth. I don’t know if Marcus was involved at all, or if he was, if someone coerced him. I want to know for sure. Then I want to know who is doing this and stop him from doing it again.” Although he said that last part easily, softly, he left her in no doubt that he meant it. “So we’ll go to the theater together, and we’ll attend a few dinners, go dancing at the hottest spots in town. Whatever it takes to get Marcus coming around panting.”

“Can a Victorian do the twist?” she wondered.

He laughed, and the sound came as softly calming. “Rather retro, darling, aren’t you? But if you want to twist, I’ll find a sixties club for you. If I can’t, I’ll make one.” His smile broadened. “And yes, a Victorian can do more than waltz. At least, this one can.”

“Charleston?” The age that vampires and shape-shifters lived to had always fascinated Tegan, but in an intellectual way. She’d never wanted it for herself, knowing she couldn’t sustain her powers for that long. But what they’d experienced fascinated her.

“I’ve done it in the past. Do you want me to teach you?”

She shook her head. “I can waltz, and I can move a bit on a dance floor, but it’s not something I ever thought about much.” Too much intimacy. Too many opportunities for a person to get close.

“I want to dance with you. I want to know what you feel like in my arms.” He leaned closer, one elbow on the table. Foolishly, she recalled the strictures of the seminary. No joints on the table, Mother Superior had said. She wished her old headmistress could see her now, and the way she held his complete attention. She wasn’t so unattractive that she couldn’t draw a man, but she’d only ever used it in the course of an operation before, coldly pulling someone toward his doom. “If I can’t have anything else, I want to have that, at least.”

She didn’t know what to say, then it came to her. She laughed, a little shakily, but she managed it. “You’re good. Everybody in this place will be talking about us.”

The waiter came and removed their plates, forcing Oliver to lean back. When he’d gone, Oliver dispensed the last of the wine and leaned forward again, putting her right back where she was before. Helplessly trapped by his gaze, the sight of his body, muscles moving against the thin fabric of his shirt. Under all that civilization lurked the heart of a savage. She shuddered.

He saw it, as a predator would. “So they will. But it’s the media gathering outside that we need to put on a show for. Nothing blatant. Only soap stars court the press that way. Just a few looks, hands linked, that kind of thing. It’ll bring Marcus running. Even if he remembers nothing, he’ll recognize you as a catch, and he’ll want to meet you.”

She held her spine rigid, controlling her reaction when she thought of meeting Schofield again. “Then what?”

“Then we’ll know. If he’s complicit, he might have expected they killed you. He’d hardly expose his face like that if he didn’t think so, would he? I’ve known him for years, and he’s anything but stupid. Arrogant sometimes, but not stupid. Or he was coerced and he might not remember anything at all. Or he did it under duress. If I stay in your mind, and if you share his reactions with me, then we can work it out and decide what to do next.”

“You mean call a sorcerer in?”

He grimaced. “Maybe. If we have to. But between us I think we can do it.”

“It’s okay. A sorcerer might be useful.”

She thought she’d hidden her reaction, her yearning for what she’d lost, but he picked up on it. Either that, or he was still playing his seduction game. He caught her hand, stroked the palm again. “We’ll avoid it if we can. Keep it between us. You can’t feel comfortable around other sorcerers.”

“I’m not a sorcerer anymore,” she reminded him.

He leaned closer. “Yes, you are. Sorcerers are a race of people, right? You’re all traceable back to a Hungarian family, or so my mother told me. So you’re still a sorcerer. You just don’t have what others do. Don’t you have any blind sorcerers, any deaf ones?”

He got it. He understood. She nodded.

“Well, then.” And he moved as close as he could without pushing the table aside, and she found herself drawn to him.

“You still have a lot to give.” His mouth was a whisper from hers.

“That remains to be seen,” she murmured back, her voice as seductive as his. “You think he didn’t do this, don’t you?”

He drew back abruptly and pulled his hand away. “I can’t imagine Marcus doing this. He has no need. He has an amazing technique, and I’ve seen him romance, seduce, or simply ask any woman he wanted to share his bed.”

“You sound as if you were there.”

“Sometimes I was.” The way he said it, part triumphant, part ashamed, and the way his gaze skimmed past her and then back made her wonder. What would that feel like? How would it work? Did they take turns or both at the same time? Shit, this was no good for her dress.

“Do you do that often?”

He shrugged, back in control again. “From time to time.” He shook his head. “It’s not something you’re used to so I didn’t want to bring it up. But I enjoy sharing a woman from time to time. It adds spice. Enjoying a man on occasion, too.”

She was completely speechless. He shared women? Had men? She had no idea. She’d read about his racy reputation, but it had been in vague terms and using insinuations. Occasionally a “kiss and tell” piece might have gone further, but the fact he didn’t sue didn’t mean it was any more real.

But it was. And here was the living proof, confirmation in her mind. He opened a little more to her, another layer of his mind, and she knew he wasn’t lying. No doubt about it, she was completely out of her depth with this man.

“Sharing?” A few more pieces clicked together. “So you want me to entice Marcus? Get him to suggest something like that?”

“No. Only suggest the possibility. If he knew what he was doing, then he won’t want to, and from Marcus that would be the first time ever. He likes me, too, you see.” The gentle way he said it and his presence in her mind told her nothing this time. No twinge of emotion. Whatever he felt for Marcus Schofield, he’d buried it deep. “If he shies away, we go after him. If he comes in, we can question him. Explore his mind.”

She put down her empty glass. How had that happened? That wine was so smooth and delicious, she’d hardly noticed the three glasses she’d consumed in the course of the meal. And, blessed with a good head for alcohol, she wasn’t drunk, only a pleasant buzz invaded her body, softening the edges she always kept so sharp. Now, there was no need.

“Do you want dessert?”

She shook her head, bravely resisting the temptation of the dessert menu. That would mean more wine, and then she really would be drunk.

“Ready to face the hordes?”

“What makes you think there are hordes?”

He grinned. “The manager of this place informs the media, unless you tell him not to. He knows when people want publicity. And when they don’t.”

She fluttered her lashes. “And here I am thinking that it’s because of the food. Which, by the way, was great.”

“Yes, it was. Come on.” He got to his feet, and they left, only pausing at the cloakroom to get her coat. He shrugged on his jacket, and a member of staff helped her on with her coat. Glancing around at the other clientele, Tegan felt severely underdressed, but in a good way. Over embellished, overmade-up women passed her, and she knew she didn’t want that for herself. Severely elegant, she decided, just like always, but since her black wool coat was a couple of seasons out of date, she was probably not fit to be seen.

Conspicuous consumption abounded in this place. But she couldn’t feel superior as she might have done, say, six months ago. Now she knew, or had gained, humility. You did what you had to. She’d found that particular lesson hard to learn, but she had no intention of forgetting it.

Suddenly nervous, she glanced up at Oliver, to see his reassuring smile. He reached out and took her hand, and although she knew it was for show, she took comfort from it. His warmth enveloped her, surrounding her in a cocoon of their own, and his mind remained firmly in hers, although he’d closed off all but the outer layer. She felt his barriers surround them both, almost stronger than any other psi gift he possessed. Of course, he hadn’t come out, left the closet of Talents. The media outside didn’t know his true nature.

The assignment was the furthest thing from her mind as she stepped out on to the sidewalk amid a barrage of flashes and shouts. She’d seen it before but never been the center of attention. It overwhelmed her, the intensity sweeping over her like a great wave, and she would have staggered back had it not been for his hand wrapped firmly around hers. He impelled them forward and then drew her closer. They were still not embracing, but then he slipped his arm around her waist. Perfectly acceptable, but she felt the heat of his body along the complete length of hers and it did anything but calm her.

Oliver stared the photographers out, listening to their shouted questions and demands, then answered the ones he wanted to. “We’ve known each other for a while, and I don’t know where it’s going. The merger with Streeters Inc. is going well, and we hope to have an announcement about the remaining stores at the end of the month. I believe the incredible staff at GearGo will have the promised new ereader for you to view soon. While you’re all listening, can I remind you that next Monday is Pay Attention To Your Employees day? And don’t forget that for every comment, the participating employers will be donating to the Abused Children Fund.” He made each statement with a small pause between, so that the video editors could make a clean job of it. That alone, and his sangfroid under fire told her how many times he’d done this, how many press people he’d faced. He’d given snippets of information, and for the first time she noticed people distributing business cards and leaflets to the crowd.

She tugged on his hand, and he bent so she could murmur in his ear. “Who are they?”

“My staff. A shame to waste a promotion opportunity, especially where the fund’s concerned.” He kissed her cheek, grinning when she started in shock. She hadn't expected that. Sure, she knew about playing the press, but a kiss? They’d be all over the society pages and the gossip magazines and sites.

Which, of course, was what they wanted. Of course. So they could get the job done and get on with their lives.

Sadness pervaded her, but she forced it back, wouldn’t let it seep into her consciousness. She didn’t want him to realize how his attention warmed her, made her want more. Because this was all for show, right?

Sure it was.