"You'll hear me if I need you," he promised. "I've got good lungs."
"I thought you had respiratory problems?" she asked, with that sudden unnerving astuteness.
"They don't keep me from screaming bloody loud. Good night, Francey. Thanks for taking such good care of me."
"My pleasure," she said.
He waited a good ten minutes before leaving the bed. She would be asleep by then—she'd been almost asleep on her feet as she stood over his bed. Stripping off Daniel's silk pajamas, he lay down on the rush matting and began his sit-ups.
He couldn't do more than forty-five. Which was better than the twenty-five he'd managed last week. The push-ups were up to forty, but by the time he was finished he was sweating, trembling with the effort, almost ready to throw up. He collapsed on the matting, breathing heavily, and wondered how damned long it was going to take to get his body back in working shape.
Too long. It would be solid months before he was back to his normal weight, back to full strength. Francey Neeley's part in tracking down Patrick Dugan's confederates would be long over by then. He would never see her again, and she'd remember him as a skinny, frail, slightly effete British schoolmaster. Mr. Chips meets James Bond.
Maybe he'd better cut back on the slightly effete part. There were times when the only amusing aspect of a grim job was his playacting, but he had the feeling that Francey's clear brown eyes would see through anything less than subtle. He'd been able to convince people he was gay when it was a necessary part of his cover, but somehow he didn't think he would be able to convince Francey.
Perhaps it was because of his inexplicable reaction to her. She hadn't been at all what he'd expected. He'd seen the photographs—clandestine photos of her and Dugan, family snapshots provided by Travers. She'd looked rather ordinary. Shoulder-length brownish hair, plain brown eyes, large mouth, small nose, heart-shaped face. In reality she was more. So much more that he was having a hard time forgetting that he'd been forcibly celibate for months. Which must be a record, since he'd lost his virginity at the tender age of thirteen. It must simply be a monumental case of horniness.
Still, he'd come to St. Anne ready to distrust her, ready to pin her down and get what he wanted from her through fair means or foul.
He still didn't trust her. But he was willing to give her the benefit of the doubt. There was stark, empty pain in her eyes. Pain that might simply have come from her lover's death. Or a pain that had come from a betrayal far deeper than that.
Those eyes saw too much, though. It was a good thing he'd thought to borrow one of Travers's suits. His own were slightly baggy, but this oversize one had made him look like a scarecrow. Enough to soothe even the most nervous female's anxieties.
Though Francey didn't strike him as a nervous female. She drove like a bootlegger, all right. Or an IRA driver. He didn't trust how good she was; it didn't fit.
Still, someone had definitely been trying to kill at least one of the passengers in the Jeep. Which immediately put her on the side of the hunted.
At least he'd been able to fool her for now. She had a frail schoolteacher in her adjoining bedroom, one barely able to walk on his own two feet. That much was true, he thought in disgust. But he was able to hold his own a hell of a lot better than she suspected, including pushing that damnably heavy Jeep out of the water.
Tomorrow he would begin to work on her. Slide under her unsuspecting guard and see exactly how much she knew about Patrick Dugan and his confederates. And then he would decide what to do with her.
Chapter 3
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At the moment there was only one question troubling Francey: Exactly what was going on with the man sleeping in the room next to hers? Something didn't ring true about him, about his arrival, and yet she had nothing to go on but her instincts. Instincts that had failed her badly in the past few months.
She shoved the pillows behind her back and stared out into the dark night. The noises from the room next to her had stopped, and she could only assume Michael had finally managed to drift off to sleep. If only she could be so lucky.
She'd heard him climb out of bed. She'd lain very still, listening to the quiet thuds, the faint groans and wheezes, from the room beyond, and it had been all she could do not to run in and check on him. It had sounded as if he were having one of his spasms, and for all she knew she would find him dead the next morning.
But something kept her tied to the uncomfortable bed, something she couldn't begin to understand. She wasn't going to leave this small bastion of safety to check on her housemate unless he called for help.
And he wouldn't do that unless he had to. She'd seen his self-contempt, his hatred of his weakness, and she knew he hated other people's efforts even more than he hated his own. For all his charm, his wonderful smile and easy ways, he wouldn't take kindly to intrusions and maternal caring. She'd almost kissed him on the forehead when she tucked him in, then wisely resisted the impulse. He wasn't a sick little boy. He was a man, and he was probably already feeling emasculated.