Sweet Revenge

with not a little disgust. He rapped, harder than was necessary, then tried the door when she didn’t answer. It was locked, but he had his door key in his pocket, along with a credit card and a thin coin. He didn’t bother to glance around as he went to work.
    When he opened the door, he knew He was already swearing when he went to the closet to pull it open. It was empty, but for her scent. There was a trace of powder on the vanity counter, but the bottles and tubes were gone.
    He let the closet door slam, then jammed his hands into his pockets. For a moment there was only rage and impotence. Never a violent man, he knew then what it was to anticipate murder with relish. Subduing his emotion, he walked to the phone and dialed the front desk.
    “How long ago did Lara O’Conner check out?” He waited, fantasizing violence and retribution. “Forty minutes? Thank you.”
    She could run, he thought as he replaced the receiver. But she’d never run fast enough.
    *  *  *
    As Philip vowed his own revenge, Adrianne buckled her seat belt. Her eyes were hidden behind dark glasses. They weren’t red-rimmed. She hadn’t allowed herself tears. But there was regret in them. He would be angry, she thought. Then he would go on—as she would, as she had to. Emotions, the kind he could pull out of her, had no place in her life. Until The Sun and the Moon was in her hands, there was no room for anything but revenge.

Chapter Twenty
    It had snowed in London. The streets were gray with slush. Along the curbside it was piled high, blackened like coal and every bit as ugly. But on the rooftops it lay as pristine as in an untouched meadow and glittered even in the sluggish sun. A stiff wind tore at the coats and hats of pedestrians who hurried along, hunched over, hanging on to whatever threatened to whip away. It was the kind of cold that penetrated bone and begged for spiced ale. Hours before, Philip had been under the streaming Mexican sun.
    “Here’s the tea, dear.” Moving quickly from the long habit of trying to catch up, Mary Chamberlain came in to her own cozy parlor. Turning from the window, Philip took the loaded tray from her. All of his boyhood favorites were on it. As dark as his mood was he had to smile. Mary had always tried to spoil him when she’d had the means, and when she hadn’t.
    “You’ve made enough for an army.”
    “You should offer your guest something when he comes.” She took a seat by the tea table, then lifted the pot to pour. It was a fine Meissen tea set, with pale pink roses and gold leaf. She always felt very grand using it. “Before he does, I thought we could have a cup together and a little chat.”
    She added a dollop of cream to his tea and remembered he hadn’t used sugar since he’d been twelve. The fact that he was past thirty still amazed her. She hardly felt more than that herself. Like any mother, she considered her son too thin and set two white frosted cakes on a plate for him.
    “There now.” Pleased, she stirred a healthy dose of sugarin her own cup. There was nothing quite like hot sweet tea on a winter afternoon. “Isn’t this cozy?”
    “Hmmm?”
    “Drink your tea, dear. It’s always a shock to the system to travel from one climate to another.” And whatever was really troubling him would come out sooner or later.
    He obeyed automatically, studying her over the rim. She’d put on weight in the last few years. Flattering weight, Philip thought. She’d always been too thin when he’d been a child. Her face was comfortably round, and if her skin lacked the dewiness of a girl’s, it had the glow of a mature woman’s. A few lines, certainly, but they came as much from laughing as from age. Mary had always been one for laughing. Her eyes were a clear, blameless blue.
    He’d inherited his looks not from her, but from the man who had swung in, then out of her life. As a child it had bothered him a great deal, so much so that he’d watched every man, from the postman to the prince regent, looking for a resemblance. To this day he wasn’t sure what he’d intended to do if he’d found one.
    “You’ve changed your hair.”
    Mary fluffed it. The gesture was flirtatious and totally innate. “Yes. What do you think?”
    “That you’re beautiful.”
    She laughed, full and rich and delighted. “I’ve a new hairdresser. His name’s Mr. Mark. Mr. Mark, can you imagine?” She rolled her eyes and licked a dab of frosting from her finger. “He flirts so