Sweet Revenge

they clung to her skin.
    He could only speculate about the woman she was with. Not a contact; of that he was all but sure. There had been too much surprise, then pleasure on Adrianne’s face when they’d met.
    An old friend or perhaps a relative. Adrianne hadn’tcome to the beach to meet her. Unless Philip missed his guess, she’d come to be alone, as she had once or twice before when he’d followed her from the El Grande.
    He thought it a pity he’d had to miss the festivities there over the last couple of days. But it had been wiser all around to keep a low profile.
    He blew out a lazy stream of smoke and waited for Spencer to come on the line.
    “Spencer here.”
    “Hello, Captain.”
    “All right, Chamberlain, what the devil’s going on?”
    “You got the report I gave to the contact in New York?”
    “And a fat lot it tells me.”
    “These things take time.” He studied the way Adrianne’s damp hair fell down her back. “Often more than we’d like.”
    “I don’t need any bloody philosophy, I need information.”
    “Of course.” Lifting his binoculars, Philip focused on Adrianne’s face. She was laughing. There was nothing cool or aloof about the way her lips curved now. With reluctance he shifted the glasses to her companion. A relative, he decided now. Slightly older, very Americanized. He caught the glint of the diamond circle on her finger. And married.
    “Well.” The impatience in Spencer’s voice was as clear as the sound of him sucking on his pipe.
    “There isn’t much to add to my earlier report.” For his own pleasure, he tilted the glasses back to Adrianne. She had the most incredible skin—like the color of gold in an old painting. It was foolish, but for now Philip was going to take a few steps to save it for her. “If our man was in New York, he slipped out again. The only lead I scrounged up pointed to Paris. You might want to put your men there on alert.” Sorry old fellow, he added silently, but I need to buy some time.
    “Why Paris?”
    “The Countess Tegari. She’s spending the holidays there with her daughter. The old dear plucked a few prized pieces from the Duchess of Windsor collection. If I were still in the business, I’d find them very appealing.”
    “Is that the best you can do?”
    “At the moment.”
    “Where the hell are you and when will you be back?”
    “I’m taking the holidays off, Stuart. Expect me in thenew year. My best to your family,” he said over the first bluster of protest. “Happy Christmas.”
    Yes, she did have incredible skin, Philip thought again. Everywhere a man was lucky enough to see it.
    Because Adrianne could find no gracious way to refuse her cousin’s invitation for dinner aboard the yacht, she pushed up her plans. Part of her looked forward to the evening, to the chance to sit back and observe, to see if the mix of culture and tradition could indeed work. It would also be an iron-clad alibi, if indeed an alibi were ever required.
    Adrianne used her rooms at the El Presidente to change. It was a small precaution, but one she had decided worthwhile, liming was everything now. A glance at her watch assured her that the St. Johns would be busy in the Fiesta Boom, entertaining the press with early cocktails. That would give her over an hour before Lauren would be expected back in the Presidential Suite to change for the gala Christmas Eve dinner party.
    Adrianne would put in a late appearance, after her dinner with her cousin. If Lauren chose to wear her rubies that night, it should make an interesting diversion.
    It was a short drive north, and the evening was balmy with sunset still an hour or two away. When Adrianne pulled up in the El Grande’s parking lot, she was wearing oversize sunglasses and a floppy hat as well as a long-sleeved, concealing muumuu. She would be taken, as she intended, for an American tourist of dubious taste.
    Swinging the straw bag over her shoulder, she walked in the main entrance. Looking neither right nor left, she strode to the elevators. Once inside, she stopped the car between floors, stripped off the muumuu, and stuffed it and the hat and glasses into the bag. All of these were pushed into a laundry bag she’d folded and pushed down the bodice of the maid’s uniform she wore.
    It took less than thirty seconds before the car was gliding smoothly again toward the top floor. She wore a wig, black flecked with gray and bundled under a hairnet. She’d added a long thin scar down her