Consumed by Fire (Fire 1)

y to wash the betraying makeup off her face, when she heard the muffled gong of the dinner bell. She was being an idiot, on every level. She was dressed, presentable, and hungry, and why she’d put on makeup was unimportant. Sometimes she just felt like dressing up. Tonight was one of those nights. She grabbed her featherweight shawl and left the room, ready to face the beautiful monster she’d created in her head and put him in perspective.

A slow cat-like smile curved Claudia’s mouth as she watched from the barely opened door across the hallway. The girl hadn’t even bothered to lock her room. Silly thing. She might think she’d left nothing of value in there, but Claudia knew better. Secrets, the information was far more valuable than iPods and credit cards, and could never be completely covered up. Let James play his little games with the creature—if it amused him she didn’t care. As long as he fulfilled his part of the plan, nothing else mattered.

Ah, but it did matter. James needed to remember why he was here, as an adjunct to someone who knew him as well as anyone. Which wasn’t much—James kept his secrets as did she, and he wasn’t about to cozy up to her and confess all. That thought was horrible. For now she simply took him at his word.

Not that she cared. He could just as easily have been sent as the active agent, with her as backup, but the sad fact was he lacked her total ruthlessness. He let ridiculous things bother him, like compassion, and mercy, and forgiveness. Those things were weaknesses, and it was little wonder she’d been put in charge of this job. He might have seen Corsini with a child and suddenly decided he deserved to live.

As for Claudia, she didn’t know why they had been charged with getting rid of Corsini, and she didn’t care. The Corsini family was involved in a dozen illegal operations, from drug smuggling to sex trafficking, but the old man was simply an accountant, an important cog in the machine, but not the capo dei capi. The organization that she and James served, ingenuously called the Committee, believed in compartmentalizing information. Things worked better that way. James held one piece of the puzzle, she held another. Solving puzzles was a game for children. As long as she could use her skills and ply her trade, the rest was for other people to work out. She was a weapon. All they had to do was point her.

The Committee provided her with an outlet for her complicated desires. A covert, multinational organization centered in London, it ostensibly sought to stamp out terrorism and international crime in ruthless ways no public organization could ever get away with, supposedly making the world safe. Claudia didn’t give a damn about politics, and she knew the world would never be safe. She preferred it that way.

She waited until the hall was empty. James had already baited his trap, and no one would be up here roaming the corridors. No one would see if she slipped into the girl’s room. She might not care about the people she was sent to kill, but those she chose on her own were different. Besides, she might have to answer to Madsen if it were traced back to her, and it always helped to know a little bit about her self-appointed victims. She might need a plausible excuse, and target practice wouldn’t do.

Evangeline was the last person down for dinner, late as usual, and she liked it that way. Most of the evening crowd was already seated, busy in conversation with dinner partners, and there was no sign of James Bishop. If he stood her up she’d be overjoyed, she told herself.

She glanced at the restaurant in the atrium of the small hotel. It was a Saturday night and the place was jammed—it was one of the best places to eat in Cabrisi and they took in guests from the various B and Bs in the town, even stealing diners from the Americanized hotel in the business district. There were a number of couples who were unfamiliar to her, and then the usuals. The American couple was on a trip to celebrate their retirement, and they held hands, so she assumed it was a second marriage. No one held hands after ten years. In fact, she couldn’t imagine her cool, practical parents getting close enough to each other to spawn two children, but in fact they had. The physical resemblances were indisputable, even though as a child she’d often daydreamed that she was adopted.

The two British matrons were arguing, as they always did, in their crisp, bird-like tones. They wore tweed skirts, twinsets, and sensible shoes, and she imagined the British matrons, or spinsters, or whatever they were considered, had worn the same uniform for the last eighty years. They tended to fight about money—one of them was frugal, the other a spendthrift—and she wondered if they were lovers. She hoped so. They certainly treated each other with the air of long-term partners. Though they didn’t hold hands.

The Italian couple from Rome looked amorous, and the elderly scholar who had little use for a mere researcher sat in his corner, reading. Was that what she’d be like in ten, twenty years? There was no sign of Mr. Corsini, which surprised her. The Italian gentleman liked his food and his company, and he usually occupied the seat of honor for the entire duration of the evening meals, from seven until close to midnight, or possibly later, but after then Evangeline had sought her bed. He had kind eyes, and he always treated her in a most decorous manner. She liked him, and she hoped he wasn’t still asleep up in the mountainside church. Maybe he’d moved on after all—it was a good thing she hadn’t waited for him. And in the end she’d had no reason to be nervous about accepting a ride from James Bishop, thinking he might make a pass at her. In fact, he’d stood her up.

At least she wouldn’t have to worry about making small talk with a gorgeous man. She was absolutely relieved . . .

“You do clean up well, Miss Morrissey,” came a low, liquid voice in her ear. “Clearly it was worth the wait.”

So why was her heart leaping instead of sinking in disappointment? She wasn’t going to think about it. She turned to face her dinner partner. “Are you chiding me for being late?” she asked him point-blank.

He smiled down at her, those dark eyes enigmatic. “Never. A beautiful woman is always worth waiting for.”

“But the plain ones better be on time?”

He laughed. “In fact, Evangeline,” his voice caressed her name, and she felt an odd little ripple inside, “I find all women beautiful. I don’t discriminate.”

“That busy, are you?” she said caustically.

His forehead wrinkled, that high, perfect forehead. “Why so combative? Have I done something wrong?”

She was being an idiot. “No, of course not. I’m just tired and hungry and crabby.”

“I can take care of that.”

She raised her eyebrows. “What, all three?”

“Well, at least two of them,” he said.

The dining room was packed, the noise level high, which would help with having to make conversation. She wondered idly where they were going to squeeze in.

“Everything set?” Bishop said when Silvio arrived, his usually perfectly pomaded hair slightly awry.

“Of course. This way, signore and signorina,” he murmured, moving away from the noisy dining room.

Evangeline immediately froze. Did Bishop think she was stupid enough to agree to dinner in his room this soon after meeting him? Whether she trusted him or not, whether she had an instant, reluctant, incredibly potent attraction to him, she wasn’t going to . . .

But Silvio was leading them away from the stairs, and she felt at least the first few layers of icy distrust melt. She had layers inside her that would take one of those things that drilled into the arctic core to get past, but she wasn’t worried. She was like a hedgehog—too much trouble to get to and not worth the effort.

She’d forgotten that the terraces on either side of the dining room could be set up as well. There was only one table there, set for two, candlelit and romantic, the smaller of the two fountains splashing behind it.

Silvio had already pulled out her chair, and she had only an instant of hesitation before she sank into it gracefully, fumbling with the heavy linen napkin Silvio draped across her lap. “This is lovely,” she said, hiding her doubts. ?