McGillivray's Mistress - By Anne McAllister Page 0,20

“It really was.”

“Yeah.” He had seen that. But still— “I have work to do. I have a life,” he told her. “You didn’t tell me it was an ongoing commitment.”

“It doesn’t have to be. I can work from photos.”

“No!” God no! “Absolutely no photos.”

“Well, then—” Was that anguish in her eyes?

Cripes, why couldn’t he say no to this woman?

“All right! Fine. Tomorrow morning. Six o’clock again. No, make it five-thirty.” If they got as absorbed as they had today, they needed to start earlier.

Fiona opened her mouth and he knew she was going to argue. But then she nodded. “Okay. Whatever you say. Just be here, please. Five-thirty.”

“WHERE ON EARTH have you been?” Suzette pounced the minute he came in the door, giving him—and his canvas trousers and loose cotton shirt—a steely disapproving glare.

“I had business.” Lachlan would have attempted to brush past her into his office, but Suzette stood between him and the door.

“Must have been exciting business,” she said sarcastically and reached out and began unbuttoning his shirt.

“What the—? What’re you doing?” Lachlan demanded, grabbing at her hands.

She batted his away. “Putting you together apparently. Next time you’re out on ‘business,’ when you get dressed again, try to get the buttons in the right holes.”

Lachlan groaned and shut his eyes.

Deftly Suzette did them up, then patted his cheek. He jammed his shirttails into his trousers, then swiped a hand through his hair, straightened his shoulders and looked at her. “Okay now?”

“Let’s just hope he thinks you’re so confident of his approval that you don’t mind appearing like you just rolled out of bed.”

“I didn’t just roll out of bed!”

“Not yours anyway,” Suzette agreed. “I gave him a tour of the inn, offered him a newspaper and a cup of coffee. But he decided to explore a bit, he said. He’s gone out to see the grounds.”

“What grounds?”

“The beach.”

“Oh, hell.”

LACHLAN HAD ENVISIONED Lord David Grantham as a graying fiftyish chap in tweeds with a pipe. What he found when he’d made a mad dash down the stairs and out on to the sand was a blond man barely as old as himself, wearing khakis and a navy polo shirt, moving slowly around Fiona’s sculpture, staring up at it from every angle, taking it all in.

Wouldn’t you know?

Lachlan sucked in a quick sharp breath, pasted his best “charming the public” smile on his face, and strode out to do damage control.

“Sir David,” he said cheerfully, offering his hand and hoping Sir was proper address and that he shouldn’t have called the earl My Lord. “I’m Lachlan McGillivray. Sorry to have kept you waiting.”

Lord David Grantham turned his gaze reluctantly away from Fiona’s “king of the beach,” and, with a cheerful grin, took Lachlan’s proffered hand. “Very glad to meet you. And please, call me Dave.”

Dave? The director of the most prestigious custom travel group in Britain? The earl of GranSomethingOrOther? The heir, Suzette had told him, to lands five times greater than all of Pelican Cay? Lachlan adjusted his thinking.

“Right. Dave,” he agreed heartily after a long moment. “Sorry not to have been here when you arrived. I had some business to take care of in town.”

“No problem. It gave me a chance to look around on my own. I always like to get acquainted with places myself. It’s fine to have staff do the preliminary visits, winnow out the chaff, as it were. But from there, I’ve always found it best to have a firsthand look at the place, form my own impressions of the inn, the surroundings, the local cultural—” a swift flicking glance toward the “king” “—amenities.”

Oh, Christ.

“It’s not staying,” Lachlan said quickly, knowing exactly what he was referring to. “It’s leaving. Tonight. The sculptor is taking it down.”

“Taking it down?”

“Absolutely. We were discussing it this morning. It was never meant to be permanent. It was an experiment. A challenge.”

“It certainly is.” Dave nodded emphatically. “You can’t take it down. It’s exactly the sort of thing we’re looking for.”

Lachlan did a double take. “What?”

David looked surprised at his astonishment. “Oh, absolutely. The people on my tours can see all the Van Goghs and Vermeers and Rembrandts they want in Europe. They can pop over to the Louvre or to El Prado for a weekend. They cut their teeth on Tuscany. They have all done the proverbial grand tour until they’re bored to tears. They’re hungry for new experiences, new sights. They want life, vibrancy—” he jerked his head toward The King of the Beach “—this.”

Lachlan opened his