Wyoming True - Diana Palmer Page 0,89

her nostrils. It was the only scent Madame ever wore. “If you say so, my darling.” She drew back and touched Gaby’s soft hair. “You must not put yourself in any more danger than you already face.”

“I’m not in danger.” She pointed to Tanner Everett. “Ask him.”

He chuckled. “She isn’t in any danger,” he parroted in his faint Texas accent. “I give you my word.”

“Well, that is something, at least. But you have to live in? I shall die of boredom here alone,” Madame wailed.

“You could invite Clarisse to stay,” she suggested. “She loves you, too.”

“Clarisse.” She made another gruff noise under her breath. “She and her fiancé drive me almost mad. I have found them making out in every room of this apartment. Even the bathroom!”

“They’ll be married in two weeks and she’ll settle down.”

“Not in time. No Clarisse.” She sighed. “Well, perhaps I can tolerate Sylvie for a few days.”

Sylvie was her cousin, a sweet and gentle older woman who loved soap operas and swashbuckling movies.

“She’ll drive you mad with old Errol Flynn movies,” Gaby commented.

“Oh, I like pirate movies,” Madame said absently. “I’ll nap while she watches those vulgar soap operas, so that I don’t offend her with commentary.”

“Good idea,” Gaby said.

Madame sighed. “When do you move in with him?”

“With them,” she corrected and smiled. “Monday morning, so I must go back to my own apartment and decide what to take with me.” She moved forward, embraced her grandmother and brushed a kiss against the beautiful skin on her cheek. She drew back with a sigh. “You know, you have the most perfect complexion I’ve ever seen, even at your age.”

Madame beamed. She touched Gaby’s face. “Which you have inherited, ma chèrie,” she replied, her voice as soft as the fingers that brushed over Gaby’s face.

“I have only your skin, not your beauty,” Gaby said, and without rancor. She glanced at the youthful portrait of Madame Melissandra Lafitte Dupont over the mantel. She had been debutante of the year in her class, wooed by princes and comtes, but she chose instead a fast-talking salesman of a business executive with grand ideas and no money. As people said, there was no accounting for taste.

“You were so beautiful,” Gaby remarked, staring at the portrait.

“The artist was blind,” the elderly woman chuckled.

“He was not. He captured the very essence of you,” Gaby argued as she moved closer to the portrait, so that the pale gray eyes were large enough to divine that they were alive with humor and love of life. “Grandfather never deserved you,” she added in a cold, angry tone.

There was a sigh behind her. “We live and learn, do we not?” was the sad reply. “He could have been anything he liked. But he was greedy, and you paid for his greed, my baby.” She hugged Gaby close. “I would give anything if you could have been spared that.”

Gaby hugged her back. “I had you,” she said softly. “So many people have less. I was lucky.”

“Lucky.” Madame made a curse of the word. She drew back. “I cannot convince you to give up this mad scheme?”

Gaby shook her head, smiling.

“Ah, well. At least I can make sure that he is your shadow.” She nodded toward Everett.

“I already am her shadow,” he chuckled.

“True enough,” Gaby returned. “Heavens, he can squeeze into the most incredible places. You never even notice him.”

“Which is why I’m still alive,” came the sardonic reply.

“So you are. Make certain that no harm comes to my granddaughter,” Madame told him. “Or I will find the deepest dungeon in my estate outside Paris, and you will rot there.” She even smiled when she said it.

“Did I ever mention that I always carry a nail file?” he replied, used to her threats, which he found more amusing than threatening. She knew he was good at his job.

Madame chuckled. She loved their repartee. “Very well. Good luck to both of you.”

“You mustn’t recognize me if you see me on the street,” Gaby cautioned her.

Madame made a face. “And what about my birthday party next month?” she asked haughtily.

“In six weeks I’ll either have what information we need, or I’ll be hanging from a penthouse apartment by a stocking with a gavel in my mouth.”

At which statement, everybody broke up.

* * *

HER SUITCASE PACKED with enough to keep her going for a week, Gaby took a cab to Mr. Chandler’s apartment. Everett was behind it all the way, in a black sedan.

She rang the doorbell at precisely 8:00 a.m.

There